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A TEAR-JERKER FROM 'HEAVEN'
By Robert Bianco
USA Today
December 3, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/usatoday/20041203/en_usatoda
y/atearjerkerfromheaven
Some books find paradise only on film.
Written by talk-show host and Tuesdays With Morrie author Mitch Albom, The
Five People You Meet in Heaven is one of those gift-shop inspirational
parables that usually are more popular with book buyers than book critics.
Come the holidays, those tales tend to plop on the TV screen like a
honey-coated Christmas goose.
Happily for us, Albom's story is stronger at its core than most. And Albom,
director Lloyd Kramer and producers Robert Halmi Sr. and Jr. have
transferred it to film in its best imaginable version. Stripped to its
essentials, beautifully acted and gorgeously produced, a Heaven that might
have struck some as simplistic and preachy is now closer to simple and
profound.
Heaven is a modern twist on The Christmas Carol, with an emotionally damaged
hero being led to salvation by five people in heaven rather than three
ghosts on Earth. In Albom's vision, the five people you meet are not
necessarily the most important people in your life or the ones you loved the
most. They're five people who can illuminate your life.
The tale is told by an impeccably chosen cast headed by Oscar winner Jon
Voight as Eddie, a maintenance man at Ruby Pier amusement park. Physically
and spiritually crippled from a World War II wound, Eddie has been left
bitter by a life he believes he wasted.
So when he dies trying to save a little girl from a runaway ride, all he
wants to know is whether that last act redeemed what came before. He gets
his answer, but it's not quite the answer he or you might expect.
The answer is provided by his guides, including Michael Imperioli as his
wartime captain; Jeff Daniels (news) as a freak he knew as a child; Ellen
Burstyn (news) as a woman he never knew but whose life had an effect on his;
and Dagmara Dominczyk as the only woman he ever loved. They try to teach him
that the things that happen and the things we do are related in ways we
can't understand and have repercussions we can't know.
While each actor shines, Voight provides the emotional heft. He changes from
octogenarian to boy and back again, bringing forth the joy of a child
running free on a pier and the pain of a man whose desire to do more blinded
him to the value of what he did.
Though some of the heavenly lessons do have the ring of greeting-card
toss-offs, many also ring true. And they're all presented in a strikingly
colorful fantasy package no greeting card could hope to match.
Heaven is a tear-jerker of the first order and should be avoided by those
who resent having their emotions manipulated so blatantly. Let down your
guard, though, and it becomes a Christmas gift -- particularly for those who
have recently lost someone and want to believe that life may end but love
never does.
For some, that will be heaven enough.
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MITCH ALBOM'S THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
ABC
Sunday, December 5 at 8/7c
http://abc.go.com/movies/fivepeople.html
Starring Jon Voight, Steven Grayhm, Callahan Brebner, Dagmara Dominczyk,
Michael Imperioli, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Viser, Ellen Burstyn, Allie
Mickelson, Nicaela Weigel, Shelbie Weigel, Callum Keith Rennie, Rebecca
Jenkins, Damon Johnson and Darcy Cadman.
Watch the preview for Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven:
http://abc.go.com/movies/fivepeople.html
Visit Hallmark Entertainment's movie site for Mitch Albom's The Five People
You Meet in Heaven:
http://www.hallmarkent.com/property.php?propertyId=MAlbomsFivePeopl
In Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet In Heaven," a Hallmark
Entertainment production, Eddie (played by Jon Voight as an old man and
Steven Grayham in his more youthful incarnation) is a lonely war veteran and
widower who feels like his life as a repairman at the Ruby Pier Amusement
Park has been meaningless. On his 83rd birthday, an accident on one of the
rides imperils a five-year-old girl, and Eddie risks his own safety in front
of a horrified crowd as he attempts to save her life. The last thing he sees
is the little girl's frightened face. The last thing he feels is two small
hands in his. Then, after a blinding flash of light and silence, Eddie
reawakens in an unfamiliar place called HeavenŠ but he's not alone. Five
people -- each of whom shares with him a fateful and significant connection
-- have been waiting to meet him.
Some are loved ones, some are distant strangers, yet they all have the same
goal -- to introduce Eddie to the true meaning and value of his life by
showing him how their lives and deaths have been a part of his own in ways
he never suspected. Each of these souls is looking for closure, each has a
story to relate, a secret to divulge and a lesson to impart -- the Blue Man
(Jeff Daniels), the Captain (Michael Imperioli), Ruby (Ellen Burstyn),
Marguerite (Dagmara Dominczyk) and Tala (Nicaela Weigel and Shelbie Weigel).
One by one, they illuminate the impact that Eddie has had on others and show
him why his life on Earth was not insignificant. When he meets his fifth
person in Heaven, Eddie, still haunted by the question of whether the little
girl lived or died, finally begins to understand how truly interconnected we
all are.
Filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, Mitch Albom's The Five
People You Meet in Heaven was directed by Lloyd Kramer and produced by
Howard Ellis. Mitch Albom (award-winning author of Tuesdays with Morrie)
penned the original screenplay, which he adapted from his bestselling novel,
and Robert Halmi, Sr. served as executive producer on the project, from
Hallmark Entertainment.
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"I've sent $25.00 via PayPal. NHNE performs a great service and I'm happy to
do my little bit to support it. Please keep it coming!" -- Al Dauray
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BORN INTO BROTHELS: CALCUTTA'S RED LIGHT KIDS (2004)
IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388789/
Directed by
Zana Briski
Ross Kauffman
Writing credits
Zana Briski
Ross Kauffman
Genre: Documentary
Also Known As: The Kids of Sonagachi (USA) (working title)
Runtime: Brazil: 85 min
Country: India / USA
Plot Outline: Two documentary filmmakers chronicle their time in Sonagchi,
Calcutta and the relationships they developed with children of prostitutes
who work the city's notorious red light district.
User Comments:
Dilip Barman
Durham, NC (USA)
Date: 14 April 2004
Summary: Don't miss this inspiring jewel of a film that concretely gives
hope and shows us life through the photography and vivacity of children, and
shows what a huge difference one person can make. 10 out of 10 stars!
Today I saw "Born into Brothels" at day 3 of 4 of the Full Frame Documentary
Film Festival. Even with another day left, I have some confidence that this
will be the film I most appreciated seeing at this festival, and in fact is
one of the most inspiring films I have seen in a long time. Directors and
producers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman also hosted a question and answer
session after the film, and I had the privilege of meeting and talking with
Zana Briski, whose intimate involvement in this film and her selfless
efforts have given me tremendous admiration for what she does; as I said in
the Q&A period, if we had a few more people like her, the world would be a
vastly better place for all of us.
Ms. Briski is an established photographer and now first time director who
began in 1997 to explore the lives of sex workers in Calcutta's red-light
district, Sonagachi, where over 7000 women and (disgustingly sadly) girls
are prostitutes. In order to better understand them, Zana lived for months
at a time with them, and the children quickly befriended her. The children
were curious to try their hands at taking pictures, and Zana helped to
empower them and see the world through their eyes by teaching them
photography and acquiring point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras for them, as
well as helping them to critique and edit their pictures.
The resulting pictures that the children took between the years 2000 and
2003 are striking. Some of the children clearly have innate talent in
composition and artistry (see, for example, shot 17 "Girl on a Roof" or 14
"Horse", at the Kids with Cameras site
<http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/GALLERY/Gallery17.htm>), and all of them
have works portraying the vitality of life so much so that Zana helped get
one child invited to be part of a children's jury at a World Press Photo
Foundation photo exhibit in Amsterdam in 2002, and for him to actually
attend.
Zana admits in the film that she is not a social worker, but wanted very
much to help the boys and girls, for otherwise their future was a dismal one
lacking hope beyond prostitution, drugs, pimping, and crime. She organized a
photo exhibit in a Calcutta bookstore, garnering Zana's project and the
individual children television and newspaper coverage. Zana has recently set
up an organization, Kids with Cameras, that sells their prints to raise
money for them, with 100% of the profits going to them. Twelve of these
prints were the ones chosen for the 2003 "Amnesty International" calendar,
and she even exhibited and auctioned the children's work at Sotheby's. She
has helped to get several of the children into good boarding schools and
recently helped a few to get email access and English lessons.
The film itself is technically beautiful, with a melange of colors, sounds,
and activity, centered on the children but also including others. The
filmmakers in no way hide the unsavory life in Sonagachi, including
disturbing cursing against the children, hopelessness of being able to in
any way be involved in normal society, having no governmental support,
facing tremendous bureaucracy to get anything changed even with Ms. Briski's
help, and the total lack of police investigation or protection as painfully
brought to light when one child's mother is killed by a pimp in a "kitchen
fire". In making the film, Mr. Kauffman and Ms. Briski effectively used fast
camera pans, red overtints, and grainy film at times to portray an
environment where participants would not want to be carefully filmed. They
could have made this a sad and detailed documentary about this red light
slum, but instead chose to recognize its nature but focus on the innocence
of the children and hope that could be offered them.
If you have the opportunity to see this film at a festival, don't miss it. I
understand that HBO/Cinemax may be distributing the film as well to afford a
much wider audience. It is a heartwarming film that left me with a jumble of
emotions - hopefulness and hopelessness; incredulity and shock at human
nature combined with tremendous admiration at the selflessness and
difference that one person can make; sadness at the overwhelming poverty,
filth, and insouciance of a society that lets a community like Songagachi
exist and yet tremendous happiness at the children's glee in living their
lives with innocent play and their ambition to move out of the community.
For the quality and uniqueness of the film, as well as the tremendous
service that Zana Briski portrays, this film gets 10 stars out of 10 in my
book. Don't miss this jewel of a film - and consider supporting the work
that goes on.
------------
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-----------
HOTEL RWANDA
United Artists
http://www.mgm.com/ua/hotelrwanda/
A MODERN GENOCIDE
The Rwandan conflict of the 1990s marked one of the bloodiest chapters in
recent African history. The genocide was made all the more tragic by the
fact that most of the world chose to ignore the conflict and the plight of
the Rwandan people. While occasional reports about "tribal warfare" in
Rwanda were carried by international news agencies, the horror of the
conflict, instead of causing international outrage, seemed to be written off
as another "third world incident" and not worthy of attention.
Over the course of 100 days, almost one million people were killed in
Rwanda. The streets of the capital city of Kigali ran red with rivers of
blood, but no one came to help. There was no international intervention in
Rwanda, no expeditionary forces, no coalition of the willing. There was no
international aid for Rwanda. Rwanda's Hutu extremists slaughtered their
Tutsi neighbors and any moderate Hutus who stood in their way, and the world
left them to it.
"Ten years on, politicians from around the world have made the pilgrimage to
Rwanda to ask for forgiveness from the survivors, and once more the same
politicians promise `never again,'" says director Terry George. "But it's
happening yet again in Sudan, or the Congo, or some Godforsaken place where
life is worth less than dirt. Places where men and women like Paul and
Tatiana shame us all by their decency and bravery."
Wars have always provided fertile ground for the emergence of heroes and
supreme acts of heroism by ordinary people. Rwanda was no exception. Amidst
the horrendous violence and chaos that swept the country, one of the many
heroes to emerge was Paul Rusesabagina, an ordinary man who, out of love and
compassion, managed to save the lives of 1268 people.
Terry George had long been interested in doing a film set in Africa, but it
was Paul Rusesabagina's story that finally brought him to the continent.
"When my co-writer Keir Peirson introduced me to the story, I immediately
knew I wanted to do it," says George. "I flew to Belgium and met Paul and
learned of his life: how he became a hotelier, how he rose through the ranks
of employees in the various Sabena hotels he worked in, and how he ended up
at the Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali."
It was the remarkable human element of the story that struck a chord with
Hotel Rwanda producer Alex Ho. "This story is very close to my heart, and
it's the kind of story I really appreciate," he says. "It's about a normal
man who, when prompted by his wife, is able to use his position to help
others. In the course of doing that, he sets out on a journey that makes him
a better man."
HOMAGE TO A BRAVE MAN
In January 2003, Terry George traveled to Rwanda to research the story and
familiarize himself with the country. "I was also looking for answers," says
George. "Why the genocide? Why were so many people murdered in the space of
100 days, the fastest genocide in modern history? I also wanted to get a
sense of the ordinary people of Rwanda and listen to their stories. George
was accompanied on his visit by Paul Rusesabagina. It was the first time
Paul had returned to Rwanda since the atrocities.
While in Rwanda they were able to travel, film the various locations and
meet many of the people who took refuge at the Milles Collines hotel,
including Odette Nyrimilimo, her husband Jean Baptiste Gacacere, and various
members of Paul's family. "It was a unique privilege to visit Rwanda with
Paul," says George, "to get a sense of the love and admiration people had
for him. When we walked back into the Hotel Mille Collines, we met many of
the survivors, cooks, cleaners, people Paul had sheltered. There was true
joy in their eyes."
Though many of George's experiences in Rwanda were positive and he took
inspiration from the many people he met, nothing could have prepared him for
what he experienced when visiting one of the massacre sites. "We paid a
visit to a former technical college at Marambi in Southern Rwanda," says
George. "I passed through rooms filled with the mummified skeletons of some
of the 40,000 people who were massacred over four days in April 1994. As I
listened to the sole survivor of that massacre tell of those days, I truly
felt there was nothing more important in my life than to make this film."
In visiting Rwanda, George was also able to see the incredible beauty of
Rwanda and to investigate the politics of the extremist Hutu government, how
their radio station RTML spewed forth hate and venom towards the Tutsi and
how prejudice and fear drove ordinary people to believe that they had to
massacre their neighbors in order to preserve their existence. "If I had to
point to the one factor that sparked this genocide," says George, "it was
that radio station. We feature that radio station as a character in the
film. I need people to understand the power of that propaganda.
When adapting Hotel Rwanda for the screen, it was important to George and
Peirson that the film not be structured or perceived as a documentary, but
rather an emotional distillation of the events and facts of Paul's life that
gives the audience an intimate, insider's view of the events that took place
at the Hotel Mille Collines at the time. "I find it most important to tell a
story based on character and the evolution of that character, as well as the
strengths of the character," says George. "We have highlighted the
particular events that formulated his triumph -- his ability to succeed in
the face of overwhelming odds. I enjoy my work best when it's a project that
will enlighten and hopefully invigorate people."
Hotel Rwanda is, for the most part, a deeply personal story, and it's
uniquely focused on one building (the hotel), the people within it, and the
relationships between them. The filmmakers deliberately avoided focusing on
the overwhelming horror of the genocide itself. "When the film ventures
outside into Kigali during the genocide, we tried to create this bizarre,
surreal atmosphere, to let viewers feel the psychological terror of the
genocide without going close on the slaughter." Says Alex Ho, "This is a
powerful human drama, not a horror story, and we believe it is important
that the widest possible audience should see it."
------------
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-----------
FINAL COUNT IN OHIO GIVES KERRY 18,000 MORE VOTES
By Diane Suchetka and Diane Solov
With help from John F. Hagan and Donna Iacoboni
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Friday, December 03, 2004
http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/1102070209311320.xml
George Bush's nail-biting win in Ohio -- the one that forced America to wait
overnight to learn who its new president would be -- was even closer than
Election Day results indicated.
John Kerry will pick up about 18,000 votes when Secretary of State Ken
Blackwell certifies final results on Monday, according to county-by-county
totals gathered by The Plain Dealer.
Counties were required to certify their final counts of the votes by
Wednesday.
They must submit those counts to the secretary of state by today. The Plain
Dealer gathered final numbers from individual counties Thursday.
Those final totals from the 88 counties show the gap between Kerry and Bush
narrowing from 136,483 to 118,443 votes.
The change results largely from provisional ballots -- special ballots cast
by voters who believe they are registered but don't appear on voter rolls.
Those ballots are counted later, after the voter's registration is verified
and workers confirm that he or she did not vote elsewhere.
The new totals mean Bush beat Kerry 2,858,687 to 2,740,244 -- a margin of
slightly more than 2 percent and far greater than the 0.5 percent margin
needed to trigger an automatic recount.
But it does, some say, help re-energize legal efforts under way, including a
push for a recount in the state that gave Bush the electoral votes he needed
to win the presidency.
And the shrinking gap between Bush's and Kerry's vote tallies may also turn
up the volume of groups that have pledged to scrutinize alleged voting
irregularities.
On Thursday, a group of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee led by
Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan wrote to Blackwell, asking him to respond
to specific allegations of counting problems, spoiled ballots, provisional
ballots and unusual results. In Cuyahoga County, the letter highlights a
pattern in 10 Cleveland precincts where third-party candidates won hundreds
of votes, an outcome the judiciary committee members deemed unlikely.
"Collectively, we are concerned that these complaints constitute a troubled
portrait of a one-two punch that may well have altered and suppressed votes,
particularly minority and Democratic votes," the letter said in part. (See
below for link to the complete 15-page letter.)
Last week, The People for the American Way Foundation sued Blackwell and the
Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in the hopes that more provisional
ballots will be counted.
That lawsuit has nothing to do with final election results, said Elliot
Mincberg, the foundation's legal director. The objective, he said, is to
count every valid vote.
"If the margin is shrinking, it in some ways makes it potentially more
important," Mincberg said. "The key point is, if someone was a properly
registered voter and they cast a vote, that vote ought to count."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is contemplating a
lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court over alleged voting irregularities, also
said the smaller margin raises the concern about disenfranchisement.
"We're only speculating now as to what other factors contributed to the vote
totals," said Jackson, who called for an independent probe of voting
machines.
"I have no problem with the winner winning and the loser losing. My issue is
with the disenfranchisement issue."
Republicans and Democrats, though, say the new numbers are of little
significance.
"It shows that the election in Ohio is even closer than the unofficial
results indicated," said Don McTigue, an attorney specializing in election
law for the Democrats.
"But it's still beyond the margin of error, way beyond the margin of error,"
Bob Bennett, chairman of Ohio's Republican Party, said of Bush's lead.
"If anybody wants to call for a recount, bring 'em on. If they want the
Democrats to lose again and again and again, we'll have a recount.
"But I think it's waste of taxpayer money."
Blackwell's office estimates that a recount will cost the state about $1.5
million.
The most significant change came in Sandusky County, west of Cleveland,
where both candidates actually lost votes between Election Day and the
official count. That's because the official count corrected an earlier error
in which votes from 10 precincts were tallied twice.
The candidates also lost votes in Harrison County, which also acknowledged a
counting glitch in its early results.
The slimmer margin may also draw attention to recount efforts in Ohio.
Earlier this week, the Kerry campaign added its support to a legal request
for a statewide recount initiated by the Green and Libertarian parties.
"Now that they're part of the federal litigation and the gap narrows, I
think it makes it more interesting," said Blair Bobier, spokesman for Green
Party candidate David Cobb.
Bobier said the Green and Libertarian parties filed papers in federal court
Thursday accusing Blackwell of abusing his discretionary authority by
stalling the Ohio recount. They asked the court to order the recount to
begin immediately and be completed before presidential electors vote Dec.
13.
They also want to halt Blackwell from finalizing the election results and to
block certification of electors until the recount is finished.
...........
COMPLETE 15-PAGE LETTER FROM HOUSE JUDICIARY DEMOCRATS
TO KENNETH BLACKWELL:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohblackwellltr12204.pdf
------------
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EDITOR'S COMMENT:
This is one of the best websites I have seen for tracking election fraud
developments. Along with containing a growing list of past and current news
articles, this website also features links to rallies, petitions, surveys,
multi-media, news sources, and more. Thanks to Gordon Davidson.
THE VOTERGATE RESOURCE CENTER:
http://miamedia.com/votergate.html
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SCALIA TO SYNAGOGUE - JEWS ARE SAFER WITH CHRISTIANS IN CHARGE
By Thom Hartmann
Common Dreams
December 2, 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1202-33.htm
Antonin Scalia, the man most likely to be our next Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, turned history on its head recently when he attended an
Orthodox synagogue in New York and claimed that the Founders intended for
their Christianity to play a part in government.
Scalia then went so far as to suggest that the reason Hitler was able to
initiate the Holocaust was because of German separation of church and state.
The Associated Press <http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704X.shtml>
reported on November 23, 2004, "In the synagogue that is home to America's
oldest Jewish congregation, he [Scalia] noted that in Europe,
religion-neutral leaders almost never publicly use the word 'God.'"
"Did it turn out that," Scalia asked rhetorically, "by reason of the
separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were
in the United States of America?" He then answered himself, saying, "I don't
think so."
Scalia has an extraordinary way of not letting facts confound his arguments,
but this time he's gone completely over the top by suggesting that a
separation of church and state facilitated the Holocaust. If his comments
had gotten wider coverage (they were only noted in one small AP article, and
one in the Jerusalem Post
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid
01183314944&p78113566627> ), they may have brought America's largest
religious communities - both Christian and Jewish - into the streets.
Born in 1936, Scalia is old enough to remember the photographs that came out
of Germany when he was a boy - they were all over the newspapers and news
magazines at war's end. It's difficult to believe he wasn't exposed to them
as a teenager, particularly having been raised Catholic. And if he missed
all that, one would think that his son the priest would have told him about
them.
The photos that can be seen, for instance, at www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
<http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm> of the Catholic Bishops giving the
collective Nazi salute. The annual April 20th celebration, declared by Pope
Pius XII, of Hitler's birthday. The belt buckles of the German army, which
declared "Gott Mit Uns" ("God is with us"). The pictures of the 1933
investiture of Bishop Ludwig Müller, the official Bishop of the
1000-Years-Of-Peace Nazi Reich.
That last photo should be the most problematic for Scalia, because Hitler
had done exactly what Scalia is recommending - he merged church and state.
Article 1 of the "Decree concerning the Constitution
<http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.py?imt/nca/nca-06//nca-06-3433-ps> of the German
Protestant Church, of 14 July 1933," signed by Adolf Hitler himself, merged
the German Protestant Church into the Reich, and gave the Reich the legal
authority to ordain priests.
Article Three provides absolute assurance to the new state church that the
Reich will fund it, even if that requires going to Hitler's cabinet. It
opens: "Should the competent agencies of a State Church refuse to include
assessments of the German Protestant Church in their budget, the appropriate
State Government will cause the expenditures to be included in the budget
upon request of the Reich Cabinet."
