Kiss My-- Left Behind

William Stafford, 1914-1993

2008-06-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

William Stafford, 1914-1993

Here's another reason why the National Book Award can't be taken seriously. Stafford got the National Book Award for Poetry back in 1963. How anyone can take his uninspired blathering seriously is, well, hard to comprehend.

The National Book Award is always given to mediocrities who are perceived by their peers (the selection committee) as non-threatening.

Military Recruiters

2008-06-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

I guess we always knew that military recruiters were (and are) a bunch of A-holes. Michael Moore showed this very clearly in his movie Farenheit 9/11. But the latest scummy techniques, used by Marine recruiters is to tell young men that they are qualified to work in "Logistics" and to suggest that they will spend their military career working in warehouses.

In fact, the young recruit will end up in logistics in the more general meaning of the term--delivering supplies. That is, he will end up driving trucks in Iraq and getting shot at by the insurgents.

Men of God ?

2008-06-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Dallas police described a 56-year-old substitute teacher as incapacitated when they arrested him at a Richardson Independent School District middle school.

According to the police report, Thomas Brownlee had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and alcohol on his breath. In fact, the report stated that Brownlee was "a danger to himself and others."

The substitute teacher was arrested for being drunk in the classroom. Evidently he was sooooo... drunk that the police didn't give him a sobriety test for fear he would fall and hurt himself. The teacher was a minister.

A reporter asked Rev. Brownlee about his car's vanity license plate, "IMBLZT" -- is that supposed to mean "I'm blitzed" (drunk)? No, Brownlee said--he's also a minister, he explained, and to him it means "I'm blessed."
--Dallas Morning News)

Christianity, or any religion for that matter, is not what people think and do. It is the product of an idealized notion of how the universe works. We can talk all we want to about Liturgies, Prayers, Devotions, and Charities, but these are just the end product of a concept. People are devoted to their religions—each one has a specific set of beliefs—and they are willing to make major sacrifices and devote all their personal resources to supporting this concept. And they do this even when the leaders of the church turn out to be abusive thugs, thieves and even child-molesters. For The Religious, the real world is a separate category kept in a seperate mental box, and their life experiences do not connect with The Belief, which is often maintained and upheld in spite of the evidence.

For example, on a daily basis ministers are found to stealing church funds, seducing sons and daughters, manipulating elderly members into giving their life savings to the church, etc, etc, etc. But rarely are these criminals caught and punished by the church. Often it is the intervention of others—meaning non-believers or believers in some other church—who investigate and prosecute criminal acts. I know of several cases where a local minister was caught stealing from the church. In some cases the church asks for the money to be returned, but the thief is never prosecuted—mainly because that would reflect badly on the idealized notion of Christianity. Most church members are willing to “forgive and forget” rather than create a public scandal. The usual excuse is that they do not want to create a “stumbling block” for new recruits—those who are still “weak” in their belief and commitment to the faith. Most congregations are willing to take the long view: that it is better to suck in a batch of new recruits (and their money) rather than punish wrongdoing in the church and risk losing membership. Some churches will put up with ministers who exhibit truly bizarre behavior: drug addiction, addiction to pornography, alcoholism. The Catholic Church protected child molestors for decades, and they even defended them from criminal investigations. And these “men of God” are to be admired and respected?

The Simple Faith of Dogs

2008-06-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

A new book recently came across my desk, called _Dogspell: The Gospel According to Dog_.

At first I thought maybe _Dogspell_ was a new version of the musical _Godspell_, but using barking dogs-- kind of like the Christmas music cds put out by “Jingle Dogs” or the even more annoying “Jingle Cats” music cds, where a group of cats meow out Christmas classics like “Here Comes Santa Claws” or “Meowy Christmas.”

As it turns out _Dogspell_ is a book that wants to guide Christians to a better understanding their relationship with God. According to the publisher, the author “Uses [the] metaphor of dog’s unconditional devotion to its human and the joy it finds in [this] relationship….”

This idea is disturbing in so many ways:

Can this be the spiritual goal of most Christians-- to view the universe on all-fours while sniffing the crotch of God? And think of all the theological questions it raises. Is it appropriate to hump God’s leg only on Sundays? Or Saturdays? Or should this be a daily ritual?

And then there is the question of Evil. How can we address the fact that I have fleas? Why doesn’t God do something about this? Get me a flea-collar! Buy some flea powder! Please, God, do something to clean up all these horrible problems in the world.

I love my neighbor. So can I ask God to send the Mobile Spaying Unit to my neighbor’s house and “fix” them all? (Just my idea for cleaning up the local gene pool.)

What if it turns out that my God is violent and brutal, and he beats the hell out of me with a 2x4 and sells me out to dogfights, like Michael Vick? Am I still expected to lick his hand?

Why is it that people look up to the sky, searching for some invisible master, and abase themselves like dumb animals?

What is it about this idea that makes me want to lie down and lick my own ass, just to get the taste of this out of my mouth? Oops, I can’t reach. A little help here!

The fact is that The Religious never cease to amaze. Sometimes their weird ideas are pretty funny. Other times their violence and senseless bigotry are downright shocking. From female circumcision to bombing abortion clinics, these people are seriously disturbed. Maybe they are trying to work out their own serious emotional problems; both a lack of love at an early age and their overwhelming feelings of worthlessness lead them to accept crazy ideas. And these ideas are truly crazy. Not eating fish on Friday. Not using birth control. Praying with candles and statues, and wishing for miracles. Then they accept whatever crazy shit the preacher tells them, and reject the evidence of their own eyes.

I know of a Baptist preacher in our town (pop. 18,000) who has a congregation of only 25 people. Every Sunday (and Wednesday and Friday) he subjects them to 3-4 hours of yelling and personal abuse (I am *not* exagerating). Why do they put up with this jerk! And worse yet, a few months ago he emptied the church bank account and left town. And some church members still want him to come back! How sick is that?

People can be convinced to believe almost anything. The enormous growth of the Mormon Church in the last century proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that people can be made to believe almost anything, no matter how goofy it is. The Church of Scientology is equally crazy. And all these religions are, almost without exception, violent and cruel to non-believers. So why do people still fall into the trap of religious belief?

And the National Book Award goes to...

2008-05-27T06:55:00.001-07:00

Here is another case in point on the growing Stupification of the American reading public. Richard Power's The Echo Maker received the National Book Award, one of the country's most prestigious writing awards. Unfortunately, this novel is little more than mediocre shlock. On the other hand, it does have angels-- which seems to be the growing trend in fiction today.

Stinko!!

2008-04-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a performance of a Beethoven symphony. I arrived at the auditorium and sat in a seat near the front. Just as the performance began, two old trolls walked in and sat in the seats directly in front of me. In a few minutes the scent of hairspray wafted over me and I could feel an allergic reaction in my nose and throat. As soon as I could, I moved further down the row.

Not good enough. The smell was still overwhelming. How much hairspray do you have to put on for crying out loud!

I then moved to the far side of the room.

Why do people feel they have the right to douse themselves with perfume, cologne, hairspray and other loud scents and then go into a public place? Don't they know that many people have strong reactions to that crap?

More on McCain

2008-04-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone should be surprised by this, but according to the Huffington Post story, John McCain called his wife a "cunt." Cliff Schecter reports in his new book: The Real McCain

"In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."

Nice!

Here is a guy ready to be President

Christian Bookstores-- a contradiction

2008-04-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

The current issue of Christianity Today (April 2008) has an article "How to Save the Christian Bookstore" which suggests that Christians make bookstores more friendly and less obviously religious. Some bookstores (mainly the independently-owned stores, which are in decline) might be able to pull this off. If the focus is truly on using the bookstore as a forum forum for recruiting and indoctrination, this might happen.

But in reality Christian bookstores are primarily in it to make a buck.

I often visit the mall in Joplin, Missouri, which includes a religious bookstore. I've often beem surprised by the staff of the bookstore. Invariably they are very tightly-wound creepy characters, exactly the kind of people you see on The X-Files as running cults in rural towns and practicing cannibalism, child molesting, and other such rituals.

From the expressions on their faces and the twisted body-language it is clear that they are very, very unhappy people who have been trapped in dead-end jobs. Since the owners of the Christian bookstore are probably Christians, we can also be fairly sure that these people are working for minimum wage with no benefits ("they can always rely on God for help") and no hope to escape their taskmasters.

How could you make this place "friendly" when the workers are so miserable and unhappy?

Which is the real John Newton ?

2008-04-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

This is from the description of the book: The Trader, the Owner, the Slave: Parallel Lives in the Age of Slavery--

"There has been nothing like the Atlantic slave trade. Its scope and the ways in which it has shaped the modern world are so far-reaching as to make it almost ungraspable. By examining the lives of three individuals caught up in the enterprise of human enslavement — a trader, an owner and a slave — James Walvin offers a new and an original interpretation of the barbaric world of slavery and of its historic end in April 1807.

"John Newton (1725-1807), best-known as the writer of “Amazing Grace,” was a slave captain who marshalled his human cargoes with a brutality that he looked back on with shame and contrition. Thomas Thistlewood (1721-1786), lived his life in a remote corner of western Jamaica, and his unique diary provides some of the most revealing images of a slave-owner’s life in the most valuable of all British slave colonies. Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), was practically unknown thirty years ago, but is now an iconic figure in black history and his experience as a slave speaks out for the lives of millions who went unrecorded.

"All three men were contemporaries; they even came close to each other at different points of the Atlantic compass. But what held them together, in its destructive gravitational pull, was the Atlantic slave system."

So who is the real John Newton? The vicious slave trader of the pious author of Amazing grace? Can they really be the same man? And, if so, how does one become the other, given that the intrinsic personality is very likely the same?

Pandering to the Religious

2008-04-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

When you work at a university in the Bible Belt, this is the kind of stuff you have to deal with. The university plays the host for this show:

“AFTERdark,” an evening of music, motivation, and evangelism geared toward college students, will begin at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1, in the Weede Physical Education Building. The event will include music from country group Blue County, and will feature national guest speaker and author Joe White.

"White, who lives in Branson, Mo., tours the country with “AFTERdark,” speaking to millions of people about Christianity. He has founded 19 schools and an orphanage in Haiti, and is the founder of Kanakuk Kamps, which has hosted more than 20,000 campers from all over the world.

"The free event is open to the public and is being sponsored by PSU’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Cross Quest, and Campus Christians."

A bulk email was sent out to all faculty, and it suggested that faculty could give out "extra credit" to students for attending this religious service. Several days later, and probably because of complaints, the university sent out another email. This email stated that faculty at a state university should probably not be giving extra credit for attending an evagelical Christian religious service.

Duuuuh!

Of course, by the time the second email went out, all the Religious faculty had probably already promised to give extra credit. So the contrary email sent out several days later probably had litte effect. The damage was already done.

After the event, the local newspaper reported that over 1,000 people attended. These 1,000 attendees were, no doubt, students and local ministers and their congregations who had supported and promoted the event. This kind of event, held on a university campus, gives local ministers a chance to prey on young people, usually when they are away from home and at their most vulnerable. This is why religious cults always hang around colleges and universities. It's a good place to find new cult members. One of the very earliest groups to be labelled a "cult" was based on a college campus in Boston.

Who Murdered Socrates?

2008-03-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

The Rise of the Mediocracy as a Social Theory

"No reports are more readily believed
than those which disparage genius,
and soothe the envy of conscious
mediocrity." -- Macaulay (1837)

There is probably no social force more completely overlooked and ignored that the role of mediocrities in shaping human history. From the collapse of the Greek city-states to the collapse of the Soviet Empire, no particular human failing has played a greater role in our history than the mediocrity of the popular opinion makers--"the media elite" and their envy of the accomplished, the able, and the achiever. They not only engage in character assassination, but sometimes go for the real thing.
From the assassination of Julius Caesar to those of Trotsky and Malcolm X, from the forced "suicide" of Socrates to that of Rommel.

In a very real sense, human history is the record of leaders who build empires, only to be destroyed by the envy of their followers, and the resulting decay and collapse as the mediocrities fight among themselves for control of the empire. In a very real sense, human history is largely the record of lions being brought down by jackals, and the resulting disaster as the jackals fight among themselves for the scraps of power and pieces of empire.

This idea will go towards explaining how, after taking the nomination, Barak Obama will be mercilessly ripped apart by Joe Scarborough, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter,.....

More-on McCain

2008-03-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“He’s got a 24-year pro-life record. He was voting pro-life before it was cool, and I admire that. [...] There are six good reasons to vote for John McCain. They all sit on the Supreme Court and they're all over 70 years of age.” - Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) on Senator John McCain

(Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, 02.08.08)

Still More-on John McCain

2008-02-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

The real story of the McCain scandal is the possibility that McCain traded favors for ... favors. It explains how Vicki Iseman, an lowly Education major from Indiana University (the one in Pennsylvania)got a job as a secretary in Washington DC and then in a few years rose to partner in a lobbying firm. She is the youngest partner at the lobbying firm of Alcalde. Her clients included PAXtv, Religious Voices in Broadcasting, Telemundo, the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation. She was obviously plugged in (or vice versa) to the power of Capitol Hill.

As far as his love life is concerned, I don't really care if McCain wants to divorce his current wife and marry a younger woman (again)... But if he keeps this up, we will soon see (in another 7 years) the strange picture of an eighty-year-old man marrying a 28-year-old girl.

As the news coverage unfolds about McCain and the story in the New York Times, it is becoming obvious that someone friendly to McCain's campaign (and probably the guy who is making the rounds of the cable news programs) is the key to this story. The NYT has obviously been working on this story since October, and the McCain campaign decided to lance this boil at this time, after McCain has essentially cinched the nomination and before the Republican Convention and the general election.

It was probably fairly easy to interest the New Republic in covering the story, and it served the purpose of forcing the NYT to publish the story as soon as possible.

More-on McCain

2008-02-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

While many people see the current scandal and (supposed) conflict between Senator McCain and the New York Times as evidence that "The Press" has now turned on their former "darling" McCain, I suspect that the truth is much more sinister.

McCain sits on a committee that oversees the FCC and is in a position to put pressure on many newspapers, particularly those that are owned by media conglomerates. There may have been a "romantic" relationship between Senator McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40; but it seems that this "revelation" by the NYT comes at the best possible time for McCain.

1. Better now than in October. The Democrats had to be aware that this scandal would benefit them in the November election. They had no reason to want it to come out now. However the timing couldn't be better for McCain--he now has eight months to fight any brushfires from this scandal.

2. It forces the Right-Wing talk radio bloviators, like Rush Limbaugh, to rush to McCain's defense -- against the "big, bad" New York Times. McCain needs them now, to push Huckabee out of the race.

3. The NYT can be guaranteed to do a half-assed job on this story, much like the job CBS did in attacking G.W. Bush for leaving the Texas National Guard. We know, from statements made by still-living witnesses, that George W. Bush was indeed MIA, but the CBS news organization did such a lousy job of investigation that Bush was effectively "inoculated" against the truth. It seems like much the same thing will happen now with McCain.

Jumper -- the movie

2008-02-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

I went to see the new film, Jumper, a hight-tech sci-fi wonder with tons of special effects and (the usual) poor writing that we have all come to expect from Hollywood. I am amazed that Hollywood studios are willing to invest tens of millions to make a film, but aren't willing to shell out a few grand extra to get good writers.

Every writer I talk to wants to go to Hollywood and write for films. There should be hundreds, if not thousands, of good writers who would like to do a screenplay. Then why is it that we get this horrid, crappy plots and lousy dialog... over and over and over again?

The Sci-Fi Channel movies are clearly the worst offenders in this area. Their films are horribly written.

I think the culprits are the producers and directors who think that, just because they can talk people into investing in a film and green-lighting its production, that they also have the talent to write. Eddie Murphy's _Vampire in Brooklyn_ is a case in point. According to the newspapers, Eddie and his brothers sat around a kitchen table, drinking beer and writing the screenplay.

It shows just how little regard Hollywood has for good writing. The recent writer's strike is proof (as if we needed any) that movie companies think of writers as noisy pests that they can do without.

And, as if that was bad enough, I had to sit through the entire film near an old woman who had some serious hygiene problem--as least I assume she had a serious hygiene problem since she obviously poured a whole bottle of perfume on herself before she left the house.

We had a Russian exchange student stay with us for three months (some years ago) and he did the same thing. Except that he used Old Spice cologne.

All hail, George the Third

2008-02-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

Now that John McCain is about to be anointed as the standard-bearer for the Republican Party in November, it is time for people to examine where McCain stands on the issues.

Numerous political observers have pointed out already that McCain's policies are practically identical with those of George W. Bush. The only significant difference is McCain's opposition to the "Bush tax-breaks" for the wealthy, because they contribute to the growing deficits. But this somewhat principled stand has been discarded, and now McCain whole-heartedly supports the whole Bush agenda.

Obviously, electing John McCain as President means four more years in Iraq and trillions of dollars wasted--poured down the same rat-hole as the trillions already spent in this disaster. The only people who want us to continue in this war is the Military/Industrial/Media Complex, the same people who got us into the war. They stand to gain billions in profits in selling weapons, not to mention the oil that they steal from Iraq.

Unlike past military adventures, for example the Boer War and other colonial adventures, the average person could count on some small boon from the minerals, oil, and other resources that are taken from the conquered and colonized nations.

But in the 21st century it is not the American people who will derive any benefit from the stolen wealth of Iraq. Instead they suffer from a growing deficit and a crippled economy.

The only ones who benefit from the war in Iraq are the international corporations, as they are stealing the financial and human resources of the home state (America) and stealing the oil resources of the colonized state of Iraq.

And the Pulitzer goes to....

2008-02-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

Any time you go to a bookstore, you can see dozens of novels that have won one prize or another. One of the most coveted prizes is the Pulitzer, but there are many lesser-known prizes, too. Some are legitimate awards and others are phony cocked-up awards created to promote a magazine. And then there are the awards created by publishers for the sole purpose of feeding the ego of a favorite writer. For example, recently a group of publishers got together and created a phony award to give to Stephen King. God knows that King would never win an award based on actual talent, so these guys decided to create an award for him. Nice!

The problem with many of these awards is that they are given to mediocrities by a committee made up of literary mediocrities. For example, giving the Pulitzer to _Middlesex_ is a case in point. The author of _Middlesex_ is an accomplished mediocrity--his writing is at a high level of mediocrity--but it is, nonetheless mediocre. His character of Callie is supposed to be female, but never actually escapes from his male viewpoint.

This is a problem when you set out to reward merit, but rely on mediocrities to select merit. There is always the Scalieri Factor, where the mediocrities conspire together against the truly talented and present an award to one of their own.

Gay Marriage and Polygamy

2008-02-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Some right-wingers have unfairly (I think) attacked Mitt Romney for supporting gay marriage back when he was governor of Massachusetts. Personally, I think he only supported gay marriage because he saw it as a possible doorway to supporting the legalization of polygamy. Mitt's grandpa was a big-time polygamist who escaped into Mexico when polygamy was outlawed in Utah.

Now that Mitt is out of the race, the anti-gay marriage faction in the Republican Party can rest easy. No back-door legalization of gay marriage or polygamy.

By the way, I've heard that the License plate on Romney's truck has the number:

ELKHUNT

I'm not sure what that means... I guess it's a vanity plate.

Maybe it's a hispanic thing, since Mitt's grandpa moved here from Mexico.

Worst TV Show of All Time: Medium

2008-01-16T06:03:00.000-08:00

What to do, What to do....

With so many bad television shows, this choice will be a difficult one. I suppose it should be limited to currently running shows, which eliminates _Scooby Do_ and _Fraiser_. It should also be a show that is not just stupid and silly, but also a program that does actual harm to the viewer's mind.

A good choice would be any of the shows that deal with "ghosts." Certainly _Ghost Hunters_ on the Sci-Fi Channel would top the list, as would _The Ghost Whisperer_ (and any other show with the word "Whisperer" in the title).

But the absolute worst show on TV would have to be _Medium_ on NBC. The main character is played by actress Patricia Arquette as the ghost-whispering medium. Frankly, so much of this show offends me that it's hard to know where to start.

First, the medium's husband Joe Dubois, played by actor Jake Weber (a competent actor, which makes it hard to explain why he took this gig) has a tone of voice, when he speaks to his wife, that is grating and annoying to listen to. If anyone were to use that tone of voice with me, I'd punch him in the nose. How does "the medium" stand listening to this? Doesn't her alleged "6th sense" tell her that her husband is a jerk and that he talks to her like she's an idiot (not that she isn't an idiot-- but it shouldn't be thrown in her face that way). If she really had extra-sensory perception she would read his mind and dumped him a long time ago.

The same thing goes for her funny-looking kids (and especially the chubby-faced daughter). If "Allison" really had an ability at all to see into the future, then she would have avoided having kids. Or, at least, she would have begged off having marital relations with her husband on the night this kid was conceived. If she was really psychic, she would have seen just how funny-looking her kid would be in the future.

I could go on, but why? This show is a big-time stinker.

Worst Movie of All Time: Frailty

2007-12-29T17:41:00.001-08:00

When people think about "The Worst Movie of All Time" they usually pick on poor _Plan 9 from Outer Space_ (1959)

This doesn't seem fair to me, because this film had no money, no acting talent, and no studio support.

To be the "worst" film, in my thinking, it should be a film that had everything going for it, then threw it all away.

This is why I think _Frailty_ (2001) is the world film of all time.

I am not suggesting that the film be censored, just expressing my opinion that this film, which had the potential to be a film of great importance, was instead turned into a B-movie with a stupid Stephen King-style ending.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in a theater in 1942
watching the film _Casablanca_. You've reached the point in the
film when the characters are all gathered at the airport.
Suddenly, the U.S. army attacks, led by Gen. Patton (played by
John Wayne) and they round up all the Nazis and shoot them in the
head,
-- end of story.

This is the feeling I had watching _Frailty_. Both my son and I left the
theater stunned at the bizarre (and incredibly stupid) turn at the end.
Personally, I suspect that there must have been some hanky-panky at
Lions Gate studio that led to this bizarre turn in what had been, up to
the last ten minutes of the film a potentially excellent film, into a
piece of silly trash. And I think I know where this bizarre ending came
from.

During the last 25 years, I have felt more and more concerned about
the growing right-wing Christian culture. Surely you can see, in
the enormous popularity of Tim LaHaye's awful end-of-the-world
"Left Behind" series of novels (for example) that many people are
beginning to accept the idea of a Christian jihad against secularists,
humanists and non-believers.

The message of this film is that the end of the world is here and it's
alright to go out and kill "demons." As one of those people who have
been "demon-ized" by the far right, I am concerned. And I think you
should be concerned, too.

Freud, Sigmund - Drug use

2007-12-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

DID SIGMUND FREUD EXPERIMENT WITH HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOMS?

Most people familiar with the career of Dr. Sigmund
Freud, the founder of psychanalysis, are aware of the scandal of
cocaine use in his early career. As a young doctor, Freud
experimented with cocaine and even promoted its use as a sort of
cure-all for a variety of physical and psychological ailments.
Eventually Freud became aware of the addictive power of cocaine
and stopped promoting its use. Cocaine addiction was common in
the 19th century, and Freud's cocaine use has been popularized in
books and films, including _The Seven-Percent Solution_. Many of
Freud's followers are, to this day, a bit touchy about this
episode in Freud's early career. But it looks now like a new Freud
scandal is looming on the horizon.

A new book _Libraries in the Age of Mediocrity_ includes a
chapter "Freud in the Garden of Good and Evil" which presents
irrefutable evidence from the memoirs of Freud's son, Martin, that
Freud involved his children in "mushroom-hunting expeditions"
looking for hallucinogenic mushrooms. Freud often took his family
on vacations in the Alps, and there he organized his children on
mushroom hunts where they searched for the Amanita Muscaria
mushrooms that grow in mountain forests.

