Merry Christmas, all

God Bless Us, Every One!

in the immortal words of Charles Dickens

(including the misanthropes)

We give thanks, again, for
health, happiness,
love, life, laughter
comfort, community, country, cheer
food, family, friends, fun
prosperity, peace, potential perfection,
and all our other blessings

or, in a less alliterative form:
-basic needs met
-life, health, strength,
-love, happiness, peace
-family, friends, community, country
-comfort, prosperity
-safety, security
-travel, diversity
-drugs/medications/pharmaceuticals/medicines
-technology like radio, computers, television, telephones
-transportation..
-stimulus:good taste, sound, sight, smell, touch:
-good food, music, movies, art, perfume, incense, massage, sex..
-books, magazines, blogs
-restaurants, libraries
-toys for all ages (e.g. bikes, cars)

Sorcery and Witchcraft

A Saudi woman is beheaded for this!?

I'm not sure I know what sorcery and witchcraft are...
In America, you can believe anything you want.
It sounds like something out of Buffy the vampire slayer.
It's all in good fun, no?
The word gospel is from God's spell...aren't spells a part of sorcery?

I am disturbed by both the punishment and the belief in the seriousness of the crime.

It seems very backward, if not stupid or silly, to me.

Love Everything

and everything includes...

sorrow, apathy, pain, death, regret, resentment, anger, hatred, sin, crime, disappointment, failure, poverty, misery, illness, torture, war, murder, violence, depravity, obesity, unhealthiness, addiction, ignorance, stupidity, foolishness, boredom, breakup, discomfort, slavery, powerlessness...

but...
EGGHEAD stands for Even Good God Hates Evil And Death
but that might not be all it's cracked up to be.. :-)

here's a good quote: "If you're going through hell, keep going"

what's in the word Berkeley?

yikes!

Berk or burk
means:
(british) a stupid person or fool,
shortened from Berkeley or Berkshire hunt,
rhyming slang for cunt

while berke (verb) means:
1.to murder, as by suffocation, to leave no or few marks of violence.
or
2.to suppress or get rid of by some indirect maneuver.

ley means law in spanish

lee means:
protective shelter (the lee of the rock gave us protection from the storm)

ley means:
a pewter made of 80%tin and 20%lead (from aley, obsolete of alloy)
or
a leu (literally, lion): the coin and monetary unit of Romania, equal to 100 bani

but wait, there's more:
ley also means, arable land put down to grass (grassland or pastureland)
or
used in "ley line", a line joining two prominent points in a landscape.

and of course don't forget URKEL!

kele means "to cool" (obsolete, from Chaucer). Brr. kele.

BER stands for Bit Error Rate, which means:
the fraction of a message or block of data which is wrong.
(such as, what is the BER of Christianity?)

So,
I like the meanings of Berkeley as
-shelter from stupidity
and
-shelter from cunning murderous violence

of course, there's also (George) Berkeley himself: link; (wikipedia)

video I like

genius physicality

juggling
martial arts
dance
magic

(but not sports, so much, for some reason...)
...unless it's a dunking contest, hole in one, or other masterful/supreme athleticism, like olympic perfection, or a world record (or something no one else can do).
I used to watch gymnastics and basketball while at Davis. I still like those.

a good example I came across on youtube is entitled 'people are awesome.'
I recommend it.

other things i like
books, music, movies (especially, documentaries and animation)
and, of course, tasty food (like sushi or thai)

i realize sex and porn are noticeably absent..
but I like them, too, of course.

some banality

about evil, that is

sympathy for the devil
the killer in me is the killer in you
that's why I say hey man nice shot

I like this music.

evil roles
devil, satan, antichrist -from the bible
hannibal lecter -by anthony harris
kaiser soze -the usual suspects, christopher mcquarrie
sauron -j.r.r. tolkien, lord of the rings trilogy
the joker -batman (jerry robinson, bill finger, bob kane)
dracula -bram stoker
the emperor -star wars, george lucas
it -stephen king

oh, and don't forget Voldemort, a riddle, from J.K. Rowling
and Freddy Krueger, by Wes Craven
and The Terminator, by James Cameron

but God is good

as Charles Manson said
If God is one, how can I be evil?

aside
rhyme crime
hannibal the cannibal, cyrus the virus
evel knieval

yum
"on a kaiser role"

link; wikipedia list of AFI's (American Film Institute's) favorite heroes and villains

Note: I believe God/Devil are just historical antecedants to the modern comic book and movie folklore of good guys/badguys; or heroes and villains. It's all just fun. Cultural creations (and therefore only virtually real). It's all good? It's all good :-)

an evil thought?: all life has the same claim to live, meat is murder...ants and even amoebas or rotifers are equal to a human life. We're scum of a film of life on the surface of planet earth (props to Stephen Hawking) in an infinite universe; everyone dies, all matter has a half-life, death is a universal fate; it's all good. If abortion is legal, akin to removing a mole, then so should be killing (of anyone at any age). Ugh. Or Muahaha. Take your pick.

Of course, vegetarians kill plants. You can't win.

New Library Reads

5 books on madness

I'm reading (from the library):
1) Madness: A brief history, by Roy Porter
2)The Center cannot hold, by Elyn R. Saks
3) Just like someone without mental illness, only more so, by Mark Vonnegut, M.D.
4)The Eden Express, by Mark Vonnegut
5)Anatomy of an Epidemic, by the author of Mad in America (which I have/have read), Robert Whitaker

also, Happy Birthday, Greg!