That new state-sponsored German church's constitution opens: "At a time in
which our German people are experiencing a great historical new era through
the grace of God," the new German state church "federates into a solemn
league all denominations that stem from the Reformation and stand equally
legitimately side by side, and thereby bears witness to: 'One Body and One
Spirit, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of All of Us,
who is Above All, and Through All, and In All.'"
Section Four, Article Five of he new constitution further established a head
for the new German state-church with the title of Reich Bishop. Hitler
quickly filled the job with a Lutheran pastor, Ludwig Müller, who held the
position until he committed suicide at the end of the war.
Which brings up one of the main reasons - almost always overlooked by
modern-day commentators, both left and right - that the Founders and Framers
were so careful to separate church and state: They didn't want religion to
be corrupted by government.
Many of the Founders were people of faith, and even the Deists like
Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson were deeply touched by what Franklin
called "The Mystery." And they'd seen how badly religious bodies became
corrupted when churches acquired power through affiliation with or
participation in government.
The Puritans, for example, passed a law in Plymouth Colony in 1658 that
said, "No Quaker Rantor or any other such corrupt person shall be a freeman
in this Corporation [the state of Massachusetts]." Puritans banned Quakers
from Massachusetts under pain of death, and, as Norman Cousins notes in his
book about the faith of the Founders, In God We Trust
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005W5S2/thomhartmann/ref=nosim> ,
"And when Quakers persisted in returning [to Massachusetts] in defiance of
law, and in practicing their religious faith, the Puritans made good the
threat of death; Quaker women were burned at the stake."
Quakers were also officially banned from Virginia prior to the introduction
of the First Amendment to our Constitution. Cousins notes: "Quakers who fled
from England were warned against landing on Virginia shores. In fact, the
captains of sailing ships were put on notice that they would be severely
fined. Any Quaker who was discovered inside the state was fined without
bail."
Throughout most of the 1700s in Virginia, a citizen could be imprisoned for
life for saying that there was no god, or that the Bible wasn't inerrant.
"Little wonder," notes Cousins, "that Virginians like Washington, Jefferson,
and Madison believed the situation to be intolerable."
Even the oppressed Quakers got into the act in the 1700s. They finally found
a haven in Pennsylvania, where they infiltrated government and promptly
passed a law that levied harsh fines on any person who didn't show up for
church on Sunday or couldn't "prove" that s/he was home reading scripture on
that holy day.
Certainly the Founders wanted to protect government from being hijacked by
the religious, as I noted in a previous article
<http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-10.htm> that quotes Jefferson on
this topic. But several of them were even more concerned that the churches
themselves would be corrupted by the lure of government's easy access to
money and power.
Religious leaders in the Founders' day, in defense of church/state
cooperation, pointed out that for centuries kings and queens in England had
said that if the state didn't support the church, the church would
eventually wither and die.
James Madison flatly rejected this argument, noting in a July 10, 1822
letter to Edward Livingston: "We are teaching the world the great truth,
that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The
merit will be doubled by the other lesson: the Religion flourishes in
greater purity without, than with the aid of Government."
He added in that same letter, "I have no doubt that every new example will
succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government
will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together."
Madison even objected to government giving money to churches to care for the
poor. It would be the beginning of a dangerous mixture, he believed -
dangerous both to government and churches alike. Thus, on February 21, 1811,
President James Madison vetoed a bill passed by Congress that authorized
government payments to a church in Washington, DC to help the poor.
In Madison's mind, caring for the poor was a public and civic duty - a
function of government - and must not be allowed to become a hole through
which churches could reach and seize political power or the taxpayer's
purse. Funding a church to provide for the poor would establish a "legal
agency" - a legal precedent - that would break down the wall of separation
the founders had put between church and state to protect Americans from
religious zealots gaining political power.
Thus, Madison said in his veto message to Congress, he was striking down the
proposed law, "Because the bill vests and said incorporated church an also
authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the education of poor
children of the same;..." which, Madison said, "would be a precedent for
giving to religious societies, as such, a legal agency in carrying into
effect a public and civil duty."
Madison also opposed - although he couldn't stop - the appointment of
chaplains for Congress. "Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses
of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of
religious freedom?" he asked in 1820. His answer: "In the strictness the
answer on both points must be in the negative. ...The establishment of the
chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of
Constitutional principles."
Madison went on to suggest that if members of Congress wanted a chaplain,
they should pay for it themselves. "If Religion consist in voluntary acts of
individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public
functionaries, as well as their Constituents shd discharge their religious
duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at their own expense. How
small a contribution from each member of Cong wd suffice for the purpose!
How just wd it be in its principle! How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to
the genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience! Why
should the expence of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be
paid by the public, more than that for the Ex. or Judiciary branch of the
Gov."
But always, in Madison's mind, the biggest problem was that religion itself
showed a long history of becoming corrupt when it had access to the levers
of governmental power and money.
In 1832, he wrote a letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, pointing this out.
"I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to
trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil
authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on
unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or
to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded
against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way
whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting
each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others."
As he wrote to Edward Everett on March 18, 1823, "The settled opinion here
is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt
from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both..."
Yet now, in 2004, the religious appear to be on the verge of both corrupting
government and being corrupted themselves by the power and influence
government can wield.
For example, as Reverend Moon has moved more and more into the political
realm - from funding activities of both George H.W. Bush and his son George
W. Bush, to funding the money-losing but politically activist Washington
Times newspaper, to financially bailing out Jerry Falwell, to setting up
numerous charities that now ask for federal funding - we see an increasing
and ominous participation of legislators and Moonies. Moon, for example, was
crowned by several members of Congress in the Senate Dirksen Office building
on March 23, 2004. As the Washington Post noted in a July 21 story by
Charles Babington, Moon himself proclaimed to our elected representatives
attending the ceremony, "Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared
to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than
humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent." (See below for
related links.)
Others, like Falwell and Robertson, who want to use the money and power of
government to promote their religious agendas, are making rapid inroads with
George W. Bush's so-called "faith-based initiatives," which shift money from
government programs for the poor and needy to churches and religious groups.
All of this - the merging of church and state - is now being aggressively
promoted by no less than Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, in
no less shocking a venue than the nation's oldest Orthodox synagogue.
In some distant place, Adolf Hitler and Bishop Müller must be smiling at
Scalia's encouragement of the growing conflation of church and state in
America. It's exactly what they worked so hard to achieve, and what helped
make their horrors possible.
And Thomas Jefferson and James Madison must have tears in their eyes.
............
Thom Hartmann <http://www.thomhartmann.com> is a Project Censored
Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily
progressive talk show. His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient
Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the
Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and
"What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."
------------
OTHER NHNE SPECIAL REPORTS & ARTICLES ABOUT SUN MYUNG MOON:
NHNE PUBLICATIONS:
SUN MYUNG MOON ON THE MOVE AGAIN IN AMERICA (12/5/2001):
http://www.nhne.com/misc/sunmyungmoon.html
MORE ABOUT REVEREND MOON
Smorgasbord 4
Friday, December 5, 1997
http://www.nhne.com/smorgasbord/smorgasbord0004.html
MOONIES SEEK EDEN IN BRAZILIAN SWAMP
Smorgasbord 12
Tuesday, October 26, 1999
http://www.nhne.com/smorgasbord/smorgasbord0012.html
FALSE PROPHETS & "SCUM BAG GURUS"
By David Sunfellow
Tuesday, July 27, 1999
http://www.nhne.com/misc/food0002.html
NHNE NEWS LIST STORIES:
MOON CROWNS HIMSELF MESSIAH IN U.S. SENATE OFFICE BUILDING (6/28/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7478
A REVIVIFIED SUN MYUNG MOON (3/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4689
CONTROVERSIAL RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO TEST BUSH INITIATIVE (2/19/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1173
MILLION MOON MARCH (10/8/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/713
MOON IN CHINA (9/13/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/674
FRANCE AIMS AT BANNING 'DANGEROUS' SECTS (6/23/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/422
MOON'S UNIFICATION CHURCH ACQUIRES UPI (5/17/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/288
MOON'S SON'S DEATH RULED A SUICIDE (2/17/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/124
RECRUITS SOUGHT FOR MOON'S NEXT MASS WEDDING (12/26/1999)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/42
SUSPICION FOLLOWS REV. MOON TO SOUTH AMERICA (12/1/1999) :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4
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BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:
THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
By Naomi Oreskes
Science Magazine
Science, Vol 306, Issue 5702, 1686, 3 December 2004
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently
assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an
argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA
administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through
review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate
change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by
controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties
in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive
disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic
climate change. This is not the case.
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the
World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental
Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a
basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed
and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC
states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that
Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ...
are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb
or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last
50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific
bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the
matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of
Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,
begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result
of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean
temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the
IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and
answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the
last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific
community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American
Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that
the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for
comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would
diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless,
they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was
tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals
between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords
"climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the
consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods,
paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the
papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or
implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or
paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change.
Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying
paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural.
However, none of these papers argued that point.
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed
literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public
statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists,
journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement,
or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of
science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for
failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame
us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate
change and failed to do anything about it.
Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there
are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for
understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate
change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the
reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly
tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.
REFERENCES AND NOTES:
1. A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June 2003, A1.
2. S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies, Climate Policy 2
(1), 3 (2003).
3. See <http://www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm>
4. J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation,
and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001).
5. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change,
Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (National Academy
Press, Washington, DC, 2001).
6. American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84, 508 (2003).
7. American Geophysical Union, Eos 84 (51), 574 (2003).
8. See <http://www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html>
9. The first year for which the database consistently published abstracts
was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although
the authors had put "climate change" in their key words, the paper was not
about climate change.
10. This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial Lecture,
"Consensus in science: How do we know we're not wrong," presented at the
AAAS meeting on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to AAAS and the History of
Science Society for their support of this lectureship; to my research
assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D. C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming,
M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R. C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.
------------
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"Thanks for your service!" -- Madeleine Savit / Mosman, NSW, Australia
-----------
BRAZIL GARBAGE DUMP COULD BE CLIMATE TRAILBLAZER
By Alister Doyle
Reuters
December 1, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&e=5&u=/nm/20041201/sc_nm
/environment_climate_dc_1
OSLO - A Brazilian garbage dump could be a trailblazer for thousands of
projects in developing nations under a U.N. plan to battle global warming, a
Norwegian company said Wednesday.
Coal mines in China, hydro-electric plants in Chile and wind farms in
Morocco could follow under a scheme giving companies in rich countries
economic incentives to invest in cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases in
the Third World.
"We expect significant growth in this market," said Einar Telnes, technical
director of Norway's DNV, which checked and certified the Brazilian project.
It was the first registered under the U.N.'s "Clean Development Mechanism"
last month.
In the giant landfill at Nova Gerar in Rio de Janeiro state, methane from
rotting garbage will be burned to generate electricity. That will stop the
fumes from adding to global warming, dampen dangers of explosions and bring
new income.
Dutch investors in the scheme will be able to claim the prevented methane
emissions, equivalent to 670,000 tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide
(CO2) a year, as credits back home.
In a fledgling European Union (news - web sites) market, CO2 allowances are
worth about 8.25 euros ($10.98) per tonne.
Elsewhere around the globe, Telnes said about 200-300 clean energy projects
were nearing certification in developing nations with perhaps another
1,200-1,300 on the drawing board.
"In the long term I wouldn't be surprised if we saw between 500 and 1,000
projects coming on every year," Telnes told Reuters. DNV, perhaps best known
for checking ship designs, is a world leader in certifying environmental
schemes.
SAVES CARBON
The clean energy projects can save from a few thousand to millions of tonnes
of CO2 a year, averaging 200,000-300,000 tonnes, he said. By contrast, the
United States, the world's top polluter, emitted 5.79 billion tonnes of CO2
in 2002.
CO2 from fossil fuels is the main greenhouse gas thought to be building up
in the atmosphere, pushing up temperatures and threatening storms, droughts
and higher sea levels that could swamp coasts in Florida or drown low-lying
Pacific islands.
The Netherlands is one of 128 nations to back the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol,
which aims to cut rich nations' CO2 emissions by at least five percent below
1990 levels by 2008-12.
Kyoto will start on Feb. 16, 2005. Russia ratified last month and gave it
enough momentum to enter into force after the United States pulled out in
2001, arguing that it was too costly and wrongly excluded developing nations
from cuts.
"We've seen quite a surge in projects after Russia ratified," Telnes said.
In other projects, solar, wind or hydro energy could replace dirtier fossil
fuel plants. In coal mines, flammable methane could be trapped to help avert
blasts and protect the climate.
He said certification aimed to avert cheating in counting emissions of
invisible gases. "We're verifying something that's not there, namely the
greenhouse gases that would have been emitted in the absence of these
projects," Telnes said.
Telnes said that one surprise in early projects was that some developing
nations, like China, India and Brazil, were starting to register the
CO2-cutting schemes without first securing promises of investment by
companies in rich states.
------------
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"Thanks so much for the early news tactfully referred to as NHNE news. Love
to know in advance." -- Dayne / Macon, Georgia
-----------
HOW GLOBAL WARMING CAN LEAD TO A BIG CHILL
Reuters
December 3, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20041203/sc_nm/science_wa
rming_dc
WASHINGTON - Global warming could lead to a big chill in the North Atlantic,
at least if history is anything to go by, researchers reported on Friday.
They published evidence to support a popular theory that rising temperatures
caused a big melt of polar ice 8,200 years ago, causing a freshwater flood
into the salty North Atlantic.
This would have changed the flow of the balmy Gulf Stream and in just a few
years, average temperatures plummeted, ushering in a deep freeze that lasted
a century or more, researchers have proposed.
Writing in the Dec. 11 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, Torbjorn
Tornqvist, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, says he has evidence that this happened.
"Few would argue it's the most dramatic climate change in the last 10,000
years," Tornqvist said in a statement. "We're now able to show the first
sea-level record that corresponds to that event."
Tornqvist and some graduate students found the evidence along the Gulf of
Mexico off the southern U.S. coast.
They found peat deposits that would have been formed under rising sea
levels. Working with researchers in the Netherlands, they dated the material
to 8,200 years ago.
Their composition suggested they were made when a saltwater marsh was
abruptly flooded and turned into a lagoon.
"Climatologists urgently need this type of information to run their climate
models in order to understand the conditions that can produce such an abrupt
climate change," Tonrqvist said.
------------
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-----------
SPRING 2005 INTEGRAL INSTITUTE / KEN WILBER SEMINARS
http://integralinstitute.org/
1. INTEGRAL TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE
Your choice (all are in Denver):
Jan 31 - Feb 4; Mar 7 - Mar 11; Apr 4 - Apr 8
Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) is the keystone of an integral
lifestyle. In this five-day intensive, you will develop a personalized
system of practices to strengthen your body, awaken your mind, realize your
spirit, manage your subtle and emotional energies, and nurture richer
relationships with your family, friends and the world at large.
This seminar balances theoretical overviews with group and individual
experiences. Seasoned leaders and pioneers in the field, including Ken
Wilber, will focus on your specific questions, issues, obstacles, and
strengths. Our goal is to help you develop an on-going,
whole-body/mind/spirit practice that supports a more engaged and enlightened
life‹for the rest of your life.
Click here for more information on Integral Transformative Practice:
http://integralinstitute.org/seminars/index.htm?itp
...........
2. INTEGRAL CONSCIOUSNESS: AN EXPERIENTIAL INTENSIVE WITH FRED KOFMAN
Your choice (both in Denver):
February 21 - 25; April 25 - 29
This workshop is an initiation into integral consciousness and an invitation
to shine in service to All. Its exercises will help you develop an integral
sense of self, and recognize your (and everything else's) pure Being. Its
practices will help you establish an integral lifestyle that both supports
and expresses your highest potential for love and work. Its group activities
will connect you with other participants in a long-lasting integral
community.
This workshop is for people who can feel the beauty of the integral vision
in their heads, their hearts, and their guts. If your cognition is excited
by the integral philosophy, your emotions aroused by the integral embrace,
and your energy tickled by the integral One Taste, this seminar is for you.
Click here for more information on Integral Consciousness:
http://integralinstitute.org/seminars/index.htm?icon
............
3. INTEGRAL ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP
March 21 - 25, Denver
Learn a comprehensive approach to achieving greater alignment and commitment
from the people you lead. Gain new methods for integrally-informed
team-building, strategic thinking, innovation and change management. Deepen
your awareness of your own leadership skills and build your proficiency
along the major lines of development: cognitive, emotional, interpersonal --
even physical and spiritual.
At the end of this intensive, you will have an integral toolbox for your
most difficult leadership challenges, as well as clearly identified personal
and professional goals and specific practices for continued improvement.
Click here for more information on Integral Organizational Leadership:
http://integralinstitute.org/seminars/index.htm?lead
...........
4. INTEGRAL PSYCHOTHERAPY
May 2 - 6, Denver
Integral Psychotherapy integrates the core insights and practices of the
major schools of psychotherapy into one flexible and powerful system. In
this groundbreaking seminar you will learn how to apply the integral
approach to all aspects of your therapy practice: from assessment tools and
intervention, to treatment planning, to deepening your own insight and skill
as a therapist.
This intensive, experiential training is open to professional therapists and
students. We'll help you build your theoretical knowledge, clinical skills,
and personal development, using both didactic and experiential learning
presentations. You will work directly with the field's leading authorities
including Ken Wilber. Join us in exploring the art and science of this
powerful new approach to mental health and personal transformation.
Click here for more information on Integral Psychotherapy:
http://integralinstitute.org/seminars/index.htm?psych
..............
WILBER-RELATED NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:
JOE FIRMAGE ON "PEAK OIL", "THE SINGULARITY" & KEN WILBER (11/2/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8199
KEN WILBER & INTEGRAL INSTITUTE'S FALL 2004 SEMINAR SERIES (5/19/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7229
WILBER ON BELIEFNET: 'WHAT DO I MEAN BY "INTEGRAL?"' (3/8/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6863
THE WORLD OF KEN WILBER (& HIS HEALTH) (1/12/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6582
COHEN INTERVIEWS WILBER, MURPHY, BECK (1/9/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6570
INTEGRAL LEADERSHIP SEMINAR WITH KEN WILBER (12/6/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6374
INTEGRAL NAKED: 'EVOLUTIONARY SPIRITUALITY' (10/20/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6127
WHO IS KEN WILBER & WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "INTEGRAL"? (9/5/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5901
INTEGRAL INSTITUTE (9/5/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5900
INTEGRAL NAKED: THE NATURE OF HUMAN CHANGE IN THE REAL WORLD (9/2/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5883
JOIN INTEGRAL NAKED, EXPAND YOUR MIND, HELP NHNE (8/12/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5787
'WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?' MAGAZINE (6/26/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5593
INTEGRAL NAKED: AN INFORMAL GATHERING WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL SEEKERS
(6/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5497
INTEGRAL NAKED: ITP, GEORGE LEONARD, MICHAEL MURPHY & KEN WILBER
(6/30/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5622
KEN WILBER ON 911 (12/30/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2443
KEN WILBER, SPEAKING OF EVERYTHING (11/30/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2353
------------
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NHNE 2004 Fall/Winter Fundraiser:
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-----------
Thanks to Bonnie Willow.
-----------
THE END OF SUBURBIA:
OIL DEPLETION AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound
wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family
life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded
in the past 50 years, so too the suburban way of life has become embedded in
the American consciousness.
Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.
But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge
about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a
touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and
its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for
fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable
decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers
argue in this documentary.
The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous.
What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the
coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of
their dream? Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow?
And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of
Suburbia ?
Hosted by Barrie Zwicker. Featuring James Howard Kunstler, Peter Calthorpe,
Michael Klare, Richard Heinberg, Matthew Simmons, Michael C. Ruppert, Julian
Darley, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, Ali Samsam Bakhtiari and Steve
Andrews. Directed by Gregory Greene. Produced by Barry Silverthorn.
Duration: 78 minutes
DVD BONUS: Includes the vintage short films, In the Suburbs and Destination
Earth, and producer/director commentary.
------------
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NHNE 2004 Fall/Winter Fundraiser:
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-----------
FLY ME TO THE MOON
By Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
December 5, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/opinion/05friedman.html
Of all the irresponsible aspects of the 2005 budget bill that the
Republican-led Congress just passed, nothing could be more irresponsible
than the fact that funding for the National Science Foundation was cut by
nearly 2 percent, or $105 million.
Think about this. We are facing a mounting crisis in science and engineering
education. The generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians who
were spurred to get advanced degrees by the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik
and the challenge by President John Kennedy to put a man on the moon is
slowly retiring.
But because of the steady erosion of science, math and engineering education
in U.S. high schools, our cold war generation of American scientists is not
being fully replenished. We traditionally filled the gap with Indian,
Chinese and other immigrant brainpower. But post-9/11, many of these foreign
engineers are not coming here anymore, and, because the world is now flat
and wired, many others can stay home and innovate without having to
emigrate.
If we don't do something soon and dramatic to reverse this "erosion,"
Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic and president
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told me, we are
not going to have the scientific foundation to sustain our high standard of
living in 15 or 20 years.
Instead of doubling the N.S.F. budget -- to support more science education
and research at every level -- this Congress decided to cut it! Could
anything be more idiotic?
If President Bush is looking for a legacy, I have just the one for him -- a
national science project that would be our generation's moon shot: a crash
science initiative for alternative energy and conservation to make America
energy-independent in 10 years. Imagine if every American kid, in every
school, were galvanized around such a vision. Ah, you say, nice idea,
Friedman, but what does it have to do with your subject -- foreign policy?
Everything! You give me an America that is energy-independent and I will
give you sharply reduced oil revenues for the worst governments in the
world. I will give you political reform from Moscow to Riyadh to Tehran.
Yes, deprive these regimes of the huge oil windfalls on which they depend
and you will force them to reform by having to tap their people instead of
oil wells. These regimes won't change when we tell them they should. They
will change only when they tell themselves they must.
When did the Soviet Union collapse? When did reform take off in Iran? When
did the Oslo peace process begin? When did economic reform become a hot
topic in the Arab world? In the late 1980's and early 1990's. And what was
also happening then? Oil prices were collapsing.
In November 1985, oil was $30 a barrel, recalled the noted oil economist
Philip Verleger. By July of 1986, oil had fallen to $10 a barrel, and it did
not climb back to $20 until April 1989. "Everyone thinks Ronald Reagan
brought down the Soviets," said Mr. Verleger. "That is wrong. It was the
collapse of their oil rents." It's no accident that the 1990's was the
decade of falling oil prices and falling walls.
