Yechalal! ...... Awoooooooo .....Yechalal! - Amxambe

Creating a Marketing Strategy

2009-12-12T00:04:00.001-08:00

Differentiate your business in a unique way that stands out other businesses like you.

Web 2.0 Summit 09: Aneesh Chopra and Tim O'Reilly, "A Conve

2009-10-29T05:47:00.001-07:00

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

2009-10-07T21:33:00.001-07:00

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

India's Free Lunch

2009-10-07T01:32:00.001-07:00

Following a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2001, India's state governments were ordered to provide free meals for all primary school children aged 10 and under.

William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind

2009-10-01T23:21:00.001-07:00

Jacqueline Novogratz: A third way to think about aid

2009-09-25T22:50:00.001-07:00

The debate over foreign aid often pits those who mistrust "charity" against those who mistrust reliance on the markets. Jacqueline Novogratz proposes a middle way she calls patient capital, with promising examples of entrepreneurial innovation driving social change.

Do YOU believe in me?

2009-09-22T05:19:00.001-07:00

Dalton Sherman the 5thgrader keynote speaker for the Dallas Independent School Districts 2008 Back to School pep rally gave this speech in front of 20000 teachers

Nicholas Negroponte takes OLPC to Colombia

2009-08-26T06:03:00.001-07:00

Emmanuel Jal: The music of a war child

2009-08-11T11:34:00.001-07:00

Paul Romer's radical idea: Charter cities

2009-08-05T22:24:00.001-07:00

Katherine Fulton: You are the future of philanthropy

2009-06-28T04:18:00.001-07:00

Jimmy Cliff - I can see clearly now

2009-06-11T00:55:00.001-07:00

Can you believe what you see ? omg

2009-06-08T06:15:00.001-07:00

Michelle Obama's plea for education

2009-05-28T00:40:00.001-07:00

Erik Hersman: How texting helped Kenyans survive crisis

2009-04-25T10:15:00.001-07:00

At TEDU 2009, Erik Hersman presents the remarkable story of Ushahidi, a GoogleMap mashup that allowed Kenyans to report and track violence via cell phone texts following the 2008 elections, and has evolved to continue saving lives in other countries.

GLOBAL 3000 | Building knowledge - Ethiopia draws thousands of students to new universities

2009-04-10T04:04:00.001-07:00

he say education is the key to development. Ethiopia's taken this on board and has decided to build 13 universities in just four years, while modernizing its building sector.

With the slogan "Run where others walk" Ethiopia is going on an educational offensive to make its people into the country's most important resource. Once educated, Ethiopians will trigger industrialize the rest of the economy. We take a look at how this is going to work at the campus in the small town of Debre Birhan.

Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government

2009-03-28T10:47:00.001-07:00

Jacqueline Novogratz on an escape from poverty

2009-03-25T09:56:00.001-07:00

http://www.ted.com Jacqueline Novogratz tells a moving story of on an encounter in a Nairobi slum with Jane, a former prostitute. whose dreams of escaping poverty, of becoming a doctor and of getting married were fulfilled in an unexpected way.

Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures an...

2009-03-18T09:31:00.001-07:00

"Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours"

Removing half a billion people from poverty and into the productive workforce will profoundly affect on the world economy. India and China are doing just that with insane growth rates and lots of what used to be American jobs: China is the factory floor and India the back-office, software shop. China is top-down party driven. India is a messy, vibrant democracy.

This may be the complementary duo that changes the world. Including your world.

Come hear Professor Tarun Khanna in a discussion about his book, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours. Called well worth reading by The Economist and entertaining by the Financial Times, Khanna's book shows how Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs are creating change through new business models.

Speaker: Tarun Khanna
Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, where he has studied and worked with multinational and indigenous companies and investors in emerging markets worldwide. He joined the faculty in 1993, after obtaining an engineering degree from Princeton University (1988) and a Ph.D. from Harvard (1993), and an interim stint on Wall Street. During this time, he has served as the head of several courses on strategy and international business targeted to MBA students and senior executives at Harvard.

His new book, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours, was published in February 2008 by Harvard Business School Press (Penguin in South Asia), with translations into several languages underway. It focuses on the drivers of entrepreneurship in China and India and builds on over a decade of work with companies, investors and non-profits in developing countries worldwide.

His scholarly work has been published in a range of economics and management journals, several of which he also serves in an editorial capacity. Articles in the Harvard Business Review (e.g. China + India: The Power of Two, 2007; Emerging Giants: Building World Class Companies in Emerging Markets, 2006) and Foreign Policy (e.g. Can India Overtake China?, 2003) distill the implications of this research for practicing managers. His work is frequently featured in global news magazines as well as on TV and radio.

He serves on the boards and advisory boards of several companies in the financial services, automotive, life sciences and agribusiness sectors. He actively invests in and mentors startups in Asia, and volunteers time with non-profits in India, e.g. the Parliamentary Research Services in New Delhi, which seeks to provide non-partisan research input to Indias Members of Parliament in advance of legislative sessions with a view to enhancing the quality of democratic discourse.

In 2007, he was nominated to be a Young Global Leader (under 40) by the World Economic Forum.

He makes his home in Newton, MA, with his wife, daughter and son.

Idan Raichel Project - Nanu Nanu Naye...

2009-03-15T08:04:00.001-07:00

Israeli world music sensation, The Idan Raichel Project perform the sensual and evocative Ethiopian flavored

Ethiopian Telecom and Banks

2009-02-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

As an IT guy two things take my attention, Telecom and Banking system. I don't understand the banking system of Ethiopia why it's not liberalized and monopoly of Telecom also...

Ethiopian Telecommunication’s monopoly enables it to charge $35 for a mobile-phone SIM card, which is required to obtain a mobile-phone number. In neighboring Somalia and Kenya, which have private mobile services, cards cost less than $5.

A 1-megabyte per second Internet connection costs more than $2,000 a month in Ethiopia. In South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, a similar service costs between 600 rand ($59) and 760 rand, according to the http://www.mybroadband.co.za Web site.

“In Ethiopia, if there is any problem I don’t think it’s the price,” said Birru. “It’s the quality of the service. This has to be improved. And to improve this I don’t think it would be wise to privatize it.”

Ethiopia’s government is reluctant to sell the company because it is profitable and is expanding services to rural areas, Newai Gebre-Ab, Prime MinisterMeles Zenawi’s top economic adviser, said yesterday in an interview.

Cash Generator

The company is “generating a lot of money and that money is being put to good use for development of infrastructure,” Gebre- Ab said.

Birru also said the Ethiopian central bank lacks the capacity to regulate large foreign financial institutions. The country is also unsure whether foreign banks would play a positive economic role in the country. As a result, the country is unlikely to liberalize the financial-services industry.

“At this stage, given the capacity that we have in terms of managing things and supervising them at the National Bank level, I don’t see why we’d allow that,” he said.

Ethiopia’s three state-run retail banks control about two- thirds of the capital in the country’s banking industry, according to the National Bank of Ethiopia. Until last year, no bank in Ethiopia could process MasterCard transactions. Banks in the country are also reluctant to lend to businesses that cannot provide real estate as collateral.

ATM and POS Terminals for Ethiopia by Private Banks.

2009-02-23T20:11:00.000-08:00

Three private banks in Ethiopia- Awash International Bank S.C., Nib International Bank S.C and United Bank S.C. - on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding which would enable them to launch a wide-reaching ATM machine and point of sales (POS) terminals network through which customers can withdraw cash and make payments for purchases.
The agreement is said to be the first significant cooperation between competing banks in Ethiopia. Three banks have agreed in principle to establish a ATM network called Fettan. The Ethiopian based IT company, Offshoring 2.0 Technology Services PLC, is under consideration to operate and manage the Fettan ATM network.

The Fettan ATM consortium, to be formed, will develop detailed business proposals to be discussed with each bank’s board prior to final decisions on investments and service implementation. According to Berhanu Getaneh, president of United Bank, it took the banks three months to reach this agreement. “It is like a marriage. It is really a long process,” Berhanu told reporters.

If everything goes as planned, Fettan ATM will install over 140 ATM machines and over 340 POSs across Ethiopia. There will be one ATM at every branch of the consortium banks, all domestic airports serviced by commercial service, shopping complexes and merchants. The total investment is estimated at 40 million birr.

Amerga Kassa, president and board member of Nib Bank, comments, “There is no single bank in Ethiopia that can afford to provide extensive geographical coverage and access, or create the know-how to do this properly, as a result this will lead to slow acceptance of card payment system by consumers and it makes total business sense to unite.”

The banks said that other banks and micro-finance institutions are well come to join the consortium.

The Impossible Dream (Quest) Lyrics

2009-02-12T10:50:00.001-08:00

The Impossible Dream (Quest) Lyrics from the movie "MAN OF LA MANCHA" (1972)
Lyrics by JOE DARION and Music by Mitch Leigh

One of the Greatest Lyrics of alltime

BAHLAWI COMPUTER

2009-02-10T20:59:00.001-08:00

YES WE CAN!

Teen Millionaires...How Did They Do It?

2009-02-07T00:48:00.001-08:00

Do what you know. and put yourself out there.

Bill Gates: How I'm trying to change the world now

2009-02-06T06:23:00.001-08:00

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world's biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them.

Since my blog name is "Yechalal" which means the most optimist word ever... i do believe the problems of Ethiopia will be solved no matter how complicated it is and it seems.

History of the Internet

2009-01-26T23:09:00.001-08:00

I was wondering while the rest of the world was creating Inter-net what were we doing in Ethiopia?.....

Believe. Begin. Become. - Tanzania

2009-01-22T23:46:00.000-08:00

Google Foundation to support competition designed to help small and medium businesses thrive and expand to create jobs, revenue and wealth

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, - September 10, 2008 — Today, TechnoServe, in partnership with the University of Dar es Salaam’s Entrepreneurship Center (UDEC), and Business in Development Foundation Network (BiDNF) are pleased to announce the launch of the 2008 Believe Begin Become (BBB), Tanzania’s National Business Plan Competition. Now in its second year, the competition, with core funding from Google.org, engages Tanzania’s high-potential entrepreneurs to grow sustainable businesses that increase employment, incomes and ultimately, wealth.

This year, the business plan competition will provide more than $530,000 (Tsh. 620 million) in seed capital and business support services awards. Additional prize awards from local partners in Tanzania will also be committed by Tanzanian partners. To date, Barclays Bank Plc, Tanzania Gatsby Trust, Azania Bank Limited, Tanzania Investment Center, Tanga Cement and Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange have already made commitments to supporting the 2008 Believe Begin Become competition.

Believe Begin Become (http://www.believe-begin-become.com) promotes the growth and evolution of self-sustaining businesses by identifying Tanzanian entrepreneurs that have a strong desire to grow their businesses. The programme begins by facilitating skill building through training, mentoring and technical assistance. Qualifying entrepreneurs receive intensive business training, personal coaching and one-on-one consulting with industry experts to further refine business plans and create finance-ready businesses.

Last year, TechnoServe and UDEC launched business plan competitions targeting entrepreneurs with high potential business ideas. Both competitions received more than 1,000 applications from all regions of Tanzania. Through the use of private sector judges, mentors and consultants, these applications and concepts were screened, evaluated and graded to select the most promising enterprises. With judges’ feedback gained from business plan reviews, revisions and re-submissions, a combined total of 30 finalists – with businesses ranging from carbon emission trading to dairy processing to the production of honey wine – were selected as top winners in the competitions. A total of USD $380,000 in seed capital and business development vouchers was awarded to the finalists.

“The Believe Begin Become competition helped identify and refine my business potential,” said Selemani Kinyunyu, founder, Offset East Africa and a 2007 business plan competition winner and finalist. “The BBB training was invaluable and provided the tools, networks and the ongoing support that entrepreneurs need to be successful. Ultimately, Believe Begin Become helped me and the other programme participants shape our businesses for growth and ongoing success.”

Building on the success and lessons learned from last year’s competitions, TechnoServe and UDEC developed a joint partnership to implement a single business plan competition in 2008 under the Believe Begin Become brand. The 2008 Believe Begin Become business plan competition will provide both online (through Business in Development Network Foundation’s platform) and offline application (through direct mail to TechnoServe) options and will see many more Tanzanian entrepreneurs benefit with the skills, knowledge and resources to help them grow thriving businesses.

“This year, our objective is to further populate the pipeline with high performing entrepreneurs,” said Atiba Amalile, Believe Begin Become Programme Manager. “We encourage high-potential entrepreneurs to apply to the competition in order to help grow their businesses. Through Believe Begin Become, we will provide finalists access to the support and tools necessary to turn their businesses into self-sustaining, community-enhancing and profitable enterprises.”

