M*A*S*H Star Mike Farrell on our Show plus SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE

Quote of the Day: “If there isn't deep integrity and fundamental character strength, the challenges of life will cause true motives to surface and human relationship failure will replace short-term success." —Stephen R. Covey

One of the most inspiring stories of 2008: 'Good Samaritan' saves crying woman's foreclosed home (from CNN.com)... But first some infuriating things my husband said that weren't so funny while they were happening...





Spiritual architecture

My husband and I went to a sports bar to watch the last Packer game of the season on Sunday. We had so much fun — but we have the goofiest relationship. Paul hates it when I use big words; he always wants me to act like a dumb blonde. So when the waitress came over to take our order I happened to be telling him an idea for a chapter in my book called "Spiritual Architecture" he got really embarrassed and told me to please not use intelligent words like that. "It might make the waitress uncomfortable," he said.

WTF?? Was he implying the waitress was stupid? No. What he meant was that he wanted me to fit into the Neanderthal crowd. Usually I have to use very pornographic language just to get his attention.

When we fight, we are talking to each other's wounds...not to each other. We fight over who’s being nicer. We strangle each other over who is doing the Golden Rule better. This reminds me of my favorite line from Dr. Strangelove: “You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!”

By the way, when I first met my husband I was shocked at how much TV he watched. And it was always some celebrity tabloid show featuring the flavor of the month. I asked him, “Don’t you think we’re too obsessed with celebrities in this culture? He just stared at the TV and said, “No, it’s educational.”

My big question is, why am I experiencing life with this particular person? Oh yeah, according to Bob Lancer -- the purpose of marriage is to learn compassion!

So I asked him, “Tell me how, how is it educational to learn how many belly-button rings or mansions Britney Spears has? I think this is making us a nation of covetous, jealous, greedy, panicky zombies.”

He wouldn't answer. He was zoned out staring at the TV, and didn't hear me.

Over Christmas, my sister and I were going through all our old record albums, LPs. I have all the original Beatles, Jethro Tull ('Benefit' is the best, especially the song 'Sossity!') Led Zeppelin, Moody Blues, ELP, The Band, Zephyr, Fleetwood Mac ('Mystery to Me' - my favorite before Buckingham-Nicks came along...) We were reminiscing about how much fun it was to put the needle into the groove of the record, even if it would scratch the record. There was something so solid about “playing a record” on an actual turntable.

I began to think about the way we are becoming less material and more digital. Doing away with cumbersome record players, cassettes, and even CDs. We are becoming "thought" -- one mind. We are able to communicate and almost think directly to each other over computer signals and “text” messages – which is like grabbing words out of thin air.

Think of the invisible notes of music or the invisible numbers of mathematics. There is a divine harmony underlying everything. Everything is beauty and harmony. The physical picture is not the real story. Kind of like the inner software in a computer — the substance, the meat. Everything else is just temporary packaging. What's real is what's inside. The invisible.

Speaking of music, our kids blew our minds on New Years Eve. We took them to a party and they sat down at the piano and played the entire night. Each separately - Kevin, 13 played Cold Play and Muse. Jack, who is 14, played songs from the new Jack's Mannequin album (his favorite band) plus The Pink Panther, Sting and lots of other stuff. Jack wants guitar lessons too. A couple of years ago, I couldn't get them to even consider piano lessons. Now they each have a Yamaha in their rooms and they compose music everyday! You can plug in your laptop and compose as it creates sheet music.

My father was a violinist, my sister is a composer who wrote a new theme song for Extreme Home Makeover (and a major Gospel Choir is singing her composition!!) and my younger brother, who died a few years ago, was a prodigy with perfect pitch.
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New Year's Resolutions

In 2009 I am going to try to be less sensitive. I am so sensitive I feel sorry for that little depressed egg bobbing around in the “Depression” commercial…

I am so sensitive, I cried at the violence in the James Bond movie and then jumped out of the car when my husband said I had “too much compassion." My son Kevin was upset that I reminded him to have a conscience after the movie – that I made him less numb to violence. In other words, I ruined his high... and therefore it’s a bad thing! …???
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Jim Bullock put his face on my body when we were signing autographs. Fans actually bought this one: (Jimmy: Sorry you missed our Christmas party and we couldn't make it to your play in KC!)


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Epiphany: I woke up on December 1, 2008 out of the ether and realized I was depressed. Usually I light a candle on this sad day, but I had even forgotten to call my mother — as it is the anniversary of my brother's death. I picked up Eckhardt Tolle's bestseller "A New Earth: Awakening to your Life's Purpose" and randomly turned to a page at the back, which said that the only times we are unhappy are when we are looking backward or forward — in other words, when we are not living in the present moment: RIGHT NOW. Right now, nothing bad is happening. It is only when we live in the past and future that we feel pain.

The book said that we must wake up and fully enjoy the present moment - be fully conscious and look at the joy we can create by being grateful for the tiniest thing. We must also see what we can do for others, for "Only a life lived for others is worth living." I realized I had two kids in the house who needed me -- and one in particular was in a lot of pain, hobbling around after his bone surgery, with his foot bent in a crooked position. He needed me to be in good spirits, to really care about him (which I always do, but sometimes I am focused on my own deadlines and projects and fear -- that I forget to "feel his pain." So I got up and made his breakfast with so much love. Then I made his lunch and put a note in it. Then I got his shoes and rubbed his feet with Tiger Balm. Then I offered to drive him to school. He was so grateful that I lifted his burdens for the morning. My whole world changed from this simple committtment to "stay in the present moment" and stay out of my head (it's a bad neighborhood.) Stay out of worry and fear -- for they are not real and do not exist. Only the GOOD is real.






M*A*S*H Star Mike Farrell was live on our show Thursday. Listen in the audio archives at Basham and Cornell Radio Show

Mike is best known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the popular television series M*A*S*H (1975–83). He is also a prominent progressive, political activist.

Mike narrates the new film, "The Life Penalty," which will screened at the British Film Festival Los Angeles, which takes place May 3rd thru' May 8th in Redondo Beach, California. Why does the United States rank with China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Vietnam in executions?

Support for ‘death’ centers in the former slave states, and “who must die” is not a question of justice, but of politics. Casting a revelatory and often uncomfortable light on the US justice system, The Life Penalty shakes the ethical and moral foundations of capital punishment.


Basham and Cornell Radio Show airs at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas and worldwide on the web.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION * HOW WE CAN HELP OUR NEIGHBORS... read below

Listen to our recent interview with legendary White House Press Correspondent HELEN THOMAS in the archives on our radio website. THIS IS AN AMAZING INTERVIEW. Helen Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. Barack is her 10th. She flew on Air Force One with JFK and has been in the front row of the White House press room with ten U.S. presidents. She served for fifty-seven years as a correspondent and, later, White House bureau chief for United Press International (UPI) for 25 years.

Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and, in 1975, the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She has written four books; her latest is Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio

If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives for MP3 podcasts. Recent Guests: Obama Cabinet, Obama Transistion team MikeLux, founder of American Center for Progress; Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader; Presidential candidates, Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage; MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, former Reagan advisor; CNN's Paul Begala, former Clinton advisor; Bill Press, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Sen. John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich, John Dean, NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv Martin Fletcher, Congressman Charlie Rangel,Valerie Plame, Vincent Bugliosi, Christine Pelosi, Dahr Jamail, Senator Mike Gravel; Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman.... and many more.

