One Year into the Administration of Barack Obama

Dr. Cornel West and President Barack Obama

.....And everybody is talking.

Well, actually, everyone is beginning to wonder and to question.


The issues I raised some time ago, regarding the depth and power behind Obama's awareness, compassion and intelligence have surfaced in troubling ways for his supporters. What is now coming into focus amongst those that staunchly supported him based upon his declarations of making great changes in the fundamental ways that America operates are questions about whether he can deliver what was promised.

Increasingly, with his battles with the Congress, and the policy shifts from his administration, that are steadily moving away from his campaign rhetoric, we are seeing evidence that force us to question his ability to steer the nation, along the lines of the high values and principles which we believe he holds.

The question is is he strong enough?

Now if Michelle were in the Oval Office, I don't doubt that we would still be on course.

But we're in a situation, where that great attribute of his, to be able to accomodate a wide range of views and objectives, is proving in the moment to be a liabilty. A bit of that 'ol Bush administration's arrogant despotism and attitude of 'not giving a damn what the masses want' might do well to achieve what he and millions of Americans elected him to do.

But we've seen is that he's accomodated the banks, with our money. He's accomodated the insurance and medical industry, with a weak health care reform package, that doesn't do what America needs ---insure that every American has free quality health care. He's still playing caddy to the major multinationals, WTA and the World Bank, as we've got no better trade deals, nor jobs returning home.

Hey?!?!?! What has he done for average American??? What has he done about the core assumptions of this country that have grown more rotten and putrid, because no one has brought them to light to be questioned, excised and discarded.

What do you all think?

What ever you think I really hope you will contact Obama, and his administration and let them know!

I've been receiving emails from his people lately letting me know what he's been doing. I think it's just as important that we, the people continue to give him our feedback, about how he's addressing the issues and concerns that we feel are important. He also really needs to know, when we feel he is NOT addressing things that are important to us. Massive assistance to Haiti is good, and needed. But have we finished doing our best for those displaced by Katrina? Or for communities devastated by the loss of jobs Bush and his friends sent over seas?

Below, Cornel West is letting him know what he thinks about his performance. I agree with the theme of what he's saying here.


Professor Cornel West of Princeton University has a message for the US president as he completes his first year in the White House.

Please click on this link to watch a 3 minute video message. I'd love to know how it resonates with any of your thoughts or feelings about the State of the Union under Barack Obama's administration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8471606.stm

Then read the following article from Foreign Policy In Focus, an online magazine from the Institute for Policy Studies, a multi-issue think tank in Washington, D. C. They employ a nice imagery in trying to bring the conservative and traditional minded Obama into the present using the two James Cameron blockbuster films Titanic and Avatar to exemplify that the world of today is a far different Universe than the one in which Titanic dazzled audiences. Today's world can't be percieved, approached or fixed with systems, 'ism's, and attachments to the ways of the past.


We're into cyberspace Baby! Let's fly!!!

And I don't mean aboard the Titanic or TWA ~~~Beam me up Scottie!

Let me 'Dematerialize and Rematerialize' somewhere else!

It's not about erase, change or fix....Today, somethings we need to Delete!!!
Kentke

P.S.~Be sure to click the Comments link and read the great ones contributing to this discussion.

Obama's Avatar Moment

World Beat
by JOHN FEFFER
Tuesday, January 25, 2010Vol. 5, No. 4

One year ago, Barack Obama was elected captain of the Titanic - er, I mean, president of the United States. It's an understandable slip. Last year, the waters seemed to be rising on all sides.

The U.S. economy was in a mess, and the government was rolling in debt. We were involved in quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as an open-ended "war on terror." Our image in the world was about as low as you could get. And if that wasn't bad enough, because of climate change the waters were quite literally rising all around us.


Many of us were rooting for the new president. But we also had a sneaking suspicion that, like other handsome leading man Leonardo DiCaprio, Obama might go down with the ship.

