FIRST DAY OF SPAIN BULL RUNNING

FAMED PAMPLONA FESTIVAL OPENS
WITH NO GORINGS BUT SOME INJURIES

PAMPLONA (AP) - Thousands of daredevils dashed through the narrow streets of Pamplona’s historic old quarter on Wednesday for a goring-free first bull run of this year’s San Fermin fiesta that unofficially ushers in Spain’s summer party season lasting through August. The thrillseekers raced to keep ahead of six fighting bulls and six bell-tinkling steers tasked with trying to keep the beasts together along the 930-yard course from a holding pen to the northern city’s bull ring. Several runners were knocked to the ground and some were trampled on by the animals weighing more than 1,100 pounds but there were no gorings or life-threatening injuries. An 18-year-old man from Melbourne, Australia, suffered an eye injury and a 20-year old Spaniard suffered multiple contusions, the government of Navarra state said on its website. Both were hospitalized under observation but their injuries were not considered serious. The statement identified them only by their initials. The 8 a.m. run is the highlight of the nine-day street drinking festival, and comes after a full day and night of hard partying.

Dozens of runners, dressed in the festival’s traditional white shirts and pants with red sashes, sang a chant to a statue of San Fermin at the start of the route seconds before a firecracker rocket blast signaled the release of the bulls from the pen. The run, broadcast live on national television, lasted 2 minutes and 45 seconds, a relatively fast sprint that saw the bulls staying together and paying little attention to the runners. After the run, people packed the bull ring to chase and taunt young calves while others resumed partying around the town, swilling beer, sangria and wine on the streets and in packed bars. The festival features eight bull runs in total. The bulls that ran in the morning will be killed in the evening in the bull ring, and their meat gets served up in Pamplona’s restaurants.


I have great respect for Spain and its culture, but even long held customs must give way to human evolution. Fighting animals for sport or forcing frightened animals to run through streets filled with cheering, running, jostling men, it is not a sane "tradition" but a cruel one. Surely there must be another way for men to prove to the world that they are "men".

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Ramesvara: ... Even today, actually, all the entertainment in America and the Western world is based on violence. They have bull fighting. They want to see the bull tortured and killed. And they have chicken fighting and they have...
Prabhupada: Dog fighting.
Ramesvara: And even the most popular sport in America now is football. It is more popular than baseball, and it's based on men jumping on each other. While one team is carrying the ball, every... A very violent sport.
Hari-sauri: And boxing also. So many different sports.
Ramesvara: They are fascinated by pain and fighting.
Prabhupada: Torture. They like to see that somebody is tortured by another.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“Room Conversation”
January 21, 1977, Bhubaneswar
Conversations - 770121r3.bhu
Complete Works of Srila Prabhupada

WOMAN SENTENCED TO DEATH BY STONING

IRANIAN WOMAN FACES DEATH BY STONING
AFTER BEING CONVICTED OF ADULTERY

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The woman, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, was convicted of adultery in 2006. She confessed to the crime after being subjected to 99 lashes, but retracted her confession later and has since denied wrongdoing. She has asked for clemency from the Iranian courts, but has been rebuffed. Amnesty International yesterday called on the Iranian authorities to halt the imminent execution of mother-of-two Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and the hanging of another woman said to be a political activist. Ashtiani was convicted of having an ‘illicit relationship’ with two men in May 2006 and received 99 lashes as her sentence. Despite this, she has also been convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. The 43-year-old has retracted a ‘confession’ she said was made under duress. Appealing for help to the international community, her daughter, Farideh, 16, and son, Sajad, 20, said yesterday: ‘Please help end this nightmare and do not let it turn into a reality. Help us save our mother.’ European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Iran to stop the execution of this woman and two other people.

Ashton said she was “deeply concerned” about reports that the executions of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, who was sentenced to hang for a murder he committed when he was a minor, and the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, “may be imminent.” She also renewed her call for Iran to drop the death sentence against Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurd who awaits execution for being an “enemy of God.” Ashton called death by stoning “a particularly cruel method of execution which amounts to torture.” Ashton urged Iran to consider a moratorium on executions. Iran says the death penalty is essential to maintain public security and is applied only after exhaustive judicial proceedings. Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are all punishable by death in Iran.


According to Amnesty International, death by stoning takes place with the convicted buried up to the chest, and stones are thrown at the head. The stones are large enough to cause enough pain, but not too large to kill right away. Actually, one can not understand how so wild method of capital punishment can still exist in 2010.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Persons who are attached to sinful activities generally become envious and violent toward other living entities. Committing violence is a heinous sin. It is everyone's duty to give up violence. Violence toward human beings is the gravest sin. ... Violence toward other living entities is the root of all sinful activities. ... There are three kinds of violence: violence toward human beings, violence toward animals, and violence toward demigods. Violence is born from hate. ... There are two types of cruelty, cruelty toward humans and cruelty toward animals. Cruelty toward men and women causes great disturbances in the world. When people practice cruelty toward one another, compassion leaves the world and irreligiousness in the form of cruelty become prominent. (Caitanya-siksamrta 2/5).

Śrīla Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thākura :
‘Violence Toward the Living Entities’
“Śrī Bhaktivinoda Vānī Vaibhava” - Vol 2. “Abhidheya”
Compiled by Śrīpad Sundarānanda Vidyāvinoda.

YOGA FOR OVERWEIGHT PEOPLE

BIG YOGA: EVERYBODY SAY “OM”
YOGA CLASSES FOR OVERWEIGHT PEOPLE

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When one of Meera Patricia Kerr’s students tried to attend a regular yoga class the instructor told her to come back when she lost weight. “That kind of broke my heart, said Kerr, a yoga instructor and author of “Big Yoga, a Simple Guide for Bigger Bodies.” “Overweight people feel out of the loop. If you’re big you might be uncomfortable in a class of ‘normies,’ even if the instructor is welcoming” she said. “I was young and plump but not as big as I am now,” Kerr explained. “I got bigger and I needed to adapt my practice to the belly and the boobs.” Kerr says some yoga teachers don’t know how to adapt to bigger bodies. “There’s fitness yoga with the bendy girls in their cute little outfits, then there’s the more mystical side which attracts a lot of people, then there’s the plus size, which is becoming more visible,” she said. With almost two-thirds of American women either overweight or obese, according to Centres for Disease Control, and more than 15 million people practising yoga in the United States, according to Yoga Journal, that comes as no surprise.

Kerr said the yogic practice of pranayama, or breath control, is especially good for bigger people. “We store toxins in our fat cells, and these toxins are eliminated through the breath,” she said. “It’s subtle but powerful.” Jessica Matthews, of the American Council on Exercise (ACE), said practising yoga regularly has been shown to increase muscle strength and endurance, upper and lower body strength, flexibility and balance. Matthews, who is a yoga instructor at Core Yoga in San Diego, California, said she strives to create a non-competitive, non-judgmental environment in her classes. But she acknowledges that overweight people may feel vulnerable. Matthews said yoga can encourage overweight people to change their relationship with their bodies, and can lead to weight loss.


Improved flexibility is one of the first benefits of Hatha Yoga. During the first lessons you probably will not be able to touch his toes with your hands, but with practice you will notice a gradual loosening, and the disappearance of pain and tension. Remember that each movement must be done harmoniously.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Hatha Yoga Inbound does not set the model of a slim body and perfect, but on the contrary, it sets a healthy, relaxed and flexible body, in harmony with the mind and the senses; which is very necessary for our journey into the Self. ... With the practice of Asanas, one is gradually released from the tensions, and this means to obtain greater flexibility and less effort in doing any activity, and also to increase attention and concentration. One of the fundamental differences between a young body and a senile body reside in the flexibility of the former and the rigidity of the latter, in other words, "flexibility" is synonymous of youth. The adepts of Yoga retain unique flexibility until a very old age. The secret of Hatha Yoga Flexibility lies in the elongation of contracted muscles, due to effect of slow and progressive tractions.

Yoga Inbound :
“The Secret of Flexibility”
http://www.yogainbound.org/ws/hatha-yoga/
http://www.yogainbound.org/ws/hatha-yoga/30-articulos-interes/

SPAIN’S UNRESTRICTED ABORTION LAW TAKES EFFECT

SPAIN’S DEBATABLE NEW ABORTION LAW
GOES INTO ACTION IN MIDST OF PROTESTS

MADRID (AP) - A new Spanish law allowing abortion without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy went into effect Monday but the Constitutional Court could yet intervene to suspend or change it. The law, approved by Parliament in February, was the latest item on a liberal agenda undertaken by the Socialist government, which took power in 2004. Equality Minister Bibiana Aido told Cadena SER radio the government was unworried by an appeal by the conservative Popular Party to the Constitutional Court challenging the 14-week clause as unconstitutional. “The government is fully convinced of the constitutionality of the law,” she said. The Popular Party cited a 1985 ruling from the court that said a woman’s rights could not automatically take precedence over those of an unborn child, and could do so only in cases of rape, fetal malformation or when the mother’s health is in jeopardy. The Constitutional Court must also decide whether to suspend the law while it studies the appeal.
The law allows 16- and 17-year-olds to have abortions without their parents’ permission, although the parents have to be informed.