WE MUST TAKE CARE OF THE 'LEAST AMONG US'

Ways we can all help: I was devastated by the news that California is cutting hot lunches from schools, firing teachers, closing down arts and music programs and closing several public schools. I started Googling Food Banks and supplemental programs to see which non-profits can pick up the slack. Some churches in under-privileged communities offer after-school snacks and places to hang out. Think about ways in your community in which you can mentor a young person who is having a hard time in school, or doesn't have enough to eat. Join the Boys' Club or your neighborhood YMCA.

Found this on Mashable.com
This just sounds funny: “This week, Yahoo announced a deal with Bebo that will help it compete with Google. I had to wiki Bebo to find out it’s kind of like Friendster and Woofie. Gosh, I hope they can all band together to save Fuzzelton village from the evil Snords. Grow up. If I want to see uncaring, money-making machines with cutesy names, I go to a strip club.”
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Dick Cheney: Through the Cracked Moral Compass, Darkly
by Brian Ross HuffPo

Should it be surprising that Dick Cheney, the guy who is the chief architect of the morally and ethically bankrupt Bush Administration policies on everything from the Iraq War to torture to padding Halliburton's pockets to shipping jobs overseas to the gelding of the media now wants to use his Fox News mouthpiece to try and spin a positive light on his misdeeds in office? It is as if he is daring the Obama Administration to put him on trial. The question is, why?
Read more at: HuffingtonPost.com

Flashback: CHENEY'S HALLIBURTON/KBR WAR PROFITEERS: Dick Cheney's Haliburton influence during the Bush administration: Apparently, no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton skyrocketed, enriching the oil giant by billions.

"Halliburton's CEO also enjoyed an incredible personal gain from Iraq and the commensurate rise in gasoline prices. A HalliburtonWatch analysis reveals that CEO David Lesar's stock holdings in Halliburton increased by a stunning $78 million since the Iraq invasion."

Now, a bribery conviction spurs call to terminate KBR contracts.

BREAKING: Could former Bush administration cabinet members like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales face charges that could result in prison terms or worse? A new report from the Senate Armed Services Committee — of which John McCain is a member — says there is growing proof that Bush Senior officials ordered torture, inhumane treatment of prisoners, and other criminal abuses...

Trickle-Down Torture: Rumsfeld Memo Used to Justify Torture in Gitmo, Afghanistan and Iraq
By Susie Madrak crooksandliars.com

WASHINGTON — A newly declassified Congressional report released Tuesday outlined the most detailed evidence yet that the military’s use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration.

The report focused solely on interrogations carried out by the military, not those conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency at its secret prisons overseas. It rejected claims by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others that Pentagon policies played no role in harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or other military facilities.

The 232-page report, the product of an 18-month inquiry, was approved on Nov. 20 by the Senate Armed Services Committee, but has since been under Pentagon review for declassification. Some of the findings were made public in a Dec. 12 article in The New York Times; a spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld dismissed the report at the time as “unfounded allegations against those who have served our nation.”

The Senate report documented how some of the techniques used by the military at prisons in Afghanistan and at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in Iraq — stripping detainees, placing them in “stress positions” or depriving them of sleep — originated in a military program known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape, or SERE, intended to train American troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations.

According to the Senate investigation, a military behavioral scientist and a colleague who had witnessed SERE training proposed its use at Guantánamo in October 2002, as pressure was rising “to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” Officers there sought authorization, and Mr. Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques.

The report showed that Mr. Rumsfeld’s authorization was cited by a United States military special-operations lawyer in Afghanistan as “an analogy and basis for use of these techniques,” and that, in February 2003, a special-operations unit in Iraq obtained a copy of the policy from Afghanistan “that included aggressive techniques, changed the letterhead, and adopted the policy verbatim.”

Months later, the report said, the interrogation officer in charge at Abu Ghraib obtained a copy of that policy “and submitted it, virtually unchanged, through her chain of command.” This ultimately led to authorization by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez of the use of stress positions, “sleep management” and military dogs to exploit detainees’ fears, the report said.

“The paper trail on abuse leads to top civilian leaders, and our report connects the dots,” Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. “This report, in great detail, shows a paper trail going from that authorization” by Mr. Rumsfeld “to Guantánamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq,” Mr. Levin said.

Dave N.: Suzanne Ito reports reaction from the Senate, including Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich:

In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration’s interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse — such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan — to low ranking soldiers. Claims, such as that made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that detainee abuses could be chalked up to the unauthorized acts of a “few bad apples,” were simply false.

....The abuses and the dangers do not end with the torture memos. Americans still know far too little about President Bush’s decision to illegally eavesdrop on Americans — a program that has since been given legal cover by the Congress.

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Harman begins to backtrack denials of wiretap story
John Byrne -- Wednesday April 22, 2009
Raw Story.com

The California Democrat who was allegedly caught on an FBI wiretap promising to aid accused Israeli spies in 2005 has begun walking back her original denials after requesting the transcript of the wiretapped conversation be released.

Pelosi tipped off to wiretap after intelligence mutiny
John Byrne -- Thursday April 23, 2009
Raw Story.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was told that a fellow Democratic congresswoman had been wiretapped because intelligence officials were irate that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had blocked a probe into the congresswoman's involvement related to an Israeli espionage case, CQ's Jeff Stein revealed late Wednesday.

Holder says 'no one is above the law' as calls for special prosecutor mount
Jeremy Gantz -- Wednesday April 22, 2009
Raw Story.com
Hours after being presented with more than a quarter million signatures demanding that he appoint a special independent prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture practices, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that "no one is above the law" and that his department would "follow the evidence."

Fox anchor: 'This is America! We do not f---ing torture'
David Edwards and John Byrne -- Thursday April 23, 2009
Fox News' Online Webcast
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Quote of the Day: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter. We won the midterms, this is our due." - Dick Cheney

So why, Mr. Cheney, are you attacking Obama for a the deficit you helped create that you are now blaming on Obama?

From TPM: "I mean...long before 9-11, Cheney laid out the plans to invade Iraq, detailing the locations of Iraq's oil fields in the infamous Energy Task Force memos. A founding member of PNAC. The CEO of Halliburton, who, during his tenure, not only sold Saddam $26 million worth of illegal oil drilling equipment, but oversaw their Enron-style hiding of $100 million worth of debt from the books, their auditors and their stockholders. He bought Grace, CO, which was then under siege by dozens of lawsuits for asbestos poisoning of entire Montana cities, and then as VP, conveniently muscled through legislation limiting said asbestos lawsuit claims. All aside the obvious no-bid contracts to his former company while his stock was held in a so-called 'blind trust'.

Finally, this is the man who directed George W. Bush's Vice President search team, and found the one man who could satisfy his discerning viewpoints perfectly - himself.

BOMBSHELL #2: from Senate Armed Services Committee report: Bush torture team ordered the abuse of detainees to manufacture a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. But despite their failure to do so, President Bush and his water carriers continue to perpetuate that myth to this day.

USS INCHON REUNION!!

Don't Miss the USS Inchon Association's 5th Reunion! April 22-26 2009, Washington DC

On Christmas 1982, I had the honor of going to Beirut, Lebanon to visit our troops for the USO. I went with Johnny Grant and singer Kellee Patterson. Shortly after I left, over 250 Marines of the 24th MAU were blown up by a suicide bomber. I have such wild tales of my time in Beirut. The Marines picked us up at midnight from the airport in a blackout, driving the jeep through mine fields. We stayed in the partially bombed out Beirut Carlton hotel, where we sat up all night drinking whiskey with Capt. Dale Dye. The next day we were picked up by helicopter and flown to the decks of the USS INCHON and USS SHREVEPORT where I met these amazing men, one of whom is David Fix. David found me on Facebook and invited me to Washington D.C. for the 5th Inchon reunion, which starts tomorrow.

Talk about a strip search! As we left Beirut we were strip searched by the Lebanese... (just the women were!)

I am still trying to figure out a way to fly in on the weekend and surprise them. I had a work-related conflict and couldn't make it as of last week. If by Friday, I am back in town I would love to be there!

The 5th Reunion for former shipmates of the USS Inchon will be held in Washington, DC From April 22-26, 2009. We will be meeting for hospitality, tours, dining and friendship at the Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Dulles Airport.
Host Hotel:

Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts
DULLES AIRPORT
2200 CENTREVILLE RD.
HERNDON, VA 20170

ReservationWeb Site: Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts
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Rematch- Buchanan V O'Donnell Over Chavez' Fawning handshake with Obama ...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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VETS YOU ARE NOT ALONE... plus FRIDAY COMIC RELIEF

But first, an important word from VoteVets.org:

"War is the thread that binds, even as it unravels." - Scott Kesterson, veteran and war reporter

Today we'd like to tell you about an important new project that has the potential to both change the way veterans communicate and to revolutionize the treatment of combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It's called Not Alone, and this is what it's all about:

Mike Jones was back home for almost a year when he started to wonder why the problems weren't going away. He wondered why he couldn't drive down the road without his heart racing, why he could still hear the echo of chatter on the tactical radio in his head, and why the dreams wouldn't stop. "I can do this," Mike said to himself. "I survived war. I can defeat this."

Yet there he was, angry and bitter a year after his second tour. He was alone. For the first time in his life, something was defeating him. Mike's body and his mind were still on patrol. He just wasn't deployed anymore.

It doesn't have to be like that.

"Not Alone" is a community, by warriors and spouses and for warriors and spouses, created to help find the new normal after the war. It lets warriors and spouses anonymously talk about their problems through forums, social networking and blogs. Here you can find others that have gone through exactly what you have gone through. And soon you will be able to find expert help here too.

You can help and find help at Not Alone in three ways...

1. Listen to stories of other VoteVets.org members such as Brandon Friedman and Kayla Williams, as they discuss what war is like and what they faced in coming home. Hear how they've begun to rebuild their lives after the devastation of war. Or hear how spouses like Michelle Briggs and Marshele Waddell picked up the pieces after their husbands returned with deep wounds, visible and not.
2. Sign up now! Join the community. Find support and be supported in the forums.
3. Donate either time or money to tackle the issues that combat stress are placing on our warriors and families today. Rand, in their groundbreaking 2007 study, estimates that over 300,000 families are dealing with combat stress and post-traumatic stress.

Most importantly, you can spread the word. Tell others about Not Alone.

Sincerely, Brandon Friedman
Vice Chairman, VoteVets.org
Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran
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I really feel badly for these women. If there are any psychiatrists in the house, please tell us where phobias like these come from. What causes this kind of thing? Is it a brain disorder or did someone the kid to eat cotton candy early in life? And to viewers, would you please share your own phobias? You can do it anonymously, as I turned on "anonymous comments" here in the comment section. Thank you.

ACTUAL SIGNS IN CHINA:






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CREATE MIRACLES: THE SOUL TRUTH

On our show Basham and Cornell Radio tomorrow, Thursday: Sheila and Marcus Gillette, authors of "The Soul Truth: A Guide to Inner Peace"

Guiding us through the most profound shift in consciousness and spiritual awakening ever before witnessed on our planet are the twelve archangels collectively known as "THEO." Following her near-death experience in 1969, world renown spiritual medium Sheila Gillette became the channel for these angelic messengers from God who are now exalting humanity into a new way of thinking and being. Taking human potential to a whole new level, Theo provides the tools to transcend the limitations of the physical world and enter into the timeless dimensions of the soul. As you awaken to this unlimited spiritual energy, you will feel the joy and excitement of manifesting peak spiritual experiences and illumination that until now have been thought to be the exclusive domain of saints and mystics.



The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio

If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives for MP3 podcasts. We recently interviewed Helen Thomas, Legendary White House correspondent;Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader; Presidential candidates, Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage; MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, former Reagan advisor; CNN's Paul Begala, former Clinton advisor; Bill Press, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Sen. John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, Congressman Dennis Kucinich ; Elizabeth Kucinich, John Dean, NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv Martin Fletcher, Congressman Charlie Rangel,Valerie Plame, Vincent Bugliosi, Christine Pelosi, Dahr Jamail, Senator Mike Gravel; Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman, Mike Lux .... and many more.

I would like to bring your attention to the artistic brilliance, wit and wisdom of my gifted friend and childrens' book author, Deb Robicheau.

Her paintings are magical and so is her writing.

The Undersea Raven of Pinkerton Depp

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THE POWER OF COMPASSION

Author: Lydia Cornell

"The only response to hatred is love." - Wayne Dyer

Buddhists believe strongly that people must immerse themselves in feeling others’ pain in order to gain the compassion that heals the world. When your heart is full of love for your fellow man, you can reach out and actually change people’s lives.

One day when my son Jack was eight-years old and in third grade, he came home from school with a notice from the principal that a ten-year-old boy in our school — a fifth grader — had accidentally died overnight from a high fever. We had never met this boy or his family, but I felt the mother’s pain so deeply it shattered me. As I was reading the note, I started sobbing and couldn't stop. My own son had been home in bed all week suffering from a similar fever. I searched for the family name in the school directory to see if they had any other children, which they did: one other son in ninth grade at our local high school.

I prayed so deeply for this mother I lost all sense of time — pouring compassion out to her, holding her in my heart with a love that passes all understanding. Maybe that’s what prayer is — the invisible transfer of love to another. I mumbled any prayer I could remember, finally landing on the Lord’s Prayer, which I knew by heart.

And then my tears stopped. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. I felt an urgent need to get in my car and find this woman. All I knew was that she lived in a large apartment building a few blocks away. The car seemed to drive itself down the street, and at the end of the block, I saw an unusually tall Asian woman in a bathrobe, pacing the sidewalk, looking shell-shocked. I veered into a driveway and stopped the car. She looked at me with a depth of sadness I will never forget. “Are you Benjamin’s mother?” I asked as I stepped out of the car. At that moment something surreal happened. The woman began running toward me, and I toward her. She rushed into my arms and we just stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, holding each other. She was sobbing. Finally she looked at me and asked, “Did God send you?”

All I could say was, "I think so."

The woman was Korean-American, and explained in broken English that she had just come outside to search for her husband, who had disappeared in grief earlier that day. She asked if I would come in and look at pictures of her son. We went inside and she showed me her son’s “room,” which was just a corner of the living room that he shared with his older brother. Though this was Beverly Hills, they lived modestly in a one-bedroom apartment. She showed me Benjamin’s report card, schoolwork, baseball trophies, and his Yugioh cards — which were just like my son’s. She poured tea and told me all the wonderful things about Benjamin.

I silently asked the universe to give me the right words to say, and out of my mouth came some memories formed into words I cannot not take credit for. I told her about my precious brother Paul and how he had come to me in a vision a few days after his death. I’ll never forget this because I was driving my car and literally had to pull over and stop. On the radio they were playing the song from the Disney movie “Pocahontas” when this lyric about the Sycamore tree came on: “Who knows how high the Sycamore grows, if you cut it down you’ll never know.” This struck me because we had Paul’s memorial service beneath a giant Sycamore tree in Franklin Canyon. Overcome by grief, my head collapsed onto the steering wheel.

