Marcus Arelius' Seventeen Injunctions of Life

Before taking an action, always put yourself in your neighbor’s shoes for he is a creation of God too, unless you know that the other person is a sociopath. Then don’t weary yourself in an attempt to regard his feelings, for to empathize with a sociopath in such a case is to begin to become like him.

Always ask yourself when taking an action you believe to be prudent, “What would the world be like if everybody else did what I am doing now?”

You will always prevail against your opponent in the long, and sometimes short run in a conflict if God has given you more time than God has given your opponent.

Revenge should be ended when it stops being punitive and becomes obsessive.

Consistency will cause your enemy never to doubt you.

The same repeated effort tword a goal should end the minute you know you’ve learned everything possible from the last attempt. Impornatunity leads to obsession.

Never operate outside your experience and “comfort zone” when combating your opponent, but you should always seek to make your enemy oppperate outside his experience and comfort zone.

Cowards die many deaths before their time; the valiant tastes of death but once. Valor is redeeming. Therefore the truly evil cannot partake of it.

Victory has a hundred fathers. Defeat is an orphan.

Never let your enemy see you express self doubt. Your own thoughts are for you alone and never for your enemy to know.

Take your neighbor at his word, even if he is a conservative or a Christian, but verify it in a way he knows nothing of. If your enemy’s words proves to be false, nothing he says need ever trouble you again.

Make your enemy live by his own words. Point out for all to see your enemy’s flaws of character. Make his own foolishness come back upon him.

Pleasure is its own reward. Rewards bring self confidence, and self confidence brings about the ability to expand one's horizons. Desire is the one sure sign you're really alive.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Always have at least one Ace in the hole, and preferably several.

Crisis means "opportunity" in Chinese, but whether it's an opportunity for you or your opponent all depends on the way God has written the script in advance.

Everyone has his price, and that includes God, or so called.

OK this is radio free Muskogee, on the air. Earlier today I had on channel 40 and they were bemoaning the fact that the Wall Street reform bill was passed and how it’s going to strangle the economy with new regulation and it’s going to make it harder for consumers and business to get credit. I had Rush Limbaugh on for an hour this morning because I got tired of hearing about Shirley Sherad (?), the former Black secretary of Agriculture. I know just from the blurbs of Rush they play on progressive stations that Rush has really slidden off the track, but listening to a whole hour of him is really trippy, let me tell you. He said that that Black secretary of agriculture was still a racist and if you heard the whole forty minute speech you’d realize this. She had no “conversion moment”. Rush took a call the last five minutes of the hour or so and it was from some woman who wanted to expand her business because “she was digging out from the ravages of 9 – 11. But she couldn’t get anybody to front her a loan and she blamed Obama for it, and Rush agreed with her. There was another speaker saying that the people of the gulf don’t want government checks; they want jobs. Rush explained that the biggest problem with the Gulf spill was the 33 operating wells that were shut down temporarily. Apparently the devastation of the fishing profession was and is of no concern to Rush. Rush referred to General Motors as “government motors” Rush Limbaugh calls the “NAALCP” racist, and yet I remember a remark he made about Collin Powell where he said the problem with is that he’s Black. “It’s all about race!” You hear Rush froth and sputter aimlessly for the whole hour venturing into more and more areas. Rush was mad at veterans for asking the government for back benefits. He called unemployment insurance that you pay for out of your payroll check as “welfare”. He again said that President Obama “Is always the least qualified man in any room that he occupies”. Rush said that the Gulf oil spill wasn’t any problem and that “all of these clean-up boats go out there and can’t find the oil”. I’d like to drown Rush in it. Rush said that the oil spill was something “the earth” could take care of on its own, and further said that the magnitude of the spill was like spilling a 24 oz can of beer in the Dallas football dome stadium. There were times Rush became so hyper I thought he was going to have a coronary right there on the air. It just might happen one of these days. They should put all of Rush’s quotes in a book and title the book “Rush – the Most Depraved Man on Earth”. I don’t think I need to hear any more. He is clearly “Out to Lunch”. You’ll get more lucid conversation from the inmates in “Ward Twelve” of “The Snake Pit”. There are some conservatives you might be able to sit down with and tell them to make an itemized list of all their specific complaints about the government’s action, and what they believe should be done. I know it’s a free country but the thought of anybody listening to him and actually believing him would give anybody pause.

Under nerd science we have two stories. First of all there is some alliel on the dopamine gene where if you have seven of these genes, then you lose self control and have to conform to any group you’re in, be it heavy drinking or whatever else they are involved in. I’m wondering whether evangelical Christians have this excess in genes. Maybe this is what causes their minds to shut off. They just go on feelings.

They have now perfected a new solar photoelectric cell that is a hundred times smaller and more efficient than the old cells. They are the size of “lint” and you can wear a swath of it on your clothes and it’ll be enough to power your I Pad. I would like to see our energy needs become a thing of the past. T Boone Pickens’ ideas are a good start with wind power and natural gas. But after that we need to go to the next step.

President Obama won’t be signing the new unemployment extension bill for several days due to legal technicalities. New unemployment claims are up this past week. Thom Hartman says “when employment goes down, corporate profits go up”.

The beauro of land management is undertaking a program to massively slaughter wild mustangs in Wyoming. This is because British Petroleum wants to build a pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon and the mustangs are in the way. Apparently the beauro of land management has been "taken over". (by whom?) I thought "The Misfits" movie was the last word on the senseless slaughter of horses, but 49 years later, here we are. At least we were spared Andy Williams singing “Born Free” with guns and bombs going off.

One thing the President needs to do next is to get an immigration reform bill passed by Congress. Too many illegals are living in a state of limbo. They want to "do right by their karma" or whatever they have to do to become American citizens. This hostility the right bears tword them has become obsessive. America has always assimilated minorities to that they too may taste the blessings of liberty. It is written, "to whom much is given, much is required". Slamming the doors of opportunity on others will adversely affect the karma of those who do so.

What Makes for Personal Happiness?

We still have another light blog to go before we get to the dark "Cosmic Tides". Not that I'm saying that the Cosmic Tides are dark or anything. I still don't know what "dark matter" is. I would presume it's just masses of asteroids that somehow haven't yet clustered together, which one would suppose, because of gravitational attraction. To say that is "some kind of matter that's never been seen before" would seem to me to be a premature assesment. While I'm on the topic I'd like to mention these Crop Circles that broke out in the summer of 1990. I just went to a site that "reveals secrets" and they said that two guys confessed to doing all the crop circles themselves in 1991. I have reason to doubt this. First of all the crop circles didn't stop. They polifferated all over Europe and America and there are hundreds of them, each in increasingly complex geometric patterns. I would like to revert to an argument the Creationists use. How come nobody has seen these people who opperate stealthfully by night in open fields without trees. More importantly how is it some Yahoo who goes to an instructional internet site, can pull off such elaborate geometric patterns and do so Perfectly. I know Mozart wrote music like "taking dictation", but this isn't how unusual things normally happen. For every crop circle you see there should be ten times as many botched attempts and abandoned efforts. Where are They? I know that they say Christ rose from the dead because "Nobody SAW any disciples stealing his body out of the tomb by night, but how far can you take a negative? Yeah, they may get away with it once or twice, but not hundreds of incidents over years. People from the Federation tell me that those two people who confessed in 1991 are full of bunk, and that they were obviously Told by somebody to confess and take the heat off. To my way of thinking it takes more Faith to believe rank amateurs did it rather than Space Aliens.

