I saw The Peaceful Warrior this weekend, on Friday night and then again on Sunday. I had already read the books and kind of knew what to expect. The film critics equate PW as just another "Sports Movie". Dan Millman may have been an athlete in the film, but sports was oh so secondary.

Several scenes hit the nail on the head.

Dan is "too emotional" when he suggests that Soc was perhaps just another looser, pretending to be someone special, because he worked in a gas station. Soc reminds us that it is a "Service Station" and offering service to others is everyone' s highest calling.

Another scene is where Soc reminds Dan that he is no better or no worse than anyone else. We all have worth and dignity.

What I got out of this film is the reminder that all we really have is "here and now". We can't change the past and the future is not here yet. There is no "starting or stopping, just doing". "The Journey is what brings happiness, not the destination".

While I watching the film, my mind shifted over to the photo farther down in my blog, the "hillside home" with the laundry outside on the line. I don't know the family that lives in that house on a hillside in Honduras. They do have equal worth and dignity. What can we learn from them?

• Their "home" is nothing more than a shack.
• No electricity
• No lighting
• No fridg to keep the food fresh and Pepsi cold.
  
• No Pepsi
• No Corona or Bud or Miller Lite
  
• No running water
• No hot water on demand
• No TV
• No Internet
• No Radio
• No bathroom
• No shower
• Each family member perhaps has one or two pairs of shoes and little clothing
• No Game Boy
• No X Box 360
• No digital cameras
• No email address
• No phone
• Breckfast, lunch and dinner consists of Rice and Beans cooked every which way possible.
• No shampoo and conditioner
• No nail polish
• No make up

And consider

• No car
• No car payment
• No morning commute to endure
• No Gym membership
  
• No credit card debt
• No 9-5 boring job to go to every day
• No cat food to worry about. I have two twin boy cats. About the same time this pet food recall hit the news, is about the same time one of my cats disappeared. I have to wonder if he got sick and died in the bushes somewhere.
• The list goes on and on.

The first question Soc asked Dan was "Are you happy?" I had to think about my Hillside Family in the photo.  Are they happy? They live in the worst possible poverty. Could they ever find a reason to smile and laugh? I think so. Should we help them to have a better life? Of course. On Thursday night, I was at the mall. I got there in my car. I opened my wallet to buy a wonderful stur fry dinner and took home the leftovers to keep in my fridg, next to the cold milk and butter. We are all so very blessed and we can't even see it! The Government Standards say that I live in deep poverty. I suppose I do, based on our USA definition of poverty. Jo Davidson's recent blog touches on truthfullness. I know so many people who daily live a lie. I really pity them. I used to attend a business networking group. Everyone projected confidence and success about them and their businesses. After a while it became painfully obvious that we were all basically less than successful and financially challenged and clueless, but we could never admit the truth.

In the film, Dan stated that "when I win the Olympic Gold, then I'll be happy". Does that mean his happiness was dependent on a gold metal? What if he failed to win it? Would he remain unhappy all his life?

Happiness is the journey, not the destination.

My birthday was Sat. I guess you could say that I an about half way through my statical life span and I have seen a lot.

My son can't relate to the old days when I was a kid and we did not have PC's, Pocket Calulators, Microwave Ovens, Cell Phones, Cable TV and so forth. Color TV was introduced when I was very young. A computer with the processing power of an old Intel 486, put men on the moon and brought them home safely. The CPU in your DVD Remote control is likely more powerful than what NASA had.

My son asked me a question on Sat. and I suggested he "Google it". I told him the answer to nearly every question he has in on the Internet. When I was 8 years old, I had to rely on my Teacher and an old encyclopedia for the answers.

I expect that technology will increase and become even more powerful. Knowledge will increase. I know my son, as a third grader is learning a lot more than I did as a third grader. The Internet is a powerful tool. It can spread hate and love around the world at the speed of fibre optic cable.

I know children love and accept by default. Children have to be taught to hate by their parents. Little white boys and girls are taught to hate blacks, by their racist parents. Arab children are taught to hate Jews by their racist parents and vice versa.

My hope for the future is that children will use the power of the Internet to get to know each other. To grow up together in Cyber Space and to understand their differences and accept them and perhaps war will be a thing of the past. It's a lofty goal, I know, but it's worth a try.

I first saw this question and did not want to answer it.

My grave marker will be very simply marked.

Here lies Jeff Richards
He always spoke the truth about himself, warts and all.

*******************************************************
Lies, Lies and more Lies

I found this on Jo Davidson's blog.

Jill Sawyer writes, " Artists of the soul are creative social activists. They dare to venture into hidden heart corners?..No matter who we are, no matter where we live, we each carry within us the unfulfilled longings of the disabled. We are each crippled, broken, shattered. We each bear sorrow's shared scars of the heart. And, as artists of the soul, we can also help turn one another's scars into art."

It reminded me of some of the people I have known in the past.

Bruce was a roommate of mine when I 20 years old. He was 46, going on 16. Many times I saw myself as much more responsible even though Bruce was old enough to be my father.

Bruce was a highly decorated Viet Nam combat vet. He was full of stories of his days "in the shit". He spoke often of how strong he became, not physically, but mentally when he got separated from his unit, behind enemy lines. He lost his rifle and had to survive with his strong hands and clear mind.

One evening, he shared with me how he had been in the jungle for so long that his weight had gone from 200+ to around 100 pounds. He was starving. He was also close to getting back with his buddies, except for one NVC that was in his way. Armed with only a piece of wire, Bruce snuck up on the NVC solder, formed a loop with the wire, dropped it over the poor guy's head and pulled the wire, taking off the solder's head.

As soon as Bruce's tour was up and he had every right to go home, he stayed for another tour. His life was meant to be lived in the theater of battle. He was one hell of a solder.

Joe was my best friend. I hung out with him as much as I could. We even managed to work together a few times.

Joe was a former pro wrestler and an actor. At the young age of 18, Joe found a location and installed a wrestling ring and opened school.. His little wrestling group grew in size and became very successful. He eventually sold it to what is now known as the WWF.

Joe is a Sicilian by ancestor y. He was a good looking guy with a natural talent for comedy. Joe was an actor and was always considering his next film project. He had just finished "Mistaken Identity" with Sara Michelle Geller, Directed by Quentin Tarintino. Joe played a really bad guy who's job was to find Sara and kill her.

Joe had one little problem that got in the way of his acting career. He once quietly confided in me that he was the grandson of the legendary NYC, crime boss, Joseph Bonnano. An uncle of Joe's was managing one of the most popular casinos on the Las Vegas strip and Joe was being considered to take over the operation. He could not be an actor and a God Father at the same time. Joe's uncle had later died and the position had to be filled by Joe, there was no discussion. Actor Joe was no more.

Joe was an excellent businessman. A graduate of all the proper schools of business. He always has several high paying job offers on the table. He was hard pressed to decide what company he would decide to work with.

Job offers, and movie parts and family business, gave him plenty to think about.

Alex was a Political Science Degree holder. Economic Advisor to the Bush Sr. and Clinton Administrations.

Alex was a very hard businessman. Excellent negotiator. His biggest deal involved GE and was worth 187 million dollars. His contacts in the business community were about as valuable as the list of names in Heidi Fleiss' Little Black Book.

Alex was also a successful music producer in his early 20's. He traveled the world cutting deals and making people famous. He would rather be rich, than famous.

Alex was not in his office in the WTC, on Sept. 11. His friends were and he lost them all.

I met Alex one day and he decided to take me under his wing and be my mentor. I was thrilled to be the student of such a great man. I knew I too, would learn much and be a great businessman soon.

Now for the hard part. Everything I just wrote after the quote from Jo Davidson's blog is a lie.

Bruce you see was not a highly decorated Viet Nam Combat Vet. He was a child rapist and he was in San Quentin during the war in Viet Nam. He must have read a lot of books about Viet Nam when he was in prison. So many years had passed since Bruce and I shared an apartment, I thought to "google him". Only one hit came back. He was listed on the Megan's Law web site of California registered sex offenders. It said that he had been "unregistered" for more than 10 years.

Joe had to quickly leave his apartment one day and run. The police came to my home and showed me a photo and asked me if this was Joe. I said yes. The detective went on to tell me that an arrest warrant was issued for Joe. It seems he had a problem with forgery and grand theft issues. His kid's mother had been arrested a few days eariler and Joe was next. I still wonder to this day what must have happened to the kids.

Alex started off his work experience, by going door to door in retirement communities, selling carpet cleaning contracts. He would sell the contract for a few hundred dollars then pocket the money and never be seen again. His entire life has been that of a lier, thief and con man. I didn't know it at the time, but when I was still his "student" I watched him steal more than $120,000.00 from clients, associates and partners.

I guess if I were Bruce, I might be tempted to tell a lie too. There is a registered sex offender living about 100 yards from me. He is an old man. He did his time in prison and in the 8 years I have lived here (and I only knew about his status for the last year or so) even though he is surrounded by kids, there has never been a problem.

Joe and Alex could have truly built huge, successful businesses. Joe would make an excellent Public Relations Spokesperson. Alex would make an excellent sales person. The problem as I see it, is Joe and Alex can't stand the idea of being "common" or "ordinary". I met Quentin Tarentino once and asked him about his film "Mistaken Identity", he looked at me like I was from another planet and could not understand my question.

My dad worked on a loading dock all his life. My mom was an adminstrative assistant in the banking industry. My oldest brother drives a big rig. My sister is a Nun and my other brother is a life long machinist.

I guess what I'm saying is it's OK to be just plain 'ol ordinary people.

It's OK to be common.
It's OK to tell the truth.
There is no really good reason for daily living a lie.

In the Peaceful Warrior, Socrates corrects Dan by stating he works in a Service Station (not a gas station). Providing service to others is our highest calling. You don't need to be famous or successful in order to serve others.

Namaste

Father Casimir Cypher

This guy was someone special. He was a Franciscan Priest. He loved meat and potatoes, beer and cigars. He was also an advocate of human rights and social justice. He was sent to Honduras in the early 70's

Back in that day, the easiest way to control the population was to keep them stupid and poor. The common folks, just wanted to have a little bit of land they could call their own and farm it. Not too much to ask.

Father Casimir Cypher wanted to help. The nearly everyone in Honduras was Catholic, rich and poor alike. Perhaps he thought the solders would treat him with respect and hear what the people had to say through him.

There is only one written account of what happened that day. The little book is sadly out of print.

There were two Nuns that worked with Father Casimir. They shared his devotion to "Changing the World" (I borrowed that tag line from Zaadz, but nonetheless it's true).

Father Casimir Cypher's life ended on a dirt street in a little village in Honduras in 1975. He was tortured and dismembered. His companion Sisters were also murdered.

One of the Sisters, before she died said something to this effect. I don't have the exact quote.

As an individual, you may feel powerless to change things for the better. The world is so big and and we as an individual person are so small. You may not be able to change the world all by yourself, but if you change another person's (or family's) world for the better, you have done a great thing.

She changed the world one person or family at a time, until a hail of bullets stopped her mission.

You don't have to be a priest or a nun or a monk or a shaman or a yogi to do great things. You just need a compassionate spirit and a willingness to change things for the better one soul at a time.

Pax et Bonum

Everything I have can be replaced.

My son and daughters can not. This is the only exception.

I make if an effort to follow the wise advise of St. Francis and not become possessed by possessions. Possessions must be constantly guarded to keep them out of the hands of thieves and robbers and lier's and con men.

This photo arrived last week. Her name is Xeomara (as in "zee yo mara").

The last time I saw her was in 1992. She was a 19-20 year old young lady. That would make her about 35 now. When I saw this photo, I was positive I was looking at Xeomara's mother. She would be in her 50's now. I was shocked when I was corrected.

The box at her feet is full of simple things from a .99 cent store and a few larger pieces. Mostly shampoo, body wash, toothpaste. The kind of things we all use every day without a second thought. The problem is for the vast majority of the people of Honduras, all those "little things"are generally unaffordable.

The last known stat I had from the CIA fact book, stated that the per capita income of the average citizen of Honduras, was $750.00 per year.

Prices are no different there, than they are here. A 2 liter bottle of Coke in my market averages about a dollar and the same holds true in Choloma, Cortez, Honduras. It's the same for soap and shampoo and all the rest. Since the average person can't afford a bottle of soda, merchants will take a plastic baggie and pour a bit into it and add a straw. You can buy a "bag" of Coke for about 10 cents.

In your company First Aid kit, you find the little packets of aspirin with 2 tabs in it. In Honduras, they are sold that way. People can't afford to purchase a 500 tab bottle of aspirin, so they buy 2 tabs when they have a headache. The ladies don't buy a box of pads for that time of the month, they buy one at a time, or find another way to deal with the problem. You get the idea by now.

In the photo, you can clearly see the dirt floor, covered with a sheet of plywood. Hopefully the one tree we can see outside, is a fruit tree of some kind. There is no door. Later they will block it off to keep wild dogs out. We have dogs as pets. In Honduras, dogs are a problem.

Everyone in the household works. The biggest source of employment is clothing factories. The workers are exploited in the name of huge profits. How else can a company like Nike pay Michael Jordon millions of dollars, just to shoot baskets in front of a camera, for a Nike TV ad? They simply don't bring home enough money to "live". The're lifestyle is that of survival.