If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, he would dry up
revenue for terrorism; force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to
take the path of reform - which they will never do with $45-a-barrel oil -
strengthen the dollar; and improve his own standing in Europe, by doing
something huge to reduce global warming. He would also create a magnet to
inspire young people to contribute to the war on terrorism and America's
future by becoming scientists, engineers and mathematicians. "This is not
just a win-win," said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael
Mandelbaum. "This is a win-win-win-win-win."
Or, Mr. Bush can ignore this challenge and spend the next four years in an
utterly futile effort to persuade Russia to be restrained, Saudi Arabia to
be moderate, Iran to be cautious and Europe to be nice.
Sure, it would require some sacrifice. But remember J.F.K.'s words when he
summoned us to go to the moon on Sept. 12, 1962: "We choose to go to the
moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure
the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we
are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we
intend to win."
Summoning all our energies and skills to produce a 21st-century fuel is
George W. Bush's opportunity to be both Nixon to China and J.F.K. to the
moon -- in one move.
------------
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NHNE 2004 Fall/Winter Fundraiser:
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Number of people who have helped = 21
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-----------
FUNDRAISER QUESTION 3 (Multiple Choice):
If aliens landed on planet Earth and you desperately wanted to find out what
was "really" going on, where would you turn:
A. The White House?
B. Fox News?
C. Another major news network?
D. Your home town newspaper?
E. A family member who has a friend who has a friend who says they know
something?
F. Your pet who can communicate with the rest of life telepathically?
G. The ghosts of your great grandparents?
H. Your favorite psychic?
I. NHNE (which, thanks to its well-connected readers and alternative news
sources, tends to know what's really happening long before the rest of the
world knows anything)
(If you answered I., a donation now will help insure we're here when you
need us the most...)
------------
CONYERS TO HOLD HEARINGS ON OHIO VOTE FRAUD
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t
December 3, 2004
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120404W.shtml
[Editorąs Note: Any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention
should contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that they attend.
Furthermore, any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should
contact the television network C-SPAN <http://www.c-span.org/> and ask them
to broadcast the event in its entirety. C-SPAN accepts suggestions for
events to be broadcast at <events@...>. The network can also be
contacted via telephone at (202) 737-3220. -- wrp]
...........
Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority
member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08
December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in
Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin
at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.
Democratic Representatives Melvin Watt and Robert Scott will also be
centrally involved with the hearing. Rev. Jesse Jackson will be in
attendance, along with Ralph Neas (President, People for the American Way),
Jon Greenbaum (Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers Committee For Civil
Rights Under Law), Ellie Smeal (Executive Director, The Feminist Majority),
Bob Fitrakis ( The Free Press), Cliff Arnebeck (Arnebeck Associates), John
Bonifaz (General Counsel, National Voting Institute), Steve Rosenfeld
(Producer, Air America Radio), and Shawnta Walcott (Communications Director,
Zogby International). Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been
invited to attend.
The term 'hearing' is technically not accurate in this matter, as Conyers
and his fellow Representatives will be holding this forum without the
blessing of the Republican Majority leader of the Judiciary Committee.
Staffers from the Minority office at the Judiciary Committee describe the
event as a 'Members Briefing.' That having been said, this event will be a
hearing by every meaningful definition of the word. Expert testimony will be
offered, and a good deal of data on potential fraud previously unreported to
the public will be discussed and examined at length.
The hearing came together thanks to a confluence of events, and through the
work of like-minded individuals who are deeply concerned about the
allegations of vote fraud in the Ohio Presidential election. Tim Carpenter
and Kevin Spidel, along with other members of Progressive Democrats of
America, went to Washington DC to speak with the Democratic members of the
Judiciary Committee about the need for an investigation into these
allegations. They found Rep. Conyers, his fellow Judiciary Democrats, and
their staffers already working on assembling such an investigation.
The core of what Conyers and his fellow Minority members will be discussing
at this hearing can be found in the letter below, which was sent by the
Minority office to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell on 02 December. In the
letter, Conyers, along with Reps. Watt, Nadler and Baldwin, outline a broad
and detailed series of questions and concerns about the manner in which the
Ohio election took place.
I will be traveling to Washington DC to begin t r u t h o u t coverage of
this event on Tuesday night, and we will keep you posted on further
developments as they arise.
...........
COMPLETE 15-PAGE LETTER FROM HOUSE JUDICIARY DEMOCRATS
TO KENNETH BLACKWELL:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohblackwellltr12204.pdf
............
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two
books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The
Greatest Sedition Is Silence.'
------------
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Phone: (928) 282-6120
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NHNE 2004 Fall/Winter Fundraiser:
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Number of people who have helped = 23
Funds still needed = $7638.01
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-----------
WHAT JAPANESE WOMEN WANT: A WESTERN HUSBAND
By Bennett Richardson
With Sanae Benisty
The Christian Science Monitor
December 6, 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1206/p01s04-woap.html
TOKYO The Japanese government wants women like Taeko Mizuguchi to get
married and start doing something about the nation's plunging birthrate. But
she's not interested.
At least, not if her prospective husband is Japanese.
A growing number of Japanese women are giving up on their male counterparts,
and taking a gamble that looking abroad for love will bring them the
qualities in a partner that seem rare at home. Mr. Right, as the hope goes,
is often an American or European, a man appreciative of a wife's career and
more of a partner in daily tasks.
"They treat you like equals, and they don't hesitate to express mutual
feelings of respect -- I think Western men are more adept [at such things]
than Japanese men," says the 36-year-old Ms. Mizuguchi, who works at a top
trading firm. "They don't act like women are maids -- I think they view
women as individuals."
Underscoring that Japanese women are losing hope with the local boys, dating
agencies to help snag a Western husband have sprung up in Tokyo, some with
branches in the US and Europe. Such companies rigorously vet their clients,
screening for education, family background, occupation, and life goals.
The kind of women who sign up for such services include doctors, lawyers,
and other professionals -- women who have delayed marriage to concentrate on
careers and who aren't keen to give up hard won gains to become a housewife,
as many Japanese men expect.
Japanese women have come to consider traditional marriage roles as
"disadvantageous in terms of time resources -- they have to carry the burden
of domestic chores as well as lose their free time," says Chizuko Ueno, a
professor of sociology at Tokyo University.
Normally, married Japanese women have not only to look after their own
parents during old age, but also to care for their parents-in-law. When it
comes to raising kids, "they can't expect much cooperation from their
partner" because of the long work hours required at many Japanese
corporations and because of established gender roles that assume that the
woman does the child-rearing, Ms. Ueno adds.
A generation of women who are now entering their 30s don't want to give up
single life unless prospective partners are willing to break from
traditional gender roles.
Government polls conducted to find out why women have put off marriage until
well after 25 years of age -- known as a woman's " 'best before' date" --
show that economic independence is key to the change. As most Japanese women
have their own income, marriage is no longer a financial necessity and women
want to find companionship in a husband.
That is where Japanese men have come up short. There is "a wide gap in men's
and women's attitudes and expectations toward marriage" vis-ŕ-vis
traditional gender roles, says Sumiko Iwao, professor of social psychology
at Musashi Institute of Technology in Yokohama. For instance, coming home
later than your Japanese husband is a no-no.
Having ruled out an old-fashioned Japanese husband, many women here think
the solution is a Western man. Indeed, some seem so enthralled with the idea
that they are willing to spend thousands of dollars to inspect the wares
personally. Of the more than 2,000 women on the books at one large
matchmaking agency, about 200 travel to the US or Europe each month to meet
prospects.
Sentimental projections have recently been extended to Korean men also, due
to romantic Korean soap operas.
In 2003, Japanese women marrying American or British men outnumbered
Japanese men marrying American or British women by 8 to 1. The total
proportion of Japanese marrying foreigners each year has crept up from
around 3.5 percent in 1995 to just over 5 percent. Japanese men are actually
more than three times as likely as the women to take a foreign spouse, but
this is mostly rural men marrying less well-off Chinese and Filipino women.
"Such cases are elderly farmers not popular among young Japanese women,"
says Yuriko Hashimoto, a local government employee in the remote northern
prefecture of Iwate.
To be fair, not all the blame for female angst here can be laid on Japanese
men. The government has been slow to enforce equal opportunity laws, and
both pay and the glass ceiling in most Japanese corporations remain low for
women. Recession has hampered longer maternity leave and other
family-friendly policies.
As Japan's fertility rate drops to new lows -- at last count it was 1.29,
well below levels required for population replacement -- the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party is anxiously drawing up plans to make it easier for young
couples to raise children, through such measures as the provision of cheap
public housing.
............
MIXED MARRIAGES IN JAPAN
Japanese men marry:
Chinese 10,242
Filipinos 7,794
Koreans 2,235
Americans 156
British 65
Japanese women marry:
Koreans 5,318
Americans 1,529
Chinese 890
British 334
Filipinos 117
Source: 2003 Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.
------------
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-----------
'WE WILL BE ABLE TO LIVE TO 1,000'
By Dr Aubrey de Grey
BBC News / University of Cambridge
Friday, December 3, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4003063.stm
Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs
the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.
...........
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in
the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably
be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases
today.
I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for
Engineered Negligible Senescence) <http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/> project
to prevent and cure ageing.
It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of
molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form
(in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just
need to be combined.
This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice
within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all
working in humans.
When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit
and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable
ghastly progressive diseases of old age.
We will still die, of course -- from crossing the road carelessly, being
bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera -- but not in the
drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.
So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since
these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in
middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of
molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us -- including
cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.
Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either
already exists or is in active development.
'Youthful not frail'
The length of life will be much more variable than now, when most people die
at a narrow range of ages (65 to 90 or so), because people won't be getting
frailer as time passes.
There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in
both cases we are giving people the chance of more life
The average age will be in the region of a few thousand years. These numbers
are guesses, of course, but they're guided by the rate at which the young
die these days.
If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent,
non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well
under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you
would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.
And remember, none of that time would be lived in frailty and debility and
dependence -- you would be youthful, both physically and mentally, right up
to the day you mis-time the speed of that oncoming lorry.
Should we cure ageing?
Curing ageing will change society in innumerable ways. Some people are so
scared of this that they think we should accept ageing as it is.
I think that is diabolical -- it says we should deny people the right to
life.
The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there
is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our
ability is the most fundamental duty there is.
There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in
both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. To say that we
shouldn't cure ageing is ageism, saying that old people are unworthy of
medical care.
Playing God?
People also say we will get terribly bored but I say we will have the
resources to improve everyone's ability to get the most out of life.
People with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today
and can't imagine ever running out of new things they'd like to do.
And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going
against nature. But it's unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.
Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we've been demonstrating both our
ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don't like about
ourselves and our environment.
We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be
human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and
decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God
made us in His image.
-------------
'DON'T FALL FOR THE CULT OF IMMORTALITY'
By S Jay Olshansky PhD
BBC News
University of Illinois at Chicago
December 3, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4059549.stm
S Jay Olshansky is a professor at the School of Public Health, UIC and
author of The Quest for Immortality.
...........
Some 1,700 years ago the famous Chinese alchemist, Ko Hung, became the
prophet of his day by resurrecting an even more ancient but always popular
cult, Hsien, devoted to the idea that physical immortality is within our
grasp.
Ko Hung believed that animals could be changed from one species to another
(the origin of evolutionary thought), that lead could be transformed into
gold (the origin of alchemy), and that mortal humans can achieve physical
immortality by adopting dietary practices not far different from today's
ever-popular life-extending practice of caloric restriction.
He found arrogant and dogmatic the prevailing attitude that death was
inevitable and immortality impossible.
Ko Hung died at the age of 60 in 343 AD, which was a ripe old age for his
time, but Hsien apparently didn't work well for him.
The famous 13th Century English philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon, also
believed there was no fixed limit to life and that physical immortality
could be achieved by adopting the "Secret Arts of The Past". Let's refer to
Bacon's theory as SATP.
According to Bacon, declines in the human lifespan occurred since the time
of the ancient patriarchs because of the acquisition of increasingly more
decadent and unhealthy lifestyles.
All that was needed to reacquire physical immortality, or at least much
longer lives, was to adopt SATP -- which at the time was a lifestyle based
on moderation and the ingestion of substances such as gold, pearl, and coral
-- all thought to replenish the innate moisture or vital substance alleged
to be associated with aging and death.
Bacon died in 1292 in Oxford at the age of 78, which was a ripe old age for
his time, but SATP apparently didn't work well for him either.
Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it, the Greek
physician Galen from the 2nd Century AD and the Arabic philosopher/physician
Avicenna from the 11th Century AD believed in it.
Alexander the Great roamed the world searching for it, Ponce de Leon
discovered Florida in his quest for the fountain of youth, and countless
stories of immortality have permeated the literature, including the image of
Shangra-La portrayed in James Hilton's book Lost Horizon, or in the quest
for the holy grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common?
They are all dead.
Prophets of immortality
I was doing a BBC radio interview in 2001 following a scientific session I
had organised on the question of how long humans can live, and sitting next
to me was a young scientist, with obviously no sense of history, who was
asked the question: "how long will it be before we find the cure for
ageing?"
Without hesitation he said that with enough effort and financial resources,
the first major breakthrough will occur in the next 5-10 years.
My guess is that when all of the prophets of immortality have been asked
this question throughout history, the answer is always the same.
The modern notion of physical immortality once again being dangled before us
is based on a premise of "scientific" bridges to the future that I read in a
recently published book entitled Fantastic Voyage by the techno-guru Ray
Kurzweil and physician Terry Grossman.
They claim unabashedly that the science of radical life extension is already
here, and that all we have to do is "live long enough to live forever".
What Kurzweil and others are now doing is weaving once again the seductive
web of immortality, tantalising us with the tale that we all so desperately
want to hear, and have heard for thousands of years -- live life without
frailty and debility and dependence and be forever youthful, both physically
and mentally.
The seduction will no doubt last longer than its proponents.
'False promises'
To be fair, the science of ageing has progressed by leaps and bounds in
recent decades, and I have little doubt that gerontologists will eventually
find a way to avoid, or more likely delay, the unpleasantries of extended
life that some say are about to disappear, but which as anyone with their
eyes open realises is occurring with increasing frequency.
There is no need to exaggerate or overstate the case by promising that we
are all about to live hundreds or even thousands of years.
The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the
promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the
contrary that by now should sound familiar.
What is needed now is not exaggeration or false promises, but rather, a
scientific pathway to improved physical health and mental functioning.
If we happen to live longer as a result, then we should consider that a
bonus.
------------
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-----------
" 'Thoughts increase by being given away. The more who believe in them the
stronger they become. Everything is an idea. How, then, can giving and
losing be associated?' - ACIM. Hey friends! It's time to give to NHNE and
David for all the ideas and thoughts he sends our way. Thanks David." Andre
/ Sedona, Arizona
------------
DYLAN LOOKS BACK
CBS 60 Minutes
December 5, 2004
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/02/60minutes/printable658799.shtml
There is no living musician who has been more influential than Bob Dylan.
Over a 43-year career, his distinctive twang and poetic lyrics have produced
some of the most memorable songs ever written. In the '60s, his songs of
protest and turmoil spoke to an entire generation.
While his life has been the subject of endless interpretation, Dylan has
been largely silent. Now, at 63, he has written a memoir called "Chronicles,
Volume One." Correspondent Ed Bradley got to sit down with this music legend
in his first television interview in nearly 20 years.
............
Dylan is mysterious, elusive, fascinating -- just like his music.
Over more than four decades, Dylan has produced 500 songs and more than 40
albums. Does he ever look back at the music he's written with surprise?
"I used to. I don't do that anymore. I don't know how I got to write those
songs. Those early songs were almost magically written," says Dylan, who
quotes from his 1964 classic, "It's Alright, Ma."
"Try to sit down and write something like that. There's a magic to that, and
it's not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It's a different kind of
a penetrating magic. And, you know, I did it. I did it at one time."
Does he think he can do it again today? No, says Dylan. "You can't do
something forever," he says. "I did it once, and I can do other things now.
But, I can't do that."
Dylan has been writing music since he was a teenager in the remote town of
Hibbing, Minn. He was the eldest of two sons of Abraham and Beatty
Zimmerman.
How was his childhood? "I really didn't consider myself happy or unhappy,"
says Dylan. "I always knew that there was something out there that I needed
to get to. And it wasn't where I was at that particular moment."
In his book, Dylan writes that he came alive at 19, when he moved to
Greenwich Village in New York City - which at the time was the frenetic
center of the '60s counterculture. Within months, Dylan had signed a
recording contract with Columbia Records.
"You refer to New York as the capital of the world. But when you told your
father that, he thought that it was a joke," says Bradley. "Did your parents
approve of you being a singer-songwriter? Going to New York?"
"No. They wouldn't have wanted that for me. But my parents never went
anywhere," says Dylan. "My father probably thought the capital of the world
was wherever he was at the time. It couldn't possibly be anyplace else.
Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the
capital of the world."
So what made Dylan different? What pushed him out there?
"I listened to the radio a lot. I hung out in the record stores. And I
slam-banged around on the guitar and played the piano and learned songs from
a world which didn't exist around me," says Dylan.
He says that he knew even then that he was destined to become a music
legend. "I was heading for the fantastic lights," he writes. "Destiny was
looking right at me and nobody else."
What does the word "destiny" mean to Dylan?
"It's a feeling you have that you know something about yourself -- nobody
else does -- the picture you have in your mind of what you're about will
come true," says Dylan. "It's kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to
your own self, because it's a fragile feeling. And if you put it out there,
somebody will kill it. So, it's best to keep that all inside."
When Bradley asked Dylan why he changed his name from Robert Zimmerman, he
said that was destiny, too. "Some people - you're born, you know, the wrong
names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens," says Dylan. "You call yourself
what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."
Dylan created a world inspired by old folk music, with piercing and poetic
lyrics, in songs such as "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." These were songs that
reflected the tension and unrest of the civil rights and anti-war movements
of the '60s.
It was an explosive mixture that turned Dylan, by 25, into a cultural and
political icon -- playing to sold out concert halls around the world, and
followed by people wherever he went. Dylan was called the voice of his
generation - and was actually referred to as a prophet, a messiah.
Yet Dylan says he saw himself simply as a musician: "You feel like an
impostor when someone thinks you're something and you're not."
What was the image that people had of him? And what was the reality?
"The image of me was certainly not a songwriter or a singer," says Dylan.
"It was more like some kind of a threat to society in some kind of way."
What was the toughest part for him personally? "It was like being in an
Edgar Allan Poe story. And you're just not that person everybody thinks you
are, though they call you that all the time," says Dylan. "'You're the
prophet. You're the savior.' I never wanted to be a prophet or savior. Elvis
maybe. I could easily see myself becoming him. But prophet? No."
He may not have seen himself as the voice of the '60s generation, but his
songs were viewed as anthems that sparked a moment.
"My stuff were songs, you know? They weren't sermons," says Dylan. "If you
examine the songs, I don't believe you're gonna find anything in there that
says that I'm a spokesman for anybody or anything really."
"But they saw it," says Bradley.
"They must not have heard the songs," says Dylan.
"It's ironic, that the way that people viewed you was just the polar
opposite of the way you viewed yourself," says Bradley.
"Isn't that something," says Dylan.
Dylan did almost anything to shatter the lofty image many people had of him.
He writes that he intentionally made bad records, and once poured whiskey
over his head in public.
He also writes that, as a stunt, he went to Israel and made a point of
having his picture taken at the Wailing Wall wearing a skullcap. When he
went to Israel, he writes that the newspapers changed him overnight into a
Zionist. How did this help?
"If the common perception of me out there in the public was that I was
either a drunk, or I was a sicko, or a Zionist, or a Buddhist, or a
Catholic, or a Mormon all of this was better than 'Archbishop of
Anarchy,'" says Dylan, referring to being considered the voice of a
generation opposed to everything.
Dylan was especially opposed to the media, which he says were always trying
to pin him down. He wrote, "The press, I figured, you lied to it." Why?
"I realized at the time that the press, the media, they're not the judge -
God's the judge," says Dylan. "The only person you have to think about lying
twice to is either yourself or to God. The press isn't either of them. And I
just figured they're irrelevant."
Dylan tried to run away from all of that. In the mid-'60s, he retreated with
his wife and three young children to Woodstock, N.Y. But even there, he
couldn't escape the legions of fans who descended on his home, begging for
an audience with the legend himself. He says people would actually come to
the house, wanting to "discuss things with me, politics and philosophy and
organic farming and things."
What did Dylan know about organic farming? "Nothing," he says. "Not a
thing."
What did he mean when he wrote that "the funny thing about fame is that
nobody believes it's you"?
"People, they'll say, 'Are you who I think you are?' And you'll say, 'I
don't know.' Then, they'll say, 'You're him.' And you'll say, 'OK, you know,
that yes,'" says Dylan. "And then, the next thing they'll say, 'Well, no,
you know? Like are you really him? You're not him.' And, you know, that can
go on and on."
He says he doesn't like to eat in restaurants because of all the attention
he gets. And he says he has never gotten use to it. At his peak, fame was
taking its toll on Dylan. He was heading toward a divorce from his wife,
Sara. And in concerts, he wore white makeup to mask himself. But his songs
revealed the pain.
About his ex-wife, Dylan says: "She was with me back then, through thick and
thin, you know? And it just wasn't the kind of life that she had ever
envisioned for herself, any more the than the kind of life that I was
living, that I had envisioned for mine."
By the mid-1980s, Dylan felt he was burned out and over the hill. And he
wrote some pretty harsh words about himself: "I'm a '60s troubadour, a
folk-rock relic. A wordsmith from bygone days. I'm in the bottomless pit of
cultural oblivion."
"I'd seen all these titles written about me," says Dylan. "I believed it,
anyway. I wasn't getting any thrill out of performing. I thought it might be
time to close it up. Š I had thought I'd just put it away for a while. But
then I started thinking, 'That's enough, you know?'"
But within a few years, Dylan said he had recaptured his creative spark, and
went back on the road. He performed more than 100 concerts a year. And he
won three Grammy awards in 1998 for his album, "Time Out Of Mind." At 63,
Dylan remains a voice as unique and powerful as any there has ever been in
American music.
His fellow musicians paid tribute to him when he was inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, joining him in a rousing rendition of his most famous
song, "Like a Rolling Stone." That song was recently named by Rolling Stone
magazine as the No. 1 song of all time. And he has 12 other songs on their
list of the Top 500.
"That must be good to have as part of your legacy," says Bradley.
"Oh, maybe this week. But you know, the list, they change names, and you
know, quite frequently, really. I don't really pay much attention to that,"
says Dylan.
"But it's a pat on the back," says Bradley.
"This week it is," Dylan replies. "But who's to say how long that's gonna
last?"
His success, however, has lasted a long time. Dylan is still performing all
of his songs on tour, and he says he doesn't take any of it for granted.
So why is he still out there?
"It goes back to that destiny thing. I mean, I made a bargain with it, you
know, long time ago. And I'm holding up my end Š to get where I am now,"
says Dylan.
And with whom did he make the bargain? "With the chief commander," says
Dylan, laughing. "In this earth and in the world we can't see."
Dylan has been nominated this year for the Nobel Prize in literature for his
songwriting. His new book has been a bestseller for the past seven weeks. It
was published by Simon & Schuster, which is owned by Viacom, the parent
company of CBS. Dylan is planning to write two more volumes of his memoirs.
------------
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"Thanks so much for the early news tactfully referred to as NHNE news. Love
to know in advance." -- Dayne / Macon, Georgia
-----------
THE CELESTINE PROPHECY: THE MOVIE
From the Desk of James & Salle Redfield
Celestine Prophecy Website
http://www.celestinevision.com/
JULY 2004
Wow! We can not believe it has already been months since we began
pre-production for The Celestine Prophecy Movie, and now having completed
most of the principal photography (...a few more scenes to follow) we are
racing towards post-production. All we can say is -- despite all of the hard
work -- the experience has been totally unbelievable; lots of synchronicity,
the right people involved, and all with a love for the book.
Of course, it is easy for things to have gone so well when we have been
blessed with such great leadership from producers Barnet Bain (What Dreams
May Come), Terry Collis (Tombstone), Beverly Camhe (The Falcon and The
Snowman & Junior) and veteran director Armand Mastroianni. As for us, Salle
and I were primarily just there -- in each moment of the process, making
intuitive decisions, and holding the vision.
We should also say that without dedicated investors who came forward so that
we could make this movie independently and efficiently without deadlines, it
would have been much harder. And when we are finished we will have a major
motion picture based on the novel tabbed the all-time favorite book in the
area of Philosophy and Spirituality, according to a New York Times readers
poll. A distributor's dream!
There is a lot left to do, of course, and we will keep you updated and
informed as we continue on the long journey of editing, scoring, sound, and
visual effects. So stay tuned! It won't be long now...
...
AUGUST 2004
As we write these words, Salle and I are on our way to Costa Rica for some
final filming for The Celestine Prophecy Movie. This Central American
country is well known for its grand mountain vistas and intensely prolific
rainforests. We are on our way to confirm the exact locations for our
characters Wil and John as they journey along rutted roads, past majestic
waterfalls and on to cloud-shrouded peaks.
What continues to strike us deeply is the degree of collaboration required
by the movie-making process. Dozens of people are necessary to make what
will be only a one-week shoot successful. Besides the hard work of location
scouts, there are work visas to secure, cameras and equipment to ship,
camera-capable helicopters to charter, trucks to rent, and much more. Long
days of preparation and planning are required for even the simplest
filmmaking.
Other work continues as well. Back in Los Angeles, effects artists are
implementing the many visual moments in the movie. Our film editor is
putting together the movie in a way that emphasizes the effects and tells
John's adventure, shot by shot.
Here's a little pearl of info ... During our hero's journey, we are showing
his expanding spiritual awareness through the changing way in which he sees
the world. Think super beauty! Nothing of this sort has yet been attempted
in film.
We will look to add some images from Costa Rica as soon as possible. We are
still intending a 2005 release. So, stay tuned and hold the vision!
...
SEPTEMBER 2004
Salle and I have just recently returned from Costa Rica where we completed
the final location filming of The Celestine Prophecy movie. We have included
some images from this spectacular Central American country:
http://www.celestinevision.com/CVgallery-1a.html
As we progress through the coming months of post-production we will continue
to keep you informed of all the latest news. Our intention is for a 2005
release. So, stay tuned and help us hold the vision!
...
OCTOBER 2004
Salle and I are happy to report that The Celestine Prophecy Movie is moving
well through post-production. One of our fellow producers, Barnet Bain,
frequently reminds us that it is a lot like making sausage. He means, of
course, that this process can also be a bit scary.
Firstly, the raw footage of the film -- the 'takes' -- are selected for
their quality, their compatibility with planned visual effects, and for what
I like to call their 'proper energy.' Then, they are assembled into a rough
cut filled with temporary place holders, inserted 'wild lines', (added
dialogue to be recorded later) and music markers. Methodically, they are
ground into the final product. At various stages, this sausage is hardly
recognizable as the vision one started with, but slowly, like the statue
that emerges from stone, it evolves into a movie.
To make matters more challenging, The Celestine Prophecy sausage appears to
be even more 'gooey' than usual, simply because of all of the layers. Like
the book, and now the screenplay, this film is intended to have several
strata of meaning. On top is the rollicking adventure story, entertaining in
and of itself we hope. And underneath, we weave a demonstration of
evolutionarily advanced ability and the transformational insights of our
main character, as he tries to measure up to his more advanced tutors.
Lastly, we have a layer of [CUT!] ... well, perhaps we should indeed leave
that as a surprise.
Anyway, you get the idea, it is a rather complicated affair that, as with
all such endeavors, can only reach its highest once we engage an earnest
trust in intuition, synchronicity, and interpersonal ethics. At times, we
might have been a bit slow to make a turn, but we have always seemed to
right the ship in time. It has been and continues to be -- great fun!
It appears that we are on track to be finished in December or January. We
will continue to keep you up to date and shortly we will continue to add
some intriguing images from the process.
Our intention remains for a 2005 release. So, stay tuned and help us hold
the vision!
-----------
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SYNCHRONICITY GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
SEARCHING FOR A POSTMODERN RELIGION ON THE SET OF
THE CELESTINE PROPHECY: THE MOVIE
By Ross Robertson
What Is Enlightenment?
Issue 27
http://www.wie.org/j27/celestine.asp?pf=1
The ironies and complexities of spiritual life in America are with me as I
snack on pretzel sticks and reread The Celestine Prophecy during a flight
from Albany to Orlando. I'm on my way to a central Florida film set to meet
James Redfield, author of the popular spiritual fable that first swept the
nation a decade ago. Following years of pursuit by the film studios, he's
finally making The Celestine Prophecy into a movie, and he invited us to
come down to watch the action unfold. After a month of preparation for the
trip, I've grown to like the book's characters: the rugged adventurer Wil;
Marjorie, the scientist you always wish would be more of a coquette; the
quiet, sturdy Father Sanchez. But more than that, I'm intrigued by the
book's status as a cultural phenomenon, whose striking immensity can only be
compared to, say, the Peruvian Andes.
Perhaps more than any other New Age franchise in recent memory, The
Celestine Prophecy is known for provoking extreme responses. That is, people
either love it or love to hate it. As Tom Butler-Bowdon, author of 50
Self-Help Classics, puts it, "The two most common reactions to it are 'It
changed my life,' and 'This is utter trash.'" Admittedly, I once found
myself in the second camp, though my position was based on ignorance rather
than considered opinion -- my grandmother gave me the book soon after it
came out, but I never read it. I was an arrogant college student; I thought
the New Age heralded the failure of Western civilization.
At the time, I assumed the unparalleled success of Redfield's novel
signified another giant step down for spirituality on the slippery slope of
pop culture. (I am a Gen-X'er, after all. I exhibit a tendency toward
inflated criticism of the hypnotized American consumer while remaining
blissfully undisturbed by my own participation in said consumption.) But
now, whether or not it was a step down for spirituality, I wonder if it
wasn't also a giant step up for pop culture. Never before had a spiritual
book penetrated so deeply into the contemporary secular mainstream; never
before had spirituality been so popular. The New Age was in its heyday, and
the collected wisdom of the ages -- from Buddha to Rumi to Redfield -- was
on display at just about any bookstore. I myself depended on this; I, too,
followed the path of my own spiritual interest primarily via the
spirituality section.
Now I'm the beneficiary of an opportunity millions of Celestine fans would
envy -- a rare firsthand peek at the next episode of this modern-day
spiritual history-in-the-making. And if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's
that whatever I've heard so far, there must be a whole lot more to the
story.
FROM PUBLISHING SENSATION TO THE SUNSET STRIP
Originally self-published in trade paperback in 1993 (Redfield distributed
his first copies by hand, from the trunk of his car), within six months The
Celestine Prophecy topped one hundred thousand in print, and soon Warner
Books' hardcover edition would climb onto the New York Times bestseller
list, there to stay for over three years. All told, nearly twelve million
copies are in print worldwide, in more than forty languages, and combined
sales of Redfield's books (including two sequels and a handful of others)
add up to an extraordinary twenty million. What's more, the book sparked a
nationwide proliferation of church discussion groups, classes in
metaphysical bookstores, experiential seminars, "Your Celestine Journey"
adventure treasure hunts -- the list goes on. Now, it's continuing on its
seemingly destined journey to a theater near you.
For Celestine Prophecy buffs everywhere, you'd be hard pressed to find a
better piece of news. Yet the larger significance of its long-awaited leap
to the silver screen has to do with the fact that this film represents more
than itself -- represents, in fact, an entire movement of pop spirituality
that is rapidly becoming a social and cultural force in contemporary
American life. It's a simple adventure story, really -- the tale of an
everyman (nameless in the book, dubbed "John Woodson" in the movie) who
travels to Peru in search of an ancient manuscript containing nine insights
into a new enlightened awareness, insights Redfield predicts humankind will
progressively grasp "as we move from where we are now to a completely
spiritual culture on Earth." Along the way, Woodson has a series of
serendipitous encounters with both friend and foe (seekers, scientists, and
rebel priests determined to bring the teachings of the ancient scrolls to
light; churchmen, government officials, and an international cartel
hell-bent on destroying every last one of their potentially liberating
pages) as he makes his way toward Machu Picchu and the climactic discovery
of the Ninth Insight.
It's also a spiritual parable tracking the hero's inner journey -- in this
case, his discovery of a guiding intuition that manifests itself through
synchronicities, or meaningful coincidences (two or more events that occur
without either one having caused the other but whose relationship is
significant beyond the possibilities of mere chance). "What I like about the
story," says actor Matthew Settle, who plays John Woodson in the film, "is
the restoration of wonder to this person's life. John is kind of walking
through life with a blasé, meaningless existence, just doesn't feel like he
has a sense of purpose. And when he starts recognizing coincidences and
trusting his uncertainty, he finds a new certainty in trusting a lack of
certainty, you know? He finds confidence in life, confidence in a God-force,
and gives himself over to this thing that would otherwise be scary
territory. It's a walk in faith."
Against the backdrop of our postmodern restlessness and the proverbial loss
of meaning, this story of Woodson's walk in faith can be read as the story
of a broad popular movement whose reach extends far beyond even the sizable
Celestine domain. Take, for example, the inimitable Deepak Chopra (whose
thirty-five books have also sold twenty million copies worldwide) and his
recently released The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the
Infinite Power of Coincidence. Or self-empowerment guru Wayne Dyer's The
Power of Intention: Learning to Co-create Your World Your Way, hot off the
presses for 2004 (Dyer's count is twenty-one titles, thirty million sold).
Then there's Paulo Coelho's classic, The Alchemist (1988), which stands in
at a staggering twenty-seven million copies in fifty-six languages, and has
the distinction of being Madonna's favorite book. Hovering on the fringes of
this territory are dozens if not hundreds of authors -- prominent among them
Neale Donald Walsch and Richard Bach. Walsch is the author of the
Conversations with God series (seven books, seven million copies), the first
volume of which spent two and a half years on the New York Times bestseller
list. And Bach's Illusions (1977), having sold fifteen million copies in
twenty-seven years, is still going so strong that Hampton Roads Publishing
just released a companion volume, the Messiah's Handbook, in August.
These are the megastars of a publishing trend that shows no signs of letting
up. And, while the messages they're bearing to what must be at least fifty
million seekers around the world are remarkably consistent, that's not the
only thing they have in common. That's right, The Celestine Prophecy isn't
the only secular spiritual parable headed for Tinseltown. In fact, Celestine
producer Barnet Bain is taking on Illusions next, and Laurence Fishburne is
currently working on the screenplay for The Alchemist, in which he will also
star, along with Jeremy Irons and (you guessed it) Madonna. But The
Celestine Prophecy will be the first to arrive, ushering in what very well
might be a new era of New Age filmmaking in Hollywood.
"In the aftermath of a success like Mel Gibson's The Passion," Bain says,
"there's a newfound respect for the business potentials of an audience that
cherishes religious or spiritual values. And when you have a preestablished
brand that has as much equity in the culture as The Celestine Prophecy, that
adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts. Illusions and The
Alchemist would certainly be in a similar category. If you look back over
the history of the New Age -- about twenty or twenty-five years -- there are
only three, maybe four, novels that stand as credible fiction, and they're
the ones we're talking about here. They're in the vanguard of exploring an
emergent personal spiritual philosophy. These things are Rorschach tests."
If The Celestine Prophecy: The Movie turns out to be anywhere near as
successful as some in the industry predict, its spiritual themes will reach
unprecedented flocks of cinemagoers -- perhaps the biggest step yet toward
attaining the critical mass Redfield and many others believe is necessary to
trigger an evolutionary shift in the culture at large. (And you can bet that
along with Illusions and The Alchemist, if all goes well, Redfield's sequels
The Tenth Insight and The Secret of Shambhala won't be far behind.) Whether
such a prospect inclines one more toward exhilaration or more toward
uneasiness, it's enough to make us all pause to ask: Can pop spirituality
save us?
ONE SYNCHRONISTIC JOURNEY
"If there's one thing that's really deep in James Redfield, it's
synchronicity. Prakasha, in Sanskrit -- to be able to see through the world
as if it's a diaphanous gown. To see that an event is beckoning you, telling
you what to do." -- Michael Murphy
As I come over the crest of a wooded ridge, bumping down dirt roads into an
old limestone quarry just outside the town of Ocala, I can't see any giant
temple replicas or mock Machu Picchus, but I know they're there somewhere.
Curious to find out more about synchronicity, little do I know that I'm
about to hear more tales of meaningful coincidence in a single weekend than
I've heard in my entire life up until now. When the driver lets me out and
points me on my way, I walk through a nest of flatbeds and trailers buzzing
with technicians and engineers, coming around a corner to see a blasted-out
church up on a hill, roof blackened, cross hewn through. There must be a
hundred and fifty people working here; among them a small group sits in
animated conversation, directors and producers. At my approach, a tall man
with a short-cropped beard stands to greet me, and I introduce myself to
James Redfield.
When he was twenty years old, Redfield sat deep in meditation somewhere in
Alabama. Suddenly, a powerful intuitive vision materialized in his
consciousness and he watched spellbound as his life unfolded before his
inner eye. He saw himself becoming a writer. He saw himself writing a book
that would go on to international acclaim. He saw the colossal impact he
would eventually have on millions of people. As the years went by, he wrote
this off as a pipe dream . . . that is, until it started coming true.
From the first, Redfield treats me like a guest in his own house. In a way,
I suppose this is his house -- built on his dreams, by his metaphorical
hands -- and as I'll soon discover, he takes care of everyone here with a
kind of attentiveness one might reserve for intimate collaborators in the
fulfillment of a life's passion. For the moment, he excuses himself from the
meeting and leads me past the church where they're filming, down a loose
slope, and out onto a circle of flagstones at the heart of the Celestine
ruins, where much of the action takes place.
"They're larger than Machu Picchu," he says proudly as we climb up a wide
stone staircase to a platform overlooking the old quarry lake. (He's added a
few floating pillars covered with vines to conjure up a certain Atlantean
feel, and a computer-animated waterfall is on the way.) "The making of the
movie has just been one synchronistic journey," he goes on. "Even when
things weren't working, they were working, you know. We didn't decide to
make this movie until January, and we're here in April, about to complete
principal photography. Anybody in the industry will tell you that's fast."
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung sat in his office listening to a patient
recount her dream of a golden scarab beetle. The woman's therapy had been
hampered by her extreme rationalism, but Jung knew the scarab was an ancient
Egyptian symbol of rebirth, and he wondered to himself whether the dream was
a subconscious clue to a coming breakthrough. About to give her his
interpretation, Jung heard a faint tapping at his window and turned around
to see an actual gold-green scarabaeid beetle flapping there. He opened the
window and it flew into the room, so shocking the woman that her resistance
was penetrated. This got him thinking about meaningful coincidences, and in
a 1935 lecture at London's Tavistock Clinic, he coined the term
"synchronicity."
"A lot of people who were skeptical back in the nineties are now more open
to the idea that there are higher abilities that we have that are really
spiritual abilities," Redfield says. "You know, intuition, a sense of
coincidence as meaningful, a discovery of synchronistic signs and
suggestions in our lives. I want to help people realize that there's that
much mystery in the world on an ongoing basis. Living the spiritual life is
not just about meditating ascetically. The Western piece of spirituality has
to be included in that, and that's action and doing and participating in a
kind of ongoing evolution that's happening. Once you start to open up to the
mystery of how we're helped with that, very cryptically at times, your life
begins to unfold in a way that's beyond chance, revealing a kind of calling
or recognition that you're here to do something meaningful for the world, in
the world. There's a flow you get into that's very inspiring, and I think
that's the next step in human evolution."
A week before cameras were slated to roll, Redfield and Co. had yet to fill
the role of Julia, one of their female leads. While actress Annabeth Gish
was on a flight from Miami back home to L.A., they called her manager to
offer her the part, but of course Gish didn't know this yet. "There were
three weird synchronistic things," she remembers. "One, when I was in Miami,
someone told me 'you should really go see St. Augustine. It's a nice area of
Florida.' Two, when I was on the plane, I sat next to this guy who said that
he'd just met the girl of his dreams, and her name was Julia. And the third
one was that while I was writing on the plane in my little daybook -- I have
no idea why -- I wrote down 'something magical will always happen.' It
wasn't so much a prediction . . . I was just sort of expressing my faith in
the world." Naturally, when she got off the plane, her manager called with
news of the offer -- "A perfect fit," Gish says, "because I had specifically
formed the intention to be part of a project that had some spiritual content
and context. So it was bizarre how I put that out there and then it was
answered." The next day, she was on her way back to Florida to start filming
. . . in St. Augustine.
Listening to the enthusiasm in Redfield's voice, taking in the energy and
activity of the set, I can sense a palpable feeling of ease and positivity
in the air that seems to be affecting everyone. The way they're working
together with little anxiety or tension is unusual for any work environment,
but it's especially surprising to see on the set of a feature film
production -- an often "brutally autocratic" atmosphere, according to Barnet
Bain, with "legendary stories of the egos and tempers that flare." "This
crew is rolling with the punches like I've never seen a crew roll," Matthew
Settle tells me, sitting on the tailgate of a pickup between scenes. "We're
doing a three-month movie in the span of a month. Everyone's adapted to it.
And at times when things have gone south, the energy is trickling all the
way down from James. I think the act of love is an energy that alters your
perception so you're no longer thinking only about yourself; you're thinking
about a group dynamic."
The synchronicity stories I hear tend to fall into two categories: 1)
astonishing and 2) debatable. Redfield's first-category best is about a crew
member who saved a whole crowd of people, including his wife, Salle, from
near disaster: "This huge crane just fell over, and it could have been
catastrophic. Except Tommy, just on a hunch, said all of a sudden, 'Listen,
I want everybody to get out of here right now. I want you to move,
everybody!'" No sooner than the group was out from under the crane, it
toppled; none of the veterans had ever seen such a thing. In category two,
the talk of the set this weekend has been of a noteworthy bird sighting
during a gunfight scene. Wandering through the canyon where this took place
yesterday, marveling at the exploded Peruvian tourist bus lying there,
engine block peeled open, ground strewn with charred blankets and burst
watermelons and .50 caliber shells, I overhear a woman describing what
transpired: "In the frame, above his head, a white dove flew over. A white
dove! It gave me goose bumps . . ."*
As intrigued as I am by some of these synchronistic happenings, I'm
reluctant to draw too many momentous conclusions every time a bird flies
over or a stranger makes lingering eye contact. (They're keeping a
coincidence log for an upcoming synchronicity-on-location book.) Taken in
light of our decidedly individualistic age, the popular notion that there's
no such thing as an accident -- that everything that happens to you happens
for a reason -- seems like it could all too easily become a perfect formula
for a kind of self-referential, superstitious spiritual narcissism. But for
millions of readers loyal to Chopra, Dyer, Coelho, et al., synchronicity is
more than just an odd, unexplainable occurrence here and there -- it's a way
of life. "This is not a fantasy adventure," Redfield whispers, intensity
rising in his voice. (We have to be quiet because they're filming now over
by the church, using blue screens as backdrops for later special-effects
work.) "Our operating principle here is that it's real, that this story is a
real alternative to the way people typically run their lives. You know,
there are a lot of people who believe that cynicism and suspicion and
pursuing just one's own self-interest is the only way you can survive. And
hopefully, we've got an antidote to that point of view."
FAITH FOR THE POSTMODERN AGE
Our collective feet are barely wet in the still unfamiliar waters of the
twenty-first century, and already, faith, trust, and optimism have fallen on
hard times. The threats of war, terrorism, and environmental suicide loom
over us. For many, the old cultural and religious stories that gave us
meaning and helped us find our way in the world are becoming progressively
less relevant and immediate. And though science has given us many things, it
still hasn't given us God. Indeed, daring to believe in anything holy at all
in our distinctly secular age is usually seen as pretty uncool. If there
were a postmodern survival guide, the first chapter might be an intro to
wariness, an overview of irony and skepticism -- especially when it comes to
any expression of confidence in matters of soul and spirit.
To its great credit, pop spirituality races to make spirituality just that
-- popular again -- to close the gap between the sacred dimension of life
and a world that, in many ways, has left that dimension behind as an
outmoded relic of history. For so many of us, the grand orienting narratives
of the great religions no longer suffice as they once did (the image of the
ruined church on the hill is apropos). We can't go back to a God with a
white beard, sitting in judgment on high, etching his decrees onto cold
stone tablets. Enter a more democratic and egalitarian notion of divinity,
open to each individual's interpretation and based directly on his or her
own personal experience. For more and more of us, the materialistic
explanations of science -- the religion of modern times -- are also
insufficiently complete. There's a growing sense that we can't remain mired
in the clockwork universe we've inherited from Newton and Descartes,
alienated from ourselves, at a loss to understand the intangible stirrings
inside us. Enter a contemporary outlet for mystery and meaning.
If there's one thing we can infer from just six authors selling over 150
million books worldwide, it's that the spiritual impulse in the human being
refuses to be constrained or flattened, that something within us is still
desperate to be nourished. And like it or not, we live in an environment
increasingly defined by mainstream consumer culture. That culture provides
the context for much of our lives, and its cafeterias and food courts serve
spiritual food, too, to all those who are hungry for it. Sure, pop culture
is the realm of the superficial, the artificial, and the nonessential. Yet
it's also the ultimate postmodern common ground. By pulling spirituality
free of religion, we've taken it into our own hands; we're free to be
ecumenical and eclectic, to pick and choose. And now, more than at any other
time in history, mysteries that used to be veiled and esoteric have entered
the democratic marketplace of ideas. As these authors claim, there's only
one perennial truth at the heart of all religions anyway.
"What we want in this time period is the real experience of spirituality,
not ideologies or abstract descriptions of it," Redfield says. "You can come
from any religious tradition and ride this wave of experience in The
Celestine Prophecy because it's the unity of the experience that pulls us
together. It's the common experience among all the traditions that pulls us
together." By emphasizing experience and practice over doctrine and
ideology, he aims to make the path of inner transformation more widely
accessible than ever before. It's no wonder that the number one-enemy of
Redfield's Nine Insights is the Catholic Church, whose Cardinal Sebastian
rages in the book: "This Manuscript is a curse. It would undermine our basic
structure of spiritual authority. It would entice people to think they are
in control of their spiritual destiny." Indeed, that's exactly what this
populist groundswell is trying to accomplish. And with Hollywood climbing on
board, its impact on our culture at large is only going to increase.
COFFEE AND A POOL PARTY
It's Sunday morning -- the production's day off -- and I'm sitting at the
lone Starbucks in Ocala, Florida, where the scorching parking lots of strip
malls meet the wide green fields of world-class horse farms. Little do the
families walking by pushing toddlers in strollers or the teenagers out in
front of the multiplex drinking Jamba Juice know that just a few miles up
the road, a burgeoning postmodern religion's inaugural foray into the world
of movies is taking shape. The old rock quarry is hidden in the forest
across from the county fair, whose ferris wheel and demolition derbies are
in their final week. Filming on The Celestine Prophecy wraps this week as
well. This afternoon, cast and crew are planning to celebrate with a pool
party at the Ramada Inn, and I'm hoping to catch them all with some
downtime.
Sitting there drinking my coffee, I hear the sound of a familiar voice and
turn to see Barnet Bain with director Armand Mastroianni, coming through the
door. Wondering whether or not I'm being swept into some kind of
synchronicity-enhancing energy field emanating from the nearby quarry, I
walk over to say hello and invite them to sit down. "It's funny," I tell
Mastroianni, whom I've yet to interview, "I was hoping for a chance to talk
with you today."
"We all have intuitions," he laughs. "We all say, 'Oh, wow, I was just
thinking about that.' And you know, James's message is that these things are
there for a reason."
"I wanted to ask about what drew you to this film as a director. What would
you say distinguishes this script from others you've worked on in the past?"
"You know, the book and the script spoke to me about a much higher
consciousness than what you normally deal with in films," Mastroianni
replies. "I saw this as a love story about a man who falls in love with a
philosophy, and there's so much within that philosophy that is applicable to
everyday life. I'm sure there are going to be people who will disagree, who
will criticize it as just a lot of nonsense, as a quick fix kind of thing. I
mean, everyone picks on these guys, whether it's Deepak Chopra or John Gray,
who wrote Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, or Don Miguel Ruiz and
The Four Agreements. But I think these books, if nothing else, do give
someone a chance and do give someone hope. And just for that they're good,
to me, rather than something that's very superficial. Anything that gets you
to think about yourself and the way you behave and treat others is good in
my mind."
"Do you think that all the blockbuster thrills -- you know, the Indiana
Jones plotline, the psychedelic energy effects -- will distract audiences
from this philosophy that's meant to be taken seriously as a means for
personal reflection?"
"No, I don't think so," Bain jumps in. "This is not about creating gee-whiz
moments. It's not going to be the kind of thing where you gasp, because it's
meant to do something else. Film is a modeling medium, not a processing
medium the way prose is, and it works at a more visceral, energetic level. I
think it's safe to say that the behaviors of most people -- certainly most
young people -- in America and Western Europe today, are strongly influenced
by film and television. Their thoughts, beliefs, and values are all modeled
there in very persuasive ways. It's hard enough to remain open to exploring
new ideas, but when you have something as potent and powerful as the media
presenting a full-fledged reality experience, it can entice you to forget
that you have any choices at all. The media is not so much a reflection of
drives within a culture -- it really defines the culture. And that makes it
a great gift when you can model responses to life that make new choices
apparent, that are not the tried and true but are not so out of range that
they enter into the realm of fantasy."
By the time I get to the pool for the cast party, the festivities are in
full swing -- water volleyball, house band on the patio, Armand
Mastroianni's new parrot Petey (the honorary Celestine mascot) hanging out
with cast and crew by the bar. Intrigued by my conversation with Bain and
Mastroianni this morning, I'm curious to find out what the cast members have
to say about this increasing convergence of spirituality and pop culture.
Grabbing a gin and tonic, I spend a while chatting with lead actress Sarah
Wayne Callies (Marjorie) and eventually ask her for her thoughts on the
subject.
"I think that culturally, we're at an interesting point right now," Callies
says. "For instance, I see all these people studying Kabbalah. Which is
strange, knowing that it used to be reserved for people who were over forty,
because it was thought that anyone younger would go mad. And they were
people who were, for starters, Jewish, but also people with a long history
and education and relationship to, and passion for, simpler spiritual
principles. Now, there's this sort of pop mysticism -- the idea that you
could become a Sufi in eight weeks, or have access to these deeper
understandings without sacrificing anything, and do it in twenty minutes a
day -- that seems to me very counterintuitive, and very different from my
own experiences of profound spirituality. I mean, spirituality is something
some people dedicate every minute of their lives to, and then die and do it
again for another fifteen lives."
As we sip our drinks, the sun drops down behind the roofs of the
neighborhood. "Super-size it," Petey squawks from a crew member's shoulder.
HISTORY ON PARADE
The popular spiritual surge heading for cineplexes across the country is
definitely not your grandmother's religion -- or then again, maybe it was.
In fact, this recent postmodern movement has a long and illustrious history
that can be traced all the way back to ancient times. Known to scholars as
"Western esotericism" -- an umbrella term for a vast spectrum of religious
phenomena with their earliest roots in Greek philosophy and the
Judeo-Christian scriptural traditions -- its modern version first developed
in the academies of the Renaissance. Over the centuries, Western esotericism
flowed and flowered through many forms, yet some things stayed the same: a
vision of nature as a living system permeated by divinity; a focus on the
mystical purification of the individual; a principle of correspondences
between things visible and invisible. "The entire universe is a huge theater
of mirrors," writes historian Antoine Faivre, "an ensemble of hieroglyphs to
be decoded. Everything is a sign; everything conceals and exudes mystery;
every object hides a secret."
Indeed, Renaissance scholars cooked up quite a soup Florentine for coming
generations. Here's the recipe: Take two quarts neoplatonism (metaphysical
theories derived from Plato) and add two quarts hermetic philosophy
(attributed to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, major source for the idea
of a primordial wisdom tradition or perennial philosophy). Chop up one cup
each of various occult sciences (magic, astrology, alchemy), throw them in
the mix, and bring to a boil. Finally, drop in a few handfuls of Kabbalah,
cover, and simmer for a few hundred years.
As these esoteric philosophies were propagated throughout the Western world,
they were shaped and molded by key individuals of remarkable genius. Emanuel
Swedenborg -- an accomplished eighteenth-century scientist, mystic seer, and
revolutionary Christian theologian -- reinterpreted biblical scripture as an
allegory of individual liberation, proclaiming the advent of a New Jerusalem
on earth marked by increasing personal freedom and a distinctly practical
spirituality. Franz Anton Mesmer, best known as the forefather of modern
hypnosis (hence "mesmerize"), was an eighteenth-century physician whose
pioneering subtle-energy therapies (which he called animal magnetism)
inspired a fervent and sustained interest in the exploration and development
of the unknown healing powers of the mind.
"The most remarkable step in the religious history of recent ages is that
made by the genius of Swedenborg," Ralph Waldo Emerson said once. And while
he and his nineteenth-century romantic compatriots, the Transcendentalists,
took Swedenborg's influence forward, that's not all they did. They were some
of the first Western synthesizers of Hindu scriptures -- trailblazers, of
sorts, on the early frontiers of East-meets-West spirituality. According to
scholar Martin Bickman, they ushered in a new American metaphysics that
emphasized "the role of the mind itself in actively shaping experience." And
Emerson himself (followed by flamboyant Russian psychic Madame H.P.
Blavatsky) was perhaps the first thinker to blend the emerging science of
evolution with the Eastern doctrine of karma, yielding a seminal Western
spirituality stressing the autonomy and accountability of the individual in
the soul's progress from life to life.
Speaking of Blavatsky, her Theosophical Society (founded in 1875) was
equally pivotal in assimilating Eastern religious concepts into the Western
esoteric framework, and was instrumental in the resurgence of popular
interest in occultism and perennial philosophy. Around the same time,
followers of Mesmer and Swedenborg were planting the seeds of the "create
your own reality" school -- New Thought. Founded on an innovative
interpretation of Mesmer's animal magnetism credited to Dr. Phineas Quimby
of Portland, Maine, New Thought shifted emphasis from Mesmer's subtle
energies to the healing power of patients' own beliefs and expectations. And
over the decades to come, a whole religious psychology of positive thinking
and prosperity consciousness would develop, influencing multiple Christian
denominations, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, industrialist
magnates Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie, and renowned success gurus Napoleon
Hill and Norman Vincent Peale.
"Most of the beliefs which characterize the New Age were already present by
the end of the nineteenth century," writes historian Wouter Hanegraaff,
"even to such an extent that one may legitimately wonder whether the New Age
brings anything new at all." Still, there was some cooking left to be done
-- and where the Renaissance Italians used a soup kettle, twentieth-century
Americans got out a high-speed blender. At an unprecedented rate of mixing,
many eminent modernizers worked with three main ingredients. To start, they
added Eastern sacred traditions to Western esotericism, but not just from
translated texts -- soon, real sages from Asia would land on U.S. shores.
First to arrive was Swami Vivekananda, who wowed the Parliament of the
World's Religions in Chicago in 1893, becoming India's de facto spiritual
ambassador to the United States. Zen monk Soyen Shaku also attended the
Parliament, and his students D.T. Suzuki and Nyogen Senzaki would soon
follow to plant the earliest Buddhist seeds in American soil. Legendary
meditation master Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in 1920, and his
Autobiography of a Yogi (1946) sold over a million copies and inspired
thousands of Western seekers. And by 1965, with the repeal of barriers to
Asian immigration that had been in place since 1917, a flood of Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, and other gurus came West to infuse the growing
counterculture with fresh spiritual vitality.
The second revolutionary development was a synthesis of psychology and
religion undreamed of anywhere else in the world. Back near the turn of the
century, multidisciplinary scientist William James (son of Swedenborgian
theologian Henry James, Sr.) was probing toward an innovative psychological
understanding of spiritual experience. "The greatest discovery of my
generation," James said, echoing his New Thought contemporaries, "is that
human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."
Over in Switzerland, influenced by German and Chinese philosophy, Carl Jung
was working as both empirical theorist and shaman of the unconscious. His
own particular fusion of psychology and religion would later sweep into
fashion in America. Finally, in the 1960s, humanistic psychology developed
as a popular movement at California's Esalen Institute, led by Abraham
Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. It, too, was revolutionary, in that it
steered away from the dominant schools in psychology -- behaviorism and
Freudian psychoanalysis -- pointing toward a new emphasis on human values,
the drive toward self-actualization, and peak mystical experiences.
But science-religion overlaps were not limited to the domain of psychology.
Running alongside these other streams from early in the twentieth century,
the fledgling theories of quantum mechanics began fueling endless
speculation about hidden symmetries between matter and consciousness. One
such theory was in fact Jung's synchronicity principle, which he developed
in collaboration with Nobel Prizewinning quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli.
By the time the seventies rolled around, and Fritjof Capra's The Tao of
Physics (1975) hit the stands, interest in the parallels between ancient
Eastern mysticism and modern experimental physics had become a pop
phenomenon.
The postmodern tapestry of world religion and innovative science woven by
these many pioneers and popularizers set the stage for the flowering of the
New Age in the eighties and nineties. But there's one last piece of the
puzzle: the human potential movement. Starting at Esalen in the 1960s and
mushrooming through hundreds of personal growth centers all across America,
it broke crucial new ground by combining wildly eclectic teachings and
techniques from different countries and time periods outside their original
contexts -- East and West, yoga and psychotherapy. Before long, all this
creative mixing and matching reached a crescendo, and what once had been the
province of the bohemian counterculture went mainstream. From the old Greek
mysteries to the new sciences of the inner world, from ancient Vedanta to
modern neopaganism, tai chi to tarot, astrology to positivity, Walden Pond
to hot springs and hot tubs, a modern synthetic religion was born.
Nowadays, it takes a discerning palate to distinguish the original
ingredients from the whole smoothie. Indeed, this is one of two main reasons
that, for a while, historians kept clear of the New Age altogether. The
other? They thought it was a fad that would go away. But they've been proven
wrong by hundreds of celebrated authors -- soon to be joined by a few
Hollywood pathfinders.
THIS LIFE'S A BLANK SLATE
It's a big day today on the set -- they're filming the climax of the movie,
the final confrontation between heroic everyman and diabolical übervillain.
The production crew is going full tilt, pulling up trees and bushes and
digging new holes to put them in, molding the landscape for the morning's
sequence, the lead-up to the big clash to come this afternoon. Opposite
Matthew Settle's protagonist John Woodson, actor Jürgen Prochnow plays
Jensen, a minor character in the book who's been ramped up to prime-time
nemesis here (head of a mysterious international cartel trying to thwart the
spread of the Manuscript by blowing up the Celestine ruins). We're up on a
hill where the scene takes place, overlooking Jensen's military camp: the
crew is gearing up the jeeps; the extras in the army are going through a
final rehearsal.
"And . . . action," Mastroianni says when everything's in place. Woodson and
his ally, Father Sanchez (Joaquim de Almeida), emerge at the edge of the
forest, crouching down to remain hidden, and peer through the leaves to
scout out their options. The army below is mobilizing; Jensen, dressed in
black fatigues, stands in the open surveying the operation, giving orders to
his lieutenants. There isn't much time left to save the ancient scrolls
destined to change human consciousness.
"There are heroes out there who have transcended everything, every possible
thing, and they have to be our models," Redfield says as we watch the action
unfold. "If you always expect the positive, guess what happens? That
intention starts to move you past the karmic stuff, and suddenly you're in a
world where fewer so-called negative things happen to you, because you're
always assuming that your life's going to be an inspired journey rather than
a victimhood of any kind. This life's a blank slate -- if we expect the
positive, we're going to get it. If we expect the negative, we're going to
get that too. That's how powerful we are."
The idea that our thoughts literally create our reality is a central New Age
belief that goes all the way back to the beginnings of New Thought. Indeed,
in one form or another, a conviction in the life-transforming potential of
positive thinking shows up across the entire breadth of this movement.
"Believe you know all answers, and you know all answers. Believe you're a
master, and you are," Richard Bach writes in Illusions. "You are the creator
of your reality," God tells Neale Donald Walsch in one of their many
conversations, "and life can show up no other way for you than that way in
which you think it will." Not surprisingly, there are many people here on
the set voicing similar convictions in the miraculous power of thought. And
there are others who have questions.
"Where I get stuck," Annabeth Gish had told me earlier, "is the whole New
Age idea that you can create your destiny by positive thinking. What do you
say to a woman who has cancer or a handicapped kid? Did she create that by
negative thinking? It's taking away science; it's taking away matter, you
know? Metaphysics can only exist because of physics, and that's where this
whole 'art of deliberate creation' troubles me. You can't take away the fact
that sometimes chromosomes get screwed up."
I've been wondering the same thing. "Do you really think it's possible to
control everything that happens to us simply by controlling our thoughts?" I
ask Redfield, reminded of the predictions in his books -- that in the
future, synchronistically advanced humans will have minds free of
aggravation ("soon, negative images will almost never happen") and lives
free of danger ("everything bad that happens to us occurs because we missed
some synchronistic opportunity to avoid it").
"Oh, yeah," he replies. "But I wouldn't use the word 'control.' We're not
really controlling our lives as much as we're sensing the correct flow for
our lives from somewhere beyond ourselves, and the only thing that kills
that flow is to make a negative interpretation of something that happens to
you. We don't create what happens -- people die, people get sick. What we do
create is how we react to what happens, and what we make that's positive out
of the conditions that we face. Anything you may think is negative always
has a learning component, always has a silver lining, with the potential to
move you in an even more fulfilling direction."
This faith in our ability to generate our own good fortune is a cornerstone
of this philosophy, and it's also quintessentially American. The American
dream is the dream of prosperity and abundance, and pop spirituality is the
American dream spiritualized, fueled by an almost mythic, entrepreneurial
optimism. As journalist John L. O'Sullivan, originator of the phrase
"Manifest Destiny," wrote in 1839: "We are the nation of human progress, and
who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us,
and no earthly power can."
Woodson and Father Sanchez are still concealed in the woods, spying on
Jensen's camp, conferring quietly about what to do next. At one point during
the long string of takes, Mastroianni needs more foliage in the foreground
for them to hide behind, so Settle picks up a branch and just holds it up in
front of his face. It's a close-up, and his hand is off-camera. "This is
mine to do," Woodson says with deadly serious intent, meeting his friend's
eyes. Then he leaps down the hill alone, disappearing into the trees to meet
his fate.
FINDING HEAVEN NOW
When afternoon comes, a captured John Woodson is brought into camp by
Jensen's guards. Things definitely don't look good: he's all alone, your
average social worker swept up in events beyond his control, events that
depend on how he responds to them. Jensen steps from the shadows, peeling an
apple with a bowie knife. The timer on the bomb is ticking down, and the
final secret of the Ninth Insight has yet to be found. That's the situation,
and our hero's only hope is to appeal to the buried humanity of a man who
has sold his soul to the demons of profit and domination. Mastroianni's
having this scene filmed with the mobile Steadicam, and as the dialogue
escalates, the cameraman orbits around them -- two men, two worldviews
locked in a duel while everything else is spinning. Jensen hasn't put the
knife down yet. "The way of the world," he says, "is power."
This is Hollywood entertainment. But it's also a statement to be taken
seriously. "James always meant this to be a spiritual adventure," says
producer Beverly Camhe. "But I think that it will provoke some thought, some
serious thought, about why the world is what it is today and what we have to
do to change things." Indeed, at a time when more and more of us are
searching for faith, with conflict all around us and restlessness within,
turning the ultimate secular entertainment -- the movies -- toward the
domain of the religious starts to look like something of a coup.
"Years ago, there were a lot of movies made about Christ," Mastroianni says.
"And then they stopped making them because they felt no one wanted to see
these sword-and-sandal films anymore. But now, we're living in times where
people are once again seeking the sense of the spiritual. And certainly
after The Passion, films like this will be accepted more than they were
before." Mel Gibson had both the means and the clout to draw Hollywood into
this territory; so does James Redfield. "While we applaud what Mel has done,
because he broke some ice, we hope that with this film, we can say we have
the rest of the story," Redfield tells me as they reset props and extras for
another take. "And that's our offering to people: we don't have to wait
until the end; we don't have to wait until some afterlife reward. The world
is designed so that we can find a heaven here now, if we work at it
together."
For this growing worldwide movement of popular authors, arriving at a heaven
on earth -- through personal spiritual evolution and heartfelt engagement in
the world -- is the most thrilling prospect of all. "Things often appear as
though we're going backwards, not toward that higher, more evolved vision,"
Redfield says. "But you don't know how many steps are necessary to get us
all there. Do we have to suffer some sort of gigantic economic collapse
before we learn to make our technology compatible with natural systems? I
don't know. I think that we can avoid it, but will we? I don't know. But I
have full faith that we'll get to that place eventually."
And yet, taking stock of our situation, our continued survival -- let alone
our spiritual evolution -- seems far from assured. As alarming as it is to
admit, we don't know how short a time we have left. Fragile planetary
ecosystems are already beginning to fail; ethnic and religious conflict
shows no sign of abating; our political and civic discourse increasingly
appeals to the worst of our fears and suspicions. So much depends on whether
we're willing to embrace rather than shy away from this challenging reality.
But even despite these mounting crises, so many of us at the threshold of an
uncertain new millennium continue to spend most of our time and attention
distracted with the runaway materialism of a never-ending American dream.
If the fundamental hurdle of our historical moment is the task of reaching
beyond purposelessness and alienation, then we first need to find a way to
leap over our cultural obsession with artificiality and endless surfaces.
We're hungry for depth at the same time that we relentlessly avoid it,
adrift in a world untethered from the traditional religious structures that
in earlier times oriented us toward higher purpose and meaning. This is the
price we've paid for the free reign of individuality and self-determination.
But perhaps the biggest irony of our irony-laden age is that, despite the
secular conversion we've struggled so diligently to accomplish, the
spiritual impulse seems to be rising nonetheless. Amid the triviality of
postmodern life, our yearning for soul and substance is taking new forms and
paths -- now, strangely enough, even trickling out from the screens and the
malls and the popular paperbacks.
How much this new secular spiritual movement is going to help us find our
bearings in the stormy seas of the twenty-first century remains to be seen.
The richness of its complex history, now bursting loose into the midst of
the American mainstream, is a study in the ironic tension between inspired
innovation and the commodification of sentiment in contemporary pop culture.
By translating timeless mystical truths into digestible popular languages,
these many prominent authors have opened up an otherwise off-limits
spiritual territory to a population segment disaffected with conventional
religious faith. Millions have found new beginnings there, in the
experiential recognition of a part of themselves longing for fuller
expression. Yet this newfound accessibility has also come at a price. For in
the race to make the esoteric secrets of the ages available to an
ever-widening popular spiritual marketplace, this movement tends to
oversimplify and romanticize the reality of our human predicament. And in
doing so, it underplays the increasing complexity of the challenges facing
us.
In the Ninth Insight, Redfield asserts that in the future, all people will
have the luxury of living "in the most powerful and beautiful places on the
Earth." "Our needs will be completely met without the exchange of any
currency," he writes, "yet also without any overindulgence or laziness." And
a new spiritual economy will revolve around "getting paid for evolving
freely and offering our unique truth to others." Although if I had a gun to
my head, I wouldn't insist that the sort of utopia Redfield envisions could
never come to pass, it's hard to believe that, as Redfield claims, he really
has "the rest of the story."
They're still filming when I say my good-byes. On my way to the airport, I
stop for a snack at the grocery store, and The Celestine Prophecy is for
sale right there on the rack. There's something strangely reassuring about
seeing it next to Danielle Steel and the Snapple fridge. It's a part of our
vernacular now, mingled into this novel secular fusion of spiritual and
commercial, mysticism and merchandise. What a curious place we find
ourselves in, I think to myself, standing in line at the checkout counter.
Anticipating the next step in the dawning spiritualization of Hollywood,
coming to theaters as early as next spring, I open up my bag of sunflower
seeds and walk through the automatic door just in time to see a white dove
flying across the sky, the glint of its wings flickering in the hot Florida
sun.
...........
ONLINE EXTRAS: For media and web resources, including audio/video interviews
from łThe American Dream Spiritualized,˛ visit:
http://www.wie.org/unbound
THE CELESTINE PROPHECY:
http://www.celestinevision.com/
THE CELESTINE PROPHECY: THE MOVIE
http://www.celestinevision.com/CPmovie.html
-----------
PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:
UPDATE 1: THE CELESTINE PROPHECY MOVIE (12/5/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8455
THE CELESTINE PROPHECY MOVIE (6/12/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7383
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PRIVATE FIRMS TO CHASE DELINQUENT TAXPAYERS
By Dan Morgan and Albert B. Crenshaw
Washington Post
Sunday, December 5, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35714-2004Dec4.html
When Reps. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
teamed up in September to get the House to pass an amendment blocking the
use of private companies to collect back taxes from delinquent taxpayers, it
seemed the Bush administration plan might be doomed for at least a year.
But in the final hours of drafting a 3,300-page spending bill last month,
House and Senate negotiators eliminated Capito's and Van Hollen's handiwork,
clearing the way for the Internal Revenue Service to hire commercial debt
collectors. These private agents could keep as much as 25 percent of the
amounts they recovered.
While the Bush administration has strongly supported the initiative as a way
to increase revenue collections amid growing deficits, critics contend it
could lead to harassment of taxpayers and breaches of privacy. Labor groups
representing federal workers also oppose the change. But it has the backing
of the debt-collection industry, which has contributed heavily to GOP
organizations and causes since Bush became president.
One company that lobbied for the change is California-based Diversified
Collection Services Inc., one of eight companies indicted in September by a
Texas grand jury, along with three Republican fundraisers for House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), on charges of alleged money laundering and
illegal corporate campaign contributions.
A DeLay spokesman said last week that neither DeLay nor anyone in his office
has had any contact with Diversified Collection representatives for several
years.
The company has contributed about $435,000 to Republican Party organizations
since 1999, Federal Election Commission records show.
James Tracey, Diversified's chief executive, has contributed thousands of
dollars to GOP causes and candidates. This year, he gave $3,000 to the
campaign of Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), a member of the Rules Committee and
a key supporter of legislation allowing the IRS to use private collectors.
Sessions's chief of staff, O.L. Guy Harrison IV, said the congressman had
been "interested in this for four to six years as a good government issue."
Tracey, he said, had raised "a little bit" of money for Sessions. A company
official said last week no one was available to comment.
The action by House-Senate conferees drafting the omnibus spending package
is one of dozens that have come to light as the public gives more scrutiny
to the huge government-wide spending bill passed Nov. 20.
The removal of the restriction on private tax collectors leaves in force
legislation enacted as part of this year's corporate tax bill, allowing the
IRS to contract with private companies.
Under the legislation, contractors will not have access to tax return
information, other than the amount owed, and will have no role in
determining the amount that is owed, officials said. They will be given
names, addresses, phone numbers and other identifying information about
delinquent payers.
Private collectors will have authority to set up installment payment
agreements, and gather financial information about those targeted,
presumably to assess their ability to pay or to locate assets that might be
attached.
People on both sides of the issue say they believe IRS workers can collect
unpaid taxes more cheaply and effectively than contract collectors. But
because of chronic staff shortages and other resource constraints, IRS
workers often are unable to follow up until years later.
"We do view this as an important step forward in strengthening tax
administration," IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said last week. "It
parallels what is already being done in over 40 states. It will be done with
full protection of taxpayer rights, and . . . it's absolutely necessary,
particularly in an environment where Congress has cut back on funding for
the IRS."
But Capito, whose district includes an IRS installation employing 1,000,
said she was concerned contractors whose pay was determined by the amounts
collected would be inclined to use aggressive tactics and harassment. "There
are a lot of unanswered questions," she said.
"It could result in a loss of objectivity. It could cloud your judgment,"
said Van Hollen, who noted that IRS rules expressly forbid rewarding service
employees based on how much they collect.
The amendment to prohibit the administration from moving ahead with the plan
passed on a voice vote in September during House consideration of the
spending bill funding the IRS in 2005. During a brief debate that revealed
divisions on the question within both parties, some Democrats supported the
idea of private collections while several Republicans expressed concerns.
The use of private collectors has been debated for many years. In 1996, the
General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office)
suggested that "there may be a role for private debt collectors in
collecting federal tax debt."
In 1996 and 1997, Congress directed the IRS to test the idea, but the
experiment was called off early after it turned out that the program was
costing more than it was bringing in.
But that program was significantly different from the one approved this
year. The previous program did not allow commission-style payments to the
private collectors, who were paid a flat fee. Private agents were used only
to locate and contact delinquent taxpayers. Collection was left to IRS
employees.
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NHNE 2004 Fall/Winter Fundraiser:
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EVIDENCE OF FRAUD IN THE 2004 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A READER
By Michael Keefer
Centre for Research on Globalisation
December 5, 2004
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE412A.html
This Reading List, a substantially expanded version of previous lists
published on 11 and 15 November, has been prepared with the aim of making a
wide range of readings on the subject of the integrity‹or the lack of
integrity‹of the recent U.S. presidential election readily available. It is
being published as a companion-piece to my article "The Stolen U.S.
Presidential Election: A Comparative Analysis."
I have sought to facilitate analytical use of the materials in this revised
and expanded list by dividing them into five subject-sections:
1. The Openness of New Voting Technologies to Fraud;
2. Allegations and Evidence of Fraud in Recent U.S. Elections;
3. Advance Warnings of Fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election;
4. Allegations and Evidence of Fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election: The
Developing Controversy.
5. Appendix: Selected Articles on the 2004 Presidential Recall Referendum in
Venezuela and the 2004 Presidential Election (Second Round) in Ukraine.
Section 1 includes writings by computer scientists who have specialized in
issues of electronic security, by statisticians who have studied questions
of the detection of electoral fraud, and by journalists and activists who
have assembled and critically analyzed the opinions of experts.
Section 2 provides some historical context for the present situation by
offering a selection of writings in which the evidence of electoral fraud in
recent U.S. elections is documented and analyzed.
Section 3 shows how insistently computer scientists, investigative
journalists and activists warned during the past two years about the dangers
to democracy posed by electronic voting machines which remove the
possibility of electoral recounts and audits‹and how, despite their
warnings, the U.S. entered the 2004 presidential elections equipped with
voting-machine systems most of which were demonstrably open both to
back-door manipulation and to hacking at the voting tabulator level.
Section 4 lists a wide variety of different texts. These include, most
obviously, reports and analyses focusing on specific aspects of the voting
and its aftermath, and studies that allege (and in my opinion cumulatively
demonstrate) the theft of the presidential election by the Bush-Cheney
Republicans and their corporate allies. But I have made a point also of
listing writings by scholars who find no compelling grounds for suspecting
large-scale or systematic electoral fraud... I have also listed articles by
journalists, often writing in mainstream outlets, who have dismissed
allegations of electoral fraud as the result of over-hasty or ill-informed
analysis, as an expression of conspiracy-theory paranoia, or as mere sour
grapes...
Section 5 seeks to facilitate comparisons between the U.S. election and
recent presidential elections in Venezuela and Ukraine in which, as in the
U.S., divergences between exit poll results and official vote tallies
prompted charges of election-rigging
The issues are complex, at some points hotly disputed, and in urgent need of
further inquiry and analysis. I would maintain, nonetheless, that the
evidence points with cumulative force to the conclusion that the official
vote tallies in the U.S. presidential election of November 2, 2004 (listed
by The New York Times at
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/elections2004/2004President.html>), were
produced by a massive and sustained project of electoral fraud.
Complete Reading List:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE412A.html
............
Michael Keefer is an Associate Professor of English at the University of
Guelph, and a past president of the Association of Canadian College and
University Teachers of English. His publications include Lunar Perspectives:
Field Notes from the Culture Wars (Toronto: House of Anansi Press).
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STATES FAILING TO FIGHT RISING OBESITY RATES
ALABAMA HAS HIGHEST OBESITY RATE, COLORADO LOWEST
By Todd Zwillich
Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
WebMD Medical News
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/95/103430.htm
The nation's antiobesity policies lack coordination and are failing to curb
the rising obesity rates, claims a report issued Wednesday by a nonprofit
public health group.
The report accuses the federal government of not having an organized effort
to attack rising overweight and obesity rates, which now affects more than
60% of Americans. It also blames states for failing to follow up on
nutrition and activity programs that are intended to fight the $139
billion-per-year epidemic.
"Simply asking and chastising people to eat less and exercise more is not
the way to solve this problem," says Shelley Hearne, executive director of
Trust for America's Health, which issued the report.
The group praises Arkansas for becoming the first state to require body mass
index (BMI) measurements for all students as part of an effort to accurately
gauge obesity rates. BMI is a measure of weight in relation to height and is
an indicator of body fat.
But the report says that 40% of states do not collect any reliable data on
obesity rates in children and that few enforce widespread physical
activities in schools. Only four states: California, Hawaii, Texas, and West
Virginia, have nutritional standards for snack bar and vending machine foods
widely sold in schools, according to the report.
The rest are as follows:
State
Percent of Obese Adults
Rank
Alabama
28.4
1
Mississippi
28.1
2
West Virginia
27.7
3
Indiana
26.0
4
Kentucky
25.6
5
Arkansas
25.2
6
Georgia
25.2
6
Michigan
25.2
6
Tennessee
25.0
9
Ohio
24.9
10
Louisiana
24.8
11
Texas
24.6
12
South Carolina
24.5
13
Oklahoma
24.4
14
North Carolina
24.0
15
Delaware
24.0
15
Iowa
23.9
17
Nebraska
23.9
18
Pennsylvania
23.8
19
North Dakota
23.7
20
Missouri
23.6
21
Alaska
23.5
22
California
23.2
23
Illinois
23.2
23
Minnesota
23.0
25
South Dakota
22.9
26
Kansas
22.6
27
Maryland
21.9
28
Idaho
21.8
29
Virginia
21.7
30
Washington
21.7
30
Oregon
21.5
32
Nevada
21.2
33
New York
20.9
34
Wisconsin
20.9
34
Utah
20.8
36
District of Columbia
20.3
37
New Hampshire
20.2
38
New Mexico
20.2
38
Arizona
20.1
40
New Jersey
20.1
40
Wyoming
20.1
40
Florida
19.9
43
Maine
19.9
43
Vermont
19.6
45
Connecticut
19.0
46
Montana
18.8
47
Rhode Island
18.4
48
Massachusetts
16.8
49
Hawaii
16.4
50
Colorado
16.0
51
Total average
22.8
Forty-one states have adult obesity rates topping 20%, though federal health
goals aim to drop the obesity rate to 15% by 2010. Alabama remains the
heaviest state with 28.4% of adults obese, while Colorado is the lightest
with 16%. Diabetes, a major complication of obesity, affects more than 6% of
adults in 40 states, the report says.
The group recommends that federal authorities step up their scrutiny of
states and compel them to report childhood obesity trends and provide better
information on whether health programs are working.
Federal and some state health officials have responded to the rising obesity
rates. Some states have moved to limit kids' access to unhealthy foods in
schools, while others recently formed commissions on obesity, nutrition, and
physical activity.
The federal government has begun funding ad campaigns urging Americans to
eat right and exercise, and Medicare announced in July that it would for the
first time consider designating obesity an illness, possibly paying for some
treatments.
Congress has also begun considering moves to tighten nutritional and
exercise standards in schools.
Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health
Association, calls the efforts "fragmented" and says that governments are
not focusing on obesity prevention.
"We're dealing with things on the back end instead of dealing with things on
the front end," he says.
CDC Should Take Over
The report calls for a new national study to accurately determine obesity
rates and causes of childhood obesity, noting that the last nationwide youth
health survey was conducted two decades ago.
Hearne says that the nation's response should be consolidated inside an
obesity "command and control center" at the CDC and that the agency take
control of national nutrition recommendations known popularly as the Food
Guide Pyramid.
The pyramid is issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which Hearne
says is responsible for promoting food manufacturers and grocery producers.
"The USDA does have a perceived conflict of interest here," she says.
CDC should also form a rapid response team that quickly dispatch to
communities to help them find locally tailored causes and cures for rising
obesity rates, the report recommends.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson could not be
reached for comment by press time.
------------
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8439
SOUTH KOREAN ACTIVIST TRIES 'SUPER SIZE ME' DIET (11/12/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8267
SOME SCHOOLS GOING ORGANIC FOR LUNCH (9/14/2004):
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LOSE WEIGHT, STAY ACTIVE, PREVENT ALZHEIMER'S (7/21/2004):
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NIGHTLINE: AMERICA'S OBESITY CRISIS (6/2/2004):
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OBESITY BECOMING MAJOR GLOBAL PROBLEM (5/9/2004):
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TODDLERS AREN'T GETTING ENOUGH EXERCISE (2/3/2004):
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FOLLOWUP: EATING ONLY MCDONALD'S FOR A MONTH (1/26/2004):
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FILM RECORDS EFFECTS OF EATING ONLY MCDONALD'S FOR A MONTH (1/26/2004):
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U.S. REJECTS U.N. ANTI-OBESITY PLAN (1/22/2004):
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U.S. HAS FATTEST TEENS IN WORLD (1/6/2004):
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OBESITY TOP HEALTH PROBLEM IN U.S. (10/29/2003):
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U.S. TODDLERS EAT TOO MUCH JUNK FOOD (10/26/2003):
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HUMAN EVOLUTION CAN'T COPE WITH FAST FOOD (10/22/2003):
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EXTREME OBESITY BALLOONING IN U.S. ADULTS (10/16/2003):
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REPORT LINKS URBAN SPRAWL & WEIGHT GAIN (9/1/2003):
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YOU ARE WHAT YOUR MOTHER ATE (8/4/2003):
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THE EAT GENERATION: FAST FOOD, SAFE FOOD, SLOW FOOD (6/5/2003):
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GENE 'PREDISPOSES MEN TO FAT BELLIES' (1/13/2003):
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CANCERS LINKED TO FAT, INACTIVITY (4/6/2001):
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WHY AMERICANS ARE THE FATTEST PEOPLE ON EARTH (2/11/2001):
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Thanks to Sherry Stultz.
-----------
STATES RANKED: SMARTEST TO DUMBEST
CNN / Netscape
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.jsp?name=fte/smartstates/
smartstates
The smartest state in the union for the second consecutive year is
Massachusetts.
The dumbest, for the third year in a row, is New Mexico.
These are the findings of the Education State Rankings, a survey by
Morgan Quitno Press of hundreds of public school systems in all 50
states. States were graded on a variety of factors based on how they
compare to the national average. These included such positive
attributes as per-pupil expenditures, public high school graduation
rates, average class size, student reading and math proficiency, and
pupil-teacher ratios. States received negative points for high drop-out
rates and physical violence.
How does YOUR state rank?
1. Massachusetts
2. Connecticut
3. Vermont
4. New Jersey
5. Wisconsin
6. New York
7. Minnesota
8. Iowa
9. Pennsylvania
10. Montana
11. Maine
12. Virginia
13. Nebraska
14. New Hampshire
15. Kansas
16. Wyoming
17. Indiana
18. Maryland
19. North Dakota
20. Ohio
21. Colorado
22. South Dakota
23. Rhode Island
24. Illinois
25. North Carolina
26. Missouri
27. Delaware
28. Utah
29. Idaho
30. Washington
31. Michigan
32. South Carolina
33. Texas and West Virginia (tie)
35. Oregon
36. Arkansas
37. Kentucky
38. Georgia
39. Florida
40. Oklahoma
41. Tennessee
42. Hawaii
43. California
44. Alabama
45. Alaska
46. Louisiana
47. Mississippi
48. Arizona
49. Nevada
50. New Mexico
------------
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-----------
RELIGION: THE BIRTH OF JESUS
FROM MARY TO THE MANGER, HOW THE GOSPELS MIX FAITH AND HISTORY TO TELL THE
CHRISTMAS STORY AND MAKE THE CASE FOR CHRIST
By Jon Meacham
Newsweek
December 13, Issue
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6653824/site/newsweek/print/1/displaymode/1098/
............
Page 1: 'Blessed Art Thou Amongst Women'
Page 2: The Jesus Seminar
Page 3: Little to Work With
Page 4: An Outlandish Message
Page 5: Elegant But Misinterpreted?
Page 6: 'Dubious on Almost Every Score'
Page 7: A Religion of Perplexing Contradictions
...........
Page 1: 'Blessed Art Thou Amongst Women'
The news was unwelcome, baffling, frightening; nothing about it was expected
or explicable. Roughly 2,000 years ago, according to the Gospel of Luke, in
Nazareth of Galilee, a young woman found herself in the presence of Gabriel,
the angelic messenger of the Lord whose name was known to Jews of the day as
the mysterious figure who had granted Daniel his prophetic visions. The
woman, Luke writes, was "a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph,
of the house of David," and her name was Mary, Luke's Greek form of the
Hebrew Miriam, the sister of Moses and the first great prophetess of Israel.
"Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee," Gabriel said,
"blessed art thou amongst women" -- terrifying Mary, who "was troubled at
his saying." Stunned and confused, Mary made no reply, her face apparently
betraying anxiety and awe. Sensing her confusion and fear, Gabriel was
reassuring: "Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God."
Then the angel said: "And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and
shall be called the Son of the Highest ... and of his kingdom there shall be
no end." In other words, Mary was to bear the Messiah, the fabled and
long-promised figure who, in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, would "reign
as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the
land." Mary was silent, then finally found her voice: "How shall this be,
seeing I know not a man?"
Gabriel's reply -- that "the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee" -- raised more
questions than it answered, not only for Mary but for Joseph, for the early
Christians and, two millennia later, for us. In Luke's account, Mary
absorbed the tidings of her child's miraculous origin and mission and
"pondered them in her heart," still puzzled, still overwhelmed. In the
Gospel of Matthew, Joseph, knowing nothing about Gabriel's appearance, is
humiliated by the news that his future wife is pregnant, and "was minded to
put her away privily." In later years Christians had to contend with charges
that their Lord was illegitimate, perhaps the illicit offspring of Mary and
a Roman soldier. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, some scholars
treat the Christmas narratives as first-century inventions designed to
strengthen the seemingly tenuous claim that Jesus was the Messiah.
And so the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is, fittingly, as riven
with complexity and controversy as Christianity itself. This month more than
a billion Christians will commemorate their Lord's Nativity. Amid
candlelight, carols and the commingled smells of cedar and incense, the old
tale will unfold again: Gabriel's visitation, the journey to Bethlehem, the
arrival of the baby in a stable, the glorious announcement to the shepherds
in the night, the star in the East, the mission of the Magi.
Yet, as with so many other elements of faith, the Nativity narratives are
the subject of ongoing scholarly debate over their historical accuracy,
their theological meaning and whether some of the central images and words
of the Christian religion owe as much to the pagan culture of the Roman
Empire as they do to apostolic revelation.
The clash between literalism and a more historical view of faith is also
playing out in theaters and bookstores. This year Mel Gibson's hugely
successful movie "The Passion of the Christ" provoked a national
conversation about Jesus' last days. With 9 million hardcover copies in
print, Dan Brown's thriller "The Da Vinci Code," one of the most widely read
books of our time, is partly built around the assertion that the early
church covered up important facts about Jesus in order to manufacture
Christian creeds. (A Ron Howard movie starring Tom Hanks is in the works.)
Like the Victorians, we live in an age of great belief and great doubt, and
sometimes it seems as though we must choose between two extremes, the
evangelical and the secular. "I don't want to be too simplistic, but our
faith is somewhat childlike," says the Rev. H. B. London, a vice president
of James Dobson's conservative Focus on the Family organization in Colorado
Springs. "Though other people may question the historical validity of the
virgin birth, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we don't."
London's view has vast public support. A NEWSWEEK Poll found that 84 percent
of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus
as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the
virgin birth, and 67 percent think the Christmas story -- from the angels'
appearance to the Star of Bethlehem -- is historically accurate.
...........
Page 2: The Jesus Seminar
Others, though perhaps fewer in number, are equally passionate about their
critical understanding of the faith. The Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars
devoted to recovering the Jesus of history, is a battalion in this
long-running culture war. One of its members, Robert J. Miller, a professor
of religion at Juniata College, wrote "Born Divine: Jesus and Other Sons of
God," a 2003 book which argues that the Nativity narratives can be seen as
Christian responses to the birth stories of pagan heroes like Alexander the
Great and Caesar Augustus -- literary efforts depicting Jesus as a divine
figure in a way Greco-Roman listeners and readers would understand and
appreciate.
To many minds conditioned by the Enlightenment, shaped by science and all
too aware of the Crusades and corruptions of the church, Christmas is a
fairy tale. But faith and reason need not be constantly at war; they are,
John Paul II once wrote, "like two wings on which the human spirit rises to
the contemplation of truth" -- and the spirit cannot take flight without
both. This is why modern, grounded, discerning people do make leaps of
faith, accepting that, as the Gospel of John put it, "the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us."
Just how he became flesh is the business of Christmas. If we dissect the
stories with care, we can see that the Nativity saga is neither fully
fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and
enduring theology, one whose meaning was captured in the words of the
fourth-century Nicene Creed: that "for us men and for our salvation," Jesus
"came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin
Mary and was made man."
For Jesus' contemporaries, the explosive story of his life and its cosmic
significance did not begin with his birth but with his Passion and
resurrection. Jesus of Nazareth was executed by Pontius Pilate at Passover
in about A.D. 30 for the crime of sedition. After dying a terrible,
humiliating death on Golgotha, Jesus, his followers believed, had risen from
the dead, turning the world upside down. Working backward from the Easter
miracle, the early Christians -- almost all of whom were Jews and thought of
themselves as such -- told stories of their Lord's last days, of his
ministry and, eventually, it seems, of his birth.
The first followers, we should always remember, believed that the Risen Lord
was going to return and usher in a new apocalyptic age at any moment.
"Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death
before they see the kingdom of God come with power," Jesus tells his
disciples in Mark, and in the Epistle to the Romans -- a very early writing
-- Paul says: "The night is far spent, the day is at hand."
As the years rolled by and the world endured, however, the Apostles and the
first generations of church fathers realized they were not witnesses about
to be swept up into heaven but earthly stewards of a message that had to be
written down, explained and defended. The construction of Christianity, the
early believers gradually discovered, required preserving the stories and
sayings of Jesus, shaping that gospel ("good news" in Greek) and spreading
it to fellow Jews and to Gentiles.
The evangelists believed the salvation of the world was in the balance. They
strove to convince other Jews, to convert pagans and to control rival
Christian factions whose views of Jesus differed from their own. To lose on
any of these fronts would set back the cause, so when we read and hear the
story now, we are reading and hearing some of the original Christian
attempts to ensure the survival and success of a religion that began as
little more than one sect within first-century Judaism, a milieu of great
religious ferment.
To make their case in this congested theological universe, the Gospel
writers collected traditions in circulation and told Jesus' story -- not in
a clinical way but, as John put it, so "that you may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his
name." The origins of the Nativity stories are much murkier than the
accounts of Jesus' adulthood. Where did the details -- of miraculous
conception, of birth in Bethlehem, of stars in the sky, shepherds in the
night and wise men on a journey -- come from? Apparently not from Jesus.
John P. Meier, a Roman Catholic priest and professor at Notre Dame, the
author of a monumental series, "A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical
Jesus," points out that there is no convincing evidence Jesus himself ever
spoke of his birth, and neither Mary nor Joseph (who is not a figure in the
years of Jesus' public life) appears to have been a direct source. "The
traditions behind the Infancy Narratives," Meier writes, "differ essentially
from those of the public ministry and the passion," which were the result of
firsthand testimony.
..........
Page 3: Little to Work With
The Gospel authors were thus confronted with a literary problem that had to
be solved. They wanted to tell the story of Jesus' birth, but apparently had
little to work with. Here, then, is where tradition and theology came in. In
1965, the Second Vatican Council held that while the Scriptures are
ultimately "true," they are not necessarily to be taken as accurate in the
sense we might take an Associated Press wire report about what happened at a
school-board meeting as accurate. The council focused on the importance of
paying attention to "literary forms" in Scripture. The Gospels are such a
"literary form," and the accounts of Jesus in the canon are not history or
biography in the way we use the terms. Classical biography, however, was a
different genre. Writers like Plutarch invented details or embellished
traditions when they were reconstructing the lives of the famous, and the
Christmas saga features miraculous births, supernatural signs and harbingers
of ultimate greatness similar to those found in pagan works. If we examine
the Nativity narratives as classical biography, then the evangelists' means
and mission -- to convey theological truths about salvation, not to record
just-the-facts history -- become much clearer.
The earliest and sparest Gospel, Mark's (circa A.D. 60), begins at Jesus'
baptism by John as an adult, skipping the Nativity altogether. The latest
and most philosophical, John's (circa 90), links Jesus with God at the very
birth of the universe ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and Word was God") with a grandeur and force that renders the details
of Jesus' earthly arrival irrelevant. Though Paul writes that Jesus was
"born of a woman, born under the Law," the rest of the New Testament is
silent about the Nativity. So we are left with Matthew and Luke, Gospels
composed between A.D. 60 and 90. The central events in both Nativity
accounts are Mary's virginal conception, which renders her child a truly
unique figure, and Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, which makes him the
long-expected Davidic Messiah.
Miraculous conceptions have deep roots in Jewish tradition: the aged Sarah
bearing Isaac, the barren wife of Manoah bearing Samson, the barren Hannah
bearing Samuel (and, according to Luke, Mary's kinswoman Elizabeth, both
aged and barren, bearing John the Baptist just before Mary conceived Jesus).
What is distinctive about Mary is the Gospels' emphasis on her sexual
virtue. The other Biblical examples of God's granting children to the aged
or the barren do not involve virgins but ordinary married women living with
their husbands.
This is no small difference. By asserting Mary's virginity, Matthew and Luke
are taking the device of the miraculous conception farther than any other
Jewish writer had before. Why? The simplest explanation is that it happened.
As uncongenial as that opinion may be to modern audiences, Shakespeare was
right when he had Hamlet say, "There are more things in heaven and earth ...
than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The miraculous may strike some as
fantastical, but countless people have believed, and believe now, that God
intervened in the temporal world in just this way. If the virginal
conception were a historical fact, however, it is somewhat odd that there is
no memory of it recorded in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry or in the
Acts of the Apostles or in the rest of the New Testament. It is also
striking that in parts of the Gospels Mary herself appears unaware of her
son's provenance and destiny. (In Mark, when Jesus is casting out devils at
the beginning of his ministry, "his friends" -- the sense of the Greek is
"family," or "household," which would presumably include his mother --
thought he was mentally disturbed and tried to stop him, saying, "He is
beside himself." If Mary had received Gabriel's message, then she should
have known her son was not mad, but the Messiah. And even if she were not
around in this story in Mark, had Jesus been born in such extraordinary
circumstances, it is logical to assume that those closest to him would have
known at least something of it -- enough, anyway, to see Jesus as someone
with a special role or destiny of which the exorcisms were a likely part.)
If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the virginal conception is not
a fact but an article of faith, there are other explanations for Matthew's
and Luke's Nativity accounts. Theology (that Jesus was not merely another
prophet-king figure like Moses or David, but something more) and narrative
symmetry both argued for a unique birth. "The early church insisted on the
virginal conception as the logical beginning to a story that climaxed with
the physical resurrection," says Deirdre Good, a professor of New Testament
at the General Theological Seminary in New York. "The two separate miracles
form a theologically perfect whole. It simply would not have been enough for
Jesus to have been 'chosen' by God in his lifetime. Through divine
intervention, Jesus was seen to be both divine and human from the start."
............
Page 4: An Outlandish Message
The virginity detail did not particularly help the cause early on. To
non-Christian Jews and pagans, the first Christians were superstitious and
backward, a group of marginal people on the fringes of empire preaching an
outlandish message. According to the Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan,
Celsus, a fierce Platonic critic of Christianity who wrote between A.D. 175
and 180, attacked the idea that God had come into the world in "some corner
of Judea somewhere," and one Roman emperor, Pelikan writes, dismissed the
Jewish and Christian God as "essentially the deity of a primitive and
uncivilized folk."
Defensive about such charges, educated Christians fought back. The apologist
Origen of Alexandria answered Celsus, arguing that "we tell no incredible
tales when we explain the doctrines about Jesus." The last thing the
Christians wanted was to appear to be yet another mythological cult,
worshiping some kind of demi-god; their deep Jewish faith in the commandment
to have "no other gods before me" foreclosed that possibility. "Incredible
tales" were for the idolatrous.
And there were scandalous tales in circulation, too: was the story of the
virginal conception told to hide Jesus' illegitimacy? As startling as the
allegation is for many, it dates from at least the second century, and maybe
as early as Jesus' lifetime. "It was Jesus himself who fabricated the story
that he had been born of a virgin," Celsus wrote in A.D. 180. "In fact,
however, his mother was a poor country woman who earned her living by
spinning. She had been driven out by her carpenter-husband when she was
convicted of adultery with a soldier named Panthera. She then wandered about
and secretly gave birth to Jesus. Later, because he was poor, he hired
himself out in Egypt where he became adept in magical powers. Puffed up by
these, he claimed for himself the title of God." Second- and third-century
Christian writers alleged that some Jews also suggested Jesus' birth was
illicit.
Perhaps the most intriguing possible hint of illegitimacy in the New
Testament comes in the Gospel of John, in an exchange between Jesus and the
Temple priests. The back-and-forth is sharp, even brutal, with Jesus
accusing the priests of failing to live up to the example of their common
father, Abraham. Their reply: "We be not born of fornication; we have but
one Father, God Himself." In his exploration of this passage, the late
Raymond E. Brown, a distinguished scholar and Roman Catholic priest who
taught at Union Theological Seminary, wrote: "The Jews may be saying, 'We
were not born illegitimate, but you were.' The emphatic use of the Greek
pronoun 'We' allows that interpretation."
If Jesus had been conceived by a human father before Joseph and Mary had
begun their lives together as husband and wife (either by Joseph himself, a
soldier or someone else), then the Holy Ghost would have provided a
convenient cover story for the early church. Such speculation can be only
that: speculation, and even contemplating it is interesting chiefly for the
window it opens on the ferocity of early debates over Jesus. To the first
believers the virginal conception was not a fiction to hide an embarrassing
truth but a way of understanding their Lord's uniqueness. He was not a
prophet or a god but the son of God who, in the words of the Episcopal Book
of Common Prayer, came to "share our human nature, to live and die as one of
us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all."
Jesus was such a revolutionary force that both Matthew and Luke sought to
make him comprehensible in the context of established Jewish imagery and
prophecy. In Luke, Mary's indelible 138-word reaction to the incarnation
("My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my
Saviour") is a powerful echo of Hannah's 264-word prayer of thanksgiving in
I Samuel when she learns she is pregnant ("My heart rejoiceth in the Lord...
I rejoice in thy salvation"). Jews hearing Mary's story were thus able to
associate Jesus with past figures of deliverance.
Matthew makes an even more explicit connection with the Jewish past, stating
outright that Jesus is answering ancient expectations. Citing Isaiah 7:14 --
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us" -- the evangelist writes:
"Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the
Lord by the prophet."
............
Page 5: Elegant But Misinterpreted?
A problem with this elegant passage from Isaiah is that it may have long
been mistranslated and misinterpreted. In his magisterial work "The Birth of
the Messiah," Raymond Brown calls the conflict over this single,
consequential verse one of "the most famous debates" in the history of
Biblical interpretation. He notes that the original Hebrew used by the
prophet is more properly translated as "the young girl," not "the virgin,"
and the overall context of the Hebraic Isaiah passage "does not refer to a
virginal conception in the distant future. The sign offered by the prophet
was the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally
conceived, who would illustrate God's providential care for his people." The
Greek sense of the term -- and Matthew was likely working from the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Bible -- suggests that "the virgin" will conceive,
Brown writes, "by natural means, once she is united with her husband." It is
one Biblical war without apparent end: in the early 1950s, when the
translators of the Revised Standard Version rendered the King James "virgin"
as "young woman" -- a defensible textual decision -- some literalist
believers burned the new Bibles.
Geography, as Napoleon is said to have remarked, is destiny, hence the
Gospels' emphasis on Jesus' birthplace. The expectation was that the Messiah
-- understood in the early first century as a David-like king who would end
Roman occupation and rule over a new golden age for Israel and for the whole
world -- would come from Bethlehem, the village in which David had been
born.
In the Gospels, some objected to the messianic claims made for Jesus by
pointing out that he was a Nazarene. Matthew attacks that skepticism
head-on, writing simply that Jesus was born "in Bethlehem of Judea" and that
wise men from the East, guided by a star, went there in search of the baby
who inspired this celestial sign. Could there have been such a star?
Halley's comet is estimated to have made an appearance in 12 B.C., and
Matthew may have appropriated the detail long afterward. He could also have
been thinking of a line from the Book of Numbers: "There shall come a Star
out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel."
What is clearer is that the visit of the Magi came to be seen as a
fulfillment of Psalm 72. "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring
presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts," reads the
Scripture. "Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall
serve him." There is no historical evidence of such a visit, but the
symbolic significance is obvious: even as a baby, Jesus is inverting the
very order of things, with earthly potentates bowing before a child.
Matthew's detail about the specific gifts comes from Isaiah: "... all they
from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall
shew forth the praises of the Lord."
To resolve the problem of Jesus' connection with both Bethlehem and
Nazareth, Matthew portrays Mary and Joseph as residents of Bethlehem who
were later forced to move north to Nazareth. With a keen dramatic sense, he
also adds two stories evoking the memory of God's deliverance of his people
from slavery in Egypt. The King of Judea, Herod, learns of the birth of this
alleged messiah from the wise men, whom he asks to go find the child and
return to him with the particulars. In a dream, God tells the Magi not to
make their report, and then appears to Joseph. "Arise, and take the young
child and his mother, and flee into Egypt ... for Herod will seek the young
child to destroy him." Enraged and jealous, Herod orders a massacre of all
the male children in Bethlehem -- thus connecting Jesus' birth with the
first Passover, when God spared Israel's sons from the same bloody decree by
Pharaoh. (History records no such Herodian slaughter, though Herod was an
undeniably cruel ruler.)
Luke does not mention a journey to Egypt, nor is there any other New
Testament allusion to such an important event in the life of the young
Jesus. Once Matthew has started this story, though, he makes the most of it,
writing that Joseph's mission was undertaken "that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I
called my son." (The prophet was Hosea.) The Nazareth question is then
resolved rather neatly, for Matthew has Joseph and Mary move to Galilee on
their return from Egypt.
...........
Page 6: 'Dubious on Almost Every Score'
Luke's conundrum is just the opposite of Matthew's: how to get Mary and
Joseph, who in his Gospel were living in Nazareth in the north, down to
Bethlehem in the south. Summoning the weapons of history, apparently
pinpointing time, place and circumstance with epic eloquence, Luke writes:
"And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar
Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made
when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one
into his own city. And Joseph went up also from Galilee, out of the city of
Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary his
espoused wife, being great with child."
Yet almost nothing in Luke's story stands up to close historical scrutiny;
Brown finds it "dubious on almost every score." Augustus conducted no global
census, and no more local one makes sense in Luke's time frame. Setting
Jesus' birth at a moment when the princes of this world are exerting
temporal power over the people is a deft device, though, for the theological
point of Jesus' arrival is that anyone who chooses to believe in him will
ultimately be subject only to God. Evoking the prophet Joel in the Book of
Acts, Peter says that "it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on
the name of the Lord shall be saved," and there is nothing any mortal
emperor or governor can do to foreclose the promise of the kingdom Jesus
said he was offering.
The power of the Nativity message -- that a helpless child is in fact a
heavenly king -- lies in its consistent pattern of reversal, of making the
weak strong, the humble mighty. The stable, the manger and the swaddling of
Jesus are such theological touches. Since Matthew seems to assume that Mary
and Joseph lived at Bethlehem, he is silent on these familiar details; it is
Luke, the writer who put them on the road to answer the census, who adds the
inn, the manger and the swaddling. The creche scene strikes three Old
Testament notes. The inn could be traced to Jeremiah, who asks of the
Savior: "Why are you like an alien in the land, like a traveler who stays in
lodgings?" The manger's roots may lie in the very beginning of Isaiah, when
he writes: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but
Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." And Mary's tender care
of the baby is similar to a remark of Solomon's in the Book of Wisdom: "I
was carefully swaddled and nursed, for no king has any other way to begin at
birth."
There is, of course, no way to know whether Luke's story of the heavenly
host announcing Jesus' arrival to the shepherds really happened; one has to
believe in angels, and explain away the fact that the Gospels fail to note
any ensuing communal or individual recollection of this spectacular birth,
one witnessed by the rustics (in Luke) and the Magi (in Matthew), in the
years of Jesus' public life. Yet the language never fails to captivate. "For
unto us a child is born," wrote Isaiah, "unto us a son is given; and the
government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of
Peace." So it was that when Luke came to herald the birth of his hero to the
shepherds, he struck the same notes: "For unto you is born this day in the
city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord."
Such monotheistic theology -- a Christian obedience to the Jewish
commandment to "have no other gods before me" -- was, however, automatically
appealing to only a slice of the evangelists' ultimate audience.
Christianity was to be preached, as Paul put it in his Epistle to the
Romans, "to the Jew first, also to the Greek."
The basic features of the Nativity story were familiar to pagan ears. In
Suetonius' second-century biography of Augustus, who ruled as emperor from
27 B.C. to A.D. 14, omens in the natural world had heralded Augustus' birth,
which was itself the result of divine intervention. Atia, Augustus' mother,
was said to have fallen asleep when Apollo, taking the form of a serpent,
impregnated her. That there was physical contact is suggested by Suetonius'
assertion that afterward Atia "purified herself, as usual after the embraces
of her husband." The baby, Suetonius writes, "was thought to be the son of
Apollo"; on the day of his birth a senator in Rome "declared that the world
had got a master," and Atia's husband, Octavius, "dreamt that he saw his son
under more than human appearance, with thunder and sceptre, and the other
insignia of Jupiter ... having on his head a radiant crown, mounted upon a
chariot decked with laurel."
............
Page 7: A Religion of Perplexing Contradictions
The parallels to the Jesus story are clear: a deity chooses to send a son
from the divine to the temporal world through a woman, the glorious news of
the coming of a king is made known to others, and the woman's loyal husband,
rather than recoiling, is included in the revelation. But Augustus was not
the product of a Christ-like conception as portrayed in the Gospels: the
evangelists hewed to the conviction that Mary had no sexual contact of any
kind, and scholars of antiquity have yet to find another example that
precisely mirrors the Annunciation.
Still, as the Christian Gospels spread through the early centuries of the
first millennium, audiences familiar with Virgil would have been receptive
to the rhythms and ideas of Matthew's and Luke's stories. In his "Fourth
Eclogue," written in 40 B.C., the poet evokes an age of peace presided over
by a baby in a cradle of flowers. "Upon the Child now to be born, under whom
the race of iron will cease and a golden race will spring up over the whole
world, do you, O chaste Lucina [the goddess of childbirth], smile favorably,
for your own Apollo is now king." The baby's coming is then hailed with
these words: "Behold the world trembles in homage ... the expanse of earth
and sea, and the reaches of the sky!" Virgil and the evangelists were
working in essentially the same literary tradition, and the "Fourth Eclogue"
is a sign of how pervasive such birth imagery was before, during and after
Jesus' lifetime.
The collision of different factions and different traditions in the world of
Christianity's first years was mirrored by civil wars between Jesus'
followers. Then as now, Christians tended to disagree sharply with one
another, but the essential creed is so familiar to modern ears that it is
difficult to recall how many different views of Jesus were circulating among
Christian groups during the first two centuries or so. A complex movement
popularly known as Gnosticism (from the Greek "gnosis," meaning knowledge)
offered an apparently compelling and appealing version of Christianity in
which believers sought, in addition to received teaching, "inner knowledge"
of God. "Insight, or gnosis, was the experience of searching for the divine,
the source of our creation, within oneself," says Elaine Pagels, professor
of religion at Princeton and the best-selling author of "The Gnostic
Gospels" and, most recently, "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas."
"Such Christians claimed to go beyond the views of Jesus expressed in the
New Testament to seek, in addition, personal perception and transformation."
In the eyes of competing (and ultimately victorious) Christians, this
religious path put too much emphasis on the personal and not enough on Jesus
as the incarnate son of God who was crucified for the sins of the world. It
was, in other words, "heresy" (interestingly, in Greek "heresy" means
"choice"), and the virginal conception was one of the battlefields on which
the internecine conflict took place. In the gnostic "Gospel of Philip,"
Pagels points out, the Gospel author reinterprets Jesus' birth, suggesting
that while Jesus was born biologically to Mary and Joseph, he was reborn
spiritually as the son of God, his heavenly Father, through the Holy Ghost,
who was functioning as a sort of heavenly Mother. To Philip, Jesus was a
paradigmatic figure whose rebirth was available to others in the rite of
baptism.
Such a view prompted a fierce counterattack from Irenaeus, a
late-second-century church father who believed that Jesus was utterly unique
-- that he had been born in a unique way and had been raised from the dead
in a unique way. Writing about the virginal conception, Irenaeus said: "In
the last times, not by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by
the good pleasure of the Father, his hands formed a living man, in order
that Adam might be created [again] after the image and likeness of God." By
Nicea, this interpretation of the tradition of the Nativity had largely
carried the day -- for believers Jesus was in fact, in the reinterpretation
of Isaiah by Matthew, Emmanuel, or "God with us."
A man with no human father, a king who died a criminal's death, a God who
assures us of everlasting life in a world to come while the world he made is
consumed by war and strife: Christianity is a religion of perplexing
contradictions. To live an examined faith believers have to acknowledge
those complexities and engage them, however frustrating it may be. "We are
in a world of mystery, with one bright Light before us, sufficient for our
proceeding forward through all difficulties," wrote John Henry Newman, the
great Victorian cleric whose intellectual journey led him from the Anglican
priesthood to the Roman Curia. "Take away this Light and we are utterly
wretched -- we know not where we are, how we are sustained, what will become
of us, and of all that is dear to us, what we are to believe, and why we are
in being." The Christmas star is just one such light; there are others.
Whatever our backgrounds, whatever our creeds, many of us are in search of
the kind of faith that will lead us through the darkness, toward home. In
Luke, the angelic host hails the Lord and then says: "on earth peace, good
will toward men" -- a promise whose fulfillment is worth our prayers not
only in this season, but always.
------------
RELATED NHNE SPECIAL REPORT:
THOUGHTS ON JESUS & GIBSON'S 'PASSION OF CHRIST'
By David Sunfellow
February 29, 2004
JESUS REPORT LETTERS FROM NHNE'S READERS
Sunday, April 4, 2004
http://www.nhne.com/specialreports/srjesus_poc.html
------------
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CERTIFIED AND/OR CERTIFIABLE
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC
December 6, 2004
SECAUCUS - Exactly one month to the day before Congress will open the votes
of the Electoral College, the Secretary of State of Ohio certified the
state's vote this afternoon, that moment in time which separates the
Re-Count Exhibition Season from the Re-Count Regular Season.
Exactly per his legally-supported schedule, Kenneth Blackwell this afternoon
made the November 2 vote official. With provisionals, absentees, and
corrections, it turned out to be not a 136,000 vote margin for President
Bush, but rather one of 119,000. The certification was almost immediately
greeted by two protests, the prospect of a third, and the details of a
fourth.
Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb today scheduled a news
conference for Tuesday afternoon in Columbus at which the re-count request
from he and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik will
be formalized.
Still delayed, a long, long, long-shot bid -- spearheaded by attorney Cliff
Arnebeck -- to have an Ohio Supreme Court Justice contest the actual
election -- holding off making the first count official until voting
irregularities are reviewed. Mr. Arnebeck told us this afternoon that it now
may be Wednesday before his suit is filed.
But the protests are not just from the fringes any more. Citing the long
lines, shortages of ballots, voting machine meltdowns, and spoiled ballots,
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe announced his party
would spend "whatever it takes" to conduct what it calls "a comprehensive
investigative study" of the vote in Ohio, one to be completed some time next
year.
But just as McAuliffe insisted that the study was not intended "to contest
the results of the 2004 election," a slightly different message was coming
from what remains of the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Ohio. Kerry's lead
electoral attorney there, Daniel Hoffheimer, echoed the McAuliffe tone,
noting "neither the pending Ohio recount nor this investigation is designed
to challenge the popular vote in Ohio."
But in another moment of perplexing tantalization from the Kerry camp,
Hoffheimer also said, "while the election of the Bush-Cheney ticket by the
Electoral College is all but certain..."
Well that's enough to drive the remaining Kerry faithful right out of their
capsules. File it next to "regardless of the outcome of this election," and
the debate over whether the campaign in Ohio should "join" or "participate
in" the Glibs' recount.
Meantime, what happens when the losing party in the election wants to
investigate the election, but has no standing nor political capital to
conduct actual hearings in, say, the House of Representatives? It hosts a
"forum" ‹ a friendly little informal gathering of members of the House
Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building, Wednesday morning.
John Conyers and as many as dozen of the other 15 Democrats on Judiciary,
who say they want to "discuss any issues and concerns regarding the numerous
voting irregularities that have been reported in Ohio during the 2004
election."
Conyers has invited a special guest ‹ none other than Warren Mitofsky, the
head of Mitofsky International <http://www.mitofskyinternational.com/>, one
of the two companies that conducted exit polling for the television
networks. Conyers has written to Mitofsky, asking him to release any of the
so-called "raw data" from November 2, the materials constituting the exit
polls that fired such controversy, particularly on the internet, and show up
to Wednesday's little gathering.
Conyers' office told us Mr. Mitofsky has yet to R.S.V.P.
Interestingly, in the letter to Mitofsky, Conyers is not at all informal. He
says Mitofsky can best serve truth right now "by testifying at a hearing we
will be holdingŠ"
If you'd like somebody to testify on behalf of the proposition that you're
not nuts for reading about, nor asking, questions, try the Public Editor's
column in Sunday's edition of the Portland paper, The Oregonian
<http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/public_editor/index.ssf?/base/edit
orial/1102165523269170.xml>. There, Mike Arrietta-Walden says the foremost
complaint received from readers, is about his newspaper's spotty coverage of
voting irregularities. It's very possible that a lot of the reader feedback
was encouraged by websites, but that's par for the course, as Mediaweek's
piece on the number of Brent Bozell-generated form letters received by the
Federal Communications Commission.
What matters most, perhaps, is that while Arrietta-Walden notes the
geographical distance between Portland and most of the election hot spots
dictated the paper would have to rely on wire services, he still sees his
newspaper (and others) as asleep at the switch: "That coverage, especially
from national newspapers, has not been extensive and deep, but The Oregonian
hasn't taken full advantage of what coverage there was. The lukewarm
interest shown by many newspapers partly stems from the fact that leaders of
the Kerry campaign and experts with several nonpartisan election watchdogs
have repeatedly said that the errors detected would not amount to a reversal
of the election. Journalists have moved on to other, pressing stories of the
day."
Arrietta-Walden is also cautionary about the wisdom of letting the blogs
drive the net. He didn't mention Wayne Madsen by name, but he might well
have.
When Mr. Madsen's internet piece positing a $29,000,000 payoff to "fix" the
election made the rounds
<http://onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120604Madsen/120604madsen.html>, I
wrote here that the journalism didn't live up to many minimum standards, and
the logic, even fewer (somebody promised to pay off people to rig the
election computers, gave at least some of them the full history of how the
money was to be laundered ‹ and then didn't ante up?).
Mr. Madsen followed up with another piece in which he claimed to have an
actual copy of the check. A single election-fixing check for $29.6 million.
One-stop shopping for the political scandal of the millennium.
Now, he is back with an even longer, more intricate story that drags in
NASA, Lockheed Martin, Brazilian computer maintenance technicians, Nigerian
scammers, and a reputed affidavit that fingers a Florida congressman.
The problem is that the amazing check for $29.6 million, whose authenticity
was the cornerstone of Madsen's first two stories, not only turns out to be
a fraud, but now, its fraudulence becomes one of the cornerstone's of
Madsen's newest story. As he told the Pacifica radio station (KPFT) in
Houston Sunday, "Yeah, it turns out that the $29 million check, although a
valuable clue, was a fake. But it looks like the people who released the
check did so as a way to say 'hey, look here, don't look at the check, look
who's behind it, look around it, follow the money that these people have
been involved withŠ'"
Once again, if any part of Mr. Madsen's writing on the election is proved
and valid, I'll not only repeat my offer to pay his way for him to pick up
his Pulitzer Prize ‹ I'll physically carry him there myself. There could
very well be facts ‹ even important facts ‹ hiding in there somewhere.
But to turn on a dime and write that a document is real, and hard evidence
of a crime, and then come back and admit that it's fake, but still hard
evidence of a crime, is an intellectual leap of faith worthy of Evel
Knievel. It violates every precept of good journalism, to say nothing of
good investigation. I won't even ask about logic.
Shoot e-mail to <KOlbermann@...>
------------
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"Thanks for your good work. May it continue..." -- Lion
-----------
DEMOCRATS LAUNCH INVESTIGATION OF VOTING PROBLEMS IN OHIO
By Nedra Pickler
Associated Press
Monday, December 6, 2004
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/a/2004/12/06/national1252ES
T0550.DTL
WASHINGTON - The Democratic Party said Monday it will examine reports of
voting problems in Ohio, where President Bush's victory clinched his
re-election.
Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said the
party will spend "whatever it takes" to study complaints from Ohio voters
that included uncounted votes, long lines, shortages of ballots,
understaffed polling stations and voting machine errors.
McAuliffe said the party is not seeking to overturn the result but to ensure
that every vote is counted. He said the study will be conducted by
nonpartisan experts to be announced later, with a report issued in the
spring that recommends reforms to prevent such problems in the future.
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett said any investigation or reform
should be handled by the state legislature.
"If the Democrats want to pay for a study to help them sleep at night,
that's fine," he said in a statement. "Just don't expect anyone to believe
it's credible."
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certified Bush's winning margin of
nearly 119,000 votes on Monday, a margin closer than election night totals
but not close enough to trigger an automatic recount.
Presidential candidates for the Green and Libertarian parties planned to
file requests for recounts.
Blackwell, a Republican, oversaw the election process while serving as one
of several statewide GOP leaders who co-chaired Bush's campaign. The 2000
Florida recount was also administered by a Republican secretary of state,
Katherine Harris, who is now a member of Congress.
In a conference call with reporters, McAuliffe said the panel needs to look
at the practice of secretaries of state serving as campaign officials. He
said he personally thinks it's a laudable goal for election officials to be
nonpartisan.
McAuliffe said it's too early to tell if Republicans were behind any fraud
that may have influenced the outcome in Ohio.
When asked if the president supports an investigation into voting
irregularities in Ohio, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the
election "was viewed as very free and fair."
"It was a clear victory for the president of the United States," McClellan
said. "Now is the time for us to all look forward on how we can work
together to get things done."
McAuliffe said he briefed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry about
the study Sunday night and Kerry will be monitoring the results carefully.
Kerry often promised voters, particularly black voters, that his campaign
would examine any allegations of voter fraud.
Many blacks said irregularities in Florida in 2000 kept their votes from
being counted. Democrats want to ensure that blacks do not give up on the
voting process because they are such overwhelming supporters of Democratic
candidates.
------------
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-----------
GLOBAL WARMING FAST FACTS
By Brian Handwerk
National Geographic News
December 6, 2004
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.h
tml
[See the link above for references to many of statistics mentioned in the
following article. --DS]
Global warming is a hot topic that shows little sign of cooling down.
Earth's climate is changing, but just how it's happening, and our own role
in the process, is less certain.
Check out these fast facts and pictures for a snapshot of Earth's evolving
climate.
€ There is little doubt that the planet is warming. Over the last century
the average temperature has climbed about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 of a
degree Celsius) around the world.
The spring ice thaw in the Northern Hemisphere occurs 9 days earlier than it
did 150 years ago, and the fall freeze now typically starts 10 days later.
The 1990s was the warmest decade since the mid-1800s, when record-keeping
started. The hottest years recorded: 1998, 2002, 2003, 2001, and 1997.
€ The multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report recently
concluded that in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average
temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4
degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years. The rise is nearly twice the global
average. In Barrow, Alaska (the U.S.'s northernmost city) average
temperatures are up over 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 to 3 degrees Celsius) in
30 years.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
projects that global temperatures will rise an additional 3 to10 degrees
Fahrenheit (1.6 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) by century's end.
€ Over the last million years the Earth has fluctuated between colder and
warmer periods. The shifts have occurred in roughly 100,000-year intervals
thought to be regulated by sunlight. Earth's sunlight quota depends upon its
orbit and celestial orientation.
But changes have also occurred more rapidly in the past‹and scientists hope
that these changes can tell us more about the current state of climate
change. During the last ice age, approximately 70,000 to 11,500 years ago,
ice covered much of North America and Europe‹yet sudden, sometimes drastic,
climate changes occurred during the period. Greenland ice cores indicate one
spike in which the area's surface temperature increased by 15 degrees
Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) in just 10 years.
€ Where do scientists find clues to past climate change? The tale is told in
remnant materials like glacial ice and moraines, pollen-rich mud,
stalagmites, the rings of corals and trees, and ocean sediments that yield
the shells of microscopic organisms. Human history yields clues as well,
through records like ancient writings and inscriptions, gardening and
vintner records, and the logs of historic ships.
€ Rising temperatures have a dramatic impact on Arctic ice, which serves as
a kind of "air conditioner" at the top of the world. Since 1978 Arctic sea
ice area has shrunk by some 9 percent per decade, and thinned as well.
ACIA projects that at least half of the Arctic's summer sea ice will melt by
century's end, and that the Arctic region is likely to warm 7 to 13 degrees
Fahrenheit (4 to 7 degrees Celsius) during the same time.
€ Over the very long term, Greenland's massive ice sheet holds enough melt
water to raise sea level by about 23 feet (about 7 meters). ACIA climate
models project significant melting of the sheet throughout the 21st century.
€ Vast quantities of fresh water are tied up in the world's many melting
glaciers. When Montana's Glacier National Park was created in 1910 it held
some 150 glaciers. Now fewer than 30, greatly shrunken glaciers, remain.
Tropical glaciers are in even more trouble. The legendary snows of
Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro 19,340-foot (5,895-meter) peak have melted by
some 80 percent since 1912 and could be gone by 2020.
€ Sea levels have risen and fallen many times over the Earth's long
geological history. Average global sea level has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10
to 20cm) over the past century according to the IPCC.
The IPCC's 2001 report projects that sea level could rise between 4 and 35
inches (10 to 89cm) by century's end. Such rises could have major effects
for coastal dwellers. A 1.5-foot (50-centimeter) sea level rise in flat
coastal areas would cause a typical coastline retreat of 150 feet (50
meters).
Worldwide some 100 million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea
level. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could promote flooding in
many South Sea islands, while in the U.S. Florida and Louisiana are at risk.
The Indian Ocean nation of Maldives has a maximum elevation of only 8 feet
(2.5 meters). Construction of a sea wall around the capital, Male, was
driven by vulnerability to the rising tides.
€ The ocean's circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt,
moderates global temperatures by moving tropical heat around the planet.
Global warming could alter the balance of this system, via an influx of
freshwater from melting ice caps for example, creating unforeseen and
possibly fast-paced change.
Climate models suggest that global warming could cause more frequent extreme
weather conditions. Intense hurricanes and storm surges could threaten
coastal communities, while heat waves, fires and drought could also become
more common.
€ Since the 1860s, increased industrialization and shrinking forests have
helped raise the atmosphere's CO2 level by almost 100 parts per million‹and
Northern Hemisphere temperatures have followed suit. Increases in
temperatures and greenhouse gasses have been even sharper since the 1950s.
Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide, methane
and nitrous oxide also contain heat and help keep Earth's temperate climate
balanced in the cold void of space. Human activities, burning fossil fuels
and clearing forests, have greatly increased concentrations by producing
these gases faster than plants and oceans can soak them up. The gases linger
in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even a complete halt in emissions
would not immediately stop the warming trend they promote.
€ In the Arctic the impacts of a warming climate are being felt already.
Coastal Indigenous communities report shorter periods of sea ice, which
fails to temper ocean storms and their destructive coastal erosion.
Increased snow and ice melt have caused higher rivers while thawing
permafrost has wreaked havoc with roads and other infrastructure. Some
communities have had to move from historic coastline locations.
Sea ice loss is devastating for species that have adapted to the
environment, such as polar bears and ringed seals in the Arctic and
Antarctic penguins.
€ Studies show that many European plants now flower a week earlier than they
did in the 1950s and also lose their leaves 5 days later.
Biologists report that many birds and frogs are breeding earlier in the
season. An analysis of 35 nonmigratory butterfly species showed that
two-thirds now range 2 to 150 miles (3.5 to 240 kilometers) farther north
than they did a few decades ago.
€ By 2050, rising temperatures exacerbated by human-induced belches of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could send more than a million of
Earth's land-dwelling plants and animals down the road to extinction,
according to a recent study.
€ Coral reefs worldwide are "bleaching". losing key algae and resident
organisms, as water temperatures rise above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.5
degrees Celsius) through periods of calm, sunny weather. Scientists worry
that rapid climate change could inhibit the ability of many species to adapt
within complex and interdependent ecosystems.
€ The effects of a warming globe may not be entirely negative. Heating costs
could decline for those in colder climates, while vast marginal agricultural
areas in northern latitudes might become more viable. Arctic shipping and
resource extraction operations could also benefit‹summer sea ice breakup in
Hudson Bay already occurs two to three weeks earlier than it did half a
century ago.
But many species could be hit hard‹including humans. The most vulnerable are
peoples living in the far North, those perched along the world's coasts, and
millions dependent on subsistence agriculture subject to the vagaries of a
changing climate.
------------
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-----------
FUNDRAISER READER COMMENTS:
Hi, David. I think any newsgroup which sends out back-to-back articles with
these two quotes in them, has earned its keep for the entire year!
"I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already."
"What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common?
They are all dead."
From LIVING TO BE 1000: TWO OPPOSING VIEWS (12/5/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8453
Thanks for all you do, and best wishes for the upcoming holiday, however you
may be celebrating them." -- Love, Dianne
------------
SECT TOOK OUT LOANS AHEAD OF 'DOOMSDAY'
By Paul Foy
Associated Press
December 6, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041206/ap_on_re_us/fail
ed_bank_sect
EPHRAIM, Utah - For more than a decade, a 9,000-member polygamist sect that
believed civilization was about to end was borrowing money like there was no
tomorrow.
Members of the sect -- a renegade Mormon splinter group called the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- took out one
loan after another from the small-town Bank of Ephraim for business ventures
that would prove highly speculative, even half-baked.
One loan went toward a watermelon farm, but not a single melon was ever
planted and the bank had to foreclose on the farm. Another loan was taken
out by a business that planned to convert military barracks into motels and
housing. The venture, in which the church was a partner, collapsed when the
barracks were found to have lead paint, asbestos and other hazards. Still
another loan was made to a construction company that so underbid municipal
sewer and street contracts it was unable to pay for materials, let alone
labor. The bank had to write off that loan, too.
Ultimately, the bad loans -- along with the embezzlement of nearly $5
million by the bank's head cashier -- would lead to the collapse of the
99-year-old bank. Regulators shut it down in June at a cost of millions to
shareholders and ordinary depositors who had nothing to do with the sect.
A bank failure was "the last thing in my mind," said Chevrolet dealer Ron
Greene, who lost about $100,000. "I thought of it as the Rock of Gibraltar."
The Bank of Ephraim had profited for many years from higher-interest loans
to the sect, whose members live in the twin cities of Hildale and Colorado
City astride the Utah-Arizona state line. But eventually the bank "got in
too deep," investing heavily in increasingly risky ventures with sect
members who "didn't have much to lose," Utah Banking Supervisor Jim Thomas
said.
"They were locked into a community that is -- not normal," Thomas said.
Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., are a jumble of unfinished houses
on dirt streets, where residents follow a strict pioneer-style dress code of
long dresses, high collars and long hair for the women, and plain white
shirts and dark trousers for the men. The men take multiple wives, producing
dozens of children who supply cheap labor for business.
The insular sect is run by the reclusive Warren Jeffs, who lives in a
compound surrounded by a 10-foot wall. Jeffs, 48, demands total obedience
from his flock, and his church takes a share of business profits from
members. He is buying ranches in Colorado and Texas for what authorities
believe may be an exodus.
Jeffs does not grant interviews, and an attorney for the church, Rodney
Parker, did not return calls for comment.
Keith Church, who joined the bank as president in 2000, said that after it
failed, he learned from several people in the business community that sect
members had taken a secret oath in 2000 to borrow as much money as they
could to prepare for the day that civilization -- along with the financial
markets -- collapsed.
Sect members who wanted to take out loans from the bank were allowed to put
up a dubious form of collateral: their rights to use church land for
business purposes.
At one point, the amount of money borrowed by members of the sect amounted
to around $18 million, or about 90 percent of the institution's loan
portfolio -- three times higher than what prudent bank management dictates,
regulators said. According to the state, an embezzlement scheme by cashier
Randy K. McArthur finally pushed the bank over the edge. He pleaded guilty
in September to bank fraud and is awaiting sentencing.
Investigators blamed the loan losses on poor business decisions, not
outright fraud.
Church said he puts much of the blame for the bank's failure on a lack of
aggressive oversight by regulators. He said he was trying to clean up the
mess by calling in bad loans and lining up investors when the state shut the
place down.
Many of the bank's customers accused regulators of tolerating the loans
until the coming of the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics ushered in a renewed
crackdown by Utah law enforcement on polygamists.
With the collapse, 13 of 30 bank employees lost their jobs and pensions, and
some must sell their houses. The bank's failure also left 50 uninsured
depositors, including turkey farmers, the Chevy dealer and a state college,
with a combined $3.6 million in losses. Many were small-business owners who
learned too late that deposits over $100,000 are uninsured.
At Moroni Feed Co., which sells the Norbest brand of turkey, a $250,000 loss
"comes right out of the pocket" of 65 family farms already struggling
because of depressed prices, cooperative President David P. Bailey said.
"It's gone -- our retirement," said Terrie Green, co-owner with her husband
of Central Utah Title Co., a real estate title service. They lost $84,000.
Small-business owners mourned the passing of a friendly bank that gave them
easy terms.
Ernest "Gus" Augustus, who opened a new restaurant on Main Street here, no
longer has a $15,000 line of credit and said "you can't get a dime" out of
other Utah banks.
------------
RELATED NHNE SPECIAL REPORTS & ARTICLES:
NHNE SPECIAL REPORT
FRONTLINE'S "APOCALYPSE!" (& RELATED LINKS)
Monday, December 27, 1999
http://www.nhne.com/specialreports/srapocalypse.html
...........
DOUBLEDAY TO PUBLISH 100,000 COPIES OF BOOK OF MORMON (11/15/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8285
UTAH: AN IDEAL GENETIC LABORATORY (8/1/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7653
MORMONS POSTHUMOUSLY BAPTIZING JEWISH HOLOCAUST VICTIMS (4/12/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7066
MORMON CHURCH DONATES HOAXED ARTIFACTS TO MUSEUM (11/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6223
THE MORMON MASSACRE OF 1857 (5/24/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5387
DIVINE REVELATION: ELIZABETH SMART THE FIRST OF SEVEN ADDITIONAL WIVES
(3/15/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4750
MORMON LEADER, WITH 19/20 WIVES, 60 CHILDREN, DIES (9/15/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3681
MORMONS TAKE MEDIA BEATING (2/17/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2678
THE MORMON MOMENT (11/19/200):
http://www.nhne.com/misc/mormonmoment.html
THE DARK SIDE OF MORMAN POLYGAMY (8/18/2000):
http://www.egroups.com/message/nhnenews/596
------------
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-----------
THE COST OF WAR
National Priorities Project
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar/index.html
NPP's Latest Publication: Americans Pay High Cost for War
<http://nationalpriorities.org/issues/military/iraq/highcost/index.html>:
State-by-state data on the number of soldiers killed and wounded, the dollar
cost, and the number of reservists and National Guard troops on active duty
are presented in the context of worsening conditions in Iraq as well as
expert opinions on national security policy.
War affects everyone, not just those directly involved in the fighting. This
webpage is a simple attempt to demonstrate one of the more quantifiable
effects of war: the financial burden it places on our tax dollars.
To the right you will find a running total of the amount of money spent by
the US Government to finance the war in Iraq. This total is based on
estimates from Congressional appropriations
<http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar/numbers.html>. Below the total
are a number of different ways that we could have chosen to use the money.
Try clicking on them; you might be surprised to learn what a difference we
could have made.
The War in Iraq Cost the United States:
$148,821,653,526 (and counting...)
------------
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