As someone who also was there and who embraced the hippie culture during the 1960s and early 1970s, my reading of Goldbergs book is that it is spot on. Its not glorified and nostalgic, and certainly not condescending and dismissive as most books written on the 1960s subculture are these days.

Written in clear congenial prose and in a very orderly and organized fashion with great informative and entertaining detail, Goldberg puts his readers through the paces of the various aspects of the 1960s cultural renaissance/revolution and beyond. Starting in 1966 with the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco followed by chapters on the Media, the Music, Mind and Body Consciousness, the Black Power Movement, the Flower Power and Peace Movements, the Psychedelic Revolution, the Viet Nam War, the Yippie movement, the eventual Death of Hippie downfall, then an epilogue summary of where things went right and where things went wrong, Goldberg presents us with nothing less than a college course on the 1960s cultural revolution from a perspective which is both personal and highly researched, including a timeline of key events and news for that era at the end of his book.

Yes, this book is full of the usual suspects, but it is a far cry from the same ole same ole in previous books written about the various aspects of the 60s. Goldberg has done his research and alongside his personal associations with many of the stars of the 60s counterculture he elucidates the issues and the ironies inherent in that decade beginning with a manifesto from the premiere counterculture newspaper, the Oracle, stating When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to cease obeying obsolete social patterns which have isolated man from his consciousness we the citizens of the earth declare our love and compassion for all hate-carrying men and women.

The books narrative continues with a quote from Allen Ginsberg who says about the Berkeley BE-IN, which more or less launched the hippie movement: a gathering together of younger people aware of the planetary fate that we are all sitting in the middle of, imbued with a new consciousness, and desiring of a new kind of society involving prayer, music, and spiritual life together rather than competition, acquisition, and war.

Meanwhile, on the east coast poet-musician Ed Sanders is quoted in the East Village Other (New Yorks truly liberal newspaper at the time) as saying: a generation that fervently believes that important and long-lasting changes will occur in the United States which would bring free medical care to all plus an end to war and the growth of personal freedom and good vibes. And in the July 1967 issue of Time magazine the lead article stated that Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy, and nonviolence Their professed aim is nothing less than the subversion of Western society by flower power and the force of example.

With these quotes as a prelude and a foundation for the rest of his book, Goldberg cites Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Aldous Huxley, Gautama Buddha and St. Francis as models and mentors from the past for the hippie generation. A generation that he describes as one that revealed the exhaustion of a tradition of Western, production-directed, problem-solving, goal-oriented and compulsive way of thinking. At the time of the now famous quote created by LSD guru Timothy Leary of turn on, tune in, and drop out, Goldberg quotes University of Chicago theologian Martin E. Marty saying In the end it may be that hippies have not so much dropped out of American society as given it something to think about. But there was another form of communication in 1967 that touched most of us baby boomers more deeply than all of the underground and mainstream papers and TV shows put together, and it usually involved a guitar.

Having worked inside the music industry for almost four decades (1969-2004), Goldberg gives us a backstage pass to the 60s music scene and its countercultural history. We get to be witness to everything from underground radio to the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and the West Coast psychedelic rock explosion to the Monterey Pop Festival and the Los Angeles bands to the folk and rock scene in Greenwich Village in New York to London and the famous UFO club and, of course, the Beatles.

Its all there, including great behind-the-scenes stories about the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Moby Grape, Steve Miller Blues Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, The Rolling Stones, Cream, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Love, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Lovin Spoonful, Johnny Winter, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, MC5, J. Geils Band, James Brown, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters, Electric Flag, The Allman Brothers Band, and the list goes on and on all adding to the countercultures consciousness.

In the wake of the Be-Ins and concerts in 1967, it seemed to many in the hip world (including Goldberg) that the force of agape was sufficient to overcome societys obstacles and that a utopian vision could meaningfully change mass culture for the better. Hence the coining of the term Flower Power and all that this moniker implied. Or as Allan Watts put it: Western man has lost touch with original intelligence through centuries of relying solely on analytic thinking. Now, with psychedelics and meditation, some are reconnecting with original intelligence and giving birth to an entirely new course for the development of civilization.

During this time the Eastern religions became more popular in America with a plethora of Indian gurus like the Maharishi, Hare Krishnas, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Swami Satchidananda, and books like the I Ching and Autobiography of a Yogi became mainstream among celebrities and the hippie masses alike. And all of this the music, the psychedelic drugs, the literature, the Eastern spiritual influences all fed in to hippie politics and in particular the movement against the war in Viet Nam.

