http://femmynet.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/318211 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:26:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/318211 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/261181 I have discovered that Imagination is the bedrock on which expectaions and manifestation are built. Simply put: A thing not imagined might not manifest or come to reality!

Imagination is fundamental to faith! how?..I will proof it..Faith can be defined as belief not base on proof but on something( Imagination) Using Biblical context "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"

Imagination is the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses, the act of producing ideal creations consistent with reality, as in literature, as distinct from the power of creating illustrative or decorative imagery. Faith is the belief in your imaginations and for those who imagine little they end up having little faith to transform dreams into realities!

Wallace Stevens once said " In the world of words, imagination is one of the forces of nature" Did you ever think of becoming or doing something in life? to think about it its not enough,imagine it!, carry a mental picture of it in your mind, then have faith, i can assure you that you are few steps away to reality beacause imagination is the mother of manifestation! for a man can not grow beyound his imaginations!

It is not enough to dream of buying that car, nor is it enough to dream of bagging that honours or Masters' degree, for so many dreams has been slaughtered on the altar of illusion. Think your dreams, imagine your thinkings and carry a mental picture of it in your mind and forces of life and nature will come to your aide.

Imagine it!

]]> Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:10:00 EDT http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/261181 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/224223 Thomas Edison once said "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try one more time."

Most times in our lives, when all options seems exhausted,and giving up seems to be t he last resort, I am pleased to announce to everyone reading this post that one more phone call might bring you to a lime light, one more medical appointment might cure the disease, one more prayer might bring the miiracle, a little more hope might cut the rope,one more sowing might cuase an harvest!....Try one more time.

]]> Thu, 28 Jun 2007 06:00:00 EDT http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/224223 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/163117 There are lots of people that are stuck in their lives. They dream of a better job, a different living situation or perhaps a return to school. I always wanted to write a book or learn to paint you might quietly think to yourself. As you daydream about these things a little spark of excitement begins to develop and grow into a small flame. Maybe you can picture how this new dream might look.

And then, fear in all its glory steps in and extinguishes the fire of excitement and possibility. Fear can come in many forms. It could be the little voice in your head saying “Get real, you can’t do that. What if it doesn’t work out?" Oh but that is only one way fear shows up. Sometimes it shows up in the voices of those closest to you. “Why do you want to do THAT?" They ask if you happen to share your dream with them. “Things are fine just the way they are." “What if it doesn’t work?"

You know these voices of fear that are keeping you stuck in a life that isn’t making you feel complete. Most of us have heard them at one time or another. And though it is incredible to be able to find contentment and happiness in your life just as it is now; if you are experiencing a yearning or incompleteness in your life that won’t go away it’s time to ask, “What would I do if I knew I could not fail?"

Ask the question and then grab a piece of paper and start writing, here is someone's response :
- I would take the LSATS
- I would build several free school's like Oprah's Leadership Academy (but better and bigger...is that possible? i've heard this school is awesome!!) in Nigeria.
- I would paint the most beautiful pictures
- I would buy a sewing machine and sew all the awesome dress designs i have in my head.
- I would do the remodelling of my condo slated for this summer MYSELF.
- I would eradicate poverty in Nigeria and make drastic improvements to the current healthcare system.
- I would travel all over the world.
- I would.... DO SO MUCH.

Let yourself see your potential dream down on paper. Don’t immediately share your dream, except with those people who you know will support you. Anytime the voice of fear creeps into your head keep asking the question, “What would I do if I knew I could not fail?"

Before you can make a change in your life it is helpful to have a clear picture of exactly what the goal is. The more details you can incorporate the clearer and more real the goal becomes. I want a new job is a very vague goal. The following is a more helpful example. I would like to open my own financial planning business and have it be close to my home. I would like to be making about $100,000 per year and would like to have flexibility in planning my hours so that I can be involved with my kids and their sports.

When you feel ready you can share your new plan with those around you and withstand any unenthusiastic response they may give. You will be at that point un-stuck and no longer being held back by the fear of failure. And as amazing as it may sound you begin attracting into your life all the things you need to accomplish what you have set out to do.

So, one more time, what would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Look out for this issue debated on the discussion board.


]]> Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:25:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/163117 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/162907 Sir Winston Churchill once said "Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential." Therefore it becomes imperative for any one who wants to ascend to crescendo in life to belive in doggedness and persistency.

Never giving up and pushing forward will unlock all the potential we are capable of.Giving up is never in anyway an attribute of a winner, whatever is ur convictions, always have hope, as i once said that "hope is the rope that swings one through the hurdles of life".

Everyone's life is under someone's control - it might as well be under your own so that you can direct your destiny.

Its never too late to win!
]]> Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:17:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/162907 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150387 Murray N. Rothbard

Economist Murray N. Rothbard mounted the most comprehensive intellectual challenge ever attempted against the legitimacy of government. During a career that spanned more than 40 years, he explained why private individuals, private companies and other voluntary associations can do whatever needs to be done.

“The State indeed performs many important and necessary functions,” Rothbard wrote,” from provision of law to the supply of police and fire fighters, to building and maintaining the streets, to delivery of the mail. But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well.”

He insisted that individuals should be free to go about their business peacefully without interference from anybody, including government. He objected to robbery whether committed by a private criminal or a tax collector. He acknowledged that there are plenty of problems affecting the private sector, but historically government has been the biggest, hardest-to-control problem, not a solution. Governments, he noted, are driven to expand their power, not to serve people. That’s why regardless of which political party is in power, governments tend to get bigger, enact more laws, tax and spend more of what hard-working people produce.

Rothbard showed how self-interest leads private individuals to find ways they can earn their livelihood by providing goods or services in demand. He demonstrated that alleged market failures turn out to be either some people seeking tax money for things which other people won’t voluntarily buy, or the consequences of laws throttling enterprise, such as high taxes, price controls, rent controls or occupational licensing.

Rothbard’s writings have been translated into Chinese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portugese, Romanian, Russian and Spanish. He wrote authoritatively about ethics, philosophy, economics, American history and the history of ideas. He produced a dozen major books and several hundred articles. His work appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Fortune and other major publications, and he was interviewed in Penthouse. He contributed to such scholarly journals as American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic History, Columbia Journal of World Business, Journal of the History of Ideas, Southern Economic Journal and Journal of Libertarian Studies and The Cato Journal. Over the years, he wrote for just about every publication in the libertarian movement -- analysis, Faith and Freedom, The Freeman, New Individualist Review, Fragments, Innovator, Libertarian Analysis, Libertarian Connection, Reason, Libertarian Review and Liberty, among others. For a number of years he published his own newsletters, Left and Right and The Libertarian Forum. The New York Times Sunday Magazine featured Rothbard among the most important contemporary thinkers about liberty.

He gave talks and participated in conferences across the United States, at Harvard Law School, Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University, New York University, the University of California (Los Angeles), the University of Virginia and elsewhere. For years, he was involved with the Libertarian Party after it was established in 1972. He worked with the Cato Institute (started in 1977) during its early days, and later became a key player at the Ludwig von Mises Institute which he served for the rest of his life. In 1994, Rothbard received the $20,000 Richard M. Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters from the Illinois-based Ingersoll Foundation. Previous winners included historian Shelby Foote, an expert on the U.S. Civil War, and historian Forrest McDonald, who had written extensively about American Founders.

