Back to the Future 1998

There was a quazi religious group in August of 1998 that was originally an offshoot of the TM group who used to talk about "the power of the one percent".  If they meditated and got one percent of the people in the world to agree with them then the world will be converted to their beliefs.  They had evolved into a left wing progressive group that was dissatisfied with Bill Clinton as president saying that he had sold out to the Republicans in congress in 1996.  They were saying they'd like to go into the future when the Republicans no longer ruled congress and see the results of it all, rather than having to wait twenty years to see it all unfold.  Some scientist in the group had invented a time machine that he seems to have perfected due to limited experimentation of going a week or so  backward or forward in time.  There were about 290 people in this group and it turned out that some 102 people wanted to take the massive leap into the future.  They decided in August of 2018.  This of course was during the Perseus meteor shower on August eleventh.

They soon realized it was a distopian trip into the future.  There were massive protests in Charolette and they were celebrating the KKK and racial bigotry and brought their guns with them and all, which they learned was a common thing now at protests.  The protests were on August 12th.  They learned that "the era of big government" was STILL over.  They had NOT solved the transportation problem in cities like Los Angeles.  They learned about the College debt crisis.  People were afraid to express themselves on politics because of the poisoned atnosphere now fed by the President who acted nothing like any President they had ever heard of. They were first amused then shocked to learn that Donald Trump was president.  They also learned that there were no Blockbuster videos and VHS had gone completely extinct.  CD's were no longer the primary exchange in album music.   They learned about flat screen TV's and the I POD and the I PAD and the I Phones.  They thought the idea of texting and being tethered to your phones was silly.  They learned that school now starts on August 14th and not only does it start in the middle of summer but they start earlier in the day sometimes as early as seven o clock

.  Many did research originally to fine out about things so that they could better "fit in" to society.  They soon learned they needed it all as "evidence" so they found out about George Bush's plans to start the Iraq War before he was elected and also that the war was based on lies and that 9 - 11 had all sorts of evidence of being to one extendt or another an "inside job" or at the least was collusion between the Bush administration and the nineteen terrorists.  They also knew that nobody was allowed to talk about it.  They learned about Blacks being wipes off the voter rolls in a massive way and the cut back of poling places  They learned about Bush verses Gore and how that single act changed history in a massive way.   They also learned about this strange link between President Trump and Vladimir Putin and Trump's basic love for dictator and that he even had plans to rob ex CIA and FBI officers the security clearance they had always enjoyed.  To them it was all some kind of horrible distopian nightmare.

They made plans to return back to where they came from and virtually all of the people wanted to go back.  What they were puzzled by is why none of them had met their doubles in the future.  They were to find out why.  When they returned to August of 1998 and heard all the talk of impeachment and "wag the dog" stuff that was going on.  How Bill Clinton had bombed an asprin factory in Sudan and killed "a few janitors" in Iraq according to Rush Limbaugh there were rumors that Clinton was willing to get us into a war over his own problems with Monica and someone said "It's starting already".  Guy Owens and several others stowed away on this voyage back to the past of 1998.  They DID tun into their Doubles of the past and had some "splainin" to do.  The government found out and made the whole group of 110 or whatever "disappear" so that they were never heard from again.

As Paul Mc Cartney says "I can make it longer if you like the style- - I can change it around- - "

More of the Usual on President Trump

Now President Trump wants NFL players who protest during the National Anthem to be suspended without pay.  He’s back at it again tweeting.  A Philadelphia player raised his fist and other players either took a knee or stayed in the locker during the National Anthem, which is permissible.  Now the “Holy Jim” fire has burned eighteen thousand acres.  This fire has doubled since yesterday when it was 9,600 acres and the day before it was only 6,200 acres.  Houses were saved today when the red fozcheck covered all the homes, but it saved them.  Amerosa that woman who was fired on Apprentice, was hired on as a white house aid before she was fired.  Now she has a new book out which Trump maintains is filled with lies.  The only thing is we all know Trump is a racist and we didn’t need Amerosa to tell us that.  Why can’t President Trump just learn to be quiet for once instead of catering to his bigoted, racist power-base?  He’s supposed to be president of all Americans but you’d never know that.  Of course that Gates fellow continues to testify at the Manifort trial and nobody questions his word.  It’s not hard to find a whole multitude of people with things to say bad about President Trump.  But it’s that racist base that drives and motivates this President and not what is best for the country as a whole.  If you want to really convince me the recession of 2008 is over with there is one way you can do it.  I would like  to see every state and local budget awash in funds so that they don’t know how to spend it and therefore are restoring programs to the poor previously cut.  When that happens I’ll be personally convinced the recession of 2008 is really over.   

I was listening to the bottom of the hour news on KFI when there was this loud banging on the door.  It was Terry Hill and he stormed right in without so much as a “Howdy” goes into this twenty-five minute spiel on this “Vasquez Rock” near Palmdale where they filmed this one Star Trek episode with Jim Kirk on the top of this tall rock.  They had to lower him in by helicopter because you can’t climb it.  This the only national park (?) with it’s own gift store on Star Trek stuff.  But then Terry goes into this Vasquez fellow who was a Mexican bandito in the 1800’s during the Mexican War and later.  He checked a book out of the library and read all up on his life and he isn’t finished yet.  I guess he was captured on this rock.  Finally I changed the subject to the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Reagan Library and Terry said he hadn’t seen it.  I had been curious about all the weaponry but it’s too far to travel particularly in this hot weather.  Then I asked Terry how his garden is coming and he launched into a lecture about all of the varieties of pumpkins- - green ones, striped ones, white ones, purple ones.  Then they announced lunch over the PA and we made our way down to the dining room.  Terry was talking with Chris making some sort of quip about what was on the TV screen and Chris said something like “When I get to  be as old as you I hope I have hair like you” when he’s years older than Terry. 

We may or may not have another topic.  If not today then in the next posting.

Football Season is Here Again

This is August 6, 2018 and the news this weekend has been the protests in Portland.  There are neo Nazi groups facing off against anti-fascist groups almost similar to Charolette’s Ville one year ago when a liberal protestor got run over.  Will President Trump  once again say that there are “good people on both sides”?   According to Thom Hartman the Portland PD is in league with the ultra-racists and go about their job accordingly.  Let the two sides fight it out and if the protestors on the left are winning only then do you step in, but  if the neo Nazis are prevailing then you let ‘em kick the shit out of them.  Of course in the old days under Bush there would be no consideration of a president of the United States siding with pro Nazi groups.  These are not those times.  We are coming up on the tenth anniversary of “The Lost Decade”, which I define as the day Sarah Palin was announced as Vice Presidential candidate for a major political party.  That’s when all this right wing hysteria began.  The other news of course is this Lebran James thing.  Where Lebran weighs in with opinions about the President.  Then Trump responds with one of his endless tweets saying that Lebran doesn’t have any brains.  Or the way he put it was the reporter was so dumb that he even makes Lebran James look smart and that isn’t an easy task”.   Lebran said that Sports used to be a common ground unifying force in America and now the President uses sports to divide us just like everything else.  It doesn’t look like Muller isgoing to hand down indictments before the congressional elections in November and that’s a sad thing.  He should have already unloaded a bucket of indictments.  You can only investigate a topic so much before you hand down your decision.  I’m afraid this whole thing is going to blow over and people will develop collective amnesia and just be impressed by the favorable economy Trump is taking credit for when he had next to nothing to do with it. 

Today is Hiroshima day.  One thing about Rush Limbaugh’s remarks about today puzzles me.  He says “The Bomb is a good thing because we used it and we ended a war with it”.  Since when have those Bushies on the right ever been happy about ENDING a war?  In my personal life things have pretty gotten back to normal.  There is no truth to the rumor that I had sex change surgery in the past two weeks because I was summoned to my home planet to have it just like that “Orwell” episode last Friday.  I am looking forward to football season starting and we’ve already had the Hall of Fame game.  And frankly I’m tired of all the usual TV programs being preempted with specials.  Welcome to page four.  The weather continually is in the news with fires out here and floods in the east.  The heat never lets up and this will be another heat wave to go with the two record-setters we had last month.  I need to find a way to get my ratings up.  I guess I have to go to a Google site and review what those tips for higher ratings are.  I know it would help if my spelling improved so you could at least Google words.  You Tube has just about any song to play that you can think of.  

Chaos in my Personal Life

I know I haven't been writing about President Trump.  I've had a rather chaotic two weeks with endless distractions and problems.  Paul Manifort's trial has been going on this week and I guess the judge in the cast wants to move the procedings along quickly.  The opening statement didn't take that long.  Paul Manifort wants to blame deputy Gates for all of his problems, a man who had already pled guilty to some charges.  They were going to have Gates be the star witness against Manifort and now they've changed their minds.  Meanwhile on all the talk shows they are still talking about a possible war with Iran.  Apparently President Trump does't realize that Iran and Russia are allies with each other and if Trump is going to start WW III over Iran and the nuclear treaty that Russia may have a thing or two to say about that.  The rest of the nations have kept on with the nuclear treaty that John Kerry signed on to in March of 2015 in the early spring.  Other pundits latch on to the fact that Trump likes dictators and being a dictator and now having the usual government checks and balances because in the business world Trump is king of the hill.  I may have more on this later.

The economy is strong and grew at a rate of 4.1 percent.  Many say it's because exports were up last spring just before the terifs were slapped on to everything.  So if that's true the economy will take a sharp dive in trade this quarter.  Unemployment is back down to 3.9 percent and all of the various sub headings of economic statistics look good.  A rising tide boosts employment in all races and education and genders.

It was two weeks ago this Monday that I was informed by the Orion Federation that "Sweet Madam Blue" by the group Styx has already been included on a rock compilation that we do.  This one was in October called "Predators" and I think it's in "For the Record".  The sub heading is "Is Trump Out of Control" and it was posted on October 10th of 2017.   It was a "translation error" on my part that the next to the last song on my version was "Something for Nothing" by Rush, but we had already used that track on "Don't Take Me Alive" back in May of 2006 or now twelve years earlier.  We now present some of the chaos that's been going on around here from Wednesday August first, which wasn't my best day in the world.  I hope to be posting at a more normal rate soon.  

I woke restless Wednesday morning at five.  I didn’t know why I was restless but I was smoking more all day.  I didn’t turn the computer on.  I think Bill turned on the TV news a little after five.  I got my medication before six.  I ran into Purlita around six and this was the first bad omen of the day.  First she announces that my clothes are done.  But they won’t be returned because Purlita or Melody saw bugs in the trash can Tuesday night.  They were grape seeds and not bugs.  This notice hung a pall over me.  We had sugar frosted flakes and then we had these egg square things sort of like queesh or something, plus two halves of toast with butter and jelly.  I got one more half of toast with Patty’s butter and jelly.  My appetite was below par anyhow.  I then went out to the store and used my ATM card to get forty dollars at the machine.  I misplaced the card putting it in my pocket rather than in my wallet first.  That was a crisis averted.  Nonetheless I was in a hyper, anxious frame of mind.  I was informed that my dental appointment was at ten o clock and not eleven.  I wanted to talk t Mary Jane but as the saying goes “Be careful what you wish for”.  Eventually I got in to see Mary Jane.  She offered to trim my nails and trim my hair but I told her I didn’t have time because I had a dental appointment any minute and was already late for it.  Alvin decided he was finally ready to go.  We went there and we both thought it would be one crown.  That’s what the dentist told me last time.  It was five after ten but I had to smoke a cigarette to settle myself down.  I only waited a minute or two before I was called in.  Everything went quickly today.  That is, as quickly as it can go when they’re doing four crowns right up front center in my mouth, next to each other.  There was drilling like you wouldn’t believe.  They were drilling on the new crown before they even took impressions.  There was an assistant lady dentist working on me.  She said I could “take a break” in a couple of minutes.  I used the restroom but what I wanted to do was go out and smoke but that would be unhearable.  Finally Dr Bui returned and they took the dental impression.  There are four teeth involved but there were only two crowns of two teeth each. They are bigger and whiter than my regular teeth.  Finally she was done at 25 after twelve.  I used the restroom again and went out to smoke and had them call this place.  Alvin didn’t show up till ten to one and he had a passenger with him.  The passenger had an appointment at Hope Hospital (?) in Huntington Beach on Beach BLVD.  We took the Garden Grove Freeway but then missed Beach and went to Golden West and came back down Westminster.  Finally we made it there about one thirty.  It was only then that I learned we were waiting for him.  Alvin and I went to the cafeteria and he got me a Coke and a thick hugurt, which is more like white cheese cake only it’s white, but rich.  Finally the guy showed up at ten to two and we made out ray back home.  It was a quarter after two if not later.

What I wanted to know was- - is the room in a shambles.  They hadn’t begun working on it yet and I gleaned that they wouldn’t be working on the room today.  I think General Hospital was on and then Eye Witness news.   I had missed the curry chicken.  For dinner we had a corned beef sandwich on rye bread and a carrot and raison mixture that didn’t qualify as a carrot salad.  We had red Jell-O for dessert.  I was a bit leary of that sandwich with my new crowns that felt funny.  I guess I didn’t go to the store till after dinner to use my debit card to buy Nestcafe and vanilla cigarettes.  I didn’t turn on the computer.  I had mental parylisis or something.  We saw the ABC network news both times.  I was watching reruns of the same stories.  Then it was Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.  There was a substantial line but it moved quickly and only that Robert guy was behind me.  “Burden of Proof” is a new program on KTLA.  Leah came out and was talking with me and Bill.  At nine there was a little of the finale of “The Originals” but I knew Bill wouldn’t like that so I turned it to “Dateline” on KCOP. 

What I've Been Doing Vol 725 & 726

.  If I click above the margin (just to check) it throws in a header and a dotted line.  I canceled that.  Meanwhile back at the ranch today is Friday July 27, 2018 and this has been a strange week with on the whole more negatives than positives.  I did fix the bank balance crisis on Tuesday.  But the other problem with the phone company accusing me of upgrading my speed, that problem has not been settled.  It cropped up again the next day.  I’ll go into that more later.  Of course yesterday was the day it seems Augustine took that black kitten to the pound or else as Bill said in the late morning “Augustine took it and killed it”.   Of course the cat HAS an owner, so you can’t compare it to Patches three years ago.  I still have dental work hanging over my head for the foreseeable future.  That’s why last February’s exam was such a blow.  Some things you want to say are “in the past” when they are not.  But the major problem of yesterday was for the third time this calendar year I have bed bugs.  Augustine keeps giving me mattresses with bugs in them and it happens regularly now about every three months.

I never got a pillow last night and neither did Bill.  I used two folded over pairs of blue jeans for a pillow.  I went to bed at ten thirty and got up at four thirty.  I didn’t shower but went right out looking for cigarettes.  Bill had given me matches and now they’ve all been used up.  I came back up just before five and lay down for a few minutes.  Then I went back down looking for  cigarettes.  Finally I ran into Glen at the west tables.  He gave me a cigarette and then Mario shows up as if by RADAR and I was pressured into giving him at least a third of it.  (less than half)  Glen gives me another butt and says “That’s for being a good Samaritan”.  It was starting to get light.  Like yesterday there was initial cloudiness that dissipated quickly.   I went in and burned on Bill Press on computer and after this it was Stephanie Miller.  I listened to John Fugelsang at six thirty.  Right now I have Stephanie in hour delay.  (during breakfast)  Bill gave me a bunch of clothes I can’t identify and threw away the bag they were in.  I’l like to put them back in that bag.

For the second day in a row we had oatmeal.  I received four sweet & low when I normally use two packs of white sugar.  That pleasant old lady is back at our table now.  I’ve been telling her about my bug problems.  For our main plate we had a hard boiled egg and a bagel with cream cheese to spread on it.  Aren’t those items Jewish people eat when there is a funers.  (Something about them being round)  The first cup of coffee I had was cold but I saved the creamer for the second cup of coffee I got from the kitchen, and that coffee was hot.  I borrowed cigarette number seventeen from Ron after breakfast. 

We get to see if the margin skips properly coming up now.  Yesterday morning Icontinued the usual pattern of later bed times and later rising.  I don’t remember what time I got up but I went outside and it was getting lighter and I remarked to Bill that it looked like it might be a cloudy day.  Bill said “I doubt it”.  It was starting to take longer to get light  now. Ihad Bill Press and then Stephanie Miller on.  I didn’t knotice the blackand white kitty around this morning.  I got my medication about a quarter after six.  For about the third day in a row Dorthy was in the hospital or something.  She wasn’t here.  Also Michelle would be gone all day till about a quarter to four.  It made for a quiet day.  We had oatmeal for breakfast followed by scrambled eggs and two pieces of French toast and butter.  I got a small cup of coffee and I went back and they didn’t have seconds.  I had been feeling tired this morning.  I began tidying up the room in anticipation of Emma coming around to clean.  It was around nine Bill wanted me to check the menus and change both to a triple decker roast beef and cheese sandwich with mayo.  I didn’t change my menu.  I guess Emma came by about 9:25.   It was after nine thirty when I went into the TV room and watched a good chunk of “Rawhide” in black and white.

Then I went back up to the room and noticed my bed had not been changed.  I looked around and noticed all of the bugs on the mattress.  This is the light bar this line.  I didn’t get agood feeling.  I told Emma about it in the next room and she says “Augustine has to look at that”.  Then I went back down for snacks and I had vanilla wafers in a cup and iced tea.   After this I went back up and had the Gary and Shannon show on.  We had macaroni and cheese for lunch.  I don’t remember the - - - I guess it was orange sherbet.  The plump lady had returned after an absence of a few days.  Then when Purlita came with the coffee she told me all of my clothes would be washed.  They didn’t waste time.  She was up there and putting stuff in bags and I hope it was all properly labeled.  She saved the  suits and stuff that can’t be washed but sprayed only.  Then Judy called wanting to know my AT&T account number.  I had to fish it out from the papers I was shuffling around trying to find a safe place for them.  That’s when I learned that the phone company still was accusing me of ordering an upgrade for twenty dollars more.   Rene came in and told me not to sit on my now bare mattress any more that he and Augustine would be giving me a new mattress and cleaning the room for the next couple of hours.  I still had Gary and Shannon on the radio.  I had just started watching Days of our Lives (on Bill’s bed without a pillow) and Augustine and Rene showed up to get about their work.

I spent time talking and smoking with Bill out front, where you’re not supposed to smoke but we were.  I also remember buying Phyllis a pack of strawberry cigarettes for two cigarettes.  My lighter was getting flakier and flakier.   I wore out my thumb trying to light a butt I found.  I went out for snacks at two but don’t remember what I had.  I spent a lot of time out back.  I needed to use the restroom but nobody would give me the key.  Eventually I ventured back to this room at maybe ten to three.  The room smelled like poop or something.  I said to Rene, “That must have been some strange bug spray you used” and he said “yes.  That’s why you would be out of the room”.  I noticed the place was basically in order.  One thing I noticed was that Rene or Augustine had taken the extension cord to the radio and so the radio cord was hanging in suspension over to the outlet behind the bed.  Also the bookcase had been moved over farther.  The lamp was unplugged but that’s because that plug is getting really loose.  I turned on the TV and I guess we watched Eye Witness news.  A care-giver named Julie came in and I said we needed towels  wash clothes and pillows.  Eventually she came back with one towel for each of us.  But there were no pillows and she said that the main storage room was locked and she lost the key, or maybe I have these events out of order.  Meanwhile Bill found that bag of clothes hewanted too dump on me.   We are nearing the bottom of page two.

About a quarter to four the van with Michelle pulled up.  Michelle got out and she wanted me to fill her water bottle with ice cold water from the cooler.  I did that. I also carried her heavy bag for her.  As a reward she said I could have a spoon of instant coffee and she even had that with her.  I went to my room and got the cup and spoon and got it and went back.  In the process I missed that new medication line they have now.  For dinner we had a chili cheese hot dog and coleslaw.  I went back for seconds in a long line and she gave me two hot dogs with chili and cheese but no bun.  I remember the after snack now and we had peaches “because it was so hot”.   We had a chocolate brownie for one of yesterday’s meals.   I fixed myself a cup of instant coffee, which I was happy to have.  Then Michelle went on a rant ab out a lot of things.  She and Lawerence got into a major argument where Laurance did an excellent job of cataloging her many faults.

The evening progressed and we still didn’t have pillows and she saw Bill and promised him she would get the pillows right away but nothing happened.  I had the ABC network news on and then it was Jeopardy and most of Wheel of Fortune.  I went down at five to eight and there was no line for once and I got my medication.  Earlier in the afternoon I had asked for a bandage because my left elbow was suddenly bleeding.  In the evening we watched some show on vaccines on KTLA about a legal suit to stop the human papaloma vaccine.  At nine initially I had “Black Lightning” on but then changed it to Law and Order and I watched that till ten.  Then it was the start of Seinfeld and I switched to the KTLA news.  I was outside actually enjoying the cool late night air. 

I just noticed this monitor is warm.  It wasn’t in the sun.  “Let’s Make a Deal” is on now and I turned the TV down.  I checked the lunch and dinner menus.  Bill is still waiting with Nancy nearby to see Dr Saran at his office to get an EKG.   Yesterday just after I was done with the writing I got a call from Paul about ten thirty and how he was ready to pick me up to take me to his house and bring that phone bill.  I did that.  Benji is the bird’s name and it sure had ear piercing squawks.  I noticed the lack of air conditioning at his house.  I was too much in a hurry tothink of swim trunks.  Paul made the phone call to the phone company using that special number that Judy had.  Judy was well equipped with the necessary passwords and numbers and Paul had the answer to the security question of “Who is your childhood hero?”  We got a cooperative sales rep named Richard.  Not only was he willing to make the adjustment and get rid of the alleged higher rate, but he was also willing to issue a credit for this month’s higher bill.  I only had a dollar five left over and it could have been curtains had the withdrawal been any higher.  So next month my bill will be only forty.  But after that was handled, they made another phone call to AT&T to change the billing on the calls so that they draw from my “Charlie” debit card rather than my checking account.  That was accomplished and will take four to six weeks.  SoI have one more bill billed to my Chase account and then they bill the trust fund.  That’s such good news it’s hard to believe.  I was worried though thinking that Rene was cleaning my bedroom and I hadn’t tied up the room first and things would be misplaced or lost.  Elizabeth was there was no cleaning.  That was on the other side of the hall.  Elizabeth made sandwiches for us and also gave us water and corn chips.  Then Paul gave me a banana and milk.  Paul had to be at work by one and he’s taking the kids to the beach and he has to tone up on all the lotions and sun blocks.  He took me home.

Do We Know Why and How Gnosticism Failed?

  Whoever came up with the idea of being Born Again as a life changing experiance was a genious.  I don't know whether Christianity or Gnosticism thought of it first.  The concencus seems to be that all of "Gnosticism" is a cheap knock-off copy of Christianity only in heritical and perverted form.  As you know I have been highly skeptical of this view believing it to be ass backwards.  The first three gospels in the Bible don't talk about a "born again" experiance.  And when John talks about it with Nicodemus we aren't sure whether or not he was referring to death and a spiritual resurrection, or a life altering experiance in this life.  I looked up Gnosticism in the Wikipedia and I didn’t recognize the information in it.  Did they revamp the article?  There was some Jewish figure named Belbo that was the embodiment of “knowledge”.   They talked him being of the Jewish priestly tradition.  I have been looking for a connection between the Jewish Sanhedredrin and the priests- - - as somehow being a forerunner of Jewish Christianity at least.  I'm still perplexed why they say James and the Apostles hung around the Jewish Temple.  I thought they hated each other but that's just what we have been led (or taught) to believe.  The important thing is that ignorance and not sin holds you captive and knowledge is the cure.  It seems almost ANY religion other than Christianity gets tagged as Gnostic by the Wikipedia.  Before I thought that no human effort would bring you “salvation” but it was only a lucky fluke that people came to have that Born Again experience. I'm not entirely sure where I got this idea.  It was sort of a Bhddahisc "awakening of the soul" or something.   It speaks of "Life and life more abondantly" but I'm told it isn't "Zoa" for biological life, but more of a life of the spirit.  At any rate this type of Salvation from the decaption of the Demiurge or whatever is the heart and core of most Gnosticism.  Since Gnosticism didn't get going till after 90 or 95 AD it's natural to assume by many that it imitated Christianity.  It saw the train leaving the station and wanted to get on board and cash in.  It's a wonder Christianity was "the survivor" out of all of this.  In the book of Acts this knowledge of being the sole survivor was on the minds of people who said "Other messiah's come and go but ours is the lasting one.  Christianity in other words stood the test of time.  My socialogical side asks "Just what kind of POWER did the Christian Church have over people that all the other faiths didn't have.  (Selah)  Is it all Darwin and "survival of the fittest"?  Are the heartist forms of biological form always the mot moral?  The Holy Roman Empire lasted hundreds of years.  Where is it now?  China has been communist for seventy years and has never been more prosperous.  It would seem that repression pays.  Pellican Bay prison in California has been around for decades and it's one of the systematic venues for isolation and torture known to man.  Sometimes cults put a lock on the brain itself and cam pose a crippling form of isolation.  And personally I think "knowledge" is a good thing and not a bad thing and I think more of Christianity needs to be cerebral.  But as we see from our president, being either cerebral or logical or morally consistent isn't always necessary.  Just chew on that one a while.  But people have this knee reflex of "Gnosticism - - - Baad!"  

ROCK AND ROLL REWIND

Do You Want to Dance? (Bobby Freeman)

Dem Bones (Classic version)

Good Rocking at Midnight (1949 artist)

Such a Night (Clyde Mc Phatter)

Loop de Loop Mambo (The Robins)

White Port & Lemon Juice (late 1955 artist)

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Platters)

Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran)

Claudette (Everly Brothers)

Leave My Kitten Alone (artist?)

I Want to Be a Private Eye (Olympics) (?)

Take Our Some Insurance On Me, Baby (Jim Reeves)

Along Comes Jones (Coasters)

Living in the USA  (Chuck Berry)

I Want to Walk You Home (Fats Domino)

You’ll Be Mine (tape of Silver Beatles)

Down the Mississippi Down To New Orleans (US Bonds)

You Beat Me To the Punch (Mary Wells)

The Night Time is the Right Time (Ray Charles)

Get On My Pony and Ride (Dee Dee Sharp)

Push-over (Etta James) (?)

Ko Ko Joe (Righteous Brothers)

It’s In His Kiss (Betty Everett)

Bits and Pieces (Dave Clark Five)

La, La, La, La, La (summer 1964)

We don’t have an album cover for you yet.  Maybe a cartoon of somebody at a desk pushing the rewind button and showing with arrows the action of the tape.  Most of these songs have been heard in Rhapsody in Black.  1959 was a banner year yesterday that had a lot of songs that were actually hits, as opposed to his usual.  This is the summer that John Lennon must have most remembered when it came to influencing his picks for the Beatles.  In late summer of that year the four of them including Stu Sutcliffe and Ken Brown formed a band in Pete Best’s mother’s basement. OK Stu hadn't learned to play guitar yet.   It’s what you might call the “true beginnings” of the Beatles.  Lennon used to say that they didn’t need a drummer because we were so naturally tight and rhymithical without one.  “You’ll be Mine” has plenty of chances to get kicked off this album but I decided to keep it as a souveneer of what an early “Silver Beatle” recording was like.  Then we have “Take Out Some Insurance on me Baby” by Jim Reeves and “Leave My Kitten Alone”.  

Putin is Invited to the White House soon

Well, we've had countless snafoos with President Trump.  First there is the problem of what the word "would" meant.  Trump says he meant to say "wouldn't".  The only problem is the word "wouldn't" doesn't fit in with the context with the rest of what Trump was saying.  But I made a mistake in the previous blog below this one.  I talked about "From the end of WW II to 1980" and it looked like I was saying the economy was languishing during this time.  What I meant to say was that this is the base mark to measure from before Reagan's economic policies took effect.  I can now see how my mind was working but it came out rather awkwardly.  But I'l leaving it as it was.  But then there is the problem of whether "no" rally mean "No".   The reporter who asked him the question about whether Trump is going to address the election meddling problem maintains that the President meant "No' in response to her question and she says Trump repeated that "No'" to her looking right at her.  And then Trump moved on to another question.  But there is wiggle room as to what the President meant.  Maybe he did mean "I won't answer any more questions on that topic", which in his own way is just as bad.  Then yesterday there was another Presidential misstatement.   Everyone was surprised by Trump's twitter announcement that he's invited Vladimir Putin to the White House.  Maybe we should paint the White House a bright canary yellow just for the occasion.  One lady I talked to this morning says if she were in the White House she'd paint it a baby pink.  Maybe I'd paint it lavender.  Anyhow- - -Trump is definitely "as yellow as a summer squash" as the saying goes, when it comes to Putin.  As far as I know Congress hasn't taken action on the Doug Cavana hearings yet.  They are skipping their summer recess, you know.  Mc Connell wants to have the Justice sworn on by the beginning of the new Court term on the first of October.  I think it would be an excellent idea to go ahead and take their vacation and get a take on what the people actually feel on issues.

I have no problems on an employer asking you what you earned on your previous job.  But I at the same time would say I have every right to talk with fellow employees about what my salary is as opposed to theirs.  Comparing notes is one of the primal drives of self preservation.  This is why I'm against the "No competetion" rule in schools.  Comparing your grades to so and so is one of the fundamental ways in which you gauge your place in society.  It's like comparing genitals in the shower.  People do it as a matter of course to see how they measure up.

Now they are saying that all twelve boys on that Thai soccer team knew how to swim.  From what I heard they even thought about swimming out before the tide got too high.  I also heard that rather than fight for the first to leave the cave, they were afraid to go first for fear of what might happen to them and they looked around for a volenteer guinea pig to go first and see how they fare.

I wanted to talk about the Book of Acts in the new testament.  I have told you my biggest hurdle in belief in Christianity and the Church (the two seem to go hand in hand) is that I can accept people thought they saw Jesus after he died.  I'm sure this sort of thing occurs a lot where you see someone that looks like someone else and you convince yourself it was the person who died.  Or for that matter it could have been an angel.  Justin Martyr did not even believe in a physical resurrection, just like the Jehovah's Witnesses don't.  They believe it's all a spiritual thing.   In the first speech at Pentacost in the Book of Acts, Peter says "Look at our brother King David.  He died and his grave is with us to this day.  This can be for no other reason than to say that the general resurrection has not occurred yet or basically "Nothing has changed".  But I have a problem with the events occuring in the Book of Acts how and when the book claims they did.  It claims that the first martyr Stephan was martyred in AD 37 or after the church had been around seven years.  St Paul had his conversion in AD 41 and was "three years in Saudi Arabia being instructed by the Lord".  Then from AD 44 to Ad 58 or fourteen years later (according to Galations) St Paul has his main ministry.  I want you to focus on these year perameters.   Because in that time the Church "began in Jerusalem and spread to Samaria and then went eventually to Rome itself" where Paul had not yet visited.  I'll get to the rest of what I was going to say later but right now I feel like taking an extended break.

So what about all of these "faithless" people who want to late-date the book of Acts and the epistles of Paul?  One TV evangelist about twenty years ago remarked about the "tunnel"that the Church went into about 58 AD and it emerged about 120 AD.  I would say at least that and maybe 135 or so when Andonius Pious became Roman Emperor who was more tollarent of Christianity.  You hear a lot about Christianity after 135 AD, which is also the year of the second War of Jerusalem where the city was entirely taken over by the Romans.  I would note that the New Testament was written in Greek and not Latin, as one would suppose.  Also most of the "Churches" spoken of were either in Grece or Asia Minor known as Turkey.  The"Churches" center around the ministry of Apolonius of Tyanus who died either 100 AD or very soon afterward.  This is probably a coincidence but it's an interesting one.  St Paul speaks of visiting the school of Tyanus in his ministry about the time when there would have been a lot of action in that area but in 58 AD it's unlikely that "school of Tyanus" was established.   Also Acts gets the order of two false Messiahs mixed up.  It's almost as if he were looking "way back" in history when indeed the second of the two false messiahs hadn't even tried to revolt yet, Thudas of Galalee.  I would also say that since Justin Martyr wrote his Dialog to the Greeks or whatever apology of Christianity- - - he referred to "the memwires of the disciples of Jesus" without referring to the Gospels either by number or by who wrote them.  I find this interesting.  Paul spoke of "The gospel" in the singular and by Justin's time it was "the memuires of the disciples".  That's a little less vague but still not exact.  Interestingly,  Justin never seems to have written before AD 144 when Marcion was excommunicated because Justin is always anti Marcion.  It's nice to fill in the cracks in our Chronology.  Sixty or seventy years is a pretty big hole to fill
I would suggest that the book of Acts and the Epistle were written decades after it was claimed that they were. Of course as you may know Nero is never spoken of in a negative light inthe Bible but only as "Caesar".   We hear of "Christians in Caesar's household".   It's hard to imagine Christians in Nero's household.  It's almost as though these NT writers were not even conscious of the Burning of Rome or blaiming the Christians for it.  Indeed if the New Testiment WAS written inthe time of Domecian inthe eighties- - - it would be unusual.  Nobody dared utter a word about anything on religion at the time of Dometian.  It was in that sixty or seventy year "tunnel" period.