Thoughts on the Unusual

Clarification from the Cardinal

2005-01-15T13:58:00.000-06:00

The following is in response to a letter written to Cardinal George regarding a statement attributed to him in the Sun Times. See "Official Church View?" below.

"The statement published by the Sun-Times is taken entirely out of context. I was, in fact, making fun of the thought that the Catholic Church 'plotted' to cover up the supposed marriage of Jesus to mary Magdalene. Jesus was not married to Mary Magdalene, nor to anyone else for that matter.

The DaVince Code is a work of pure fiction, and harmful fiction at that because it attacks the Christian faith and the Catholic Church."

Predictions

2005-01-03T21:55:00.000-06:00

Here is a link to a great site, True or False, that has predictions from the Art Prediction show.

You can also see predictions by Ed Dames, Sean David Morton, John Hogue and others.

Go look and see who was right on what they predicted.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/aspie/trueorfalse/newyear.html

A Rabbi Explains

2005-01-03T13:31:00.000-06:00

I have enjoyed reading several of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s books. He is always down to earth and tells good stories. He talks about life as the average person lives it and rather than offering advice relates the experiences he, his family, and the people he has known and counseled have dealt with their problems and what Judaism teaches about how life should be lived. Judaism, experience and common sense are his guides.

So, when I saw a book by another Rabbi, in the Metaphysical section of the book store, I thought that maybe I would enjoy that book too. Rabbi David Aaron’s book, “Endless Light: The Ancient Path Of The Kabbalah To Love, Spiritual Growth, and Personal Power” intrigued me also because it mentioned the Kabbalah, something I wanted to know more about.

Rabbi Aaron tells stories too, but his are Biblical stories as seen from the perspective of the Kabbalah and Midrash, the Jewish interpretation and commentary on Biblical texts. And boy, does he have a different take on Biblical passages. Several examples will illustrate.

After God created the heavens, earth and animals, He said that it was “good.” But, after He created man, He says, “It is not good for man to be alone” and that a human being needs a helpmate. Here Adam is told to name all the animals. According to the Midrash God is playing matchmaker for Adam trying to ease his loneliness by fixing him up with the animals in the garden. But an animal is subordinate to man, not an equal. And man cannot achieve true love and happiness with someone subordinate to him, so God creates Eve

Then there is the Tower of Babel. Everyone on earth spoke the same language at a time when they decided to build a city with a tower that reaches into the heavens. God figured that they were up to no good so He decided to disperse them and give them different languages. The Kabbalah explains that the people wanted to “undermine the moral principles” that God had established, therefore God had to separate the troublemakers.

These brief descriptions don’t do justice to the depth of explanations given in the book. Many people, me included, dismiss the notion that God talked to people. If He did talk to them, why isn’t He talking to them now? But, what if people then were doing what many of our channelers and psychics are doing today, and which they claim everyone can do. We don’t think that Neale Donald Walsch is crazy for saying that God talked to him. He in fact wrote several very successful books about his experience. We may not think he was talking to God, but he was getting messages from somewhere. Could the same thing have been happening to people long ago?

In Endless Light Rabbi Aaron explains love in all its aspects, he explains fate, soul, and in one chapter, titled, “Me, Myself, and I,” answered a question I’ve had for a long time: Am I my personality?

He seems to be saying, no. But again, my short answer doesn’t do justice to the rabbi’s explanation. I got the book from the library, check it out.

Official Church View?

2005-01-01T14:30:00.000-06:00

"All I have to say is, nobody ever told me to keep secret the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene."

Cardinal Francis George on The DaVinci Code and conspiracy theories

Spinning Iraq

2004-12-31T20:46:00.000-06:00

When our soldiers in Iraq helped, what appeared to be crowds of Iraqis tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein, I watched and believed. Later there was talk that there were hardly any Iraqis in the square that day, and perhaps, some of what happened was staged. But, after watching the documentary “Control Room” I see that the whole thing was staged for American viewers. I don’t know if anyone else in the world was fooled.

Control Room is a commentary on the early stages of Gulf War II as seen by Al Jazeera reporters, a couple of American reporters and an army press officer. “Their” reporters, I was surprised to note, look, act and even talk like “our” reporters in that they speak English, wear western clothes, with some exceptions for head gear, and try to cover the war as best they can. They smiled, they didn’t talk “jihad”, and seemed like all around normal people.

I was surprised to see “our” reporters disbelieve what they were told by our military briefers, and complaining that control of the press is tighter than in Gulf War I. They also didn’t like all the attention the Jessica Lynch rescue got from the military briefers; they wanted more news of the war. I didn’t hear any of that reported at the time. Then there was the army press officer who seemed sincere in his debate with Al Jazeera reporters about our mission, but suddenly it all sounded so much like spin. Ditto Donald Rumsfeld talking about Al Jazeera’s lies and biased reporting. Talk about spin. And just who was it who spun the tearing down of Saddam’s statue in the square? A reporter from Al Jazeera remarked that he knew the scene in the square was spin because the Iraqis doing the tearing down were all young men with dialects that weren’t from Baghdad. He would know that because he was from Baghdad.

Control Room is a documentary without a narrator, just people talking to the camera, or having conversations with each other. I found myself feeling uncomfortable watching this film. I was embarrassed and ashamed of our government’s actions, and of Americans, who are so ignorant of those actions, ignorant for what is happening in the rest of the world, and for not caring. Oh, we respond when a catastrophe strikes, like the tsunami in Asia. We will send money and goods, but be totally oblivious to how people live, what they think, and how they perceive the world. I didn’t even know where some of the affected countries and islands were.

Perhaps, instead of more computers for classrooms, something our educators tell us will improve our children’s education, we need more history and cultural anthropology books to educate our children, to improve not only their lives, but the quality of lives the world over.

Anne Strieber

2004-12-21T19:13:00.000-06:00

For all of you who didn’t hear Anne Strieber talk to Art on Sat. she has an important comment on what we older ladies have suspected for some time. Anne in her new book, An Invisible Woman, says she found out there’s actually a scientific reason we feel invisible to men. We all give off sex hormones called Pheromones and as women get older, they send out fewer of these, so we literally drop off male radar. Check out Anne's diary http://www.unknowncountry.com/diary/

Wayne Dyer's Epiphany

2004-12-19T18:02:00.000-06:00

Wayne Dyer is a pretty upbeat guy. His enthusiasm kind of rubs off on you and you want to be as enthused about life as he seems to be.. He says that regardless of anything that happened to us in this life, or a possible past life, we are all responsible for where we are now, for our actions and feelings. We made the decisions that brought us to the place we now occupy and we need to stop blaming the past and others for our situation. The good news is that we can change things

Dyer had an epiphany which brought him to this philosophy. It happened when he forgave his father after years of being mad at this man he had never met. He wants to help others to achieve this same happy state by telling his story of how forgiveness changed him.

In addition to forgiveness intentions matter. If we intend for certain things to happen, those things will come our way.

I’m sure his books and teachings will help some people and I believe him when he says that we need to forgive, but it is annoying when people assume that what worked for them will work for others. They assume it to the extent that they insist that their way is THE way and it will work for everyone. His was such a personal experience, and it almost seems thrust upon him. He had an issue that he faced and overcame and it improved his life. His circumstances are nothing like mine and although we can all generalize the things he says to our own lives, we can’t duplicate them and we aren’t replicates of him.

When we can’t do what the “self-help gurus” tell us we need to do to be happy, we feel like failures, that we will never be able to do anything to improve our lives.
In Dick Robertson’s Control Theory terms, Dyer reorganized his way of perceiving the world. That is what we all could use a bit of – reorganization of our perceptions. It is an individual task that can’t be taught us by others. According to the control theory model one way to reorganize is to make random movements. In other words, do things. Not the same old things, but new things. Anything.

We may all be responsible for where we are now and what we do in the future but how we transcend our problems and limitations is as individual as we are.

Astronomers Ready for Comet Smashing Mission

2004-12-17T20:29:00.000-06:00

George and Ken Parsons was talking about this on Monday, Dec. 13th. It sounded interesting and I found it at Space.com Sorry it's so long. We won't keep it up long.

NASA (news - web sites) and university astronomers are eagerly awaiting the launch of a space probe bound to collide with a comet and give researchers a glimpse inside the solar system's icy wanderers.
The Deep Impact mission, now set to launch on Jan. 12, will send two spacecraft on brief spaceflight to Comet Tempel 1, where an "Impactor" payload will slam into the object while its mothership, "Flyby," looks on.
The entire mission should last only a few months, but researchers are hopeful they will finally be able to break through the outer surface of a comet.
"Only the internal material of a comet is unchanged from the beginning of the solar system," said Deep Impact principal investigator Michael A'Hearn, of the University of Maryland, during a press briefing today at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. "But there are no data on the interior, and that's what we're hoping to solve with Deep Impact."
The $330 million mission has been delayed twice from its original Dec. 30 launch date, first to allow engineers to rerun ground tests, then once more to replace a launch component. Deep Impact has a window running through Jan. 28, 2005, during which time the mission can launch anytime and still make its July 4, 2005 rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1.
"I have every confidence that we're going to make it by the 28th," said Deep Impact project manager Rick Grammier, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, during the briefing. "We're good to go."
If successful, Deep Impact will be NASA's second probe to visit a comet in as many years. On Jan. 2, 2004, the Stardust spacecraft flew through the comet 81P/Wild 2, taking images and collecting samples that will be returned to Earth for study in 2006. The European Space Agency (ESA) also launched its comet probe Rosetta on March 2 to visit comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it is expected to drop its lander Philae on the comet's surface in 2014.
A quick comet cruise
Deep Impact is unique among NASA missions in its brevity. From launch to impact, the mission spans just six months of spaceflight, giving mission controllers little time to shake out any bugs that may pop during the cruise.
To that end, spacecraft engineers have been continually testing their flight hardware and software to ensure the mission will go smoothly. At least twice during that testing they found need to recheck their work, hence the launch delays.
"Our checks are in place to detect these things," Grammier said. "That's why they're there."
Flyby and Impactor won't be alone on their cruise either. A host of ground- and space-based telescopes, including the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray observatory, will be watching Comet Tempel 1 before, during and after Deep Impact's encounter.
"There will be lots of exciting science at many wavelengths from many observatories around the world," said Deep Impact co-investigator Karen Meech, of the Institute of Astronomy in Hilo, Hawaii, during the briefing. "We're hoping to see a change in the comet's chemistry
Looking inside a comet
Once Deep Impact arrives at Comet Tempel 1, much of what is expected to occur should do so automatically.
The Flyby mothership is expected to release the Impactor probe, a 820-pound (372-kilogram) spacecraft with its own camera to record the impact, in Tempel 1's path.
The comet should then overtake Impactor in a collision that is anticipated to occur at about 23,000 miles (37,014 kilometers) an hour. Moments before the crash, Impactor will snap the closest images - ranging between 20 to 300 kilometers depending on dust levels - ever obtained of a comet nucleus, while Flyby and Earth instruments will monitor the collision from afar.
By studying the collision's ejecta and resulting crater, researchers should be able to determine the physical properties of Tempel 1 as well as get a front row seat to crater formation.
"It's less than a 1 percent chance of missing the target," Grammier said. "But we're doing something we haven't done before, so we're just going to keep testing."
Flyby is equipped with both high and low-resolution cameras to monitor the collision, researchers said.
"While a technically challenging, this is an utterly simple experiment," A'Hearn said.
Launch ahead
But before Deep Impact can lay the smackdown on its cometary target, it has to get off the ground first.
The current Jan. 12 launch target lies near the middle of the current launch window, and while NASA officials are confident the mission will fly before Jan. 28, mission planners are making contingency plans.
They have selected a short list naming about six potential replacement comets that Deep Impact could swing by should it miss its Comet Tempel 1 window, mission planners said. The earliest available comet alternate would require a launch in about two months or so after the initial target, though that comet has a smaller nucleus and sheds a larger amount of dust which could make spacecraft targeting difficult, they added.
Deep Impact scientists said Tempel 1 need not be the only comet their mission visits during its lifetime. Although Impactor will be destroyed in the encounter, Flyby will swing past the comet and could encounter at least one other icy wanderer should researchers choose to extend their mission.
"We've identified at least two other comets that Flyby could visit in an extended mission," A'Hearn said. "But we have not yet chosen which [comet] we'd propose for that."

Dr Weiss

2004-12-14T21:14:00.000-06:00

On Sat, 12-11 Art had Dr. Brian Weiss on as a guest.

Dr. Weiss, during his hypnotherapy sessions with patients has encountered alien souls who have chosen to reincarnate here on earth because their planet is dead. They are more intellectually advanced then we humans so they buried something in natural caves in the earth until the time that humans are able to understand this and find it in the earth.

Joyce Riley and our Vets

2004-12-11T22:31:00.000-06:00

Has anyone listened to Joyce Riley from Monday Dec. 6th?

When you hear the passion in her voice and the commitment to this cause you can’t help but to ask how come the rest of America isn’t hearing what we are on C2C? If you at all follow the news you read about how our vets are being shot up and coming home disabled but no major news paper or TV program is bringing to light the issues J. Riley is addressing. How many more of our people will have to suffer?

Over My Head

2004-12-10T21:04:00.000-06:00

Does anyone understand what Stan Tenen is proposing? I enjoy listening to him, but mostly I am not grasping what he says. His message seems to be meaningful and important, but I'm not getting it. Much of what he explained last night is based on the geometric metaphors in Genesis. Even after reading his FAQ I'm not sure what a geometric metaphor is. But, it sure sounds interesting. The whole area of Tenen's research is something I would like to have Mike Heiser's thoughts on.

The Tall Whites

2004-12-08T21:56:00.000-06:00

Michael Salla and Paola Harris mentioned a name I had never heard before: Charles James Hall. He worked as a weather observer at the Nellis Range, which I assume is Area 51, and had contact with ET's Harris refers to as the Tall Whites. They were up to 8 feet tall, very thin, basically looked like us and lived to be 800 years old. Charles has written about his experiences in a fictional format, but told Paola Harris that it is all true. Both Harris and Salla say he is credible and they believe him. George wants him to take a lie detector test that he, George, will pay for. Paola said that she was sure Charles would do that. According to Paola, Charles is allowed to talk about all of this because the ET's gave their permission, therefore Charles isn't worried about government censure. Charles' first book is Millennial Hospitality and is followed by Millennial Hospitality II and III.

Paola also has a tape of an interview she did with Col. Corso in which he describes his contact. She will play it the next time she is on Coast.

Education in America

2004-12-07T22:22:00.000-06:00

John Taylor Gatto www.johntaylorgatto.com was the guest on Coast tonight. He has what at first strikes one as a radical thesis. He thinks our education system does not educate, that its purpose is mind control, to make everyone a conformist who follows orders of the ruling elite of big government, business and industry. Hmm, sounds like some of the conspiracy theorists we hear on Coast. But, wait. We have all gone to school and lived what he is talking about. So, judge for yourself. Read his book, “The Underground History of American Education,” on-line (or download it for free). I got only a short way through the prologue and knew he was right. How depressing. Start reading at http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

Coast on TV?

2004-12-06T21:36:00.000-06:00

Nancy sends news. "I wanted to pass on some information to those who maybe didn’t hear the program with Marc Zicee who wrote the Twilight Zone Companion." Apparently he and Noory are working on a TV program that will be loosely based on the C2C program. They did not give a starting date but said that Fox is behind the project and they were both excited about the new show."

Matthew Alper

2004-12-06T01:30:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, Dec. 5 Matthew Alper was a guest on Coast. He has been a guest before and I have listened to his argument that God exists only in our brain. I have written elsewhere just where I think he has gone wrong. http://users.dls.net/~palfano/alper.htm Perhaps someone more clever than I would like to evaluate my rebuttal to Matthew and point out any flaws in my thinking.

Shortwave and Alex Jones

2004-12-05T20:30:00.000-06:00

If anyone has a shortwave radio would you see if you can get Alex Jones' program. It is broadcast on shortwave from 11am-1pm on WWCR 9.985 and from 10pm to Midnight on WWCR 3.210. Can I get a low priced shortwave and still get good reception? Is that a silly question?

Heiser, Hoagland et al.

2004-12-04T11:10:00.000-06:00

Seems some scientists are worried that germs from Mars may infect Earth. What Richard Hoagland finds interesting is that anyone in the mainstream is finaly admitting that there is life on Mars. Richard talked it over with George during the first half hour on Thursday, Dec. 2.

Mike Heiser followed Richard with a disappointing interview, more like a question and answer period. But, as always, Mike informs.

Also informative was Douglas Mulhall on Tuesday, Nov. 30 during the first half hour of Coast. He thinks that cancer, heart disease, arthritis and a host of other chronic diseases are due to calcification (not due to taking calcium supplements). He has the cure, but me thinks you have to read his book, "Calcium Bomb" to get the whole scoop. But, what he said made a lot of sense. I'm not sure if he was the one, but a recent doc on Coast said that glucosamine really works for arthritis in the knees and back, and actually repairs some of the damage.

Steve Quayle and Doug Hagman scared us again with their gloomy predictions about terrorism and how the terrorists are trying to ruin us economically. I asked my husband Joe, who knows an awful lot about anything financial) about the global economy and if what Quayle and Hagman said about the U.S. economy in particular was true. For instance, they insinuated that it was a bad thing that Russia and China were buying Euros instead of dollars, that the value of the dollar had dropped, and that most of our debt is held by other countries Joe thought most of what the duo said was nonsense. The one thing he did agree with was that if the U.S. went bankrupt, the world would follow. As for whether the terrorists are working to ruin our economy, he didn't have an opinion. Don't ask me to explain what Joe said about the economy as it is all a little beyond me.