Ask the Red Wing Police Chief: Some panhandling is free speech – RiverTowns

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Ask The Chief allows readers access to useful information about law enforcement issues in Red Wing. This communication tool has been developed to enhance community policing efforts by providing residents and visitors with the opportunity to ask questions about local laws, programs and the department in general.

Submit your question to askthe.policechief@ci.red-wing.mn.us.

A: Thank you for your question, and if you observe suspicious activity, I always encourage individuals to call the non-emergency number at 651-385-3155 and report the observed behavior.

In the situation you describe, the parking lot is private property; therefore letting the store manager know is a good first step to ensure the individual did not receive permission to solicit at that location. Depending on the conduct/behavior, the solicitor could also be violating other laws such as disorderly conduct or stalking. Some panhandlers have also caused such fear in customers that the property owner may have trespassed the person from their property and police will be able to verify if the individual is trespassing or not.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that panhandling is a form of charitable solicitation on behalf of the individual and constitutionally protected speech. Solicitation on public property alone is not illegal. This has resulted in some communities creating laws that restrict aggressive solicitation and soliciting during hours of darkness.

City of Red Wing Code Section 6.22, which covers solicitors, applies only to those individuals that are selling a product or service, and does not cover donations of money with no exchange of goods or services. Minnesota Statute 169.22 Hitchhiking, Solicitation of Business makes it illegal to stand in a roadway for the solicitation from the occupants of vehicles.

Based on our discussion of panhandlers and solicitation, there may be different applications of the law that will apply; therefore it is always a good idea to talk with an attorney prior to participating in panhandling or solicitation. Police can also check on panhandling behavior to ensure it is compliant with local laws.

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Ask the Red Wing Police Chief: Some panhandling is free speech - RiverTowns

As Bernie Sanders Remains In Race, Can Biden Be Pushed to the Left? – Free Speech TV

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Sonali Kolhatkar speaks with Arun Gupta, an investigative journalist who has written for dozens of publications including the Washington Post, the Guardian, The Nation, Salon, and Raw Story.

He is also author of the forthcoming book, Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, and a regular news correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali.

Despite numerous calls for him to suspend his Presidential campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in a speech on Wednesday remained firm.

Acknowledging his campaigns failure to garner enough votes in four of the six races on Tuesday, he lamented the idea that his rival Joe Biden had benefitted from the argument of electability in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Sanders also issued a warning to the establishment Democratic Party that it is ignoring younger voters thirsty for progressive change at its peril.

Sanders also laid out just what he would be challenging Biden on during Sundays debate in Phoenix, Arizona.

Rising Up with Sonali is a radio and television show that brings progressive news coverage rooted in gender and racial justice to a wide audience. Rising Up With Sonali was built on the foundation of Sonali Kolhatkar's earlier show, Uprising, which became the longest-running drive-time radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles hosted by a woman. RUS airs on Free Speech TV every weekday.

Missed an episode? Check out Rising Up on FSTV VOD anytime or visit the show page for the latest clips.

#FreeSpeechTV is one of the last standing national, independent news networks committed to advancing progressive social change.

#FSTV is available on Dish, DirectTV, AppleTV, Roku, Sling and online at freespeech.org.

2020 Democratic Primary Arun Gupta Bernie Sanders Free Speech TV Joe Biden Politics Progressive Rising Up with Sonali Sonali Kolhatkar United States

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As Bernie Sanders Remains In Race, Can Biden Be Pushed to the Left? - Free Speech TV

Our view: Now everyone wants to fight the Nazis – The Durango Herald

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The ACLUs roots reach back to the National Civil Liberties Bureau, founded in 1917 to assist American conscientious objectors in World War I, which the organization definitely opposed. It also defended persons charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, and the more draconian Sedition Act of 1918, which neutered the First Amendment and was repealed in 1920. So the ACLUs roots are in its leftist orientation and, from its inception, in defending the Bill of Rights when it badly needed its own counsel.

Among the Liberty Bureaus founders was Roger Nash Baldwin, who served a year in prison for draft resistance himself in 1918 (and would go on to write an approving travel book in 1927, Liberty Under the Soviets). Baldwin did not think the Bureau was sufficiently vigorous or militant, so 100 years ago, on Jan. 19, 1920, he reconstituted it as the American Civil Liberties Union.

In the 1920s, the ACLU stood with the NAACP in fighting racial discrimination and, setting a pattern, it defended the Ku Klux Klans right to assemble, in 1923. One of its most frequent clients was the Communist Party USA, although that was a bumpy relationship: The CPUSA also attacked the ACLU for defending the free speech of conservatives, and of critics of the USSR, one of whom Baldwin became. In the 1940s, Baldwin purged the ACLU of Communists, a decision rescinded in 1968 in grand ACLU fashion.

But the organizations finest hour arrived 43 years ago, in the spring of 1977. Its membership had reached a high of roughly 300,000 when it intervened in a case in Skokie, Illinois, where the town, composed in significant part of Jews including Holocaust survivors, denied a march permit to the American Nazis.

The ACLU appealed for over a year before it finally prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court. There was bitter criticism of its taking the case, from groups such the Anti-Defamation League. Memberships and donations fell. But the ACLU maintained the First Amendment applied particularly to offensive and provocative speech.

A civil libertarian once observed that there ought to be a First Amendment club. To be admitted, you had to defend the speech rights of whomever you found most hateful.

The ACLU was that club.

Today, it has more than a million members. It ranks swelled after President Trump took office and issued an executive order suspending visitation by foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The ACLU sued. In two days, it raised more than $24 million online. In 2017, its proceeds from grants and donations nearly tripled from 2016, to more than $274 million.

That summer, it did another very ACLU thing and defended organizers of the now infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Members and chapters were displeased. In the era of the Trump Resistance, free speech no longer seemed an absolute good so much as a bourgeois legalism, as James Kirchik observes in Et Tu, ACLU? at Air Mail, the online magazine.

In 2018, the ACLU promulgated new case selection guidelines stating it will now consider such factors as the present and historical context of objectionable speech as well as the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values.

You could say it has the best of intentions and you might find yourself in agreement with much of the membership. The people of Skokie undeniably had good intentions in seeking to keep Nazis from marching on their streets. But it was as true then as it is today that free speech needs its own counsel.

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Our view: Now everyone wants to fight the Nazis - The Durango Herald

EARN IT Act threatens end-to-end encryption – Naked Security

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While were all distracted by stockpiling latex gloves and toilet paper, theres a bill tiptoeing through the US Congress that could inflict the backdoor virus that law enforcement agencies have been trying to inflict on encryption for years.

At least, thats the interpretation of digital rights advocates who say that the proposed EARN IT Act could harm free speech and data security.

Sophos is in that camp. For years, Naked Security and Sophos have said #nobackdoors, agreeing with the Information Technology Industry Council that Weakening security with the aim of advancing security simply does not make sense.

The first public hearing on the proposed legislation took place on Wednesday. You can view the 2+ hours of testimony here.

Called the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act (EARN IT Act), the bill would require tech companies to meet safety requirements for children online before obtaining immunity from lawsuits. You can read the discussion draft here.

To kill that immunity, the bill would undercut Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) from certain apps and companies so that they could be held responsible for user-uploaded content. Section 230, considered the most important law protecting free speech online, states that websites arent liable for user-submitted content.

Heres how the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) frames the importance of Section 230:

Section 230 enforces the common-sense principle that if you say something illegal online, you should be the one held responsible, not the website or platform where you said it (with some important exceptions).

EARN IT is a bipartisan effort, having been introduced by Republican Lindsey Graham, Democrat Richard Blumenthal and other legislators whove used the specter of online child exploitation to argue for the weakening of encryption. This comes as no surprise: in December 2019, while grilling Facebook and Apple, Graham and other senators threatened to regulate encryption unless the companies give law enforcement access to encrypted user data, pointing to child abuse as one reason.

What Graham threatened at the time:

Youre going to find a way to do this or were going to go do it for you. Were not going to live in a world where a bunch of child abusers have a safe haven to practice their craft. Period. End of discussion.

One of the problems of the EARN IT bill: the proposed legislation offers no meaningful solutions to the problem of child exploitation, as the EFF says:

It doesnt help organizations that support victims. It doesnt equip law enforcement agencies with resources to investigate claims of child exploitation or training in how to use online platforms to catch perpetrators. Rather, the bills authors have shrewdly used defending children as the pretense for an attack on our free speech and security online.

If passed, the legislation will create a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention tasked with developing best practices for owners of Internet platforms to prevent, reduce, and respond to child exploitation online. But, as the EFF maintains, Best practices would essentially translate into legal requirements:

If a platform failed to adhere to them, it would lose essential legal protections for free speech.

The best practices approach came after pushback over the bills predicted effects on privacy and free speech pushback that caused its authors to roll out the new structure. The best practices would be subject to approval or veto by the Attorney General (currently William Barr, whos issued a public call for backdoors), the Secretary of Homeland Security (ditto), and the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The bill doesnt explicitly mention encryption. It doesnt have to: policy experts say that the guidelines set up by the proposed legislation would require companies to provide lawful access: a phrase that could well encompass backdoors.

CNET talked to Lindsey Barrett, a staff attorney at Georgetown Laws Institute for Public Representation Communications and Technology Clinic who said that the way that the bill is structured is a clear indication that its meant to target encryption:

When youre talking about a bill that is structured for the attorney general to give his opinion and have decisive influence over what the best practices are, it does not take a rocket scientist to concur that this is designed to target encryption.

If the bill passes, the choice for tech companies comes down to either weakening their own encryption and endangering the privacy and security of all their users, or foregoing Section 230 protections and potentially facing liability in a wave of lawsuits.

Kate Ruane, a senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, had this to say to CNET:

The removal of Section 230 liability essentially makes the best practices a requirement. The cost of doing business without those immunities is too high.

Tellingly, one of the bills lead sponsors, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, told the Washington Post that hes unwilling to include a measure that would stipulate that encryption is off-limits in the proposed commissions guidelines. This is what he told the newspaper:

I doubt I am the best qualified person to decide what best practices should be. Better-qualified people to make these decisions will be represented on the commission. So, to ban or require one best practice or another [beforehand] I just think leads us down a very perilous road.

The EARN IT Act joins an ongoing string of legal assaults against the CDAs Section 230. Most recently, in January 2019, the US Supreme Court refused to consider a case against defamatory reviews on Yelp.

Weve also seen actions taken against Section 230-protected sites such as those dedicated to revenge porn, for one.

In March 2018, we also saw the passage of H.R. 1865, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) bill, which makes online prostitution ads a federal crime and which amended Section 230.

In response to the overwhelming vote to pass the bill it sailed through on a 97-2 vote, over the protests of free-speech advocates, constitutional law experts and sex trafficking victims Craigslist shut down its personals section.

Besides the proposed bill containing no tools to actually stop online child abuse, it would actually make it much harder to prosecute pedophiles, according to an analysis from The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. As explained by Riana Pfefferkorn, Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity, as it now stands, online providers proactively, and voluntarily, scan for child abuse images by comparing their hash values to known abusive content.

Apple does it with iCloud content, Facebook has used hashing to stop millions of nude childrens images, and Google released a free artificial intelligence tool to help stamp out abusive material, among other voluntary efforts by major online platforms.

The key word is voluntarily, Pfefferkorn says. Those platforms are all private companies, as opposed to government agencies, which are required by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search to get warrants before they search our digital content, including our email, chat discussions, and cloud storage.

The reason that private companies like Facebook can, and do, do exactly that is that they are not the government, theyre private actors, so the Fourth Amendment doesnt apply to them.

Turning the private companies that provide those communications into agents of the state would, ironically, result in courts suppression of evidence of the child sexual exploitation crimes targeted by the bill, she said.

That means the EARN IT Act would backfire for its core purpose, while violating the constitutional rights of online service providers and users alike.

Besides the EFF, the EARN IT bill is facing opposition from civil rights groups that include the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Prosperity, Access Now, Mozilla, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Fight for the Future, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, the Consumer Technology Association, the Internet Association, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

Earlier this month, Sen. Ron Wyden, who introduced the CDAs Section 230, said in a statement that the disastrous legislation is a Trojan horse that will give President Trump and Attorney General Barr the power to control online speech and require government access to every aspect of Americans lives.

Read my full statement on the disastrous EARN IT Act, which will give Bill Barr and Donald Trump more control over twitter.com/i/web/status/1

Wydens statement didnt specifically mention encryption, but his office told Ars Technica that when [the senator] discusses weakening security and requiring government access to every aspect of Americans lives, that is referring to encryption.

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The Right to Dignity in Free Speech Discourse and the Case of Omar Radi – Morocco World News

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Luxembourg Earlier this year, media coverage in Morocco shifted focus from street violence and rape into issues of defamation, injury, and free speech involving both ordinary citizens and persons of public interest. It honestly felt like a relief from raw knife fight images and ruthless sexual assault stories.

We read about the rapper Gnawi versus law enforcement officers, Mol Kaskita and his Youtube videos, and later about journalist Omar Radi versus Judge Lahcen Talfi, among a handful of other speech cases.

Though the common thread among all these cases is that they compel us to rethink how we look at free speech and the rights of others, including those we most vehemently disagree with, Omar Radi and his prosecution for tweeting negatively about a Moroccan judge is particularly interesting.

Omar Radi is not a household name like others across the Moroccan media spectrum. But for the first time in a while, Moroccan society began engaging in meaningful questions around rights, obligations, and the rule of law.

Of course, the price has been hefty. Ahead of his court appearance, in an objectively harsh measure given the nature of the liability, Radi was arrested. The justice system then reversed course, sticking to the rule of law by not criminally prosecuting Radi and set him free as he awaits trial.

The journalist rightfully received much support from different media sources out of collegial solidarity and pride for the role journalism plays in free societies. His own employer, Medias24, released a statement.

Besides the brotherhood that unites us, Omar Radi was a journalist at Medias24 and was able to make himself loved and respected during this period. He has forged strong bonds of friendship and respect with the team. He has been professional and exemplary in his work at Medias24.

And yet the statement does not address the issue at its heart. How does being loved or friendly relate to the idea of freedom of speech and rights to dignity?

The statement also quoted Karim Tazi, ahighly respected intellectual and political activist: Our country cannot avoid a major challenge. Such moments of transition are obviously sensitive and necessarily lead to excesses. In my opinion, such transitions should be managed by drawing a clear dividing line between what falls within the scope of political dialogue and what deserves repression.

Tazi continued, It is urgent that this line should become the sole recourse to violence, and that everything else should be catalogued as freedom of opinion to be dealt with through the fruitful confrontation of ideas.

By diverting the argument from its legal and ethical dimension into an ode to his character, Omars colleagues were actually doing him a disservice and depriving his cause of genuine traction and wider support.

In line with Tazis statement, there are two options to respond to Radis tweet: Either 1) call Radi names and slap him with a conspiracy theory of supporting revolutionary ideas to overthrow the system or 2) respectfully challenge Radis views through the fruitful confrontation of ideas.

Karim Tazis standpoint is premised on the classic argument that the only restriction of speech should be on speech that incites violence. This theory says any other restrictions would kill the spirit of public debate, and our free societies would, consequently, go off course towards finding the truth.

American legal theory on freedom of speech is deeply rooted in this notion. English philosopher John Stuart Mills 1859 essay On Liberty is probably the most famous literary work advocating for free speech.

The essay argues the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

Mill elaborates on his harm principle and free speech with a story about corn merchants. The claim Corn dealers are starvers of the poor! can be condoned if written in the press, but may be subject to restriction if said to an angry mob gathered outside the corn dealers house.

Mills harm principle oversimplifies free speech and its extent. The wording of Radis tweet is a denial of Judge Lahcens dignity, regardless of how flawed Lahcens rulings are.

Radi tweeted: Lahcen Talfi, judge of the Court of Appeal, executioner of our brothers, let us remember him well. In many regimes, small arms like him came back to beg afterwards, claiming to have carried out orders. No forgetting, no forgiveness for these officials with no dignity!

When I read Lets remember him, I hear a speech to an angry mob gathered around Lahcens personal and professional space. It could even put him in harms way.

Born and raised in the notorious J5 CYM neighborhood in the heart of Rabat, I know what remember means in this context. If someone says remember me, it is like serving somebody with a notice to watch out for their own safety, both hyperbolically and literally.

With such a tweet, Radi fails to hold himself accountable to Lahcen. His emotional and understandably staunch disagreement with the judges rulings cannot legitimize his harmful behavior.

As much as I would like to defend him, Omar Radi named and shamed a judge, a private citizen exercising a public service.

Was the judge doing a good job? It is definitely an open question, and everybody is entitled to participate in the debate on the efficiency of Moroccos legal system.

Some people might argue that the judge is the center of his court, and criticizing him is a critique of the court.

Here we need to set the record straight. We have to distinguish between a person of public interest and a private citizen. Judge Lahcen cannot, even remotely, be compared to the likes of former Head of Government Abdelilah Benkirane, agriculture minister Aziz Akhannouch or any similar public figure.

Those people made a choice to be publicly exposed. They do and say things subject to the rules of public debate. Such rules allow heated conversations, naming and shaming, hyperbolic accusations, etc., as part of democratically-open debates.

But those very rules do not apply when the same public figures leave politics or public space, once and for all.

A case in point was an incident involving Benkirane and a member of Rally of Independents (RNI) party led by Akhannouch.

We were all entertained by the sharp words, insults, and accusations against Benkirane. As far as I can tell, nobody was sued for defamation or injury, since Benkirane was fully aware that his job does not guarantee him a good name.

Likewise, then Government Spokesperson Mustapha El Khalfi called RNI party members at a rally in Tangier mortazika, meaning scroungers, or people who seek to make money at the expense of others or by stealth. The members filed a defamation lawsuit against El Khalfi, asking for MAD 50,000 ($5,200) in damages per member at the rally.

The case did not gain any traction and was clearly a defensive nuisance lawsuit. The rhetoric came during the peak of politicking ahead of elections and was part of an electoral campaign run by public figures within the realm of politics.

Another case makes the distinction clearer. Shortly after Benkirane resigned as head of government, a protester insulted him through an SMS, comparing him to a mule, a despicably regarded animal within Moroccan society. The defendant received a three-month sentence, serving only two after the plaintiff pardoned him.

What is the catch? First, the defendant and the plaintiff were not political opponents having a debate, nor was Benkirane functioning as a public figure. He was a strictly private citizen, fully entitled to the rights of privacy and dignity.

Second, calling someone an animal is permissible only in the right context. Benkiranes most famous political punchline uses animal equivalencycrocodilesto describe his political opponents, and yet he has never been held accountable for that in a court of law, because the metaphor was hyperbolically used as permitted by the rules of public debate. The metaphor was meant to criticize, not to demean.

In his case, Radi could have aspired to protection by the rights society grants to journalists by upholding the standards of meaningful journalism. But his amateurish tweet does not mesh with an expectation to be treated as a journalist exercising his profession.

I assume Radi, as a journalist, has access to the court ruling. He could have challenged the content of it rather than insinuating an uncalled-for revolution, especially because journalists should reflect the truth that an ordinary citizen might not be able to see.

Free speech is a mixed bag, and saying all speech in that bag is protected can be misleading. When we have cases like Omar Radis, journalists are no longer the watchers of our problems. They become the problem.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News editorial views.

Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Spiritual Enlightenment | Enlightened Beings

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The Secrets to Experiencing your Life As a True Spiritual Adventure

By Jafree Ozwald

My first glimpse of what spiritual enlightenment is all about came to me in 1995, visiting a guru in Lucknow India. For 2 weeks I was sitting with a spiritual master named Papaji, who was offering his satsang gatherings to a crowd of 300+ people. I had been meditating religiously for 6+ months prior to this meeting, trying to find peace inside myself with my fathers suicide. I feel this daily meditation practice laid the foundation for the spiritual awakening that was to occur.

The profound silence I experienced for months after this inner explosion was what created the spiritual experience for me. There was no attachment to the mind. No real commentary on anything of this world. It In that moment, the mind literally stopped all analytical thinking and was no longer interested in being hooked into any opinions or judgments about anything.

My ego (self-identity) was obliterated and there was nobody left to judge anything or anyone including myself! There was only a small witness left, an observer of the entire Universal existence. I constantly felt like I was in a state of oneness with everyone and everything.

Thoughts still happened, yet I was no longer behind the steering wheel of them and they were not nearly as intriguing as this peaceful super quiet Presence inside. Everywhere I went was amazing, life was truly heaven on earth without being identified with this me but rather the unified one Being.

I later researched the experience to uncover that it was called a Samadhi experience lasted for the next several weeks to come and became the most amazing life transforming experience of my entire life.

Life has been completely different since that day. I no longer get wrapped up in the suffering that is created by the mind because I know who I am. Yet, the mind is like a wild elephant who often tries to regain control. So I realize even though Ive tasted Samadhi, there is still MUCH more to understand, experience, learn and integrate on a conscious and energetic level. I have my entire life to integrate this experience.

I could not choose, so I surrendered to existence. There was this merging of my mind and the physical reality all around me, and had this very STRONG knowing that I was free to do anything! It was the first time I felt that I had magical manifesting abilities. I remember hearing something my father once said about anything is possible. I felt the future was wide open to something amazing because there was something guiding me. Its amazing how the Universe always knows the bigger picture and has our highest interest in mind.

I find that any being who is fully liberated from all suffering is spiritual life and one could even call them spiritually enilghtened. This person is free from seeking for happiness or satisfaction from the outer world, as they know the only thing that truly satisfies comes from the source within. I dont believe one can actually arrive at any final enlightenment finish line, as long as you are alive there is still room to evolve, grow spiritually and expand in consciousness. The Universe is an infinite playground and there truly is no end to the outer world as well as the inner.

In my experience of the spiritual path, as long as the mind is directed outwards, our energy continues to flow away from our center, our inner peace and stillness, where all real sustainable love, joy and real answers to life are found. Its only when we turn our attention to the source of our sweet calming spiritual essence on the inside, that we introduce the possibility of stopping this eternal egoic searching habit completely.

Ecstasy is our very nature; not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. ~ Osho

The reason there are not more spiritually awakened beings on the planet today is because people have forgotten how to relax, trust and enjoy their natural connection to Source. The most important direction we need to turn for answers is inside ourselves. The outer world will captivate us, and invite us to experience all its tantalizing joys and sorrows. Yet, the most radical and enlightening path to liberation is not one that falls prey to being addicted to the outer world for fulfillment, yet discovers it easily and effortlessly within.

The mind is often very blind to the fact that its the incessant searching the causes us not to see. Whenever we are not getting what we want, its because we are in a state of wanting, needing or demanding and not coming from a place of allowing, accepting or receiving. As long as we continue directing our attention only towards the outer world, wanting this and craving that, we will be forced to retreat inside ourselves to reboot. Our bodies are designed to remain in a state of balance and healing naturally.

Its the incessant stressful egoic efforting of the mind and attachment to our egoic desires which causes us to struggle, suffer, and eventually die in pain instead of having a generally calm centered spiritual existence.

If we want to experience enlightenment and fulfilling life, there must be an conscious awareness in each moment of where we are focusing our attention. We must get deeply curious every hour of our lives if we are bathing in the light of our being, fully aligned with our connection to that which brings us the deepest resource of joy, love, peace and bliss.

The spiritual enlightened state contains this healing feeling of a sweet surrender and full acceptance to the grand totality of life. It is in the relaxation into this profound truth that we realize our true infinite spiritual nature, and become super powerful manifesting magnets that effortlessly attract anything and everything our heart desires.

One of the greatest truths Ive found on the path is that this spiritual source of energy (who we actually are) is soooooo huge and all consuming that ultimately it doesnt matter if we get whatever our ego wants or doesnt want. The mind/ego will always be wanting something that it thinks will make us happy, complete or satisfied. There is no absolute completion or ultimate satisfaction to achieve at in life, this is a never ending eternal journey we are on which is spiraling higher and deeper towards total liberation and complete ecstasy.

When we look for spiritual enlightenment with the mind, we will miss it. The desiring mind cannot find it. The mind is what creates the block the enlightened state. The mind creates desires, so that when we DO get whatever our ego wants, we also are getting what we dont want as well. When any big desire is achieved, we always get both.

For example, we meet our dream partner/soul mate and later find out they have an annoying habit that we cannot stand, if we buy our new dream car it also comes with an insanely high monthly insurance rate and costly maintenance fees. If we discipline ourselves with daily exercise and get super strong and fit, we may only later experience becoming super stiff and tight from not integrating calming deep stretching yoga exercises as well. The weekend drinker who loves to party, always forgets about the horrible hangover experience that will painfully consume his/her life the next morning.

There is no single payoff from achieving any desire in this world that does not also have a cost to it. Even if we think weve found our perfect dream life, theres always going to be some perpetual feeling of the gratitude of it all, to keep your mind happy, peaceful and at a vibration that can reach an even better life next year. We all exist in the world of duality, male/female, black/white, daytime/nighttime, the opposites are everywhere we can look.

Spiritual enlightenment is the joyous liberating realization that the ego will always get want it focuses on, and it will never be satisfied enough. It get what it wants, and then wants more. We cannot escape from living in between these two poles that are not fully contradictory, yet rather better understood as complementary of each other. We are the rainbow spectrum in between the black and white extremes of the light.

The spiritually enlightened being is at peace between both extremes. Getting and not getting. There is also total freedom of choice in each moment as to what is wanted to explore and experience. The spiritually enlightened being releases there is a chooser behind it all, who can decide to have the experience of avoiding things, clinging to ideas, or simply relax and let the natural movement of lifes pendulum guide us along the way.

When one is spiritually enlightened, there is a constant appreciation for life just as it is. It doesnt matter if the ego is getting what it wants or does not want anymore. This feeling is one of the most spiritually enlightening and liberating experiences to explore.

When we realize that life is always, always, always going to deliver a win-lose experience with every desire we jump after, we start to relax about the whole game and drop into something deeper inside.

Initially, the first step on this ego-less path can feel like apathy. The mind starts thinking whats the point of life if we always get what we want AND what we dont want, and never ONLY just the goodies. Yet, apathy also will soon fall away when we feel that the nature of desire is pure suffering (not having) and that finding peace with desire is the ultimate goal.

Your essence, your essential unbounded joy, is so huge that it flows in every direction. Nirmala

Desires simply manifest them more easily when we are not attached to them in any way. The ride through life is also much more enjoyable along the way when we know the secret to being at peace with the mind and its incessant desiring seeking habit. When we understand that every single time we achieve a desire we will always get both what we want AND dont want, we stop being so forceful, manipulative, and pushing our will on the world to making things flow OUR way.

When your spiritual enlightenment is integrated, the ego has the power of a shadow. It follows you wherever you go, yet it has no real voice over yours. It has stopped being so greedy, needy, and full of selfish demands and clingy egoic agendas. This is when real freedom happens!