Rothbard relished debate and aimed colorful, sometimes rather personal barbs at his adversaries. He called one libertarian publication “boring swill” and another libertarian publication a “homeless shelter for nobodies.” He wasn’t at his best when he called a respected Jewish libertarian a Nazi.

He had a remarkable range of interests. University of Nevada economics professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe recalled, “He liked German Baroque churches and, while Jewish and an agnostic, the Catholic Church and classical music – up to Mozart. He was an ardent moviegoer, and in his spare time he wrote many movie reviews.” Book marketer Neil McCaffrey cherished the memory of Rothbard the fan of early jazz and American popular ballads. “Growing up in the Golden Age of popular music, his instinct could be both challenged and satisfied by our premier songwriters: Porter, Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins…”

Rothbard was about five feet, six inches tall. He gained weight during his adult years in New York City – he would have been horrified at the idea of jogging. He slimmed down later, when he began teaching at the University of Nevada. He kept his curly hair short. He always wore a conservative suit and bow tie. Although slightly rumpled, he looked good.

Until his late 40s, Rothbard was a New Yorker to such a degree that he had a phobia about leaving the city. For that matter, he wouldn’t take an elevator or get into an airplane. He overcame these phobias later in life and travelled around the world. When he spoke at a dinner atop Manhattan’s 110-story World Trade Center, he opened by saying:”Greetings from earth!”

He did much of his work and socializing while the city slept. “I was treated to a memorable dinner with the warmest hospitality amid the book-lined walls of the Rothbards’ Upper West Side apartment,” recalled Auburn University economics professor Roger Garrison. “The discussion was lively…The evening passed quickly, and I began to worry about overstaying my welcome. But no one else seemed to be aware of the late hour. As midnight neared, I began packing my papers away and thanking the Rothbards for an unforgettable evening. The host and other guests seemed puzzled and almost insulted by my tenuous movement in the direction of the front door. I did not know that Murray was a complete and incurable night owl. For him the evening had just begun. We had lots of discussion ahead of us…As best as I can remember, I was allowed to leave around 4:00 a.m.”

Rothbard displayed a buoyant sense of humor. Wary of his radicalism, recalled College of the Holy Cross economics professor Walter Block, “I had expected some lean, mean muscle man, say about 6’2” and 180 lbs., toting a machine gun in one hand and a bomb in the other. Instead, I met this little fat man who kept up a rapid fire of positively wicked jokes; the danger, I soon perceived, was not going to jail or being blown up, but rather dying from stomach cramps brought on by uncontrollable laughter.”

Entrepreneur Robert D. Kephart: “I think of the Handel’s Messiah singalong which the Rothbards had in their living room every Christmas season, with friends visiting all through the day and night to join in snatches of the chorus. Here you would find Murray engaged in simultaneous conversations with a half-dozen people until his wife Joey would shush him. A chastened Murray would return to the chorus, squeeky and off key, until he could restrain himself no more and stop singing to pick up the conversations.

“And there was the evening I introduced him to Victor Niederhoffer, then reigning world squash champion. Vic had long admired Murray, and over dinner the two hit it off very well. Murray was awed to be in the company of a famous athlete, and he began asking Vic about the game. On the walk home, Vic asked if we would like to stop in at the Harvard Club to see the courts where Vic had done so much training. Murray was like a little kid. He took off his shoes, and we walked onto the court, Murray peppering Vic with questions. Then Vic suggested that Murray take a racket and hit a few balls. One thing led to another, and Murray Rothbard, perhaps the unathletic person in Manhattan, slashing away at shots lobbed to him by a world champion, the walls shaking with Murray’s laughter.”

Washington and Jefferson College economics professor Jeffrey Herbener remembered hearing Rothbard speak at Dartmouth: “the cackling laughter, the flailing gestures, the heads-on-hand posture, the spectacles flipping up and down from his forehead. His lectures, like his writings, were always brilliant, bristling with insights, crammed with knowledge, seamlessly consistent with his world view, and unforgettably delivered.”

Murray Newton Rothbard was born in Bronx, New York, March 2, 1926. He was the only child of Ray Babushkin Rothbard who had emigrated from Russia, reportedly Minsk. His father David Rothbard, born in a little village near Warsaw, Poland, became chief chemist of Tidewater Oil Company, Bayonne, New Jersey. A believer in reason and liberty, David Rothbard honored the great mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton with his son’s middle name, and he encouraged Murray philosophically.

Writing about his father in Chronicles, A Magazine of American Culture, Rothbard wrote, “He had emigrated from a Jewish shtetl in 1910, impoverished and not knowing a word of English. Like most immigrants of that era, he had resolved ‘to become an American’ in every sense. And that meant, for him, not only learning English and making it his language, but also abandoning Yiddish papers and culture and purging himself of any foreign accent. It also meant devotion to the basic American Way: minimal government, belief and respect for free enterprise and private property, and a determination to rise by one’s own merits and not via government privilege or handout. Many Russian and Polish Jews before World War I were swept with communist, socialist and Zionist ideologies, or blends of the three, but my father never fell for any of them. An individualist rather than a socialist or tribalist, he believed his loyalty was to America rather than to Zionism or to any Zionist entity in the Middle East.”

Rothbard attended a public school, but because his parents were unhappy about his progress, he was transferred to private schooling in the fifth grade – first Riverside School, then Birch-Wathen School. His teachers noted that “his mind is clamoring for greater vistas…[his] pugnacity has been developed largely in protecting a smaller child…”

Rothbard reflected, “In those days, girls of the wealthier classes were protected, and so they were sent to a day school in New York, whereas upperclass boys were sent out of town to boarding school. The private day school I attended was coed, but it had difficulty attracting boys and was in danger of failing into an all-girl status. As a result, they gave scholarships to bright, middle-class boys. The girls were all wealthy, driven to and from school in chauffeured limousines, whereas at least half the boys were scholarship lads such as myself. Another fascinating note was that the students were mostly Jewish, whereas the staff and instructors were all WASPS. None of the Jewish students felt oppressed by this situation; indeed, none of us felt aggrieved when every Friday we attended chapel…singing glorious Christian hymns.”

Rothbard enrolled at Columbia University in 1942. “The universe of people I met expanded,” he wrote, “but the political ambiance remained the same. Everyone was either a communist or a social democrat, or a variety of each. The only Republican student at Columbia was an English major, and so we had little in common, as I was increasingly steeped in economics, both for its own sake and because it seemed to me that the knottiest political problems and the strongest arguments for socialism and statism were economic, dwelling on the alleged failures of free-market capitalism. The more I engaged in debates and discussions with fellow students and professors, who were all some variety of leftist, the more conservative I became.”

Majoring in economics and mathematics, Rothbard graduated from Columbia Phi Beta Kappa in 1945. He earned his M.A. in economics there the following year, then began working on his Ph.D. under economic historian Joseph Dorfman. Although Dorfman was a very conventional thinker, a fan of economics professor Thorstein Veblen who believed that business enterprises produce waste, not wealth, Rothbard later wrote: “To my first mentor in the field of American history, Joseph Dorfman…I owe in particular the rigorous training that is typical of that keen and thorough scholar.” Rothbard dedicated his last work, the two-volume An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995), to Dorfman (as well as to Mises).