During the last year, the president rolled up his sleeves and got to work on the ship of state. He went down to the engine room to try to get the economic engine working again. He organized the infirmary staff to provide emergency health care to more of the ship's passengers. He tried to enlist the able-bodied in the necessary jobs of fixing the ship's infrastructure.


Many passengers have taken heart from the hard work of the new, sober captain. But others fear that he's done little more than rearrange the deckchairs. Columnist and economist Paul Krugman, for instance, is "pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in." And indeed, if you look out the porthole, the situation still looks bleak: economic mess, unprecedented debt, climate change unabated, and that great sucking sound still coming from those quagmires.

Same shipwreck, different captain.

On Wednesday, our captain will address the passengers. Many of us still have that sinking feeling, particularly after the recent election in Massachusetts. What can the captain say to give us hope and believe in change once again?

First things first: The president has to change the metaphor. Titanic was so 1990s. Barack Obama needs a new blockbuster.


At his upcoming State of the Union, as I recently told Eleanor Clift of Newsweek and which she published in Four Ways Obama Can Win Back Liberals, the president needs an Avatar Moment. He can't go with the same old, same old. He has to transform his presidency as profoundly as James Cameron has shaken up the movie industry with his film Avatar. He needs to reenergize his base, get people excited again.

Of course, it would be great if the president borrowed from the themes of Avatar as well. Just imagine if Obama announced that we were closing all overseas military bases because they wreaked havoc on indigenous people, that we were redirecting money from the military into a green economy that could prevent the Earth from becoming a lifeless rock, that we would stop ruthlessly extracting underground resources (unobtainium, oil) regardless of the consequences.


Oops, sorry, I was wearing those rose-colored 3D glasses. When I take them off, I see that Obama never was that radical, alas. Reports of the president's proposed three-year freeze on domestic programs - without touching the Pentagon lockbox - indicate just how Blue Dog he can be. How on earth does he think that such a freeze will get people excited again?


There's still time for Obama to change course. Within the tight navigational limits that he observes, here's what the president could do.

He should take the fear factor away from the tea-baggers by clearly identifying the great threats we face: unemployment, a broken health care system, crumbling infrastructure. He must steal their populist fire by singling out the bankers, insurance company executives, and unresponsive bureaucrats as the obstacles in our way. He must mobilize a wide range of resources - public, private, Pentagon - to address the threats and equalize the burden. He must reorient the debate by being bold, confident, and transformative. The Republicans under Bush didn't need a filibuster-proof Senate majority to run America into an iceberg, and Obama doesn't need one either to keep us all from drowning.


And foreign policy? Most Americans want their country to be a number-one box-office smash: rich, powerful, successful. It's not easy to sell them on modesty and restraint (as Jimmy Carter famously discovered). The president should at least focus on the Oscars that matter - best economy, best health care system, best environmental standards - rather than the dubious honors of heftiest military spending or number of overseas bases. It's not only Americans who worry about the health of this country. Billions of people who didn't vote in the U.S. elections are nonetheless affected by U.S. policies. They, too, have hopes and want change. The president should remember this global audience as he prepares his State of the Union address.

As with Avatar, the whole world is watching.

Grades Still Coming In

This week the president's grades arrived on climate policy, the global economy, and his approach to Honduras. He's still averaging a low C.

His best mark was in climate policy. The president attended the recent Copenhagen meeting and has talked about the serious threat of global warming. But as Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Daphne Wysham points out, "The challenge remains: to push the Obama administration to support an adequate and unconditional U.S. contribution beyond existing development aid spending, to shift the global climate fund's sourcing from carbon markets to a financial transaction tax and other mechanisms, and to house the new body in the United Nations and not the World Bank.