In looking back on the years of the late 1960s, the feminist and political activist Heather Booth adds: There always have been people working in particular areas like womens rights, gay rights, the environment, the peace movement, and civil rights, but in my heart, I always felt like it was one movement and I still do.

Finally, Goldberg speaks about the end of the hippie era, citing the fateful events of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the birth of the Yippie culture and political countercultural perspective, The Weather Underground, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Goldberg goes on to conclude that decades later people began to view the late sixties as a time of superficial trends, like the Roaring Twenties, worth remembering primarily for the interesting music and colorful fashions. But finally and appropriately Goldberg quotes one of the 60s cultural heroes: Moral and spiritual progress usually takes decades or even lifetimes. Hippie skeptic Kerouac said, Walking on water wasnt built in a day, but he didnt say it could never happen. Its been decades since the 1960s and we could sure use a dose of the values, compassion and consciousness that was created back then.

Thomas Crowe is a regular writer for The Smoky Mountain News and is currently writing a personal memoir on the literary renaissance in San Francisco in the 1970s. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Searching for the 60s - Smoky Mountain News

FSM eDigest | August 1, 2017

By Robert A. Norton, Ph.D., and Brad Deacon

Last April 24, an alert employee at a Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor, MI, noticed a young man spritz liquid from a small spray bottle onto food in the hot food bar. The man, 29-year-old Kyle Bessemer, was arrested after the media published a surveillance image showing him carrying a red shopping basket and striding past the avocados. Bessemer told police he mixed a Tomcat rodent poison with water in a bottle of hand sanitizer and, over the past two weeks, had sprayed the mixture onto open salad and food bars at several grocery stores. He was suspected of doing the same at 15 other foodservice establishments. Surveillance photos also showed Bessemer squirting liquid on avocados as he squeezed them.

In his statement to police, Bessemer said he had a history of mental illness and thought people were poisoning him, and he ultimately was found unfit to stand trial. This time, nobody got sick from the watered-down poison, but the specter of what if? hovers over the affair. Imagine what could have happened if Bessemer had been what we call a thinking adversary, one who researched and carefully planned an operation targeting vulnerable, open salad bars. Its happened before: Back in 1984, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh used the pathogen Salmonella to poison more than 750 residents of The Dalles, OR. They deliberately contaminated salad bars at 10 local restaurants in hopes of incapacitating voters so their candidate would win in an upcoming county election.

And what if the culprit not only knew what he was doing but was an insider, someone who knew how to avoid security cameras and pick a time when no one would see him? What if he worked in the back, prepping salad bar ingredients? An insider could get into the system, find concentration points and make sure a poisoned product was widely distributed to the public.

This could have been a very different event. Fortunately, a Whole Foods employee was not only alert but willing to speak up; store management responded immediately, contacting local police and removing all produce and salad bar items; and federal, state and local officials responded rapidly, decisively and effectively. Now, there has been enough time to look back and ponder lessons learned. The number one thing to remember is that alert employees are the most important company asset in any food defense program. Food defense plans are important, but worthless without vigilant employees willing to act decisively. Food defense has to be a team effort.

Other InsightsThe first thing that happened is that store management immediately contacted local police and removed produce and salad bar items to a landfill rather than using the food as animal feed or compost.

Lessons learned:Quick removal of contaminated food material is essential to prevent spread of the incident.

Removal of contaminated food material must be done in a way that does not allow the material to be a source of further contamination in animal feed or the human food chain.

At the time, limited samples were taken of the potentially contaminated food. Additional samples would have been desirable. Consultation with law enforcement officials before disposal of food material would also have been desirable.In the future, it would be wise to segregate food that is suspected to be contamined in a location where sampling by law enforcement can be accomplished, without danger of contaminating other, safe food or introducing the contaminated food into the human or animal feed chains.

The day after the incident, local law enforcement, the FBI, HazMat, the county emergency operations center, the county public health department, the state health department and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) mounted a coordinated, multiagency response. MDARD also notified the grocery industry.

Lessons learned:The state system worked quickly and efficiently, but may have been somewhat delayed because the incident occurred on a Sunday. A thorough after-action review is expected to assess the response time.

Incidents tend to occur at inconvenient times, including weekend and holidays. This should be considered the norm, and emergency plans should include contingencies for incidents when a minimal number of response personnel may be available, Further, it is critical that after-hours emergency contact numbers for key personnel and key agencies be readily accessible.

Emergency response plans should include contingencies for segregating potentially contaminated food materials during off hours, as well as first-run sampling of contaminated materials. States, counties and municipalities should consider identifying collection points ahead of time, where suspect food materials could be collected and initial sampling initiated. These collection points need not be a stand-alone or sole use facility, but should be secure and a location where further contamination of the human or animal food supplies can be prevented.

In the early stages, where identification of the contamination agent(s) has not occurred, it is essential that public access to the portion of the facilities and any equipment associated with the event be temporarily suspended, until which time the type of contamination be identified. Clean up in such instances should not be initiated until which time state or local HazMat does initial testing at the site, so as to ensure that radioactive materials or highly hazardous chemicals are not present.

The Michigan Public Health Laboratory screened the food suspected of contamination on April 27, three days after the incident, finding no evidence of select agents. The first multiagency call took place, and the store was notified that the risk to the public was low.

Lesson learned: Definitive identification of potential hazard(s) takes time beyond initial screenings by HazMat. There is no good go-around for this, and therefore food industry defense plans should take into consideration these types of inevitable lag times. Interruption of the process should be anticipated and contingencies built into the plan.

On April 28, four days after the incident, the Michigan Intelligence Operation Center generated an Official Use Only Bulletin and shared it with law enforcement and the grocery industry. The bulletin proved essential in the identification of the suspect by alerting other grocery store employees. An alert employee recognized the suspect and contacted law enforcement officials.

Lessons learned:The decision to release information to the public in future events will be dependent on the nature of the hazard(s) and the state of the investigation. Rather than establishing a hard and fast rule, it is advisable that each case be handled independently with the watchword being transparency, wherever and whenever possible.

Avoidance of panic by the public is an essential consideration in any decision.

Release of information must also be done in such a way to avoid investigatory compromise.

The Big PictureBig picture, what can the government and the food industry gain from the lessons learned? Overall, the system worked well in Michigan, although there were issues that both the private sector and public sector agencies are working to address. There is always room in any plan for improvement. In fact, it is not certain that another municipality or state would have been as efficient. In all, 16 grocery stores were investigated by state officials, and the breadth of the investigation was costly. Not all jurisdictions would be able to quickly muster such resources, which could translate into the event spreading quickly and becoming even larger. Illness complaints first emerged after the public announcement. Although claims of illness ultimately proved to be unfounded or unrelated to the contamination events, the investigation nevertheless expended additional law enforcement and public health resources.

The motive to date still remains unknown, which is a troubling gap that may never be answered. There are indications mental illness may have been involved. Insight into the suspects motivations might give valuable clues into how the incidents evolved. Although the investigation to date has not uncovered information indicating involvement of others, that question remains open.

A particularly troubling aspect to any event like this is whether it could lead to copycat incidents. The event revealed vulnerabilities in grocery store food defense planning and operations. One of the conundrums in any incident investigation is the question of what should be exposed. Obviously, during the incident, the grocery stores that might be affected need timely information on what transpired and what to look for if similar events were to occur in their facilities. A thoroughly researched after-action report is also essential but may, in some cases, need to include redactions, particularly if proprietary information related to the affected facilities is exposed during the course of the investigation. Specific information related to the affected facility should be restricted to the owners of the facility, while more generalized lessons learned should be distributed industrywide as soon as possible.

The possibility of thinking adversaries must always be considered in planning for future events. A thinking adversary is one who will learn from personal mistakes or those of others. It is generally safe to say that future events will not be the same as those in the past. Frequently while planning for future events, companies find security solutions for past events. Thinking adversaries know this and will plan work-arounds to overcome new strategies and safeguards implemented in response to the last incident. Planners need to anticipate generalities, rather than specific scenarios. A security camera system placed over a salad bar might be a valid response, but its placement could also cause a thinking adversary to shift attention to some other location in the grocery store. A whole-of-property camera system could be used to prevent this adversarial shifting, but can such a system actually prevent an event or just detect an event once it has occurred? Security camera systems are very good to have, but are only as good as the comprehensive food defense program of which they are an essential part.