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, added, “It was Arthur Burns, the 800-pound gorilla in the Columbia University economics department who blocked Murray’s dissertation. Burns demanded that Murray re-do all his work. It was only when Burns went to Washington, D.C. and headed President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors that Murray’s unchanged dissertation was resubmitted and quickly approved.” Rothbard finally received his Ph.D. in 1956. His thesis was subsequently published as a book The Panic of 1819 (1962), one of America’s earliest depressions.

According to Rothbard’s longtime friend Leonard Liggio, in 1946 Rothbard had taken a class from George J. Stigler at Columbia, soon after Stigler had collaborated with Milton Friedman on a pamphlet called Roofs or Ceilings. This attack on rent controls was published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, about 30 miles north of New York City. Stigler suggested that Rothbard might be interested in visiting the place. Somehow Rothbard overcame his phobia about leaving Manhattan. He didn’t quite know what to expect in the provinces, so he brought his own food and water. FEE had recently been established by former Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce General Manager Leonard E. Read as America’s first institute to promote ideas of liberty. At FEE Rothbard learned about contemporary libertarian journalists like H.L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, Garet Garrett and John T. Flynn. “All this rapidly converted me from a free-market economist to a pure libertarian,” Rothbard remembered. “This literature also converted me to hard-core isolationism in foreign policy. I had never really thought much about foreign policy, being steeped in economics, but now I realized that a noninterventionist foreign policy was part of a devotion to freedom and resistance to statism.”

As he explained, “There was no question as to where the intellectual right of that day stood on militarism and conscription: it opposed them as instruments of mass slavery and mass murder. Conscription, indeed, was thought far worse than other forms of statist controls and incursions, for while these only appropriated part of the individual’s property, the draft, like slavery, took his most precious possession: his own person. Day after day the veteran publicist John T. Flynn – once praised as a liberal and then condemned as a reactionary, with little or no change in his views – inveighed implacably in print and over the radio against militarism and the draft. Even the Wall Street newspaper, the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, published a lengthy attack on the idea of conscription. All our political positions, from the free market in economics to opposing war and militarism, stemmed from our root belief in individual liberty and our opposition to the state.”

Rothbard evidently heard about the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises in the spring of 1949, probably from F.A. “Baldy” Harper who worked at FEE. Three decades earlier, Mises had identified the fatal flaws of socialism, reasons why socialism could never deliver decent living standards – despite all the claims being made. Mises had fled the Nazis and obtained a position at New York University where he would teach weekly seminars. “It is another blot on American academia,” Rothbard recalled, “that I had gone through all the doctoral courses at Columbia University without once discovering that there was such a thing as an Austrian school, let alone that Ludwig von Mises was its foremost living champion.”

Harper seems to have told Rothbard that Mises would be conducting a weekly seminar at 6 Washington Square North, the New York University Graduate School of Business. He attended the first seminar and continued attending for years and was among those who would gather afterward for dinner and conversation at a nearby Child’s restaurant. Rothbard stopped attending the seminar only because, in the 1960s, it was moved from the second floor of one building to the eighth floor of another building, and he had a phobia about elevators. Despite this, he was believed to have written more reports than anybody else attending the Mises seminar.

Meanwhile, Mises’ Human Action was published in September 1949 by Yale University Press. This extraordinary book explained why free markets produce higher living standards than government bureaucrats. It refuted fashionable doctrines, and as Rothbard recalled, “it provided eager libertarians with a policy of uncompromising laissez-faire: in contrast to all other free-market economists of that day or later, there were no escape hatches, no giving away the case with ‘of course, the government must break up monopolies,’ or ‘of course, the government must provide and regulate the money supply.’ In all matters, from theoretical to political, Mises was the soul of rigor and consistency. Never would Mises compromise his principles, never would he bow the knee to a quest for respectability or social or political favor. As a scholar, as an economist, and as a person, Ludwig von Mises was a joy and an inspiration, an exemplar for us all.”

Rothbard broke into print by writing book reviews for analysis, a newsletter started in November 1944 by Frank Chodorov, the New York-born son of a Russian Jewish immigrant peddler. Chodorov explained, “analysis looks at the current scene through the eyeglass of historic liberalism, unashamedly accepting the doctrine of natural rights, proclaims the dignity of the individual and denounces all forms of Statism as human slavery.” Rothbard’s first review, of A Mencken Chrestomathy, the collection of writings by H.L. Mencken, appeared in August 1949. Rothbard reviewed George Orwell’s 1984 (September 1949), John T. Flynn’s The Road Ahead (December 1949), R. Rocker’s Pioneers of American Freedom (January 1950) and Mises’ Human Action (May 1950). With fewer than 4,000 subscribers, analysis merged with a more topical weekly newsletter, Human Events, in 1951. Rothbard later told chronicler George H. Nash that Chodorov’s essay “Taxation is Robbery” had a “big impact” on him.

His first major outlet was the monthly Faith and Freedom which, launched in 1950, was the publication of Spiritual Mobilization whose mission was “to arouse ministers of all denominations in America to check the trends toward pagan stateism.” This was headed by Los Angeles businessman William Johnson. Among the contributors were Ludwig von Mises, Newsweek columnist Henry Hazlitt, Foundation for Economic Education President Leonard E. Read and Haverford College President, former Washington Post Editor and Human Events co-founder Felix Morley. Rothbard contributed 13 articles between March 1950 and December 1956, in addition to a monthly column under the pseudonym “Aubrey Herbert,” a reference to the late 19th century American advocate of life without government interference. His topics included inflation, price controls and Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy of liberty. He reviewed Human Action for Faith and Freedom.

At Columbia, while continuing his Ph.D. studies, Rothbard met and became charmed by JoAnn Beatrice Schumacher, a Presbyterian who had earned her B.A. degree at Columbia and her M.A. degree at New York University. Born in Chicago, she grew up in Virginia. They were married on January 16, 1953. He was 27, and she was 25. They moved into apartment 2E, 215 West 88th Street, New York City, their primary residence for the rest of his life. New Year’s resolution for 1954, which Joey had him sign: to be in bed every night by 5:00 A.M. and to arise no later than 1:30 P.M.

Around 1954, Rothbard met Russian-born Ayn Rand who was working on her philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. He was among those invited to her 36 East 36th Street apartment where completed portions of the novel were read. “Murray Rothbard once told me,” reported libertarian journal editor Roy Childs, “that it was Ayn Rand who converted him to natural rights. He had been a utilitarian as was Ludwig von Mises, the greatest intellectual influence on his life…” This link to Rand must be doubted in light of Rothbard’s prior association with Frank Chodorov, his exposure to the ideas of Albert Jay Nock and others who assuredly believed in natural rights. Rand and Rothbard must have had many mutually stimulating discussions, but she didn’t share his view that the world would be better off without government compulsion. An atheist, she was horrified that Rothbard was married to a religious woman and in 1958 urged that the Rothbards get divorced. Rothbard quit Rand’s circle.

