Kicking off International Women's Month - For Northern California

FYI~

The Attitudinal Healing Connection celebrates

International Women's Month

What Women Can Do!

The Can-Do-Ness of women to save the academic and emotional lives of children

Featuring Marianne Williamson and hosted by Dr. Matthew Fox with special guests Dr. Jerry Jampolsky and Dr. Diane Cirincione, Founders of the Attitudinal Healing International;

With performances by Winnie Wong and China's Spirit Music Ensemble,

Gospel Music,

Taiko Drummers,

and many more local women artists.

Saturday, March 6th, 2010 - 5:00-9:00pm

Historic Sweet's Ballroom

1933 Broadway StreetOakland, CA 94612

Space is limited, order tickets online now!
Click here to download our flyer

FYI-Rousing the Sleeping Giant - Women of America Conference

Passing on this notice I received from the producers of the "Women of the Edge of Evolution teleseminars. They are also offering a scholarship to women interested in attending this conference, but facing financial obstacles.

Kentke

Dear Sisters,

We often learn to understand ourselves more deeply by understanding where we come from and how we fit into our larger family dynamic. Yet that not only applies to our family of origin; it applies as well to our sex, our nationality and so forth.

As Western women, we're influenced in ways both large and small by historical forces of which we're sometimes only scarcely aware.

Marianne Williamson is hosting a historic event called SISTER GIANT at the end of this month, during which she will be guiding participants through a journey of discovery both within and without....where we come from as women, where we are now, and where we can go from here.

A common anthropological characteristic of every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives is the fierce behavior of the adult female when she senses a threat to her cubs. Our relative complacency while 17,000 children on our planet starve to death every day -- one every five seconds -- indicates a lack of positive intention, on the part of our species, literally to survive. The power we hold as American women is unmatched anywhere in the world, and our failure to use that power as effectively as we might on behalf of those who need us the most is a situation now ripe for change.

The goal of SISTER GIANT is to empower you to feel that you can be, should you choose, a major player in the loving transformation of the world. Tools both internal and external will be provided to help every woman leap into the fullness of her most creative and powerful self.

CLICK HERE to find out more and register now.

http://sistergiant.eventbrite.com/

Scholarship Opportunity

We here at Feminine Power Global Community feel that this is such an important event that have decided to offer ten partial scholarships (50% off the suggested tuition, $125) for women who are feeling called to participate in this event for whom the scholarship would make their attendance possible.

To apply for the scholarship please write to us at http://us.mc355.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=events@womenontheedgeofevolution.com and tell us why you're feeling called to participate and how the scholarship will enable you to do so (approx 300 words).

This seminar can do more than change your life; it can change someone else's as well.

With love,

Katherine & Claire

P.S. Please help spread the word and share this with the women in your life-- and bring your girlfriends with you to the event!

Valentine Chocolates ~ Gentlemen from Bacongo

Why do we limit ourselves to just one day to be overtly loving and shower those we care about with flowers and sweets?


Tonight a new edict is announced from Meroe West~

You are hereby allowed to infuse Black History Month with the energy of the Valentine's Day celebration. That's right, a whole month of presents that delight, cards expressing your adoration and devotion, gifts of sexy and elegant garments, music, poetry and chocolates.

Therefore tonight, I present you with some 'eye Candy'....beautiful Black men, dressed to the nines, as only the originators of style can do it.




These images are from a book entitled The Gentlemen of Bacongo. It is a photographic work by Italian photographer Daniele Tamagni. Tamagni is also an art historian, with a particular fascination and focus on African culture and society. He moved into photography after working as a researcher in museums, galleries and churches.



In 2007 he won the best portfolio in the Canon Young Photographer award for Italy with his images of Congolese dandies.



The book's Introduction was written by Paul Smith, one of the world's most renowned and influential menswear designers. The cover image was also chosen for Paul Smith's London Fashion Week show invitation for September 2009.




The book provides a fascinating insight to the vibrant street style of the 'Sapeurs', the elegant and immaculately dressed dandies from the heart of the Congo.

The Sapeurs today belong to 'Le SAPE' (Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes -(Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People) - one of the world's most exclusive clubs. Members have their own code of honour, codes of professional conduct and strict notions of morality. It is a world within a world within a city.



Designer brands of suits and accessories are of the utmost importance to Sapeurs - Pierre Cardin, Roberto Cavalli, Dior, Fendi, Gaultier, Gucci, Issey Miyake, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Yohji Yamamoto - are their patron saints. Unlike some US hip-hop gangs who are dressed in similar fine threads, there is no bloodshed here - here your clothes do all the fighting for you, otherwise you are not fit to be called a Sapeur. The result is a unique and inspiring style, that has captured the imagination of people all over the world - the sapeurs are now truly the kings of elegance.



I tried and tried Beloveds, but I just couldn't get the slideshow to load on the blog, so click this link and visit the website to see more of these delicious images. Be sure to click the Slideshow link on the left of the page, to listen to great Congolese music, as even more photographs from this delightful book flash by.
http://www.trolleybooks.com/bookSingle.php?bookId=118




Oh and here is a link which will give you individual images that are larger, of the collage presented above.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfXgMWsBDQEWwGiiIDKREb4s4zV7DNJmR9uAmaAyuN-qgw-n-tHVneX2zZXEC4Mjo67UwabqkaMWDfoE73gHiPYKMuSdGep-wqxJo2wfCAoxIs6JTnzq64OxKYmKxJTIX6JlOkgGeQ-DI/s1600-h/_MG_6349a.jpg


....Enjoy~
Kentke

Celebrating a "Generosity of Spirit that Lifts the World"

South Africa: Mandela marks 20 years of freedom

In this Sunday, Feb. 11, 1990 file photo, Nelson Mandela and his then wife Winnie, walk hand-in hand-with their raised clenched fists upon Mandela's release from Victor Verster prison, near Cape Town South Africa. Thursday Feb. 11, 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of Mandela's release. Just four years after Mandela's release, South Africans held their first all-race elections, making Mandela their first black President. (AP Photo, file)

Feb 11, 3:35 PM (ET)

By DONNA BRYSON

JOHANNESBURG (AP) - South African lawmakers sang Nelson Mandela's praises Thursday as the anti-apartheid icon settled into parliament's public gallery for a State of the Nation address scheduled in tribute to his 20 years of freedom.

