Energy Work

Everyday we are faced with negativity, the darkness not only surrounds us, but it resides inside us.

This creates an illusion that speaks to us, causing our minds to lose focus on the beautiful things.

It causes us to forget our purpose.
To bring light into the world.
To display pure unadulterated love, to ourselves and the ones around us.

The things that keep our hearts purified with love are choked out and forgotten, making us feel like a heavy blanket or atmosphere is surrounding our soul, choking out the light that wants to shine within.

You are not alone.
Your light is there waiting for you to consume it and become closer to enlightenment.

Acknowledge and accept that you need help in bringing the light into yourself, while rejecting and pushing the darkness away from you.

Ask your Higher Being to help you, guide you and love you. 
Ask for what you need, and listen to their answers.
They will only do what is best for you.

There is no rejection in their love.

Meditate. It is the only way you can hear the answers your guides are providing for you.
Quiet your mind.
Listen.

Follow your intuition, it is another way your guides are helping you.
Throw away all fear, all hate, all negativity.
Let the light in.
Let love in
Let peace in
Let joy in
Let prosperity in
Let all these beautiful things into your soul.
Watch the blessings come in.

Taye Diggs on Hollywood

According to Associated Press Taye Diggs is less than happy on the way African American films are treated as opposed to other Hollywood films. Making it extremely difficult for black films to get funded and produced.

"Whether a studio decides to proceed with a black-oriented film can depend on the success of other movies with primarily African-American casts, even if the projects are unconnected, said Diggs, who starred in "The Best Man" romantic comedy and its sequel.

In a recent interview, the actor said he and others who worked on the "Best Man" movies are eager to start on a third. But its fate is tied to how other black-oriented films, including the upcoming "Think Like a Man Too," perform at the box office, he said.

"Unfortunately, the business is such that as far as studios are concerned, they judge one quote-unquote black movie on how other 'black' movies have done, even if they have nothing to do with each other," he said.

That's "ridiculously" frustrating, said Diggs, 43, whose movie credits include "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" and "Rent." He stars in a new TNT drama, "Murder in the First."

"We've definitely come a long way. But we've got a long way to go," he said. "It's too bad we can't do well on our own merit when it comes to the studios. They don't like to take risks and, unfortunately, we're still considered a huge risk, even though I don't think we are."

"The Best Man Holiday" grossed more than $70 million in North America last year and was profitable, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak."

GOP Rejects Drew Turiano for Spreading Racist Views

The last few years, it seems that the GOP can't do anything right. Their candidates have attacked women's rights, profiled African Americans and rejected gays. For a party with so many problems it seems impossible for them to stand up and do something for the people, instead of against them.

Drew Turiano (R-Mont.) a tea party member, has officially filed to run for congress this next term; he is hoping to pick up Steve Daines's (R-Mont.) seat who is now running for U.S. Senate. Drew Turiano is known for using the n-word on Fox news in 2001 and for heading "Operation Wet-Back", an initiative that would deport all undocumented immigrants and their American born children. 

According to the Missoulian, Turiano has been excluded from speaking at the Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner.

“We asked Mr. Turiano not to attend our event because we have no intention of allowing him a platform to spread hate and intolerance,” Yellowstone County Republican Chairwoman Jennifer Owen said. “There is simply no place for racism in this party.”

In response Turiano said that the reason he was being excluded, is due to his affiliation with the Tea Party.   And that Chairwoman Owen is trying to get back at him for their disagreement about "Operation Wetback".

Montana GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood agrees with the concerns that Owen's has, saying that the Republican Party has been long standing against racism. He also points out that the fact that Turiano is campaigning on an "Offensive racial epithet" has caused many republicans to reject him.

According to Turiano's website he also supports the state's right to nullify and/or reject federal law or judicial mandate. This includes Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act. He also feels that President Obama should be impeached.

Thank goodness the GOP is taking steps, no matter how small, to rid themselves of the racism and discontent of certain politicians.

Reparations From Britian, France and the Netherlands

The slave trade has had a devastating effect on all people of color around the world. This devastation didn't end after slavery was was outlawed, many countries today are still enduring the debilatating effects of slavery.

