There is hardly anything more horrendous than flooding on the scale of something like Hurricane Katrina or a tsunami like the one that affected Thailand and other countries.

What is left in the wake of these violent fits of Mother Nature can hardly be described adequately with words. It can be heart wrenching to look at the damage raging flood waters can leave behind when they have receded.

There are always so many pictures that inundate the media sources of the damage to the building structures and the damage to the land and its beauty. We see all the victims sifting through what is left of their homes and the life that they lived there and so many times there is simply nothing left to sift through.

Homes have been completely washed away and often loved ones were swept away with them. How can anyone not affected by this possibly begin to understand what it must be like?

For those that were lucky enough to have insurance coverage for flooding, at least they could repair or rebuild their homes and replace the things that are necessary to furnish them. For those who had no insurance to help them, well, it was only a tragedy on top of a tragedy.

To be homeless, living in shelters, penniless and relying on the help of strangers, who no matter how hard they tried or how much they gave, probably could not possibly really feel the utter helplessness that so many had to endure for weeks and months.

With the passing years most of those that were so severely touched by these disasters have already begun new lives. The trials and problems they faced seemingly unending for them. Many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were distributed to other states that had help to offer them.

Many of the refugees chose to begin their new lives there. New homes, new jobs, new schools, and new churches, and even though they have a new beginning, for so many it still does not replace what they lost, nor does it erase the loss of loved ones or the utter despair they had to face.

Material things can always be replaced and the land usually eventually recovers. For the people whose lives that were forever changed, there were multitudes of caring individuals who were there to give them a hand and help them take a new place in society.

Mother Nature can take away a lot of things, but she has yet been unable to destroy the will to survive in the human spirit and its desire to help each other in times of crisis.

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For hundreds of years, what is now the Detroit area was so important to commerce between Native American tribes that only traders were allowed into the territory.

As a city, Detroit wouldn’t begin to shape into its current form until roughly four centuries ago. In the 1600′s, France began establishing forts at strategic locations in North America, in order to try to keep the British from moving west out of New England and to establish a monopoly on trade. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac felt that the area that had become known as le detroit, or the straits, was an obvious location for a major post. The river was narrow enough that a cannon could be fired from one side to the other, but substantial enough to provide a defense. The surrounding Great Lakes and waterways meant easy travel from most major points. The court in France agreed, and Cadillac was allowed to establish a settlement at the Detroit River in 1701.

Fort Ponchartrain, built by Cadillac, was probably not the first settlement in the area, although there is little known about any previous inhabitants. Some early explorers reported evidence of Jesuits and coureurs de bois, or fur trappers, in the area; others reported evidence of Native American settlements. Previous to that, a people known as the Mound Builders lived in the area.

That’s when French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac landed on the banks of the Detroit River and established a fort in 1701. Nine years later he was removed from his post as outpost commander due to “ill conduct”, or the excessive lining of his own pockets.

Change would remain a constant throughout Detroit’s first century. In 1760, French rule gave way to British. And in 1796 the United States took over Detroit as a result of Jay’s Treaty.

Detroit was incorporated as a city in 1815 and spent the decades leading up to the Civil War as the final U.S. stop on the Underground Railroad. The area also was earning a reputation for, among other things, the manufacturing of cigars and kitchen ranges.

So how did Detroit become the Motor City instead of the stove-making capital of the world?

It’s due in large part to the influence an entrepreneurial farmer’s son, Henry Ford. In 1896, Ford built his first car in Detroit – not quite the earth-shattering event since the automobile had already been around for a few years. It was the method of building cars that he would later devise – the moving assembly line – that put the world on wheels and Detroit on the industrial map.

During the early part of the 20th century, dozens of companies emerged in the Detroit area committed to finding success in the new industry. During World War II, the factories they built to produce cars were put to use churning out weapons for the Allied Powers. The production edge they provided helped to win the war.

Ironically, it was a former autoworker that led the way for Detroit’s other famous 20th century contribution – Motown. Founded by Berry Gordy Jr. with just an $800 family loan, the upstart record company introduced the world to Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokie Robinson, Michael Jackson, the Temptations, Diana Ross and others – all of whom either grew up or gained their first fame in Detroit.

In the last half of the 20th Century the city has had its ups and downs, including the 1967 riots and the downturn of auto industry fortunes. At the start of the 21st century, metro Detroit is starting to reap the rewards of decades of work put into revitalization.

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Researchers believe that about 140 million people, mainly in developing countries are being poisoned by arsenic in their drinking water. This is no doubt due to a lack of water quality testing in these countries as there is not enough awareness about the effects of bad drinking water.

South and East Asia account for more than half of the known cases globally which has raised many concerns. Scientists believe arsenic in drinking water can lead to higher rates of cancer in the future. Arsenic consumption leads to higher rates of some cancers, including tumours of the lung, bladder and skin. Some of these effects don’t show up until decades after the first exposure which makes it difficult to track. The only way you can monitor this problem is to do regular water quality testing so that experts can immediately recognise problem areas.

In the long term, one in every 10 people with high concentrations of arsenic in their water will die from it. This is the highest known increase in mortality from any environmental exposure yet no government agencies have given this the priority it deserves. There are areas in Indonesia and the Philippines with very little evidence of water quality testing yet where there has been some testing dine, there have been signs of arsenic.

If water quality testing is conducted regularly and a problem is identifies, then there are remedies for the problems. For example, deeper wells can be dug, purification can be completed and safe water supplies can be identified.

It has also been found that eating large amounts of rice which has been grown in the affected areas could also be a health risk. It’s a global problem which is present in 70, maybe more countries. Rice is often grown in fields which are often flooded with water from the same wells. Arsenic is then drawn up into the grains which are used for food. Research has shown that arsenic transfers from soil to rice about 10 times more efficiently than to other grain crops. This is clearly a problem in countries such as Bangladesh where rice is the staple food. Although some people feel that it could be an issue even in the UK among communities who eat rice frequently.

The most important thing is to have regular water quality testing as this is the best and most effective way of testing water.

Wagtech offers a selection of water test kits for a number of purposes. water quality testing has all the information you need to help you select the water test kit that is right for you.

The Da Vinci Code probably deserves a lukewarm three stars. As with the paper back or hard cover, a major problem is that the climax of the story, the murder of the curator, occurs in the very first scene. Then the treasure hunt by the hero and heroine, including the assistance they get from the Wise Old Man, in the form of the Ian McKellan character.

Because of its changes and additions to the book’s story, the movie version of The Da Vinci Code has a more mixed pagan worldview. The feminism and goddess worship from the book are almost completely absent. Even so, however, the movie’s mixed worldview still seems very strong. Its mixed nature contains strong positive references to paganism, as well as some positive Christian elements referring to Jesus Christ and an apparent answered prayer to Jesus (which is not in the book), positive references to God, some humanist statements of atheism and agnosticism, some light political correctness, and some light feminism.

Also very strong is the movie’s false revisionist history. This false history includes references to an alleged marriage and alleged royal bloodline between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. It also includes some false history regarding the famous Knights Templar from the times of the Crusades against the evil, murderous Cult of Islam, some false history regarding the origins of Christianity (including the New Testament documents and the Council of Nicea), some false art history regarding Leonardo Da Vinci, etc.

Once again, however, the feminism and goddess worship from the book’s revisionist history are almost completely absent. Also, instead of defending the pagan point of view often as he does in the book, the Robert Langdon character in the movie actually sometimes defends the traditional Christian view of the historical record. He does, however, buy into the royal bloodline story of Mary Magdalene.

He also doesn’t present a lot of facts to dispute Ian McKellan’s character’s phony stories about the Emperor Constantine and some believers inventing the traditional New Testament stories about Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the movie’s final scene overtly shows the audience (but not the characters) the hidden tomb of Mary Magdalene. Thus, the final scene gives a final credence to the movie’s Mary Magdalene story despite the hero’s skepticism. Before that final scene, however, the hero in the movie (unlike the book) casts doubt on some of the Ian McKellan character’s diatribe against traditional Christian history and the Church’s alleged invention of Christianity.

The movie hero also says “Godspeed” to the heroine at one important point. He also tells her that she can decide whether to “destroy faith or renew it” and tells her, “The only thing that matters is what you believe.” Finally, he says, “History shows Jesus was an extraordinary man. Why couldn’t Jesus have been divine and still have been a father?” These lines are not in the book.

