Zapping Myself and Buying Groceries with Famous People

I've got my copper wires and gadetry set-up like the lady in the blog entry below described. This is supposed to zap internal parasites in my body and cleanse my liver. The author says I'll poop out these lumpy green deposits. I hope this works so I can get back to drinking beer again. I'll let you know how it all comes out.

Oh, by the way, I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day and low and behold standing next to me was Robert Earl Keen, the Texas famed singer-songwriter. He was shuffling around with a People magazine (which he bought) trying not to get noticed. I had to have a price check on my dozen limes I was picking up for Adena to brew up margaritas so I let him go ahead of me so I could chit-chat.

I mentioned to him what I was doing, kind of happy that my evening was going to be fun. As he put down his few groceries which included a bundle of "instant" fireplace logs (I could see he was in for a dull evening) he turned to me and in a kinda sad poetic voice just murmured, "Yeah .... the things we do. The things we do."

Let's Rewrite History: "Abraham Lincoln was just another evil white rascist"

I was reading through the African-American magazine Ebony the other day (while sitting in my Spanish-speaking-only barber shop waiting to get a haircut.) I came across a full page advertisement declaring that the secret racism of Abraham Lincoln is now revealed in the book Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream!



The remainder of the claims in the ad were blatantly offensive to me (a white guy from Illinois, a history buff, and an admirer of Lincoln). The claims in fact were slanderous, stupid and an obvious attempt to rewrite history and all the known facts about Abe Lincoln.



After googling this book though, I found several reviews giving this book undue respect.



I found one reasonable review - "Forced into Glory" Book Review by Edward Steers, Jr. that addresses the books more obvious political, not historical, agenda.



I'm just amazed at how revisionist history like this can be popularized and then presented in full-page magazines geared towards blacks only under the disguise of scholarly research. Its has the full intention of only causing anger, hatred, and resentment.



Lincoln himself was an amazing non-racist human being and suffered more pain and agony over his fight against the evils of slavery than most any of us today could dare imagine. It's a real shame and an embarassment to me that a present day black author would try to systematically dismantle Lincoln's character to the black American populace today.

America Was Not Founded Upon Christianity

My son, who's presently working in Bagdad, sent me a good, honest article, refuting the false notion that America was founded by Christians upon Christian precepts - of which I agree with (and already knew perfectly well).



Great quotes by Ben Franklin: "I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped." and "As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see."



Of course these were very scientific men from the "age of Enlightenment" and they did not generally believe in the divinity of Jesus or the miracles in the Bible. In the normal sense of the word they were not "Christians", but they were educated men who believed generally in a life after death and a supreme being who created the universe.



Even Voltaire concludes, "Well, to what dogma do all minds agree? To the worship of a God, and to honesty. All the philosophers of the world who have had a religion have said in all ages: 'There is a God, and one must be just.'"



George Bush probably is a true believer of the more fundamentalist versions of Christianity, but I think he is mindfully just as he seeks freedoms for "muslims, infidels, christians, and jews" like the founding fathers themselves did.



I think Bush might agree hand-in-hand with Jefferson who gave his reason for going to church as, "...no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example."



(I thought it most interesting to find though that the "Under God" in the pledge of allegience wasn't implemented till the McCarthy era of the '50s.)



Thanks for the article, Brandon.