In the great film Alexander, Hephaestion, Alexander's life long companion, asks Alexander "What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world?" At the other end of the world, near the International Date Line it is already 2 PM on Friday. Friday, 21 December 2012, the end of the world. According to some people, tomorrow (or today in some places that are already tomorrow) will be the last day ever, or something. To be fair, I had my own story "The L", which I began writing in 2006, have the end of the world begin tomorrow, when The Pinnacle Research Group initiated a global disaster from Bouvet Island. In my story the 21st is only the beginning of the end of the world, with the world not ending completely until fifteen years later after great tribulations have claimed five billion lives and ravaged the surface of the Earth.
It has been six years since I began my mystical career in January 2006, and started writing The Urban Mystic in February that same year (on AOL, which no longer exits, so you cannot access past archives which I have saved). It has been five years since I had my first taste of radical Freedom, One Taste, in January 2007, when the world was on the inside and my eyes were on the outside and my self was blasted across the face of the Kosmos. It has been four years since Christmas 2008 when I had a dream about the end of the world, 21 December 2012, where balls of light came to Earth and began erasing everything they touched. It has been nearly two years since I discovered My Little Pony, something that has really touched me and helped affect my life for the better. I have made predictions: the "Arab Spring", genetically modified viruses that mimic psychotropic drugs, the "Great Winter of 2010", among others. These past six years have been full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade them for the life I lived before.
Now, it seems like it is the end of the world. This year I was told that I need to make sacrifices to enter the next phase of my mystical career. The choice is mine, but it is a choice between being a mystic and living a normal life, and it is the greatest choice of my life, and the most difficult. A mirror reflects everything that falls on it, without altering the thing it is reflecting or becoming attached to it. A mirror mind, the mind of enlightenment, is the same. Cutting the fetters of attachment is necessary for enlightenment, and there are a few that seem too well entrenched in my psyche to be cut loose. If I go down this path farther I must deal with the death of the small self and all the little things it has accumulated over the years. What's really interesting is, I was told this would happen in the beginning! I was told in 2006 I would have these choices to make in 2012. I was told what to expect and when to expect it, and I failed to notice until most of the signs already passed and it was too late to prepare, just yesterday. Regardless of what happens in the external world tomorrow, it may well be the end of the world for my little self.
Come what may, it will be for the best. It has been a wonderful time, dear couple of readers (actually about 20 a day). I love you all.
Always Love.
Showing posts with label Drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drama. Show all posts
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Bible Code II
Michael Drosnin wrote two sequels to his book The Bible Code, one of which I have read, one of which I will never read. You might remember Mr. Drosnin from other posts.
If you have read the first Bible Code book but have not read the second, please do not. The two are worlds apart. Here is a brief synopsis:
Michael Drosnin, a hard-nosed journalist and ardent atheist, having proven the existence of a code in the Bible, he now has morphed into a combination of Indiana Jones and James Bond. Drosnin writes powerful men (Clinton, Bush, Arafat, Sharon, etc.) letters about the code and the end of the world, but he always leaves out the key details, because "no one would believe them," until his books are published. He wrote to Ehud Barak that the code said he would be the next Prime Minister of Israel in an early election in 1999, but he did not think Barak would believe him if he included the date, so he conveniently left that detail out of his letter but included it in the book. Drosnin conveniently leaves us no records for which to prove any of his stories. Two pictures of code tables appear on each page, taking up about 100 pages total.
Yasser Arafat is a very pious, kind-hearted man and all Israelis are war mongerers. And God does not exist, and here is an irrelevant code table.
Oh, and Michael Drosnin doesn't believe in God.
1998, Drosnin puts forward his ET "theory".
He finds references to DNA being "brought in a vehicle" and immediately jumps to the conclusion "when I found that encoded in the Bible, I couldn't believe it... DNA, the molecule of life, sent to Earth in a spaceship." (p. 144) It didn't say that. Just as every time he reads the word "computer" in the code when the actual Hebrew word says "thought", Drosnin reads "vehicle" as "spaceship" when it does not say that. A virus could be a vehicle to introduce a new gene into a cell, why should we believe that the word "vehicle" means "spaceship" when nothing indicates that it does? And what is the code for DNA itself? DNA is just letters, unlike the words and names used in other codes, so it might mean something completely different. It might just be nonsense. Just in case, here are four more code tables with useless words that can't be checked to mean anything.
