This is obviously a strange time to be alive. It's even stranger if you started a blog in 2005, called The Macho Response, that predicted the cultural shift we're now experiencing, including - and probably especially - the defeat of the Democratic party. In hindsight, it wasn't that hard to see coming, because TMR was analyzing the deeper reasons America's been failing, not just moaning how bad it is to be where we are. And those underlying forces - like a love for NewAge cultism - still aren't being anywhere near fully addressed. If they were, we wouldn't have the husband to a "reiki master" and homeopath in charge of Medicare.
Oh well. At least cartoons, today, better reflect our cartoon lives.
While the "6-7" meme is cute (and definitely not some "Satanic Numerology bullshit") it's also illustrative, in the wake of "Rapture" claims and the shooting of Christian grifterCharlie Kirk, because it reflects how easy it still is - even in 2025 - for seemingly-educated and intelligent people to get swept away by low-calorie ideas. South Park's contrast (of kids enamored by "6-7," with something equally powerful but invalid that adults are into, like Peter Thiel and the Christian concept of an Anti-Christ) nails how dangerous this cavalier treatment of beliefs is: as school authorities are coming down on innocent kids over nothing, for religious reasons, the powerful also decide they also see threats to us all.
The difference is, the kids know the idea they're playing with is nothing, while, by the time they become adults, they're treating all of it like it's very real. And - except for kids having fun for a while - no good is coming from any of it. As everyone takes action.
Today, contradictions, of all kinds, are starting to pile on top of one another. When Democrats were in power America saw encroachingfascism. Now, the GOPwas complaining that people are shooting at them, before the Young Republicans were caught admitting they're Nazis who love them some Hitler. And this led to JD Vance - who, at the start of the administration, made it known he'd punish anyone being so antisemitic as to criticize Israel's genocide - now claiming these ultimate of antisemites on the right are just kids (in their 20s and 30s) having fun.
It isn't often a good William H. Macy movie gets a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but David Mamet's little nightmare, Edmond, has achieved it.
Brutal honesty, punished, for making the West most uncomfortable.
And it shouldn't be compared to Falling Down because, when it comes to *legit* mainstream movies about angry white men, Edmond ain't nothing like it - or even Fight Club - though the Brad Pitt vehicle is closer to the mark. They'd make a ruthless art house triple bill, somewhere, that's for sure.
No, unlike the guys in those other films, Edmond is about a true NewAger. It goes unstated because, in this NewAge Nazi society, it's accepted "logic" that a "man" would use numerology to arrive in front of a tarot deck, and then - based on a combination of sexual frustration, emasculation, and what the cards "said" - proceed to leave his wife. He's "on the path".
Alright, grab your headphones! I don't know how this is going to work out - and if it doesn't I'm sure you guys will let me know - but I think I'm finally getting the hang of this new music software (on this new computer) and can start delivering something, so here's my first run-through which is called:
And, for those of you on iPads, here's the file's direct link:
It's just 16 minutes long, and though I wasn't going for a dance thing, I tried to make it a fun and interesting romp none-the-less. If you like it, consider passing it along to others - or even hitting the DONATION button on the right of the blog to inspire me - and I'll try to keep them coming, each with a different theme, all based on something (or someone) we're talking about.
Enjoy - CMC ("Rocks and lumps as big as marbles - No Cut!")
Here he talks about Mozart, Numerology, Freemasonry, and how these ideas are embedded into the music we're intimately familiar with - embedding them in us.
And here, he describes the nonsense Madonna's been studying, which would explain why she hasn't been able to make a decent song since adopting it.
$100,000 is hardly chump change. But 70-year-old Leroy Tessina, a former delivery man, estimates that's the amount of money he's spent on psychics, UFO paraphernalia and other paranormal pursuits over the past few decades. He nearly lost his house in the process.
Among his purchases: several trips to UFO-friendly Roswell, N.M., countless books on extraterrestrials, nearly a decade's worth of sessions with a personal psychic and even a special helmet that supposedly prevents aliens from reading his mind.
But Tessina, a Los Angeles man, said he's a believer no more.
After a mind-bending, life-changing journey with independent filmmaker Blake Freeman, Tessina said he's "reformed" and won't pay peddlers of the paranormal any longer.
"I was into sci-fi as a child and young man and I guess it just evolved from that. I let it rule my life," he said. "Blake told me, 'You screwed up for a while, but now let's go see if we can straighten you out.'
"He showed me the error of my ways, so to speak."
In 2008, the thirtysomething Freeman and the then-sixtysomething Tessina went off on a cross-country adventure to interview so-called experts on alien abductions, ghost hunting, crop circles, psychic healing and more, all in an effort to expose the truth behind their wild, other-worldly claims.
The result is "Gawd Bless America," a documentary opening in theaters March 4, that blends "Borat"-like antics with "Religulous"-like irreverence to reach, Freeman said, something "real."
-- Ki Mae Heussner - on what looks like a hilarious NewAge "spirituality" debunking documentary "Gawd Bless America" - for ABC News.
This is a brilliant video on cultism - especially the ending:
If NewAge's job has been done well, no matter what the outcome for any individual, there will always be applause at the end.
As you watch this video - and I really want you to - consider ACORN, or the Democratic Party's many other popular counter-cultural (as well as counterintuitive) Leftist obsessions currently passing as some of the most important issues of the day. Saving the planet. The drive to control our diets, that kind of thing. Think about how they're trying to sell us on them. Then consider the obsessions and tactics of the NewAge, the Left's slippery "spiritual" movement, international in scope, with totalitarian ambitions:
Ehrenreich isn't actually discussing "positive thinking" but referencing the NewAge movement.
Today, I want to continue my they're-dancing-around-the-edges theme, but this time I'm using an article I found in Wired Magazine. This one, being about the anti-vaccination movement, is entitled "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All". Let's start with the first paragraph:
"To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a 'biostitute' who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctor’s attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: 'Grab ‘em and stab ‘em.' Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN’s Larry King Live and singled out Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: 'Greed.'"
Jim Carrey? The same Jim Carrey that TIME Magazine claimed had "flipped out" because they couldn't get him to shut up about his becoming a NewAger back in 2007? I don't want to knock the investigative powers of Wired Magazine, but shouldn't Carrey's NewAge obsession be part of any article featuring his beliefs about vaccinations? If only to establish the credibility of Carrey's attacks on Paul Offit?
Here's Virginia Madsen, one of Jim Carrey's co-stars, on his belief in numerology:
"Sometimes when people spill about their spirituality, it's because it's a new discovery: 'Oh, my God, I'm born again,' but this is something he really lives."
"Born again" into numerology. And yet, somehow, this goofy-headed NewAger, Jim Carrey, can almost effortlessly hold Paul Offit - and science itself - up against the wall. Incredible.
Even more incredible is jounalism's not calling Carrey on his beliefs - it's just me, babe - when further exposure is all it would take to cause the undoing of Carrey's unvaccinated arm of the NewAge movement.
Somebody call Glenn Beck.
Or let's think like Glenn Beck and ponder this for a moment:
Surely, some of those thousands of people following Carrey's lead also read TIME as I do. And, if they're as interested in the subject of vaccinations as they appear, surely they know the beliefs of their spokespeople as well as I do, right? So are they all just keeping quiet about Carrey's beliefs? Or are they part of the NewAge movement themselves? How big is it? And considering their possible cultism - something no one else is considering - could that, somehow, play into the cause of their child's autism? Fair questions, no?
But the top one to me right now is, is this an article about an honest-to-goodness anti-vaccination movement or another piece ignorantly dancing around the networks of the lying NewAge?
Let's say, for the moment, that I'm correct - that this is the NewAge movement. Check out the cheery messages the notorious peace-and-love crowd have been sending to Dr.Offit:
'There are the threats. Offit once got an email from a Seattle man that read, 'I will hang you by your neck until you are dead!' Other bracing messages include 'You have blood on your hands' and 'Your day of reckoning will come.' A few years ago, a man on the phone ominously told Offit he knew where the doctor’s two children went to school."
And each message ending with "Namaste" of course. Now which image is closer to the truth - the one they sell of themselves as flakey-but-peace-loving spiritualists - or the one I paint of evil nazi-like creatures who will kill - even their own kids - for their beliefs? Here's Paul Offit again:
“'I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,' Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. 'So now I’ve changed it to "when enough children start to die." Because obviously, we’re not there yet.'”
"Let's get skeptical about skepticism. What has skepticism given us? Well, for one it's allowed us to understand basic principles of physics, which has allowed us to put a man on the moon. It's allowed us to understand the underlying principles of genetics, and do pre-natal screens for diseases like Down's Syndrome, it's given us vaccines to cure diseases like smallpox, and drug cocktails that are helping people with AIDS and a whole host of other great things. Furthermore, it's given us a framework to determine if some of the traditional remedies like homeopathy, magnet therapy, psychic communion, feng shui, numerology, and chiropracty actually work. It's also helped us analyze newer types of psuedoscience like perpetual motion and alien abduction to see whether these things are true. We can look at the statistics behind psychic surgery and determine whether it's effective. Same thing with reflexology and magnet therapy. How about the power of prayer? Yup, we can measure that too."
"US rapper Snoop Dogg has become a member of the Nation of Islam,..."
-- Jason Gregory, reporting a cult story that should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Snoop's thought process (or lack thereof), on GigWise.
Well-known psychic Elizabeth Joyce has doubts there will be an election this November. Her instincts tell her that come next week, there might be “rioting in the streets and martial law,” and that President Bush will henceforth carry out his term indefinitely.
...Joyce, whose website claims she was “born with the authentic gift of psychic ability,” was one of a handful of prominent psychics Politico surveyed to get a better “sense” of how the Palin-Biden matchup might shake out. According to their occult minds, Biden has the edge and, ominously, the moon and stars are not aligned in Palin’s favor.
Deanna Fitzpatrick, a Reiki Master from Biden’s home state of Delaware, also got the vibes the senator would win.
...Before the Thursday evening debate, the gang over at Psychic Source TV (self-promoted as “the nation’s oldest and most respected psychic service”) will do a debate preview, the first of its kind they’ve done.
Psychic Moira O’Dowd, numerologist Paige Kelley and “not-just-a-tarot-card-reader” Therese Baxter broke it down for Politico on Wednesday.
When asked how many customers have asked of them questions about the election, O’Dowd said that they’ve gotten quite a few requests to do astrological readings of Obama and Biden, but not really any of McCain.
“Maybe that’s an indication of our client base,” O’Dowd said.
...Baxter and others say that the debate could very well affect the remainder of the race. But you hardly need a psychic to tell you that. So in the end, it turns out, your guess is as good as theirs.
“At this stage of the game,” says Kelley, “this race is too close to call.”
-- Daniel Libit, who (TMR assumes) is turning in his journalistic credentials, after writing such tripe for the formally-credible Politico.com.
Although Simone (who long ago professionally dispensed with her first name, Carol) says her psychic readings days are largely behind her, she has come up with a few predictions:
On Newsom becoming governor: "I get a very positive energy about that. It's clear this is something he would like to do and he has a very strong personality, and I feel he'll get it."
The onetime Silicon Valley ad executive, radio host and author of "The Goddess of 5th Avenue" has spent more than two decades exploring the metaphysical.
These days, she's affiliated with the Palo Alto School of Hypnotherapy where, according to her Web bio, she "helps people rekindle their inner light and strengthen the ability to respond creatively to life."
"I used to do (psychic) readings, astrology, numerology and all the metaphysical arts, but now I'm more interested in helping people quiet the mind," she tells us.
That led to Simone sitting down with the mayor and his fiancee at Newsom's San Francisco penthouse a couple of months back to "talk about his internal life and where he's at," and to plan the couple's vows.
"Gavin wanted something less traditional and very contemporary," Simone said. The upshot was a ceremony that invoked nature and the Indian tribes that inhabited the Montana region where the couple tied the knot.
"I alluded to them in the ceremony as an eagle and a dove, and how they have to fly high and stay focused on each other because they are traveling all the time ... and being pulled apart by the world," Simone said.
And you thought Nancy Reagan's astrologer had the corner on political metaphysics.
"I have no way of knowing if Carrey had crank tendencies before he ever met Jenny McCarthy. Guessing from the level of paranoia in his speech, I'd guess there was a pre-existing affinity for conspiracy theories coupled with little or no knowledge of how science works. After all, it's pretty hard to go from completely rational to this level of dumb in a mere year or so."
-- The mighty Orac, commenting on Jim Carrey's participation in the "Green The Vaccines" rally, on his Respectful Insolence blog
Well. If you ever needed proof this blog serves a purpose - besides telling you who your presidential candidates are going to be - I've got one right here, minor as it is.
See, I noticed when Jim Carrey officially became a NewAge cultist, just as it got my attention a few days ago when a lady asked Rush Limbaugh if he was a follower of the Maharishi. (Oh man, did that get my attention: can you imagine Rush following that freak? Or in the lotus position, trying to get in touch with his inner child? The contempt that he spat on Sexy Sadie when he said his name - "You're referring to the philosophy of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,..." was classic.) This is what I said about Obama back in January:
"Obama would be smart to stay cool, quietly abandon the Oprah/Rhonda Byrne New Age, and other crazy spiritual types, and prepare to get real in 4 more years."
So I notice these things. And I can say with authority that, yea, before Jim Carrey met Jenny McCarthy he was pretty weird in the head; already being hung up on the number 23 "for years." (It's funny, because, just yesterday, I was thinking about the stupidity of Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March speech, where he lost everybody by immediately going into numerology. Yep: I got too much of this shit in my own head, kids.)
Listen to Carrey talking to TIME Magazine:
"Blood takes 23 seconds to circulate the body... Jim Carrey plus Virginia Madsen is 23 letters... Jim Carrey plus Joel Schumacher is 23 letters... I was born at 2:30 a.m..."
Nutty. (2:30 a.m = 23? What about the zero?) He even got the number 23 tattooed on his daughter. Isn't that child abuse?
But was he always paranoid? That I don't know. Listen to him, below, sure somebody's out to hurt American kids - when it was this same anti-vaccination branch of the NewAge movement that killed kids, in England, by allowing measles to make it's first serious reappearance in 40 years. And don't miss the "NewAge of medicine" reference:
