OZZY OSBOURNE TRIBUTE

The world was rocked today with the news of his passing. Oddly enough, I'd had a premonition of sorts just two days ago. I was just about to go to sleep Sunday night and Oz popped into my thoughts and I said to myself, "I wonder how long before we are reading his obituary?" No lie.

It's hard to overstate the importance of Ozzy's music and his impact on popular culture. From his early days in Black Sabbath to his hit reality TV show on cable, "The Blizzard of Oz" has remained culturally relevant for decades, impacting generations of youth. I was one of those youth, when his breakout solo album (title above) debuted in the Spring of 1980. I was in the seventh grade.

I was familiar with Black Sabbath after hearing them fairly regularly in rotation on the Album Oriented Rock (now Classic Rock) station I grew up on in Indy, Q-95. I love the intro to "Iron Man" and Tony Iommi's memorable guitar riff! But once Blizzard came out and "Crazy Train" hit the airwaves all bets were off. I was a bonafide fan of his music. But it started almost as soon as the album came out. My friend and fellow misfit from the Junior High Group at Central Baptist, a kid named Owen, brought the vinyl to church one day. The cover, alone, got my attention. It seemed highly sacrilegious to have this in the basement of our church, let alone to be listening to it on the record player in the high school youth group room. I was blown away. I loved it, from the dark imagery to the music.

Of course, Owen loved Mr. Crowley and the dark theme of that classic tune. He had to explain to me who Aleister Crowley was and his connection to the dark side. By the end of that decade, Oz would be deemed the Prince of Darkness. I just loved the screeching guitars and fill-laiden heavy drums. Ozzy always featured the best guitarists, from the incomparable Randy Rhoades to Jake E. Lee to Zakk Wylde. And I loved everything those axemen brought to the metal table!

I don't know that I could pick a favorite Ozzy tune, but "No More Tears" and "Bark at the Moon" are in my top three, the latter coming out when I was in high school.

To highlight the multi-generational impact of the Godfather of Metal, let me share what happened just today as I learned of the news, around 12:30 PDT. I had just shared the sad news with a fellow musician on the bus who is in his 60's. He hadn't yet heard. Not ten minutes later, I'm standing outside a Ralph's Supermarket here in Venice, CA, and a guy pulls up blaring "Flying High Again" from his white SUV as he parked. The young dude steps out and is wearing an Ozzy t-shirt. We share our grief over his passing and he goes, "But we'll see him again one day." Another stranger walks up a few minutes later and in passing says, "Well, I guess he closed his eyes forever." Recognizing the Ozzy lyric, I share the same sentiments with him. He was my age or a couple of years older. The guy in the t-shirt before him was an early Millennial or late Gen Z-er, I'd say. Even my girls, now 24 and 21, know who Ozzy is.

I never got to see the legend perform live, to my dismay...never attended an OzFest. I anticipate we'll get a tribute album soon like we did in the wake of Ronnie James Dio's passing. Acts from Halestorm to Tenacious D lined up to record a track on that album. Can you imagine the line already forming for the Ozzy tribute?

And think about this...if Sabbath hadn't picked up on what Zeppelin was laying down at the beginning of the 1970's and going at it even harder and darker, would there even be a genre called Heavy Metal? "Crazy Train" has become a rock anthem played in nearly every sports stadium around the world. "ALLLLL ABOOOOARRRD!" Cue maniacal laugh. CLASSIC!

As I said, it's hard to overstate Oz's impact on the world at large, but more emphatically on the music world. Rest in peace, Ozzy.

That Time I Was Being Catfished

That time was a few days ago, you know over Memorial Day Weekend. Yeah, that time.

To preface this story, I was NEVER going to be one of those old people who fell for every marketing scam that came down the pike. My Yahoo! Spam folder is full of promises for the perfect over-50 body, testosterone level, soulmate, get rich investment scheme, you name it. I delete that folder almost daily. There are the sponsored ads for freebies on social media that I mostly ignore, though I have followed a couple of them down the endless survey rabbit hole only to get frustrated that I fell for it and wasted my time.

Well, I've also watched the Catfish TV series that ran on MTV when my daughters were younger and living at home. We watched countless episodes together of socially awkward-to-inept teens and young adults pose as someone skinnier, healthier, funnier, prettier...in order to snag a fish. The saying goes there are "many fish in the sea," but these people can't rely on their own merit to catch one, apparently. This idea of catfishing has been going on for years. It snared a cousin of mine who lost his career over it. I was never going to be that gullible.

Right.

The bots are aplenty on all of the Meta platforms--Instagram, Threads and Facebook--that I've used. And I've had to utilize the block button more times than I care to count. I've even had replies to my comments on a post from bots that go to some length expressing how interesting of a person I am and would I please friend them or contact them so they can know me better. Some version of that has happened numerous times. My response is to either hide the comment, if I can't simply delete it, and to block that "user." I'm guessing most of them are Chinese hackers phishing for identities to steal.

But then a reply to a comment I made last week on a Vanity Fair article caught my attention. Of course, first gut instincts are always spot-on and as you'll note, I called out "BOT!" right away. But what struck me about this response is that it seemed a little more personal. It said they wouldn't get to know me unless I was "brave enough" to text them. Okay, now you've questioned my manhood (in a manner of speaking).

Initial exchange under an innocuous comment on a Vanity Fair post last week.

This Jennifer Williams, as she called herself, was just seeking conversation. That seemed reasonable AND HUMAN enough. So I took the bait...and here's what ensued over the weekend...

This Jennifer wanted photos immediately. I offered the one in my profile as it is only a month or two old. "Is that all I get?" And she sent me three photos with a quickness...you know, to sell herself as Jennifer, US Army Chaplain Corps, Idaho Falls, 53. Does she look 53 to you??

The photos I got almost instantly, like she had them on the ready

WOW, I thought, she's pretty attractive! What boosted that was her forwardness, confidence and the fact that she was a badass in the military, and a chaplain to boot, which meant that she was spiritual and invested in enriching others. And LOOK, it says "Williams" right on the uniform. I took that as a clue this was a real person. I mean, it is a real person, not named Jennifer, and not hot on the trail of her soulmate to share her golden years of military retirement with.

That's what I was sold over the weekend, alotta hooey about her pending retirement at age 53, and her being five years post-divorce, ready to find that special someone to settle down with.

After receiving the pictures and some discussion about Idaho--the cell phone number she gave is a Potlach, ID, number--she quickly updated her profile to Moscow, ID, the nearest town. But what was interesting is that no bases are anywhere in the vicinity except the US Naval Surface Command, and so I wondered if an Army Chaplain would be assigned there.

According to "Jennifer," she had no children, no siblings and her parents were both deceased. Convenient. She was on her last deployment (a story that quickly changed once things unraveled, but be patient, I'm getting there).

The conversation was hot and heavy that first day, Saturday, of this past weekend. I was shooting off rapid-fire, interview type questions to get to the heart of her story. And that story contained abuse at the hands of her eight-year husband, so bad that it left physical scars on her back. No counseling and no PTSD, at least not from domestic violence, just "time to heal" these last five years, with no potential suiters. A beauty like this and no men? Well, she is in BFE Idaho, I concluded (to myself).

She claimed to be 53 and enlisted since she was 28. She'd done her time and was looking forward to getting her pension, but not living off of it, as she had plans. They sounded good to me. ALL of her answers sounded quite good. She only evaded one of my questions, and she only spoke in broken English a couple of times (her shorter more spontaneous responses). At the time, I believed that was from her upbringing in Prague, Czech Republic. And I read all of her responses with a slightly Eastern European accent. But the more thoughtful responses, were quite intelligent, convincing and fluid. She was careful to repeat phrases back to me like "being present" and "meaningful."

Let me insert here that I now believe hackers, or some lonely Asian girl, was using AI to generate the near perfect responses. The one that stumped and surprised me, though, was when she read my mind. I had asked her to describe the perfect dinner date at her place. She came through with an A+ response even picking the exact movie title I had in mind. That was weirdly coincidental. That was Sunday afternoon, and by then, my suspicions had eased and my caution relaxed. I was starting to believe this was a real woman.

I even shared the story with two people by Monday/Tuesday, one of whom laughed and poo-poo'd it, while the other was hooked with line and sinker. She started planning our future, LOL! I was not at that level, but I was enjoying the conversation, especially since "Jennifer" was so cordial and complimentary. I'm a sucker for words that affirm me. Who isn't?

So Tuesday afternoon is when this farce all unraveled. We'd been speaking for four days, but three of them weren't nearly as intense as the first day, where we spent about four hours online going back and forth. She had immediately given me her Idaho phone number (that was suspicious behavior, especially for a woman living alone) AND moved our conversation to the Telegram app.

But I was online doing some family research and getting bored with it. I decided to try something I'd seen on the show Catfish. Also, there had been another red flag. A second Facebook account came up for this Jennifer person with a similar looking picture taken at fall/wintertme in a coat and blue knit cap. Well, she never responded when questioned about it, so I drug the photo into the search bar of Google. It identified the image as AMANDA DORIS WILLIAMS who had a TikTok account. I do not.

So I asked my sister who does, to look into it. See if she's posted videos of herself. I was told she never appears on camera but that her vids DO include some of her photos AND there are multiple accounts! So now, I'm researching the new name of my "future girlfriend," who had already asked me to come visit her. I still don't know what her END GAME was. But, lo and behold, there were at least four or five Amanda (Doris) Williams accounts on Facebook with similar photos and claims of being an Army Chaplain.

Some of those accounts from a Facebook search.

Now, I'm agitated and a little embarrassed.

The man who believes he's not that gullible has been duped by a Catfish. I waited for her next communication which came while I was en route to the grocery store. I paced the store waiting for her to respond to this text, "I have more questions. Big Surprise there. Can I call you?" Suddenly, at 4:30 Mountain Time, she was too tired for conversation and wanted to put me off until morning. I attempted to call but got only a generic voicemail using the phone number as the greeting.

Suddenly, she's spinning a new web that she's about to be deployed to Poland and her only means of communication would be through Telegram. She even sent me some very computerized sounding voice memo that was clearly the voice of a young Asian girl. When I asked who the Asian bot was, she just laughed. I told her I was deleting the app and that if she was really going overseas on deployment, she'd still have my number to reach me when she got back. I was promised a call the next day to explain everything, but she stuck to her story, said that Amanda Doris Williams was her real, legal name, and that her account had been hacked.

The only account being hacked was potentially mine!

I called her out online and found the LinkedIn account of the poor woman whose identity has been stolen and her likeness used on potentially HUNDREDS of fake accounts across platforms, like Telegram, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn and Facebook. The real Amanda Williams, MDIV, did become a chaplain just a few short years ago and is a member of the Texas National Guard. From what I can tell, she has served over 20 years in some area of the US Army, but not in Idaho and the photo of her pinning shows her son proudly pinning his mom.

I doubt much of the backstory from Prague to Idaho to Poland was true. Oh, and you can find the real Army Chaplain, a Captain, now, I believe on YouTube. She doesn't have an Eastern European accent, nor does she sound like an Asian anime character. LOL! But I am sure she is a lovely person, as I believed her to be as Jennifer.

I reached out to her LinkedIn profile to say that I'd nearly been catfished by one of the fake accounts posing as her. She is well aware that many of them exist. Is it even legal to impersonate an officer in the US military? Seems like that would be a punishable, federal offense.

I'm sure I'm not the only one it's happened to. Some of those fake accounts on Facebook boast more than 150 ALL MEN friends and followers.

Yes, I remember too well that time I was being Catfished. It took a couple days for the shame and stinging embarrassment to wear off so that I could share my story.

Be careful out there folks. The internet is some sketchy territory. The end.

Better Than That

I did not deserve the abuse I endured on Oak Ridge Ave, Ft Myers Beach, but I’m working through it. I know I deserve better than that. And while not totally healed from it, I am happy to have escaped. I moved all the way to the other coast across the country to heal by distancing myself and going zero contact. It’s the only way to end narcissistic abuse (and the accompanying reactive abuse).

I didn’t enjoy leaving Scott at the liquor store in the lurch, but I hope he understands. My escape was necessary for my mental health.

Be well my friends. Value your mental wellbeing and prioritize yourself. Peace, love and healing.

Lat/Lon of Life

“Changes in latitude…” Jimmy Buffet

Before I left the beach in Fort Myers, I didn’t plan for the cold. I’d spent the last 21 months mostly in shorts, t-shirt and flops. I was moving to another tropical climate in SoCal…then I got here.

A simple search of the Lat/Lon of both locales shows the degrees of difference. FMB is exactly three degrees north of the tropics, as in the Tropic of Cancer. It’s a very moderate climate where lows to 40 mark the winteriest chill of the season. In SoCal, especially at the beaches, 40’s have been the low since I arrived in mid-January.

I never considered these factors:

SoCal/LA is NOT in or near the tropics.

The Pacific Ocean temp at the coast is low 50’s.

It does actually rain here.

On that last one, it’s been the wettest late Jan/early Feb in a really long time, I believe. In the month since my arrival, there have been consecutive days of rain in THREE of the four weeks. Now they needed the rain, SORELY, I just wasn’t prepared. I thought CA was sunnier than FLA.

The cool sea breezes fueled by a much cooler and larger body of water add to the wintry feel. The Gulf OF MEXICO is considerably warmer, even in the winter. And it’s ALWAYS breezy at the coast in SoCal.

Not only is SoCal not in the tropics, it’s 11 degrees north. It’s nearly four degrees further north than Tallahassee. And we use to get hard freezes in TLH! I’m not whining and complaining. I’m simply pointing out that I did not do my homework. I wasn’t prepared.

In fact, I wasn’t prepared for my train ride up the coast and across the cold Midwest. I’d originally thought my Amtrak train was the old Sunset Limited that basically follows I-10 cross country. I had forgotten that train has been cancelled for more than a decade, cancelled when I lived in TLH and it used to pass through there. I brought one hoodie, a few pairs of long pants, no sweats, and no jacket.