Drosnin then says he had to call many nameless scientists to find out what they thought and just so happens to call Francis Crick, who wrote about the same idea decades before, and surprise, Crick agrees! Who would have guessed? Until you check out the back of the book, where Drosnin says he interviewed Crick years before about panspermia and he just crafted the story of trying to find reputable scientists who agree with his ET "theory" to make the book more interesting. Yes, someone who time and time again talks about being a "just the facts" hard-nosed journalist lied to make his story more interesting.
Michael Drosnin, by the way, does not believe in God. And Yasser Arafat was the nicest man he ever met, and he really, really wants peace, but religious people will kill him if he makes peace with the war mongering Israelis.
2001, Drosnin is in Israel trying to reach the Israeli PM because he has vitally important information from the Bible code about nuclear war in 2006. When an advisor asks what that information is, Drosnin says "I need to meet with the PM, because the code says if peace is not reached there will be nuclear war." The advisor replies, "tell me something I don't know," to which Drosnin drones on and on "You don't understand, I have to tell the PM face to face that the world will end if peace is not made!" "Okay, we all know that, what else?" "Damn you by the God you believe in, the world will end if you don't make peace and I must see the PM to tell him this!" Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.
1998 Drosnin must look for an "obilisk" and a "steel ark" in the area near the Dead Sea called Lisan, because it contains the key to understanding the Bible code, which was created by aliens who seeded the Earth 4 billion years ago, because Michael Drosnin does not believe God exists. He tries to get the Jordanians to let him dig, but they refuse.
2001, Drosnin confronts Colin Powell. He asks to see President Bush because the world will end if peace is not made and he must tell the President. See above. Drosnin must save the world from religion and nuclear war, because he does not believe in God, but the code is real, and created by ET, and warns of nuclear war in 2006.
1998, I think, who knows, the book keeps skipping around for no reason. Drosnin is back playing Indy again, talking about how it is vital to find this ark, or maybe it is a tomb of the original alien who brought DNA to earth, who the hell knows. Whatever it means, here are six more code tables, many are repeats from other pages. In case you were wondering, ET made the code, because Drosnin doesn't believe in God.
2001? Drosnin tells people in Israel and the US where bin Laden is hiding. He leaves that out of the book in case bin Laden buys a copy and then runs away. He hints pretty hard that it may be in Libya. Anyway, nuclear war will happen in 2006, and we have to find that thing that is still hiding in Lisan, maybe.
There is a nice appendix that describes the original rabbi experiment and its paper in Statistical Science, a refutation that was published without anyone reading it, a rebuttal of the refutation that was refused publication because codes a priori cannot exist, and there can be no evidence for something that cannot exist, and the opinions of some credible scientists who tried to debunk the code but ended up proving it exists who think refusing to publish any response is anti-science.
If you have read the first Bible Code book but have not read the second, please do not. The two are worlds apart. Here is a brief synopsis:
Michael Drosnin, a hard-nosed journalist and ardent atheist, having proven the existence of a code in the Bible, he now has morphed into a combination of Indiana Jones and James Bond. Drosnin writes powerful men (Clinton, Bush, Arafat, Sharon, etc.) letters about the code and the end of the world, but he always leaves out the key details, because "no one would believe them," until his books are published. He wrote to Ehud Barak that the code said he would be the next Prime Minister of Israel in an early election in 1999, but he did not think Barak would believe him if he included the date, so he conveniently left that detail out of his letter but included it in the book. Drosnin conveniently leaves us no records for which to prove any of his stories. Two pictures of code tables appear on each page, taking up about 100 pages total.
Yasser Arafat is a very pious, kind-hearted man and all Israelis are war mongerers. And God does not exist, and here is an irrelevant code table.
Oh, and Michael Drosnin doesn't believe in God.
1998, Drosnin puts forward his ET "theory".
He finds references to DNA being "brought in a vehicle" and immediately jumps to the conclusion "when I found that encoded in the Bible, I couldn't believe it... DNA, the molecule of life, sent to Earth in a spaceship." (p. 144) It didn't say that. Just as every time he reads the word "computer" in the code when the actual Hebrew word says "thought", Drosnin reads "vehicle" as "spaceship" when it does not say that. A virus could be a vehicle to introduce a new gene into a cell, why should we believe that the word "vehicle" means "spaceship" when nothing indicates that it does? And what is the code for DNA itself? DNA is just letters, unlike the words and names used in other codes, so it might mean something completely different. It might just be nonsense. Just in case, here are four more code tables with useless words that can't be checked to mean anything.
