Future feel uncertain? See what’s in the cards with a virtual psychic reading – 7×7

We're all in a pandemic state of mind. While the novel coronavirus is wreaking havoc on the immune and respiratory systems of the people who are infected, and the impact of business closures is crushing us all financially, the self isolation that comes with shelter in place orders is taking a toll on our mental (and spiritual) wellbeing.

As the days at home begin to bleed together, our feelings of uncertainty are getting real. When will life go back to normal? When can we go back to work? Out to eat? Will we get sick? Will someone we love get sick? Is it ever going to end? If only we had a crystal ball that could foretell the future; not knowing is leading to emotional restlessnessconfusion, anger, trauma.

If you're in need of guidance, you can sit down with an intuitive coach. Not IRL, of course, but the practice of psychic counseling need not take place in an office.

San Franciscobased (and Goop-approved) intuitive counselor Nicki Bonfilio has been meeting with clients over the phone for at least 20 years. "Even with my current clients, who used to come into my office, they seem to be taking to the switch really well," she says.

Bonfilio's list of services includes "easing transitions with those afflicted with life-threatening illnesses," potentially helpful for anyone out there who might be gravely impacted physically by the virus. For the emotionally distraught but otherwise healthy (i.e. everybody else), her sessions might focus on maximizing self-awareness, promoting peace and clarity of mind, and intuitive revelations based upon astrology.

I've never had a psychic reading before, so I was nervous before my call with Bonfilio. Our time together began just as it would in her office, with shared deep breathing exercises, attention to tension points in the body, and a greeting to all the positive forces in our lives, be they of this mortal coil or elsewhere in the universe.

Our 90-minute session proved introspective, testing, and relaxing. Fears were surrendered, tensions released, and I felt metaphysically lighter afterward. I left that synergistic meeting with some questions answered, "resonances" and gut feelings clarified, and with an overall sense of levity that has basically eluded me since shelter in place began mid-March.

I'm betting we could all use some illumination and recalibration these days. Here are our suggestions for finding virtual enlightenment around the Bay Area.

Nicki Bonfilio, Intuitive Counselor

She's a bit of a rock star among spiritual seekers and those who work in the intuitive counseling spaceBonfilio participated in Goop's Bay Area wellness summit in the fall of 2019, where she lead a class around developing intuition. In lieu of meeting with clients at her Mission office, she's conducting 60- and 90-minute sessions, both for individuals and couples, over the phone ($210-$405). // For phone appointments, call 415-487-4399; nickibonfilio.com.

Physic Guidance with Derek Calibre

Calibre is sheltering in place near Telegraph Hill, but for over 15 years he has worked as a psychic across the globein Tokyo, New York City, and Honolulu. Over the course of his travels, Calibre has collected over 400 modern art cards which serve, he says, "as a remarkably rich oracle that I call The Postcard Tarot." He's also penned a book, Can You Turn It Off?: A Diary of Psychic Awakening. // For phone appointments, call 646-351-6159; baycitypsychic.com.

Psychic Horizons

The intuitive staff at Psychic Horizons uses integrated meditation tools to bridge the connection between the spirit world and the physical one. The spiritual guides, many of whom have been practicing for 20-some years, champion three core principlesgrounding, centering, and empowered ownershipto help seekers find clarity and reassurance in their everyday lives. A free intro class is available online. // For phone video appointments, email psychic@psychichorizons.com; psychichorizons.com.

Queen of Cups Tarot with Jamie Starzyk

For over 15 years, Starzyk has helped better the relationships, careers, and spiritual paths of her clients using a litany of physic mediums including palmistry, tarot, numerology, and past lives readings. She recommends each client set aside up to two hours so she can fully tap into their essence. // For phone appointments, email lilithwalks77@gmail.com; queenofcupstarot.com.

Laura Hollie

With 30 years experience, Hayward-based psychic and life coach Laura Hollie combines dream interpretation, chakra balancing, karmic readings, aura analysis, and meditation to help her clients sort through destructive behaviors and tap into their higher minds. // For phone appointments, call 510-886-2426; laurahollie.com.

Read the rest here:

Future feel uncertain? See what's in the cards with a virtual psychic reading - 7x7

Soul on Fire: Louise Hay’s message still resonates in today’s world – Coast News

Thinking about where we have been and where we might be going, the long weeks that made up in-between, my mind wandered to my beginnings in New Thought and who most influenced me.

Louise Hay, one of the worlds foremost and well-known metaphysicians and mystics, comes most predominately to mind. It was her little blue book titled, You Can Heal Your Life that made an impact on me and her fantastic prayer out of Heal Your Body that I hung on my wall in the early 80s and read to myself every day.

Thirty years later, its still there through every move another stepping stone on the path of my enlightenment.

Shes was dubbed the Queen of New Age by the NewYork Times, but more than this, she leaves behind a rich legacy with the Hay House located in Carlsbad.

For those of you who are not familiar, most of the New Thought and Self-Development authors that now have living room names came out of Hay House.

These include many notables in the self-help movement, including Dr. Wayne Dyer, Joan Borysenko, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Doreen Virtue, Suze Orman, Tavis Smiley, Deepak Chopra, Gabby Bernstein, Iyanla Vanzant, Jerry and Esther Hicks, Caroline Myss, Cheryl Richardson, and Marianne Williamson.

All of these were first published under the Hay House imprint. There is a whole new generation of consciousness raisers coming out of Hay House with Jim Kwik, Matt Khan, Dr. Joe Dispenza and Gregg Braden. Many of these have reached the New York Times bestseller list.

Whats tripping me out most right now is finding out that she was a Religious Science Minister and was a Science of Mind Practitioner for years the same spiritual path that I am currently on.

She became a popular speaker and workshop leader, but it was her battle with cervical cancer and her self-treatment with affirmations and the power of thought and affirmative prayer that healed her in six months and brought the book to life.

It was her prayers for herself and others that revealed the spiritual truth, and the mental cause of the ailments she treated, the mental patterns that create dis-ease in the body. When she finally self-published this piece due to popular demand, her work became pivotal in many AIDS patients in the 80s.

Today, what began as a small venture in the living room of her home has turned into a prosperous corporation that has sold millions of books and products worldwide. It may be safe to say that because of Louise Hay, The Secret was so widely accepted, and the Law of Attraction popularized as she shed her unique light onto the creative powers for personal growth and self-healing across the globe.

These are not new concepts. If Louise were still around today, she would tell you herself that there is no new knowledge. All truths are ancient and infinite.

All the answers lie within if you are willing to do the work and take a look at yourself. Take responsibility for your own life and know that it is done to you as you believe. What we give out we get back.

A time like this, with uncertainty and fear lingering all around us, we find ourselves divided with two sides of the pandemic. Fights are being argued in neighborhoods, beaches, Facebook, and on Capitol Hill as we navigate these uncharted territories.

Maybe it is time to dust off this book and look into the beliefs that are creating your thoughts that are then creating your life and reality.

Perhaps we can heal our lives, bodies, and our planet while we are at it.

Get a bit more involved in some of the decisions that are going to affect our future. Take a stand. There are indeed two ways that we can approach life after Corona.

Currently, Hay House is offering free resources of some of the best-archived seminars as well as new authors hitting the scene. Check out hayhouse.com, hayhouseradio.com and healyourlife.com.

Susan Sully SullIvan is a spiritually conscious Realtor with Windermere Homes & Estates and is currently enrolled in several Science of Mind mysticism classes. She is a Practitioner in training at Seaside Center for Spiritual Living with an eye on Ministerial school. She has been on a quest for enlightenment since studying to be a Catholic nun as a child.

Read the rest here:

Soul on Fire: Louise Hay's message still resonates in today's world - Coast News

General Hospital Spoilers Updates: Tension Grows Between Sam And Brando – Will They Hit The Sheets? – Celebrating The Soaps

General Hospital (GH) spoilers revealed that Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco) was incredibly rude to Brando Corbin (Johnny Wactor) when she really had no reason to be. Some GH fans feel this is simply par for the course when it comes to Sam. Does one wonder if Sam is this caustic with everyone who mentions the Dawn of Day cult around Kristina Corinthos-Davis (Lexi Ainsworth)?

GH fans know that not long ago, Brando was in the mood for takeout from Charlies Pub. When he went in to pick up his order, he got the third degree from both Kristina and Sam for an innocent, offhand comment he made concerning cult members. Of course, GH fans know that Kristina used to be a deluded, delusional cultist. How was Brando to know that Kristina was a spiritual miscreant? GH fans know that theres no way Brando could have known since he didnt even know Kristina and Sam were related to him!

The truth is, Brando just wanted to fill his gullet. GH fans know that stepping into the hornets nest of Sam and Kristinas opinions was probably the farthest thing from Brandos intent.

While some GH fans might believe that Kristina may have had cause to be just a touch-sensitive regarding her past as a pious puppet of Shiloh Archer (Coby Ryan McLaughlin), why was Sam so cruel to Brando? After all, when Brando took his food and left, viewers heard Sam remark to Kristina that Brando was a jerk. Moreover, Sam said all these mean things after Brando had apologized to Kristina profusely and had essentially groveled for her forgiveness. What did Sam want?

Maybe instead of an apology and an offer for a discount on his mechanics services, Sam wanted him to make monetary reparations for the mental and emotional distress Brando had caused them? (Its okay GH fans you can roll your eyes now.) The bottom line is that many GH viewers feel that Sam and Kristina treated Brando unfairly.

With how rude Sam was to Brando at Charlies Pub, one has to wonder how shes going to react when she discovers that Molly and Brando slept together. Whats Sam going to do, sic Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) on him?

Jason, Brando made Molly uncomfortable by being in her apartment the next morning after they got jiggy. He could really mess things up for Molly with TJ [Tajh Bellows]. Could you maybe tell Brando hes never allowed to leave his garage again? Ever?

General Hospital Spoilers: Devasted Chase and Sasha Comfort Each Other Support Turns To Love? https://t.co/9yuLclVoID pic.twitter.com/mzWZJ9oHRr

SOS/CTS/HH (@SoapOperaSpy) April 26, 2020

The bottom line is that many GH fans believe that Sam and Kristinas behavior was more than over-the-top. A lot of GH fans were happy to see Kristina after not seeing her for a while. However, if this is how Kristina is going to behave as soon as shes back, well who really thinks petulant, easily insulted brats are all that interesting?

Besides, many might agree that Brook Lynn Quartermaine (Amada Setton) already reigns as queen in that department. Some might also wonder where Kristinas spiritual enlightenment is in all this. Like wow man, can you relate?

More:

General Hospital Spoilers Updates: Tension Grows Between Sam And Brando - Will They Hit The Sheets? - Celebrating The Soaps

Netflix: The Untamed Is The Perfect Quarantine Binge – GameSpot

Now that the passage of time is feeling more imaginary than ever before, finding something to focus on for an extended period is becoming something of an art form. Let's face it: Re-watching the full series of The Office for the millionth time or speeding through something nostalgic like The X-Files all over again was fun when this all started, but we could use something new to take our minds off things for more than just a few hours at a time--or, better yet, something that is so new it doesn't immediately become background noise as you zone out and gaze into the void (or tend to your Animal Crossing island).

Enter: The Untamed, or Chn Qng Lng (abbreviated CQL--this is a world with lots of alternate titles, abbreviations, and acronyms. Don't panic, you'll get used to them).

If you're on social media at all, there's a good chance you've seen rumblings of this show in some form or another. The Chinese historical-fantasy drama, which originally aired on YouTube back in the summer of 2019, was given official English subtitles and later picked up by Netflix late last year. And while this ease of access certainly played a role in the fan boom, it quickly became apparent that it was more than just the ability to watch for free that made The Untamed so special.

Based on the novel M Do Z Sh ("The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation," abbreviated MDZS), The Untamed is a sprawling, densely packed story in the Xianxia genre, which essentially means it's a fantasy story based thoroughly on Chinese mythology, Taoism, and other traditional beliefs. Part of what makes The Untamed so engaging is the fact that it's steeped in genre traditions that are wholly unique to Xianxia works. These stories typically focus on "cultivators," or people who are working to cultivate (get it?) their spiritual powers and abilities with the goal of attaining immortality or enlightenment through rigorous study and practice.

It's not specifically high-fantasy--for example, there are no orcs or elves running around. But it's certainly not gritty or grounded. In The Untamed, ancient China is populated by various cultivation sects with different worldviews and methodologies, training students who, in turn, venture out into the world and use their spiritual power to help common folk deal with pesky supernatural nuisances. You know, resentful spirits, curses, demons and the like.

Naturally, with different sects all vying for power and influence, the political landscape is a bit of a nightmare. It'll immediately ping associations to things like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Game Of Thrones, and it's easy to see why. The sects are often coded onscreen by colors, and they each have their own specific home bases (some with incredibly cool names like "The Unclean Realm" or "The Nightless City"), and there's enough machiavellian betrayal and political puppeteering to make your head spin.

But that's just the story at its most macro level. The worldbuilding serves to prop up the most important part--the core characters themselves and their deeply meaningful and outstandingly complicated relationships. If you're the sort of person who loves novels that come with a glossary of terms and a fold-out family tree, this show is for you.

Reductively, I could tell you that The Untamed is about two cultivators from diametrically opposed worldviews coming together against astronomical odds and falling in love. This is true--but that's only part of the story. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (played by pop idols Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, respectively) serve as a sort of narrative throughline and if you're only interested in heartbreakingly tender romance, then great news: There's plenty of it. While The Untamed, on paper, was forced to remove the majority of the source material's textual queer romance (MDZS is what's known as a BL, or boy's love, novel, which means exactly what it says on the tin) to appease China's strict censors, the subtext remains so obvious that if you didn't know the love story had been truncated, you probably wouldn't realize it at all. In fact, if anything, the clever ways the romance is communicated in the story just serve to make it hit you directly in the heart even harder.

But if romance isn't your particular bag, that's fine too. The Untamed takes place over 50 (yes, 50) hour-long episodes, and when it's not asking you to wax poetic about the existence of soulmate level bonds, it's throwing nonstop twists and turns at you. It's one part murder mystery, one part political thriller, and one part family drama, all with the high-camp, charmingly low-budget feel of your favorite '90s adventure classics. If you were a fan of Xena: Warrior Princess, or more recently, Netflix's Witcher TV show, the action and melodrama will feel like comfort food. There are plenty of monsters to fight, evil leaders to assassinate, political coups to execute, and families being torn apart. People carry magic swords and cast spells with enchanted instruments. There's an entire subplot across three episodes that takes a hard turn into dark, psychological horror and another that makes The Red Wedding look relatively tame.

