A comedian's way to meditation and money

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Kyle Cease (evolvingoutloud.com) via Christine Blosdale

 
Just go...
(a note from the Kyle Cease having this event)

I don’t know how to sell this event. There is no tactic. I can write up some bullet point system of amazing things that you will gain. Things like ending stage fright, anxiety, and so on. But it is so much cooler than any bullet points could ever spell out. It’s an experience. [He's selling a feelgood experience? Oh, Kyle!]

It’s tapping into a deeper you. It’s bringing out the effortless “you” that always existed [Hey, just like Mahaayana, Zenn, Shambala, and Hinduism say will happen!] Remember when you were a kid? [Yes, yes "I Remember"! Coolio was singing. Hey, Kyle, get to the flow, bro. Here we go.]

Remember how you just played? Remember how you didn’t care what anybody thought about you? How you could just create, imagine, and weirdly you were happy much more frequently? That place existed once, which means it is always available. It has been right under our nose and we overlook it and actually choose to stress out. We are trained to find the problems everywhere.

 

We are always fixing something that is not broken. We are constantly reliving stressful past things, and anticipating future things. When we are done with that, we need some addiction to get us into the moment.

Childhood? "Dead and Gone" (T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake)

Kids don’t have this. Kids have the moment, freedom, love, creativity, and play locked as their default setting. Guess what, you are still a kid. You might be a 50-year-old kid, but your natural state is your natural state. That state is worth everything. It’s worth more money, higher health, happier relationships, inner peace, and higher likeability. 

I'm evolving. I'm evolving out loud.

You just need to get away from the old habits. You just need to be taken away for a few days. [How 'bout one magical weekend?]. You just need to leap.[Just once?]

 

If right now, while reading this, you are analyzing if you should leap, check this out: You can always measure what you will lose; you can never measure what you will gain. [True that.]

 

So while you are anticipating the hotel costs, the babysitter, and the three days of being away, also anticipate the possibility of an entirely different, more fun, profitable, and much more effortless life. [I'm in!] It really is for anyone and everyone. Evolving never ends. Kyle Cease (more videos).

Evolving Out Loud. Live.  June 27-29, 2014 The Westin LAX  Los Angeles, California

Tickets on sale now!

• FREE AUDIO: Westerner Watts: How to meditate
• The neuroanatomy of freestyle rap (The Atlantic) 
• Rapper's brain in flow - what brain research reveals

Why for-profit prisons fill with inmates of color

Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Rina Palta (NPR/SCPR.org, March 13, 2014) Why for-profit prisons house more inmates of color; Robert May (facebook.com)

"Kids for Cash" is a shocking and riveting real-life documentary thriller that rivals fiction.

"Kids for Cash" examines the notorious true story of judicial scandal that has recently rocked the nation. Beyond the millions of dollars paid to corrupt judges to jail kids by private for-profit prisons, it exposes a shocking American secret. In the wake of the shootings at Columbine, a small town celebrates a law-and-order judge who is hell-bent on keeping kids "in line." Then one parent dares to question the real motives behind his brand of "justice." This real-life story reveals the untold stories of the masterminds at the center of the scandal to fill up for-profit prisons with any children available, guilty or not, and the chilling aftermath of lives destroyed in the process. It is a stunning emotional roller coaster.

A new study by a UC Berkeley graduate student has surprised a number of experts in the criminology field. Its main finding is that private prisons are packed with young people of color.

 

The concept of racial disparities behind bars is not new. Study after study, report after report, working group after working group has found a version of the same conclusion [ -- the country and courts are affected by ethnic prejudice, economic biases, and subtle racism that people find too uncomfortable to discuss or recognize]. 

Prisons for Profit (WQ)

The Sentencing Project estimates that one in three black men will spend time behind bars during their lifetime, compared to one in six Latino men, and one in seventeen white men. Arrest rates for marijuana possession are four times higher for black Americans than white Americans. 

 

Black men spend an average of 20 percent longer behind bars [when everything else is controlled for] in federal prisons than their white peers do for the same crimes.

 

These reports and thousands of others have the cumulative effect of portraying a criminal [in]justice system that disproportionately incarcerates black Americans and people of color in general.

 

Ruining lives the racist way: a young inmate of color walks through yard at the North Central Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio, which recently switched to private for-pro management (Ty Wright/Bloomberg via Getty Images).

  

Int'l Women's Day, L.A. (WQ)

Berkeley sociology Ph.D. student Christopher Petrella's finding in "The Color of Corporate Corrections," however, tackles a different beast.

