Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Co-Operation Bahá'u'lláh wrote: It seems as though all creatures can exist singly and alone. For example, a tree can exist solitary and alone on a given prairie or in a valley or on the mountainside. An animal upon a mountain or a bird soaring in the air might live a solitary life. They are not in need of cooperation or solidarity. Such animated beings enjoy the greatest comfort and happiness in their respective solitary lives. On the contrary, man cannot live singly and alone. He is in need of continuous cooperation and mutual help. For example, a man living alone in the wilderness will eventually starve. He can never, singly and alone, provide himself with all the necessities of existence. Therefore, he is in need of cooperation and reciprocity. The mystery of this phenomenon, the cause thereof is this, that mankind has been created from one single origin, has branched off from one family. Thus in reality all mankind represents one family. God has not created any difference. He has created all as one that thus this family might live in perfect happiness and well-being.  (12/31/02) Out of Sight Michael Parenti writes: The super rich, the less than 1 percent of the population who own the lion's share of the nation's wealth, go uncounted in most income distribution reports. Even those who purport to study the question regularly overlook the very wealthiest among us. ...  But where are the super rich? An average of $117,500 is an upper-middle income, not at all representative of a rich cohort, let alone a super rich one. All such reports about income distribution are based on U.S. Census Bureau surveys that regularly leave Big Money out of the picture. A few phone calls to the Census Bureau in Washington D.C. revealed that for years the bureau never interviewed anyone who had an income higher than $300,000. Or if interviewed, they were never recorded as above the "reportable upper limit" of $300,000, the top figure allowed by the bureau's computer program. In 1994, the bureau lifted the upper limit to $1 million. This still excludes the very richest who own the lion's share of the wealth, the hundreds of billionaires and thousands of multimillionaires who make many times more than $1 million a year. The super rich simply have been computerized out of the picture. ... To grasp the true extent of wealth and income inequality in the United States, we should stop treating the "top quintile"--the upper-middle class--as the "richest" cohort in the country. But to do that, we need to look beyond the Census Bureau's cooked statistics. We need to catch sight of that tiny, stratospheric apex that owns most of the world. (12/30/02) Who Owns the internet? You and I Do New York Times: Opinion -- Mr. Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how people use online technology and how that affects their lives. He has begun a small crusade to de-capitalize Internet — and, by extension, to acknowledge a deep shift in the way that we think about the online world. "I think what it means is it's part of the everyday universe," he said. Capitalization irked him because, he said, it seemed to imply that reaching into the vast, interconnected ether was a brand-name experience. "The capitalization of things seems to place an inordinate, almost private emphasis on something," he said, turning it into a Kleenex or a Frigidaire. "The Internet, at least philosophically, should not be owned by anyone," he said, calling it "part of the neural universe of life." But, he said, dropping the big I would sent a deeper message to the world: The revolution is over, and the Net won. It's part of everyone's life, and as common as air and water (neither of which starts with a capital).  (12/31/02) Oil Hits 2-year High CNN Money -- Oil prices moved higher Monday amid concerns over a protracted nationwide strike in Venezuela and the looming threat of military action in Iraq. Brent crude futures rose 55 cents at $30.71 a barrel in morning trade in London, while February U.S. light crude futures jumped to $33.17 a barrel, marking a 45-cent gain from Friday's close and the highest since Dec. 1, 2000. ... The Venezuela strike and speculation about war with Iraq have added more than $5 to a barrel of crude in December, and prices now are $10 to $13 higher than at the beginning of the year, raising concerns that high energy bills may stymie global economic recovery. (12/31/02) 12:33:42 AM

© TrustMark 2003 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 1/1/2003; 4:14:22 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.