Global Culture - Halloween - Day of the Dead

There are traditions that transcend cultures. There are traditions that are adopted. There are traditions that get recycled through time.

The ancient Celtic New Year used to fall on November the first. There are ancient Celtic customs related to the harvest and coinciding with this date.

A Celtic celebration called Samhain used to center around the building of a bonfire on the Celtic New Year’s Eve on October 31. The people of a village would extinguish all fires in the village and take fire from the community bonfire to bring a new light from fire into the new year.

With the Celtic or Irish disaspora to America in the middle of the nineteenth century came the tradition of dressing up on Halloween first in religious costumes and later in monster chic.

The Brits, who have been greatly Americanized in these past decades, have found and adopted the “American” (Irish American) custom of Halloween and trick or treat. Many purists over there are disturbed that their traditional harvest festival bonfire thing on November 5 of Guy Fawkes Day has somehow been corrupted by yet another thing American.

Which came first? The religious holidays of All Saints day on November 1st and All Souls day on November 2 or the ancient pagan rituals associated with the Celtic New Year.

As in a grinding merger of cultures, it is hard to tell the truth of any given custom or tradition. In a way, globalization and driving toward a global culture have been ongoing for millennium.

I think we have the Celts first and then the Christian era trying to dominate and own dates on a calendar.

People of the Meso-American cultures of Mexico and Central America have their Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead customs around November 1 and 2. November 1 is for memory of babies and small children – angels – saints. November 2 is for memory of dead adult relatives - souls.

While the symbols of this holiday and its festivities are far from the Victorian or Puritanical customs of mourning, Meso-American culture treats respect and memory of the dead along with the needs and celebrations of the living. Families meet, clean up a relative’s gravesite, have a picnic there, tell family stories or even keep vigil through the night with candles and musica.

The human skull as symbol of death is not a feared symbol but a reminder of death which is part of a cycle of life perspective. The skull in Meso-American culture had been around for centuries before the Spanish and their imposed religion. In many ways I think that western culture and or Christian culture is a culture that greatly fears death and has great self-doubts about its mission statement. The conquered give lip service to their new masters and ancient customs such as Dia de los Muertos and Halloween go on and on.

I have spent the last thirty odd years practicing my own form of pagan respect, not ancestor worship. I light a candle before sunset on Halloween in honor of the Samhain custom and help the New Year in with new light. I also light a candle in my home on November 2 to remember long gone friends and relatives. I also in true Irish tradition and variation thereof have a shot or two of tequila in their honor.

Child Abuse Judges Conahan & Ciavarella Indicted – RICO Act

It says something very tragic about our country when crimes against children get so little attention.

I had to go to the British Newspaper website Guardian UK World this morning to see that all the juvenile cases ruled on by the so-called judges Ciavarella and Conahan have been overturned – finally.

Pennsylvania high court dismisses thousands of juvenile convictions

There is no news article of this on the Google News Summary page or on the CNN website.

WHY?

Why was this story only treated as a regional story and only covered by one or two upstate newspapers? The New York Times covered it in a few articles. Why didn’t this become a national story – a national scandal - in the MSM??? Don’t poor children victimized in Pennsylvania count as human beings anymore? Where was the national moral outrage? Out to lunch I guess.

In case any of you missed the original story – enjoy:

Wilkes-Barre judges accused of jailing kids for cash

The money making scheme to shut down tax payer juvenile detention centers in favor of for profit juvenile jails in upstate Pennsylvania has gotten very little press as far as I am concerned. To his credit film maker Michael Moore made mention of it in his last movie. Other than that you have to have run into the story or been touched by it as a victim to know about it.

These two fiends Ciavarella and Conahan started sentencing kids to minimum ninety day sentences for minor offenses, first time offenses or even truancy, things that would not have been touched when the taxpayer juvenile facilities were still in existence.

You get a for profit prison system and you have to fill it with “criminals”. With something straight out of Dickens, these judges got kickbacks from the for profit prison for supplying them bodies to imprison. The judges pocketed millions. Parents got billed $150 a day for use of the prison space by their children and liens got put on the parent’s property. Hey its for profit! The taxpayers are saving money. Win-Win. Geez.

I harassed former Bishop Martino of Scranton, before his nervous breakdown, in one or two of my blogs about how he never publicly condemned this atrocity of justice in his moral bailiwick. He had all the time in the world to condemn abortion but no time to condemn two good Catholic judges under his jurisdiction for a new form of child abuse. But hey, he is a bishop, and that sort of stuff ain’t really a crime – is it?

To make a long story short these two judicial pigs pleaded guilty to tax evasion to the Feds and got a white crime conviction sentence of a few years in a country club prison under the Bush Department of Justice.

Backtracking today on the news of the overturning of all their sentences I see that they have been indicted by a grand jury on RICO racketeering charges and I hope they rot in prison.

Conahan and Ciavarella indicted by federal grand jury

I should applaud the Feds for coming through for validating the judicial system here that failed so miserably under Bush. Thank the Almighty, the present Department of Justice in Washington is not now being run by the neocons or graduates of “Christian” universities in these new days of political change.

Now if I start talking about the victims, the children, I will be called a flaming bleeding heart liberal.

What really pisses me off is how the MSM failed with a capital “F” in ignoring this “property” story. When capitalism commits an atrocity it is no crime. Capitalism is the one true religion of our ruling elites these days.

As far as I am concerned regarding Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, these two bastards should be taken out into a public square in Wilkes-Barre and strung up by their balls!
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The Insanity of Monkeys - Religion

I have come to the conclusion that most of the evils in the world have to do with people sticking their noses in other people’s business. With the world getting smaller and smaller every day, the people who want to stick their nose up your butt seem to be the most self righteous, right wing fundamentalist thought police types.

They’ve got people patrolling and harassing women outside abortion clinics in case the local state has not made abortion more difficult than it possibly can be for normal day to day living - like the Scarlet Letter Law in Oklahoma. Oklahoma, where dinosaurs still roam free and wild, wants to post everything of a woman's stats including maybe even her panty hose size. Try doing that for prostate stats and the whole freaking program would have died, become obsolete, yesterday.

You cannot smoke in bars, anywhere, anymore. It is for your health. Well maybe if the thought police forbad additives to tobacco maybe it would be fit to smoke like in my granddaddy’s day.

By all means put taxes on alcohol and tax the hell out of it.

I have yet to figure out why medical marijuana can be prescribed for asthma but I must be a Neanderthal in my thinking or something like that.

The Mormons and the Scientologists invested heavily in passing Prop 8 in California - stopping gays from marrying – why should gays be happy? Mormons and Scientolgists consider themselves normal? And on some holy freaking pedestal. Yeah right.

Can the Mormon or Scientologist gods roll back the tides of history going forward? NO!

When was the last time a homeo-sexual was seen or allowed in downtown Salt Lake City? Scientology is a tax free religion? When did that happen? Man has gone to the moon. Book me a ticket to mars! Please!

If I did hate homos, seeing that Mormons and Scientologists and fundamentalist Christians hate them too – it would be enough to make me rethink the entire situation -Paradigm Shift time!!!

And then you have the Catholics. And then you have the Catholics. So good I said it twice. The American RC church is downsizing, moving overseas to where medieval is considered the ultramodern of the future.

If the gay hierarchy and rank and file of the priesthood want to have sex with whomever, and of the proper age of consent, they can come out of the closet at any time. They like the rest of humanity seem to be obsolete as defined by all currently approved management models. Might as well enjoy the remainder of mankind’s short time left on this dying planet.

Don’t be surprised if there is an order for a hundred thousand Honda Robots from the Vatican to replace management and stand there and distribute communion and count the collection direct deposit accounts of the Huntingdon Valley crowds of this world and other communities left to live the grand delusion of the Christian Myth to the very end.

