HEADLINES--THERE IS NO NEWS TODAY

Reading the headlines on who "won" and who "lost" this election day, May 19, 2010k suddenly made me realize that the what we learn in the news is no better and maybe worse than the IQ level of the person doing the reporting.
At a minimum, what we learn seems dependent on the following
1. The Hook. Forget substance. The news story must "hook" the reader. Ah! That is why so many stories never come close to the headline. You're hooked!
2. Vocabulary This morning on one of the "morning news shows" Meridith Vera asked a girl who had forgot and left her baby outside and the baby was being taken away if she felt "vilified by the press". What Meridith-you expect the girl to what? understand?
Huge example here about innate meanness, insensitivity, and the reporter comes first-not the story.
To many stories are that way. Words used to make the author look good that have nothing to do with the story itself.
3. Opiniated If you put "Truth" on one end of a stick and "Lies" on the other almost all headlines today land closer to the Lies end than the Truth side.
This election day was a win for the "tea party" if I read the headlines correctly. . Note the quotes around tea party. Most readers probably think there is such a party.
There is if you believe the media who invented it.
So, it was not so much a win for the candidates as the tea parties and the media?
4. Restricted. I don't think there has ever been a time when the news we receive is so carefully controlled right down to what is going on next door. Headlines now are more interested in who got kicked off Dancing, with the Vain,; the sexual predator in Nome who might attack in Hoboken; the politician who cheated on his wife but still believes abstinence as the best policy, Great irony in that third one.
There is enough oil now floating in the Gulf to power how many cities for how long? The headlines read "More Oil Spilling into the Gulf".at the same time "BP Doubles Estimate of the Oil Captured". Wow! What is it about "Oil Now 324 Feet Deep/10 miles Wide" that missed the headlines.
5. Bought and paid for. Corporate CEO's now dictate what can be read, seen or heard. Unless there are dollars involved do you think you will get to read, see, or hear it. News must be sold-not reported.
6. Looks over sustance. Radio and the print media are the last refuge for the best reporters who are never going to be on a glamor magazine. Print is on the way out and radio failed years ago.
The news seems to be following the old addition if it looks good it must be. Forget substance. Forget good headlines/
In the end--No News is Good News.

Caffeine Rules

I just read how an Arizona police force got a tip about illegal aliens in a house and mounted a full scale swat team attack.
In making the following remarks, I realize that there will be those who say I diminish the dangers faced by everyone in Arizona (and particularly along the border) by the drug wars in Mexico and the threats to life and property all citizens in those areas face.
But attaching a residence because people are inside?
What's the rush?
Set up a "human blockade". Surround the place, hire some of the unemployed and feed them round the clock to keep vigilant until whatever is in the house starves or gives up. Wow!
What has happened to us that we "attack", "attack", "attack".
Why not "think"?
I have a feeling its because our nation is ramped up on caffeine.
Anytime a TV commercial can advocate drinking something that will make you feel wide awake at 4 a.m. after having driven a race car from 130 -5:30 p.m in a 500 mile race and not have people realized you are selling a mind alerting drug is beyond me.
A cup of coffee has enough caffeine to wake most people up. There are now people who need a Double-Shot just to get started.
It isn't just me who has to really make an effort to keep up with a TV program? Is it because those who are still "sober" can't keep up with the "juiced-up entertainment" being offered so don't?
In fact, Caffeine may be at the root of almost every man-made catastrophe of the past decade. People are more hyped up on attacking the next moment rather than "reflecting and planning ahead" (think 9/11); others spend hours on line trading stocks rather than hours in research making informed decisions (read stock market collapse); "experts" don't test for results rather just put\something in place that has so many built in redundancies that it should work but doesn't (read the Toyota recall or Deepwater Horizon) while those in control of the media rush to make-up news about all of the above (read all 24 new hour stations).
Here is a thought--
Mind altering drugs in this country have been illegal for just over 100 years. Not Caffeine.
Read 1984.

THE MINDS EYE

EYE OF PROVIDENCE

The writings and teachings of the Knights of the Blue Oyster Wars refer to "The Minds Eye" rather than the "Eye of Providence". But how the symbol is pictured is the same

The KNIGHT is taught that the "The Minds Eye" must be trained, educated, and improved daily so everyone reaches the goal of caring and sharing individuals in a universal society of equals .
Everday, Americans see what the Knights refer to as The Minds Eye. The "eye"appears on a dollar bill(1) and is often referred to (incorrectly) as a Masonic symbol, Few know the symbol is based on teachings dating back to India and ancient Egypt and is important not only to the Knights but t0 Buddhism and Judaism as well as present day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
Few also know what the the symbol means. "Annuit Coeptis" means "Announcing the Birth of" and "Novus Ordo Seclorum" means "New World Order". In one United States based, Christian interpretation, the
"Serpent promised Adam and Eve that their eyes would "be opened" if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The key word in this passage is eyes, which in Hebrew can be translated 'knowledge'. Opened can be translated 'broadened'.
What the Serpent promised Adam and Eve was that knowledge would be broadened if they ate of the forbidden fruit. But the most foreboding aspect of this scripture emerges from the fact that the Hebrew word for "eyes" is not plural, but singular. What the Serpent actually told Adam and Eve was that their "eye" would be broadened by knowledge.
The "eye" that Scripture wants us to consider is not the physical organ of sight, but the eye of the mind or the soul. This singular "eye" is called the "third eye" of clairvoyance in the Hindu religion, the eye of Osiris in Egypt, and the All-Seeing Eye in Freemasonry.
(John Daniel, Scarlet and the Beast , Vol. III, pp. 6-7)(2)
Note: I deliberately kept the references to the Serpent (the symbol for Lucifer/evil) t0 highlight the author's negative inferences that "broadening knowledge"is somehow equated with evil. Concern about this "closed mindedness" is also a theme throughout the Knights writing on Americans and societal strictures.
Usually refered to as "the Eye of Providence", the symbol shows an eye surrounded by rays of light, a glory. and usually is enclosed by a triangle. It is sometimes interpreted as representing the eye of God keeping watch on humankind. . .

"The Eye is positioned above an unfinished pyramid with thirteen steps, representing the original thirteen states and the future growth of the country. The lowest level of the pyramid shows the year 1776 in Roman numerals. The combined implication is that the Eye, or God, favors the
prosperity of the United States. (3)

The Knights of the Blue Oyster Wars differ by referring to the symbol as "The Mind's Eye" and that the "Eye" is symbolic of the importance of an "all seeing, all feeling" knowlege as a primary goal in every life. The writings of the Knights clearly suggest that The Minds Eye, by not being trained, is slowly being closed thus preventing each individual from "becoming all knowing, all seeing."
Critics of the symbol on the American dollar are in a strange way, on the same page as the Knights. Fundamentalists concerns are related to the fact that a symbol of the devil is seen and used every day in ignorance. The Knights concern is the symbol of The Mind's Eye is seen and used every day with increasing ignorance.

The Great Seal of the United States of America
Front Side and Reverse Side

Click on for link
(1) The symbol also appears on the 50 Estonia krona and the 500 Ukranian hryvania
(2) SATAN ON OUR DOLLAR, An interesting "attack" on the "illumati" eye as bearing witness to "Lucifer", it nonetheless contains a complete description of the elements of the symbol and study of the symbol.
(3) Eye of Providence, from Wikipedia.com.

Blue Oysters

Mushrooms are considered the “third kingdom” of life—yet we understand very little about them. In fact, much like bio-magnetism [1] we don’t know the most basic things.

“The mushroom is the‘fruiting body’of a subterranean network of microscopic hyphae, improbably long root like cells that thread themselves through the soil like neurons. Bunched like cables, the hyphae form webs of (still microscopic mycelium."[2] We don’t know how fungi propagate—the same kind may take three years or thirty years to appear. It may well be impossible to ever visually study “its structure because its mycelia are to tiny and delicate to tease from the soil without disintegrating."[3] Mushrooms arise from nowhere without, as my grandmother liked to say, “rhyme or reason.” In Michigan, one was found that covered forty acres and was over a century old.

