PSY (Gangnam Style) to try RAP (video)

Boo, Tee, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Idolator; LA Weeky; Rolling Stone; Yahoo!; MTV

PSY's "horse dance” comes from 1,000-year-old Buddhist ceremonial dance (Korean Bodega)

Jazz impressario Dave Brubeck joins the Choir Invisible leaving a noteworthy legacy for musicians pushing the envelope

Korean Buddhist and the top draw in the short history of YouTube, PSY has his eye on rap. As he approaches a billion hits for "Gangnam Style," he fears becoming an irrelevant one-hit-wonder. Solution? Work with 2 Chainz and Diplo to create the next great hit.

• PSY learned Horse-Dance from ancient Buddhist ritual
• Obama to attend PSY performance despite protests

2 CHAINZ? Yes, Wisdom Quarterly's resident rapper is heading for the big time. In a week he is returning to Los Angeles to participate in the Power106 FM "Cali Christmas" with Big Sean, Rick Ross, and others. But what PSY has in store for him with choreography, lyrics, and a non-stop dance mix is likely to break all records and make GOODE Music's Kanye West wish he'd included the Atlanta rapper in his inner crew.

  

ROLLING STONE magazine has released the Top 50 Rap Songs of all time. Grandmaster Flash gets top honors; Will Smith left off list. (RS)

RAP GENIUS, a great idea with venture capital backing, is not a hit with the stylemakers in the rap community. The Wikipedia-for-rap lyrics gets hits. But its founders, principally Mahbod Moghadam, are not making any friends in the business (LAW).

KENDRICK LAMAR, meanwhile, took it to the streets as crowds flowed out of the Lakers' game in downtown h*ll. A double deck bus served as a stage before police swarmed in with helicopter support to disperse the crowd that had the audacity to dance in the streets. If rap won't contain itself, the growing police state will contain it.

(Yahoo!) The "Swimming Pools" rapper tweeted about a secret LA show (Crash Concert) across from the Staples Center where the Lakers had just played. The encroaching police state had other ideas.

• Buzz Worthy (Idolator.com)
• VIDEO: Live on LA streets (audience view)
• PHOTOS: Kendrick Lamar - Crash Concerts

"I wanted to do something special…that actually made a point, made a statement," he says during an exclusive Yahoo! interview. "Better to do it in our hometown, right after the Laker game." The massive crowd spilled onto the street. After performing "Swimming Pools," "The Recipe," and a bonus from his "Section 80" release, the police dispersed the crowd as a chopper hovered making the evening news.

RAP NOSTALGIA Country music took off when most Americans no longer lived on the farm (Prof. Fox, RadioLab.org). Why? It became glamorized, powered by nostalgia. How many of us still live in ghettos? Most of us live in cities but certainly not in the megalopolises that create most of the most popular rap music.

Dads can't rap for shizzle! But pops, they try.

Chris Brown was acting like a 17-year-old stoner who traveled to Amsterdam for the first time. Breezy posted a bunch of marijuana-centric photos from what was surely a fruitful trip to the Netherlands [Oh No They Didn't]. Ellie and Skrillex may have called it quits earlier this year, but the two are “still big fans of each other,” according to Ellie. In fact, she hopes the two can work together again, like they did on the Breaking Dawn - Part 2 song “Bittersweet” [MTV].

• Hear "Pop Music" on air this week (Radio Lab)
• The Jews who wrote Christmas songs
• Racist Facebook sorority photo goes viral 
• Labor rebellion: Fast-food workers demand higher wages
• The describing "Cloud Atlas" in one sentence challenge
• Obama asks for $60.4 billion for Sandy reconstruction
• Ariz. family claims other half of $588 million jackpot
• PHOTOS: Oh, how cute, celebrity babies!

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Africa: Buddhist "Fire and Water" ritual (video)

AFP, March 5, 2012; Wisdom Quarterly

(LINK) African Buddhists come together in Kenya with female Japanese master Shinso Ito, head of the Shinnyo En Order

More than 300 religious and spiritual leaders from around the world, Kenyan musicians, dancers, and tribal elders gather for Africa's first Buddhist "Fire and Water" ritual to nurture spiritual awakening.

