I Forgive Nothing

"The whole Christian, 12-step mentality has permeated our culture, and the emphasis on forgiveness is part of that,...For many,...forgiveness is a double-whammy: First someone screws you, and then it's your fault you don't want to embrace them in heaven. I'm not against forgiveness; I'm against compulsory forgiveness with no choice."

-- Jeanne Safer, a New York psychoanalyst and author of "Must We Forgive?", dissing the majority of advice I've been given on how to deal with my personal pain.

I concluded, a long time ago, the people who give advice to forgive are misguided, insensitive, unthinking assholes who think people are created from cookie-cutters. Or in cults.

But what else is new?

You Are Fish (Meditation Is The Lure): Eat Up!

"When [Transcendental Meditation] cult-kids question the community dysfunction and regulations, they are told they are 'too negative,' 'cease those tomasic thoughts,' 'you are just unstressing,' and the like. They learn to lie to protect the 'higher values', luring others to the community, supposedly for their own good."

- From the TMFree blog.

Year 3: Another Happily Haunted Homeopathic Holiday For Me!!!

"A physician/caregiver/patient relationship is the recommended approach for meeting the needs of the patient and family caregivers,...the responsibility for family caregiving is assumed disproportionately by women (72 percent) who are themselves elderly (spouses) or have multiple roles (daughters or daughters-in-law).

Physicians must be aware that caregivers as a group are physically, emotionally, and financially vulnerable and are often the "hidden patients."

- From the American Medical Association website

"Maintaining Appropriate Boundaries

Homeopaths are responsible for avoiding exploitation of their patients financially, emotionally, sexually, or in any other way."

- From the Society of Homeopaths Code of Ethics

"Avoid major changes in residence, jobs, or marital status


Major changes can be too burdensome during grief. Wait for about one year after the death of a loved one before making any major changes."

From the Elisabeth Kubler Ross website, Grief and Bereavement page. ("Dr." Wohlfahrt is, supposedly, keen on Kubler Ross's methods,..he just doesn't follow them.)

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:52:15 +0200

"I regret nothing,...My therapie is more effective."

- From Homeopath Robert Wohlfahrt's e-mail, to my ex-wife, after having sex with her - less than one month after he euthanized her mother - and one day before he knew she was returning to our marriage, which started unraveling immediately; our divorce following shortly thereafter.

"You're just saying that because you don't believe."

My ex-wife, Karine Brunck, when I explained exactly how homeopathy "worked".

Beware The Preacher Man (And All Other Spiritual Types): They Are The Angels Of Death

"He shifts from piety to hypocrisy to menace while rarely raising his voice above a whisper."

- Slate.com's very-accurate description of a believer's behavior, from a review of Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, There Will be Blood (above) this "engrossing epic of misanthropy, capitalist monomania and religious quackery" is the only recent release I feel I have to see.**

**Saw it: brilliant. Especially the ending.

More Proof Meditation Works!

"In all the years I’ve voted — I’m 56 now — I’ve never voted for a winner."

- Roger Leahy, an Iowa meditator, Ron Paul supporter, and the co-owner of Overland Sheepskin Co.

Viola!: 4+4=9 (James Randi On Jacques Benveniste, Homeopathy, Honesty, And How The French Always Suck Up To Academics)

Impossible

Homeopathy In Doonesbury

Atheism

If You Had Your Own Cult,....

Whitewash

The racist history the Democratic Party wants you to forget.

BY BRUCE BARTLETT
Monday, December 24, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

In his new book, "The Conscience of a Liberal," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman makes a strong case for his belief that the political success of the Republican Party and the conservative movement over the past 40 years has resulted largely from their co-optation of Southern racists that were the base of the Democratic Party until its embrace of civil rights in the 1960s. A key piece of evidence for Mr. Krugman is that Ronald Reagan gave his first speech after accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1980 near Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. In the course of this speech, Reagan said he supported "states' rights." Mr. Krugman says this was code declaring his secret sympathy for Southern racism.

Others, including Mr. Krugman's Times colleague David Brooks and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, have come to Reagan's defense, denying that he was a racist or had any racist intent in his 1980 speech. That's fine but unlikely to change the minds of those like Mr. Krugman who are determined to smear the Republican Party with the charge of racism, and who are adept at finding racist code words like "law and order" by Republicans that are completely convincing to liberals and Democrats in support of this accusation, even though they are invisible to those with no political ax to grind.

However, if a single mention of states' rights 27 years ago is sufficient to damn the Republican Party for racism ever afterwards, what about the 200-year record of prominent Democrats who didn't bother with code words? They were openly and explicitly for slavery before the Civil War, supported lynching and "Jim Crow" laws after the war, and regularly defended segregation and white supremacy throughout most of the 20th century.

Following are some quotes from prominent Democrats largely drawn from my new book, "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past." Even with the exclusion of all quotes that contain the N-word, it is clear that many of the Democratic Party's most important historical figures have long made statements that reduce Reagan's alleged transgression to a drop in the ocean. If we are going to hold him and his party accountable for a single mention of states' rights, then the party of those listed below is far more culpable in promoting and defending racism.

Blacks "are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both of body and mind."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Co-founder of the Democratic Party (along with Andrew Jackson)
President, 1801-09

"I hold that the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good--a positive good."

--Sen. John C. Calhoun (D., S.C.), 1837
Vice President, 1825-32
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

If blacks were given the right to vote, that would "place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored Negro in the country upon an equality with the poor white man."

--Rep. Andrew Johnson, (D., Tenn.), 1844
President, 1865-69

"Resolved, That the Democratic Party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1852

Blacks are "a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race."

--Chief Justice Roger Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1856
Appointed Attorney General by Andrew Jackson in 1831
Appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Andrew Jackson in 1833
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Andrew Jackson in 1836

"Resolved, That claiming fellowship with, and desiring the co-operation of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the paramount issue--and repudiating all sectional parties and platforms concerning domestic slavery, which seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the Territories; and whose avowed purposes, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the 'slavery question' upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservatism of the Union--NON-INTERFERENCE BY CONGRESS WITH SLAVERY IN STATE AND TERRITORY, OR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA" (emphasis in original).

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1856

"I hold that a Negro is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this government was made on the white basis; made by the white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others."

--Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (D., Ill.), 1858
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1860

"Resolved, That the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1860

"The Almighty has fixed the distinction of the races; the Almighty has made the black man inferior, and, sir, by no legislation, by no military power, can you wipe out this distinction."

--Rep. Fernando Wood (D., N.Y.), 1865
Mayor of New York City, 1855-58, 1860-62

"My fellow citizens, I have said that the contest before us was one for the restoration of our government; it is also one for the restoration of our race. It is to prevent the people of our race from being exiled from their homes--exiled from the government which they formed and created for themselves and for their children, and to prevent them from being driven out of the country or trodden under foot by an inferior and barbarous race."

--Francis P. Blair Jr., accepting the Democratic nomination for Vice President, 1868
Democratic Senator from Missouri, 1869-72
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

"Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten states, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1868

"While the tendency of the white race is upward, the tendency of the colored race is downward."

--Sen. Thomas Hendricks (D., Ind.), 1869
Democratic nominee for Vice President, 1876
Vice President, 1885

"We, the delegates of the Democratic party of the United States . . . demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese Empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1876

"No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and that even carefully guarded."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1880

"American civilization demands that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1884

"We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1900

"The repeal of the fifteenth amendment, one of the greatest blunders and therefore one of the greatest crimes in political history, is a consummation to be devoutly wished for."

--Rep. John Sharpe Williams (D., Miss.), 1903
House Minority Leader, 1903-08

"Republicanism means Negro equality, while the Democratic Party means that the white man is supreme. That is why we Southerners are all Democrats."

--Sen. Ben Tillman (D., S.C.), 1906
Chairman, Committee on Naval Affairs, 1913-19

"We are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who can not be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1908

"I am opposed to the practice of having colored policemen in the District [of Columbia]. It is a source of danger by constantly engendering racial friction, and is offensive to thousands of Southern white people who make their homes here."

--Sen. Hoke Smith (D., Ga.), 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Interior by Grover Cleveland in 1893

"The South is serious with regard to its attitude to the Negro in politics. The South understands this subject, and its policy is unalterable and uncompromising. We desire no concessions. We seek no sops. We grasp no shadows on this subject. We take no risks. We abhor a Northern policy of catering to the Negro in politics just as we abhor a Northern policy of social equality."

--Josephus Daniels, editor, Raleigh News & Observer, 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Navy by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
Appointed Ambassador to Mexico by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933
USS Josephus Daniels named for him by the Johnson Administration in 1965

"The Negro as a race, in all the ages of the world, has never shown sustained power of self-development. He is not endowed with the creative faculty. . . . He has never created for himself any civilization. . . . He has never had any civilization except that which has been inculcated by a superior race. And it is a lamentable fact that his civilization lasts only so long as he is in the hands of the white man who inculcates it. When left to himself he has universally gone back to the barbarism of the jungle."

--Sen. James Vardaman (D., Miss.), 1914
Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, 1913-19

"This is a white man's country, and will always remain a white man's country."

--Rep. James F. Byrnes (D., S.C.), 1919
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941
Appointed Secretary of State by Harry S. Truman in 1945

"Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when--and only when--brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy--it ought to be sufficient to convince even the blacks themselves."

--William Jennings Bryan, 1923
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1896, 1900 and 1908
Appointed Secretary of State by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

"Anyone who has traveled to the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. . . . The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to have thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to advance the true reason--the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples. . . . The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to intermarriage of the two races--there can be no quarrel there."

--Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1925
President, 1933-45

"This passport which you have given me is a symbol to me of the passport which you have given me before. I do not feel that it would be out of place to state to you here on this occasion that I know that without the support of the members of this organization I would not have been called, even by my enemies, the 'Junior Senator from Alabama.' "

--Hugo Black, accepting a life membership in the Ku Klux Klan upon his election to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Alabama, 1926
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937

"Mr. President, the crime of lynching . . . is not of sufficient importance to justify this legislation."

--Sen. Claude Pepper (D., Fla.), 1938
Spoken while engaged in a six-hour speech against the antilynching bill

"I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union."

--Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Senate Majority Leader, 1977-80 and 1987-88
Senate President Pro Tempore, 1989-95, 2001-03, 2007-present
His portrait stands in the U.S. Capitol.

President Truman's civil rights program "is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."

--Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69

"There is no warrant for the curious notion that Christianity favors the involuntary commingling of the races in social institutions. Although He knew both Jews and Samaritans and the relations existing between them, Christ did not advocate that courts or legislative bodies should compel them to mix socially against their will."

--Sen. Sam Ervin (D., N.C.), 1955
Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, 1971-75

"The decline and fall of the Roman empire came after years of intermarriage with other races. Spain was toppled as a world power as a result of the amalgamation of the races. . . . Certainly history shows that nations composed of a mongrel race lose their strength and become weak, lazy and indifferent."

--Herman E. Talmadge, 1955
Democratic Senator from Georgia, 1957-81
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, 1971-81

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."

--Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957

"I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race."

--Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961
The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.

"I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes."

--Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I'm not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that's made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods."

--Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002

"The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans."

--James Webb, 1990
Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia

"Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."

--Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984

"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."

--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

"You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent."

"My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeastern liberal state."

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."

"There's less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with."

-- Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, 1987-95
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

Bonus quote:

"It has of late become the custom of the men of the South to speak with entire candor of the settled and deliberate policy of suppressing the negro vote. They have been forced to choose between a policy of manifest injustice toward the blacks and the horrors of negro rule. They chose to disfranchise the negroes. That was manifestly the lesser of two evils. . . . The Republican Party committed a great public crime when it gave the right of suffrage to the blacks. . . . So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the menace of the rule of the blacks will impend, and the safeguards against it must be maintained."

--Editorial, "The Political Future of the South," in The New York Times (May 10, 1900)

Mr. Bartlett is author of "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past"

No, No, No!!!

Amy Winehouse Says 'No, No, No' To Kabbalah

No one can deny Amy Winehouse needs help, but the troubled star won't be turning to Kabbalah for assistance.

The 24-year-old singer set her heart on one of the organisation's trademark red string bracelets after spotting a girl wearing one in the street.

The bracelets are said to ward off evil spirits but Amy, it seems, had no interest in their spiritual side – she just wanted one as a fashion statement.

"Amy saw someone wearing one and thought it was cool," says a chum.

"She stopped the person who gave her a Kabbalah handbook and told her to see a Kabbalah rabbi if she wanted a bracelet.

"Amy baulked when she discovered the bracelets cost £18 and said she'd give the rabbi a miss."

The handbook, I'm told, went in the bin.

Well, it's about time *someone* in entertainment showed good sense, and decided they can have a career without needing a cult for support,...

Sen. Harry Reid: A True Lack Of Faith

"This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything."

- Sen. Harry Reid, 4/19/07

"The surge certainly hasn't hurt. It's helped. I recognize that."

- Sen. Harry Reid, 12/21/07

Kabbalah Girl Mothering Tips: "Don't Worry About The 'Responsibility' Or Whatever It Is"

Hip-O-Crits

"Yes, we are all hypocrites,...But liberal hypocrisy and conservative hypocrisy are quite different on two accounts. First, you hear about conservative hypocrisy all the time. A pro-family congressman caught in an extramarital affair, a minister caught in the same. This stuff is exposed by the media all the time. The leaders of the liberal-Left get a complete pass on their hypocrisy. Second, and this is even more important, the consequences of liberal hypocrisy are different than for the conservative variety. When conservatives abandon their principles and become hypocrites, they end up hurting themselves and their families. Conservative principles are like guard rails on a winding road. They are irritating but fundamentally good for you. Liberal hypocrisy is the opposite. When the liberal-left abandon their principles and become hypocrites, they actually improve their lives. Their kids end up in better schools, they have more money, and their families are more content. Their ideas are truly that bad."

- Peter Schweizer, author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

Ho, Ho, Hos

"I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this:

God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. ... God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.”

“Santa Claus is another matter. ... He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of a quid pro quo.”

“Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one:

There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”

- From P. J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores

An Ethical Homeopathic Puzzle (Otherwise Known As Butt-Ugly Duck Quackery) Diluted

"Oscillococcinum is a remarkable substance. It’s a homeopathic remedy which fights the Oscillococcus bacterium. Now some skeptics will balk at that and ask how a homeopathic medicine can fight anything. That’s not a problem in this case as Oscillococcus probably doesn’t exist. That’s a distraction. What’s interesting is Oscillococcinum itself.

Oscillococcinum is made from the extract of heart and liver of a Muscovy duck. This is diluted to 200CK. The K refers to the method of dilution. You fill a glass with a solution and then empty it. Then you refill the still damp glass with 100ml of fresh pure water. This method assumes you’ve just diluted your solution by one part in a hundred. The C is the bit that tells you it’s one part in a hundred. So in this case 1ml of heart and liver extract is diluted in 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 litres of water. If you took a drop of heart and liver extract and mixed it with all the water in all the oceans on the Earth, it still wouldn’t be anywhere near as diluted as Oscillococcinum.

Once I saw that one question lodged in my mind: “Is it suitable for vegetarians?”

- From Clioaudio, which covers Ancient History, Archaeology and Archaeoastronomy through a Skeptic’s Eyes

Look at those zeros, people, and then explain to me how Homeopathy can "work" - or what those fools in the white lab coats think they're doing. It's shameful that the FDA and major media can allow this nonsense to be sold as medicine - or pretend there's a controversy about it's effectiveness - even touting it as a cure to be used on children. The believers are cultists and nothing more; delusional fools with a mental block as thick as The Great Wall Of China. Or as wide as Africa.

Vegetarians? Well, they're just rude.

I gotta go,...

What It Takes Now To Be Presidential Material: Secret Vows, Masonic-Derived Handshakes, Passwords, And Your Cult's Old Symbolic Death Oaths

"Romney, like all 'temple Mormons,' made his secret vows using Masonic-derived handshakes, passwords, and symbolic death oaths that he promised in the temple never to reveal to the outside world",...When Mitt says he belongs to a church that doesn't tell him what to do, that's false; it's a 24/7, do-what-you're-told-to-do church."

- Steve Benson, an ex-Mormon (who refers to it as the "Mormon cult" with a "weird Mormon God") as reported in Editor & Publisher Magazine.

Everything I know about Mormonism says all the critic's charges are true: The racism, polygamy, and other assorted weirdness. And also the mandate of church control. Romney can't run from it and should be questioned, vigorously, for more on what he believes. His speech isn't supposed to be the end of a "dialogue" but the beginning. A dialogue that starts with music playing:

Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb,...

Night Of The Hunter (Look At That Face!)

This is getting weird (as anything involving New Agers/Pagans and sex usually is):

"The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Rielle Hunter, a woman linked to [John] Edwards in a cheating scandal earlier this year, is more than six months pregnant — and she's told a close confidante that Edwards is the father of her baby!"

O.K.? Granted, it's still just a rumor, but since she's a New Ager - with that unmistakable cultish gleam in her eye - there's no way to take anything Rielle Hunter says as truth; especially her denials about the affair (through "astrologer" Jerome Armstrong's political blog, My Direct Democracy) when she apparently already knew was pregnant and who the baby daddy was. (Hair, people, look at the hair!) She's even changed her name from Lisa Druck!!!

Look, New Agers believe in a world of "duality" - a self-described "grey area" where everyone else's concept of "right" and "wrong" doesn't exist or is to be usurped - allowing themselves the freedom to betray others (especially those close to them) with impunity. Yes, even a cancer-striken wife. All very feminist. (You go, Girl! Sistas are REALLY doing it for themselves!) It's Oprah's "the ends justify the means", spiritually ruthless, way-of-life. Listen to this:

"When working for the Edwards camp, my conduct as well as the conduct of my entire team was completely professional."

Sure, and Bill Clinton never slept with that woman, while "that woman" is positive she slept with him. "Completely professional"? Hello! You're pregnant, Rielle!!! And the only choice, regarding who's the father, are both married men working for the Edwards campaign. "Completely professional"? In her New Age mind, that has to mean she - and whoever she was determined to do it with - did it standing up.

If this story continues to grow, like the baby, then it goes without saying that John Edwards is cooked. Though I had no intention of voting for him, I'm hoping it's not true for the sake of his wife and family. I hope the story being told - that New Age Rielle slept with another married man in the Edwards campaign - isn't true either. I hope the truth is all sweetness and light - a virgin birth! - and, oh, just listen to silly ol' me rattling on.

But my New Age "spidey sense" is tingling:

Rielle Hunter's beliefs drive her to be easier than most - and more than capable of targeting someone married - because, you understand, she's above all that. And no other American man, next to Little Richard, preens as much as John Edwards.

But why would the Edwards campaign hire a flake, like Rielle Hunter, to work on his video? This "wannabe actress who by her own admission was a drug-using New York party girl in the '80s" had a website. (It's since been pulled down) Didn't the campaign check it? All the woo-woo crap, like that written on the photo above, didn't make them run in the opposite direction? It just doesn't make sense at the presidential level. But, hey, nothing involving New Agers does, at first, I guess.

I gotta remember:

Enlightenment=Madness.

[Updated on 12/20/07]

Göring Al

"He seems to think he is the spokesman for the human species, the legitimate representative of every human being who has ever lived or who will ever live in the future. He thinks he and his supporters ‘control the destiny of all generations to come’, a boast that even the worst dictators in history never dared to make. Al Gore is an enviro-tyrant with delusions of global domination.

For the past seven years, Gore and his supporters have claimed that he was robbed of presidential victory by the conniving Bush regime. Gore has posed as a sincere democrat whose place in the White House was stolen from him by Dubya. Yet today, Gore claims to speak for future generations (who cannot vote, on account of the fact that they aren’t born yet), the planet (which has no vote, on account of the fact that it is not a sentient or rational organism), and the human species itself (a natural/biological category that falls outside of the political process). And he is cheered by the very same people who wept when Bush allegedly stole his election. It seems that when it comes to ‘saving the planet’, you can be as undemocratic and dictatorial as you like."

-- Brendan O’Neill, writing in Spiked!

No one that reads this blog can be surprised by O’Neill's piece. I think I've posted enough about Al Gore, and the environmental movement, to suggest they don't have our best interests at heart. It's still shocking to watch fascism play out, unfolding with it's own far away logic, just like the story lines I used to follow in old black-and-white WWII documentaries. I couldn't understand how such nonsense happened then ("Were Hitler's followers just stupid?") and find it just as unimaginable as I watch it happen in exactly the same way now. ("Do people actually believe they're 'Saving The Planet'?") Silly humans. Silly me.

And look at their self-appointed leader!!! Am I the only person who ever looked at old Nazi films and wondered how Adolph's genetically crippled conspiracy of losers ever got anyone to follow them? (And, at this megalomaniac stage in his career, is it unfair to wonder if Al Gore and Hermann Göring are somehow related?) The use of mysticism is the only possible explanation for most otherwise normal people overlooking physical flaws that/this obvious.

I'm not saying you got to be pretty to lead but, really, the only thing I'm trusting Al Gore for is his recall of good fried chicken joints in Tennessee.

He'd still probably use a Power-Point presentation.

Liberal Fascism (Just As I've Always Said)

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism."

-- Amazon.com's book description for Jonah Goldberg's new work, Liberal Fascism.

Now this is one occasion when I - and, especially, Christopher Locke's Mystic Bourgeoisie - have got one up on most journalists (like Goldberg) though, I'm sure, Goldberg's waaay funnier than I'll ever hope to be: The man can take a serious topic, like North Korea, and crack me up!

That said, a self-selected few of us have been on the Friendly Fascism tip for so long, we had to wonder a little if we were just a bunch of crazy conspiracy types or not. (Were our minds playing tricks on us?) Apparently not, if you trust Jonah Goldberg's research.

I'ma get a copy of this book, ASAP, and I suggest you do to:

Goldberg's currently a columnist for the L.A. Times, National Review Online, and a frequent guest on T.V. talk shows, so this idea that can strike so many liberals as unusal - that it's liberalism that's fascistic - might finally be about to get it's first true moment in the spotlight,...and you wouldn't want to be late for that.

The Clintons, Belief, And Music

"How did [Hillary] get that way? She studied at the feet of the master. Bill Clinton cast himself as a champion of the “Third Way,” a grandiose political phrase with disturbing intellectual roots. For Bill, it mostly meant that he could split the difference between any two positions. Any hard choice was a 'false choice.' When asked how he’d have voted on the first Persian Gulf War, he said he agreed with the minority but would have voted with the majority. He smoked pot but didn’t inhale. Monica Lewinsky had sex with him, but he could swear under oath he didn’t have sex with her.

Bill can make those sorts of things work because he really believes them — or at least he does as the words are coming out of his mouth. Hillary has nowhere near that sort of skill. She’s learned the dance moves and she’s memorized the lyrics, but she can’t hear the music. That was evident in the now-infamous Oct. 30 debate performance during which she said she was both for and against driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and for and against pulling troops out of Iraq.

In this race, she’s tried to be hawk and dove, idealist and pragmatist, martyr and hero. But unlike her husband — a jazz impresario of people-pleasing prevarication — she’s a terrible liar. She comes across as calculated because that’s all that’s left to her: calculation. Jesse Jackson once famously said that Bill Clinton had no core beliefs, he was simply 'appetite' all the way down. That appetite seems to have become community property in the Clinton household, such as it is."