All mushrooms are considered to be fungi. Unlike plants, they lack chlorophyll and, therefore, cannot manufacture their food energy from the sun. They are like animals in that they feed on organic matter. And, unlike either plants or animals, the mushroom contains no calories (which is energy derived from the sun and the measure most commonly used by nutritionists). Mushrooms actually do not like and will wither in too much sunlight. Some researchers speculate that mushrooms contain a huge amount of lunar rather than solar energy.

Blue Oysters mushrooms grow easily on a wide range of substrates and are good candidates for recycling wood and paper waste into edible mushrooms.[4] Most recently, they have found use in cleaning up hazardous and toxic petrochemical spills. About a pound of Blue Oyster mushrooms can devour a mass of petrochemical sludge and within two weeks covert the mass to edible protein molecules.[5]

Above all else, fungi such as mushrooms are what keep the earth alive. Without them "the dead would pile up without end, the carbon cycle would cease to function, and living things would end up without things to eat . . . They stand on the threshold between the living and the dead."[6]
See a video of the Blue Oyster mushroom at the following web link:
(http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=blue+oyster&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#q=blue+oyster+mushroom&hl=en&emb=0)

---

[1] For a brief introduction and specific studies go on-line to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnetism

[2] Pollan, Michael, The Omnivore’s Dilemna: A Natural History of Four Meals,
Penquin Press, 2006, page 174. On-line at”
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural ... - Google Book Search”.

[3] Op. cit. Pollen, p. 174

[4] Sporworks.com http://sporeworks.com/store/product.php?productid=16146

[5] Using a combination of hair, which naturally absorbs oil from air and water and actsas a sponge for an oil slick was cleaned up when 1,000 spongy hairmats the size of a doormat were used to soaked up the oily black gunk. 10,000 oyster mushrooms were divided among and on the mats. In less than 12 weeks they converted the oily hair mats into nontoxic compost. Pictures and commentary at
Inhabitat » CLEANING UP AN OIL SPILL WITH HAIR AND MUSHROOMS?

[6] p. Cit., Pollen, p. 174

An Introduction

The first box arrived at my parents' home in mid March the Saturday morning I was miles away final processing "out-of" the Army and about to "get home" for the first time in three years. The arrival of that box, like the others that would come quarterly for the next 36 years (until my father's death), was 40in x 12in x 12in, made of corrugated cardboard and covered in brown paper with knotted and tied crisscrossed white strings every two inches. My name and address were in that same perfect script my 1st grade teacher snap pencils against the top my head cajoling me to "try harder". The return address on the box was (as it always would be) KBOW, 239 Minaire, TAMARACK (pronounced "MINE AIR" and "TAM ARE RACK" as I was about to learn.)
Directions were handwritten on a sheet of plain, white paper scotched-taped to the long side of two overlapped -end to end- paper bags holding (as I counted later) 19 manila folders, each about two inches thick. The message:
Greetings Knight *Historian and Keeper"
You will honor your birth right
1. After your parents' death, report/publish or otherwise make known the Knights' history, philosophy, and connected matters known and made known.
2. Memorize the contents in each folder: note taking is forbidden.
3. Burn all papers and folders and boxes within two years of receipt.
Falling to achieve these expectations will mean the remaining records will be destroyed
[More about my reaction later. For now, just try to appreciate the shock.]
I remember opening, scanning. and reading that first folder and the odyssey of discovery, disbelief, awe, hope, and fear beginning with those first moments. My experiences and outlook have been shaped, directed, and influenced by what I found; gathered, combined, memorized and now, years later, recall.
Now is the time to share Knights lore and history. In doing so, it is my hope that other descendants recognize themselves. The heritage we share lives on.
Knights Know

KBOW--first installment--Thanksgiving, 2008