It’s sort of a metaphor for life. I don’t always plan well. It’s not always as sunny as I expect it to be. And I pay the price for my laissez faire attitude. But it DOES keep life interesting!

The main thing was getting as far away from Florida and my ex as possible. And putting 37 degrees of longitude between us fits the bill. The most important part is my mental health. And as the saying goes changes in latitude (i.e. your mental outlook) effects your attitude, and this move has done me worlds of good. Besides, if it stays too cold here for my liking, I can always move two degrees south to San Diego.

The adventure continues…stay tuned!

BLM Movement

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Why Black Lives Matter

My daughter and I marched in 2020's Black Lives Matter/George Floyd protest in Tallahassee. We were proud to support her African American heritage, on her mother's side, her right to speak out on her own behalf and to let the world know that we've had enough of racism, hate and bigotry in this country.

I just learned of the BLM movement that year, but it started with three women in 2013, one of whom had simply made the comment on social media that black lives matter. And, C'MON, this is a bare minimum requirement, for a human life to matter. Black folks are human beings and so, of course, their lives are sacred, have meaning and value. The fact that this has to be stated for the record is the truly sad part.

These women--Garza, Tometi and Cullors--met at a black leadership conference that year, bonded and created a website for their grassroots organization. As Tometti reminds us, "Black people aren't a monolith." The black community is just as diverse as every other ethnic or racial group. The media just likes to perpetuate stereotypes, but you shouldn't buy into them. They only serve to fuel the hate and bigotry we still see today. The BLM co-founders were horrified and largely motivated by the killing of Trayvon Martin the year before they met. But it was the George Floyd murder by police in 2020 that saw the movement explode internationally.

I am convinced that so many people being home bound and isolated by COVID that Spring gave them a reason to get outside and to congregate. I know that I was paying so much more attention to the MSM and social media at that time and I couldn't get enough of the George Floyd/BLM coverage. I was outraged, as were my daughters. It took no convincing to get my youngest to march that day in downtown Tallahassee with me. It's a memory I'll always cherish.

She and every black member of my family matters significantly. In society, it's a bare minimum to say that one's life matters. Of course, all lives matter, but because of systemic racism and bigotry, we sadly have to single out black lives because they haven't always mattered in this country.

And since it's Black History Month, we should honor the legacy of Black Americans because THEIR HISTORY IS OUR HISTORY! And we should continue to demand better of this country and its government. That's why I'll be joining the continuing protests across all 50 states on February 17th. Please join me and take to the streets.

#BlackLivesMatter

(Editor’s note, the book “Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter,” by Veronica Chambers, 2021, help to inspire and inform this post. It has lots of great photos plus a timeline of the civil rights movement.)

STOPPING THE MADNESS, The Series

I started a series on my YouTube channel documenting my mental health journey the last two and one half months. I titled it Stopping The Madness, parts one through three. Part three is the video above which I recorded in mid-December but just rediscovered on my phone. I hope you’ll take the time to watch it and the two that came before. There is a final part to the series, recorded earlier this week, titled Stopped The Madness. As you may have read in my last post, I finally escaped my narcissist abuser and left Florida for good! As I write this, I’m somewhere in the plains of Southern Colorado aboard an LA-bound train.

I successfully got out of a very toxic situation turned survival quest the last two months. We navigated the holidays together, but my secret mission the entire time was to escape with my sanity. I accomplished that this week.

In the process of escape, I learned that the narcissist’s meddling, low IQ sister messaged MY sister to cast aspersions on my character. WHY??? Just let it go! You were never for the relationship from the get-go. And what was your aim? To harm my reputation with my ride-or-die sister whom you don’t know and have never met. Had this transaction gone down in person you surely would’ve met HER HANDS! My baby sis don’t play that way. She loves her big brother and would go down fighting to protect me! You don’t know what we’ve been through, fought through and suffered together these last ten years. That’s because you are foolish and ignorant just like your siblings. Lynn doesn’t have your back like that, TRUST ME!

Sorry that all of that needed to be said. But the abuse I suffered was real. It’s all documented on my channel, in videos, in a couple of blog posts here, in my private journal (yes, the one the narcissist violated because she thought she owned everything about me, even my thoughts and feelings) AND with the psychiatric staff at Park Royal. Yes there is a record. And I kept receipts. I’ll never be snared by another narcissist disguised as a damsel in distress.

I am literally on the road to healing. Once I get to LA, I will find a good therapist and manage this process, as I did in Boulder in 2021. Keep tabs on me here and on YouTube.

My journey, my story to tell

EDITOR’S NOTE: It is NOT my intent to air Lynn’s dirty laundry. I only felt obliged to begin writing it last weekend when she began lying about me, our situation and assassinating my character, as she is prone to do. I have not cheated on her nor did I leave her for someone else. Period.

My story

It will soon come to light that I left Fort Myers Beach and all it had to offer behind, including a romance that was doomed from the start. I’m talking March 2012 when we were both still married. That should’ve been enough of a red flag to us both. Only one of us heeded it and spent ten years healing, growing and changing.

When I got back to what once was my happy place, I set a course for new adventure but ended up going right back to relearn the lessons I thought I had mastered the first time. Nope, I ran right past all of the red flags. You see, the dreamer in me wanted to rewrite the ending of our saga. Here is how I started that last chapter in 2024.

What I quickly realized is that my partner, the one who I called in the blog post linked above “my person,” was not any different than the psychological mess—the wounded child—I’d left here on Mango Street in February 2014! I’d assumed, and given her the benefit of doubt, that she’d likewise grown, matured and changed over the ten years of separation. I was wrong to assume anything. Turns out, I had to learn the lessons all over again. So that instead of writing a love story, what I was actually finishing is a horror/thriller ride.

It has finally come to an end.

I walk away licking my wounds once again. This is no call for sympathy, just a cautionary tale. Good guys easily become suckers. I fell for the damsel routine once. I didn’t believe I was falling for it again. I thought I had come back to find a strong, empowered woman who had discovered and learned to love herself. Instead, I found the same damsel whose victim game is well worn and tattered, who needs to learn to own up and lose the girl who cried wolf routine.

While no one can undo the damage to the little girl, the adult woman can decide to heal, forgive and move on. That’s what I have decided to do. I need to heal once again from the emotional scars that two trips down this road have left deep inside me.

This isn’t abandonment 2.0 regardless of what some others might believe. She never really wanted me here. She obviously wanted to continue punishing me for the sins of her father and the abusive men who came before me. Added to that she had a personal vendetta for what I “did to her” in 2014. This isn’t me leaving. It’s her pushing me out the door. She’s been doing it since June! I have all of the receipts in my journal.

I fought her on it the first few times in June/July, refusing to leave “her house.” Funny how she called it “Doyle Beach House,” in one breath and her place the next, threatening me with police-enforced eviction more than one time. When she did this again in August, I left. I never felt so liberated.

She used counseling to manipulate me back inside her world. She promised her counselor and I to never kick me out again. She kept her word on that. I was back to being “pawpaw” or her “hubby boy” within weeks. We celebrated my September birthday with a short cruise to Freeport.