This blog has been both a blessing and a curse. I have been able to blather with foam dripping from my mouth about unimportant junk and deprogram myself of so much, not of direct Catholocism, but of the cultural peripherals that did more damage than any dogma. “What does not kill you only makes you stronger.”

I read that they are closing my Catholic high school in Philly at the end of the school year. I took it all badly for an hour or two and then I came to two conclusions.

One, it is inner city and the poor schools and the poor parishes are shut down first – Economics or Racism? The rich white catholics in Huntingdon Valley Montgomery County can swim in segregated club pools and live in the delusion of a still viable religious institution of the church.

My delusions I have already faced up to and accepted the passing of a part of American history where a religious school system once was superior to the public institutions.

Two, with the humble ego and mentality of Mormons and Scientolgists and Fundamentalists – that parachial high school only existed for eighty two years for one sole purpose – for me to get my education and talk to you about it today. I am that important! I speak or at least pretend to speak for GOD! I AM better than everybody else! Not a practical solution in a crowded, democratic country but it is the plain and simple fact to me and my unerring ego. (Wow! Where is my asbestos underwear?)

Ayn Rand wins! Humanity loses!

I have been able to evolve on an individual level to that of Agnostic – there is no answer - to any question or concept made in the mind of man. If God exists, he she or it made the universe with a built in programmed code and set the whole ball, vortex of wax into motion.

The mystery that lies beyond death is just that a mystery. And anybody who tries to sell you a time share in a condo in the here after is definitely full of shit both figuratively and literally.

The only thing I consider sacred are myself and the earth I stand on. I respect all life and will not try to control or destroy it.

The closest thing I now accept, to the man made concept of God, and or the insanity of monkeys, is that I do consider the Gnostic view of the spark of the universe within me - looking out and back at the wonder and awe of that universe.

I am one with the Universe or I am nothing.

I am me.

St. Mary's (7-11) Malaga

Why does St. Mary's in Malaga New Jersey think it deserves better treatment than the rest of the RC Parishes in America?

The local bishop has the deed. The local bishop can multitask one priest going from one location to another on a Saturday evening and a Sunday morning. Maybe if it is a young priest you can throw in a Sunday afternoon somewhere in three different downsized/merged parishes.

The bottom line is logistics and not just demographics and the cost of a tank of gasoline to do the rounds in a car for the saying of mass.

Nobody will discuss Celebacy any more. Dilute the American RC church with Anglicans and starving third world priests. Can't sell all the properties at once. It will lower the prices. Wait for the right market moment. Wait and multitask with the marked properties until the right offer comes in.

It is a pity though that the Shrine at St. Mary's cannot double as a fast food joint on the weekdays when not in use for mass. The Harvard/Brown/Wharton spreadsheet way of making profits and factoring humanity out of the bottom line has arrived in the Camden Diocese.

Testimonial as to the good work Bishop "Bottom Line" Galante has done in the past:

Chicken(Hawk)s Guarding the Henhouse?

For the Bishops' Conference to appoint Galante to the Committee on Sexual Abuse is the height of either hubris or cluelessness. Bishop Galante is a living illustration of the Peter Principle. He is demonstrably incapable of governing his own diocese, of Shepherding his flock, so the NCCB moves him up to bigger things.

During the Arian (the Arians believed that the Son was inferior to the Father) crisis of the 4th and 5th centuries, it happened in some places that the lay faithful (who, by and large, remained orthodox) rose up and deposed their bishops, who had embraced the trendy Arian doctrine.

Has the time come for the faithful here to adopt similar measures? Once again borrowing from C.S. Lewis, I can't help but remark that it is a shame and scandal when Catholics find themselves to be more faithful than those who are supposed to be their shepherds.

Galante – Follieri – Banco Ambrosiano Deux?

I only found the story of Saint Mary’s in Malaga New Jersey this past weekend and its effort to campaign to survive in these lean times for Catholic Parishes. Saint Mary’s real problem is apparently not cash but location, location, location…

Galante and Follieri: the Bishop and the Con Man

July 15th's (2008) New York Post breaks with A Deal with the Devil, detailing Camden Bishop Joseph Galante's working relationship with Italian con artist and playboy Raffaello Follieri, jailed two weeks ago on federal fraud and money-laundering charges (PDF) in a complicated scheme to use investor money to buy up Catholic churches at below market value then "flip them" for profit. The Bishop sold Follieri his $400,000 beach house in January 2007 (it was back on sale recently) even as news of the scheme was unraveling and even as the Bishop was working on the plan to close and sell off half of the churches in his diocese…

The NCR profile showed that Follieri Group lavished a lot of time and money on the 2006 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, providing a "hospitality suite" for the bishops and lobbying them on real estate sales. At the meeting the bishops changed the rules on Vatican oversight on large sales of church property. A important player in the Conference was its former spokesperson, Bishop Joseph Galante.

I sort of heard about this Vati-Con money laundering scandal back in 2008, regarding the sale of church properties cheaply to a supposed front for the Vatican named Raffaello Follieri. In fact I did not hear the full details of it. I only got the tail end of it with the convicted con man Follieri’s Hollywood trophy girlfriend Anne Hatthaway having some of her jewelry siezed by the FBI that Follieri had given to her, bought with stolen funds.

Vati-Con Scandal

All rather murky. Sounds like the Vatican outsourced money laundering this time – not wanting another Banco Ambrosiano scandal to hit directly home. There is a need to efficiently and legally transfer funds overseas from the fire sale of parish properties going on now in America.

But considering how easy it is for dioceses to go bankrupt these days to stiff both the victims of sex abuse and the loyal faithful who get uprooted and Bishops who don’t have to dig into their private Swiss bank accounts to chip in for collateral damage so to speak…

Fox 29 News Covers Bishop Galante's "McRanchon"

I think it an absolute disgrace that Bishop Galante being in bed through the profitable sale of his $400,000 beach cottage to later convicted felon Follieri - a gross, contempible and probably illegal conflict of interest with the same people buying up used parish properties.

I think it also a disgrace if a man of his immence private means, Bishop Galante is building his Xanadu under cover of a $1,500,000 fixer upper property for “nuns”. Isn’t this all a polite way of building a bishops’s palace without calling it a Bishop’s Palace in these hard economic times – if this article’s interpretation of matters is correct. (It’s good to be the bishop.)

When the honest history is written of all this current Corruption of the American Roman Catholic Church – sex abuse, parish closings, real estate profits/fraud, money laundering and bankruptcies – I hope the Vatican doesn’t put its hands up and say “We didn’t know!” ( about the American version of Banco Ambrosiano – Part Deux ).

I think we need the indictment of a few American and Vatican RC Bishops for organized money fraud under the RICO Act to wake up and turn around this bogus, corrupt layer of bureaucrats, domestically and internationally, that are acting more like the Board of Directors of Bear Stearns than the so-called leaders of the church founded by Christ.

Parishioners with their butts out in the cold should not be petitioning the Vatican but rather the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate.

Tri-state Chaos and Transition – RCC - FYI

This is a sort of news dump of recent RC happenings, some things related to things already written about in this blog. Not much commentary on my part. What can I say besides what the articles already say.

I display them here in case you missed them and you have an interest to read further.

Saint Mary’s in Malaga New Jersey fighting to stay alive and open

Saint Mary’s in Malaga New Jersey fighting to stay alive and open despite Bishop Galante’s efficient spreadsheet list of closures – part of the result of – Mao sounding – “Gathering God's Gifts” Program.

Diocese of Wilmington Delaware files for Bankruptcy

Diocese of Wilmington Delaware files for Bankruptcy - hours before first abuse trial to go to court.

