Students of Comparative Religions?

Mother always said a lady should never discuss politics, sex or religion especially if she wanted to keep her friends. My father on the other hand informed me that I should study all about these subjects before making an arbitrary decision.

And so at a very young age I became a student of politics and religion. Sex didn't interest me until far later. And I admit to putting of the major decisions on all three for longer than my classmates. Being a student of sociology and anthropology in college certainly added fodder to my comparative religions studies.

So when recently a friend declared that the Serenity Prayer was the words of God I quickly informed her it was written in the 1940's and appears no where in any religious tome of which I was aware. Since, I was by her definition a pagan, I was of course wrong. I have been declared wrong before like at lunch with some very religious friends that were talking of the miracles of the gospels. Actually only one miracle is common to all four of those that appear in the Bible. I have always maintained that the most "religious" of my friends are the least informed about their own religion let alone those the declare wrong. Now a study proves that: A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths.

Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ.

More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four in 10 Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the greatest rabbis and intellectuals in history, was Jewish.

I probably learned more about religion in my study of religious art and icons than most members of a religious sect learn in church. They get the watered down chapter and verse view without the overall picture of the context of that verse. And in most cases they take the opinion of their religious leaders. They do not think for themselves.


Ever play gossip as a child? As the "Word" gets whispered around the circle the mean changes until everyone breaks out in giggles when it is revealed what the original message was. Well, gossip has been going on in religions for thousands of years. And to that has been added translations from one language to another, and the edicts of religious leaders to include what they want in the various tomes. For instance in the King James version of the Bible only four out of 104 gnostic gospels are included. And most Christians think that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were four of the disciples.

Now these "students of their religion" and are telling us what the Constitution of the United States says or what is written in the Koran. I doubt they have read all of either of those documents or all of the Bible. Heaven help us if a man from some pulpit makes it to the oval office of the White House.

So do you know which of the miracles of Jesus appears in all four included gospels?

News Recess - same o', same o'

I have not been checking up on the news in the last month. Too much reality going on in my own life. It was the explosion of yet another oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that drew me into the slush pile of news.

Earl seems to be much ado about nothing. Huge storm but it seems to be staying away from the Eastern Seaboard thankfully. Course it doesn't take much to make it turn and head inland. Better safe than sorry.

And there was a sniper and another hostage situation, and a suspicious package in the Miami Airport. I had a suspicious package once. At the Toronto airport. I had purchased and had gift wrapped a hand crafted jack-in-the-box for a dear friend. The x-ray machines did not all the mechanics and springs and cogs. It had to be unwrapped and put into baggage. Like the airplane is safer with a bomb below the seats instead of in the cabin? Almost a decade later I boarded a domestic flight with the spare clip of my Walther PPKS in my carry on. Fully loaded clip. The gun itself was in the trunk of my car. Nobody batted an eye.

The latest real news, in my opinion, is sneaking in under the radar - or under the sniper and the hurricane. I think drug companies pick their times to release bad news. Seems the drugs given to women for osteoporosis are now guilty of increasing the chance of esophageal cancer. There was a time that medicines were episodic. Now the drug companies have mined a how population of people that are put on a drug for the remaining days of their lives. Don't change your life style or diet - just take this little pill forever. If on no other level this "cure" is very damaging to liver and kidneys that were designed to filter toxins from our bodies.

On another note, Tony Blair is on a book tour and actually saying bad things about his old bud GW. The good news is GW doesn't have a book out. It is all, however, rather depressing. I miss almost a month of world news and nothing seems to have changed. Maybe I will tune back out.

Corporate Profits and Religion

Protesters have been rallying outside Target Corp. or its stores almost daily since the retailer angered gay rights supporters and progressives by giving money to help a conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota. Liberal groups are pushing to make an example of the company, hoping its woes will deter other businesses from putting their corporate funds into elections.

I am not much for protests because I think the protesters run the risk of looking irrational. However, I am crazy about boycotts. I vote with my money essentially. I don't go to Denny's since their racial acts and policies some time back and I cannot see me frequently Target because of its obvious homophobic stance. Still there is an on line retailer I buy from that puts a bible quote in the upper right corner of its on line invoices. I continue to purchase from them even though I have eliminated every business in my neck of the woods that puts a fish on their business card.

Why this dichotomy you might ask? Well, thus far Sierra Trading Post has conducted itself like a good Christian where as local Christian businesses think they get to rape anyone that does not go to their church. So it is not just about who Target gave money too but whether that support of a homophobic politician extends to their treatment of their employees . . . or heaven forbid, their customers. I have a feeling it does.

You can either be in business, religion or politics. Not any combination of the three, to my way of thinking, (though there are a lot of religions that have become businesses) if you you want to avoid controversy, and boycotts and protests. Maybe I should add actors and actresses there (also a business). I don't go to Tom Cruise movies any more because of his announced views on women and his religion.

Mother always said that if you wanted to keep your friends you should not discuss religion or politics. Businesses should want to keep their friends/customers and yet of late with the religious right there have been some major errors. Hobby Lobby began closing on Sundays and I am sure lost a big market share to Michael's as women shop for things to do during Sunday football games. Target is no doubt taking a back step in its battle with Wally world over this. And Tom Cruise is losing out at the box office. If being a green business is smart then being an opinionated business is dumb.

It isn't nice to waste water

Las Vegas, Nevada is rapidly becoming known as the city of fountains here in the United States. I am not quite sure why a resort in the middle of the desert is going so hog wild for these water features. Especially since they are so short of water in Las Vegas that they pay residents to take up grass on their lawns and plant rocks instead.

The town of Las Vegas is negotiating with other areas in northern Nevada and even other states for water rights. Like Phoenix did they want to build canals to bring water to their fountains, and swimming pools, and golf courses and sidewalk misters. Heaven forbid that people visiting the desert should get hot and dry.

The Bellagio and Caesars Forum, two of the big fountain owners, say that the fountains use recycled water and ergo don't waste this precious resource in a town without it. Evaporation they say is negligible. Which brings me to my little fountain inside my studio in the mountains of New Mexico.

It is under two feet high and does not dance like the water at Bellagio. The water cascades over the edge of the upper pot and into the base where it is pumped back up. I have had it running for less than a week and have resupplied the water twice. About a half gallon each time.

Evaporation is not negligible.  I rather think that the mega resorts in Las Vegas hire the same public relations people as BP uses to underplay their oil "spill."

I am sure that Caesars and Bellagio do not pay undocumented workers to carry buckets of water to replenish their fountains. So the question is whether the water pipe is metered for usage. New Mexico is a desert state and all public water usage is metered even on your own well. So come on let's hear the real figures of how much water is wasted in the desert to make it dance for the tourists?

The inquiring public wants to know. Especially those areas that are being harangued by legal officials to sell their water to a city that desperately needs it supposedly. Oh, and while we are on the subject of evaporation let's ask Phoenix how much it loses in its canal from the Colorado River to its 150 golf courses.

Will the gulf floor erupt?

May 24th, 2010 from space

Everyone is celebrating that the Horizon Deep Water well has at last been capped. My friend on the Louisiana coast hoped that everyone cheering did not think the problem was solved. Too much oil was spilled for that. Wiki posted an update with figures just a couple hours ago. The rate of the "leak" equaled the Exxon Valdez every one to two weeks. BP has not dealt with the enormity of that oil eruption from the gulf floor.

But of greater import is to keep in mind this is just a temporary fix. They sort of underplay that in the new don't they? Gulf geyser stops gushing, but will it hold from the Associated Press. But the stuff of nightmares is what they are not saying. BP is good at hushing up what it does not want the world to hear.

The Horizon Deepwater rig which exploded and sunk drilled through 1300 feet of sea floor 5000 feet down. It drilled into what the old oil men used to call a gusher of a pool of oil which may or may not have also included a pocket of explosive gas. Nobody knows what damage was done to the pipe below the sea floor or the exact extent of the pressure being created by the oil that now wants to desperately get out. Is that pressure so great that it ill actually crack the sea floor and release oil in a manner that cannot be contained with a cap?

And since nobody knows the answers to these questions do we have any right endangering life on earth by drilling below the surface of our seas?

This huge ecological disaster is not over. And there are thousands of wells still running the same risks with our fragile ecosystem.

Life in a Southern Border State

This morning's news, if you read through all the BP oil eruption stuff, mentioned the growing turf war among the drug lords in the Nogales area.

Nogales is a border town with part of it in Arizona and part in Mexico. It has been a relatively quiet area of the northern border of Mexico. It is one of those gateways to the south that US snowbirds take to their winter homes on Mexico's Gulf of Baja coast. It is also one of the routes used by drug lords for exporting drugs to the United States. Oh, and the coyotes use the same routes for bringing illegal immigrants to the US.

Running of drugs and illegals is money. And in the currently impoverished northern Mexico states money is something to fight over. And they see the border between our two countries as a small obstacle that has to be breached so they can make money to send home.

Because of the US economy with the construction industry slowed to almost a standstill we are using less migrant workers legal or otherwise. They have no money to send home across the border. Some are going home and some are finding other work in illegal drug trafficking. Mexico drug gangs have set up distribution centers in Albuquerque. They add a whole new twist to gang wars because they come after the innocents - and violently.

A lot of people have said a lot of negative things about the new Arizona law against illegal immigration. They are people that do not live in a border state. They know illegals that have tried to appear as citizens, people that have opened businesses and integrated into the community. These people without documents are different than may of us who live in border states know. They are not the hardworking landscapers and construction workers you can hire in southern months to do the work you could not afford to have done by licensed US contractors.

I think there are many problems with the Arizona law but they had the guts to run it up the flagpole and see who shot at it. It is a cry for help. Something has to be done about our southern border. The states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California bear all the cost and consequence of not doing something. And the situation is creating some strange bedfellows. I found myself agreeing on this issue with my friend that listens to Rush Limbaugh.

Oh, and making them all US Citizens is not the answer any more than Arizona's approach.

Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle

There is a rumor on the net that betting sites are taking bets on the first creatures in the Gulf of Mexico to go extinct. I don't gamble but were I to place a bet it would be on the Kemp's Ridley sea turtle.

The Kemp's Ridley, pictured on a south Padre Beach on the Texas coast,  is the rarest of all sea turtles and one of the two living species of Lepidochelys kempii. The other being the olive Ridley sea turtle, the most abundant.

Kemp's is one of the smallest sea turtles and ranges from the north US seashore to Rancho Nuevo in Mexico. It spends much of the year around the Louisiana coast where BP's oil "spill" is wrecking havoc.

Reports are they are being swept up in the drag oil booms used in clean up and set afire. Environmental groups out in the Gulf of Mexico trying to rescue marine life, turtles included are outraged that BP officials are setting fire to the amassed oil before checking for turtles rounded up with the oil. Ergo the outrage on the net that BP is burning sea turtles.

As the oil "spill" (a term used with leak by BP to minimize the effect on the public of this undersea eruption) spreads along the Florida coast more Kemp's turtles will be endangered and also the Florida Manatee which has had other issues before this.

All the oil coated brown Pelicans are making the news because of their visibility. Once on the threatened list they have made a remarkable recovery but who knows where this destruction of their habitat and food sources will lead. I certainly would not be willing to bet on their survival after this disaster. Would you?

So while we talk about this $20 billion fund that the government of the United States has required BP to set up for aid to those people on the gulf whose way of life and incomes are threatened by BP's negligent rush to get oil and ergo profits, what has been provided for the rescue of the creatures that cannot listen to the news? What a loss it will be to future generations if these creatures vanish. Who pays for that.

I love the brown pelican and I thought I would end this rather sad blog with a picture of one like they should be - free of oil.