Rothbard struggled to do scholarly work and pay bills. Since January 1952, his principal income had been a $6,000 annual grant from the William Volker Fund, established by a Kansas City venetian blinds manufacturer, to help him write a primer on free market economics. The Volker Fund provided financial support for professors who wanted to write books about liberty. Rothbard’s project expanded until it became a 1,900-page manuscript tentatively called Man, the Economy and the State. The Volker Fund grant ran out on June 30, 1956, and he finished up the manuscript in 1957. He sent it to Devin-Adair (New York) and Caxton Printers (Caldwell, Idaho) which had issued libertarian books, but they declined because of the bulk. The longer a book, the more it costs to produce, and the riskier from a financial standpoint, especially when it appeals to a limited market. The manuscript was rejected by Praeger which had published radical material, and Rothbard apparently sent it to the University of Chicago Press which had published The Road to Serfdom and other books by Austrian economist F.A. Hayek, without result. Yale University Press had published Mises’ books Bureaucracy, Omnipotent Government and Human Action, but it isn’t known whether Rothbard submitted his manuscript there.

From 1952 to 1962, Rothbard earned some money reviewing books for the Volker Fund, because its National Book Foundation aimed to identify good ones promoting liberty and offer these without charge to libraries. The books went only where they were welcome. For a decade, Rothbard worked three to 15 hours a week, reading and reviewing books. He billed the Volker Fund by the hour. Some of the reviews were only a page long, but occasionally he went on for 15 pages. This work familiarized him with what was going on in history, philosophy, psychology, ecology and other fields as well as economics.

Rothbard’s income virtually dried up. His Volker Fund grant ran out. He wrote hundreds of letters looking for scholarly work. F.A. Harper, who had left the Foundation for Economic Education to work at the Volker Fund, tried to find him work. Donations were down at the Foundation for Economic Education which helped support Mises, perhaps because of the looming recession in the United States. A friend of FEE was President of Claremont Men’s College, in California, and offered Rothbard a professorship there, but he couldn’t take it because of his phobia about leaving New York. He earned a little money helping to organize four Fordham University lectures by the same Arthur Burns who had held up his Ph.D. dissertation. Rothbard earned fees by writing speeches for conservative Congressman Ralph Gwinn, on government credit and public housing. For the American Oxford Encyclopedia, he wrote 14 entries including Abdication, Alien Sedition Acts, Arbitration, Articles of Confederation, Censorship, Coronation, Commissions and Boards and Elections, but they weren’t accepted because they lacked the correct bias, and all he received was a $50 fee for fact-checking. Joey Rothbard earned some money typing papers and fact-checking for people at Columbia.

Hopes soared when Princeton, New Jersey public opinion pollster Claude Robinson, a partner with George Gallup, began assembling the “Princeton Panel” of authors to write a library of books about free market capitalism. Rothbard was to suggest ideas and do research. John Chamberlain, who had worked at Fortune and the New York Times, wrote the first Princeton Panel book, The Roots of Capitalism (1959). But as Chamberlain reported sadly, “Claude Robinson died before he could arrange for any additional Princeton Panel titles.” So much for that.

In October 1955, Frank Meyer, who edited book reviews for National Review, the new biweekly magazine launched by conservative journalist William F. Buckley Jr., asked Rothbard to send samples of his writings on economics. His first review seems to have been of F.A. Harper’s Why Wages Rise, in the March 16, 1957 issue. Among other books, he reviewed Spencer Heath’s Citadel, Market and Altar (September 7, 1957), Sylvester Petro’s Labor Policy for a Free Society (September 7, 1957), Peter Bauer’s Economic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries (March 1, 1958), Anthony Downs’ An Economic Theory of Democracy (December 28, 1958) and Melchior Palyi’s An Inflation Primer (June 17, 1961). Altogether, Rothbard contributed 15 reviews before he left National Review over its advocacy of an aggressive foreign policy. His last review during this period appeared in the March 25, 1961 issue. It was about This Bread is Mine, a book by Robert M. Lefevre, the passionate, white-haired journalist who founded The Freedom School in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

While Rothbard was finishing his treatise on economics for which Volker funding had run out, he had an idea which might get some new funding. The Great Depression of the 1930s was generally blamed on free markets and Rothbard knew that it was hard to convince people about the benefits of free markets as long as people assumed free markets caused the Depression. So he envisioned a book which explained why the Depression was the consequence of Federal Reserve Board monetary policies and other government interference with the economy. On April 5, 1956, Ludwig von Mises pitched in with a letter to James A. Kennedy, President of the Earhart Foundation, Ann Arbor, Michigan: “Rothbard is an extraordinarily talented young man, a keen thinker and an indefatigable worker. He has already published several articles that bear witness to his sound judgment, his familiarity with the most difficult problems of the social sciences in general and especially of economics, and his ability to present his ideas in a well organized and understandable way. I am fully convinced that he will one day be counted among the foremost economists.” A week later, Kennedy wrote Rothbard to say Earhart would give him $5,000 for a year, through May 31, 1957.

By this time the Volker Fund had supported about a dozen professors who wrote books about liberty, but the books remained unpublished. During the late 1950s, it was probably the Volker Fund’s Herbert Cornuelle who arranged with D. Van Nostrand Company, Princeton, New Jersey to publish the books. Historian Leonard Liggio, of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, recalled that the head of Van Nostrand was Edward Crane (no relation to the founder of the Cato Institute), the brother of Jasper Crane, a good friend of Rose Wilder Lane who wrote The Discovery of Freedom (1943) and co-authored the beloved Little House books for children.]]> Tue, 23 Jan 2007 04:45:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150387 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150385 Adam Smith

In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) showed that the way to achieve peace and prosperity is to set people free. He opposed laws which prevent people from choosing their own work and spending their own money as they wish.

The Wealth of Nations was at least 27 years in the making. Although Smith absorbed ideas from many sources, including Bernard de Mandeville's satire The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Publick Benefits (expanded edition, 1729), he seems to have arrived at his most famous insight as early as 1749, before the major works of French economists were published. But surely his understanding was enriched by travel to France where he met Francois Quesnay and Jacques Turgot, pioneers of laissez faire principles.

On July 5, 1764, Smith told his friend David Hume, "I have begun to write a book in order to pass away the time." He worked on his draft for the next dozen years. It finally appeared on March 9, 1776, filling two nine by 12 inch volumes, more than a thousand pages altogether. Biographer Alan Simpson Ross reported that "publication...was timed to seize Parliament's attention, and influence members to support a peaceful resolution of the [American] conflict. America offered a major point of application for free-market theory, and if Smith could win supporters, there was some hope of ending the cycle of violence induced by efforts to preserve the old colonial system involving economic restraints and prohibitions."

Although The Wealth of Nations didn't stop the British government from pursuing its war with America, Smith did help inspire later generations to cut taxes, abolish trade restrictions and let private individuals create unprecedented levels of prosperity which opened up opportunities for everybody.

Now, in the new millennium, it is Smith's vision, not that of Karl Marx or John Maynard Keynes, which offers hope for the future. Nobel laureate George J. Stigler dubbed Smith "the patron saint of free enterprise." H.L. Mencken declared, "There is no more engrossing book in the English language than Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations."

"Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me what I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is the manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love."

"Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it...He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention...By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."

"All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men."

"It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense...They are themselves always, and without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society." ]]> Tue, 23 Jan 2007 04:31:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150385 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150255 Lord Acton

Historian Lord Acton (1834-1902) issued epic warnings that political power is the most serious threat to liberty.

Born in Naples, he was educated in England, Scotland, France and Germany, developing an extraordinary knowledge of European political history.

While he never wrote the history of liberty he dreamed about, his essays and letters abound with memorable insights. For instance: "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to to govern. Every class is unfit to govern...Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

In his inaugural lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, Lord Acton told students: "I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong."

Lord Acton transmitted to the English-speaking world the rigor of studying history as much as possible from original sources, pioneered by 19th century German scholars. His estate at Cannes (France) had more than 3,000 books and manuscripts; his estate at Tegernsee (Bavaria), some 4,000; and Aldenham (Shropshire, England), almost 60,000. He marked thousands of passages he considered important.

He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Munich (1873), honorary Doctor of Laws from Cambridge University (1889) and honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford University (1890) -- yet he never earned an academic degree in his life, not even a high school diploma.

Historian George Macaulay Trevelyan observed that Acton's "knowledge, his experience and his outlook were European of the Continent, though English Liberalism was an important part of his philosophy...Dons of all subjects crowded to his oracular lectures, which were sometimes puzzling but always impressive. He had the brow of Plato, and the bearing of a sage who was also a man of the great world. His ideas included many of our own, but were drawn from other sources and from wider experience." ]]> Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:44:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150255 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150253 The Beatles

Expert at "re-inventing" themselves, the Beatles knew what they were good at, and kept thinking of new ways to make it seem fresh and new.

Permission to Rock and Roll

You bet. John, Paul, George, and Ringo gave themselves permission to think about rock and roll in a whole new way! Like many great thinkers, the Beatles were undoubtedly inspired by other legends such as Elvis Presley. But they took a familiar concept, and re-thought it.

Eventually, their music included lyrics motivated by world and political events. Later albums added traditional orchestra instruments back into popular music, such as cellos and horns. They were also famous for their trademark haircuts. The Beatles thought differently about pop music, and their tunes are still frequently heard today.


The Beatles' path to becoming Great Thinkers:
- The Beatles were students of great rock and roll teachers, like Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry.
- Expert at "re-inventing" themselves. The Beatles knew what they were good at, and kept thinking of new ways to make it seem fresh and new.
- In 1970, this group of great thinkers decided they had done all they could together, and disbanded. Without a doubt, they could have done more. But they were smart enough to know that they wanted to move on.
- As a boy, Paul McCartney, perhaps the Beatles' greatest thinker, was a better English student than music student. He didn't let that stop him from writing his first song at age 14.
- Often skipped class to study independently.
- McCartney has gone on to re-invent himself over and over. Just when you think you know McCartney's music, he writes something different, like an oratorio or music for other orchestra instruments. Re-inventing yourself through study is a great way to keep yourself and your career interesting.]]> Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:37:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/150253 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86295
Deng Xiao Ping (1904-1997)
He is an example of success through speaking up, fighting for your ideas, and never backing down.

Permission to Think Outside the Box
He may not have a sterling reputation in the West, especially considering the brutal crackdowns he launched against democracy in China, but Mr. Deng, leader of China from 1977 to 1997, gave himself permission to think outside the Communist box, believing that China could come into the modern economic world without sacrificing its one-party political system.


Deng's thoughts took China from a billion peasants slaving for the government into a country where they can work for themselves. He gave a billion people the chance to leave poverty behind. His great thinking was obvious when he said, "It is time to prosper. China has been poor a thousand years," and, "to get rich is glorious."1 His thoughts and ideas are still shaping the modern China.


Deng Xiao Ping's path to becoming a Great Thinker:
- Born into a landlord family with money; after studying topics in the Confucian education style, joined a 1920s era "work study" program to France. Deng shows us that much can be learned from studying in and about other cultures.
- In France, Deng studied Marxism and Communist ideas. He shows us how topics we learn in our youth can be expanded as adults - Deng used this knowledge to eventually become the most powerful man in China.
- Had a firm belief in Communism, but Deng also had his own ideas about it, especially about education and economics. He never backed down from his ideas, landing himself in Chinese prisons at least three times.
- Deng was known to be very organized, a skill that he used to his advantage in organizing people, propoganda, and eventually governments. Realizing your natural skills can really help with both your education and career!
- Believed that people should be rewarded for hard work, and that the lazy shouldn't be rewarded. That's thinking that has ultimately changed a nation.
- Deng Xiao Ping was a man with a lot of ideas at a time and place where ideas were needed. He is an example of success through speaking up, fighting for your ideas, and never backing down.

He once said " Seek truth from facts."]]> Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:39:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86295 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86071
"All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul." -Mahatma Gandhi




"If nations are allowed to commit genocide with impunity, to hide their guilt in a camouflage of lies and denials, there is a real danger that other brutal regimes will be encouraged to attempt genocides. Unless we speak today of the Armenian genocide and unless the Government recognizes this historical fact, we shall leave this century of unprecedented genocides with this blot on our consciences."

-Caroline, Baroness Cox, House of Lords, April 1999




“All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

-Edmund Burke



“I love life and want to hold onto it. But my passion for justice for my tormented people, for their dignity and freedom, must be greater still. For of what value is a life of slavery, of humiliation and contempt for that which you hold most dear: Your identity! I will therefore not give in to the Turkish Inquisition.”

-Leyla Zana [Writings from Prison (Watertown, Mass: Blue Crane Books, 1999) p22]



"The strike, the boycott, the refusal to serve, the ability to paralyze the functioning of a complex social structure-these remain potent weapons against the most fearsome state or corporate power."

-Howard Zinn in The Progressive magazine, January 2000, p20



"The nearest successful example [of collective denial] in the modern era is the 80 years of official denial by successive Turkish governments of the 1915-17 genocide against the Armenians in which 1.5 million people lost their lives. This denial has been sustained by deliberate propaganda, lying and cover-ups, forging documents, suppression of archives, and bribing scholars."

-Stanley Cohen, Professor of Criminology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem [Law and Social Inquiry vol. 20, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 7, 50



“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

-Mario Savio, student leader of the 1960’s free speech movement at the University of California Berkeley (December 3, 1964)



"The Turkish denial [of the Armenian Genocide] is probably the foremost example of historical perversion. With a mix of academic sophistication and diplomatic thuggery -- of which we at Macquarie University have been targets -- the Turks have put both memory and history into reverse gear."

-Prof. Colin Tatz, Director, Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies [Center for Genocide Studies Newsletter, (December 1995-January 1996)]



]]> Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:11:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86071 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86047 Just what is the connection between Milton Friedman and Augusto Pinochet? (Reason Magazine)

The recently deceased Chilean autocrat Augusto Pinochet is responsible for banning political opposition, “disappearing” political enemies (and blowing some of them up in Washington, D.C.), ordering many thousands of deaths, and turning football stadiums into grim multi-purpose detention centers in which political prisoners were tortured and killed.

The recently deceased economist and journalist Milton Friedman is responsible for many path-breaking insights in economics and sustained advocacy for people’s freedom to choose how to live their lives, free of officious government interference.

And yet, in both life and death, Pinochet and Friedman have been assumed by many to be two sides of some evil right-wing coin in which torture, despotism, and unrestricted free markets are all inextricably linked. The New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis declared in 1975 that “The Chilean junta’s economic policy is based on the ideas of Milton Friedman…and his Chicago School…if the pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression, should its authors feel some responsibility?” Such attitudes haunted Friedman to his death and beyond .

The reaction of some of the usual conservative suspects to Pinochet’s death didn’t help debunk this unfortunate association. Since he was a pro-American autocrat, who ultimately honored a plebiscite and stepped down, portions of the American right have always had an unhealthy affection for the general. National Review ran both a symposium and a stand alone piece by former editor John O’Sullivan marking Pinochet’s passing, neither of which were much outraged about his crimes. O’Sullivan explicitly said , in the sort of bizarre moral prisoner exchange that partisan squabbling generates, that sure, Pinochet should suffer for his villainy—but only if Castro and Allende’s associates do as well.

But if the filthy commies are hypocrites for only seeming to object to tyranny when it comes from non-commies, as the right is so quick to point out, what does that make the right-wingers who only seem to object to tyranny when it comes from commies (or Muslims)? Uh, well….hey, look over there! Castro! Don’t let him get away!

Yes, it’s true—Friedman gave advice to Pinochet. But it wasn’t about how to find the best place at sea to dump the bodies of murdered political enemies. Despite the angry mobs of students who hounded Friedman everywhere from Stockholm (his Nobel acceptance ceremony in 1976 was marred by their presence) to Chicago because they held him to be some sort of puppet master for sinister Chilean policies, the reality of Friedman’s “links” with Pinochet is far less dramatic.

For years, the University of Chicago had a program in partnership with the Catholic University of Chile providing scholarships to Chileans to study at Chicago. Pinochet’s economic advisers were thus University of Chicago-trained, and known as the “Chicago Boys.” But Friedman’s only direct connection was when he was invited by fellow Chicago professor Arnold Harberger--who was most closely involved with the Chilean program--to give a week of lectures and public talks in Chile in 1975.

While there, Friedman did have one meeting with Pinochet, for less than an hour. Pinochet asked Friedman to write him a letter about his judgments on what Chilean economic policy should be, which Friedman did . He advocated quick and severe cuts in government spending and inflation, as well as instituting more open international trade policies—and to “provide for the relief of any cases of real hardship and severe distress among the poorest classes.” He did not choose this as an opportunity to upbraid Pinochet for any of his repressive policies, and many of Friedman’s admirers, including me, would have felt better if he had.

But that was the extent of his involvement with the Chilean regime—and it fit with a recurring pattern in Friedman’s career of advising with an even hand all who would listen to him. It was not a sign of approval of military authoritarianism. Friedman, in defending himself against accusations of complicity with or approval of Pinochet, noted in a 1975 letter to the University of Chicago school newspaper that he “has never heard complaints” about giving aid and comfort to the communist governments to which he had spoken, and that “I approve of none of these authoritarian regimes—neither the Communist regimes of Russia and Yugoslavia nor the military juntas of Chile and Brazil. But I believe I can learn from observing them and that, insofar as my personal analysis of their economic situation enables them to improve their economic performance, that is likely to promote not retard a movement toward greater liberalism and freedom.”

If you believe it is a moral duty to boycott government criminals without reservation, then Friedman did the wrong thing in talking to Pinochet and writing him a letter. But if any Chilean had a better life because of any free-market reform that Friedman or Chicago-trained Pinochet advisors helped push through, that’s a small price to pay for any damage to Friedman’s reputation.]]> Tue, 09 Jan 2007 10:11:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86047 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86043 Surveying the world as 2007 dawns, it's hard to be optimistic. The daily headlines give us little cause to rejoice -- at least, for those of us who once had hopes for the advancement of freedom around the world.

In Iraq, the latest news is of a death sentence handed down to a former dictator who subjected his people to decades of brutal tyranny. Debates about the death penalty aside, there was a time when Saddam Hussein's conviction on charges of crimes against humanity would have been clearly seen as a good day for freedom. Today, that news is overshadowed by the continuing tide of sectarian violence. Freedom from a tyrant's secret police and torture chambers means precious little to people who are not free from death squads and bombings. Indeed, to the average person, such random terror is far more frightening than organized state terror directed at political and religious dissidents. In such a situation, the existence of functioning, if fragile, democratic structures in Iraq is hardly something to celebrate.

Within the United States, 2006 may have marked a turning point in public opinion on the Iraq war. As recently as a year ago, a CBS News poll showed Americans evenly divided on whether the country had done the right thing in going to war. A poll in December 2006 found that only 39 percent believed it was the right decision, while 55 percent believed that the United States should have stayed out. For the first time, a majority, 53 percent, said it was unlikely that the United States would win the war.

Opinion among politicians and pundits has shifted as well. In December, President Bush admitted for the first time that the situation in Iraq was bad and a new approach was needed. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group appointed by Congress was notoriously bogged down in bitter disagreements, and its report was greeted largely with truly bipartisan disdain.

Some commentators who once strongly argued that Iraq could be a success story for freedom in the Middle East -- such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman -- are now more likely to argue that it could have been a success story if we had only done things right. "Who lost Iraq?" is becoming a far more common question than, "Can we still win in Iraq?"

In a less bloody way, freedom's defeat is also visible in Russia. The G-8 summit held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in summer 2006, bringing together the heads of the world's leading industrial democracies, only highlighted the extent to which the host country lacks both democracy and a truly successful economy. The title of a Dec. 10 event at Boston University organized by the regional office of Amnesty International -- "Dashed Hopes: Human Rights in the Former Soviet Union" -- sums up the situation well.

The most optimistic speaker that day was Jack Matlock, former US ambassador to Moscow in the 1980s; and the most optimistic assessment he could give was that Russia today still has freedoms unimaginable under communism. Yet those freedoms are on the wane.

Perhaps the most startling part of the event was a documentary about the Russian reporter Andrei Babitsky and his efforts to cover the war in Chechnya in the early years of Vladimir Putin's presidency. The striking part wasn't Babitsky's persecution by the Russian security forces; it was the fact that, only a few years ago, his sharp criticisms of the government could still air on Russian television. Today, that would be almost as unthinkable as it was in communist days.

Ironically, one glimmer of hope comes from Iran, where extremists allied with President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad lost in local elections. In the meantime, European democracies with growing Muslim populations are struggling with how to balance freedom of speech and respect for religious tradition. There are widespread concerns that democracy and tolerance in the West face a serious threat -- either from Islamism, or from anti-Islamic xenophobia.

Why the setbacks for freedom, which seemed to be on the rise around the world a decade ago? Could it be that the rise and fall of democratic aspirations have their own cycles? Could it be that the universalist vision of freedom and democracy is doomed to fail, because it does not take cultural differences into account? Could it be that freedom's champions lack the resolve to stand up to its enemies? Future years may answer those questions.]]> Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:51:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/86043 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85775
Jan Eliasson, the UN special envoy to Darfur, is to travel to the region to try to stop fighting between rebel groups and the Sudanese government.

The UN wants to strengthen peacekeeping troops but there is conflict with Sudan over the number of UN soldiers to be deployed there.

At least 200,000 people have died in Darfur in the past four years.

A peace agreement was signed last May between the government and one leading rebel group but violence has continued, with rival rebels refusing to sign.

'Hand-in-hand'

Mr Eliasson will consult African Union officials in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, before meeting the Sudanese government in Khartoum.