Fast forward through two hurricanes and many fights later…

We were at a hotel in town where we chose to evacuate with our pets during Hurricane Milton. I once again made the mistake of pointing out her poor choices/bad behavior. The child lashed out again, leaving me there the night of landfall and telling me she didn’t care if she or our animals survived the night.

So she kept her word of never kicking me out. But giving up and leaving me is no different. Our relationship ended that night. I slept on the hotel room floor once she came to her senses and returned to safety. Once home, I was determined to leave her for good. It took weeks, but my plan eventually materialized.

Fast forward again to this past weekend. She attacked me for being the opposite of everything she typically says that I am, “her perfect man.” This is the game the narcissist plays with their narc supply—you are their hero one minute, Satan the next, there is no in between. I’ve suffered in this no-win situation far too long. I no longer want to be her hero, the villain OR the victim.

So I left.

Monday I packed my things and walked out the door. I’m never looking back. Narcissist abuse is real. My suffering was very real. Therapists will all tell you to cut off their supply and go no contact. That’s what I am doing. 

No regrets and no shame. It was just another misadventure. It was a mistake I MADE TWICE! Never again.

(Edited and posted in Pittsburgh, PA)

It can’t be BOTH so which is it?

Not EVERYTHING in the Bible is spelled out as consistently and clearly as say God’s jealousy, the rights of slaves, the property that is women or its utter inconsistency between old and new covenants. Let’s not get into the weeds by dissecting adjectives or comparing chapter and verse. Let’s take a Sinai view from 7500 feet above sea level at some overarching themes.

EYE FOR AN EYE v TURN THE OTHER CHEEK

There is a lot of bloodlust in the Hebrew Bible, a collection of stories, songs, poems and prophesies we find in our Old Testament. The Law of Moses was that justice requires “an eye for an eye,” and that justice was meant to be carried out quickly and severely. So severe were the edicts of God, who we’ll get to below, that not even babies or livestock were spared. On several occasions, YHWH commanded the Israelites to commit utter genocide that didn’t stop with the humans. His bloodlust was such that not a living thing was to be spared! YIKES. Sorta like the concept of hell, this justice seems unduly harsh. But that was the “old way.”

The “new way” of looking at justice, according to Jesus, was DON’T strike back, don’t repay evil with evil. That’s now considered barbaric. Instead, we are to turn the other cheek. Justice in the New Testament became self sacrifice, embodied in the man-god (demigod) Jesus. No babies or goats were harmed after 33 CE. Nowhere in the second half of the Bible—the good half, the Jesus part—is anyone instructed to plunder, rape and pillage. Nope. If you were wronged, bend over and say, “Thank you Father, may I have another?” First Peter 4:12-19 asserts that sharing in suffering makes you one with Christ.

These two concepts, while written 500-800 years apart scholars believe, couldn’t be more opposite than if they were the North and South poles. What is God’s justice, then, because it can’t be both! Does judgment come in this life at the hands of God’s elect or in the afterlife at His hands? Are we to pluck out our attacker’s eye as one covenant suggests? Or turn the other cheek and endure double the pain?

TRIBAL WAR GOD v ABBA FATHER

The Old Testament God, YHWH, is a brute force who led his tribe, Israel, into battle. This was not a foreign concept at the time, say two millennia BEFORE Common Era. The Canaanite God, Ba’al, was the son of the Most High, El, and a tribal warrior god. Scholars believe ancient Israelites revered and worshipped them all (see Exodus). But as we pointed out above, this version of the Biblical God, seems bloodthirsty, unsatisfied until every living thing is killed. I mean there was that whole flood narrative in Genesis. Gods in the ancient world were bloodthirsty and YHWH was no different. Look at the story of Abraham and Isaac. Blood sacrifice was known in the ancient world to appease the gods.

I won’t belabor that point. But when Jesus arrives on the scene, he paints a VERY dissimilar portrait of YHWH. In fact, that Hebrew alliteration is abandoned for the Greek Adonai or the Aramaic Abba for father. Never before in Hebrew culture was God depicted in this way. He was unknowable, unfathomable. Only the anointed High Priest was able to survive in the presence of the Almighty, according to Hebrew scripture. He was unapproachable. That is, until this hippie rabbi comes along telling a completely different story. So which is it?

Is the God of the Bible a bloodthirsty warrior God of ancient tribal people housed in a tent? Or is he the cuddly daddy God of Jesus, who is totally approachable, kind and compassionate, housed in Heavenly Glory?

You can’t read the Bible cover to cover and say there are no inconsistencies! Just like his two vastly different covenants, God himself seems to transform right before our eyes (somewhere between Malachi and Matthew). How is one to make logical sense of this? And these are just two overarching themes! When you dig down to verse level, there are TONS of incongruencies. It cannot be read literally or you’ll go mad making sense of it. Prove me wrong.

Was Judaism Henotheistic Prior to Babylonian Captivity?

I am quite fascinated by the scholarly study of theology and religion, namely as it pertains to the roots of Christianity and Judaism. During the deconstruction of my faith in the mid 2000s, I still took for granted that the stories in the Bible were based in some historical fact. I believed that stories like Moses and the Exodus and King David’s reign and the great empire of King Solomon were somewhere rooted in truth and historical fact and that there was evidence to back it up.

But very recently as I’ve started to deconstruct the myths about Jesus and Christianity, and even the Old Testament patriarchs, and even God himself, I am beginning to question everything that I was ever taught about our religion.

As I discuss in the video, above, the very origin of the God Yahweh in the Old Testament came from the ancient Canaanite myths about God. Just like the pantheon of gods that existed in the mythology of the Roman and Greek people, or the Egyptians, or other Mesopotamians, The God El in Canaan was considered the high God among many. In fact, his name translates as the eternal. Isn’t it interesting that Yahweh identified himself as the Eternal One, the I Am? 

This Henotheism, present in Canaan when Moses and his nomads arrived, is also evident throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Take the First Commandment from Exodus 20, “You shall have no other gods…“ That very statement denotes the existence of other gods. But Yahweh was instructing his people to worship him as the most high of all the other gods. That, by definition, is Henotheism.

And look what happens 12 chapters later, Moses descends the mountain only to find Aaron and the priests have erected a golden calf. And what the scripture doesn’t tell you is that the bull, which more than likely it was, is the symbol of El the Canaanite god. Moses comes down and finds them worshiping another god, the one from which their God was fashioned.

This theme rules the Old Testament in story after story of the Israelite people worshiping “false gods.” Gods like Ba’al, the son of El, and his consort Asherah. It’s why the prophets are always railing against the people of Israel. And the archaeological record bears this out. In the northern kingdom of Israel there were temples to these other gods at the time when the Bible CLAIMS they were strictly monotheistic, only worshipping one God, Yahweh. History indeed bears out that this isn’t true. The earliest Old Testament scriptures bear out that this isn’t true. If they were not polytheistic, which most scholars agree that they were until the Babylonian captivity, they were very much henotheistic. They believed Yahweh was THEIR God and the Most High of all other gods in existence at that time.