Several leaders of Caribbean nations have decided that it is appropriate to sue the countries that have benefited and encouraged the atrocious behavior.

"A British human rights law firm hired by the Caribbean Community grouping of nations announced that prime ministers had authorized a 10-point plan that would seek a formal apology and debt cancellation from former colonizers such as Britain, France and the Netherlands," states AP.

These Caribbean nations do not plan to stop there. They also plan to sue for reparation payments to try and repair not only the damage that has been done, but to repair the ongoing psychological trauma that effects black people today.

Not only have European nations damaged Africans psychologically, but they have succeeded in doing their best in excluding the Caribbean in the nations in Europe's industrialization and confined to producing and exporting raw materials such as sugar.

The plan also demands that Europe help with aid in strengthening the regions public health, educations and cultural institutions.

The plan goes on to demand diplomatic assistance from Europe to resettle Jamaica's Rastafarian population back to Africa, which has always been very important.

This deal is not new, for years Caribbean countries have asked for reparations from European countries with no success. But, recently it has gained momentum.  

"Caricom, as the political grouping of 15 countries and dependencies is known, announced in July that it intended to seek reparations for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and created the Caribbean Reparations Commission to push the issue and present their recommendations to political leaders.

They then hired Leigh Day, which waged a successful fight for an award compensation of about $21.5 million for surviving Kenyans who were tortured by the British colonial government during the so-called Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s and 1960s.

The commission's chairman, Hilary Beckles, a scholar who has written several books on the history of Caribbean slavery, said he was "very pleased" that the political leaders adopted the plan.

In 2007, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed regret for the "unbearable suffering" caused by his country's role in slavery but made no formal apology. In 2010, then French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged the "wounds of colonization" and pointed out France had canceled a 56 million euro debt owed by Haiti and approved an aid package.

The Caribbean Reparations Commission said Monday that far more needed to be done for the descendants of slaves on struggling islands, saying it sees the "persistent racial victimization of the descendants of slavery and genocide as the root cause of their suffering today.""

Regressive Uganda

On February 24 2014, the Ugandan president signed into law The Anti-Homosexuality Act.  It was first dubbed the kill the gays act due to it's death penalty clauses, but now has changed the consequences to life in prison. The bill doesn't just stop at punishing gays individually, but also punishes people who harbor homosexuals and companies that support LGBT rights.

In response to this new law President Obama has threatened to cut off aid to Uganda, if the laws are not changed. Uganda also expected to receive a  loan from The World Bank to help over haul it's health system. The $90 million loan has been postponed though, due to the tough anti-gay law. This comes at a surprise, considering that The World Bank usually tries to avoid politics altogether.

"We have postponed the project for further review to ensure that the development objectives would not be adversely affected by the enactment of this new law," World Bank spokesman David Theis said in an email.

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, sent an email to his bank staff saying the bank does not condone discrimination, and will protect the safety to all employees.  

Scotland has also joined in the fight against discrimination against the LGBT community. The country has proposed a plan to offer asylum to any Ugandans that are being persecuted by the new anti-gay laws. 

Humza Yusuf wrote in a letter submitted to the U.K. Foreign Secretary, "Scotland will play her part in providing asylum for those seeking refuge from this draconian legislation."

Scotland's proposal for asylum for these Ugandan comes in fear of gay Ugandans being hunted down and killed. Prominent gay activist David Kato, had such a fate when he was identified as gay in a local newspaper. Being murdered shortly after. The tabloid didn't just stop there, they identified 200 other gay people living in Uganda. 

The U.K. supreme court recognizes the importance to help people that are identified as gay, and offer them asylum. In 2010, they announced that it would be unreasonable to send men back to countries like Iran and Cameroon, where homosexuality is forbidden, and they should not have to hide their sexual orientation. 

Uganda is not the only country that has anti-gay laws. There are at least 41 other countries that have anti-gay legislation. The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, in which Uganda and several other anti-gay countries are set attend, the Kaleidoscope Trust, an anti-gay advocacy group hopes that Scotland will use the gathering to condemn the countries that have such regressive laws. 

“We have always felt the Games had an important part to play in tackling the scandal of LGBT abuses in the Commonwealth and welcome the Scottish government taking the bull by the horns," the Kaleidoscope Trust told The Herald.

Hopefully, with the pressure from President Obama, the World Bank and Scotland, Uganda will reconsider its regressive discriminatory laws. 

The History Of Rape In The Military

“Few northern soldiers raped…True manhood was characterized by sexual restraint not sexual assertion; even mutually agreeable intercourse would have threatened masculine identity. Letting anger toward women break out in unsanctioned violence against women would have been unmanly,” read a passage in Reid Mitchell's book The vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home.

This and many other records of the civil war denies that rape was a problem during the civil war. Suggesting that soldiers weren't even having sex. But looking at the records of disease during the civil war shows that there were 109,397 cases of gonorrhea and 73,382 cases of syphilis, and these are only the ones reported among white U.S. troops, the confederate records were destroyed.

There, also was at least 450 cases of rape or attempted rape cases in Union military courts. The laws outside the courtroom made it hard for women to report rape cases because of the emphasis on chasity. If a woman were to get consent  in the face of a severe beating or at gun point, it would still be considered consensual sex, and the attacker would not be punished, leaving the accuser ostracized.

The Atlantic interviewed Kim Murphey about the research she did on military rape. Read Below:

Why does war, in general, tend to breed rape?

Because, basically, men can get away with it. Very few men are prosecuted for it during war, and commanders usually do not come down very hard on it. I mean, it’s kind of like the military right now, what they’re going through. Military women are being raped and they often have to report to the person who may have been the rapist, or who may have been friends with the rapist. So it really hasn’t changed. [Ed. Note: In a 2012 survey, 6.1 percent of active duty military women reported they had experienced “unwanted sexual contact” in the past year. Of these, 67 percent did not report the incident.]

You mention a lot of difficulties with determining what happened during the Civil War in particular—for example, many of the Confederate records were destroyed. How do you go about extrapolating what may have happened that was not reported?

Unfortunately, because we don’t have all the records, we don’t really know. But when I uncovered several hundred cases [of rape], I think that speaks loudly because very few women would have come forward. Very few women come forward during peacetime; it’s even fewer that come forward during wartime, so we know that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s being reported.

"If he was holding a gun to her head and she was scared to death, that was still considered that she had given her consent."

Also, the thing that most people don’t recognize is that most of the records, like the court-martial records that we do have, were reported during times of occupation. That means that the troops were there, they weren’t in an active battle situation. That’s when women could find someone to go forward to. During times of battle, the chances of them even knowing who they could report to would be almost nil, and even if they did find someone, the chances that the officer in charge would be able to find enough officers to take on a court martial at that time would be next to impossible.
In the book, I mention [a rape that occurred during] Sherman’s March, when the army was on the move. The victim did report it. But by the time the case made it to court martial, they were 100 miles away, so she could not testify. That’s what people don’t understand—it was totally against the women to even be able to report it.

Can you give an overview of how the rape laws worked at the time?

The court martial tried to do by the state laws of the time. During the time, women had to essentially prove they had been raped, and that meant that she had to give the ultimate resistance against the attacker’s force. One thing that was different in the Civil War era was that girls as young as 10 could often be considered as trying to entice men.
Women in court settings also were often barraged with questions of how she had resisted his advances. If she consented because he beat her, or if he was holding a gun to her head and she was scared to death, that was still considered that she had given her consent.

Do you know what would have been an acceptable answer?

As far as resistance? Well, the woman usually had to go out of their way to say how much they had resisted. That’s where the title came from, “I had rather die.” A woman was testifying that she “had rather die” than be raped, and it was during those resistance questions.

Explain the distinction between “persuasion” and “force”—it seemed like that was a very nebulous thing.

Basically, if a man could persuade a woman in any way to have intercourse, then it was not considered rape. Again, it didn’t matter if he beat her silly in order to “persuade” her, or if he had a weapon and persuaded her that way. In other words, a man could use as much persuasion as he wanted in order to have intercourse and it not be considered rape.