Da Vinci Code website Research the Da Vinci Code – get free information, reviews and articles

When dealing with controversial issues, there are always two sides to the story, as with Dan Brown novel the Da Vinci Code. Through my research, the best person to contradict Dan Brown accusations is a novelist, Darrell L. Bock. In his novel, BREAKING THE DA VINCI CODE, he challenges Dan Brown claims to “historical facts”. Bock claims that he has disprove the outrageous antichristian falsehoods in The Da Vinci Code.

Bock feels that Brown is misleading millions of Americans and tends to answer questions that are sitting in the mind of confused readers. Here are some of the questions he addresses:

* Was Jesus really married to Mary Magdalene, and did he have children by her? Has their bloodline really been traced by “scores of historians”?
* Would being single really make Jesus “un-Jewish”?
* Did the Catholic Church really suppress the fact that Christ’s “family” fled to France as a way to protect his claims to divinity?
* Did Leonardo da Vinci really stumble on a Vatican plot to conceal the truth about Jesus, and the expose it in his famous painting of the Last Supper?
* Did the Bible really emerge as a “power play” document in the early fourth century under the emperor Constantine, after Christianity finally won its battle with paganism?
* Do the unbiblical “Gnostic Gospels” really reveal truths about Jesus tat the church and New Testament have hidden from us?
* Was the role of women suppressed in the early centuries of the Christian faith?
* Or in lamest term, did the church lie?

Bock has set out to determine what’s fact and what’s fiction. He reviews with the reader ancient texts that unlock the truths that Brown tries to portray.
Personally, as a Christian believer, my faith was never shaken by this novel or movie. Is it a great work of fiction, yes, one of the best I read in a long time. When a book can make you visually see something and make you think afterward, for more than an hour and want to discuss it with someone else, that’s a great book to me. Once again, I must say, this is a work of fiction, nothing more. These are my personal thoughts; I have researched throughout the web to find what other readers thought. Here are some comments and concerns of other readers.

“This is a sad attempt to disprove supposed claims of truth in The da Vinci Code. The statement on the first page of the book reads states in no way shape or form all the information in the book is true; it simply outlines some aspects of the book that are fact. Those who question their faith upon reading the Da Vinci Code should as themselves whether it was really “faith” in the first place. I think there are other pieces of evidence in this world that should cause one to test their faith a little more than Dan Browns novel. Andrew B.

“Give me a break, people! The Da Vinci Code is a book of fiction with some facts thrown in (as far as religious sects, practices, etc.) If your faith is strong, then you should be able to read it and still believe in God. Perhaps one should look inside themselves and question their reasons for being skeptic:
Unknown Author

Have you been subjected to others point of view? It is your turn now – come and be heard at Da Vinci Code Research – Discussion Forum

Native American drums are probably the most recognizable Native American instruments among American Indians and non Native people alike. Drums for generations have been at the center of Native lifestyle, forming what has become the foundation of religion and spirituality as well as social gatherings where a pow wow drum is center stage.

Indian tribes in North America history have all used drums in various ways to connect with a higher power known to most as the Great Spirit. To Native people, Indian drums are much more than just decorations or interesting musical instruments. American Indian drums are believed to speak to the drummer. Native drums being made in a circle represent the earth and life. The most well know being hoop drums and shaman drums which are Indian hand drums used in many personal healing and religious ceremonies as well as public ceremonies such as a Native American powwow.

The hide of the animal that is stretched over the ring brings with it unique characteristics of the spirit of the animal and brings life to the drum when played. Many people think of pounding a drum to make a sound, but to Indian drummers and those involved in modern drumming groups and drum circles, the desire is to draw out the sound. The beating drum is compared to the beating of a human heart and is said to represent the heart beat of the earth which is a belief that is classic Native American. Drums in this way become the vehicle to connect one’s spirit with that of the earth and the Great Spirit through out the history of Native Americans.

Native American Indian drums have a rich culture and because they are so important they are used in not only music but art and dance as well. Decorating a drum becomes a very personal task to the owner. The Indian drummer becomes an artist and communicates impressions of his inner feelings and beliefs in his Indian art. Some American Indian tribes use animals to decorate their drums and others use geometric patterns and everything in between. In some tribal cultures the drummer will place something of personal value inside the drum to permanently join himself with his hand drum.

The Native American designs that the artwork on the drums depict is often painted with natural earth colors taken from nature. Some are dull and others are bright coming from flowers, roots, berries, bark or herbs that are boiled to release their unique earth tones. Other Native American drums are adorned with iron oxide which is a naturally occurring red rock that can be easily crushed. When mixed with water, it produces a rich orange red dye that is much like paint and is indicative if the surrounding hillsides and rock formations like those of the beautiful Arizona red rock canyons. The region of Sedona is thought to be a special place with spiritual power like the energy created by American Indian drums.

Native American Education except for those Indian boarding schools that have tried to stamp out Native culture has always involved the sharing of beliefs through music, songs, stories and legends. It is in harmony with these forms of learning that the communication and cultural importance has been found in the use of drums. If you are interested in the spiritual aspects of life as pertain to Indian beliefs, you will enjoy owning and playing Native American drums.

Craig Chambers is an expert on Native drums and drumming. Extensive information on Native American hand drums is available at www.nativeamericandrums.net

How do we move beyond our prejudices to distinguish what is sensible and what is nonsensical?

When Albert Einstein created the Special and General Theory of Relativity, initially it seemed like nonsense, because nobody had ever thought of things like that before, but both the logical consistency of his arguments and the proof that was later found made them sensible theories.

Understanding the difference between sense and nonsense is vital to your well-being. Unless you can draw some clear understanding of something, you will be confused, and when you are confused, you cannot orient yourself to the world you live in.

Something makes sense when it aligns with an organ of perception: you can see it, hear it, or feel it.

However, this is not always an accurate measure of what is sensible. A mirage appears to be water until you get close to it and realize that you experienced an optical illusion. A hallucinogenic drug creates unusual experiences, until the drug wears off and you revise your opinion.

Sense, however, did prevail. You revisited the experience, perceived anew, and revised your opinion on what it meant.

So far, living on the level of the concrete and experiential, it appears rather clear the difference between sense and nonsense. The mirage was seen as nonsense after you got close to it. The unicorn was seen as nonsense when you recovered from the hallucinogenic drug and saw that you were looking at a plain horse.

But as consciousness advances, it has to embrace abstractions. An abstraction is best described as a statistical generalization. As a child, when you saw your first dog and then other dogs similar to it, but not like it, you created a generalization called dogs. Through a survey of many dogs, you were finally able to see that both a Chihuahua and a German Shepherd are both dogs.

In Quantum physics, you can’t really see subatomic particles, but you can infer their nature and their properties through the statistics of mathematics and the impressions of white dots and streaks they leave on a photographic plate. Thus, you can distinguish between an electron and a positron. You can also tell when a complex interaction takes place. For example, through a sophisticated instruments of observation and interpretation, you know when a negative pi meson collides with a proton. You then observe how the two particles annihilate each other, creating a lambda particle and a neutral K meson. Further observation informs you how these unstable particles live for only a billionth of a second. Now the neutral K meson decays into a positive pi meson and a negative pi meson, while the lambda particle decays into the original two particles, a negative pi meson and a proton.

Now, although this entire description is beyond the senses, it is not nonsense. This is because observation took place. This was done through mathematical descriptions and the use of highly sophisticated measuring devices. You may not have been able to “see” in a literal sense, but various instruments did that for you and your task was to interpret what they were telling you based on past knowledge.

In the realm of the abstract, unless you can test the idea in some way, it has a high tendency to be nonsense. In fact, the more removed it is from sense experience and the less testable it is, the more nonsensical it is likely to be.

It may be well-argued nonsense, but that does not make it sensible.

Something is considered sensible if you can arrive at it through induction or deduction.

Induction is working your way up from particulars to a general idea. For example, all dogs are dogs, regardless of size and predisposition. You arrive at that by examining a number of different dogs and pooling a list of characteristics. You know the difference between dogs and cats, because while both are four-legged, hairy, and have whiskers, they also have other characteristics which distinguish them from each other.

Deduction is working your way up from a general idea to a particular one. This is basically breaking down something into smaller and smaller units. You know, for example, that plants originate from seeds, by observing the nature of plants, both in their dead form, through dissection, and in their live form, by observing their growth and decay.

Nonsense comes in when we have to rely on authority. When things are believed not because some evidence was gathered about it, but because someone in authority said it was true.

