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Catching Up on Spiritual Sharing

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6/29/10 – Whenever I’m afraid, I can ask God to help me see each situation, person or challenge as he sees it, give him all my fear, calmly await his sure guidance, and trust and allow him to handle every situation, knowing he won’t let my fear get in the way of love.
6/28/10 – We can ignore all impulses to judge, condemn, correct, see evil, or contribute to conflict, guilt or weakness, and instead align ourselves with the holy light that knows all of humankind, and all past and present reality, only as loving and forever innocent.
6/27/10 – When we ask to see God’s perspective on any challenge, situation or any relationship, we’ll always be reminded of our eternal oneness with all, and that there is nothing that God’s boundless, unconditional, eternal, perfect love cannot heal.
6/26/10 – When we turn over our conflicts, priorities and decisions to our higher power, who alone understands the needs of all and what matters most, we will be reminded to hear in every communication only one of two things: an offer of love, or a request for it.
6/25/10 – We are now and forever exactly as we were created to be, but we will see, enjoy and celebrate God’s one beloved, innocent, perfect, eternal creation more clearly when we ask him to free our spirits from limiting cultural blinders of guilt, sin and fear.
6/24/10 – Rather than try to fix ourselves and others, we can surrender to God’s guidance, inspiration and justice (love); let go of judgment, comparisons and guilt; accept, appreciate and forgive all; and see all as eternally unique, innocent, perfect.
6/23/10 – We have created the scary stuff “out there in the world” through our own fearful, judgmental personal and cultural projections and reactions. When we change our goal to love, and see with accepting, forgiving, appreciative eyes, our world will change.
6/22/10 – Shared cultural illusions of brief, fearful, competitive lives between birth and death limit us, while faith in the eternal, universal justice of unconditional love, abundance and forgiveness offers infinite patience yielding immediate miraculous results.
6/21/10 – With no fear of conflict or competition, we can release all our illusions of past, future and separation, and commit wholeheartedly to seeing and sharing only a present miraculous healing motivation of love with God’s one holy, eternally-beloved creation. Continue reading →

Even More Spiritual Sharings

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5/24/10 – When we’re feeling fearful or awkward about how to react to a situation or person, we can turn the moment over to the guidance, perspective and insights of our higher power—and then relax, knowing the best healing response for all will come to us.
5/23/10 – We can bow to the world’s cultural dream of fear, sin, judgment, suffering, guilt, depression and death, or we can awaken now to the beauty, peace, love and joy of beloved and loving spirits, eternally celebrating God’s one perfect, abundant creation.
5/22/10 – When I’m feeling negative about any situation, person or issue, and ask to see things differently, the helpful insight I receive encompasses all interests, and reveals my eternal oneness, and loving communication now, with all that is—man, nature, and God.
5/21/10 – God’s forgiveness, and our own, release us from our dreams of retribution and penance for our unjust pasts, and free us to focus now, with God, on acceptance, appreciation and love for all things, the only purposes which assure peace and happiness.
5/20, 2010 – When we remind ourselves that we don’t have to do anything, we will also remember that some of the things we think we have to do are often things we really want to do—which is a happier place to come from.
5/19, 2010 – When we feel weak, beleaguered, hopeless, despairing, angry, guilty, resentful and defiant, we can surrender all to faith, let go, and trust God’s order, purpose, strength, peace, love, innocence and oneness to miraculously transform chaos into peace.
5/18/10 – We can struggle to protect, affirm and aggrandize our illusions of separate, guilty, competing bodies alone in a threatening world; or we can know only one beloved eternal spiritual creation sharing one holy purpose and one peaceful loving home in God.
5/17/10 – When we judge the world and try to fix it, we will see only chaos and error. When we relax, judge not, and see, think and be only love, we will find in ourselves and in all the inner peace and love that gives the world the only meaning it will ever have.
5/16/10 – We can focus on fearful and unsolvable mortal problems, shortcomings and mistakes in a futile attempt to correct and change ourselves and others, or we can let our guiding spirit help us focus on only what is good, true and eternal in ourselves and others.
5/15/10 – “Being” is oneness, wholeness, and the shared loving purpose of a diverse and holy self. This simple truth of one love, one creation and one eternal time of now can be hidden by false, frightening, complex cultural concepts and assumptions, but never lost. Continue reading →