There’s a sort of double standard, especially if you think about the idea of what was considered “being a lady” at the time. Now you have to be able to fight off a man—even though normally society thought you should be dainty.

Even if it was an upper-class white woman, who was more likely to believed, sometimes judges would dismiss it because they would feel, “Oh, [if she were really a lady] she would have been too ashamed to actually come forward.” So everything was stacked against the woman.
That’s the other thing: both the North and the South rarely thought it was rape when it was a black woman. It wasn’t until the Civil War when black women were actually able to come forward and call it rape. Before that time, even in the North, they would make it a lesser charge [for black women], if at all. I do have at least one record where a black woman was able to testify about a sexual assault in New York or someplace like that, but that was very rare. For the most part, black women’s voices went unheard.

It seems there was every kind of hurdle: race, class, and whether or not the person had a weapon, or witnesses to corroborate the story. And the more factors you had in your favor, the more likely you’d be successful.

And if you had a white male witness, you generally were more likely to be believed.
Most of the black men that were found guilty of rape and executed, generally speaking, they were gang rapes, so it was multiple men against a white woman. And with the white men, most of them had other crimes [on their records], and a high percentage of the white men that were executed were foreign born—so there’s an obvious prejudice there, too. They tended to have a history of desertion or other crimes that they were guilty of in the past.

Can you talk a little bit about this quote:

“It is true that rape is a most detestable crime, and therefore ought severely and impartially to be punished with death; but it must be remembered, that it is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho never so innocent.”
-- Sir Matthew Hale, The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736)

It seemed, from your book, that all the laws and attitudes at the time revolved around this idea.

Yeah, that came from the judge, Matthew Hale, in the 18th century. He was saying that men had it very difficult to prove that they hadn’t raped. That woman was vindictive so, therefore, she would “cry rape.” His words were used in the court martial records and civilian records in the 19th century, and were still used in courtrooms well into the 1970’s.

Whether or not those [specific] words are used, do we see this attitude continue today?

For sure. There’s no doubt about that. It seems like so many times women still have to prove that they’ve been raped when they shouldn’t. I think we have made some steps forward, but unfortunately women don’t go forward enough because they still feel like they’re going to be lost in the justice system. And I know we’ve had several cases recently where athletes were considered more important than women who had been raped, and that’s essentially the same thing that was going on during the Civil War era. It was more important to have a good soldier, whether or not he had committed rape.

So you can see parallels between now and then?

Mmhm. And I see it more and more each day, it seems like, where people keep saying, “Oh, we need to say a woman had been forced in order to be raped.” Well, rape is rape, and any kind of rape is forced.

Russian Trying to Hide the Environmental Costs of Hosting Winter Olympics

Vladimir Putin promised that hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics will not have a negative impact on the environment. According to several environmental agencies Mr. Putin has not lived up to his promises to host a 'green Olympics'.

According to the Agency France Presse, Wetlands that provide habitat for several different types of wildlife including dozens of bird species, have been covered with 6.5 feet of crushed rock. Though, Ornithological Park was created as an alternative for the birds to migrate, they have not taken to it.

And it only gets worse from there. Olympics organizers have been accused of illegally dumping construction waste in Sochi national parks. This is destroying parts of Sochi National Park and blocking migrating routes for wildlife. Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus have monitored the activities of  the construction sites for the last two years and in response to their reports, they have endured harassment of its members.

Yevgeny Vitishko is the latest victim of this harassment getting a two week jail sentence for swearing in public.  This would be just long enough for the games to continue without his intervention. He is not the only one who has been to detained, according to The Guardian Igor Kharchenko after finding his car smashed was grabbed by police in Krasnodar. The police then took him to the police station and charged him with resisting arrest. He was put on trial and sentenced without any legal counsel.

Vitishko has been very vocal about the changes in environmental laws in Russia, from 2006, 2011 and 2013, Russian authorities have weakened the laws to facilitate the Olympic related construction. If he is convicted for other charges he could face up to three years in a labor camp.

It is unfortunate that despite Vladimir Putin's promise to have a 'green Olympics', he could not deliver on that promise. If he could have delivered, it would have helped normalize greener practices for future countries that host the Olympics.