Human beings love stories, and the more unusual and compelling the story, the more they are likely to believe it.

One example is channeling. People claim to be channeling all sorts of entities, from God to spirit guides to ascended masters, or even whole teams of enlightened beings. The mediums appear to change personalities, taking on unusual vocal intonations, unfamiliar gestures, and speaking words of surprising wisdom. If you hook them up to various instruments, they may even show physiological changes.

Is this nonsense?

It is an appeal to a higher authority, in this case someone from outside the system, talking from the other side, who appears to be giving us clear directions. In addition, our scientific instruments may even indicate that a change has indeed taken place.

On the other hand, you can get the same results if you use the hypothesis that a multiple personality phenomena is in effect. It has been shown over and over again that in disassociation, the new personality has unique traits, including more intelligence.

Thus, someone who claims to be a medium can be (a) a fake; (b) a multiple personality; or (c) genuine.

In trying to sort out sense from nonsense, you can discern what is true from what is false not on the basis of the reasonableness of their statements, but through putting to the test some of the things that they are saying.

A perfect example is Edgar Cayce. After he went into a trance state and started dictating healing formulas, he uttered unusual remedies. These were surprising because they were (a) outside known medical treatments and (b) highly effective. In this case, despite the highly unusual nature of the entire phenomenon, it is possible to rule out fakery and a multiple personality disorder, simply because he arrived at answers that were not in general circulation. There is no way to prove this to be nonsense; hence, based on available evidence, the best hypothesis is accepting him as he claimed to be.

In religion, occultism, philosophy and politics, the abstractions, unless they can be proven through evidence, should not be taken at face value. They tend to be nonsense. They are not accepted as this, however, because of the credible way that they are presented.

Most human misery, as far as I can tell, is following a well-reasoned line of thought from authority. When you think from your emotions, rather than from induction or deduction, and when you rely on authority, rather than evidence, then nonsense may very well have replaced a sensible way of thinking.

The most dangerous nonsense is that which is subtle. In the case of something bizarre, like the Edgar Cayce story, at first blush it does appear to be nonsense, but upon closer examination, it is not possible to cling to that verdict. On the other hand, when a politician says something there is a tendency to believe, although a closer examination will reveal no substantial evidence of the proof of his or her statements.

Thus, the element of sensationalism or the lack of it, is not a proper criteria to distinguish between sense and nonsense. Something may be hyped up and still be true. Something may be toned down and appear reasonable and still be false.

Insanity is not easy to perceive. Some of the brightest people have fallen into it. Apart from organic damage to the brain and the sense organs, insanity is the inability to distinguish between sense and nonsense. The rise and power of the Nazi party could be considered an outbreak of pervasive social insanity.

The scientific method of observation and experimentation is the highest form of reason invented. All other forms of reason may be entertaining, but they do not warrant the stamp of truth. True reason is the ability to sort out sense from nonsense on the basis of logical consistency and evidence.

Without the Age of Reason, the era we live in today, of marvelous scientific advancement could not have been possible. Prior to that time, humankind thought about things in an emotional, often nonsensical way.

Reason is not something relegated to the province of the scientist or the philosopher. It is something that we all need to live fulfilling lives. And the most reasonable form of reason is one that distinguishes sense from nonsense on the basis of careful inquiry, patient observation, and the accumulation of evidence.

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In todays rapidly changing world, we need visionaries. Visionary mothers, visionary educators, visionary leaders, visionary children–visionaries, period!

Many think of visionaries being those who have a special “gift” for thinking big, thinking creatively, etc. But consider that a visionary is simply someone who chooses to walk his or her own heroic path in life, inspired by his or her own vision. Most people do not choose the visionary path.

Many people focus on achieving “success”, “financial freedom” etc.; however this is easy to do without living a visionary life.

Many people also focus on “making a difference”, “leaving a legacy”, and “doing my small part” to “change the world”; yet this is easily done without living a visionary life.

Further, people focus on attaining “salvation”, “enlightenment” or “transformation”. Once again, pursuing these objectives is quite easily done without living a visionary life.

You can live a visionary life while pursuing any of the above objectives, however most people dare not tread in the realm where the visionary lives. The visionary life is anything but “easy”. Indeed, it is a road less traveled.

What we tend to do in life is seek noble goals, values and ideals, while staying safely within the realm of our psychological/intellectual position. We could say this is living a “positionary life”. Or living beneath the level of vision.

If this is so for you, then you’d be content with actions and solutions that compromise your highest values and ideals, and your path of conscious/spiritual/intellectual growth/evolution. You might not act like you like such actions and solutions, but you’d tolerate those actions in your life, as if there is no other practical alternative.

Thus, in various areas of your life you’d see 1) a great disparity between what you say you value and how you act, OR 2) that you’ve come to accept very low values, dreams and ideals OR 3) that you are not consciously evolving both your values and your actions to higher levels as you could be (more about this later).

Here is the kicker. Living beneath the level of vision, one can often not even see much evidence for 1, 2 or 3 above (Unbridled self-honesty is more accessible and prevalent at the level of vision). Thus we cannot see how much we cannot see, and so we think there’s not much that we don’t see.

Look around at the world today, and what do we see? People who are perfectly content with compromise solutions, as if we as human beings are not capable of rising to new levels where compromise is not necessary. As evidence of positionary thinking, I’d point to the acceptance of compromise as a valid, worthwhile and even noble approach in life, in marriage, in international relations, in politics, in business, etc.

Visionaries in general do not espouse compromise. Visionaries face what few do. Visionaries are more like warriors than dreamers, in that they walk the path, they face what there is to face, and as a result a vision that others cannot see emerges. In the same way that the man who does not climb the mountain cannot see what’s on the other side, those who do not walk a visionary path cannot see what the visionary can.

There is conversation in conscious communities about forming a campaign to recruit and train one million of today’s most conscious change agents in how to stand for all of humanity and lead the kind of visionary life that creates a world that works for everyone. It’s called the One Million Visionaries Campaign.

This initiative would bring the most advanced methods to those most ready to usher in a new era of consciousness for humanity. Those who are creating our future must have access to deeper levels of courage, compassion and vision–and the skills to inspire even their adversaries to stand with them.

Such initiatives and visionaries are what the world needs now. When it comes to creating our future, who will you be? What will you stand for? And will you have the strength to stand in a world so bitterly divided?

As founder of the Vision Force Academy, Michael Skye works with a new breed of impassioned change agents around the world, who are giving their lives to stand for all of humanity. Michael is best known for his transformational leadership trainings, based on his proprietary iStand technology. He authored the the Visionary Mind Shifts for VisionForce.com.

A First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army has taken a stand. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, faces a court martial next month and up to 6 years in prison. He is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq.

Overy 100,000 people have commented on one of the blogs were this man’s story and interview was published. Many of his peers call him a traitor and a coward. Others think he’s anything but that.

It’s easy to take a position on this young man’s decision, and that’s one of the fundamental problems with the world we live in. Actually, the problem lies within our methods of thinking, our consciousness. Yesterday’s consciousness is insufficient for the world we face today with all of it’s accelerating change, globalization, the advancement of technology, etc.

Someone thinking with yesterday’s consciousness, the positionary mind of the past, rushes to judgment without much honest inquiry. Rather than look to understand the person or organization they judge, they simply attack. It’s usually in defense of a position they formed long ago.

This is a very emotional issue, especially for those who chose to stand for their country by risking their lives by fighting at war even if they objected to the war. To be inspired by this man’s stand, it’s assumed they’d have to turn on their own stand. They are proud of the stand they took to fight, and feel that those who stand for their country by not fighting are invalidating or dishonoring them.

Some soldiers, in going to war, might judge those who don’t as cowardly. This affords them more pride and confidence in their decision, but the judgment itself is what devolves their stand into a position.

In our eagerness to stand for something, we too easily form a righteous position, from which we can no longer think honestly about the situation.

Isn’t honesty the quality of not refusing to look at or think about something, when forming one’s thoughts, words or opinions? Yet, when we form our thoughts and opinions with yesterday’s positionary thinking, those very opinions become walls beyond which we cannot see. Beyond the walls of our position, we can not see the humanity, the courage, the stand taken by the other side. And then we treat and speak to them as less than human.

Is it any wonder the world is in such a state of crisis?

What we’re lacking is a new form of consciousness. A visionary consciousness, the likes of which have been rare throughout history. Gandhi is a great example of someone with a visionary consciousness. What we’ll need going forward, however, and what I see is fast approaching, is a much more sophisticated and developed visionary consciousness higher level thinking methods that facilitate visionary thinking and make it much easier and more common place.

Eventually, evolution to a new kind of thinking will occur. Indeed, it must if we are to survive and thrive in this world.

Some are courageously undertaking the quest to evolve their consciousness even now, and are seeking out training for living as a visionary. Right now, the world needs people willing to live their lives standing for humanity.
If you are willing to live your life as a visionary, as someone who stands, as a hero for mankind, there’s no time to waste. The world needs visionary parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, politicians, activists, artists. The world needs you. Are you willing to stand?

As founder of the Vision Force Academy, Michael Skye works with a new breed of impassioned change agents around the world, who are giving their lives to stand for all of humanity. Michael is best known for his transformational leadership trainings, based on his proprietary iStand technology. He authored the the Visionary Mind Shifts for VisionForce.com.

One of the most remarkable inventions ever in the history of the human race is the invention of the World Wide Web.

In the middle of the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg a German goldsmith, invented the movable type printing in Europe.

His technology replaced books that had to be created by hand . Knowledge spread like wildfire and the human race became more rational and less superstitious. The result, of course, was an improvement in the evolution of civilizations and the speed with which they arose.

The availability of books made the Renaissance possible. It facilitated scientific publication. It resulted in the collapse of the domination of dogmas of Catholicism because Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, posted on the door of his church, were widely printed and circulated.

Similarly the invention of the World Wide Web by Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, KBE (born June 8, 1955 in London, England) is changing the face of our world. Knowledge is now literally at your fingertips. If you need to find out anything, from the weather to some obscure facts in a specialized field of study, just type in a search for it and with the billions of websites now available, you are bound to find the answer. The entire database of human knowledge has now become available to everyone..

He was born in London, England. Both his parents were mathematicians and were part of the team that built one of the earliest computer, the Manchester Mark I. He learned to use mathematics everywhere, including at the dinner table.

At Oxford University, he built a computer with a soldering iron and an old television.
Graduating in physics in 1976, he went to work for a company called Plessey Controls Limited in Poole that specialized in traffic lights. Then in 1978, he created a typesetting software and an operating system when he worked for another company in Poole, D.G. Nash Limited. Berners-Lee then worked as an independent contractor for CERN. The NeXT cube became the first Web server. He proposed the concept of hypertext to facilitate sharing and updating research information. He built a prototype system named ENQUIRE.

In 1989, Berner’s Lee saw how to join hypertext with the Internet. In his own words:
“I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and ta-da! the World Wide Web.”

In 1990, working with Robert Cailliau, he produced a revision. He used ideas that were behind the Enquire system to fashion the World Wide Web.

He built the first web browser and editor called World Wide Web and the first web server called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol daemon.

CERN had the first web site in the world. It went online on August 6, 1991. It explained browsers, servers, and directories, and how to set them up.

Berners-Lee made his idea available freely. He did not reserve a patent or ask for royalties.

He has received numerous academic and business honors and awards, including USD $1.2 million by President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, on April 15, 2004, as the first recipient of Finland’s Millennium Technology Prize for inventing the World Wide Web.

He was also given the rank of Knight Commander (the second-highest rank in the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II. This was part of the New Year’s Honors ceremony, on July 16, 2004.

The 1999 Time Magazine edition called him one of the 100 most influential people of the twentieth century.

Today he lives in Lexington, Massachusetts (USA) with his wife and two children.

The world wide web is literally an artificial global brain, where information is contributed by millions of people around the world and made publicly available to all.

The next step in the evolution of knowledge will be when the entire university system will be coordinated and organized and made available online at no cost, and anyone will be able to learn anything without having to worry about location, cost, admission standards or any of the other barriers that keep education reserved for the wealthier people in the wealthier countries. The future holds the promise that everybody, all over the world, will have the chance to be literate. The technology exists for that to happen.

As long as the internet is allowed to continue to grow without interference from controlling powers, knowledge will also continue to flourish organically and bring humans together in a common understanding of how to make this world a better place.

The invention of the World Wide Web is in our day what the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment was for people of an earlier era. It may even prove to be more of a giant leap for humankind than the landing on the moon.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul