SECULAR SABBATH October 31, 2014

A sabbath is a day of religious observance and abstinence of work. My dearest friend, a Jewish guy, disappears-with his precious dog- every Friday eve to  Saturday eve.

As a devout non believe-a non church goer I don’t  do god, sin, fear, guilt, greed, prayer, repentance or atonement.  All you guys who know me know I don’t do lots of stuff. Rarely get a day off ’cause my zoo must eat and be cared for everyday. The thought of them going hungry or thirsty is bad enough, but the racket would wake the dead.  Duke, my Macaw, would screech  the peace of the day away. Ari would whinny and snort himself hoarse-that’s a pun- but  not funny.  When the critter’s hungry, he starts tossing his empty bucket about. What a racket. Boots, my grown up puppy,  would snuffle  and sigh and woof herself blue and the new kitten would sing themselves into a cold hungry sleep.

My neighbors’d be sure I’d croaked and call the cops. Creating sirens wails, traffic jams, confusion and chaos.

So, as a practical  secular sabbath observer, the first thing I’ll do is find someone to feed and tend the zoo. Easier said than done, but I can do it. Then I’ll select a day. Saturday and Sunday are booked pretty solid so  I’ll choose Monday. Moon’s day.  From Sunday eve to Tuesday  morning.

I’ll build a tree house-well not really a house, a platform-8X8, 8ft high with a rainproof green shed roof. A  great trunked tree, roadside, will be the wall on the street side of the land. Four round poles will hold it up. It’ll be organic and  inexpensive. A wooden ladder twelve feet high will access the platform and a rope with a crank handle at the top and a bucket on the bottom will haul iced Dom, Beluga, and escargot skyward. It will have low railings on three sides, so I won’t fall out of bed, and a skylight so I can look up into the tree and watch the sky. The moon. The stars. The clouds.

I love champagne but cannot afford Gout de Diamonte, Taste of Diamonds at $1.2 million dollars. Can you believe? Someone called this a champagne for those with too much money too little sense. Read about guys like this in my book Children of the Extinction.

Escargot and caviar are okay dokay. Maybe the kittens to put on a show.

I’ll need a sleeping bag and pillow. LL Bean here I come. A pen and a pad. A candle.

I’ll dream the hours away. Think thoughts of peace and love and joy and health and contentment for all earth bound.  Be one with the tree. Whistle with the birds. Touch the breeze that rattles the leaves.  Sip chilled wine. Snack on fish eggs and snails. Nose the fragrance of nature.  Look out on the world. Above it all.

With first rays of dawn I’ll descend the ladder and hope my thoughts touched all living things on planet earth.

Remember I’m on Ho’ike. Watch me. Here is the video link:

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JUDGE FOR YOURSELF October 22, 2014

Friday, October 17, 2014 12:00 TGI Forum

Clean up your own act before preaching to others 
In response to ************* letter (TGI, Oct. 9),

*****, as an outsider and observer in the realm of religion, I think the problem lies with the fundamentalists in either of the three major religions: Christian, Muslim, Jews. 
I think it’s rather condescending of you to say “We should love Muslims. Most of them really are nice people.”
As a devout nonbeliever I could respond, “Most Christians are really nice people.” “Most Jews are really nice people.” “Most Muslims are really nice people.” 
However, every fundamentalist I’ve ever come into contact with was hateful. I think you have a duty to your gods to “clean your own house” before you start indulging in ad hominem. Remember, we are in the Middle East, their house, murdering innocent men, women and children. As a devout nonbeliever I do not find this very loving. 
Bettejo Dux, Kalaheo

Bettyjo Dux is her usual hilariously hypocritical self. She states, “Every fundamentalist I’ve ever come into contact with was hateful” and then immediately launches into a venomous diatribe against ad hominem attacks! The irony is thick today, dear readers

Ms. Dux – We are in the middle east for several reasons, least of which is that for over 30 years terrorists from that region comandered our ships, planes, and people with the intent to wiipe out Americans for a prime spot in their warped heaven. Nothing we did from afar stopped the terrorist path of American anihilation. With the world trade centers destruction and the loss of more lives than Pearl Harbor it was clear we had to engage the enemy. Unfortunately, an enemy that hides behind women and children showing their utter lack of respect for their own women and children. As Osama bin Laden said: “We will win because you believe in life, but we believe in death.” Your death Ms. Dux.

I think your comment says a lot: “However, every fundamentalist I’ve ever come into contact with was hateful.” 
This is a hateful comment that is filled with rank prejudice. I am surprised TGI would print your letter. However, I don’t mind that they did. I kind of like free speech. I think the readers can see pretty clearly who has hate issues. 
You also said, “we are in the Middle East, their house.” It is only “their house” because they stole the land by force 1400 years ago and eventually eliminated everyone that disagrees. The Middle East and North Africa were the heart of Christianity for 600 years before the Muslims took it all away by force. Some of the worse genocide ever was just 100 years ago with the Armenian Christians. ISIS is now committing genocide again, and no doubt wants to do it on the scale of the Turks with the Armenians or Hitler with the Jews.
I certainly am not defending what Obama is doing over there. Just dropping bombs from the sky is not a good approach. 
However, radical Islam is on a mission to conquer the whole earth and eliminate all infidels. They did it very successfully in the Middle East and North Africa. They eliminated the infidels from their own land so successfully that you and others now think it is “their house.” They are still doing the same thing in Central Africa and other places. 
They clearly have a decent chance of doing the same thing in Europe, as their Muslims populations are surging. They will certainly try to do the same thing in America, at a later point in the future.
I wonder what you think about Hitler’s genocide of the Jews, etc. Should we have stayed out of Germany because it was “Hitler’s House.”?
Aloha,
 ****

All who read these forums have seen the depths of your hateful observations of religion. Sure, there are nice Muslims and mean Christians. Here is a big difference though – when Muslims become “radicalized”, they tend to beome more violent. When Christians become “radicalized”, they tend to sell all their stuff and go off to some God-forsaken hell hole of a country to serve. Since you are such a devout non-believer, you have no absolute basis which to call anything bad or good, and no right to condemn anyone’s behaviour..

I will add that it is humorous that Bettejo is criticizing me for Obama’s mishandling of Iraq and ISIS. She must know that I did not vote for Obama (who had, essentially, a empty resume).

She probably voted for Obama herself. Now she is blaming it all on me.

Keep up your health, Bettejo. You make things interesting and even humorous.

****

P.S. Obama never served in combat, never ran a business, etc. He grew up under the tutelage of a left-wing mother and a card-carrying, Communist grandfather. He knows how to spout rhetoric that attracts some voters. But, he hasn’t the foggiest notion of how goods are produced by business or how the country can be kept safe. Now, his administration is facing real problems like ISIS, Ebola, and border problems. He is completely at a loss regarding how to actually solve real problems in the real world.

 

 

 

THE COSMIC PSYCHOPATH FACE TO FACE October 15, 2014

We’re in for a bad time.The struggle to protect freedom is a constant worry to those who love our country. What’s most disturbing is the obvious inclusion of a dark politically religious undertone ‘the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power’, as Jeff Sharlet wrote in his bestseller ‘The FAMILY’. it’s time to confront the Christian Mafia and the ‘murky, menacing men’ who run it. More cult than religion it rears its ugly head like some primitive beast risen from the grave to hound and confound. Barbara Ehrenreich insists we read the book but ‘not alone at night’. Heed her advice.

So powerful and insidious is this family of Nazi cultists it strains the senses to acknowledge its existence. But there is no denying Sharlet. He’s a fine writer, a respected journalist, editor, researcher and historian. His elegant ‘passionate, principled, and powerful’ expose has won praise from thinking people around the world.

Shake your head. Hide from the truth. This is the year 2014! Truths like these don’t belong. The Age of Reason can’t have died. We won the Second World War. Twenty million people died to defeat Hitler, and, surely, in the 21st century, mankind has evolved beyond the need of a mythical creature to rule and control us. A creature created with vile purpose by men of little or no worth other than the ability to use tricks of propaganda, learned at the hands of masters- Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels- to bring it to worldwide fruition. Dead men whose design and structure of social control was too psychotic to last, became the foundation of The Fellowship Foundation’s existence.

“I thank heaven for a man like Adolph Hitler, who built a front line of defense against her anti-christ of Communism,” Frank Buchman, a foundation architect and close friend of founder, Norwegian born Nazi sympathizer, Abraham Vereide, says it all. The close ties of this group to the men who run our country goes beyond any sense the reasoning mind can comprehend.

Infused with the foreign policy of George W. Bush, confused with the teachings of Leo Strauss, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz, bemused with misty musty Americsn prayer day-breakfast meetings, secret cells-and an army of dimwitted evangelists preaching and teaching absurdities baffle the mind.

Some of their beliefs are so foreign to the American dream it’s a wonder they’ve been able to attack, let alone breach, the wall. Hidden beneath Machiavellian lies it’s a wonder we’ve been able to hold on to any truths we hold dear. Their mind-set abhors the very idea of separation of church and state. America is to become their theocracy. No taxes for the rich, and no taxes for the church. Endless wars for god and profit. No use for public schools. America’s children are to be home schooled with books written by them. Darwin out. Creationism in. Kids brainwashed to believe these lies with cult style tactics in cult style camps. They preach an economy so twisted it has the dismal science of economics standing on its head. Poverty is a punishment of god. Greed is a virtue. It’s a cult so deeply entrenched in misogyny one can pity for the simple-minded chattel who fall into its maws. So homophobic one worries about the safety of those with other sexual preferences.

And they’re thick on Kauai.

 

Conflicting Religious Views October 10, 2014

If you deny there are conflicting views, you’re in denial. Religions, all religions, are hard-nosed. You quote your books, chapter and verse, you quote your silly gods, you interpret your books and fight with each other over the interpretations. But all over the world, in the Islamic world, in Israel, in America, South America, voices of reason, voices of the people, are rising.

We speak out against war, we speak out against dictators, religious fanatics and other unevolved humans. Strong words here, but appropriate. Muslim women are fighting for the right not to wear the veil. Our troops, many of them, come home sick to the heart about our senseless carnage of innocent people, men and women and children who have done us no harm. We speak out about a ridiculous economic system that never has and never will work. We dare to speak out against those who silence us with guns, with ridicule, with lies, with stupidities. Dare I mention Limbagh, Grundge, and other purveyors of your drivel.

How was your god in America been hijacked by the rich? By the powerful? By the killing machine? By Cheney, by Palin, by the Waltons, by the lunatic religious televangelist? Who was it said, wisely, “We love you, Jesus, we just don’t like the guys you hang around with,”?

At the very base of this madness lies, in his crypt, your murderous patriarchal gods. I love to hear the nonsense from the leaner brained evangelical bunch who sputter, “God has no sex.” Are you nuts? He seems to be everybody’s father and as most of us recall fathers are usually male. And, further, we are all sinners in his eyes. Well, I ain’t baby and you ain’t gonna stick that thorny feather in my blue bonnet. May I quote a few quotes?

“Religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.” John Locke.

“There are scores of great religions in the world, each with scores or hundred of sects, each with its priestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens and hells. Each has its thousands or millions or hundreds of millions of ‘true believers’; each damns all the others with more or less heartiness–and each is a mighty force of graft.” Upton Sinclair.

“I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam-good people, yes-but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.” Gore Vidal

“The way to see faith is to shut the eye of reason.” Benjamin Franklin.

And last, but not least, “…the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…” President John Adams on June 10, 1797

Here is the video link:

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THE FAMILY October 7, 2014

 

All of us who love animals want them to become part of the family. A loving family. Some of us have bigger, and more varied, loving animal families than others. Mind you, I’m not recommending you become an animal collector. Who needs three hundred cats in a two-bedroom house? The smell alone would not sit well. But, if the house is big enough-half a barn for an example-it’s okay to have a horse, a Macaw, an over-grown puppy and two kittens. Don’t you think?

Okay, I’m trying to rationalize my family. My zoo. It’s an enormous project but a fascinating, wonderful, delightful one. Always? Sometimes.

I think, in many ways, animals are much smarter than people. They don’t have religious hang-ups. No cat god. They don’t go to church. They don’t wage wars. Never knew one who built an atom bomb. They don’t need telephones, computers, microwaves, pots and pans and hotplates. They don’t even need a Vitamix.

They do eat each other, occasionally, but usually only when they’re hungry. There are predators and prey but they get along at the watering holes which is more than a lot of human drinkers do. No animal I ever knew participated in a brawl in an Irish pub. If you know of such an instance please let me know and we’ll talk about it here. Should be fun.

There is a decided scientific dimension in creating such a family structure. Observe. Observe. Observe. Beats getting glued to the tube, except for the excellent episodes filmed and presented here on Ho’ike. Rosa and Reba stole the show last time. It went to their heads. The next morning, right after breakfast, they bounced into the cat carrier. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they saw stardom on the horizon. As their manager, I’m working on a six-figure contract with the guys. I get a whopping hundred percent when settlement is reached. Paper makes excellent tinder.

Reba and Rosa aren’t interested in money. That’s smarter than most people, too, don’t you think?

In our family there won’t ever be a conflict about the long green stuff but, of course, I’ve promised them the best food, shelter and love money can buy. The only thing I ask is that they don’t eat Boots-the grown up puppy- or Duke-the noisy Macaw who has already learned to call them.

“Here Reba. Here Rosa.” Duke calls. They don’t answer.

“Meow. Meow.” I’m learning to talk cat. They answer.

They’re learning to sing. They have pretty voices. They eat well and bounce and wrestle and stalk make-believe prey. I don’t buy toys. They have to learn to play with long strings and flying leaves and navigate tree trunks and branches.

They’re peaceful, playful, and loving. Earnest Heming- way said, “A cat has absolute emotional honesty, human beings , for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

Is that a good thing? What do you think?

Here is the video link:

http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01393&video=205423

or http://www.hoike.org Arts and Entertainment

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