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By Ali Sina, Faithfreedom.org, September 22, 2008
A cult of personality is excessive adulation, admiration and exaltation of a charismatic leader, often with unproven merits or achievements. It is similar to hero worship except that it is created specifically for political leaders.
I must confess I was not impressed by Sen. Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome presidential package. It is so instinctive for most people to want to see blacks succeed. It is as if all humanity is carrying a collective guilt for what the ancestors of blacks endured. However, despite my initial interest in him, I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words.
It is surreal to see the level of hysteria in his admirers. This phenomenon is unprecedented in American politics. Women scream and swoon during his speeches. They yell and shout to Obama, “I love you.” Never did George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt. Martin Luther King Jr. or Ronald Reagan arouse so much raw emotion. Despite their achievements, none of them was raised to the rank of Messiah. The Illinois senator has no history of service to the country. He has done nothing outstanding except giving promises of change and hyping his audience with hope. It’s only his words, not his achievements that is causing this much uproar.
When cheering for someone turns into adulation, something is wrong. Excessive adulation is indicative of a personality cult. The cult of personality is often created when the general population is discontent. A charismatic leader can seize the opportunity and project himself as an agent of change and a revolutionary leader. Often, people, tired of the status quo, do not have the patience to examine the nature of the proposed change. All they want is change. During 1979, when the Iranians were tired of the dictatorial regime of the late Shah, they embraced Khomeini, not because they wanted Islam, but because he promised them change. The word in the street was, “anything is better than the Shah.” They found their error when it was too late. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Mental Health, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on September 28, 2008 - כ"ח אלול תשס"ח at 5:58 am
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Representatives of the Quartet – U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union Javier Solana, European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner – met today in New York to discuss the situation in the Middle East. They were joined by Quartet Representative Tony Blair.
The Quartet reaffirmed its support for the bilateral and comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and commended the parties for their serious and continuous efforts since the Annapolis Conference. The Quartet recognized that a meaningful and results-oriented process is underway and called upon the parties to continue to make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008. It noted the significance of this process and the importance of confidentiality in order to preserve its integrity. The Quartet underlined its commitment to the irreversibility of the negotiations; to the creation of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, living in peace and security alongside Israel; and to an end to the conflict. The Quartet expressed its desire to see the continuation of the solid negotiating structure, involving substantive discussions on all issues, including core issues without exception, in order to ensure the fulfillment of the Annapolis goals. The Quartet reiterated its previous call for all Palestinians to commit themselves to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations. Restoring Palestinian unity based on the PLO commitments would be an important factor in this process. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on September 27, 2008 - כ"ז אלול תשס"ח at 10:49 pm
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By Ray Hanania , YNet News, September 25, 2008
In the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that dominates everyone’s attention and the news, another fight for the protection of children, families and Christian education is taking place in the Middle East.
It is being waged by an Arab-Israeli woman named Nadia Hilou who has bucked the systems in Israel and in the Palestinian community to do what some thought impossible.
A long time advocate of children and family rights, Hilou is a citizen of Israel and ran for the Israeli Knesset so she could advocate for the rights of all people in Israel, Arab and Jewish.
Instead of running on one of the Arab Israeli party lists only to see her message drown in the “us against them” fight for Palestinian rights, Hilou ran on a mainstream list with the Israeli Labor Party. This way she would make sure her message reached everyone and change would follow.
The only Arab Christian Woman in the Knesset – one of 17 women and one of only two Christians – Hilou will not stop fighting for family services and the rights of children even when everyone else has. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Christianity, Islam, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on September 25, 2008 - כ"ה אלול תשס"ח at 12:12 pm
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From an international conference in Washington on Tuesday:
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Recent Posts on September 24, 2008 - כ"ד אלול תשס"ח at 11:55 am
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ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2008) — Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, together with American colleagues, have decoded the genome of the Pristionchus pacificus nematode, thereby gaining insight into the evolution of parasitism.
In their work, which has recently been published in Nature Genetics, the scientists from Professor Ralf J. Sommer’s department in Tübingen, Germany, have shown that the genome of the nematode consists of a surprisingly large number of genes, some of which have unexpected functions.
These include a number of genes that are helpful in breaking down harmful substances and for survival in a strange habitat: the Pristionchus uses beetles as a hideout and as means of transport, and feeds on the fungi and bacteria that spread out on their carcasses once they have died. It thus provides the clue to understanding the complex interactions between host and parasite. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on September 23, 2008 - כ"ג אלול תשס"ח at 6:34 pm
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By Rachel Neiman, Israel 21C, September 22, 2008
It is a real-life nightmare scenario that makes any horror movie pale by comparison. The honeybees are in trouble and, by extension, so is the human race. Last winter, over 36 percent of the US bee colonies collapsed, affecting honey production, but more significantly, affecting the one-third of all food production that requires pollination – from fruits and nuts, to the dairy and beef cows that feed on alfalfa.
Now, an Israeli-US company Beeologics is taking rapid measures to bring to market a proprietary anti-viral agent that promises to alleviate the effects of the virus strongly associated with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), with full-scale FDA trials commencing next month.
So far 60,000 hives are committed and Beeologics aims to have 100,000 hives enlisted in the trial which will run in several locations in the US from October to February. The season is critical, Eyal Ben-Chanoch, CEO of Beeologics, tells ISRAEL21c, because the bee keeping industry cycle follows the seasons of the bees which strengthen in spring, and summer and naturally weaken during fall and winter.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Climate Change, Health Sciences, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on September 22, 2008 - כ"ב אלול תשס"ח at 9:53 am
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See Also: Lesson From a Wagon Driver
By Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, September 22, 2008
The timeline for success would be measured in years, not months. The goal would not be a document that Livni and Abbas could sign but the construction of a healthy and vibrant Palestinian civil society — that is, independent media, courts, political parties and nongovernmental organizations that could stand behind a settlement with Israel.
Amid the din of the financial crisis and the presidential campaign, the Bush administration’s attempt to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal has quietly expired. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s 16 trips to the region over the past 21 months; last year’s Annapolis peace conference; months of meetings between Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams — all have sunk under the weight of the corruption charges against departing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the competition of crises from Georgia to Pakistan.
Nor is the peace process likely to revive anytime soon. The winner of last week’s party primary election to replace Olmert, Tzipi Livni, will probably be mired in efforts to form a new government for weeks or even months. To succeed she probably will have to make promises to coalition partners that would make a deal impossible. If she fails, Israel will have an election in which the favorite, for now, is hard-liner Binyamin Netanyahu.
Those are just Israel’s hurdles. The Palestinians are still split between Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And if the presidential campaign is any indication, promoting a Middle East peace won’t crack the top 10 on the next administration’s list of priorities. How could it? With Wall Street’s meltdown, the failing Afghan war, the growing U.S. military engagement in Pakistan and Russia’s neo-imperialist eruption — not to mention the nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea — the perpetual headache of the West Bank and Gaza, where violence is at a relative low point, can barely be felt in Washington.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on September 22, 2008 - כ"ב אלול תשס"ח at 9:30 am
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By Edwin Black , THE JERUSALEM POST, Sep. 21, 2008
If we lose 1.5 million barrels per day, or approximately 7.5%, we will ask our allies in the 28-member International Energy Agency to open their SPRs and otherwise assist. If we lose 2 million barrels per day, or 10%, government crisis monitors say the chaos will be so catastrophic they cannot even model it.
It will come as a shock to most Americans and the media, but as the election reaches a crescendo on the issue of preparedness and energy, neither presidential candidate – nor anyone in local, state or federal government – has developed a contingency plan in the event of a protracted oil cut-off. It is not even being discussed. Government has prepared for hurricanes, anthrax, terrorism and every other disaster, but not the one threatened daily – a protracted oil stoppage, whether caused by terrorism, intervention in the Persian Gulf or a natural disaster.
It is like seeing a hurricane developing without a disaster plan or evacuation route. Our allies have oil shortage interruption contingency plans, but America does not.
