May 1 2007

Life Happens

Media news is all about war, the current leaders and their decision making, the state of terrorism and the truth that governments are made up of ordinary people with a bit of knowledge and some might suspect, little wisdom to do the next right thing.

People forget the past so easily, the lessons of history as current leaders of countries are ready to make their own history.

Blair and his judgments which he suggests will be for he and God to discuss on his entry into heaven. Bush utilises the same God argument. Yet God in the same breath can be the culprit because God apparently made us all.

Were we made to make war? I think not. We are all of nature and providence and more than this we have our intelligence. How can the world be so when indeed the only elements which make our world so is us? God, providence and nature has nothing to with war. Mankind wars on itself, bickers and makes every mistake through generations and now it seems over two millennia we know a lot about war and little about peace and harmony.

Are we so shallow we cannot learn? Or is it that every generation must re-enact all that has happened before over and over again.

I fear we must as we learn through our living and doing. We are not so clever are we? From backyard disputes and to nations and ideology, religion and every part of life, our ego’s they drive us to war and famine as much to rich in life experience and spiritual connections.

How long will it be? So many generations and still no end to conflict. Hitler died this day in 1945. We have learn nothing from the last world war. And still now we do not see war is constant as mankind blunders and is blind to innate prejudice and a clarion call to the rightness of secular argument and religious dogma. Old wisdoms are only learned through living. Where heaven might provide respite, I doubt it will anything like our poor imaginings. Constant conflicts assured its good we don’t all take up arms at once, or there would be no humanity and no human endeavour to chronicle and no way to break our patterns of self destruction. We have more generations to go, some day in a far off and distant future our progeny may read of great changes to the good of good conscience. Till then don’t hold your breath.

Man made God and god made man, one day we will see the Universe a different way, and recognise we are of little importance to anything but ourselves. Egocentricity defeats reason and science as easily as faith and courage make living a spiritual path in this ever present, present moment, our true connection to Nature and Providence. God is busy elsewhere..

April 30 - May 1 2007

Be True To Yourself - DonInLondon ‘Day in the Life’

It’s the end of April, and having reflected on many aspects of how April has been, there have been significant steps forward. And significant high points and lows points. In fact when I write it out, the lows are also as important as the highlights. I learn from both.

The good of helping others has been to their benefit. Not to mine. Indeed helping very unhappy and ill people is not good at all when it really undermines and pulls me down to places I can access without too much trouble myself. I may know the answers and the process of what I might do, at the same time I know that there are many services out there I utilise for the same reasons. Yet many don’t simply because it might get them labelled as this or that.

My labels, recovering alcoholic, type 1 diabetic and clinical depression affected. Well if you did not know from looking at me which is often true, you would never realise just what I do have to contend with on a daily basis.

Resilience can be very thin and these days burnout on some elements of living to make it appropriate for me to put myself in harms way. As many don’t see or I don’t often share, well its just not worth it some of the time.

What has opened my eyes most in April is how some people are truly in need of help, some people are not very able to deal with reality, and some people are quite deluded. And maybe I am too. Yet deluded can be a safety measure, not one I would recommend. Truth is my actual recommendation as often as one can be, and be aware of many instances we don’t express the truth because of others feelings.

Where there is likelihood of veils and deceptions for all the right reasons it still makes me shudder.

Overall

This month has made me very aware of elaborate falsehoods, deeply hurt people and very sad outcomes where truth is very elusive and reality is denied. I need not delve in those deeps of shady goings on. And if I do, either by accident or by some manipulation, all I need do is move along, accept where things are and overall find safe ground again.

Spiritual

Some people still have a fascination with mystical goings on when it comes to spiritual development. In my programme rigorous honesty is the actual foundation and not how to make things look like ‘spiritual‘.

I have seen so much in this month now ending I am still processing exactly what has occurred in me. Certainly I am wiser, and certainly I have almost found moments where I lost the plot through others manipulations.

Advice to self

When losing my way or danger is about, ask a policeman. When others have left me holding nothing but hope that they may survive, as the Samaritans to give me perspective. When invited out, make sure I know what for and why and what type of event it may be. And always make sure of good safe ways out where many fail to understand what is dangerous to someone like me and what is acceptable to keep me on track. I have enough mentors thankfully and enough to make the next few days simple and straightforward and not full of other peoples problems and deceptions.

Keep faith with open honest and willing endeavours, let go that which undermines and takes away the truth of life. So many truths I have seen swept away in the struggle just to appear right and acceptable, when honesty would have served far more easily than any of the deceptions I have seen first hand.

Be kind

Yes be kind, find acceptance and forgive, and above all let go. Love is as perennial as the grass… Desiderata works for me!


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Guardian Unlimited OnLine May 1 2007
How MI5 missed the links to the July 7 suicide bombers May 1 2007

Ian Cobain, Richard Norton-Taylor and Jeevan Vasagar

The full extent of the missed opportunities that allowed the July 7 London bombers to slip through the net can be disclosed for the first time today after five of their associates were jailed for life.
Two of the suicide bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, were under surveillance by the security service, MI5, almost 18 months before the four simultaneous attacks that claimed 52 lives.

MI5 officers followed the pair as they drove hundreds of miles around the UK, photographed them and recorded their voices. They followed Sidique Khan to his mother-in-law's home, made inquiries about his telephone, and listened to bugged conversations in which he talked about waging jihad.

Yet they failed to identify either man, and cut short their investigations into the pair after deciding that they did not pose as high a risk to the country as other suspects under investigation.

The revelations led to calls for a public inquiry from bereaved families and opposition parties, and provoked MI5 into an unprecedented public defence of its role.

Details of the security service failings were finally made public yesterday after five men were convicted of plotting a series of massive blasts in the south-east of England using bomb-making techniques learned at al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan.

Read The Guardian OnLine

Times OnLine May 1 2007

British bombers and the lost links to 7/7 May 1 2007 2007

Sean O’Neill, Michael Evans and Nicola Woolcock

Mohammad Sidique Khan’s name featured twice in MI5 anti-terrorist operations more than a year before he went on to lead the 7/7 suicide attacks on London.

The revelations can be reported for the first time after yesterday’s conviction of Omar Khyam, a close associate of Khan, for plotting to build a 1,300lb bomb to blow up a crowded nightclub or shopping centre.

Far from being a “clean skin” Khan had been photographed, followed and bugged by intelligence officers more than a year before the July 2005 bombings that killed 52 innocent people and ranked as Britain’s worst act of mass murder.

Security sources told The Times that they had identified a “Sidique Khan” in 2004 as the owner of a mobile phone called by an alleged al-Qaeda financier and of a Honda car which was tailed from the SouthEast to Yorkshire by investigators. Despite those leads, which placed Khan firmly in the company of high priority terrorist suspects, he was not investigated further.

Read The Times OnLine

Independent OnLine 'Indy' News May 1 2007 2007

On the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair's election as Prime Minister, an exclusive poll reveals 69 per cent of Britons believe that, when he leaves office, his enduring legacy will be the bloody conflict in Iraq

By Andrew Grice

Seven out of 10 people believe that Iraq will prove to be Tony Blair's most enduring legacy, according to an opinion poll for The Independent to mark the 10th anniversary today of the election victory that brought him to power.

As the Prime Minister prepares to announce his resignation next week, the survey by CommunicateResearch reveals that 69 per cent of the British public believe he will be remembered most for the Iraq war. Remarkably, his next highest "legacy rating" - just 9 per cent - is for his relationship with the American President, George Bush.

Four years after the US-led invasion, Iraq still dwarfs all other issues. Only 6 per cent of voters believe Mr Blair will be remembered most for the Northern Ireland peace process, which he will hail as an important part of his legacy when self-government is restored in the province a week today.

Just 3 per cent think the Prime Minister will be remembered most for the cash-for-honours affair, with the same proportion citing the introduction of the national minimum wage and being associated with "spin".

A tiny 2 per cent of people believe Mr Blair's legacy will be his central goal to improve public services, one he put in the spotlight yesterday when he claimed he had achieved the mission he set out exactly 10 years ago to "save the NHS". Only 1 per cent of people believe he will be remembered most for his three general election victories, with the same proportion citing Scottish and Welsh devolution.

But there is some positive news for Mr Blair. Despite public hostility over Iraq, 61 per cent of people believe that he has been a good Prime Minister overall, with only 36 per cent thinking he has been a bad one.

Only one in 10 Labour supporters say he has been a bad Prime Minister, while 89 per cent regard him as having been a good one.

Read The Independent OnLine

BBC OnLine News May 1 2007

MPs to probe MI5 handling of 7/7 May 1 2007

A parliamentary committee is to examine MI5's handling intelligence about two of the 7 July London suicide bombers.
On Monday, five men were given life sentences for a foiled plot to build a huge fertiliser bomb for a UK attack.

It emerged that MI5 tailed two of the 7/7 bombers while investigating that case, but took no action.

MI5's chief said it had done all it could. But the Intelligence and Security Committee will look again at why the 7/7 bombers were not picked up.

MI5 is facing questions over what it told MPs about the suicide bombers.

The committee is also expected to examine claims that West Yorkshire Police special branch was not told about the MI5 surveillance operation, though committee chairman Paul Murphy MP has indicated that police were informed.

BBC OnLine Full Story

BBC OnLine History May 1 2007

May 1 1945: Germany announces Hitler is dead

Adolf Hitler has been killed at the Reich Chancery in Berlin, according to Hamburg radio.

At 2230 local time a newsreader announced that reports from the Fuhrer's headquarters said Hitler had "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany".

It said he had appointed Grand Admiral Doenitz as his successor.

There followed an announcement by Admiral Doenitz in which he called on the German people to mourn their Fuhrer who, he said, died the death of a hero in the capital of the Reich.

Reports from Washington say US officials are suspicious of the announcement and are certainly not celebrating as yet.

BBC OnLine Full Story

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