Jason Beeferman, Journalism Fellow of The Texas Tribune - The Texas Tribune
Stephan: Even if the police don't kill you, they can still beat you up. Happily these two police officers and a former police officer behaved so thuggishly that even in Texas they have finally been held to account. But this behavior is not unusual with American police.
Protesters confront a line of Dallas police officers at a march for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Three North Texas officers were indicted on assault charges for actions against protesters in 2020. Credit: Shelby Tauber / The Texas Tribune
Two North Texas police officers and a former police officer were indicted Friday on felony charges accusing them of using excessive force against demonstrators protesting against police brutality in May 2020.
Dallas police officer Ryan Mabry and former Dallas officer Melvin Williams were indicted on multiple felony counts of aggravated assault by a public servant and deadly conduct for their involvement with the protests, according to a press release from the Dallas County district attorney’s office. Garland police officer Joe Privitt was indicted on one felony count of aggravated assault by a public servant. The indictments come after nearly two years of investigation, District Attorney John Creuzot said in the release.
Mabry is accused of firing or threatening to fire so-called less-lethal projectiles at three people, according to some of his indictments.
The projectiles are a crowd control measure meant to injure, not […]
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for several years now that Covid is just the beginning. As the climate changes thousands of viruses and bacteria will mutate to accommodate the changes in their environment, and some unknown number of them could begin a pandemic as bad or worse than Covid. Am I exaggerating? Read this and make up your own mind. Do you think for this, and dozens of other reasons, it has become time to take climate change seriously?
A scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus Makona (red) from an outbreak in West Africa. Credit: NIH/Zuma
There will be at least 15,000 instances of viruses leaping between species over the next 50 years, with the climate crisis helping fuel a “potentially devastating” spread of disease that will imperil animals and people and risk further pandemics, researchers have warned.
As the planet heats up, many animal species will be forced to move into new areas to find suitable conditions. They will bring their parasites and pathogens with them, causing them to spread between species that haven’t interacted before. This will heighten the risk of what is called “zoonotic spillover,” where viruses transfer from animals to people, potentially triggering another pandemic of the magnitude of Covid-19.
“As the world changes, the face of disease will change too,” said Gregory Albery, an expert in disease ecology at Georgetown University and co-author of the paper, published in Nature. “This work provides more incontrovertible evidence that the coming decades will not only be hotter, but sicker.”
“We have demonstrated a novel and potentially devastating mechanism for […]
Jon Lipman, Lee Fergusson, Anna Bonshek, Institute for Vedic Architecture, Maharishi International University, Fairfield, IA, | Professor, Maharishi Vedic Research Institute, Gold Coast, AU-QLD, Australia | Professor, Maharishi Vedic Research Institute, Gold Coast, AU-QLD, Australia - Global Advances in Health and Medicine
Stephan: I have spent much of my life studying the nature of consciousness, particularly the unconscious and nonlocal aspects. And one of the things it has taught me is how influenced we are by a whole range of subtle processes. And once you can identify such an influence you can figure out how to work with it. One is how we are positioned relative to the earth's geomagnetic field. Not just personally but socially through our architecture. Feng Shu is one approach, the Maharishi Vastu Architecture is another less well-known one. How influential can this be? I couldn't find a good popular article on this, so here is the peer-reviewed research paper. I am publishing it, because you can use this information to your own benefit.
Abstract
Background and objectives
The evolution of healthcare from 18th-century reductionism to 21st-century postgenomic holism has been described in terms of systems medicine, and the impact of the built environment on human health is the focus of investigation and development, leading to the new specialty of evidence-based, therapeutic architecture. The traditional system of Vāstu architecture—a design paradigm for buildings which is proposed to promote mental and physical health—has been applied and studied in the West in the last 20 years, and features elements absent from other approaches. This review critically evaluates the theory and research of a well-developed, standardized form of Vāstu—Maharishi Vastu® architecture (MVA). MVA’s principles include development of the architect’s consciousness, universal recommendations for building orientation, siting, and dimensions; placement of key functions; and occupants’ head direction when sleeping or performing tasks. The effects of isolated Vāstu elements included in MVA are presented. However, the full value of MVA, documented as a systematic, globally applicable practice, is in the effect of its complete package, and thus this review of MVA includes evaluating the experience of living […]
Stephan: This is a trend that is receiving very little attention, but that is reshaping rural, particularly beautiful rural areas in the country.
A farm in the Catskills, New York | Credit: John Collier / Buyen Large / Getty
A common story is told about idealistic city dwellers who move to rural areas like the Catskills. Over the centuries, rural New York state has played host to utopian groups seeking out new, radically communal ways of life. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, groups like the Shakers and the Fourierists founded communities in Western New York. Later, in the Catskills, Buddhist monasteries were built and artists’ colonies like Byrdcliffe cropped up. In America, the quest for radical community—whether driven by religion, politics, or a desire to make art—has often been depicted as requiring a literal journey: a move from the city to the country, where it’s possible to build something new and start over.
This is broadly the story Adrian Shirk tells in her new book, Heaven is a Place on Earth: Searching for an American Utopia. A talented researcher and a sympathetic chronicler of intentional communities, Shirk visits a Bruderhof community in the foothills of […]
Rhea Mogul, Esha Mitra, Manveena Suri and Sophia Saifi, Reporters - CNN
Stephan: climate change is going to create large territories around the planet that are simply unliveable on a mass basis. Like sea rise or drought, it is going to stimulate internal migrations.
A firefighter uses his mobile phone as he sits on top of a fire truck as smoke billows from burning garbage at the Bhalswa landfill site in New Delhi, India, April 27, 2022. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Delhi (CNN)Temperatures in parts of India and Pakistan have reached record levels, putting the lives of millions at risk as the effects of the climate crisis are felt across the subcontinent.The average maximum temperature for northwest and central India in April was the highest since records began 122 years ago, reaching 35.9 and 37.78 degrees Celsius (96.62 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit) respectively, according to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).Last month, New Delhi saw seven consecutive days over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), three degrees above the average temperature for the month of April, according to CNN meteorologists. In some states, the heat closed schools, damaged crops and put pressure on energy supplies, as officials warned residents to remain indoors and keep hydrated.
The heatwave has also been felt by India’s neighbor Pakistan, where the cities of Jacobabad and […]