THE CRUDE realities: America uses approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day, almost 70 percent of which is imported. If we lose just 1 million barrels per day, or suffer the type of damage sustained from Hurricane Katrina, the government will open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which offers a mere six-to-eight week supply of unrefined crude oil. If we lose 1.5 million barrels per day, or approximately 7.5%, we will ask our allies in the 28-member International Energy Agency to open their SPRs and otherwise assist. If we lose 2 million barrels per day, or 10%, government crisis monitors say the chaos will be so catastrophic they cannot even model it.
Exactly how could America be subjected to a protracted oil interruption, that is, a 10% shortfall lasting longer than several weeks? It will not come from hurricane action in the Gulf of Mexico, or even major refinery accidents or other oil infrastructure damage. Such damage would be repaired within days and the temporary losses absorbed by the small half million barrel per day global cushion available.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Recent Posts on September 22, 2008 - כ"ב אלול תשס"ח at 7:17 am
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by Bret Stephens, Commentary Magazine, September 2008
Effective policy depends above all on a correct understanding of the people, places, and things toward which it is being applied. To speak of an Islamic civilization is to speak in error. Rather, there is a Muslim world. It is fractured, and fractious.
“Islam has bloody borders.” So wrote Samuel Huntington in “The Clash of Civilizations?,” his 1993 Foreign Affairs article later expanded (minus the question mark) into a best-selling book. Huntington argued that, eclipsing past eras of national and ideological conflict, “the battle lines of the future” would be drawn along the “fault lines between civilizations.” Here, according to Huntington, was where current and coming generations would define the all-important “us” versus “them.”
At the time of its writing, “The Clash of Civilizations?” had, beyond the virtues of pithiness and historical sweep, something to recommend it on purely empirical grounds. It seemed especially plausible as applied to the “crescent-shaped Islamic bloc” from the Maghreb to the East Indies.
In the Balkans, for example, Orthodox Serbs were at the throats of Bosnian and later Kosovar Muslims. In Africa, Muslims were either skirmishing or at war with Christians in Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia. In the Caucasus, there was all-out war between Orthodox Russia and Muslim Chechnya, all-out war between Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan, and violent skirmishes between Orthodox Ossetia and Muslim Ingushetia.
In the Middle East, some 500,000 U.S. troops had intervened to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Israel had just endured several years of the first Palestinian intifada, soon to be followed by a fraudulent peace process leading, in turn, to a second and far bloodier intifada. Further to the east, Pakistan and India were at perpetual daggers drawn over Kashmir. There were tensions—sometimes violent—between the Hindu majority and the large Muslim minority in India, just as there were between the Christian minority and the Muslim majority in Indonesia.
For Huntington, all this was of a piece with a pattern dating at least as far back as the battle of Poitiers in 732, when Charles Martel turned back the advancing Umayyads and saved Europe for Christianity. Nor was the pattern likely to end any time soon. “The centuries-old military interaction between the West and Islam is unlikely to decline,” he wrote. To the contrary: “It could become more virulent.”
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on September 20, 2008 - כ' אלול תשס"ח at 8:57 pm
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By Melinda Wenner, Scientific American Magazine , September 18, 2008
It afflicts every creature on this planet, and everyone dreams of an antidote. But even after decades of research, aging largely remains a mystery. Now new research findings suggest there is a good reason for this impasse: scientists may have been thinking about the causes of aging all wrong. Instead of being the result of an accumulation of genetic and cellular damage, new evidence suggests that aging may occur when genetic programs for development go awry.
The idea that stress and reactive forms of oxygen—“free radicals” that are the normal by-products of metabolism—cause aging has dominated the field for 50 years. Studies on the worm Caenorhabditis elegans have shown that reducing exposure to reactive oxygen species increases life span, and worms that have been bred to live longer are also more resistant to stress. But few studies have definitively linked oxidative damage to altered cellular function.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Nutrition & Fitness, Recent Posts, Science on September 18, 2008 - י"ח אלול תשס"ח at 11:06 pm
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