Venerable (Bhante) Buddharakkhita, Uganda Buddhist Centre,
 is planting Dharma seeds in Uganda, Africa

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Incarceration Nation (Alternative Radio)

Prof. Michelle Alexander, AlternativeRadio.org; Wisdom Quarterly

AR (Program #ALEM001) recorded in Santa Fe, NM, Sept. 12, 2012. (Nessom-Marshall)

 

Prof. Alexander (AR)

From the auction block to the cell block, there is a trajectory from slavery to Jim Crow to the best pretext for systematic racism and segregation ever devised, the "War on Drugs." 

The latter has resulted in mass jailings characterized by deep racial disparities.

 

The US is likely to send about one-third of young black men to jail. The criminal "justice system" -- which is more criminal than just -- functions as a modern system of racial control. Millions of people, primarily poor people of color, are being swept into the nation’s prisons at a profit to some and a cost to all.

Overcrowding is more profitable for guard's union (AP)

Those millions are then relegated to a permanent subordinate-class status which strips them of basic civil and human rights supposedly won for all during the Civil Rights era. The numbers are numbing. In all, the US holds 2.3 million behind bars and 4.8 million more on probation and parole. 

The more people who are locked up, with just cause or not, the more some profit: police departments who get additional funding for more incarcerations rather than lower crime rates, who keep assets seized even if no one is charged or, if charged and tried, found not guilty. 

• LISTEN NOW

Not only do rural areas get paid to have prisons located in their precincts, millions are employed as guards and other functionaries within the "prison-industrial complex." The industrial part of the complex is called the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison owner and operator. 

  

Prisons are bad enough when run by the state, miserable warehouses with torture and abuse dispensing collective punishment and wasting lives rather than rehabilitating anyone. They get much worse when a corporation cuts corners at every turn to increase their profit margin at the cost of  human misery and a disservice to society.

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The Three Poisons of the Heart

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; H. Kopp Delaney (photo)

This questionable quote is based on real aphorisms in the Dhammapada, which run:

"There is no fire like passion (greed); there is no losing throw like hatred; there is no snare like delusion; there is no happiness higher than nirvana" (sacred-texts.com).

  

Variations are due to free translations and the coupling of related passages to synthesize more inclusive quotes. Hatred is a crime, hunger is a sickness; there is no sorrow like separation; there is no joy like the joy of complete freedom -- which is nirvana (Dhp).

Minds/hearts are bound by lust (H-K-D/flickr)

One is burned by lust, by craving, by clinging, by passion. If nothing else, it blinds one from seeing the liberating-truth. Most are not looking, so we delight in the senses and dream of a heavenly rebirth with intensified senses and sensual experiences. For men in general, the Buddha declared, there is nothing more alluring than the form of a woman, and for women in general, the form of a man.

  

Of course, Buddhism admits of individual variation, but this generally holds. From time to time one may crave anything. It is craving itself that is the fire. And though one changes what one craves, if one still craves, the burning will continue. This is an internal problem not the Buddha's comment on some social (external) situation. Meditation -- both for the sake of serenity and insight -- is ruined by craving.

Aversion has many manifestations like racism

Hatred expressing itself as revenge, wrath, thoughts of harming and ill will do little to harm others compared to the harm done to oneself. One is not only harming oneself. One is harming both and everyone else as well. Indeed, hate is a losing throw, like the original meaning of "sin," which simply meant "to miss the mark." A society esteeming archery understood. Do we hate? "I don't hate!" We fail to recognize how pervasive aversion (dosa) is in our lives and how much harm it does. For most of us most of the time, aversion manifests as fear. It leads to bias just as greed does, just as delusion does.

At the root of all harm, all faults, all suffering is delusion, wrong views, ignorance, folly. (Craving is singled out as the cause of suffering because it is a weak link in the causal chain of Dependent Origination, a point at which to undo suffering, but in fact ignorance is a more fundamental root of misery).

 

The Buddha gained/ taught freedom (Evs in nz)

This being the case, the solution, the cure, the antidote to dukkha (unsatisfactoriness, woe, pain) of all kinds is enlightenment, liberating-insight, wisdom. This cure can be administered immediately with mindfulness -- bare awareness of just what is without embellishment or propagating worries about it. Right here, right now everything is fine. When we move out of presence (presence of mind, the present moment), we encounter troubles.

A more permanent solution is developing calm and collectedness (concentration of the heart/mind's innate power) then turning that purified consciousness on the development of systematic insight. The liberated heart is the highest happiness.

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Buddhist Rap Music Fan? Yes!

Reader N. "Hedgehog" Wilcox, San Francisco, to Wisdom Quarterly

(SuperGreeny09)

  

By and large, Who's enjoying gangster rap music in America? The question is answered in the opening scene of the classic MTV movie Office Space by Mike Judge (creator of "Beavis & Butthead") featuring Jennifer Aniston ("Friends"). The character Michael Bolton is observed rapping (Scarface "No Tears") in his car.

 

WQ READER: I thought I was the only one, a Buddhist and a rap fan. As a White male and a middle-class professional in the engineering field at a large Silicon Valley giant, I may not look the part, but I love gangsta rap. 

I'm not the only one. The violence always seemed cartoonish and bigger than life, in spite of the fact that I drive through Oakland on my daily commute and either a car was backfiring or I once heard gunshots. 

Being White means not thinking about race.

My Buddhist practice is largely confined to the East Bay and the City [San Francisco]. I rarely make it into Marin to sit vipassana. But Buddhism of all the world's religions most conforms to my reservedly skeptical scientific outlook. I'm not sure how I feel about my teenage daughter listening to rap. However, rap does beat her Deadmau5 and Skrillex.

(Does it? See below.)

• A Complete Guide to Hipster Racism
• White doper Lance Armstrong in cartoons

"Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" at "The Office" (chlcbuns)

  

  

Why are Whites so violent?

In this very violent scene from the comedy "Office Space" Michael Bolton and two of the other main characters beat a stolen FAX machine senseless and unwittingly inspire Family Guy's Stewie and Brian Griffin to exhibit the same level of aggression against a record. It even seems to have affected electronic dance music aficionados Deadmau5 and Gerard Way:

Here are two for your daughter courtesy of Deadmau5 and G3rard, "Professional Griefers," as well as Skrillex "First of the Year (Equinox)," which begs the question: Is EDM the scourge of the 'burbs?

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Race Relations in America (video)

SCPR.org (KPCC FM); Wisdom Quarterly

Watch Race 2012 - Preview on PBS. See more from Race 2012

  

"OBAMA — Racial barrier falls in decisive victory" was the New York Times headline four years ago after B.S. Obama won the election. But just how much have racial relations changed since 2008? That's one of the questions explored in a documentary on PBS called "RACE 2012."

• Hipster racism: myth or fact? (Patt Morrison)  The term "hipster racism" has been tweeted about quite a bit lately, prompting praise, debate, and a lot of head-scratching. What is it?
• Three-day Fall Yoga Workshop, Los Angeles 
• Author discusses history of racism in LA after Trayvon
• Study: New heart disease drug may also battle racism (Mar. '12) In a new Oxford University study, participants on a beta blocker tested lower on prejudice-judging tests than those on a placebo.
• Reports detail cultures of racism, bullying in Riverside
• God worship in India - a reflection 
• From DCentric: Brown, Black, racism, and relationships One of Multi-American's sister blogs on NPR's Argo Network, WAMU 88.5's DCentric in Washington, D.C., had a thought-provoking post...  
• Racism for Dummies (Off-Ramp)(Feb. 2008) Two "Daily Show" alums take on bigots in a new book called A Practical Guide to Racism. As Jon Stewart says, "Read it with someone you hate..." 
• Un-Fair Campaign to combat racism focuses on whites   (Feb. 7, 2012) The billboards are striking. Splashed across Duluth, Minnesota, they read: “It's hard to see racism when you're white.” That message appears over...

Move it or lose it! (Or move it and lose it sometimes. Build up slowly).

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Can RAP Music Fans be Buddhists? (video)

Boo and Tee tag team interview (edited by Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Seven), Wisdom Quarterly

Artistic inked rendition of Boo and Tee (tattoo art by Erika Doyon/StudioArtease)

    

The Godfather of Soul James Brown

"Yeah we #1/Boo the color of mayonnaise/Tee the color of Akon/Trippin like a purpa haze/Got our tie we on/[Rap] her under the table/But babe she won."

  

The question arises around the campus offices of Wisdom Quarterly: Can someone be a Buddhist AND a hip hop gangsta-rap music fan?
 

What would Sid do? (weeklyvolcano.com)

"Of course," one might answer, "anyone who listens to the Beastie Boys might be both!" But "Brass Monkey" or even "So What Cha Want" is not what most people mean by "rap" nowadays. That's vintage hip hop. And it is now the gangsta rap genre that appears to be dominating the limelight and sucking all the air out of the room. Can those fans be Buddhists? We have already seen Buddhists in metal and punk genres.
 
WARNING: May trigger epileptic seizures. Explicit language! Earworm content.

  

There are far more US White and Brown rap fans than Blacks (not as a proportion but in total numbers). Boo and Tee are White-Latino, which makes sense in our increasingly blended Amerika, which manages to remain racist. They point out that rap superstars Cypress Hill happily combined the efforts of a Mexican (B'Real), Afro-American (Sen Dog), and Scandinavian (DJ Muggs), and whose final member (Bobo) had previously recorded and performed with the Beastie Boys.

"Latin Thugs" ft. Tego Calderon combines horns, beats, gang-violence

This popular sub-genre seems to glorify alcohol abuse, drug consumption and/or sales, "partying," casual sex, violence, sexism, gang banging, hyper-masculinity, false bravado, grotesque/comical conspicuous consumption ("bling") celebrating capitalism, and other realities of American society -- particularly the leisurely life of suburban denizens attempting to imitate their imaginary version of day-to-day urban survival.

On one extreme Tyga may be all about Rack City b-tches, but J. Cole likes the easygoing island version on "Can't Get Enough." Both appear to be obsessing.
 

Kanye West is much to blame in this regard with No. 1 hits alongside 2 Chainz, Katy Perry, JZ, and a whole stable of up-and-coming rappers -- and making Tadolf Swiftler cry by stealing her limelight that time.

QUESTION: Tee, are there any songs that you feel demonstrate this penchant of modern rap music to excess and heedlessness with regard to the Five Basic Precepts?

The original pompadour, hips, and showmanship

TEE: F@#% yeah, like, Kendrick Lamar, "Swimming Pools (Drank)." Y'know, White Man stole the Black Man's music. Called it rock 'n roll. Same thing happening here. They invent it; The Man reinvents it and cashes in. Elvis vs. James Brown, Eminem vs DMX. So who got more RAP IQ points than we do?

WARNING: Alcoholic themes, profanity.

QUESTION: Same question, Boo?

BOO: Sure 'nuff, totally, like "Bottoms Up" by Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj [ignores the precepts].
 
QUESTION: And you two are "Buddhists"?

BOO: Yeah. I guess.
TEE: Yes, I am.

Cartoon simulation of Tee rapping ("Family Guy")

QUESTION: How do you reconcile the two endeavors?

BOO: What do you mean?
TEE: I feel you, but it can be done. It's easy with Zen Buddhism. I don't drink anymore, but some Zen monks drink. What's up with that? Sake and sh-t...
BOO: Oh, they go. I'm in recovery. I mean, I still clean the screen. That's medicine. But I quit everything else. The Dharma keeps me in check, meditating. Keeps my head straight.
TEE: Think of it like this. Hey-Zeus [the Judeo-Christian Godman Issa] was preaching to who? The pimps and hoes, not the temple folk, right?
BOO: It's the new "rock 'n roll," grand concerts, big stadium arena shows, same as seeing Lennon or Zeppelin.
  
WARNING: Explicit content, vulgarity, celebration of alcohol abuse, sexual situations!
  

The N-Word

King Kanye and Kim (perezhilton.com)

QUESTION: Ah, then there's the gratuitous "n-word." Exceeded in frequency only by the s- and b- and f-words.  It gets to be a bit much, no?

BOO: Yeah. But it's free speech.
TEE: Yeah. Who needs political speech when we could be cussing? I'm sure that's what Founding Fathers like John Footpenis had in mind.
BOO: *Laughing*

QUESTION: Then there's the whole Kim Kardashian connection, who seems to be a hybrid, more alien than human. Not only her but the Canadian cousins Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Ryan Gosling, and Celine Dion, not to mention unrelated unnatural (supernatural) artists like Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj. [See below and "Sex and Justin Bieber."]

TEE: Blame Seacrest for that.
BOO: She's a st-pid h-. Kanye can't be blamed for that. He just capitalizing on her fame.
TEE: Yeah, and he's not even a baller [sports figure] except in the sense that he's a player [street guy who made it]!
BOO: He think he da new Sean "Puff Daddy Baby Jesus" Combs dating J-Lo. P!nk is embarrassing.

QUESTION: Is there a rap song that's not embarrassing?

TEE:  Totally! What about "Cashing Out" by Ca$h Out? It's like [the movie] "The Secret." Fake it till you make it. Anything by Minaj may be silly, but it's hella popular among White moms and their [pre-adolescent] daughters [and ABCNews' GMA].
BOO: Yeah, yeah, and that's not all. Plenty a artists drop great joints [release excellent songs]. Karmin? Kidding!
 
All ages. Child safe. Karmin does her best Nicki Minaj on "Suiper Bass."
 
QUESTION: Bottom line, Can a person be a hip hop (gangsta) rap fan and a Buddhist?

  

The Buddha comforts Kisa G

BOO: To be completely mindful is to be able to distinguish between what you like and what they want you to like. 

  

It's the same with being a punk and a Buddhist -- a movement based on chaos and anarchy and destruction going hand in hand with the centered, mindful, and ultimately serene approach of Buddhists?

To listen to rap and know -- despite all the violence and drugs involved in the culture and the explicit content of the lyrics -- is to distinguish and enjoy the music. What they [the rappers] say has no destructive impact on you. That's one Buddhist's bumbling rap. I don't know.

TEE: Damn, girl, straight up. Testify! Swerve! I just like the beat mostly. And 2 Chainz's preposterous imagination:


WARNING: Explicit content, vulgarity, sexual situations, and gratuitous violence!

WARNING: Light profanity, violent situations, drug use! Gangsta rap has something for everyone. This one's for suburban dads: "Boyz in the Hood" (Dynamite Hack).
   
WISDOM QUARTERLY: Thank you for the discourse and your exquisite decorum!

BOO: WTF?
TEE: Heh?

QUESTION: Boo, would you like to do a closing "rap" like Tee's opener?

BOO: You can hear me live at Get Lit's Open Mic (Wed., Oct. 17, 2012 @ Actor's Gang Theatre, 9070 Venice Bl., LA).

QUESTION: Would you mind coming back for a Part II?

TEE: Love to!
BOO: Love to!

We Are One

"Earthmen are easy!" (Travis Charest)

The only race is the human race -- but it extends into space. Hybrid devic beings like Kim Kardashian and other sex-crazed "stars" are the main attraction/distraction. Asuras, nagas, yakkhas, and devas (titans, reptilians, ogres, and dubious "angels" or fairies) make their contribution as Kanye contributes genes on behalf of the terrestrial humans. All hail the "king"!

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Bible: "Aliens" in Sodom and Gomorrah

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS); biblical research by HilaryBilaryBop

   

M'Romney (Moroni) goes Open Cond*m Style

Ever wonder what they were doing in the wicked Dead Sea twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah before the space ships attacked?
  
These biblical sites -- where we get the English words sodomy and gonorrhea -- were not so much "Anything Goes" gay towns like our Hollywood and New York.
  
We explore the idea that one of the worst crimes in these depraved metropolises was the widespread abuse of "aliens." But they were up to other things, too: using pharmaceuticals (poisons),  a practice misleadingly translated as "sorcery" by Bible scholars and more.

  

To hear the God(s) of the Christian Bible tell it -- rather than the conservatives and Republicans -- the real problem was the mistreatment of aliens.

 

Did either the Middle Eastern bodhisattva (Jesus/Issa), his God father, or the Bible favor poverty? Of course not. The Vatican and panhandling Protestant ministers may want Christians to think so. But the example the West's most famous prophet gave was to eat and live like birds (Matt 13:1-23), who live abundantly and do not worry (Matt 6:24-34; Luke 12:24-27), instead taking necessities and life as they come.

Ancient aliens?

What are they up do down there?

The Book of Deuteronomy lists categories of people who are needy in Christian/Jewish terms: aliens, orphans, and widows. Ancient law in Israel (not the make believe place claimed by violent invaders who use ancient texts to rationalize their misappropriation in the name of their tribal God) dictates that Israelites assist women whose husbands had died since such loss generally resulted in impoverishment.

Obama was a Muslim (myfellowamerican.tv)

But what about the reference to “aliens” (NRSV translation)? The original Hebrew refers to foreigners or “strangers” (KJV). An ancient alien Israel was a non-Israelite living (“sojourning”) in Israel -- or anyone living in among another tribe). Such foreigners would have been dependent on land owning natives for wages/sustenance. Only Israelites could inherit land, which could not be bought or sold.

"He's not a Muslim; he's a Globalist." - Alex Jones (InfoWars.com)

Is there nothing I won't do or say to win?

What would racist Sheriff Arpaio or Gov. Romney do about immigrants in Arizona? If Romney says Pres. Obama is a Muslim, is he suggesting he himself is a true "Israelite" (according to biblical definition, not modern residency)? What does the Bible demand be done for the sake of foreign “aliens”? Just as it was illegal to oppress orphans and widows, it was illegal to mistreat foreigners (Exodus 22:21-22). There should be no distinction between the alien and the native (Numbers 15:14-16). Aliens get God’s blessings like native Israelites (Ezekiel 47:21-23). They share in the covenant with the tribal Jewish God as well (Deuteronomy 29:10-12).

Racist Arpaio has proof birth cert is fake

The most compelling thing about the world's aliens, all of whom are illegal, is that European immigrants didn't bother to ask or check with North America’s native population. Like modern Zionists, they just invaded, occupied, committed genocide, then settled the territory anew. So we might exhibit more compassion (or consider reparations). The Bible agrees with an empathic approach:

“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).
“You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).
“You shall also love the alien for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19).

Space gods (like YHWH) claim the land, and who are humans to argue with superior firepower as taught to them by their gods and idols and governments? We are at best tenants, at worst interlopers:

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine [God]; with me [God] you are but aliens and tenants” (Leviticus 25:23).
“For we are aliens and transients before you [God], as were all our ancestors [from space]; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope” (1 Chronicles 29:15).
“Hear my prayer, O Lords [plural], and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, alike all my forebears” (Psalm 39:12).

God's own army, an arm of the MIC

This is how one culture dealt with the serious issue of aliens in our midst, ancient immigration. At the root of the immigration issue in modern America is poverty. So long as the CIA and more clandestine agencies continue to destabilize sovereign countries, it will continue to be an issue. As the world financial situation worsens (by design), we can only expect it to worsen until we are all at each other's necks.

People who oppose gay marriage and homosexuality “on religious grounds” often appeal to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah in support of their beliefs. The truth is the space Gods of the Bible destroyed these towns because they practiced “sorcery” (dispensing pharmaceuticals), bad karma (actions), and sexual acts the space geneticists found “abominable.”

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was because they did not show hospitality to space aliens -- the "angels" (messengers) of God sent to determine whether or not there were 10 righteous individuals in the city on whose behalf God could spare the cities in accordance with an agreement the gods made with Abraham. Angels who appeared as strange humans were met with hospitality by only one man. God's lesson was not anti-gay; it was anti-inhospitality to aliens.

Prior to the destruction, Abraham bargains with God(s) not to destroy the cities, even though neither he nor his people live in them (except a nephew) . Abraham stands up for their cause with very little self-interest because of the possibility that there are good, decent people living there.

If the money devoted to building security walls ("fences") -- manning check points, bulldozing homes, misappropriating ancient lands and homesteads, stealing water, patrolling, imprisoning, torturing, disappearing, starving, writing anti-immigrant laws, and violating the civil rights of Palestinians and aliens in America, many of who in both cases are indigenous peoples, were instead spent on helping aliens, not only would everyone's lives be improved, our charity would have the added benefit of fixing the immigration problem.

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Judaism: Happy New Year!

S. Mendelson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
Family Guy's Seth Macfarlane wows national "SNL" audience

It's not easy being Jewish, feeling a lot of animosity because of everything the New Israel does and the residual racism outside of cosmopolitan areas in the country. It's just a cultural identity, not so much a religion for most younger Jews. When we want spirituality, Buddhism looks the most attractive Why would that be?

One supposes that there's something in the genetic memory or implicit cultural awareness of there being Jews in Himalayan India where Jesus and other Jewish travelers went due to there being a large trading settlement there (see Holger Kersten). The similarities between Mahayana Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity are stunning -- a messiah (Maitreya), one GOD (impersonal Brahman) that encompasses all the gods (personal heavenly/space visitors) who get worshipped separately as if they were One but with different names and attributes. 

What is there to say about Rosh Hashanah? Nothing other than to point out how far the Gentiles have taken Jewish lore and practice and made it completely other in the name of one mushroom figure. Happy New Year.

• THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS

Pro-Israel and pro-peace, is it possible? J Street thinks so.

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Another MC attacks Sikh temple in US

UPDATED 8/8; Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

Guru Nanak and nine other famous Sikh teachers. (Dev and ji are simply Indian honorifics).

   

OAK CREEK, Wisconsin - Well that didn't take long. Two weeks ago horrified Americans were shouting "Never again," and we were adding, "until the next time." Another Manchurian Candidate (MC) has been loosed upon civil society to create random mayhem and sow the seeds of fear.

• NEVER AGAIN (until the next time)
• 7 shot dead at Sikh temple
• Sikh temple massacre by white supremacist
• Holmes: "How does 'Dark Knight' end?"

Successful PsyOps candidate Page

Islamophobia figures into it, just as it did in Norway, because the first person shooter (whom police claim to have executed or "put down" when it seems, in fact, he followed his programming and committed suicide) was a white supremacist. He, Wade Michael Page, was also a military man with a checkered past that makes ordinary who would not be expected to have moved up the ranks if he were simply an enlisted man. And what did he do for the military-industrial complex (MIC)? PsyOps!

Now PsyOps (the propaganda arm of the MIC that runs black projects under the general heading of "psychological operations") must be getting pretty sloppy. Two weeks ago their MC was triggered to attack, that is, to methodically launch a finely tuned plan with no emotion, no thought, and very little if anything to remember.

  

Holmes medicated into silence

Once in custody the MC is chemically lobotomized to prevent any uncomfortable memories from creeping in and leaking to the public. It happened to wild-eyed Jared Loughner (who is "pleading guilty" while medicated out of his mind), the Gabby Gifford shooter, and James "the Joker" Holmes, the Aurora gunman.

Why do these things happen?

Why would anyone attack Sikhs (pronounced sEEks, not sICks), a small religion popular in India with many financially successful adherents, which seems to blend cultural elements of Hinduism and Sufism (mystic Islam). Kundalini Yoga as brought to America by the charismatic "Yogi Tea" magnate Yogi Bhajan is not "yoga" in the traditional Brahminical sense. Rather, it is a Sikh creation that has become very popular in the US thanks to female American converts like Gurmukh). Sikhism has, however, nothing to do with actual Islam. But appearances matter as much as assumptions: Turbans, uncut beards, white linen clothing -- it's all enough to earn them the pejorative "towel h*ads" and more disturbing militaristic ethnic slurs like Hajji, a term roughly equivalent to "gooks," employed by US soldiers committing war crimes during the US war on Vietnam. So was the hateful vocalist Page really out to avenge 9/11 or continue his military training as a civilian? Working in PsyOps it is more likely that he was hoisted by his own petard. He went from researcher to research subject without signing an informed consent release. The process of converting certain personality types, tested for by military psychiatrists, has been perfected since the idea of creating one or two man sleeper cells (along with their above top secret handlers) was born. The Russians apparently did it; the military-industrial complex does it. It is all part of "winning hearts and minds" (WHAM) by scaring up and inciting civilian support for US military atrocities. If draconian police state tactics are now suggested "for our security," who will oppose it? One must suppose that the NRA (National Rifle Association) will as well as both corporate wings of the Republican party (i.e., Obamas and Romneys). Gun control? Take guns out of the hands of scared citizens and put them in the hands of abusive police. This country does not grow richer every year manufacturing arms for the world by allowing greater regulations without a fight. In fact, any peace talk is actually thwarted rather than aided by US intervention, which coincidentally profits Democratic and Republican candidates' corporate supporters.

Gurmukh, owner of Golden Bridge Yoga in Hollywood, discusses friendship

  
Such events, then, pay off in many ways: the imposition of Orwellian regulations, loss of civil liberties, further encroachment of federal Big Brother style government into our lives, acceptance of endless war doctrine (fighting against tactics such as "terrorism" rather than finite countries), widespread panic, irrational fear-based behavior by citizenry (like increased gun sales to prevent more killings when guns can only attempt to do that by killing), xenophobia goes unremedied as "in" and "out" groups are further delineated, increased pharmaceutical sales (by citizens, shooters, police, military, and future candidates)... There is a great deal of money to be made because of fear, arms manufacturing being the most obvious. With that being the case, how can "peace" be tolerated?

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