Contrast this news article below with the excerpt from the Universal House of Justice’s Promise of World Peace (published 1985) that follows it. (Thanks, Canadian friend, for this.) -gw
A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.
The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany’s economic recovery.
Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say.
The petition has 44 signatories so far, and will be presented to newly re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The group say the financial crisis is leading to an increase in unemployment, poverty and social inequality.
Simply donating money to deal with the problems is not enough, they want a change in the whole approach.
“The path out of the crisis must be paved with massive investment in ecology, education and social justice,” they say in the petition.
Those who had “made a fortune through inheritance, hard work, hard-working, successful entrepreneurship, or investment” should contribute by paying more to alleviate the crisis.
The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. Few societies have dealt effectively with this situation. The solution calls for the combined application of spiritual, moral and practical approaches. A fresh look at the problem is required, entailing consultation with experts from a wide spectrum of disciplines, devoid of economic and ideological polemics, and involving the people directly affected in the decisions that must urgently be made. It is an issue that is bound up not only with the necessity for eliminating extremes of wealth and poverty but also with those spiritual verities the understanding of which can produce a new universal attitude. Fostering such an attitude is itself a major part of the solution.
I noted that the U.S. House passed this yesterday.
111TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION H. RES. 175
Condemning the Government of Iran for its state-sponsored persecution of its Baha’i minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights.
I noted the votes were 407 yeas and 2 nays. Two is not a big number compared to 407, but I wondered, who were the two Congressman who went on record as being against the resolution? So I went to this page which gave me the breakdown. I noted that there were 23 Congressmen who were listed as “not voting.” The two who voted against were Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Ron Paul of Texas. Although I am curious as to what the reasoning of the two was, I am deeply grateful that the other 407 who saw fit to vote for this resolution. That human rights are God-given rights is my belief. We all have a right to our opinion. -gw
I gotta try these kiwi berries grown by a Baha'i. -gw
Born in Iran, Farah moved with her family to the United States when she was a teenager because her father, who was Baha'i, believed it was his moral duty to educate his daughter as much as his son.
"He just felt he needed to do that, so he brought us here," she said.
Ramchandani eventually graduated from UCLA’s School of Public Health and, after a career spent as a health educator, she and her husband bought the Nine Star Ranch in Wilsonville in 2005. It was already planted with the kiwi berries that the previous owner had sold to markets in Japan. Though she knew nothing about farming and was soon dubbed "the Green Acres lady" by some of her neighbors, she dedicated herself to learning about the unusual fruit.
The web is my favorite website. I am very loyal to it. I keep going back to it day after after day.
I am not especially loyal to specific pages on the web, but I am forever looking for Baha'i content that is up-to-the minute and relevant, wherever it is to be found. And there are so many devices to search the Internet, and more and better each day.
I do my own filtering. I know what to click on and what to skip over.
I am my own aggregator, and will use my own sites to point to what I like. But I realize in this day that it is in the creation of new content that Baha'is on the Internet can be of the most service.
Put your content up, any way you like. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube, Vimeo, FriendFeed, your own domain name site, or use any of a variety of at-the-ready popular blogging platforms.
I like posterous. No muss, no fuss. Get your content up there. Others will find it.
Tell your story. Offer your opinion. Write your post. Make your comments. Shoot your shots. Record your video. Upload away.
Jeremy goes to a wedding and has a great conversation with an “elderly” Baha’i couple at the table and posts about it. As an elderly person myself, I was delighted with his post. -gw
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At dinner, we were seated next to several people, but the gentleman to my left and his date were hands down the most exciting guests we met. His name is Emerson and his date is Grace. They are both artists. Emerson plays the trumpet and conducts orchestras. Grace is a painter. They both had sharp wits and minds and you can see by their picture that they weren’t entirely young.
They have both lived full lives and show no signs of slowing down. What intrigued me most was they are both followers of the Baha’i faith. I have never heard of Baha’i before.
As we were talking, Emerson drifted toward that cliché church talk that I talked about in “The Yeshua Fog” post. I got a little nervous, but excited, because I was hoping to share my views with someone at the wedding. It was going to be hardest to share them with an elderly man. But I was down, so I buckled my seat belt and waited to be proselytized.
Boy was I wrong!
Baha’i is an integrated faith, I imagine like Unitarianism. All paths lead to “salvation” or to god, so Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Flying Spaghetti (honk), etc, all faiths lead in the right direction. I know … blasphemy right!?! NOOOOOOO!
But how cool is it when a gentle old man tells you about his passion of a church that is all inclusive. He leaned into me at one point — he spoke to me with his eyes shut — and he said, “We don’t do any of that superstition or anything.” Which I took to mean the Jeffersonian bible kind of thing where all the magic and BS is removed from the bible and what’s left are truly great words. …
What impressed me most about Emerson and Grace was their clarity of vision and their studious personas; their beings exuded education and worldly gnosis. It’s bizarre to hear an elderly man refer to googling something in one sentence and then telling me about how the practice of performance is the best self education that one can encounter.
After we talked for most of the evening, Emerson and Grace encouraged Tina and I to dance for them. Which was cute on so many levels. We had a lot of fun.
The song “Strive” has become the theme song for our cluster’s current Intensive Program of Growth, Pierce County WA’s 17th. The song is up on YouTube in this lovely version above, posted there about two weeks ago. I, of course, prefer the live version sung during our door-to-door teaching preparation this past weekend, led by member of the Auxiliary Board Mauricio. -gw
These video clips are certainly among the best from those I took during the recent Intensive teaching campaign in Tacoma last weekend. Being a Baha’i is all about transparency. These videos will inform both the seeker and the long-time believer of what expansion campaigns look like in the Baha’i community in the present moment. There is much to appreciate here and study. -gw
This is what my boss asked me this morning. With pride I told him YES!
Because of that I am wondering for some time if I should close this blog and open another one because Baha’i standards are pretty different than the ones I used before but no. I decided for the time being that I will keep this blog and adapt my blogging style to conform with Baha’i standards and philosophy.
Content of this blog is autoposted from
Posterous (Baha'i Views & Baha'i Music). Also carrying this mirrored content is Baha'i Views (on Blogger). The email for all of these sites is: bahaiviews@gmail.com. None of these blogs constitute official sites of the Baha'i Faith. For authoritative material about the Baha'i Faith go to: http://bahai.org/ or http://bahai.us/. George Wesley Dannells
At dinner, we were seated next to several people, but the gentleman to my left and his date were hands down the most exciting guests we met. His name is Emerson and his date is Grace. They are both artists. Emerson plays the trumpet and conducts orchestras. Grace is a painter. They both had sharp wits and minds and you can see by their picture that they weren’t entirely young.
