Heading Into Another Weekend (Without Our Heads)

Shunned for centuries, Vodou grows powerful 

   

  “I Was Tired of Paying My Therapist to Learn About Cults”

A warped concept of beauty has taken hold among young women

 

  Gen Z has lost the ability to manage basic adulthood

‘Wellness is a multibillion-dollar cult. Now I see through it’: the clean-living Instagrammer who learned to let go

For Mormon Missionaries, Some ‘Big, Big Changes’ 

   

  Whooping cough is back: please beware of homeopaths, their remedies and their advice!

‘Queen of the Con’ found in Maine ordered to be extradited to Northern Ireland

The 'Sift' strategy: A four-step method for spotting misinformation

Target to reduce number of stores carrying Pride-themed merchandise after last year's backlash

Dear Abby: My dad told me I’m the reason my parents are getting divorced 

   

  Virginia school board votes to restore Confederate names

Two Things I Will Never See Because I Simply Don't Have The Time

I've Begged Whites To Stop Blogging About Race Online & They Didn't Care (Now Most Of Their Contact Begs Me)

"Free LibriVox audio recording of Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup."

"Is the United States a ‘Racial Democracy’?"

"I think you can feel pride in the legitimate accomplishments of your ancestors. But I don't think you can feel pride in the fact that they owned slaves. I don't think you can feel pride that the wealth and prestige was accomplished on the backs of people who were not free, who had no say, who were subject to your whims.

We are very shy in this culture about calling out the great wickedness of slavery, and we should not be. We must not be.”

"Traditional models view forgiveness as a social process oriented towards reconciliation, but for the people I spoke with, reconciliation was very far off the radar, and in many cases not even feasible,...

These people tended to resent the prescriptive nature of traditional models, often comprised of steps that you follow to return to a positive place, and felt forgiveness was often pushed upon them.

While they all moved towards forgiveness, it was personal – resolving the intense psychological weight of dealing with the event so they could survive – and had very little to do with the offender."

The Macho Response: Richard Pryor Let Mojo Handle It

I Am He As You Are He And You Are She And We Are,...

You know what? You guys are right:

I'm just a racist - seeing things,...

There's A Reason (Brains Will Beat Brawn Every Time)

"Now, in his explosive autobiography, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, published today, he has revealed that he spent the weeks leading up to that sentencing, traveling round the country ‘romancing’ his various girlfriends. 

And where legal measures had let him down he had turned to ‘divine intervention,’ to bring him a light sentence. He visited a, ‘hoodoo woman’ who said she would cast a spell to keep him out of jail if he put five hundred dollar bills in a jar, urinated in it and kept it under his bed for three days. 

He sought out a voodoo priest who turned out to be a fraud, ‘I knew that guy had nothing,’ he recalls.

And he followed the instructions of a Santeria priest – going to the courthouse one night with a pigeon and an egg which he dropped on the ground as the bird was release and he yelled. ‘We’re free!’

He almost believed it would work. Because he felt invincible. ‘In my mind,’ he says, ‘I had no peers. I was the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. I was a titan, the reincarnation of Alexander the Great.’

He was sentenced to six years and served three."

Night Of The Living Dead

Long before many other genres, African-Americans found a place in horror. Perhaps because the origin of the word “zombie” itself is rooted in Haitian Creole, with the very concept tied to Vodou or Voodoo, as it is more popularly written. While popular culture has turned “voodoo” into a freak show, it is actually a religion with deep West African roots that is believed to mingle those roots with the Roman Catholicism that was forced upon enslaved Africans from there. In this country, New Orleans is the “voodoo” epicenter, with the practice taking rise in the late 1790s and 1800s as those fleeing Saint Domingue, the one-time French colony, during the tumultuous Haitian Revolution sought refuge there.

To Really Connect With Others (You Must Be Plugged In)

"You can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll 

Sorry, Baby - doesn't look like me at all 

I'm standing by the window, where the light is strong 

They don't let a woman kill you, not in The Tower Of Song"

Ain't that the truth? For an old Buddhist, Leonard Cohen is plenty cool. This gracious old man is still telling it like it is, gently, and with a tip of the hat, no matter how dark the tale becomes. A few years ago, while he was in an ashram or something, his manager decided he was a push-over and took him him for everything. After a long wait, LC took him to court and beat his ass but good. 

 Other than marriage, it doesn't get much tighter than the artist/manager relationship - that shit HURT - and I was proud of Cohen for fighting like it. 

 Above, he's getting cute with the audience, introducing his Technics keyboard's lush tones with, "You've probably never seen one of these, it plays by itself,..." That references what I said a few posts back, about how music is made now vs. how people think it's done. More:

 Sure, a Technics keyboard is essentially an electronic player piano, but just like a player piano can't play "by itself" without the roll (the spooled paper indicating what notes are struck) and the tempo being set (telling the motor at what speed to run) the electronic version can't play "by itself" without that information, and much more, being previously programmed into it. That's where it gets interesting:  

Just before the 3:00 point, we see Cohen playing a short solo, live. BUT - if the keyboard "plays by itself" - did he really play a "live" solo or was it pre-programmed, and he just pretended to do so onstage? (No "costume malfunctions" that way,...) 

C'mon, you know they lip synch, you don't think fake "playing" is even more common? Frank Zappa did a whole show that way in the late '70s, I think, and nobody knew the difference. 

Evidence of Cohen's pre-programming can easily be found. After his solo, he pre-programmed enough measures into the keyboard's song for the applause that followed AND his response ("You're very kind") and then even a few for the laughter - he already knew was coming! And all this before we finally see him get briefly patient, just for a second, waiting for the song's pre-programmed third verse to begin at 3:22. 

It looks spontaneous - especially with the back-up singers (who probably had to live with a recording of that damned machine, just to figure out when the changes are) but everything - including the audience's reaction - was completely thought out ahead of time. Probably weeks, months, or even years in advance. 

You afraid of the NSA? THIS is another awesome display of "the people" under complete technological control, baby. Call your congressman.

 BTW - Cohen DIDN'T anticipate applause for the second line of the third verse, "I was born with the gift of a golden voice" (Can't you just hear one of these freaks screaming "Be Humble!"?) There, we see him have to sing over the unplanned acknowledgment. 

But he's getting some and seems pleased by that. 

 It's usally enough for my type,...

 

Obecalp Fo Evol: Feminism's Got Everything Backwards

Cultism can affect you in the weirdest ways.

I used to have a gay friend (now deceased) who ran a con posing as a voodoo priestess. Khali said, if I had convinced my wife I could levitate, she never would've left. 

Still a unique observation.

Now, every time I hear or see something about levitating, it reminds me - if I had considered that was an option - I would've done it in a heartbeat. I would've done it. I would've done anything. And then, as opposed to truth, that con would've become the foundation of our marriage ("My husband can levitate!") leaving me stuck doing bedroom parlor tricks for some crazy witch who would still be open to lying to me (and being lied to) for the rest of our lives.

What I'm saying is, today, songs about levitating/flying/whatever make me feel,...dirty.

Then the string breaks:

Physical shivering when I eventually/inevitably let it wash over me, according to the NewAge, both my present situation - and Khali's imaginary one - are the positive outcomes,...

 

Homeopathic Medicine (They Sure Know How To Sell It)

I'm sorry, but some headlines are too good to pass up - feast your eyes on this confidence builder:

Homeopathy: It’s Not Just Voodoo

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, you heard that right - Homeopathy IS Voodoo - but it's also so much more! You can throw in some witchcraft, whatever they do to cows when they're beamed up to U.F.O.s, and maybe two or three seances (attempting to make contact with the inevitable dead that results from it's use) but, whatever else you may think, rest assured IT'S NOT JUST VOODOO!

Really - considering the level of stupid I encounter out there - this planet is just not big enough,...
 

They're Being Lifted Up (For A Bigger Let-Down)

Please, next, let them beg the Indians for a rain dance:

Texas Governor Rick Perry called on Texans to pray for rain as cooler temperatures on Thursday helped firefighters contain wildfires that have charred more than 1.5 million acres across the state.

Perry, a Republican, sought increased federal help in combating the blazes last weekend and urged Texans to ask the same from a higher power over the Easter holiday weekend.

"Throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer," Perry said in a statement.

"It is fitting that Texans should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this ongoing drought and these devastating wildfires."

And then he's going to ask them to throw virgins into volcanos, find a voodoo priest to burn candles,...the possibilities are endless.

Madness: It's Not Just A Ska Band Anymore,...

It's not easy being an atheist because, surrounded by believers, there's nothing I can really say to stop the madness they'll engage in:

More details emerge about Portland mom who is accused of trying to circumcise her baby at home

The 29-year-old mom told a Portland police detective that she’d been inspired to circumcise her baby after reading the Old Testament.
 
The only problem was, her son was already three months old. And she was aware that pediatricians at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital wouldn’t circumcise him because he was too old, she told police.
 
According to papers filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court this week and obtained by The Oregonian, the prosecution publicly outlined its case for the first time:
 
Keemonta Peterson told police she watched some YouTube videos about circumcisions. Then around midnight on the morning of Oct. 24 - using a box cutter as a scalpel and a pair of pliers as a tourniquet - she began the procedure. She had no experience.
 
When the bleeding wouldn’t stop, she tried to stitch her baby up. Her 13-year-old son watched on in distress. After two hours of uncontrolled bleeding, Peterson decided she needed help and called 9-1-1 to her home near East Burnside Street and 127th Avenue.
 
Medics rushed the infant to OHSU, where he was initially listed in critical condition.

Pretty woman - click on the link (in red) and look at her photo - just dumb as a fucking rock. And she did it in front of her son? Man, is he going to need therapy, or what?

Speaking of women getting a little full of themselves (and thinking they're "all that and a new set of radials") here's a NewAge phenomena that's gotten more-than-a-bit out of hand with feminism:

Are you looking for your inner Priestess? Better be careful if you are. The Priestess Process is New Age group psychotherapy usually "facilitated" by a psychotherapist or a person simply trained in this trademarked protocol. In the Priestess Process, through workshops and exercises (not physical exercises) a person's subconscious is deftly opened for the implantation of words, phrases, thoughts and ideas usually centered around improving self esteem and self worth. The techniques used are classic mind control/brainwashing exercises. Used by women on a journey trying to find their value, the Priestess Process may improve self worth and esteem...through false affirmations and repetition of platitudes...but, unfortunately for the participant it also creates a subconscious mind that unknowingly affects conscious normal relationships with other people who have not had the need to undergo a similar experience.

Got that, Ladies? Some people are normal and don't need help - which should tell you you've got problems - serious mental problems you won't accept, which is why you do this cock-a-mamy bullshit. You, too, probably need some therapy - real therapy. As a matter of fact, as the Priestess Process will tell you, you deserve it!

That's also not to say those lying, thieving dirty baby-killing dogs at Planned Parenthood are the ones to go for help either:

When Chuckles the Sockpuppet Schumer says Democrats will “never, never, never” vote to defund Planned Parenthood, he’s not kidding. But their intransigence has nothing to do with anyone’s physical health. It has everything to do with the Democrats’ political health. They would be voting to cut off their own campaign cash, pried from the hands of taxpayers.

That's right. And I'm just as in favor of giving them money as I am my local voodoo priest:

IT was past 3 a.m. in a dim basement in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Jack Laroche, a Haitian-American computer engineer, nervously awaited his bride: a voodoo spirit named Ezili Freda who believers say has the power to lavish love and wealth and render wayward spouses impotent. 

As four drummers pounded rhythmically, voodoo priestesses in bright-colored dresses danced in ecstatic circles, dousing the floor with rum and chanting, “Ayibobo!” — the voodoo “amen.” The bride’s dramatic entrance was signaled when a priestess in a shimmering pink silk dress started trembling violently, her eyes rolling toward the back of her head before she fainted. When she came to, apparently possessed by Ezili Freda, she took Mr. Laroche’s hand and nibbled on his ear coquettishly before the happy couple exchanged vows in French.

Long misunderstood and maligned in Western popular culture, voodoo has become a spiritual anchor in New York City’s vast Haitian community and in Haitian enclaves across the country as practitioners look for comfort after the devastating earthquake in the impoverished Caribbean nation last year.

In New York, where there are roughly 300,000 people who were born in Haiti or are of Haitian descent — the largest concentration in the United States — richly painted basement voodoo temples are sprinkled around Harlem and in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Mambos, or voodoo priestesses, say they can barely keep up with “demann,” or prayer requests; spiritual love recipes to lure recalcitrant lovers are the most popular. Voodoo prayer circles in which practitioners meet to commiserate have also proliferated, with a notable intensity in the months since the earthquake.

But the world of voodoo has fallen under an unwelcome spotlight in recent weeks as a result of two episodes in which the authorities say voodoo played a central role — a fatal five-alarm fire in Brooklyn and the coming trial in Queens of a woman accused of severely burning her daughter.

Sorry, Folks, but you're not priests and priestesses but a bunch of wierdos hurting each other - and kids - so, as far as I'm concerned, the sooner we can ship the whole lot of you - feminists, Democrats, NewAge believers, voodoo whatevers, etc. - back to wherever you came from (or at least Europe) the better:

As an American atheist, I've had it.

Dumb-Dee-Dumb-Dumb-Dummmmmmmmmmb!

So much for being nice. And let's hear it for voodoo, shall we?

The voodoo grandma who stood by while her 6-year-old granddaughter was set ablaze in a bizarre demon-casting ritual was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday.

Sylvenie Thessier was led from a Queens courtroom in tears after Justice Richard Buchter scolded her for not getting Frantzcia Saintil medical attention.

"That child deserved to be cared for and deserved to have her wounds treated," Buchter said.

Thessier, 71, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment for the June 2009 incident.

The child's mother poured rum over her head and lit her on fire to drive out evil spirits - and Thessier only doused her with water and put her to sleep, prosecutors said.

Thessier, a native of Haiti, admitted she was negligent. "But I didn't do it on purpose," she said.

Man, you guys love this shit. You weren't trying to kill her, dearie, you did it because, in the year 2011, your dumb ass still believes in "evil spirits" - lock her up. Throw away the key. Let's do lunch, her treat.

I mean, why do women even deal in religion?

That's never made sense to me:

Former President Jimmy Carter says much of the discrimination and abuse suffered by women around the world is attributable to a belief "that women are inferior in the eyes of God."

Carter said such teachings by "leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions" allow men to beat their wives and deny women their fundamental rights as human beings.

But rather than saying, "To hell with this!" women will either try to change religion (good luck with that) or they've invented their own wacky shit.



Both approaches are the height of stupidity. Just drop it.

One of India's best-known spiritual leaders, famous for his apparent miracles and long list of influential followers, is on life support in a southern hospital, officials said on Tuesday.

Satya Sai Baba, 85, who has devotees in more than 100 countries, was admitted to a hospital funded by his organisation in the town of Puttaparthi with lung and chest congestion on March 28.

His condition has since deteriorated and he is now on a ventilator and is receiving kidney dialysis, the most recent health bulletin from the hospital said on Tuesday.

He remains "critical," although his "level of consciousness has considerably improved" and his vital systems are "stable", said the update from the Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences.

Yeah, like all the rest, the old pedophile can do every trick in the book - especially fooling the lamers - but he can't perform the most important one:

Saving himself.

You fools will catch on one day,...

Images of Destruction

Shit, somebody's dead, so that means we can't laugh:

A couple engaged in a voodoo sex romp in Brooklyn set off the weekend blaze that killed a woman and left dozens homeless, sources said.

A woman paid $300 to a voodoo priest on the fourth floor of the apartment building on E. 29th St. She wanted him to perform a mystical ceremony that would bring her luck, the sources said.

The voodoo priest placed candles on the floor around the bed on Saturday. He lit the candles then the couple began having sex. Candles were accidentally knocked over, igniting bed sheets and their recently discarded clothes.

Instead of calling 911, the man conducting the ceremony tried to put out the fire using water from the bathroom sink, the FDNY said in a statement.

Someone else in the apartment opened a window and a door leading to the building's hallway, creating wind gusts that "shot the flames back inside, creating a blowtorch effect," fire officials said.

Flames tore through the fourth, fifth and sixth floors, causing one of the floors to collapse. A resident on the top floor, Mary Feagin, a 64-year-old retired teacher, died in the blaze.

Twenty firefighters and 11 residents were injured and 47 families were left homeless.

People posing as priests, and other "spiritual" types, have it all:

Complete obedience from their stupid followers.

They get sex for "luck".

They get paid for it.

And they're never held responsible, when everything goes wrong, because the believer "asked" for it.

It must be nice.

If you don't have a conscience, that is.

We've Got Another Movie: Gawd Bless America

$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.

Where was this Blake guy when I was married?

Discovery: Which Cult Leader Is The Most Evil?

Blind Faith



Kilroy Was Here.



Share Prophet



Jungle Fever



King Of The Hill

England's Kooky Wannabe King Of The Cranks

Perfect. Just fucking wonderful. The Prince Of Wails is still up to his old tricks:

Here’s a thing. Typhoid, polio and yellow fever are really quite dangerous diseases. Typhoid, for instance, is a bacterial infection of the intestinal wall, which can lead to perforation of the small intestine, and often death. Polio, you’ll recall, is a virus which can cause severe and permanent disability; it may have been what left FD Roosevelt largely wheelchair-bound (although it may also have been Guillaume-Barre disease), and has crippled millions of children around the world for life. And yellow fever is another virus which, if it reaches a “toxic phase”, can cause liver failure, jaundice and death. They’re serious.

You might think, therefore, that if you were going to a country where these diseases were widespread, it would be a good idea to take some sort of precautions. Vaccinations, say. Not, for instance, intercessory prayer, or voodoo magic, or homeopathy.

However, at least one vendor of homeopathic goods – Ainsworths, of New Cavendish Street, London – disagrees. The firm – endorsed by the Prince of Wales – has been offering “alternative” travel vaccines for all three of the above diseases via a leaflet, as exposed on BBC’s Newsnight.

When is someone - anyone - going to finally set this goofy "monarch of mystic mayhem" straight and tell him to stop introducing others to people and things that can get them killed?

He can't keep trying to keep the visuals together when the reality is so horrible no one can bear to look. Eventually, everyone's going to find out anyway, and then he's really going to be in it:

Because the visuals, alone, are already ugly enough as it is.

In This Time Of "Hope And Change", There's So Little For Us To Hope We'll Ever Change In Time

Singers aren’t supposed to have dairy before a show, but we all know I’m a rule breaker.

--Justin Bieber - convincing himself he's on the cutting edge because he eats pizza - in Spiked Magazine.

Victor Davis Hanson has a nice screed, about all of those who "rage against reality", while those of us who were raging for a reality-based outlook have been called "crazy".

It is a insane fact, of these insane times, that anyone who points out insanity will be labeled insane themselves.

Matt Drudge links to a "Top Psychic" (what are the qualifications for that designation?) making us wonder - in the year 2011 - what the difference is between those who believe in such NewAge mystical powers and the Haitians killing one another because they're convinced sorcerers are spreading cholera?

Does Matt Drudge also "rage against reality"?

We pointed you to Oleg Atbashian's "What to Ask Progressives" already. But did we mention that's only it's subtitle? It's real title is "Question Insanity".

If you hold such views, could you be said to "rage against reality"?

And how are you different from those Americans The Wall Street Journal covered who rely on "Hoodoo"?

Can't it be said they, too, "rage against reality"?

Spiked Magazine calls this "Our Brave New World of Malthusian Madmen" but no one enamored with Malthusian ideas will willingly call themselves "mad", just as we can't get Tom Cruise or John Travolta to admit they're in "a dangerous cult".

And, even worse, in all these cases there is hardly anyone willing to talk sense into any else's head - to make them "not crazy".

It's not even considered a goal.

Because, if you try to do that, you, too, will be labeled "crazy".

Sheesh. And we wonder how the Nazis ever got around to killing the Jews,...