Bits and ‘Peaces’ to think about!
|
The 2007 U.S. Military Budget is more than 532.8 Billion Dollars and the 2007 the U.S. Department of Education and associated training budget is approximately 89 billion dollars. It seems we are thinking more about war than learning to think.
The U.S. thinks about the Military Budget more than the next 14 largest military spending countries’ think about theirs. - As the U.S. military budget is larger than the budgets of the next 14 "biggest spenders” COMBINED!
In 2001 the U.S. ranked 10th worldwide in educational spending as a percent of the GDP (gross domestic product) while Saudi Arabia ranked first. It would seem Saudi Arabia is investing money into developing thinkers! In 2003 the U.S. spent approximately 47% of the world’s total military spending at a cost of 956 Billion dollars. That is a lot of spending to think about.
More than 60,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War at an average age of 19-years-old. Their average age today would be 65 years old. Most people think about retiring when they are 65. The killed soldiers would now be considered Baby Boomers and some experts think that more than half of American Baby Boomers will live to be a hundred.
The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. is one way we continue to think about these soldiers.
From a high of 65,000 active nuclear weapons in 1985, there were about 20,000 active nuclear weapons in the world in 2002. Many of the "decommissioned" weapons were simply stored or partially dismantled, not destroyed. This movement to lessen the amount of weapons means the world is thinking in the right direction.
|
|
Experts think that the radiated heat from one bomb would be sufficient to cause lethal burns to any unprotected person within 17.8 miles. The devastation of a nuclear bomb would happen so fast that there would not be any time to even think.
George Busch led people to think the Iraq war was over when he announced that major combat operations in Iraq had ended on May 1, 2003. More than 3,300 Americans have been killed in combat since. (4.27.07)
The world thinks a lot about the war in Iraq, but they should also think about areas such as Darfur. Three years of fighting in Darfur have destroyed hundreds of villages, displaced 2.2 million and led to more than 400,000 deaths. There are war-zones all over the world we need to think about.
-You don’t have to think very far - 100% of U.S. cities with a population greater than or equal to 250,000 report gang activity.
Tye-die is one of the oldest forms of fabric manipulation and design, but made a cultural resurgence among the ‘hippies’ of the 1960 who often wore tye-die shirts during rallies for peace. Tye-die became so fashionable that people ‘dyed’ anything they could think to dye.
|
-People also think of ‘hippies’ as smoking a lot of ‘pot.’ People who smoke ‘pot’ think it makes them feel peaceful.
Many Native Americans smoked from a ceremonial peace pipe, traditionally as a token of peace. There are many misconceptions of what people think was smoked from a peace pipe, but typically it was common tobacco. Another interesting side note; Sometimes to show respect smoke would be blown into ones face. If someone did that now - people would think they were a jerk.
There are a lot of methods to think about achieving peacefulness such as massage, yoga, meditation, tai chi, prayer and music. Doctors think these are better alternatives to smoking.
Q. What do you think peace.com is a site for? A. Utility Company.
Peaceful.com = a site for the proposed construction of a library in Massachusetts. They want to know what people think about the project....
worldpeace.com = a splash page for Barack Obama. He will want to know what you think at election time.
makepeace.com = a site for a digital imaging company and other industrial office equipment.
livepeace.com = just a picture of a half filled glass of water and dirty reading glasses.
peaceplease.com = a site of images and symbols of peace. http://www.makepeace.comIt would make one think that real people of peace are also polite.
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
-Ernest Hemingway |
