After Ryan Lochte incident, should athletes stay hidden in Rio?

RIO DE JANEIRO – After Team USA star Ryan Lochte and three other American swimmers were robbed at gunpoint on early Sunday morning, there’s been a renewed focus on whether Summer Olympic athletes’ safety is at risk if they venture out into Rio De Janeiro and away from their own facilities.

Australia, for example, has issued a curfew for its athletes, requiring them to travel in a vehicle between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in Rio with no exceptions.

So should athletes stay hidden in Rio, or was this more of an isolated incident given the time (4 a.m.), the context (leaving a nightclub) and other factors?

The IOC was asked on Monday if it believes athletes should remain in their facilities for safety, rather than touring the city or hitting nightspots as the swimmers did. IOC spokesman Mark Adams encouraged athletes to continue venturing into Rio.

“I wouldn’t advise people to stay at their Olympic sites [to avoid security problems],” he said.

That said, Adams indicated that measures taken like those by the Australians are solely the discretion of those national committees. “I think national committee has to take the measures that are good for their athletes. Each one does different things,” he said.

When asked if they would be enacting a curfew or encouraging athletes not to venture out into Rio, USOC spokesman Matt Jones said, “We have reiterated our security protocols to all of our American athletes.”

Lochte, Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen were pulled over in a taxi they were riding in around 4 a.m. by men who had what appeared to be police badges.

“They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so — I’m not getting down on the ground,” Lochte told NBC News. “And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, “Get down,” and I put my hands up, I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet — he left my cell phone, he left my credentials.”

Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada said the investigation into the incident is ongoing by police. “The police reached some of the athletes yesterday. The police are looking for the cab driver who drove them back, who seems to have more information about this,” he said.

One point of lingering controversy from the Lochte incident was the IOC’s initial report that the story was false. At a Sunday IOC press conference, Adams initially said the reports of the robbery were “absolutely false” according to the USOC. Later, when asked again, he said, “all I can tell you is that I messaged USOC, and they said they spoke to Lochte and he said it was not true.”

Adams reiterated on Monday that he was just passing along what the USOC had told him during a press conference. “I can explain it very, very simply. What I said was that people asked me to give them an update. I contacted the USOC. They told me the story was not correct. I reported it was not correct. If I was asked to get an update from USOC, I gave an update from USOC and then I provided an update,” he said.

What Is Transcendentalism?  

Well, if you Google the exact terms above; "What is transcendentalism?" Google tells us this: 

Transcendentalism:  

• an idealistic philosophical and social movement that developed in New England around 1836 in reaction to rationalism. Influenced by romanticism, Platonism, and Kantian philosophy, it taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity, and its members held progressive views on feminism and communal living. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were central figures. 
• a system developed by Immanuel Kant, based on the idea that, in order to understand the nature of reality, one must first examine and analyze the reasoning process that governs the nature of experience.  

A man known by the name of "Ralph Waldo Emerson" created this movement in 1836. 

Below are some random notes and important definitions of transcendentalism. 

• Transcendentalism - The view that the basic truths of the universe lie beyond the knowledge we obtain from our senses, reason, logic, or laws of science. We learn these truths through our intuition, our "Divine Intellect." 
• Transcend - Go beyond 
• Senses, reason, logic, or laws of science  - That which enables us to create science and technology and to understand the concrete, the physical world. 
• Intuition - That which enables us to know the existence of our own souls and their relation to a reality to a beyond the physical world and to understand the abstract. The faculty of knowing without relying solely on the senses. 

• Concrete—Having physical, material reality which can be perceived by the senses
• The Divine Intellect—part of God in each man; intuition; innate understanding of what is right and good; direct line of communication between God and man; the Divine Animal
• The Oversoul—God; the Universal Being  (Emerson’s term)
• Abstract—Not having physical, material reality, not perceivable by the senses  

Transcendentalist Beliefs  

—The spiritual unity of all forms of being with God, Humanity, and Nature all sharing a universal soul, the Oversoul

—The inherent goodness (divinity!) of Man and Nature

—The value of individualism

—The belief that the natural world is symbolic of the spirit world

—The “Lemon Pie” theory (to know the part is to know the whole)

—That Society is the source of corruptive, distracting materialism

—That Man is naturally good, even divine, because of his Divine Intellect

—That Nature is inherently good because it is symbolic of the spirit (God)

--That God, the Oversoul, is the universal soul that permeates all being (much like “the Force”)

Ralph Waldo Emerson—(Father of Transcendentalism) believed the concrete to be symbolic of the abstract. (This belief is called idealism and is as old as Plato.)

Idealism—The belief that external, physical, material reality is merely a reflection of  ideal reality

Ideal—In this usage, existing as an idea or archetypal pattern in the mind

Materialism—concern with the physical world rather than the spiritual    

Notes On Transcendentalism 

                                                                         1830's - 1860 

Transcend: Go beyond

Central Idea of Transcendentalism: The way to truth or ultimate reality is not available to reason, logic, science, or the senses; it is available only through intuition--what the Transcendentalists called the Divine Intellect.

Example: We can tell by using our reason, logic, science, and the senses, whether a person is dead or alive; we CANNOT tell by using our reason, logic, science, or the senses, whether or not it is GOOD to be alive.

Transcendentalism is an extreme form of Romanticism and shares its views of Man, Nature, God, and Society.

God: To the Transcendentalists, God is the Oversoul, the soul of the Universe. God is like the Force (in Star Wars) but without a Dark Side.

Imagine a sea or ocean of benevolence that surrounds us. This sea has no surface and no bottom. We float in this sea like little bottles.

This is the Transcendentalist idea of what the Oversoul is like.

N.B. The Transcendentalists were not Christians. Their vision of God was Unitarian--not Trinitarian.

Man: Go back to your image of the bottomless, surface-less sea. Man is a 11ff le bottle floating in the sea. The bottle is filled with a drop of the same water in which he floats. There is a cork in the bottle.

The drop of water is the Divine Intellect or Intuition--a piece of God which defines each individual person. Christians might refer to this part of Man as his conscience, or perhaps his soul.

Question: Why may Man--as Emerson puts it—“Trust (himself]”?

Answer: What he means is, that each person may trust his Divine Intellect--so to trust oneself is to trust God.

Under the right circumstances, Man may “pop his cork” and mingle his drop of water with the rest of the sea that surrounds him, experiencing complete oneness with the Oversoul.

Question: How does he do so?

Answer: He frees himself from corruptive materialism and the concerns of the material, physical, civilized world. He communes with God through contemplation of Nature.

Emerson refers to this experience of becoming one with God as becoming a “transparent eyeball” in his essay, “Nature”:

I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing; I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me. I am part or parcel of God.

In his essay “The Poet,” Emerson refers to the experience as:

...unlocking, at all risks [ human doors and suffering [ allowing] the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then he is caught up in the life of the Universe; his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally understandable as the plants and animals.

According to the Transcendentalists, Man is not merely good--he is divine because of his Divine Intellect.

(Reincarnation is a belief tangential to Transcendentalism. When the “bottle” breaks, the drop of “water” returns to the “sea,” from where, conceivably, it might find itself in a new “bottle.” The Transcendentalists did NOT greatly concern themselves with this concept.)

Nature: To the Transcendentalists, Nature was a reflection of the Oversoul and the way to communicate with the Oversoul. Contemplation of Nature enables Man to “pop his cork” and become one with God.

Nature is good, beautiful, and a reflection of, and conduit to, God.

Society:

Question: What prevents the individual from following his Divine Intellect and doing what is good?

Answer: Society and its corrupting Materialism.

According to the Transcendentalists, Society is corruptive because under its influence and pressure to conform, Man is discouraged and distracted from listening to his Divine Intellect and doing what he knows in his heart to be good.

Is Money a necessity in order to achieve the American Dream?

Do you think money is required to achieve the American Dream?

Many people will argue that money either is, or is not required in order to achieve the American Dream. Well, you may be asking what is the American Dream? There is no exact definition of the "American Dream", as we all have our own definition of it, but the general definition is to be able to live freely within peace with a comfortable income (or retirement).  

Here are some statistics to consider: 

1. The majority of Americans believe that it is more difficult to achieve the American Dream than it was a decade ago, due primarily to the high costs of education and healthcare. 

2. Americans who have chosen to work fewer hours report an overall improvement in quality of life, indicating that this shift has positively affected their lives by allowing for more free time and reduced stress.

3. Americans are interested in increasing their sharing practices and learning more about the sharing economy. Over half of respondents believe that sharing lowers environmental impact, builds community, and helps save money.

4. Americans feel strongly that the way we live produces too much waste, and that our high consumption levels are largely responsible for global environmental problems. An overwhelming majority feel that we will need to make major changes in the way we live to counterbalance this phenomenon.

5. Americans believe that commercialism and advertising have gotten out of hand in the United States, and that the government should do more to combat it. Almost three-quarters of Americans believe there should be limits on advertising to children, including limits on advertising in public spaces and in schools.

6. Millennials make use of sharing economy services—such as bike sharing and peer-to-peer lodging—at a rate more than double their Baby Boomer and Gen X peers, and are interested in expanding their sharing practices. They are also more optimistic than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers that they will be able to achieve the American Dream.

7. Non-white Americans are more interested in sharing practices than white Americans.  

Here are some statistics of what Americans think of the American Dream:

Source: (http://www.newdream.org/resources/poll-2014)

So, the question still remains. Do you think money is required in order to achieve the American Dream?

Obama, family attends boisterous Easter service

Obama attends first family boisterous Easter service

Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama attended a spirited Easter service at a historic black church on Sunday, in keeping with the first family's tradition of visiting local Washington area congregations.

The president, his wife Michelle and their two teenaged daughters attended the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, its pews filled with congregants who could barely contain their excitement over the visit.

"How fitting that on the day we celebrate the rising of our Lord and Savior, we also welcome our sitting president," Pastor Howard-John Wesley said to applause from enthusiastic worshippers, whom he urged to keep their cellphones in their pockets and purses.

"This is not selfie time," he said to laughter. "Let the brother worship in the house of God."

The congregation, including the president, rose to their feet during a rousing hymn sung by the choir, with Obama bobbing his head, clapping, and swaying to the accompaniment by a live band.

One congregant couldn't refrain from posting a tweet.

"Y'all...I'm worshipping on Easter Sunday with the First Family. I...LOVE...my...church. The Resurrection is indeed real," read the message, retweeted by the Alfred Baptist Church from its own Twitter account.

The president and his family, rather than selecting one church to frequent as some other presidents have, have attended various Washington area churches from time to time.

Kaminsky, Collins on Harrison's controversial comments.

Andrew Harrison's age does not excuse idiotic slur toward Frank Kaminsky 

Take a look at the video below to catch the racial slur from Andrew Harrison.

INDIANAPOLIS – Around the Kentucky program they'll describe Andrew Harrison as uniquely competitive and occasionally emotional, much of which plays out on the court.

He can be great. He can be, to put it mildly, a handful. He tends to wear his emotions – good, bad and ugly – on his sleeve for all to see.

Racist? No, not that.

Capable of doing something really dumb like muttering an expletive and a racial slur directed at Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky into a hot microphone on the dais of a Final Four post-game press conference that is being broadcast live on national television?

Yes, that.

"First," Harrison stated in a series of tweets early Sunday morning, "I want to apologize for my poor choice of words used in jest towards a player I respect and know. When I realized how this could be perceived I immediately called big Frank to apologize and let him know I didn't mean any disrespect."

"He reached out to me," Kaminsky acknowledged Sunday. "We talked about it. It's over. Nothing needs to be made of it."

But a little later in the day, Kaminsky elaborated on the situation.