I find one of the best approaches to dealing with our desires is knowing that once we do get a desire manifested, we must be emotionally prepared to receive the opposing negative by-product as well. This doesnt mean we cannot celebrate achieving anything in life and be outrageous about it. In fact, we must go fully into appreciation if we want to continue expanding our manifesting magnet power.

We must let go into our greatest joyful expression, not holding back on any level, while having awareness of the knowledge that soon there will be the mysterious flip side showing up, that brings everything back to even neutral balance.

Lifes problems may be complicated, yet the answers are always very simple. ~Unknown

My teacher once told me life is like a gambling casino where you always win whatever you bet. If you bet $10, you get $10 back each time. There is always an even outcome, a perfect balance to life which makes everything fair in the end. Hidden inside every beautiful wave is a dark undertow. Once we are conscious and aware of the nature of duality, our incessant craving and yearning for our desires to be met will subside for good. It is then that we will discover the most enlightening exploration of all.

A life of perpetual relaxation within ourselves where we can enjoy the grace and ease of simply being alive. The day we discover how to remain relaxed into our true essence, our essential real nature, the greatest freedom and enlightening path will be revealed. For more insights into this, please read my blog post on How to Experience Spiritual Enlightenment.Spiritual enlightenment happens when you are in a state of no-mind, where the mind is so calm and at ease that it seems to disappear and only the witness remains. When your mind has completely let go of this world, and is completely non-attached to everything in it from a place of love, peace and compassion, then and only then are you truly free.

The mind is our greatest cause of suffering, and is what allows us to be liberated from it. It is the great mechanism we need to transcend all thinking and discover the awesome natural state of bliss within.

We crazy spiritual seekersspending our lives trying to awaken, instead of resting in the awakening that is already here now and always. ~Kathleen McCarthy

If you want to reach the state of spiritual enlightenment, the first thing you want to do, is stop doing. Stop doing whatever you are trying to accomplish in your life for this moment. Stop thinking, stop efforting, and stop trying to achieve anything for a few moments right now.

Just trust this experience. Let go of ALL your intense inner efforting for the rest of today. Just for today, relax into your body and realize in your heart of hearts that you are an Infinite Being and will never die. Allow for this one simple truth to be found in each experience today and a dynamic shift in your consciousness will occur.

Secondly, know that each experience you have in life is the right experience. Every lesson you are here to learn is being provided to you through each life experience. Remember, nothing is by chance. The Universe is constantly giving you all the consciousness you need to embrace each experience and each experience is designed to awaken, enlighten and empower you.

When your interpretation of each experience includes the knowing that there IS a divine energy who loves and accepts you just as you are, you can never have a bad experience. The Universe is an infinitely intelligent and conscious energy which is always supporting you to awaken into your greatest potentiality.

The jiva (individual soul) who is called I does not really exist; if he exists at all, then he is just the Supreme Reality. ~Ramana

Our problems, anxieties, and personal issues are like particles of sand in between our toes. Depending how we walk they either grind at us or massage our feet. Your problems are always your greatest spiritual teachers in disguise. Explore each of them with a childlike curiosity and they will reveal themselves as the brilliant messengers that they are.

You have a greater wisdom inside you that simply needs a bit of nurturing and compassion. If you feel stuck and cannot see what your issues/problems are, simply practice being grateful for whatever is in your life right now and enjoy it!

The individual, the world and God are illusory creations in the Supreme Reality, like the snake in the rope, knowing thus, be happy in unity with that blissful One, by dissolving the three in Him. ~Ramana

If a certain problem or issue keeps arising in you and will not go away, sit with it. Face it directly and ask yourself, What is the exact issue I would like more clarity and understanding about? Write it down and voice it out loud. Find out what this issue sound like and talk with this other voice inside you who is creating this issue.

Listen. Pay attention to what is underneath the mental chatter happening in your head. It is pointing you towards the divine answer. Follow it with curiosity and let it show you the way through. Each issue in your life repeats itself because it is unlearned and ignored. Once you pay attention to the wake up call by realizing the infinite being you really are, your problems will dissolve immediately and spiritual enlightenment presents itself as your natural state of being!

Close your eyes and see it there. Be silent and have a taste of it. Your very nature is what I call enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something alien, outside you. It is not somewhere else in time and space. It is you, your very core. ~Osho

Allow your body to soften and your mind to open. You are about to go on an amazing inner journey of self-discovery! Be aware that a spiritual awakening is about to take place in your life. Imagine what that will feel like. A child-like curiosity and exploration will provide you with everything youll need to know.

Whatever suffering is occurring in your life, is because youre dwelling on it. Right nowstop focusing on it. Let it go! Look deeper within yourself. Notice how big and bright your consciousness truly is! Make time today to release the emotional negativity youre dwelling on. Write down the things you are worried about, afraid of happening, are always tolerating, or where you feel stuck in your life. When youre all empty, write on the back of that paper what WANT to manifest and focus on instead! You can choose to have fun in your life at anytime.

My personal experience of Spiritual Enlightenment began in 1995 in India. I fell into a state of pure awareness that is free from the chattering mind and connected with the infinite all loving powerful Source. In this enlightened state, I realized that the world is absolutely perfect as it is.

In this state, you feel, see, and experience the divine order in everything. There is a great warm love in your heart all the time and every action in your life becomes very very easy because your essence is always at ease.

The awesome state of Spiritual Enlightenment occurs naturally when we deepen in our sadana (spiritual practice) and are consistent with it. A constant focus towards the unlimited source of love, consciousness and power creates a more enlightened, empowered, loving state of being in you. When you have raised your vibration enough, your mind will relax and see the blessing in everything. This relaxation is a state of emptiness where you are surrendered to the vastness of this infinite Universe.

Are you ready to expand your consciousness and tap into the Divine Source within you? Get ready to open your mind and relax deeper than you have ever relaxed inside! Youre about to discover the spiritual experience and finally find freedom from suffering here on Earth.

Supreme states of bliss are available to you now! This highly advanced spiritually enlightened state of being is easy to access when you are raising your vibration daily. The Super Manifesting Program does just that! Youll open your mind and heart chakra to a whole new level and drop into the spiritual enlightenment you are meant to experience.

Thank you for tuning in. May the most spiritually enlightening and deeply life transformative experiences come your way

In history, more people have become enlightened on the full moon than any other time of the month. If you are a serious meditator and wish more than anything to find freedom from suffering, do this meditation every evening before the full moon. Sit for as long as you possibly comfortably can. It will prepare your body for the intensely high and low emotional energies that will arrive with each full moon.

Sit in an upright position and relax every muscle inside your body, especially the jaw, hands and mouth.

To quiet the mind chatter, breathe deeply into your heart and make a sighing sound of relief with each exhalation. Then breathe into your belly and make a sound, and then your sex center, and then all 3 centers together. Make a sighing sound of relief with each center on your exhalation.

Repeat this cycle 3 times, and allow the body to become perfectly still and silent, like a slow breathing statue.

Be unfocused. When the mind focuses on something relax into your Presence. Explore what it feels like to let everything be as it is.

Rest deeply inside your core, and be at peace with everyone as they are and everything that is.

The planets collective consciousness is growing exponentially! The amount of free resources being distributed via social online media is forcing the worlds eyes to open wide so we can all see clearly what needs to occur.

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Spiritual Enlightenment | Enlightened Beings

Where Is Our World Heading? – Chapter 29 of Positivity Bias – Chabad.org

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The Rebbe once said to a Gerer Chasid namedRabbi Neiman, The world says that I am crazy about Moshiachand they areabsolutely right!

Indeed, if there is one thing that the Rebbe and Chabadin general are known for, it is their fervent belief in the imminent arrival ofMoshiach. This teleological driving force was at the root of everything theRebbe said and did. But what does this actually mean, and what does it have todo with the Rebbes Positivity Bias?

Without getting too deep into the finer points of Jewishphilosophy and prophecy, Moshiach is the main developing character, bothperpetually absent and potentially present at all times, throughout our storyof Creation and Redemption. His inevitable arrival will signal the ultimateredemption and goal of history, when the world will be made right and truthwill be as clear as day for all to see.

The Rebbes belief in Moshiachas the culmination of the Divine/human drama gave him and all those he inspiredmore than a hope, but rather a vivid faith in the ultimately positive outcometo all of the worlds bitter exiles and alienations.

A foundational aspect of this is that we all have ourwork cut out for us in order for it to occur; we are charged with spirituallypreparing ourselves and the world for redemption. From this perspective,history has been a millenia-long crash-course on bringing Moshiach into ourmidst from out of the hovering realms of pure poetic potential.

It is this very combination of belief in Gds ultimategoodness and in our own personal power to positively impact the world thatforms the basis of the Rebbes Positivity Bias.

The Rebbe believed that we are living in Messianic times.From when he was a small child, the Rebbe dreamed of that imminent great day,and despite the immensely challenging times he lived through, he never stoppednursing that dream. In a letteraddressed to Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, the second president of Israel, the Rebbe wrote:

From the time when I was a child attendingcheder, and even earlier than that, there began to take form in my mind avision of the future redemptionthe redemption of Israel from its last exile,redemption such as would explain the suffering, the decrees, and the massacresof exile.

In many ways, this dream is what made the Rebbe uniqueamong other towering Jewish figures of our time. Most leaders see their lifeand impact in terms of their specific generation, but the Rebbe viewed his rolethrough the wider lens of history in its entirety. He saw his generation as awhole, while at the same time also as a small but critical part of a muchlarger super-structure and meta-process.

Therefore, wherever you look in the Rebbes teachings,there it is: the dream of Moshiach. Sometimes implicit, but more oftenexplicit, in almost every one of his talks and letters, the Rebbe reveals theaspiration that is closest to his heart: A burning desire to see our imperfectworld enter into an era of peace and wholeness, devoid of war and suffering,replete with revealed goodness and the pursuit of Gdly knowledge.

Indeed, the Rebbe most clearly articulated the contoursof this dream on the very night he assumed the mantle of Chabad-Lubavitchleadership, 10 Shevat, 5711 (1951), in his discourse entitled Bati Lgani.

In this, his first public teaching as Rebbe, he citescenturies of Midrashic history, revealing this worlds ultimate importance toGd as His garden and most-desired abode, as well as its simultaneousspiritual vacancythe Shechinah (the DivinePresence) is in exilewaitingto be welcomed back home. And this is where we come in. As Gds entrustedgardeners, it is our job to maintain and cultivate the world for Gdseternal residence.

In the words of the Rebbe on the very night he assumedthat name, after thousands of years of baby steps and quantum leaps, going allthe way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it is up to us to completethe job and usher in the final redemption.

There it is: The Rebbes world-redeeming dream. Nothingless than bringing humanity across the finish line of history and ushering inthe Messianic era.

But how?

One of the axiomatic teachings regardingMoshiach that the Rebbe would often share is that Moshiach willnot come to change reality; rather, he will expose reality for what it trulyis.

In support of this idea, he would often say that theHebrew word for exile has the same letters as the Hebrew word for redemptionexcept for the addition of the letter alef. Alef is the very first letter in the Hebrewalphabet.

Numerically, alef equals oneand therefore represents the Divine Oneness inherent within all of reality.

Paradoxically, the word elef,spelled the same as alef, means one thousand,implying multiplicity. Furthermore, the letter alef isessentially silent, having no sound of its ownmerely giving breath to vowelsand voice to movement.

Alef, therefore, represents thesilent presence of ultimate unity concealed beneath the surface of the strivingand suffering world of multiplicity, just waiting to be revealed. Moshiach willempower us all to hear and see the silent and invisible alefin exile, thereby transforming it into redemption, once and for all.

In this seemingly simple word-play, the Rebbe is pointingout a powerful paradigm shift in our understanding of Moshiach.

Moshiach does not mean the articulation of a totallydifferent word or world. The letters or infrastructure of our lives and theuniverse will fundamentally stay the same, except that the alefwill be revealed, quietly smiling at us out of the tumult of our experiences,revealing the garden of oneness within.

The Rebbe was once asked: If you could chooseany era in history in which to live, which would it be?

This one, he answered immediately.

Throughout his myriad spiritual teachings, his inspiringpersonal interactions, and his bold public outreach projects, the Rebbespiritually developed and actively expressed the idea that we are the lastgeneration of exile and the first of Redemption.

We are thus living on the transitional cusp of anunfathomable evolution of consciousnessa spiritual revolution. This is both anunbelievable privilege and an awesome responsibility, as our individual andcollective lives are literally and metaphorically laying the final stones forthe bridge between exile and redemption.

Based on this eschatological understanding of where weare in the process of history, the Rebbe saw the signs of Moshiachs imminentarrival everywherefrom world events to social trends, and advances intechnology and medicine. From his inaugural address, and on thousands ofoccassions thereafter, the Rebbe declared it his mission to empower others tosee the world through a similar lens, to understand and appreciate the natureof the miraculous and meaningful times we are living through, to get a glimpseof the hidden alef within the world and eventsswirling around us.

Traditionally, the vast multitude of Biblical propheciesrelating to the redemption have been viewed through a supernatural lens, andwere thus considered as being irreconcilably removed from our daily reality andexperience. They were understood as miraculous aberrations, and therefore asclear signs of Divine intervention.

Today, however, according to the Rebbe, many of theprophesied miracles pertaining to the Messianic era have begun to come intoexistence at varying degrees of actualization. As such, the fulfillment of thewords of the prophets no longer requires a wild imagination or blind leap offaith to behold. According to the Rebbe, it is more a matter of opening oureyes to see beneath the surface of natural events and advances, in order torecognize the Hand of the Creator at work in history.

For instance:

The Rebbe saw in the rise of feminism the beginningstages of Jeremiahs prophecy: For the Lrd has createdsomething new on the earth, a woman shall rise above a man.

In many countries and cultures the world over there hascontinued to be a general shift in the direction of including and advancingwomens voices, issues, and rights. Today, women are increasingly gainingpolitical power and make up more than a fifth of members of national parliaments,and counting.

Similarly, as we have explored, the Rebbe saw in theemergent counterculture of the 1960s, many examples of prophesiedsocio-generational shifts and conflicts that would occur leading up to thearrival of Moshiach; for example, the words of Isaiah that theyouth will be insolent and rebellious towards their elders.

Rather than interpreting those words apocalyptically, theRebbe chose to focus on the potential positive outcomes of such radicalexpressions of youth, and thereby sought to validate them and strengthen theirgood points.

The Rebbe, along with various other Chasidic leaders,including his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe, felt what they considered tobe the beginnings of the birth pangsof Moshiach in the various cataclysmic events of the 20th century, particularlyWorld War II.

In related fashion, the Rebbe sawthe Six-Day War, and the corresponding mass spiritual awakening and immigrationof impassioned Jews moving to Israel, as a symbolic nod to Isaiahs prophecythat It will come to pass on that day that the great shofarwill sound. The prophecygoes on to describe the in-gathering of Jews lostand dispersed in exile, as they return to Jerusalemin the final redemption.

With the appearance of various communication technologiesover the course of the 20th centuryfrom the phone to radio to television tothe beginnings of the internetthe Rebbe saw the potential, not for morediscord and confusion, but for more communication and connection. Additionally,with the introduction of the World Wide Web, by making all informationaccessible to the furthest reaches of the globe, the groundwork has been laidfor the world to be filled with the word of Gd,literally!

This redemptive view of the world is the ultimateexpression of the Rebbes Positivity Bias. Wars, revolutions, uprisings, rapidshifts in consciousnessas unsettling as these things may be to our lives inthe moment and to the established order of the dayare ultimately leading ustowards a more perfect union, a higher system of truth and harmony. This wasthe unyielding faith of the Rebbe.

The Time is now! The world is ready formore light!Are we?

Can we keep our composure and direction amid what appearsto be the madness of a new world being born? Can we hold on to the promise ofgoodness and Gdliness revealed? Can we see through the brokenness and not losehope? This takes work and faith. The work of developing and maintaining apositive outlook to keep moving toward the light. We need faith that the sparksreally are there, waiting to be acknowledged and uplifted.

Indeed, despite what the pessimists will have us believe,we are actually living in unprecedented good times. Rather than regressing,which is what it often feels like, our world is progressing, and at breakneckspeed. But it often takes the cultivation of a positive and expansive outlookto see the resplendent forest through the smoldering trees.

In January 2018, Time Magazine welcomed Bill Gates as its first guest editor inits 94-year history. Gates designed the edition around a mindset that he hadendorsed for years: optimism. He then invited the worlds greatest minds andexperts on world progress to share their findings. In an interview he gaveexplaining why he decided to edit an issue of Time,he explained:

Reading the news today doesnt exactly leave you feelingoptimistic. But many of the awful events we read about have happened in thecontext of a bigger, positive trend. On the whole, the world is getting muchbetter.

This is not some naively optimistic view; its backed bydata.

According to Swedish economic historian named JohanNorberg, who wrote an important book on the topic called Progress:

If someone had told you in 1990 that over the next 25years world hunger would decline by 40%, child mortality would halve, andextreme poverty would fall by three quarters, youd have told them they were anaive fool.

But the fools were right. This is truly what hashappened.

And not just that:

For most of human history worldwide, life expectancy wasaround thirty years. Today, in most developed parts of the world, it is overeighty. By 2030, it will reach over ninety years in certain parts of the world.

In the 1990s there were more than 60,000 nuclear armsaround the world, but by 2018, that number had fallen to approximately 10,000nuclear arms.

Two hundred years ago, 90% of the world lived in extremepoverty; today that number is 10%.

Indeed, according to the prominent Israeli publicintellectual Yuval Harari, more people die today from eating too much than fromeating too little.

Through too many medical advances to count, today thelame are dancing with the aid of prosthetics, the blind can see, as 80% ofvisual impairment has already been cured,and through stem cell research scientists are well on their way to curingdeafness,bringing to life the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deafunstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer.

As pointed out by the Rebbe in one of his talks,even the UN, despite its many intrigues and imperfections, channeled thisMessianic energy of the time when it decided to prominently display theprophetic words of Isaiah: And then they will beat their swords into ploughshares, andnations will learn war no more in the entrance hall, expressing anintention to work towards the redemptive cause of lasting international peace.

The list goes on. And each new miracle reveals thefulfillment on some level of yet another prophetic vision related to thedawning of the Messianic age of Redemption according to our prophets of old.

Gates concludes his interview: This issue of Time [is] a crash course in why and how the world isimproving. I hope youll be inspired to make it even better.

On a cold Tuesday night in February, 1992,just two years before passing away at the age of 92, the Rebbe could be seenstanding at the front of Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway for hoursand hours on end. Personally greeting the thousands who had lined up, the Rebbehanded each person a freshly printed copy of what would be the very lastdiscourse he edited and distributed before his passing.

Opening with the verse (Exodus 27:20) VeatahTetzavehAnd you will connect/commandthis discourse has come tobe considered the Rebbes last ethical will and testament.

Along with his first public discourse, Bati Lgani, it provides a kind of bookend to the more thanforty years of his transformational teachings.

In it, among many other things, the Rebbe acknowledgesand articulates certain unique historical and spiritual aspects of Jewishexperience in the current day and age. The Rebbe cited the well-known rabbinicmetaphor comparing the Jew to an olive, because his inner oil and light areonly revealed when he is crushed. The Rebbe then states that historicallyspeaking, the Jewish People were most productive and pious when they werecrushed through harsh decrees, oppressions, and massacres.

These externally-imposed conditions activated asuper-rational dimension of the soul, which allowed our ancestors to stubbornlyand miraculously hold fast to their Jewish traditions and faith in the face ofdeath, disgrace, and ostracization.

But we are all familiar with the saying, It is easier tofight for ones principles than to live up to them. According to the Rebbe,this is precisely the existential situation in which contemporary Jews findthemselves. For now, with the disappearance of the vast majority of daily,systematic threats to the Jewish ways of life, the modern Jew is faced with aneven bigger challenge: To find the inspiration within to be willing to live asa Jew, and not just to be willing to die as one.

Additionally, following the European Enlightenment, thegeneral societal trend in the Western World has been a decrease in organizedexpressions of religiosity and a corresponding increased slide towards secularhumanism. While outwardly this may appear to many as a sign of spiritualdegeneration, the Rebbe recognized it for the opportunity that it was. For thisis but another way in which the Jew of today is free of many of the externalpressures to engage and express his commitment to Jewish faith and identitythat prevailed in the past. The modern Jew, according to the Rebbe, isincreasingly left to his or her own devices to connect with their Jewishcommunity, heritage, and tradition.

The Rebbe saw Jewish history through the lens of a humanlife. Like a baby, whose first steps and development require constant hands-onattention and reassuring affection, the Jewish People in their national infancyduring Biblical times required overt miracles and revealed Gdliness to helpthem learn to walk out of Egypt. This spiritual caretaking continued as Israelgrew up through Divine revelations, and under the wing of priests and prophets,judges and kings. But as time passed, the Jewish People continued to maturespiritually, and along with this maturation the revealed presence andprovidence of Gd diminished correspondingly. This journey has created the conditionsfor us to grow into our own faith and develop a connection with Gd and aspiritual worldview that comes from within, without external pressure or evenrevelation. This has given us the exceptional opportunity to manifest theultimate, deepest, and highest level of faith.

For so long as a Jews compliance with the Will of Gdis externally motivatedhowever commendable such motivation is in itselfit isnot yet quite complete, said the Rebbe in 1991.

Indeed, it is clear from many public talks andpronouncements during this period, that the Rebbe was very consciouslypreparing his followers and future admirers for his departure. Through it all,one radical message consistently rings loud and clear: We all must becomeself-starters. We cannot rely on help from without, not even throughfaith-awakening hardship, let alone external positive support, constantguidance, and new teachings. We must find that eternal light within our ownsouls and ignite it, not once, but over and over again, through good deeds, thecultivation of a positive and providential perspective, and passionateexpressions of holiness and faith.

What else can I do so that all Jewish People shouldagitate, truthfully cry out, and effectively bring Moshiach in actuality. Weare still in exile. and more importantly, in an internal exile with regards toserving Gd, cried out the Rebbe in the spring of 1991. The only thing I cando is give it over to you: Do all you can to actually bring our righteousMoshiach, immediately and directly. I have done my part, from now on you mustdo all that you can.

Perhaps, in statements such as these, the Rebbe wasalluding to the fact that the time had come, and we were now ready, for each ofus to become a tzaddik and reveal the Rebbe within.

In the winter of 1992, around the same time as thepublication of Vatah Tetzaveh, Gabriel Erem, the CEOand publisher of Lifestyles Magazine, approached theRebbe as he distributed dollars. On the occasion of your 90th birthday, Eremtold the Rebbe, we are publishing a special issue What is your message to theworld?

Ninety, the Rebbe replied, is the value of the Hebrewletter tzaddik. The meaning of the word tzaddik, is a truly righteous person, [the highestspiritual attribution]. And that is a direct indication that it is in the powerof every Jew to become a real tzaddik, a righteousperson, and indeed they should do so for many years, until 120 (for the restof their life).

This message, the Rebbe added, applies equally tonon-Jews as well.

Traditionally, the word tzaddikhas been applied exclusively to saintly leaders of exceptional spiritualstature, but in this instance, and increasingly towards the end of his life,the Rebbe applied it to everyone.

It is no longer enough for an elite caste of holy leadersto tend to Gds garden. We must, each and every one of us, accept Gdsinvitation to play our role in the final phase of the meta-historical drama ofworld redemption.

This democratization of Divine responsibility isprecisely the paradigmatic shift the Rebbe sought to inspire and strengthenwithin each individual, the Jewish People, and humanity as a whole.

From the redemptive dream of a precocious child to adaring vision of cosmic renewal, the stories and teachings explored throughoutthe course of this book all in some sense culminate in the Rebbes clarion callto action:

Our generation is uniquely positioned to calibrate theconditions for monumental shift. The future is up to each one of us. Become thetzaddik you already are. The world is Gds garden;we are each its humble gardeners. Care for it and beautify it in the way thatonly you can.

We are no longer waiting for Moshiach, Moshiach iswaiting for us!

A new day is approaching; lets awakenthe dawn.

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Where Is Our World Heading? - Chapter 29 of Positivity Bias - Chabad.org

Altered perspectives: The ‘interactive’ Okinawan garden – The Japan Times

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If Japanese landscape gardeners looked toward mountains and river valleys for inspiration in creating the rock arrangements that form the power grids of their gardens, infusing natural elements with Taoist and Buddhist principles, it is likely that Okinawans cast their eyes over the seas that surround their subtropical islands, finding in their marine gardens models for terrestrial forms.

Where Japanese gardeners, in their pre-Shinto, animistic phase, sought out waterfalls, forest glades and pebble beaches, requisitioning these spaces as proto gardens or purified clearings where the gods could be summoned and petitioned, the ancient Okinawans, without any notion of arranged landscapes functioning as magnetic fields for the spirits, allotted groves, rocks, cliffs and crevices called utaki as manifestations of the sacred.

Rather than being spiritual conductors, or metaphysical platforms for the representation of abstract Buddhist concepts, the stone elements of Okinawan gardens, created much later than mainland counterparts, would serve the more aesthetically pleasing function of reflecting the marine, flora and geological aspects of the islands. Where the white gravel and sand placed around stones in ancient sites symbolized an arranged but natural order conducive to worship and ritual where later stone gardens associated with temples, stood for the boundary between the sacred and the human the Okinawan version of landscape design invited interaction.

When Ono-no-Imoko, head of a diplomatic mission to China, returned to Japan in A.D. 607, he brought with him a detailed commentary on garden methods practiced in the Middle Kingdom. As an independent sovereign entity, but also a vassal state of China, emissaries and scholars of the Ryukyu Kingdom (present-day Okinawa), exposed for long periods to Chinese culture, would have likewise returned with garden prototypes, notes and sketches that would be applied to Okinawan landscape designs. In this context, a visit to Fukushu-en, a Chinese garden in Naha, is instructive. Here, the fabulist rocks, floating pavilions, arched bridges and clusters of banana frond, cycads, bird nest fern and ripening bamboo, strike a chord with Okinawan landscaping, whose designs are closer to the gardens of retired Chinese administrators in Suzhou than the temples or tea gardens of Kyoto.

Bougainvillea highlight an old coral garden wall on Taketomi Island, Okinawa. | STEPHEN MANSFIELD

The clearest example of a garden closely modeled on Chinese principles, but with strong native elements, is Shikina-en in Naha. Destroyed in the battle of Okinawa in 1945, the circuit garden was faithfully reassembled in the postwar period from surviving stones and masonry. The formal grounds of the original garden, serving as a second residence for the royal family and a guest villa for visiting dignitaries from China, was completed in 1799.

The choice of stones, reflecting the Chinese preference for jagged, spiny rocks with pitted surfaces, hollows, cavities and blowholes, reflects a quite different aesthetic to that of many Japanese gardens, where surfaces are darker, smoother to the touch and more understated. The elegant, hexagonal Rokkaku-do, reminiscent of water pavilions found in Chinese gardens, is approached via a short bridge made from sekitangan (Ryukyu coral stone), a material common to many Okinawan gardens. A large causeway crossing the pond is another Chinese allusion, the span replicating the bridge that crosses a dike running through the Western segment of Hangzhou Bay.

Chinese landscape designers were, arguably, the first to conceive of gardens as spaces for literary discourse and as devices for meditation. Lao Zi, a sixth-century B.C. Taoist philosopher, understood the garden as a spiritual site that could induce a state of emptiness conducive to enlightenment.

Garden guardians: Lion-dog statues are common features at the entrance to Okinawan homes. | STEPHEN MANSFIELD

No such elevated aspirations were applied to Okinawan gardens such as Shikina-en. The adoption of Chinese garden principles and forms in Okinawa resulted in landscapes that, despite the existence of symbolic elements and the articulation of space according to the dictates of feng shui, or geomancy, served primarily aesthetic and visual ends. Where in the Chinese garden a construct like the Rokkaku-do might have been erected for the purpose of admiring the sound of the rain or to listen to the wind racing across a pond, the water pavilion here serves an essentially ornamental function. It is doubtful that Okinawans have ever seriously viewed their gardens as embodiments of philosophical allegories, or as incarnations of Buddhist or Taoist worldviews.

Though less given to metaphysics or abstraction, the chiaroscuro of charcoal shadows, or the notion of stones as seats of the luminous divinities that typify the temple gardens of Japan, Okinawan gardens do not represent a disintegration of meaning, or an abandonment of symbolism, but rather an emphasis on form and materials.

There are, of course, exceptions. In the stone garden of the Sadakichi Shinjo Residence on Miyako Island, we find a garden that, in its random, haphazard placement of rocks, resembles an eruption of vertical lava deposits, an accidental rebellion against form.

Intensely ornamented, the steep rock face at Kin Towns hanging bonsai garden in Okinawa. | STEPHEN MANSFIELD

One looks equally quizzically at the Hanging Bonsai Garden in Kin-cho, situated along the east coast of Okinawas main island. Also known as the Limestone Cave, Bonsai Garden and Cafe Gold Hall, the complex, created by Matsuzo Gibo in the 1960s and now run by his grand-daughter, Sayuri Shimabukuro, defies easy explanation. Inspired by an urge to protect Okinawan bonsai, the trees alongside other plantings and the liberal presence of ornamentation that includes shisha (lion-dog statues), mythological goddesses, Chinese-style Buddha statues and phoenixes are approached by passing through a limestone cave. This disgorges visitors onto a ledge, overhung with a steep limestone cliff, on which bonsai, cycads, birds-nest ferns and miniature waterfalls congregate. Its an extraordinary sight, underscored by the soaring verticality of the crustal rock face.

Unlike Shikina-en, whose reassembled elements feel more contemporary, the rocks in Miyara Dunchi, a stone garden on Ishigaki Island, resemble disused machine parts, where the welding has become rusty, jammed up and immutable. At first glance, Miyara Dunchi, Japans southernmost formal garden, appears to be the creation of a Chinese sorcerer or Daoist recluse, its fabulist forms and saturated patinas the result of 200 years of tropical erosion. Commissioned by a magistrate named Miyara Peichin Toen in 1819, the gardens adjoining residence is the oldest extant example of a samurai-style villa in Okinawa. The time-worn, salt-encrusted verandah looks out onto stone clusters resembling Chinese rockeries, rock piles that, in their wrinkled and perforated forms, evoke offshore formations and coastal cliffs. In place of the lotuses, chrysanthemums and willow trees of the Chinese garden, are fallen bougainvillea and hibiscus petals, birds-nest ferns growing in the crevices of rocks, the glossy fronds of cycads, a line of typhoon resistant fukugi trees and the ghostly roots of the ficus tree.

Writers, designers and landscape specialists have paid little serious attention to Okinawan gardens. One looks in vain for equivalents to the lavish coffee table books, manuals of design theory or learned treatise devoted to the Japanese gardens that grace the shelves of bookshops or the reading lists of online stores. Earnest discussion on the innovation or direction of the Okinawan garden is practically nonexistent. These radiant, sun-lit plots have, it seems, little appeal for garden academics.

This is an odd omission, arguably attributable to the perception of Okinawan gardens as either a minor niche genre or an essentially non-Japanese form.

Bougainvillea highlight an old coral garden wall on Taketomi Island, Okinawa. | STEPHEN MANSFIELD

Traditional, privately owned gardens in mainland Japan, viewed from inside the house or from wooden decks, function less as living spaces, than as impeccable, carefully framed and composed galleries. Okinawan private gardens by contrast, are intended for use and interaction. People sit drinking beer and awamori Okinawas rice-based firewater beneath shady trees, on white plastic chairs, or on their tile or wood verandas and decks. Signs of old wells, weather-beaten wooden tables, piles of damaged roof tiles, garden hoses and clay pots often convey a messy impression, simply because these are thoroughly functional spaces. Within the garden walls, which are plot boundaries rather than design confinements, the owner has complete freedom over content. If a rock sits in the middle of a medicinal herb patch or a cement water tank at the center of a banana grove, then so be it. Less places to contemplate nature than to make contact with it, locals sit and chat under the shade of trees, smelling nature, feeling it ripple over their skin.

Bracts of the hanging heliconia, a floral element in the tropics | STEPHEN MANSFIELD

The garden adage that one should avoid combining colors that intensify each other in preference for more subtle fusions, does not apply to Okinawa, where vibrancy is valued. Contrary to gardens where flowers are used to calm and soothe the mind and spirit, Okinawan flowers and the environments they are placed in, have an energizing, revitalizing effect, one that is visually and emotionally gratifying. Long sunshine hours and abundant rain create miniature rainbows under the foliage, prismatic effects that are not only spellbinding to see, but act as fertilizer rays, providing light and heat to the undersides of plants.

Familiar flowers one would find in arboretums around the world begonias, gardenias and ixora are common to Okinawa. The islands are home to many exotics with startling blossoms and bracts, including red ginger (a native of the Moluccas and Melanesia), bromeliads, cordylines, the synthetic gloss of the pink and red spathes of the anthurium, the flower spikes of wild costus and heliconias (a plant noted for its unique form). The papery leaves, or bracts of the bougainvillea, are ubiquitous in Okinawa, adding splashes of color to garden walls, open borders and medians. A sea facing scandent, or climbing shrub, the plant does well on vines, but also exists as a potted plant, cultivated as a bonsai tree. Associated in the Okinawan mind with graveyards, where they are often grown, hibiscus acquire a sunnier character when grown in gardens. The painters Henri Rousseau and Paul Gauguin, who used tropical colors so effectively in their art, would have felt quite at home here among the exuberant flowers and foliage of these islands.

In the village of Inamine, just off the quieter northern stretch of Route 58, I discover a number of older gardens, identified by their periphery of well-established fukugi trees and blackened coral walls. It only takes a friendly greeting and an expression of admiration for the beauty of a garden, and I am admitted into these private spaces and urged to take as many photographs as I like. A common feature of the older gardens I find here, and in many of the smaller islands of Okinawa that I have visited, is the presence of hinpun, or Chinese-style screen walls, invariably facing the entrance but within the garden itself. In China where, when looked at from a perspective of geomancy, entrances and thresholds may be precarious spots, such walls help to deflect malign spirits. While the same idea may have been adapted in Okinawan gardens, they have the dual function of providing extra privacy and, in these typhoon-prone islands, acting as windbreaks.

Left: Paul Lorimers naturalistic home garden in Shinzato is a study in elimination. | STEPHEN MANSFIELD

The final garden I make a point to visit and photograph is owned, not by an Okinawan, but a New Zealander, one who has lived in these islands for more than 40 years, time enough to be considered, at the very least, an honorary local. Paul Lorimer moved to the village of Shinzato a few years ago, purchasing a house for which the term run-down would be an understatement. The home came with an uncultivated plot of 900 tsubo (almost 3,000 square meters).

After months of renovation work on the structure, Lorimer turned his attention to the wilderness outside his front door. While the rear plot, as yet untouched, remains an untamed jungle, a knot of entangled tree branches, tropical shrub, wild fruit and herbs, he has created a foreground garden that can be viewed at leisure from the wide verandah he has hand-built. Instead of designing a garden from scratch, he has simply eliminated cluttered or obtrusive plantings and vines, retaining the plants and trees he most values, creating in the process air streams to ventilate space.

The resulting domestic landscaping is evidence that sometimes, the best gardens are not the result of an imposed scheme or design, but an amicable collaboration between humanity and nature.

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Altered perspectives: The 'interactive' Okinawan garden - The Japan Times

The Haunted California Idyll of German Writers in Exile – The New Yorker

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After 1933, the exiles had to come to grips with a world that surpassed their most extravagant nightmares. One popular stratagem was to insert contemporary allegories into historical fiction, which was enjoying an extended vogue. Heinrich Mann produced a hefty pair of novels dramatizing the life of King Henry IV of France. A gruesome description of the Bartholomews Day Massacre makes one think of pogroms in Nazi Germany, and the leaders of the Catholic League radiate Fascist ruthlessness. Dblin, by contrast, immersed himself in recent history, undertaking a novel cycle titled November 1918. It examines the German Revolution of 1918-19, with the Communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht featured as principal characters. Dblin seems almost to be reliving the Revolution and its aftermath, in the hope that it will have a better outcome.

A handful of migr novels have emigration itself as their subject. Segherss Transit is the classic example of the genre, but others are worth revisiting. Feuchtwangers Exil, translated into English as Paris Gazette, is a soulful satire, set among disputatious emigrants in Paris. Sepp Trautwein, the protagonist, is a high-minded German composer who transforms himself into a belligerent anti-Nazi newspaper columnist. His finest hour comes when he invents an absurd speech by Hitler on the subject of Wagner. Exile is a humiliation, Feuchtwanger writes, but it makes you quicker, more ingenious, subtler, harder.

A more desperate vision emerges in the work of Klaus Mann, Thomass oldest son, who labored all his life in his fathers cold shadow. The Volcano, published in German in 1939, three years after he arrived in the United States, registers the toll that exile exacted on the young. In scenes anticipating Klauss own fatehe died of a drug overdose in 1949, at forty-twocharacters spiral into suicidal despair or chemical oblivion. Hollywood provides no respite: All was false herethe palms, the sunsets, the fruit, nothing had reality, everything was swindle, mere scenery. The novels depiction of gay desire presumably explains why an English translation never appeared. At the end of the narrative, a mystically inclined Brazilian boy converses with an angel, who kisses him on the lips, takes him on a flight around the world, and brings the consoling news that tolerance reigns in Heaven.

Werfel, having prophesied Nazi terror in Musa Dagh, shied away from a head-on confrontation with it. At the start of his final novel, a bizarre and fascinating experiment called Star of the Unborn (1946), Werfel confesses his inability to address the monstrous reality of the day. In a sly way, the novel speaks to that reality all the same. The narrator, F.W., is transported to a peaceful utopia in the distant future, which collapses into chaos. The tone is mainly playful, even zany, but a chill descends when F.W. visits a facility known as Wintergarden, in which those who have tired of life undergo a retrovolution into infancy and then death. The process sometimes goes awry, producing ghastly mutations. It is a conjuring of the Holocaust written just as reports of the German death camps were appearing.

Thomas Mann, the uncrowned emperor of Germany in exile, lived in a spacious, white-walled aerie in Pacific Palisades, which the migr architect J.R. Davidson had designed to his specifications. He saw Bambi at the Fox Theatre in Westwood; he ate Chinese food; he listened to Jack Benny on the radio; he furtively admired handsome men in uniform; he puzzled over the phenomenon of the Baryton-Boy Frankie Sinatra, to quote his diaries. Like almost all the migrs, he never attempted to write fiction about America. He was completing his own historical epic, the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers, which is vastly more entertaining than its enormous length might suggest. The Biblical Joseph is reinvented as a wily, seductive youth who escapes spectacularly from predicaments of his own making, and eventually emerges, in the service of the Pharaoh, as a masterly bureaucrat of social reform. Its as if Tadzio from Death in Venice grew up to become Henry Wallace.

Manns comfortable existence depended on a canny marketing plan devised by his publisher, AlfredA. Knopf,Sr. The scholar Tobias Boes, in his recent book, Thomas Manns War (Cornell), describes how Knopf remade a difficult, quizzical author as the Greatest Living Man of Letters, an animate statue of European humanism. The supreme ironist became the high dean of the Book-of-the-Month Club. The florid and error-strewn translations of Helen Lowe-Porter added to this ponderous impression. (JohnE. Woodss translations of the major novels, published between 1993 and 2005, are far superior.) Yet Knopfs positioning enabled Mann to assume a new public role: that of spokesperson for the anti-Nazi cause. Boes writes, Because he so manifestly stood above the partisan fray, Mann was able to speak out against Hitler and be perceived as a voice of reason rather than be dismissed as an agitator.

Essays like The Coming Victory of Democracy and War and Democracy remain dismayingly relevant in the era of Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbn, and Donald Trump. In 1938, Mann stated, Even America feels today that democracy is not an assured possession, that it has enemies, that it is threatened from within and from without, that it has once more become a problem. At such moments, he said, the division between the political and the nonpolitical disappears. Politics is no longer a game, played according to certain, generally acknowledged rules.... Its a matter of ultimate values. Mann also challenged the xenophobia of Americas strict immigration laws: It is not human, not democratic, and it means to show a moral Achilles heel to the fascist enemies of mankind if one clings with bureaucratic coldness to these laws.