The success of Believe Begin Become will foster exponential growth of the small to medium business ecosystem in Tanzania and create a rich web of private sector business providers to facilitate ongoing business development services. Finalists also have the opportunity to continue acquiring business knowledge through seminars, conferences and alumni events even after the competitions comes to a close.

“Believe Begin Become is unique in that we directly enable the development of a number of skilled entrepreneurs and link finance-ready businesses with financiers to realize expansion and growth plans,” said TechnoServe Tanzania’s Country Director Hillary Miller-Wise. “This year’s competition will continue to identify, develop and grow Tanzanian-owned businesses and connect them with a broader network of financial institutions, government institutions, international donors and civil society institutions. Through this network, it is hoped that the competition will build momentum and a renewed energy for business development in Tanzania and spur governments to build enabling environments focused on the needs of emerging entrepreneurs.”

TechnoServe and UDEC will accept applications for the 2008 Believe Begin Become national business plan competition from Sept. 10 to Oct. 17. Entrepreneurs from all regions in Tanzania are encouraged to apply! Additional information and an application guide can be found at http://www.believe-begin-become.com/tanzania ###

Robert Kiyosaki - Live

2009-01-22T05:06:00.001-08:00

3G mobile phone service is available now in Ethiopia.

2009-01-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

WCDMA-3G mobile phone service is available now!
The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation is pleased to announce to its customers
that it has launched the provision of the state of the art prepaid WCDMA 3G mobile phone
service in Addis Ababa.
To get access to 3G WCDMA service a customer is required to buy a 3G WCDMA
mobile apparatus and WCDMA SIM card.
In addition to providing regular mobile phone services the 3G -WCDMA mobile
technology enables customers to:
• make video telephony or video call in areas within a network coverage.
• get email services as well as download picture, music, video and similar data by
browsing the internet.
• use a wider range of value added services.
The Corporation will launch Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and Voice Mail
Service (VMS) shortly.
The WCDMA network bandwidth supports bi-directional peak data rates from 144Kbs
up to 384 kbps.
Currently the 3G- WCDMA mobile network coverage is limited to fortynine areas of
Addis Ababa.
For internet access customers are required to configure their mobile apparatus’ access
point name to “etc.com”.
Customers can get access to the 3G- WCDMA service in the Corporation’s sales centers
as well as mega dealers.
For further information please visit the Corporation’s website!
Network coverage areas of the WCDMA-3G mobile phone service
The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation has launched the provision of the state
of the art prepaid WCDMA-3G mobile phone service in most parts of Addis Ababa.
The WCDMA-3G network coverage areas of Addis Ababa are listed as follows:
BOLE, BOLE AIR PORT AREA, DABI BUILDING (SAY PASTRY AREA), BOLE
MICHAEL OLOMPIA, FLAMINGO, 5TH POLICE STATION, MESEKEL SQUARE,
RAILWAY STATION AREA, ALTA BUILDING (MEXICO AREA), AWRARIS
HOTEL, MINISTRY OF WATER RESOURCE, NYALA MOTOR AREA,FILWHA,ETC
HEAD OFFICE AREA, BLACK LION HOSPITAL AREA, YEKA, BEL AIR HOTEL
AREA, KEBENA, ARAT KILO, MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, COCA
MAZORIA AND ABNET AREA, RAS AMBA HOTEL AREA, GARAD BUILDING
AREA, TEKLE HAYMANOT LEYLA BUILDING AREA, CHIDTERA, MERKATO,
AMANUEL CHURCH AREA, ARADA, ENQULAL FABRICA OR RAS DESTA, ERI
BEKENTU, KELIFA BUILDING AREA, GOJAM BERENDA,ADDIS KETEMA,
MOTERA HOTEL AREA, MEDHANEALEM SCHOOL AREA,ENTOTO SCHOOL
AREA, GOTERA, GOFA, KALITI NILE INSURANCE AREA, ETC TRAINING
CENTER AREA, TESHALE GARAGE AREA, LAFTO HANA MARIAM, RAS BIRU
AREA, AFIRCAN UNION AREA,SARBET,ALEM BANK AREA.
In areas with no WCDMA network coverage and video call services, customers can use
regular voice call mobile services.
For further information please visit the Corporation’s website!
Service charge of WCDMA 3G service
The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation has launched the provision of the state
of the art prepaid WCDMA-3G mobile phone service in most parts of Addis Ababa.
The 3G -WCDMA mobile network enables customers to get access to video telephony or
video call service, internet service and wider ranges of value added services in addition to regular
mobile services.
WCDMA-3G Voice & Video Call tariff
WCDMA-3G mobile internet service charge
Service Type Mode of service charge (Birr per Kilo
byte)
Mobile internet 0.01
• 15 % VAT will be added to all service charges.
• For further information please visit ETC’s website!
http://www.ethionet..et
Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation
Mode of service charge (Birr per minute)
Local call International call
Service Type Regular or
Peak hour
tariff
Off-Peak hour
tariff Djibouti Rest of the world
Voice call 0.72 0.30 7.72 10.72
Video call 2.70 2.70 28.95 32.16

The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor: What Fusion Wanted To Be

2008-12-16T05:12:00.001-08:00

BarCamp Africa at Google - Part 1 of 28

2008-10-30T01:54:00.001-07:00

BarCamp Africa 2008 was held at the Google Campus in Mountain View on October 11, 2008 as a way to bring people interested in Africa, on a variety of levels and topics, together in one place for a day of exploration, connection and enjoyment.

Google and HSBC for Africa!

2008-09-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Kate Holton and Niclas Mika
Tue Sep 9, 9:50 AM ET

LONDON/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Google and Europe's biggest bank HSBC have thrown their weight behind a plan to provide cheap, high-speed Web access via satellite to millions in Africa and other emerging markets.
Google has joined forces with the bank and cable operator Liberty Global to back a group called O3b Networks, which stands for the "other 3 billion" people who do not have access.

It will provide high-speed backhaul for telecoms operators and Internet providers, which can then sell services to businesses and consumers.

South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel welcomed the project when speaking at a conference in Germany.

"The information gap is very real and clearly whatever we can do to close it must be encouraged," Manuel told a news conference in Berlin on the U.N.-backed Millennium development goals.

"Any initiative that can leapfrog over traditional means of getting information to people must be encouraged. Information is power and it supports democracy and it supports decision-making."

O3b networks said in a statement the satellites would be constructed by Thales Alenia Space and should be operational by the end of 2010.

The company's founder, Greg Wyler, told Reuters coverage would reach from Spain to South Africa, include most of South America, large parts of Asia and all South Pacific Islands.

The project intends to offer fiber performance over satellite to parts of the world where it is not commercially viable or practical to deploy a fiber network.

Because its satellites orbit earth at lower altitudes than those used to beam TV signals to homes, they work better for Internet access where latency -- the amount of time it takes for bits of information to travel from source to destination -- is an issue, Wyler said.

The project is expected to cost $650 million until the launch, he said. Initial equity of $65 million has been raised, but the final mix of debt and equity has not been set.

In some parts of the world, the company will compete with fiber-optic cables currently under construction -- for instance, over a dozen cables have been announced connecting Africa to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

"There's some fiber in place on the coast of Africa, there are pieces of fiber around, and this is meant to compliment those pieces," Wyler said.

"We have the ability to offer pricing that is lower than what is being offered today. We have the ability to bring that to everywhere."

The group is also hoping that Internet access will prove as popular as mobile phone services have in recent years.

"The global bet is: will the GDP and the growth and demand in all of the emerging markets grow?," he said. "If the answer is yes, maybe not in some countries but certainly in others, then it's a good bet."

Richard Hurst, a telecoms analyst at global advisory firm IDC, said that, on paper, the project should be a good initiative.

But he warned that the potentially limited capacity for satellite spectrum in Africa means there would still be a need for some fiber optic cables to help boost capacity.

Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web

2008-08-15T19:23:00.001-07:00

CTP technology for Berhanena Selam press

2008-08-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

CTP technology, of which Berhanena Selam is finalizing preparations to implement, will enable customers to have their publications delivered in digital format as the technology allows transferring digital data directly onto printing plates. “Basically what CTP does is that it eliminates the need for film and chemical proofs by utilizing PDF files, “explains one IT expert. According to this expert what the enterprise currently does is that it takes pictures of the A3 [in the case of newspapers] or other formats and then the films of the pictures will be stripped in desired size and formats to make plates that are the final products to the printing machine. “The CTP technology avoids all the pre-plate making process as all of the papers [in digital from] will be directly used to make plates, saving costs and the time pre plate making requires,” the expert explains.
Berhanena Selam announced news of CTP technology when it hosted its annual Customers’ and Employees’ Day Saturday, August 2, 2008 at its premises.
The introduction of CTP is expected to ease the printing congestion experienced the Ethiopian press, which mostly utilises Berhanena Selam.

Commenting on the soon introduction of CTP, Capital’s printing officer, Sintayehu Tesfaye, said that the technology will save more than three hours, which is usually required for the average size of Capital under the traditional production of chemical proofs, film stripping and exposing film to plates. “It is not only the three hours time we will save but while filming the paper, we usually encounter problems. For instance when the picture resolution is good it diminishes the quality of the text and sometimes the reverse happens. Now we can bring all of our pages on a single CD and plates will be made with that,” Sintayehu added.
According to an expert, CTP does not only reduce steps from the production cycle and outputs directly to plate but it does so with improved quality in less time if accompanied with the precision and accuracy of the plates and the printers. Digital Precision [plate-setter component of CTP] will also help to eliminate potential human error during the film stripping process.

Founded in 1921, Berhanena Selam Printing Enterprise is a commercial company that prints almost all of the Ethiopian press. To reach to the market early, some of the papers are now forced to go to print 48 hours before their due day. This is expected to improve once Berhanena Selam implements CTP.

Courtesy of www.capitalethiopia.com

Dr. Eleni Gbre Medhin -

2008-07-15T02:09:00.001-07:00

OLPC in Ethiopia

2008-07-05T10:59:00.001-07:00

Nicholas Negroponte: One Laptop per Child, OLPC Ethiopia!

2008-06-30T02:32:00.001-07:00

The One Laptop per Child Foundation is a nonprofit founded by Professor Nicholas Negroponte of MIT and Chairman Emeritus of the MIT Media Lab. OLPC is an amazing organization which strives to put one laptop in the hands of every primary school student in the world.

Currently in Ethiopia they have a pilot program which is designed to see how effective the XO laptops are in Ethiopia and if they should be rolled out en masse.

A successful program of OLPC is the "Give 1 Get 1" (G1G1) program where people were able to purchase a XO laptop from OLPC and another one would be sent to a child who needs it. Folks who participated in G1G1 also had the option of saying "hey, just send my laptop to the kids as well."

Nicholas has used Amharic keyboard for his demo to wow me..... it was really cool thing to hear my mother toung got a developed keyboard!

My hope is on next Gen.......

Watch Oprah's Best Advice to Stanford Graduates

2008-06-19T07:09:00.001-07:00

I believe the same message needs to be told to our University and College students in Ethiopia.

Pimp my car Show -TAD- Ethiopian flag Range Rover!

2008-06-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

Pimp My Ride - Season 4 - Tad s Range Rover - Pimp My Ride - Ethiopian Flag

http://www.spike.com/episode/16272/st/2775595

Duality of Life - US vs Ethiopia!

2008-06-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

We all admit that we are living in a world of duality. There is black there is white. There is High there is low, there is NO there is YES, there is rich there is poor.... there are successful there are loosers.... Life has it all from all diffrent kinds of Backgrounds. Today Friday I was @ friends place for un-occasional visit, while I was just fussing around the WWW thing the TV was brodcasting some sort of Hindu Astrologers stuff... I was not giving it my ear even my friend either.... All of a sudden Rosa changed the channel to VH1... then some US hip-hop looking guys appear on screen......Even till now i didn't gave 'em a damn untill they show something which looks like a falg of my birth country.
I saw them doing some sort of wierd stuff, i didn't understand any of the things. I was still focusing on Laptop that was on my lap.....Then suddenly they start calling a name of my country. Ethiopia again and again.
After all who'd resist the temptation of not paying attention to what they say about your country.... i GAVE 'EM MA ATTENTION.

http://www.spike.com/episode/16272/st/2775595
that is wat i found.

a guy called TAD in US had a makeover for his car on Pimp my Car show.

the car was really cool, I hope he paid hell amount of money. If HE think driving that car in Street of Addis it might be kind of paradox, why because people are suffring from famine and hunger....and HE owned the sexiest car in country.

