that damn Obama !

Whenever you hear a sentence that starts out with “that damn _________”, you can be fairly certain that you are about to get an earful of distorted facts.

Case in point:

The other day, I was having a phone conversation with an old friend (at my age, ALL my friends are old) and he commented that he had heard that the Obama administration has printed more money in the last two years than the government has printed since the time of George Washington.

Although the “fact” sounded a little unrealistic, I “humped” a few words of agreement so that I could hear the rest of the story. After we ended our conversation, though, I went to my trusty computer to do some research , and found some very interesting information.

I wasn’t able to determine WHO came up with this story originally, even after researching “the usual suspects”. The closest that I could come up with were some comments made on the air by Glen Beck on October 28, 2009. On that program, he stated that our ACTUAL national debt is really $105 trillion, and that we have increased the money supply by 120% in the last year.

I was an Economics major in college. While attending the University of Minnesota, I passed 11 Economics courses, and I took 2 more additional post graduate courses before I taught college level Economics classes for 7 more years.

Glenn Beck barely graduated from high school, and NEVER attended college. For some reason, though, there’s a large number of people who think that he knows what he is talking about when he gives his opinion about Economic theory.



I will have to admit, though, that Glen Beck knows more about money than I do.

He made $32,000,000 last year ..

and I didn’t.

If you look at the chart below, you’d probably conclude that the Democrats have REALLY gone nuts in the last two years.

chart of the U.S. money supply

If you dig deeper, though, you’ll also discover that there are SEVERAL kinds of money. MO (the chart represented in the link above) is simply money in circulation AND bank reserves. It has “spiked” in the last two years due to the fact that banks have been hoarding money during the credit crises and the real estate collapse. Another REALLY big reason that banks apparently started “hoarding” money is that the Federal Reserve started paying interest on depository institutions’ required and excess reserve balances on October 6, 2008.

If we, as individuals, were suddenly offered a higher interest rate on our savings accounts, isn’t it logical that we’d put more money into our savings accounts, and less into consumption?

That’s exactly what lending institutions have been doing since October 6, 2008.


The Federal Reserve uses TWO money supply measures.M1 measures currency, travelers checks, and checking account deposits. M2 includes M1, savings accounts, time deposits under $100,000, and money market mutual funds.


Glen Beck IS right about a couple of things:

(1) the supply of money in circulation HAS increased since Obama took office.

(2) the national debt has ALSO increased since Obama took office.

However, he IS a little off on his numbers. According to the Federal Reserve (on March 24, 2011), M1 has increased roughly 10% since a year ago, and M2 has increased about 4%.

The LAST time that there was a Democratic President (Bill Clinton) , the outstanding public debt was on track to have been ELIMINATED by the year 2010. That grand plan got sidetracked by the Bush Administration, who used the projected budget surpluses to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, and then added to the financial hemorrhaging by invading Afghanistan in 2001and Iraq in 2003.

As of March 27, 2011, the U.S. public debt is $14,221,945,669,739.50, which works out to a total debt for each man, woman , and child of $45,836.07, and an estimated 90% of that debt is due to the policies of the Bush Administration.

Thanks a lot, George.

Does an increase in the money supply automatically lead to more inflation? WeIl, it sure did in Germany in 1923, when people needed wheelbarrows to haul around their nearly worthless Deutschemarks:



To determine whether that is still true today, I went to the Federal Reserve website, and found the following opinion If you have trouble reading it, I’d suggest that you jump ahead to the conclusion on page 59. If it STILL doesn’t make any sense to you, I’m afraid that Glenn Beck isn’t going to be of much help either.

Most of us remember the rampant inflation of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s (when prices increased more than 10% each year), and none of us want to see a repeat of that.

Concerns have been expressed that policies of the Obama administration will lead to runaway inflation. However, the fact remains that the first year of the Obama administration (2009) was the first time since the Eisenhower administration that the CPI (Consumer Price Index) went DOWN from the prior year.

If Glenn Beck does not renew his contract with Fox News at the end of 2011, I’d recommend that the network play the following clip in the closing minutes of his program:



However, as nutty as he is, Glenn Beck isn’t a guy that we need to worry about.

Wisconsin Representative Paul Davis Ryan Jr is really the ONE person who has the ability to create havoc in the American economy, largely due to the fact that he is the chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Prior to his first election to office, in 1999, Ryan worked as an economic adviser to Empower America, one of the many conservative organizations (including the Tea Party) that have been founded and funded by the billionaire Koch brothers. Ryan, like Scott Walker, has received a substantial amount of money from the Koch brothers since being elected to office.