This variety of mushroom has been recognized by Europeans as
a powerful hallucinogen since the early 18th century when travelers
brought back reports of its use as an intoxicant by Siberian
hunters. It is likely that Freud, while doing research on primitive
religious practices, came across reports of its use and began his
own experiments, using his children to help him locate areas where
the mushrooms grow. Fairly large quantities of the mushroom are
needed to create a prolonged hallucinogenic "trip" and this would
explain why Freud involved his children in the search for these
elusive mushrooms.

In Martin Freud's memoir _Sigmund Freud: Man and Father_, he
describes the Amanita mushrooms but he is clearly unaware of their
hallucinogenic properties. It wasn't until some years after the
publication of this memoir that scholars outside of the fields of
ethnography and biology became familiar with this Amanita species,
which explains why this episode in Freud's career remained obscure
to Freud's many biographers.

It is an open question as to how much Freud's experiences
may be documented in his papers, which have for many years been
tightly controlled by a small group of Freud's followers. If
evidence of such experimentation is a part of Freud's papers, it
may help to explain why access to his writings has been closely
guarded for so many years. Like his cocaine use, it is also a
question how much this episode in Freud's career may have influenced
his writings, including _Civilization and Its Discontents_ and
_Totem and Taboo_.

Earl Lee, author of _Libraries in the Age of Mediocrity_,
discovered the reference to the amanita mushrooms in Martin Freud's
memoir while doing research for his book _Drakulya_, which deals
with occultism and psychology in the 19th century England.

LIBRARIES IN THE AGE OF MEDIOCRITY by Earl Lee
publication date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7864-0548-1
$25 [144] pp. softcover, notes, bibliography, index.

X-mas story

2007-12-13T09:28:00.001-08:00

Yes, Virginia, there is a Jesus.

I know this because he mows my boss's yard every other Thursday.

Or maybe you're thinking about the illegal they call Little Jesus.
He works at the meatpacking plant, or at least he did until last week
when the INS guys raided the plant and sent him back to Mexico.

Or, then again, maybe you're thinking about the Jesus who is the
mayor of Garden City, Kansas. A republican woman (who was just
elected to State Bored of Education) said that he wasn't born in this
country and he had no business serving as mayor. But Jesus says that
he was born in Garden City and so was his Dad, ... but she's not so
sure about that.

Then, of course, there is the Jesus that the Southern Baptists talk
about. That Jesus hates Catholics, homosexuals, liberal Democrats,
and a lot of other people. That Jesus is not so sure about women or
blacks, either.

I guess there's a Jesus who goes to the Catholic church, too. He
hates protestants, Moslems, communists, atheists, abortion doctors
and women who use birth control. I've never met this Jesus, but I
think he must have a son, Jesus, Jr., because I read in the newspaper
that a catholic boy named Jesus accused the priest of molesting him.
I don't know what Jesus, Sr., thinks about this, but he still goes to
that same church anyway. I guess Jesus, Sr., must really like church
a lot, because he still goes there and takes communion from the
people who molested his little boy, Jesus, Jr..

Anyway, yes, Virginia, there is a Jesus. There are lots of Jesuses,
and some of them are nice guys and some of them are not....
---------------

If you enjoyed this, you might want to read: _Raptured: The Final
Daze of the Late, Great Planet Earth_

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1884365426/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_2

The Golden Compass movie

2007-12-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

Last night we invited about two dozen students from the creative writing program over to our house for a get together. These kids (most are in their twenties) are all fairly bright people and got along very well. Even the Christian girl seems to get along with the gay couple .... up to a point.

At the end of the evening the gay couple got up to leave, and they suggested that they were going to catch the late show of _The Golden Compass_. At this point, the Christian girl jumped up and asked them *not* to go to this movie, because it was based on a children's book written by an atheist (English author Philip Pullman). I found the whole scene a bit surreal. She seemed (as far as I could tell) to have no problem with the fact that they were a gay couple, but the idea that they might go see this film, which she assumed was some kind of atheist propaganda... or at the very least an enticement that might lead children to read the book... well, for some reason this really bothered her.