Drosnin then says he had to call many nameless scientists to find out what they thought and just so happens to call Francis Crick, who wrote about the same idea decades before, and surprise, Crick agrees! Who would have guessed? Until you check out the back of the book, where Drosnin says he interviewed Crick years before about panspermia and he just crafted the story of trying to find reputable scientists who agree with his ET "theory" to make the book more interesting. Yes, someone who time and time again talks about being a "just the facts" hard-nosed journalist lied to make his story more interesting.
Michael Drosnin, by the way, does not believe in God. And Yasser Arafat was the nicest man he ever met, and he really, really wants peace, but religious people will kill him if he makes peace with the war mongering Israelis.
2001, Drosnin is in Israel trying to reach the Israeli PM because he has vitally important information from the Bible code about nuclear war in 2006. When an advisor asks what that information is, Drosnin says "I need to meet with the PM, because the code says if peace is not reached there will be nuclear war." The advisor replies, "tell me something I don't know," to which Drosnin drones on and on "You don't understand, I have to tell the PM face to face that the world will end if peace is not made!" "Okay, we all know that, what else?" "Damn you by the God you believe in, the world will end if you don't make peace and I must see the PM to tell him this!" Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.
1998 Drosnin must look for an "obilisk" and a "steel ark" in the area near the Dead Sea called Lisan, because it contains the key to understanding the Bible code, which was created by aliens who seeded the Earth 4 billion years ago, because Michael Drosnin does not believe God exists. He tries to get the Jordanians to let him dig, but they refuse.
2001, Drosnin confronts Colin Powell. He asks to see President Bush because the world will end if peace is not made and he must tell the President. See above. Drosnin must save the world from religion and nuclear war, because he does not believe in God, but the code is real, and created by ET, and warns of nuclear war in 2006.
1998, I think, who knows, the book keeps skipping around for no reason. Drosnin is back playing Indy again, talking about how it is vital to find this ark, or maybe it is a tomb of the original alien who brought DNA to earth, who the hell knows. Whatever it means, here are six more code tables, many are repeats from other pages. In case you were wondering, ET made the code, because Drosnin doesn't believe in God.
2001? Drosnin tells people in Israel and the US where bin Laden is hiding. He leaves that out of the book in case bin Laden buys a copy and then runs away. He hints pretty hard that it may be in Libya. Anyway, nuclear war will happen in 2006, and we have to find that thing that is still hiding in Lisan, maybe.
There is a nice appendix that describes the original rabbi experiment and its paper in Statistical Science, a refutation that was published without anyone reading it, a rebuttal of the refutation that was refused publication because codes a priori cannot exist, and there can be no evidence for something that cannot exist, and the opinions of some credible scientists who tried to debunk the code but ended up proving it exists who think refusing to publish any response is anti-science.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Imagine No Religion
I'm not sure John Lennon meant "no religion" to mean everyone should be an atheist. He was a lot smarter than that. Just looking at the most horrible acts of the twentieth century make the fact clear that atheism in its various guises (social Darwinism, communism, eugenics) caused more human suffering than anything else besides Smallpox. What I think he meant was that shouldn't have the fierce sectarian divisions that often come with religion. We have such gems of quotes from Lennon on religion as:
“People got the image I was anti-Christ or antireligion,” he said. “I’m not at all. I’m a most religious fellow. I’m religious in the sense of admitting there is more to it than meets the eye. I’m certainly not an atheist.”
He also didn't believe in Darwinism:
“Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way,” he insisted. “That’s another piece of garbage. What the hell’s it based on? We couldn’t’ve come from anything—fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don’t believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren’t monkeys changing into men now? It’s absolute garbage.”
Unfortunately people do misappropriate Lennon's music and his image. There are those who claim that religion is the root of all evil while ignoring all the good it does (what Ken Wilber calls the conveyor belt; I've also argued a lot about Christianity's integral role in ending slavery). Well, getting on topic, finally, here is the ultimate outcome of a society that has ditched religion, leveled off on flatland narcissism, and believes in nothing: the UK riots.
A country with cradle to craftmatic adjustable bed handouts, where no one has to work because they get government stipends, where everyone gets free (albeit very shitty) health care, could not help but explode when those handouts are taken away. The UK is broke so they decided to cut back on a pittance of the handouts so know-it-all teenagers dediced to smash stuff for no evident reason. Lots of buildings were destroyed and people killed (there may be racist elements involved). Of course you could say if people were allowed to own guns they could defend themselves, their families, and even total strangers, but the UK is ruled by a king (a queen actually; there won't be a king for a while), and kings love to have a control on the possession of weapons. Absent the ability to own guns, sales of baseball bats rose three hundred percent (my estimate) because everyone over 20 was afraid for their lives as know-it-all teenagers with immortality complexes destroyed everything insane.