Wather we like it or not we live with dual things in life...Poor and rich, left and right, darkness and light.....
http://www.spike.com/episode/16272/st/2775595

Climbing A mountain of Life

2008-06-06T03:50:00.001-07:00

"you reach the top. Then you will see how low it was."
-- Dag Hammarskjöld

"Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point."
-- Harold V Melchert

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."
-- Sir Edmund Hillary

"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
-- Chinese proverb

"Champions know there are no shortcuts to the top. They climb the mountain one step at a time."
-- Judi Adler

"You cannot climb a mountain if you will not risk a fall."
-- ©Rick Beneteau

"When faced with a mountain, I will not quit! I will keep striving until I climb over, find a pass through, tunnel underneath or simply stay and turn the mountain into a gold mine, with God's help."
-- Dr. Robert Schuller

"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering."
-- Saint Augustine

"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow."
-- Friedrich

Here by I'm speaking of my prophecy of FLP comming to Ethiopa. No matter it may seem Ras Dashen now it will be climed after a while.... one step at a time....

Thank you God!

amxambe.com Emmauel Amberber

2008-06-05T06:23:00.001-07:00

Ernest Madu: Bringing world-class health care to the poorest

2008-04-22T03:18:00.001-07:00

Dr. Ernest Madu runs the Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica, where he proves that -- with careful design, smart technical choices, and a true desire to serve -- it's possible to offer world-class healthcare in the developing world. Listen for some eye-opening statistics on heart disease, which is as ruthless a killer in poorer nations as in richer ones.

In Ethiopia also we've a long way to go! we seems far behind....of course we are!
But we can't afford any more staying behind. Now is the time to use technology and rise up. Technology is a good equalizer. Ethiopia has a lot of graduates of IT. It's my dream we use them to fill the gap.

ABC News story on Professor Muhammad Yunus

2008-04-20T03:46:00.001-07:00

We've poor people all around in our country. This kind of micro credit ideas are now world wide phnomena. Let's use it to reach our poor country men and women.

Paul sings Nessun Dorma high quality....

2008-04-15T10:22:00.001-07:00

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing-that's why we recommend it daily..... This is highly motivating video. Gotta see it again and again.

Do you have a dream that seems very impossible.... don't be afraid go, give it a shoot....

Telemedicine in Ethiopia and India

2008-04-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Troubled by a difficult case, doctor Asfaw Atnafu decides to seek advice.

He walks into a consulting room at Black Lion Hospital in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa and greets a doctor at the Care Hospital in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

Linked by a high-speed Internet connection, the doctors study X-rays and laboratory results.

Flipping between charts, they use light pens to point out important features. They can see each other in windows on their screens, while medical charts fill the rest of the display.

India launched this "telemedicine" project in Ethiopia last July at a cost of $2.13 million. The project links hospitals in Ethiopia with the Hyderabad-based Care Group of Hospitals, India's leading cardiac institute.

The scheme is part of the pan-African e-network, a 5.42 billion-rupee ($135.6-million) joint initiative between the African Union and India which was launched in Ethiopia last year to improve Internet links and communication.

India is likely to highlight its prowess in information communication technology (ICT) as a way of strengthening ties at summit of African heads of state in New Delhi on April 8 and 9 -- the first meeting of its kind.

"By using telemedicine, a country like Ethiopia, a Third World country with a problem with funding and manpower, can benefit greatly," radiologist Asfaw said.

There is just one doctor for every 37,000 people in Ethiopia -- sub-Saharan Africa's second most populous country and a land where vast distances separate rural communities.

"Rural parts of the country are devoid of medical care. This technology has already helped, but its scope is immense," said Asfaw.

Under the scheme, the Black Lion, Ethiopia's only teaching hospital, has also been linked to the remote Nekempte Hospital, 300 km (185 miles) west of Addis Ababa.

"We want Africans to share expertise with each other and for areas with few doctors to be linked to hospitals in cities so doctors there can fill the gap," said Ratan Singh, project director for the Indian government agency responsible for implementing the technology and training Ethiopians to use it.

Ethiopia's health problems are mirrored across Africa where doctors and nurses are often overworked and underpaid, villagers have to walk miles to the nearest clinic and drugs and treatment are often beyond the means of ordinary people.

Aggravating these problems, rich countries are poaching so many African health workers that a team of international disease experts recently said the practice should be viewed as a crime.

CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY

The Indian project aims to ease some of these burdens but it also dovetails with the country's drive to deepen its links with resource-rich Africa to secure energy supplies and markets.

With ambitious plans to connect Africa's 53 countries using satellites and fiber-optic links with each other and with India, India hopes TO sell more telecoms equipment and services to Africa's fledgling ICT markets before rival China steps in.

Since the one-year pilot project began in Ethiopia, doctors at the Black Lion hospital have used the link more than 50 times to discuss cases with Indian doctors, Asfaw said.

The Care Group is also in talks to extend the telemedicine program to Nigeria and Libya.

Indian officials estimate that 100 patients in Africa have benefited from the pan-African e-network which is plugged in to 12 specialist hospitals in India.

The Ethiopian project uses fiber-optic technology and a satellite hub is being built in Senegal, to be used once the pilot ends.

"Indian doctors have been very excited by this development," said India's ambassador to Ethiopia, Gurjit Singh. "They see it as providing the cutting edge of Indian healthcare and education at low-cost to Africans."

India plans to fund the projects and train Africans for five years before handing the scheme over to African countries.

LONG-TERM TIES

At the Black Lion, patients throng the corridors and rooms, the lucky ones sitting on wooden benches while others lean against the peeling walls and some lie on the floor.

Cocooned from the chaos, the four rooms housing the Indian-funded telemedicine equipment are an oasis of calm.

Computer servers whirr in a corner as Indian technicians ensure things work smoothly and chat to colleagues back home.

Hyderabad's Care Hospital has also trained 12 Tanzanian surgeons, nurses and technicians in the past year, and treated children suffering congenital heart problems free of charge.

"Our doctors will go there (to Tanzania) and make the local surgeons conduct surgeries in their presence. This will boost their morale," L. V. Rajendra Kumar, who heads business development for the Care Group of Hospitals, told Reuters.

Ambassador Singh said India's involvement in these projects was separate from its attempts to capture a share of the continent's resources.

"We are the beneficiaries of a relationship between Africa and India that is based on long-term historical friendship," he said. "Colonization is a one-way street but I think the India-Africa relationship is most clearly two-way."

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) was launched officially

2008-04-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) was launched officially on April 4, 2008 in the presence of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. A national forum on ECX was held from April 4-5, 2008 at the UNECA’s Africa Hall.

The forum discussed the environment in which the ECX will operate, including the role of the newly established regulatory body, the roles and vision of the exchange market actors and the national exchange actors association that is being formed.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on his opening remarks at the ceremony that a commodity exchange system enables and customers to be confident in quality, price and delivery and payment of commodity and he added that the system will bring about transparency, efficiency in market, quality in production, and enhance productivity.

“The purpose of this national forum over the next two days is to bring together all stakeholders producers, cooperatives, domestic traders, exporters, processors, industrial buyers, financial sector, transport sector, insurance sector, information and communication technology sector, policymakers, donors, NGOs, academics, and others- in order to present and discuss the design and operational systems of the Exchange,” Dr. Eleni Zewde Gebremedhine, CEO of ECX, said on her speech.

Eleni added that, the goal is that all may understand as well as possible how the ECX will work. “This involves understanding first of all the vision and objectives of the ECX and from there, the design of the ECX model, the operations of the various components of our system and also introduce the management team of our new company.

ECX currently uses the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and Dashin Bank for its banking system and it has started the exchange with maize, wheat, haricot bean and sesame grains, but will include teff and coffee, and has prepared warehouses in Addis Ababa, Bure, Humera, Nazreth, Nekemte and Shashemene, referred to be the main centers of the market, but has plans to increase the centers to ten.

ECX has been established to revolutionize Ethiopia’s tradition bound agriculture through creating a new marketplace that serves all market actors – farmers, traders, processors, exporters and consumers.

The Secret: for this Generation.

2008-04-02T03:07:00.001-07:00

The secret to be successful..... is geting the answer of secret!
law of attraction.

That is the only secret to achive what ever you want in life. No matter what...!

Lets achive whatever we want to achive....

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

2008-03-03T03:52:00.001-08:00

Land of.......

Hyderabadi Biryani

2008-03-03T02:25:00.001-08:00

Hyderabad International Airport

2008-03-03T02:02:00.001-08:00

OLPC David Pogue NewYork Times

2008-02-29T16:45:00.001-08:00

worth watching!

One Laptop Per Child - Ethiopia

2008-02-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

This Generation(i mean the new one) needs a lot to cope up with the ever changing technology and world as well....this is one way to address the problem. I'm greatful for this project or Concept. This is cool thing for the kids, they'll start enjoying it then who knows most of them they'll end up like those Computer savvy geeks in US and India. Then Guess what? .....They'll change the history of Country by taking IT to the next level.

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative is a revolutionary approach to education in developing countries. Providing children with the cheap and robust XO laptop means providing them with a unique opportunity to learn, discover, and express themselves.

This learning tool will change education around the world. Developed in the legendary Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), OLPC is now being brought to Ethiopia through ecbp. See this documentary about the first steps of the program in Ethiopia and witness how a vision becomes reality.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has confirmed (last November) his commitment of giving 50,000 laptops to Ethiopia. The importance of the funding is its exemplary nature - it is model for other European countries and the EU itself to follow.

Nicholas Negroponte has recently said in an Interview that a Give 1 Get 1 program for Italians to donate more laptops to Ethiopia was under consideration to be launched very soon. Perhaps the program could even provide a second donated laptop by the Italian government as a donation matching incitement. So for perhaps 300€, Italians will give 1 to Ethiopia, the government will match the donation with another to Ethiopia and 1 laptop will come to the Italian person who donated. The exact way the donations are considered in Italy has not been detailed but this is how I expect it could happen.

For more info on OLPC project go to ecbp.biz site down here:- http://www.ecbp.biz/metanav/media/newspage.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=28&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=45&cHash=72e7af4110
Don't forget watchin' the video show on OLPC-Ethiopia.

Yes, yechalal! We can do it!

Robin Chase: Getting cars off the road and data into the sk

2008-02-29T13:59:00.001-08:00

This is somthing Ethiopia needs now to solve Transportation problem by using HiTech stuff..... Hey guys wake up this young generation must have a lot to give to nexGen. By using our IT fresh-graduates to play with Software, Mesh Networks, and Anbessa bus and Minibuses, to take them go HiTech!
Here Robin Chase rose to fame by founding Zipcar, the world's biggest car-sharing business, but that was one of her smaller ideas. In this presentation she travels much farther, contemplating road-pricing schemes that will shake up our driving habits and a no-fee mesh network as sprawling as the United States Interstate highway system. But how could you build a free wireless system that vast and pervasive? Chase finds the answer in a few short lines from The Graduate. And it has nothing to do with plastic.

Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, In Its Battle on Hunger - Wall Street Journal

2008-02-29T00:35:00.000-08:00

MOJO, Ethiopia -- This country has some of Africa's most fertile land, with fields of wheat and corn stretching to the horizon. Yet a few years ago, 14 million Ethiopians stood at the brink of starvation, saved only by vast international aid.

Now Ethiopia has hopes of breaking its deadly cycle of famine. Not with a Green Revolution, but with a market revolution.

The means is the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, which is expected to open next month in the capital, Addis Ababa. The dawn of modern trading here comes 160 years after the Chicago Board of Trade transformed American agriculture ...

Ethiopia - FAQs answered about Nokia Ethiopic Phone

2008-01-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

Ethiopia - FAQs answered about Nokia Ethiopic Phone

As the person within Nokia responsible for Ethiopia, I have been monitoring your user's comments closely and wanted to let you know that we appreciate their feedback. Based on what I have read, I would like to provide some clarification on some of their comments:

1) Why are the 'Ethiopic' mobile devices only in Amharic?

As Ethiopia entered the new Millennium, Nokia introduced five 'Ethiopic' mobile devices which are the 1200, 1208, 1650, 2630 & 2760 with more to come in the future.The 'user interface' and the 'user manual' on the current 'Ethiopic' mobile devices are in Amharic and English. Amharic was obviously selected as it is the national language. Users will however be able to save contacts, send/ receive text messages in any Ethiopian language that uses the 'Ethiopic' or 'Latin' characters. Lastly, depending on demand and feedback from our customers, we will also evaluate whether to add the 'Ethiopic' characters to additional mobile devices within our portfolio and whether to add additional Ethiopian languages to these mobile devices.

2) Why does the 'Ethiopic' mobile device use 'meret' vs. 'mereche' or 'yemritu'?

There were several factors that led to this during the translation process (one being limited space) and it is something we're trying to improve on subsequent 'Ethiopic' mobile devices.

3) Do these 'Ethiopic' mobile devices work outside of Ethiopia?

These current 'Ethiopic' mobile devices are GSM and are made for the Ethiopian market which uses the 900/1800Mhz frequency band. For example, if an Ethiopian were to roam in other countries that use 900/1800Mhz (which is most of the world except the US and a few other countries), the user would be able to use these mobile devices. For text messaging to work, the operator would need to support the UCS-2 feature in their messaging center which basically would recognize characters other than Latin characters. This is something we continue to test, however, based on our experience, it appears that many operators around the world support this feature for transmission of Chinese, Indian, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic characters, among others.

4) How does 'texting' work?

Nokia has worked closely with the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) which has ensured that the messaging center supports the UCS-2 feature. Therefore Ethiopians with these mobile devices can send each other text messages in any Ethiopian language using 'Ethiopic' characters. One can also continue to use 'Latin' letters with these mobile devices.

5) Why is Nokia launching these 'Ethiopic' mobile devices now?

Based on our research, 'localization' is extremely important to users and therefore Nokia embarked on a multi-year project to develop these 'Ethiopic' mobile devices. This initiative required that we develop a solution whereby all the 'Ethiopic' characters and numerals are accessible on a keypad of a standard mobile device. That was the challenge which has been overcome. All the various forms of the 'Ethiopic' characters are accessible on the mobile device. In terms of the timing, we were very happy to launch this during the Ethiopian Millennium which is also the same time that ETC re-launched the text messaging service and started expanding the mobile network.

6) What are the other benefits for consumers in Ethiopia?

The main benefit to consumers is that they'll be able to utilize all the features of their mobile devices which is not always the case, especially for those Ethiopians who are not fluent in the English language. Consumers would also be able to communicate via text message using their own language. Lastly, Nokia provides a '13 month' warranty in Ethiopia (based on the Ethiopian calendar: 365 days) for consumers who purchase these mobile devices from our official distributor and its retailers in Ethiopia.

Thanks.
Levi Girma

Little Candle

2007-11-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

It is better to light just one little candle
Than to stumble in the dark.
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need is a tiny spark.
If we'd all say a prayer that the world would be free,
A wonderful dawn of a new day we'd see...
And if everyone lit just one little candle,
What a bright world this would be.

When the day is dark and dreary
And we know not where to go;
Don't let your heart go weary,
Just keep this thought in mind...

It is better to light just one little candle
Than to stumble in the dark.
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need is a tiny spark.
If we'd all say a prayer that the world would be free,
A wonderful dawn of a new day we'd see...
And if everyone lit just one little candle,
What a bright world this would be.

unknowen

Eleni @ TED conference

2007-11-23T23:58:00.001-08:00

She is talking about her brain Child ECEX.... aint it nice thing to hear? Long live for us to see Developed Ethiopia, Poverty free Also!
guys put ur comment about what is your reaction to this vedio.

21th Century hero of Ethiopia!

ኢትዮጵያ ECEX and it's Mother Dr Eleni

2007-11-23T22:43:00.000-08:00

ኢትዮጵያ

Dr Eleni of ECEX

It is difficult to explain the continued increase in price levels from 2003 to the present, when Ethiopia has had three consecutive years of good to above average harvests, according to official statistics.

Three researchers from IFPRI-EDRI Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP) said recently that at present, in early 2006, it is especially puzzling why prices have reached peak levels, despite the predicted bumper crop, with an estimated increase over last year's production by 16 to 24 percent.

The researchers, Dr. Eleni Zewde Gebre-Medhin, Kindie Getnet and Senishaw Tamiru, who produced an overview of patterns and trends in the Ethiopian grain market, said that a quick overview of different grain prices across terminal and regional markets revealed another puzzle. Addis Ababa is normally considered the central market for the country, and is supplied by regional markets in surplus areas, and in turn supplies terminal markets in deficit areas, such as Mekelle and Dire Dawa.

However, they said, in December 2005 prices were higher in some of the supply markets such as Debre Zeit than they were in Addis Ababa. This, they indicated, suggested that trade flows may have changed from traditional channels recently, from Debre Zeit to other markets, including potentially export markets, instead of Addis Ababa.

The current high grain prices are not only a result of the price increases over last year's levels but the preceding year's increase as well, according to them. Thus, while wheat prices have gone up by 30 percent over December 2005 levels, this is combined with last year's increase of 18 percent. Similarly, maize increased by 40 percent last year, which is combined with a more modest increase this year. These cumulative increases are therefore resulting in current prices that are significantly above the trend prices.

Regarding the rapid appraisal of the current market situation, the researchers said that given the current price puzzle, a number of possibilities emerge as possible explanations. On the supply side, there is the possibility of a decline in supply, while on the demand side, a demand surge could have occurred. A third possibility is that of market manipulation by different actors: cooperatives, traders, or others. Given the importance of grain in the consumer food basket, possible intervention may be necessary.

To this end, a team from the ESSP undertook a modest rapid market appraisal in six markets, selected to represent the wheat, teff, and maize growing areas as well as two major terminal markets in January 2006. The objective of the appraisal was to collect firsthand information from different informants (farmers, consumers and grain traders), with the objective of identifying the most likely explanations for the price hike.

In most of the cases, farmers around Nazareth (Adama) as well as Nekempte attributed the observed grain price hike to a supply shortfall, which, in turn, is believed to be a result of lack of rainfall during the flowering stage and bad weather (frost) during the maturity stage of this year's crop production. All the farmers contacted during the appraisal mentioned that their crop yield had shown significant reduction this year. The farmers mentioned that they were getting good prices currently for their crops although they feared that their total income from crop sales would be limited due to the limited marketable surplus that they had as a whole.

The views of private grain traders show that under normal circumstances, traders perform temporal arbitrage by storing grains during the harvest period when prices are low and selling grains during the lean season when prices are high, provided that the cost of storage is low enough to enable them to gain some profit. However, grain traders interviewed in the rapid appraisal stated that they were neither buying grain in significant amounts nor storing grains this time as prices were very high and prohibitive. This is in direct contradiction to the views expressed by consumers, who believe that traders are hoarding grain. Traders also hold the view that prices will remain high for the rest of the year and emphasize the importance of three factors as possible explanations for the current price hike.

The researchers, in their policy options to the current situation, demanded that short-term options involve a combination of measures that might address both the underliying market fundamentals as well as market expectations. These options involve, with varying emphasis, such as public announcement and release of grain stocks held by cooperative unions; release of stocks held in the emergency food grain reserve and by the Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise; measures to discourage grain exports; and consideration of increasing share of in-kind transfers in the safety nets program.

However, they said, the short-to-medium term critical challenge was to address the market intelligence gap, and more profoundly, to build the appropriate market institutions to manage market risk through a better coordinated marketing system, a more transparent price discovery mechanism, and open bidding of both domestic and export demand and supply.

By Melaku Demissie

yeBole and Arada sefer Lejoch diffrence

2007-11-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

Top Ten Differences Between People from Bole and Arada…

10. Bole names: Mimi, Kiki, Chuchu, Tati, Nani

Arada names: (more descriptive): Aschalew, Agonafir, Wederyelesh, Andargachew, Yewibdar, Shibabaw

(Ye Bole Lij ke L.A.)

9. An Arada boy can take a girl on a date even if he has only 35 santim be-kissu.

(Sammy Debebe)

8. An Aradan approaches business like lovemaking. In Bole, lovemaking is approached like business.

7. This particular Top Ten is much ado about nothing—an Aradan would know that.

(Yilkal Abate Kassa, London)

6. Arada parents teach love to their children; Bole parents make love to Arada children.

(Ariwos)

5. When in jail for not attending Derg meetings, Bole kids wanted the guard to help them set a campfire "just like at Sodere". Arada kids suggested that a Bole kid be used as the starting log.

(Z. G, San Francisco)

4. BolewoCH know the exact dimensions of the back seat of a Volkswagen Beetle. Most of us Aradoch know how much weight you can balance on a listro berCHuma.

(AkalaCH Zebene, in Arada)

3. When you say to y'arada lijoch 'tadiass!', they reply, 'allenna!',

when you say it to ye Bole lijoch you get "Huh? What...? Huh?

Ican't hear you... a 767 just about scraped our foq bet...!"

2. Ye Bole lijoch leave Addis via Bole... y'arada lijoch, via Tolle...

(SELEDA Editor, ke Ammanuel Hospital.)

and the number one difference between Bole and Arada people…

1. Ye Bole lijoch sell their mothers’ watches in Arada; ye Arada lijoch sell the mothers of ye Bole lidjoch.

(Eskindir

FreeConversations- My Dream to Ethiopia

2007-11-20T04:07:00.000-08:00

I want to respectfully invite us all to have great conversations. Conversations that are powerful and life-giving. Conversations that stimulate our brains, warm our hearts and point to endless possibilities and opportunities. As we interact through language and words, we shape our culture through our conservations.

We can have conversations that entrench our assumptions and trap us in a deficit mode which in turn reinforce our culture of acrimony, adversity and polarity. Or, we can have conversations that give life, that value different perspectives and promote norms of tolerance and mutual understanding.

I want to invite us to move away from argumentative conversations that aim at scoring points or imposing one's will on others. I would like to see us shift towards conversations that invite opinions and appreciate differences as sources of energy and dynamism.

When we engage in conversations, I want us to think of the words and ideas in terms of giving and receiving gifts. Often, when we receive a gift wrapped in a box, we are excited and eager to unwrap and unpack the box and marvel at its content. Conversely, we take pains to pick the best gift item that the intended recipient of our offer would most appreciate.

What will be different if we display the same concern and carefully choose the words we employ in our conversation and take the time to unpack what others are saying to us and listen to their words in the way that they would like to be heard?

The result, I think, would be that we will have a great conversation. I think we would move away from the "I win; you lose!" state of mind to a 'both-gain' scenario. This will allow us to engage with one another with curiosity and foster in us a willingness to listen to those that hold different views, opinions and ideas.

Listening to those with different perspective does not always mean we have to agree with them or endorse their perspective. It only means that if we happen to disagree with them it would be in a way that does not silence or stamp a label on them. Invariably, labelling creates a dichotomous psyche of "us and them" that forces one to be judgmental with no space for exploring a common ground.

I hope that you will agree with me that, if unenviable, we have done a great job in embedding the habit of labelling in our pattern of public conversation. Over the years we have cultivated a culture in which the courage of one's conviction is measured by how harshly one demolishes and dismisses the beliefs that others hold. In this culture, any effort aimed at reaching a common ground is labelled as weakness, reflective of infirmness in one's convictions and beliefs.

The interesting challenge, it seems to me, is how we can remain true and committed to what we believe in and create an atmosphere to work with others without demanding them to abandon theirs beliefs; and without feeling threatened by the differences that others bring into the equation. An atmosphere, as it were, where no one is shut out on account of their opinion but where each concerned individual can contribute for a life-giving outcome based on a consciously built common ground.

We are a nation of written and unwritten history that is traceable to ancient times that features periods and legacies that we must honour and build on as we journey into the future. We are also a nation of profound articulation skilled in communicating our ideas not only in plain words but through the trope of 'Wax and Gold'.

I want us to build on this heritage, but not as a devise to hide what one means that leads to suspicion that there is always a secret meaning to everything - the stuff that that makes one vulnerable to conspiracy theory - but as a potential tool that allows us to express the plurality of meaning and multiplicity of reality.

Indeed, we must come to recognise that there is no one unchanging reality but layers of realties that are shaped by the language we use and recreated by our conversations. Such a light-touch approach to what we perceive as hard and frozen will allow us to listen to one another to reach a common ground without negating our beliefs and repudiating the views of our partners in conversation. Cheers to great conversations!

I want to invite us to move away from argumentative conversations that aim at scoring points or imposing one's will on others. I would like to see us shift towards conversations that invite opinions and appreciate differences as sources of energy and dynamism.

I love selome with no particular reason, when I read about her I found the above, it was my dream too... make it your also...

Peace to Ethiopia.

2007-11-18T04:43:00.000-08:00

UTOPIA I & II

2007-04-11T23:20:00.000-07:00

UTOPIA - I

by SIR THOMAS MORE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOOK I

HENRY VIII, the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some differences of no small consequence with Charles, the most serene Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and composing matters between them. I was colleague and companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the King with such universal applause lately made Master of the Rolls, but of whom I will say nothing; not because I fear that the testimony of a friend will be suspected, but rather because his learning and virtues are too great for me to do them justice, and so well known that they need not my commendations unless I would, according to the proverb, "Show the sun with a lanthorn." Those that were appointed by the Prince to treat with us, met us at Bruges, according to agreement; they were all worthy men. The Margrave of Bruges was their head, and the chief man among them; but he that was esteemed the wisest, and that spoke for the rest, was George Temse, the Provost of Casselsee; both art and nature had concurred to make him eloquent: he was very learned in the law; and as he had a great capacity, so by a long practice in affairs he was very dexterous at unravelling them.

After we had several times met without coming to an agreement, they went to Brussels for some days to know the Prince's pleasure. And since our business would admit it, I went to Antwerp. While I was there, among many that visited me, there was one that was more acceptable to me than any other, Peter Giles, born at Antwerp, who is a man of great honor, and of a good rank in his town, though less than he deserves; for I do not know if there be anywhere to be found a more learned and a better bred young man: for as he is both a very worthy and a very knowing person, so he is so civil to all men, so particularly kind to his friends, and so full of candor and affection, that there is not perhaps above one or two anywhere to be found that are in all respects so perfect a friend. He is extraordinarily modest, there is no artifice in him; and yet no man has more of a prudent simplicity: his conversation was so pleasant and so innocently cheerful, that his company in a great measure lessened any longings to go back to my country, and to my wife and children, which an absence of four months had quickened very much. One day as I was returning home from mass at St. Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most frequented of any in Antwerp, I saw him by accident talking with a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so that by his looks and habit I concluded he was a seaman.

As soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me; and as I was returning his civility, he took me aside, and pointing to him with whom he had been discoursing, he said: "Do you see that man? I was just thinking to bring him to you."

I answered, "He should have been very welcome on your account."

"And on his own too," replied he, "if you knew the man, for there is none alive that can give so copious an account of unknown nations and countries as he can do; which I know you very much desire."

Then said I, "I did not guess amiss, for at first sight I took him for a seaman."

"But you are much mistaken," said he, "for he has not sailed as a seaman, but as a traveller, or rather a philosopher. This Raphael, who from his family carries the name of Hythloday, is not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but is eminently learned in the Greek, having applied himself more particularly to that than to the former, because he had given himself much to philosophy, in which he knew that the Romans have left us nothing that is valuable, except what is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. He is a Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the world that he divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same hazard as Americus Vespucius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages, that are now published; only he did not return with him in his last, but obtained leave of him almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty-four who were left at the farthest place at which they touched, in their last voyage to New Castile. The leaving him thus did not a little gratify one that was more fond of travelling than of returning home to be buried in his own country; for he used often to say that the way to heaven was the same from all places; and he that had no grave had the heaven still over him. Yet this disposition of mind had cost him dear, if God had not been very gracious to him; for after he, with five Castilians, had travelled over many countries, at last, by strange good-fortune, he got to Ceylon, and from thence to Calicut, where he very happily found some Portuguese ships, and, beyond all men's expectations, returned to his native country."

When Peter had said this to me, I thanked him for his kindness, in intending to give me the acquaintance of a man whose conversation he knew would be so acceptable; and upon that Raphael and I embraced each other. After those civilities were passed which are usual with strangers upon their first meeting, we all went to my house, and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank, and entertained one another in discourse. He told us that when Vespucius had sailed away, he and his companions that stayed behind in New Castile, by degrees insinuated themselves into the affections of the people of the country, meeting often with them, and treating them gently: and at last they not only lived among them without danger, but conversed familiarly with them; and got so far into the heart of a prince, whose name and country I have forgot, that he both furnished them plentifully with all things necessary, and also with the conveniences of travelling; both boats when they went by water, and wagons when they travelled over land: he sent with them a very faithful guide, who was to introduce and recommend them to such other princes as they had a mind to see: and after many days' journey, they came to towns and cities, and to commonwealths, that were both happily governed and well-peopled. Under the equator, and as far on both sides of it as the sun moves, there lay vast deserts that were parched with the perpetual heat of the sun; the soil was withered, all things looked dismally, and all places were either quite uninhabited, or abounded with wild beasts and serpents, and some few men that were neither less wild nor less cruel than the beasts themselves.

But as they went farther, a new scene opened, all things grew milder, the air less burning, the soil more verdant, and even the beasts were less wild: and at last there were nations, towns, and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves, and with their neighbors, but traded both by sea and land, to very remote countries. There they found the conveniences of seeing many countries on all hands, for no ship went any voyage into which he and his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds and wicker woven close together, only some were of leather; but afterward they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails, and in all respects like our ships; and the seamen understood both astronomy and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favor, by showing them the use of the needle, of which till then they were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution, and only in summer-time, but now they count all seasons alike, trusting wholly to the loadstone, in which they are perhaps more secure than safe; so that there is reason to fear that this discovery, which was thought would prove so much to their advantage, may by their imprudence become an occasion of much mischief to them. But it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had observed in every place, it would be too great a digression from our present purpose: whatever is necessary to be told, concerning those wise and prudent institutions which he observed among civilized nations, may perhaps be related by us on a more proper occasion. We asked him many questions concerning all these things, to which he answered very willingly; only we made no inquiries after monsters, than which nothing is more common; for everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel man-eaters; but it is not so easy to find States that are well and wisely governed.

As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new- discovered countries, so he reckoned up not a few things from which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live; of which an account may be given, as I have already promised, at some other time; for at present I intend only to relate those particulars that he told us of the manners and laws of the Utopians: but I will begin with the occasion that led us to speak of that commonwealth. After Raphael had discoursed with great judgment on the many errors that were both among us and these nations; had treated of the wise institutions both here and there, and had spoken as distinctly of the customs and government of every nation through which he had passed, as if he had spent his whole life in it, Peter, being struck with admiration, said: "I wonder, Raphael, how it comes that you enter into no king's service, for I am sure there are none to whom you would not be very acceptable: for your learning and knowledge both of men and things, are such that you would not only entertain them very pleasantly, but be of great use to them, by the examples you could set before them and the advices you could give them; and by this means you would both serve your own interest and be of great use to all your friends."

"As for my friends," answered he, "I need not be much concerned, having already done for them all that was incumbent on me; for when I was not only in good health, but fresh and young, I distributed that among my kindred and friends which other people do not part with till they are old and sick, when they then unwillingly give that which they can enjoy no longer themselves. I think my friends ought to rest contented with this, and not to expect that for their sake I should enslave myself to any king whatsoever."

"Soft and fair," said Peter, "I do not mean that you should be a slave to any king, but only that you should assist them, and be useful to them."

"The change of the word," said he, "does not alter the matter."

"But term it as you will," replied Peter, "I do not see any other way in which you can be so useful, both in private to your friends, and to the public, and by which you can make your own condition happier."

"Happier!" answered Raphael; "is that to be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius? Now I live as I will, to which I believe few courtiers can pretend. And there are so many that court the favor of great men, that there will be no great loss if they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper."

Upon this, said I: "I perceive, Raphael, that you neither desire wealth nor greatness; and indeed I value and admire such a man much more than I do any of the great men in the world. Yet I think you would do what would well become so generous and philosophical a soul as yours is, if you would apply your time and thoughts to public affairs, even though you may happen to find it a little uneasy to yourself: and this you can never do with so much advantage, as by being taken into the counsel of some great prince, and putting him on noble and worthy actions, which I know you would do if you were in such a post; for the springs both of good and evil flow from the prince, over a whole nation, as from a lasting fountain. So much learning as you have, even without practice in affairs, or so great a practice as you have had, without any other learning, would render you a very fit counsellor to any king whatsoever."

"You are doubly mistaken," said he, "Mr. More, both in your opinion of me, and in the judgment you make of things: for as I have not that capacity that you fancy I have, so, if I had it, the public would not be one jot the better, when I had sacrificed my quiet to it. For most princes apply themselves more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; and in these I neither have any knowledge, nor do I much desire it: they are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well those they possess. And among the ministers of princes, there are none that are not so wise as to need no assistance, or at least that do not think themselves so wise that they imagine they need none; and if they court any, it is only those for whom the prince has much personal favor, whom by their fawnings and flatteries they endeavor to fix to their own interests: and indeed Nature has so made us that we all love to be flattered, and to please ourselves with our own notions. The old crow loves his young, and the ape her cubs. Now if in such a court, made up of persons who envy all others, and only admire themselves, a person should but propose anything that he had either read in history or observed in his travels, the rest would think that the reputation of their wisdom would sink, and that their interest would be much depressed, if they could not run it down: and if all other things failed, then they would fly to this, that such or such things pleased our ancestors, and it were well for us if we could but match them. They would set up their rest on such an answer, as a sufficient confutation of all that could be said, as if it were a great misfortune, that any should be found wiser than his ancestors; but though they willingly let go all the good things that were among those of former ages, yet if better things are proposed they cover themselves obstinately with this excuse of reverence to past times. I have met with these proud, morose, and absurd judgments of things in many places, particularly once in England."

"Were you ever there?" said I.

"Yes, I was," answered he, "and stayed some months there not long after the rebellion in the west was suppressed with a great slaughter of the poor people that were engaged in it. I was then much obliged to that reverend prelate, John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England: a man," said he, "Peter (for Mr. More knows well what he was), that was not less venerable for his wisdom and virtues than for the high character he bore. He was of a middle stature, not broken with age; his looks begot reverence rather than fear; his conversation was easy, but serious and grave; he sometimes took pleasure to try the force of those that came as suitors to him upon business, by speaking sharply though decently to them, and by that he discovered their spirit and presence of mind, with which he was much delighted, when it did not grow up to impudence, as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper; and he looked on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both gracefully and weightily; he was eminently skilled in the law, had a vast understanding and a prodigious memory; and those excellent talents with which nature had furnished him were improved by study and experience. When I was in England the King depended much on his counsels, and the government seemed to be chiefly supported by him; for from his youth he had been all along practised in affairs; and having passed through many traverses of fortune, he had with great cost acquired a vast stock of wisdom, which is not soon lost when it is purchased so dear.

"One day when I was dining with him there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, who, as he said, were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon that he said he could not wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped, there were yet so many thieves left who were still robbing in all places. Upon this, I who took the boldness to speak freely before the cardinal, said there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life, no punishment how severe soever being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. 'In this,' said I, 'not only you in England, but a great part of the world imitate some ill masters that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.'

"'There has been care enough taken for that,' said he, 'there are many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they may make a shift to live unless they have a greater mind to follow ill courses.'

"'That will not serve your turn,' said I, 'for many lose their limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion, and some time ago in your wars with France, who being thus mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones: but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let us consider those things that fall out every day. There is a great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labor, on the labor of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick. This indeed is the only instance of their frugality, for in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of themselves: but besides this, they carry about with them a great number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living; and these, as soon as either their lord dies or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great a family as his predecessor did. Now when the stomachs of those that are thus turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less keenly; and what else can they do? for when, by wandering about, they have worn out both their health and their clothes, and are tattered, and look ghastly, men of quality will not entertain them, and poor men dare not do it, knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword and buckler, despising all the neighborhood with an insolent scorn as far below him, is not fit for the spade and mattock: nor will he serve a poor man for so small a hire, and in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.'

"To this he answered: 'This sort of men ought to be particularly cherished, for in them consists the force of the armies for which we have occasion; since their birth inspires them with a nobler sense of honor than is to be found among tradesmen or ploughmen.'

"'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that you must cherish thieves on the account of wars, for you will never want the one as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers; so near an alliance there is between those two sorts of life. But this bad custom, so common among you, of keeping many servants, is not peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace, if such a state of a nation can be called a peace: and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen; this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen that it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended on, and they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats; or as Sallust observed, for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow dull by too long an intermission. But France has learned to its cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts.

"'The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and many other nations and cities, which were both overturned and quite ruined by those standing armies, should make others wiser: and the folly of this maxim of the French appears plainly even from this, that their trained soldiers often find your raw men prove too hard for them; of which I will not say much, lest you may think I flatter the English. Every day's experience shows that the mechanics in the towns, or the clowns in the country, are not afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they are not disabled by some misfortune in their body, or dispirited by extreme want, so that you need not fear that those well-shaped and strong men (for it is only such that noblemen love to keep about them, till they spoil them) who now grow feeble with ease, and are softened with their effeminate manner of life, would be less fit for action if they were well bred and well employed. And it seems very unreasonable that for the prospect of a war, which you need never have but when you please, you should maintain so many idle men, as will always disturb you in time of peace, which is ever to be more considered than war. But I do not think that this necessity of stealing arises only from hence; there is another cause of it more peculiar to England.'

"'What is that?' said the cardinal.

"'The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep, which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men, and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and enclose grounds that they may lodge their sheep in them. As if forests and parks had swallowed up too little of the land, those worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places in solitudes, for when an insatiable wretch, who is a plague to his country, resolves to enclose many thousand acres of ground, the owners as well as tenants are turned out of their possessions, by tricks, or by main force, or being wearied out with ill-usage, they are forced to sell them. By which means those miserable people, both men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but numerous families (since country business requires many hands), are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither to go; and they must sell almost for nothing their household stuff, which could not bring them much money, even though they might stay for a buyer. When that little money is at an end, for it will be soon spent, what is left for them to do, but either to steal and so to be hanged (God knows how justly), or to go about and beg? And if they do this, they are put in prison as idle vagabonds; while they would willingly work, but can find none that will hire them; for there is no more occasion for country labor, to which they have been bred, when there is no arable ground left. One shepherd can look after a flock which will stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were to be ploughed and reaped. This likewise in many places raises the price of corn.

"'The price of wool is also so risen that the poor people who were wont to make cloth are no more able to buy it; and this likewise makes many of them idle. For since the increase of pasture, God has punished the avarice of the owners by a rot among the sheep, which has destroyed vast numbers of them; to us it might have seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves. But suppose the sheep should increase ever so much, their price is not like to fall; since though they cannot be called a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person, yet they are in so few hands, and these are so rich, that as they are not pressed to sell them sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have raised the price as high as possible. And on the same account it is, that the other kinds of cattle are so dear, because many villages being pulled down, and all country labor being much neglected, there are none who make it their business to breed them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them lean, and at low prices; and after they have fattened them on their grounds sell them again at high rates. And I do not think that all the inconveniences this will produce are yet observed, for as they sell the cattle dear, so if they are consumed faster than the breeding countries from which they are brought can afford them, then the stock must decrease, and this must needs end in great scarcity; and by these means this your island, which seemed as to this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much by the cursed avarice of a few persons; besides this, the rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as much as they can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do, but either beg or rob? And to this last, a man of a great mind is much sooner drawn than to the former.

"'Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you, to set forward your poverty and misery; there is an excessive vanity in apparel, and great cost in diet; and that not only in noblemen's families, but even among tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks of persons. You have also many infamous houses, and, besides those that are known, the taverns and alehouses are no better; add to these, dice, cards, tables, foot-ball, tennis, and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into them, must in the conclusion betake themselves to robbing for a supply. Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down, or let out their grounds to such as will do it: restrain those engrossings of the rich, that are as bad almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness; let agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of the wool be regulated, that so there may be work found for those companies of idle people whom want forces to be thieves, or who, now being idle vagabonds or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If you do not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which though it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor convenient. For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them ?'

"While I was talking thus, the counsellor who was present had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered; as if the chief trial to be made were of men's memories.

"'You have talked prettily for a stranger,' said he, 'having heard of many things among us which you have not been able to consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you, and will first repeat in order all that you have said, then I will show how much your ignorance of our affairs has misled you, and will in the last place answer all your arguments. And that I may begin where I promised, there were four things--'

"'Hold your peace,' said the cardinal; 'this will take up too much time; therefore we will at present ease you of the trouble of answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall be to- morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can admit of it. But, Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know upon what reason it is that you think theft ought not to be punished by death? Would you give way to it? Or do you propose any other punishment that will be more useful to the public? For since death does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men? On the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.'

"I answered: 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man's life for a little money; for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's life: and if it is said that it is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law, I must say extreme justice is an extreme injury; for we ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made between the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money? But if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill any, except when the laws of the land allow of it; upon the same grounds, laws may be made in some cases to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us the right of disposing, either of our own or of other people's lives, if it is pretended that the mutual consent of man in making laws can authorize manslaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees people from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the divine?

"'And if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may in all other things put what restrictions they please upon the laws of God. If by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were only fined and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the tenderness of a father, he has given us a greater license to cruelty than he did to the Jews. Upon these reasons it is that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd, and of ill-consequence to the commonwealth, that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same, if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed, since if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much, provokes them to cruelty.

"But as to the question, What more convenient way of punishment can be found? I think it is much more easier to find out that than to invent anything that is worse; why should we doubt but the way that was so long in use among the old Romans, who understood so well the arts of government, was very proper for their punishment? They condemned such as they found guilty of great crimes, to work their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines with chains about them. But the method that I liked best, was that which I observed in my travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a considerable and well-governed people. They pay a yearly tribute to the King of Persia; but in all other respects they are a free nation, and governed by their own laws. They lie far from the sea, and are environed with hills; and being contented with the productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they have little commerce with any other nation; and as they, according to the genius of their country, have no inclination to enlarge their borders; so their mountains, and the pension they pay to the Persians, secure them from all invasions.

"'Thus they have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently than with splendor, and may be rather called a happy nation, than either eminent or famous; for I do not think that they are known so much as by name to any but their next neighbors. Those that are found guilty of theft among them are bound to make restitution to the owner, and not as it is in other places, to the prince, for they reckon that the prince has no more right to the stolen goods than the thief; but if that which was stolen is no more in being, then the goods of the thieves are estimated, and restitution being made out of them, the remainder is given to their wives and children: and they themselves are condemned to serve in the public works, but are neither imprisoned, nor chained, unless there happened to be some extraordinary circumstances in their crimes. They go about loose and free, working for the public. If they are idle or backward to work, they are whipped; but if they work hard, they are well used and treated without any mark of reproach, only the lists of them are called always at night, and then they are shut up. They suffer no other uneasiness, but this of constant labor; for as they work for the public, so they are well entertained out of the public stock, which is done differently in different places. In some places, whatever is bestowed on them, is raised by a charitable contribution; and though this way may seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of that people, that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places, public revenues are set aside for them; or there is a constant tax of a poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places they are set to no public work, but every private man that has occasion to hire workmen goes to the market-places and hires them of the public, a little lower than he would do a freeman: if they go lazily about their task, he may quicken them with the whip.

"'By this means there is always some piece of work or other to be done by them; and beside their livelihood, they earn somewhat still to the public. They all wear a peculiar habit, of one certain color, and their hair is cropped a little above their ears, and a piece of one of their ears is cut off. Their friends are allowed to give them either meat, drink, or clothes so they are of their proper color, but it is death, both to the giver and taker, if they give them money; nor is it less penal for any freeman to take money from them, upon any account whatsoever: and it is also death for any of these slaves (so they are called) to handle arms. Those of every division of the country are distinguished by a peculiar mark; which it is capital for them to lay aside, to go out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of another jurisdiction; and the very attempt of an escape is no less penal than an escape itself; it is death for any other slave to be accessory to it; and if a freeman engages in it he is condemned to slavery. Those that discover it are rewarded--if freemen, in money; and if slaves, with liberty, together with a pardon for being accessory to it; that so they might find their account, rather in repenting of their engaging in such a design, than in persisting in it.

"'These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery, and it is obvious that they are as advantageous as they are mild and gentle; since vice is not only destroyed, and men preserved, but they treated in such a manner as to make them see the necessity of being honest, and of employing the rest of their lives in repairing the injuries they have formerly done to society. Nor is there any hazard of their falling back to their old customs: and so little do travellers apprehend mischief from them, that they generally make use of them for guides, from one jurisdiction to another; for there is nothing left them by which they can rob, or be the better for it, since, as they are disarmed, so the very having of money is a sufficient conviction: and as they are certainly punished if discovered, so they cannot hope to escape; for their habit being in all the parts of it different from what is commonly worn, they cannot fly away, unless they would go naked, and even then their cropped ear would betray them. The only danger to be feared from them is their conspiring against the government: but those of one division and neighborhood can do nothing to any purpose, unless a general conspiracy were laid among all the slaves of the several jurisdictions, which cannot be done, since they cannot meet or talk together; nor will any venture on a design where the concealment would be so dangerous and the discovery so profitable. None are quite hopeless of recovering their freedom, since by their obedience and patience, and by giving good grounds to believe that they will change their manner of life for the future, they may expect at last to obtain their liberty: and some are every year restored to it, upon the good character that is given of them.'

"When I had related all this, I added that I did not see why such a method might not be followed with more advantage than could ever be expected from that severe justice which the counsellor magnified so much. To this he answered that it could never take place in England without endangering the whole nation. As he said this he shook his head, made some grimaces, and held his peace, while all the company seemed of his opinion, except the cardinal, who said that it was not easy to form a judgment of its success, since it was a method that never yet had been tried.

"'But if,' said he, 'when the sentence of death was passed upon a thief, the prince would reprieve him for a while, and make the experiment upon him, denying him the privilege of a sanctuary; and then if it had a good effect upon him, it might take place; and if it did not succeed, the worst would be, to execute the sentence on the condemned persons at last. And I do not see,' added he, 'why it would be either unjust, inconvenient, or at all dangerous, to admit of such a delay: in my opinion, the vagabonds ought to be treated in the same manner; against whom, though we have made many laws, yet we have not been able to gain our end.' When the cardinal had done, they all commended the motion, though they had despised it when it came from me; but more particularly commended what related to the vagabonds, because it was his own observation.

"I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what followed, for it was very ridiculous; but I shall venture at it, for as it is not foreign to this matter, so some good use may be made of it. There was a jester standing by, that counterfeited the fool so naturally that he seemed to be really one. The jests which he offered were so cold and dull that we laughed more at him than at them; yet sometimes he said, as it were by chance, things that were not unpleasant; so as to justify the old proverb, 'That he who throws the dice often, will sometimes have a lucky hit.' When one of the company had said that I had taken care of the thieves, and the cardinal had taken care of the vagabonds, so that there remained nothing but that some public provision might be made for the poor, whom sickness or old age had disabled from labor, 'Leave that to me,' said the fool, 'and I shall take care of them; for there is no sort of people whose sight I abhor more, having been so often vexed with them, and with their sad complaints; but as dolefully soever as they have told their tale, they could never prevail so far as to draw one penny from me: for either I had no mind to give them anything, or when I had a mind to do it I had nothing to give them: and they now know me so well that they will not lose their labor, but let me pass without giving me any trouble, because they hope for nothing, no more in faith than if I were a priest: but I would have a law made, for sending all these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines to be made lay-brothers, and the women to be nuns.'

"The cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest; but the rest liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who though he was a grave, morose man, yet he was so pleased with this reflection that was made on the priests and the monks, that he began to play with the fool, and said to him, 'This will not deliver you from all beggars, except you take care of us friars.'

"'That is done already,' answered the fool, 'for the cardinal has provided for you, by what he proposed for restraining vagabonds, and setting them to work, for I know no vagabonds like you.'

"This was well entertained by the whole company, who, looking at the cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it; only the friar himself was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and fell into such a passion that he could not forbear railing at the fool, and calling him knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son of perdition, and then cited some dreadful threatenings out of the Scriptures against him. Now the jester thought he was in his element, and laid about him freely.

"'Good friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is written, "In patience possess your soul."'

"The friar answered (for I shall give you his own words), 'I am not angry, you hangman; at least I do not sin in it, for the Psalmist says, "Be ye angry, and sin not."'

"Upon this the cardinal admonished him gently, and wished him to govern his passions.

"'No, my lord,' said he, 'I speak not but from a good zeal, which I ought to have; for holy men have had a good zeal, as it is said, "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up;" and we sing in our church, that those, who mocked Elisha as he went up to the house of God, felt the effects of his zeal; which that mocker, that rogue, that scoundrel, will perhaps feel.'

"'You do this perhaps with a good intention,' said the cardinal; 'but in my opinion it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool.'

"'No, my lord,' answered he, 'that were not wisely done; for Solomon, the wisest of men, said, "Answer a fool according to his folly;" which I now do, and show him the ditch into which he will fall, if he is not aware of it; for if the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of one mocker of so many friars, among whom there are so many bald men? We have likewise a bull, by which all that jeer us are excommunicated.'

"When the cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter, he made a sign to the fool to withdraw, turned the discourse another way, and soon after rose from the table, and, dismissing us, went to hear causes.

"Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, of the length of which I had been ashamed, if, as you earnestly begged it of me, I had not observed you to hearken to it, as if you had no mind to lose any part of it. I might have contracted it, but I resolved to give it to you at large, that you might observe how those that despised what I had proposed, no sooner perceived that the cardinal did not dislike it, but presently approved of it, fawned so on him, and flattered him to such a degree, that they in good earnest applauded those things that he only liked in jest. And from hence you may gather, how little courtiers would value either me or my counsels."

To this I answered: "You have done me a great kindness in this relation; for as everything has been related by you, both wisely and pleasantly, so you have made me imagine that I was in my own country, and grown young again, by recalling that good cardinal to my thoughts, in whose family I was bred from my childhood: and though you are upon other accounts very dear to me, yet you are the dearer, because you honor his memory so much; but after all this I cannot change my opinion, for I still think that if you could overcome that aversion which you have to the courts of princes, you might, by the advice which it is in your power to give, do a great deal of good to mankind; and this is the chief design that every good man ought to propose to himself in living; for your friend Plato thinks that nations will be happy, when either philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers, it is no wonder if we are so far from that happiness, while philosophers will not think it their duty to assist kings with their councils.

"'They are not so base-minded,' said he, 'but that they would willingly do it: many of them have already done it by their books, if those that are in power would but hearken to their good advice.' But Plato judged right, that except kings themselves became philosophers, they who from their childhood are corrupted with false notions would never fall in entirely with the councils of philosophers, and this he himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius.

"Do not you think that if I were about any king, proposing good laws to him, and endeavoring to root out all the cursed seeds of evil that I found in him, I should either be turned out of his court or at least be laughed at for my pains? For instance, what could it signify if I were about the King of France, and were called into his Cabinet Council, where several wise men, in his hearing, were proposing many expedients, as by what arts and practices Milan may be kept, and Naples, that had so oft slipped out of their hands, recovered; how the Venetians, and after them the rest of Italy, may be subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant, and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which he has swallowed already in his designs, may be added to his empire. One proposes a league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his account in it, and that he ought to communicate councils with them, and give them some share of the spoil, till his success makes him need or fear them less, and then it will be easily taken out of their hands. Another proposes the hiring the Germans, and the securing the Switzers by pensions. Another proposes the gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him. Another proposes a peace with the King of Arragon, and, in order to cement it, the yielding up the King of Navarre's pretensions. Another thinks the Prince of Castile is to be wrought on, by the hope of an alliance; and that some of his courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by pensions. The hardest point of all is what to do with England: a treaty of peace is to be set on foot, and if their alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm as possible; and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion: and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe.

"Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand up, and wish them to change all their councils, to let Italy alone, and stay at home, since the Kingdom of France was indeed greater than could be well governed by one man; that therefore he ought not to think of adding others to it: and if after this, I should propose to them the resolutions of the Achorians, a people that lie on the southeast of Utopia, who long ago engaged in war, in order to add to the dominions of their prince another kingdom, to which he had some pretensions by an ancient alliance. This they conquered, but found that the trouble of keeping it was equal to that by which it was gained; that the conquered people were always either in rebellion or exposed to foreign invasions, while they were obliged to be incessantly at war, either for or against them, and consequently could never disband their army; that in the meantime they were oppressed with taxes, their money went out of the kingdom, their blood was spilt for the glory of their King, without procuring the least advantage to the people, who received not the smallest benefit from it even in time of peace; and that their manners being corrupted by a long war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws fell into contempt; while their King, distracted with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able to apply his mind to the interests of either.

"When they saw this, and that there would be no end to these evils, they by joint councils made an humble address to their King, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had the greatest mind to keep, since he could not hold both; for they were too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since no man would willingly have a groom that should be in common between him and another. Upon which the good prince was forced to quit his new kingdom to one of his friends (who was not long after dethroned), and to be contented with his old one. To this I would add that after all those warlike attempts, the vast confusions, and the consumption both of treasure and of people that must follow them; perhaps upon some misfortune, they might be forced to throw up all at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the King should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make it flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and be beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them gently, and let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share was big enough, if not too big for him. Pray how do you think would such a speech as this be heard?"

"I confess," said I, "I think not very well."

"But what," said he, "if I should sort with another kind of ministers, whose chief contrivances and consultations were, by what art the prince's treasures might be increased. Where one proposes raising the value of specie when the King's debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal: another proposes a pretence of a war, that money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded as soon as that was done; and this with such appearances of religion as might work on the people, and make them impute it to the piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the lives of his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws, that have been antiquated by a long disuse; and which, as they had been forgotten by all the subjects, so they had been also broken by them; and proposes the levying the penalties of these laws, that as it would bring in a vast treasure, so there might be a very good pretence for it, since it would look like the executing a law, and the doing of justice. A fourth proposes the prohibiting of many things under severe penalties, especially such as were against the interest of the people, and then the dispensing with these prohibitions upon great compositions, to those who might find their advantage in breaking them. This would serve two ends, both of them acceptable to many; for as those whose avarice led them to transgress would be severely fined, so the selling licenses dear would look as if a prince were tender of his people, and would not easily, or at low rates, dispense with anything that might be against the public good.

"Another proposes that the judges must be made sure, that they may declare always in favor of the prerogative, that they must be often sent for to court, that the King may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others or the pride of singularity or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the King a fair color to carry the point: for if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by that means disputable, and truth being once brought in question, the King may then take advantage to expound the law for his own profit; while the judges that stand out will be brought over, either out of fear or modesty; and they being thus gained, all of them may be sent to the bench to give sentence boldly, as the King would have it; for fair pretences will never be wanting when sentence is to be given in the prince's favor. It will either be said that equity lies on his side, or some words in the law will be found sounding that way, or some forced sense will be put on them; and when all other things fail, the King's undoubted prerogative will be pretended, as that which is above all law; and to which a religious judge ought to have a special regard.

"Thus all consent to that maxim of Crassus, that a prince cannot have treasure enough, since he must maintain his armies out of it: that a king, even though he would, can do nothing unjustly; that all property is in him, not excepting the very persons of his subjects: and that no man has any other property, but that which the King out of his goodness thinks fit to leave him. And they think it is the prince's interest, that there be as little of this left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches nor liberty; since these things make them less easy and less willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government; whereas necessity and poverty blunt them, make them patient, beat them down, and break that height of spirit, that might otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if after all these propositions were made, I should rise up and assert, that such councils were both unbecoming a king, and mischievous to him: and that not only his honor but his safety consisted more in his people's wealth, than in his own; if I should show that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that by his care and endeavors they may be both easy and safe; and that therefore a prince ought to take more care of his people's happiness than of his own, as a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself.

"It is also certain that they are much mistaken that think the poverty of a nation is a means of the public safety. Who quarrel more than beggars? Who does more earnestly long for a change, than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness, as those who have nothing to lose hope to gain by them? If a king should fall under such contempt or envy, that he could not keep his subjects in their duty, but by oppression and ill-usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his kingdom, than to retain it by such methods, as makes him while he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor is it so becoming the dignity of a king to reign over beggars, as over rich and happy subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said, he would rather govern rich men than be rich himself; since for one man to abound in wealth and pleasure, when all about him are mourning and groaning, is to a gaoler and not a king. He is an unskilful physician, that cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another: so he that can find no other way for correcting the errors of his people, but by taking from them the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not what it is to govern a free nation. He himself ought rather to shake off his sloth, or to lay down his pride; for the contempt or hatred that his people have for him, takes its rise from the vices in himself. Let him live upon what belongs to him, without wronging others, and accommodate his expense to his revenue. Let him punish crimes, and by his wise conduct let him endeavor to prevent them, rather than be severe when he has suffered them to be too common: let him not rashly revive laws that are abrogated by disuse, especially if they have been long forgotten, and never wanted; and let him never take any penalty for the breach of them, to which a judge would not give way in a private man, but would look on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it.

"To these things I would add that law among the Macarians, a people that live not far from Utopia, by which their King, on the day on which he begins to reign, is tied by an oath confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above 1,000 pounds of gold in his treasures, or so much silver as is equal to that in value. This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent king, who had more regard to the riches of his country than to his own wealth, and therefore provided against the heaping up of so much treasure as might impoverish the people. He thought that a moderate sum might be sufficient for any accident, if either the King had occasion for it against rebels, or the kingdom against the invasion of an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage a prince to invade other men's rights, a circumstance that was the chief cause of his making that law. He also thought that it was a good provision for that free circulation of money, so necessary for the course of commerce and exchange: and when a king must distribute all those extraordinary accessions that increase treasure beyond the due pitch, it makes him less disposed to oppress his subjects. Such a king as this will be the terror of ill men, and will be beloved by all the good.

"If, I say, I should talk of these or such like things, to men that had taken their bias another way, how deaf would they be to all I could say?"

"No doubt, very deaf," answered I; "and no wonder, for one is never to offer at propositions or advice that we are certain will not be entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could not avail anything, nor have any effect on men whose minds were prepossessed with different sentiments. This philosophical way of speculation is not unpleasant among friends in a free conversation, but there is no room for it in the courts of princes where great affairs are carried on by authority."

"That is what I was saying," replied he, "that there is no room for philosophy in the courts of princes."

"Yes, there is," said I, "but not for this speculative philosophy that makes everything to be alike fitting at all times: but there is another philosophy that is more pliable, that knows its proper scene, accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man with propriety and decency to act that part which has fallen to his share. If when one of Plautus's comedies is upon the stage and a company of servants are acting their parts, you should come out in the garb of a philosopher, and repeat out of 'Octavia,' a discourse of Seneca's to Nero, would it not be better for you to say nothing than by mixing things of such different natures to make an impertinent tragi-comedy? For you spoil and corrupt the play that is in hand when you mix with it things of an opposite nature, even though they are much better. Therefore go through with the play that is acting, the best you can, and do not confound it because another that is pleasanter comes into your thoughts. It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth; for the same reasons you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your making an impression upon them. You ought rather to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that if you are not able to make them go well they may be as little ill as possible; for except all men were good everything cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do not at present hope to see."

"According to your arguments," answered he, "all that I could be able to do would be to preserve myself from being mad while I endeavored to cure the madness of others; for if I speak truth, I must repeat what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a philosopher can do it or not, I cannot tell; I am sure I cannot do it. But though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to them, I do not see why they should seem foolish or extravagant: indeed if I should either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his commonwealth, or as the Utopians practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on property, there being no such thing among them, that I could not expect that it would have any effect on them; but such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, have nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if we must let alone everything as absurd or extravagant which by reason of the wicked lives of many may seem uncouth, we must, even among Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ hath taught us, though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the house-tops that which he taught in secret.

"The greatest parts of his precepts are more opposite to the lives of the men of this age than any part of my discourse has been; but the preachers seemed to have learned that craft to which you advise me, for they observing that the world would not willingly suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given, have fitted his doctrine as if it had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that so some way or other they might agree with one another. But I see no other effect of this compliance except it be that men become more secure in their wickedness by it. And this is all the success that I can have in a court, for I must always differ from the rest, and then I shall signify nothing; or if I agree with them, I shall then only help forward their madness. I do not comprehend what you mean by your casting about, or by the bending and handling things so dexterously, that if they go not well they may go as little ill as may be; for in courts they will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at what others do. A man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels, and consent to the blackest designs: so that he would pass for a spy, or possibly for a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices: and therefore when a man is engaged in such a society, he will be so far from being able to mend matters by his casting about, as you call it, that he will find no occasions of doing any good: the ill company will sooner corrupt him than be the better for him: or if notwithstanding all their ill company, he still remains steady and innocent, yet their follies and knavery will be imputed to him; and by mixing counsels with them, he must bear his share of all the blame that belongs wholly to others.

"It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with government. If a man, says he, was to see a great company run out every day into the rain, and take delight in being wet; if he knew that it would be to no purpose for him to go and persuade them to return to their houses, in order to avoid the storm, and that all that could be expected by his going to speak to them would be that he himself should be as wet as they, it would be best for him to keep within doors; and since he had not influence enough to correct other people's folly, to take care to preserve himself.

"Though to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own that as long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely miserable. Therefore when I reflect on the wise and good constitution of the Utopians--among whom all things are so well governed, and with so few laws; where virtue hath its due reward, and yet there is such an equality, that every man lives in plenty -- when I compare with them so many other nations that are still making new laws, and yet can never bring their constitution to a right regulation, where notwithstanding everyone has his property; yet all the laws that they can invent have not the power either to obtain or preserve it, or even to enable men certainly to distinguish what is their own from what is another's; of which the many lawsuits that every day break out, and are eternally depending, give too plain a demonstration; when, I say, I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favorable to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for such as would not submit to a community of all things: for so wise a man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy, which cannot be obtained so long as there is property: for when every man draws to himself all that he can compass, by one title or another, it must needs follow, that how plentiful soever a nation may be, yet a few dividing the wealth of it among themselves, the rest must fall into indigence.

"So that there will be two sorts of people among them, who deserve that their fortunes should be interchanged; the former useless, but wicked and ravenous; and the latter, who by their constant industry serve the public more than themselves, sincere and modest men. From whence I am persuaded, that till property is taken away there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed: for as long as that is maintained, the greatest and the far best part of mankind will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. I confess without taking it quite away, those pressures that lie on a great part of mankind may be made lighter; but they can never be quite removed. For if laws were made to determine at how great an extent in soil, and at how much money every man must stop, to limit the prince that he might not grow too great, and to restrain the people that they might not become too insolent, and that none might factiously aspire to public employments; which ought neither to be sold, nor made burdensome by a great expense; since otherwise those that serve in them would be tempted to reimburse themselves by cheats and violence, and it would become necessary to find out rich men for undergoing those employments which ought rather to be trusted to the wise--these laws, I say, might have such effects, as good diet and care might have on a sick man, whose recovery is desperate: they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit, as long as property remains; and it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others, while the strengthening one part of the body weakens the rest."

"On the contrary," answered I, "it seems to me that men cannot live conveniently where all things are common: how can there be any plenty, where every man will excuse himself from labor? For as the hope of gain doth not excite him, so the confidence that he has in other men's industry may make him slothful: if people come to be pinched with want, and yet cannot dispose of anything as their own; what can follow upon this but perpetual sedition and bloodshed, especially when the reverence and authority due to magistrates fall to the ground? For I cannot imagine how that can be kept up among those that are in all things equal to one another."

"I do not wonder," said he, "that it appears so to you, since you have no notion, or at least no right one, of such a constitution: but if you had been in Utopia with me, and had seen their laws and rules, as I did, for the space of five years, in which I lived among them; and during which time I was so delighted with them, that indeed I should never have left them, if it had not been to make the discovery of that new world to the Europeans; you would then confess that you had never seen a people so well constituted as they."

"You will not easily persuade me," said Peter, "that any nation in that new world is better governed than those among us. For as our understandings are not worse than theirs, so our government, if I mistake not, being more ancient, a long practice has helped us to find out many conveniences of life: and some happy chances have discovered other things to us, which no man's understanding could ever have invented."

"As for the antiquity, either of their government or of ours," said he, "you cannot pass a true judgment of it unless you had read their histories; for if they are to be believed, they had towns among them before these parts were so much as inhabited. And as for those discoveries, that have been either hit on by chance, or made by ingenious men, these might have happened there as well as here. I do not deny but we are more ingenious than they are, but they exceed us much in industry and application. They knew little concerning us before our arrival among them; they call us all by a general name of the nations that lie beyond the equinoctial line; for their chronicle mentions a shipwreck that was made on their coast 1,200 years ago; and that some Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent the rest of their days among them; and such was their ingenuity, that from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts that were then among the Romans, and which were known to these shipwrecked men: and by the hints that they gave them, they themselves found out even some of those arts which they could not fully explain; so happily did they improve that accident, of having some of our people cast upon their shore.

"But if such an accident has at any time brought any from thence into Europe, we have been so far from improving it, that we do not so much as remember it; as in after-times perhaps it will be forgot by our people that I was ever there. For though they from one such accident made themselves masters of all the good inventions that were among us; yet I believe it would be long before we should learn or put in practice any of the good institutions that are among them. And this is the true cause of their being better governed, and living happier than we, though we come not short of them in point of understanding or outward advantages."

Upon this I said to him: "I earnestly beg you would describe that island very particularly to us. Be not too short, but set out in order all things relating to their soil, their rivers, their towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a word, all that you imagine we desire to know. And you may well imagine that we desire to know everything concerning them, of which we are hitherto ignorant."

"I will do it very willingly," said he, "for I have digested the whole matter carefully; but it will take up some time."

"Let us go then," said I, "first and dine, and then we shall have leisure enough."

He consented. We went in and dined, and after dinner came back and sat down in the same place. I ordered my servants to take care that none might come and interrupt us. And both Peter and I desired Raphael to be as good as his word. When he saw that we were very intent upon it, he paused a little to recollect himself, and began in this manner:
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1901. New York: Ideal Commonwealths. P.F. Collier & Son. The Colonial Press. This book is in the public domain, released July 1993 by the Internet Wiretap. Prepared by Kirk Crady (kcrady@polaris.cv.nrao.edu) from scanner output provided by Internet Wiretap. The HTML markup was done by William Uzgalis, September 1997
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UTOPIA- II,

by SIR THOMAS MORE

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BOOK II
THE island of Utopia is in the middle 200 miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it; but it grows narrower toward both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent: between its horns, the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about 500 miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbor, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce; but the entry into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one hand, and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may therefore be easily avoided, and on the top of it there is a tower in which a garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives, so that if any stranger should enter into the bay, without one of their pilots, he would run great danger of shipwreck; for even they themselves could not pass it safe, if some marks that are on the coast did not direct their way; and if these should be but a little shifted, any fleet that might come against them, how great soever it were, would be certainly lost.

On the other side of the island there are likewise many harbors; and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. But they report (and there remain good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name) brought the rude and uncivilized inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind; having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this, he ordered a deep channel to be dug fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he beyond all men's expectations brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbors who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with admiration and terror.

There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well built: the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and they are all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles distance from one another, and the most remote are not so far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day from it to that which lies next it. Every city sends three of its wisest Senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about their common concerns; for that is the chief town of the island, being situated near the centre of it, so that it is the most convenient place for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles: and where the towns lie wider, they have much more ground: no town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have built over all the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and are furnished with all things necessary for country labor. Inhabitants are sent by turns from the cities to dwell in them; no country family has fewer than forty men and women in it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress set over every family; and over thirty families there is a magistrate.

Every year twenty of this family come back to the town, after they have stayed two years in the country; and in their room there are other twenty sent from the town, that they may learn country work from those that have been already one year in the country, as they must teach those that come to them the next from the town. By this means such as dwell in those country farms are never ignorant of agriculture, and so commit no errors, which might otherwise be fatal, and bring them under a scarcity of corn. But though there is every year such a shifting of the husbandmen, to prevent any man being forced against his will to follow that hard course of life too long, yet many among them take such pleasure in it that they desire leave to continue in it many years. These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the towns, either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but vast numbers of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat, in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched them.

They breed very few horses, but those they have are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their youth in the art of sitting and riding them; for they do not put them to any work, either of ploughing or carriage, in which they employ oxen; for though their horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out longer; and as they are not subject to so many diseases, so they are kept upon a less charge, and with less trouble; and even when they are so worn out, that they are no more fit for labor, they are good meat at last. They sow no corn, but that which is to be their bread; for they drink either wine, cider, or perry, and often water, sometimes boiled with honey or licorice, with which they abound; and though they know exactly how much corn will serve every town, and all that tract of country which belongs to it, yet they sow much more, and breed more cattle than are necessary for their consumption; and they give that overplus of which they make no use to their neighbors. When they want anything in the country which it does not produce, they fetch that from the town, without carrying anything in exchange for it. And the magistrates of the town take care to see it given them; for they meet generally in the town once a month, upon a festival day. When the time of harvest comes, the magistrates in the country send to those in the towns, and let them know how many hands they will need for reaping the harvest; and the number they call for being sent to them, they commonly despatch it all in one day.

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1901. New York: Ideal Commonwealths. P.F. Collier & Son. The Colonial Press. This book is in the public domain, released July 1993 by the Internet Wiretap. Prepared by Kirk Crady (kcrady@polaris.cv.nrao.edu) from scanner output provided by Internet Wiretap.

Hypertext Markup by William Uzgalis, September 1997

You are blessed ...if...??!

2007-02-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

You Are Blessed Person.

If you own a Bible, you are abundantly blessed-about 1/3 of the world does not have access to one.

If you wake up each morning with more health than illness, you are blessed to rise and shine, to live and to serve in a new day.

If you have anyone on the planet, just one person that loves you and listens to you; count this a blessing.

If you can freely attend a church meeting without fear, then you are more blessed than over 1/3 of the world.

If you have a yearning in your heart to parent a child, you are blessed because you still desire what you cannot see.

If you pray today or any day, you are blessed because you believe in God's willingness to hear your prayer.

If you pray for someone else, you are blessed because you want to help others also.

If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep; all at the same time; you are rich in this world.

If you have a brother or sister in Christ that will pray with you and for you, then you benefit from a spiritual unity, bond, and agreement, which the gates of hell cannot stand against.

If you have any earthly family that even halfway loves you and support you, then you are blessed beyond measure.

If you attend a church with a church family that offers you one word of encouragement, you are blessed with some form of fellowship.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, or some spare change in a dish someplace you are among the world's wealthy.

If you can go to bed each night, knowing that God loves you, then you are blessed beyond measure.

If you try each day to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ for even a minute, you are blessed because you show a willingness to grow up in Him.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than about 2/3 of the world.

If you have never had to endure the hardship and agony of battle, imprisonment, or torture, you are blessed in indescribable measure.

If you have a voice to sing His praises, a voice to witness God's love, and a voice to share the gospel, you are blessed. About 1/3 of the world does not even know who the one true God is.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug another person, touch someone on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer God's healing touch.

If you can share a word of encouragement with someone else, and do it with His love in your heart, you are blessed because you have learned how to give.

If you have the conviction to stand fast upon His Word and His promises, no matter what, you are blessed because you are learning patience, endurance, and tenacity.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because most people 'can' -- but won't.

Go Now... And... Enjoy The Day... Knowing You Are Blessed.

Nobel prize Winner 2006

2007-02-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

THE SOURCE IS CNN!

The birth of micro credit

March 29, 2001
Web posted at: 4:18 a.m. EST (0918 GMT)

By CNN's Jim Boulden

DHAKA, Bangladesh (CNN) - Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank. His idea was to lend to people that other banks ignored.

While others talk of lofty ways to crush poverty, Yunus is credited with down-to-earth solutions to make people self-sufficient.

His bank and other funds based on his model, give tiny loans to those at the very bottom of the economic ladder.

Grameen literally means rural in Bengali and it was in a small village in 1976 that Yunus first realised that a small loan could make a big difference.

"One thing that led me to what I do now was a woman making bamboo stool. She told me she made two pennies a day. I couldn't believe why she made two pennies a day. She made beautiful bamboo stools," Yunus told CNN.

The woman told him that the rest of her profit went to the local moneylender who bought the bamboo stool from her at a fixed price.

Yunus went around the village and found 42 people in need of just $27. At that moment, micro credit was born in one of the world's poorest countries.

Growing success

Grameen now has more than 1,000 branches that reach into 40,000 Bangladeshi villages. In 25 years it has lent more than $3 billion to two million borrowers.

In the village of Taltoli, an hour north of the capital, Dhaka, women go to the local branch to make their weekly payments. Some of them take their pension books too as they now earn enough to put a little bit aside every week for old age.

About 80 percent of the 1,000 people living in the village have a loan from Grameen Bank. In the 13 years that Grameen has lent money to them, not one villager has missed a monthly payment.

Yunus says there are two reasons: people invest wisely and apply peer pressure to make sure the village keeps a spotless record.

The region is known for making puff rice, but with Grameen loans some of the villagers now own chickens, trucks and even mobile phones.

One of Taltoli's successes is 39-year-old Diapli Rani. She had very little 12 years ago when she applied for her first loan of about $80. Now she has a poultry farm and her children are in school.

Rani also sits on the Grameen board and has something in common with 95 per cent of its borrowers -- they are all women.

Yunus originally aimed to lend 50-50 to men and women alike, but he says men did not spend the money to help their families. It is the children he is most proud of -- the first generation to grow up with the benefits of micro credit.

"Today I can safely say 100% of the children of Grameen Bank are in school," said Yunus.

Such success has attracted worldwide attention. As First Lady, Hillary Clinton visited a Grameen village with Yunus. While he was governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton started one of the first micro credit groups outside Bangladesh.

The former president told Rolling Stone magazine that Yunus should receive a Nobel prize.

Yunus has also caught the eye of Mexico's President Vicente Fox who supports his controversial position that a micro credit loan, which can come with higher than average interest, is better than a handout.

"It dignifies because it promotes people's responsibility and people's will to work and to improve their own condition," said the president.

Providing inspiration

Laverne Jackson, 56, from Dallas in the U.S. also agrees.

She got a $500 loan from the local Grameen-inspired local "Plan Fund" to move her fledgling flower business into a small Dallas shop.

"I thought it was fantastic because you can't get another loan or any loan anywhere else without people wanting to know your credit history, how long...just everything about you," she told CNN.

The Dallas fund put Jackson and three other entrepreneurs into a group to ensure that each one paid off their loan and the interest.

The Grameen Bank and its offshoots say peer pressure makes it more likely people will repay loans. Laverne Jackson has not missed a payment.

Critics of Grameen say a loan with 20 per cent interest is too much of a hardship. The Bangladeshi government agrees.

Shah Kibria, Bangladeshi Finance Minister said: "Generally I think Dr. Muhummad Yunus has done a fine job. He is a very dynamic person and his methods have been used by others fruitfully, but the interest rate is too high, that is a major criticism."

However, Yunus defends the bank by saying "Today, the market rate is 15%. We charge 20% and deliver the service to the doorstep. None of our borrowers have to come to our office. Our staff go and provide the service at the door step."

Author David Bornstein spent months studying the Grameen Bank for his book "The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank".

He says that 20 percent in micro credit terms is actually quite low.

"There are micro credit organisations in Bolivia and in other parts of the world that charge 50 percent interest rates. I interviewed a lot of villagers for my book and none of them complained about the interest rate. That wasn't really a consideration," he told CNN.

When Yunus began, banks said the default rate would be too high, but 90 to 100 per cent of Grameen borrowers repay their loans. The success rate is the same as for a typical western commercial bank.

"So the fact that the bank manager was telling me that poor people are not credit worthy now has clearly demonstrated that they are very much credit worthy. The real question to be asked is whether the banks are people worthy," said Yunus.

Grameen earned $47 million in 1998. $2 million was profit. In most years the bank adds just over one per cent to Bangladeshi gross domestic product.

Yunus knows Grameen's income may be peanuts, but to other commercial banks, but he says it proves Grameen does not equal charity.

"Today the Grameen Bank is known as bank of the poor. This is how Grameen Bank is described and our success will be when we are described and accepted as the bank of the former poor."