Now this may sound completely loony but suddenly, out of nowhere, a surge of warmth and light filled my body and I bolted upright in my seat. I have never experienced anything quite like this. I saw my brother’s face beaming at me, smiling so broadly I had never seen him like this before. It was as if he was right there talking to me, though it was an inner vision. He told me not to cry, that he'd “see me later,” and that “there is no death.” Then, he said “I love you Lydia.” This was on the third day after I had found his body after the drug overdose. I felt at peace about him from that point on.

I kept a picture of my brother Paul by my bedside, with a candle burning next to it. One morning three days after his death, my one and a half-year-old toddler Jack woke up, giggled, pointed to the picture and exclaimed, “Paul happy!” This gives me chills even now when I remember it. To this day I can’t even believe he could speak this well or even say these words — or even remember who Paul was! He had only met him a few times and most the time Paul was wearing sunglasses!

On the day we scattered his ashes at sea, before we left for the boat, three white doves alighted on our lawn, and these were not doves for hire. What is it with the number three?

As I sat with this woman, I told her that her son Benjamin was a gift that she had been blessed with for ten years — and now God needed him back home for bigger things. I told her “our children are on loan to us.” I have no idea where I got this, as I had never even thought about it that way before.

As she walked me out she said she felt a wave of peace come over her. “I was so sad before you came.” Then she said something about this being "an angel visit", and it dawned on me that we can all be angels and comforters for each other when we open up and begin to really care about each other. It’s amazing how love uses us when we make ourselves available.

Our entire school attended Benjamin’s funeral. During the eulogy, the minister read a letter written by this mother, which said: “Benjamin was a gift to us for ten years, and now God needs him back home.”

Maybe God is only to be explained through acts of human kindness, benevolence and comedy. Maybe that’s all we need to know. There are so many times I’ve received a nudge to extend myself to help someone, but out of laziness or fear, I’ve ignored the call. Often I didn’t feel equipped to help others because I was such a mess myself — and I wasn’t able to get out of my self-centered fear. But in the twelve steps there’s a saying, “The answers will come when your own house is in order.” This means that once we have eliminated our own defects of character that keep us separate from our fellow man (condemnation, judgment, fear, pride, greed, envy, etc.) we are of better use to the world.
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The other day I was working on a Pirates of the Caribbean puzzle with my son. It’s ironic that at the very same time I was succeeding at putting the puzzle pieces together, my life had somehow quietly, behind my back, slipped into place, into a sort of divine alignment.

How did it happen? This journey has swept me into Hollywood and brought me to my knees. It has also uncovered immense spiritual resources I never knew I had. Sometimes I think life is a tapestry and we are underneath with the long yarn, holding on for dear life, holding onto the shreds and yards of fibers unraveling, winding, knotting chaotically — but all the time being woven into something orderly and magnificent from the other angle, from above — if we would just let go and not hold the strings so tight. We just can’t see it.

I have the profound sense that we can touch God everyday when we are loving to others, especially those who offend us and disturb us, and especially those less fortunate. Have you seen someone's face light up with just one kind word?

Why do people talk so much about whether or not God exists, when God is simply love? Who can argue with love? Kindness, unselfishness, compassion, sharing, forgiveness. Asking someone to prove God’s existence is like asking him to prove he loves his kids. How do you prove love exists except by watching it in action?

“Compassion for others is impossible when we are filled with a belief that we are separate and distinct from other human beings,” says Wayne Dyer. Love really does heal everything. But ‘faith without works is dead,” and we are all called to get out of ourselves and help each other, like the Good Samaritan. We must be peacemakers and take care of the poor, the meek, and the outcasts, the widows and orphans.

Einstein said it beautifully here: A human being is a part of the whole called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

REBIRTH: HAPPY EASTER! HAPPY PASSOVER! HAPPY WEEKEND!

HAPPY BUNNIES

The idea of resurrection has always appealed to me. A second chance, new life, rebirth, Spring. I believe we can start our day over, and our lives over, at any moment. We can choose to learn from our mistakes, say we're sorry, forgive others, forgive ourselves, leave the past behind and GO FORWARD. We are not meant to carry the burdens of the past or fear of the future. Don't look back. Don't live with guilt or shame.

We can also choose not to be a victim of anyone or anything.

PASSOVER SEDER DINNER

I've had lots of Seders, even from early childhood. My best friend Susie invited me to my first. The hard-boiled egg, the matzo ball soup, the Gefilte fish, the radish, the brisket.. and my favorite part: the chocolate gold coin hidden in the house.

I also love Shabat, the Friday night dinners. I wish our kids had this tight-knit community, this sense of belonging to a group that takes care of each other. And I happen to love the Barmitzvahs! I love our local deli because it's so warm and cozy. I take my son there for chicken soup. There is something wonderful about the Jewish families in our neighborhood.

JUST FOR TODAY.. from Alanon

Just for today, I will be happy. This assumes to be true what Abraham Lincoln said, that "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires.

Just for today, I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and not get found out; if anybody knows of it, it will not count. I will do at leat two things I don't want to do — just for excercise. I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not show it.

Just for today, I will be agreeable. I will act courteously and criticize not one bit. I will not find fault with anything and not try to imporve or regulate anybody but myself.

Just for today, I will be unafraid. Especially I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful, and to believe that as I give to the world, so the world will give to me.

HOW TO LEAVE THE PAST BEHIND WITH NO REGRETS

* Admit we are powerless over some things in life, and get into "acceptance." Acceptance is the key to serenity.
* Clean up the wreckage of our past by seeing our mistakes clearly.
* Share our darkest secrets with someone we trust.
* Surrender our burdens to a power greater than yourself, the universe, God, the sky or whatever you believe in. If you don't believe in a power greater than yourself, go to the ocean and try to stop the waves.

Sometimes I take an imaginary football, fill it with all my worries and throw it over a fence in my mind. Or I write down all my anger, worry and fear on a piece of paper. As I write I can feel the anger coming out of my heart, flowing down my arm, out of the pen and onto the paper. The anger is now out of my body. Then I say a quick prayer such as: I release my worries today and focus on the good. Then I tear the paper to shreds, toss it away, burn it or put it in a "God Box." This is a cleansing ritual and is very effective for moving forward. Sometimes we need rituals like this.

The point is to NOT TAKE THE WORRY BACK. Do not think of your problem again. In other words, problems that keep replaying in your mind are habitual worries or resentments. If there is no human solution and no action you can take to solve them, JUST LET THEM GO. Unless you can take concrete action to solve a problem such as modifying your mortgage or calling a Credit Counseling service, or hunting for a job, then the problem is simply a form of worry or fear. These may seem real, but they don't exist in the real world. Let go and let God.

Good Friday, also called Holy Friday, Great Friday or Black Friday, is a religious holiday observed primarily by adherents to Christianity commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Golgotha, an event central to Christian theology. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and often coincides with the Jewish observance of Passover.

Based on the scriptural details of the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most probably on a Friday. The exact year of Good Friday has been estimated as AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon.- Wikipedia

WINGNUT MEDIA UPDATES

Glen Beck: "Believe in something even if it's wrong!"

FRANKEN WON: WHY WON'T THE MEDIA SAY SO?