Frankly, I am bothered by the fact that christians can promote all sorts of horrid crap, like the sado-masochist and anti-Semitic film _The Passion of the Christ_ and even show this film (now on DVD) to small children in their churches. There is no telling how much severe psychological damage has been caused by this disgusting film. The night I was at the theater, there were many people crying and emotionally crushed by this piece of propaganda.

At the same time, Christians have no problem attacking _The Golden Compass_ without having bothered to see it. The fact that the book was written by an atheist is sufficient reason to condemn the film.

As much as Christian groups like to pretend that they are being persecuted, it is the atheists who are shunned and boycotted by these small-minded bigots.

It's easy to see why the Catholic church hates this film, since it is an attack on authoritarian religions. But why do evangelicals attack the film? Aren't all these Protestants supposed to be anti-authoritarian too?

I guess just being smeared with the atheist label is enough.

Who's Stupid Now ?

2007-12-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

A couple of Christian pundits have taken me to task for my book _Raptured: The Final Daze of the Late, Great Planet Earth_. The general sense of their comments is:

"Do you think all Christians are stupid, or what?"

To me this question misses the point. None of these Right-wing evangelicals care about my opinion, so why do they ask? Similarly the Pope in Rome (Joe "the Rat" Ratzinger) couldn't care less about my opinion, nor do any of his followers. Obviously, they are not going to be buying my book anyway -- unless they enjoy books that mock loony Right-wing Protestants (as opposed to the loony Right-wing Catholics, who recently elected an ex-Nazi to be Pope).

So why do they care what I say? Why do they even ask?

I think this comes from a deep-seated fear that Right-wing evangelicals have about the leaders of their religion. They look at men like Richard Roberts, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and wonder this same question:

"Do you think all Christians are stupid, or what?"

The reason for this fear, this intense self-depreciation is that these "men of God" these "religious leaders" treat the people in their ministries as if they were complete morons.

For example, when a man dips into funds belonging to the ministry and then spends them on his own personal desires, doesn't this suggest a contempt for Christians? Doesn't embezzling money from a ministry suggest contempt for those people who donated their hard-earned dollars?

For example, Pat Robertson has made himself a millionaire several times over by using his ministry to advance his own private media empire. Some of the transgressions are obvious, like using planes belonging to a religious charity to move mining equipment in Africa, or using the 700 Club program to establish his own television network, which he later sold for many millions. More recently, Robertson has been hawking a high-protein shake and even demonstrated his new muscles in a fake weight-lifting demonstration. Robertson is so arrogant that he believes his followers will have no trouble accepting the idea that a man in in 70s can set a weight-lifting record by using a protein shake!!!

I wonder, when Pat wakes up in the morning, does he ever say:

"I shouldn't do this! The people in my ministry are too smart to ever fall for this silly crap."

Evidently not.

So if Christians want to escape the "stooopiddd" label, maybe they should take their leaders to task for abusing them, over and over and over again.

Holy Fraud

2007-09-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

A person I know attends a small church with about twenty members (total). The minister recently, during one of his two-hour long sermons, announced that all the church members were going to have to go to Chicago for a one-day training session on how to do counseling with alcoholics and drug users. After the one-day training, they will start counseling people with addiction problems at the church.

This looks like one more example of George Bush's "faith based" scam. The church members will, after one day of training, be able to counsel drug addicts; and then the church will bill the federal government for this high-quality counseling. I'm sure the guys in Chicago also submit a bill to the feds for the training of these counselors. All-in-all this is just one more example of the "faith based" scam that--thanks to the Boob-in-Chief in Washington--allows churches to raid the federal treasury with no accountability and no standards of care.

What's even more grotesque is that I know for a fact that this minister believes that all mental and emotional problems are the work of demons. He doesn't believe in mental illness or psychological counseling, so all this counseling is going to be people praying over alcoholics and drug addicts. These people are going to counsel the addicts to read the Bible and pray to Jesus.

Do they really need to go to Chicago to learn how to do that? Or is it all about getting the money?