Facing Reality Is A Healthy Thing

President Bush for the second time recently has finally done something "Presidential". The first thing was a couple of months ago when he concluded that agreement with the Iraqi government to withdraw our troops within a reasonable, but set time. This is something that John Mc Cain's followers seemed to hope would never happen. Yesterday Bush in an address I watched announced that Chrysler, Ford, and GM would be getting a 17.4 Billion dollar bail out. This is that famed 17.4 number we've talked about as a certain planitary formation. This is a good thing. Bush has finally realized that the health of the economy of this country and the security of all those attendant jobs was more important than Republican politics in the Senate. So it would well be that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The auto makers have three months to pay back this loan. We hope that the companies will make good use of this money.

This next paragraph might be called "now they've gone too far". They are instituting drug regulations for championship chess players. This covers not only stimulant drugs but also such things as beta blockers to slow down their heart rates so the players don't get flustered. If you're someone like me you have to take beta blockers to control high blood pressure. These regulations are instituted because some people want chess to be an Olympic sport and you know they don't allow drugs in the Olympics. Now the Bush adminestration is issuing anti abortion regulations that are even absurd by my standards. They even allow medical receptionists to refuse to write appointments if their personal belief about abortion is offended. If a doctor is part of some medical group that is opposed to abortion that doctor cannot perform one even if he himself would like to. Some say this ruling will extend to people at Rite Aid filling prescriptions for birth control pills. Dr. Edell today talked about how doctors used to not advertize on television because it was bad "ethics". But modesty is not a part of today's culture. Today whatever you hear on Oprah Winfrey it must be true. Soap opera doctors are constantly asked for medical advice. It used to be that quacks offering some product would pay to get a real doctor endorse their product, but they stopped doing that because they found nobody even cared whether a "real doctor" endorsed their product. They just cared whether Hollywood endorsed it. Dr. Edell said something we already knew that today's teenagers do not suffer from low esteem but rather, high esteem such is that they as a generation are "satisfied with themselves". 93% of teenagers are satisfied with everything about themselves.

Today I heard a preacher announce that he had an original thought. I was all ears. He says that the biggest beef the world has about churches is that "they are all only after your money". In the first place this is a charge you will hear very seldomly from me. It's how preachers screw up your life that bothers me more. After all "it's only money" but there are worse things that can happen to you. But the more important thing pastors are oblivious to is when they disparage a football game, or even disparage apperations of the Virgin mary in a water mark on a building what they neglect to tell you is "at least things are Real". They are really happening. Meanwhile all the stuff preachers engage in verbal auto eroticism about exists only in their minds, and they want you to partake in the delusion they are peddeling. We could take a look at Christmas for what's not real. The Christmas Stories in Matthew and Luke rank right at the bottom as far as historical credibility is concerned. Romans don't care who your great grandfather was or what city your "house and liniage" is from. And King Herod did a lot of hanious things but no historian is accusing him of genocide of Hebrew babies. People in general need to "get real" about what they believe. Dr. Edell reads a list of things people believe and he does it to shame the audience. We are much more a "magical thinking" society than we think we are.

One more way in which the law has gone "too far" is the idea of revoking all the gay marriages that have occurred in this state. I don't think there is legal precident for making an official leagel act now retro-actively illegal. I think we conservatives are swimming against the tide on this one. There is some "force" that is propelling gay marriage into the main stream of society whether you or I like it or not. While it's true that I know of no society that has ever had something officially called gay matrimony, there is always a first time, and we may be experiancing that today.

In the book "Visions" it speaks of the advances that will be made in society by the year 2020 and even beyond. There are a lot of REAL things to get excited about today without believing in supernatural hocus pocus. In an early chapter it's brought up that all the internet access we have today will bring people together and in the Obama tradition, we are re-thinking how we do things in society. And eventually we will all begin to think like one organic, intelligent unit. The advances that will be made in the near and far future in medicine are fantastic when it comes to curing diseases that are now seen as incurable and correcting genetic malodies. What the blood of Jesus was unable to do, we can do tomorrow with the wonders of modern science. There are of course things we do not know. Nobody knew about radio waves 200 years ago so that lack of a belief in them did not peg one as an oddball. Today it is a "reasonable" assumption not to believe in God or extra terrestrial beings for the same reason. There is no evidence of some personal, concerned being out there. If there arises other new evidence on the subject, I and I suspect many of you will be glad to listen.

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28 - THE SATANIC CYCLE

Do You Know What I Mean? (Lee Michals)
Julia Dream (Pink Floyd)
Good Shepherd (Jefferson Airplane)
Your Wildest Dream (Moody Blues)
The Weirdness (Iggy & the Stooges)
A Song for Jeffrey (Jethro Tull)
Wall of Sleep (Black Sabbath)
40,000 Headmen (Traffic)
Much Too Late for Good-byes (Julian Lennon)
And In Every Home - A Nightmare (Joe Jackson)
All the Young Girls Love Alice (Elton John)
Hellen Wheels (Paul Mc Cartney)
The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson)

Occult means "hidden". Did not St. Paul say, "Behold, I show you a mystery?" so is not Christianity occult? Jesus Freaks occult the Bible. Just remember that while some say "the unreflected life isn't worth living", I say unto you rather, "The un-lived life isn't worth reflecting on". Some have also said "Those who know - don't Say and those who Say don't know". But I'm telling you of those whose motto is "If they don't ask - Don't ask, don't tell" what they think they know - doesn't exist and what they Do Know they would be ashamed to tell because it would Expose them.