Bankruptcy as a ploy buying time for the little Diocese of Wilmington Delaware? Setting a monetary cap on future amounts to settle with priest abuse victims to be set by bankruptcy court? Short term last minute plan implemented or was it already designed by former Chancellor now Bishop Barres of Allentown? (What$ up in Allentown???)

Saint Mary’s Malaga website commenting on Wilmington Diocese
Bankruptcy

Saint Mary’s Malaga website commenting on Wilmington Diocese Bankruptcy and the denied rights of the faithful – by the decades long mismanagement of bishops in favor of perverts.

Renegade American Episcopalian Bishop and parish near Philly ready to jump ship to RC church.

Just the high quality troops Joe the Pope needs in his anti-woman, anti-gay retreat from the modern world and his Return to Medievalism.

Resuscitating a Dead Economy

There is no old fashioned God anymore on Wall Street.

We are at a crossroads in this economic disaster brought on by greed, deregulation and computers.

I am usually wrong but one analyst thinks that perhaps the worst is yet to come.

Recession Will Be 'Full-Blown Depression': Strategist

This global recession will turn into a "full-blown depression," Nicu Harajchi, CEO of N1 Asset Management, said Friday, adding that global stimulus hasn't come down to Main Street.

Wall Street is making money, while consumers aren't, Harajchi told CNBC….

"We have seen the G20 coming out with cross border capital injections of $5 trillion this year… But a lot of this money hasn't really come down to Main Street," he said.

The $5 trillion injection is "monetary expansion," according to Harajchi. "At some point, which we believe to be 2010/11, some of the central banks are going to recall some of that money and that will turn from monetary expansion to monetary contraction."

He also said he doesn't see the corporates or the public "being able to pay back that debt." …

Somebody is speaking as if to a naked emperor. Nobody is listening I fear or they are in total denial of reality and basic math. I am wrong a lot of the time. I admit it. But on some things I trust my instincts. This sounds about right at this moment. Things can change. Anything is possible in the future.

Jesus resuscitated Lazarus or so the bible says.

Gort resuscitated Klaatu in the classic 1951 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still. (Have not yet seen the 2008 remake - remakes usually suck.)

Regarding this Paulson, Benanke, Geithner textbook, theoretical, Ivy League Club band-aid Bailout approach - to bringing the frat house club on Wall Street back to past Toga Party levels – well as I have said before – if the Ivy League schools were really that good they could charge a million dollars a credit hour.

The WH appointed "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg is targeting the salaries of 175 Wall Street executives working on “The Street” for companies getting government mega digit cash relief handouts as corporate welfarees.

I don’t get it. I hope the “pay czar” also prevents the “illegal” printing of money via stock options for this new class of privileged modern American aristocrats.

In terms of myths regarding resuscitation. The rumor is that Lazarus got iced by the Temple crowd shortly after Jesus left town. Klaatu knew he was on borrowed time. The American economy is in on an anything goes mode at this moment. Cross your fingers.

One part of an equation that nobody ever factors into modern free market theology theory is the computer. The computer has made it possible to replace experience and balanced morality in the back office – outsource it to half a planet away - and to no longer offset excess in the North Pole, front office, trading room atmosphere driving so called sacred free market transactions happening faster than the speed of light. Collateral damage happens elsewhere - out of sight - out of your mind.

With computers and a REAL program, you could monitor all trades and tax pennies on each transaction to pay off the national debt. But computers are only good to make money. They somehow cannot work right to do other logical old fashioned business tasks like generating tax revenue directly from the source. ???

Alas, sad to say - there is no Gort to police Wall Street. Klaatu is long dead. God is retired I hear – and the rumor is - living in Vegas.

Life these days on planet Earth is indeed a crap shoot!

Britain's BNP and Fox News America

When I lived in Arizona many years ago I was surprised to see that at a local supermarket, a regional chain, owned by Mormons, it sold hard liquor. Someone remarked to me that the store is in business to make a profit and the company would service local tastes even if the product sold was against one’s religious teachings.

I have jibbed Rupert Murdock for his Fox News which makes a profit. As a cable entity it is limited to viewers that can afford outrageous monthly cable charges. Fox News on cable is one of many profit making instruments in the Murdock communications entertainment empire. (Homer Simpson is a god!)

This cable market has been selective from the beginning. The Average Joe in the mid America does not necessarily know from Fox News but he or she can in many ways be manipulated by the aspects of this new entertainment/news or is it news/entertainment format on a 24/7 digital schedule. The population as a whole can be influenced by what might be called a Minority Market Communications segment through cable on both sides of the right and left.

Back in 1992, I did not have cable but I was aware of a third party figure Ross Perot was running against the two established parties of the time, the Democrats and the Republicans. Ross’s pronouncements on Larry King on CNN were quoted on the local free TV News Stations. I of course was immensely curious about this new political phenomenon. I, part of the general population, had to get my CNN fix on Perot second hand from other news sources because I could not afford to watch it directly and live on cable.

As a result of sheer chutzpah and an immense reserve of cash that Perot had made on Government contracts over the years, Perot effected two elections. Clinton won in 92 and 96 because the Republicans had split over issues. The same thing happened in 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate, the Bull Moose Party, split the Republicans and Woodrow Wilson squeaked into office.

Clinton’s election I theorize frustrated many speculators with warehouses full of arms for sale to the government and ready for a quick trip to Baghdad. The theme of The Republicans since 1992 has primarily been one of legitimacy for any seated Democrat President. With Clinton, he was a minority executive because he was not elected in two cases with 50% or more of the votes caste.

Now with over 50% caste in the last election for the present executive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the legitimacy question is the concept hammered away on Fox News. Legitimacy is based on a (fairy tale) missing birth certificate (not missing) both as proof of native born U.S. citizenship status or a crude back stairs gossip – was his mamma really married to anybody, let alone an African, when the great Obama was born.

This past weekend, members of the President's staff went on conventional TV programs and began an attack on Fox News saying that is was not a true news or journalistic effort in the classic sense of the word. I think on one level, these people are frustrated because ideas, words and proposed national programs are coming up against a very vocal minority in this country, the far right, in a form of entertainment on some of Fox News Prime Time that sometimes resembles a four year old’s birthday outing to Chucky Cheese.

That said, I see in the news that the BNP, the British National Party, is an irritant on many people’s nerves in Britain because of this party's outward fascist agenda.

Ideology (BNP)

British Nationalism, Facism, Right Wing Populism, Third Position, White Nationalism, Euroscepticism

Source Wikipedia, Oct.22.09

The BNP holds no present seat in Parliament. It has increased it share of the national vote from 0.7% in 2005 to 5.2% in 2008. A growing dissatisfaction on the extreme end of Britain is evolving into a face and a possible political power base in the future.

The Brits on the far right are doing fascism the old fashioned way with the Jack Boots in the Street Adolph methodology.

While this BNP is a British phenomenon, I look at the “ideology” list above and have to be reminded that a lot of issues on FOX (entertainment) NEWS on cable reflect direct or indirectly on similar issues here in America.

Failure to build long term legitimacy is what makes most Third Parties fail in America. They rise up on temporary populist themes in tough economic times or at turns of the road with the election of an African American president as an example.

All I will say here is – I see profits fed by advertizing by the newly evolved and comfortable with themselves oligarchical corporations further evolving into a comfortable plutocracy with the “Ross Perots” of the world supplied by huge amounts of free government cash. This with a Fox News type entity as critical part of the process, focused on the elites that can afford to watch cable.

The British road to future fascism may be the Jack Boots in the Street method but here in America, we may be seeing a new phenomenon - a couch potato TV watching new age of propaganda, entertainment/news and ascent to power.