Map
There can be no military solution to the crisis in Darfur
Salim Ahmed Salim,
African Union
Mr Eliasson and AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim said they wanted to "re-energise the political process".

Mr Salim said: "There can be no military solution to the crisis in Darfur."
Mr Eliasson said: "We want to work hand-in-hand in diplomacy and in trying to find a road to a political process."

New UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has pledged to pay the highest attention to the conflict in Darfur.

The UN has a three-part plan to strengthen the current 7,000-strong African Union force with UN troops.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has consistently opposed any large UN deployment although he has indicated he wants to support the UN's plans.

The Darfur conflict began in 2003 after a rebel group began attacking government targets, saying the region was being neglected by Khartoum.

The rebels say the government is oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs.

Arab militias responded to try to put down the uprising. The government denies accusations from the rebels it is backing the militias. ]]> Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:02:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85775 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85579 When you are curious, you find lots of interesting things to do,and one thing it takes to accomplish somethings is courage!

Walt Disney (1901-1966)

Permission to Dream Really Big

Can you imagine a world without Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Disney World? The term "Mickey Mouse" is even a regular part of English vocabulary. The thinker behind the famous characters and business empire was Walt Disney, a cartoon artist.

Disney gave himself permission to dream big - to create imaginary characters and think up theme parks that were beyond anyone else's. Today, Walt Disney's thinking has huge influence in the world. Mickey Mouse is everywhere. Every child dreams of going to Disneyland. He wasn't the only cartoonist or theme park owner, he simply allowed his thoughts to be huge, and didn't let anyone stand in his way.


Walt Disney's path to becoming a Great Thinker:
- Disney was a farm boy from Missouri. Proof that you can take the boy off the farm!
- Young Walt loved to draw, and by age seven was selling drawings to his neighbors-an indication that someone is a natural entrepreneur.
- Disney attended high school in Chicago, where he paid special attention to drawing classes, and took additional night courses at the Academy of Fine Arts-extending his basic education.
- Walt left school at age 16. Wasn't allowed to join the army, joined Red Cross instead, where in France he painted his ambulance with cartoon characters (great thinkers don't always conform!).
- Disney was the victim of bad business deals in the early days. Despite setbacks, he kept his focus on his talents and ideas.
- Partnered with his brother, Roy, who was better at business. Together they created a company to produce animated films. Great thinkers know when to ask for help.
- Invested $17 million to build Disneyland, changing the nature of amusement parks forever. That investment has paid off many times over.
- Disney allowed his imagination permission to go far beyond his obvious talent as an artist. He also had ideas about how to build better communities, and spearheaded the concept with EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

]]> Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:03:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85579 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85333 Dr. C. Walton Lillehei (1918-1999)
In early years, Lillehei was an average student and didn't always excel.

Who? Exactly! Some of the world's most important thinkers aren't exactly household names. If you know anyone who's had heart surgery, you have Dr. Lillehei to thank.

While other doctors had some success with heart surgery, Dr. Lillehei gave himself permission to think of better ways to operate on the heart (not so long ago, it was considered a major achievement to even touch the human heart.) He helped develop many techniques that now save and lengthen lives every day, including the pacemaker and artificial heart valves. He wasn't shy with his thoughts! Dr. Lillehei passed them on-training doctors from all over the world.

Dr. Lillehei's path to becoming a Great Thinker:
- Known as "Father of Open-heart Surgery."
- In early years, Lillehei was an average student. He didn't always excel. Eventually received 5 university degrees, including doctor. Proof that early educational success doesn't show how smart someone is.
- Worked in a MASH unit during WWII. Said that the medals he received were nothing compared to the sacrifices soldiers made.
- Pioneered many aspects of heart surgery. Always willing to use his great thoughts to find new ways of working on the human heart.
- He took risks! Many early surgeries didn't work out as hoped, but Lillehei knew that only by trying again and again do we find great success.
- Early disappointments always encouraged Lillehei to work harder and find solutions - never
gave up!


Do u ever think how the body works?
Do you ever think about how the body heals?
Do you ever wonder what discoveries are yet to be made in medicine?

Increase your THINKING!

]]> Wed, 03 Jan 2007 04:04:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85333 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85223
Amelia Earhart (1897-1937)
n 1937, Amelia decided to become the first woman to fly around the world.

You wouldn't have dared to tell this aviation pioneer that flying airplanes was a man's world. Earhart gave herself permission to think sky high - she knew a woman had the ability to fly an airplane across oceans.

"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do," 1 she said.
She was the first person to fly solo between Honolulu and California. Her great thinking about aviation made her famous in her own day. Today, it's not unusual to find women piloting airliners all around the globe, inspired by Earhart's thinking and dreaming of the sky.

Amelia Earhart's path to becoming a Great Thinker:
- Grew up in difficult home-family moved a lot, and Amelia was partly raised by relatives.
- Saw first airplane at age ten.
- Gained an interest in aviation watching airshows, popular at the time.
- Studied nursing, and was a nurse during WWI.
- Taught English to immigrant children in Boston.
- Saved money to learn to fly-during that era few women flew. Amelia showed that it's important to get an education in something you're passionate about, even if the odds are against you.
- Was first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger, long before she was the first woman to pilot a plane across the ocean.
- Set a goal to be the first woman to pilot a plane across the Atlantic, and stuck to that goal until she achieved it in 1932.
- In 1935 became first person to fly from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland.
- In 1937, Amelia decided to become the first woman to fly around the world. The attempt wasn't successful, making her a mysterious legend, but her dream and example as a female pilot showed that women can succeed in a "man's" world.


Her most famous quote " The most effective way to do it, is to do it"

So lets get it done!]]> Tue, 02 Jan 2007 06:13:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85223 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85111 I do want every one to share this message from Warren Ephraim Johnson in the Bahamas, he has taged the year a year of Accomplishment which agrees with Believers Love World's( Christ Embbassy) watch word for the year " Year of Supernatural Accomplishment" Read what Ephraim said

"It has been a great year, but an even better one is ahead, because the new year can be anything we want it to be. So as we bid farewell to the old year and welcome in the new, let's dare to dream of all we can accomplish with a little hard work and dedication. Let's pray for peace in the world and try our best to love each other a little more and judge each other a little less. Let's make a resolution to be more forgiving and less angry. Let's focus on our goals and try to be the best we can be. And let's never lose faith in what we can accomplish. Happy New Year! May the New Year bring you and yours much happiness and success"

JOIN THE TRAIN!]]> Mon, 01 Jan 2007 02:56:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85111 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85083 Martha Stewart

No matter what you think of her, no one can deny that this woman gives herself total permission to think outside the box. Martha Stewart is the daughter of Polish immigrants, who started her own catering business in 1979. People liked her clever ideas, and she liked coming up with them-and selling by writing magazine articles and making TV appearances. Her name has become a brand.

Simply say "Martha" in the same sentence as anything to do with the home, and most North Americans instantly know who you mean. Her little catering business has become a multi-million dollar corporation that employs hundreds of people. She's inspired a lot of imitators, but even after being convicted of securities fraud no one has dethroned the current queen of crafts, cooking, and "good things."