- Jonah Goldberg, conservative columnist and author of Liberal Fascism, writing for the National Review

Appropiately Inappropiate Statement Of The Day - or - Please, Tell Us What You Think About Hillary, Mr. Paul! - or - Damn, Ron Paul Is Crazy!

BTW, click on this link to see how Ron Paul and Barack Obama have The Secret working for them,...

Welcome To The New Age

"He's been telling me it is February of 1967."

- An ambulance technician, recently commenting on a chronically drunk homeless man in San Francisco, as reported in the SFGate.

In Case You Forgot (Or Thought I Did)

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

— Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662).

The Macho Response: Doris Lessing

"It has become a kind of religion that you can't criticise because then you become a traitor to the great cause, which I am not.

"It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests.

"Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did."

- Feminist Writer (and Nobel Prize Winner) Doris Lessing, as reported in The Guardian

Future Shock

"A Hindu priest is hopping mad after thieves drugged him and used a sickle to chop off his right leg, which he claimed had magical powers.

Police are still hunting for the thieves – and the severed leg - in southern India as the 80-year-old priest recovers in hospital from the bizarre assault.

Holy man Yanadi Kondaiah had a reputation around his local village, near the town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh State, for using the leg to call on mystical powers which he said allowed him to see into the future."

- The Daily Mail

Faith Healers: The Source Of Nastiness

The jury at the high court inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed was treated to one of the most unexpected spectacles in British public life yesterday: a fleeting glimpse of the Duke of Edinburgh in letters he wrote to the princess, not in his usual guise as a crusty old buffer but as a concerned father-in-law doing his best as "Pa" to advise her during the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles.

The letters written in the summer of 1992, shortly before she and Charles separated, were disclosed in heavily edited form to demonstrate the untruth of long-circulating rumours that the duke had lambasted her as a harlot and, incidentally, to highlight the unlikelihood of the conspiracy theory, favoured by Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, that Prince Philip had orchestrated the crash in the Alma tunnel in Paris that killed her in August 1997.

The letters show a rather stilted and anguished correspondence with the duke at one stage noting gruffly, complete with triple exclamation marks: "I am quite ready to concede that I have no talent as a marriage counsellor!!!" and Diana signing her lengthy and hand-written replies: "With my fondest love."

The exercise may have had an even more pointed purpose since the only source for the nastiness and vituperation about the duke's attitude towards Diana appears to have been her faith healer, Simone Simmons. (Above) She claims to have seen handwritten letters by the duke (who typed his own letters) on notepaper of a size and colour he does not use. Simmons has yet to give evidence.

- From Stephen Bates, writing for The Guardian [Underlined emphasis mine]

Good Intentions Can't Help The Occultists

Geoff Gilpin (above), who wrote The Maharishi Effect, has now written about it's abject failure in a downloadable piece called Quantum Consciousness, Quantum Miracles, Quantum Failure, which (while I don't agree with all of it) I consider a must-read, because it still contains a lot of sense. Here are some choice quotes:

"I wrote The Maharishi Effect because I wanted answers to questions that were bugging me since I left the Transcendental Meditation movement in the 1970s. Some questions— like 'how could something so pure and idealistic go so far off the rails?'—turned out to have simple answers, like 'we were young and stupid.'

Here is the Law of Quantum Failure:

'If you believe that you create your own reality, you will automatically create the worst reality possible.'

Here’s another formulation:

'If you believe that you create your own reality, you will automatically create your enemy’s reality.'

The 'left wing occult' plays into the hands of the enemy.

We believe in openness and tolerance. As a group, we’re remarkably free of bigotry and the need to dominate others. Heck, we could make a big difference... or we could if it weren’t for the Law of Quantum Failure. Once the psychic powers and golden age fantasies come in, all the wisdom and good intentions in the world can’t help.

Occult beliefs make you weaker,...Avoiding this fate means avoiding the occult.

We tried creating our own reality and it failed. Our future, if we have one, lies in the rational, objective, scientific world that we all inhabit. It may not seem exciting after the mystical wonders of the last generation, but it’s our best hope."

Amen, brother, amen. It's so nice to read someone who admits there is an occult movement and won't hide his involvement. (Camille Paglia is another, though she claims she's still down with it.) Read the whole thing, Folks, and see for yourself:

The man is on to something.

Dark Side Of The Moons

The timing of this Saturday Night Live video's release on YouTube is funny because I'm currently reading In The Shadow Of The Moons: My Life In The Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family by Nansook Hong. (I think I'm also becoming a big fan of deprogramming - especially after reading about "Ted Patrick, a short and stocky black man who set out to probe the underground world of religious cults in order to free young people".) Interesting stuff.