Threats evolve with the adversaries. Food defense plans must also evolve. What might have been effective in the past is not necessarily going to be effective in the future. Essential to any robust planning and operational execution is the training of personnel, who are going to be on the front lines when something occurs. They must be empowered with knowledge of what to look for in terms of suspicious activity and authority to act with the full support of the facility or corporation leadership. That being said, one threat that should not be minimized is the potential for events to be precipitated by insiders. Disgruntled employees are the most immediate problem for any corporation, food-based or otherwise. Insiders know the system and how it works, and they also know defense strategies and gaps. It is imperative to hire only thoroughly vetted individuals whose identities are definitively known, and for supervisory staff to monitor all employees activities and demeanor. Employees showing signs of discontent or agitation should be immediately removed from critical processes or functions, such as concentration points where large numbers of food products could be intentionally contaminated.

In terms of response improvements needed, Michigan identified first the need to take more and better samples should future events occur. When in question, always take more samples, thoroughly document their source, and let the laboratories sort out what they do or do not need to test. Geocode everything and document sample location with imagery and video.

Another important conclusion in the lessons learned is the need for government agencies to better understand industry practices. This can only be accomplished if industry and government work cooperatively, which is never easy if collaboration is impeded by agencies that have both regulatory and emergency response authority. In times of emergency response, regulatory authorities must temporarily be subservient to the needs of the response. Sensitive, incomplete and rapidly changing information is very challenging to communication, but solutions to overcome these frictions must be found to prevent exacerbation of the emergency. In addition, emergencies are no time for meetings; conference calls with appropriate authorities and direct communications with liaisons should be used to communicate, not meetings. Briefings should be just that, brief and succinct, clearly communicating the knowns and unknowns. Goals for the response, as well as for the subsequent investigation, should be set as early as feasible. The most immediate goal is to identify the nature of the threat and contain its spread and therefore its impact. The investigation will come later. The investigation should never be allowed to impede the response.

Robert A. Norton, Ph.D., is a professor at Auburn University and chair of the Auburn University Food System Institutes Food Defense Working Group. A long-time consultant to federal and state law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense and industry, he specializes in intelligence analysis, weapons of mass destruction defense and military-related national security issues. For more information on the topic or for more detailed discussions about specific security related needs, he can be reached at nortora@auburn.edu or by phone at 334.844.7562.

Brad Deacon is Michigans emergency management coordinator and director of the Office of Legal Affairs for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. He can be reached at 517.284.5729.

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Case Update: Produce Targeted by Man Spraying Mouse Poison - Food Safety Magazine

Todays long trade idea:You can get long US large cap growth companies via the iShares S&P 500 Growth Index ETF, IVW. As long as IVW trades above $134.24, then use declines below $139.89 for new long trades, suggests Landon Whaley of Focus Market Trader.

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If you want to be a consistently successful investor, then you must channel your inner Eckhart Tolle and focus on now. Stay with me; Im not going to launch into a diatribe about mindfulness. But what I can tell you is that if you focus on better understanding what is happening right now, you will see both opportunities and risks that most market participants miss. Focusing on now helps you better handicap the probabilities of various scenarios in the future.

This now approach is in stark contrast to most investors, who either look in the rearview mirror at three-month-old data, or focus on forecasts in an effort to predict what will happen months in the future.

Successful investing is not about forecasting the weather for tomorrow, but instead about noticing if its sunny or raining today.

Last week, investors were caught driving while looking in the rearview mirror when the initial estimate of U.S. Q2 GDP was released. Folks, we are a third of the way through Q3. Who gives a rip what happened in Q2?

Not only is this data point as dated as my last relationship, but its also going to be revised 700 times over the next six weeks.

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Driving while Looking in the Rearview Mirror - Moneyshow.com (registration)

IN JEWISH TRADITION when celebrating a special occasion or showing gratitude for a new and unusual experience, we recite a blessing from the Talmud called the shehechyanu.

In this blessing, we thank God for having given us life, sustained us and brought us to this moment.

Reciting blessings is an important part of Jewish life. We are taught that we should actually recite at least 100 blessings a day.

Assuming one is awake for 16 hours, that would mean during a 960-minute day, we would need to say a blessing about every nine minutes.

Of course, we can all think of things for which we should show gratitude, but 100 daily blessings feels like an onerous task.

So why is there such an emphasis on being grateful in Judaism?

The sages understood that it seems to be a part of human nature to focus on the negative and neglect what is good in our lives. The Hebrew phrase for gratitude, Hakafot Hatov, translates as a recognition of the good.

How often we grumble and complain about all that is going wrong but fail to see the good. Its so easy to feel gratitude when all is going well not so much when life hands us challenges.

Gratitude is one of the traits studied in the Jewish Mussar tradition where one is encouraged to reflect on various human characteristics in a very deliberate manner.

Using a conscious, intentional focus, we learn to recognize the importance of finding balance in these traits, and with daily meditation, this focus can become a habit.

Alan Morinis, in his book on the practice of Mussar, Every Day, Holy Day, points out the importance of gratitude: If youve lost your job but you still have your family and health, you have something to be grateful for. If you cant move around except in a wheelchair but your mind is as sharp as ever, you have something to be grateful for.

The importance of practicing gratitude is seen by many as crucial to a well-lived life. Eckhart Tolle said, It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up. American author Melody Beattie says, Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

A direct result of being grateful for our blessings is the recognition that others are not so lucky, and we are nudged to extend our hand in help.

We understand that because we have so much more than others, we dedicate ourselves to doing what we can to ease their burdens, thus working toward the goal of tikun olam, repairing the world.

John F. Kennedy pointed out: Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal peoples souls. Each moment in time we have it all, even when we think we dont (Beattie).

Practice gratitude every day in your life, and you will not only develop empathy for those who have less, but you will also realize all the blessings you truly have.

As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch taught, First become a blessing to yourself so that you may become a blessing to others.

Kein yehi Ratzen may it be Gods will. Shalom.

_________

Issues of Faith is a rotating column by five religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Suzanne DeBey is a lay leader of the Port Angeles Jewish community.

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ISSUES OF FAITH: Gratitude crucial to a well-lived, -balanced life - Peninsula Daily News

Is Abrahamic Hindutva a danger to India and to Hinduism? This is what some columnists have been decrying from the rooftops, especially citing recent instances of cow vigilantes and minority lynching. Defenders of Hindutva have rubbished this oxymoronic term as a case of false equivalence. Actually, though the coinage Abrahamic Hindutva is new, the idea behind it is quite old.

More than a hundred years ago in Gora, Rabindranath Tagore revealed the most aggressive and militant element in the Hindu fold to be actually alien to it. In stressing the primacy of non-violent resistance to British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi also wanted Hindus not to turn into mirror images of their violent and greedy oppressors. For Bhimrao Ambedkar, Hinduism itself was so tainted and marred by caste-ridden inequality that it had to be radically overhauled or abandoned. More recently, Ashis Nandy has argued at length that true Hinduism is different from Hindutva. In similar vein, UR Ananthamurthys last book, Hindutva or Hind Swaraj, once again contrasts Savarkar with Gandhi.

Now former BBC journalist, now active columnist, Tufail Ahmad, has invented the term Abrahamic Hindutva to describe this internal threat to Hinduism. Open Source Institute, which he is supposed to head, does not have a presence either on the Internet or in the real intellectual-institutional space of Indias Capital. That Ahmad is a British citizen and probably funded by Western interests shouldnt prompt us to discredit what he says in a knee-jerk manner. In fact, his previous work, much of it against Islamic Jihadism, is quite courageous. He has also lashed out against Indian secularism and liberalism for often being weak and mistaken.

To give Ahmad and critics of Hindutva their due, fanaticism, whether in the name of protecting cows or restoring Hindu pride, should be shunned and curtailed. Hating others, wishing to dominate if not destroy them, is certainly not the way of any self-respecting and self-sustaining tradition, let alone of Hinduism. In his deeply felt and inspired book Rearming Hinduism (2014), Vamsee Juluri begins by urging us to remember, We came from a world of wisdom we can barely fathom in todays terms. How true. The survival of Hinduism is one of the great wonders of history. That an ancient tradition of knowing about ourselves in relation to the man-made world, the world of nature, and the higher world of the Gods and supernatural forces, has actually managed to persist all the travail and turmoil of time is nothing short of miraculous. Hinduism, as Juluri reminds us, is much more than a way of life, Hinduism is about intelligence, more than anything else. I would humbly modify that slightly to suggest that it is a way of knowing and living intelligently.

If so, what is the greatest threat that it faces? Is it mainly external, whether from aggressive Abrahamic faiths such as proselytizing Christianity, radical Islam, or fanatical Marxism? These ideologies refuse to live and let live; they wish to impose their truth upon all non-believers. Convert or perish whether in the here or hereafter. That seems to be their rallying cry when faced with people of other persuasions. When such ideologies have captured state power in the past or even in the present, they are capable of unleashing untold horrors on their Others. Their scripturally- or ideologically-sanctioned intolerance blunts them from any moral conscience or compunction in achieving their brutal and barbarous ends.

I have labelled such creeds as anti-Sanatani. They are hard-wired to believe that they have a monopoly over truth. They brook no dissent or disagreement. Their avowed goal is world-domination, usually authorised by some pious or high-sounding idea such as justice, equality, salvation, freedom, or even peace. But, actually, these ideals are the first ones to be betrayed or violated in their march to power. I call them obsessively monic monothetical, monotheistic, monobibliolatrous, monoprophetic, monomorphic, monocultural, monolinguistic, monoparty, monoideological, or mono-whatever. Hinduism, by contrast, is radically plural, defiant of any single way even to define, encapsulate, or understand it.

But while it battles anti-Sanatani ideologies, some say that Hinduism itself runs the risk of morphing into its Other, of turning Semitic, Abrahamic, monothetical. Hinduism may end up akin to its antagonists, intolerant, power-hungry, instrumental, and authoritarian. How to avoid this? Of all the savants who tried to understand the threats to Hinduism, whether external or internal, perhaps the most relevant and useful to our times, is Sri Aurobindo. He teaches us how best to integrate the past with the present, the modern West with our own intrinsic civilisational genius, the imperatives of realpolitik with the higher calling of Dharma. Without fetishising non-violence or being excessively shy of wielding power, Hindus must not also turn themselves into ferocious or intolerant bullies just because they have a brute majority.

I do not believe that there is any such thing as Abrahamic Hindutva. Nor does it look as if Hindu self-assertion poses a grave danger to Hinduism or India. Yet we must not turn Hinduism into merely a political ideology or tool to achieve hegemony. We must always remember that India is and must remain greater than any party, ideology, or political movement. In that lofty idea of India inheres our Swaraj and the greatness of our nation.

The author is a poet and Professor at JNU. Views expressed are personal.

Originally posted here:
'Abrahamic Hindutva': True warning or false equivalence? - Daily News & Analysis

CHENNAI: Have a fetish for organic stationery or vegan food? Sunday will see 10 startups showcasing and selling products ranging from handmade jewellery, homemade personal care products, vegan chocolates and ice-creams in the city. The Fall Folly, conceptualised by a group of entrepreneurs united by the love for all things eco-friendly, vegan and sustainable, will be hosted at Karya Space, a coworking space in the city. "What is different about this marketplace is that all the products being showcased are eco-friendly and cruelty free. Visitors can chat with the founders to hear their story, view the products and buy, if they wish," said Arjjun Chander, founder, Karya Space who has offered his space in RK Salai free of cost for the event. In a bid to promote niche product startups that often get overshadowed by commercial brands, The Fall Folly is intended to provide a platform for small businesses that have unique products to showcase and sell them. For instance, Cocoatrait, the distributors of Mason & Co will bring vegan chocolates made bean to bar at Auroville. Bottled Bliss offers a range of homemade personal care products. VeggyTable will bring in vegan take away food while the Eco Trunk will showcase lifestyle products that are organic and cruelty free. Sri Aurobindo Handmade Paper Factory, based out of Pondicherry, produces paper from 100% cotton rag pulp. Their paper is durable and lends itself well to stationary which will be showcased at the Folly. The marketplace is being organised by Arture, a lifestyle accessories brand that uses cork as an alternative to leather, Aurosoya, which works with organic soya beans to promote health and wellness, Rossbelle, an affordable luxury brand, VegPlanet Magazine, a vegetarian/ vegan lifestyle publication and Chennaiyil.com, a local social media website. "Young local entrepreneurs are holding hands together to create an amazing shopping experience and a platform where all products showcased are made ethically, with love and with minimal damage to the environment. This is definitely a great start to a wonderful change," said Thasneem Masood, cofounder Rossbelle.

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A marketplace for all things organic, eco-friendly and vegan - Times of India

1

In a major blow to DU, Sisodia has decided to discontinue financial aid to 28 colleges.

2

He cited unchecked corruption breeding in the university behind the decision.

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The move is likely to have an impact on the long awaited appointment of permanent principals.

In a major blow to Delhi University (DU), deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has decided to discontinue financial aid to 28 colleges, including prominent ones such as Gargi College, Kamala Nehru College, Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Shaheed Rajguru College, Maharaja Agrasen College and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College.

Citing unchecked corruption breeding in the university by not forming governing bodies in the 28 fully and partially funded colleges, Sisodia tweeted the guideline and said, "Have ordered finance department to stop funding for Delhi government funded 28 Delhi University colleges, as DU is not willing to form governing bodies for last 10 months."

"I cannot allow unchecked corruption and irregularities to be sustained on Delhi government funds in the name of education," Sisodia tweeted, sending the varsity officials in a panic.

Calling the move political, DU dean of colleges Devesh Sinha said, "The university has been following guidelines to formulate the governing bodies with due caution. The governing bodies are scrutinised thoroughly by our executive council by including representatives from all cited fields like education, law, media and sports."

He added that the university has assured the Delhi government by writing to them and ensuring that governing bodies in the government-run colleges will be constituted by August.

The move is likely to have an impact on the long awaited appointment of permanent principals and faculty members. Currently, due to the absence of governing bodies, nearly 26 colleges of the varsity are being run by officiating or "acting principals".

The government funds 28 colleges of DU, out of which 12 are fully funded and include Maharaja Agrasen College, Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Shaheed Rajguru College, Maharaja Agrasen College and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College.

The government also partially funds 16 colleges by providing 5 per cent of the financial aid, which includes Gargi College, Kamala Nehru College, Institute of Home Economics, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (morning and evening) and Sri Aurobindo College (morning and evening).

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Manish Sisodia to discontinue financial aid to 28 DU colleges, blames unchecked corruption - India Today

BENGALURU: Bhu means earth and naman means to prostrate. This is a sitting spinal twist.

STEPS: Sit in dandasan with your legs extended in front. First the warm-up: Inhale and take your arms over your head. Exhale and place both hands on the floor beside your right buttock (your elbows will be bent) do not bend your knees and try to keep both buttocks on the floor. Inhale and take arms over the head and repeat on the other side. FINAL POSE: Now inhale again with arms overhead, when you twist to the right the right hand will be placed on the floor 8-12 inches behind the buttocks in line with the spine and the left hand will be placed beside the right hip (here again do not bend your knees and try to keep both buttocks on the floor). Try to bring the forehead towards the floor by twisting the torso. This is a deeper twist to the spine. Bend your elbows to facilitate the twist and the bend but do not strain yourself.Repeat on the other side.

BENEFITS: This pose gives a nice twist to the spine and also the lower back. It improves the flexibility of your spine and prepares you for advanced poses.

CONTRAINDICATIONS: Do not try this if you have a slip disc, hernia or a chronic back pain.

Anshu Vyas Seetharaman is a yoga and fitness trainer at Sri Aurobindo Society, Bengaluru. (110 Gangadhara Chetty Road, Ulsoor)Email: bodysculpting.yogatherapy@gmail.comhttps://www.facebook.com/bsytbangalore/

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Twisting earth with your spine - The New Indian Express

WESTHAMPTON Regnaleb Enterprises, a sales and marketing consulting firm, announced it is offering high-caliber sales-management and growth strategies to small and mid-size companies throughout Western and Central Mass. The organization is led by Art Belanger, an experienced sales and marketing professional with more than 30 years in the industry.

Ive had the experience of working for large corporations, mid- to small-sized businesses, and successful startups, building sales teams from the ground up, said Belanger. Mentoring sales representatives and implementing long-term strategic plans has been my passion. Im looking forward to working with local business leaders to streamline their tactics.

The Regnaleb process utilizes the salesQB program to conduct a complete audit of an organizations current sales and marketing process. The results are used to benchmark performance and identify areas for growth and improvement. Following the audit, business leaders will be taken through an in-depth report that will pinpoint methods for increased efficiency throughout the entire sales process, from lead generation and management tactics to the use of digital technologies like CRM, software programs, and social media.

A successful salesforce is empowered, efficient, and informed, Belanger said, adding that Regnaleb Enterprises will offer a custom road map to improve communications, management, customer service, and sales techniques to drive increased performance.

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Regnaleb Enterprises Offers Sales Training for the Digital Age - Business West (blog)

What to Know

An undercover investigation by the NBC 4 New York I-Team and Telemundo 47 Investiga has found the black market sale of fake safety training cards for New York City construction workers is still booming, despite more than two dozen on-the-job deaths in the last few years and outreach by local officials.

Workers on big projects are required by law to have 10 hours of training approved by the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and carry a card certifying completion. The cost of training ranges from $150 to $300.

But black market sales of fake cards have been a scourge of the industry, and an increasing priority for investigators as more than 30 workers have died in construction accidents in the past two years, records show.

Mark Peters, commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI),said his agency has looked into deaths on construction sites where workers had fake OSHA cards, and the findings were troublesome.

"The fatalities were related to things that you would know to be careful of if you had proper safety training," Peters said.

He described the fake cards as a real problem.

"Workers arent getting the safety training that they need when they have these fake cards and thats really dangerous," Peters added.

In some cases, workers get fake cards because they don't want to miss time on the job, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. In other cases, Vance says employers don't want the workers to take the time off to get cards.

"Many of these [workers] are non-English speaking. There is definitely a huge power differential between themselves and their employers, Vance said.

The I-Team and Telemundo 47 Investiga found its simple to get a fake card. After just a few minutes talking with fake ID dealers on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, an undercover producer purchased one for $60.

The name of a certified OSHA trainer Victor Pacheco was printed on the card.

This has been going on for seven or eight years, Pacheco said, whos been in the business for a decade and worked as an OSHA enforcement officer. But its not only me. My boss, his name is being used on fake cards. People that work for me, their names are on fake cards. Its all around."

The DOI and Manhattan district attorney's office have fought back, at times arresting workers with fake cards and those selling them. But now, with the Manhattan Construction Task Force, theyre trying a new approach in cooperation with other agencies.

We have essentially said to workers, Come in. Hand in your fake OSHA card. No questions asked,'" Peters said. "And well take the card. Well give you the 10 hours of training. Well give it to you for free, and then you can have a legitimate card."

The training is provided with local partners, including the Mexican consulate. In eight months, the program has taken 1,500 fake cards off the street.

Vance said the message to workers is clear: We want you to be safe. It doesnt matter where you come from. Your immigration status doesnt matter. If you want to work in New York City, we want to help you make sure you and your family are safe.

Despite the programs success, Peters admits its an uphill battle.

Last week we confiscated cards from a construction site around the corner from our own offices. So yeah, while weve gotten a lot of cards off the street, there are probably thousands of fake cards still out there, he said.

A big part of the problem, authorities say, is that OSHA cards have been on paper stock and easily forged. That is changing.

In a statement, OSHA said its taken action to prevent or minimize [fake card] activity with the introduction last year of plastic cards that include a QR code. Scanned information includes the workers name and details about their training.

I give OSHA a lot of credit, said Peters. One of the things thats good for the future is the new cards are harder to fake. Although we have seen some fake cards that are new, too.

Workers in New York City must renew their safety training every five years, which means the paper cards will slowly become obsolete.

On Friday, the city's political leaders responded to the report by NBC 4 New York I-Team and Telemundo 47 Investiga.

Sen. Chuck Schumer said he'll work to maintain adequate funding and "beat back efforts to roll back worker safety standards" in the upcoming budget so that OSHA "has the resources to be the cop on the beat."

"Construction work is inherently dangerous and certified safety training is essential to prevent injury and death," the senator said in a statement.

A spokesperson for City Hall said, "No building is worth a person's life." The spokesperson said the city "is working with the City Council and stakeholders to strengthen training beyond the current OSHA-10 requirements, with measures to verify that workers have gotten the training they need to be safe on the job."

The spokesperson also said City Hall will evaluate and incorporate improvements to the cards for any new training to prevent fraud, and that it will enhance enforcement to ensure developers and contractors are fulfilling their responsibilities to prevent worker injuries and deaths.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat called the report "deeply concerning" in a statement, and said he'll take a closer look at the issue. "Cutting corners is not and cannot be acceptable and we must ensure workers have access to the required and vital training that OSHA provides lives are at stake," he said.

In a statement, Rep. Joe Crowley blamed Republicans in Congress, who he said "repeatedly starved [OSHA] and other federal labor law enforcement agencies of needed resources." The congressman said necessary investments need to be made in OSHA so inspectors can ensure work sites are safe, and that there needs to be improved security features on certification cards, or that a database needs to be developed to track them.

"I hope OSHA and federal law enforcement agencies will crack down on this disturbing trend," Crowley said.

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To report unsafe working conditions, contact the Manhattan Construction Task Force via WhatsApp @ 646.712.0298 or call 311.

Published at 4:00 PM EDT on Aug 3, 2017 | Updated at 8:39 PM EDT on Aug 4, 2017

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I-Team: Black Market Sales of Fake Safety Training Cards for NYC ... - NBC New York