Brad Blog Alert Franken Isn't 'Leading', He Won and Coleman Lost

With a 312 vote victory for the Democrat, and nothing left to count, the corporate media continues to misreport the facts of the U.S. Senate election in Minnesota...
-- Guest Blogged by Ernest A. Canning, with Brad Friedman

We'd ask not why the media fail to describe Coleman as a "sore loser", as they did Al Gore (who didn't actually lose) but rather, why is it that -- even with Tuesday's final count of any remaining, lawfully cast, previously uncounted absentee ballots -- the media fail to describe Coleman as the loser at all, much less a sore one.

From the New York Times to AP to MSNBC et al, despite all countable ballots having now been counted, and clear rulings having been issued by both the MN Supreme Court and the bipartisan three-judge panel overseeing the contest, the media seem to have developed an aversion to using the "L" word -- loser -- in their coverage of the MN contest. Perhaps it's because they're listening to only one side of the argument (Coleman's), but the facts of the case, and the many clear court decisions, leave no question that Franken is the winner, and Coleman is the loser. So why won't the media say as much?...

FULL STORY: BradBlog.com









NBA 101: My good friend John Bendheim and me at the Staples Center with the Lakers!

Today's radio show was amazing!

The Basham and Cornell Show

Please listen in the archives to our weekly Friday roundtable with political consultants Peggy Maze Johnson and Dave Schwartz. We alleviated a lot of tension surrounding Obama's "wiretapping" decision. Listen to what one of our troops, who's awaiting his order for Afghanistan, has to say about this. He really put my mind at ease.

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Gore Vidal on Bill Maher
Gore Vidal was on Bill Maher's show last night and he made a bit of a passionate statement on lost constitutional rights during the Bush era. Starts at about the 4:10 mark of this video, the last 6 minutes of the show, but the whole clip is highly entertaining.



He asks where was "the voice on television" speaking out about the loss of constitutional rights, besides himself. He seemed to be hearkening back to Edward R. Murrow's calling out of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. What is more frightening than the notion that no one was speaking out about the Bush administration's offences was that people were actually pointing them out the whole time. It took a while for the voices to multiply and create a tidal wave that led to Republican defeat. But you can certainly rattle off the names who were speaking in their own venues and with their own respective weight about what was happening (Olbermann, Turley, Balkinization, Cafferty, Horton, Greenwald, etc.). And there were lawyers in the courts pressing cases and winning (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, for example) From impolitical.blogspot.com

Also: RON HOWARD on Bill Maher!!

THE RISE OF MILITIA MEDIA and HATE-RADIO

MEDIA REFORM: WORDS DO MATTER

Remember: Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber was a Rush Limbaugh follower, a "Dittohead."

First, I'd like to say that I believe in the inherent goodness of people, in the most powerful force in the universe, LOVE, the higher law of harmony. To me, we make our enemies stronger by fighting them. It's good to shine a light on "evil" — this right-wing hate media — but ultimately, we are each responsible for our own mental state, the thoughts we allow in, and the reaction we have toward our fellow man. I do not believe we should be engaging with these buffoons in the media. But my co-host Doug Basham feels we urgently need to call them out. I subscribe to a higher method of working in my spiritual writings, and I've had absolute spine-tingling miracles through prayer. Prayer to me is the invisible transfer of love to one another. That said, we do need to expose the corruption of the banking industry (caused by deregulation and manipulation by lenders and financial CEOs) and we do need to stop all the hate speak.

I mentioned above that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was a Rush Limbaugh follower, a "Dittohead." And then there's Jim D. Adkisson… the right wing aficionado who took his 12-gauge shotgun into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee last July 28, 2008… and started killing people… cuz’ he "hated liberals." Just another graduate of right wing hate-media.

Adkisson, a 58-year-old unemployed truck driver, brought 70 shotgun shells with him to the church and assumed he'd keep killing until the police arrived on the scene and shot him dead as well. Instead, some members of the congregation were able to wrestle him to the ground and hold him for police.

When investigators went to Adkisson's home in search of a motive, as well as evidence for the pending trial, they found copies of Savage's Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor, by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. They also came across what was supposed to have been Adkisson's suicide note: a handwritten, four-page manifesto explaining his murderous actions.

The one-word answer for his deed? Hate. The three-word answer? He hated liberals.

"The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just Kill yourself. Do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals!"

What Adkisson especially hated about liberals ("this cancer, this pestilence") and what he hated about candidate "Osama Hussein Obama" was that they were marching America toward ruin: "Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, they're Marxist, socialist, communists." Adkisson seethed over the way liberals were "trying to turn this country into a communist state" and couldn't comprehend why they would "embrace Marxism."

Sound familiar, Glenn Beck?

John Bohstedt was one of the Unitarian church members who tackled Adkisson after the first round of gunfire went off inside the sanctuary. Two months ago, Adkisson pleaded guilty to the murder charges and was sentenced to life in prison. At the hearing, Bohstedt told the Associated Press he didn't think the killer had been insane, but rather had been manipulated by anti-liberal rhetoric.

This kind of violence inciting rhetoric and dishonesty… is WORSE… than yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater. Yes we absolutely, most definitely beg YOU to stop _ Glen Beck, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Michelle Bachmann, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity — before any more of our fellow citizens die for your dishonest and deadly rhetoric.
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Please listen in the archives to Eric Boehlert on today's show (Thursday, April 9 Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas. Author and journalist Eric Boehlert discusses his article "Glen Beck and the Rise of Fox News' Militia Media." BRILLIANT ARTICLE, which I have posted below.


The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio

Eric is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, and a former senior writer for Salon. In past appearances, Eric discussed his first book “Lapdogs: How The Press Rolled Over for Bush.” Tomorrow, we’ll be discussing Eric’s new column, titled, “Glenn Beck and the Rise of Fox News' Militia Media.”

In his column, Eric addresses 22-year-old Richard Poplawski, who just recently put on a bulletproof vest, grabbed his guns, including an AK-47 rifle, and waited for the police to respond to the domestic disturbance call his mother had placed. When two officers arrived at the front door, Poplawski shot them both in the head, and then killed another officer who tried to rescue his colleagues.”

In the wake of the bloodbath, we learned that Poplawski was something of a conspiracy nut who embraced dark, radical rhetoric about America. He was convinced the government wanted to take away his guns, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Specifically, Poplawski, as one friend described it, feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." (FYI, there is no Obama gun ban in the works.) The same friend said the shooter feared America was "going to see the end of our times."

"Glenn Beck and the Rise of Fox News' Militia Media” by Eric Boehlert

After a night of drinking, followed by an early-morning argument with his mother, with whom he shared a Pittsburgh apartment, 22-year-old Richard Poplawski put on a bulletproof vest, grabbed his guns, including an AK-47 rifle, and waited for the police to respond to the domestic disturbance call his mother had placed. When two officers arrived at the front door, Poplawski shot them both in the head, and then killed another officer who tried to rescue his colleagues.

In the wake of the bloodbath, we learned that Poplawski was something of a conspiracy nut who embraced dark, radical rhetoric about America. He was convinced the government wanted to take away his guns, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Specifically, Poplawski, as one friend described it, feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." (FYI, there is no Obama gun ban in the works.) The same friend said the shooter feared America was "going to see the end of our times."

We learned that Poplawski hosted his own (failed) Internet radio show and that he visited the website of 9-11 conspiracy backer Alex Jones, who has been hyping the threat of a totalitarian world government for years. More recently, Jones has been warning listeners like Poplawski about The Obama Deception (that's the name of Jones' new documentary DVD) and how President Obama is bound to destroy America.

Who's Alex Jones? Even according to some conservative bloggers, the anti-government, anti-Obama talker is a "freak" who's popular with "the tin foil hat crowd." Like with Poplawski, apparently.

Jones might be a "freak," but he has recently been embraced -- and mainstreamed -- by Fox News, as part of the news channel's unprecedented drive to push radical propaganda warning of America's democratic demise under the new president.

During a March 18 webcast of FoxNews.com's proudly paranoid "Freedom Watch," Andrew Napolitano introduced a segment about "what the government has done to take your liberty and your property away." And with that, he welcomed onto the show "the one, the only, the great Alex Jones," who began ranting about "exposing" the New World Order and the threat posed by an emerging "global government."

"I appreciate what you're exposing," Napolitano assured his guest.

Waving around a copy of his Obama Deception, Jones warned Fox News webcast viewers about Obama's "agenda" for "gun confiscation" and the new president's plan to "bring in total police-state control" to America.

Jones also noted with excitement that Fox News' Glenn Beck had recently begun warning about the looming New World Order on his show, just like Jones had for years. "It is great!" cheered the conspiracist. (Like Jones, Beck recently warned viewers that "the Second Amendment is under fire.") Concluding the interview, Fox News' Napolitano announced "it's absolutely been a pleasure" listening to Jones' insights.

We don't know if Poplawski tuned in to watch Jones' star turn for Fox News last month. But is there any doubt that Fox News is playing an increasingly erratic and dangerous game by embracing the type of paranoid insurrection rhetoric that people like Poplawski are now acting on? By stoking dark fears about the ominous ruins that await an Obama America, by ratcheting up irresponsible back-to-the-wall scenarios, Fox News has waded into a territory that no other news organization has ever dared to exploit.

What Fox News is now programming on a daily (unhinged) basis is unprecedented in the history of American television, especially in the form of Beck's program. Night after night, week after week, Beck rails against the president while denouncing him or his actions, alternately, as Marxist, socialist, or fascist. He felt entirely comfortable pondering whether the federal government, under the auspices of FEMA, was building concentration camps to round up Americans in order to institute totalitarian rule. (It wasn't until this week that Beck was finally able to "debunk" the FEMA conspiracy theory.) And that's when Beck wasn't gaming out bloody scenarios for the coming civil war against Obama-led tyranny. In just a few shorts months, Beck raced to the head of Fox News' militia media movement.

Just prior to the Pittsburgh massacre, Beck's often bizarre on-air performances, in which his rants against the Obama administration's dark forces were mixed in with his tearful proclamations of love of country, had turned him into a highly rated laughingstock. "That is a shaky cat," Dennis Miller recently giggled while describing Beck. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough broke into hysterics after a montage of Beck's most weepy moments. And TV satirists have had a field day at the Fox News host's expense. (Stephen Colbert: "Crank up the crazy and rip off the knob!")

But I'm not sure people should be laughing.

The consequences of Fox News' doomsday programming now seem entirely predictable. As Jeffrey Jones, a professor of media and politics at Old Dominion University, recently explained to The New York Times in regard to Beck's rhetoric, "People hear their values are under attack and they get worried. It becomes an opportunity for them to stand up and do something."

People like Richard Poplawski? FYI, weeks before his deadline shooting spree, Poplawski uploaded a video clip of Beck ominously referencing the FEMA camps on Fox News.

It's true that Beck, in response to mounting criticism, made this statement on his show:

BECK: Let me be clear on one thing. If someone tries to harm another person in the name of the Constitution or the truth behind 9-11 or anything else, they are just as dangerous and crazy as those people we don't seem to recognize anymore -- you know, the ones who kill in the name of Allah.

But look at the very next two lines of his monologue: "There are enemies both foreign and domestic in America tonight. Call it fearmongering or call it the truth." That doesn't sound like Beck was backing away from his rhetorical call to arms to fend off the Marxist -- no, wait -- fascist Obama administration.

And let's drop the idea -- pushed hard by Beck himself -- that he's simply a modern-day Howard Beale, from the classic film Network, just an angry, I'm-mad-as-hell everyman lashing out at the hypocrisies of our time. Nonsense. Beale's unvarnished on-air rants from Network targeted conformity, corporate conglomerates, and the propaganda power of television. ("This tube," he called it.) Beale's attacks were not political or partisan. Beck, by contrast, unleashes his anger against, and whips up dark scenarios about, the new president of the United States. Big difference.

Here's a sampling of what Beck's been drumming into the heads of viewers, a portion of whom likely (and logically) hear his rhetoric as a call to action. That the government is a "heroin pusher using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state." That it's indoctrinating our children; that we have "come to a very dangerous point in our country's long, storied history." Beck's concerned that the "Big Brother" government will soon dictate what its citizens can eat, at what temperature their house can be set, and what kind of cars they're allowed to drive.

Beck's sure "[d]epression and revolution" are what await America under Obama, and fears moving "towards a totalitarian state." The country today sometimes reminds Beck of "the early days of Adolf Hitler." Beck thinks that Obama, who has "surrounded himself by Marxists his whole life," is now "addicting this country to heroin -- the heroin that is government slavery."

And it's not just Beck. Appearing on Fox News, Dick Morris recently made a wildly irresponsible comment that looks even worse in light of the Pittsburgh law-enforcement slayings: "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the UN's going to take over' -- well, they're beginning to have a case."

And it's not just Fox News. Radio nut Michael Savage recently claimed that "we have a naked Marxist for president." And high-profile conservative blogger Erick Erickson contemplated the beating of politicians: "At what point do [people] get off the couch, march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?"

Of course, the right-wingers at Free Republic ("Freepers") are way ahead of Erickson as they fantasize about something much worse. You can read it here, but I won't publish this kind of evil right-wing rhetoric. Horrifying! Freepers Cross Threshold: Call for Violence

I wonder if Glenn Beck knows who Jim Adkisson is.

"There are a lot of people who hate liberals, and if we stir that around in the pot and on the airwaves, eventually there will be people (like Adkisson) ... who get infected by the violent rhetoric and put it into violent action," Bohstedt said.

He remained worried about future violence: "Do you think there are other Jim Adkissons out there listening to hate speech? I do."

Me too.
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About Glenn Beck's Extremist Rhetoric
Media | Tue, Apr 7, 2009 Little Green Footballs

Michael A. Cohen has a piece in Politico today about the over-the-top irresponsible extremism and conspiracy theories promulgated by weeping Glenn Beck: Extremist rhetoric won’t rebuild GOP.

(article) "He’s right. This turn toward the extreme right on the part of Fox News is troubling, and will achieve nothing in the long run except further marginalization of the GOP—unless people start behaving like adults instead of angry kids throwing tantrums and ranting about conspiracies and revolution."

Doug Basham: A MILD attempt at nobility, perhaps, but one that I think… completely understates the problem… shooting cops to death in the head is a FAR cry from behaving like angry kids throwing tantrums and ranting about conspiracies and revolution, am I wrong?

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AMERICA-HATING SHOCK-JOCKS

I actually heard right-wing radio host Mark Levin yell to his audience on more than one occasion, "Arm yourselves against Obama!" What kind of American is this man?

Is Rush Limbaugh a sociopath? Is Bill O'Reilly a megalomaniac? Is Glen Beck just blowing hot air? Why are these buffoons who make upwards of $30 million dollars a year in salary? Why do they spread fear and hatred?

Below is a transcript of a call from a veteran to Rush Limbaugh's show. And today, Bill O'Reilly started attacking the Chicago Sun Times because they dropped his column. He told his viewers to stop reading the newspaper! Roger Ebert Slams O'Reilly: "Losing Touch With Reality." And Michelle Bachmann said that Obama Wants "Re-Education Camps For Young People." Does she know what a "re-education" camp is? In Vietnam,

What she was trying to say is that she is in fear of young people doing volunteer work (that horrible liberal crime of helping those less fortunate.)

The Dixie Chicks had their careers ruined at the hands of these and other unpatriotic so-called "Americans." The most unpatriotic, dangerous, self-serving buffoons in the media appear to be: Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Glen Beck, Michelle Bachman, Dick Cheney, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and more. I wouldn't mention it if there weren't so many crazies running around shooting people, who are admittedly provoked by these shock-jocks.

RUSH LIMBAUGH IS FINALLY PUT IN HIS PLACE
Republican Caller Tells Limbaugh: "You're A Brainwashed Nazi"

[TRANSCRIPT.]

LIMBAUGH: We're going to go to Chicago. This is Charles. Charles thank you for waiting and for calling. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks Rush. Rush listen, I voted Republican and I really didn't want to see Obama get in office. But you know Rush, you're one reason to blame for this election, for the Republicans losing. First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people. This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you just kept harping about, it's okay, or it's not really torture. And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners will killed under torture.

And it was crazy for you to go on and on like Levin and Hannity and Hewitt. It's like you're all brainwashed. And my last comment is, no matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you are brainwashed. You're just -- and I hate to say it -- but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who can believe in torture has got to be -- there has got to be something wrong with them.

Story continues below

LIMBAUGH: You know --

CALLER: And I know Bush wanted to keep us safe and all of that but we're not supposed to be torturing these people.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, if anybody is admitting that they are brainwashed it would be you.

CALLER: No, no, Rush. I don't think so. You, Hannity, and Levin are all brainwashed --

LIMBAUGH: Charles, you said at the beginning of your phone call that you didn't want Obama in there. But you voted for him because of me.

CALLER: I didn't vote for him. I voted for McCain. I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, so you're saying I turned people off --

CALLER: You turned people off with all this vote for Hillary and all this BS.

LIMBAUGH: That was Operation Chaos. That was to keep the chaos in the Democrat primaries --

CALLER: It didn't work and what we have with you Hannity Levin and Hewitt is sour grapes. That's all we have. And believe me, I'm not -- I'm more to the right than I am to the left.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course you are.

CALLER: I am.

LIMBAUGH: Of course you are. You wouldn't be calling here with all of these sour grapes if you weren't.

CALLER: Well I'm tired of listening to go on and on with this --

LIMBAUGH: I don't know of anybody who died from torture.

CALLER: We're not supposed to torture people. Do you remember World War II, the Nazis? The Nuremburg trials?

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama --

CALLER: What's the matter with you? You never even served in the military. I served in the Marine Corps and the Army.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama is president of the United States today because of stupid, ignorant people who think like you do. You pose - you and your ignorance are the most expensive commodity this country has. You think you know everything. You don't know diddly squat. You call me a Nazi? You call me someone who supports torture and you want credibility on this program? You're just plan embarrassing and ludicrous. But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you just said right here.

The Basham and Cornell Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas. The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern). All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at The Basham and Cornell Show

If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives for MP3 podcasts. We have interviewed Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader; Presidential candidates, Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage; MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, former Reagan advisor; CNN's Paul Begala, former Clinton advisor; Bill Press, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Sen. John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich, John Dean, NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv Martin Fletcher, Congressman Charlie Rangel,Valerie Plame, Vincent Bugliosi, Christine Pelosi, Dahr Jamail, Senator Mike Gravel; Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman.... and many more.


HATE-RADIO MUST STOP. IT IS ANTI-AMERICAN, DANGEROUS AND TREASONOUS Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage ... and in a category by herself — Michelle Bachmann

WHERE IS GOD?

We need stricter gun control laws, more heath and mental services, and less right-wing hate-radio.

PITTSBURGH, April 5 (UPI) -- The 22-year-old man charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers was frequent visitor to far-right Web sites, his Internet activities reveal.

Richard Poplawski posted his profile and photographs of his tattoos on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront, which serves as a clearinghouse for neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups, using the site to display an eagle tattoo spread across his chest, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported Sunday.

To Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin (who says "America arm yourself against Obama!) Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, Laura Ingraham, John Gibson, Bill O'Reilly: Hate-Radio and Hate-Websites Please Stop!

SPREAD JOY AND BE HAPPY EVEN IF YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED

At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, I believe we attract riches or poverty to ourselves depending on the thoughts we think. This is a "thought universe" a spiritual universe, and I believe all our problems can be boiled down to our state of mind. Eckhart Tolle, author of "The Power of Now" and a New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" says that at the moment he was about to commit suicide, he thought to himself: "Who am I talking to? Maybe only one of me is real." And that started his spiritual journey of losing everything, and being in bliss. I have been at an emotional rock bottom at times in my life -- and every time I pray, things change in the physical universe.

If you are not enoying life, you can't spread joy to others. If we are not living in joy everyday, we are failing. Being happy is the cornerstone of all that you are! Nothing is more important than that you feel good! And you have absolute and utter control about that because you can choose the thought that makes you worry or the thought that makes you happy; the things that thrill you, or the things that worry you. You have the choice in every moment. - Jerry & Esther, Abraham-Hicks

WHERE IS GOD DURING TRAGEDY?

In response to the recent shootings in Binghamton, New York: It may never be known how many violent incidents are prevented because of prayer’s embracing love.

I heard a Jewish man say that the reason the Holocaust happened was to show people the way to love, the necessity for love, so this darkness would never happen again.

If someone were to stand at the North Pole on the day of the Winter Solstice, darkness would be all that prevailed, day and night. No evidence would exist that there ever was a sun—or that six months later it would shine on the same spot without ceasing, day and night. Still, the fact of that sun’s existence and power to chase the darkness and warm the earth would remain fixed. Here is perhaps a small illustration of the way that violence and killing project the absence of God, of good—and of the need to maintain the facts of spiritual existence, until the light shines again.

Within one four-day period last month, three separate tragedies made headlines and prompted fresh concerns about the random nature of violence in today’s world. On Sunday morning March 8, Rev. Fred Winters was shot at the pulpit by a gunman who walked into an early morning service at First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois. Two days later, a man went on a shooting rampage in southeast Alabama, killing himself and ten others. Then Wednesday of that same week, a German teenager took 15 lives as well as his own, in a similar incident in the Stuttgart suburb Winnenden.

At such times, so many questions begin with, “Why did this happen”? And from there, “What can be done to prevent future incidents?” Some ask—as did another pastor at First Baptist Church—the wrenching question of how God could allow such a tragedy. Indeed, “Where was God at that moment?” is an honest and understandable question that people have asked through the ages.
It’s among the toughest of life’s questions.

And while some may count a satisfying answer as a forever mystery, we maintain that the effort to find it is not in vain; to say otherwise would be to argue for a fatalistic view that the Creator either allows evil and death, or else is not in complete control of His creation. Nothing of benefit to humanity throughout time has resulted from heeding the impulse to give up and cease in the struggle for something better than this discouraging view of existence.

It may never be known how many violent incidents are prevented because of prayer’s embracing love.

Pat answers don’t speak to the heart, and often breed cynicism. And it would be misguided for us to attempt to completely address such soul-searching within the confines of this page. But as a means to moving forward, consider that the teaching of Jesus Christ offers truth—often simple, always profound—that one can begin to understand. Moreover, that the sum total of Jesus’ life and teaching conveys the unmistakable message that good is more powerful than evil, and life than death.

This we feel points to a solid basis of spiritual reasoning, on which to provide comfort and strength to the grieving, as well as hope to those feeling astounded at the scope of tragedy in the world today. It offers countless possibilities for the prayer that is most certainly needed to address violence and fear across the globe. It may never be known how many violent incidents are prevented because of prayer’s embracing love. Through the noise of anger and derangement, the voice of the Christ reaches consciousness and calms mental storms.

This echoes the Bible account of the prophet Elijah’s confrontation with calamity, in the form of earthquake, wind, and fire. At the time Elijah was utterly discouraged and about to give up in his efforts to follow God’s guiding. In his own way he was very much asking, “Where is God in this moment of violence and danger?” And what he learned was that he would not find God by looking into the earthquake, or the wind, or the fire—but rather in that “still small voice” (see I Kings, chap. 19).

Each one of us can offer the deepest, most healing response to tragedies such as the ones that occurred last month by turning in the direction of the light. We can hear that same saving voice Elijah heard on the mountain, and begin to feel a measure of the same assurance we know others yearn to feel in the acuteness of their struggle—that good is real and more powerful than senseless violence. ““It is the ‘still, small voice’ of Truth uttering itself. We are either turning away from this utterance, or we are listening to it and going up higher”

If someone were to stand at the North Pole on the day of the Winter Solstice, darkness would be all that prevailed, day and night. No evidence would exist that there ever was a sun—or that six months later it would shine on the same spot without ceasing, day and night. Still, the fact of that sun’s existence and power to chase the darkness and warm the earth would remain fixed. Here is perhaps a small illustration of the way that violence and killing project the absence of God, of good—and of the need to maintain the facts of spiritual existence, until the light shines again.
www.spirituality.com

"Seven Blunders of the World"

1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle


—Mahatma Gandhi

* Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, India. He led India's movement for independence from British rule and is one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 20th century. In 1948 he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who opposed his tolerance for all creeds and religions. Gandhi is honoured by his people as the father of the Indian nation and is called 'Mahatma', which means Great Soul.
http://www.doctorhugo.org/gandhi.html

________________________

THE WORLD TURNS! GOOD NEWS! ROAD TO RECOVERY

Two Traveling Angels

Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family.
The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room.
Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement.
As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it.
When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied,
'Things aren't always what they seem.'
The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife.
After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest.
When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears
Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field.
The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel how could you have let this happen?
The first man had everything, yet you helped him, she accused.
The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let the cow die.
Things aren't always what they seem,' the older angel replied.
When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall.
Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the
wall so he wouldn't find it.'
'Then last night as we slept in the farmers bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead.

'Things aren't always what they seem.'

Sometimes that is exactly what happens when things don't turn out the way they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every outcome is always to your advantage. You just might not know it until some time later..

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present!

I think this is special....live and savor every moment... This is not a dress rehearsal!

Never take away anyone's hope.
That may be all they have.

Some people
come into our lives
and quickly go..

Some people
become friends
and stay awhile...

leaving beautiful
footprints on our
hearts...

and we are
never
quite the same
because we have
made a good
friend!!

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present!

I think this is special....live and savor every moment... This is not a dress rehearsal!

(\ /)
( \ / )
( \()/ )
( /\ ) TAKE THIS LITTLE ANGEL
( / \/\ ) AND KEEP HER CLOSE TO YOU
/ \ SHE IS YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL
( ) SENT TO WATCH OVER YOU
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Live at 8:15 AM: I haven't fully set up Twitter yet, but here is my latest Twitter update: "I'm on the radio right now while I"m typing. We have our resident political strategists on the show: Dave Schwartz and Peggy Maze Johnson. I just mentioned the woman who Googled her husband and found his car parked outside his mistress' house! We just had a caller who is in the military set to go to Afghanistan. He voted his Republican his entire life until this last election. He believes even Condi Rice voted for Obama!

New York Times

WORLD LEADERS PLEDGE 1.1 TRILLION FOR CRISIS: GIVES MORE THAN ASKED FOR! Among other steps Mr. Brown detailed were new regulations on hedge funds and rating agencies, as well as a crackdown on tax havens, which will be publicly identified and subjected to sanctions if they do not agree to share tax information with the authorities of other countries. A senior Obama administration official cautioned that the sanctions were “future oriented.” LONDON — Struggling to bridge deep divides over how to revive a paralyzed global economy, the leaders of the world’s largest economies agreed Thursday to bail out developing countries, stimulate world trade and regulate financial firms more stringently.

Stock markets around the world, especially in emerging nations, rose in the hours leading up to the announcement.

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FROM WINDOW OF CHINA

Ottawa, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama ahead of the London G20 summit had substantially strengthened relations between the two largest economies in the world, a Canadian scholar said Thursday. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/03/content_11126101.htm

OBAMA'S DIPLOMACY AND FINESSE - The operative word here is HUMILITY, Obama diffused any antagonism among world leaders and was a gracious diplomat using a rare quality called humility. "He's a good listener." The operative word here is "humility, which means a lack of arrogance. Being thoughtful enough to really hear the person and not jump in like a know-it-all, with only self-serving interests. It's the idea that "it's better first to understand others than to be understood." - Lydia

Obama Wins More Praise In London

U.S. News and World Report
Media reports last night and this morning offer glowing reviews of President Obama's early diplomatic moves in Europe and in the process, implicitly or explicitly, are drawing contrasts between Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush. The ranks of those openly comparing Obama's performance to Bush's include an unnamed "senior White House official." In a story about Obama's meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the CBS Evening News noted "a senior White House official said the US and Russia will now focus on mutual interests not 'a buddy/buddy relationship,' a reference to former President Bush's claim that he'd looked into Russian leader Vladimir Putin's eyes and got a sense of his soul." The Financial Times also notes that "Obama officials made it clear that the US president would 'not be looking into souls.'" Reuters draws a contrast between Obama and Bush, while The Politico says that yesterday, "in strokes of symbolism and on issues of substance," Obama "made one thing clear: The Bush era of foreign policy is over." Adds The Politico, "Gone was diplomacy by towel-snapping."

ABC World News Obama "is forging personal relationships with heads of state some of whom have not recently had warm things to say about the US." On MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews said, "Barack rocks in Britain, bustling through history." The AP refers to "a stunning reversal from policies of the Bush administration," and under the headline "In Britain, Obama Vows To Listen, Not Lecture," the Washington Times reports Obama's "style was a stark change from that of his predecessor."

Obama Says ‘Historic’ G-20 Summit Put World on Path to Recovery

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama wrapped up his first international summit by declaring the event “historic” and a “turning point” toward recovery from a worldwide recession.

Obama, who used personal diplomacy to help push through an agreement on regulations and emergency aid, said he and his counterparts at the Group of 20 summit are taking “unprecedented steps” to prevent another financial crisis.

Economic risks remain and there are “no guarantees,” he said at a news conference in London yesterday. “I have no doubt, though, that the steps that have been taken are critical to preventing us sliding into a depression.”

The leaders agreed on principles for financial market regulation, including expanded controls on hedge funds and derivatives trading, and tax havens, as well as rules on compensation and bonuses. They also pledged additional financing for the International Monetary Fund and other institutions.

The summit ended amid signs the world economy is stabilizing after months of sliding. Confidence among U.S. consumers climbed in March after reaching the lowest level on record a month earlier, according to the Conference Board. U.K. house prices unexpectedly rose in March for the first time since October 2007, while Chinese manufacturing increased, reports today showed.