My question now is what will we be seeing as Fox News evolves and spawns the basis of possible future openly fascist rule in America in 2010, 2012 and beyond. Will it be an INDEPENDENT AMERICAN FASCIST PARTY or will it be the REFORMED REPUBLICAN PARTY (finally ousting the rowdies and nut jobs) - both either or will historically be the spawn of Fox News or similar entities? No way to deny it.

Have a nice day.

Some Anglicans to Surrender to German Pope

The central body of the Anglican Church voted in 2008 to allow women bishops in that main body. Women bishops are already a reality in the Episcopal church in the United States, as well as in Canada and Australia.

I see in an article in the Guardian that an official committee is proposing to water down duties allowed to Women Bishops. In this Anglican Tampon Rulebook for Women Bishops Only - a new Subcategory is being created for these new female bishops. This is a feeble attempt to glue back together parts of the Anglican Church falling away over misogyny.

In other words, Anglican Female Bishops would be a new category of Deacon or what have you with a cardboard placard around her neck saying “Bishop”. If you are a male chauvinist you do not have to go to “her” to have a church matter ruled on if you don’t like that particular sex. (They are not quite themselves every day of the month if you know what I mean – they ain’t men - lack a penis so to speak.)

Church removes power from women bishops

According to the amended law, this move would allow the male bishop to perform certain functions, such as communion and confirmation, in order to accommodate parishioners and clergy hostile to female bishops.

It follows heavy lobbying from those opposed to the concept of women bishops who have demanded special care in the event of their ordination, an event unlikely to occur before 2014.

That aside, the female hating Anglican Communion worldwide along with the gay hating Anglican Communion worldwide can now drive up to a new fast food sacramental entity, the Roman Catholic church.

What Churchill would not surrender to the Germans in WWII in territory, the Anglicans are about to surrender in spirit to the German Pope, Benedict XVI.

The Vatican bureaucracy tripping over Leo XIII’s 1896 edict that said that Anglican Clergy were shit and not validly ordained – now wants to cut red tape - now wants to not only welcome gay hating and women hating Anglican clergy but are willing to accept whole communities as well.

Roman Catholic church to receive Anglicans

It will be the first time since the Reformation in the 16th century that entire Protestant communities have reunited with Rome. The first group likely to take advantage of the new rules is the Traditional Anglican Community (TAC), which broke off from the rest of the community in 1991 and claims to have more than 500,000 members worldwide.

Other groups unhappy with developments in the Anglican Communion are also expected to accept the invitation from the Vatican. Traditionalists, including thousands in the Church of England, have long threatened to defect to Rome over issues such as the ordination of women and gay people…

He said that, under the new arrangements, Anglican communities that joined the Catholic church would be able to keep their own liturgy while remaining outside the existing dioceses. Their pastoral care would be entrusted instead to their own senior prelates, who would not necessarily become Catholic bishops. This is a way around the problem that in the Catholic church, as in the Orthodox churches, married men are not allowed to become bishops.

While there is the promise of continued Anglican traditions under a “separate and not equal” branch of the RC church, the fall away Anglicans will not have any say in RC matters because “Married Men” cannot become bishops (thank god = no threat of women or openly gay bishops). You can take your fears about gays and women, hide from reality of the real world, and accept second class citizenship in another Christian sect. Real Cool!

Not Real Christian!

This all reminds me of Henry II given a Papal Bull in 1155 giving him permission to invade and steal Ireland in exchange for the abolishment of the centuries old Celtic Christian Church which allowed women to be ordained as priests. Ireland has never been the same since then politically or religiously.

The Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic church will never be the same again after today.

This vampirism of Rome feeding on the modern day fears of Anglicans is not a step forward. It is cannibalism and proof of the rapid decline of Christianity in the west. Cannabalism is the last stage of any culture or civilization.

There are satellites of hope here in America and around the world that have seen the future of Christianity. On the other side of the coin, it would seem that a large number of Christians will accept the word of their leaders that a ride into hell is better than rethinking the matter of women and gays as valid human beings and definitely wholesome and valid children of God.

Brick by brick, marble stone by marble stone, the vandals took the old bones of the dead Rome of the dead Roman Empire apart.

Church closing by church closing and school closing by school closing - are removing the bricks and stones of the two thousand year old Christian tradition.

Departing and switching congregations playing a game of religious musical chairs is not part of the Jesus message of Love.

How can the command to “Love one another” be so hard to fulfill?

So-Called Fundamentalist Christian Beliefs Killing Children in Africa as Witches

If you want to turn away it is okay. I have no pictures here. I am merely relaying what would seem to be a genuine journalistic piece on the Internet about man’s ongoing inhumanity to man. Or in this case children.

I don’t know how to react to this story. It is too brutal. It is too real. And Africa is on the lowest level of all the world’s agendas.

False or half-assed fundamentalist Christianity is on the rise in many quarters and sad to say in Africa as well. The story below is from the twenty-first century or is it from the middle ages?

African Children Denounced As "Witches" By Christian Pastors

…The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him – Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died.

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18)

"It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity," said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria…

…Please stop the pastors who hurt us," said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. "I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch."…

What is this thing about Christianity and the abuse of children?

In Africa, they, children are scapegoats for superstition, and not treated in the purest essence of Christianity as true human beings and children of God. Instead, they can be marked as witches for the denunciation and torture by others.

This lack of love for self or others in so many main stream and fundamentalist Christian churches is so weird. It is like the first Christians or the second or third wave of them were all slaves or ex-slaves. Like they basically did not really like themselves. That when Constantine needed one more breath of life for his dying pagan empire he had to recognize the slave union (the church) to get that help to survive…

These losers, these Kristian monsters, these “pastors” are quoting Exodus. Holy Christ!!! Why in God’s name is the old and new Testament held in the same equality? The two are as different as Pizza and Cannolies.

Ignorance is the enemy of all mankind.

Considering the chaos and insanity and inhumanity of the first world these days, why should I judge the third world run a muck?

All Christian churches worldwide must denounce this barbarism from their pulpits.

Let me step back into what I think is the total message of Jesus. LOVE!

All you need is love. Not Exodus encouraging you to not care and to not Love your NEIGHBOR.

All you need is love. Hold that thought. And pray for these poor victims of ignorance.

(I found the following instrumental to back out of this uncomfortable story…to breathe…to think…meditate…ponder...to mentally cleanse myself from this touch of evil in the world...and shed a tear or two..)

Progressive Line in the Sand

This is kind of a news related opinion dump of many loose ends.

The image is of a line in the sand. It is a symbolic line. Many I hear in the media are saying that Obama’s seemingly limp style of management is not taking us in a strong direction both with health care reform and in terms of standing up to the Wall Street Oligarchs, spawn of the Fed.

It is not inconceivable that Obama will be a one term president. The team, the Chicago mafia, that helped the White Sox fan win the WH is perhaps only good for only winning an election. Perhaps that team can be likened to ships’ pilots guiding a ship of state into the vast ocean. The captain of the ship of state should then steer the ship until the next port of call.

The Kennedys used to play touch football because they played with their sisters. But their co-ed games were rough. Perhaps Obama, on a learning curve, should learn to play a little harder. Otherwise, I begin to believe, begin to perceive, that the Washington culture is a culture of democracy, not unlike the Greek democracy, which was a democracy of slave owners.

Another item, that distresses me, is the continued, coded overt, layered symbol, Janus form of non stop hatred of Obama for his race and culture. There is a rumor that the “muslim” President is going to ban Christmas trees in the White House. What Bullshit. Murdock should cut back from 36 cans of Foster’s lager beer a day to 24 and get a life, get a soul, get a real “News” corp. etc. His is an Aussie outback operation that will be leading on veiled racist, religionist stories like this in the weeks to come.

