The Patriarchs April 13, 2013

I don’t like them.  They don’t like me.

Actually they usually stay out of my way, as I stay out of theirs. They know better than to  storm my gates. They’ll get my shillelagh across their broad behinds.

Nevertheless,  a truly deep concern for women, little children, the future, keeps me in the game.

Their harangue, their harassment, their fear and guilt and sin and hate peddling simply cannot be ignored. The American ones-the worst in the world- stand in the pulpits and TV screens and rant and rave and froth. They parrot, in mind, deeds and action  the god they created some sixteen hundred years ago.

Sixteen hundred years ago? What’s that?

…and here we are  back to Emperor Constantine, the Church of Rome, the Pope with a direct line to the great Jewish horror, Jehovah,  the Inquisition, witch burnings, the plagues, the Dark Ages begin here.  The whole sick sick sick shebang. I think if I were today’s version, I wouldn’t take much pride in ‘my’ history.

And it certainly is ‘his’ story.

The incredible delight of the pagan gods, these powerful, very human fantasy creatures were done in by them like enemys of the state. The pagan gods loved sex, nudity, war,  and they had  balance. Gods and goddesses of nature, peace, hearth and home,  the great god Pan and his pipes, replaced with a father, an abused son, a holy ghost -come on- and one insipid virgin who took the place of  a panoply of gorgeous, glorious, powerful  women.

Most people have never even heard of them. Except  on those rare occasions when the word ‘pagan’ cames up and it is bad mouthed, regaled and banished from a state of human experience. Understand, I am not ‘selling’ paganism, but I am suggesting you at least peer into these historical times.

Venus Rising by Botticelli-she looked like Julia Roberts-Leda and the Swan by Reubens,  Yeats’ poetry, mythology and wonder  were disappeared. Hung in museums, buried in esoteric university libraries and studies. The Greek and Roman and Norse gods and goddesses shoved down the memory hole to be replaced by : let me quote Richard Dawkins, “The God of the Old Testament,  arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction, jealous and proud of it, a petty unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive blood thirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobe; racist, infanticidal, genocidal, felicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capricious malevolent bully.”

Humankind has been living with this nut case for how many years? Raise your hands if you know the answer.

I do hope you’re aware that in the past-even the recent past- voices like Richard’s did not for long remain attached to bodies.

Today there is still a stigma-an orthodoxy, as Hedges might say-against speaking out against religion. Religious criticism was verbose. It was not nice, in polite society, to expose religious beliefs, no matter how nutty, hateful, gaunt, greedy, stupid and childish it was.

To dare suggest it is a fierce, powerful, disgusting  force to contend with, expose and bring  down is naughty.

Well naughty is as naughty does. Dawkins and Hitches and Harris are fighting back.

Let the games begin.

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A WORLD WITHOUT BOOKS April 11, 2013

Chris Hedges indicated in his book Death of the Liberal Class, if we don’t  find a way to change things-‘rebel don’t revolt’-  we will end up in  a world in which we would  not want to live. I agree.

I could not live, I would not want to live, in a world without books. I am surrounded by books. On just about every subject: History, Nutrition, Psychology, Math, Fiction, Poetry. You name it. There is very little I need to know about the world that I can’t find in a book here somewhere.

I don’t read books. I consume them. I turn down the pages, write in the margins, fight with the authors on a variety of different subjects. I can go back to this very same book, sitting on a dusty shelf, sneeze, open it up and peruse the margins. The arguments. I can actually see how I’ve grown, or  changed, or gone down a different path.

Books are my friends. I’ve-I should say my family-has  carried them about in our travels for years. Fifty. Sixty. Books beloved in my childhood. Alice in Wonderland. The Jungle Book.  My husband was n love with Kipling’s poetry. I was in love with Rikki Tikki Tavi.  Shere Khan. Mowgli.

I took an acid trip-one-in the sixties and went down Alice’s rabbit hole. One of the most beautiful. mind-blowing-experiences in my life. So beautiful I never took another, Thinking: what if it were as bad as this one was good? Actually, I don’t think my mind would send me on a bad one and, maybe, like Timothy Leary- the father of LSD-I’ll go out on one.

I’ll set the scene. Out in my jungle, under a blazing blanket  of stars, a setting moon, overwhelmed by the scent of Sanseseria and Plumeria, sung to by a whisper soft breeze, a cricket  song, surrounded by my beloved animals-my horse, I’ll aways have one- my dog. Maybe Duke, my macaw-who will outlive me- standing vigilant  guard, a silent winged guide. I’ll clutch in my hand my favorite book, maybe the battered and tattered  Thurber Carnival. Sip  slowly a glass of cold Chardonnay- how will that go with acid, I wonder-and hele on.

But I digress.

I have  in my reference library a MCMLXX MCMLXXV (my computer does not even recognize this) copy of Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia in which in volume P, there are ten pages about Palestine and a beautiful picture of Dorothy Rothschild,  better known as Dorothy Parker, (1893-1967). Maybe I’ll take that, too.

Dorothy’s dead and gone.   Once I had a very nasty general’s wife tell me there was not, nor had there ever been, a country named Palestine. She lied through her teeth.However, I do have a recent copy of one of the silly modern paperbackss-The Far East for Dummies,whatever-that never even mentions it. An entire country down the memory hole.

Goebbels said, “…if you lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it.”

Aldous Huxley said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Understandable why Hitler burned books.

Maybe I’ll have a Viking’s Funeral with my books as tinder.

Hell no. I’ll leave them behind for dumbed down brown-shirted Americans to roast what’s left of their empty brains in.

A world without books? No thanks.

SPAM April 3, 2013

Now the meanest Editor is telling us what to eat. Spam? EEEKKK.

This morning he had a picture of the ugliest  food I ever saw. He’s a good photographer but he  doesn’t know how to make a plate of food photogenic. I’ll bet even his dog  wouldn’t lick that dish.

I’m coming from many long years of Adelle Davis.  Lets Get Well. Let’s Cook it Right. Linus Pauling’s Vitamin C and the Common Cold.  Dr.Roger Williams Nutrition Against Disease. I have dozens of  books about the importance of nutrition. If anyone wants I can give you a list and you can order them-used-from Talk Story Book Store.

The two first authors, Adelle Davis and Linus Pauling-one of the brightest minds on earth- were vilified. Obviously because the medical profession was scared to death if people learned they could stay well and heal themselves, the bucks in their pockets would diminish. No  money in good health.  Plenty money in drugs and knives, hospital stays and office visits.

The pharmaceutical houses own the medical schools and, today  not one orthodox doctor- I know of , anyway- has a clue about nutrition. They’ve got a pill for every illness known to man and some pills for diseases they haven’t  invented. And every one of those  pills has a side effect for which they can prescribe another pill. Soon your medicine cabinet looks like the local pharmacy on steroids and, worse, your natural immune system is as screwed up as the minds who prescribed them.

But, hey, doctors are  great for setting broken bones. Committing heart surgery, too, if you’ve got the big bucks. They practice such procedures on the poor.  An aspiring heart surgeon  needs a heart to practice on so he can eventually sell his skill to the rich.

Don’t envy them. Someone said,”When my doctor tells me I need a new heart, do I really need one, or does he need a new yacht ?”

We’ve come a long long way from my editor’s icky  recipe-and Spam-and I have a lot of nerve talking since I’m just learning how to cook and couldn’t take a picture of strawberry shortcake that would be a visual delight.

Never the less, I would love to share some of the nutritious, delicious things I’ve learned to high-tech cook. I’m also going to suggest you  go out and buy a Vitamix-and I’m not a Mormon-and learn to make soup. As a liquid, it’s easy to digest and whatever nutrition is in the stuff you toss in that machine gets in your blood stream pronto with little energy expended.

Bake a potato in your microwave. Cut in half  and toss it in the machine. Saute in olive oil a clove of garlic, half a small onion, some sliced yellow squash, a carrot or two and anything else handy-create and improvise- toss them in, too. Salt, pepper,herbs, a dash of Worcestershire helps. Think color. Think taste. Then splash a couple cups of water,  use  bouillon and the magic ingredients: generous spoonfuls  of Brewer’s Yeast and Wheat germ.

Turn machine on as directed, it’ll heat up.  Drink.  Enjoy.

Hell, you could even toss in a little Spam.

My SHILLELAGH AND ME April 3, 2013

Sometimes little old ladies are targets. For bullies and blackguards and such. Some doctors, many doctors in fact, see dollar signs when they see one. Which is another reason I stay away from them.

I seem to be particularly prone. In many dimensions. Lots’a guys don’t like what I write or what I say or that I am an outspoken out -of-the-closet atheist.

I’m also a quite noisy opponent of laws that allow private citizens to own assault weapon. Or the right to carry concealed or unconcealed weapons in public. I own a gun. A Smith and Wesson Saturday night special. Just my size, but I have a license. And  I don’t wear it in a holster on my thigh, or in my handbag when I’m out and about.

Still, today, I often find myself in the middle of a parking lot, surrounded by cars and interesting  looking thugs- for lack of a better word- and wonder if I’m going to get me and my shopping basket, filled to the brim with edible goodies, back to and into my car all in one piece. I have had the experience of meeting up with an outraged driver barreling up a narrow parking lot lane with who knows what kind of mayhem  in mind.

Which get me back to my roots. I’m Irish, Scottish and Welsh. Celtic. Fey. A born again Druid in one of my ms favorite fantasies. I really hate to be bullied and I stand my ground. Most bullies don’t understand such behavior and either back off or keep on coming. I know to stand still  and face a runaway horse or a  guard dog with a severe territorial behaviour syndrome. and have, so far, been lucky with the ones I’ve met.

But these are different times. Drugs, alcohol, jobless jerks and  just plain angry lunatics are out in force and number. You meet them where ever where you go.

And so Hammacher Schlemmer, one of my favorite catalog stores, came to my aging aid. I like to forget I’m 82 but a quick look in a mirror or the windows of a passing vehicle slams back  to remind me. “Hello, dear,” the reflection says. “You smell good but you ain’t getting any younger.”

Once I had a loutish lug confront me at my table at Talk Story Book Store-the furthest West book store in the country-to tell me I was dumber than a ‘Pollack’ and then sent me -through the mail-a wrinkle cream ad.

Anyway dear H & S saved me. For a pittance I could buy a genuine walking stick made in Ireland.

I’ve adopted a style. On a lone walk about I swing it forward and tap tap tap the ground. Then if see a potential marauder I pick it up and carry it in one hand like a club. “Come any closer,” she says, she’s a she and I’ve named her Macha, “and you’re apt to get a knock about the  head and shoulders. Don’t screw around with this scrawny old hen.

So far, taking a walk with a walking stick isn’t against the law.