A Moment of Silence for Those Executed for Supporting Democracy and Freedom in Iran !

Une minute de silence pour les démocrates exécutés en Iran

Jeudi 28 janvier au matin, deux iraniens ont été pendus pour avoir participé aux
manifestations post-électorales.
L'association Libertés-Culture appelle à observer une minute de silence en leur hommage samedi 30 janvier à 10H00 Place François Rude lors du rassemblement qu'elle organise en solidarité avec les manifestants iraniens pour la démocratie et la liberté en Iran.
9 autres iraniens ont été condamné à mort pour avoir manifesté.
Des députés conservateurs appellent à condamner à mort tous les opposants arrêtés.
600 personnes sont aujourd'hui dans les prisons iraniennes pour avoir manifesté.
Clotilde Reiss toujours otage du régime iranien.
L'Iran est la première prison au monde des journalistes.
Devant cette répression sanglante, la solidarité envers le peuple d'Iran est aujourd'hui une urgence vitale.

- samedi 30 janvier 2010 / Reproduction autorisée avec mention de la source : © www.prochoix.org

State at Stake

"The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, its people. We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment -- to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more."

Keep on working on making the US a more humane and social place and the world safer and more committed to human rights! Thank you.

Laughing While Thinking

Serenity enowns humor as long as we as humans are truly there!

Being in the World !

放....................

109th Issue of Thoughtfulness

Sollers, Lou, Pleynet, Nesselroth, Lanzman, Moses, Mahuzier, Sampson, Mercuri

Papal Discrimination - Again !

The papal malediction has once again proven how little thinking has to do with him and how opposed to freedom he remains:

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
FOR THE TRADITIONAL EXCHANGE OF NEW YEAR GREETINGS

Sala Regia
Monday, 11 January 2010

To carry our reflection further, we must remember that the problem of the environment is complex; one might compare it to a multifaceted prism. Creatures differ from one another and can be protected, or endangered, in different ways, as we know from daily experience. One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes. I am thinking, for example, of certain countries in Europe or North and South America. Saint Columban stated that: “If you take away freedom, you take away dignity” (Ep. 4 ad Attela, in S. Columbani Opera, Dublin, 1957, p. 34). Yet freedom cannot be absolute, since man is not himself God, but the image of God, God’s creation. For man, the path to be taken cannot be determined by caprice or willfulness, but must rather correspond to the structure willed by the Creator.

This creature was certainly uncreated and is a threat to the humanity of mankind!

So remember, according to the vacantine authority, you only have the freedom to be gay if you are god, so simply become the supreme ruler of your own life and teach this papal miscreant an important lesson!

FREEDOM IS HUMAN, not divine!

Blizzard ?

A lot of snow, but for us a wonderland, as in "walking in a winter ..."

Berlin Blizzard

A Reminder for the F.ully-D.um-P.arty

Es wäre für eine bestimmte Partei in Deutschland mehr als angeraten, den höchstmodernen Text gänzlich zu lesen, von dem der unten stehende kurze Auszug genommen wurde.

The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith, 1759

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
We desire both to be respectable and to be respected. We dread both to be contemptible and to be contemned. But, upon coming into the world, we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the sole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt. We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous. We see frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty and weakness of the innocent. To deserve, to acquire, and to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great objects of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are presented to us, equally leading to the attainment of this so much desired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice of virtue; the other, by the acquisition of wealth and greatness. Two different characters are presented to our emulation; the one, of proud ambition and ostentatious avidity, the other, of humble modesty and equitable justice. Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour; the one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline: the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other, attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly, a select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness.

Adam Smith - The Theory of the Moral Sentiments - The Adam Smith Institute

Also wird geraten: Bescheidenheit, Beachtung der Rechte, Weisheit, Tugend.

(And, dear Mr. Westernwave and colleagues in snobbery, these few German words are to spur you to seek a translation of Adam Smith should you not manage the original.)

Monster At Work

Iran: le Guide suprême soutient la répression

Le Guide suprême de la République islamique, l'ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a apporté
samedi son soutien à la répression des manifestations anti-gouvernementales du
27 décembre, appelant les autorités à faire 'leur devoir contre les corrompus et
les émeutiers'.

This individual deserves no adjective that I can think of; he is BENEATH them ALL !
May the world of free and thinking people CRY OUT without ceasing until this creature no longer has any power in any country ! This is no "religious" leader, no leader of any stature whatsoever, but a criminal attempting to repress all who disagree with any of his ridiculously reactionary and dangerous notions unworthy of the word "ideas" !

FREEDOM FOR THE REPRESSED IN IRAN: women, gays, intellectuals, opposition politicians, thinkers, atheists, and all those who refuse to bow before this paragon of inhumanity and cruelty !

Portugal votes to legalise gay marriage

Progress in 2010! Congratulations to Portugal on this move, and might I add that there are many other European countries with gay civil unions on the books, including Germany and France. Love is a matter that can only prevail!

Portugal votes to legalise gay marriage [pinknews, January 8, 2010]

Portugal's parliament today voted to legalise marriage for gays and lesbians.
The Catholic country is now the sixth in Europe to grant same-sex couples the right to wed, although this will not include adoption rights.
Addressing lawmakers before the vote, prime minister Jose Socrates said the law "rights a wrong" and would end "pointless suffering".
But he added: "This issue of adoption is different as it does not just involve adults who are free to give their consent."
The law will remove any references to gender in the country's marriage laws.
Although centre-right parties opposed the change, all left-wing parties supported it.
The law must be approved by President Anibal Cavaco Silva but parliament has the power to override a veto from him.
It is expected to come into force in April, a month before Pope Benedict XVI visits the country.
Five other European countries allow gay marriage: Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

• Meanwhile, people remain imprisoned in far too many countries for speaking out for their rights and the rights of others. Free those imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression!

Beethoven and Freedom

Let us remember LIU XIAOBO, imprisoned in China for speaking and writing, all those imprisoned in Iran for expressing their opinions, bloggers and journalists around the world put behind bars for speaking out.
Beethoven's opera Fidelio dealt with nothing else: FREEDOM, the struggle to speak freely the truth.
Listen to the prisoner Florestan's lament and consider the urgent need, for only we can help those imprisoned by tyrannies. That is OUR duty!

In des Lebens Frühlingstagen
ist das Glück von mir geflohen!
Wahrheit wagt' ich kühn zu sagen,
und die Ketten sind mein Lohn.

In the spring days of my life
Happiness deserted me!
Truth I dared to utter boldly
And the chains are my reward.

Dänemark Mordanschlag auf Mohammed-Karikaturisten
02.01.2010 Ein Islamist dringt mit einer Axt in das Haus des Mohammed-Karikaturisten Kurt Westergaard ein. Die Polizei stoppt den Täter mit Schüssen. Hat er Kontakte zu al-Qaida?

Somali charged with murder attempt on Muhammad cartoonist

(The Guardian)
Danish police shot and wounded man who broke into Kurt Westergaard's home wielding axe and knife. The Somali man has been charged with trying to murder the Danish artist whose cartoons of the prophet Muhammad sparked a storm of protest and violence across the Muslim world.

Standoff in Iran Deepens With New Show of Force
NYT, by MICHAEL SLACKMAN, January 2, 2010
Security forces filled Tehran streets to deter protests, as the opposition leader said he did not fear to give his life to his cause.

Light !

Light is the glow of the concealed revealing itself to the receptive.

Think and Thank.

Love and Live.