Mandela was released in 1990 after spending 27 years in prison and went on to lead South Africa through the last stretch of a stunning, peaceful revolution from apartheid to democracy.

His release was remembered as triumphant Thursday, but the moment was uncertain and anxious for South Africa, and it is a testimony to Mandela's statesmanship that things went so well.

"When Mandela was released we did not know what was going happen," said Nontuntuzelo Faku, who joined thousands of people who marked Thursday's anniversary near Cape Town at what was known in 1990 as Victor Verster, the last prison where Mandela was held.

Being at the prison 20 years later, Faku said, "makes me realize how far the country has come."

In 2008, a 3-meter (10-feet) high bronze statue was erected at the prison depicting Mandela's first steps as a free man. Exactly 20 years ago, Mandela emerged from Victor Verster on foot, hand-in-hand with his then-wife Winnie, fist raised, smiling but resolute.

The release of Mandela, known affectionately by his clan name, Madiba, was the culmination of an eventful few days for South Africa. On Feb. 2, then-President F.W. de Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC and other organizations. On Feb. 10, de Klerk announced at a press conference that Mandela would be released the next day.

Whites conditioned to see Mandela as a a shadowy enemy - most did not know what he looked like because images of him had been banned - were shocked and confused. Blacks were uncertain that Mandela, who had begun negotiations with the white government from the isolation of prison, was right to trust de Klerk. Civil war seemed possible.

"I think the imprint of February is deeply etched into the psyche of our nation," Mac Maharaj, a key ANC leader at the time, told The Associated Press. "That image of Madiba, Winnie, walking out of Victor Verster, holding hands. Madiba looking quite, quite somber, not celebratory, not pumping the air and jumping about like a victorious boxer, but walking very sternly, and I think I see a sense of bewilderment in him."

In a chapter of his autobiography titled simply "Freedom," Mandela said he was surprised so many people had come to greet him outside the prison. He described his joy, but also his realization that much work remained ahead.

"It was vital for me to show my people and the government that I was unbroken and unbowed, and that the struggle was not over for me but beginning anew in a different form," he wrote.

Today, aides say Mandela is frail but in good health for a man who will be 92 in July. He has largely retired from public life, but appeared to revel in the attention at parliament Thursday evening. He moved stiffly before taking a chair and smiling broadly as members of parliament sang a song honoring him. President Jacob Zuma scheduled his address to coincide with the anniversary as a tribute.

Zuma devoted his speech, which Mandela could be seen reading as he spoke, largely to an economy hit hard by the global downturn. But the president took time to praise Mandela and call on South Africans to recommit themselves to Mandela's ideals: "Building a better future for all South Africans, black and white."

Zuma emulated Mandela by reaching out to white conservatives during the speech with praise for the late President P.W. Botha for initiating discussions about the release of political prisoners. Botha, who died in 2006, was president from 1978 until 1989 and was seen by many as the last hard-line apartheid leader. When white rule ended, Botha refused to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated the atrocities of apartheid and offered the possibility of amnesty to those willing to confess to their crimes and demonstrate remorse.

Just four years after Mandela's release, South Africans held their first all-race elections, making Mandela their first black president. Mandela stepped down after one five-year term, helping to entrench democracy in South Africa in contrast to elsewhere on the continent where politicians hung on to power through fraud and violence.

Mandela also is beloved for championing racial reconciliation, ensuring a peaceful transition that spared South Africa a race war. His promotion of South Africa's rugby team during the 1995 World Cup endeared him to many whites and symbolized his efforts to build bridges and forgive the past, as depicted in the film "Invictus."

Since 1994, his ANC party has reduced the number of people living in poverty, built houses and delivered water, electricity and schools to blacks who had been without under apartheid. But needs remain great, and impatience has grown along with a gap between the poor and the rich - among them new black entrepreneurs.

South Africa marked Thursday's anniversary with speeches, photo exhibits tracing Mandela's life, radio and TV specials and newspaper supplements.

Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement captured imaginations around the world, as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recalled in an essay in London's Independent newspaper Thursday. Brown, who has often spoken of his admiration for Mandela, said the anti-apartheid struggle "was the defining political question of our time."

Brown said Mandela has "a generosity of spirit that lifts the world."

Mandela marked the anniversary of his release at home last week, reminiscing with fellow veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle for the camera's of his daughter Zindzi's production company, which was preparing a documentary called "Conversations About That Day".

Don't Glamorize 'Avatar'-A Parallel Story from the Real World - Ancient Tribe Becomes Extinct as Last Member Dies

David Knowles, Writer

Feb. 5) – Marking the end of a language and an entire people, the last member of the Bo, an ancient tribe that lived in the Andaman Islands, has died.

When Boa Sr, as she was known, died last week, she was believed to be about 85 years old. Her husband had died years beforehand, and Boa, whose name means "land" or "earth" in the Bo language, had no children.

The Bo are believed to have first come to the Andaman Islands – located roughly 850 miles off India's east coast in the Bay of Bengal – 65,000 years ago. Bo was one of at least 10 pre-colonial languages spoken on the islands.

According to Survival International, an advocacy group for native peoples throughout the world, the Bo were one of the oldest surviving human cultures on earth.

Of the thousands of Great Andamanese who once inhabited the islands, only 52 people are still alive today. But Boa Sr, who also spoke a local dialect of Hindi as well as the amalgam language called Great Andamanese, was the last of her particular tribe."

After the death of her parents, Boa was the last Bo speaker for 30 to 40 years," Abbi told the BBC.

The video footage above, courtesy of CNN, was recorded over the last few years of Boa's life by Abbi and represents the some of the last recorded utterances and song in Bo.

The Bos' Downfall

In 1858, when the British decided to colonize the Andaman Islands and use them as a penal colony, they estimated that 5,000 Great Andamanese lived there. "

At first, the British didn't notice any difference between the tribes," said Sophie Grig, senior campaigner at Survival International.

