Self-Reflection

Human self-reflection is the capacity of humans to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about their fundamental nature, purpose and essence. The earliest historical records demonstrate the great interest which humanity has had in itself. Human self-reflection invariably leads to inquiry into the human condition and the essence of humankind as a whole.

Human self-reflection is related to the philosophy of consciousness, the topic of awareness, consciousness in general and the philosophy of mind. Humans consider themselves to be the dominant species on Earth and the most advanced in intelligence and ability to manage their environment.

Prehistoric notions about the status of humanity may be guessed by the etymology of ancient words for man. Latin homo (PIE *kþonyon) means "of the earth, earthling," probably in opposition to "celestial" beings. Greek ἂνθροπος (mycenaean *anthrokwos) means "low-eyed," again probably contrasting with a divine perspective.

I can at the most random moments find myself performing these self-reflection episodes. Where am I going with my life, what have I just done, Are my actions today positively reflecting upon the image I have of myself and that I wish others to perceive of me?

I find the history a-fore-mentioned above to be fascinating. What are your thoughts?

Ahhh, To Be Young Again

What if you could be young forever? People in today's age and ancient days both have tried to find a way that will keep a person young and healthy forever. As today's science makes leaps and bounds, many still look to ancient tales.

There are several variations about the Legend of the Fountain of Youth, but this is the most widely accepted one:

According to tradition, the natives of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba told the early Spanish explorers that in Bimini (Beniny), a land to the north, there was a river, spring or fountain where waters had such miraculous curative powers that any old person who bathed in them would regain his youth. About the time of Columbus's first voyage, says the legend, an Arawak chief named Sequene, inspired by the fable of the curative waters, had migrated from Cuba to southern Florida. It seems that other parties of islanders had made attempts to find Bimini, which was generally described as being in the region of the Bahamas.

Juan Ponce de Leon (1460-1521), who had been with Columbus on his second voyage in 1493 and who had later conquered and become governor of Puerto Rico, is supposed to have learned of the fable from the Indians. The fable was not new, and probably Pence de Leon was vaguely cognizant of the fact that such waters had been mentioned by medieval writers, and that Alexander the Great had searched for such waters in eastern Asia. A similar legend was known to the Polynesians, whose tradition located the fountain of perpetual youth in Hawaii.

As described to the Spanish, Bimini not only contained a spring of perpetual youth but teemed with gold and all sorts of riches. The fact that the party of Arawaks who had gone in that direction had never returned was taken as evidence that they must have found the happy land!

In that age of discovery, when new wonders and novelties were disclosed every year, not only the Spanish explorers but also men of learning accepted such stories with childlike credulity. Pietro Martire d'Anghiera (1472-1528), an Italian geographer and historian who moved to Spain in 1487 and who is known as "Peter Martyr" wrote to Pope Leo X in 1513: "Among the islands of the north side of Hispaniola, there is about 325 leagues distant, as they say who have searched the same, in which is a continual spring of running water, of such marvelous virtue that the water thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young again." The chronicler himself discounted the tale, but he told his Holiness that "they have so spread this rumor for a truth through all the court, that not only all the people, but also many of them whom wisdom or fortune hath divided from the common sort, think it to be true."

Ponce de Leon, who had become wealthy in the colonial service, equipped three ships at his own expense and set out to find the land of riches and perhaps the mythical fountain that would restore his health and make him young again. It is a common, mistake to suppose that he was then an old man. He was only about fifty-three.

Ponce de Leon, like most of the other early Spanish explorers and conquerors, was looking primarily for gold, slaves and other "riches," and it is not likely that he actually put much stock in the fable of the fountain of youth, if he had heard about it at all.

That fable was not associated with de Leon's name until long afterwards, when Hernando de Escaiante de Fontaneda told it in his account of Florida. In 1545 Fontaneda, at the age of thirteen, was shipwrecked on the coast of Florida and spent seventeen years as a captive of the Indians. He was finally rescued, probably by the French in northeastern Florida, and later returned to the peninsula as an interpreter for Menendez in 1565.

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesilias (1540?-1625) had access to Fontaneda's manuscript and incorporated the story in his history of the Indies.

Whether any Europeans had visited Florida before Ponce de Leon's first expedition is not known for certain. Some authorities suppose that both John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci had explored and mapped part of the coast. At any rate, Alberto Cantino's Spanish map of 1502 indicated a peninsula corresponding to Florida.

On March 27, 1513 (not 1512 as often stated), after searching vainly for Bimini among the Bahamas, Ponce de Leon sighted the North American mainland, which he took to be an island, and on April 2 he landed somewhere on the eastern coast. Nobody knows for certain where he first set foot on Florida soil. Some suppose that it was north of St. Augustine, while others think it was as far south as Cape Canaveral.

Either because the discovery was made during the Easter season, or because he found flowers on the coast, or for both reasons, he named the country La Florida. In Spanish, Easter Sunday is la pascua florida, literally "the flowery passover." "And thinking that this land was an island they named it La Florida because they discovered it in the time of the flowery festival."

Is the Fountain of Youth real? Many explorers have searched for it, across Asia and North America. Even Alexander the Great spent some time seeking it.

Appreciation, Exhaustion, & Celebration

First off, I want to say thank you all! Over the last couple of days my blog has achieved a goal I thought was long off,

Thank you all for your support and continued interest!

Aside from this momentous occasion (And the death of Osama Bin Laden) Today has marked the end of my finals, and thus, the end of my first year of college!!!

After helping some friends with a few last tasks, today was time to move out of the dorm. It is AMAZING how much crap you can have in such a small space!

Thankfully my dad came up after work to assist me. I am now back home, and while not fully UN-packed, relaxing.

Death of Osama Bin Laden

It was announced just a few hours ago that Osama bin Laden has been killed.

After Bin Laden was located at a compound (a beautiful urban mansion mind you, not the desert cave everyone had pictured) in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a small strike carried out by Joint Special Operations Command forces ordered to be carried out. A brief firefight ensued before U.S. forces killed Bin Laden and took possession of his body. For those of you who have been under a rock and do not know who this individual WAS, below I have provided a biography of his life.

Considered the world's foremost terrorist, Osama bin Laden is the leader of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, or "The Base." Bin Laden is the alleged perpetrator of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged part of the Pentagon, and resulted in a plane crash in Pennsylvania. At first he denied involvement in the attacks, referring to them, through an aid, as "punishment from Allah." In recent years he has taken responsibility for "inspiring" the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bin Laden has been implicated in a string of deadly attacks on the United States and its allies: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; the 1998 bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200; and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Bin Laden also claims responsibility for a 1993 gunfight that killed 18 U.S. troops in Somalia and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar military complex in Saudi Arabia that left 19 U.S. soldiers dead.

Born with a Silver Spoon

Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia around 1957 to a father of Yemeni origins and a Syrian mother. His father, Mohammed bin Laden, founded a construction company and with royal patronage became a billionaire. The company's connections won it such important commissions as rebuilding mosques in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Mohammed bin Laden took numerous wives and fathered about 50 children. Osama was either the 17th son, or the 25th son, depending on various reports. Regardless, in a society where status within a family is highly important, bin Laden would have been of relatively low rank.

Bin Laden studied management and economics at King Abdul Aziz University in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, coming under the influence of religious teachers who introduced him to the wider world of Islamic politics.

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan galvanized bin Laden. He supported the Afghan resistance, which became a jihad, or holy war. Ironically, the U.S. became a major supporter of the Afghan resistance, or mujahideen, working with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to set up Islamic schools in Pakistan for Afghan refugees. These schools later evolved into virtual training centers for Islamic radicals.

By the mid-1980s, bin Laden had moved to Afghanistan, where he established an organization, Maktab al-Khidimat (MAK), to recruit Islamic soldiers from around the world who later form the basis of an international network. The MAK maintained recruiting offices in Detroit and Brooklyn in the 1980s.

The Taliban, the former rulers of Afghanistan, arose from the religious schools set up during the mujahideen's war against the Soviet invasion. After the Soviet army withdrew in 1989, fighting erupted among mujahideen factions. In response to the chaos, the fundamentalist Taliban was formed and within two years it captured most of the country. The Taliban gave bin Laden sanctuary in 1996.

Terrorism Around the World

After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and worked in his family's construction business. He founded an organization to help veterans of the Afghan war, many of whom went on to fight in Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, and the Philippines. Scholars have suggested these loosely connected bands of seasoned soldiers, ready to fight for Islamic causes, form the basis of bin Laden's current support.

In 1990, in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Saudi government allowed American troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was incensed that non-believers (American soldiers) were stationed in the birthplace of Islam. He also charged the Saudi regime with deviating from true Islam.

Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991 because of his anti-government activities. He eventually wound up in Sudan, where he worked with Egyptian radical groups in exile.

Anti-U.S. Attacks

In 1992 bin Laden claimed responsibility for attempting to bomb U.S. soldiers in Yemen and for attacking U.S. troops in Somalia the following year. In 1994 pressure from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia prompted Sudan to expel bin Laden, and he returned to Afghanistan.

In 1998 bin Laden called for all Americans and Jews, including children, to be killed. He has since been accused of increasing his terrorist activities, such as the 1998 bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The date, Aug. 7, was the anniversary of the deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia.

U.S. cruise missile attacks against targets in the Sudan and Afghanistan in Aug. 1998 are not believed to have seriously hampered bin Laden's network. Bin Laden continues to call for the destruction of the U.S., Israel, and the Saudi monarchy, stating that with these obstacles removed, Islam's three holiest sites, Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, would then be liberated.

International Terrorist Network

Yet, even as he is reviled in the West, bin Laden is a hero in parts of the Islamic world, according to intelligence reports. His organization is called al-Qaeda, "the Base," and has approximately 3,000 followers, which he funds with his estimated $250 million fortune. Experts have said that bin Laden could represent a new trend in terrorism—privatization. Until his emergence, most large-scale terrorist organizations are believed to have been connected to governments. With his money and disciplined followers, however, bin Laden is believed to have the ability to launch even more devastating terrorist attacks. He has not denied that he is seeking nuclear or chemical weapons, saying that it is a religious duty to defend Islam.

Bin Laden has been disowned by most of his family, including a brother, Sheik Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, who has established scholarship funds at Harvard Law School, and the Harvard School of Design. In 1991 his Saudi citizenship was revoked.

Wanted: Dead or Alive

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. issued an ultimatum to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to turn over bin Laden—this was just the last of several such demands made by the U.S. and the UN after bin Laden was implicated in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa (the U.S. also responded then by launching retaliatory missile attacks on Sudan and an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan). Binding their fate to bin Laden's, the Taliban became the target of air strikes by the U.S. and Britain beginning in October 2002 that swiftly toppled the regime within two months. But Bin Laden, the object of the military campaign in Afghanistan, remained at large. He was believed to have fled to the mountainous region of Tora Bora, but the heavy U.S. bombing campaign that followed failed to vanquish him.

Since the attacks, Bin Laden has released several video tapes broadcast on Qatar's Al Jazeera network, the first of which praised the Sept. 11 hijackers, but stopped just short of claiming responsibility for them. In subsequent tapes, he threatened that more attacks against "the infidel" will occur and warned that "America will not live in peace." Bin Laden has been on the run for years but just a few hours ago was brought to justice.

President Obama soon after called former president Bush to inform him of the news, former president Bush congratulated president Obama, the men and women of the armed forces who carried out the mission, and had this to say:

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

I'm Back!

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for patiently awaiting my return,

The last few days have been great. I attended State SkillsUSA Leadership Training with my fellow officers where we worked on Parliamentary Procedure, Icebreaker Activities, Public Speeches & Habits, and in general had a lot of fun getting to know one another.

This will be a busy year, but I believe as a team we can accomplish our goals and lead SkillsUSA effectively.

Thank goodness my Finals are almost complete now. It took most of last night and a lot of today, but I have guaranteed an A in all but one class that remains.

All that is left is to give an informative speech to a small group and video tape it. Now while I'm waiting on fellow dormmates to return, I shall be catching up on all your blogs.

Tomorrow I move home and begin enjoying summer. Hope you are all having as much luck finishing up the school year!