Best of all, once you've completed your 50-hour journey, there's plenty more to consume. MDZS has been adapted as an animated series, a manhua comic, and an audio drama. And while only the animated series has been officially subtitled in English, fan communities have been hard at work providing unofficial translations for virtually every adaptation. In addition, the live action universe is still, technically, in progress, with spin-off films being released as recently as March of this year, that focus more on the show's many side characters. With any luck, they'll soon be made available with English subtitles as well.

As we progress into a summer where more and more events are canceled, keeping yourself occupied is key, and that's exactly what a head-long dive into The Untamed will help you with. The sheer volume of content to consume, mixed with the level of attention it will ask you to pay to follow its intricate web of stories, characters, and relationships, on top of the thrill of learning the ins-and-outs of a rich genre full of its own conventions and traditions, make it a triple threat. It's the ideal binge and the perfect gateway to a brand new obsession.

The Untamed is streaming in its entirety on Netflix and YouTube.

Continued here:

Netflix: The Untamed Is The Perfect Quarantine Binge - GameSpot

As we struggle through the pandemic, persevere, keep praying, hold Lord’s hand – Catholic Herald

The Bible is so rich and vast that we can never fully fathom or remember the totality of the Scriptures, which allows for constant pleasant surprises when we discover a text which bears a new divine revelation to our hungry hearts.

This phenomenon happened to me recently as I was reading the Letter to the Hebrews. This New Testament letter was addressed to Jewish Christians to strengthen them in the practice of the faith and not to grow weary or become indifferent.

Chapter 11 is a remarkable reflection on the power of faith, offering the memorable quote, "Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen."

The author then reflects on the lives and actions of the principal figures of the Old Testament and how the strength of their faith led them to extraordinary service of God, amidst suffering and persecution and with power and miracles.

In the context of this narration, the mighty example of Moses looms large, as the leader who brought the Children of Israel out of slavery, transmitted the Law, and delivered them to the Promised Land.

In verse 27, we read, "By faith, Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king's fury, for he persevered as if seeing the one who is invisible." This line struck me deeply, for it speaks of the power of vision as the motivating force of leadership.

Exodus tells us that throughout the 40-year sojourn in the desert, Moses had direct conversations with God, face-to-face, and received the Ten Commandments from the hands of the Lord Himself. Whatever the exact nature of these mystical revelations, clearly Moses gained the courage, fortitude, and compassion he needed to accomplish the liberation of his people from his mysterious contacts with the Divine.

The Bible is filled with dynamic encounters between God and chosen individuals. From Adam and Eve to Abraham and Sarah to Moses and David, to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Paul, scores of Scriptural characters received divine revelations which formed their faith and guided their life mission.

They received a clear message which called them to a sacred purpose, and they responded in the boldness of belief and trust. Indeed, one could view the entire Bible as an ongoing dialogue between God and humanity with Jesus Christ as the final and definitive Word spoken to us.

What is the content of the message of the Lord? What is He constantly saying to us? The essence of the divine revelation or apocalypse or unveiling is the infinite and saving love which God has for us. The Lord inviting us into a permanent and transformative relationship of faith, love, and trust. God extending His mercy to us sinners through the fidelity of the Old Covenant and the definitive bond of the New Covenant, sealed in the precious blood of Christ.

This bond, ultimately fulfilled through the death and resurrection of Christ, bears marital imagery. Hosea and Isaiah speak of the Covenant between God and Israel as a marriage. Christ is the Divine Bridegroom, come to earth in search of His Bride, which is the Church, born from His pierced side and formed in the fire of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Often in my earthly pilgrimage, I have longed for a direct, clear, and unmistakable revelation from God. Don't we all? Lord, just tell me what to do, and I will do it. God, show me the way forward because everything seems so uncertain. Just answer this one nagging question, Jesus.

Yet, the clarity I seek often seems frustratingly elusive. Most frequently, our journey to heaven feels like an early morning drive through dense fog on a country road with few signs marking the way. In my weak faith, I crave the certainty of the saints and convince myself I would be so much holier and obedient if God just made things obvious.

Yet, hasn't He? The Scriptures lead us into the very mystery of God's identity, activity, and desire for our salvation. The Gospels introduce us to Jesus: the details of His life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection.

The learned writings and mystical experiences of the saints unpack the density of God's revelation over the course of 2000 years. We feel the love, power, and presence of God in the sacraments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church places the essential totality of our beautiful faith in our hands, hearts, and minds.

We have all had transcendent moments of transforming love, spiritual insight, and abiding consolation that serve as permanent memory markers on our way to the Father's house.

In the midst of trial, temptation, failure, despair, depression, and suffering, like Moses, we are called "to persevere as if seeing the one who is invisible." This inner vision of faith, often felt more than seen, mostly lived in obscurity rather than clarity, is the guiding force which will bring us home in the end.

If you doubt that God loves you, read the Gospel. If you wonder what life is all about, study the Catechism. If you want to feel God's presence, pray for enlightenment and grace.

As we continue to struggle through the difficulties of this pandemic, I encourage everyone to persevere, keep going, keep praying, and hold on to the Lord's hand. Your generosity, endurance, goodness, and faith are clear signs to me that the Lord loves us and will never abandon us. Thank you for that gracious witness!

See the original post here:

As we struggle through the pandemic, persevere, keep praying, hold Lord's hand - Catholic Herald

Feeling anxious? Its good to talk or even shout and scream – The Irish Times

Its 8am and Im at the front door of my apartment getting ready to put on the alarm before I leave for work.

My left hand hovers over the keypad as I try with my other hand to check that there arent knickers hanging off my bag. I check the seat of my jeans to ensure something unmentionable hasnt become adhered to them whilst simultaneously running my tongue over my teeth to ensure nothing awful is stuck between them.

Sighing in frustration, I walk back into the bathroom and properly check all these things again... for the fourth time.

The rational side of me knows these anxieties are just that anxieties but the rational side of me is having less and less of a ruling vote these days, and the business of getting in to work is taking longer and longer as I am convinced everyone in their cars is laughing at me while Im standing waiting for traffic lights to change, so Im forced to stop off at four different places with toilets en route to recheck and recheck and recheck.

By the time I do eventually make it into the office Im sweating profusely and anxious that I smell bad, and the paranoia of reeking has me rushing into the nearest chemists in search of industrial strength deodorant inside of 10 minutes.

This was my first acquaintance with the grey, miasmic fog of depression in 1996 when I was in my early 20s. It set in, totally uninvited, amid a promising career filled with concerts and parties and the joyous fulfilment that nothing else, bar writing, has ever brought me. I had money and lots of friends, work I loved and a hectic social life and yet it was taking me an hour to get out the door of my apartment every morning.

I hadnt a clue I was heading into depression that was some nebulous condition I associated with people who were having a miserable time of it and had no reason therefore to just cheer up.

However, despite the huge focus currently spotlighting the need for each of us to be mindful of our own mental health, one blatant issue is being overlooked and that is the paranoia and skewed perception which often precedes any specific mental health issue.

The fact is, the onset of a mental health problem is generally an unsignposted segue as opposed to an overnight freefall and one which is gradual enough to disable your ability to do exactly that which all the well-intentioned posters and adverts are urging you to do.

The initial sign for me, as you can easily tell from the opening paragraph, was innocuous enough, especially as it didnt happen when I was with other people, but it was an anxiety-triggered behaviour I now, with the benefit of hindsight, instantly recognise.

However, expecting most first-time sufferers to be able to step outside of themselves and diagnose that they indeed do have a problem is akin to expecting someone to self-diagnose schizophrenia.

Life under our current regime means that increased levels of anxiety over the threat to the health of our families and loved ones and ramped-up financial worries have become the new norm.

We feel ineffectual and unable to control what is happening; therefore, being conscious of, and bolstering, our own mental health is now more important than ever.

Since that episode in the 90s I have been through depression several times, both heavily medicated and unmedicated (at my own insistence).

After years of being on the cure-all liquid sunshine of Prozac in my 20s and 30,s I chose the unmedicated treatment route the subsequent time, as the drugs sapped my creativity and I felt no need to write or do anything.

My tendency towards depression is, I now realise, one of the downsides of a creative temperament one that needs constant stimulation and distraction.

For me, the black hounds of anxiety and paranoia can easily be triggered by a shortage of work (not good when youre freelancing), which leads very quickly to the sense that I am losing control of my life. It also manifests itself in feelings of overwhelming rage not really something one associates with depression.

Without the reassuring pressure of deadlines and the necessary fulfilment of publication to distract me, paranoia can grow like some damp-loving fungus in my psyche, leaving me convinced I am being overlooked or forgotten about by my editors and co-workers.

The fact that they have their own lives and problems ceases to register as paranoia heightens my increasingly egocentric mindset.

The sense of being alone when these feelings take hold is utterly overwhelming and can quickly slip into a skewed perception of reality whereby I see everyone else busily getting on with their own lives as I am increasingly, from my own viewpoint, left behind.

While depression is a recognised mental health condition, affecting one in 10 of us in Ireland (thats 450,000 of us at any one time, according to Aware), the early signs of its onset can easily go unnoticed and therefore fail to be dealt with before they become a far more debilitating problem.

In fact, the symptoms which experts class as the early warning signs of depression can often go unnoticed in the midst of the routines which make up our daily lives.

Changes in sleeping pattern - lying awake for long periods during the night.

Feeling unmotivated.

Ceasing to enjoy things in the same way you usually do.

Taking longer to recover your equilibrium after minor inconveniences.

Starting to feel like everything is an imposition.

Food no longer tasting good and ceasing to excite you.

Feeling irritable, less patient and far more likely to snap.

Feeling an increased sense of anxiety.

Feeling sleepy or tired a lot of the time.

Turning down invites from friends and family and choosing to spend more time alone.

Finding it difficult to concentrate.

Anxiety is something which needs to be discharged or it becomes depression, Trinity College-based lecturer and psychotherapist Sen McCarthy explains simply. Talking about what is worrying you is the first important step. It doesnt have to be to a professional talk to your friends. The important thing is to release the emotions and thoughts.

Discussing your fears and anxieties and getting to the root of what is bothering you is so important, he advises. Failing to do this is what leads to the isolating downwards spiral into depression.

The onset of paranoia quickly erodes your self-confidence and leaves you feeling wronged by those around you, which in turn leads to you worrying that you must have done something wrong so are therefore unworthy of their attention. This domino effect sees you retreating from people when you need them the most. Effectively, you are creating a chasm between yourself and others where youre isolating yourself with all these unpaired, self-defeating thoughts in your head.

By the time depression gets a grip we essentially forget that there is joy in life not just in the here and now but that there ever can be again.

If youre starting to feel anxious just remember its good to talk, but its also important to shout, scream and howl out loud sometimes when particularly at the moment it can feel like daily life is getting just a bit too much like George Orwells 1984.

Believing that the ideal human state is to sit on a cloud of enlightenment is nothing more than self-deluding spiritual bypassing McCarthy concludes. Remember, temper is energy not the enemy. Anger is so invigorating. We should be channelling it, not trying to erode it or have it removed out of some misplaced need to be calm all the time.

Read more from the original source:

Feeling anxious? Its good to talk or even shout and scream - The Irish Times

In Uzbekistan, Coming to Terms With the Countrys Dazzling History – The New York Times

Central Asia was once home to several bustling trade cities. Today, traveling through them reawakens a distant, though not forgotten, past.

IT WAS OCTOBER in Tashkent. The broad Soviet-style avenues of Uzbekistans capital were lined with chestnut and Oriental plane, their leaves turning russet in the crisp autumn air. This city of 2.5 million had, in Soviet days, which lasted from the 1920s until the countrys independence in 1991, been the premier capital of Central Asia. It is home to more than half of Uzbekistans 116 universities, and on that first golden morning in Tashkent, there was something of the glazed perfection of a Soviet propaganda poster in the sight of students in twos and threes strolling down the runway-size avenues. They were dwarfed by the giant buildings that lined the roads banks, museums and ministries Babylonian blocks, as the English writer Philip Glazebrook, who had been in Tashkent at the end of Soviet rule, described them in Journey to Khiva in the early 90s: Since the days of Nineveh this has been the architecture of dictatorship and persecution. And so it was, but after my late arrival on the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, I found myself oddly in sympathy with the ideal, if not the reality, of Soviet life.

Four great creeds Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Islam and Communism had come via the trans-Asian caravan routes, or the Silk Road, to the land encapsulated by what is modern Uzbekistan. Each had made the people of this doubly landlocked country one of only two, the other being Liechtenstein of 34 million part of a greater world, a cosmopolis, a comity of nations. This was a land whose culture had been created on the frontier of contact with China, India, Iran and Russia, each of which fertilized the culture of the steppe. Communism was the last ideology to come to Uzbekistan along these routes, and I could not help but admire the scale and ambition of its artifacts. There was the Tashkent metro, 22 miles long, with majestic stations several hung with three-tiered chandeliers including one tiled in futuristic blue faience, dedicated exclusively to space exploration. There were the vast apartment blocks, with cramped windows and lace curtains. Their facades were crawling with satellite dishes, and on their broad flanks, there were crumbling murals and mosaics, which had been made as if out of a desultory spirit of concession to the need for people to have ornamentation in their lives at all.

For me, as someone who grew up in Delhi, the names of this regions fabled caravan towns Samarkand and Bukhara were the most evocative of the Silk Road. Each estimated to be founded no later than the first century A.D., these cities were imbued with the terror and wonder of the Turkic conqueror Timur known as Tamerlane in the West who came like a fury over the mountains that lay between India and Uzbekistan and laid waste to my hometown in 1398, killing, by his own count, 100,000 and erecting his famous minaret of skulls. Some 120 years after Timur, his descendant Babur a banished prince of the Timurid dynasty came back over those same mountains to found the Mughal dynasty in northern India, which lasted until the 19th century and was responsible for such marvels as the Taj Mahal. Delhi and Tashkent were just a three-hour flight apart from each other, but the girdle of mountains the Hindu Kush, literally Hindu Killer in Persian that separated this land from the Indian plain was a boundary between worlds. To arrive here was to find myself in the uncanniest of all valleys a place where shared references related to food, language and architecture were swiftly replaced by what was alien and unexpected.

My guide, Aziz, 32, appeared magically out of the gloom of a cold and smoky night, dressed, like the hero in a Bollywood film, in a black-and-white gingham shirt, a Panama hat and a scarf around his neck. Aziz was born in the twilight years of the Soviet Union and, as he later pointed out to me, was among the last generation to grow up reading Soviet textbooks. Hearing him address a Vietnamese woman in Russian or seeing him point out Kazakhs, Koreans, Ukrainians and Russians on Hazrati Imam a square of mosques and madrassas at the heart of old Tashkent I was easily reminded of what is easy to forget: Russia, no less than France or Britain or Spain, had been a colonial enterprise, and her children were myriad and many. But before I could take in my new surroundings that first morning, Aziz sprung a surprise on me. Ten months before, his longtime girlfriend, Madina, had left him and gone away to Dubai. He had suffered excruciating heartbreak, he told me. He couldnt sleep, he couldnt eat, he begged her to return. He then cast a sidelong glance at a shy young woman, sulky and watchful, with pink nails, who now also appeared out of the murk to join him. Madina was back. She had arrived unexpectedly the day before Aziz and I were to embark on a weeklong trip through Uzbekistan, covering a distance of over a thousand miles in close quarters. Moreover, Aziz informed me, she was coming with us. Had the hour not been 3 a.m., had I not been so shattered from the 20-hour odyssey from my home in New York City and had I not been totally at Azizs mercy in this former Soviet town, I would never have agreed to be the third wheel on my own trip. But the odds were not in my favor. Aziz, I sensed, was restless enough to cancel if I did not comply. I rolled a cigarette, nodded my consent and from thereon I vanished into the set of a modern-day Uzbek romance Aziz and Madina, a love story.

THE TERM SILK ROAD, or Seidenstrasse, is thought to have been first popularized in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand Paul Wilhelm, Baron von Richthofen. It is misleading in many ways, not merely because much more than silk was conveyed along this 4,000-mile ancient route there was also lapis, turquoise, gold and ivory but because it was richer still in the traffic of abstractions, ideas and religions. It came about a century before Christ, as a result of the mercantile interests of two great empires imperial Rome and imperial China gradually aligning, even as they were too far apart to trade directly with one another. As a natural consequence, the places that lay between the two shouldered the responsibility (and accrued the profits) of bringing them into contact with each other. Chinese merchants were never seen in Rome, writes the British historian Peter Hopkirk in 1980 in Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, nor Roman traders in Chang-an, referring to present-day Xian. It was in the time of the Han dynastys Emperor Wudi (156-87 B.C.) that a great pioneering traveler named Zhang Qian, whom Hopkirk describes as the father of the Silk Road, forged a path westward into modern-day Uzbekistan. Zhang went west in search of allies, in order to fight an enemy of nomadic stock the Xiongnu who some believe were the very same people who arrived a few centuries later at the gates of Rome (by then they would have been known as the Huns). In the Fergana Valley, which sprawls across eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan, Zhang found something better than an ally he found Ferghana horses, an essential machine of war in his emperors fight against the Huns.

Meanwhile, imperial Rome, stretching its fingers east, had encountered a revolutionary new material. In 53 B.C., at Carrhae, seven Roman legions led by Marcus Licinius Crassus stared in disbelief as their habitual and, in this instance, victorious enemy, the Parthians, from modern-day Iran, unfurled great banners of a shimmering, gossamer-like material: Chinese silk. The Romans, who had never seen anything like it before, Hopkirk tells us, turned and fled, leaving some twenty thousand dead behind. The Romans knew that while the Parthians were a martial people, they were too unsophisticated to have invented this astonishing material, which was as light as a cloud and translucent as ice. By the first century A.D., Romans were dripping in silk, which they still believed grew on trees. Seneca, for one, writes Peter Frankopan in his 2015 history The Silk Roads, about the Roman philosopher, was horrified by the popularity of the thin flowing material, declaring that silk garments could barely be called clothing given they hid neither the curves nor the decency of the ladies of Rome. The foundations of marriage itself were being compromised, Frankopan adds, by this fabric that left little to the imagination.

The Silk Road is our supreme metaphor for the interplay between commodities and ideas and, as an extension, the interplay between the intangible and the concrete. On my first day in Tashkent, I encountered an object that remade my idea of the history of the place. I had not, until then, thought of Tashkent as a great Islamic capital not like Istanbul, Cairo or Baghdad, say but in the small Muyi Mubarak Library at Hazrati Imam, at the heart of old Tashkent, surrounded by ribbed azure domes swimming up against a pale sky, I saw what had to be among the wonders of the Islamic world: the oldest Quran in existence (best estimates date it to the eighth century). There it was, its swollen pages of gazelle skin inscribed with the bold black letters of the Kufic script. It had been the private Quran of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, and it was Timur the scourge of God in Christopher Marlowes play Tamburlaine the Great who, having laid siege to the civilized world in the 14th century, brought it from what is now Iraq to his capital at Samarkand. Its presence in Tashkent was a reminder that if one was to do justice to the history of Uzbekistan, one would have to make a mental separation between the modern state an unremarkable Central Asian republic with an autocrat at its helm and the many worlds this land had been part of. The state was new, the land was eons old. It had once comprised Sogdiana and parts of Transoxania; it had been a point of confluence between Iran and Turan, the line between Persianate and Turkic cultures; the famous regions of Khorasan and Khwarezm were all part of what the land had known. It had produced a roll call of polymaths, from the scholar and scientist Al-Biruni to Ibn Sina, known to the West as Avicenna (980-1037), one of the fathers of early medicine. The creator of the algorithm al-Khwarizmi (circa 780-circa 850) had been part of the same flowering of genius that had made this land one of the centers of thought and discovery, as had the philosopher Alpharabius, or al-Farabi (circa 878-circa 950). This was the kingdom of the astronomer-king Ulugh Beg, whose 15th-century work was being translated into English and Latin in the years following the Renaissance.

This land of many natures Turkic and Persian, upon which Russian had been grafted expressed itself in Aziz, too. One moment he was talking of Lenin and Stalin and quoting Aleksandr Pushkins 1833 novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, the next he was discussing the history of Islam and recalling whole quatrains of the 11th-century Persian poet and astronomer Omar Khayyams Rubaiyat. This was the place where one needed to come to understand how distinct cultures graded into one another. It was not so much a melting pot as a hologram, and this felt true of religious values, too: This was an Islamic country where everyone drank vodka and where the Soviet government, in the Communist years, had closed some 26,000 mosques; there were just 80 open in 1989. But Islam had had its revenge, too. In a bookshop on the main square, Aziz pointed to a pamphlet that showed pictures of Lenins statue being torn down as it warned against idolatry.

Aziz himself had undergone something of a Damascene un-conversion. Madina remembered him as being very religious, praying five times a day and talking endlessly about the Quran. But then, Aziz said, I turned on my logic. He was now positively scornful of religious people, arguing with them about contentious subjects such as why, if Islam was a religion of peace, had it gone everywhere by sword and fire.

I am shocked, Madina said.

Its a new life, baby, Aziz answered jauntily. He was a Bukhara boy to his bones, raised in, and still devoted to, his birthplace. It was his passion for the history of his hometown that had connected him with other Silk Road cities in Central Asia, forming the nucleus of a self-education, here from other guides, there from books in Farsi, English and Russian. But regardless of where his travels took him, he always came back to Bukhara, and he could not fathom Madinas restlessness, her wish to get away.

On our first full evening together in Tashkent, a still older and deeper aspect of the character of this land asserted itself as the sun sank the nomadic life of the steppe. Chorsu Bazaar was in central Tashkent, a short drive away from Hazrati Imam. It was a vast carapace of turquoise and cyan, which sought to bring order to the chaos of one of the main institutions of Central Asian life: the market. Handsome Tajik boys with thick unibrows a mark of beauty in the Persianate world sold turmeric, cumin, red chile and star anise. There was horse meat and tongue, trotters and brain. We passed smooth, dark offerings of liver, reddish-black in the fluorescent light, and the round marbled heads of bovine cannons. There were whole alleys devoted to salads and cheeses, and sour-milk balls called qurut, which I was told quenched thirst on long journeys across the steppe. Outside, women with gold teeth in bright aprons and waistcoats sold norin, noodles with horse meat. One plump-fingered lady cut me off a bit of khasib, a sausage made of rice and intestine, basting in a thick viscous liquid like a wounded snake. Chorsu, literally meaning four streams or crossroads in Persian, was visceral in the most literal sense of the word, and I felt it was impossible to come into contact with food like this without also being given an intimation of the brutality and rigors of the steppe. To never settle was to never be softened by the idea of home. It was easy to see how the decision to stay and build community, with all its implications for civilization, versus the decision to forge on and to live the life of the frontier, was among the earliest and most important choices that men had had to make.

THE NEXT MORNING, we crossed the Jaxartes also known as the Syr Darya, one of two great Central Asian rivers and sped on through pale sunshine, yellowing screens of poplar and mulberry and a pointillist field of cotton, a scorched brown crop bedaubed white, on our way to Samarkand. There were vineyards and orchards. Melon season was ending and the pomegranates were ripening; women sold the dark juice in plastic bottles on the side of the highway. There were Tolstoyan scenes of soldiers picking cotton. I had expected desert and steppe. Instead, I found a dark, fertile soil, as rich as Andalusia, where everything from apples to apricots grew. Babur, the first Mughal, had been homesick in India for the sweetness of the fruits of his native land. In the beginning sections of his early 16th-century memoirs, Baburnama, there are endless descriptions of the fruit markets of Central Asia. I now began to see why. Autumn here was truly, as John Keats wrote, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Aziz and Madina were asleep in the back seat. Our driver, Doniyor, a man in his 50s, spoke only one word of English good which he sometimes used as an exclamation, and other times as a question.

Before the galloping Russian conquest of the 19th century the Russian Empire for over four centuries expanded at a rate of roughly 20,000 square miles a year the land of this country had been divided into two khanates: Kokand in the east and Khiva in the west. Sandwiched in the middle, and famous for cruelty, decay and isolation, was the emirate of Bukhara, which included Samarkand. By the end of the 19th century, the khans and emirs had been reduced to puppet rulers, pensioners of the czar in Moscow. While the Silk Road, which increasingly became less relevant by the first quarter of the 20th century, fed them with trinkets from an industrializing Europe here a mechanical calendar, there a clock and a camera a new creed was ascendant in Europe. In 1917, the Bolsheviks smashed the power of the czar. Two years later, the Communists, under the leadership of Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, were at the doors of these vassal kingdoms, driving their khans and emirs into exile.

It is hard to exaggerate the violence of the social and economic upheaval that Soviet rule brought to this country. The Uzbeks witnessed massive collectivization and industrialization; religion was proscribed; in 1927, Hujum, which means assault in Uzbek, was enacted under Stalin. These were social reforms that saw women give up the veil, participate in veil-burning ceremonies and join the work force. This pious feudal society was frog-marched at gunpoint out of the early Middle Ages and into the 20th century.

Driving into Samarkand, 191 miles southwest from Tashkent, observing giant Timurid pylons and ribbed turquoise domes rising out of the low sprawl, one felt as if the change this society had seen in the last century was inscribed in stone. Timur had breathed fire into the veins of the old Silk Road. He was born when the memory of the destruction that Genghis Khan had wrought was still fresh, and Timur, as if assimilating the fury of the great Mongol, had weaponized the ancient trade linkages. The map of his campaigns looks like an explosion out of Samarkand in every direction through the civilized world. He lashed out in the direction of Istanbul, taking the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I captive at the Battle of Ankara, south to Delhi, and died on the warpath east to China. It was not quite violence for violences sake. There was another equally, if not more, compelling reason to pick a fight, writes Justin Marozzi in Tamerlane, his humanizing 2004 history of the tyrant. Khorezm straddled the caravan routes linking China to the Mediterranean, and therefore enjoyed great prosperity. Timur turned the Silk Road into his personal exchequer, using its revenues, as well as plunder and taxes levied on conquered people, to fund campaign after terrifying campaign.

If you doubt our power, Aziz said as we stood at the foot of Timurs statue in Samarkand, look upon our buildings. It was the Timurid creed, and the evidence of its gigantomania was everywhere in this city. In the one field in which he took a real interest, writes S. Frederick Starr in 2013, in Lost Enlightenment, of Timur, and on which he showered money architecture his enthusiasm stemmed precisely from its ability to dramatize a very specific idea: that of his own power and greatness. The statue of this conqueror sat in the middle of a roundabout, surrounded by broad avenues, lined with the pale mottled trunks of Oriental planes. The man whose name was still uttered with horror and disgust in India gazed loftily upon his own mausoleum, Gur-e-Amir, a building that had been intended as a tomb for Timurs beloved grandson but became the Timurid crypt after the conquerors death on the warpath to China in 1405. The entrancing blue of its exterior caught the afternoon sun. There were honeycombed stalactites, or muqarnas, in its portal. The squarish Kufic script, its hard angles a counterpoint to the floral excesses of the rest of the design, snaked its way up in bright blue over the two minarets. There was nothing in the world that spoke more definitely of Central Asia a dream of moisture in an arid land than that tiled blue. I had seen shreds of it in India, but now I felt as if I had come to its source. Timur did not invent the turquoise tile it came, like all great things Islamic, from Persia but he made it sing. His artisans cut and carved it; they dressed slim pillars in it and giant domes; they shoved it in squinches and let it unfurl over the spandrels of arches. As Aziz said, Timur wanted to build in a color that would challenge the sky with its own beauty.

It was odd to think of the sanguinary conqueror at rest under a slab of black jade. His martial spirit had stalked the ages so much so that it was said that if Timurs sleep was ever disturbed, the dogs of war would be loosed upon the earth again. The godless Soviets paid no heed to these superstitions and had him dug up in June 1941. No sooner was he awake, his skeleton being prodded and poked in Moscow, than Stalin learned that Nazi Germany had invaded the U.S.S.R.

IN SAMARKAND, I felt melancholy, which followed me west to Bukhara and deepened in Khiva. It had a specific cause: At Samarkands Registan square, I learned of the extent to which the citys buildings, first under the Soviets and later under the Uzbeks, had been unsparingly restored. It was so comprehensive that it utterly obliterated the action of time. Philip Glazebrook, in the 1990s, on seeing something similar in Khiva, asked himself: But what has renovation, matched colors, taste and tidiness, to do with an Asiatic city? The deadly aim of those weapons has killed Khiva stone dead.

They were words that could not be unread. I had researched old 1960s photographs of tented shops, horse-drawn carriages and men in white turbans on the main enclosure of the Registan. The tile work crumbled from the Brobdingnagian pylons, but the square was alive. It had all since been swept away. The assiduous spirit of restoration contained an invisible agent, sanitizing and astringent, that hollowed the East out of Samarkands buildings, turning them into mere facades. I began to feel the Soviets had performed an operation in which the culture of the land had been dismembered from its every physical expression.

Glimmers of an older life were still visible in Samarkand. Not in the heavily restored buildings but in more surprising places. One night, as we Aziz, Madina, Doniyor and I were coming home from dinner, we encountered a wedding procession for two couples. The silence of a deserted street in Samarkand was interrupted by drumbeats and cars honking in tune. Young men in dark suits danced in front, carrying a metal pole with a heart-shaped standard that had been wrapped in sackcloth, doused in kerosene and set alight. One of the grooms was in a long black-and-gold tunic, the other in white picked out in cerise. The groomsmen would lower the heart of fire and dance around it half, it seemed, in reverence, half in rapture while all the time singing in praise of the newlyweds: Yur, yur, yure. That word yaar in Urdu meant lover, friend and, ultimately, God, too. It indicated a spiritual union, and these young men, with their ancestral veneration of fire, felt part of an extremely old ritual an atavism in the true sense of forefather, with its origins in the Zoroastrian worship of fire.

This land of many faiths produced an unstable system of values. Aziz and Madina seemed so much a modern couple, living together, traveling together, sleeping unmarried in the same hotel room. But I realized that under the veneer of modernity, more conservative values prevailed. At the Samarkand Restaurant, with its baroque interiors and loud music, now Turkish and Uzbek, now Persian, Afghan and Russian, Aziz offered Madina wine. Her natural sulkiness fell away and she began to tap her manicured fingers to the tune of Glukozas Tantsui, Rossiya!: Dance, Russia! And cry, Europe / For I have the most beautiful ass in the world. When she got up to dance, Aziz grew confidential. Bukhara society is very conservative, he said. As he spoke to me about the way his relationship with Madina would be judged by his society, I realized that these cities Samarkand and Bukhara, in particular had been the equivalent of what places like Singapore and Dubai are today. They had been deeply cosmopolitan, places whose values, aesthetics and religious beliefs were fluid, defined by the different people who passed through. Earlier, when examining a Central Asian mosque with its stone terrace, wooden pillars and painted canopy, I asked Aziz if the mosque was quintessentially Central Asian. He seemed puzzled by my question. Three thousand years ago, he said, we were invaded by the Persians, so we have something from Persia; 1,500 years ago, we were invaded by the Arabs, so we have something from the Arabs; 1,000 years ago, we were invaded by the Mongols, so we have something from them. There is no such thing as our style. Without a trace of the need for historical purity that had spread through so much of the world and was feeding a new populism in places like India and Turkey, Aziz said, These are cities that would not have existed were it not for the Silk Road.

DRIVING TO BUKHARA, we went through bare sunlit hills, their deep furrows full of shadow. Below was the thin slip of a silver stream, which created islands of dark soil, supporting orchards, vineyards and reddening mulberries, whose leaves are the food of the silkworm. We have an expression, Aziz said. Only mountains can be more beautiful than mountains. For seven centuries, the secret of how silk was made remained firmly in China. Hopkirk writes that it was supposedly Nestorian monks who smuggled silkworm eggs out of China in their staffs. Aziz now told a story of a Chinese princess who married an Uzbek chieftain and carried the worms out, concealing them in her elaborate hairdo.

The hills grew steeper and were covered in a burnt-blond grass. We were in what I can only imagine were the foothills of the Pamirs, the mountain range beyond which lay Persian-speaking Tajikistan. The winding road was lined with signs that said Tandir clay ovens known as tandoor in India and which, like comca (pronounced somsa), cousin of the Indian samosa, were only more proof of the many fruits of the Silk Road. At a clearing in the mountains, a market had sprung up. Women in black visors, with brightly colored scarves, velveteen jackets and baggy trousers, had brought the riches of the hills to be sold. They had sacks of licorice and dried yellow immortal flowers Helichrysum arenarium which aided digestion. There were sunflower seeds, rhubarb and ginseng beige, husky and loofah-like. There were dried figs and red-berried dog rose. Looking out over those crevassed hills, with outcroppings of dark rock showing through the yellow grass, I felt that this spontaneous spirit of mercantilism was at the heart of the Silk Road. The opening up of sea routes in the 15th century, both between Europe and Asia, as well as Europe and the Americas, had starved this region of the magic ingredient that had been its making: its centrality. For the first time in 15 centuries, Central Asia was no longer on the way to everywhere.

We reached Bukhara at night. Of all the cities I had been to, and was going to, only Bukhara had the right to call itself Bukhara Sharif Bukhara, the noble. This was the emirate where the 19th-century explorer Alexander Burnes dismounted his horse and changed his clothes before entering its holy precincts that owed their sanctity to the hundreds of mosques, madrassas and mausoleums they contained, for these are the emblems of distinction in the holy city of Bokhara [sic] between an infidel and a true believer, he wrote in 1835. Bukhara, which had given Islam some of its foremost thinkers the ninth centurys al-Bukhari, a compiler of Muhammads sayings and acts, or Hadith, and the 14th centurys Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari, the founder of the Sufi order Naqshbandi had, as the Silk Road dried up around it, leaving it stranded, become a byword in the 19th century for insularity and zealotry.

We drove through modern streets, lined with emporiums and hotels. The buildings seemed to creep out of one malaise blockish and socialist into another, the faux modernity of pasting blue-and-brown glass squares onto the facades of crumbling buildings. This was Aziz, Madina and Doniyors hometown. I was dropped on the edge of a depopulated old city of a few thousand and allowed to wander alone through the desolate streets. The town of hundreds of madrassas and caravansaries, and 100 or so mosques, had been subjected to the only fate worse than Genghis Khans, that fifth horseman of the apocalypse: tourism. There were hardly any people, save visitors who came in droves to see the storied Silk Road town for themselves. The buildings were mostly hotels, restaurants or boutiques. I stood at the foot of the 12th-century Kalyan minaret, which even the Great Mongol had spared from destruction, watching red-colored light play on its varied sand-colored surface. I had grown up in India and known many forms of cultural decay, ruin and vandalism in my life, but I had never known this willful, state-engineered cleaving of a living culture from its physical embodiment, and the establishment of what Glazebrook calls the museum-city. Bukhara had decayed organically until the 1960s and 70s, when its people were put in modern apartment blocks by the Soviets, who turned the citys buildings into a heavily restored Potemkin village for tourists to visit.

ON MY LAST full day in Uzbekistan, racing through the red desert on the road to Khiva, some 280 miles northwest, I was given a glimpse of those vast blank spaces that lay between the caravan towns of the Silk Road; without them, it was impossible to understand these towns importance. The Kyzylkum (Red Sand) Desert floated above a sea of natural gas. The earth was covered in a faded green-and-pink shrub called saxaul. An immense pale blue Texas-size sky rose above us. The Oxus River, or Amu Darya, lay in a band of silver to our left, forming the border with the hermit kingdom of Turkmenistan, where the dictator Saparmurat Niyazov (also called Turkmenbashi) renamed the days of the week in honor of himself and his family members. My spirits rose at the sight of this desolation, for it was only with this nullity in mind that one could imagine what it was to see the minarets of Khiva, their blue tiles canceling out the despair of the desert, as light from a lighthouse cancels out the darkness of the sea.

Bukhara lay behind me, distilled into a memory of one sublime building, a Samanid mausoleum, which seemed to tie together all the different strands of Silk Road religion and history. It had been built by the Samanid dynasty around the 10th century at the pinnacle of this regions glory when men like Avicenna and Al-Biruni walked the earth and it was a miracle, having been buried in sand, that it survived the 13th-century onslaught of Genghis Khan. An understated cube, with four sleeping pillars, it stood in isolation in northwestern Bukhara. After the renovated excesses of blue and cyan, and the overworked turquoise tile, the austerity of the Samanid tomb, utterly innocent of the use of color, was as refreshing as an unpainted beam of wood. What it did have, worked over every inch, from entablature to pediment to inset pillar, were raptures of baked brick, creating a varied and intricate surface laden with symbolism.

Lets start to read it, Aziz said. It reads like a book. Bukhara was once home to a Buddhist community, part of that two-way traffic of monks and scholars, which would cease after the coming of Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries its name was drawn from the Sanskrit word for monastery, vihara. Aziz pointed at the circles, or chakras, that ran along its pediment. The Uzbek scholar Shamsiddin Kamoliddin saw direct Buddhist references in the mandalas in the two spandrels of the central doorway. I saw them, too. Aziz saw crosses, and fleurs-de-lis, as well as the inverted Zoroastrian triangles indicating good thoughts, good words, good deeds. This was among the oldest Islamic tombs in Central Asia, and it was difficult to think of a more indispensable building. It stood like proof of the many natures of this land of confluence.

In my last hours in Uzbekistan, before catching a flight back to New York, I walked along the ramparts of Khivas Ichan-Kala, or walled inner town, with Madina. The light faded from the clear desert sky, and though the green domes and blue minarets of Khiva were beautiful, I was beginning to tire of these museum cities. I was glad I had managed to see Azizs apartment in Bukhara. It was part of a mikrorayon, or residential complex, set among acres upon acres of identical communist buildings, where dismal yellow lights came on in cramped windows and little bits of corrugated board held together the gray facades. This was how the great majority of the population of these romantic towns actually lived. No cupolas and courts for them, or shadows in the sand. The apartment, with its furry chocolate-colored rug and its unwashed dishes and a small window in the kitchen, was oppressive. I could see why Madina had done a runner nearly a year before. Moreover, when Aziz confided to me that he was prone to jealous rages, I thought she should run again.

What is the weather like in London? she asked.

Rainy, I replied, and asked her what she had done in Dubai for 10 months.

I work as a hostess in an Italian restaurant, she said. They specialize in truffles.

Truffles in Dubai, I thought. Here was a fruit of the Silk Road, if ever there was one!

It was the ingenuity and industry of men who brought rare and precious things to far-flung places that had blazed a network of roads across the spine of Asia. That energy was alive and well. All that had happened was that its course, like the shape-shifting Oxus, had changed. The spirit of the Silk Road, I could now see, was all movement, mercantile and unsentimental. It had no time to pay homage to the relics of what had merely been the easy exchange of goods and ideas. The unforgiving logic of trade had reduced the fabled cities of the old Silk Road Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva to backwaters. Their outstanding monuments, shells to the glory of past relevance, remained, as did the romance of their names, but the caravans had long since moved on.

Aatish Taseers latest book, The Twice-Born: Life and Death on the Ganges (2019), was recently released in paperback. His documentary, In Search of Indias Soul, produced by Al Jazeera, is streaming now. He is based in New York City. Richard Mosses video installation Incoming was recently exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He lives in New York City. Production: Timur Karpov.

For many travelers, Uzbekistan is one of the ultimate Silk Road destinations. The guides at Silk Road Adventures can tailor a journey to your specifications and needs whether that means seeing magnificent architectural sights, such as Samarkands Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis or the Ark of Bukhara, or bartering for silk or other goods at the Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent.

Read more:

In Uzbekistan, Coming to Terms With the Countrys Dazzling History - The New York Times

Revelling in isolation lessons from Mars and India – The Hindu

Even today, exactly one year after my return to earth, my sense of wonder still carries a different quality. Three months of zero-gravity had changed my perspective on reality. When I was first standing on the surface of a lively rock again, a blue home which is miraculously drifting through the ever expanding emptiness of the universe, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that the sky was a second, gas-blue planet which hovered extremely close to earth. It felt heavy, unknown, beautiful and full of danger. This sensation lasted for two days and eventually subsided the rest of the wonders remained: My utter disbelief of a fundamentally existing world-as-such, animated within its grandest thought and smallest atom by a growth and a creating power, displayed with blooming and withering, birth and decay, spirit and matter. Nothing of all that surrounds us is self-evident. No colours, no Erythrocytes, no well-sang elegies nor the eternal present.

The sober evidence of life is as wonder-like as the common blue of the sky, as ungraspable as the oceans tides and turns. Especially those things which seem the most familiar to us and most known, are, upon closer inspection, nothing but the first and last secrets of an ever revealing world.

Many years ago I spent the summer in a Zen Mediation Centre located in the cool hills of Tamil Nadu. Reading manically through their vast library, I especially fell in love with the Blue Cliff Record. Here, I came across some extraordinary stanzas which have accompanied me ever since, regardless of whether I went to Mars or to India:

Before attaining enlightenment,

mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.

At the moment of enlightenment,

mountains are no longer mountains, nor are rivers rivers.

But after accomplishing enlightenment,

mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.

In spring 2019, I took part in a NASA conducted study on zero gravity. During three months of isolation in a space research center, 11 other terrestrial astonauts and I spent two full months continuously lying in bed with our heads tilted six degrees lower than our feet. In eight weeks, we never once up got up. Everything, including eating, showering, drinking, going to the toilet, spinning on a centrifuge and numerous other experiments took place in this unnatural position. Our goal was Mars. In the very near future, private explorers such as Elon Musks SpaceX and government space programes will send men and women to the red planet. It will be the greatest adventure in the history of mankind. Our life in the simulated spaceship will contribute the necessary data to make this flight happen as soon as possible.

Besides all the physical and psychological challenges that such an extraordinary isolation experience entails, my hardest struggle was missing the natural world. My entire universe became white-walled, sterile, air-conditioned; it weakened me. After ten weeks, every cell in my body demanded colours and unfiltered air, the silence of forests and the oceans salt-drenched winds. In short: I missed the planetary life force without nothing is able to exist. I missed the home planet which, so far, had been the substratum of all the significant hours of my life.

Thus, while isolated on Mars, I literally dreamed of the life of isolation which I am living right now during lockdown in India, the carefree sky above my head, the shocking heat, an overpowering moon that silently rises through the starry nights. I craved the rampant display of the colours of a South Indian summer and its fermenting, incense-drenched air. Since it is too hot to sleep indoors, I have made my bedroom on the roof and spend my hours gazing at the eternity that stretches from horizon to horizon.

Even Mars, the size of a pin in the haystack of stars, shows itself in the night sky. Isolation deluxe I could not ask for much more without expecting a loving Gods wrath. And yet, after four weeks of lockdown, I began to feel more constricted than during my absolute immobility on Mars, never leaving the groundhog day reality of my 2,5 m bed. There is one aspect of the renewed isolation which troubles me the most the restriction of fundamental human rights, mainly the freedom of movement and assembly.

I couldnt even drive to Pondicherry, just a few kilometers away, for an emergency, let alone go back to Germany. The streets are sealed off, the police confiscates motorcycles and imposes heavy fines, not to mention the beating-sticks which swing casually from the policemens hips. I have been travelling around the planet continuously for twenty years. But for the first time I do not have the freedom to leave or, more importantly, to simply get lost.

I can hardly overstate the difference between now and the previous year. When I entered the Mars program, I voluntarily gave up my freedom. Not holding a ray of sunshine in my hands for three months, lying head down in bed, no alcohol or other stimulants, adhering to strict eating and sleeping guidelines, undergoing muscle atrophy, severe bone-mass reduction and the loss of my ability to stand on two legs? No problem, as long as it was my decision and as long I was willing to accept this unique challenge. But to be forced to give up your freedom and to follow ten anti-coronavirus measures, eight out of which are completely useless and ineffective? Even in times of apparent emergency and crisis, it is especially important to maintain a scepticism of those in power. We should never blindly surrender our civil liberties indefinetly to the state, politicans or the police, those whose motives are far too often the expansion of their own power rather than the health and safety of their people.

So, how, in this unprecedented situation, can we dismiss our basic fears and insecurities and move forward with a clear and trustful mind? Taking a closer look into all the circumstances which are beyond my control, I turn now to the same methods I used a year ago: Surrendering to each and every thing that I simply cannot change while embracing the responsibility for what I can change. The fundamentals of human existence. Isolation or not, there might be nothing as imortant and liberating as to learn how to surrender to ones reality the world as it is in each moment of now. Followers of the Buddhas teachings call it Sunshine Buddha and Moonlight Buddha. So and so. This or That. Whether we are overpowered by light or by darkness, overrun by pleasant or unpleasant sensations, all of it finally succumbs to the one, unchanging law of the universe: Impermanence.

I spent my first two years in India and Sri Lanka almost exclusively in monasteries and meditation centres. Thousands of hours spent behind closed eyes and the study of Zen-literature and Hinduism did not make me wise by any stretch of the imagination but has, nonetheless, taught me an important lesson. Meditation isnt much different from a lockdown experience: Without the chance to escape from your own self, you are more than ever (and exclusively) thrown back into the realms of the so-called self.

There is no longer any activity in which you can safely procrastinate and cling to your dearest convictions. For the theatre of the mind, there is simply no escape from its present condition. There is only the sense of being, or more precisely, the experience of that which seems to be. Thus, in radical existence with yourself, all focus is shifted towards that identity which we call the ego or the self. And even though we all acknowledge this persistent experience of us and I, we never bother to assure ourselves of its self-essence. How can you know, if you never even dare to find out, that you, beyond the mere unsubstantial sensation of being a self, even exist?

The first lesson of meditation practice is the most decisive. Luckily, we dont need to be concerned with ceasing into an ultra-hovering state-of-the-mind which is called nirvana, not if the first realisation of our practice is already such a powerful insight, able to change the course of an entire life. Every student of meditation realises very soon that he or she isnt the master of their own house. The person who you thought you were doesnt fundamentally exist. Its a revelation which descends with all the necessary panic and euphoria, a revelation which will sink to the bottom of your bones and into the deepest waters of your soul: I am not the sensations which I feel; I am not the thoughts which I am experiencing! Thoughts, memories, desires and feelings simply float through the mind, witnessed and observed. But witnessed by whom? By myself? By a never-changing self? Then who and what exactly is that witness, this ominous ego-subject which is juxtaposed to the incoming objects of the mind?

The world is of the greatest importance, a miraculous stage for the dance of life and spirit and at the same time, null and void.

It is precisely the identification of the observer with the observations that the Buddha has not only exposed as an illusion but also highlighted as the first cause of suffering. Distancing yourself from the things observable by the mind (emotions, thoughts, memories, etc.), which float through consciousness like clouds through a bright blue sky, swiftly leads to the next exercise: to fully emerge oneself in this witness-consciousness, to sink into this state of mind which is not only the totality of the world but also neither one thing or the other. It is an eternal state of mind, a realm behind all forms of being and an existence which must remain nameless. It cant be illustrated by a language whose nature is to deal with the ongoing phenomena of the material world. Words such as peace, love, God, divine or universal consciousness, Shiva, Brahman are all perfectly right and absolutely wrong.

In the Wumenguan, a collection of koans and their commentaries by great Zen masters, a wonderful verse can be found:

He who speaks about wrong and right,

is a man of the wrong and right only.

Emerging into a world in which language has no more words to speak, we have finally arrived. We are home. Perhaps even in the ego, which, as it turns out, cant be traced or localised.

I spent three months in the Zen-Meditation centre. Once a day, the students could leave the meditation hall, walk down the stairs into the Masters chamber and sit alone with him for precisely a minute. In the Zen tradition, pupils are given a personal koan, a paradoxical riddle that can only be solved if the pupil leaves the beaten paths of the ordinary and personalised patterns of the mind. I too got a koan, even though I didnt really bother to solve it (maybe, I figured, this could be the secret behind the whole koan practice to just not do it!). In any case, I enjoyed the daily escape from the often exhausting meditation sessions down to my Masters room. We would usually simply sit in front of each other, in silence or grinning or I would tell him a story which had nothing to do with anything at all. After a minute he would ring his bell, we would bow to each other and I would stroll back into the hall. But one day I wanted to say and present something to him, even though I knew I had no answer at all. Not having an answer was probably not the right answer, but who could tell.

Well? he asked, smiling as I took my seat on the meditation-cushion in front of him. I started solving the koan. As soon as I was done, he burst out laughing. So powerful and contagious was his laugh that I couldnt help but laugh with him, harder and harder and louder and louder, until I finally fell sideways from my pillow. Anyone who has ever, laughing hysterically, crumpled up in front of his spiritual master who himself is laughing so hard that he has to hold his stomach like a maniac, head covered in sweat, will tell you that if you have had that experience, its safe to say that you can forget that koans and all that Zen stuff even exists.

To this day, it remains one of the most cherished moments in my life. Our laughter kept on echoing through the entire facility. Over the next few days, everyone wanted to know exactly what had happened. My enlighenment-seeking colleagues assumed that we had broken all I-attachments and gone sailing through the deconstruction of our mental bonds like on a really enjoyable DMT-trip and maybe we did! That day, I didnt go back into the hall but walked, still chuckling, out of the front gate and into the surrounding forest. Just when I left the centre, I could hear my screaming master actually ringing his little bell. Bimeling-Bim! Bimeling-Bim!

That was it.

Our session was over.

These few minutes have taught me an important lesson. Dont take anything in this fleeting world too seriously especially not that which is referred to as enlightenment. Whoever speaks about wrong and right is a man of the wrong and right only. For years I have been battling with my judgements, desires and fears. Then I understood that judgement or desires arent necessarily the problem as much as the simple yet overwhelming identification with those sensations. I realised that I can judge and fool my own mind all day, as long as I know that all those judgements and thoughts arent anywhere close to what we could call The Truth. They are real, yes, but more importantly, they arent. Its all a damn game! And as long as I remember this, I am free to experience everything and let it pass away with the same freedom. It really, ultimately, doesnt matter. The world is of the greatest importance, a miraculous stage for the dance of life and spirit and at the same time, null and void.

Nothing is permanent. The entire world is ephemeral, doomed, and yet gloriously present in its divine form, its manifested light and grace. Whether the rivers are rivers or not is pure dialectic. The current quarantine conditions are uncomfortable times that remind us of the unique fact of being alive. Alive with our joy, fear, revelations, kindness and sorrow. What a strange, wonderful time. When, if not in such extraordinary times, do we have the chance to assure ourselves of the extraordinary?

Read the original:

Revelling in isolation lessons from Mars and India - The Hindu

My End is My Beginning: A wild sci-fi ride at the end of the world – Middle East Eye

My End is My Beginning, the late long-time PEN International vice-president Moris Farhis swansong, is a paean to freedom of expression and vigilance in the face of authoritarianism, that makes compelling reading for these troubled times.

The award-winning Turkish born author, who died in 2019, was a larger than life, big-hearted man who especially championed persecuted writers and migrants, and his personality shines through in the central character of Oric, the writer-hero whose journaling keeps him sane in an insane world.

The imagined future world like all great sci-fi is in fact quite current, in these strange pandemic days. Fortuitously, my journey through Farhisbook coincided with the death of my television, and his last literary testament to the highs and lows of being human became both a replacement for and an antidote to the awful state of current affairs.

In it Oric and his female soulmate Belkis are part of a league of do-gooding globe trotters (one-part PEN Internationalists, one-part Samaritans, one-part covert operatives practising radical secular humanism) calleddolphineroswho, when they die, transform into immortalleviathans. In fact, the author seems enamoured of oceanic references and anything connected to the sea evokes an imagined purity.

The pair are up against tyrannicalsaviours - autocratic leaders who usebig lies,surveillance and repression to control the masses. The arch-villains are the Grand Mufti - a fantasia of various Islamistbad guys, leaning towards Irans supreme leader - and Numen, a dictator who could be Putin, Trump or some sort of evil hybrid of both.

The work begins on an apocalyptic note: Today the suns axis shifted. Its marigold luminosity fell into thick Arctic darkness.

A temporary union between Numen and the Grand Mufti is described by propagandists as ushering in a new age of enlightenment, while many pundits intimate that this aspiration conceals a new dark age as its main agenda, namely the degradation of Numens subjects into lotus-eaters and the Grand Muftis into theoleptics.

There seems to be an allusion here to a kind of dystopian version of the Imam Mahdi and even to Brexit as the enlightenedleviathanssing the EU's adopted anthem,Beethovens Ode to Joy.

In a slightly pre-woke right on world that one could easily imagine taking shape at one of Farhis legendary dinner parties in the British seaside town of Hove, codes emerge for current-day futurisms. Pinkiesare the new secret police and the likes of Rumi, Goya, Galileo, Neruda and Akhmatovaare invoked as ascended masters.

When Belkis is killed by the Saviours' minions, Oric purges his survivors guilt by keeping up the good fight while dodging dangers around the world as a kind of superhero of secular liberalism and champion of borderless pluralism.

Born in Ankara in 1935 to a mother from Salonica, who later lost her extended family in the Holocaust, and a Bulgarian Turkish-born Sephardi father, Farhi moved to the UK at age 19 and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1956.

After a brief stint as an actor, he went on to a career as a screenwriter, poet and author who served as vice-President of PEN International the worldwide association that champions freedom of expression and advocates for persecuted writers - from 2001 until his passing. His colourful life was dedicated to fighting injustice and helping others; the book often reads like autobiographical fantasy, with his family history merging with sci-fi dystopias.

Its almost as if the TV news dropped acid and lay down with the Old Testament, and then set out on a honeymoon organised by Amnesty International and James Bond

But is it a book?A screenplay in waiting? Or a phantasmagorically long version of poet Allen Ginsbergshallucinatory epic Howl, time travelled to 2020?

Its almost as if the TV news dropped acid and lay down with the Old Testament, and then set out on a honeymoon organised by Amnesty International and James Bond (the actor turned writer actually appeared in two 007 films as a gypsy in 1963sFrom Russia With Loveand as a control room technician in 1967sYou Only LiveTwice).

Some of the chapters could certainly be imagined as episodes ofDoctor Who the British sci-fi tv show that a young Farhi wrote for briefly in the 60s. Or even of Return of the Saint the late 70s British television programme (a re-hash of the 1960s series called The Saint starring Roger Moore) that he also contributed to - about a mysterious, independently wealthy humanitarian who travelled the world helping strangers.

The chapters read like human rights travelogues with details of scenery and food described alongside abuses - ranging from the plight of the Uyghurs in China todomestic workers in Saudi Arabia to rescuing activists from a repressive Honduran regime backed by drug lords.

One senses that the well-travelled author is keen to show both the joys and the dangers of this world, an admirable effort but one that often feels like a hard-hitting political documentary married to a travel show hosted by a secret agent - a bewilderingly beautiful pastiche.

While Farhileaves no stone unturned in his lexicon of liberal causes,there is a certain bias evidenced throughout. While migrants are celebrated as downtrodden brothers, suicide bombers are death worshippers and Israel/Palestine receives but a brief mention.

The evils of sharia law are extolled, but there are no rescue missions to liberate Palestinian activists from Israeli dungeons. In one scene, the political union between Numen and the Grand Mufti is described as a kind of conspiracy between extremist Christians and Muslims to wipe out the Jews - rather the opposite of current Christian-Zionist-Trumpian doctrine.

For Palestine sci-fi film, a fictional future is easier to imagine than reality

The Grand Mufti affirms, through his interpreter, that hes ready for Armageddon, ready to emerge as al Mahdi, the twelfth Imam and Prophets successor. Thereafter both he and Numen will syncretise their orthodoxies into the true religion humankind craves. To achieve this they will first extirpate the apostate creed, Judaism, that has poisoned humanity

Although its hard to tell exactly which country or countries Numen rules; in some chapters it seems to be Israel/Palestine. In one, Farhi recounts a scene at a train station that could be Tel Aviv, where soldiers return from fighting terrorists.

The terrorists,he writes, are the large indigenous minority in our eastern provinces. Numen condemned them to ethnic cleansing for campaigning for an autonomous canton. where they can speak their own language and pursue their own culture. To date the conflict has claimed thousands of lives on both sides. Lately Numen has intensified the hostilities.

In the same chapter he writes of liberals shipped to labour camps and the mothers of the disappeared. Could this be code for the secular Zionist dream/nightmare? Or could he be alluding to Putins Russian and Chechen rebels?

While many chapters are extremely specific like the one calledPax Mundiabout a kind ofUp with People style cross-cultural musical jubilee in a right-wing Hungary where theRomaand migrants are persecuted (just barely prescient asOrbanvirtually declares himself supreme leader), the exact location of Numens land is rather vague, perhaps a deliberate technique that indicates the global pandemic of state repression.

One chapter recounts an odd kind of speakers corner (which perhaps suggests, as in Orwells 1984, todays UK) controlled by secret police who scare away true dissidents but allow the likes of jihadists, Christian evangelicals and Messianic Jews to offer their strange opium to the masses. While Farhi writes of Numens yes-men inhabiting a suburban landscape ofchlorinated pools, BBQs and fresh cut grass, he also refers to stopping an American tourist in a city of seven hills. Could that city be Jerusalem, Rome, Paris, Lisbon, even an independent New York? Thats left to the readers imagination.

The accompanying story of Amado, a poet who dies after being tortured, is genuinely moving and seems inspired by one of Farhis real-life Pen International missions. The character somehow recalls the tortured poet in FellinisSatyricon.

And the cinematic references continue with the character of a disillusioned police inspector who knows too much, banished to a prison-like palacefull of drugged dissidents, recalling Charlton Hestons famous character, NYPD detective Frank Thorn, in another imagined dystopian future world. I half expected him to yell out "Soylent Green is people!"

While Farhi gets full points for enthusiasm and zeal when it comes to championing human rights, he lets down the side when it comes to fully drawn-out women characters. Even as Oric fights for their cause, they are mostly victims to be rescued by white saviours, or eco-feminist sex goddesses ready to pleasure the protagonist in the name of spiritual union.

Existential purists may find this book awild ride sci-fi musical version ofCamus La Peste

Intriguingly, for all his Islamist villains, Farhi does take pains to emphasise the difference between misguided jihadism and true Islam. In one weird chapter calledAnwar, he recounts the tale of a group of Sufi youth in Dagestan, captured by an ISIS-like group called theBlack Standard.

Forced to sully their pure Sufi ways by a band of criminals who coerce them to watch porn, drug themselves and glorify violence so they can become cannon fodder in Syria, the youth decide to escape their fate via group overdose on heroin. All perish but one named Anwar, who, still keen on purifying himself, swims to Kazakhstan. When his drowned body is found, it appears translucent.

While existential purists may find this book awild ride sci-fi musical version ofCamus La Peste where one brings along dancing shoes as well as discerning reading glasses -the work was perhaps the authors personal way of practisingtikkun olam,a concept which in Hebrew corresponds to repairing the world - albeit through a Jewish humanist lens.

My End is My Beginning, by Moris Farhi, is published by SaqiBooks

Original post:

My End is My Beginning: A wild sci-fi ride at the end of the world - Middle East Eye

What if police were ordered to search homes in violation of the Fourth Amendment? – LawOfficer.com

Would you (peace officers) follow an order to search someones home unlawfully in violation of the Fourth Amendment? You have no search warrant, court order, exigency, parole or probation exemptions, fresh pursuit, plain sight, no probable cause to even secure the residence for a warrant, etc. The answer should unambiguously be, NO!

What if your mayor or governor made the same demand via executive order? Hopefully, the answer would remain, forcefully, NO!

Yet what if there was a really good reason, like a public pandemic? Would you go house to house at the demands of a politician who justified that his or her order was meant to facilitate the greater good? Although the illustration is easy to answer for most police officers since the lines of delineation between right and wrong are clear, this appears to be the roller coaster ride we are currently on.

Things have gotten pretty murky with executive orders being issued in violation of several constitutional rights. Weve clearly seen demands that have violated the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, citizens caught failing to comply with these commands have been warned, cited, and arrested. This is becoming a field day for constitutional attorneys defending these cases, many of which have been immediately dismissed.

The problem for police officers is that many of the orders are not exactly defined as illegal until a court says so. In the meantime, politicians are expecting cops to be mindless robots following directives under the threat of discipline; or worse yet, termination.

We are beginning to see it happen, and it should scare the luster off our badge. Its tyranny, and its currently being practiced across America at this very moment.

RELATED:

As the coronavirus takes on political manifestations demanding safety at all cost, the price being paid includes economic catastrophes, which lead to high rates of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse as well as suicide. Therefore, in reality, the safety protocols are producing extremely tragic, unintended consequences. Some argue the results will ultimately outweigh coronavirus concerns.

That is why the salon owner in Dallas and other business owners like her have said enough, and are willing to be jailed or cited in defiance. Long-term repression of liberty and freedom ARE NOT the American way.

Police leaders should consult with legal counsel as the stakes are increasing, particularly those working in organizations demanding that police officers enforce orders that discard the Bill of Rights.

Peace officers should also consult with their labor attorneys before they are fired for insubordination, as Ive heard many cops talking about the price theyd pay if they failed to comply with enforcement demands resulting from executive orders issued by mayors and governors.

However, there will also be a price to pay for blind allegiance to violating constitutional rights, assuming our republic doesnt crumble.

The following excerpt is from an earlier Law Officer article, Taking enforcement action on rules that violate the Bill of Rights is bad practice.

Almost all orders related to COVID-19 violate the Bill of Rights in one way or another. Therefore, any government agency taking an aggressive enforcement approach, including the physical use of force, should reconsider its actions. We (peace officers) swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Historically, the enemy has been far more recognizable. Yet now it is masked in the zeal of political leaders willing to discard the Constitution as they flex their power with the explicit desire to be powerful.This is more than the slippery slope we often use as an idiom, its a tidal wave crashing down on freedom and the blood that was shed to obtain and defend it.

Therefore, police officers need to reflect upon the substance of the oath they took when their badge was pinned in place.

So, am Im calling political leaders urging aggressive enforcement of rules as our enemy? If they continue to repress liberty, freedom, or the values that created American exceptionlism, they are not acting like a friend to our way of life. As a matter of fact, the more these individuals demand compliance with unreasonable demands, the more they sound like third-world dictators. Hence, an enemy!

So back to my original question: Would you intentionally search someones home unlawfully in violation of the Fourth Amendment? Of course not! Or would you?

Jim McNeff

Read the rest here:

What if police were ordered to search homes in violation of the Fourth Amendment? - LawOfficer.com

These Are the Legal Issues Surrounding Unmasking, and Heres Whos Doing It the Most – Law & Crime

Everyones talking about unmasking, but very few people are being honest about what that term really means or where it came from.

The Donald Trump White House and its allies have projected the notion that the unmasking process is always nefarious and illegal, though the current administration has issued unmasking requests far in excess of the administration of immediate predecessor Barack Obama. National security state fixtures and Democrats insist the unmasking process is standard, routine, and necessary despite the fact that unmasking has only existed for a little over a decade and was specifically conceived as an ex post facto method to reward and protect what critics say is rampant criminality by the national security state.

Spying on American citizens without a warrant used to be illegal. The administration fronted by George W. Bush and largely administered by Dick Cheney did it anyway for several years. In 2005, The New York Times finally released a story that had been withheld prior to the 2004 presidential election which confirmed the existence of the program known as Stellar Wind which critics call unconstitutional.

The reactionary U.S. Congress, with both houses controlled by the Democratic Party, passed a bill to retroactively and arguably legalize these spying efforts by way of the Protect America Act of 2007. Subsequent amendments made in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISA) of 2008 ensured that the Bush-Cheney warrantless spying program would stand the test of time.

Gone were the days of law enforcement having to seek out warrants for intercepting Americans communications. So long as the spy agency targets a foreign national reasonably believed to be outside the United States, the government has given free rein, for up to one year, to listen in and otherwise collect all forms of electronic data.

One of the few protections afforded to American citizens who are caught up in such dragnets is the masking requirement, which is mainly sourced from FISAs general minimization procedures. Each agencys rules are somewhat different, but when, for example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or National Security Agency (NSA) targets a foreign national and catches the name or communications of an American citizen, the spy agency is supposed to obscure the American citizens name by using U.S. Person 1 or a named U.S. Person in any resulting intelligence reports.

Those protections are, by design, not very strong.

FISA simply provides that American citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy vis--vis such intercepted communications a legal standard derived from Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

The statute also offers a general definitional guideline:

Minimization procedures, with respect to electronic surveillance, means

(1) specific procedures, which shall be adopted by the Attorney General, that are reasonably designed in light of the purpose and technique of the particular surveillance, to minimize the acquisition and retention, and prohibit the dissemination, of nonpublicly available information concerning unconsenting United States persons consistent with the need of the United States to obtain, produce, and disseminate foreign intelligence information;

(2) procedures that require that nonpublicly available information, which is not foreign intelligence information, as defined in subsection (e)(1), shall not be disseminated in a manner that identifies any United States person, without such persons consent, unless such persons identity is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance;

Spy agencies, in turn, craft their own determinations of how to keep American citizens privacy in place via internal rules.

Thus, those agencies mask. But national security officials and other high-level executive branch figures can also unmask with ease if they merely justify their unmasking requests with a plea to national security or some other allegedly legitimate rationale.

Unmasking procedures are also governed by internal agency rules andof a piece with the Kafkaesque contours of FISA generallytheres only oversight in name. That is, there is effectively no oversight whatsoever. Whether or not an unmasking is truly legitimate is necessarily impossible for the American public to know.

A brief unmasking scandal quickly passed through the collective consciousness during the spring and early summer of 2017 after allies of President Donald Trump alleged that highly-placed Obama administration officials mishandled and leaked surveillance information in a way that led to the improper identification of non-targets implicated in a foreign intelligence-gathering scheme.

Those charges, mainstreamed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on behalf of the White House, effectively amounted to a dual-pronged blunt political instrument: (1) they suggested the then-controversial idea that Barack Obama authorized surveillance against the Trump campaign; and (2) they had characteristics of specific retribution directed against members of Trumps transition team.

The original story concerned Obamas onetime national security adviser, Susan Rice, who was apparently the foremost impetus behind the majority of those requests for the Trump aides in question to be unmasked after they appeared in surveillance reports of non-U.S. citizens during the final days of the Obama administration.

Again, the names of Americans are initially redacted in such intelligence reports. But the quirks of the national security state reward powerful individuals with end-runs around procedures and safeguards if their hearts desire such knowledge. When Rice requested those redactions be lifted, the intelligence community was more than happy to comply. It is a feature, not a bug, of how such facially sensitive information can quickly shape-shift according to political whims. Thats how the national security state works.

The inner logic is power itself. Democrats and national security-flavored pundits insisted the whole to-do was merely ho-hum; the Trump administration saw red, called foul and screamed like blood at several decibels for awhile. The scandal eventually died down and went away. Now it is back again.

Now, it appears, other key Obama administration officials were part of those unmasking efforts including presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee and former vice president Joe Biden.

And this time, theres no guessing game as to who was outed for being mentioned by or conversing with a foreign surveillance target. This time around, the unmasked man is well known and already consuming a fair deal of digital ink and broadcast bandwidth. And he just so happens to be the subject of Trumpworlds latest passion play: retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn.

CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge posted images of documents that showcased Bidens involvementin the purported scandal mid afternoon on Wednesday. Other high profile Obama administration officials also signed off on the Flynn unmasking decision, like James Clapper, John Brennan and Samantha Power.

Notably, the Biden campaign did not respond favorably to Herridges reporting.

SCOOP, tweeted Bidens Rapid Response Director Andrew Bates in a since-deleted tweet. Catherine Herridge is a partisan, rightwing [sic] hack who is a regular conduit for conservative media manipulation ploys because she agrees to publicize things before contacting the target to ask for comment.

As it turns out, Bidens request to unmask Flynn was made on January 12, 2017 the same day that the Washington Posts David Ignatius initially reported on the conversations via Flynn and then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The Intercepts Glenn Greenwald argued at the time that the senior U.S. government officials leak to Ignatius was illegal. It would not be a surprise if Trumps allies pushed for an investigation. Such a course of action would, of course, have severe implications for the 2020 presidential election.

This was the description of the list of individuals who submitted requests to unmask Flynn:

The landscape here is a partisan minefield constructed out of what the intelligence community insists is simply business as usual.

Former CIA official Michael Morell told the Washington Post that unmasking happens all the time: literally hundreds of times a year across multiple administrations, he said. In general, senior officials make the requests when necessary to understand the underlying intelligence. I myself did it several times a month and NSA adjudicates the request.

Former Director of National Intelligence and retired lieutenant general James Clapper said Thursday on SiriusXMs The Joe Madison Show that unmasking is not at all nefarious.

Well, I think creating that exact narrative as though this was something illegitimate or inappropriate when it is actually a very, very useful tool available to national security officials. And I know that officials in the current administration are using it to a fairly well actually much more than the previous administration, he said. So they too must recognize that this is a valuable tool that serves the national security interests of the United States. Its not at all nefarious. And the unmasking is occasioned by the interest, the objective of trying to minimize the identity of U.S. persons and restrict that access as much as possible. Thats why the program is designed the way it is. So its a legitimate, appropriate and important national security tool.

He also said that the alarm bells were going off about Flynn and that it was perfectly legitimate to take a closer look.

There were actually dozens of contacts with various representatives of Russia. And so at the time our dashboard warning light [started blinking] . . . given the responsibilities of these positions, it seems to me perfectly legitimate, in fact people would be derelict if they didnt have enough curiosity to inquire what was going on, he added.

Civil libertarians and Fourth Amendment advocates would likely counter that the status quo of routinely unmasking American citizens due to requests from political appointees is, actually, somewhat problematic and, as noted above, its certainly not a longstanding feature of American society; it was only constructed from the ashes of an expressly illegal and unconstitutional program in the first place.

So, has the Trump administration found religion when it comes to the protection of Americans civil liberties? Hardly.

In fact, after learning all about the Obama administrations efforts to unmask certain members of their transition team, it seems the Trump administration underwent a Damascene conversion in the exact opposite direction. The 45th presidents national security state has ordered a massive spike in unmasking requests when compared to numbers from prior years.

Former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer John Schindler noted the uptick:

[Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.]

Have a tip we should know? [emailprotected]

View post:

These Are the Legal Issues Surrounding Unmasking, and Heres Whos Doing It the Most - Law & Crime

Arlington gym owner reopens, trying to be as responsible as possible – MyNorthwest.com

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Mike Jellison, owner of PA Fitness in Arlington, Wash., has decided to reopen his gym despite Washingtons ongoing stay-at-home order.

Initially, Jellison did close his business. He took time off, went to Arizona where his family has a home to think about the future, and told the Jason Rantz Show that he even considered retiring.

I understand. I get it. Everybodys got their own job, but now Ive got my job and Ive got to reassess, understand what I need to do, Jellison said. And then I started digging into a proper procedure, a proper way of actually running our situation.

WA salon owner believes they could safely reopen now, if allowed

Jellison said he listened to the federal briefings with President Trump and understood that health and fitness is essential for a persons mental and physical well-being. Knowing that, it seemed reasonable to expect a gym or fitness center to be included in the early reopening phases.

I mean, thats what he had stated, and thats what I thought the situation would end up being, Jellison said. So coming back up here after that situation, with all my ducks in a row and all the plans and procedures and understandings to make us CDC qualified, and everything in order, come to find out it wasnt to be.

Then, Jellison said, he was infuriated.

I started looking into our constitutional rights and checking out my Fourth Amendment, for business purposes, understanding that we have certain rights, he said. Were all Americans. Everybody has a say in whats going to happen, and whats going to go on, and what were doing. Its called the Constitution. It was put in place for us.

The last straw for Jellison was that any county would have to go three weeks, at least during this phase, without a positive case or a death. Spokane County was denied the ability to move to Phase 2 because of this rule.

I listened to that, and I was outraged, he said. I was totally outraged because of the idea that this cant be true.