Christmas myth dogs Obama

The war in Afghanistan goes on and on. If we cannot get rid of and monitor our terrorist enemies in the mountains there with spy satellites and drone bombs, what good is the wasted expense of these military toys. We turned a blind eye to Pakistan getting nuclear weapons back when the Soviets were stupid enough to occupy (try to occupy) Afghanistan. The Soviet empire collapsed shortly after they failed in that endeavor. Pakistan is or is not a valid nation state whose fate we cannot prevent if it is a failed state. Russia, China and India are the closest regional neighbors of this anemic Muslim state. They should be carrying their weight around. If not, let them clean up the mess when all nuclear hell breaks loose.

Regarding my recent mentioning of the bitch fight between Megan Carpentier of Air America in defense of a helpless Michelle Malkin against the mean liberal bully Keith Olbermann –

Keith should make a half-assed apology (political apology) not to dear sweet innocent Michelle – but apologize for a perhaps offensive to some - use of descriptives. I thought he hit a perfect bullseye on that one.

Megan Carpentier should learn the number one rule of all modern liberal/progressives regardless of sex.

THOU SHALL NOT SPEAK ILL OF ANY FELLOW (male or female) PROGRESSIVES

Lines in the sand do not really matter. In the end, the tide comes in and washes all lines away.

It is the thoughts, intentions and struggles between the tides of history that in the end really do matter.

Michelle Malkin - a "Red" Racist?

This is a connect the dot hysterical hissy fit for what passes for journalism, at least on cable these days, and on the MSM – so called main stream media.

I think I saw the recent Keith Olbermann tirade on Michelle Malkin, a blogger on the right, who somehow was following through on a FOX “news” story about the indoctrination of children in an elementary public school in Jersey. The You Tube segment below is an example of how our children are being Mao-ed or Goebbel-ized in Obama’s secret plan to steal the U.S. Government knowing that at any minute some lunatic Russian ex-patriot will finally find his real-real-real birth certificate in a pumpkin patch in Gorky Park in Moscow. Oh how I love a mystery!!!

The Skinny. Olbermann tiraded into Malkin for starting an e-mail campaign against author Charisse Carney-Nunes, who supposedly shared a class with Obama at Harvard and wrote a children’s book “I Am Barack Obama”, for supposedly organizing the children’s treason below - singing The Obama Song. That e-mail campaign supposedly caused death threats to that author. I won’t tell you that I once shared a class with Obama up at Columbia and I won’t tell you that the class was on “Marxist Theory”. Because it it not true. That’s how bullshit journalism, blogging, hate, fear mongering infects the tree of life these days in America – critical days. Journalism is no longer a signpost to truth but a signpost to hell these days IMHO.

This is a donnybrook or more accurately a feeding frenzy of the MSM creating one phony story after another starting with Fox on September 24. To add insult to injury so to speak, a lefty, Megan Carpentier of Air America, a lefty site attacked Keith as being a woman hater in his imitation of Maulkin’s speaking voice and his description of her with lipstick. Carpentier perhaps sees an opportunity to write a whole bunch of follow up blogs (see what I mean about feeding frenzy) about battered women and men like Keith who…

My trek through this wilderness started this afternoon. First with Page Six on the New York Post quoting Carpentier on Olbermann as proof of Olbermann’s misogyny. Busted! I only went to the Post to see if they might have finally hired a first rate astrologer finally after all these years after the death of the late great Patric Walker.

Well anyway. From Page Six I had to piece this story together for my own satisfaction and see what the real thing was all about. I guess I have already told you what I think indirectly from what I wrote above.

I went searching for the exact lyrics of this so called Obama Song and found that there are literally dozens of different ones out there on the Net.

Which took me for the first time to the infamous Michelle Malkin blogsite –yee gads.

The story below is about Social Security but what shocked or sickened me was the symbol used of a red man with a handgun robbing the rich blue man (above). The article is about an Obama proposal.

Wealth redistributor-in-chief

I know that the underlying message of “Socialism” is supposed to say it all. Perhaps I have been become a lunatic too and caught the Glenn Beck disease and see things in symbols that I should not see. Crazy! Using the color/symbol/word "red" as coded overt to mask the true racist message?

For one thing, with my previous blog about Red as the New Black in mind, I see a symbolic representation of a stereotypic black male with a hand gun robbing a (?) blue (white?) man. I think that the red man if he were a true communist would be carrying a AK47 and not a cheap inner city handgun to rob the current oligarchs/robber barons now in charge etc.

It is near my bed time. Good night. Pleasant dreams. Avoid all symbols if possible.

Love. Peace. Karmic Bliss!

Red As The New Black

I am glad that tea baggers are running around and defending their way of life what ever that is or used to be.

The tea baggers are the tip of the iceberg of anger in this country about the mismanagement, cronyism, lack of jobs, Goldman Sachs seven figure bonuses courtesy of the taxpayer, and government spending in the final analysis likely to spark hyper inflation as a means to put the final nails into the coffin of the late great middle class America.

Part of this whole cauldron of distress is of course visual on the news with the stars of the Murdock sound machine on Fox News. The tea baggers have many racist placards in their numerous protests showing the President as a witch doctor and of course being a socialist communist RED. Red was the term used in the cold war to denote the godless commies for whom we sacrificed national health care to buy bombs, bombs, bombs as a kind of fear tax.

Red also denotes the states that are electorally in the GOP column as opposed to the blue states for the Dems. Red is a safe, comfortable color for GOPs to throw around in public or so they think. They think they own the word and or term. Yeah right. When they call Obama a Red – we all know what they mean.

Out of this cauldron of seething anger and mis/dis/pis communication I have run into a new street variation of the word for Black people in general. The term is translated from Spanish as “the reds” and is used by the very diverse Hispanic population, which these days comes from dozens of Spanish speaking countries. I have no clue how blacks become reds but in this strange vetting age of the first black president anything is possible.

In many quarters these days, coded overt messages are going about and I think they are related to the past age of race being dissolved away with interracial marriage and minorities like Hispanics arriving on these shores already having exposure and tolerance to states of interracial beauty.

I have been on the Net trying to determine the source of the new term Red for the old Black. The Urban Dictionary (I won’t put the link here in that it is quite a vulgar site and won’t force you to read it) states two references to Red in that Blacks favorite flavor of Kool-Aid is “Red”. And an obsolete racist term “Redbone”, from the South and denoting interracial origins, has been revived and shortened into “Red”.

Of course we are not talking about eggplants, Mulignan, an Italian term for blacks. The term originated in Italy as a derogatory term for Sicilians who were once conquered by the Moors and do have African blood in their cultural whole. The term was used on the Sopranos. Overt, untranslated, translated, transmutated messages seem not to have the full force these days to match another time and another pure white culture of the past. The overt messages are sometimes too diluted now to matter.

Nobody cares. The Black President got elected by the majority of all people who voted in the election. Minority opinions or sour grapes rarely matter.

I am not the thought police and I am not pure or PC in my opinions of the good or bad of cultures, race and language in this extremely diverse American scene. I place no judgment upon anyone in this rather sad/comic beautiful wonderful American way of seeing things.

Perhaps the id of our culture already has an understanding of the cutting edge of the future. Perhaps we do not even know at present that that is what we are doing – trying to fit into a probable future with various code talks all around us at present. Wherever the planet may be going in its future global culture – America gets there first in the majority of those merged future diverse flavors of life and words to describe such.

My question to myself is - do the Glenn Beck idiots and tea baggers of the world, with “Red” on their lips – do they know that they share solidarity with the emerging Hispanic segment of the population and in fact share the same overt message:

Red is the new Black!

Across the Line - Economics and Racism

They are talking about Wall Street going over 10,000. What does that have to do with the man in the street or the average American Joe? The elites have their cash box retirement all rigged in perhaps the last ponzi scheme going with bailed out banks now declaring record profits (?) (yeah right). And like human nature – that could never happen to me. Yeah right.

