AP IMPACT: US declines to try half Native crimes

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AP IMPACT: US declines to try half Native crimes
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AP – This March 25, 2011, image shows Navajo Nation chief prosecutor Bernadine Martin looking through a folder …
By FELICIA FONSECA AND SUDHIN THANAWALA, Associated Press Felicia Fonseca And Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press – Tue May 31, 4:23 pm ET
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – There was swelling on the little girl's skull and hemorrhages around her brain. There was a tear between her right ear and scalp. The scars on her 36-pound body were consistent with burns from a space heater, a curling iron and hot noodles.
The mother said she had accidentally rolled over onto her daughter in bed, smothering her. The medical examiner concluded that the brown-eyed toddler with the wavy dark hair had been beaten, declaring her death a homicide.
Had 2-year-old Kiara Harvey died elsewhere the case likely would have been handled by the county sheriff or police, and the local district attorney.
But Kiara was a Navajo and she lived on the expansive Navajo Nation. On tribal lands, only federal prosecutions can lead to serious penalties for major crimes involving Native Americans. Those prosecutors, however, end up declining to pursue half of the cases nationally.
"No one speaks for that baby," said Bernadine Martin, the Navajo Nation's chief prosecutor. "It's OK to kill her and go on because prosecutors apparently don't want to put a little more effort into investigations."
In the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation, which also stretches into New Mexico and Utah, Kiara's case was one of 37 that federal prosecutors declined to take during a 9-month period last year, an Associated Press review found.
Among all tribes in Arizona during the same period, there were 122 such cases. The overwhelming majority were alleged sex crimes that included rape and abusive sexual contact, followed by assaults. Nineteen cases involving deaths were rejected.
The AP's analysis found the reasons to be both complicated and frustratingly similar, and perhaps as exasperating to federal prosecutors as they are to tribal authorities. They cited poor evidence, reluctant witnesses and jurisdictional issues.
Federal authorities "want to prosecute the individual, they want to get a stiff sentence, they want to go to trial, so declining it is tough," said Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, whose office issued the letter saying that it would not take the Kiara Harvey case.
"It's not a process that leaves anyone with any comfort," he said.
Whatever the reasons, no one disputes that many people suspected of violent crimes are walking free on reservations, or are lightly punished under tribal laws that allow only a year in jail — or up to 3 years if the tribe has trained judges and tribal courts can guarantee that defendants get legal aid.
The Arizona letters provide a window into a much larger government study of Department of Justice records in which 50 percent of the 9,000 cases filed from tribal lands during fiscal years 2005-2009 were declined.
In the study, 42 percent of rejections were attributed to weak or insufficient admissible evidence; 18 percent to "no federal offense evident;" and another 12 percent to witness problems.
In the AP's Arizona review, the reasons — many cases cite more than one — were:
• 59 percent cited insufficient or inadmissible evidence. That could mean anything from inferior investigations by law enforcement to inadequate crime scene preservation.
• 27 percent cited witness problems, which can include witnesses recanting, being viewed as not credible, or simply disappearing.
• 16 percent cited a lack of jurisdiction, which can speak to the level of a crime. For example, the injuries of a detention sergeant beaten by an inmate weren't serious enough to be a federal crime.
The Government Accountability Office's study was published after a change in federal law last summer meant to bolster justice on tribal lands. The report was produced at the behest of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs led by then-Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota.
Former U.S. attorneys testified that reservation cases were often not treated as a priority, Dorgan told the AP in an interview before the bill was passed. "In many cases, it didn't get done. The result is that violent crime continues and those that commit them don't get prosecuted."
DOJ officials don't like being measured by declination rates.
"Unfortunately, federal declination numbers on face value, without full context, are not an appropriate measure of whether justice was served," DOJ spokeswoman Jessica Smith said. The numbers don't capture the reasons cases are rejected and miss those that are prosecuted outside the federal system, she said.
The declination rate for other federal cases, which can include terrorism, environmental violations or corruption, is not directly applicable since they are so different from the types of cases in Indian Country, said David Maurer, who helped author the GAO study.
The Justice Department has reported that the crime rates experienced by Native Americans are two and a half times higher than those experienced by the general population, and that violent crime happens in Indian Country at a rate of 101 per 1,000 persons.
Federal prosecutors in South Dakota and Arizona had the largest number of cases reported from Indian Country. Each comprised some 24 percent of the total national caseload, according to the GAO report.
Arizona has 12 federally recognized tribes, with the Navajo Nation being the largest in number and land area. Federal prosecutors received 2,538 cases and declined 38 percent of them. South Dakota has seven federally recognized Indian tribes, including the well-known Oglala Sioux at Pine Ridge and Rosebud Sioux at Rosebud. Federal prosecutors there received 2,414 cases, declining 61 percent.
Brendan Johnson, the U.S. attorney for South Dakota, said a lack of manpower makes it more difficult to investigate and prosecute cases. "We need more police officers. We need more investigators," he said.
Johnson said a lack of collaboration between tribes and federal prosecutors is also to blame.
His office has focused on improving ties with tribes by having an assistant U.S. attorney spend most of his week at one reservation and working to have the tribal prosecutor on another reservation designated a special U.S. attorney, he said. That would allow the attorney to come into federal court and help prosecute cases.

____________________________________________________________________

The Kiara Harvey Case
In the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock, the Navajo prosecutor keeps the Kiara Harvey case rejection letter in a red folder on her cluttered desk. The letter offers details of Kiara's death in Cove, 145 miles to the north, on June 6, 2008:
Kiara woke up early that morning, crying, and followed her father into the living room as he was leaving for work. An aunt said he picked up the girl wearing a shirt, diaper and socks and took her to a bedroom where her mother and sister were sleeping.
When her mother tried to wake her around 8:30 a.m., Kiara was cold to the touch and her body was stiff, according to the initial report by tribal police — who arrived 75 minutes after the mother called. The officers wrote that they saw no signs of foul play, but noted bruising and burns on her body.
New Mexico medical examiner Ross Reichard, whose office was closest to Cove, ruled out the mother's assertion that she had accidentally smothered the child. The girl was "beaten by assailant(s)," he reported. But he said he couldn't rule out that the child was with her father at the time she was fatally injured.
Kiara's parents no longer live together but maintain contact for the sake of their children, her mother, Norena Joe, said in a phone interview with the AP. She declined to talk about her daughter's death.
Both parents denied any abuse, according to FBI records obtained by the AP as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.
Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, wouldn't say when his office received the case from the FBI, but the bureau's records show that it was more than 19 months after Kiara's death. FBI agents — along with those from the Bureau of Indian Affairs — conduct most of the federal investigations in Indian Country.
"You have a situation where the only two people in the room are the parents, and being able to say we have enough on one as opposed to the other, that has to be really solid," Burke said. "It is really a disturbing situation, but it just doesn't get you a conviction."

____________________________________________________________________
Federal prosecutors rejected the case more than two years after Kiara died.
Martin received the case file from Navajo investigators at the end of March, including copies of the autopsy report, interviews, pictures and results of polygraph tests that, according to the case rejection letter, the father passed and the mother failed.
Mac Rominger, supervisory special agent for the FBI's Flagstaff office, declined to comment specifically on Kiara's death. But, he said, "There are rarely more difficult cases to prove than cases involving infants who are the victims of homicide."
Even if Martin can get a conviction in the child's death under tribal law, the maximum sentence would be one year in jail.
John Major, the chief prosecutor for the White Mountain Apache Tribe in eastern Arizona, said tribal authorities there pursue charges under tribal law even when cases are referred to the federal government. If federal prosecutors take the case, tribal charges often are dropped. If not, the tribe still can pursue justice. Federal prosecutors rejected 20 cases from the tribe over nine months last year. why do they pursue chargea in this manner due to the close knit community and to have these charges closed to the larger community and govt? MY COMMENT LENIECNY ISSUE WHY -THE TRIBE KNOWS FAR BETTER THE EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES AND REVERBERATIONS THAT CAN OCCUR
"The federal system is like a huge freight train that, when it goes, it's very powerful. But it takes a long time to accelerate from a dead stop and get up to speed," Major said.
Under last year's Tribal Law and Order Act sponsored by Dorgan, federal prosecutors must explain declinations to tribal prosecutors and provide evidence that could be used in tribal court to prosecute the case.
When Burke became U.S. attorney in Arizona in late 2009, he sent a letter to tribes saying that every case referred to his office would have a 30-day turnaround. In the past, that communication hadn't been made to tribal prosecutors for months or years.
Burke doesn't dismiss criticism of those delays, and said those affected by the crimes have a right to assume a lack of interest on the part of federal prosecutors when cases are declined. By communicating better and using the rejection letters as teaching tools, "we're doing a better job" of helping tribal leaders understand why there was a problem with the case, he said.
Tribal prosecutors in Arizona say they largely agree with the federal government's reasons for declining cases but often don't have the resources to investigate for themselves.
The 270 Navajo police officers and criminal investigators respond to 235,000 calls a year on the 27,000-square-mile reservation, the size of West Virginia, and officials say it's difficult to do more than race from one crime scene to another.
The Navajo prosecutor said none of the 37 Navajo cases declined for federal prosecution in the Arizona tract of the vast reservation have been prosecuted under tribal law.
The large number of declined sex assault cases, both in the national study and in the AP's Arizona survey, are particularly problematic because the victim and suspect often know one another, making the victim reluctant to pursue charges, BIA officials said.
"I hate to see that our Native women here seek help, cry for help, but no one helps them," said Doreen Gatewood, a victims' advocate for the White Mountain Apache Tribe.
Domestic violence charges face similar hurdles.
"You have a very close-knit community that's tied together by family or traditional means," said Darren Cruzan, deputy director of the BIA's Office of Justice Services and a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. "Everybody kind of knows everybody else." close knit community and desire to keep everything private and at home MY COMMENT
Martin, the Navajo prosecutor, holds out hope for a tribal prosecution in Kiara's case, saying evidentiary rules that differ under tribal law may provide an opening. "We can't let this one go," Martin said. "They may get a `not guilty,' but we're going to make our best effort to let the public know you can't kill your kid and get away with it."
Kiara has now been dead longer than she was alive. Martin knows she must act quickly. The tribe's three-year statute of limitations — the last chance to file charges — expires June 6. these rules reflect the desire for home rule and an understanding of the why behind the crimes and are so disparate from the evidence rules the federal courts have and the criminal sanctions involved there- my comment
___
Thanawala reported from San Francisco.
___
Felicia Fonseca can be reached at _http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/us_tribal_crime_justice/41686733/SIG=10ub4utl7/*http://twitter.com/FonsecaAP

kindred spirits ofthe heretic religion of the heart

http://www.realitysandwich.com/heretic_religion#comment-116673

In my recent viewing of the film Vision, which is an adaptation of the life story of the great female Christian mystic, Hildegard Von Bingen, I am remindedyet again of the importance of heretics in Christianity. Indeed, Christianity was founded by one of history's greatest heretics, and began as a spiritual revolution by a visionary. Throughout Christianity's history, there have been special visionaries who have continued the original flame of Christianity's founding, mystics who sought direct communion with Spirit, with God rather thanblind obedience to hierarchical religious structures of dogma -- and Hildegard Von Bingen was but one of them.
The Anabaptist wing of Christianity began as a heretic religion, and growing up inOhio in the Church of the Brethren, I was constantly reminded of the left-wing,conscientious-objector, progressive source of our founding. It's funny how progressive, visionary heretic sects evolve and begin to embody the very same qualities of hierarchy and structured dogmatic control that they originally rebelled against. I guess it's the metaphor of a young teenage boy rebelling against the controlling father, only to mature into manhood and becoming the same authoritarian father that he rebelled against.
But it isthis essence of rebelliousness and spiritual inquiry, of seeking directcommunion with God, that excited me and spurred me to be a heretic against myfamily and Church, to find out for myself what is spiritual truth from directexperience rather than from what is handed to me in religious propaganda. WhenI was 17, a friend at a Youth Conference at Manchester College triggered me tobegin asking questions like 'What is God?', and 'What's wrong with drugs andsex and nudity?' rather than just accepting what I was told. Thus I left myhome and my Church as I entered college and began my spiritual quest ofmysticism and seeking God in the many paths to enlightenment.
Aftermany years of exploring Quaker meeting houses, Zen Buddhist temples, Yogaclasses, Tai Chi, Rumi poetry, the Tao Te Ching, New Age Psychic Channeling,Reiki, Sufism and Islamic Mosques, I found myself on the West Coast living outof my backpack. I wandered around homeless with but pennies to my name and theuniverse providing daily miracles to support and prove to me that reality isimbued with consciousness.

My questto find God, to find Enlightenment and to be guided by synchronicity, inspiredlargely by the Mayan shaman author, Martin Prechtel, found me one day in Juneof 2003 in Salt Lake City, Utah, having my first great mystical breakthroughexperience. Earlier that week, I'd been in Seattle and had discovered my newbest friend, Mira, on the sidewalks bumming for change. She'd just arrived inSeattle days before and had been sleeping underneath bushes, on a journey toheal herself of bulimia, seeking Ayahuasca as a means to heal herself of herbulimic curse. I'd never heard of Ayahuasca and had no idea what that was, butI told Mira that I would help her find Ayahuasca because I had faith in magicand miracles.
Dayslater, we were hitch-hiking through rural Idaho on our way to a RainbowGathering in Utah, and had been blessed with a string of really sweet ridesoffered by lovely and kind drivers, but had suddenly found ourselves on the sideof a highway for 50 minutes unable to lure anyone to stop for us. As I carriedthe gigantic pack on my back, weighed down by the exhausting weight and theheat from the sun, I began praying for help. I cried out for God to open theheart of some kind person on the highway. Moments later a driver pulled ontothe side of the highway, with Mira jumping up and down, her arms wavingexcitedly. We had found a ride!
Ourdriver explained his story. He was an ex-military man who had found a lucrativejob doing what he'd been trained to do in the military; working on helicopters.He would drive to some station on the west coast, work a week-long shift, andthen drive home to Salt Lake City, arrive in his furniture-less bachelor padhouse and take every psychedelic known to mankind for several days beforedriving back to work for another week-long shift. Right as we entered Utah, heasked Mira and I if we'd like to join him and do Ayahuasca that evening! Ourjaws dropped and hit the floor at the same time as we stared at each other inwide eyed disbelief! At that time, I was completely oblivious to the traditionof Amazonian Ayahuasca ceremonies and had never seen it, smelled it or tastedit before -- so I was totally wide eyed, innocent and said Yes. Mira wanted tojoin us but was terrified of finally having an opportunity to partake of theAyahuasca, plus she wanted to make it to a PsyTrance party out in the woods anhour away from Salt Lake City, so we dropped her off in the middle of nowhere,the contents of her backpack splayed out on the ground, with an enormous stormsystem approaching from the west and only a tiny bit of raw veggies to sustainher.

When Iarrived at my driver's house, we entered the kitchen and he opened up thecabinet, exposing shelves containing nearly every psychedelic drug known toman. He prepared the chacruna leaves and the Syrian rue pills and I prepared analtar of all my sacred items in the empty living room. When the bowls ofChacruna tea were ready, we downed it, and he sat down to watch movies and playvideo games - meanwhile I sat in the living room and began meditating andpraying to God. I had no idea what this would possibly do to me; I was apsychedelic baby.
It beganwith gorgeous fractal mandalas opening in the sky above me; a sensation movedthrough my body that felt like I was an empty vessel and God was being pouredinto me. I was reminded of my favorite Christian hymn, "Have Thine OwnWay, Lord", the lyrics of "Thou art the potter, I am the clay, mold me andmake me after thy will, as I am waiting, yielded and still." I felt thatstillness and yielding within me, opening to the heavens, experiencing my firsttrue mystic awakening of God pouring into me like a waterfall.
I beganweeping in bliss. I looked into a mirror and began watching all the faces fromall my past lives and past incarnations wash over me and I wept, and then arealization swept over me in its awe-inspiring totality -- that everything thatexists is the flesh of God. We are literally standing on God; this street isGod, this front porch is God, this sky is God, this lawn is God; everything isGod. The ecstasy of this realization prompted me to leave the house and beginwandering barefoot through the streets in pure awe of the divinity ofeverything surrounding me. I wandered for several blocks and found a manwaiting at a bus stop for a bus. As I approached him, his face was one ofcomplete and utter fear and revulsion -- his first words to me were "Areyou an Angel?" I explained that I wasn't an angel, I was just awakened bythe Light of God. I asked him why he was waiting for a bus, when he issurrounded by God, and that God is waiting for him. I sat with him for almostan hour as he poured his heart out and listened to him gush about hischallenges with his wife, their child, his job, everything. I sat there withhim and reminded him that God is everywhere and everything, and that God iswaiting for him to open his heart and receive. As I left, I felt as though I'djust experienced the most important experience of my entire life up to thatmoment.

I believethat every one of us needs to personally experience the transcendent presenceof God, of the Divine, in some way in one's life in order to truly know thatthere is a Divine hand at work in reality and in our lives, in order tocultivate a faith based on a real connection, rather than a blind faithenforced by some external belief system. And truly, every single one of usdeeply deserves to experience this relationship with what we could call "God"so that we may know in the depths of our Soul, our connection to the universalmystery that is much larger than any one religion.
It isthis concept that birthed initiations and vision quests in Native American andindigenous cultures, where the youth were put into situations where they had toopen up to the wider girth of awareness that reality can envelope when one isprayerfully in connection to this "holy spirit" wisdom emergent inreality. It is these kinds of direct experiences of the Divine, of God, thatinspired the Christian mystic, Hildegard Von Bingen. As a Benedictine nun, shesought to express her uncontrived and unconventional visionary experiences ofGod with others through song, through writings, through art, and through herbalmedicine. Despite her unconventional spiritual expressions, and especially asan empowered woman expressing an almost pagan facet of Christianity, she isstill revered for her spiritual wisdom as one of the greatest Christian mysticsin history.

I willnever understand why Christianity evolved in such a way as to make narrowlydefined belief systems and structures more important than the kind ofheart-centered, community-centric, Love and Forgiveness is the way to theKingdom of Heaven concepts that Jesus taught. It has always seemed to me to behistory's greatest irony that the most liberated, visionary mystic man whowalked the planet spurred the creation of the most dogmatic religion historyhas ever seen, due to the fact that it was co-opted by the Roman powers fortheir own selfish purposes of elitist control over their empire. The veryempire that Jesus spoke against took his cross and turned it into the mostauthoritarian, controlling religious empire in history. And it is this veryRoman Catholic empire that the Anabaptists were spurning a heretic religionagainst.
So I askyou, my fellow Brothers and Sisters of the Church of the Brethren, the GermanBaptists, the Mennonites, the Dunkards, the Amish; where is your inner heretic?Have you had a direct experience of God? Have you sought your own personalredemption, have you awakened your soul to your own divinity? Have you doneyour own deep work of transforming yourself from a programmed slave of ahierarchical system of oppression, have you found your liberation? If youhaven't, have you read the history of your own church? Do you know that theAnabaptists were started by rebels, in revolt against both the Roman CatholicChurch and Lutheranism? There is something I've always treasured and valuedabout the Anabaptist concept of choosing one's own baptism when one actuallyhas cultivated true faith and belief, coming to the faith from oneself ratherthan being baptized at birth because that's what everyone did.
I havelong admired the Anabaptists for living on the fringes of society, for theAmish living simply and traditionally, for the 'Salt of the Earth' people thatI grew up surrounded by -- the rural farming communities that I grew up aroundin Ohio. But, largely prompted by my mom, I also admired the women's liberationmovement and the history of women's empowerment in the church, such as thesuffragette movement that grew out of Quaker meeting houses in Philadelphia,and the empowerment of early German Baptist Brethren women like Sarah RighterMajor. Growing up in a congregation with two pastors -- a married couplesharing the reigns -- I grew up believing that progressive values were morallyright and questioned the accepted standards of society, and had to push theenvelope beyond what is traditionally accepted as true, by aligning more andmore with what morally feels right in my spirit, such as empowering women eventhough it broke conventions of traditional patriarchal religious institutions. In fact,when I went to a German Baptist church with my family near Covington Ohio, itfelt more oppressively male-centric and utterly patriarchal than any otherexperience in my entire life, even more so than my dabbling experiences withIslamic Mosques. This one experience helped give me a clearer understanding ofthe karmic lineage of my family than any other before or since; since that timeI have sought to completely extract all aspects of this harsh hard woodfloored, patriarchal, hierarchical, anti-dancing, anti-freedom, anti-sensualityreligion from my soul. And thus I have been a heretic ever since, essentiallyshunned in not so many words from my family and religion of birth.
I havehad to find a whole new family, a whole new community, a whole new spiritualityout here on the West Coast. We are a spiritual community of misfits, freaks,artists, hippies, musicians, mystics, massage therapists, tantrikas,psychonauts, devoid of the structured hierarchy and control that is endemic tospiritual communities that are structured around strict belief systems andchurches. We may all be self-obsessed fanatical new age weirdos, but we've allcome together based on common energetic patternings, lifestyles of freedom andcreativity, and have tried to find ways to be mutually supportive of each otherwhile living on the fringes of the mainstream society, outside of any dogma.
Ourspirituality seems to be self-created through our own process of awakening andliberation, and is something each of us has had to discover on our own viaparties, ceremonies, drugs, sexuality, our journey away from our Church ofbirth, and life. Sometimes it doesn't make any sense to me, sometimes I missthe support of a blood family, but most of the time I am just in awe of thestunningly gorgeous earth-centered community of freaks that I am surroundedby.

Butdespite this, I keep discovering new layers to the Anabaptist in my skin -- Ikeep finding new layers to peel away that reveal more and more an inherentquality of the heretic Christian mystic within myself. It is only just now thatI've realized that I was born in a counter-culture fringe religion, that I wasborn to never fit into mainstream society. I was born programmed to give amiddle finger to war, military, law enforcement and the global elite. I've longwondered why down deep in the root of my soul I just can't accept the socialconventions of this American society -- like buying cars, paying taxes, usingcredit cards, working a regular "job," shopping in malls, supportingthe endless wars, and I cannot seem to fit into it in any way, no matter howmuch I have tried and struggled.
It's beenan absolutely maddening and infinitely confusing schism within myself; to tryto fit into the mainstream and follow its program or give it a big middlefinger and follow my heart and live as a mystic rebel. But it's what myancestors have been doing for hundreds of years, living outside of themainstream society, struggling as conscientious objectors against every singlewar, refusing to wear anything but modest clothes, driving horses and buggies,living simply within their means, gardening and absolutely refusing to getintoxicated.
Afterseveral years as a total stoner, It has shown up as a need for sobriety andmental clarity, for a need for living simply, for a need to live in a spiritualcommunity of kindred spirits, for a need to participate in spiritual communityevents that bring us together to sing on a consistent basis, for a need to livein small towns connected to the Earth surrounded by gardens. The containerlooks very different than the gardens, churches, tractors, hymns, services andPassover bread of my ancestors, but in its actual day to day actualization, itoften feels like the next level of the same paradigm, simply a more modernfree-spirited version of a similar lifestyle. And I am grateful for the safecontainer I grew up in, but I will be forever dedicated to stripping away allthe layers of repression of joy, creativity and sensuality that were instilledin me as a child.
Thus I amalways seeking communion with my brothers and sisters, those kindred spirits ofthe heretic religion of the heart

awesome!
Submitted by Wahkeena Sitka Huva on Fri, 05/20/2011 - 14:33.
Yeah, Martin Prechtel is amazing and was very inspirational to me... 'Secrets of the Talking Jaguar' is the one I'd recommend most, but all 3 of his books are amazing. I love 'Stealing Benefacio's Roses' for the insane story he went through during the Guatemalan civil war.
http://vocal-alchemy.com/

Indeed
Submitted by JahSun on Fri, 05/20/2011 - 08:05.
I concur totally with your idea of mystics as social heretics. Occasionally a social or religious order will adopt one as a role model or a saint, but only when the person is long gone... and their heretical ideas or actions are of no-immediate consequence or threat to the existing institutions.
Christians in general forget that the New Testament is not a book of moral rectitude as much as it is a promise. It clearly states that if you do certain well defined things, you will get certain well defined results. Namely, you will receive the Holy Spirit (without which one can not be considered a Christian). If one HAS the Holy Spirit, there are certain signs by which this can be known. One should be able to perform miracles, engage in prophesy, heal the sick, cast out demons, trod on serpents and scorpions... etc. etc. If you can not do any of these things, you have not the Holy Spirit... and by extension, you are not a member of Christ's flock. Period.
Yet, so few so-called Christians have the courage to actually pursue the divine directly. Instead they practice idolatry (most churches have statues of a dying Jesus), judgement on other people's lifestyles (judge not lest ye yourself be judged), collect firearms, and jump up and down when some "enemy" (no matter how wrong headed) is shot in the eye. There is no "love your enemies" and certainly no Pentecost type awakenings in modern Christianity.
Your ayahuasca experience is closer to what happened to the apostles on Pentecost than anything happening in any church anywhere at this time.
Keep pursuing that direct connection to divinity my brother... namaste.

The Cosmic Religious Feeling
Submitted by Zorro on Fri, 05/20/2011 - 11:51.
"...there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. (...)
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. "
Albert Einstein



"The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..."Gregory Bateson

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“I've long wondered why down deep in the root of my soul I just can't accept the social conventions of this American society.” Because the aspect of this society you are rebelling against is the very culture devoid of questioning assumptions. But it sounds like you have connected with a legacy of American society that is the heritage of the Native Americans. I recently watched a wonderful series, “The Native American Experience” that demonstrated just how marvelous and radically autonomous Native American culture was. To the extent that when the great leader Tecumseh wanted to round up warriors to fight off the invading whites, he had to appeal to every individual warrior. A chief could not make the decision for anyone other than himself!

The Inward Light
Submitted by jeff on Sat, 05/21/2011 - 12:28.
Hello Wahkeena
Thank you for your inspiring article
I'm a Quaker and you definitely 'spoke to my condition.'
There is still so much that a Christian path can offer and I'm glad to hear you speak of this so eloquently. There is tremendous power, love, wisdom and compassion to be found and why let fundamentalists high jack it when it is available to all, right now, in this instant?
As you know, direct experience of God here and now without intermediary is the essence of the Quaker path.
Your article reminds me of the words of the twentieth century Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly written in 1941.
To you who are seekers, to you, young and old who have toiled all night and caught nothing, but who want to launch out into the deeps and let down your nets for a draught, I want to speak as simply, as tenderly, as clearly as I can. For God can be found. There is a last rock for your souls, a resting-place of absolute peace and joy and power and radiance and security. There is a Divine Center into which your life can slip, a new and absolute orientation in God, a Center where you live with Him and out of which you see all of life through new and radiant vision, tinged with new sorrows and pangs, new joys unspeakable and full of glory..
Thankyou again
Jeff :O)

drugs" are but one way, and definitely not invalid
Submitted by Wahkeena Sitka Huva on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 18:06.
In our culture, we are systematically taught to repress altered states of consciousness for they might lead to schizophrenia or insanity... However, that does not in any way negate using substances to attain the altered states of consciousness to expand the mind and open up to divine states of awareness. In fact, I am of the opinion, that there is no way possible to access the state of being that I entered into in this essay without the use of DMT. However, I have also chosen a drug-free / sober lifestyle the last 5 years, and have attempted to find ways to cultivate myself spiritually without any substances. Which is why systems of teaching such as QiGong, Kundalini Yoga, Tai Chi, and Meditation exist. These are all other vehicles or ways to connect in and open up to that same source; perhaps not quite so "hit you over the head" intensely... But it's all just working on different vibrational levels..... But definitely do not negate in any way your spiritual awakenings through drugs, just look deeper! xo

___Quaker roots
Submitted by Inin-Soi on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 22:08.
Thanks for a great article. I found the writing style fresh and with the feeling of coming straight from the heart.
It helped put me in touch with the essence of my Quaker heritage for which I have a lot of gratitude although I live mainly in the world of indigenous shamanism these days.
The Austrian white magician and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner said that the age of real Christianity has not even begun yet.
Food for thought

__Localisation of the divine
Submitted by Paul_Kiritsis on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 09:42.
Greetings, Just read your article. Very interesting. I'm quite sure that "heretic" should probably be applied leaders of religious denominations that have deliberately monopolised spiritual revelation to garner secular power. The faction most guilty of this is the Roman Catholic Church which appropriated Biblical Scripture to the extent that it became a victim of the very "evil" it was attempting to subdue. How many people died in the Salem witch hunts? During the Middle Ages, many royals approached the Pope for advice regarding the murder of innocent civilians only to be told that "If it serves God it will be forgiven". Sadly, when philosophies and ideas pertaining to the nature of God are transposed to the most debased, literal level, they garner retrograde mentalities which preclude any consideration of human life as a wholly valuable, sacred and indispensible entity. The sacrifice of life for a defunct "truth" that is the biggest sin that humankind has committed since its coming to consciousness.
http://www.evolver.net/user/paul_kiritsis

_____________________________________________________________

GIZA Hidden no more

GIZA

Hidden no more: Pyramid findings rock the Web

Are the glory days of the archaeologist over? Has everything cool and ancient already been discovered? Nope. Thanks to ever-improving technology, several new findings have electrified the Web.
A robot explorer recently discovered ancient markings at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The robotic device found the markings inside a secret chamber inaccessible to humans--and then proceeded to film the painted hieroglyphics and stone markings, which hadn't been seen by human eyes in 4,500 years, via a small robotic camera that was fit through a tiny hole in a stone wall.
It is too soon to tell what the markings mean, but experts are hoping they may shed some light on why the ancient Egyptians originally built the tunnels. An article from CNN explains that the tunnel is "one of several mysterious passages leading from the larger king's and queen's chambers."
This wasn't the first time a robot explored the passageways--but it was the first time a robot could focus on details on the walls. This breakthrough occurred thanks to a new kind of micro-camera that can be bent side-to-side instead of just focusing straight ahead.
News of the discovery quickly took the Web by storm. Over the past 24 hours, Web searches for "great pyramid of giza" and "egypt pyramids" both spiked into breakout status. Also seeing big bumps in lookups: "hieroglyphic dictionary" and "hieroglyphic meanings."
Meanwhile, other technologically enhanced discovery expeditions have turn up other fascinating new information about the pyramids in recent days. Archaeologists from the United States (with some help from the BBC) used satellite imagery to discover 17 pyramids beneath the sand and silt in Egypt. An article from Canada's CBC explains that 1,000 tombs and around 3,000 other buildings were also discovered thanks to the technology.
How does the satellite-mapping work? According to the CBC, "kiln-fired bricks used to build ancient cities can be distinguished from the earth covering it" on the infrared satellite images. This find may be just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. There may be many more buildings, tombs and pyramids buried further beneath the Earth's surface.
Their tools have changed, but archaeologists shouldn't fear for their jobs. Clearly, the Earth still holds many secrets--if you look hard enough.
(Egyptian archaeology workers ferrying sand in trolleys on rail tracks in front of the Great Pyramid, in Giza, Egypt. AP/Amr Nibil)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20110531/wl_yblog_upshot/hidden-no-more-pyramid-findings-rock-the-web

London, England (CNN) -- A robot explorer has revealed ancient markings inside a secret chamber at Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza.
The markings, which have lain unseen for 4,500 years, were filmed using a bendy camera small enough to fit through a hole in a stone door at the end of a narrow tunnel.
It is hoped they could shed light on why the tiny chamber and the tunnel -- one of several mysterious passages leading from the larger King's and Queen's chambers -- were originally built.
The markings take the form of hieroglyphic symbols in red paint as well as lines in the stone that may have been made by masons when the chamber was being built.
The big question is the purpose of these tunnels.--Peter Der Manuelian, Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University
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According to Peter Der Manuelian, Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University, similar lines have been found elsewhere in Giza. "Sometimes they identify the work gang (who built the room), sometimes they give a date and sometimes they give guidelines to mark cuttings or directional symbols about the beginning or end of a block," he said.
CNN Money video: How much would the Great Pyramid cost to build today?
"The big question is the purpose of these tunnels," he added. "There are architectural explanations, symbolic explanations, religious explanations -- even ones relating to the alignment of the stars -- but the final word on them is yet to be written. The challenge is that no human can fit inside these channels so the only way to do this exploration is with robots."
Pictures of the markings have been published in the Annales du Service Des Antiquities de l'Egypte, the official publication of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, following an international mission led by the Minister for Antiquities.
The robot explorer that took the images is named Djedi, after the magician whom Pharaoh Khufu consulted when planning the layout of the Great Pyramid. It was designed and built by engineers at the University of Leeds, in collaboration with Scoutek UK and Dassault Systemes, France.

A close-up view of the red marks on the floor in the pyramid
Although robots have previously sent back pictures from within the pyramid's tunnels, Djedi's creators say it is the first to be able to explore the walls and floors in detail, rather than just take pictures looking straight ahead, thanks to a "micro snake" camera.
The camera also scrutinized two copper pins embedded in the door to the chamber at the end of the tunnel. In a statement, Shaun Whitehead, of Scoutek UK, said: "People have been wondering about the purpose of these pins for over 20 years. It had been suggested that they were handles, keys or even parts of an electrical power plant, but our new pictures from behind the pins cast doubt on these theories.
"We now know that these pins end in small, beautifully made loops, indicating that they were more likely ornamental rather than electrical connections or structural features. Also, the back of the door is polished so it must have been important. It doesn't look like it was a rough piece of stone used to stop debris getting into the shaft."
The team's next task is to look at the chamber's far wall to check whether it is a solid block of stone or another door.
"We are keeping an open mind and will carry out whatever investigations are needed to work out what these shafts and doors are for," said Whitehead. "It is like a detective story, we are using the Djedi robot and its tools to piece the evidence together."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/05/31/pyramids-found.html
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/28/pyramid.markings/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular

Beneath Jerusalem, an underground city takes shape

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_israel_underground_jerusalem
Beneath Jerusalem, an underground city takes shape

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AP – In this May 17, 2011 photo, a view of Zedekiah's Cave is seen in Jerusalem's Old City. Underneath the …
Slideshow:Underground Jerusalem
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Matti Friedman, Associated Press – Mon May 30, 12:09 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Underneath the crowded alleys and holy sites of old Jerusalem, hundreds of people are snaking at any given moment through tunnels, vaulted medieval chambers and Roman sewers in a rapidly expanding subterranean city invisible from the streets above.
At street level, the walled Old City is an energetic and fractious enclave with a physical landscape that is predominantly Islamic and a population that is mainly Arab.
Underground Jerusalem is different: Here the noise recedes, the fierce Middle Eastern sun disappears, and light comes from fluorescent bulbs. There is a smell of earth and mildew, and the geography recalls a Jewish city that existed 2,000 years ago.
Archaeological digs under the disputed Old City are a matter of immense sensitivity. For Israel, the tunnels are proof of the depth of Jewish roots here, and this has made the tunnels one of Jerusalem's main tourist draws: The number of visitors, mostly Jews and Christians, has risen dramatically in recent years to more than a million visitors in 2010.
But many Palestinians, who reject Israel's sovereignty in the city, see them as a threat to their own claims to Jerusalem. And some critics say they put an exaggerated focus on Jewish history.
A new underground link is opening within two months, and when it does, there will be more than a mile (two kilometers) of pathways beneath the city. Officials say at least one other major project is in the works. Soon, anyone so inclined will be able to spend much of their time in Jerusalem without seeing the sky.
On a recent morning, a man carrying surveying equipment walked across a two-millennia-old stone road, paused at the edge of a hole and disappeared underground.
In a multilevel maze of rooms and corridors beneath the Muslim Quarter, workers cleared rubble and installed steel safety braces to shore up crumbling 700-year-old Mamluk-era arches.
Above ground, a group of French tourists emerged from a dark passage they had entered an hour earlier in the Jewish Quarter and found themselves among Arab shops on the Via Dolorosa, the traditional route Jesus took to his crucifixion.
South of the Old City, visitors to Jerusalem can enter a tunnel chipped from the bedrock by a Judean king 2,500 years ago and walk through knee-deep water under the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Beginning this summer, a new passage will be open nearby: a sewer Jewish rebels are thought to have used to flee the Roman legions who destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D.
The sewer leads uphill, passing beneath the Old City walls before expelling visitors into sunlight next to the rectangular enclosure where the temple once stood, now home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-capped Dome of the Rock.
From there, it's a short walk to a third passage, the Western Wall tunnel, which continues north from the Jewish holy site past stones cut by masons working for King Herod and an ancient water system. Visitors emerge near the entrance to an ancient quarry called Zedekiah's Cave that descends under the Muslim Quarter.
The next major project, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, will follow the course of one of the city's main Roman-era streets underneath the prayer plaza at the Western Wall. This route, scheduled for completion in three years,
will link up with the Western Wall tunnel.
The excavations and flood of visitors exist against a backdrop of acute distrust between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims, who are suspicious of any government moves in the Old City and particularly around the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine. Jews know the compound as the Temple Mount, site of two destroyed temples and the center of the Jewish faith for three millennia.
Muslim fears have led to violence in the past: The 1996 opening of a new exit to the Western Wall tunnel sparked rumors among Palestinians that Israel meant to damage the mosques, and dozens were killed in the ensuing riots. In recent years, however, work has gone ahead without incident.
Mindful that the compound has the potential to trigger devastating conflict, Israel's policy is to allow no excavations there. Digging under Temple Mount, the Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg has written, "would be like trying to figure out how a hand grenade works by pulling the pin and peering inside."
Despite the Israeli assurances, however, rumors persist that the excavations are undermining the physical stability of the Islamic holy sites.
"I believe the Israelis are tunneling under the mosques," said Najeh Bkerat, an official of the Waqf, the Muslim religious body that runs the compound under Israel's overall security control.
Samir Abu Leil, another Waqf official, said he had heard hammering that very morning underneath the Waqf's offices, in a Mamluk-era building that sits just outside the holy compound and directly over the route of the Western Wall tunnel, and had filed a complaint with police.
The closest thing to an excavation on the mount, Israeli archaeologists point out, was done by the Waqf itself: In the 1990s, the Waqf opened a new entrance to a subterranean prayer space and dumped truckloads of rubble outside the Old City, drawing outrage from scholars who said priceless artifacts were being destroyed.
This month, an Israeli government watchdog released a report saying Waqf construction work in the compound in recent years had been done without supervision and had damaged antiquities. The issue is deemed so sensitive that the details of the report were kept classified.
Some Israeli critics of the tunnels point to what they call an exaggerated emphasis on a Jewish narrative.
"The tunnels all say: We were here 2,000 years ago, and now we're back, and here's proof," said Yonathan Mizrachi, an Israeli archaeologist. "Living here means recognizing that other stories exist alongside ours."
Yuval Baruch, the Antiquities Authority archaeologist in charge of Jerusalem, said his diggers are careful to preserve worthy finds from all of the city's historical periods. "This city is of interest to at least half the people on Earth, and we will continue uncovering the past in the most professional way we can," he said.

:War crimes suspect Ratko Mladic

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110529/ap_on_re_eu/eu_serbia_mladic

AP – Bosnian Serb people holding photos of former Gen. Ratko Mladic during a protest in Kalinovik, Bosnia, …
Slideshow:War crimes suspect Ratko Mladic
By JOVANA GEC, Associated Press Jovana Gec, Associated Press – Sun May 29, 7:56 pm ET
BELGRADE, Serbia – Protesters throwing stones and bottles clashed with baton-wielding riot police Sunday in Belgrade after several thousand Serbian nationalist supporters of jailed war-crimes suspect Ratko Mladic rallied outside the parliament building to demand his release.
By the time the crowds broke up by late evening, about 100 people were arrested and 16 minor injuries were reported. That amounted to a victory for the pro-Western government, which arrested Mladic on Thursday, risking the wrath of the nationalist old guard in a country with a history of much larger and more virulent protests.
Rioters overturned garbage containers, broke traffic lights and set off firecrackers as they rampaged through downtown. Cordons of riot police blocked their advances, and skirmishes took place in several locations in the center of the capital.
Doctors said six police officers were among the 16 people brought to a hospital with minor injuries. Police remained on the streets as the crowds broke up.
The clashes began after a rally that drew at least 7,000 demonstrators, many singing nationalist songs and carrying banners honoring Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander. Some chanted right-wing slogans and a few gave Nazi salutes.
Supporters of the extreme nationalist Serbian Radical Party were bused in to attend the rally. Right-wing extremists and hooligan groups also urged followers to appear in large numbers, creating the biggest test of Serbian sentiment and the government's resolve since Mladic's arrest.
The demonstrators, who consider Mladic a hero, said Serbia should not hand him over to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands.
"Cooperation with The Hague tribunal represents treason," Radical Party official Lidija Vukicevic told the crowd. "This is a protest against the shameful arrest of the Serbian hero."
Demonstrators demanded the ouster of Serbian President Boris Tadic, who ordered Mladic's arrest. A sign on the stage read, "Tadic is not Serbia."
More than 3,000 riot police were deployed around government buildings and Western embassies, fearing that the demonstration could turn violent. Riot police tried to block small groups of extremists from reaching the rally.
Nationalists are furious that the Serbian government apprehended Mladic after nearly 16 years on the run. The 69-year-old former general was caught at a relative's home in a northern Serbian village.
The U.N. tribunal charged Mladic with genocide in 1995, accusing him of orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and other war crimes of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Mladic's arrest is considered critical to Serbia's efforts to join the European Union, and to reconciliation in the region after a series of ethnic wars of the 1990s.
Mladic's son, Darko Mladic, said Sunday that despite the indictment, his father insists he was not responsible for the mass executions committed by his troops after they overran the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.
"Whatever was done behind his back, he has nothing to do with that," Darko Mladic said.
The massacre in Srebrenica is considered to be Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. Bosnian Serb troops under Mladic's command rounded up boys and men and executed them over several days, burying the remains in mass graves in the area. Prosecutors say they have compelling evidence that Mladic personally ordered and oversaw the executions in and around Srebrenica.
But Serb nationalists in Serbia and parts of Bosnia still consider Mladic a hero — the general who against all odds tried to defend Serbs in the Bosnian conflict. Among his men, Mladic commanded fierce devotion — many Bosnian Serb soldiers pledged to follow him to the death.
Some 3,000 supporters arrived Sunday by bus from other parts of Bosnia to a rally at Kalinovik, the area where Mladic grew up. Many wore black T-shirts with Mladic's picture and the words "Serbia in my heart."
The crowd called Tadic a "betrayer" for ordering the arrest of "the Serb hero" and urged him to "kill himself." Many said they would fight under Mladic again.
Many of the Kalinovik protesters headed afterward to the shack Mladic was born in at the end of a steep, muddy road in the village of Bozanici, turning the shabby house into a pilgrimage site. Mladic's aunt and cousins spoke to them, telling stories about Mladic's childhood.
Mladic's family and lawyers have been fighting his extradition, arguing that the former general is too ill to face charges. The family plans to appeal the extradition on Monday and to demand an independent medical checkup — moves described by the authorities as a delaying tactics.
"He's a man who has not taken care of his health for a while, but not to the point that he cannot stand trial," Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric told The Associated Press. "According to doctors, he doesn't need hospitalization."
Mladic has suffered at least two, and possibly three, strokes, the latest in 2008, his son said. The suspect's right arm is only semi-functional, and his family says he is not lucid — but Vekaric said that assessment was not true.
Lawyer Milos Saljic says that Mladic above all keeps demanding that he be allowed to visit the grave of his daughter, who committed suicide in 1994.
"He says if he can't go there, he wants his daughter's coffin brought in here," the lawyer added. "His condition is alarming."
Saljic said the family does not believe that Mladic would receive proper medical attention in The Hague. He noted that several high-profile Serbs had died there, including former President Slobodan Milosevic, who suffered a heart attack.
___
Dusan Stojanovic and Danica Kirka contributed.
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SYNCHRONICITIES UNEARTHED WORLDWIDE

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
This statement comes from a blog newly discovered that has unearthed synchronicities conforming to the below statement from the SAID blog and the post on Jose Arguelles and the philosophical and mystic underpinnings of the noosphere.
__________________________________________________________________
Subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth
When human consciousness becomes coherent and synchronized, the behavior of random systems may change. Quantum event based random number generators (RNGs) produce completely unpredictable sequences of zeroes and ones. But when a great event synchronizes the feelings of millions of people, our network of RNGs becomes subtly structured. The probability is less than one in a billion that the effect is due to chance. The evidence suggests an emerging noosphere, or the unifying field of consciousness described by sages in all cultures.
__________________________________________________________________
It is multidisciplinary multidisciplinary as it must be to engraft the full picture of synchronicity on a global society whose time has come in the next step of spiritual evolving on this planet, another coming not "the coming" (?). Has this project quantified what as previously a near impossible task?

The pathcwork of interconnectedness . Quantum events. Are we tuned in correctly?

Aesthetics update page
-->the GCP dotdaily moviesthe egg storypoetic historyyoutube spotsplanetary smile realtime display
-->globalbrainpaintmusical interludeproduction credithow to contributerandom tapestryspeculations
-->our allies videoslinks
Evolve! You can do it!

The Clay idols of this present time

http://majorityoftwo.blogspot.com/2011/05/cult-of-celebrity.html
The Cult Of Celebrity
The cult of celebrity is something that has always been a mystery to me. I don't understand it. When someone becomes famous, it's almost the same as when someone passes away; they become imbued with qualities that they perhaps really did not possess. It must be a psychological thing, a part of the human psyche, to admire people and put them onto an unrealistic pedestal. It was said that Princess Diana became so overwhelmed with her own celebrity that she developed a "God complex" and felt she had the power to heal people. She believed the touch of her hand, or her very presence, was enough to cure serious illnesses, to the annoyance of more than one doctor in the hospitals and clinics she visited.I have never been a huge fan of Oprah Winfrey. I don't understand her cult following; it puzzles me. Oprah first began her career as a journalist and a talk show host. She interviewed people -- interesting people. But somewhere along the way the show started to be about her. Oprah almost became a religion. When she signed off the other day, folks were posting to her website:"Your shows cleaned my soul and opened my heart every time. Thank you so much for wonderful TV-hours.""I have seen a spot of light around you for all these years you were shining every sunset replacing sun's ray with your hopeful smile, spreading love and understanding all over the world, with your simplicity and humility.""It is my opinion that Oprah, without children of her own, adopted the world as her children.""I am so PROUD to be an Oprah believer. I have been watching, following, agreeing, and loving your agenda for years!""I remember when I was a child I would get angry with my mother because she had to watch "Oprah" and all I wanted to do was watch cartoons. Then as I got older, I realized that mother truly did know best and then "Oprah" turned into my little piece of heaven every day.""Cleaned my soul"? ... "Ray of light"? ... "Adopted the world as her children?" ..."Little piece of heaven?" ..."Agenda?"There are over 2,300 comments exactly like these, and they are downright frightening. She's a talk show host and a businesswoman, folks, not the Messiah.The key to success seems to be to affect a persona and stick to it. Get that persona out there until it permeates every corner of the media. If you're famous, sheeple people will be devoted.Oprah now has her own television network, and interestingly the acronym for her initials is OWN. That frightens me even more. I have watched a couple of the programs on her network, and it is more of the same "This is what Oprah believes, so you should believe it too". Unfortunately, there are too many people who can't - or chose not to - think for themselves. So, they are very easily influenced by someone who does their thinking for them.In 1998 there was a movie called "The Truman Show" starring Jim Carrey. It was a movie about a long-running television program following a man's fictional life. The whole thing was set up in an elaborate TV studio, but Truman believed it was his real life. People all over the world had watched the show from Truman's infancy. When Truman finally learned the truth and made his escape from the studio, the final scene put everything into perspective. Two security guards were eating pizza and watching television:First Guard: "You want another slice?"Second Guard: "No, I'm OK." First Guard: "What else is on?" Second Guard: "Yeah, let's see what else is on." First Guard: "Where's the TV guide?"It's all up to you. Don't give these personalities more power than they deserve. To you, they are like members of your family; they are in your homes every day. But to them ~~ well, they have never even heard of you. They're business people, and the only thing they really want from you is your business."Let's see what else is on..."


Edward Yablonsky said...
Hero worship is an ancient phenomenon and exhibits a world craving apropos to a certain a certain set of individuals and psyches that find the reality sandwich doesd out daily and insensitively and out of context by the media to be unbearable. They desire to the core of their being the ideal world enshrined, yes in their idol whether it be Emperor worhsip which was formalized or medis hype with the clay idols of the present. Most of us grow out of this idol fantasy we subliminally foist on our psyches. Others do not want to ever "grow" spiritually and are encased in this idolatry and love it that way. I liked the below quote and find it quite apropos :(The unsung heroes that deserve our passing notice receive the least notice, and that exhibits the modern patholo0gy in all of its unbalanced madness.) PhilipH said... Hero worship. Never entered that temple. Never seen the Oprah show and I doubt I've missed anything.Soaps, such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale have huge followings in the UK. People (mainly the ladies I have to say) become addicted. Easier to come off heroin than to miss an episode of 'Corrie' - but don't let my OH see this comment - she'd kill me.My only hero was TARZAN. I longed to go and live in his tree house with Jane, Boy and Cheeta. It was so real; so exciting. Then I began to wear long trousers and realised it was just all fantasy. Nonsense. I admire the unsung heroes of this life and world, such as people who take care of ailing relatives and that includes children who look after a parent who is stricken with illness. We seldom hear of life's REAL 'celebrities'.