Scholars believe that the destruction of Solomon’s temple and then being driven into exile is what caused them to coalesce as a people around this monotheistic idea of Yahweh. They needed a unifying, cultural and religious ideal in which to rally around as a conquered nation. Think about the United States post 9/11 and how we all rallied around the patriotic ideal that no terrorist nation will attack us on our own soil and get away with it. In no other period of my lifetime have the citizens of this country united under the banner of “one nation under God.” So it was for the captive Israelites. And for that reason, scholars believe that’s when the religion turned monotheistic.

In fact, scholars also believe that that’s when the Hebrew Bible became canon. They believe that King Josiah trying to legitimize the new nation of Israel, centered in Jerusalem, began perpetuating the myth that Judaism had always been a monotheistic religion with Yahweh at the helm and that they had been brought together by King David. But we now know that none of that is probably true. Watch my video above on that and the one below on the Moses Myth.

If there’s no archaeological record, and the texts as we have them now point to Henotheism, at least, then how do we know any of the myths are true? Was monotheism rooted in the desire for a national identity as the chosen of God?

Something v. Nothing

Why are we here?

Why does anything exist?

How did matter win the war with antimatter?

The Qualitative Research Group at Northwestern University concludes, “the energy we encounter and use everyday has always been with us since the beginning of the universe and always will be with us. It just changes form all around us. That is called the law of conservation of energy.” The Big Bang Theory suggests that this energy began almost 14 billion years ago, so it had a beginning, we think, so why no ending? Why can’t energy fade and die out?

The US Energy Information Administration claims that “energy is neither created nor destroyed.” Then where did it ultimately come from? It exploded out of nothingness at the singularity we call The Big Bang? From what I can tell, quantum mechanics offers no better explanation. Looking at the subatomic scale we still see particles reacting to energy fields that seem a universal constant. 

I’ve followed Dr. Roger Penrose for years and I believe where he ends up is with infinite “big bangs,” claiming that the last one 13.8 billion years ago was the last in a series. Others conclude that we are merely one universe within a countless multiverse. Still, some philosophers assert that we are merely a dream of Universal Consciousness, questioning our physical existence at all. Is our physical reality even real? 

Where I see physics, math and science fall short is in the realm of the paranormal/supernatural/metaphysical/spiritual. Academia has yet failed to quantify anything beyond the boundaries of the physical realm. In other words, they have quantified through mathematics the so-called laws of nature, things that are measurable even subatomic particles. But, there again, all of these concepts, including astrophysics, are human constructs. Quantum mechanics is just a concept to help humankind explain what we can observe and measure at the subatomic level. But, there again, things beyond this physical realm seem to exist all around us, concepts like the fifth or sixth dimensions, consciousness or spirituality, that our science, our logic and reason fail to explain or even to prove. 

Does spirituality exist at all? What are souls? Where does consciousness reside? Science cannot tell us. Not yet, anyway. We live in a very exciting time with science stretching our understanding of the cosmos.

It started with with the Hubble space telescope, and what it found to be the “Hubble constant“ where the expansion of the universe appears to have happened faster near the Big Bang than we had previously thought. Currently, the James Webb space telescope has been shedding more light on the problem and has verified the Hubble constant. Scientists believe we may need to rethink physics altogether. We need to find new ways to explain what we are discovering at a very rapid rate.

That’s why I say it’s such an exciting time because of the new discoveries thanks to our technology. But we may never have the answer to the why questions that we are seeking. It could be that the answers are bigger than our intellect and ability to reason. Maybe it will take a higher evolved type of human in the distant future to gain the understanding or possibly create a new technology that explains the unexplainable. For now, humankind is left with questions that cannot be answered.

UPDATE: When I wrote this over two days, I had Euclid in my notes, but failed to mention it. This European Space Agency-led project has the audacious goal of mapping the known universe. The current mosaic of the night sky, impressive as it is, only covers a minuscule percentage of the whole, thus far. But the HD images, along with Hubble and JWST images, will help us gain new understanding of the cosmos.

Replacing God

DISCLAIMER: I have succumbed to an existential crisis in my fifties much like Leo Tolstoy, but unlike him this did NOT lead me back to god.

In the beginning, there was God. I wholeheartedly believed in him. I worshipped him and he became the center, the anchor of my universe. God became all-in-all, or at least that’s what I told myself. Then came existential crisis number one in my thirties.

I was majorly depressed and struggling mightily with feelings of abject failure. God was nowhere to be found. I decided to end my life. I wanted to replace God in the center, on the throne of my life. I pulled up anchor and set sail for the afterlife, only I didn’t succeed. The ultimate failure was my inability to die 24 years ago today.

I felt like God showed up in a big way that next year. My whole life turned around. I purchased my first home, a brand new custom-built one with four bedrooms and two full baths. I believed God arranged a miraculous adoption two months later and I became a dad. Life had done a one-eighty in a matter of eight months!

A year or so after my second adoption (another miracle), I was no longer flying high. I began deconstructing my faith and my marriage at the same time. Existential crisis number two, still in my thirties. I realized that part of my depression and feelings of failure were due to my marriage and career path, if you could even call it that.

I didn’t have grasp of the wheel of my life. I “let go and let God,” as the popular Christian slogan goes. I was not living intentionally. I had no grasp of that concept. I fully believed that whatever happened to me, good or bad, was God ordained. It was easier to blame him for my lazy complacency. I think I began to realize this in my late thirties. My religion was no longer making me happy. I began to wonder if it ever had. I soon realized, after leaving the church, that ritualistic, religious abuse was a major part of my depressive episode in 2000. It contributed to my awful self image. It always had.

My spiritual journey led me away from church and traditional Christianity. I later found replacements for God, including The Universe, Consciousness and The Higher (or Divine) Self. I turned to modern philosophers who embrace Christianity AND New Age Spirituality, like Eckhart Tolle. I embraced his “Power of Now,” present reality focus. I realize that our control is limited to our thinking, unconscious mind and our ability to control it with “presence.”

That gave me some peace, some of the time.

It hasn’t been lasting. And where I found myself meditating or praying out loud, sometimes to the cosmos, I began to wonder what was so different. Did I look or feel any less insane, whether wrestling with God verbally or shouting my displeasure to the stars??? Wasn’t I just replacing one spiritual practice for another? Replacing God?

So now that I’m facing existential crisis number three in my mid-fifties, I’m left wondering what does any of it matter? The sun rises over the good and the evil just the same. Likewise, the rain falls on both without discretion. I’m paraphrasing Christian scripture here. There is no greater purpose.

This landing squarely in nihilism makes the most sense to me. How arrogant is our species to believe that we are so much more highly evolved? How arrogant is humankind to believe that we are created beings, special and important to our creator, be that a Demiurge or the Almighty? It’s pretty damn arrogant, if you ask me. Our species just evolved on this planet like every other living organism. We aren’t special. We weren’t placed here for some divine purpose.

Life is basically meaningless. This is what Leo Tolstoy realized in his fifties. It’s what I’ve come to realize. I’m done replacing God. He is not the center of anything, not the Universe, not my life, and concepts like Source, Consciousness or Divinity are just as imaginary as “he” is. I won’t be returning, like Tolstoy, to the religion of my youth. I’ll just live out my days on this planet until I am no more.

This is the 24th anniversary of my suicidal episode. If you are struggling, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, just dial 988.

Holiday Season Changed Forever

I blogged at Thanksgiving last year about becoming an orphan in my 50’s. Nothing brings us the nostalgia of home quite like the holidays. And my entire adult life, I can’t recall one holiday season we didn’t spend at least one of them, Thanksgiving or Christmas, with my family.

My parents loved the holidays and their family. They loved having us all home for the celebration. The above photo was taken in their home in Noblesville, Indiana, circa 2014. It wasn’t the home I grew up in, but Mom had a special gift for making every one of her homes feel that way. This one was no different.

Growing up, my parents always had Christmas music spinning on the turntable in the living room console. As I write this, I’m enjoying the same classic tunes on YouTube. Sitting here by the light of the tree as Perry Como sings “There’s No Lace Like Home For the Holidays,” I really do wish I could transport back in time.

The Empty Nest Syndrome only exacerbates the feeling of loss. My daughters are grown and living their own lives two time zones away. I may not even hear from them. I cannot call my parents anymore to tell them when we’ll be there for Christmas. So, yes, the holidays have lost their luster.

Mom’s death Thanksgiving Weekend nine years ago really marred that holiday. I am glad that my daughters and I made the trip up to Indiana that year. We stayed an extra week to be with Dad and help plan the December memorial. Then, three years ago October, Dad passed right before the holiday season. More than COVID-induced pneumonia, he died of a broken heart, not willing to suffer another holiday season without her.

This orphan will suffer another season without them, the people who gave the holidays their special meaning. I won’t have my girls with me, either. I fully expect seasonal depression to set in like it did last year. The holiday season is, in deed, changed forever.

Christian Nationalism Built Upon Assumptions

In an article written by David L. Holmes for Encyclopaedia Britannica (see The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity) he starts, “ For some time the question of the religious faith of the Founding Fathers has generated a culture war in the United States. Scholars trained in research universities have generally argued that the majority of the Founders were religious rationalists or Unitarians.”

The Age of Enlightenment made ideas like Deism, a natural God who does not interfere in the affairs of humankind, and THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, popular in the time when our nation’s founders were being reared overseas. These same ideas shaped many of their political ideals, like renowned Deist Benjamin Franklin, when they colonized America.

Most of them did attend Christian churches, such as Christ Church in Philly, Pohick Church in Virginia, United First Parish Church in Quincy, Mass, Old Meeting House in Boston and Trinity Church in NYC (source here). The majority attended offshoots of the Church Of England, like the Anglican and Episcopal denominations. Others were Puritans, Quakers and Catholic. Not all of them practiced Orthodox Christianity and very little of it looks like American Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal denoms today. In fact, if most Protestants stepped into an Anglican mass, they would probably think it was Catholic.

It is very important to remember that the revolution they fought was against a tyrannical king who was coronated by THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND! In effect, the revolt was not only against the crown, but against the very church that propped up his government…CHRISTIANITY! Our Founding Fathers were explicit in their disdain for a religious monarchy where the Church ran the state by coronating its leader. There was no separation of church and state nor freedom from religion.

So how any half-educated person in 21st Century America believes they were bent on forming a theocracy over here is literally insane! They didn’t leave one Christian monarchy just to establish George Washington as the Christian monarch of America. No they used Enlightenment era ideals and deist language, “their Creator,” instead of Almighty God. The Constitution uses that language and never mentions Christianity, or names the Creator or quotes any Bible passages. If the founders of this country wanted to establish a national religion, don’t you think they would have done all three things? Why leave England, then lead a revolt against their God-ordained king? Why not just institute The Church of America (be it Anglican or Episcopal) and deem Washington our nation’s monarch?

They didn’t like that system of government…not one bit! They fought a revolution over it and setup a Representative Republic because they believed in equal representation for everyone in the colonies. Every American was given the right to worship how they wanted freely without their government ramming religion down their throat or one church anointing their leader. This is just historical fact!

And it’s gaslighting by America’s fundamentalist leaders and their political think tanks, like Heritage Foundation, that would have us believe otherwise. They are selling the myth that the religion of 18th century, students of Enlightenment lines up perfectly with their 21st century Christianity and it doesn’t. They further promote the lie that our Founding Fathers established America as a Christian Nation. They did not.

Christian Nationalism, with its roots in genocide, xenophobia and racism, is built on an absolute lie. Look at how the Puritans who landed at Plymouth in 1620 treated indigenous people. They were even ruthless with other Christian believers—Quakers and Baptists—because they believed they were of the pure faith. Christian Nationalist are extreme, cult-like brutes of that same ilk. They believe only American fundamentalism is the true religion and they are hellbent on cramming it down our throats. And like the Puritans, they feel it is Manifest Destiny to rewrite our history and implement their theocracy over this nation. It’s pure bullshit! Our forefathers are rolling over in their graves.

Kristi Burke touches on some of this, including Manifest Destiny, in her new series on Christian Nationalism.

I think it is very dangerous, to allow a cult of one branch of one sect of any religion to rule over America. I see it no different than if the Taliban were to overthrow our government and institute (religious) Shariah Law over all of us. I call the Heritage Foundation and their ilk THE XIAN TALIBAN! Their fundamentalist views are just as barbaric, savage and unAmerican. They must not be given power over us.

NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING

I touched on this a few years ago on this blog. Thanksgiving is a bogus holiday. Many of us learned as adults that the feltboard version we were taught in grade school is totally false, a-historical. Just ask the Native Americans. They don’t honor or celebrate this day like we do. They mourn the loss of everything.

DAY OF MOURNING

There is a memorial plague set into a boulder and erected by the Town of Plymouth on behalf of the United American Indians of New England (see below). There is nothing to celebrate according to the Native Americans, whose land was stolen as was their knowledge of the soil and agriculture. That’s what most Americans celebrate tomorrow, right? The bountiful harvest of corn crops that we learned to cultivate from “the Indians.”

They have no reason to celebrate that the Europeans who invaded their continent broke every single treaty they made in good faith. They TRIED to tolerate us white folk. We lied and killed them for believing us, taking us at our word. Why would they celebrate that?

From the National Day website:

The organizers of this observance consider Thanksgiving Day as a continued reminder of the democide and suffering of Native American people. Since 1970, participants in the National Day of Mourning have honored Native ancestors and their struggles to survive today. Part of the mission behind the event is to educate Americans about the history of Thanksgiving.  

So while you’re choking down stuffing and mashed potatoes in mass quantities, just know that our native brothers and sisters are not. They are in mourning that we ever came to their land. They have every right and reason to be somber on Thursday. They are not thankful for the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock.