Beyond the historical over-representation of people of color in county jails and federal and state prisons, Petrella found that people of color "are further overrepresented in private prisons contracted by departments of correction in Arizona, California, and Texas."

This would mean that the racial disparities in private prisons housing state inmates are even greater than in publicly-run prisons. His paper sets out to explain why -- a question that starts with race, but takes him down a surprising path.

Age, race, and money

Prisoner (themonastery.org)

First, let's look at a bit of background. Private prisons house 128,195 inmates on behalf of the federal government and state governments (in 2010 numbers, which have increased by 2014). There is a continual debate among legislators and administrators as to which is more cost effective -- running a government-operated prison, with its government workers (and unions), or hiring a private for-profit company (like GEO or Corrections Corporation of America) to house prisoners. States like California, Arizona, and Texas use a combination... More

• LISTEN NOW (0:46 sec) download

• LA Sheriff's Department searching for missing inmate
• VIDEO: "Veronica Mars" cast reunion kicks off TV's PaleyFest with pornstar Kristen Bell
• Is California safer 3 years after San Bruno explosion?

• VIDEO: Learn to meditate with Dhr. Suvannavira
• Texas cop arrested for allegedly raping a woman... A Dallas police officer was arrested for... [facing] a sentence of two to 20 years and a fine of up to $10,000. 
• Dallas cop accused of raping woman after traffic stop
• Bringing an end to State-sanctioned sexual assault, rape culture... The San Diego police department's scandal involving officers... an eight year sentence for molesting female drivers during traffic stops...
• Deputy Willie Greer accused of raping woman at traffic stop 
• Officer raped woman while on duty (LA Times)

Peace on "Anti-War Radio" (audio)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Scott Horton (scotthorton.org), Anti-War Radio (1-26-14), Future Freedom Foundation (fff.org); G. Porter

Peace Buddha (papercraftsbyk/flickr.com)

 

Peace sign Buddha (BuddhaIsland.net)

What is the cause of war? It is not tribal differences. That only leads to skirmishes, swagger, and big talk. With forced conscription and seductive advertising, governments make war possible; with profit as the highest motive, corporations make war necessary. Our imperial adventures are actually industrial ventures, easy ways for a very few to make a great deal of money while the public pays for it.

We pay in cash, others with their lives. We send our sons and daughters into the machine; the other side has no choice but to defend themselves against our invasions. The UK taught us well, and the Romans, and the NAZIs, and the Vikings, and the Conquistadors... So we have a "military-industrial complex." A former president warned us about it, a current president keeps it going and growing, and who among us is paying any attention?

• LISTEN NOW: AUDIO (download) 
• AUDIO: Scott Horton with Gareth Porter (1/24/14)

Freedom (fff.org)

Gareth Porter, an independent investigative journalist and historian, discusses Lt. Colonel Danny Davis’s whistleblowing on senior U.S. Army officials lying about progress in Afghanistan, why the Afghan army would rather make deals with the [CIA's] Taliban than fight them, and why David Petraeus’s claim to fame -- the 2007 U.S. War on Iraq “surge” -- is dubious.

Spooky: corporations spy on non-profits

Wisdom Quarterly; Gary Ruskin (CorporatePolicy.org, Nov. 20, 2013), "Spooky Business: A New Report on Corporate Espionage Against Non-profits"

Giant corporations are employing highly unethical or illegal tools of espionage against nonprofit organizations with near impunity, according to a new report by Essential Information. 

The report, titled Spooky Business, documents how corporations hire shady investigative firms staffed with former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), US military, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Secret Service, and local police departments to target nonprofit organizations.

 

“Corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations is an egregious abuse of corporate power that is subverting democracy,” said Gary Ruskin, author of Spooky Business. “Who will rein in the forces of corporate lawlessness as they bear down upon nonprofit defenders of justice?”

Many of the world’s largest corporations and their trade associations -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Monsanto, Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Burger King, McDonald’s, Shell, BP, BAE, Sasol, Brown & Williamson, and E.ON -- have been linked to espionage or planned espionage against nonprofit organizations, activists, and whistleblowers.

 

Many different types of nonprofit organizations have been targeted with corporate espionage, including environmental, anti-war, public interest, consumer, food safety, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control, social justice, animal rights, and arms control groups. More

• Wear a suit and helmet that feed you: One person’s head-mounted torture device may be another person’s idea of food. Case in point: the Algaculture Symbiosis Suit.