Biological Arms Races, Biocontainment Labs, Hazards and Assessments

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Excerpt: Before we expose huge populations to catastrophic risks with BSL 3 & 4 labs, we need to ask why. If someone does attack the U.S. with biologicals, what is the likelihood that we’ll have the right vaccine, in enough quantities, available when it is needed? Wouldn’t we have to vaccinate people before the threat reaches them? Perhaps an antidote, not a vaccine, will be needed. And how much vaccine, and when, would be considered a good solution? And who would be vaccinated? Only the government? The military? The medical community? Who might our solution actually save?
And finally, has anyone examined the probability that these risky efforts can even be successful? We’re considering exposing huge populations to catastrophic risks. For what? If someone does attack the U.S. with biologicals, what is the likelihood that we’ll have the right vaccine, in enough quantities, available when it’s needed?
Excerpt: I was almost raped as a young mother. A very caring policeman later sternly warned me, “Don’t be so stupid as to leave your window-shade up! You’re attracting every pervert in the county. Eventually, they’ll all make a beeline to your window!”
These labs leave the window-shades in Frederick up. Their very existence in Frederick asks, perhaps begs, for trouble, and that trouble will make its dangerous beeline straight to our area. Excerpt: Scientists in these labs will be genetically-engineering (from diseases with no cures), completely new, highly lethal and contagious life forms, life, life so new that no one yet understands how it works. What if a newly-mutated strain somehow finds a way to attach itself to a lab worker in some unpredictable way, some way that defeats the protections put on it, so that the lab workers carry it outside unknowingly? I plead for humility in the face of nature’s chaotic, awesome genetic power. Excerpt: The record shows that research lab workers, even those with the highest security clearances and the best available training, are still fallible human beings who can and do become victims of blackmail, fall in love unwisely, get into desperate financial situations, hide growing prescription and other drug problems, and develop volatile feelings about co-workers. Lab workers sometimes become blind to their own religious and political biases and bigotry, and are thus susceptible to involvement in illicit covert operations, conspiracies and cover-ups.
Sometimes they get in a hurry and make professionally embarrassing mistakes and bad decisions. Sometimes they hide evidence, fudge records and fake procedures in order to save their jobs and livelihoods, and then rationalize the risks they’re taking—escalating and exponentially complicating situations already perilous.
Also sadly, no one yet has been able to explain to me why it wouldn’t be easy, temptingly easy, to kamikaze an airplane flown from the Frederick Airport into a targeted Ft. Detrick building, or lob a well-placed rocket over the Ft. Detrick fence. Either of these unpreventable actions would very legitimately throw chaos and panic into the post, city and metropolitan area, creating unforeseen, complicated, dangerous situations. Continue reading →

Covering Obama: A Cautionary Note to Journalists and Historians

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(Excerpt): Barack’s victory was a victory of hope, love, and faith over cynicism, despair, and vengeance. Journalists telling his election story just exactly as it unfolded were right to tell the truth that for a brief shining moment, America once again welcomed the possibility of a promising new king ready and eager to reign wisely and well from a diverse, compassionate and representative roundtable. Continue reading →

Democratic Advocacy for the Sanctity of Human Life

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Americans of faith, whether liberals or conservatives, have always wanted to elect leaders who will put in place caring governmental policies supportive of human life, from beginning to end—policies such as people-friendly health care, education, jobs, housing, transportation, and energy; equitability and opportunity; a small-business and worker-friendly economy; environmental stewardship; generosity toward the most vulnerable; representative, transparent politics, government, and taxation; and a peaceable foreign policy. Unfortunately, Republican partisan hacks continually manipulate our natural emotions and sympathies to galvanize us around single values-issues like abortion, and thus distract and divide us into voting against our own (and everyone else’s) best interests, against the very life-supporting and compassionate values we care so much about, values which the Democratic Party has always stood up for. The Democratic Party party is pledged to make abortion more rare, not more dangerous, and to promote healthy childbearing, family planning, contraceptive research, and comprehensive family life education. Look at Republican Party results and you will see that, once in power, they consistently put in place policies that move the bulk of the nation’s money away from the broad middle class and toward a small group of very wealthy people. The Republican Party isn’t what it used to be. This time, I hope Americans of faith will vote Democratic—for a change. Continue reading →

An End to Holocausts, Hiroshimas and 9/11s?