Today President Obama signed the Wall Street reform bill into law. Republicans say this is a horrible thing because "one way or another consumers will live to regret this day". I am not insensitive to the arguments from the right. Sean Hannity was saying "People know my heart. They know I'm not as I'm depicted by all the pundets". I don't pick on Sean Hannity because I don't pick on most people of the Right but let them go their way. Some of the things Glen Beck says are pretty far out. For instance that we will develop runaway hyper inflation like the Vymar republic and this is being done deliberately to "Crash" the economy so that some dictator can take over this country. People have the right to be stupid. But I only get on someone's case if they are saying some really asshole, uninformed remark about some issue that I have a personal interest in. Then I'll get on their case, as you know. I don't like Dr. Levy saying the people accused of crimes in Guantanamo Bay should be left to rot in prison and Never given a trial. Nobody likes to be accused of something they had nothing to do with and have a cloud of doubt hanging over them and following them around. Sometimes I do resort as Hannidy claims, to saying certain people on the Right are "Evil". This is certainly true of "The Asshole from El Paso". There was a republican congressman on C-Span a few days ago giving a speech on the economy at length and he said some stuff worth thinking about. He spoke of "stealing" Chrysler and GM by the US Government and "wrenching the securities out of the creditors hands". OK, maybe next time when I'm President, we'll let them go under. I don't have a problem with that. But he says that true wealth comes "from the Land". It reminded me of the English and Spanish explorers plundering the land and wiping out New World civilizations all in the name of their Christian god. So Thom Hartman says we should coin a new word, "Christianists". After all, everything with an -IST ending is supposed to be bad, isn't it. How about a Pure-ist? He says that everything we value most like food, and the crops we make our clothes out of, as well as the timber and stone we build with and the minerals we mine to produce all other things- - all starts with the land. And I'm not insensitive to the idea that Kaynes may be wrong about a thing or two. For instance his statement about hiring twenty men to dig ditches and the next day hiring twenty more to fill them. This guy from Iowa spoke of a mine where the Government has secreted cash away and he's hiring people to mine it. But first the government fills up the mine with garbage. So first you have to dig through the garbage and get their wheel barrels and rail cars and whatever. But then people get sick from handeling the garbage and so you have to hire health care workers. Robert Kennedy alledgedly gave a speech during his 1968 Presidential Campaign where he said "The gross national product isn't everything. It doesn't measure the vast air and water pollution, or the ravages of war, or all the construction of new prisons. Prisons raise the GNP. He said that the GNP doesn't measure the smile of a happy child, or the joy of a wedding celebration, or the pride that a parent feels upon the graduation or their son or daughter from a college. Wealth isn't everything. But Randy Rhodes pointed out by way of ballance that economic strife can take it's toll. Mel Gibson flies into tyrades against women, but Randy asks how often is this very scene played out in homes all over America where the provider has lost his job. I've heard that the greatest number of divorces come not from Adultry or sexual incompatability or all this psychological "growing apart" stuff. (I'm not saying this is how I feel, it's what THEY say) No. The greatest number of divorces comes from pocket book issues. Economic strife and various pressures to make ends meet. To not extend unemployment benefits is to be against family values. Dr. Levy can say money isn't of value, but the rest of us have other ideas. If there ARE any lazy ones out there not looking for a job, this will only provide more jobs for those of us who ARE looking earnestly for a job.

On the personal front I got an almost new TV last night, so I am a happy camper today. Last night I had a dream where I was employed by a TV writing team writing a soap opera script or something. These people were from Eastern colleges, but I think it was New Jersey rather than New England. And most of this team was gay and they supposed everybody was. But some of us had our eye on this cute blonde working there. And in the script there was a character who resembled the blonde and her romantic adventures. But I was fiddling with my scanner because I had never worked officially with one before, scaning pages into my office desk top computer. And people were saying to me "Look what our heroin is up to today on the next page?"

I would like to talk just a little more about Lennon compositions. Strawberry Fields Forever could refer to the strawberry field I walked past every day on my way to school. Lennon was obviously dating in "Good Morning" because of the line "Go to a show, you hope she goes", and when the song came out I had just gotten a new girlfriend. Also you snail mail people know that "A Day in the Life" was about the death of John Sneed and Ron Diggins, who died in a car trying to outrun a train on March 5th 1967. Of course the song they say was written in January of 1967 based on some newspaper article. Also if you've listened to the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky, it can't be anything other than an LSD trip. You Ziggy fans will note there are several songs about Robin including "Simply Shady" (which now they say was NOT about Eric Claptins affair with his wife, Patty Boyd) Rather it's about the Maharishi. It could be about an affair Robin had had. (But it wasn't with Philip Kiriacus) "Cool, Calm, Collected" and "Killer Queen" are two more songs alledgedly about Robin. And of course "Ticket to Ride" isn't about Hamburg prostitutes, or a city in England called "Ride" but rather about astral projection where the "He" is just changed to "She". That's my take on the song. It was the Beatles' first single after "the transfer".

President Orders "Surge" of US Martials

President Obama today ordered a significant step up of US Martial presence on International flights as of February first. US Marshals's jobs are to observe passengers and if the underwear bandit Abdul Metalah had been scrutenized they would have seen how nervous his behavior was in his staring and constantly wiping his forehead. Abdul Matalsh will be tried in Civilian court, much to the disdain of Republicans. And yet shoe bomber Richard Reed and over two others have been successfully prosecuted under civilian courts. The observation is made that the government will lose valuable intelligence oppertunities if we don't water board this guy while we have the chance. And yet others like the Press Secretary point out that we've already gained a lot of intelligence from Abdul Matalah, if we can believe him. We haven't heard the last of new security measures; you can count on that. These nude scanners put out only a fraction of the X Rays that Medical X Rays put out, and most of the rays bounce off of the skin. No doubt this will be taken into consideration when their wide spread use is contemplated.

Four democratic senators have declared that they will not run again for Senate in 2010 today. These include Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, whom Randy Rhodes personally vouches for as a progressive. Dodd is the son of Thomas Dodd, who was considered for Vice Presidential pick by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. However it's pointed out that even more Republicans are expected not to run again. Many on the radio are not optimistic about democratic changes in 2010 however keep in mind that this batch of Senators last stood for election in 2004 when the Republicans were still winning. Hence there are more Republicans ripe to knock off. Some have suggested that Ed Schultz run for the empty North Dakota slot being opened up by Byron Dorgan's departure. He's a popular progressive talk show host so why not. I see absolutely no reason for the democrats to feel disspirited at this time.

Rush Limbaugh is carrying on about how great medical care is in this country yet Hawaii has the most government care of any of the fifty states, so he picked a bad example. Randy Rhodes points out that when the bill comes, most people can't pay it, but with Rush's 400 million, he's not in any position to compare what the rest of us have to deal with. Some have speculated that Rush's chest pains are from eating a too highly spiced hoagie.

Governor Swartzenegger gave an encouraging State of the State message today. For once he wasn't blaming poor people for the State's problems, but the Federal Government. He says that California only gets back $74.00 for every hundred dollars we sent to the Federal Government in tax revenue. The governor also said that Alaska, perhaps thanks to Sarah Palin gets 173% of the revenue that they send to the federal government. The governor in fact expressed sympathy for both poor people and school children. He said that it was a crime to spend fifty percent more on State Prisons than on Education. I would agree if that's true. The governor expressed optimism about the economic recovery in general, and that's a good thing to hear. Certainly in industrial production and in other ways, signs of growth are sprouting up all over. The governor said that tax revenue drop off in the state was eight times the slump in the state economy. I find that a little hard to swallow. People say that the governor is a termed out "Lame Duck" but I'm glad that at least he wants to go out on a positive note.

In the Sudoko puzzles the idea is to fill in the right numbers based on certain pre-set rules and precepts. A lot of it involves the process of elimination. Also like police action boards, once you think you have isolated one key clue to a meta-physical certain, that clue itself becomes a tip-off to other clues out there. If a police detective wants to find where the truth lays, he knows to talk to people who are known to tell the truth even when it would be in their interest to slant the truth and lie a little. Sometimes like the Sudoku puzzle, you get stuck and can't go on the direction you are going, and there are blanks still left to be filled in. If you have an Action Board for one crime scenario, you may need to construct other action boards for other entirely different scenarios as to how the crime took place. Sometimes it all depends on the defendant drawing a sympathetic judge. In today's soap opera Nicole appears to have drawn a sympathetic judge who had an axe to grind against at least two of her many accusers, Elvis Di Mira and Samantha Brady. Seldom has one lie hurt more lives than this lie about her baby. She lied to her husband and was caught in one lie, but then she was still lying even then. As a result many lives were traumatically affected. Were I the judge I would not just dismiss this reality. Even people with reputations as utter jerks can have a truly just legal cause.

Ping Pong Expediancy

Now we are learning a new phrase, among so many new idiums we are learning these days thanks to the media such as "proactive" and "prostate health". We've learned about something that's going to be done that apparently the Republicans have been doing for a long time, but it doesn't make the news until the democrats do it. They are bypassing the usual conference committee in the legeslative process for the Health Bill. All that's missing is the green light on your dashboard. What people have feared all along is becoming a reality. The Senate version of the Health bill is going to be accepted whole, without any changes lest they lose some of their precious sixty votes needed for passage. To do this house members will have to be talked out of otherwise constructive measures such as the millionaire's tax and the dreaded Public Option. The bill is pinged and ponged and amendments are added in mass to the House bill untill it can be manipulated to look just like the senate bill. Then President Obama can have his little victory. The insurance and drug companies can rest easy knowing all their campaign donations to Obama will be paying off. But as I said the Republicans already made use of this ping - pong procedure for such infamous bills as the Patriot Act, where nobody seemed to object. The republicans did a lot of things and threatened to do a whole lot more if they didn't get their way, that they now have suddenly developed a conscience and don't want the Democrats doing.

Well today a defensive President Obama crouched and bared his teeth and groweled in his toughest possible macho stance. But you know such behavior still won't impress Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. I'm just waiting for these two to name all the things our President did wrong. They no doubt will cite the civil court trial of the 9 - 11 master-mind or the closing of Guantanamo Bay. What the President did, besides the interrupting of my soap opera at a key plot moment, was to take all the blame for things that went wrong. The President promaces quick and decisive action to remedy all the security problems we have with our airports. One could scarcely envision President Bush making a more resolute speech, and had a President Mc Cain given that same speech word for word, Praises would be heaped on him by the Right. But that won't happen. The President cited a "failure to connect up the dots". He characterized it as not an information gathering failure but an information processing and coalating failure. It all comes down to agencies of the government sharing collaborating with the information they have. Now where have we heard of such a failure before? Oh yes, President Bush and his failure to dissern that 9 - 11 was about to take place. Like I say, with each passing day the distinction between Presidents Bush and Obama becomes more slight. Personally I agree with Ron Reagan, who said today that "You can't prevent all accidents; Things happen". It's a cliche expression, 'shit happens". Rush Limbaugh would be quick were it a private vendor of a product to say "There is no way you can prevent mishaps from happening". Rush reminds us, rightly, that life sometimes throws you a curve ball. But somehow when it comes to Al Qaeda, our government owes it to us to insure that nothing EVER will happen to an American citizen, and that ANY price is worth paying. But certain security procedures, be it wide spread drug testing for who knows what, or else "total security" on an airline, isn't a reality. These airliners are in business to make money after all, and they can't go frightening off customers through excessive security procedures. Personally I'd prefer the sniffing dogs to either the "super thorough pat down" involving the genitals, or these nude X ray scanners. Why are people no longer concerned about radiation to the genitals. What happened to that heavy shield the dentist puts over you to protect your vital organs. Frequent business flyers would have to find these procedures a pain in the ass- - perhaps literally (!) after a while, and in time all this security would slow commerce and reduce corporate profits. Let's appeal to Obama's business side.

3 D TV is coming. Well, I don't know what entertainment will be like in the future but my eyes don't work well for 3 D and people like myself and Leo Le Port think the whole business is largely a waste of time. But I suppose some people thought when they began making movies in color, so perhaps I'm dating myself. If you want monsters leaping off your TV screen into your living room, then have at it. Of course Google and the Android Opperating system- - among so many "new systems" are coming out now, promacing to revolutionize the computer experience. They have been saying that E mails are becoming a thing of the past. CD's may be becoming a thing a thing of the past and not only the desk top but the notebook computer will become a thing of the past as we move to tablet computers with their touch screen capabilities, as well as the Smart Phones taking over the Phone market, which they have yet to do.

In a Bob Dylan song about New York, Bob Dylan says, "They said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years. I didn't feel so cold then". Well for about two thirds of the country this is the coldest winter in 25 years. I remember the winter of 1977 as being cold in one of my astro projection lives. I don't remember 1985 as being especially cold but I'll take their word for it. People are saying that "The Gulf Stream conveyer belt is shutting down" and so England is seeing cold like they've never had before. But people are saying that the watch word now is not global warming but "Climate Change". I guess that could cover just about anything. My heart goes out to all those people shivering in the rest of the country and hope fuel oil and natural gas prices aren't so high that they are unable to properly heat their homes.

Facing the New Year

I made a number of minor resolutions this year. One that I can keep is finding a cheaper place to buy cigarettes, and cigarettes that come in exotic flavors such as strawberry and grape. So, I hope that doesn't make me "fruity". The new photo processing software I have works great and there are a lot of things you can do with it. I'm reading through a book of quotations of famous people that my Mom gave me. She also gave me the book lying around the house "When I say No, I Feel Guilty". That's an old one. I think I'm actually going to read the Gospel of Mark through at the start of this year. As to that number puzzle where you fill in the numbers for each callendar day, there seem to be too many possabilities to insure getting it right. If you're wondering about the photograph, assuming I remember to put it in, that's my roommate Bill in the background. He has more hair than I do but he's actually ten years older. I guess I want to be more thoughtful and conscientious this new year, to heed the advice of "Deliberate often, but decide but once". There is also a quote from my name sake that says something "Whatever you enjoy doing, do it not having expectation of a reward and in this way you will follow the [proper] course of nature". But I like the one from Soren Kierkegaard better - that goes "This world has enough reflection - what we need is more Passion". Hello, Rod Stewart! Here's one I thought was from Gandhi, that goes "When two elephants fight each other - it's the grass that suffers". Some have said the biggest consumers and wasters of petroleum energy is the armlements industry. Others say our biggest carbon footprint problem is that we are all meat eaters and factory farms are world class polluters. People wonder who the smartest President we've ever had was. Let me tell you, George W Bush was not as dumb as people made him out to be, and President Obama is not as smart as people make him out to be. Not only that, but with each passing day of lost opportunity, George Bush, in retrospect appears less "dumb" every day! But I think unquestionably our smartest president was Franklin Roosevelt. People say that he was really more perceptive than Churchill even. On the subject of action, I would like to quote the proverb I've quoted before, "When all is said and done, more is said than done". Here is one more for you I'm going to doctor up a little. Jesus Christ talking: "When I am dead I would rather that mankind ask why there were no monuments to me, rather than have people continually ask why there Were monuments to a person like me". Continuing, "of course I lack the true humility to have actually uttered a statement like this". A proverb goes "When three different people call you an Ass, you better put on a bridal!"

The other night on KCET 28.4 then had a fascenating program on the human genome. Human beings only contain something like 23,000 genes, or as many as a chicken, and fewer than many plants do. Of course they are now trying to synthisize dinasaurs from the DNA of a chicken. What this tells me is that it's easier for man to have "evolved" than Creationists think because one gene can make a big impact. And it doesn't take changes in that many genes to denote an ape from a human. But there are genes, and "master genes" and switches. Yes dinasaurs resemble birds, but often many species have inactivated genes controled by "switches". I've heard that in autisum, certain mental development "switches" have not been thrown. There are birds on an island with long, skinny, pointed beaks for getting nectar from flowers, and other birds with short, stout beaks for cracking of various nuts and fruits, but otherwise the birds look the same. They both have the same controling gene but in one case the switch isn't thrown. Also there are fruit flies with spotted wings and other fruit flies without them, all because of a switch that wasn't thrown. But they say man may have been allowed to develop the size of his brain because in a gorilla, his jaw muscles take up so much space that it interfears with his skull size. It seems a key muscle gene got damaged through mutation in human beings ironically enabling his brain cavity to expand in size. Some people say you need both science and religion. Well, science is like arranging the Tetrus blocks so that they fit. Religion is the descent of more Tetrus blocks to work with. While you may need both in society, they don't have to be the same person.

This and the last two photographs are being typed on Saturday January 2, 2010. And I guess we’ll try and do that Ringo thing to complete the set. Perhaps in marketing we could combine Beatles Early Nuggets with this album rather than the Harrison one. A disk with nineteen songs like this one could have songs averaging up to four minutes.

ACT NATURALLY

The One And Only Billy Shears

Act Naturally (single B side)

Boys (from Please, Please Me)

I Want to Be Your Man (“Meet the Beatles”)

Honey Don’t (from Beatles for Sale)

If You’ve Got Troubles (from Anthology)

What Goes On? (from Rubber Soul)

Flying (from MMT)

Good Night (Anthology version)

Octopuses Garden (Abbey Road)

Back Off, Boogaloo (single)

I Don’t Treat You Like I should (from “Ringo”)

I’m the Greatest (from “Ringo”)

Choose Love (title song)

Instant Amnesia (from Ringo-rama)

Photograph (from “Ringo”)

Goodnight Vienna(GNV)

Ooh-wee! (The New Jean Harlow) (GNV)

The No No Song (GNV)

Snoockeroo (GNV)

Jesus Was Not A Liberal

Today on the Stephanie Miller program they showed a rerun of a segment where this book author comes on and says that Christians aren't being true to their Founder. Well I hate to break the news to you but the Jesus portrayed in the Bible was far from being a liberal. In the first place he said that divorce was wrong in any case except adultry. Also if you married a divorced woman you both were comitting adultry. The idea of his being sympathetic to homosexual marriage is out of the question. He likened marriage back to Genisis and Adam and Eve - not Adam and Steve. On the matter of abortion we have more hope for you liberals out there because Jesus does imply that life begins at birth. And all through the New Testament you have the implication that Life is like a Seed coming to full germanation in Heaven, and that a better Greek translation according to some is that you are "being Born Again" like Dylan says "He who is not busy being Born is busy Dying" Capish? As such I have charged people like Bill Halliday of being a "Spiritual Abortionist" because he aborts would be Christians from their set paths. We could go back to Rush Limbaugh's "Phone call abortion" thing if we want to. Certainly scripture is replete with scriptures like "Hold fast and let no man take thy Crown". Jesus referred to Baptisum as birth with such lines as "You must be Born Again by Water and the Spirit", alluding to baptism. However Jesus when given every oppertunity, like Obama, comes down on the side of the Status Quo every time he has the choice. He honors the Romans in saying that you owe Ceasar your money. Paul says that laws (of Rome) are not for "good people" to fear and adds "They do not carry the sword in vain". Jesus goes further to say that not one jot or tiddle will pass from the Law till "all is accomplished", which I like Chuck Smith infer to be the Second Coming. But this is the Jesus portrayed in the Bible.

However you can clearly "sort out" the Four Messiahs of the Bible and trace the order in which they were added or layered on. Luke was the last to "layer on" the assencion into heaven forty days after death, like Apolonius. These late layerings can bee seen in, for instance, the sole seeming reference to the Trinity in the whole Bible (at the end of Matthew), and references to Jesus having natural brothers and naming them, and also the city of Nazareth itself. But stripping these away, as one should the Christmas Story, which is the story of Mithras, you are left what portrates of two distinct people, and I'll explain. One was of a healing messiah who lived in the north. This messiah was very adept at dealing with demons and had a strong belief in them, and believed that demons came in a whole variety of forms, such as demons of deafness or blindness, or other things. There is another tradition you might call the southern tradition. Here is where you see a Jesus who was combative with pharicees and in John when Jesus refers to the pharicees as Satan, he does not seek to "exorcise" them, as the northern Jesus would have. It says in JC Superstar "A trick or two with leppers and the whole town's on its feet". I don't see healings during "Passion Week". As James Madison would put it "I fail to lay my finger on that portion of scripture". Did you ever wonder what happened to Jesus powers that final week? They even died and worked at different times. The northern Jesus had one year around 35 AD or the year of jubilee. The southern Jesus escaped crusifiction on November 24th of AD 29 during a solar eclipse. The upside down cross like the upside flag is used as a sign of distress. The upside down cross is the cross of Rome, where beliefs of the southern Jesus centered. This southern Jesus was more of a teaching messiah rather than a healing messiah. The "sayings of Jesus" document has no meracles in it, someone pointed out. It was probably an early date when the northern and southern Jesuses merged into one. But like Strawberry Fields Forever, if you read the book of Mark, the "bifercation" can be fairly readily picked up.

Rush Limbaugh had chest pains while on vacation in Hawaii. Someone said he was vacationing close to where President Obama is. Rush is said to be "resting comfortably" now. I would not definitely count this is the last "incident" Rush will have. Like earthquakes, sometimes minor attacks are preludes to major, fatal attacks, often in people like Rush who have this cavilier attitudes about their health and thinks they are "too important" to get sick.

By now you've heard of how a trusted Al Qaeda opperative got past CIA check points and walked into their inner sanctum, and detonated a suicide bomb killing many. I find it ironic that I invoked "God's speed" on President Obama and talked about "infiltration of the enemy" in my last posting, and now this happens. This only goes to show that Satan is several steps ahead of me, and why taking him on isn't smart. I really thought sending up a little prayer for our President might be a good thing. We all will have to get used to these full body nude scanners at airports, it seems. Thom Hartman says that personally he doesn't want to be exposed to the radiation. For frequent business travelers, this to me seems a potential problem. It's a temptation, honestly, to relent and say "perhaps racial profiling isn't really such a bad thing if it saves the rest of us inconvenience". Of course if the explosives were in a body cavity, even these scanners would be useless. Sometimes I think Al Qaeda is really stupid, like those tapes they used to send us indicating profound ignorance of American culture. Then they go and pull off something like happened today, causing me to re-think. Thom Hartman and others say the best recruiting of Al Qaeda is facilitated by us and our often rabidly anti Islamic positions and this idea that we are in some kind of Holy Crusade against these people. If you believe that a whole religion is filled with "killing machines" just waiting for orders, this doesn't make for very healthy relations, and one longs for the days of "Detante".

2009 - A Major Disappointment for Progressives

This year of 2009 has been a personally dismal year for yours truly. Money for me continues in short supply and for the first time this Christmas I got absolutely no money from anybody. There have been more “proactive” house cleaning sessions, and at least three times now the TV has screwed up because the ground wire was messed up on KTTV or FOX. Of course in June through the first half of July I was off the internet entirely from June 16^th through July 13^th. More items have been either lost or stolen in the laundry than since I have lived here. My Dad’s possessions have been generally treated as those of an undesirable roommate you didn’t like and were trying to get rid of all traves of. My Mom sold her house at the stratigicly worse time possible last July. I have suffered the loss of a lot of personal items that were stored there. But as I’ve said before,. 2009 has been a nightmare year for progressive, with a President we all believed was one of our own, and voted for him on that basis. And not only that voted for him because of his Promises to us, over and above a candidate, Hillary, who said with her experience she would be able to get more done in congress. We should have listened to her. If a lot of us had that vote to do over, a lot of us would have voted differently. But you had people like Randy Rhodes saying “the race is over” from late February on, when the race was Anything but over. I am getting a little sick of being accused by people like Hal Sparks of “saying I’m not going to vote any more or I’ll vote for the Republicans. I’d like to know WHO is saying this?? Nobody. He’s just making it up! In fact what it means is that progressives have to fight harder and use at the same time more drastic tactics and more innovative or unusual tactics. There is no reason why we have to ask ourselves how many people in congress we’ll lose next year. Rather we should be thinking of gaining new members in congress next year. That we should shoot for. If you plan to lose, your dreams will be realized. This idea of setting ridiculously small goals is becoming a regular sickness in the media. Why do we let either either Sarah Palin or Joe Lieberman define who we are? Why can’t we see ourselves in the image of John Kennedy. You know “Yes we can” should be more than a slogan to win campaigns. If that’s all Obama was shooting for was “getting in” then Rush Limbaugh was right. Berock Obama is a small man. Well now substitute jock Hal Sparks has joined this circular firing squad that liberals seem intent on participating in. If your football team is screwing up and the coach knows which players are screwing up and does not remedy the situation, somewhere down the line you fire the coach. What if one of those players said something like “Why should I try to win the game. My goal was just to make the team. I never knew I’d have to work after that”. Or what if another player said “Hell coach, this is such a crappy team, you’re lucky to have me to begin with. I’ve got options you know”. Two women callers in a row expressed dismay that Obama appeared to be shutting out the left and not caring what they even think, and instead directing all his personal effort twords conferences with people on the right. Hal Sparks accused one or both of them of being shills for the right wing because they were stating the obvious. Not only is Obama screwing up, but he doesn’t seem to care. He’s not even trying to advance the agenda of the left. Some have said that an executive order ending “Don’t ask don’t tell” would “offend” the Republicans in congress. Others such as on the “Frangela” show, are bothered by the anti abortion provisions in both health bills while others are concerned about women’s health issues such as paying for mammograms.

Well, we all want to assume our President knows best. I hope he’s employing the CIA productively in recruiting counter terrorists to infiltrate Al Qaeda and learning all of their inside information. Obviously this would all have to be kept top secret, to be made known, if ever, only upon success and the toppeling of Al Qaeda. One would hope that day would be soon, so that we don’t have to leave in a state of building real or manufactured fear. God’s speed to our President.

Moslems aren’t the only people with death fancicies. C S Lewis in “The Screwtape letters” romanticized death in the story of a guy who was killed, suddenly of coursee, in World War II and subsequently made it to heaven, which he describes as “refreshing, like a shower in the morning”. Nobody ever asks themselves that question “But what if I don’t die”. This Islamic terrorist known as the underwear terrorist with PDTM explosive in them- enough for a fairly substantial detonation, like the shoe bomber - - failed to die and hence succeed in his mission because the powder failed to explode, but only catch on fire. So the skin was burned off his legs. Not to be indelicate but I wonder if this man has anything between his legs any more or is That part of his life- - over? What I would really like is for someone who has really BEEN to the Other Side and wants to come back and talk about it without violating some “prime directive” or whatever. That would be the block buster Oprah Winfewy interview of all time. The possibilities of what happens after death are endless, and heading the list is the strong possibility that you just might cease to exist. If you plan your death and fail to weigh this possibility you’re working with bad input. People employ the adage “To conquer death you only have to die”, or as Bill Cosby might say “That’s about the Stupidest thing I’ve heard anybody say”. Religious fundamentalism is stupid. People who reach our age and don’t realize that truth are psychologically retarded in their development.

You know you have the Wickipedia for collected knowledge on the internet. Why couldn’t we have a sort of wickipedia-legleslation forum on the internet where everyone proposes legislation contributing little bits and pieces of it, and some editor picks out the best stuff to post. After everyone reads it we can all vote on it – bypassing congress entirely as long as they aren’t going to act. President Obama has shown zero leadership in business and finance reform. People are proposing legislation to bring back Glass-Steagall, that reform package passed by Franklin Roosevelt that kept banks from speculating with our money in risky investments. Why isn’t President Obama leading this fight? Where is the President on this issue? He’s too busy listening to Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner. With Obama what we have is a man who fundamentally lied to us in the campaign, saying that he is a man of change, when he is very much the man of the status quo. You’d never know by the things Obama says about the economy that he’s basically one with the people responsible for it being this way. These state initiatives are disasters because most of them are penned by one lobbyist or the other. If we got the “people”, bright, informed people who use the internet- - involved in the legislative process we would see whether the adage is true, “There is wisdom in numbers”.

President Obama took a break from his Hawaiian vacation today to comment on the bombing attack, that was alledgedly a retaliation for US air strikes in Yemen. Al Qaeda has officially taken credit for the attempted attack. Of course that guy on Sixty Minutes says “They are still planning a bigger attack”. The President promised today that new security steps would be taken. That’s just what every paranoid is hoping to hear. The suspect was on a terror watch list, but not the “No Fly” list. Joe Lieberman wants more liberal use of the whole body image scanners. There was a female substitute on the Ron Reagan program, so that station is four for four as far as having substitutes for their day line-up. Like I say, they must be paid well. She wanted to discuss the topic of racial profiling. She’s all for it saying that the population in general will suffer all these oppressive security precautions but that only those of Arab descent or Moslems need undergo the full rigors of whatever measures we impose. Of course this is just what the government WANTS us to think. They want us as obsessed with terrorism and as angry at Islamists as possible. One lady called and said she was troubled by the whole tone of today’s conversation and she was against racial profiling. Oh, and she said she was African American. She was cut off without explanation except when the host is losing the argument, they just “do what comes natural”. I turned the program off after this because it had ceased to be intellectually respectable.

Christmas With Stu

Stewart Suctliffe has renewed the practice of "overseeing" some key outing events. This is after years and years of not doing this. I went to Knott's Berry Farm last Saturday a week ago and Stewart only saw our group as we were about to leave the park. It was the trio of myself, Pete Richards and Bill Gunderson. In years past like say nearly thirty years ago the trio might consist of me, Pete Richards and David Snow. David Snow must resembles that Bu-bu Higgins guy on "Mama's Family" if you're looking for a simily. Pete Richards made the statement "I'm glad the Snoop Ice Show" made explicit reference to the Biblical basis for Christmas". Stewart wanted to endourse the remark saying that it's time Christmas got a lot little more back to its roots. Stewart made the remark to me one day that he preferred the Rare Earth version of "I'm Losing You" as opposed to the Rod Stewart version, which I had regarded as "definitive version" of this song. I expressed puzzlement at Stewart because I thought it was a Rod Stewart fan and he said "No, I'm a fan of any artist who was ever in the Yardbirds, such as Jeff Beck. But I'm not into Rod Stewart". Stewart remarked that the Rare Earth version of "Losing You" just seemed to have a little more funky soul than the Rod Stewart version.

Yesterday Stewart was waiting already at the house when I am you know who were off getting the Chinese food for our dinner. You can throw out the "in an hour you'll be hungry again" rule with this meal. This is a meal that definitely sat heavy in the stomach. The whole food menu was very protien intensive, and I stuffed myself on almonds, and these cheese log things where I applied thick slices to triscuits. That makes for a heavy orderve. The rice was heavy and not fluffy as Chinese rice usually is. The chow mein was NOT primarily bean sprouts, and the Chicken almond- - very different from the vegetable intensive way it's normally prepared. There was chicken mushroom, and there was brocolli beef, and also sweet and sour pork - - boneless. There were also fried wontons and an egg roll for each of us. The soup was about the worst I've had from any Chinese place. My fortune cookie promised long life. There were numerous conversation "anomalies" that Stewart noted that I won't go into. I had missed his insightful perceptions. In terms of gifts it was a bumper crop, except that I got no money - from anybody, out of a desire to prevent me from having money for cigarettes. There were some nice greeting cards. I got a kaki long sleeved shirt from a brother, and a nice one. I received a digital camera from the other brother, although it's an economy job, if you look at the specifications. There is no zoom. I received two insightful books from my Mom, and this Japanese number calendar game from a cousin who was there. I also got the usual fruit cake, and some dried fruit and nuts in a baggie that I've already eaten.

There was a debate as to whether marijuana can give you brain damage. Well if not that it does seem that marijuana usage when you are young can lead to decreased seretonin output in the brain as an adult, which decreases the ability of an individual to deal with stress in his life. As such those who didn't smoke pot would be at a decided advantage in competetive or stressful situations that come along in life.

Now they are telling us there is a flood of terrorists coming from Nigeria to Detroit to set off explosive devices on US planes. The buzz is now that no electronic devices will be allowed on US flights during the last hour, because this attempt occurred in the last hour of the flight. You know my feeling that most of these measures are 90% terror hysteria and 10% substance.

We finally have George Harrison checking in here on our Beatle album series. I want the listener to have a certain "experiance" and I weighed out which songs to include and omit. Stewart expressly told me it was up to me to select these songs and he would have no input. Except that in the fall of 1962 Stewart claimed (over a decade ago) that he recorded "Hold Me Tight" with that band he was in in Toronto when he played bass. Here is more stuff to read.

Here are two “collectors’ items”. What I tried to do was to get bits that you either don’t hear all that much, or in the case of the British EP that came out in the spring of 1964 in Britain, I wanted all four of this songs featured because none of these songs are included on The Beatles “Red Album”, which seems to me a glairing omission. As to the “six minute jam” version of “She’s A Woman”, Jim Ladd played this track in June of 1992 and I fully expected to hear this track on Anthology but it wasn’t there. This has spaces now but it might not later on.

THE BEATLES – EARLY NUGGETS

Three Cool Cats (Decca Tapes)

Love of the Loved (Decca Tapes)

Bessame Mucho (Decca tapes version)

Sure to Fall (Decca tapes version)

Crying, Waiting, Hoping (BBC version)

Love Me Do (audition version with Pete Best)

I Saw Her Standing There (unreleased version played on KLOS

that’s a little faster and the lead guitar part is less evolved

Hold Me Tight (from With the Beatles) a favorite of Stu Sutcliffe)

The Honeymoon Song (Beatles at the BBC)

Clara Bella (Beatles at the BBC)

Sweet Little Sixteen (Beatles at the BBC version)

Lonesome Tears in my Eyes (Beatles at the BBC)

Leaves On The Trees (Beatles at the BBC version)

Money (official “With the Beatles” version)

Long, Tall Sally (Past Masters Vol 1)

I Call Your Name (Past Masters Vol 1)

You Know What to Do (Anthology) George: lead vocal

Matchbox (Past Masters Vol 1)

Can’t Buy Me Love (Anthology version)

Slow Down (Past Masters Vol 1)

And I Love Her (Single US version)

She’s A Woman (unreleased six minute version heard in 1992)

- - - - - - - - -

Some Harrison albums have NO selections off them on this collection. I tried to go for Harrison songs that “made a statement” or were somehow historical music landmarks.

THE MOSTLY GEORGE HARRISON ALBUM

Disk One

Taxman (US mono version)

Piggies (from White Album)

Think for Yourself (Rubber Soul)

Love You To (from Revolver)

Beatles 1967 Christmas Message

Inner Light (from single B side)

Only A Northern Song (Yellow Submarine)

Blue Jay Way (US radio version with fewer overdubs)

It’s All Too Much (from Yellow Submarine)

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (original acoustic version)

Savory Truffle (White Album)

Long, Long, Long (White Album)

Not Guilty (Anthology version)

Sour Milk Sea (unreleased George demo version)

Rip It Up/Shake, Rattle - / Blue Suede Shoes (Anthology)

Disc Two

Come And Get It (Anthology version)

Oh Darling (from “Let It Be” sessions) (Anthology)

All Things Must Pass (Anthology version)

It Don’t Come Easy (George Harrison demo version)

Blow Away (from "George Harrison")

Devil’s Radio (from 1987 album)

Isn’t It a Pity (single version)

When We Was Fab (from 1987 album)

Cocameme Business (from 1989 album)

Deep Blue (1971 single B Side)

Bangle Desh (1971 single A Side)

Ring Out The Old Ring In The New (from “Dark Horse”)

Cracker box Palace (from 33 & 1/3)

This Guitar Can’t Keep From Crying (from “Extra Texture”)

The Art of Dying (from “All Things Must Pass”)

Festivus for the Rest of Us

This is an expression that has been circulating around this year. People have their own ways and traditions in celebrating Christmas and far be it from me to interfere with them. "Viva la differance" is what I say. Some people go to basketball games on Christmas. Others head off to Lake Tahoe. Of course much of our Romanesque tradition comes from the Cult of Sol Invictus or "Unconquered Sun" which kind of merged with the cult of Mithras. In two different web sites lately I have come across a reference to the mass torching of ancient scriptures by the Romans in the late 4th century after the Nicene Creed was established. One of these writings was a Jehovah's Witness publication. You could tell from the frequent references to Jehovah. I am not inclined to give credence to either article. The Emperor was Theodosius I. I don't dispute that there was a move at this time to re-make classic Christian into the Trinitarian formulas we know today. However a bit problem with "mystery cults" is that they didn't write things down because they obviously wanted to be secretive. I have stated, and for you new people this is an eye opener, that classic Gnosticism goes back to a group called the Pythagoreans. This is a group that believes everything traces back to the original "Point" or "The One". From here gods and creation polliferated and became more complex and also underwent a devolution. Original sin is a concept that refers originally to the gods rather than to man. Because it's the sin of the gods that caused them to create this evil Universe. But many refer to the early Christians as Essines even though what the Essines believed was sort of a platonist dualism rather than a belief in a savior messiah. Some say St. Paul was an Essine. We know that "scripture was tampered with" because Paul was described as a "Young man" at the stoning of Stephan, a few years before he got saved. Yet to be a Pharicee, which he claims to be, you had to attain to the age of thirty and many say you could not be a Pharicee unless you were married. We don't know what happened to Mrs. Paul. Many have pointed out similarities on Paul's letters to the apocraphal book of Enoch. I bring out all these factoids to say that Christianity came from a primorial soup of varied and often disperate ideas. We learn much of what we know about St. Paul from the Book of Acts, which is an anti-semetic rant, and Marcion would have no doubt included the book in his cannon had the book existed in 140 AD or whenever Marcion formed his cannon. We know that in one letter Paul refers to Judas betraying Jesus, yet in another letter of Paul we have Judas being among the twelve who saw the risen Jesus. We know in one letter St. Paul refers to the Mosiac law as "Dead" and "Void". But he says in another letter not recognized by Marcion the following "We know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully". In one letter Paul says on the subject of eating meat "Let each man not judge the other", and yet in another refers to teachers who advocate this as "doctrines of demons". He says both "in these troubled times it is better not to marry" yet in another book (again not recognized by Marcion) he says "An Elder should be the husband of one wife and know how to rule his household". One author years ago said that we owe Christianity itself to St. Paul. So I regard him as a key figure who blended all of these items in the primorial soup of doctrine. This is a man whom many point out "Seemed to know almost no detail about anything in the four gospels". He was a man who even regarded historical reality as a wrong notion referring to it as "Knowing Jesus after the flesh". He believed Christ would return in his lifetime, we know from the line "We who are alive will be caught up together and so shall we ever be with the Lord". We're still waiting.

AND NOW FOR THE LOCAL NEWS

(RECORDED EARLIER TODAY)

This morning I went for coffee at ten after six. For the fourth day in a row there was no hot water in the shower only today it didn’t even tease for a few seconds of hot. Today it was cold all along so I didn’t even get in. I don’t know if the bakery will even be open tomorrow. We had Raison Bran with toast and butter and jelly and a fried egg and a second on coffee. I had KTLK on till eight and then I switched to a rather different Bill Handel program on KFI. Trying to find something that isn’t a rerun is difficult. Thom Hartman’s program was a rerun. In the news the Senate passed the health bill before the sun was even up in Washington. Someone said that Senator Byrd was the Senate pro temp guy who is fourth in secession to the Presidency. If so this adds a key note on those Republicans who are praying that one senator would die before the vote.

I thought I’d see what Rush Limbaugh had to say. He was foaming at the mouth at all sorts of issue and that show, too, was a rerun. In the first segment he was saying how President Obama is indecisive in not ordering more troops to Afghanistan, and even brought out a Dick Chaney quote. But later on Rush criticized his sending in of 34,000 vaguely implying he dislikes White House leaks. He then said taxes ought to be raised on everyone earning over thirty thousand, to pay for it. He seemed to also dislike the idea of Obama’s explaining his decision to the American Public by TV. He kept calling the President a “small man”. He then attacked this notion of a White House state dinner saying he was “hijacking Thanksgiving”. There’s no pleasing him. Then it was on to global warming and these E mail leaks. We now know that these leaks are ten years old and so utterly irrelevant to the current debate. Tomorrow on KFI will be Jesus Christ and the whole pro war gang celebrating the birthday of the Prince of Peace. On Bill Handel they launched into an attack of the movie “Avatar” because it seemed to put a negative spin on the US playing God with aboriginal peoples of a region, and of course anything that’s anti war is suspect. John and Ken say no matter who gets elected just throw them out of office the next time around. This of course will only insure that lobbyists are the ones running the government because they will be the only ones with experience.