The new law also wipes away the threat of imprisonment for having an abortion and declares it a woman’s right.“Above all it is a more secure law, providing legal protection for both women and health professionals,” said Aido. She said it reflected the needs of Spanish society better than the previous law. Fewer than 1,000 people gathered in Madrid on Saturday to protest the new law, down from the hundreds of thousands of people that have attended protests in recent years. “The drama of abortion has been in Spain for 25 years, it has caused terrible pain to over a million women, more than a million children have not been born,” said anti-abortion campaigner Benigno Blanco. “With this new law this drama is going to get worse. What we want to say is ‘enough of abortion.”


Now in Spain, women who choose abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy may do so without giving any explanation. People forget that pregnancy does not occur only by sexual intercourse, but it is also the result of divine will. Therefore, if we voluntarily stop the process, we are really committing a sinful activity.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Abortion brings a very negative karma. The child in the womb is a soul, a living being destined for a human body. This is true from the moment of conception. “The Personality of Godhead said: Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen to assume a particular type of body.” (S.B. 3.31.1) If one has sex, then one must take responsibility for raising any child that is produced - or at least see to it that the child is raised by someone. One cannot escape suffering by committing sins. … Legalizing abortion has not at all decreased the number of unwanted children in the world, or the number of mistreated children. In fact, easily available birth control and abortion has gone along with an increase in illegitimate and battered children.

VEDA - Vedas and Vedic Knowledge Online :
“Current Issues : Abortion.”
http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz
http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/bhaktiyoga/issues.htm#1

OIL TRUCK EXPLODES IN CONGO, KILLS 230

IN CONGO FUEL TANKER OVERTURNED CAUGHT FIRE
AND EXPLODE, KILLING 230 BYSTANDERS VILLAGERS

SANGE, Congo (AP) - A tanker truck hauling fuel in rural eastern Congo overturned, began gushing oil and then exploded in a massive fireball that killed about 230 bystanders, officials said Saturday. The explosion occurred late Friday as people from the nearby village of Sange were trying to take fuel from the ruptured truck, a U.N. spokesman said. Some of those killed had been watching the World Cup in roadside shacks. Officials said at least 10 homes were burned. “People are shocked, but everything is calm,” said the governor of South Kivu province, Marcellin Cissambo. “It’s a huge death toll for such a banal accident.” U.N. peacekeepers rushed to evacuate more than 200 wounded from the scene by helicopter and ambulance, while Red Cross teams carried the charred bodies from the scene in body bags and buried them in mass graves a few miles away. The truck began gushing oil and then burst into flames an hour later. As oil began leaking from the damaged tanker, Pakistani peacekeepers from a nearby U.N. base “came and told people to get away from the area, but people refused to leave,” said a resident.

“Men, women and children, even government soldiers were stealing petrol,” Mwasha said, adding that when night fell, one woman lit a kerosene lamp, which may have ignited the blaze. “It was so terrible,” said Umoja Ruzibira, 25, who heard a huge explosion and saw a fireball engulf thatch huts and a crowded market. “There were so many men, women and children around when it happened.” Desperately poor people in Congo and elsewhere in Africa often descend quickly around damaged or disabled oil trucks or pipelines leaking fuel, carting it away with plastic jugs. In Nigeria, thousands have died as crowd siphoned fuel from ruptured or pierced oil pipelines that subsequently exploded.


Similar accidents occur frequently in Africa because of the deterioration of roads after years of ethnic wars between villages, and because desperately poor people go around damaged oil trucks leaking fuel, carting it away trying unaware of the danger of doing so. Death always lurks at every step and we must surrender to the Lord before this happens.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

One who is intelligent understands that there is a great and supreme authority above everything. That great authority appears in different incarnations to save the innocent from disturbances. ... The King of the elephants decided to surrender unto Him. This is intelligent. One must know that great Supreme Personality of Godhead and surrender unto Him. ... We are always in danger because at any moment death can take place. It is not that only Gajendra, the King of the elephants, was afraid of death. Everyone should fear death because everyone is caught by the crocodile of eternal time and may die at any moment. The best course, therefore, is to seek shelter of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and be saved from the struggle for existence in this material world, in which one repeatedly takes birth and dies. To reach this understanding is the ultimate goal of life.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam”
Purport in Canto 8 - Chapter 2 - Verse 33.

RESTAURANT SERVES ‘McLION’ BURGERS

PAYING TRIBUTE TO SOUTH AFRICA WORLD CUP
LION MEAT BURGER IS SERVED IN RESTAURANTS

PHOENIX (AP) - A restaurant owner who put lion burgers on the menu in honor of the World Cup has felt a roar of anger from outraged animal rights activists. Cameron Selogie, owner of the Il Vinaio restaurant in Mesa, served burgers made with African lion this week as a nod to the tournament in South Africa. Reservations sold out, with a waiting list 100 long. But the burgers also attracted international attention and the scorn of animal rights activists, who picketed outside the restaurant. Serving African lion meat is perfectly legal, said Michael Herndon, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration. Game meat such as lion can be sold as long as the species isn’t endangered, and the CDC hasn’t prohibited importation of African lion, although its Asiatic cousin is on the endangered list.
Selogie described the meat as tasting slightly “gamey,” almost like a savory beef jerky. About 20 percent of Il Vinaio’s patty is ground beef, because the lion meat was so lean, Selogie said. He purchased ground lion meat from Phoenix-based Gourmet Imports Wild Game, which supplies everything from alligator to zebra for customers.


In South Africa, lion meat is shunned and animal welfare activists expressed shock at the burgers served in Phoenix. Mike Cadman, a wildlife research journalist based in Johannesburg, describes the eating of lion meat as a “bizarre craze” practiced by those who want to try it because it is not illegal. Cadman says lions in African are not hunted for eating but for trophy purposes - where the lion head is stuffed and its skin is cleaned and kept as trophies. Ashley Byrne, from the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said most lion meat served in restaurants comes from old zoo and circus lions. Regardless of where Selogie’s meat came from, the lions “suffered terrifying deaths ... Anybody who orders a lion burger is supporting cruelty to animals,” Byrne said.


They are trying to make money at all costs. Eating predators is shunned in Africa. Predator eating predator is rare. Even lions eating other predators is uncommon. The worst predator is mankind. We have enough food choices without lion meat or any kind of meat. Let's remove meat from our menus!

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

In the Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva section there is a conversation between Yudhisthira and Grandfather Bhishma about the merits of abstaining from meat eating and the demerits and consequences for doing so. One quote is: “If there were nobody who ate flesh, then there would be nobody to slay living creatures. The man who slays living creatures kills them for the sake of the person who eats flesh. If flesh were not considered as food, there would then be no destruction of living creatures. It is for the sake of the eater that the destruction of living entities is carried on in the world. Since, O you of great splendor, the period of life is shortened by persons who kill living creatures or cause them to be killed, it is clear that the person who seeks his own good should give up meat altogether. Those dreadful persons who are engaged in the destruction of living beings never find protectors when they are in need.” (Mahabharata, Anu. 115.29-32).

Stephen Knapp (Śrīpad Nandanandana dasa) :
“Vegetarianism: Recommended in Vedic Scripture”
http://www.stephen-knapp.com
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/vegetarianism_recommended_in_Vedic_scripture.htm

GIANT PREDATORY SEA MONSTER FOSSIL FOUND

“WHALE EATING” WHALE FOSSIL DISCOVERED
LONG-EXTINCT CANNIBAL RULED ANCIENT SEAS

LONDON (AP) - Scientists have discovered an ancient whale whose bite ripped huge chunks of flesh out of other whales about 12 million years ago - and they’ve named it after the author of “Moby-Dick.” The prehistoric sperm whale grew to between 13 and 18 meters (up to 60 feet) long, not unusual by today’s standards. But unlike modern sperm whales, Leviathan Melvillei, sported vicious, tusk-like teeth some 36 centimeters (14 inches) long. The ancient beast evidently dined on other whales, researchers said in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. They report finding a skull of the beast in a Peruvian desert. The researchers named it in tribute to the 19th-century author and his classic tale of the great white whale, which includes frequent digressions on natural history that punctuate the action. Anthony Friscia, a paleontologist at the University of California, LA, who wasn’t involved in the discovery, said scattered finds of huge fossilized teeth had long hinted at the ancient whale’s existence. But without a skull to fit them in, the creature’s shape, size and feeding habits remained a mystery. The ancient beasts “were the killer whales of their time, although on a much grander scale,” Friscia said. “They were close to the biggest things around.”

After finding the enormous fossil, scientists started debating on what the giant creature might have eaten to survive. They believe it’s possible that those huge sperm whales depended on baleen whales to fulfill their hunger and nutritional needs. Olivier Lambert, paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, explained: “It was larger than other marine mammals existing at that time, even baleen whales that were smaller than most of the living baleen whales.” It has been named “Leviathan Melvillei”; ‘Leviathan’ after a sea monster in the Bible and ‘Melville’ after the author of novel ‘Moby Dick’, Herman Melville.

Here you can watch a video about this research

References about the whale-eater, called “Timingila” are found in Vedic literature: the Bhagavatam, Ramayana and the Mahabharata. One may ask: how did the Vedic culture of these animals that science considered only fantastic myths and imaginary legends? Scientists should find reliable knowledge in the Vedas.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The Śrīmad Bhagavatam, Ramayana, Mahabharata and other Vedic literatures often speak of fantastic places and of creatures that may have once lived on this planet. One such creature was the Timingila fish. The Timingila is said to have been the most formidable predator in the oceans. It was enormous in size and its favorite food was said to have been whales. ... In Sanskrit ‘timi’ is the word for ‘whale’ and ‘gila’ means ‘to swallow’. Thus ‘timingila’ literally means ‘to swallow a whale’ ... Western scholars assert that the Bhagavatam was only written in the 9th century CE, the Ramayana in the 4th century BCE, and the Mahabharata between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE. But if this were a fact, then how did the writers of these books know about an ocean-dwelling creature that had been extinct for 1.5 million years? for us the answer is simple - there have always been human beings on this planet from its very creation and the knowledge of all such things has been passed down thru the ages via the disciplic succession of gurus and disciples.

Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja :
“Timingila - Myth or Fact?”
Shri Narasingha Chaitanya Matha
http://www.gosai.com/krishna-talk/88-timingila-makara-fish.html
http://www.vina.cc/news/index.php/Philosophical/Timingila-Myth-or-Fact.html

POPE: NEW OFFICE FOR THE RE-EVANGELIZATION

POPE BENEDICT XVI TO 'RE-EVANGELISE' WEST
NEW OFFICE TO FIGHT SECULARISATION IN EUROPE

ROME (AP) - Preoccupied for months by the clerical sex abuse scandal, the pope on Wednesday shuffled the Vatican bureaucracy before heading off on vacation. His most significant appointment: the head of a new office designed to fight secularism in the West. Pope Benedict XVI tapped a trusted Italian, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, to head the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, a new Vatican department designed to reinvigorate Christianity in the parts of the world where it is falling by the wayside. Pope Benedict XVI has made rekindling the faith in Europe a priority of his papacy, so he has created a new office to “re-evangelise” the Western world in an attempt to roll back secularist advances in what the Vatican sees as the traditional heartland of Christendom. The Pope has made no secret of his dislike for secularism and has been determined to persuade Western countries to rediscover their Catholic roots.

Benedict has frequently railed against some of the key pillars of secular liberalism such as the acceptance of homosexuality and abortion rights and the use of contraception. He has been particularly concerned about Europe's increasing secularization and has focused his foreign trips on the continent as a result. With the creation of a Pontifical Council for the promotion of New Evangelisation, Benedict wishes to cope with “a grave crisis in the sense of the Christian faith”, as he described. The creation of the council is a stark reminder of just how far secularisation has progressed in an area that was once called Christendom and is a tacit admission that the Church's recent attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe have not succeeded. The 83-year-old pontiff admitted that Europe and North America have suffered from an “eclipse of a sense of God” and needed to be re-evangelised.


Just as Pope Benedict XIV and Monsignor Fisichella warn, this “eclipse of a sense of God” causes the church to lose the main objective: spirituality. People are moving away from the churches disappointed, and are inclined toward indifference and ethical relativism. We must develop in our hearts a wonderful and charming inner taste in the search for God.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

With the stirring of the soul from its identification with the body and the mind, the proper understanding will come gradually in one's spiritual development. ... Inner taste will guide us. This is very charming and attracts our hearts. ... Why have we come to Krishna? For what reason have we come? Why has Krishna consciousness attracted our soul, our inner heart? Formerly, we had some conception of religion. But why did we leave that, so many formalities, such association, so many friends within that circle? Why did we leave? Who is to take care of us here in Krishna consciousness? Why have we come, taking some risk? The country, the society, the religious conception, why have we left them and come forward for Krishna consciousness? That same tendency will again drive us to select different departments of service in Krishna consciousness.

Śrīla Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Mahārāja :
“Follow the Angels - The Path of Dedication”
“Part Three: Higher Talks”
http://bvml.org/SBRSM/FtA.html
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library