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(Excerpt): We are all conditioned to believe that being “right” about ourselves, our politics, traditions and religions, is more important than living and letting others live in peace. We have to be “right” about so many things—about who the bad guys are, who started it, who was at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government or religion is superior….
(Excerpt): The truth is, in this confusing world, it’s difficult to find agreement even amongst our best friends and those most “like” us, about what life is all about—what we’re doing here, and how best to look upon the world, ourselves, and one another. Even the greatest scholars realize that the more they know, the more they know they don’t know. This is why, in every conflict, humility, acceptance, mutual respect, support, and yes, forgiveness, are the wisest guides to being “right.”
(Excerpt): Wars cannot prevent catastrophes; war itself is a catastrophe, as attested by all those whose lives are touched by war. Soldiers and soldiers’ families are always catastrophically exploited by war. Ninety percent of the victims of war are civilians. We who so proudly march into war have no idea what future injustices those wars will inevitably loose upon innocents on all sides. Continue reading →

I’ve Finally Decided That Barack Obama Will Pick Bob Casey for His Vice Presidential Running Mate. Or Maybe Mark Warner.… Or Maybe Kathleen Sebelius… Or Bill Richardson? Jim Webb? Or maybe Gore. Or Biden. Or…#@%*!!??

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I’m enjoying watching the Obama veepstakes unfold….
If Hillary doesn't want the job, which she isn't right for (although I love her) maybe Barack will pick either Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey or Jim Webb. Continue reading →

Message from Iowans to Obama’s Opponents: Sit Down, Shut Up, and Let Him Lead

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When the other Presidential candidates hear Obama’s speech in Iowa tonight (1/4/08), they cannot but feel daunted to compete with the world’s most formidable political opponent since Bill Clinton. Tenacious fighters all, yet must they wish, if for only a moment, that they too, along with the rest of us, could just sit down, shut up, and let him lead. For Obama’s spirit gives us hope, and hope has been hard to come by lately. *****
Even those hearing Obama speak for the first time tonight must recognize his brilliance, eloquence, and depth of passion, his commitment and strong faith in America. It was a soaring speech, a great speech, one for the ages. *****
Finally again, we have a leader we can follow, we can trust. I for one am ready to be led by Barack Obama. *****
I wish he could step right into Bush’s shoes. *****
By this time next week, a majority of Americans will have joined him; the rest will scramble on board soon enough. Because tonight, Obama took on the mantle of Kennedy, of Lincoln, even Dr. King, the greatest speaker and moral leader America has ever seen. *****
If you’ve not yet heard him speak, please google “YouTube,” type “Obama” in the search box, and watch any of his speeches. Tonight’s speech would be a good place to start, or the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner speech earlier in Iowa, or any campaign ad. All his speaking events are available on YouTube. *****
Governor Huckabee’s win was also one for the people, and against the entrenched political and corporate powers-that-be, because Huckabee too is a trustworthy patriot of conviction and principle, though not nearly so broad-banded as Obama. I am proud to see that, at least tonight in Iowa, American democracy, howsoever greatly outspent, still works. *****
Hillary Clinton will always be my idol and a great great public servant, but through no fault of her own, she is a partisan polarizing figure, and were she even electable, which she is not, I cannot predict for her any more success with Congress than the brilliant Nancy Pelosi. With respect to demonstrated judgment and useful experience, Obama is the wiser, humbler, and more able leader. And I am just as thrilled to have the opportunity to support a minority candidate for President as I would have been to support an equally electable and capable woman. *****
Like John Edwards, who is truly a great American, Obama is a staunch friend of the working class, yet stronger than Edwards in intellectual depth and breadth, charisma, consensus-building skills, and in holding the visionary and cooperative global perspectives America needs. *****
Republicans, Independents and Democrats of all persuasions already love Obama. No one can think of a word to say against him–they're embarrassed to, because there's nothing to say. He will make mistakes, as all leaders do, greatly tested as they are, but Barack Obama will win the Presidential election in November with the largest turnout and victory America has seen, and with the warmest well-wishes of every nation across the globe. Our best and most-beloved President may yet follow our (however well-intentioned and hapless) worst. *****
I am so moved by the courage and selflessness of this good man, this healer. God bless Barack Obama, and God bless America. Continue reading →

Questioning the Wisdom of Secret Biowarfare Research at Fort Detrick, MD

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Breach of trust
Originally published in the Frederick News-Post, November 07, 2007
By Katherine Heerbrandt
A week before Sen. Barbara Mikulski visited Frederick County extolling the economic promise of Fort Detrick's expansion, Keith Rhodes, chief technologist for the Government Accountability Office, told members of Congress that the proliferation of high-level biolabs raises serious questions about public safety.
“The more BSL-4 labs there are, the more opportunity for mistakes and the more opportunities for release,” Rhodes told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Oct. 4.
Since 9/11 the number of labs researching the most virulent pathogens — those with no cure — grew from two to 15. With no central oversight of the growing number of labs, and disincentives inherent in reporting safety breaches, the security and operations of BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs are in question.
The oversight of these labs is “fragmented and relies on self-policing. High-risk labs have health risks for individual lab workers as well as the surrounding community. The risks due to accidental exposure or release can never be completely eliminated, and even labs within sophisticated biological research programs, including those most extensively regulated, have had and will continue to have safety failures,” Rhodes said.
Burning to spend the billions unleashed for biodefense research, the feds rushed to act with little consideration of the consequences. A sadly familiar refrain.
The U.S. Army War College's 2005 “Assessing Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat” concludes money was spent with no analysis of the bioterrorism threat, which it called “systematically and deliberately exaggerated” by this administration.
More probable than a bioterrorist attack is that we infect ourselves by theft, design or mishap. With every new lab opened, every square foot added, the risk increases, according to the GAO.
The Associated Press produced an interactive map that reveals biolab breaches in the U.S. (http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/biohazards/)
As recently as June, anthrax bacteria was found on a freezer handle, light switch and shoes in a changing room at USAMRIID.
With stories of accidents, breaches of protocol and incompetence from biolabs emerging with disturbing regularity, Detrick's refusal to participate in a public meeting isn't surprising.
Why subject itself to more national attention when biolabs are under assault?
The request came from County Commissioner David Gray, who issued a statement in August saying that federal officials ignored policy in their Environmental Impact Statement by not seeking alternate sites for the labs.
Detrick agreed to meet, then backed out, offering a private meeting with county commissioners. Gray wanted to bring community members and the press. Detrick declined that offer, too.
Detrick has already done its duty, says spokesperson Eileen Mitchell, providing ample opportunity for public comment and complying with federal regulations.
Maybe they weren't counting on anyone actually reading the EIS, but local attorney Barry Kissin and Beth Willis have made a thorough study of it, culminating in a 17-page statement including tough questions for Detrick officials. At best, the EIS is a cursory attempt to comply with federal guidelines. At worst, it ignores documented breaches and blithely concludes that any danger is “negligible.”
The lack of serious effort in such a critical report is yet another example of the arrogance characterizing the federal government's tactics in the name of keeping America safe from terrorists.
Wave the flag and our brains shut down?
Undeterred by Detrick's refusal, Gray will have his forum at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Winchester Hall. But it will take more than the usual 20 to 25 regulars to convince a majority of commissioners that the EIS is severely flawed and deserves a court review.
It's your last chance. Make it count. kheerbrandt@yahoo.com
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Fighting Words

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My letter below was published in the Washington Post Book World on Sunday, September 2, 2007. Following my letter is the reviewer's own response to my criticism, and then a somewhat-satirical, but-you-get-the-point response to the reviewer describing the review that I think he should have written if he wanted to be fair.
Nancy Pace's letter:
“Andrew Nagorski apparently thinks Giles MacDonogh shouldn't have bothered to dredge up all those nasty facts about the occupation of Germany in After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, because, after all, the Germans had it coming, and Allied cruelties were understandable considering their pain and sacrifices (Book World, “The Squall After The Whirlwind,” Aug. 26).
In fact, while we're at it, why don't we just throw away the entire historical record of suffering by losers of all wars throughout history, because they all deserved what they got? From now on, let's write only one-sided histories glorifying the bloody actions of wars' winners and keep on using history primarily to perpetuate the myth that conflicts have only one side worth listening to. That way, we can have more wars.
Justifying fresh injustices by pointing out past injustices does nothing to end the cycle of violence and retribution. Every war, like every retaliatory “peace,” sows the bloody dragon seeds reaped in future wars. Good historians rightly tell the story of the suffering on both sides of wars and about how all the leaders failed to keep the peace.” Continue reading →