The Health Care bill passed 60 votes in favor and 39 against. People continue to suggest that a public option might be slipped in by the conference committee but if this bill is altered by so much as a hair, it won’t pass the vote in the Senate. Some have even suggested that failing this, a “reconciliation resolution” could be made in the Senate where it would only need 51 votes. Some say “President Obama would never allow this bill to fail on his watch” and also say “the left has to pressure the President into getting things their way”. My response is the oft repeated Dr. Phil quote “Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior” and since when has “the left” ever pressured Obama into anything. It reminds me of Jesus Christ and how some said “If he were arrested he would be forced to take decisive action on behalf of the nation of Israel”. Well, contrary to what George Burnes says in that movie – God doesn’t work best under pressure. He folds like a dried leaf. I don’t know what drives Obama with certitude but it’s got an awful lot to do with not offending any of the drug and insurance companies he’s made deals with to get their support. On the contrary, the bill will only, if anything, be further watered down in the conference committee version and probably have more key provisions stripped from it, perhaps the one that says insurance companies can’t over-charge customers no matter if they’re high risk. The insurance companies don’t like that one. To quote from Dr. Phil again – all the democrats are Enablers of undesirable behavior by the president when they pass such a hopelessly compromised bill

Sour Milk Sea

As this recession heads into its third year it's understandable that some people's tempers may be getting a little short, as mine did yesterday in my remarks in Word. I am deleting but one sentence from that in this reposting because it was an over the top remark I have formerly reserved exclusively for Evangelists. But I will be honest in that I have a bias against bloated government, and this Health Care bill before congress vastly expands the size of government and will increase the deficet by literally trillions of dollars. What I find most offensive about this bill, which I didn't even touch upon yesterday, was its dishonest accounting. You get taxed right away for services, but those services are not forthcoming till the year 2014. No wonder that Obama can claim that in the short term it reduces the deficit. Formerly Republicans were the only ones guilty of this practice. But also I don't like all of this "whistling in the dark" stuff of just hoping against hope that whatever is wrong with this bill will get "fixed" down the road. You pro gay advocates out there who have been waiting for "Don't Ask Don't Tell" to be "fixed" have been waiting a long time. Some people who didn't like the Clinton 1996 welfare bill have been waiting for a long time for that to be "fixed". How long did it take for Plecy verses Ferguson to be "fixed"? Hillary Clinton did well to point out that Martin Luther King would not have been such a potent force were there not a Lyndon Johnson to enact his dreams into law. If I were Senator Lloyd Benson I might say "I knew Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson was a friend of mine. And Mr. President, you're no Lyndon Johnson." When Johnson passed Medi-Care in 1965 he did a bold thing. But this current Health bill is anything but bold. About the closest parrellel I cam come up with is the Impeachment of President Clinton by the Republicans. They did it just to prove they could do it, but other than that the whole thing just wasted an awful lot of Congress' time. And now here are the remarks from yesterday

This is after dinner on Tuesday December 22, 2009, the second day of winter. We had some strange casserole and pasta concoction tonight for which there were no seconds with refried beans and green beans. I had two helpings of bread pudding with chocolate icing on it. I went to the bakery for coffee that was actually hot from the pot. Today I would like to talk about a few general principles. At three o clock Ron Reagan dedicated most of the hour (after his right wing idiots gallery of horrors) to discussing the Obama Health Care bill. How many out there are ready for “Obama Care”? I’m not. And were I a California senator I would vote an emphatic “No” on the final bill. Everybody appreciates a strait shooter. But today our host was jerking his audience around with a misleading promo. He said he was going to run down the ten reasons for voting Against the Obama bill that some lady had written in an editorial. That is not what happened. Instead he had a “guest” who like an over-zealous evangelist, did most of the talking throughout the hour. He appealed to highly infantile logic in saying why Obama Care is something every American should embrace. I was taken back to the time when I myself got on welfare, that is Social Security. It’s kind of a period in my life, like Homer Simpson’s grunge period that I haven’t talked about much, as though by ignoring it I could deny that it even happened. I had a lot of fierce arguments with parents, who were the chief protagonists in seeking this government hand-out. All you had to do was to see a couple of doctors who rubber stamped documents and said that you were unemployable. What Obama Care does is require young healthy Americans to take a “leap in Faith” only in this case a leap downward. It’s like a guy who was afraid to dive off a thirty foot spring board into a pool, blindfolded. But one day the protagonist sees old Charlie ascending the ladder to the diving board. And then he sees him jump, and he turns to his friend, “I hope he knows there’s no water in the pool. He said he was afraid into diving in a pool filled with water so I thought "If he's afraid of water, I'll take the water out - - taking the water out might allay his fears.” You remember that story about the little girl who was going to do acrobatics on a high bar at school wearing a dress. And an adult says “I don’t know if you want to do that, people might see your underwear” and the girl responds, “Oh, that’s OK, I’m not wearing any”. People are afraid of shelling out eight percent of their annual income on health insurance they will probably never use. But it’s OK. Just to up the ante, it’s not really a government program. You are doing it with a private insurance company with all of its inefficiencies and CEO salaries. Nobody has figured in the human cost of psychological devaluation. I am reminded of that example from Star Trek in an episode where Scottie was in it, and he was talking with Captain Piccard, who relates the time when a paracitic organism latched on to the Ship and was sucking on the fuel system to gain nutrients. And Captain Piccard tells him “We got shed of that creature by the old trick of souring the milk”. They made it so undesirable and counter productive to engage in that activity he finally gave it up. Healthy Americans who are young and healthy now by virtue of just being alive and breathing air that Al Gore isn’t charging them for yet, now has to take that leap in faith saying “Well I just might get lucky. I might come down with a horrible illness worth eight percent of my income”. For those who extol the virtues of "sharing the risk among the many" I say that the drug and insurance companies have a great little gaming operation going and to quote from "War Games" the 1983 movie, "The only way to win is - Not To Play". Of course there are taxes laid on the middle class including taxes on Union dues used for health care, so I understand. And of course they have to pay top dollar for any medications they get. And if their insurance isn’t adequate, in order to get what is called a Cadillac plan, they are taxed more money. One reason why I always admired Malcolm X more than Martin Luther King, is because the former never denigrated the Black man saying he should see himself as poor and needy. King, especially in his later years, alas, did this more and more. No wonder that if the assasenation of Malcolm X was a comspiracy between J Edger Hoover and Elijah Mohamed, it is Elijah Mohamed who is guilty of the greater betrayal. Hoover knew that if King’s teachings tended to make the Black man dependant and the teachings of Malcolm made the Black man strong, that Malcolm was the greater of the two men to be feared. The radio program promised that they would examine all ten reasons why the Obama Care health bill is such a bad idea, and I would like to have heard that. Unfortunately so much time was expended in making excuses for President Obama’s blanket sell-out, that completion of the roster of reasons was impossible. This whole argument about “getting your foot in the door” is nonsense.

It was only the last two callers to the show at the end of the hour that spoke the truth. It’s the Republicans who are desperate to get this bill passed, because it will give their buddies in the drug and insurance companies everything they’ve wanted. Stocks in drug and insurance companies have skyrocketed in the past few days in anticipation of this bill’s passage. This bill is their Christmas present. You know there is an adage of “Friends don’t stick it to friends”. I had who I thought was a friend “stick it” to me today, economically in a fast talking, slippery and patently unfair deal that he wasn’t going to budge from. Friends don’t deal with friends the way they deal with outsiders. You’ve heard the term of “Jewing you out of something”. Jews don’t stick it to Jews and Black people shouldn’t stick it to Black people. Too bad President Obama hasn’t learned this lesson. Of course I would add that US workers don’t “stick it” to other US workers. And frankly I think trade unionists have more loyalty to their own kind than certain Black people do. It isn’t a Unionist’s idea to give Red China these sweetheart deals that they’ve procured. Nobody is going to stick in any “buy American” clauses in any Obama deal. And nobody is going to allow the importation of Drugs on Obama’s watch. Thom Hartman pretty much put his finger on it when he said that Obama obviously sold out to the drug and insurance companies to insure their continued donations to Democratic Party politicians. In other words it was the Judas instinct. In order to preserve what you think you have to, you end up losing everything that is truly of value to you, like your integrity and the ability to look yourself in the mirror each morning. But one of these days a third party candidate is going to make it in this country. We will overcome our Third Party phobia in order to overcome a more intolerable situation, which is our two party system now where people can vote for a black progressive and get an Oreo Bush clone. Thom Hartman says much of this Afghan war escalation is because Obama has sold out to that dreaded “military industrial complex”. The president is thinking that if he can just act White enough he will somehow be able to achieve some transcendent state of White Nirvana. Is this what the President was really thinking when he wrote “The Audacity of Hope”? Hartman pointed out that those who are looking ahead to Cap and Trade, may see a similar sell-out to the establishment, and this move may be just another boomdoggle for Wall Street traders, trading these Carbon credits like securities. And I'm positively going to strangle the next person who says, "The President is playing chess while everybody else is playing checkers". My response to that one is, "The trouble is this is a Checkers championship!"