Ryan is one of the three co-founders of the Young Guns program, an organization dedicated to helping Republicans gain and retain offices. He also created the Roadmap for America.

In brief, the Roadmap for America advocates:


reduction of income tax for the wealthy -
reduction of the capital gains tax -
elimination of the corporate income tax -
elimination of the estate tax -
elimination of the alternative minimum tax =
privatizing Social security -
the elimination of traditional Medicare and Medicaid programs -

Like his fellow “cheesehead", Scott Walker, he'll be a person to watch in the future.



For most us, Ryan has been "under the radar", and he definitely is not a household name. However, if enough people (especially voters in Wisconsin) start saying "that damn Paul Ryan", our country will be a lot better off.

Ghostbusters !!

One of the more memorable lines from the 1984 movie “Ghostbusters” was when Bill Murray said, “I’ve been slimed”.

That line came to mind on the morning of Ash Wednesday as I walked to work. Contrary to what you might think, ethereal apparitions didn’t suddenly slide out of the railroad overpass on Main Street into my line of vision.

To be totally accurate, I wasn’t “slimed” this morning. I was “ashed”.

Evanston is definitely a town of churches. I visited 65 different congregations between January 1 of 2006 and January 1 of 2008, but I didn’t get to all of them. Altogether, there are 103 churches, which seems like a lot for a town of 70,000 people.

One of the churches that I DID visit was St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which is located less than two blocks from where I work.

On Ash Wednesday morning, two female priests from the congregation were administering ashes to whatever passersby wanted to accept them. Since I wasn’t sure what my schedule would be like that evening, I decided to take them up on their offer.

In addition to the ashes, I also received a postcard with some additional information about the congregation, and about the season of Lent.

One of the paragraphs on the card that they passed out really struck a chord. The exact words used were as follows:

“The ashes we receive here are to remind us throughout the day of our need for God, and of God’s call to us. There is much more to the beginning of Lent than ashes alone, and we encourage you to make time for worship with a community of faith, for the support of others and of the great traditions of faith in our work of repentance and renewal. This is the season when old worries and hurts may be released and healed.”

To rephrase that last sentence, Lent is a time that we can get rid of our old ghosts, and prepare for a new beginning.

Because of some of the life experiences that I've had, I've become more open-minded as I've gotten older, which is contrary to what happens to most people as they start to get grayer. As a result, I was delighted to receive ashes from an Episcopal priest this morning, for a couple of reasons:

(1) Not all mainline churches recognize female priests. Although the Roman Catholic Church has not permitted female priests since the 4th Century, there are other churches that follow the same philosophy.

The “liberal” arm of the American Lutheran Church, the ELCA, DOES allow female priests, and recently decided to permit non-celibate gay priests to lead congregations. The “traditional” Lutherans (the Missouri and Wisconsin synods) do not permit female priests.

As a general rule, Muslims also do not allow women to lead congregations in prayer.

In spite of some local opposition, there ARE places in America where female Roman Catholic priests celebrate mass, and there ARE places in the world where female imams are allowed to lead mixed congregations. To protect their privacy, I won’t tell you how many female priests there are in America, or where they are, but you can learn more about them by watching the movie “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican”, which will be released this spring

(2) the Episcopal Church is the only mainstream congregation (so far) to permit an openly gay man (Gene Robinson) to serve as a bishop. Before you pull out your Bible, and start flipping through Leviticus, I’d STRONGLY recommend that you go to amazon.com and BUY the movie about his life.

You can watch a preview of the movie at the link below:

For the Bible tells me so

The mission statement of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is as follows:

“St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is an inclusive, progressive Christian community. The congregation that gathers for worship reflects the diversity of our surrounding urban/suburban community. Celebrating the image of God in every person, we gladly welcome all individuals - regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, martial and familial status, mental and physical abilities, and religious background”.

Although I enjoy diversity, I don’t expect that all the churches in America should be as open and progressive as this church or the ELCA Lutheran church that I attend on a regular basis. However, I would like a lot fewer congregations like the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, which is officially listed as a hate group by many internet watchdog sites.

The first clear evidence of the commemoration of Ash Wednesday is around 960 A.D., and in the 12th Century, people began using palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday for ashes. Traditionally, the season of Lent that Ash Wednesday inaugurates is a time for reflection and sacrifice, and the season is considered to be a preparation for the renewal of the baptismal promises at Easter. Although Catholics can now eat meat on Fridays throughout most of the year, the season of Lent removes that privilege. Often forsaken during Lent are the little pleasures of life (candy, smoking, alcohol etc.) but modern society has created some interesting twists. I’ve recently heard about people giving up Facebook for Lent. Although it might seem a little silly at first, the reality is that most of us spend a little more time than we should in front of our computers, and I have to admit that I started going through withdrawal symptoms when my internet service went away a few weeks ago for three days. Yikes!

Although I really didn’t feel any physical change come over me after I got the smudge on my forehead on Ash Wednesday, I DID feel a stronger sense of calm. Even though they were the same ashes that I've always received, they somehow gave me a different attitude this year. Now that I’ve got my ashes , I ain’t afraid of no ghosts

The man behind the curtain

When we were kids, the “Wizard of Oz” taught us that people aren’t always who they pretend to be:

who are those guys?

The most recent example of that ancient wisdom is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. On the surface, he is rightfully concerned about Wisconsin’s operating budget. Like many states, Wisconsin has more going out then coming in, so measures need to be taken to bring the budget in balance. According to pension expert Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University, Wisconsin currently has more than $45 billion in unfunded obligations. Sadly, Wisconsin really isn’t much worse than most other states. Taken as a total, state and local governments across America have unfunded obligations totaling $3 trillion!

With a strong dose of courage on the part of elected officials, the financial conditions of the states could be improved dramatically if all 50 states legalized the possession of minor amounts of marijuana and eliminated the death penalty.

In 2008, America had 2.4 million people behind bars. 1,000,000 of those people were locked up for non violent crimes, like marijuana possession. Individual states spend between $18,000 and $31,000 a year per prisoner. If you do the math, that’s $18 to $31 BILLION a year that's literally "going up in smoke".

It is estimated California could save $200,000,000 a year by
replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment, and similar savings could be achieved in other states that still have the death penalty.

For now, neither of these entirely logical solutions are likely, so we're going to be doomed to "politics as usual" for a while yet.

What’s not widely known is that the Political Action Committee of Koch Industries contributed $43,000 to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, and an estimated $320,000 came from a related group called Americans for Prosperity (which has an annual budget of $40,000,000). Since you never want to “bite the hand that feeds you”, Governor Walker recently spent 20 minutes on the phone with a man who he thought was his benefactor, David Koch, and he discussed pending layoffs and plans to publish lawmakers who had fled the state to Illinois.

Unfortunately, his opposition to high speed rail service resulted in the Obama administration taking back more $800 million that had been awarded to the state. To quote an old phrase, he is being “penny wise and pound foolish”.

Three days after the prank call to Governor Walker, the
Wisconsin legislature passed legislation designed to curb public sector union power.

Other states have been paying attention to the news in Wisconsin. A day or so before the Wisconsin legislature proposed their recent plan to curb union power,the school board of Providence, Rhode Island FIRED all 1926 teachers that worked in the city. Although the newly-elected mayor, Angel Taveras, tried to calm the uproar by publicly stating that “the overwhelming majority” would not actually lose their jobs, very few teachers felt comfortable about his statement. To curb its $40,000,000 operating deficit, the school board will need to close 40 of its schools by September.

The school situation is even more dire in Detroit, which will need to close 50% of its 140 schools by September. The schools that remain open will have as many as 60 students in each room.

I spent 7 years of my life as a teacher (either full time or part time) and 4 years of my life as a financial advisor, so the
punishment being aimed at teachers across the country leaves me a little conflicted.

If you’ve ever read “The Jungle”, by Sinclair Lewis, you’ll understand that unbridled capitalism can be a very dangerous thing. His book was instrumental in the passage of the Food and Drug Act in 1906, but working conditions in the factories of America didn’t start to improve until the 1930’s. OSHA didn’t get passed until 1970.

When I was growing up, a lot of the dads in the neighborhood (including my own) had union jobs. The peak year for unions was 1954, when 36% of the work force was union. Today, less than 7% of the workers in the private sector are union workers, but 32% of the public employees carry union cards.

Democracy needs a system of checks and balances to operate successfully.

By the late 1970’s , the contract terms imposed by the UAW made the Big 3 automakers less competitive than the guys from overseas. Although the vast majority of the foreign auto manufacturers now have plants in this country, most of them are non-union plants in the south.

The financial mess at the state level exists at the federal level, which is the root cause of the success of the infamous Tea Party in the 2010 election year.

When George W. Bush was in office, he first used the term
“compassionate conservative” to describe the Republican Party.Let’s listen for a few minutes to a compassionate conservative discussing health care reform with a caller on a talk radio show program:



Glenn Beck made $32 million last year Although “only” $2,000,000 came from Fox News (which is owned by Rupert Murdoch) , it provided the platform that allowed him to promote the rest of his broadcasting empire.

Another conservative broadcaster, Rush Limbaugh, made $28,000,000 last year. Due to the number of years he has been in the broadcasting industry, it is estimate that his net worthis close to $1 billion.

To quote the late Illinois senator, Everett Dirksen, “a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money”.

Both Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have been featured speakers at the annual conferences sponsored by Americans for Prosperity (see above). The annual meetings have occasionally attracted unwanted attention from opposition groups. In January of this year, 25 people were arrested outside the conference center in a resort area near Palm Springs, California.

According to the Republican Party website, the list of the potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates is listed below:

The Grand Old Party

At the moment, former Governor Mike Huckabee is considered to be the leading candidate, but he is closely followed by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Like Sarah Palin,John Bolton,and Newt Gingrich, Mr. Huckabee is currently an employee of Fox News, a division of News Corporation, which is owned by Australian-American media magnate Rupert Murdoch.

When Saddam Hussein was in power, he TOLD people how to vote.
It was either vote for Hussein - or else! Since I’m not a believer in telling people how to vote (or think) I won’t. However, I’m a lot more comfortable having an eloquent retired law professor running the country than a politician who has received donations from either the Koch brothers or Rupert Murdoch, who are the modern day “men behind the curtain”.

Niggers

Like most people, I find the racial epitaph in the subject line above to be both offensive and demeaning. However, I am old enough to remember a time when the word was used a lot more frequently, and it wasn’t considered to be derogatory at the time.

My parents grew up in a small farming community in Minnesota. Even today, the town is 97% Caucasian, so it’s safe to say that there aren’t a lot of Negroes in the town. I would not consider either one of my parents to be prejudiced, but I heard them refer to Negroes as “darkies” or “niggers” with absolutely no malice whatsoever.


“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) in December of 1884. In the book, he used the word “nigger” more than 200 times, in large part because that was how most white Americans described Negroes at the time. There have been some very recent attempts to “sanitize” the book by removing the word “nigger”, but there are a large group of people who feel that the word “nigger” is an integral pat of the original message of “Huckleberry Finn” and should not be removed.



Shortly before I started high school, the first “Freedom Rides” left Washington, D.C.. When I was I a freshman, my instructors at the Catholic boys high school that I attended provided some valuable insight about the concept of “racial equality”, and Martin Luther King’s speech on my birthday in 1963 finally succeeded in planting the seed of moral outrage someplace deep within me.

I have a dream

Although the decade of the 1960‘s is the time period when “black folks” finally got some proper legal protection, via the 1964 Civil Rights Act, there were a few events in the 1950’s that helped to provide the moral underpinnings for the law:

The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision

The 1955 murder of Emmett Till



Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in December of 1955, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott.

The “Little Rock nine” petitioned to enter Little Rock High School in September of 1957.

Due in large part to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Black History Month has been celebrated in America since 1976, but its origins go back a lot further in history.

Negro History Week was started by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1926. Although it’s impossible to know his motivation for doing so, it’s likely that the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and the 1924 meeting of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey may have influenced his actions.

On a local level, Evanston recently mourned the passing of a woman who was a pioneer for civil rights in the community.

Mayme Finley Spencer was Evanston’s first female African-American alderman. She served two terms in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and was instrumental in passing the city’s fair housing ordinance, which prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of real estate. During the time that she was serving on the city council, the hospitals in Evanston refused to admit black patients for any reason. In response, her husband (Dr. Warren frank Spencer) helped to create Community Hospital in Evanston. For a number of years, it was the only hospital in Evanston that African-Americans could go to for medical services.

By now, most of us would have assumed that racial prejudice was a fading issue, but that’s actually not the case.

Shortly after her funeral, Mayme’s family received a racist letter from an unknown person. In typical fashion, they shrugged off the letter, which was essentially the approach that Mayme’s father would have taken. In a sense, he was following the advice of the reading from last Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 5:38-48) which advised us to “turn the other cheek”.

Another example of the fact that there’s still work that needs to be done can be found if you read the racist vitriol attached to the YouTube clip of Martin Luther King’s speech.

It’s an absolute fact that right wing hate groups are on the rise in America. A little more than a year ago, there were 932 hate groups operating in America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It’s also true that reverse discrimination still comes into play from time to time. “Black leader” Danny Davis recently endorsed Carol Mosely Braun for mayor of Chicago ONLY because she was black. To borrow a phrase from my friends in Indiana , “that dog don’t hunt no more.”

Ms. Braun won exactly ONE of Chicago’s 2570 precincts in the recent mayoral campaign, and she received no votes at all in 174 precincts. By gathering only 9% of the total vote, she’s living proof that the citizens of Chicago voted for her on the strength of her character, and not the color of her skin.

When the 2011 Black History Month comes to its conclusion on Monday night, I’d recommend spending a little time reading about the lives of 28 black people who have made enormous contributions to our society:

I have a dream

In a lot of ways, they are all unforgettable:

Nat King and Natalie Cole

The Prince of Egypt - in Arabic

قصة موسى ، كما روى لنا في سفر الخروج ، هي قصة مألوفة جدا. ما ليس على ما يرام كما هو معروف هو أنه يمكن أيضا قصة موسى يمكن العثور عليها في القرآن (سورة البقرة بدءا 7.103) و في التوراة.

عندما ولدت الصبي الذي أصبح موسى ، يمكن أن نرى أن والدته كان طفلا حسنا ، وأخفت عنه لمدة ثلاثة أشهر. وضعت عندما كان لم يعد من الممكن إخفاء له ، له في تابوت صغير مصنوع من القصب ، وأرسله إلى أسفل نهر النيل.

ووجدت ابنة فرعون له ، واستغرق الشفقة عليه ، رغم أنها تعلم أنه كان العبرية. تبنت له ، واسمه موسى له ، وهو ما يعني "للخروج من المياه". منذ أن كان الآن ابن ابنة فرعون ، وكان أيضا أمير مصر.

أصبح عندما كان لا يزال شابا ، بقلق متزايد عليه من قبل عقوبة العبيد كانوا يتلقون العبرية من أسيادهم المصرية. في يوم واحد المشؤوم ، قال انه يمكن ان تتخذ أي أكثر من ذلك ، وانه عدد كبير قبطانا مهمة المصريين الذين يضربون كان عبدا العبرية ، واخفت جثته في الرمال.

وهرب إلى الصحراء لتجنب التعرض للقتل على يد فرعون ، واستقر في حياة الراعي. تزوج من امرأة اسمها في نهاية المطاف صفورة ، والتي أنجبت له ولدا ، الذي سماها جرشوم. لم يمض وقت طويل بعد ولادة ابنه ، وسمع صوت من فوق ، ورأيت رؤية لحرق بوش ، الذي دعاه للعودة إلى مصر وحرر شعبه.

the burning bush



مؤخرا ، وأمير مصر في الآونة الأخيرة جاء إلى الحياة مرة أخرى. ورغم أن الظروف كانت مختلفة كثيرا هذه المرة ، وقال انه سراح شعبه مرة أخرى. سوف اسمه ليست اسم مألوف في أمريكا حتى الآن ، لكنه أصبح أفضل بكثير المعروفة في الأشهر المقبلة.

اسمه وائل غنيم. إن هو إلا 30 سنة ، لكنه يعيش في بلد 60 ٪ من السكان هم دون هذه السن ، مما يجعل له تقريبا "الموقت القديمة"

يعمل كمدير تنفيذي لإحدى التسويق لجوجل في مصر ، وكان شخص واحد الأكثر مسؤولية عن تغييرات جذرية في مصر الأسبوع الماضي ، بما في ذلك استقالة الرئيس حسني مبارك. آخر صاحب بوك الأخيرة ، والتي كان بعنوان "نحن جميعا وقال خالد" كان ، إلى حد كبير جدا ، و "اطلاق النار الذي سمع في جميع أنحاء العالم".

جاء مبارك الى السلطة في 1981 بعد اغتيال أنور السادات في 1981. خلال سنواته الأولى كرئيس لبلاده ، وقدم عددا من التغييرات التي كانت مفيدة جدا لمصر. بمرور الوقت ، على الرغم من الركود في البلاد في ظل حكمه. 20 ٪ من السكان تحت خط الفقر ، والناتج المحلي الإجمالي ليست سوى 6200 $ ، لذلك كان لا مفر منه أن التغيير سيكون في نهاية المطاف إلى أن يأتي

ما هو حقا رائع عن تغيير السلطة في مصر هو انه حدث بسبب وجود اثنين من الشركات الأميركية التي لم تكن موجودة حتى قبل 15 عاما. وكان كل من فيس بوك وجوجل مشاريع الكلية في السنوات الأولى من حياتهم.

في البداية كان من المعروف جوجل بأنها "backrub" وكان مقرها في جامعة ستانفورد في كاليفورنيا. تأسست الشركة في مرآب لتصليح السيارات في مينلو بارك بولاية كاليفورنيا في 4 سبتمبر 1998.

بدأ مارك زوكربيرج مشروع زملائه الطلاب ما يسمى ب "فيس بوك" عندما كان لا يزال طالبا في جامعة هارفارد. تأسست بوك ، الشركة ، في المهجع كليته في 4 فبراير 2004.

خلافا لجهودنا في العراق وأفغانستان ، وجاء التغيير في الحكومة في مصر حول تقريبا مع اي جهد من جانب الحكومة الاميركية وراء زوجين من المحادثات من الرئيس أوباما وسفيرنا المصري السابق ، فرانك ويزنر جي.

حدث الثورة الديمقراطية التي حصلت للتو في مصر لأن المواطنين الشباب من مصر اتصالات مع بعضهم البعض عن طريق فيس بوك وجوجل (وربما حتى التغريد). وأثارت الاضطرابات الثورة المصرية في عدة بلدان أخرى في المنطقة. هذا الاسبوع ، والمتظاهرين في الشوارع في ليبيا ، اليمن ، ايران ، والبحرين (موطن الأسطول الخامس للبحرية الولايات المتحدة) ، ووالمسيرات ومن المقرر ابتداء من غد في الجزائر والعراق. ومن الواضح جدا الآن أن تعلموا مواطني تلك البلدان الأخرى على "السير مثل المصري"

watch Michael Jackson dance

لتغريد ، وبالمناسبة ، لم يأت حتى يوليو من عام 2006.

عندما عرضت قتل ندا آغا سلطان في طهران في جميع أنحاء العالم على موقع يوتيوب في 20 يونيو 2009 ، فإنه بالشلل محاولات زعماء إيران في فرض ضوابط صارمة على مواطنيها. وخلافا للثورة عام 1979 ، عندما كان الوصول الى شبكة الانترنت غير موجودة (الذي لا يزال في حالة لمستخدمي Facebbok في الصين) ، ومواطني إيران والآن لدينا المعلومات التي يحتاجونها لتحقيق أهدافهم ، على الرغم من أن الحكومة الحالية "لا تزال تعمل على ذلك ".

مصر هي دليل حي على أن حرية الوصول إلى المعلومات والتعليم هي أدوات قوية. يمكن العثور على مثال آخر في أفغانستان وباكستان ، حيث غريغ مورتنسون (المؤلف من ثلاثة فناجين من الشاي) أقامت أكثر من 100 مدرسة. بذلك ، فقد كان محدودا بشدة النداء الذي وجهته حركة طالبان في تلك البلدان. كتبه والآن مطلوب قراءة للقوات العسكرية الأميركية التي تتعامل مع مكافحة التمرد.

تونس أيضا مؤخرا بتغيير القادة ، ومن المحتمل أن قادة بعض الدول الأخرى في المنطقة سوف يكون الحصول على "وثائق المشي" في المستقبل القريب جدا. على الرغم من أن الدول العربية قد لا يحقق ما أنجزوه في طريقهم "العصر الذهبي" ، والعودة في القرن 7 ، فإن حقيقة أن العالم العربي يتحول أخيرا إلى أقل استبدادية ، وأكثر ديمقراطية ، والحكومات يعني أن بقية العالم ستكون أكثر أمنا.

وقد تم بث قناة الجزيرة من مصر خلال الاضطرابات الأخيرة. بدلا من أن يكون في المقام الأول أداة لنشر المعلومات المعادية للغرب إلى تصلب الأصوليين ، ومحطة تقدم الآن أدلة دامغة على ان الجهاد لم يعد الإجابة الصحيحة ، و "الشيطان الاكبر" هو في الحقيقة رجل يدعى أسامة بن لادن.

نشرت مجلة تايم عند قضية أوراق البنتاغون أصبح معروفا لسنوات منذ العام 40 ، وهي قضية كتب عليها "ما هاث زيروكس المطاوع؟" على الغلاف. ونحن جميعا في فتعجب حقيقة أن التغيرات في القيادة يمكن أن تحدث بسبب آلة نسخ.

جوجل الآن العلامة التجارية الأقوى على وجه الأرض ، وهو موقف من شأنه أن يتصور أحد منا ، حتى مؤسسيها ، حتى قبل خمس سنوات. إذا كان الناشرون من الزمن ، أي منذ التاريخ ، قد ترى في نهاية المطاف تغطية تصور وائل غنيم ، والأمير الجديد لمصر على الغلاف ، مع عنوان "ما الذي يحدثه جوجل هاث؟"

منذ مارك زوكربيرج كان الرجل مجلة تايم لعام 2010 ، وتخميني هو أن الأمير الجديد في مصر يجب أن تكون منافسا قويا للقب عام 2011.

The Prince of Egypt

The story of Moses, as told to us in Exodus, is a very familiar tale. What is not as well known is that the story of Moses can also be found in the Quran (starting with Sura 7.103) and in the Torah.

When the young boy who became Moses was born, his mother could see that he was a goodly child, and she hid him for three months. When it was no longer possible to hide him, she put him in a small ark made of reeds, and sent him down the Nile River.

The daughter of the Pharaoh found him, and took compassion on him, even though she knew that he was a Hebrew. She adopted him, and named him Moses, which means “out of the water”. Since he was now the son of the Pharaoh’s daughter, he was also a prince of Egypt.

When he was still a young man, he became increasingly troubled by the punishment the Hebrew slaves were receiving from their Egyptian masters. On one fateful day, he could take no more, and he slew an Egyptian task master who was smiting a Hebrew slave, and hid his body in the sand.

He fled into the desert to avoid being killed by the Pharaoh, and settled into a life of a shepherd. He ultimately married a woman named Zipporah, who bore him a son, who he named Gershom. Not long after the birth of his son, he heard a voice from above, and saw a vision of a burning bush, which called him to return to Egypt and free his people.

Recently, the Prince of Egypt recently came to life again. Although the circumstances were much different this time, he again freed his people. His name isn’t a familiar name in America yet, but he’ll become much better known in the months to come.

His name is Wael Ghonim. He is only 30 years old, but he lives in a country where 60% of the population is under that age, which almost makes him an “old timer”

He works as a marketing executive for Google in Egypt, and was the one person most responsible for the dramatic changes in Egypt last week, including the resignation of President Mubarak. His recent Facebook post, which he titled “we are all Khaled Said” was, to a very large degree, the “shot that was heard around the world”.

Mubarak came to power in 1981 after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. During his early years as the leader of his country, he made a number of changes that were very beneficial to Egypt. Over time, though, the country stagnated under his rule. 20% of the population is now below the poverty line, and the GDP is only $6200, so it was inevitable that change would eventually have to come.

The problems in Egypt mirror the problems in the rest of the Arab world. As Thomas Friedman explains in his column of February 24, 2011, the issues that were the underlying cause of the revolutions that are currently raging overseas were actually the fault of America's addiction to cheap foreign oil.

What’s truly remarkable about the change of power in Egypt is that it happened due to the existence of two AMERICAN companies that didn’t even exist 15 years ago. Both Facebook and Google were college projects in their early years.

Google was initially known as “backrub” and was based at Stanford University in California. The company was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park, California on September 4, 1998.

Mark Zuckerberg started a project that his fellow students called "The Facebook" when he was still a student at Harvard. Facebook, the company, was founded in his college dormitory on February 4, 2004.

Unlike our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the change in government in Egypt came about with virtually no effort on the part of the American government beyond a couple of conversations from President Obama and our former Egyptian ambassador, Frank G Wisner.

The democratic revolution that JUST took place in Egypt happened because the young citizens of Egypt communicated with each other by Facebook and Gmail (and possibly even Twitter). The Egyptian revolution has sparked upheavals in several other countries in the area. This week, demonstrators are in the streets in Libya, Yemen, Iran,and Bahrain (home the the United states Navy's Fifth Fleet), and marches are planned starting tomorrow in Algeria and Iraq. It's pretty obvious by now that the citizens of those other countries have learned to "walk like an Egyptian"

watch Michael Jackson dance



Twitter, by the way, wasn't launched until July of 2006.

When Neda Agha-Soltan’s murder in Teheran was shown around the world on YouTube on June 20, 2009, it crippled the attempts of the leaders of Iran to impose harsh regulations on its citizens. Unlike the revolution of 1979, when internet access was non-existent (which is still the case for Facebbok users in China), the citizens of Iran now have the information that they need to achieve their goals, even though the current government is “still working on it”.

Egypt is living proof that free access to information and education are powerful tools. Another example can be found in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea) has built over 100 schools. By doing so, he has severely limited the appeal of the Taliban in those countries. His books are now required reading for the U.S. military forces that are involved with counter insurgency.

Tunisia also recently changed leaders, and it’s likely that the leaders of some of the other countries in the region will be getting their "walking papers" in the very near future. Although the Arab countries may never achieve what they accomplished in their “Golden Age”, way back in the 7th century, the fact that the Arab world is finally shifting to less autocratic, and more democratic, governments means that the rest of the world is going to be a lot safer.

Al Jazeera has been broadcasting from Egypt during the recent upheaval. Instead of seemingly being a tool for disseminating anti-Western information to hardened fundamentalists, the station is now providing solid proof that jihad is no longer the right answer, and the “great Satan” is really a guy named Osama bin Laden. Ironically, Maommar Gadhafi (leader of a country long considered to be a terrorist state) recently described the protesters in Libya as "drug addled disciples of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden".

When the Pentagon Papers case became known to the public 40 years ago, Time magazine published an issue emblazoned with
“What hath Xerox wrought?”on the cover. We all marveled at the fact that changes in leadership could come about because of a copy machine.

Google is now the most powerful brand on the face of the earth, a position that none of us, even its founders, would have imagined even five years ago. If the publishers of Time have any since of history, you might eventually see a cover depicting Wael Ghonim , the new Prince of Egypt on the cover, with the heading of “What hath Google wrought?”

Since Mark Zuckerberg was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 2010, my guess is that the new Prince of Egypt would have to be a solid contender for the 2011 title.

新年快樂！

在中國人民隆重慶祝中國新年很長一段時間。中國的歷史可追溯到6000年類似，但第一個已知的使用Chinese calendar

日曆 < /一>）變為
回到公元前2637年。確切日期變得有點 murkier由於這一事實，即孫中山修訂的出發點就在1911年革命。在他的日曆系統，第一個日曆年是2698年。如果你用他的日曆系統，新的一年即將到來將是4799年。

農曆新年是最長的，最重要的節日，在農曆中。雖然它總是發生在我們的冬季，它被稱為“春節”，因為西方之間的區別與傳統中國方法計算的季節。

由於中國農曆新年是一個慶祝活動，開始了每年新年的變化。本節開始的第一天的第一個月就農曆和結束
與元宵節，這發生在第15天。由於我們使用的公曆，第一次約會是在新年後的第二個新月冬至。

我曾有幸親眼目睹了2004年開始的農曆新年與各位英語教師。強化啤酒的幾起案件，我們看著最壯觀的煙花匯演，我已經都看到的，在廣州市中心，中國。

煙花是一個很大的一部分，中國新年慶祝活動，但這樣的做法是一種徹底的大掃除（這可能是原產地的那句“春季大掃除”），顯示的橘子樹（這是說帶來好運），該交易所的紅信封，交換禮物和共進晚餐的家庭成員。

在農曆中，遵循一個 12年週期的生肖動物，以及一個 10年週期的天干。下面的鏈接提供了一個更好的解釋之二：

農曆新年的Chinese New year

為了簡單起見，下面我列出未來數年，和動物相關的這一年：

2011 - 這一年的兔
2012 - 年龍
2013年 - 這一年的蛇
2014年 - 這一年的馬
2015年 - 這一年的羊
2016 - 在猴年
2017 - 這一年的公雞
2018 - 這一年的狗
2019 - 豬年
2020 - 鼠年
2021 - 牛年
2022 - 虎年

我出生於 1947年，這意味著我出生在豬年。當我做了一些研究的屬性出生的人在豬年（當時我在中國）我很驚訝地發現準確描述的屬性的。

農曆新年開始的今年2月3日，恰好是我父親的生日。如果他還活著，他會在今年102。因為我也是一個信徒在權力命理，事實農曆新年開始在我爸的生日應該是一個吉祥的標誌。
從歷史上看，春節一直是時間，然後你和你的家人慶祝。雖然我的父親已經去了
近20年來，夾下面是如何珍貴提醒歐 ř家庭可以是：




新年快樂！

If your Chinese is a little rusty, I'd recommend doing a copy and paste version of the above story into Google Translate. If that process becomes a little cumbersome, just send me a note, and I'll send the English translation to you