The author, A. N. Wilson, has some brilliant points to make:
A Christian woman working for British Airways who wears a cross round her neck is asked to remove it for fear of offending other people. A nurse who prays with a patient in hospital is committing an almost criminal act. Catholic adoption agencies which disapprove of gay adoptive parents on religious grounds have their licences taken away.
And all the while, our governing classes and academics and teachers chip away at the fundamental truths of the great religions — truths that have stood the test of time for thousands of years — in their arrogant certainty that there are no moral absolutes and that the human race can make up the rules as it goes along.
At the nuttier fringes of the chattering classes there are those, like the geneticist Richard Dawkins and the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who actually believe that religion is a mental poison responsible for all the evils in the world.
The misguided and vacuous thinking of these so-called intellectuals is compounded by a sordid celebrity-culture which holds up role models who should be despised rather than admired.
Amy Winehouse, a pathetic drug-infused alcoholic girl of very modest talent, is held up as great diva; and when she died, her house was surrounded by fans, laying empty vodka bottles as a ‘tribute’.
What happens when you imagine a world with no religion? I don't have to imagine, I can just look across the pond to see how a society lacking morality and values is faling apart. How long before the madness comes to America? I don't know, but here's something I wrote a few months ago that may help:
In 2008 I said Obama would be like four more terms of Bush.
In 2009 I said I never imagined things could ever get this bad.
In 2010 I wished I was back in 2009.
In 2011 I said the world had gone mad.
Now I'm saying the world will not last till the end of 2012.
If we ever needed to heed Lennon's advice to "give peace a chance" now is that time.
“People got the image I was anti-Christ or antireligion,” he said. “I’m not at all. I’m a most religious fellow. I’m religious in the sense of admitting there is more to it than meets the eye. I’m certainly not an atheist.”
He also didn't believe in Darwinism:
“Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way,” he insisted. “That’s another piece of garbage. What the hell’s it based on? We couldn’t’ve come from anything—fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don’t believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren’t monkeys changing into men now? It’s absolute garbage.”
Unfortunately people do misappropriate Lennon's music and his image. There are those who claim that religion is the root of all evil while ignoring all the good it does (what Ken Wilber calls the conveyor belt; I've also argued a lot about Christianity's integral role in ending slavery). Well, getting on topic, finally, here is the ultimate outcome of a society that has ditched religion, leveled off on flatland narcissism, and believes in nothing: the UK riots.
A country with cradle to craftmatic adjustable bed handouts, where no one has to work because they get government stipends, where everyone gets free (albeit very shitty) health care, could not help but explode when those handouts are taken away. The UK is broke so they decided to cut back on a pittance of the handouts so know-it-all teenagers dediced to smash stuff for no evident reason. Lots of buildings were destroyed and people killed (there may be racist elements involved). Of course you could say if people were allowed to own guns they could defend themselves, their families, and even total strangers, but the UK is ruled by a king (a queen actually; there won't be a king for a while), and kings love to have a control on the possession of weapons. Absent the ability to own guns, sales of baseball bats rose three hundred percent (my estimate) because everyone over 20 was afraid for their lives as know-it-all teenagers with immortality complexes destroyed everything insane.
The author, A. N. Wilson, has some brilliant points to make:
A Christian woman working for British Airways who wears a cross round her neck is asked to remove it for fear of offending other people. A nurse who prays with a patient in hospital is committing an almost criminal act. Catholic adoption agencies which disapprove of gay adoptive parents on religious grounds have their licences taken away.
And all the while, our governing classes and academics and teachers chip away at the fundamental truths of the great religions — truths that have stood the test of time for thousands of years — in their arrogant certainty that there are no moral absolutes and that the human race can make up the rules as it goes along.
At the nuttier fringes of the chattering classes there are those, like the geneticist Richard Dawkins and the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who actually believe that religion is a mental poison responsible for all the evils in the world.
The misguided and vacuous thinking of these so-called intellectuals is compounded by a sordid celebrity-culture which holds up role models who should be despised rather than admired.
Amy Winehouse, a pathetic drug-infused alcoholic girl of very modest talent, is held up as great diva; and when she died, her house was surrounded by fans, laying empty vodka bottles as a ‘tribute’.
What happens when you imagine a world with no religion? I don't have to imagine, I can just look across the pond to see how a society lacking morality and values is faling apart. How long before the madness comes to America? I don't know, but here's something I wrote a few months ago that may help:
In 2008 I said Obama would be like four more terms of Bush.
In 2009 I said I never imagined things could ever get this bad.
In 2010 I wished I was back in 2009.
In 2011 I said the world had gone mad.
Now I'm saying the world will not last till the end of 2012.
If we ever needed to heed Lennon's advice to "give peace a chance" now is that time.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Bi-Winning
If Charlie Sheen lived during Greek times they would have written myths about him. He's done more drugs than anyone can survive. How is this possible? He's got tiger blood and Adonis DNA. He's also bi-winning, which is the opposite of bi-polar. Bi-winning individuals experience alternating episodes of winning and winning even more.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Unstoppable
I've recently seen the film Unstoppable, about a runaway train and inspired by actual events. Directed by Tony Scott, who has a thing for films about trains, Unstoppable is the story of a jackass mistake that sets a rather long train carrying several tanks of deadly poison speeding down the tracks in rural Pennsylvania with no one at the controls. The train is going so fast that it won't be able to make a sharp turn in a major city. The train will derail and release the toxic chemicals, killing tens of thousands of people. The railroad people throw everything they've got at it and nothing works, so a veteran engineer and a rookie conductor, whose families happen to live in the target city, come up with a dramatic plan to stop the train or die trying, just like REAL heroes (not anti-heroes, vigilantes, or some sort of grey area villains).
This is the best film I've seen in a long time (and the only one I've seen in 2010; the last time I went out to see a film was 1 November 2009, Law Abiding Citizen, which was the only one I saw in 2009). I highly recommend seeing Unstoppable.
Unstoppable Trailer
Unstoppable is based on the real life incident involving the CSX 8888 "Crazy Eights," which was carrying poisonous phenol (though not nearly as much), and did travel under power with no one at the controls in rural Ohio in 2001. Crazy Eights chugged along for three hours before a similar plan was used to bring it to a stop before the train derailed. Like in the film, all the other attempts, such as using a portable derailer and police shooting at the fuel shut release valve, failed. While elements of the story are exaggerated for dramatic effect, Unstoppalble is not a documentary. It does, however, portray the actual events closely enough to merrit the "Inspired by True Events" tag proudly displayed on the poster and at the beginning of the film.
News Footage of The Real Train
-Dee
This is the best film I've seen in a long time (and the only one I've seen in 2010; the last time I went out to see a film was 1 November 2009, Law Abiding Citizen, which was the only one I saw in 2009). I highly recommend seeing Unstoppable.
Unstoppable Trailer
Unstoppable is based on the real life incident involving the CSX 8888 "Crazy Eights," which was carrying poisonous phenol (though not nearly as much), and did travel under power with no one at the controls in rural Ohio in 2001. Crazy Eights chugged along for three hours before a similar plan was used to bring it to a stop before the train derailed. Like in the film, all the other attempts, such as using a portable derailer and police shooting at the fuel shut release valve, failed. While elements of the story are exaggerated for dramatic effect, Unstoppalble is not a documentary. It does, however, portray the actual events closely enough to merrit the "Inspired by True Events" tag proudly displayed on the poster and at the beginning of the film.
News Footage of The Real Train
-Dee
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Saturday, November 14, 2009
A Student in Arms: The True Artist
An exerpt from Donald Hankey's book A Student in Arms. Sometimes it takes a war to find out what makes us truly human. The depth of our humanity can only be approached through the harshest of struggles. It is through this that we are able to find out who the true artist is: the one with the true sense of the dramatic.
Includes a brief history of Mr. Hankey and the book.
-Dee
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The True Aritst
An Excerpt from "A Sense of the Dramatic," Pages 173-174, from A Student in Arms by Donald Hankey.
A sense of the dramatic is, of course, closely connected with a sense of humor. If you have this faculty for getting outside yourself and criticizing yourself, you will be pretty sure to see whether you look ridiculous. If you are a real artist in the exercise of the gift, you will also see yourself in your right perspective with regard to other people. The artist must not be an egoist. He must not allow the limelight to be centred on himself. He will see himself, not as the hero of the story, but as one of the characters – the hero, perhaps, of one chapter, but equally a minor character in the others. The greatest artist of all, probably, is the man who prays, and tries to see the story as the Author designed it. He will have the truest sense of proportion, the most adequate sense of humor of all. Undoubtedly prayer is the highest form of exercising this sense of the dramatic.
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