When The Angels Cried...

This is what we call a January thaw...certainly a bit warmer than the past week...70 to 80 degrees warmer. Definitely a day to think 'hot and spicy' when planning the evening meal...Perhaps a bit of Mana' assisting my cooking, and I'll remember that Francisco Alves Mendes Filho (Chico Mendes) must not have died in vain. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples. He was assassinated on December 22, 1988.

Unchecked Oil Wealth and Democracy Don't Mix

We, with our choices, have created despots in the middle east who have power due to oil...they become more and more entrenched as the revenue stream continues on and on...look at most of the middle eastern countries which are oil rich nations...despots all. My fear is, with the rush to become "energy independent" that North America is becoming a corporate oligarchy on the conservative side fueled by Koch brothers, et al...boom towns such as Williston, North Dakota and Fort McMurray with high paying temporary jobs, drugs, prostitution and violence...not to mention the environmental damage. Meanwhile that oil wealth is being used to fund the tea party, The Cato Institute, The Mercatus Center, The Institute for Humane Studies, Citizens for a Sound Economy (FreedomWorks), Americans for Prosperity, Patients United Now, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), ad nauseum...as well as funding economic, scientific and other wings of some fairly powerful universities, even saying who can and who cannot teach there. Ramifications from The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) are still being felt in our economy. These tendrils all intertwine with our political system and can be found having infiltrated even our highest court. Oil can destroy a democracy unless its wealth is kept in check and not used to fuel these oligarchical structures. We, the people, have a choice to make...

miss you little george

To make a Lord of The Ring's reference

Understand the nature of Sauron's power and see that the key to his power is the One Ring. Rather than fight Sauron directly, or try to wield The Ring's corrupting influence, seek to remove the source of Sauron's power. Seek to destroy the privilege granted by governments to corporations, seek to destroy the One Ring.

If government had no deals and privileges to dole out to the well connected then couldn't a free and fair market occur? So, we must destroy the One Ring and only a union of Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Parties, Independents, and Libertarians, (and even Democrats and Republicans) can make it happen. Unite! Destroy the One Ring. Honor the Earth.

In These Times...

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
~Matthew 10:34

Jesus changed his tune after he went to the desert and fasted for 40 days...and confronted his own demons. Remember, Peter cut off the High Priest's slave's ear and Jesus rebuked him while healing the ear? Earlier, when Jesus had left for his fast his disciples were ready to take up arms and begin the revolution upon his return...that was the intent. The demon he confronted was whether he actually wanted to be king and ringleader of an armed revolution or did he wish to show passivity? His decision was more Gandhi than Che...I suppose that is the decision we are all about to make....

Quantum Leaping

Many, many years ago I recall watching a Nova program on PBS about Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson first hearing the cosmic background radiation backing the Big Bang theory.

At first, they couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from. They ruled out military testing. And then, inside the horn of the big antenna, they found droppings from pigeons that were nesting there. The scientists tried to trap the birds and release them 30 miles away, but they kept flying back. Penzias says the team had no choice but to kill the pigeons. "It seemed like the only way out of our dilemma," he says.

The pigeons were gone, but the noise remained. And it was coming from every direction.

Not highway noise, not military testing, not pigeons...Why...IT MUST BE THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE!

Talk about quantum leaping.

Penzias and Wilson in 1978 won the Nobel Prize for physics for what has been called the most important scientific find of the 20th century.

I remember, as a young teen, 'ditching' church one Sunday morning in 1962 and hitching a ride to the Palms Theater on Central Avenue in Phoenix...to see Lawrence of Arabia...I was fascinated. I'd already read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and was so excited to see in Cinerama which was a widescreen process that, originally, simultaneously projected images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen. I sat so close and was so enthralled that my head was going back and forth as if I was at a tennis match (and I swear I got sand in my eyes)...Thank you, Peter O'Toole, for that experience and wonderful memory. May you rest in peace.