Out of my own poverty, I find ways to help. As I wrote before, even if you can't save the world, you can save another soul, or at least bring them some of the simpler things we all take for granted.

Think about this for a moment...there are about 45,000 citizens in the Republic of Zaadz. If each one were to commit a dollar a day (forgive me for using US currency, this keeps things simple) to help shift a few lives from "survival" to "living", we would have a monthly budget of One Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars.

That will change many a person's world.

I want to make it to heaven and hear the Lord say of my my life "well done good and faithful servant".

Not hearing those words is a big time fear. There are many times when a do a self evaluation, of my life up till now, and I think I have done nothing noteworthy. That is another fear.

I was about 12 years old and I was sitting on a fallen redwood. I was in Northern California in a Redwood forest. I looked up and could not see the tops of the trees. Most of the trees in that forest were 300+ years old. They were there before the American Revolution started and they are still standing today.

It makes our span of 70-80 years or so seem rather trivial.

I hope everyone knows by now that I manufacture made to order drawstring pants. It's my job to understand the world of fabric. A Greener Marketplace would include the reduction of chemicals added to the fabric that goes into making your clothing!

Dr. Dick Irwin, a toxicologist at Texas A&M University, stated that “Chemicals have replaced bacteria and viruses as the main threat to health. The diseases we are beginning to see as the major causes of death in the later part of (the 1900’s) and into the 21^st century are diseases of chemical origin.” The chemical toxic overload growing around us is taking many forms including increases in cancer, asthma, and a condition called Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) is a syndrome of medical conditions ranging from mild to life-threatening and include headache, trouble concentrating, memory problems, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, dizziness, difficulty breathing, irregular heart beat, and seizures.

The garment manufacturing industry is huge internationally and notoriously chemically-intensive and polluting. All stages of the conventional garment manufacturing process, except for the spinning process, rely upon a blizzard of synthetic chemicals, many of which are toxic. Polyvinyl alcohol is often used as a sizing to make the yarn weavable. Harsh chlorine is used to bleach and whiten. Fabric is scoured, cleaned and de-pigmented with sodium hydroxide, heavy metal salts and cerium compounds in preparation for dying. Dyes often contain heavy metal impurities, chrome mordant and formaldehyde-fixing agents. Some Azo-based dyes (Azo dye group III A1 and A2) shed carcinogenic aryl amines.

I hope we are all shifting in a more "greener" direction and should also include the clothing you wrap around your bodies. Your skin is like an absorbent sponge. If you cover your body in clothing that was processed with a litany of chemicals including formaldehyde, (the stuff we use to preserve a dead body), your body is going to absorb it.

Whenever possible you should keep toxic, chemically altered clothing off your body! Organic, unbleached, natural cotton, hemp and bamboo fabrics are the best choices for safe clothing.

Very few of us, I would guess, wash new clothing before wearing it the first time. I once saw a factory in Honduras that had giant rolls of fabric stored just outside the manufacturing floor. The rolls of fabric were routinely sprayed with pesticides to keep the bugs from attacking the fabric. The girls and women inside the factory handled this toxic fabric all day long. Naturally it came to no surprise to find out  many of the factory workers were sick all the time. The poison in the fabric was being ingested through their hands every day they were on the job and that same poisoned fabric was turned into little kids overalls to be sold in the US under a famous brand name that will not be mentioned .

Stay Safe

I saw a program about eco-friendly energy sources on TV yesterday. It went like this:

• If we set aside 10% of Nevada and constructed a photovoltaic (solar) array in this 10% of land, we could power all of the USA from this source
• If we set aside 10% of Nevada and constructed a solar heat exchanger-type system to heat oil in a closed loop, to boil water to make steam to power a generator, it could power all of the USA. So far that makes two eco-friendly systems we could adopt.
• Wind farms currently supply 1-2% of our nation's power needs. If wind farms were set up on the East and West Coasts, they could power the country. This makes 3 eco-friendly systems we could adopt.
• Geothermal, the idea of using the Earth's perpetual supply of heat to boil water to make steam to run generators, to make electricity is very "dooable"
• Switchgrass will grow anywhere with little effort. One unit of Switchgrass will convert into 11 units of energy.
  
• Ocean currents can be used to create energy, much like the wind farm, but under water, and endless supply of energy.

There was much more shared on this program, including the 100+ per gallon Toyota Pirus and diesel cars that run on discarded oil from fast food joints.

So with all these green options available, why are we still dependent on Middle East oil for our energy needs? Something is seriously wrong here...