So then he opened, with proper rules and restrictions in place.

In my facility, what we did is we put everything at six feet apart, he said. We got rid of half of our stuff. Were doing cleanings through a cleaning company, through us, bleaching. Were doing everything we need to do once an hour. Were taking temperatures at the front door to make sure that nobody is compromised.

The person at the front door checking temperatures wears a mask and gloves. Once the temperature is approved, each person signs a waiver from the insurance company.

We hand them a disinfectant bottle, which is a hospital disinfectant and a towel. They have the personal stuff, and then they go on about their business and do their workout constructively, Jellison said. We have a couple of rovers that are on the floor, and what they do is they make sure that the customers are doing their job.

Jellison said his gym wants to set a good example for the community.

We want to make sure that the community understands that were trying to be as responsible as possible, he said. But physical and mental health is important, and its been pushed to the side for a long time. Its just not right.

Jellison said PA Fitness was contacted yesterday by the state. They had received one complaint, Jellison said. While Jellison said he respects others opinions and right to complain, he also has heard from many more people who recognize that he is trying to do the right thing and being responsible.

Why one customer defied the rules to get a haircut at Snohomish barbershop

He said hes not worried about his business license because he understands his rights as a business owner and has thought about the recourse to his action.

I understand what, legally, what can and cant happen to me. I get it, he said. Like I told my other partners, Ill be the shield, you be the sword.

His message to Gov. Inslee is to put the people as the first priority.

Dont use us as second, third, or fourth priority of what you have going on, he said. I mean, we cant be a sub line, the people, to your agenda. Put the people first because we deserve it.

PA Fitness in Arlington will remain open, Jellison said.

Read more:

Arlington gym owner reopens, trying to be as responsible as possible - MyNorthwest.com

Trump is saving Nato | Spectator USA

Its almost Nato as usual when Emmanuel Macron calls Nato brain dead. Its Nato as usual, and Donald Trump as usual, when Trump, who not long ago called Nato obsolete, chastises his bromantic partner Macron for being insulting and disrespectful. It is unusual for Nato when Trump calls off a press conference and calls blackface artist Justin Trudeau two-faced. But its back to Nato as usual for the American president to do the British prime minister a big favor by blowing out a press conference: the last thing Boris Johnson wants when hes facing a general election next week is for Trump to offer his thoughts on the ramifications of Brexit and the private habits of Prince Andrew, or to remind the British electorate that, in his eyes at least, Johnsons fraternity nickname is Britain Trump.

Uncertainty over the purpose of Nato is one of its oldest traditions. Founded in 1949, the task of the Atlantic alliance has been unclear since the collapse of its Soviet-run rival, the Warsaw Pact after 1989. Which is to say, no one has been entirely sure what Natos mission is for nearly half of its existence. Nor does Natos history shed much light, apart from confirming that theres no mission without mission creep and that French doubts about Nato are not a passing mood of Emmanuel Macrons, but a long-standing hostility.

The germ of Nato was conceived in 1947, when Britain and France signed the Treaty of Dunkirk, a mutual defense pact against possible aggression from the Soviet Union and if you can imagine such a thing West Germany. This pairing expanded into a west European group, the Brussels Treaty Organization. In retrospect, the entry of a major military power like Luxembourg into the alliance was a key factor in containing Soviet aggression in western Europe.

The United States and Canada put the North Atlantic into the Treaty Organization when they joined in 1949. This agreement established the near-sacred principle that Nato is something the American pay for even though theyre not sure what theyre getting, and something the Europeans depend upon even though theyre not sure what theyve got. The initial American goal was to build a buttress against communism in order to avoid a large and permanent American garrison in western Europe. Most of the western European states preferred to hide in the United Statess skirts while grumbling in Trudeau-like fashion about how hard it is to be a junior partner.

Like all families, Nato has had its scandals and, like all families, no one talks about them when the family gets together. In 1965, Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from Nato. Not inaccurately, de Gaulle reckoned that the Americans were using Nato to control western Europe and the British were using Nato to catch a free ride. As the term rogue state had yet to be invented, it wasnt applied to France in the following decades, even though France was a vigorous proliferator of nuclear technology and never happier than when making trouble for the Anglo-Saxons.

Only in 1995, did Franois Mitterrand bring France back into Nato but without Frances nuclear submarines. To this day, Frances biggest weapons are currently reserved exclusively for the use of its shortest leader, Emmanuel Macron. Britains nuclear weapons, by contrast, are always at the disposal of the American president, providing the British have the budget to change the batteries on the launch pad. This illustrates another essential truth about Nato: the British and the French were on the same page when they signed the Dunkirk Treaty, but not so often after that.

By 1995, Nato had turned into the militarists equivalent of the tourists package-tour company: a quick way of pulling everyone together for a last-minute excursion to somewhere hot. Natos first mobilization came only in 1990, as the Cold War was ending, but Nato made up for its late start in the two-decade interventionist spree of the 1990s and 2000s.

The results of successful deterrence being a sequence of non-events, the proofs of Natos Cold War value are in inverse proportion to their cost. The results of Natos post-Cold War adventures include fiascos like the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the trashing of Libya. These disasters, though, are not the reason for Macrons brain dead remark.

Macron is said to have told aides that Nato will cease to exist in five years. At the same time, hes calling for Nato to focus its energies on Frances front in the forever-war against Islamism, in its former colonies in West Africa. Either way, Macron does not want Nato to continue with its historic missions, antagonizing the Russians and bombing recalcitrant Middle Easterners. His understanding of the emerging world order is not dissimilar to those of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Macron blames the EUs migrant trouble on American regime change policies. He describes Nato, in expanding up to Russias borders, as violating the terms of the deal reached in 1990. He accepts Putins annexation of Crimea: when Nato got as far as Ukraine, Putin decided to stop that expansion. He fears that Europe, by which he means France, is losing its geopolitical autonomy as its share of global GDP shrinks.

All this reflects a longstanding French preference for a multipolar world in which second- or third-tier powers can leverage their post-imperial connections and second-strike nuclear subs. But none of this is alien to Donald Trumps view of the world. Trump also recognizes the 21st-century world as multipolar, with each major power asserting its Monroe Doctrine in what Macron calls a zone of privileged interests. Trump has also managed to avoid conflict with Russia. Trump also sees the reduction in Europes global autonomy, and Frances in particular: this week, he upbraided Macron by referring to Frances unemployment levels.

Yet France cannot afford the military that is a premise of geopolitical autonomy. Britain cant afford it either. Germany, which can afford it, doesnt want to buy it. For the European states, there is no current alternative to geopolitics without autonomy: an American-led and American-funded alliance. And Americas generals, to whose advice Trump is not immune, prefer Natos outsourcing to the options of retreating from the world or advancing into it with more garrisons.

Rather than burying Nato, Trumps insistence that its other 28 members honor their treaty obligations may yet save it. There is a difference between stability and inertia. If Nato responds to Trumps stimulus, it will almost certainly be around in five years time which is more than you can say for Macron or Trump. Call it the fraternity of nations. Isnt it bromantic?

More:

Trump is saving Nato | Spectator USA

Why NATO is worth preserving for US, Europe and even …

President Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpNew York Times: Reporter who called for CDC chief's resignation went 'too far' GOP's Don Bacon and challenger neck-and-neck in Democratic poll Cheney defends Fauci: 'We need his expertise' to defeat coronavirus MORE is in London today for a short summit tomorrow with fellow leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Auspiciously it lands on the 70th anniversary year of NATOs founding in the tense early days of the Cold War where it along with the Marshall Plan signaled a deep and long-term American commitment to Europes democracy-based freedom and stability. This investment allowed fellow democracies and peaceful nations to safely evolve, creating a global environment where U.S. interests and businesses could flourish.

The summit comes at a pivotal time accentuated by French President Emmanuel MacronEmmanuel Jean-Michel MacronNeeded: A blueprint for a post-vaccine world Merkel defends WHO during call with international leaders Notre Dame restoration halted due to coronavirus MOREs recent declaration that the alliance was brain-dead where the United States traditionally guiding role and philosophy appears more confusing than affirming for our allies in NATO and worldwide. The Trump administrations transactional messaging and unilateral actions, often broadcast publicly rather than negotiated privately, are shredding allied confidence in U.S. reliability and creating malign openings for potential adversaries. They weaken an extraordinary assemblage of allies and partners that despite differences have mostly supported the United States since WWII through thick and thin. This is strategic.

As a long-time NATO interlocutor, I want to relate the following experience that buttressed to me that the U.S. military despite the current political noise still maintains strong, credible relations with their allied counterparts. A month ago, I revisited NATOs mostly-forgotten Kosovo Force (KFOR) mission after participating in a progressive security conference in Belgrade, Serbia. I served in Kosovo during 2003-2004 as the senior KFOR intelligence staff officer during a difficult period that culminated in violent riots that left 35 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries destroyed by Albanian mobs. For balance, we must recall that KFOR was established in 1999 after the U.S.-led NATO intervention to stop the ethnic cleansing of mostly Kosovar Albanians at the hands of dominating Serbia.

During my week in Pristina I was heartened to see troops from multiple NATO and Partner nations working in close coordination to ensure a safe and secure environment for all the citizens Albanian, Serbian, Roma living in Kosovo. Unknown to many, there are still over 600 American soldiers, mostly New Jersey National Guardsmen, currently serving there, an integral part of NATOs 3,500 soldier multinational force of 28 nations. Commanded by an Italian Major General, KFORs Deputy is a Swiss, and Chief of Staff an American, both Brigadier Generals.

The alliance matters to this still volatile Balkan region. So does the American presence within and anywhere the alliance serves. I cant overstate how moved I was to see American soldiers literally assaulted in South Mitrovica with hugs and tears by wizened Albanian gentlemen after seeing our small group with their U.S. flags on their shoulders.

Over my 38-year military and government career, I served with allies in diverse locations worldwide such as West Germany, South Korea, Kosovo, Afghanistan and within complex Moscow. An unforgettable personal moment while working NATO policy issues on our Joint Staff was in March 1999 when I stood proudly with our new Polish allies in Warsaws Pilsudski Square the exact second they entered the alliance. NATO came to our aid after 9/11 and served with us in Afghanistan, Iraq and numerous other locations. A little-known fact is that there has never been conflict between NATO members over its long 70-year history, except for the clash over Cyprus in 1974 between Greece and Turkey. Based on these hands-on global experiences I am an unabashed Atlanticist and internationalist.

I fervently believe that after the natural creativity and adaptability of our population and our nations natural resources, that our greatest strength, precious really, is the network of mostly like-minded allies and partners worldwide that weve worked with in unison to ensure a better and more stable planet.

We learned the bitter lessons of isolationism after WWI, where after Pearl Harbor we entered WWII unprepared for an existential no-quarter fight against a vicious array of dictatorial states. As the post-WWII and Cold War eras increasingly wobble, we dare not make that mistake again.

For our Russian counterparts, I will simply say that NATO does not want conflict but will fight hard if pressed. Ideally the stability it brings Europe benefits Moscow too NATOs existence is not just about Russia. Working to weaken, corrode it and the European Union from within and without, only strengthens resolve. There will always be coalitions of the willing.

I also caution that a Europe bereft of credible security structures as the blood-soaked 20th Century has proven, would likely break into right-leaning mini-pakts, ententes and treaties that over time could boomerang badly for a stretched Russia. Better to identify positive convergences of interest and work collectively on those, while also focusing on root causes where we remain at dangerous loggerheads. The next generation, all of us, will face difficult mutual challenges.

As we move to this weeks London NATO Summit, the overall alliance while physically strong seems wounded, perplexed and unsure of its direction. NATOs and Europes mission priority whether focused east toward traditional Russia threat concerns, south toward the roiling Mediterranean, or on terror is debated. Looking worldwide, at a critical time in Asia our ties with traditional allies such as Japan and South Korea are also eroding and being exploited.

I worry that the imperfectly unique quality of altruistic hardness our country has exuded for most of the past century our magnificent American Brand is fading, replaced by a perception by some that we are becoming a more domineering and transactional hegemon. Are some traditional allies and partners still knitted to us because they feel they have to, rather than because they want to? A core question I think. We must at all costs cherish our allies and reverse this debilitating perception.

Retired Brig. Gen. Peter B. Zwack, former U.S. defense attache to Russia (2012-2014) with a 34-year U.S. Army military career, is a Wilson Center Global Fellow at the Kennan Institute.

Link:

Why NATO is worth preserving for US, Europe and even ...

NATO’s Camille Grand on the alliance’s Arctic tack – DefenseNews.com

COLOGNE, Germany Though the Arctic falls outside the Western military alliances traditional focus, NATO officials have begun paying closer attention to the region. Camille Grand, NATOs assistant secretary general for defense investment, spoke with Defense News about how the conversation has changed due to climate change and economic competition.

How does NATO view the Arctic region?

What we see is twofold: First of all, because of climate change and because of economic competition in the region, we see more of a great game of power, where the Russians, the Chinese are interested in access to the Arctic, to the sea routes and to the potential natural resources. So that is one element that we see as the long-term, overarching development, and therefore NATO has been paying more and more attention to what we prefer to call the High North.

And we are, along with our Nordic members like Norway and Denmark, paying attention to how much activity is going on in the region. Ive seen in my last few years at NATO an increased focus on that. Whereas the working assumption 10 years ago was that it was more of an area preserved from strategic competition and risks, today it is not as obvious as that. Quite on the contrary, we see activity going on in the region.

Is it inevitable that there will be conflict in the High North?

All this being said, the point is not to describe a likely conflict in the region. It is still a region where the extreme weather conditions most of the year make the case for more cooperation than conflict, where waging military operations is extraordinarily complicated. But overall, I would say that we are paying more attention to the region. And whats interesting for me is that member nations that are party to the Arctic Council traditionally were a bit guarded on the fact that NATO should play a role. But now they are more in favor of seeing NATO, lets say, show its flag in the region as well.

Why do you think that is?

I think it is primarily driven by what I see as an increased level of Russian activity in the High North, and it speaks to an interesting maritime dimension in the opening of the northern routes for shipping and so on, although that is still very complicated. But at the end of the day, it is about what is happening there, looking at whats happening in the Northern Atlantic, including more monitoring at sea and in the air. Thats a new focus area there. You do see jets being scrambled and a bit of a cat-and-mouse game with long-range missions by the Russian Air Force. So you do see things happening there that deserve our attention.

Sign up for our Early Bird Brief Get the defense industry's most comprehensive news and information straight to your inbox

Subscribe

Enter a valid email address (please select a country) United States United Kingdom Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, The Democratic Republic of The Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D'ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and Mcdonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Thanks for signing up!