But in 1879, a British officer named M.V. Portman was appointed officer in charge of the Andamanese, and after years of attempting to acclimate them to life as British subjects, Portman wrote "A Manual of the Andamanese Languages," which distinguished the differences among tribal languages.

Portman's own obituary, which appeared in The Times on Feb. 22, 1935, reads:

In many parts of the islands the natives were still either ferocious enemies

or at best half-tamed; and his work consisted in making contact with them

and very gradually bringing them to recognize the value of British rule.

But colonization proved ruinous for the tribes of the Andamans, including the Bo, with large numbers decimated by measles and syphilis brought to the islands by foreigners. Many of those who were left gravitated to alcohol, another import to the islands, as a way of seeking solace.

"When people are dispossessed from their land and their way of life, they often turn to alcohol," Grig said. "It's not surprising, and it was very much true in the case of the Bo."

In 1970 the Indian government began relocating the Bo to a settlement of concrete row houses on Strait Island. Boa Sr was moved in 1978, and Abbi said she often said that she missed her old life in the jungle. "

What's important is that we learn from this lesson and do everything we can to protect the remaining tribes like the Jarawa and the Sentinelese, who are still there and remain threatened," Grig said.

Now kept in a protective quarantine by the Indian government, the Sentinelese received worldwide attention in 2004, when they were filmed running out of the jungle firing arrows at passing helicopters shortly after the Asian tsunami killed thousands on the Andaman and Nicobar island chains.

Abbi argues that preventing the extinction of other Andamanese languages is crucial if we hope to expand our understanding of how language in the region evolved over time.

"It is generally believed that all Andamanese languages might be the last representatives of those languages which go back to pre-Neolithic times," Abbi told the BBC.

But the death of a language also has other implications. "

A language contains the memories and experiences, everything that explains and encapsulates a way of life," Grig said. "It's sad for the entire world."

This story is so important, that we're presenting two articles covering the passing of Boa Sr. Each article offers a slightly different perspective, allowing you to grasp this great loss more fully.

Kentke

By Harmeet Shah Singh, CNN


February 5, 2010 10:14 a.m. EST

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- The last member of an ancient tribe that has inhabited an Indian island chain for around 65,000 years has died, a group that campaigns for the protection of indigenous peoples has said.

Boa Sr, who was around 85 years of age, died last week in the Andaman islands, about 750 miles off India's eastern coast, Survival International said in a statement.

The London-based group, which works to protect indigenous peoples, said she was the last member of one of ten distinct Great Andamanese tribes, the Bo.

"The Bo are thought to have lived in the Andaman islands for as long as 65,000 years, making them the descendants of one of the oldest human cultures on earth," it noted.

With her passing at a hospital, India also lost one of its most endangered languages, also called Bo, linguists say.

"She was the last speaker of (the) Bo language. It pains to see how one by one we are losing speakers of Great Andamanese and (their) language is getting extinct. (It is) A very fast erosion of (the) indigenous knowledge base, that we all are helplessly witnessing," read an obituary in Boa Sr's honor posted on the Web site of the Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (VOGA) project.

Project director Anvita Abbi, a professor at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, met with Boa as recently as last year. "She was the only member who remembered the old songs," Abbi recounted in her obituary.

"Boa Sr was the only speaker of Bo and had no one to converse with in that language," Abbi told CNN. Her husband and children had already died, the linguist said.

Other than Bo, she also knew local Andaman languages, which she would use to converse, according to Abbi.

Boa Sr was believed to be the oldest of the Great Andamanese, members of ten distinct tribes. Survival International estimates there are now just 52 Great Andamanese left.

There were believed to be 5,000 of them when the British colonized the archipelago in 1858. Most of those tribal communities were subsequently killed or died of diseases, says Survival International.

The British also held the indigenous tribes people captive in what was called an Andaman Home, but none of the 150 children born there survived beyond two years of age, according to the group.

Boa Sr also survived the killer Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

She recorded in Bo what she saw when the giant waves arrived. "While we were all asleep, the water rose and filled all around. We did not get up before the water rose. Water filled where we were and as the morning broke the water started to recede," reads a translation of her tsunami narrative posted on the VOGA Web site.

Activists are expressing alarm over her death.

"Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman islands," Survival director Stephen Corry said in the statement. Andaman and Nicobar Islands authorities put at least five tribes in their list of vulnerable indigenous communities.
According to Corry's group, the surviving Great Andamanese depend largely on the Indian government for food and shelter and abuse of alcohol is rife.

Among the tribes are the Sentinelese, who inhabit a 60-square-kilometer island.

Officials believe the group is probably the world's only surviving Paleolithic people without contact with any other community. They said the Sentinelese are very hostile and never leave their Island. Very little is known about them.

What Twelve Men Are Doing - Love Stories and Images to Inspire and Warm Your Heart

I just had the most uplifting experience and I want to offer it as today's Valentine gift to you.

As I get more into this moment, I realize that what I'm receiving right now is 'right on time' as February is the month that American culture has ascribed for us to show our love for one another. And unfortunately, this is usually directed to involve couples enjoying romantic love.

I know I'm developing a much bigger understanding of love. And it more and more takes me away from the romantic notions we've all been programmed to believe in.

After reading this introduction please click on the link and visit the website of A Circle of Twelve. This is a group of men centered in the greater Los Angeles area, with a purpose of supporting men and boys, so that they can be stronger influences of good in their communities.

http://acircleoftwelve.com/events.html

What is beautiful about this group, is how they've allowed the projection of their purpose to take on a form that follows the electro-magnetics fields of the heart. The range of their loving assistance flows out to help men that are located very to them, those more distant in other states, as well as all the way out to small villages on continents and islands far away.


That is how the range of energy that flows from our hearts out into the Universe functions. It is a flow. It is circular. The electromagnetic field of one's Heart is more powerful than can be measured. It creates a field that cannot be quantified in it's distance and expanse.



Did you know that there is a quality of certain living cells, that their vibration, pulse or beat is such that if you bring other cells close to it, they will begin to beat together? This is called entrainment.


The Heart is a system of the body, that most magnificently exemplies this. It is made up of so many different parts, that have different functions, yet, all of the cells and tissue and systems work together, brought under one pulse, one rhythmic beating. The Heart has the power to entrain all other systems of the body to it's beating. Even the cells of one's mind/brain.


When the brain -and the rest of the body---is brought into entrainment with the Heart, we have Heart Entrainment, and ultimately, what's called Heart Coherence.

When Heart Coherence exists, one can work from/within their Heart's electromagnetic field to heal and to connect to other life forms that they are in affinity with. When this occurs, a bond is created, and both Hearts beat as One. This is all scientific, but all I've seen and learned has been proven, for there is scientific foundation for these things that I accept and have known intuitively or Spiritually.

The Institute of Heart Math, and a book I truly love -"The Intelligence of the Heart, THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF PLANTS in the Direct Perception of Nature", by Stephen Harrod Buhner, have been my introductory "curriculum" you might say. I always want to share what I know and am learning with you, keeping you in intellectual/mental alignment. I like to do this because I think you might find some of this cutting edge stuff fascinating in it's implications as well. I don't want to be the only one having all the fun, playing with these newer revelations.


The Institute of Heart Math has been very active in this research. I included the image above so that you get a picture of how this field of electromagnetic power radiates from the Heart. It is not a linear progression, but spirals out in ever expanding circles, in every direction and dimension. In reclaiming the birthright of understanding from our ancient ancestors, we will have to drop the limited linear thinking which has been programmed into us. It's time we expand into our greater potential.


The Circle of Twelve is such a perfect demonstration of all of this actually happening now. Enjoy the short video of one of their events held in August 2009. After viewing, click on the Award Recipients link, and meet the brothers around the globe they have helped. Perhaps make a donation, if you want to be a part of this loving giving.


I'm really showing this because of the very last story in the video, so be sure to watch until the end. I don't want your Sweet Heart, to miss the candy I'm presenting it today. And that 'candy' is the thrill of feeling and witnessing Heart-warming Good.
lovu~
Kentke

Enjoy Meeting these Knew Voices on the Blog!!!

The Knewz welcomes two new contributors today.


Let me introduce you to a lady that wishes to be known as "liz'sma". We became accquainted through her comments to the 1/30/10 post discussing Obama's first year in office.


liz'sma is a woman that has spent many years being concerned, informed and active is social and political issues. If you asked her what are her passions today, she'd tell you that she calls those incarcenated in the nation's prisons 'her heart'.


Behind those walls and bars, she has made many friends through the years, and describes her beginnings below. Liking our blog she inquired about The Knewz posting an article which she transcribed from the handwritten letter of one of the men that has become her friend.

liz'sma writes:


"I have been interested in prison issues since the mid-nineties when I had the opportunity to work with a lady in west Sonoma county who put out a newspaper for prisoners all over the country. The first prisoner I wrote to was a man named Harold Wilson, in Pennsylvania, on Death Row, next to Mumia."


I will post the entire letter from liz'sma later this week because her story is very interesting. Harold Wilson, who she corresponded with during his seventeen year incarceration, typing his handritten legal material into documents and returning them to him so he could fight for his freedom, went on to become the 122nd Death Row inmate freed by the state of Pennsylvania. After having been given three death sentences, his convictions were overturned, and he was eventually completely exonerated due to DNA evidence.
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/12/20/the_story_of_harold_wilson_convicted


I think she's right about wanting her friend's letter shared with a wider audience. I am posting his letter/article today, because it continues some of the themes of the previous two posts. I will not publish his name, because of the delicacy of his situation. liz'sma suggested we refer to him as "nobridge."

His thoughts complement the post and the discussion in the Comments from the Obama post, as well as some of the ideas that are brought up in the 2/02/10 blog about Craig Cunningham and how he and others are choosing to deal with the pressures that the economic debacle have placed upon their shoulders.


Check out what this man has to say. In my little head....it all fits together.
The blue font indicates an introduction from liz'sma, and his letter follows.



Letter from a prisoner in Pennsylvania, to liz'sma
Intro:


My friend is originally from Portugal, his earliest political influence being the Portuguese Revolution. Besides his native tongue and English I understand he is fluent in French and Spanish and another couple of languages. How he ended up in prison here I have not asked (there’s only so much you can cover in a visit, or a letter) but I know that he quite likely blew any chance he may have had to ever get out, due to the crime of (almost) escaping. There is nothing the prison system takes more offense to than that. The story of the tunnel he with others dug has been picked up by a British film group, and should eventually become available to the public. Meanwhile his political views may challenge Americans who regard themselves as progressive. His letter follows:



“. . .have you taken me to any marches lately? We need to get out there. Not just you and I, but the nation as a whole.


Unfortunately, it is very difficult to overcome the indoctrination that most Americans are subjected to, both in school and through popular culture. The fact is that most people’s sense of self-identity and self-worth—is so intertwined with the exceptionalist mythology of the United States of America that they can’t help but identify with authority and power. To them, the Nation is this mythology, and thus the Establishment, not the people—so much so that not only don’t they identify with their fellow citizens as real people; their community as part of themselves; humanity as a whole, etc. etc., but very often don’t identify with their own self-interest.


Given this dynamic it is very easy for the Establishment to manage the nation: if certain ugly realities grow so obvious that large segments of the population no longer can fool themselves, the Establishment simply offers up some grand mythology-reinforcing symbol, capable of making everyone feel good about themselves again, and goes on with business as usual.This is why we now must read so many denouncements of Obama—how dare he not be the Messiah we require to do for us what we aren’t willing to do for ourselves! It is so unfair that we should actually have to disturb our comfortable lives to force the empire to be humane rather than imperial!



I know—I’m being unfair. But I do grow frustrated with these people who—unlike the majority who deliberately remain blissfully ignorant of historical and political realities—know better, and yet continuously line up for a sip of the magical hope—Kool-Aid—only to then complain as the high wears off. They seem to believe that we are obliged to validate their delusions by playing along with their indignant surprise.



Obama’s election had great significance for the vast majority of the world’s people, in that someone who looks like them reached the highest level of above-board power—invaluable for the self-esteem and the realization of individual potential of so many. But in immediate terms, his election changed nothing: he was the establishment candidate, brought to power to: one, repair the image of the US abroad; two, appease the restless masses at home; and three, above all, protect and advance the interests of the Empire—and he better! To expect otherwise is to believe that the Establishment would act against its own interests just because we asked so nicely.



Never in history has any establishment acted against its short-term interests unless the people proved themselves angry enough to threaten its long-term interests. . and then they only give the absolute miminum to calm the people down. Real and significant change requires serious and sustained anger, and ultimately, Revolution.




There is no such thing as a kind and benevolent empire. The fact is that most Americans want to have their cake and eat it too. What they are really demanding is not a reduction of the privileges they enjoy as a result of imperial abuses and exploitations, but more discreet methods of abuse and exploitation.They want to be able to believe the myths without having to explain away the reality. (The main difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans find it less problematic to ignore reality no matter how obvious.)



Anyhow, I’m really sorry to read of the assault on the Flashpoints radio program. I wish we had something like that over here. Unfortunately though, truth and reason have two major strikes against them: they tend to conflict with Establishment interests, and they don’t sell very well (again, most people want to justify, not admit). And it isn’t surprising that this financial crisis should be used to push such inconvenient programs off the air—shock doctrine in action (did you read Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”?)”

nobridge

Special Note for readers in the San Francisco Bay Area:

Save the Date: Friday, April 16, 2010

The Sophia Center of Wisdom at Holy Names University, will present visiting faculty member Sister Helen Prejean, author of Deadman Walking and The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions http://www.deathofinnocents.net/

3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, CA 94619

7:00 p.m. Sophia Center Classroom (at Chapel level, look for signs)

ADMISSION: $15 General, $12 Seniors & Students

The Public is Invited

New Game Rules for the Debt Ridden~How Intelligence + the Right Knowledge = Self-Preservation

Better Off Deadbeat: Craig Cunningham Has a Simple Solution for Getting Bill Collectors Off His Back. He Sues Them.

Craig Cunningham says no one offered hurting small-time investors like him a government bailout when he landed deep in debt. That made him mad, so he decided to get even.

By Kimberly Thorpe
published: January 21, 2010

Unlike his neighbors' homes, Craig Cunningham's house in Northeast Dallas looks abandoned. The grass is dried out. The concrete slab under the front door is lopsided and cracked. The green exterior has faded to a toxic-looking shade. Yellow Pages pile up near the front door, and the black mailbox is stuffed full. Maybe the home has been foreclosed on. That wouldn't be a surprise in this economy.

But no, that's not the case. Inside, the 29-year-old Cunningham hunkers his 6-foot-2-inch frame on a dumpy couch. His heavy arms extend from his sides, palms up, so two Chihuahuas, Angel and Chuay, can curl under them. Although it's 10 a.m. on a weekday, he's wearing slippers.

He leans forward to lift some paperwork out of a plastic tub on the coffee table. The phone rings, and he answers with a soft voice. It's just a friend, and soon he hangs up. He's waiting for a particular type of phone call—one from a representative of a debt collection agency or a credit card company, whom he'll try to ensnare like a Venus fly trap. It's not unlikely that Cunningham's next call will be from a bill collector, since he's between jobs—except for being in the Army Reserve—and owes $100,000 in debts.

While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector's call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham's favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it's a profitable side job.

Call it ironic, but the only house on the block that appears to be the foreclosed end to some sad financial story is in fact the home of one of the debt collection industry's emerging and persistent threats. Cunningham calls himself a private attorney general—someone who files private lawsuits in the public interest. Debt collectors call him a credit terrorist.

Patrick Lunsford, who edits InsideARM, a trade magazine for the debt collection industry, knows the term. "There is a sub-group out there that does actually advise people on how to bait [collectors]," he says. "That's something that really gets under the skin of, well, obviously, collectors."

Cunningham beats the debt collectors at their own game. He turns their money-making practice into a financial liability. He is a regular guy who has become a radical enemy of the banking system.

In 2005, two foreclosures pushed Cunningham near financial ruin. Like many Americans, he fell enchanted by the siren's song of easy credit and borrowed more than $100,000 to bet on risky, high-yielding investments, such as stock in the now vilified sub-prime mortgage industry. Then, while stationed with the Army in El Paso, he attempted to become an absentee landlord and got zero-percent-down sub-prime mortgages to buy low-income four-plexes in Houston and Dallas.

With the interest earned on his high-yielding stocks he was paying back his low-interest credit card debt; now, he was using the mortgages to borrow even more.

Then, the bottom fell out. Investors like Cunningham fell the fastest. He sold his Houston homes, but his Dallas properties were foreclosed on. The collection calls started. He was running scared.
Desperation took him online in a search of anything that could save him from his own $100,000 in bad choices. One afternoon while sitting on his couch in his El Paso home, he found a way to fight back. He stumbled across hundreds of other distraught consumers like himself on credit message boards, each with some different version of the same story of bad choices and greed. And, he found a new way to deal with his debt: He could hide behind the law.

His new online friends pointed him to a number of federal and state statutes protecting consumers like him against overly aggressive and abusive debt collectors and a credit system stacked against the little guy. If you knew your rights, he learned on the message boards, you were very likely to catch a collector violating them. Then you could sue.

Cunningham armed himself with this knowledge, and the next time a debt collector called, the trap was set.

It didn't take long. Cunningham had canceled a home alarm service with ADT Security after two months, and the company had billed him a $450 early termination fee, which he disputed. ADT sent his account to Equinox Financial Management Solutions, a third-party debt collector. The collection agency sent him a letter asking that he call back immediately. He dialed, armed with a voice recorder.

"Can you garnish my wages if I don't pay?" he asked.

"Yes," the voice on the other end of the line said.

"Can you put a lien on my house?"

"Yes."

Wrong answers. Turns out, Texas consumer rights laws are some of the most consumer-friendly in the country. And according to a federal consumer protection law, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), debt collectors are prohibited from threatening legal action that would violate state laws. In this case, garnishing wages or putting a lien on Cunningham's house would violate the Texas Debt Collection Act.

Cunningham knew he had a good enough case to file a lawsuit against the debt collection agency, and for his first lawsuit, he decided to enlist the help of a lawyer. Two months later, he had a check in his hand for $1,000.

"It's like discovering fire," says Cunningham, thumbing through the stack of lawsuit papers on his table.

He immediately started devouring as much information as he could about the three chief federal laws that protect consumers from collectors: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). In the next four years, Cunningham accused debt collectors of misrepresenting the amount he owed (an FDCPA violation that entitles a consumer to collect up to $1,000). He sued over prerecorded and auto-dialed calls to his cellular phone (a TCPA violation worth up to $1,500 per call). He also filed complaints that agencies failed to investigate his claims that his credit file contains inaccurate information, a breach of the Fair Credit Reporting Act worth up to $1,000 per violation. All told, he filed 15 other lawsuits in federal court without the help of a lawyer, earning himself settlements totaling more than $20,000.

"Most people hear about the abuses that debt collectors do, but you just didn't hear about the second part of it, where people sue the collectors," he says.

Cunningham is one of thousands of hounded debtors who are trading in their paralyzing fears and learning to stand up for themselves. Americans as a whole owe some $2.5 trillion in consumer debt, according to the Federal Reserve, a figure that doesn't include home mortgages. Nearly four in five Americans have credit cards and half carry a balance, according to the Obama administration.

In 2008, the Federal Trade Commission, the nation's consumer protection agency, received more than 78,000 complaints against third-party debt collectors, 8,000 more than in 2007, and early numbers for 2009 indicate the growth will double. While the FTC gets the bulk of consumer complaints, today more consumers are fighting back with their own lawsuits than ever before. In 2009, nearly 10,000 cases under FDCPA, FCRA or TCPA statutes were filed around the country, mostly in federal courts. That's a 50 percent increase from 2008, and an 83 percent growth from 2007.

A cottage industry has sprung up to counter the flood of cases. Two new companies now offer the credit and collection industries databases of repeat plaintiffs filing under the FDCPA. The companies, FDCPA Case Listing Service LLC and WebRecon, offer something akin to a background check for collection agencies. For example, if an agency received a delinquent account belonging to Cunningham, it could run his name through a database and learn he's a repeat litigant; then the agency could either close his account or sue him first.

Back in his dim living room, Cunningham returns to the pile of paperwork on the table. His soft voice gets bolder when he recounts his war stories with the collection industry. His 15 lawsuits include one filed in federal court against Alliance One, a third-party agency collecting on behalf of Verizon. Alliance One added a $50 collection fee and misrepresented the debt he owed Verizon, he says, which is an unfair practice under FDCPA. Another lawsuit was over the collection of an outstanding bill from Time Warner. The collection agency, Advantage Cable Services, failed to post a surety bond required by the state of Texas in order to collect debts here. Plus, after telling them to stop calling his cellular phone with automated calls, they continued, so he sued and won around $3,500, the industry standard for many consumer rights violations. (Collection agencies frequently settle such lawsuits because that's cheaper than taking them to trial.)

His debt with Time Warner hasn't gone away, and he's in the middle of his biggest FDCPA violation lawsuit ever, demanding upward of $200,000 from the current collection agency.
Debtors, either because they feel morally obligated or because they don't know their options, get backed into a corner by their creditors and believe they have to repay their debts, he says. Not so with Cunningham. "I don't have to do anything but stay black and die," he says, a small, smug smile on his lips.

Cunningham wasn't always such a stickler.

As a kid growing up in Detroit, family time meant gathering around the living room table to play stock market board games. His mother was a registered nurse, and his father worked for 25 years as a computer engineer for Ford. When he was 15, Cunningham met his "first millionaire," as he tells it, still wide-eyed. This high school teacher grew wealthy off the then-booming real estate market of the mid-'90s. "He accomplished it through business and not sports," he says. "For me, that was where the light first went on."

Cunningham, a high school athlete, dreamed of making millions playing pro football, but he was accepted to U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where a degree would give him a more grounded back-up plan. The economics major also sought out an additional perk unique to West Point: stipends and absurdly low-interest loans. In his junior year, in 2002, Cunningham took out the maximum amount for a loan and dumped the $25,000 into the booming stock market.

"Everybody was making easy money," he recalls, and the young cadet wanted a shot at making even more. He spent hours on his dial-up Internet connection learning money-making strategies that capitalized on the cheap and easy credit of the times. By Googling "credit help" or "increase credit score," he landed on message boards on which posters shared how-to tips to boost his credit score and dupe major banks and credit card companies into giving him cards with credit limits around $10,000 and $20,000 at low interest rates. He'd borrow from the cards, invest the money in stocks with payouts higher than his interest rate and pay back the debt with the profits.

Cunningham learned on these boards that the credit card companies, banks and the credit bureaus worked together to determine not only your credit score but how much credit to extend you and at what interest rate.

Cunningham had no problem spending all the money anyone would loan him, but he needed to pay off some of the accrued debt to maintain his credit score. He knew his military loan did not get reported to any of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. So, by paying off his credit card debt with money from that loan, he artificially maintained his credit score and continued to be approved for high credit. Sounds fishy, but Cunningham didn't feel that he was taking advantage of the system, at least not anymore than the next guy or the brokers and bankers at the time.

"It's their system," says Cunningham. "I didn't make the rules. I'm just learning what the rules are."

Cunningham now had more than $100,000 in credit card debt, but he had a lot of money coming in as well. He was a big-time shareholder in one sub-prime lending company, Nova Star Financial, and for three years in a row he saw dividends as high as 20 percent for his investment.

Any money he was making went right back into the system. Those good times, of course, wouldn't last.

Not wanting to miss out on the easy money in real estate buying and selling, he bought two low-income four-plexes in Dallas in 2005, using a mortgage company for the loan. He put no money down, but the interest rate was high.

Then he got burned. The four-plex's seller wasn't completely honest about the occupancy of the properties. Cunningham's scheme disintegrated within six months. He was scrambling to make the mortgage payments at the high interest rate without any tenants. He knew it wouldn't be long until he couldn't make the payments and he would be foreclosed on. Somehow, he didn't despair.

"I remember one day I just got pissed," Cunningham says. "I'm running around trying to keep the ship afloat, and the banks don't care."

Cunningham had called the bank as well as the FBI to report the mortgage fraud committed by the seller, but nobody pursued his case.

"The regulators, the FBI, they don't care. So, why should I care?" he says.

The Dallas properties were foreclosed, and his obsessively maintained credit score seemed wrecked. Cunningham returned to the online credit board for help. This time, however, he wasn't looking to add an artificial shine to his credit score, he was looking for a way out of the ashes. Cunningham discovered a whole other world of consumer-generated knowledge. This was a rogue group of disgruntled consumers who were trying to save themselves and their credit by filing lawsuits when the collection industry screwed up the mechanics of debt reporting and collection. What he found was an instrument not of repair or reconciliation, but of vengeance.

"All the conventional wisdom, all the right people say, 'Pay your bills on time and work with your creditors,'" Cunningham says, recalling his thoughts at the time. Yet he had discovered a new set of people who posted their credit reports on line and their successful lawsuits, showing how much money they won in settlements that simultaneously removed a bad debt from their credit report. "I said, 'Maybe there's another way.' Again, just revolution. I never even thought about it."

The knowledge on these boards originated from consumers testing the boundaries of the credit system through their own experiences. The nature of this information, from the beginning, was a mixture of anarchistic tendencies, vengeance and greed. Now the wisdom of the boards has been distilled into an e-book published in January. Debtsmanship was written by Steven Katz, a former New York debt collector turned consumer advocate, who now lives in Phoenix. In 2005, Katz founded a message board called "Debtorboards," with the slogan "Sue your creditor and win!"

Katz doesn't believe that people are morally obligated to pay back their debts. That notion was invented by debt collectors as a way to beat people into submission, he says. "Bill collectors would love for you to send them a check and then explain to your kids because you have the moral obligation to pay your debt they're not eating this week," he says. "But they don't see the moral obligation to feed your children or yourself.

"People are brainwashed to think that paying a credit card is more important than paying for the necessities of life," Katz says. "If you're in a position where you have to make a choice, my argument is food, clothing and shelter come first... Nobody ever went to hell for not paying a debt."

Steven Katz, author of a book on fighting bill collectors, says the idea that consumers have a moral obligation to pay their creditors is a myth created by lenders.

"Fight back" is the take-away message from a visit to Debtorboards, which is intended to help consumers who wish to file lawsuits without the help of lawyers. Debtorboards outlines steps consumers can take to deal with bothersome debt collectors. For example, if a debt collector is only bothering you, you could send them a letter or sue them. However, if you're so far in debt that you see no way out but bankruptcy, then you can check out the board's "frustrating the skip tracer" technique. There, you'll find tips on how to run and hide from a collector.

Another Debtorboards user is 29-year-old Daniel Smith, who lives with his fiancé outside of Seattle, Washington. Early in 2009, he tried to obtain financing for a home, but was turned down by Bank of America. He soon discovered that an old girlfriend had put his name on her bank account before she fell into massive debt. He wrote angry letters to the bank, but nothing changed. He sat down at his computer and typed in "Bank of America" and "Fair Debt Collection Act" and soon landed on Debtorboards. "I spent hours upon hours upon hours on there," Smith says. "The big epiphany is I'm a little guy but I've got a voice and I'm going to use it."

Like Cunningham, Smith now armed himself with voice recorders and began keeping meticulous financial files. His file cabinet grew quickly. "I mean there's nothing I don't document now and that's probably the best thing a consumer can do."

Smith is an Army vet, an EMT, and a project manager for a construction company. He doesn't advocate stiffing the original creditor on the bill. In fact, Smith will often pay the original creditor, but still go after the violating collection agency.

"The standard line from collection agencies is always, 'Oh, gosh, no, we never violate.'...For the most part, the reality of it is you can sit down and find violation in almost every collection attempt made in America."

Cunningham insists that the court system ignores lawsuits over frivolous violations. His cases, he claims, are built on true screw-ups. Cunningham won his first lawsuit, after all, after a collection company threatened to garnish his wages and put a lien on his house, both violations of Texas law.

Although that first lawsuit was filed with the help of a consumer rights lawyer, Cunningham has been filing on his own since then. Once he saw that the entire amount of the original settlement was upward of $3,500, and he only got $1,000, while his lawyer pocketed the rest as payment, Cunningham was motivated to go pro se.

"I remember seeing the $3,500 and thinking shoot that's a lot of money, and I'm only getting a grand, so maybe I can do a little better than that if there is a next time."

Cunningham made sure there'd be a next time. A company was trying to collect on an outstanding utility bill. They threatened to send this debt to the credit bureaus and wreck his credit score. He ended up paying the utility company the money he owed, but sued the collection company because of how they threatened and harassed him for the debt. The case earned him close to $3,500.

“It’s their system. I didn’t make the rules. I’m just learning what the rules are.”

He was fast becoming one of the most hated debtors in Dallas, and part of an especially loathed minority of debtors in the country.

Cunningham returned to Texas from a year of active duty with the Army in late 2007, and moved to Dallas. He continued filing lawsuits against debt collection agencies, and he became ever more active on the message boards, holding long conversations about the state of the country with his online pals. In the meantime, he noticed that Debtorboards founder Steven Katz had created a new thread titled "The list you want to be on." Here, Katz reported that a new company had appeared that was dedicated to aiding collection companies scrub their database against repeat FDCPA litigants, like Cunningham.

Cunningham toyed with the idea of suing them. After all, he thought, if they were working with the collection industry and the credit bureaus (FDCPA Case Listing Service partnered with TransUnion in 2009), then the companies sounded like credit reporting agencies to Cunningham, which would mean they would have to abide by certain credit reporting laws. Cunningham wrote to FDCPA Case Listing Service asking for a copy of his credit report (by law, a credit reporting agency must provide a consumer report if asked for one). Instead of a report, however, Cunningham found a lawsuit against him in his mailbox filed in May 2008 in Atlanta federal court. It alleged: "The defendant subscribes to and makes postings to a Web site in which consumers share information and promote litigation against the collection industry...The defendant has now conspired with others on the internet to incite civil litigation against plaintiff for the exclusive purpose of extorting money from the plaintiff."

FDCPA Case Listing Service asked the court to declare that they are not a consumer reporting agency and not subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. To Cunningham, this was a clear attempt to silence him. Cunningham filed a motion to dismiss the case. For one thing, filing the suit in Atlanta was improper venue, Cunningham wrote. They should have sued him in Texas. Furthermore, since Cunningham hadn't actually sued the company, the company had no valid reason to sue him. The court sided with Cunningham.

WebRecon offers a similar but expanded service to FDCPA Case Listing Service. Rather than only track FDCPA cases, WebRecon makes an effort to track FCRA, TCPA, and state and local cases, as well. WebRecon is headed by Jack Gordon out of Michigan. Gordon ran his own third-party collection agency for years until a spate of FDCPA lawsuits in 2008 forced him out of business. He is familiar with Cunningham's type.

"This is definitely, if I can use a really strong word, a cesspool," Gordon says. "The overwhelming majority of these suits are not pro se. Now when you're focusing exclusively on pro se, I think you're getting into a little bit of a different area. I've spent time personally on some of the Web sites that a lot of pro se litigants frequent...I would have to say they are far more radicalized element of society, and there's certainly I think reason for concern.

"You're dealing with somebody who's looking for an opportunity. They revel in either getting opportunities or making opportunities to try out everything they're learning online. That's hardly an exaggeration," he says, laughing. "It's really an experience spending time there!"
Gordon may have a personal vendetta against Cunningham types, but so do others who represent the collection industry.

ACA International is the largest trade group representing third-party debt collection agencies. Tom Morgan is the Texas executive director for ACA International and he believes that FDCPA lawsuits will continue to rise as more and more people in this economy can't pay their debts. He views the agencies as a kind of indirect victim in the rising tide of consumer fury and desperation.

"While our members do get filed on from time to time, the FDCPA is so highly technical there are quote, technical, violations that can occur," Morgan says. "You know, somebody makes a mistake. But there's no intent, OK, to defraud people or to violate the law.

"Usually it's settled because the agency says, Uh, we didn't intend to do that. Our collector said the wrong thing and we fess up and say, 'I didn't mean to do it but I did it...

"And this is where some of our members feel aggrieved in that because there's a hyper-technical opportunity for a plaintiff's attorney to come in, it is cheaper to settle than to fight it. And sometimes they'd really like to fight it because they don't believe they are guilty, but it's so costly, so they settle it."

Thomas Stockton is on the executive committee of ACA International and also the founder and chief executive of a local collection agency, CMI. (Cunningham is in the midst of an ongoing legal dispute with CMI, which picked up his outstanding Time Warner debt.)

"In my opinion there are two reasons why there are more suits being filed today," Stockton says. "You've got the Internet sites...And, it's easy to file suit. You can do it on your own. You don't have to have an attorney."

Stockton says, however, that the better question is how many of the suits are successful.
The answer depends on how you define success. Debt collectors point to all the settlements they are forced to make because it's cheaper than fighting a frivolous suit. To Cunningham and other pro se litigants, any payment is a victory.

"Does if make sense to spend $10,000 to win this suit or pay the litigant $500 to settle?" says Stockton. "Depending on the situation, it becomes a business decision at some point."

Cunningham filed his lawsuit against Credit Management, L.P. (CMI) in August 2009, claiming violations in the amount of around $200,000—by far his gutsiest lawsuit yet. The original bill for Time Warner was for $79.84 back while he was living in El Paso. Cunningham admits he may have missed the last payment for the Time Warner bill. Time Warner, rather than validate the bill, sent his account to a collection agency. That was ACS, which Cunningham sued for violating his Texas rights, as well as federal law. ACS closed his account, but the debt wasn't forgiven. Instead, CMI picked it up.

CMI started calling Cunningham's cell phone with an auto-dialer, leaving prerecorded messages to please call them immediately regarding an outstanding bill. Cunningham told them to stop calling his cell phone on the auto-dialer, but they continued, each call a violation of TCPA. As Cunningham disputed the bill, CMI by law is also expected to cease collection efforts. So every call was another violation of FDCPA. Plus, to this day, CMI has not provided Cunningham with anything from Time Warner, he says, either a bill or a letter, verifying that he in fact owes anything, another violation of the law. "I don't really know if I owe it," Cunningham says. "If I do, send me a bill. If they don't want to send me a bill, I don't think I need to pay 'em."

CMI has countersued Cunningham, and even asked the court for a protective order from Cunningham: "Plaintiff Craig Cunningham (herein "Plaintiff") has filed suit against a business, Credit Management, LP (herein "CMI"), and twenty-seven (27) of its employees in their individual capacities," reads the motion for a protective order filed in Northern District of Texas in December 2009. "Defendants move for a protective order to protect Defendants from the annoyance, oppression, undue burden and expense of objecting and responding to improper, repetitive and irrelevant discovery requests."

In December, Cunningham was called in for a six-hour deposition, the longest he's ever sat through, at which the lawyers printed out pages of his online comments to accuse him of acting like a lawyer. Plus, CMI insists that they didn't violate any laws and that Cunningham is acting in bad faith. Although the company already offered Cunningham money to settle the case, Cunningham refused, asking for much more than the "industry standard," as Cunningham calls it, of $3,500.

"If they don't pay a bunch of money, if they don't feel pain, they will not change," he says.
A big win in his case against CMI could go a long way toward clearing Cunningham's debts—if he ever chose to pay them, that is.

"I took outsize risks, and I got burned," he says. "When myself and some other fellow small investors were losing their assets, nobody cared."

Up until now, everything was about making easy money for Cunningham. Now, it's about justice—or at least what he sees as justice.

"When you or I make a mistake, they say, 'Hey, tough nuts, be smarter next time, you know, bad luck, didn't work out for ya," he says. "When the fat cats on Wall Street make a mistake, they say, 'Oh, national emergency! We've got to bail these guys out."

Since nobody has showed up to bail Cunningham out, he's decided some of the $100,000 debt he once amassed will never get paid back.

"I already paid them off," he says. "The government took my money without asking me and gave it to the banks. And since I owe the banks money, but they already got my money from the government, I say we're even."