I believe there may be a disconnect from reality in America even now when they are calling it the Great Recession that is likely to last a decade and not recognized by the people with any assets left or skills that are still in demand on a global market.

The title of “across the line” is a reminder of the invisible line, the county line between Philly and Montgomery County. This past summer there was a seeming flashback of racism when a bunch of black kids from the inner city in a day camp were supposed to go swimming in a swim club in Huntingdon Valley and were told they had to leave.

The bottom line on that was typical present day American mismanagement. The contract for use of the pool had not mentioned numbers and there was the problem of safety, life guards needed etc. The whole thing got blown out of proportion in the press because of the lily white nature of Montgomery County - many on both sides of the issue jumped to standard boiler plate assumptions about it all.

That in the sixties, many white people in the so called liberal north just had to cross the county line to not have to deal with civil rights or segregation etc. This article is not really about racism. We have crossed many barriers to be a more united people of all races. We have more hurdles to go. The recent example of the swimming pool in white suburbia illustrates how America has dealt with economic reality since it became an empire after WWII.

Following that crossing the county line theme, our economics, our view of secular American needs and how they happened over the recent decades leads us to our present situation.

You cross the line to escape racial issues. You don’t build factories in the suburbs. They don’t follow you there. You don’t see the need for them from your local POV. The white mall burb service economy is now the only reality to be seen or be of any use in everyday reality by the elites in the media and the boardroom. It is still the dominant view in our collapsed economy.

The concept of a “service economy” was the driving force in the colleges back in the 1960’s. Make money here. Manage money here. The third world countries can do all the dirty work with raw materials. America remains separate and rich from the rest of the world. Yeah right.

The factories in the cities are still active for a while but there is no renewal. Money gets lent to India to build factories there etc. The inner city decays and then the white kids in the suburbs want to live in downtown and hey, you can convert factories into condos. It makes money.

The disconnect in economics in America has come down around, and perhaps has paralleled the racial lines of our cities and counties etc. The rich white kid in the suburbs goes to college to service money. Money is created out of money and not out of local sweat anymore.

Making money and making jobs are now two very distinct economic points of view – separate and not equal.

While the old low tech jobs in factories is not the most desirable route to go, the old bones, factories made of concrete are there and ready to be retooled and turning out high tech products.

The divisions of race in the past have perhaps developed into opposing economic patterns as well, two economies that fight one another for cash only capitalism and true investment in infrastructure (people). Opposing economic points of view still split the nation and are more keenly and clearly discernible in troubled economic times.

In many ways, America’s greatness has always been its geography separating it physically from the rest of the world and the world’s problems. Now in a global age of communications, that separation remains and is more psychological than physical.

The neocons and the fundamentalists are working 24/7/52 to build walls and design blinders between us and global reality. Theirs is a losing battle.

The true battle is in returning to old fashioned “classic” economics and feeding your local needs first before you feed the global beast.

King Midas Touch - Rush Limbaugh

I am the last person who I ever thought would defend Rush Limbaugh’s rights. But he got dropped from his bid to buy a football team no doubt because of past loose random rhetoric for which he is so famous.

Limbaugh dropped from group seeking to buy Rams

I knew that minority players on the football team would never walk to make a point. They have contracts and mortgages too etc.

One thing I will say about Limbaugh and the Republican Right and let me add that the milquetoast Democrats should be aware of this as well.

There is such a thing as a limit in Capitalism. There is the golden touch and there is such a thing as being too successful.

Once you get that Midas Touch, beware! Beware of all the things you touch and what you think you want. What you want may not be out of reach, but considering the true weight of gold, that thing you want may be too heavy a thing to carry around with you.

Ghosts - Storytelling - Tradition

I have yet to run into any ghosts in my bedroom. Do they exist? Most definitely!

I encountered one in a small secular graveyard on a frigid winter’s day in western Pennsylvania decades ago. I turned away from my uncle’s grave to whom I had paid my respects. It was cold and windy but I thought it strange. I thought I was alone in the graveyard. But I thought I heard… no. I turned around and the graveyard was empty. I turned again to return to my car. But there it was again. The sound was like that of a women crying and the sound was muffled like it came from behind a closed door…

…and I was working twenty years ago in an office building in downtown Tucson. I was sitting there and suddenly I smelled smoke. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge. I felt panic and heat! I walked very quickly over to a co-worker's desk to tell her that I smelled a strong smoke. There must be a fire! We have to push the alarm and leave the building. My co-worker looked up at me from her desk. “There is no fire Michael. You don’t smell smoke.” She then proceeded to tell the story of the office building. It had twenty years before been a hotel and the scene of a disastrous fire in which 28 people had died. She then told me that if anybody had to come in on a Saturday to do work, they never would come in alone...

Something of a surprise at the American Box Office this past weekend. A ghost story produced for something like $11,000 grossed over $7 million dollars.

Paranormal Activity

After a young, middle class couple moves into what seems like a typical suburban 'starter' tract house, they become increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be somehow demonic but is certainly most active in the middle of the night. Especially when they sleep. Or try to.

It is near Halloween. Word of mouth has had this film go from a few dozen theatres in a week to showing in 160 theatres. With an average screening getting something like $44,000 per theatre screen for the weekend, you have to imagine that the theatres are very crowded. Perhaps part of the charm of seeing a ghostly tale in the dark with a crowd is the electricity of one person’s reaction quickly spreading through that crowd.

Looking at the data, and considering there is a SyFy cable show called Ghost Hunters, something to say about all this. I of course don’t like scary movies. Have not watched any since the old 1930’s Dracula, Frankenstein used to air in my youth on the local TV station late at night.

The cable ghost show has people running around at night using night filtered filming. Everybody is in some sort of hazy tint. There is always somebody jumping up saying they just heard something or saying they just got touched. Guys run around with little ghost meters that are always registering strange readings. Well you get the picture. There is an audience already for this type of storytelling.

Watch the short clip below of the ghost movie to get a flavor of this word of mouth phenomenon.

I see youth. I see crowds. I see an audience perhaps starved for imagination. I see a generation that no longer gets the fear of fire and brimstone from pulpits because they perhaps do not go to church.

I see the ghost story genre as part of some ancient secular ritual of people, family, tribe sitting around the flames in the hearth. I see humanity and I have hope for the next generations. A human tradition of story telling exists in a modern evolved form.

The art of telling a good story is alive in this modern age and transferred to cinema among other things. The possible down side of all this is that less and less the telling of a good story is in a book. Who reads these days? Is reading rapidly becoming a lost art form?

In any case, happy Halloween season. Boo!

World Peace Prize to Vladimir Putin

I used to say that the Soviet Union would be the first economy to collapse. Well the other shoe dropped about a year ago in the west and a patchwork of cosmetic economic Band-Aids is still holding the west together at this moment. There is still a lot of work to do to stabilize the west's economy and indirectly keep world peace intact.

There was an outcry and a pulling of hair and a gnashing of teeth in the United States by the far right last week when the Nobel Committee named Barack Obama as this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Any Peace would seem to be in conflict with certain parties within the United States.

The Nobel Committee noted that the peace award was not so much for solid accomplishments but for setting a new tone and establishing a new touchstone by which the United States deals with the rest of the world on the world stage.

Resetting or rebooting the American’s empire and its outlook is only one part of a very large quilt work of nations and ideologies that contribute to real world peace in all corners of the globe and in their own way in terms of their own self interests.

All the other big nations and economies, Europe, China and Russia make contributions to world peace just by not starting war or by not actively on a full scale arming for war. War though, I fear, is in the Human Genes. It would seem that fewer and smaller the conflicts settled by arms is for the better and a realistic approach to the reality of human nature.

The backbone of the Eurasian Continent geographically speaking from Oslo to Vladivostok would seem to be Russia. Eurasia is one third approximately of the land surface of the planet. Russia’s interests and potential spheres of influence make up a big chuck of the planet’s surface.

Russia with it hundreds of native ethnic cultures is perhaps more diverse than Los Angeles.

Anything in terms of world peace happens not just in the American mindset but also in the mindset of Europe, China and Russia as well. The Europeans and Chinese seem more geared to domestic economic activity while the bones of the old Soviet Empire are still there and still capable of waging massive warfare.

Anything meaningful that happens in terms of Iran and its “Peaceful” nuclear program would seem to fall within the local interests of its big next door neighbor of Russia on the Caspian. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Moscow would seem to suggest there is interest and a push toward stabilizing a loose political situation in the regions south of Russia.

That situation in the Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan entanglement of politics, nuclear power and war would suggest a desperate need for peace filled resources. This to replace the ancient ideas of land, war and ideologies too diverse to find at present common points of hoped for respect and understanding amongst themselves and with the rest of the humanity.

North Korea with its dangerous nuclear toys poses a threat in two ways. If it continues to exist as a rogue nation, it is a threat to Japan. If it ever unifies with South Korea, a united Korea is a whole new ball of wax if you mix the economics of the south with the militarism of the north. In either case Korea, though it touches China, is also within the sphere of Russia’s far eastern border and interests.

The bottom line on North Korea I think is in peaceful regime change and the purchase of nuclear weapons by the UN for the price of a ton of food for every starved North Korean citizen. The price is cheap. The devil is in the bargaining to get to that desired purchase price and desired peace situation.

While I give points to Obama for style, and points to Secretary of State Clinton for the miles she will be running in track shoes to accomplish a true Pax Americana, it will still be the empire of Russia that can benefit and add to any lasting world peace formula in the decades to come.

Right now, Russia is in a transitory stage from the massively failed management –mismanagement - of the Soviet system with their controlled economy theories. The infrastructure of Russia is still in many ways an infrastructure for war. The shell or the skeleton of the Soviet Empire could very well be reshaped into a new revived military demon to once again be added to the world stage.

Perhaps in the transfiguring of present day Russia from old Czarist/Soviet building blocks will come a new nation that sees more profit in peace than in war or in feigned cold war. Peace as building blocks in the sphere of Russian influence are part of any foundation of world peace.

The man at present who stands behind the throne of Russian power is Vladimir Putin. In terms of building or rebuilding with a long term plan for any nation, you need one strong man or a dynasty of men or party mission statements rigidly adhered to and fulfilled.

For better or worse, the key to present world peace and world stability, is not only in an upcoming shining speech in Oslo but in the grungy, gritty day to day nation building/rebuilding under the present hand of Vladimir Putin.

I somehow feel or hope that Putin’s long term reign as President, Prime Minister and probably again as President is an important building block or foundation for all humanity under the umbrella of the concept of world peace.

As such, and for what it is worth, I award this first annual Cultural Christian - World Peace Prize to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia for contributing to stability in his country and the peaceful potential for reshaping stability in regions touching that nation.

We hope that this Peace Prize encourages Putin and his government to do more and continue to contribute to regional and world peace for all humankind.

Discovery of New Worlds

I am looking for something positive to say about the state of things and the way we look at things past and present.

Today is the traditional Columbus Day Holiday. It celebrates the first big hyped European recognition of something (America) beyond the seas. Before Columbus there was travel to America for centuries and even millennium. It is just that on this day in 1492 the facts about an outside world made it into the Evening News so to speak.

I happened to be trekking around the desert in 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of whatever, around this date in a car and we directly or indirectly came upon three ancient Mission sites in Arizona. Two of those sites are still active. The trip make me realize how in the great expanse of the west, lines on a map in Madrid did not mean anything. The reality of tiny satellite settlements of European culture back then, centuries ago, survived not so much by the grace of God as by pure dumb luck generated by the pro-active curiosity of explorers.

This culture thing changes almost every few years. When I was a school child, Columbus was a hero. In 1992 he was nearly labeled some genocidal maniac by revisionist history. Somewhere in between Hero and Criminal is the probable truth about Christopher Columbus.

When one age tries to impose its own view of the world onto some other time or some other culture there can be conflicts.

A lot of religious wing nuts seem to want the world to end? Why? It says so or supposedly says so in the Bible. The last book of the Bible, Revelations, is a contorted weed driven vision of nasty things, un-Christian things. Still, rather than enjoy the world God has directly or indirectly provided us on spaceship Earth, some would prefer destruction over construction.

One recent thing in the news and shortly in the movies is the concept that the world will end on December 21, 2012 – Pure Unadulterated Horse Manure. Why? The Mayan calendar says so. Well actually it does not say anything. Most Mayan writings were burned by religious wing nuts as satanic centuries ago. The little writing that did survive is a mere scattering of words from that long dead civilization, long dead before the Spanish arrived.

An interesting quote from an Archeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico regarding the 2012 Mayan Calendar hype:

Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."

If Western mythology is indeed dead, then it makes sense that lunatics cling to the Bible for some sort of answer – the Bible is full of myths – many tired myths.

God created the human race to improve itself. To build on myth and not to cling to myth.

Myth builders like Columbus pursued the world to change it. Others sit back and reshape the world with words. Imagination and perspiration are two things that once made America great – not myths.

I think that there is a hidden intentional built-in challenge for us in the New Testament. It is to get beyond the roadblock of Revelations, a great boulder for some in the pathway to light. For the others of us that understand the message of Jesus in a much more divinely human sense, roadblocks are there to be overcome.

Myths are fine. Reality is better. Words at the beginning of the Bible are perhaps the best words to remember on the road of life. “Let there be light.” (to illuminate your pathway…)

Have a good day and don’t fuss too much over the Political Correctness of explorers of brave new worlds like C. Columbus etc.

Explore your own new worlds. There are plenty of them to explore. Make your own myths to hand down to the future.

;)

Scarlet Letter Law in Oklahoma

Some weird things out in Oklahama.

First something on going with the C Street Church – Coe Family Cult thing. There is talk that Senator Ensign of Nevada broke the law when he fired his mistress’s husband and got him a job as a lobbyist, strong armed the people who hired him etc. – well this all gets very tangled.

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Senator Ensign’s roommate at the church, is now saying that he negotiated a financial settlement for Ensign’s Mistress and or Husband. He had previously stated that he did not do this.

My question is when a man negotiates a price for the use of sex for a male party with a female – doesn’t that make him a Pimp, an old fashioned word for a “negotiator”? That if the mistress wants a settlement and the user of sex is willing to pay a settlement – isn’t that Blackmail by any other name? Jeez! Symantics!

Perhaps Senator Coburn should wear an appropriate label for his correct function at any given moment on his lapel like a "scarlet letter".

Scarlet letters seem to be appropriate, in vogue, for people in Oklahoma. The state legislature wants all abortions and the reasons for them listed on the Internet. The long list of questions on a questionnaire is presumably to help find the reasons for abortion and cut down procedures in the future but the real reason for the law is to scare the shit of Doctors and Patients who can indirectly be identified on the Web by anybody.

The details of your abortion online?

...a new Oklahoma law (yes, law, not "proposed legislation" or "some kind of sick joke") set to go into effect Nov. 1 that would collect detailed data about each abortion performed -- and post it all on a public Web site (called Shame On You Whore.com).

According to proponents of the law, this extensive abortion data -- which will include the reason the procedure was sought -- will help health officials prevent future abortions. Yeah, I can see that. Because the requirement itself would scare the shit out of me. "They're really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions," Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, told Broadsheet.

A Scarlet Letter Law by any other name. The letter “A” for Abortion in this new law sounds to me like just some sort of Misogynist’s kinky delight.

Congratulations Oklahoma – welcome to the eternal dark ages and comfort in your homespun ignorance!

I have already given Senator Coburn a letter “P” for his function in the Ensign-Hampton affair thingy. My point here is this. I have seen the Republicans in action in Congress and Wall Street. They don’t tell the truth. The rest of us would be fools to tell the truth about anything that these Neanderthals would legislate and require the rest of us to surrender in regards to our personal freedoms and privacy.

Senator Coburn, a question. You are a OB/GYN. What would it take for an unscrupulous Doctor in Oklahoma to do an abortion on one of his Country Club Members’ daughters and merely list it in his records as say, the “removal of a cyst”? And avoid listing the abortion in the public, global Web record???

Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy! This ridiculous argument against women choosing their own rights over their bodies has been going on in America for half a century. The rich get abortions and can get away with it. The poor have to suffer and suffer and suffer.

Catholic Supreme Court

It is perhaps not PC to mention that six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Roman Catholics. Two are Jewish and one is listed as Protestant.

While this does not necessarily say anything, it has the potential of saying very much in that in the various knowns and unknowns of picking a Supreme Court Justice, that one thing hardly ever mentioned is their individual religious beliefs. This don’t ask, don’t tell, not mentioned by the MSM says something about the age of secular beliefs in America in that they would not seem to be important.

If the Prez were stupid enough to nominate an atheist or agnostic, then the firestorm in the negative right punditocracy would start on cue.

I say this in that one of the main building blocks of the fascist right for decades has been to build a rightist court that would overturn Roe vs. Wade. That dream is perhaps on hold and I do not think that all the Supreme Court members, the Catholics at least, take their marching orders from Rome.

One recent example of the RC church is not pulling the strings on the SC is the following article about how the SC has refused to hear an appeal to keep priest abuse records sealed in Connecticut, from retired NYC Cardinal Egan’s old bailiwick. He did such a good job in Connecticut that they promoted him to Cardinal of the Big Apple. Oh boy!

Supreme Court won't block release of sex abuse papers

My guess is that if the Supreme Court did hear this case and did block the release of sex abuse records of the RC church, then the focus would then shift onto the religious makeup on the Court.

That the MSM could not hide or ignore the reality of our Catholic Supreme Court.

I do sometimes sound sarcastic or prejudiced but some things do seem - or are obvious.

Obama - Nobel Prize - Nostradamus

From my October 29, 2008 blog:

Obama and Nostradamus

I am of course fascinated by the prophets of the Old, New and Arabic Testaments. They tend to deal almost exclusively in the realm of the Sacred.

On the Secular side you have many carnie trained wannabe prophets like Edgar Cayce and some aging TV evangelists - but I won't go there.

And then there is Nostradamus.

For your reading pleasure/displeasure. Take of it what you will.

I ran into some incredible bulls**t on the Internet with fake so-called bible codes about Obama (masked rascism and hatred) – from the fringe element of the human condition.

Then I ran into this quatrain from Nostradamus in his first century grouping that might fit the bill of present world history.

Century 1 : quatrain 76

"D'vn nom farouche tel proferé ƒera,
Que les trois ƒœurs auront fato le nom :
Puis grand peuple par langue & fai¢t dira,
Plus que nul autre aura bruit & renom."

"The man will be called by a barbaric name
that three sisters will receive from destiny.
He will speak then to a great people in words and deeds,
more than any other man will have fame and renown."

I researched a bit and found this synopsis segment of a published book.

Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama (By Maryanne Raphael – Book Review

"Obama went to Kenya hoping to learn more about his dead father. His half sister Auma and his aunt Zeitumi met him and took him to meet Aunt Jane and other African family members"

The “three sisters” I look at are African sisters. One half sister and two aunts, sisters of his father Obama Sr.. Oh well it was a very rainy day yesterday. Too much time on my hands so to speak. I put both the French and English versions down for you French scholars. “Barbaric name”, I define in its most generic definition as a name of foreign or alien origin.

Prophecy is something that the modern age has not applied too much scientific analysis to. Prophecy belongs in a nineteenth century parlor game category to many. Who is to say if some of us do or do not have gifts to see beyond the day to day struggle of human living.

Belief systems are varied and of all colors of the spectrum. In most cases, we all believe want we want to believe and sometimes find so-called "proof" from ancient texts or medieval almanacs.

Whether the above is an accurate prophecy from the past- Whether it is about present events- It has been a very long vetting process for the Americans to choose their father/leader.

The future is what you make of it- Just like the present. If you are searching, you may:

"Seek and you shall (might)find".

Bless us all.

Obama and Nostradamus

CEOs as God - Corporate Religion

One of the side effects for me of all this Health Care Reform debate in the past few months has been that it has opened my eyes regarding how to look differently at the modern world. A new perspective, an eye-opener, from the ways that politcians raise money to be perpetuated in power to the way that Health Care in this country exists solely for a profit at the expense of humanity. Not very Christian by my definition of Christianity.

Several terms have popped up in the media lately. One is Oligarchy. That word has been associated with Russia after the collapse of the Soviet system. One definition is “a state governed by a few persons” and for the benefit of a few persons.

That leads into the way that corporations now seem to rule our country. Our foreign policy and domestic finances seem to be ruled by what I have heard recently described on the MSM as Corporate Communism. Not corporate welfare but corporate communism. There seems to be a dictatorship of the working classes by the few that treat Americans as second class citizens in this imperfect democracy and most definitely for a profit.

I am too old to be marching in protest or being a fanatic about definitions and ideology. I am however awakened as a Cultural Christian to the fact that Capitalism is a religion of sorts.

The Vatican once defined the Communism of the Soviet era as a religion, a religious belief system. Then too, in a similar manner, we should look at this new belief system (religious?), American Capitalism, that directly rules us and our actions in this sick and depleted economy.

Two secular quasi-religious things have followed me all my life that nobody, if ever, openly questions. The first is Patriotism, wrapping oneself in the flag – “my country right or wrong, my country!”

The other secular quasi-religious thing has been how Capitalism was a good thing and not a bad thing like Communism. Fifty percent of the USA national budget was devoted to the defeat of Soviet style communism for half a century.

Now it would seem that the ruling American Oligarchy of Corporations wraps itself in the myth of the so-called myth of free markets that never existed and do not now exist anywhere on this planet except when the powerful rob the defenseless of some life sustaining commodity.

As such and as a bona-fide religion, who are the gods of capitalism except the CEOs of corporations? We bear them honor and gifts and benefits like many gods in a Hindu Shrine and they give us nothing in return.

You mean capitalism as a religion is not monotheistic – of one god – like the traditional Sunday going to church religions?

Capitalism - the religion behind Corporate Communism and Billionaire Bolsheviks is ruled by one God – Greed!

How easy it is to see how early Christianity had to compete and flourish and overcome the evil political, economic and religious tyrannies of the Roman Empire.

How the simple words of Jesus as brother and cousin to humanity through the divine inspiration of a higher order blew away the inhumanity of those long gone generations. How hard it is to exist in competition presently with the forces of - I do not feel comfortable calling them evil, at home and abroad in the world.

A Lutheran Pastor who I greatly admired told the story of his first real suit being fitted by a taylor. The man was young and on his way to a Lutheran seminary.

The taylor was Jewish and asked why the young man was being fitted for the suit. The young man replied that he was going to the seminary.

The taylor replied that he knew the words of Jesus very well and he repeated them to the young man.

“What does it profit a man who gains the whole world and loses his immortal soul?”

Good reasoning and common sense through the ages sustains those of us who must endure and overcome the very real subtle forces of evil all about us.