On the subject of German war guilt, Mann incited a controversy that persisted for decades. He was acutely aware that mass murder was taking place in Nazi-occupied landsa genocide that went far beyond what Werfel had described in Musa Dagh. As early as January, 1942, in a radio address to Germans throughout Europe, Mann disclosed that four hundred Dutch Jews had been killed by poison gasa true Siegfried weapon, he added, in a sardonic reference to the fearless hero of Germanic legend. In a 1945 speech titled The Camps, he said, Every Germaneveryone who speaks German, writes German, has lived as a Germanis affected by this shameful exposure. It is not a small clique of criminals who are involved.

The overwhelming fact of the Holocaust led Mann to call for a searching self-examination on the part of German people all over the world. In Germany and the Germans, a remarkable speech delivered at the Library of Congress in 1945, he argued that the demonic energies of Hitlers regime had roots reaching back to Martin Luther. Mann did not exclude himself from the web of shame: It is all within me. I have been through it all. In the end, he said, there are not two Germanys, a good one and a bad one, but only one, whose best turned into evil through devilish cunning. The entire story is a paradigm of the tragedy of human life. That message of universal responsibilitywhich, Mann made clear, is not the same as universal guiltaroused fierce opposition in postwar Germany, where searching self-examination was not in fashion. Allied forces, for their part, were happy to skate over the de-Nazification process, so that Western Europe could focus on fighting a new enemy, the Soviets.

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The Haunted California Idyll of German Writers in Exile - The New Yorker

Anbazhagan struck a balance between literature and politics – The Hindu

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Having studied at Annamalai University when it was one of the greatest higher educational institutions in the State with some of the best minds, Dravidian stalwart K. Anbazhagan, who died on Saturday, struck a balance between his literary pursuits and politics.

He ran a magazine named Puthuvaazhvu, which was launched on a Pongal Day in 1948.

But unlike Murasoli [founded by former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi], Puthuvaazhvu confined politics to the editorials of the magazine. The other pages were dedicated to literature, social issues and book reviews. But it had no reservations when it came to criticising the Congress government, recalled K. Thirunavukkarasu, a historian of the Dravidian Movement.

Anbazhagan, who served as the general secretary of the DMK for 43 years till his death, was a great admirer of poet Subramania Bharati, though Dravidian leaders regarded Bharathidasan as the poet of their Movement.

If western scholars delve deep into Tamil and bring out its greatness, we appreciate their efforts. Similarly, we have to appreciate Bharathiar, and the question of his caste or race never comes into the picture, Anbazhagan had once told Mr. Thirunavukkarasu.

The DMK stalwart was keen on writing commentaries for Tirukkua and read almost every single work on the subject.

DMK founder C.N. Annadurai, who was lodged with him in jail in 1963, had recorded what he had seen in the cell.

Anbazhagan was surrounded by Valluvar. Yes. There was Parimelazhagars Valluvar, Parithimarkaignars Valluvar, Varatharasanars Valluvar, Ilakkuvanars Valluvar, Namakkallars Valluvar, Ki.Va. Jagannathans Valluvar and Manakkudavars Valluvar. He was writing a research book. I had the opportunity to discuss it with him, Annadurai had reminisced.

Anbazhagan later gave up the idea of writing commentaries on Tirukkua, arguing that there were already enough books on the subject. He did, however, author 30 books on various subjects, including literature, Tamil marriages and the Dravidian Movement.

While working at Pachaiyappas College, he would ride a bicycle to the premises. Recalling one of his classes in a book, Mu. Sathasivam, a former student of the college, noted: He taught Villibharatham for 40 minutes and dedicated 20 minutes to a conversation with students, and inculcated in them the idea of rationalism.

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Anbazhagan struck a balance between literature and politics - The Hindu

A star promise: Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan may find politics harder than doing the cigarette flick – Economic Times

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Rajinikanth is realising that being in politics is much tougher than doing the cigarette flick. And he is not giving up. After coming under attack from both DMK and AIADMK for different statements, the 69-year-old superstar last week met the Rajini Makkal Mandram forum district secretaries in Chennai to show that he is serious about launching a political party. With Kamal Haasan already in the fray with his Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), and Rajinikanth expected to make an announcement in a few months, Tamil Nadu will be carrying forward its legacy of crossover politicians from the tinsel world. And this, soon after the death of J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, which many thought would mark the end of the politics-cinema tango.

The difference, however, would be that the new stars on the political stage are novices in public life. While MGR and Karunanidhi straddled the two fields simultaneously, often finding a symbiosis, Jayalalithaa apprenticed in politics for seven years under MGR before taking over the reins of the party in 1989. Kamal, who launched his party in February 2018, has already showed his commitment to go with the grind. MNM polled just 3.72% votes in its electoral debut last year, but proved to be a force to reckon with in cities, garnering more than one lakh votes each in Chennais three Lok Sabha constituencies.

Despite their relative inexperience in politics, the two actors are seen as potential alternatives to the two Dravidian parties that have alternated in government since 1967. While Kamals centrist position that promises to look at issues impartially has an audience, Rajinikanths spiritual politics may find takers in a land where parties that took birth from rationalism are filled with god-fearing men and women. For the citizen, they hold out the common promise of rooting out corruption. Which may make them worth trying out.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.

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A star promise: Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan may find politics harder than doing the cigarette flick - Economic Times

Dialogue: Relation of Mystery & Reason in Christianity – Patheos

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From one of my blog comboxes: underneath my article,Dialogue w Orthodox on Why Catholics Become Orthodox.Words of Kshos23 will be in blue.

*****

With regards to Orthodox accusing Catholicism of rationalism I suspect the main reason behind that is that Orthodox and Orthodox spirituality does want to give the faith more mystery. I remember an Eastern Orthodox monk once said that most eastern Church Fathers dont speak of the Resurrection of Christ directly and exhaustively, unlike some other things of the faith, precisely because its too great a mystery, and there are only snippets which you can gather from multiple fathers to come up with a some sort of more definite explanation. I also remember you doing a high-school Catholic apologetics interview with some students, and when you presented the Orthodox position on the Real Presence as being we dont know how it becomes the real body and blood of Christ, but it does, one of them funnily but legitimately responded with Isnt it better that way?, precisely because there is a certain beauty to mystery that was recognized.

So I think what the Orthodox are saying is that the Catholic practice of explaining the mysteries of the faith somewhat deprives it of mystery and profundity and the experiential flavor and beauty, and that this desire and sense-of-fittingness to have the things of revealed truth which are gloriously mysterious, beautifully transcendent and beyond precise human understanding is fulfilled in Christianity and should remain with regards to the deepest and most profound Christian mysteries.

We acknowledge mystery as well, but we think we can understand relatively more than the Orthodox claim we can understand. They think were over-rational; we think they are under-rational. Only Scripture and Tradition can resolve that difference.

When the Orthodox want to get very rational assuredly they do, too: for example, regarding the fine points of thefilioquecontroversy.

Well, what I was trying to get at is that the sense of mystery in the sense of the unknown as being beautiful, in contrast to explaining everything which takes away the magic. To be more specific, the sense of mystery Im talking about is the one expressed in your interview with high-school Catholics, where you explained the difference between Orthodox and Catholic views of the Eucharist, and how a Catholic girl responded to the Orthodox mystical view as Isnt it better that way?. Her response likely reflects this.

Again, we dontexplain everything. We explain as far as (we believe) the limits of human understanding of divine mysteries will allow. We just think the line is a bit further than Orthodox do. Who is to say who is right? We can only appeal to Scripture and apostolic, patristic tradition to make such a determination. I posted a chapter from my book about Orthodoxy on this issue today:Is Catholicism Unbiblically Rationalistic? (Orthodox Criticisms).

Im so much notagainst mystery and mysticism, that I edited a book of quotations of the great Catholic mystics.

The Catholic Catechismcontains the word mystery 183 times, and mysteries 33 times, andmysterious another 28 times.

Thats an awful lot of mystery for a communion that supposedly doesnt recognizeit (or to an extent less than it supposedly should).

See also, for example, #404: . . . the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. . . .

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Photo credit:KELLEPICS(10-17-17) [Pixabay /Pixabay License]

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Dialogue: Relation of Mystery & Reason in Christianity - Patheos

Accused Claremont killer’s contamination theory in tatters as state wraps up its DNA evidence with a bang – Sydney Morning Herald

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After 24 days of DNA evidence being heard in the Supreme Court triple murder trial, it took the states DNA expert Jonathan Whitaker just two hours to reduce the likelihood of the contamination theory to almost negate and very low with Mr Yovich unable to reference another example of a similar contamination having ever occurred in any DNA lab across the globe.

During his testimony Dr Whitaker considered the defences contamination theory, which related to the source of the contamination being either an intimate swab taken from Mr Edwards rape victim, known as HV1, or a sperm cell extract created from the swab, known as 11J7.

He said based on only two DNA profiles being found under Ms Glennons fingernail sample when it was tested in 2008, he could almost negate the swab contamination theory.

I would think its not the case and the reason I say that is that there's no presence of [the Karrakatta rape victim's] DNA in the ultimate fingernail sample," he said.

"I qualify that by saying I cant appreciate or cant accept that there will be a way for [the victim's] DNA to selectively disappear from that swab and for you only to end up with Mr Edwards' in the final result."

And while Dr Whitaker said the sperm extract would not have had the rape victims DNA in it, he considered it extremely unlikely it could have had an opportunity to be spilled in the lab and then been left undetected for 13 months before finding its way into the AJM42 container.

Another difference that I would be alert to is that the extract is now a liquid which is kept frozen in the laboratory and so that needs to be out. It needs to have thawed, he said.

DNA liquid form ... tends to degrade and dry out, so again it needs to have persisted in the environment. It needs to have evaded all our cleaning regimes and controls, etcetera.

Considering that it dried and now becomes a flaky residue, that itself then has still got to get by some mechanism into these pots.

Dr Whitaker said the source, mechanism and opportunity for the contamination to have occurred was very low.

But I stress, we cant say never which is why I positioned it on my subjective scale right down at the bottom end, he said.

Dr Whitaker said if any escaped DNA was present in the lab for 13 months, it didnt contaminate any other exhibits tested in the lab during that time.

Prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo said it was the states case Mr Edwards DNA was found underneath Ms Glennons fingernails because she had fought him in the moments before her murder.

The accused man's DNA has gotten into the mixed DNA profile ... as a result of Ms Glennon scratching the accused man, or otherwise engaging with him in a violent and physical altercation at the time of, or close to her death, she said.

Ciara Glennon

Dr Whitaker agreed Ms Glennons torn left thumbnail on an otherwise well-manicured hand suggested she had inflicted the scratch on her attacker with significant force.

The considerations under that scenario are that Mr Edwards is present at the scene together with Ms Glennon, scratching occurs and that involves force that will promote the transfer of DNA to the nails, that's a one-step transfer which we call primary transfer," he said.

"So comparing and contrasting the pathways, we've got a one-step pathway under the first proposition, but a multiple step pathway under the alternative [contamination theory].

"On the probability of the evidence, if Ms Glennon had scratched Mr Edwards ... I would couch this on my subjective scale as moderately high to high."

During the trial, 10 recorded instances of contamination within the Pathwest lab have been recorded in relation to the 17,000-odd Macro Taskforce exhibits tested over two decades.

Nine out of the ten contaminations were by Pathwest scientists either involved in, or regularly present in the lab, during examination and testing of the samples.

Of the nine occasions, at least seven of them occurred prior to staff having to wear hair nets during DNA testing, and at least four before staff were required to wear face masks.

The increases to personal protective wear required inside the DNA lab grew as DNA technologies advanced and became more sensitive over time.

The only proven example of an unrelated exhibit contaminating a Macro-related item was in 2002, when a twig from Jane Rimmers crime scene recovered the DNA of the female victim of an unrelated crime whose intimate swabs were tested days earlier in the lab.

An investigation concluded the contamination was likely linked to a tube batch which was used for both extractions.

Mr Yovich also referred to a contamination event that occurred in a UK lab in 2007, when an ex-employees DNA was detected on a DNA test negative control blank 16 months after they had resigned.

Justice Stephen Hall.

An investigation into the event concluded while the staff member didnt have access to the DNA lab, she had had regular access to its freezer, as did scientists.

Mr Yovich, during the two times he brought up the incident, failed to mention that it was not known when the contamination occurred, suggesting it had occurred 16 months after the employee had resigned.

Having read the incident report, Justice Hall clarified with Mr Yovich during his cross-examination of Dr Whitaker that the contamination could have occurred while the employee was still in the lab, but was not detected until later.

Dr Whitaker said he was not aware of any example of DNA lasting longer than a year in the lab environment before contaminating an exhibit.

A situation of a staff member in a cold room whose been in there frequently - so DNA might build up and be detected later - is different to a single forensic item that has very little DNA on it appearing over a period of time, Dr Whitaker said.

"We conceive they could happen, but we try to put it under a level of reasoning and rationalism as to whether or not it's probable."

Following Mr Edwards arrest in 2016, DNA testing carried out on his reference sample when compared to the male DNA profile found underneath Ms Glennons fingernails, matched at every loci.

Institute of Environmental Science and Research forensic scientist Susan Vintiner said her analysis of the samples in 2017 found Mr Edwards was at least 80 million times more likely to be the contributor of the DNA profile compared to any other white Australian male not related to him.

Mr Edwards has admitted the DNA recovered from Ms Glennons fingernails matched his profile, but claimed he did not know how it got there.

Mr Yovich, during his opening statement at trial in November, accepted the chance of contamination was remote, but not impossible.

We accept that a scratching event, a direct scratching event of the sort that the state will rely on in proving a connection between the DNA found on these samples and the death of Ciara Glennon is a more likely circumstance, maybe a much more likely circumstance than a chance social contact, he said.

And again, we do not put forward a specific chance, innocent, social contact to explain the DNA.

We accept as well that the chance of contamination in a lab is usually remote although secondary transfer is known and documented in the literature.

But in circumstances where other incidents of contamination are known to have occurred we say, known to have been undetected for some time, your Honour will have to consider just how remote the chance was here and whether it can be safely ruled out even if it was remote.

On the eve of his triple murder trial, Mr Edwards admitted to the 1995 abduction and rape of a 17-year-old girl from Claremont, and a 1988 Huntingdale sex attack carried out on an 18-year-old woman.

He originally pleaded not guilty to the charges and allegedly repeatedly feigned disbelief at his DNA appearing on items relating to the attacks during his police interview, Ms Barbagallo said.

Evidence since heard in his murder trial has revealed Pathwest testing had concluded it 100 billion times more likely the DNA found on the rape victim's pants, and a semen-stained kimono left at the scene of the sex attack, belonged to Mr Edwards than any other person not related to him.

The mammoth murder trial on Tuesday adjourned until March 23, when the state will begin its fibre evidence, which it alleges links Mr Edwards to the murders of Ms Rimmer and Ms Glennon and his Karrakatta rape victim through common fibres found at the scenes.

The fibres allegedly originate from Mr Edwards' Telstra-issued work pants and the upholstery of his 1996 Holden Commodore VS Series I station wagon.

Mr Edwards has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon.

The trial continues.

Follow WAtoday's live coverage of the trial, here.

Heather McNeill is the crime and courts editor at WAtoday.

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Accused Claremont killer's contamination theory in tatters as state wraps up its DNA evidence with a bang - Sydney Morning Herald

Fetishisation of prayer is ruining Islam – Ahval

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One of several factors that has brought the Islamic World to its current sorry state is the fetishisation of Muslims daily prayers, or namaz.

Todays understanding of Islam has turned it almost into a religion of namaz, to such an extent that prayers take priority over the religion.

Firstly, we must interrogate the irrational and illogical approach to the religious duties that are known as the five pillars of Islam. Todays understanding of the religion says that these five bearing witness that Allah is the one true god, praying, fasting, giving alms and undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca are the basic and mandatory requirements for Muslims.

Bearing witness is only required when one becomes a Muslim. Fasting for most Muslims is a tradition that comes once a year during the month of Ramadan. The haj pilgrimage only takes place for a short time. Zakat, the Islamic tax that is passed on to the needy, is collected annually. Prayer is the only one of the five pillars that is undertaken daily. In other words, of the five pillars of Islam, in daily practice there is only one prayer.

Can it be right to reduce a universal religion to what is, in the end, a series of ritual movements, rather than values like justice, freedom, equality, labour and love?

Let alone a religion, no human ideology can have a ritual as its essential norm. It is neither rational, nor Islamic to claim that prayer is more important than norms such as freedom and justice.

Prayers importance does not compare to these norms. A just person who does not pray is always superior to one who prays, but is unjust.

In fact, the five pillars of Islam are an apolitical innovation created for the religion long after its inception. Clearly, the centuries of investment in this innovation were made with a view to instilling todays view of piety a piety that does not give priority to morals, justice and freedom.

Let no one respond with the banal argument that focusing on prayer does not detract from other values. If you instil in a person the idea that gold is the most valuable thing in the world, but that apples are also important and then ask them to choose between the two, they will always take the gold.

We must understand that there is no causal link or even correlation between Muslim ritual worship and values like justice and freedom.

A striking example of this comes from the instances where people have been stampeded to death by their fellow Muslims during the practice of casting stones at the devil during the haj pilgrimage. Or, the reality that the Saudi Arabian government is neither just nor emancipatory despite its status as the guardian of Islams holy places.

A persons relationship with prayer is a subjective one. There is no universal correlation between prayer and any moral or political value.

A related topic is the characterisation of prayer as the sole marker of religion. People cannot imagine a religiosity that does not include prayer. Yet there are millions of people who never miss one of Islams five daily prayers, but still live their entire lives without reading a single book.

If we make prayer the focus of religion, then those who do not pray cannot be religious. But the Koran itself commands people to read, and if we focus on this, then it is the person who prays, but does not read who is irreligious.

We should take seriously the idea that it is those people who do not read or care for the environment and the world they live in who are not religious.

An understanding of piety centred solely on prayer is one that can achieve nothing beyond meaningless reassurances. The first volume of lmihal, the two-volume reference book on religion distributed to the public by Turkeys state Directorate of Religious Affairs is 584 pages long. Of these, 162 pages are on prayer. In the same volume, there are 24 pages devoted to faith in God, and 26 pages on cleanliness.

The second volume of lmihal is 558 pages long, and just two of these are on the environment. Another two pages are on ritual sacrifice. A single page refers to the correct way for Muslims to groom themselves, and an entire section related to work and labour rights takes just five pages. The section on the labour contract is roughly as long as the section on removing body hair.

Naturally, workers being shown the door by their bosses does not arouse as much interest in Muslim societies as the removal of body hair. Islam has been lowered to a collection of rituals and meaningless verses.

We all know that the point of this ritual-centred version of Islam is to manufacture a type of apolitical, anti-intellectual people who count obedience to the state or religious leaders as piety.

In this ritual-focused version of piety, prayer takes centre stage. With 162 pages devoted to it in a mundane religious manual, there are in fact many more literary tomes out there that delve further into the act of praying so much so that if the Sunni theologian Abu Hanifa himself were to rise from the grave, even he would be unable to carry out a prayer deemed proper according to all of the details.

What is even more tragic is that, with all those centuries and thousands of pages of scholarship devoted to the subject, it is said that nobody is able to properly perform prayers.

The idea that all our problems could be solved if we could only learn to pray in the right way has become commonplace. Apparently, Turkey, a country with 100,000 imams and just as many mosques, cannot solve its problems because it lacks the ability to pray correctly.

No one can criticise the view of prayer as a divine command, or its practice as a form of worship. This, in the end, is something that is up to Muslims themselves. But the fetishisation of prayer to the point where it defines Islam is causing great harm to the religion.

Muslims need to urgently decide whether their religions fundamental norms will be values such as freedom, justice and rationalism, or rituals like the act of praying and casting stones at the devil.

Ahval English

The views expressed in this column are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Ahval.

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Launch of ExoMars rover delayed to 2022 Spaceflight Now – Spaceflight Now

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The Rosalind Franklin rover for the ExoMars mission completed a series of environmental tests at an Airbus Defense and Space facility in Toulouse, France, in late 2019. Credit: Airbus

Most parts of the joint European-Russian ExoMars lander and rover are nearly ready for launch, but trouble with parachutes, electronics, software and concerns about the growing coronavirus pandemic have delayed the missions departure to Mars from this year until 2022, officials announced Thursday.

The leaders of the European Space Agency and Roscosmos Russias space agency said Thursday that the ExoMars mission would not launch as scheduled this July.

We have made a difficult but well-weighed decision to postpone the launch to 2022, said Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos. It is driven primarily by the need to maximize the robustness of all ExoMars systems as well as force majeure circumstances related to exacerbation of the epidemiological situation in Europe, which left our experts practically no possibility to proceed with travels to partner industries.

I am confident that the steps that we and our European colleagues are taking to ensure mission success will be justified and will unquestionably bring solely positive results for the mission implementation, Rogozin said in a statement Thursday.

The mission was supposed to blast off from Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Proton rocket during a planetary launch window in July or August. But officials said Thursday several challenges will keep the mission from launching this year.

Instead, the ExoMars mission will take off during the next Mars launch window between August and October 2022, officials said. The lander will target touchdown in a region named Oxia Planum in the northern hemisphere of Mars between April and July 2023.

The primary difficulty facing the ExoMars team involves ensuring the missions European-made parachutes are ready to slow the lander during descent through the Martian atmosphere.

Four parachutes two pilot chutes and supersonic and subsonic main chutes will slow the ExoMars lander after it enters the Martian atmosphere. The lander will jettison the parachutes and ignite braking rockets to slowly settle onto the surface of Mars.

Engineers encountered parachute failures during two high-altitude drop tests over northern Sweden last year.

With help from experts at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, engineers traced the problem to the parachute bags, and not with the parachutes themselves, according to ESA. Engineers modified the way the parachutes are released from the bags to ease their extraction and avoid frictional damage, ESA said.

Teams have completed a series of ground-based extraction tests at JPL, and the main parachutes are ready for two final high-altitude drop tests in Oregon in the coming weeks, ESA said.

But mission managers wanted to take more time to ensure the ExoMars lander and rover safely get to the surface of Mars.

We want to make ourselves 100 percent sure of a successful mission, said Jan Wrner, ESAs director general. We cannot allow ourselves any margin of error. More verification activities will ensure a safe trip and the best scientific results on Mars.

The European-built Rosalind Franklin rover, named for the famedBritish chemist and X-raycrystallographer whose work contributed to DNA research, recently passed final pre-launch thermal and vacuum tests at an Airbus facility in Toulouse, France. Rosalind Franklin is the first European Mars rover, and it is fully outfitted with a payload of nine scientific instruments, including a drill to dig up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) into the Martian soilcollect core samples for analysis in the mobile robots on-board laboratory.

The Russian-built module designed to carry the European rover to the surface of Mars is also complete. The RussianKazachok stationary lander, from which Rosalind Franklin will deploy after touchdown, is fully equipped with its 13 scientific experiments.

The descent module has been undergoing propulsion system qualification in the past month. TheKazachok platform has also been undergoing environmental testing in Cannes, France, to verify the spacecrafts ability to withstand the harsh conditions of space, according to ESA.

I want to thank the teams in industry that have been working around the clock for nearly a year to complete assembly and environmental testing of the whole spacecraft, Wrner said in a statement. We are very much satisfied of the work that has gone into making a unique project a reality and we have a solid body of knowledge to complete the remaining work as quickly as possible.

The Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok lander were previously supposed to launch in 2018, but officials rescheduled the mission for 2020 after both vehicles ran into development delays. Their launch, now delayed to 2022, is the second of two separate missions developed under the ExoMars program.

The European Space Agencys ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander launched in March 2016 aboard a Russian Proton rocket. The orbiter successfully entered orbit around Mars later that year, and it continues taking pictures and gathering data on methane and other gases in the Martian atmosphere that could indicate the presence of ongoing biological or geologic activity.

The Schiaparelli probe crashed during its attempt to land on Mars.

The ExoMars program was approved by ESA member states in 2005. At that time, the European Mars rover was scheduled to launch in 2011. But that schedule soon eroded, and ESA and NASA signed agreed in 2009 to partner on the ExoMars missions.

NASA backed out of the partnership in 2012, and ESA signed an agreement in 2013 to proceed with the ExoMars program without major participation from the United States. NASA continued developing electronics and a mass spectrometer for the rovers largest science instrument, which will search for organic compounds and biomarker in the Martian soil.

Despite the delay in the second ExoMars launch until 2022, three other Mars missions remain scheduled for launch during this years planetary launch window in July and August.

NASAs Perseverance rover, formerly known as Mars 2020, will take off in July from Cape Canaveral. A Chinese Mars rover is also being prepared for launch later this year, and the United Arab Emirates Hope Mars orbiter is slated to launch on a Japanese H-2A rocket this summer.

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NASA could have a timeline for Boeing’s next Starliner flight by the end of the month – Space.com

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NASA has still not decided whether it will require Boeing to complete a second uncrewed test flight of the company's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which failed to reach the International Space Station in its first attempt in December 2019. But the agency may have a game plan ready by the end of the month.

In a teleconference with reporters on Friday (March 6), Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said that NASA is "shooting for the end of the month to have a review between ourselves and Boeing." After making their decision about the best path forward for Boeing's troubled Starliner program, the reviewers will deliver a plan to the head of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, Doug Loverro.

However, it could still take a while before NASA can announce when the next Starliner mission will launch and whether there will be astronauts on board because NASA and Boeing expect to spend "several months" fixing a myriad of technical problems on Starliner, Loverro added during the teleconference.

Related: Boeing's 1st Starliner flight test in photos

Following Starliner's failure to reach the International Space Station on Dec. 20, a joint NASA-Boeing independent review team identified 61 "corrective actions" to address two major software problems and a communications issue that arose during the mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT).

The first problem that became apparent had to do with the spacecraft's on-board timer, which had pulled an incorrect time from the Atlas V rocket on which it launched. Because the so-called "mission elapsed timer" was 11 hours off, Starliner did not complete an orbit insertion burn after launching into space, and that prevented it from completing its mission.

A second critical software problem was identified later on during the flight, shortly before Starliner began to make its way back to Earth for a parachute-assisted landing. A valve-mapping error in the spacecraft's service module could have potentially caused an in-space collision after that disposable part of the spacecraft separated from the crew module.

The third major problem was a temporary drop in communications between Starliner and NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which transmit data between spacecraft and data stations on Earth. If this communications dropout had not happened, ground controllers could have potentially corrected the timing issue and manually commanded the spacecraft to do its orbit insertion burn. NASA and Boeing are still investigating the cause of this communications issue, which appears to have been radio interference, but Boeing officials have said that it could be solved by replacing Starliner's antenna.

Loverro said that NASA is now designating the OFT mission a "high-visibility close call," which the agency defines as an incident during a space mission in which "the potential for a significant mishap could have occurred and should be investigated to understand the risk exposure and the root cause(s) that placed equipment or individuals at risk," according to NASA's Commercial Crew blog.

"We could have lost a spacecraft twice during this mission," Loverro said. "We could have lost it at the beginning of the mission and we could have lost it at the end of the mission. But thankfully the Boeing guys were able to go through the software and the Johnson [Space Center] guys were able to test it and find the errors. So it's clearly a close call."

While NASA and Boeing have only identified these three specific issues, the review team has come up with a list of 61 corrective actions. That doesn't necessarily mean that there are 61 separate problems with Starliner, Jim Chilton, senior vice president at Boeing Space and Launch, said in the teleconference. Rather, he said the list is of "61 ways to get better in three categories."

When asked if NASA could make that list of 61 corrective actions available to the public, Loverro said, "I don't know. We haven't had that conversation with Boeing, and we'd have to have that conversation."

In addition to implementing specific software fixes to address the three critical issues previously disclosed, Boeing has been asked to more broadly improve its engineering and testing procedures for new spacecraft. In the engineering department, NASA has asked Boeing to "strengthen its review process, including better peer and control board reviews, and improve its software process training," according to the NASA blog.

NASA has also asked Boeing to "increase the fidelity in the testing of its software during all phases of flight," and to perform full, end-to-end ground tests during mission simulations something the company did not do before launching Starliner.

The review team is also looking to identify possible organizational issues that could have contributed to the problems with Starliner. NASA plans to conduct a "organizational safety assessment" while performing an evaluation of the workplace culture at Boeing as well as NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

"We're going to look at both Boeing's organizational processes and NASA's organizational processes in order to go ahead and make sure we truly do learn from this event, and that we know how to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again," Loverro said.

Boeing was originally scheduled to launch the first crewed test flight of its Starliner spacecraft to International Space Station in the summer of 2020, but that mission has been postponed indefinitely as the company works with NASA to prove that the spacecraft can safely transport astronauts to and from space.

Meanwhile, SpaceX, the other private company that NASA has commissioned to fly astronauts to the space station, is gearing up to launch the first crewed mission of its Crew Dragon spacecraft in May, following a successful uncrewed test flight in March 2019.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

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A Solar System of Fire and Ice – The Atlantic

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In the 1970s, as the Voyager mission cruised toward the outer planets, scientists predicted that the spacecraft would find moons like our own. The moons around Jupiter, for example, are about the size of our moon or smaller, so it stood to reason that they, too, would be cold, still, and speckled with craters. Instead, Voyager found the first, surprising evidence of volcanic activity somewhere besides our planet. It was very hard for people to accept that such a small moon like Io could still have active volcanism, because Io should have cooled a long time ago, Lopes said.

In the 40 years since, planetary scientists have moved from monitoring eruptions on Earth to finding them sprinkled across the solar system. Soon, perhaps, they will get a closer look at what exactly makes these extraterrestrial blasts tick.

The team targeting Io knows about a phenomenon the Voyager scientists didnt, called tidal heating. Io orbits between Jupiter and two of the planets other moons, Europa and Ganymede, and this configuration means that Io is subject to the gravitational forces of all three. The constant tugging heats up Ios interior, melting rock into lava. As the moon stretches and shrinks over the course of a brisk 42-hour orbit, cracks emerge on its surface, and the lava escapes through.

Its changing the shape of the whole planet, says Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona who is leading the mission concept to Io. Lava, loosed from the interior, flows like muddy waters in a flash flood and fills in craters, regularly smoothing out the moons terrain. Many of the exoplanets that astronomers have discovered so far orbit close enough to their stars to experience the same kind of tidal heating, which makes Io a particularly suitable analogue for understanding worlds beyond our neighborhood, McEwen says.

Closer to home, theres Venus, where the surface is a mosaic of volcanic features, from peaks to plains, shaped from eons of roiling activity. We see huge fields of small volcanoes in places on Venus that remind us of the little guys we see in Iceland, says James Garvin, the chief scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center and the lead on one of the Venus missions. The planets volcanoes, numbering in the hundreds, are thought to have petered out long ago, but scientists have found evidence that some activity might be under way right now.

A few years ago, an infrared camera on a European spacecraft peered through the planets thick atmosphere and caught spots on the surface suddenly heating up and cooling down again. Smrekars mission to Venus would send a spacecraft to orbit the planet, map its topography, and determine whether theres still some churning going on. Another mission, led by Garvin, will drop a probe through Venuss atmosphere into a potentially volcanic area, moving down as if we were descending in a helicopter ourselves, he says. The probe would have the capability to analyze atmospheric gases and pick out signatures of recent eruptions.

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Watch how the only woman in space today celebrated International Women’s Day – Space.com

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The only woman in space right now made a special presentation for International Women's Day this Monday (March 9).

Floating in the Kibo module of the International Space Station in a dress and stockings that she wore in 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 12 (alongside her colleagues, who wore an assortment of throwback looks for the anniversary), NASA astronaut Jessica Meir spoke in a video posted to Twitter Monday about why we need diverse perspectives to accomplish big goals in space exploration.

"It takes all sorts of people from diverse backgrounds to explore the unknown and to make things that are seemingly impossible, possible," said Meir, an astronaut on the three-person Expedition 62. "When we all work together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish."

Related:Women in Space: A Universe of Firsts in Photos

Meir recently pushed spaceflight boundaries, though she didn't speak about this specific accomplishment in the video. She and a former crewmate, astronaut Christina Koch (who recently returned to Earth after a record-setting 328 days in space, the longest spaceflight ever made by a woman), performed the first three all-woman spacewalks in history, in 2019 and 2020.

While in space, Meir has also celebrated her identity and heritage as a Jewish woman, including wearing festive socks to celebrate Hanukkah and bringing an Israeli flag with her to space, according to The Times of Israel.

The video she posted Monday paid tribute to the women who came before her, while looking to the future, when the first woman walks on the moon, a milestone that NASA aims to accomplish by 2024.

"I am thankful for the amazing women who paved the way for me to do research in space," Meir said. "NASA is pushing the boundaries of exploration and working hard to send the first woman and next man to the moon as part of the Artemis program."

As of 2019, only 64 of the 566 people to fly to space have been women. The first woman to fly to space was Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963, and the first U.S. woman in space was Sally Ride, in 1984. Women have achieved a number of other incredible orbital milestones, including commanding the space shuttle, performing spacewalks and commanding the International Space Station.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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3D beating heart tissue experiment heads to Space Station – UW Medicine Newsroom

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Note to editors and reporters: Live coverage on NASA Television of the SpaceX CRS-20 cargo launch carrying this experiment is scheduled at 8:30 p.m. EST, 11:30 p.m. PST March 6 and will be replayed twice on March 7. Coverage of the rendezvous with the International Space Station will be at 5:30 a.m. EST Monday, March 8, with installation at 8:30 a.m. All times are subject to change due if weather or launch conditions are unfavorable

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Space exploration can take a toll on the human heart. Astronauts are at risk for changes in their cardiac function and rhythm. To learn how microgravity and other physical forces in space exact their effects on heart muscle, a Tissue Chips in Space project has now been packed and is awaiting launch to the International Space Station.

The experimental equipment consists of small, compact devices, a little bit larger than cell phone cases. The holders contain a row of tiny, 3-D globs of beating heart tissue grown from pluripotent stem cells, generated from human adult cells. The heart muscle tissue is supported between two flexible pillars that allow it to contract freely, in contrast to the rigid constraints of a Petri dish.

The devices also house a novel invention from the University of Washington. It automatically senses and measures the contractions of the heart tissues, and reduces the amount of time the astronauts will need to spend conducting this study.

The flexible pillars contain tiny magnets, explained UW graduate student Ty Higashi, one of the inventors. When the muscle tissue contracts, the position of the embedded magnets changes, and the motion can be detected by a sensor, he said. That information is then sent down to a laboratory on Earth.

This model will recapitulate, on a miniature scale, what might be happening to the architecture and function of heart muscle cells and tissues in astronauts during a space mission.

The project head is Deok-Ho Kim, a professor in bioengineering, who recently joined the Johns Hopkins University faculty in Baltimore. He and co-investigator, Nathan Sniadecki, a professor in mechanical engineering, began this study two years at the UW Medicine Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM). Jonathan Tsui, a postdoc in bioengineering, Ty Higashi, a graduate student in mechanical engineering , and other members of the UW project team, continue the cross-country collaboration in Seattle. The team is working with several NASA and National Institutes of Health groups, and researchers at other universities, on this effort.

Sniadecki said that each of the tissues heading to the International Space Center contain about a half million heart cells.

They act like a full tissue, he explained. They contract, they beat and you can actually see them physically shorten in the dish. Were actually able to see little heart beats from these tissues.

The SpaceX shuttle delivering this scientific payload is expected to leave from Cape Canaveral no earlier than 8:50 p.m. PST (11:50 p.m. EST) Friday, March 6. The exact departure schedule depends on the weather and other factors.

Once on board, the experiment will run for 30 days before being returned to Earth for further analysis. A related space-based experiment will follow skyward later, to see if medications or mechanical interventions can offset what the heart muscle endures during extended space missions.

The space program is looking at ways to travel longer and farther, Sniadecki said. To do so, they need to think about protecting their crews. Having treatments or drugs to protect astronauts during their travel would make long term space travel possible.

Guarding against cardiac problems would be especially critical during space travel at distances never attempted before, such as a mission to Mars, said Sniadecki. This opportunity to really kind of push the frontier for space travel is every engineers dream.

He added, We also hope to gather information that will help in preventing and treating heart muscle damage in people generally, as well as in understanding how aging changes heart muscle.

Microgravity is known to speed up aging, and likely influence other cell or tissue properties. Because aging is accelerated in space, studies on the International Space Station is a way to more quickly assess this process over weeks, instead of years.

I think the medicine side of it is extremely helpful on Earth, too, because what we discover could potentially lead to treatments for counteracting aging, Sniadecki said.

This space medicine research project is funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. This heart tissue study is part of the national Tissue Chips in Space program.

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A new way to provide internet for the masses from space – Politico

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Once you get to this size, the whole business model changes," said Gedmark, a former executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "The satellite is just big enough to serve one country or a large U.S. state like Alaska, which is our first customer. Youre providing capacity for one country instead of a whole continent, and it changes the game.

Astranis' Alaska satellite will launch at the end of the year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and start providing internet services in early 2021.

Gedmark, who was also director of flight operations for the X Prize Foundation, spoke about how Astranis approach will lead to lower prices and why hes initially focusing only on commercial customers and not government agencies.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

We started this company with a very simple thesis, which is that there is just a huge amount of good we could do in the world with small satellites specifically for telecommunications. When I say small satellites, I mean microsatellites that we launch up to geostationary orbit. GEO is this unique orbit. The satellites there are orbiting the Earth at the same rate the Earths surface is orbiting. To an observer on the ground ... the satellite appears to be at a fixed point in the sky and appears to never move. For satellite TV, you can have a fixed dish on your house. ...Thats why this orbit is so special. It means you can have the simplest possible off the shelf equipment on the ground and its very easy to roll out to people.

The satellites built for GEO have been these huge goliath satellites. Theyve gotten bigger over time, not smaller unlike literally all other electronics we know and love. Now theyre the size of a double decker bus. That can make sense in some cases because they are designed to cover an entire continent with satellite TV or some satellite internet. The challenge is it takes many years to build them, theyre very expensive and you have to build your business case around serving an entire continent.

We saw the boom happening with small satellites. My co-founder and I are both aerospace engineers by background. We wondered why isnt anyone using small satellites for GEO telecoms. It doesnt make any sense. The answer is that its hard. There are real technology challenges there. We had to do the math and decide we could tackle those challenges and build a real working satellite in the microsatellite class.

Once you get to this size, the whole business model changes. The satellite is just big enough to serve one country or a large U.S. state like Alaska, which is our first customer. Youre providing capacity for one country instead of a whole continent, and it changes the game.

The orbit is the biggest key difference in the execution. If youre comparing us to the low-Earth orbit constellations, their satellite is orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes or so, so you need thousands of satellites to provide a commercially viable service that doesnt have gaps. We can get started with one satellite and have a satellite dedicated to that country or region.

The oher big difference is our models show well be able to get to a lower cost of ultimate capacity. That matters to these customers. They just want to know how much do i have to pay to get a gigabyte of data. Getting that number down as low as we can to really start getting more of the unconnected online is the ultimate goal. Our approach of building many of these small satellites for GEO will get us to the absolute lowest cost per byte.

We have launched a satellite into space. It was a technology demonstrator satellite, not the one were building for Alaska. That was four and a half years ago. The satellite were building for Alaska is slated to launch at the end of this year. We signed a launch contract with SpaceX to launch on a Falcon 9, and well be providing internet in the early part of next year.

There are many parts of Alaska where there is no internet connectivity at all. The places where there is service, its very common to pay $300 a month for internet we would call DSL speeds. Thats what were going to change. Right off the bat for the people that will get service starting next year, they will be able to get true broadband speeds for less than $99 a month. Thats five times the speed at one-third the price.

We are targeting a variety of customers. A lot of what were most excited about are rural areas or more extreme terrain, where its that much more expensive to try and run fiber. There are a lot of places around the world that have deserts, jungles, mountains, glaciers. Its just not economical to run fiber everywhere and it wont be for a very long time.

Is there government interest in this?

Weve certainly seen a lot of interest in what were doing because what were doing is very unique, but we really are focused on commercial missions and specifically right now executing on this mission for Alaska. Thats our focus right now.

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