"On global economic policy, meanwhile, the president has tried to have it both ways. "On the positive side, the president did not expand the failed 'free-trade' agenda," writes FPIF contributor Sarah Anderson. "Trade officials did not twist arms on Capitol Hill to secure approval of deals negotiated by the Bush administration, nor did they pull out the stops to break the impasse at the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, Obama has expressed a desire to conclude the WTO talks. And in December, he reportedly told congressional leaders he wants to advance the pending bilateral agreements. Harmless lip service? Hard to tell."


Finally, on Honduras, the president received his worst grade: D. Despite starting out well by condemning the coup, FPIF senior analyst Mark Engler explains, the administration "bombed the final exam," namely the November 29 presidential elections. "Shortly after brokering a deal designed to pressure the Honduran Congress to reinstate Zelaya and allow him to serve the end of his term," Engler writes, "Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon reversed himself and declared that the United States would recognize the elections even if Zelaya remained out of office. And that is exactly what happened."

Africa Outlook

Last year wasn't so great for U.S. policy toward Africa, either. In our Africa Policy Outlook 2010 report, published with Africa Action, we look at U.S. policies across the continent, from AFRICOM and foreign aid reform to climate and trade policy. We also zero in on how Washington did or did not change course in its approach to Uganda, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"In 2009, Washington flat-lined funding for HIV/AIDS, resuscitated and empowered the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and tripled the budget for the Military Command for Africa established under President George W. Bush," we write. "These policies all contributed to further entrenching poverty, the leading threat to human security, as well as U.S. national security in the region."

In Haiti, meanwhile, the Obama administration is saying all the right things, but giving too much authority to the Pentagon. "President Obama made all the right commitments to the Haitian people, promising emergency assistance and that we would stand with them into the future," writes FPIF contributor Phyllis Bennis. "He made clear that it is indeed the role and responsibility of government to respond to humanitarian crises, and that's a good thing (even if he also anointed his predecessors to lead a parallel privatized response). But the reality is, on the ground, some of the same problems that we've seen so many times before have already emerged, as U.S. military forces take charge, as the United Nations is pushed aside by overbearing U.S. power, as desperate humanitarian needs take a back seat to the Pentagon's priorities.

" Finally, the media has been casting around for a suitable villain on which to pin the blame for the failures of Copenhagen. "As the villain of the continuing climate drama, Washington has been replaced in much of the media by Beijing," writes FPIF columnist Walden Bello. "China did make mistakes in Copenhagen, but the media portrayal of it as the spoiler of the climate change negotiations is neither accurate nor fair. Like Hamlet, Shakespeare's conflicted Prince of Denmark, China was caught in multiple crosscurrents in Copenhagen. Its failure to manage these led to one of its biggest diplomatic setbacks in years."

. . .

Foreign Policy In Focus is a network for research, analysis and action that brings together more than 700 scholars, advocates and activists who strive to make the United States a more responsible global partner. It is a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington. http://www.fpif.org/

For more than four decades, the Institute for Policy Studies has transformed ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment. It is a progressive multi-issue think tank. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FuAwJg4sTI9BXmO5vDiCGMENL3UFza68

Yes..Like you I Am adorable too.....

Pemba, shown at 4months old. An Australian red panda.

One-year-old twin polar bears Ikor and Kiroru at Sapporo Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo, northern Japan January 18, 2010. The male cubs were born on December 9, 2008

Extreme Racing Dog

This photo taken Jan. 13, 2010 shows Mike Schelin riding a motocross bike with his dog Opee, a 8-years-old blue merle Australian shepherd in Perris, Calif.

A baby Kirk's Dik Dik antelope stands on a desk in the office of Chester Zoo's curator of mammals Tim Rowlands, northern England, January 22, 2010. The antelope is being hand reared at the zoo after being rejected by its mother during the recent cold weather.

A female Sumatran Tiger (top), gives an affectionate lick to one of her cubs at Sydney's Taronga Zoo.

The Indonesian government has hatched a plan to save Sumatran tigers from extinction by allowing people to adopt captive-born animals as pets for 100,000 dollars a pair, officials said.

Kira, a 3-month-old baboon, looks on as it is fed by an employee of the Royev Ruchey Zoo in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk January 25, 2010. Kira's mother refused to feed her cub and since then it has been brought up by the zoo employees.

No rejection here~

Gorilla Bahgira nurses her baby Kajolu in their ape house at the zoo in Munich, southern Germany on Friday, Jan. 22, 2010. Kajolu was born on Dec. 7, 2009

loveu all~
Kentke

Great Knewz about your New Year Resolutions!!!

Q: Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true? A: Your heart only good for so many beats, and that it...don't waste on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; it like saying you extend life of car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiency. What does cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So steak is nothing more than efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef also good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable) And pork chop can give you 100% of recommended daily allowance of vegetable product.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that mean they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of goodness that way. Beer also made of grain. Bottom up! Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio? A: Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can't think of single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No pain...good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU NOT LISTENING! Food are fried these day in vegetable oil. In fact, they permeated by it. How could getting more vegetable be bad for you?!?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise muscle, it get bigger. You should only be doing sit-up if you want bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy?!? HEL-LO-O!! Cocoa bean! Another vegetable! It best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming good for your figure, explain whale to me..

Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' a shape! Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

AND.....For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like.

Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Haiti

"I let out a cry, as if I'd heard everybody I loved had died."

In a moving response to the earthquake, a Haitian singer demands that her homeland isn't once again abandoned by the west

Régine Chassagne
The Observer, Sunday 17 January 2010

Somewhere in my heart, it's the end of the world.

These days, nothing is funny. I am mourning people I know. People I don't know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won't be rescued in time. I can't help it.

Everybody I talk to says the same thing: time has stopped.

Simultaneously, time is at work. Sneakily passing through the cracks, taking the lives of survivors away, one by one.

Diaspora overloads the satellites. Calling families, friends of families, family friends. Did you know about George et Mireille? Have you heard about Alix, Michaelle etc, etc? But I know that my personal anguish is small compared to the overwhelming reality of what is going on down there.

When it happened I was at home in Montreal, safe and cosy, surfing the internet, half randomly, like millions of westerners. Breaking news: 7.0 earthquake hits Haiti near Port-au-Prince.
Such emotion came over me. My breath stopped. My heart sank and went straight into panic mode. I knew right away that the whole city is in no way built to resist this kind of assault and that this meant that thousands were under rubble. I saw it straight away.

I ran downstairs and turned on the television. It was true. Tears came rushing right to my eyes and I let out a cry, as if I had just heard that everybody I love had died. The reality, unfortunately, is much worse. Although everything around me is peaceful, I have been in an internal state of emergency for days. My house is quiet, but I forget to eat (food is tasteless). I forget to sleep. I'm on the phone, on email, non-stop. I'm nearly not moving, but my pulse is still fast. I forget who I talked to and who I told what. I leave the house without my bag, my keys. I cannot rest.

I grew up with parents who escaped during the brutal years of the Papa Doc regime. My grandfather was taken by the Tonton Macoutes and it was 10 years before my father finally learnt he had been killed. My mother and her sister returned home from the market to find their cousins and friends murdered. She found herself on her knees in front of the Dominican embassy begging for her life in broken Spanish. Growing up, I absorbed those stories, heard a new version every year; adults around the dinner table speaking in creole about poor Haiti.

When I was growing up, we never had the money to return. Even if we had, my mother never could go back. Until she died, she would have nightmares about people coming to "take her away". My mum passed away before she could meet my future husband, or see our band perform and start to have success, and though I have dreamed of her dancing to my music, I know she would have been very worried to hear that I was travelling to Haiti for the first time last year.

It is strange that I was introduced to my country by a white doctor from Florida called Paul Farmer who speaks perfect Creole and knows how to pronounce my name right. He is the co-founder of an organisation titled Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante in Creole). There are several charity organisations that are doing good work in Haiti – Fonkoze is a great micro-lending organisation – but in terms of thorough medical care, follow-up and combining of parallel necessary services (education, sanitation, training, water, agriculture), there is none that I could ­recommend more than Partners in Health. It takes its work for the Haitian people very seriously and, indeed, most of the staff on the ground are Haitian. PIH has been serving the poorest of the poor for more than 20 years with a ­curriculum that really astounded me, given the limited resources available in the area.

Visiting its facilities, I was overwhelmed by, and impressed with, the high-level, top-quality services provided in areas where people own next to nothing and were never given the opportunity to learn how to sign their own name. I was delightfully shocked to see the radically positive impact it has had in the communities it serves. Of course, during my visit, I saw some clinics and hospitals that were at different stages than others, but through it all, I could clearly see that PIH staff are very resourceful and set the bar extremely high for themselves. I know that, right now, they are using their full ­capacities to save as many lives as possible.

So in these critical times where death comes every minute, I urge you to donate to Partners in Health (www.pih.org) and be as generous as you can. I know from having talked to some staff that they are on the ground right now, setting up and managing field hospitals as well as receiving the injured at their clinics in the surrounding areas.

I realise that by the time you read this it will be Sunday. The cries will have died out and few miracles will remain possible. But the suffering survivors should not be abandoned and should be treated with the best care countries like ours can offer.

Many Haitians expect to be let down. History shows they are right to feel that way. Haitians know that they have been wronged many, many times. What we are seeing on the news right now is more than a natural disaster. This earthquake has torn away the veil and revealed the crushing poverty that has been allowed by the west's centuries of disregard. That we must respond with a substantial emergency effort is beyond argument, but in the aftermath, Haiti must be rebuilt.

Ultimately, we need to treat Haiti with compassion and respect and make sure that the country gets back on its feet once and for all. Haiti's independence from France more than two centuries ago should be thought of as one of the most remarkable tales of ­freedom; instead, she was brought to her knees by the French and forced to pay a debt for the value of the lost colony (including the value of the slaves: the equivalent of $21bn by current calculations). We cannot ­overestimate the strength and resilience of the brave people living in this country whose ancestors had to buy their own bodies back.

The west has funded truly corrupt governments in the past.
Right now, in Haiti, there is a democratically elected government.
Impossibly weak, but standing.

This is the moment where we need to show our best support and solidarity.
Since Haiti shook and crumbled, I feel as if something has collapsed over my head, too. Miles away, somehow, I'm trapped in this nightmare. My heart is crushed. I've been thinking about nothing else.

Time has stopped – but time is of the essence.

So I've been sitting here at my computer, food in the fridge, hot water in the tap, a nice comfy bed waiting for me at some point… but…
Somewhere in my heart, it's the end of the world.

Régine Chassagne is a member of the rock band Arcade Fire

Based on the article above, a friend sent this message:

If you are looking for an organization through which to donate help to Haiti, Partners in Health is a good one. Located in Boston, they have been working in Haiti for many years. Their mission is "to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care." As well as accepting donations (they are a 501(c)(3), they have mechanisms for medical personnel to volunteer their services..
They are at http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti.

I did not check out this site or agency, but do so if you are looking for ways to donate.

I also received this message from Gale that asks for support that is free, and easy to give ~ our energy in compassionate, kind and loving words. Check it out:

Hi All,

All of you know I work for Grameen Foundation, an international nonprofit that battle global poverty daily. Needless to say, we are involved in the rescue, relief and recovery efforts. This is not a request for money. My need is quite simple. I am asking for words of comfort, compassion and support.

The people in Haiti , our partners on the ground, and the rescue teams are facing an enormous tragedy that won't end anytime soon. They are seeing horrors that no one should have to confront. As the days go by, their physical stress will show and their emotional strength will begin to fade. We need to do what we can to raise their spirits and support their efforts.

Please join me by wrapping your arms around them through words of encouragement, support and caring. Just a few words will let them know that we admire and support their efforts, against all odds, to help Haiti .

Just visit my Grameen Foundation blog post, Devastation in Haiti, and add your message in the comments section. We will compile and send them to Haiti in a week or so for public display, share them on our website and other websites for all to see. They will be translated so your support will reach even more Haitians.

And finally, please pass this email along to your family, friends and colleagues and invite them to join you in this act of compassion.

In the spirit,
Kay

Loveu for the Good that you allow yourself to Be~

Kentke

Russia's Grand Troika

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (L), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) and Head of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov celebrate during informal meeting outside Moscow. A cartoon, just a two-and-a-half-minute segment broadcast on state television Friday gently mocking Russia's ruling tandem was a major surprise for Russians used to stern-faced messages from their leaders.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I work to see the symbolique of phenomena in our world. Noticing this photo this morning, for some unknown reason, what quickly came to mind was the word "troika". It's a Russian word, that has filtered through my mental databank from years of media, academic and social references to the nation.

I wasn't certain of it's meaning, so I googled 'What is the troika?', and found this defination:

If you look up the word ‘troika’ in a dictionary, it will say that a troika can be a Russian sledge drawn by three horses abreast or that the word can be used to describe a leadership comprising three persons.

A Russian troika

I was sweetly amazed at how in tune I must be, for the first line described what I was intuitively thinking in looking at the photo: Here's an image of the three men that are pulling the sledge ~or~ State of Russia right now. And what I was feeling and thinking was confirmed by this random website I had chosen out of many offering to answer the question for me. Synchronicity at work! Or as I like to call it, a great demonstration of my Life in harmony with the Cosmos.

And it doesn't stop there.

I hadn't realized it at the time, but I was getting my information from a Denmark website. The page details Denmark's relationship with the European Union. The next paragraph read:

In an EU context the word is used to refer to several concepts involving a special form of cooperation between three countries: the country holding the Presidency, the country which has just held the Presidency and the country which will next hold the Presidency.

A Russian Troika

Now if we continue to play in my altered Universe, let's change the word 'country' in that paragraph, to 'man'. And reading it with my substituted word, it still describes the image, affirms the recent Russian history we've witnessed, and offers a predictive element to our fun.

A Line of Russian Sledges

That's right. How many of you think that Bortnikov is in line to be a future President of Russia? Yep...looks like 'The Grand Troika' is poised to take all those loaded in that big sledge for a ride.

Winter in St. Petersburg in a troika

Putin, who kicked off his political career as an assistant to it's first democratically elected mayor, Anatoly Sobchak has proven to be a master Svengali. He's been quite successful in orchestrating a dynasty out of his cronies and homies from his St. Peterburg (formerly known as Leningrad) days serving in the Mayor's Office.

Kentke

More Nature at It's Best

Prototype for 'The Madonna and Child'?

'Tantan,' a one-month-old male Francois' Leaf Monkey,

relaxes with his parents at the zoological gardens Zoorasia in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009.

The Importance of a Second Language

First Blog of 2010 ~ From the Nature At It's Best File

In brilliant vibrant colors, depicting the diversity, order, patterns and harmony that are all natural to our world, Mother Nature once again steps into the role of our Master Teacher.

As humans we have forgotten that one of Her functions in our world as our parent is to provide us with images of possible 'ways of Being'.

In this duty she has never faltered, nor is She ever at a loss for examples.

May this be the beginning of the era of awakened minds that see with new understanding, the symbolique within this world, of which we are a part.

This delightful circle was taken at Lamington National Park, west of the Gold Coast in Qld., Australia. These are native Australian mountain parrots.

The red and blue birds are crimson Rosella, and the red and green are King Parrots.

They are feasting on sunflower seed which the photographer Matthew Watt had left for them. He however, but did not expect them to form such a perfect ring.

This bird about to enter on the bottom is about to jump into the centre, to the discontent of the other birds.