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Showing posts from August, 2011

Ho'oponopono, Haboobs, and Being Citizens of the World

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The last several months have seen really rough natural events all over the world -- earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, flooding, and hurricanes. Here in Arizona, we have all-time high temperatures of 117 degrees (today) and major dust storms that paralyze highways and cities.   The proper name for these storms, which occur naturally in the Sonoran and Saharan Deserts, is "haboob".  It comes from an Arabic term meaning "strong wind." Unfortunately, using this word also stirs hornets' nests in certain Arizonans -- who insist that we don't have anything like those storms they have in the Middle East. Seriously. “I am insulted," wrote Gilbert Arizona resident Don Yonts to the Arizona Republic , "that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob,” This was after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearin