Dee Hahn's Blog

Dear Dee, Over the past several weeks more than 17,000 Sierra Club members emailed, called, and wrote letters to Congress. Hundreds of you submitted letters to the editor and encouraged your friends and family to call their representatives. Your calls and emails paid off! The biggest public lands bill in decades cleared its final hurdle today, when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass it. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 safeguards millions of acres of new wilderness, protects hundreds of miles of rivers, expands trails, and keeps critical habitat in Wyoming safe from oil and gas leasing. Today, Congress has helped ensure that we will have a wild legacy to pass on to our children and grandchildren. This bill helps guarantee that future generations will be able to hike in pristine forests from California to West Virginia. The bill ensures that Americans will have a chance to fish untouched rivers and watch antelope migrate in the wild. The bill protects more than two million acres of wilderness in nine states, including the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, Oregon’s Mt. Hood, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It also shelters over a million acres of key hunting and fishing grounds on the Wyoming Range from oil and gas drilling. Thank you for taking action!  Sincerely, Greg Haegele Director of Conservation

In January 2004, NASA landed two identical robotic rovers named Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars. The twins were primed for a brief 3-month mission to tell us a story of water and possibly life itself in the planet’s past. More than five years later, the dynamic duo are still roving the Red Planet, engaged in a saga of overachievement that has transformed Mars exploration.

http://www.physorg.com/news157305969.html

Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.”
–Will Rogers

 The War on Drugs is a War on You
by Michael Boldin

If you are concerned at all about liberty, the economy, the Constitution and the power of the Federal Government – you cannot ignore the US government’s longest and most costly “war” – the War on Drugs. But no matter how long it lasts, how much is costs, how many lives are disrupted, and how much it fails – the war rages on. Why?  Well, because Federal “authorities” don’t care what your local laws are, they don’t care what your personal choices are, and they don’t care what reason you have for your choices. All they care about is their own power.  Period

An Irish prayer…

Dear Lord,
Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am,
and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope…
And though I come not within sight
of the castle of my dreams,
teach me to be thankful for life,
and for time’s olden memories
that are good and sweet.
And may the evening’s twilight
find me gentle still.

 One light-year is the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during one year. It’s roughly equal to 6 trillion miles or 10 trillion kilometers. If you traveled at the speed that the space shuttle travels in its orbit around Earth (18,000 mph), it would take tens of thousands of years to go one light-year.

 

 

 

 

 

“Music has to be recognized as an … agent of social development in the highest sense,

because it transmits the highest values — solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion.

And it has the ability to unite an entire community and to express sublime feelings.”

José Antonio Abreu

 

 

 

 

 

Someone long ago once said that “Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the worst of men for the worst of reasons will somehow do the best for us all”.
Unbridled capitalism is pure greed. Pure communism or total socialism is proven to be ineffective and totalitarian. No competition and free enterprise results in mediocrity, at best. It is, perhaps, wishful thinking on my part, but the current economic crisis is, hopefully, the death of rampant unregulated capitalism, and a golden opportunity to usher in Democratic Socialism on a worldwide basis.  I’m going to do my best to hang around long enough to find out, one way or the other.

Published on Intent.com (http://www.intent.com) ——————————————————————————–

Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow for the Modern World By WendyBrache Created 03/06/2009 – 11:32 Published in The Broomfield Enterprise, 12/2/07 It is becoming more and more difficult to escape. Phones follow us wherever we go, e-mails ping and blackberries call to us with abbreviations as various TV’s bark for us to “call now!”. Our garages are filled with more cars that take us to more places in less time than we somehow used to have. Simply taking a deep breath can, at times, seem impossible. Even less of a possibility, is finding the time to think about what we need before being thrust into the next item on our list as we move full throttle through our lives…only to realize we’re getting no where at all. In 1943 Abraham Maslow theorized on the needs of the human race, illustrating this with a hierarchical pyramid. He explained that our basic needs must be met in order to allow us to seek satisfaction at a higher level. The extent to which our needs our met, he said, shapes our behavior and affects our personal lives and the lives of those around us. Maslow stated that we instinctively seek out a higher purpose in life, and are not able to reach our full potential until more basic needs have been satisfied. The widest part of Maslow’s diagram–the bottom of the pyramid– houses our most basic needs of survival–breathing, food, water, shelter. Once these needs have been met, we are able to strive for the next level, “safety”–feeling safe from harm, having security of employment and resources, the safety and health of our family. Once this level has been fulfilled, we can move into our need for friendship, a loving family and intimacy. When these have been secured, we can then strive for well being– feeling confidence within ourselves, garnishing a feeling of achievement, possessing a higher self esteem, and having an overall respect for others. The highest level of fulfillment as a human–the very tip of the pyramid–is where we look to satisfy our needs of problem solving, embarking on creative and moral endeavors, and existing without judgment. Maslow’s study explained that we all begin at the bottom of the pyramid and we move up into the higher levels of the pyramid only when the needs of the current level have been met. One cannot skip over levels, and we can be tossed back into a lower level at any moment. A life threatening situation, for example, can abruptly thrust us back to intensely focusing on our very basic needs of survival, without concern for things like self esteem and our desire for intimacy. Raising children presents an effortless opportunity for us to put the needs of others before our own. From carpooling, shuffling our kids to lessons, sports, and clubs, and the endless list of other activities in which we invest our time and money, our desires as parents—as people–humans–can easily get lost in the mix. What parent has sufficient time to relax, read a book or even go to the doctor about that annoying cough when each hour of the day is already spoken for? We often want what we want when we want it. And most of the time, we get just that, regardless of whether it’s appropriate for us. If we are trying to solve even a minor problem, however–like a scheduling mix up or an answer for a manager–while we are hungry or exhausted, those needs must first be met before we can expect to be successful at the other things we’re trying to accomplish. If we allow ourselves to get burned out, becoming annoyed with our children and family and overwhelmed of all that is being asked of us, it becomes imperative to take some time–to give ourselves a break–to step back down in the pyramid and fulfill our needs there so we can move back up successfully into the next stage of the pyramid. It can be difficult to reconcile with the thought of taking a step back in order to move forward, especially in this fast paced world of ours. But taking care of ourselves, and ensuring that our own needs are met will allow us to take better care of our children and families. Allowing ourselves—no—insisting for ourselves—a higher standard for our physical health and mental well-being will give us more enthusiasm and spirit to care for the physical and mental well being of our families. Watching a parent take care of themselves and reach their full potential as a human is an extraordinary gift that our children will carry into their adulthood, and a behavior they will emulate when they are responsible for their own families. So, as the old song goes, let’s “teach our children well” by first making the effort with ourselves. Relationships, Work & Life, Life, maslow, modern technology, personal needs © 2009 intent, Inc. All rights reserved. ——————————————————————————– Source URL: http://www.intent.com/blog/2009/03/06/maslow-modern-world >

In Your Light from Ed Kevill-Davies on Vimeo.