By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Early Bird Brief.

How does NATO, as an organization, tackle questions relating to the region?

In the NATO political structures, we dont have committees that deal with the south, the north, the Mediterranean and so forth. So the issues are dealt with through our normal processes for planning, for operations and for political debates. We have not established a working group on any region. Sometimes it will take the form of a dedicated paper or strategy. I dont think we are there yet with the High North. But I have seen that become part of the broader conversation, which was probably not the case five or 10 years ago.

You might remember that Trident Juncture, our biggest exercise last year, took place in Norway, which is a way to practice how to operate in these conditions. The fact that the largest NATO exercise took place in Norway says something. Our close relationship with our partners Sweden and Finland also plays in favor of paying more attention to the High North.

The Norwegians are quite keen on making clear that they do have infrastructure to receive alliance support if needed.

Excerpt from:

NATO's Camille Grand on the alliance's Arctic tack - DefenseNews.com

Latvian intelligence names Russia and China as biggest threats to EU and NATO – New Europe

Latvias most important intelligence service, the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), named China and Russia as the main cyber threats to NATO and the European Union.

SABs 2019 report focused mostly on the threat from the Russian Federation. According to the report, Russia funds think-tanks and pseudo-academic organisations to counter the legitimacy of Latvias and other Baltic countries statehoods.

However, there were also references to the increasing influence and attacks from China, which was mentioned as a growing cyber and espionage threat. China was not mentioned in the 2017 report, while in the 2018 the document mentioned Beijings cyber operations aimed at obtaining data, mainly through economic intelligence.

According to the 2019 report, the number of Chinas cyberattacks is increasing and poses a serious problem for the security and economic interests of Latvia and other Western countries.

The document says that, over the last five years, China has greatly invested in its cyber activities, and that hacker groups controlled by the Chinese secret services have improved their technical tools. It also says that Chinas cyberattacks are carried out against public institutions, private companies, the academic community, government institutions, the military and defence sector, as well as NGOs.

The report suggests avoiding products and services from countries running offensive cyber programmes against NATO and EU members, such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Beijings embassy in Latvia rejected the report as unfounded and irresponsible, adding that unjustified speculation and stigmatisation is undesirable.

Visit link:

Latvian intelligence names Russia and China as biggest threats to EU and NATO - New Europe

Nato warns of Russian threat if nuclear weapons are removed from Germany – Express.co.uk

At present, an estimated 20 US B61 nuclear bombs are stored at the Buchel Airbase in western Germany. Mr Stoltenberg in a piece published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: Around the world, terrorism continues, authoritarian regimes challenge liberal democracies, and we see the proliferation of nuclear weapons to countries like North Korea, as well as the continuing aggressive actions by Russia." The NATO chief warned Moscow was making developments significantly in its military capabilities, and especially in its nuclear arsenal"

He added that this is occurring while NATO views its own nuclear deterrent as a political tool, Russia has firmly integrated its nuclear arsenal into its military strategy.

He then pointed out that Moscow has placed nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad, just 500km from Berlin".

The General added: "Russia has threatened Allies such as Denmark, Poland, and Romania with nuclear strikes.

He explained that NATOs nuclear sharing amongst member countries "is a multilateral arrangement that ensures the benefits, responsibilities, and risks of nuclear deterrence are shared among allies."

He wrote in his op-ed: Politically, this is significant. It means that participating allies, like Germany, make joint decisions on nuclear policy and planning, and maintain appropriate equipment.

The threat from Moscow was elevated after Vladimir Putin tested a new Russian hypersonic missile on a new type of strategic bomber.

The Russian air force recently tested the new hypersonic aircraft missile that is being modified for a version of the Tu-22M3M bomber aircraft.

A source told TASS news: "Recently, a new hypersonic missile was tested on the Tu-22M3.

"The missile will be part of the armament range of the upgraded Tu-22M3M along with a number of other latest aviation weapons."

The Russian defense industry has recently developed two types of aircraft hypersonic missiles.

READ MORE:Coronavirus Russia deaths: How many coronavirus cases in Russia?

See the rest here:

Nato warns of Russian threat if nuclear weapons are removed from Germany - Express.co.uk

Greek General to NATO: "There will be an accident if Turkey continues its actions" – Greek City – Greek City Times

Greek General Konstantinos Floros held two teleconferences with NATO officials in which he made it clear that Turkeys provocations in the Aegean and at Evros on the Greek-Turkish land border, will lead with mathematical precision to an accident with unforeseen consequences.

Turkeys daily aggression against Greece are obviously well known in NATO, which systematically covers it up and protects them from international scrutiny.

The danger of an accident caused by the Turkish violations in the Aegean and more broadly by Ankaras attitude towards Greece, was pointed out by Floros when he said the risk of an accident and the serious consequences that such a thing will bring is real.

More specifically, Floros held two teleconferences on Thursday.

One was at the request of the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Sir Stuart Peach, as part of the forthcoming meeting of the NATO Military Committee to be held on May 14, 2020.

The other was with the Deputy Commander of the Allied Powers in Europe, General Tim Radford, at his request and in the context of his recent assumption of office.

A number of issues were raised, such as the coronavirus and military issues.

Floros referred to the recent escalation caused by the immigration crisis in Evros and in the Aegean, that was orchestrated by Turkey.

He also discussed with the two NATO heads about Turkeys delinquent behaviour in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, as seen by the daily air traffic violations of Greeces national airspace, including overflights at Evros and on the islands, as well as the illegal marine surveys and drilling in Greeces maritime space, and the violation of the UN-imposed arms embargo on Libya, in addition to other provocative actions.

Floros also referred to the harassment of a Greek helicopter by Turkey, which was transporting him and Minister of Defence, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, as reported by Greek City Times.

Read more:

Greek General to NATO: "There will be an accident if Turkey continues its actions" - Greek City - Greek City Times

America and Britain play cold-war games with Russia in the Arctic – The Economist

NATO warships return to the icy Barents Sea for the first time in a generation

May 10th 2020

THE BARENTS SEA is not a hospitable place for visitors. Frequent snow storms ... blotted out the land for hours on end, wrote an unlucky British submariner sent there to snoop around during the cold war. We faced the beastliness of spray which turned to ice even before it struck our faces. It is no surprise, then, that American warships have kept away from the sea since the mid-1980suntil they returned last week.

Their presence is part of a steady northward creep by NATO naval forces. In 2018 the alliance, joined by Sweden and Finland, held Trident Juncture, its largest exercise since the end of the cold war, in Norway. That involved the first deployment of an American aircraft-carrier in the Arctic Circle for three decades. Western warships have been frequent visitors since. On May 1st a surface action group of two American destroyers, a nuclear submarine, support ship and long-range maritime patrol aircraft, plus a British frigate, practised their sub-hunting skills in the Norwegian Sea.

Such drills are not unusual. But on May 4th some of those ships broke off and sailed further north into the Barents Sea, along with a third destroyer. Although American and British submarines routinely skulk around the area, to spy on Russian facilities and exercises covertly, surface ships have not done so in a generation. On May 7th Russias navy greeted the unwelcome visitors by announcing that it too would be conducting exercises in the Barents Sealive-fire ones, in fact. On May 8th, having celebrated VE Day in Russias backyard and completed several days of high-end, sustained operations, the NATO vessels departed.

It is a significant move. The deployment of destroyers which carry missile-defence systems and land-attack cruise missiles is especially assertive. After all, the area is the heart of Russian naval power, including the countrys submarine-based nuclear weapons. Russias Northern Fleet is based at Severomorsk on the Kola peninsula, to the east of Norways uppermost fringes.

Western navies are eager to show that covid-19 has not blunted their swords, at a time when America and France have each lost an aircraft-carrier to the virus. But their interest in the high north predates the pandemic. One purpose of the foray into the Barents Sea was to assert freedom of navigation, said Americas navy. Russia has been imposing rules on ships that wish to transit the Northern Sea Route (NSR), an Arctic passage between the Atlantic and Pacific that is becoming increasingly navigable as global warming melts ice-sheets (see map). America scoffs at these demands, insisting that foreign warships have the right to pass innocently through territorial waters under the law of the sea. Although last weeks exercise did not enter the NSR, it may hint at a willingness to do so in the future.

On top of that, the Arctic is a growing factor in NATO defence policy. Russia has beefed up its Northern Fleet in recent years, adding air-defence systems, missile depots and new ships. Russian submarines remain outnumbered by American ones, says Michael Kofman of the Centre for Naval Analyses. But they are increasingly busy. Russian submarine activity is at its highest level since the cold war, according to NATO commanders. Ten subs reportedly surged into the north Atlantic in October to test whether they could elude detection.

The Russian Navy is much more active today than it may have been in the 1990s and 2000s, but that return was inevitable given the dearth of activity and funding at that time, says Mr Kofman. Nevertheless the build-up troubles NATO planners. Russias new subs are quiet and well-armed. As a result, the alliances acoustic edgeits ability to detect subs at longer ranges than Russiahas narrowed dramatically, notes a recent paper by Nick Childs of the International institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think-tank in London.

Russia primarily uses its attack submarines to defend a bastion, the area in the Barents Sea and Sea of Okhotsk where its own nuclear-armed ballistic-missile submarines patrol. But some NATO admirals worry that, in a conflict, some could pose a wider threat to the alliance. A separate Russian naval force known as the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI, in its Russian acronym) might also target the thicket of cables that cross the Atlantic.

The challenge is a familiar one. For much of the cold war, NATO allies sought to bottle up the Soviet fleet in the Arctic by establishing a picket across the so-called GIUK gap, a transit route between Greenland, Iceland and Britain that was strung with undersea listening posts. We will pass all of the imperialist sonar nets, and we will not be detected! declares Captain Ramius, commander of the Red October, the eponymous Soviet submarine of Tom Clancys debut novel in 1984.

The gap is now back in fashion and NATO is reinvesting in anti-submarine capabilities after decades of neglect. America has stepped up flights of P8 sub-hunting aircraft from Iceland, and Britain and Norway are establishing P8 squadrons of their own. The aim is to track and hold at risk Russian nuclear subs as early as possible, because even a single one in the Atlantic could cause problems across a large swathe of ocean.

But a defensive perimeter may not be enough. A new generation of Russian ship-based missiles could strike NATO ships or territory from far north of the GIUK gap, perhaps even from the safety of home ports. This technological development represents a dramatically new and challenging threat to NATO forces, concludes the IISS. Similar concerns led the Reagan administration to adopt a more offensive naval posture, sending forces above the gap and into the maritime bastion of the Soviet Union. Im struck by similarities with the 1980s, says Niklas Granholm of the Swedish Defence Research Agency, reflecting on the Anglo-American presence in the Barents Sea. A forward maritime strategy to get up close and personal with the Russian Northern Fleet, rather than meet them further south.

Correction (May 11th 2020): Our original map depicted the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as extending west into the Barents Sea and east into the Pacific Ocean. In fact, this depicted the North-east passage. The NSR comprises only a stretch of Russia's territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Read more:

America and Britain play cold-war games with Russia in the Arctic - The Economist

Fauci warns again about the US reopening as more evidence emerges of virus’s early spread – CNN

The onset of five Covid-19 cases in five separate counties in Ohio happened as early as January, state Health Director Dr. Amy Acton has said, citing results of antibody testing.

"I think we'll see a lot more of this. I also think there are a lot of deaths and coroner reports yet to be seen, so I think as time goes on, we will learn more and more about history with this virus," Acton said Monday.

Those milestones, which the White House recommended in mid-April, include a downward trajectory in virus cases for 14 days and a robust testing program in place for at-risk health care workers.

"If some areas, cities, states or what have you jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks," Fauci told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.

Also, a vast majority of poll's respondents were "afraid" or "concerned" (35% and 46%, respectively) about the potential for a second wave of Covid-19 cases this year, while 18% were not concerned. Those two questions in the multi-topic poll -- conducted by phone Thursday through Sunday, with 1,112 adult Americans -- had a margin of error of +/- 3.7%.

Don't expect a vaccine for the upcoming school year, Fauci says

Some other developments from Tuesday's Senate panel hearing:

School reopenings will vary from region to region because "dynamics of the outbreak are different in different regions," Fauci said.

The nation's actual death toll is likely higher than reported, Fauci said. He cited New York City, where the health care system was overwhelmed. "There may have been people who died at home (in that city) who did have ... Covid who are not counted as Covid because they never really got to the hospital."

The US should have the capacity to produce, distribute and apply "at least 40 (million) to 50 million tests per month" by September, said Adm. Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Number of inflammatory illnesses in NY children rises to around 100

New York health officials are now investigating about 100 cases of an inflammatory illness in children that might be related to Covid-19, up from 73 last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.

Three youths -- a teenager and a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old -- have died of the inflammatory illness, officials have said.

The state has said many of the children tested positive for Covid-19 or had its antibodies, but that they did not present with typical symptoms for the coronavirus disease. So health officials are investigating whether coronavirus presents a danger to children not previously understood.

The plurality of cases -- 29% -- involved children ages 5 to 9. About 28% of the patients were between 10 and 14, according to the state.

Leaders push forward with reopening

By late this week, 48 states will have relaxed at least some measures as the country moves toward reopening -- but heavy debate remains around whether it's safe to begin carving a path to normalcy just yet.

Experts and public health officials have for weeks warned a premature release of measures could drive the US death toll up by thousands.

But business owners and some local officials across the country have demanded stay-at-home orders be lifted to avoid a crash of the economy -- amid an already unprecedented amount of unemployment claims in many states.

In California, where the governor created guidelines last week for regions to meet before beginning to move forward toward reopening, officials in San Diego said their city is ready to go back to business.

"I admire the governor and the work that he's been doing but I think the standard he set last week, to not allow businesses to reopen unless the counties have gone two weeks without any deaths, is unrealistic in any urban county," San Diego Supervisor Greg Cox said. "We certainly want to work with him in a cooperative vein but we need to have standards that are attainable."

In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced he will lift the state's stay-at-home order Friday, adding the state would be moving into phase one of its reopening plan.

Restaurants, casinos, churches, hair salons and gyms are some of the businesses that can open with restrictions during that first phase, but are limited to 25% occupancy and must practice social distancing.

CNN's Jeremy Herb, Lauren Fox, Arman Azad, Amanda Watts, Jacqueline Howard, Jennifer Henderson, Alexandra Meeks, Andy Rose and Sara Sidner contributed to this report.

See original here:

Fauci warns again about the US reopening as more evidence emerges of virus's early spread - CNN