I need more information on these subjects because 1) I didn't know shit about cults, or cultish-thinking, before my divorce and 2) too many people are, obviously, trapped in these scarily subservient (and quite un-American) modes of thinking and don't even know it. They try to shut down anyone that actually does know anything, thinking the fact they can hold a a job and are appealing for others to have "an open mind" will be able to cover for the mile-wide flaws in thier reasoning - or cover up that blank stare in their eyes. It's pretty scary.

Even Dan Ackroyd was on some stupid U.F.O. kick not too long ago. Yea, Dan Fucking Ackroyd! The very guy in this video!!!

Where's Bill Murray when you need him?

Panda Bear M.D. Keeps An Open Mind

"So they asked me a lot, when I was interviewing for medical school, what I thought about complementary and alternative medicine particularly the use of traditional practices as adjuncts to Western Medicine.

I’m all for it. There are a lot of traditional practices I’d like to see become a part of modern medicine. Like snake handling. For my money snake handling has everything you’d ever need in an alternative therapy. You’ve got your snakes representing nature, you’ve got your mystical religious overtones, and you’ve got scads of anecdotal evidence and testimonials in prestigious religious journals attesting to it’s efficacy.

For those of you who don’t know, snake handling has flourished in the folkways of the southern United States for more than a hundred years and is a time-honored method of casting out the demons that cause most sickness, at least those that cannot be ascribed to qi or bad karma. I understand that the NIH offers a fellowship that will equip anyone interested for an expedition to the wilds of Louisiana in which strange and magical land they may sit at the feet of ancient masters of this art and learn the secrets of the serpents.

And don’t forget to try Uncle Skeeter’s Gator-Taffy if your expedition passes through Lafayette.

I also would like to see more faith healing employed in the modern clinic. I’ve personally seen the lame walk, the blind see, and the gaseous find relief all from the “laying on of hands” as the technique is described by the learned shaman who practice it. For those of you who are lacking in cultural competence, the faith healer’s art is practiced in tents or, more lately, air-conditioned football ashrams where a large crowd can direct their good karma (or “prayerful thoughts” as it is often roughly translated) towards the patient. The patient, under the power of both suggestion and an Ayurvedic being named “Jaysus,” has his bad chakra forcefully removed, some would say driven, from his body with a precisely placed blow to the forehead.

The Shaman often yells “Come out!” but this is just showmanship, not unlike the way we yell “stat” in the Emergency Department even though we know that we’ll be lucky to get the labs by next Tuesday.

There is some debate whether faith-healing owes it’s effectiveness to the so-called “placebo effect” rather than any demonstrable physiological process but the debate is ridiculous and anybody who challenges this ancient traditional practice is a close-minded bigot. It’s not like they’re sticking needles into people or something lame like that. We’re talking bona-fide healing here, often before a television audience of millions. It would be highly unlikely that something like this could be faked in front of so many highly intelligent television viewers.

I have also heard of another traditional mind-body therapy for psychiatric problems, this one practiced in the deep hearts of our ancient cities. Basically, the patient dials a talismanic number, usually preceded by the mystical “900″ or any other Number of Power and ceremoniously asks to speak with a priestess whose name is usually Yolanda or Mistress Debbie. The priestess then diagnosis all kinds of psychiatric and sexual dysfunctions, often times correctly pointing out that somebody close to you is cheating on somebody else close to you and “he needs to show you love, girlfriend…and you are so not fat…besides, he digs big women.”

Sometimes they throw in the winning lottery numbers.

Anyways, with all of my patients, the “P” in SIG E CAPS is “Psychic Hot-line.” I understand medicaid will reimburse for it. It’s not as if we’re asking them to pay for something ridiculous like a visit to the chiropractor.

Finally, for my money, nothing can compare to the healing powers of a good old-fashioned poultice like the kind my grandma used to make out of chicken droppings and mustard greens. It was the sovereign cure for a variety of ailments from lumbago to dropsy. Through years of experimentation, traditional practitioners have developed a wide spectrum of salves and rubs that are pushing the boundaries of our understanding of medicine. Our so-called “evidence based medicine” has nothing to compare to alternating layers of gumbo clay, sassafras bark, and chicken bile covered with brown paper and tied to the offending limb with common twine. It’s so good it’s almost magical. For fever, pepper is often added as it is a hot spice. For chills, it’s not uncommon to add the musk of a nutria as everybody knows this hardy animal can gnaw it’s way through the ice that forms every fifty years or so on the bayou. Beaver semen will do, I suppose, but there is no good evidence to support its substitution and I wouldn’t have that kind of quackery in my practice.

Besides, there’s no room to stock it as my shelves are crammed with homeopathic remedies."

Panda Bear, M.D.

Reprinted from the brilliant blog by Panda Bear, M.D..