#NationalDayofMourning

WHITESNAKE

 

This kickass rock band from the UK got my attention in junior high when I first heard the track, “Love Ain’t No Stranger,” on the radio. I loved that song! It had a Led Zeppelin vibe, starting slow and mellow, the grovelly vocals of David Coverdale soulfully singing, “Who knows where the cold wind blows…” Very poetic and Robert Plant like. Then the song kicks into high gear with the heartfelt scream, “Love Ain’t No Stranger!” Think the dynamics of Zep’s “Ramble On.” I’ll link the video here:

I loved that song so much that I went out and bought the album, titled “Slide It In.” From the provocative album cover to even more provocative (and downright naughty) lyrics, it resonated with my pubescent, sexually-frustrated self at age 15. It came out in January 1984 when I was starting my second semester of Sophomore year in high school. I opened the album, put it on my stereo console and rocked out to the first three tracks, wearing out the grooves on “Slide It In,” “Slow and Easy” (with their highly-charged, sexual lyrics) and Stranger, their radio hit.

Slide It In album cover

I was a big fan! Never saw them in concert, though. Loved their videos on MTV. They toured the U.S. in 1984, opening, first, for Dio, and then for Quiet Riot.

They didn’t put out another album for three years!

Work began on the album as soon as they finished touring in early 1985, but it was recorded piece-meal by ever-changing band members and even some legendary session players, like guitarist Dann Huff (source: Wikipedia). The final pieces were recording Coverdale’s vocals, delayed because of sinus issues and required surgery, and piecing together a whole new lineup for the band. He enlisted Rudy Sarzo, from Quiet Riot, and Dio’s lead guitarist Vivian Campbell, who he’d met on the ‘84 U.S. tour, and Ozzy’s drummer Tommy Aldridge, who had previously auditioned for the WS gig.

This was a whole new Whitesnake. None of them performed on the 1987 album, but all appeared in the subsequent music videos. That was my introduction to Aldridge, who is known for his crazy, curly locks and soloing without sticks! By the time the new album was released, Mar. 1987, I was living in Tallahassee and I purchased it on cd. I then recorded the album on cassette tape to play in my brown Chevelle Malibu at high levels through aftermarket Pioneer speakers. I wore that goddamn tape OUT! I loved it and so did America’s youth as the album shot to #2 on Billboard’s chart. The videos for multiple singles were MTV favorites that year.

“Still of the Night,” to this day is the rockinest, most badass Whitesnake song of all time. It was a total Zeppelin ripoff, especially the Kasmiresque bridge that quiets to a near replica of “Black Dog” before exploding into a soaring Vivian Campbell solo! Gone were the blues undertones of say “Ramble On,” replaced with the harder Zeppelin-like riffs that laid the foundation for hard rock and heavy metal. Coverdale openly admits they were shooting for the new hard rock sound of bands like Bon Jovi that appealed to American youths. It appealed to me! I thought that album was epic. I loved the callback to classic Zeppelin!

It would be my last Whitesnake purchase, and only the second of their albums I ever owned. I couldn’t see how they could top what they had already done. And by 1987, I was getting into religious music (CCM, as it was termed) and groups like Petra, Whitecross, Whiteheart and The Allies were making rock albums that captured my full attention. A great example, complete with Zeppelin ripoffs, is The Allies’ “Long Way From Paradise” album.

So that’s my story. I figured a break from politics, racism and sports was in order.

Rock on 🤘

WHITE BIRTHRIGHT (MANIFEST DESTINY)

MANIFEST DESTINY

The racist ideology that white men have a God-ordained right to power and control over people and land. It was the ideology of Europeans who sought to colonize the West, native peoples be damned! Pretty much how the story of North America, specifically our part, played out, right? Because God gave us that birthright, or right by being born white, right? Just ask the passengers aboard the Mayflower.

When they got lost and landed north of their destination, they didn’t feel too welcomed by the non-whites who already lived in the area we would later name Cape Cod. So once they landed, they conspired to produce the Mayflower Compact in 1620. America just celebrated the 400th Anniversary of this event in 2020. Why is that significant? Well, it was Manifest Destiny in full effect. The white Europeans had arrived!

"The ideology of Manifest Destiny inspired a variety of measures designed to remove or destroy the native population. US President James K. Polk (1845-1849) is the leader most associated with Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny inflamed sectional tensions over slavery, which ultimately led to the Civil War,” says The Khan Academy.

Interesting how you can draw a straight line from our domination of Native Americans to the institution of African slavery using that ideology as a guide. And how that same ideology persists today in American democracy all these centuries later.

WHITE BIRTHRIGHT

I’ve written here about white privilege a number of times, but my most elaborate explanation can be found here, “Understanding White Privilege.”  But trying to explain this to uneducated white people is a lesson in futility! They get hung up on one word, privilege, and misunderstand that to mean family wealth or socio-economic status. I watched a video on the Troubled Waters YouTube channel the other day where the host, Reese Waters, talked to another black man about this problem. They agreed that the word “privilege” was the problem. We need a better word. I chose birthright.

I used it once already at the top of this post. It was the white man’s “God-given birthright” to take land that wasn’t theirs. Now, had they been of royal lineage, they would have had their own lands in Europe to claim as their BIRTHRIGHT. That’s how it works. Your birth into the right family, say the ruling class in Europe, would have given you this privilege. But the Puritans aboard the Mayflower TOOK this right as their own. It wasn’t really their privilege from birth. Yet, they believe GOD ordained it so. Again, Manifest Destiny wasn’t just the right of the wealthy, the ruling class. It was the birthright given to white Europeans BY THEIR DEITY! Thus, white birthright. 

And as the Khan Academy pointed out, this ideology, or way of seeing the world, still permeates our government, our society. I discuss this and make it very personal in my post titled “Systemic Racism.” It’s just as real as Manifest Destiny and white birthright.

So the next time you’re in conversation with ignorant white folks, choose your words more carefully. Words matter. Understanding matters.

If you’re a white person reading this and you still don’t get it. Imagine that your European ancestors had been rounded up, shackled to the hulls of a slave ship and transported half a world away, lying in their own feces, only to be auctioned like hogs in a foreign land. If you can imagine being free in your homeland one minute and a slave in unfamiliar territory with a whip across your back for making eye contact with your captor-owner the next, MAYBE these ideas will begin to crystallize.

WTF, AMERIKKKA???

 

I knew we had a supremely racist country stained with a bigoted past whose foundation was laid on the backs of slaves. Even still, the presidential candidacy of an Illinois Senator in 2008 gave us hope. Barack Obama ran his campaign of hope on the slogan, “Yes We Can” and won the presidency as the nation’s first African American to hold that office. And if that weren’t a monumental step forward for America, he was successful and earned a second term. My pride in America, faith in her Constitution and hope for our future was at an all-time high.

But there was a severe backlash across the largely red states in this country. The innate racism, a systemic issue affecting the heart of our democracy and tearing at the fabric of our union, reared its ugly head in response to eight years under a black progressive president. A crescendo from white Amerikkka, especially in “the Heartland” and “Bible Belt,” the poorest and least educated of our neighbors, built into a red wave which overtook our democracy and became MAGA World and Trumpism (aka The Cult of Trump). An outcry from the lower and middle class, that started with The Tea Party movement a year into Obama rule, bolstered by neo-Nazi and Confederate-loving rednecks, grew into a roar of the alt-right until neo-conservatism was overtaken by fascism and a sense of false national pride. Like post-World War I Germans, Christian Nationalists cried for the fatherland and a new white messiah to save it from the hoard of brown immigrants (“vermin,” just like the Jews had been to Germans). There was also a rise in anti-semitism JUST LIKE in Germany and in 1920’s Amerikkka. Yes, the height of the Ku Klux Klan in the good ol’ US of A!

That backlash is what got us a pornstar-fucking, reality TV star and fake billionaire playboy as president in 2016. The alt-right MAGA cult was now the ruling class. We saw what it unleashed immediately. The Klan’s hoods came off. They marched, unhooded, through the streets of Charlottesville in 2017, leading to violence. They even stormed our fucking Capitol waving Nazi and Confederate flags in 2021! UN-REAL!

Racism reared its ugly head in a very real way. Thank you, MAGAts.

The nation barely survived COVID, racial unrest, growing economic disparity, culture warfare and recession during the Dark Years of 45 and MAGA rule. But we booted his impeached ass out of office and replaced him with another rich, white dude and career politician. We threw a bunch of his cult-loving insurrectionist traitors into prison. We thought we had moved on.

Enter Kamala Harris. She was thrust into the political spotlight in what “the cult” saw as another coup. It wasn’t. It was a necessity. The old, white patriarchy—yeah, the ones who brought us slavery, America’s original sin—needed to be dismantled. The bi-racial woman of color seemed just the person to do that…finally.

Only racist, white Amerikkka wasn’t ready. The only thing worse than an African-American male candidate, apparently, IS A FEMALE. Ask Hilary Clinton.

The misogyny in this vast Republic of 330 million is very deeply rooted. The Christian Nationalists, whose archaic views take a very narrow and fundamental view of the Bible, hold women in shackles very much like their extremist cousins in the Middle East. I prefer to call these American terrorists the Christian Taliban because of their extremist views on women and their desperate need for theocracy. There’s a reason June Cleaver archetypes were so popular in 1950’s American culture. From this worldview, women should “know their place.” Or as 1 Corinthians 14:34 instructs, “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” The shariah law of the Taliban demands it.

We saw the Harris/Walz campaign end Tuesday night in utter defeat. It wasn’t the first time a woman dared to shatter that last glass ceiling and begin to dismantle the patriarchy, propped up by centuries of white aristocracy (aka privilege). Hopefully, it won’t be the last. And her campaign of joy and hope, Obama at the forefront in the final month, fell on deaf ears.

But white Amerikkka spoke loudly. They said yes to a black male BUT HELL NO TO A WOMAN!

The first Trump administration rolled back women’s rights 50 years. White, Christian Amerikkka thought that didn’t go far enough. They want the Christian Taliban to roll them back 100 years to women’s suffrage, as outlined in their manifesto, Project 2025.

At least Hitler put his name to Mein Kampf and never distanced himself from his own playbook. Tim Walz tried to warn us. You don’t draw up a 900-page-plus playbook just to shelve it! You also don’t name its authors to your Presidential Transition Team, while publicly denying you even know these people. C’mon, mini Hitler, own up to your work! You are named more than 500 TIMES in its pages!

ITS MESSAGE: Women, know your place and keep silent!

Amerikkka shouted that from the top of the ballot box Tuesday.

My YouTube Channel

 My videos are raw and unedited. You’ll find the same topics discussed here—life, politics, sports and spirituality—on my YouTube channel.

In the above video, Deconstructing My Spirituality, I give an intro to how I got here. Like and leave a comment.

Minimalism, a shift in priorities and focus

This guy speaks truth. What do we really “own?” We are temporary, finite creatures on this planet. We have things we USE. He calls it a basic fact. Most people don’t get this. Can you take it with you?

Typically, for most folks, the biggest financial investments we make—homes and cars—are consumable commodities. They can be consumed, as in burnt up in flames, until they are gone. In accounting, we call them depreciating assets. Even homes that gain value over time will one day decay, become dilapidated to the point of falling in on themselves or get torn down. It will become a dump, a trash heap of debris. It’s a consumable commodity, a depreciating asset, that may serve a purpose in your life until the time you die. It won’t last forever, either. Even if you “pass it down,” the average lifespan of a home is three generations. Homes and treasured heirlooms have a limited lifespan. People who suffered through but survived Hurricane Ian understand the limited lifespan and value of THINGS, even precious things, irreplaceable things. Things that are consumable, though, and won’t go into eternity with you.

In moving back to this island among those survivors last year, that weighed heavy on my decision. I’m a minimalist and have lived that way since 2011. The six years leading up to that, I began deconstructing my sense of self, my faith and downsizing. In the year that followed I got divorced, downsizing even further and going deep into myself TO FIND ME! So that when I moved back amongst the living dead, one year and eight months after most of them LOST EVERYTHING, I believed I would be amongst like souls who had learned this valuable life lessons. Things hold no eternal value.

My girlfriend and I just went round-and-round on this very topic. The cremains of our parents do not hold their essence. The ashes of their mortal bodies do not keep them close to us in spirit. They are but a reminder of them, their essence and presence in our lives. Even less valuable things, like keepsakes from childhood, or our kids’ childhood, hold no real eternal value. They are mere pointers, physical reminders, of what we had, what once was. They stir our nostalgia and our fuzzy recollections.

I can remember our old 8mm home movie reels. Dad had a Bell + Howell movie projector and a movie screen that he’d setup in our basement and play for us early childhood memories. There I was on the movie screen at 3 years old playing football with my dad on the living room carpet, at 5 years old being walked down the street towards kindergarten by my 3 year old sister, or at 6 years old playing in the fall leaves at Broad Ripple Park (Northeast Indianapolis). I would watch those movies for years and it brought back wonderfully nostalgic feelings. But I didn’t travel back in time and become that 3 year old in an oversized football helmet. You can never go back. And now that the home movies are gone and I’m aging, those memories from long ago get fuzzier and more distant. Dad even had them digitized before the film totally deteriorated, but then he lost the disc. Unless digital copies exist somewhere in the cloud, those old movies are gone forever, lost to time. They were not eternal, either.

What’s my point? I’d give everything I have to have those digitized films back for antiquity. I’d love to hand them down to my adult daughters. I’d love to hear their laughter over me crying because I didn’t WANT to play football or wear that ridiculous helmet! I’d love to know that they could one day show their own children, should they have any. But they DO HAVE memories of our lives together. THAT will be my enduring legacy, the only thing of eternal value.

What do we really own? Our life on planet Earth is SO SHORT! We take none of the stuff with us, but as George Carlin put it, we spend so much of our lives worrying about our stuff and where we are going to store our stuff. It’s comical because it’s true. But it’s also sad. It shows us the ridiculous value we place in things and the ridiculous amount of time we spend working for and worrying about things. They are insignificant refuse meant for the garbage heap of time. Even our bodies are consumable. Mine will be burnt up in a crematory one day.

That’s not fatalism, but realism.

So where do you place value in your life? What are you working so hard for? Things that are eternal and priceless or consumable commodities, like creature comforts? Do you need them, like air and water, to survive? Then what are they really worth? What are you investing in of any significant value? Where are your priorities? What is the payoff?