Millions Welcome Back Marcus Arelius

As of Monday July 13th. 2009 a little after three in the afternoon I am back on the internet and we already have four blogs lined up for you. I guess that makes me a four-flusher. Of course we all know when Nixon played at a White House poker game he had five aces! Not me. There is a lot of news that has happened the past ten days or so that we won't touch upon till we get to the next blog, which right now looks to be "Cosmic Tides" or one of those "black" ones. There are other things happening in my personal life also that comprise a drama of their own. I await your comments, assuming I don't need to readjust any settings.

The Following was Typed the Last Full Week in June

Michael Jackson is dead. He died at about 2:26 PM this afternoon at UCLA medical center of a massive coronary. He was brought in to the center not breathing and with no pulse two hours earlier. He was said to have lapsed into a deep coma just before the end. Fans are gathering at all his homes. He was fifty. He was apparently born in August of 1958, which continues to puzzle me because I remember he was eight when I was nineteen, so the math doesn’t add up. I guess “History” out in 1995 was the last big album to make a dent in the pop charts. People are now saying that the “Thriller” release revived all of record sales in the early to mid ‘eighties. They saying that Jackson was planning a come-back tour very soon, that would include being in London.

Ed Mc Mahn died a day or two ago, who was Johnny Carson’s side-kick for all these years. Apparently he was just a little older than Dad.

Farrah Faucet died also today, so I guess what they say is true about deaths coming in three’s. Apparently “Charlie’s Angels” in 1976 was her first big commercial success. I wonder about that because I don’t think she was on the show more than that first year, and she always had the aura of vastly out-ranking her competition.

Last night I did extensive dial twereling and never really settled on anything. Dr. Phil has this sixteen year old guy who has other people punch him in the face claiming it builds up his “resistance” and will prepare him for a profession in boxing. Dr. Phil pointed out the utter absurdity of this boy’s reasoning. Brain damage. I made it an early evening and was in bed by a quarter to nine. I hope not to go to bed near that early tonight. I spent the most time watching a thing on sandwich shops throughout America, actually. I slept well and actually got a little extra sleep not getting up till twenty after six, which allowed me a whole lot less time than usual before breakfast. I went to the bakery for a large coffee. We had cream of wheat that was thick, and I used the two sugar packets in my pocket. We had a fried egg and an English muffin.

Last night out of sheer boredom I had turned the radio to KRLA and this morning I listened to a new talk show host on KRLA but he pulled a fast one playing a tape of himself last week that he admitted was pure fakery. I don’t see what’s funny. He was endeavoring to show how acute his perception was saying that Mark Sanford was really in Buenos Aries and “they should investigate that”. There is also John Enson (?) who just a week or so ago was caught in the same sort of adultery thing. Both Enson and Sanford were prospective republican presidential candidates with a bright future. Mark Sanford has not yet decided whether or not he will resign as Governor.

Now someone is blaring Michael Jackson music full blast on a small radio. We had stuffed cabbage for dinner and I and the new guy were the very last two to be served. There was also cabbage and carrots with that. I had seconds from Dora. I went to the bakery for a large coffee with no cream in it because it wasn’t that hot to begin with.

It was Elizabeth Taylor to coin the phrase “King of Pop”. This death is the biggest media circus since Princess Dianna died in late August 1997. One can’t also help but get déjà vu of Elvis Presley’s death. Like Michael, Elvis was “planning a tour” and hoping for a come-back of sorts as his album “Moody Blue” rose in the charts. Like Michael, Elvis’ carreer had long been in a slump, though not as long as Michael’s slump, which has run nearly fourteen years. Like Elvis, Michael died of a heart condition that may have been worsened by drug usage. Both Elvis and Michael had to inwardly be scared to death of facing the public knowing the horrible physical shape both were in, and also the numerous scandals that surrounded both celebrities.

Many today have commented on how many of Michael Jackson’s most devoted fans are people who weren’t even born yet when albums like “Bad” and “Thriller” were popular. Jackson remains an icon among kids of grammar school age. Black rappers have come and said that they got either inspiration or draw something of their own style from Michael. Everyone talks about the enormous energy of his performances.

When I get details of this “energy bill” that the President wants passed, I’ll let you know. In terms of the health care bills, clearly there has to be some form of “public health insurance” to compete with private insurers so that people have a choice. Of course the insurance companies are such crooks they aren’t going to like anyone cutting in on their territory. The Michael Jackson news coverage has not let up.

This is late Friday morning June 26, 2009. Thom Hartman says that right now the average American citizen is paying seven thousand and change for their health care per year, but that in Europe and other places they are paying three thousand and change for health care. No nation that has ever had single payer health care has ever rescinded it. Of course you can have your health coverage summarily dropped here for cancer for instance if they discover that you used acme medication when you were sixteen and didn’t report it. They can now call your cancer a “pre existing condition”. Of course as we said a couple days ago, the opponents of health care seem to be following two contra-dictory lines of attack. First of all they will tell you how horrible health care is in Canada for instance, and to get back the results of a pregnancy test you have to wait sixteen months or something. On the other hand they say we can’t have public health care because it will provide unfair competition and drive all the private medical insurers out of business, which wouldn’t be a bad thing as I see it if you believe in a “free market” and all. This is one of the issues where President Obama did not make himself at all clear in that news conference he had a couple days ago. The whole thing seemed to be a big punch of nothing. The President appears not to be all that upset about what’s going on in Iran now. Of course Michael Jackson and Ferrah Faucet have pushed Iran right off the front page, so I guess nobody cares about liberty over there any more. Some may say “Well maybe President Obama has a plan up his sleeve but he wants to keep it secret so as not to tip his hand”. I don’t know. Pat Buckhannon seems adamant on the whole notion that we can’t do anything to “upset” their government, and that if we roll over and play dead that they will somehow be placated and leave us and Israel alone. Another issue nobody is talking about right now is the ongoing threat of a universal tax on carbon – and the whole “cap and trade” thing, or whatever it’s called, where you can buy and sell carbon “indulgences” like the church did in the middle ages. If the “right to pollute” is a “privilege” that you earn, like cigarettes used to be in prison, then somehow it will be acceptable in this capitalist world. Anything that increases consumer taxes and therefore discourages “consumption” on the face of it seems to me bad for business. And people remain concern that this recession is going to take a renewed downward path soon.

This paragraph is inserted here a bit out of order. It’s 3:30. Let’s talk about stuff people from the Federation have been telling me. They said I jinxed myself and also jinxed Howard in his new incarnation by offending the Des Rho “demons” as they are referred to. I have denied this several times to the Federation. But of course the “offending paragraph” is in a file from about sixteen days ago, and I can’t even name the file here because that will give the whole game away. The Federation has been saying to be very careful how I criticize Obama on you-know-what subject, and I have been rather light footed on the subject. I guess the question is how to “undo the deed”. Since the material is in a blog and I can’t get to my blogs even to read what I wrote- - the Des Rho has kind of a Catch 22 situation on their hands. Even if I were to delete the offending material this would only “red flag” the material so it could be identified.