Your dreams come true?

It has been nearly a year since the world first caught a glimpse of Susan Boyle.  Susan Boyle the enigma that taught much of the world a much needed lesson:



And that lesson?  In the end, it is we, ourselves, who decide who we were born to be.

There is life out there?

Let's start with Mars:



You need water?  Okay, we'll give you water:



But just because there is water on Mars...that doesn't mean it is anywhere else, now does it?

Well, we already knew that Jupiter's moon, Europa, has water:



And now we know that our own moon does:



I won't take up any more of your time.  And I won't go so far as to say that evidence of life has been found on our moon and other planets, either...but, just in case you didn't know, some insist that evidence has already been found.  There are enumerable videos on You Tube to prove it...but then, it would behoove us all to keep in mind that we live in an age of photoshop wonder..on the other hand, could it be?

So, do you have more time on your hands?  Why not make a visit to You Tube...just type in Life on Mars...it'll be fun and entertaining...and won't cost you a dime.

I'm preaching to the choir...

Look, I know that recently cable stations have been calling Fox News to task more and more for their lies and misrepresentations, but for me, that isn't enough.  Perhaps if there was an anti-Fox News station that spent 24/7 showing clips of the Fox folks against factual clips and statistics which countered their stupidity, the world would be a better place.

Heck, just showing clips from You Tube might do the trick for some.  For example:



Well, now that was entertaining and informative at the same time.  It just might work since the television viewing audience seems to have as its first priority these day,  lots and lots of entertainment rather than direct and truthful information.

So, I wonder how past employees of Fox News, who wanted to inform, now view the Fox News organization.





Look, like I said, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but if just one person, who believes that Fox News is showing them the true face of the news, happens onto this blog and sees these videos, watches them--and goes...oh, now I get it--its will be worth while.

Faces as portrayed by Fox News:



And just specifically whose face is behind the coloration and manipulations of faces and the news?

How about we take a look at him and hear what he has to say.
 


There are numerous videos at You Tube relative to Fox News lies.  If you can actually stomach more, they are informative as it pertains to America's number one propaganda cable station. 

But just one more thing...Fox News loves to stir the tea party pot.  Beck, Hannity and others apparently find it quite all right, in fact amusing,  to herd the gun toters together.  As God is my witness, if true violence erupts as a result of the antics of Fox News, and people are killed as a result--I will carry a sign and picket anywhere and anytime demanding that the owners of, and contributors to, Fox News be tried for accessory to murder, sedition,  incitement to violence and/or treason whichever and  whatever is applicable--there may be a couple of empty cells available next to Madoff -- or maybe the authorities could clear out any needed jail cells by releasing a few inmates currently serving time for possession of a zip lock bag of marijuana...

Your great great great grandfather was Irish?

Well, it just might be that you are...

an American.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2010, everyone...

Jesus stepped off a Greyhound bus tonight...

Tomorrow morning's headlines would read:  JESUS RETURNS!  And, to reach the most tolerant and informed audience possible, he would appear on the Rachel Maddow's show tomorrow evening for his first televised interview:


Rachel: Thank you for joining us this evening.  No doubt this has been a busy day for you.  Will you mind if I call you by your first name?

Jesus: It’s my pleasure, Rachel.  I appreciate your inviting me...and of course not.  Jesus, Joshua...whatever.

R: Before we begin, just to make certain that you understand where I am coming from, I should probably disclose to you, and to our audience, that I am Jewish.

J: Me too. My mom, my dad, my brothers and sisters...friends.  All Jewish.

R: Oh, okay. I’m guessing that the one question that our Christian viewers hope that I will ask first is: What took you so long?

J: [Jesus gets the joke and chuckles as he answers] I had to save up for bus fare, Rachel.

R: Are you saying that with the billions of dollars that are tithed to churches and sent to televangelists, no one would spare you bus fare?

J: That’s what I’m saying, Rachel. They keep praying for me to put in a good word for them, you know, with “The Big Guy,” always asking for money to grease their palms--but do you think, G-d forbid, they’d spring  a buck or two for one measly ticket for me?

R: Now, I'll get right to the point.  I presume you have heard the recent reports that Glenn Beck advised Christians to leave their churches if they heard the words, “social justice,” spoken by their pastors…

J: Yes, yes I have heard that.  Actually, I watched a video of him on YouTube this afternoon…he kind of reminds me of the swine I sent flying…oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to go on so. This is my first televised interview, you understand, and I'm a little nervous.

R: No, that’s quite all right, Jesus…please continue.

J: Well, I guess, if I’m not being too arrogant, I am pretty much an expert on what you twenty-first centuriers (is that a word? Not used to speaking English) anyway, what you modern-day folks call, “social justice.”

R: How is that?

J: Well, I guess if anyone has proof of exactly what “social injustice” looks like, I do.

R: You are referring to the crucifixion?

J. Well that and all these desperate letters I've received from just all sorts of people.

R: Are you talking about populations in Africa and in third world countries?

J: [Holding up a fist full of letters] No, I will deal with them in a minute. These letters are from children here--they are all post marked, “The United States of America.”

R: But many members of the right wing of American politics would say that the parents are to blame for the poverty and hunger that these children are experiencing. Irresponsible single mothers. Absentee fathers.

J: Single mothers? Absentee Fathers? If my step dad hadn’t come along when he did and…well, anyway, what in the hell do they think would have happened to me?

R: We need to go to this commercial, but when we return, I hope that we can discuss your viewpoints on other religions…

J: Do you mean besides Judaism?

R: Good Lord!  You have been away for a long time...We’ll be back right after this commercial break…

This was happening in your neighborhood?

Every Billy Bob got a telescope for Christmas?

And, so what if every Billy Bob got a telescope for Christmas--or at least was guaranteed a school field trip to a  planetarium and a science and history museum in a city nearest them?



Rather than risk this:



Or this, as Edward Current's satire amusingly explains:

We let the younger generation choose their own future?

When I start looking around at the world we live in, and get an uncomfortable knot in my stomach when I think about the theology-driven world view of Sarah Palin and her devotees, I only have to take a peek at the younger generation to understand:

All is right with the world--or will be, given time.

When I see images of tea partiers on the news--the white-haired folks who are adamant about the world that they want to leave to the next generation--and then I turn my glance toward the next generation and see and listen to their ideas on the world that they WANT to inherit, I see that:

All is right with the world--or will be, given time.

The best and brightest of the younger generation "get it."  Not only do they "get it," but many of them are very capable of passing it along.  In this fast-paced world we live in--you just have to keep up, that's all.  And, if you don't quite "get" satire--well, it just may be you that gets left behind (pun intended).

We listen to our elder...

Chief Oren Lyons as he calmly and rationally speaks?

The John Birch Society...

co-sponsored CPAC 2010?

I am one of those children of the sixties, they talk about.   No, I didn't burn my bra, if that's what you are wondering.  In fact, I probably fell under the heading of "respectable" life style.  I got married, then got pregnant and pregnant and pregnant.  We put our children's needs above our own.  Soccer, cleats and shin guards, traveling team dues and long weekend trips as far as Canada so that they could play, gymnastics and dance, coaching softball in the summer, neighborhood newspaper routes, girl scouts, basketball shoes, camp and miles of driving on icy Indiana roads to watch games, cheer leading camp, performing jazz choir dresses and shoes.  It was all really very wonderful --tiring, but wonderful and worth it.

Of course, having been married in LA County, California, we knew, my ex husband and I, that our marriage had only a 50-50 chance of survival.  And so, although it made it through 100% of my children's' childhoods, it was destined to bite the dust at some point, and it did.

What, in the hell is this woman talking about?

Well, only this.  I didn't burn any of my bras.  I was never a part of any college campus protests, but I fully understood, and held as my own, the "flower power" philosophy.

Two boys from the crowd that I ran with after high school died in Vietnam.  They were best friends and I considered them both friends of mine.  But back then, you see, there was something called "the draft."

These two boys didn't just disappear into some National Guard unit, somewhere, they disappeared forever.

Not everyone who I knew that went to Vietnam died.  I knew a few others.  One I actually dated before he went--but when he returned home, he wasn't the same boy that I had dated.  Another was married to a friend of mine from high school.  When he came back, she discovered the same phenomenon--he wasn't the young man that she had married.  Then there was my cousin's husband.  He was a Marine.  When he came home, he was ready and eager to go back--it was his duty.

Years after the fall of Saigon, I happened to be in a position to see first-hand another Vietnam veteran.  He was going through the court system at the time and, from all appearances, had a personal pendulum that swung back and forth between uncontrolled flash backs and alcoholism.  But, like I say, he was being well cared for by the county court system.

But I digress.  I suggested that this post would be about The John Birch Society's co-sponsorship of CPAC, didn't I?  Sorry, but if you will indulge me for just another minute or so, there are a few more tidbits I feel compelled to add. 

Back in the olden days, a dear relative of mine and her husband tagged me along on vacation with them a few times.  Two of those trips were to Florida.  That was during the times when life's necessities, like rest rooms and drinks of water, were still color coded.  I remember the first time I ever saw a sign posted above a water fountain:  Whites only--is what it said.  As a teenager, I saw that world begin to crumble.  I watched it begin to  play out on our black and white television--it was on that same television, by the way, which a few years later, I saw depicted, and heard disclosed,  a sanitized version of the most recent happenings in Vietnam-- and the most recent tallies of casualties and deaths.

During these same times, there were organizations whose names were not to be mentioned in polite company.  It was the folk song writers and musicians that provided , through their songs, cliff note versions of their identities and their aimed purposes.  The John Birch Society was one of them:

The Chad Mitchell Trio sang about them in 1962: 



And, then there was Bob Dylan:



Who also wrote and sang these words:



So here we are.  CPAC, without raising so much as an eyebrow, welcomes The John Birch Society as a co-sponsor.  My, my, my.  Like my mother used to say, "You're known by the company you keep!"

Hopefully, there is a budding young singer/songwriter out there who could put those words to good use and start a "revolution"--one quite different from the one that the teabaggers are trying to start.  Something along the lines of:

  

I've been wondering for a while, now, what would happen if we all dug out our old cassette tapes or even bought new CDs of 1960s Protest Music, slipped them into our car tape or CD players, turned them up full blast and rolled down the car windows and up and down every street in America? 

Would people get the message?

Would the far right religious militarists and neo cons, who persist in opining that Iranian should probably be America's  next "mission from God,"  finally find that they were wasting their breath--because this song had become the unofficial national anthem?

It forgot to snow in Alaska?

It has been interesting hearing the weather in Vancouver, B.C. being discussed.  But that didn't really come as any surprise to the locals.  When Vancouver received the bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the possibility of the temperatures being warm and snow being scarce was understood.

The Vancouver Sun:

  http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/parenting/archive/2010/02/09/vancouver-warmest-olympics-snow.aspx 

Another interesting weather story that has been in the news is the record-breaking snow falls that have occurred on the east coast, causing the halls in Washington, DC to be gridlocked in the white stuff:



But while Vancouver wasn't getting snow and Washington, DC was--the annual Iron Dog race was being run in Alaska: 

Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/todd-palin-iron-dog-snowm_n_472141.html

What?  Did they just report that the trails were muddy and without snow for these...um "snow machines?"  Well, you can't trust those east coast media types, so maybe we better take a look at the Anchorage Daily News--they won't be giving us any of that liberal media bias:

http://www.adn.com/2010/02/22/1151230/palin-davis-team-drops-out-of.html 

How could that happen?  Making clouds is as easy as this:



And, besides, everyone knows this is how Alaska looks:



Oops!

We live in a red vs blue world?

It's time to put your thinking caps on, kiddies.

[Warning:  There is an outburst at the end of this video.  Just wanted to forewarn anyone who may have a weak heart...or a bladder control problem.]



Look, I'm not really attempting to promote atheism, here--I consider myself more a Deist, along the lines of Thomas Jefferson who, incidentally, thought for himself and was never afraid to question and search out any truth, or lack thereof, behind religion--Christian, Muslim or otherwise.   For anyone who may not have an understanding of what the Deist point of view is, here is a video which may help to explain:

   

So, for the sake of argument, what if all the atheists followed the wishes voiced by some Christians?  What then?  Well, let's take a look:

  

Someone predicts the end of the world...

OCTOBER 21, 2011!!!

DECEMBER 21, 2012!!!

It's got to happen, because Jesus said so.  If you don't believe me,maybe you just need to go read your Bible.  Yeah, you better just go back and read what he said in Matthew.

Well, it's too bad if you don't believe me, because it says right there in Revelation what's going to happen--and things don't look good for all of you...you, you...66, or so,  percent of the world population that aren't Christians.  And even most of you Christians, who aren't us,  need to get down on your knees and pray, about now, because you're not "true Christians," like us.

Hmmm.  Let me think about this for a minute.  According to, Jesus, Paul of Tarsus and Pope Clement I, the world was supposed to have come to an end by around the end of the first century.

Oops.

Hilary of Poitiers predicted that the world would end in the year 365.

Oops.

As the year 1000 rolled around, it became evident that the end was on the horizon...so much so, that not only did Christian armies attempt to forcibly convert many northern Europeans (i.e. convert or die), but many devout Christians gave all their "worldly" possessions to the church--which apparently had a "no returns" policy in place so that, when the end did not come, the devotees only saw the end of their previous ownership of those "worldly" possessions, not the world in which they lived.

Oops.

It would end in 1186, according to John of Toledo--no take that back--it would be in 1284, because Pope Innocent III said so.

Oops.  Oops.

Then, there was 1689.  Now it was a Baptist, Benjamin Keach, who predicted that year.  Charles Wesley a founder of the Methodists, predicted 1794 and Joseph Smith of Latter Day Saints fame suggested somewhere around 1890.

Oops.  Oops.  Oops.

William Miller and Ellen White.

The years:  1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994...

Jim Jones.

David Koresh--Branch Davidians--Mt. Carmel Center--Waco, Texas--born in 1959 to a single mother.  He was dyslexic and a high school dropout, but actually memorized large tracts of the Bible by the time he was 12 years old.  By 1981, he joined the Branch Davidian sect that had been established in 1935 near Waco, Texas.  To make a long power struggle story short, in 1987, he became its leader with the help of 7 men, 9 guns and 400 rounds of ammunition.  I will leave the rest of the story for you to remember.

These are not all of the predictions that have been made about the end of the world.  If you have an interest, you can find more of them here:

 http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htmall

But, even then, the one prediction for the end of the world that had the most impact on me is not listed on the religious tolerance website and it is my guess that I am one of the few who even remember the occurrence.  Although I don't remember the exact year, it must have been somewhere around 1963, or so, since I was about sixteen years old at the time.

It came to my attention through a news report.  A religious group had gone to live inside a cave because, they believed, the world was coming to an end.  It was as simple as that.  I don't remember what religious group.  I don't even remember where, or in what state, those people and that cave were located.  What I do remember, however, is the dread that enveloped my young mind for several days.

Now, back in those days and for most of my younger years, my family attended church.  I had grown up having experienced both the Christian (Disciples of Christ) and Methodist denominations' teachings, and even at that young age, I was a relatively informed student of the Bible--but that fact did not protect me from what I was to experience as a result of the cave dweller religionist sect news report that I took seriously and believed was a real possibility.

I was angry!  I was totally, unequivocally honked off.  I was only sixteen, I thought to myself--why was I going to be denied the rest of my earthly life?  I was afraid.  Was my own religious faith and belief enough to satisfy God?  After all, I hadn't been invited into the safety of that cave with those people.   Over the period of several days, I struggled with these emotions and questions--enough so that now, all these years later, I am able to revisit the memory of those awful hours--the hours before the predicted day that the world would come to an end had come and gone, like any other.

But, all that being said, it did teach me a very, very valuable lesson--one that I hadn't been taught in my tolerant and God is love Sunday School classes.  God may be love, but religion isn't God.

Okay, and then came Y2k...another "the world is coming to an end" failure.  And, currently, there are others in the offing, like October 21, 2011 and December 21, 2012.  There are religionists who are hungry for the end of the world--as we know it.  The Dominionist Movement is a key player in the rush towards the apocalypse.  But, I choose not to play their game.  And my hope is that this post will reach enough thinking people that the names and faces of these people will be exposed and the game that they are trying to play will have to be called on account of...brains.

If you haven't visited Racoon Ridge Review, please do so.  It is there that I have been showing the faces, names, methods and games being played with the minds of young children--faces and names of those same ones who seem hellbent to play with the future that belongs to all of us and our children.

But, beware, it does take the intellect and emotional development beyond that of a sixteen year old to not be  scared into their "end of the world" ideology--which has, by the way, in recent years invited itself in to the real world--to save us all from that real world--so that they can, in turn, destroy it-- and smugly say once and for all:  See, we told you it was going to happen!

Jesus was attacked by a polar bear?

Under the heading of British sitcoms:

We aren't so lucky...

We rocked the boat a little...

Check your church bulletin, everyone--is this short animated film included in next week's Sunday School lesson plan?

Probably not.  Can't let science get in the way of ...sacred Biblical proof, now can we?

This was taught in Sunday School...

There are many on the far right that insist that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Evolution in public schools.  They want the Biblical Creation Myth to be taught on an equal basis with Science.  So, why don't we make a deal?  They can teach their version to your children in public schools if we can share this vital information  with their children every week in Sunday School:

America became a theocracy?

So, what if America became a theocracy?

What countries and movements in the world might it begin to resemble?
Iraq?
The Vatican?
Jesus Camp?

So what, if America became a theocracy?
Well, lets just ask these questions:
Do we want to choose our own religion--or none, like Thomas Jefferson?
Do we want to go by the edicts made by one man--the Pope?
Do we want to simply look on as young minds are completely controlled and manipulated through fear?

Morality cannot be legislated. 
Legislation by tyrannical theocrats is most likely to look like--just that:  Tyranny

Long ago, there were god kings--they were also known as "Phaoroh" by those in the know--men like Moses.

Think about it.

...what some people are saying is true?

You can hear just about anything on night time radio.  And if what some of what the voices are saying is true, then:

-There were alien bases on the Moon when the crews of the Apollo missions landed.
-There are ruins of pyramids and a sphinx-like face on Mars.

Today, in an article at Huffington Post, it is reported that Britain's Royal Society is meeting to discuss the possible presence of alien life on Earth--perhaps in some pretty odd places:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/25/search-for-aliens-should-_n_435148.html

A couple of months ago, it was rumored that President Obama would be making full disclosure of the presence of aliens amongst us.  That was to have happened on November 27, 2009.  Oops, that's the thing  about rumors--they are only reliably true after they actually happen.

But all that has got me to thinking...

So, what if...?

Would the predictions of the Brookings Report come to fruition?  Would a lot of ignorant people panic and, like the 1930s Halloween Night radio transmission of "The War of the Worlds," or like an episode straight out of "The Twilight Zone," start shooting at anyone they thought might be from, oh say, Zeta Reticuli?  Holy cow!  If that's the case, I sure hope I don't look like someone who's here on vacation from a gazillion light years away. 

So what, if...?

Well, that might answer a lot of questions about the prevalence of swamp gas, swarms of weather balloons and the lights over Phoenix, now mightn't it?

"Flying saucers" got their names back in the late 1940s.  I can't remember all that much about the story, but it seems that I remember reading or hearing that a pilot of a small plane saw several disks flying somewhere over Washington State or Oregon.  I was born just a few days after the purported crash in Roswell, New Mexico.  If you go back and take a look at the microfilm of the local newspapers of that era, you will see the residual affect of these occurrences, whatever they were, had on hometown front pages.

I've never seen a UFO.  I saw a spherical light flash in a cloud one time. That was cool.  A couple of my relatives saw a sphere swoop across the landscape back in the early fifties--it startled them so much that they told the story for years--but, in the final analysis, they decided that it was probably ball lightning.  Back in the seventies, a clearly frightened teen-aged neighbor told me that he and some friends had seen a large object, the size of the Moon, hovering over the local high school the night before. 

Then, there is another relative who told of being out on a boat, on a lake in Central Indiana, with his wife and a couple of  local sheriff's deputy friends.  They saw a craft come down, watched as it hovered over the water and, then, zip away...no doubt, it was...oh I don't know, let's just call it...a weather balloon.

During my lifetime, the citizenry has asked:  So, what if what some people are saying is true?

While the folks in charge have asked:  So what, if what some people are seeing is real?  We'll just tell them it was, oh I don't know, let's just call it...a weather balloon.  Unless you think they would be more likely to believe it was swamp gas--oh well, it doesn't matter.  If they refuse to believe it was swamp gas, we'll just laugh in their faces and tell everyone else that they're just...a  little  bit  crazy.  That should shut them all up for, oh say, sixty years or so, don't ya think?"

There is Climate Change?

...We can close our eyes, cover our ears and call Climatologists liars, or we can ask:

So what, if there is Climate Change?

So what, if we humans are contributing?

So what, if the outcome results in masses being displaced?

So what, if the outcome results in future generations dying of starvation?

Or, we can stop and consider:  So, what if there is Climate Change?

So, what if we humans are contributing?

So, what if the outcome results in masses being displaced?

So, what if the outcome results in future generations dying of starvation?

So, what if my great grandchildren wonder why I closed my eyes and covered my ears?