Getting Personal

"At this moment in America, religion and politics are at a flash point. Conservative Christians deplore the left-wing bias of the mainstream media and the saturation of popular culture by sex and violence and are promoting strategies such as faith-based home-schooling to protect children from the chaotic moral relativism of a secular society. Liberals in turn condemn the meddling by Christian fundamentalists in politics, notably in regard to abortion and gay civil rights or the Mideast, where biblical assumptions, it is claimed, have shaped US policy. There is vicious mutual recrimination, with believers caricatured as paranoid, apocalyptic crusaders who view America's global mission as divinely inspired, while liberals are portrayed as narcissistic hedonists and godless elitists, relics of the unpatriotic, permissive 1960s."

- The slightly off-kilter, but always fun to read, Camille Paglia

Hi Kids,

I haven't written anything in a while because, honestly, I can't type and, without that singular talent, I just can't find the time. I'm working with the homeless now, which can be all-consuming, so I've quite-obviously reverted to giving you a bird's-eye-view of some cultish stories I've seen (a little too obviously, for my taste, but what can I say?) I know, they don't give anyone a true picture of the world as I see it, but it's all I can do right now.

So what do I see out there? I see the cultish Democrats failing - and failing miserably - in their efforts to undermine the greatness of America. George W. Bush and the Republicans are, finally, kicking ass and taking names later, leaving the Democrat-controlled Congress and Senate in a mess of (primarily) their own making. From stopping the war to Global Warming, the Dems have over-stepped, over-sold, and over-heated the debate to the point where, finally, any rube with half a brain - which is all most Democrats think Middle America has - can see through their delusions. It's all over now but the fat lady singing. I even think a Republican may make it to the White House, though I have no idea which one.

There's some bleating that religion and spirituality is starting to take up too much airspace in the Presidential race (which is silly) but, as you can expect, that warms my atheistic heart to it's core: Get it all out, I say, all of it: Mitt Romney believes in the racist, raping, rantings of his very-dead cult leader, Joseph Smith. Cultish Hillary has talked to the very-dead Eleanor Roosevelt. Mike Huckabee is a very-dead Evangelical liar. Obama has the New Age's living dead, Oprah, campaigning with him. They're all very alive, politically, and all very nuts. But that's what you get when Americans mistakenly confuse Freedom of Religion with the idea you've got to respect all beliefs. I respect none of them and, with a few exceptions, think all the candidates should be sent packing and we start over fresh - yea, with all new beliefs too. Hey - even an atheist can dream.

Ike Turner just died. That's a shock. I never thought Rock 'N' Roll's true Prince of Darkness would ever keel over. That one man did more for Pop music than probably anyone else - by making it dangerous - and nobody gave him the time of day for most of his life. True, a lot of that was his own fault, but, mostly, it was because of "Tina" (and the fact people could get along with her made-up ass better than the authenticity of him) but the true talent wasn't ever in the body of Anna Mae Bullock, that's for sure.

"When people talk about rock and roll they talk about Chuck Berry. They talk about Fats Domino. They talk about Little Richard. Before all these people Ike Turner was doing his thing. He is the innovator."

- Little Richard

In a perfect world, Ike Turner would've strode this earth like a God - which is a scary thought - but there it is. He deserved more than we gave him - and that's coming from a guy whose nephew is just finishing up a 12 year prison stint from merely getting involved with Ike's family.

Speaking of prison, musically and culturally, I'm enjoying the rise and fall of Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse. Jones, a San Quentin prison guard, has the band Winehouse borrowed (The Dap-Kings) and is tearing up the stage while Amy (who makes good records but is boring on stage) is coming apart because her drug-addict husband is in jail for being an idiot. (Can anybody say "Rehab"?) The synchronicity, alone, is almost enough to make me believe in,...something. Interesting musical side note: It's taken over two years, post-divorce, but I can *almost* listen to music for pleasure again. (Anything regarding passionate love is, still, off-limits.) For that, alone, I'll never forgive my ex for what she's done.

Speaking of my ex, Karine Brunck (her brain scan can be seen above) - and getting this post back on track - the Pagan's Homeopathy campaign is finally showing signs of wear. England has shut down four out the five Homeopathic Hospitals there and the poor Homeopaths are complaining they have to supplement their incomes with other nonsense like Acupuncture. Aww. I guess killing men, women, and children, isn't as good for business as they thought. Of course, I'm hoping the ripple-effect kicks in, and this trend starts to spread world-wide - like to France - where my new favorite frog, Wissembourg's Dr. Robert Wohlfahrt, does his dirty work. The stupid murderous bastard.

O.K., on that sour note, I'ma get out of here. I'll try to actually write more when I get the chance but, like the homeless, I never sleep these days and that can make things, like having an actual life, tough. Still, you're in my dreams when I do.

Y'all stay up,

CMC

P.S.

Buy my CD you freaks!!! You'll soon regret it if you don't,...or give to: