John Allen Muhammad , the mastermind of the sniper attacks that terrorized the nation’s capital region for three weeks in October 2002, was executed Tuesday.

Muhammad died by injection at 9:11 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, prison spokesman Larry Traylor said.

He said Muhammad had no final statement and that Traylor didn’t hear him utter any words during the execution.

Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during a spree that left 10 dead across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

“We extend our condolences not only to the families and loved ones of the victims, but also to the family and loved ones of John Allen Muhammad,” said J. Wyndal Gordon, one of Muhammad’s attorneys. “It’s just a tragic situation all around.”

Earlier, Gordon had described Muhammad as fearless and insisted he was innocent.

“He is absolutely unafraid and he will die with dignity — dignity to the point of defiance,” Gordon said.

The shootings terrorized the region, as victim after victim was shot down while doing everyday chores: going shopping, pumping gas, mowing the lawn. One child was shot while walking into his middle school.

The reign of terror ended Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, as they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted for a shooter to perch in its trunk without being detected.

Muhammad and Malvo also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Muhammad’s final appeal Monday and Gov. Timothy Kaine denied clemency Tuesday.

Cheryll Witz was one of several victims’ family members who traveled to Virginia to watch the execution. Malvo confessed that he shot her father, Jerry Taylor, on a Tucson, Ariz., golf course in March 2002 at Muhammad’s direction.

“He basically watched my dad breathe his last breath,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I watch his last breath?”

Muhammad met with family members in the hours before his execution but did not have a spiritual adviser, Traylor said.

Tava a navegar por ai quando encontrei esse site http://www.universaloscillation.com/youcube/ ,  e lembrei que minha mãe já havia me mostrado, é um site no qual você tem um cubo que gira como você quiser, em cada face do cubo você pode colocar a url de um vídeo (pelas barrinhas no canto esquerdo da tela. Fiz um para vocês tentarem entender. Infelizmente não tem a opção embed :T

http://www.universaloscillation.com/youcube/?4539

in the street …

denismeyers.com

Posted by Audiegrl

SNL returns with it’s Thursday night format of Weekend Update. The opening sketch features the Republican’s planning the ‘You Lie” incident, only Joe Wilson leaves to go to the bathroom, and the other Republican’s decide it would look bad if they all shouted. Needless to say, Wilson doesn’t know things changed and he shouts alone. Hi-jinx ensue… Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers are back with a great interview with SNL’s version of James Carville. We need some levity in our politics, things are getting way to nasty. Enjoy.

Hey everyone, I just watched this video from ClevverTV and I am very excited to see Dakota Fanning is playing the role of Jane for the next twilight series of films “New Moon” and “Eclipse”.
Out of the several names of actors taking on new roles for “New Moon” she is my favorite. So young and professional and while moving mountains in the film industry she is still attending school and getting her education. Very impressive. Good role model for young kids. She is going places and I look forward to seeing all her work.


Just recently I watched Coraline for the first time where she played the voice of Coraline. She did a great job with this film. This is a must see stop motion picture that took 5 years to complete – as you heard in the above video.

Besides praising Dakota I also have to give another thumbs up to the Coraline Writer and Director Henry Selick who also did The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I watched it with my husband first with the 3D glasses and then a few days later watched it in 2D. It was great. The story was very interesting and the visuals were awesome. Although the 3D was fun and I would do it again I really enjoyed the 2D even more because it allowed the eyes to see more vivid colors, but 3D is still a must for everyone to see at least once! Very nice job Coraline cast and crew! Five stars to anyone who can handle a stop motion picture that takes 5 years to make. You must have some amazing patience and follow through to complete a film like this.

During the summer of 2009, two students of literature began to discuss the many plot holes and gaps that exist in the Twilight saga.  What follows is that dialogue, blogged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nikki Diana Smith:
June 29

So, I’ve picked up the last Twilight book. I know, it’s ridiculous, but the 14 year old girl in me could not resist. Anyway, as I’m reading, I’m beginning to see the plot unfold. Spoiler alert: You  may want to stop reading here if you ever have any intention of reading these books. Who the hell am I kidding? Keep reading. Bella and Edward get married with the stipulation they will have sex before Bella becomes a vampire. Now, it’s beginning to look as though Bella may be pregnant. Now here’s my problem: would vampire sperm be alive? Everything about them is supposedly dead. The author describes breathing as something they force themselves to do. So, if they don’t have live tissue that involve the exchange of CO2 into oxygen, then would their sperm be alive? And how would dead sperm create life? Doesn’t this all sound a little fishy?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane Wilson
June 29 at 11:05pm

Well…the vampire is, by definition, an example of the Undead. Therefore, the sperm is not dead, but not living. Therefore, the not-living-not-dead sperm will meet with the living egg and make a 1/3 dead, 2/3 living vampire baby…the ultimate of hybrids…

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Nikki Diana Smith
June 29 at 11:11pm

Hmmm. You seem to be forgetting the werewolf/vampire hybrid. And I think “the undead” is a definition that needs to be revisited. And how do you know the sperm is not the dead part  and not the living part? Would it age like a normal person or like a vampire? The head vampires have issues with babies as vampires, and I wonder about the baby as vampire, too. But what if this 1/3 dead 2/3 living vampire baby mated with a werewolf? Are you capable of doing the math created by this union?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane Wilson
July 3 at 9:02pm

Alright…I’ve been thinking on this for a while…and this is what I’ve got:

The hybrid vampire baby/ werewolf offspring would be both 3/4 living-1/4 dead (the mixture of vampire would dilute and since werewolves aren’t the undead, only human beings that are metamorphic in nature, the fraction would tilt toward life.) AND 1/4 vampire, 1/4 werewolf, and 1/2 human…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nikki Diana Smith
July 3 at 9:09pm

Ironically enough…I called this. Jake, the werewolf (who is not really a werewolf, but a shape shifter) imprinted on Bella and Edward’s daughter, while she was still in the womb…he just didn’t know it yet. (See the happily ever after starting to merge?) The hybrid vampire baby matures really fast, will be an adult my the time she’s seven, and will stop aging then. She can live  off of food or blood, but prefers blood. She also has super strength, knowledge, and strong skin, but she sleeps, unlike the other vamipires in the book. So, unless Meyer decides to continue the saga, and part of me isn’t sure she should, then we will never know about the hybrid vampire werewolf (but really shape shifter) baby. And I can’t believe you could do all that math!

So, would the shape shifter/hybrid vampire baby be able to shape-shift? And if so…would it necessarily be into a werewolf?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane Wilson
July 3 at 10:12pm

I think that if the shape shifter/hybrid vampire baby were to shape-shift, it would probably only shift half of its shape…or maybe 1/4 (see above math). So…maybe a leg and forearm, or half of the face and torso would shape-shift and the rest would remain hybrid vampire. Now…when you say “shape shifter” do you (or Meyer, rather) mean that the being can shift into ANY shape? Or just animalistic shapes? And if werewolves and vampires are mortal enemies, what is the vampire’s relationship to shape shifters? Shouldn’t there be give-away signs that a being is a shape shifter instead of a werewolf?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nikki Diana Smith
July 4 at 10:20am

The shape shifters hate the vampires because millions of years ago, the vampires attacked their tribe. So when there are more vampires in the area, more of the Indians reach puberty and start shape shifting. I’m telling you, this chick totally missed some key points when writing this book. And what is the fun of shape shifting if you can only shift one leg or arm at a time?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane Wilson
July 4 at 12:31pm

Well, honestly, if you were a diluted shape shifter, you could probably only shift partially…like…you would start shape-shifting your entire body, and only get halfway shifted, maybe,  which is really just a good way to make people think you’re a werewolf with the mange.

I’m also really glad that Edward saved Bella, not the baby…I love that the baby is truly a hybrid…which begins to support my postcolonial reading of Twilight: Edward represents the Empire, encroaching on the third world nation of Bella (because she isn’t a vampire she is weaker, therefore Third World). Edward (Empire, is it coincidence that both words start with “E”?) spreads his civilization (sperm) in Bella’s country (body/ vagina) and creates a hybrid race (hybrid vampire baby).

Questions? Comments?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nikki Diana Smith
July 4 at 1:43pm

Yes. What does it mean that when Bella becomes stronger than Edward as a vampire? Is she representative of America being young and amazing? Because it is supposed to take vampires a while to adjust to the thirst and be able to resist humans, but Bella is able to do this almost immediately. Also, the last battle, Bella’s powerful shield is the one that saves all the vampires. well, a last minute ditch effort from Alice, but that’s another story. It is actually Bella, who has this shield, that scares their opponents into thinking twice about attacking the Cullens and their vampire friends and werewolf/shape shifter friends. And again, several other vampires have supernatural powers, but it took them centuries and decades to learn to project their powers as Bella does in only a few weeks. So what does that mean?

So loving the mangy werewolf image!

August Rush

Hei,

Ma ei viitsi kurta selle üle kui vastik ja halb ma olen, et ma JÄLLE päeval blogin… Let’s cut the bs (jälle) ja räägime asjast.

Niisiis, eile otsustasin suurest igavusest vaadata ära ühe filmi, mille ma olin arvutisse tõmmanud, aga ei olnud viitsinud vaadata (olgugi, et kõik kiitsid seda). Esimene üllatus oli see, et ma avastasin, et seda täkku seal filmis mängib Jonathan Rhys Meyers (uuuuuuh- mul on tema pihta juba ammu crush olnud). Hakkasin seda siis vaatama ja esimeste minutitega võlus mind muusika … ja siiamaani kuulan ma arvutist selle filmi soundtracki, sest see on lihtsalt imeline! Huuh.. selle jaoks ei ole isegi sõnu… Igatahes, vaatasin siis edasi ja enda imestuseks avastasin, et esimese 15minutiga olid mul pisarad silmis ja ma töinasin terve filmi või vaatasin silmad suured peas ja kõikusin oma istmel nagu mingi hull. See oli lihtsalt niiiiiiiii ilus film! Ja see muusika. Ma alguses arvasin, et see on ainult minu arvamus, aga kui mu ema otsustas, et ta tahab seda filmi uuesti ja kohe peale lõppu näha, siis ma mõistsin, et see film ongi väärtfilm. Vahest lihtsalt juhtub, et ma armun ära täiesti tühja filmi… aga seekord ei olnud nii. Õnneks. Igatahes, täna kui ma Preilnale külla lähen, siis võtan kaasa selle filmi ja panen tema ka töinama. Telefon on juba soundtracki täis kuhjatud nii, et muusika kuulamine rongis ei ole probleem.

JRM

Keset filmi tuli mulle meelde, et ta on Iirimaalt pärit… mis on vääääga lähedal Inglismaale:D Ja noh, mõni idioot ei teegi neil vahet. Igatahes, siis mulle plahvas, et ta on ju siis pm Westwicki ja Pattinsoniga ühes ämbris. Uuh… You just have to love them Ja Meyersit seob Pattinsoniga (minu silmis) veel see, et JRM mängis ühes filmis Henry Cavill’iga, kelle järgi kirjutati Pattinsoni kõige kuulsama tegelaskuju, Edwardi, kirjeldus. Hahaha, ma tean, ma mõtlen täiega üle.

Niisiis, järgmiseks vabandan juba ette ära nende ees, kes on tüdinud sellest, et ma koguaeg midagi kuhugi lisan- ma teen seda veel, sorri! Nimelt lähen  Keravale õhtul, lähme rulluisutama, pildistan sealseid tibisid, kes ei suuda ära oodata, et poseerida. Õhtul pildistan veel öist Keravat ka, sest see on lihtsalt I.L.U.S!!! Rulluiskudega tõmban ka ennast veidi prinki loodetavasti.:D Rannahooaeg on küll käes, aga see ei ole aeg, millal ma tahan kena olla. Kooliajal peab ikka kena olema, et täielrinnal nautida oma viimast keskkooli aastat.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Tetszik a poszter ötlet. Ha esetleg Luc Besson miatt érdekel a film is, itt van az egyetlen közzétett, eléggé butított minőségű előzetes…alább pedig betekintés egy jelenet forgatásába:

Matt & Kim – Daylight (nothing to do with Typology, but still catchy nonetheless)
——————–

Sometime between 2004 and 2006 I had discovered a “test” that dealt with finding your personality. When I first came across it I figured it would be like every other personality test I had taken. Mostly vague and slightly inaccurate. However, this one in particular did not give the usual statements of your supposed self (you are quiet, you like to reflect, etc), no, it gave a much broader and detailed outlook of who I am as a person. And the answers had me thinking for years.

I’ve taken more than 5 sorters and I don’t think all of them were “licensed” since they were all free. But these are all of ones I’ve gotten.

INFP
INFJ
INTJ
ISFJ
ISFP
ISTP

This is the perfect example of why you should type yourself, after learning about all 16 variations. I had 6 answers given to me and I chose which one fits me best. Or what “role” I play more often then others. But I’ve noticed I can be 10 people in a matter of a week, which may cause others to be confused about whether or not they are seeing the “real” me.

————————

For those who are unfamiliar about the temperaments, I have provided a brief summary for you. If you like what you read I highly suggest searching for more information about MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Temperament Indicator).

BRIEF MEYERS-BRIGGS HISTORY

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives. The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.

“Perception involves all the ways of becoming aware of things, people, happenings, or ideas. Judgment involves all the ways of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived. If people differ systematically in what they perceive and in how they reach conclusions, then it is only reasonable for them to differ correspondingly in their interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills.”

In developing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [instrument], the aim of Isabel Briggs Myers, and her mother, Katharine Briggs, was to make the insights of type theory accessible to individuals and groups. They addressed the two related goals in the developments and application of the MBTI instrument: The identification of basic preferences of each of the four dichotomies specified or implicit in Jung’s theory. The identification and description of the 16 distinctive personality types that result from the interactions among the preferences.”

TYPE PREFERENCES

Extravert Characteristics

* Gregarious
* Assertive
* Talkative
* Social/outgoing
* Likes groups, parties, etc.
* Energized by interaction
* Expressive & enthusiastic
* Volunteers personal information
* Distractable
* Has many friends
* Easy to approach

Introvert Characteristics

* Energized by time alone
* Private
* Keeps to self
* Quiet
* Deliberate
* Internally aware
* Fewer friends
* Prefer smaller groups
* Independent
* Not socially inclined
* Enjoys solitude
* Thinks before speaking

Sensing Characteristics

* Concrete
* Realistic
* Lives in the present
* Aware of surroundings
* Notices details
* Practical
* Goes by senses
* Factual

Intuitive Characteristics

* Future-focused
* Sees possibilities
* Inventive
* Imaginitive
* Deep
* Abstract
* Idealistic
* Complicated
* Theoretical

Thinking Characteristics

* Logical
* Objective
* Decides with head
* Wants truth
* Rational
* Impersonal
* Critical
* Thick-skinned
* Firm with people
* Driven by thought

Feeling Characteristics

* Decides with heart
* Dislikes conflict
* Passionate
* Driven by emotion
* Gentle
* Easily hurt
* Empathetic
* Caring of others
* Warm

Judging Characteristics

* Decisive
* Controlled
* Good at finishing
* Organized
* Structured
* Scheduled
* Quick at tasks
* Responsible
* Likes closure
* Makes plans

Perceiving Characteristics

* Adaptable
* Relaxed
* Disorganized
* Care-free
* Spontaneous
* Changes tracks midway
* Keeps options open
* Procrastinates
* Dislikes routine
* Flexible
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THE 16 PERSONALITY TYPES
_____________________
INFJ – The Protectors
INTJ – The Scientists
INFP – The Idealists
INTP – The Thinkers
ISFJ – The Nurturers
ISTJ – The Duty Fulfillers
ISFP – The Artists
ISTP – The Mechanics
ENFJ – The Givers
ENTJ – The Executives
ENFP – The Inspirers
ENTP – The Visionaries
ESFJ – The Caregivers
ESTJ – The Guardians
ESFP – The Performers
ESTP – The Doers

You can read more about them here:

16 Types

and here:

(my personal favorite)
TypeLogic

and here:

(also includes information on Enneagrams)
The 16 Types

Some people continue to bash the MBTI for slight inaccuracy or just plain denial of their true nature. I’ve see people behave differently after figuring out their types, like they are suppose to fit a mold and behave only as their “type”. Foolish, yes, but those who want to take it seriously end up learning more about, not only themselves, but about other types. That’s my main reason for constantly wanting to learn as much as I can. I want to see people in a different light. The MBTI has helped me in some ways.

When I first took the test the first time a few years ago, I got INFP. Parts of what I read fit me, but I ended up being on the fence. One thing I’ve read, INFPs are dreamy in appearance, mostly in the eyes I’ve noticed, and that doesn’t particularly go with my demeanor. And INFPs are basically relaxed individuals (P trait), unlike me who can be extremely rigid in thoughts and movements. That’s what threw me off and I found another temperament sorter and my results then went to INFJ. Only one letter difference, yet the difference is obvious.

——————–

Just for kicks, I’ll break down my personality to show you a little about myself and the INFJ type.

I – I’m an introvert. Sometimes it may not seem that way because INFJs are known for being “wannabe extraverts” (and some I’s will have a lower scoring ‘I’, causing them to seem more outgoing).

But I’ve calmed down over the years and my ‘I’ trait has grown stronger, meaning I now avoid crowds completely. But sometimes if I am in public for long hours, I get amped up and seek more time out in the world. I spend too much time in my head, it’s killing me. Oddly enough the ‘I’ is my strongest trait.

N – I rely on my intuition to make my decisions. I can sometimes tell what someone is thinking. And I can almost always feel someone else’s emotions, which can be very energy draining, especially when I’m not sure where the hell these feelings are coming from in a location. What’s “strange” I guess is the fact that I just know things (that can freak people out) and end up being right about something.

I don’t always need something concrete to understand something. But since my N/S is somewhat balanced, so I consider myself a concrete intuitive. N’s look to the future, I do sometimes, but for the past year I can never see past 10 minutes from now. I currently live each day as it comes.

F – Yeah, I’m a feeler, so what? That does not mean I sit around and cry all day. It means I more often base decisions on what I’m feeling at the moment, instead of the logical “right” thing to do. Some Feelers are more in control of their emotions, while some Thinkers can be emotional. According to my results I’m roughly 50/50 with my F/T.

But my T side appears to be hidden, but will present itself in a short amount of time. As an INFJ I’m supposed to be all caring and shit, but some days I just don’t care. I do things for others because I feel pressured to, probably a Feeler trait. On my “up” days I don’t mind helping others, but part of me regrets for “giving in”. I’m not trying to be complicated, I promise..

J - Judging does not necessarily mean I judge people all the time. It’s just not true. If you do not gain my attention, then you are free to go. I will however write someone off as being important or unimportant to me within the first 20 seconds of meeting them. And that’s usually if they approach me first, I don’t just befriend everyone without doing some examinations.

But with my intuition I can tell within a few seconds whether or not I want to know a person. If I get really bad “vibes” then I’ll walk away, with politeness, of course. My J is also my other strongest trait. However, Js are often associated with having our “shit” together while being structured. Mentally I do, more so than physically. My room is a mess, but I can always locate things that I need.

Also everyone has a “shadow” type. For example, mine would be ESTP, which is the opposite of how I normally behave. Under stress one’s shadow type may reveal itself, causing one to “derail”. When I’m down and migraine ridden, my ESTP side will present itself. I become more outspoken, highly critical, prone to looking for arguments, living for moment, putting off deadlines and schedules, somewhat lazy, shunning intellectual thoughts and conversations.

Hmm..my ESTP shadow has been visiting me a lot lately. True story.
—————————–

So I’m ending my informational rant here. I hope you learned something, even if it will just leave your mind as you go about your day. So be it. But first, I’m sure inquiring minds want to know..

Here are a few links where you can take the MBTI test. I suggest taking them all and then go from there. And always remember to answer based on how you know yourself, preferably at home. Do NOT answer how your “work” self performs, that will end up null and voiding the whole point of this assessment.

HumanMetrics

Jung & Enneagram Test

Word Choice Test

Word Test (longer)

Short Test

Tomorrow’s post I will go into Enneagram types. Yes, more personality shit.

I feel like a the ugly stepsister or the awkward cousin that never shows up to family reunions, you only hear tale of their sordid life stories.

Not really…. I have just been too busy to sit down and write and tell all you good folks what I have been reading. My ever busy life has kept me from the task at hand, but not from reading. In my recent adventures as a teaching artist I also had a chance to get back to basics with some children’s literature. I truly forgot how refreshing it could be to sit down and read a children’s book, or even more rewarding – reading a children’s book to a child.

Plays

As a theatre person I am not required to read plays… but I enjoy reading them almost as much as a good book. It could be compared to someone who *cough* is a journalist and likes to read newspapers. Here are a few that I read in the last few weeks:

-In White America

-Native Son (the book was better)

-4 Plays by Emily Mann

-Eliot: A soldier’s fugue

-August Osage County *amazing!*

-Burn This *amazing!*

-Charlotte’s Web

Books

-The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni… you have got to read this woman, she is absolutely amazing. She writes a lot about what it is like to be black in America, but also about what it is like to be a woman etc. etc. I actually got to hear her read from her work a few weeks ago and she was great

-Vanishing Acts - Jodi Piccoult ***

-Good in Bed – Jennifer Weiner ****

-Twilight – Stephanie Meyers

-Oh the Places You’ll Go – Dr. Seuss ******

So let’s talk about Twilight. Yes you may know I have already read this book twice. But, as my crazy life started to wind down last week I wanted an easy read… so I picked it up off the shelf. Now I will give you this, I saw the cheese factor this time around. I definitely felt myself kind of rolling my eyes and saying get on with it already. I didn’t stop reading though; even though I knew what was going to happen, I still read it. I even watched part of the MTV movie awards last night just to see the new trailer for the movie on second book in the saga – New Moon. I am still addicted, at least partially to Meyer’s. She has an unrelenting hold on my romantic heart.

On a different note, I urge everyone out there to go out and read “Oh The Place’s You’ll Go,” I had forgotten how inspirational this book is. Dr. Seuss was certainly way ahead of his time… as he reminds not only the children but grown ups alike that it is okay to be scared, but you need to get out there and experience the big bad world!

LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

“For who has despised the day of small things?” (ZECHARIAH 4:10 NKJV)

Little things are often viewed as being insignificant, but in reality they are very important. I have found that little things are the spices in life.

For example, a man may feel he is showing love for his family by working three jobs and bringing home plenty of money to assure them financial security. He is not home most of the time and is tired when he is there. He is doing a big thing but ball with his son, bringing home a rose for his wife, taking her to dinner, etc. He may end up with a divorce or at best a marriage that is unsatisfying, dull, and tasteless. … Love is an effort. Sometimes we allow ourselves to become lazy in dispersing this gift.

Loving With Words

Words have a tremendous impact on all of our lives. I know people who have lived a life of crippling insecurity because their parents spoke words of judgment, criticism, and failure to them on a regular basis. These people can be healed only by receiving God’s unconditional love. They have been wounded in their souls (their inner selves, their mind, will, and emotions), a place to which only God has total access.

That is why it is important that we learn to use our words for blessing, healing and building up and not for cursing, wounding and tearing down, as Ephesians 4:29 says:

Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing.

That is especially true in regard to our own children.

As parents we should not tell our children they are something unless we want them to become what we are saying. Words create an image inside of us, and Proverbs 23:7 says that as a person thinks in his heart, so is he. If a parent tells a child he is stupid and can’t do anything right, he will start producing the seed that is planted in him. Those negative words will have an effect on his perception of himself, which in turn will be manifested in his attitude and behavior. He will literally become what he believes himself to be based on what he has been told about himself. The biblical principle is set forth in Galatians 6:7: “For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap.”

Believing the best of people and speaking words that build them up is one way of loving them. Think of these words and then think about how they make you feel: Ugly Stupid Failure Incompetent Slow Clumsy Hopeless

Do they make you feel uplifted, excited and happy, as though you can be a success at anything you attempt? I am sure they don’t.

Now consider words like: Attractive Intelligent Hopeful Blessed Creative Talented Anointed I am sure you find that such words affect you in a much more positive way.

You can see why words are so important in the life of the person who truly desires to walk in love toward others.

MAKE LOVE A HABIT

And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities. (HEBREWS 10:24)

WATCH YOUR MOUTH!

But I tell you, on the day of judgment men will have to give account for every idle (inoperative, nonworking) word they speak. (MATTHEW 12:36)

Parents, employers, friends, husbands, wives, children — all of us need to make a commitment to love others with our words, to build confidence in others. Every word we speak can be a brick to build with or a bulldozer to destroy.

Loving With Material Goods

Little children, let us not love [merely] in theory or in speech but in deed and in truth (in practice and in sincerity). (1 JOHN 3:17–18)

There is something deep in every believer that wants to help others; however, selfishness can cause us to be so aggressive about obtaining our own desires that we become oblivious to the needs around us.

We can have good intentions and still be disobedient. Procrastination is very deceptive. We don’t see it as disobedience because we intend to obey God; it is just that we are going to do it when — when we have more money, when we are not so busy, as soon as Christmas is over, after we get the kids in school this year, as quick as vacation is over, etc.

If you live to meet needs and to make others happy, you will find “joy unspeakable” in the process (1 Peter 1:8 KJV).

Loving With Thoughts

We make a mistake when we have the opinion that our thoughts don’t affect people. We can often feel the thoughts of others, and they can feel our thoughts. Our thoughts not only affect others, they also affect us in a most amazing way. Proverbs 23:7 teaches us that as we think, so we are. If we think unkind thoughts, we become unkind. If we think loving thoughts, we become loving. Satan tries to fill our minds with wrong thoughts all the time. Our responsibility is to cast down those wrong thoughts, get them under control and replace them with right thoughts.

Often we think things about people we would never say to them, not realizing that even our thoughts can affect others. We can sin in thought, word or deed, so we should be careful in all of these areas.

OUR THOUGHTS AFFECT OUR ATTITUDE

It is important for us to have a loving attitude toward people, an attitude that is filled with mercy and kindness. A right attitude begins with right thinking.

When I notice my attitude toward a person or a situation going in a wrong direction, I always find that the problem began with wrong thinking. I have learned that in order to avoid thinking negatively, I must keep my thoughts and attitude renewed daily (Ephesians 4:23).

A real breakthrough came for me in my own love walk when I realized that love was something I needed to do on purpose. I could not wait to feel loving; I had to choose to be loving. The same rule applies to our thoughts. We must learn to think good thoughts about people on purpose.

Thinking good thoughts opens the door for God to work. If we want the Lord’s good plan to manifest in our life, we must get into agreement with Him (Amos 3:3). He is not negative in any way, and according to the Bible, we have been given the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) — but we must choose to use it.

If you have not been working with the Holy Spirit to break old thought patterns and form new ones, it is time to get started.

When love takes charge of us (which is another way of saying, when God takes charge of us), we cannot think bad things about people. We don’t even want to.

Our life is a reflection of our thoughts. It is impossible to have a good life unless we have trained ourselves to have good thoughts. If we want others to see Jesus reflected in our life, then His mind must be reflected in us.

Be determined to love God, yourself and others with your thoughts. Ask the Lord to reduce you to love. It is the only road to true happiness, and the only way we can be a witness in our world today.

These are just some notes I took while reading the book. It really is an awesome book, I highly recommend it. I hope that by reading over these notes, it inspires you to pick up the book!

Notes from Reduce me to love by Joyce Meyers

Where does love fit into your list of priorities? Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34 NKJV). It seems to me that Jesus was saying love is the main thing on which we should concentrate.

Love should be number one on our spiritual priority list. We should study love, pray about love, and develop the fruit of love (according to Galatians 5:22-23, one of the nine fruits of the Spirit available to those in whom God’s Holy Spirit lives) by practicing loving others.

When we put our time and energy into things that do not fulfill us, we feel frustrated.

For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love. (GALATIANS 5:6)

Faith is very important, and yet according to 1 Corinthians 13:2 if we have enough faith to move mountains and have not love, we are nothing. Galatians 5:6 says faith works (is energized) by love. Knowing the love of God for us as individuals, and learning to allow His love to flow through us to others, is the power behind faith.

By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves]. (JOHN 13:34–35)

That is what people should be able to do with us as disciples of Christ. They should be able to identify us not only by our talk, but also by our walk. Are you willing and ready to become a student of the love walk? If so, you need to know that it requires education and commitment.

When we make a true commitment to walk in love, it usually causes a huge shift in our lifestyle. Many of our ways — our thoughts, our conversation, our habits — have to change. A love walk does not come easily or without personal sacrifice. Each time we choose to love someone, it will cost us something — time, money or effort. That’s why we are told to count the cost before we make the commitment (Luke 14:25–33).

True Christlike love is not found on the surface of life. It cannot just be seen and picked up. The Bible tells us that we must eagerly pursue and seek it. These are both strong words. The word pursue means “to follow in an effort to capture or overtake.”3 The word seek means “to try to find or discover; search for.”4 In other words, we need to go after love with all our might and act as if we cannot live without it!

If you and I want to learn about love, we will have to study it. We will have to read books about it, listen to teaching tapes on it, familiarize ourselves with everything Jesus and the apostles said about it.

All of us must not only learn about love, but also seek, pursue, and acquire it, because God’s Word boldly tells us that without it we are absolutely nothing.

If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing food], and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing. (1 CORINTHIANS 13:1–3)

Of course, the way Jesus sees how much we love Him is by how much we obey Him. He has commanded us to love one another; if we are not doing that, then we are not showing Him that we love Him.

A breakthrough in understanding came when God began to show me that I could not love others because I had never received His love for me. I mentally acknowledged the Bible teaching that God loved me, but it was not a reality in my heart. … First, God loves us, and by faith we receive His love. We then love ourselves in a balanced way, we give love back to God and we learn to love other people. Love must follow this course or it is not complete.

Once you realize that you are loved by God, not because of anything you are or anything you have done, then you can quit trying to deserve His love or earn His love and simply receive it and enjoy it.

LOVE PRAYER

May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! (EPHESIANS 3:17–19).

Right relationships are based on love — love flowing both ways. Once you begin receiving God’s awesome unconditional love, you can begin not only loving Him in return, but you can also begin loving others.

I like to see myself as a dispensary of blessings. I want to be the type of person others can come to and have blessings dispensed into their lives. I want to make others happy, and I have discovered that as I do, I reap happiness in my own life.

We show love to others by meeting their needs — practical needs as well as spiritual needs. Generosity is love in action. Love is seen through edification and encouragement, patience, kindness, courtesy, humility, unselfishness, good temper, gentleness (believing the best) and sincerity. We should actively pursue ways to show love, especially in little things.

A few of the locks that I have been to – the pictures are small to save bandwidth but you’ll get the idea…

images of Lock 1, Trenton are here…

images of Lock 2, Sidney are here…

images of Lock 3, Glen Miller are here…

images of Lock 4, Batawa are here…

images of Lock 5, Trent are here…

images of Lock 6, Trenton are here…

images of Lock 7, Glen Ross are here…

images of Lock 8, Percy Reach are here…

images of Lock 9, Meyers are here…

images of Lock 10, Hagues Reach are here…

images of Lock 11/12, Ranney Falls are here…

Twilight by Stephanie Meyers

Someone offered to lend me this book and I figured I should see what all the fuss is about.  I found it well written and suspenseful, but not worthy of the frenzy of adulation it has received.  Of course, 15 years ago I may have felt differently.  Meyers captures the frantic sort of passion that one feels with a first love, the conviction that this is it forever and always, and also the narcissism of a teenager.  I may have liked the book better if I hadn’t found Bella, the heroine so grating.  She goes on at length about how plain and ordinary she is, but expects Edward to change her so they can spend eternity together (and although I haven’t read the sequels, I’m fairly sure he does in the end).  Further, if you were some sort of benevolent semi-immortal creature would you really want to go to high school over and over?  I’ve been once and that was quite enough.  And what’s the point if you already know everything being taught, don’t socialize with anyone and miss half the school year?  I could buy a bunch of vampires going to college over and over, you could get a degree in every subject and from the description the Cullens don’t have to worry about money. But I suppose that should be the basis for my vampire novel.

Grass Lake Meadow

This photo was taken on May 10th, 2009.

The weather today was awesome, blue skys and warm sunshine, what a glorious day for a pleasant drive and to explore places like Grass Lake Meadow on HW89 just south of Meyers.

It was a peaceful location, the sound of the stream bustling through the meadow, the changing spring colors, plus a little reminder of the winter with snow on Thompson Peak in the background.

I’ve been distracted a little lately and not been out and about, but with places like Grass Lake Meadow and Spring in the air, I’ll be making more effort!

More Tahoe Photos posted at Tahoe Photos and Tahoe Photos Gallery.

The Universe as a Hologram.
Source Link: Crystalinks

Does Objective Reality Exist, or is the Universe a Phantasm?

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect’s name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn’t matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.

Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein’s long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect’s findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect’s findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears. The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The “whole in every part” nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes. This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect’s discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration:
Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium’s front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect’s experiment. According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality.

Such particles are not separate “parts”, but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these “eidolons”, the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected. The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order. At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past. What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be — every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from blue whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of “All That Is.”

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a “mere stage” beyond which lies “an infinity of further development”. Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat’s brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious “whole in every part” nature of memory storage. Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram. Pribram’s theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage–simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information. Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word “zebra”, you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like “striped”, “horselike”, and “animal native to Africa” all pop into your head instantly. Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information–another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with every other portion, it is perhaps nature’s supreme example of a cross-correlated system.

The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram’s holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions. An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram’s theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.

Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability. Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.

Pribram’s belief that our brains mathematically construct “hard” reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support. It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called “osmic frequencies”, and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions. But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram’s holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm’s theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is “there” is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?

Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

We are really “receivers” floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram. This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram’s views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature.

Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm. In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level. It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual ‘A’ to that of individual ‘B’ at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology. In particular, Grof feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness.

In the 1950s, while conducting research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species’s anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. The woman’s experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate. Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.

In later research, Grof found the same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions which did not involve the use of drugs. Because the common element in such experiences appeared to be the transcending of an individual’s consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations of space and time, Grof called such manifestations “transpersonal experiences”, and in the late ’60s he helped found a branch of psychology called “transpersonal psychology” devoted entirely to their study. Although Grof’s newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm. As Grof recently noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.

The holographic paradigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain — as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical. Such a turnabout in the way we view biological structures has caused researchers to point out that medicine and our understanding of the healing process could also be transformed by the holographic paradigm. If the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows. What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease may actually be due to changes in consciousness which in turn effect changes in the hologram of the body.

Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because in the holographic domain of thought images are ultimately as real as “reality”. Even visions and experiences involving “non-ordinary” reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book “Gifts of Unknown Things,” biologist Lyall Watson discribes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then “click” off again and on again several times in succession. Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if “hard” reality is only a holographic projection. Perhaps we agree on what is “there” or “not there” because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.

If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson’s are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality. What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams. Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry. Whether Bohm and Pribram’s holographic paradigm becomes accepted in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had an influence on the thinking of many scientists. And even if it is found that the holographic model does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous communications that seem to be passing back and forth between subatomic particles, at the very least, as noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College in London, Aspect’s findings “indicate that we must be prepared to consider radically new views of reality”.

Related Links on the Holographic Universe:

Psychedelic Adventure blogspot.

Stephenie Meyer, upon waking from a dream, lucid and effervescent, immediately pours the filaments, the textures, the core truth into a book. In no ambiguous terms, this is resemblant of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s mythic creation of Kubla Khan… a vision gifted within a dream. Suffice to say, Taylor may have already been a poet before he received his vision, yet as history reveals time and time again, visions come at unexpected times to unexpected people – and we, with a meagre faculty of rationalism, are least equipped to criticise that the idea came to the wrong person.

Indeed, the dream that came to Stephenie Meyer is texturally rich, and has the layers of perhaps one of the greatest romances ever told, and Stephenie Meyer certainly has the sensitivity to translate it for today’s young audience. She has fully captured the depth of the love story – and, beyond anything, only a storyteller can do that (debatable as it is if a storyteller and a writer are one and the same thing).

Which brings me to Stephen King, and some of you may be aware of the comments he made about Stephenie Meyer, if not, check this. Firstly, Stephen King is a pop culture writer. The majority of his writings are hardly literature, and bearing this in mind, if he is judging Stephenie Meyer, then he is only so capable as to judge her ability to captivate an audience – but hang on a second, the one consistency in popular culture is that a person’s ability to captivate an audience speaks for itself by merely – book sales. Infact, if you wanted to speak about good writers, one of the few that integrate popular culture and simultaneously writes satire is Terry Pratchett. I find Michael Crichton to be a far better writer than Stephen King, and while we’re on the topic, J K Rowling is atrocious as a writer, but wonderful as a storyteller. But all this is using the term “writer” very loosely. Literature, as one would have it, is upon the makings of authors such as Salman Rushdie. Within popular culture, however, it is about engrossing audiences – not about writing in and of itself – the intentions are entirely different, it is about themes rather than the mastery of words.

What convinces me of Stephenie’s magical story is within her discription of how she wrote her book,

“All this time, Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn’t shut up. I’d stay up as late as I could stand trying to get all the stuff in my mind typed out, and then crawl, exhausted, into bed (my baby still wasn’t sleeping through the night, yet) only to have another conversation start in my head. I hated to lose anything by forgetting, so I’d get up and head back down to the computer. Eventually, I got a pen and notebook for beside my bed to jot notes down so I could get some freakin’ sleep. It was always an exciting challenge in the morning to try to decipher the stuff I’d scrawled across the page in the dark.”

There is a name among writers circles for this kind of writing. Billy Marshall-Stoneking, the legendary playwright of our times calls this “mediumistic writing”. I remember him explaining to me once during tea break at a writing workshop, that truly original writing is “catching”, not “throwing”… that is, writers aren’t inventing their characters – their characters are as alive and as pulsating as they are. They are, in fact, listening to the voice of their characters. If you make your character do something that is totally out of character, your character will fight with you, and sometimes, stop talking to you – until you are ready to listen again. This is why great writing has always been a struggle of the soul – it is not a picnic, it is a dramatic interchange that is life altering. Most “authors” do not write like that. Most authors imagine themselves to be the “creators” of their characters, as inventors of their fictional worlds, and go abour writing their stories in much the same way – and such authors do not stand the test of time – BECAUSE THERE IS NO SOUL IN THEIR WORK! For your stories to be immortal, you need to be listening – you need to hear the voices of your characters.

Suffice to say, Stephenie Meyer has dreamt a breathtaking vision, it is exhilarating and has earnt my respect because I have personally seen teenagers sit there in silence, lost in the world she created, their eyes LITERALLY GLEAMING with some insightful understanding of the magical. I say this with no exaggeration – it is almost as if a “seed” of something profound was given to Stephenie, and is passed on to those who read Twilight. Some concept both utopian and utterly, utterly, romantic.

Infact, just about the only book I would recommend of Stephen King’s is “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, which is a remarkable introspection of life, and of his passion. It is the one work where a great level of soulsearching and effort had come from King, placing the book in Entertainment Weekly’s 100 Best Reads from 1983 – 2008. That is his only book in that list. It isn’t a perfect book, yet it has some crutial messages from a man who’s had a rare opportunity.

Stephen King has forgotten the meaning of romance. Perhaps to him, romance can only exist within the covers of a Mills & Boon, and that kind of thinking is unrewarding. There is, of course, the “manufactured romance”, a million and one replicas ready to feed you, dissapoint you, and ultimately harden your soul. Then there is the real thing, rare, and hard to find – oh so very rare that it comes to you as a fleeting thought, a spark here now, gone now. I believe it is this very thing that placed itself in Stephenie’s dream.

From Stephenie’s site:

I know the exact date that I began writing Twilight, because it was also the first day of swim lessons for my kids. So I can say with certainty that it all started on June 2, 2003. Up to this point, I had not written anything besides a few chapters (of other stories) that I never got very far on, and nothing at all since the birth of my first son, six years earlier.

I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately. For what is essentially a transcript of my dream, please see Chapter 13 (“Confessions”) of the book.

Though I had a million things to do (i.e. making breakfast for hungry children, dressing and changing the diapers of said children, finding the swimsuits that no one ever puts away in the right place, etc.), I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. I was so intrigued by the nameless couple’s story that I hated the idea of forgetting it; it was the kind of dream that makes you want to call your friend and bore her with a detailed description. (Also, the vampire was just so darned good-looking, that I didn’t want to lose the mental image.) Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn’t done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering. But I didn’t want to lose the dream, so I typed out as much as I could remember, calling the characters “he” and “she.”

From that point on, not one day passed that I did not write something. On bad days, I would only type out a page or two; on good days, I would finish a chapter and then some. I mostly wrote at night, after the kids were asleep so that I could concentrate for longer than five minutes without being interrupted. I started from the scene in the meadow and wrote through to the end. Then I went back to the beginning and wrote until the pieces matched up. I drove the “golden spike” that connected them in late August, three months later.

Read the rest of Stephenie’s article here. Now I leave you with Kubla Khan…

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail :
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

It’s about time. After 18 years of an increasing disconnect between the mentality of the average human being on the ground in the U.S. and the average human being on the ground in Iraq, the media is stepping up and trying to help us put it together: War = Death.

This 30-year-old very real man, Phillip Meyers, was killed in Afghanistan on April 4. He is important. He has a family. He is not alone.

I won’t go so far as to say there’s some sort of conspiracy afoot, one meant to generated a sort of laissez faire attitude about bombs and mass graves, but part of me wishes that these wars really had been our Vietnam. Had they even proposed (in a serious way) reinstating the draft, I can’t believe Iraq would ever have been invaded. Had we watched the war on TV, I doubt very highly we could have stomached it for this long.

These images are difficult, horrible, and, yes, they will make you cry and beat your fist against walls and grit your teeth. But that’s not such a bad thing. Being connected to something in which real people are hurting on both sides is necessary to understanding why it’s so goddamned important we get out. And never go back in so cavalierly.

During a busy day, the Phillies let go Geoff Jenkins. Despite the fact I can barely tell him and Eric Bruntlett apart from more than 30 feet, I’m saddened by this loss. If you’ve been reading this blog — or truthfully any one post — you can tell I’m a sucker for heart, something Jenkins, who only ever played a reserve role for the Phils, definitely has a lot of. He loves the game of baseball, and that means I love him.

Alas, heart doesn’t always score runs (or prevent them) so Geoff had to go.

On the heels of that move, the Champs announced they are interested in Gary Sheffield and Andruw Jones. Chan Ho Park also got the fifth starter position, and Meyers got opening day rights (his third in a row).

Happy April Fool’s Day!  To commemorate this holiday, today’s video is of an awesome prank the Philadelphia Phillies played on teammate Kyle Kendrick.  The whole team, some members of the media, and even his agent told Kendrick that he was being traded to a team in Japan.  The best part is that it was all captured on video.

KEY POINTS OF HILARITY:

0:44 – Kendrick goes into manager Charlie Manuel’s office, and Manuel breaks the news to Kendrick that he’s been traded.

0:59 – Look at the look of poor Kendrick’s face.

2:27 – “We got him hook, line, and sinker.”

3:17 – Strange mouth movements on Kendrick.

3:34 – “You know what I say?  You just got PUNK’D!”

4:09 – “You see this Kobayashi, that’s the hot dog eater!”