Martha Stewart's path to becoming a Great Thinker:
- Martha didn't grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth. She was born in an immigrant family in New Jersey.
- Educated in gardening, cooking, baking, sewing - all the things she teaches on television - from her parents, grandparents, and neighbors. School isn't the only place we learn!
- She was an exceptional student in school.
- Martha has had many "careers" - fashion model, stock broker (ironically), renovating her own home, mother, and caterer. Each of these have been filled with lessons she passes on to her fans, viewers, and readers.
- She is a great thinker when it comes to networking and finding opportunities for her ideas. Her first book was the result of her husband being in publishing. Always look for other people who will help your great ideas happen!
- Martha has found ways to make her great thoughts available to millions of people - she didn't stop with books, but went on to create a television empire, magazines, complete product lines, and more. Never think small!
- Martha is known as a very demanding business person. She knows what her great thoughts have created, and she demands perfection in her ventures.

She Speaks " I catnap now and then,but I think while I nap,so its not a waste of time." I challenge eveyone to take ur thinking to the NEXT LEVEL!

]]> Sun, 31 Dec 2006 12:36:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85083 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85079
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

As a young man, Lincoln continued to educate himself, and asked others to help him study grammar.Can a man from the backwoods of Kentucky change the world for good with his thoughts? Absolutely. Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, believed in the freedom guaranteed to all Americans by the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and gave himself permission to think and make a difference.

He worked hard to become U.S. President, made difficult choices for the U.S., but ultimately his thinking resulted in the freeing of slaves-a legacy that continues to benefit all ethnic groups in America, and in most of the Western world. Here's an example of Lincoln's great thinking about people: "Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

Abraham Lincoln's path to becoming a Great Thinker:

- Born in a log cabin, Hardin County, Kentucky. Worked hard with country chores, little time for childhood education.
- Lincoln had less than one year of formal schooling in his entire life, but loved to learn.
- Basic school, family (especially his stepmother), and personal drive helped Lincoln learn to read and write at an early age-then he read the Bible and other books when they were available.
- Lincoln enjoyed conversation, which helped him become a great debater and lawyer.
- As a young man, Lincoln continued to educate himself, and asked others to help him study grammar. Also read books on law, and became a licensed lawyer in 1836.
- Used his natural skills, charisma, ability to debate, and self-taught education to gain elected office-proof that you don't have to have traditional education to succeed.
- Became 16th President of the United States during one of the most difficult periods in the U.S.'s history: the slavery issue and the secession of the South. Lincoln believed that the U.S. must not divide into two countries, and worked against amazing odds to achieve unity.
- Lincoln was focused on the major task. Many other things distract a U.S. president, but Lincoln kept his eye on the major goal-thus he accomplished it.


His most fascinating word to me "You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grand father was" ...Here is a challenge to every one living today, to get to the maximum use of their minds!........SEE U ALL IN THE HALL OF FAME.]]> Sun, 31 Dec 2006 11:56:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85079 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85073 Article 21.

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29.

(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

End]]> Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:55:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/85073 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84953 Gerald Ford July 14, 1913 - December 26, 2006


Gerald Ford, America's 38th president, passed away December 26 at the age of 93. Family members say he died peacefully at his home in Rancho Mirage,CA.

Gerald Ford became president on August 9, 1974, under unprecedented circumstances. The only president to be sworn into office without being elected to the office of vice president or president, he served nobly during some of our country’s most turbulent years.

Ford’s administration became known for common sense, healing and integrity in government. His controversial pardon of Richard Nixon brought forgiveness to the national spotlight, even if it was not fully understood or accepted by all Americans. He was convinced that it was the right decision to bring healing for the nation and move forward into the future. History has proven him right; some speculate the move cost him the election.

Gerald Ford was elected to Congress 13 times and served for 25 years. From 1965 to 1973, he was House Minority Leader. It was from that post that he was drafted by President Richard Nixon as Vice President following the resignation of Spiro Agnew. Just two and a half years later he found himself taking the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Warren Burger. When he addressed the nation following the administration of the oath, he asked for prayers from the American people.

WORDS FROM THE PRESIDENT ON GERALD FORD

President George Bush addressed the nation this morning from Prairie Chapel Ranch where he is spending the Christmas holiday:

My fellow Americans, all of us are saddened by the news that former President Gerald R. Ford passed away last night. I spoke with Betty Ford. On behalf of all Americans Laura and I extend to Mrs. Ford and all President Ford's family our prayers and our condolences.

President Ford was a great man who devoted the best years of his life in serving the United States. He was a true gentleman who reflected the best in America's character. Before the world knew his name, he served with distinction in the United States Navy and in the United States Congress.

As a congressman from Michigan, and then as Vice President, he commanded the respect and earned the good will of all who had the privilege of knowing him. On August 9, 1974, he stepped into the presidency without ever having sought the office. He assumed power in a period of great division and turmoil. For a nation that needed healing and for an office that needed a calm and steady hand, Gerald Ford came along when we needed him most.
--George W. Bush

May his gentle Soul rest in perfect peace.(Amen)
]]> Sat, 30 Dec 2006 05:00:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84953 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84951 Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association
To be Cont'd]]> Sat, 30 Dec 2006 04:28:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84951 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84947
I am the New Year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.

I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.

All that you sought and didn’t find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it but with more determination.

All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.

All that you dreamed but didn’t dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have—these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.

I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new.”
]]> Sat, 30 Dec 2006 04:14:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84947 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84929 Following a request by the African Union (AU), NATO has helped the AU expand its peacekeeping mission in Darfur by providing airlift for additional AU peacekeepers into the region and by training AU personnel.

The Alliance has agreed to continue its assistance – including providing airlift for troop rotations, as well as additional mentoring and training – until 31 December 2006, in a further effort to strengthen the African Union’s capability to end the violence and improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur.

Since July 2005, NATO has helped to provide air transport for some 16,000 peacekeepers, as well as over 500 civilian police from African troop contributing countries into and out of Darfur. NATO also has also provided training to AU officers, mainly on how to run a multinational military headquarters and manage information effectively. The Alliance works in close coordination and consultation with the European Union, which is also supporting the African Union.


Training

In addition to the airlift, some 184 AU officers have taken part in training provided by NATO at the Darfur Integrated Task Force (DITF) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and at the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) Force Headquarters (FHQ) in El Fashir, Sudan.

The training was based on strategic-level planning and operational planning. It focuses on technologies and techniques to create an overall analysis and understanding of Darfur and to identify the areas where the application of AU assets can influence and shape the operating environment to deter crises.

In a separate activity, NATO helped organise an UN-led mapping exercise, which ran between 18 and 27 August 2005. The aim of the exercise was to help AU personnel to understand and operate effectively in the theatre of operations, as well as build their capacity to manage strategic operations. NATO provided 14 officers consisting of exercise writers and tactical-level controllers.

Presently, NATO is providing training and mentoring on managing information to AU officers in the DITF in Addis Ababa, as well in support of an AMIS Lessons Learned Exercise, together with the EU.

NATO has also agreed to the AU’s request request for additional training, to support the establishment of an AMIS Joint Operations Centre (JOC) (now known as the Joint Forward Mission HQ) in El Fashir, and in the field of unit pre-deployment certification.

NATO is also considering, in close coordination with all its partners, an African Union request for a possible NATO contribution to training assistance in the field of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration.
]]> Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:42:00 EST http://femmynet.tigblog.org/post/84929 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333