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?

___________________

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.

*********************

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.

ESSENTIAL TRUTH * THE SHARKS OF WALL STREET

BEST FLEETWOOD MAC SONG EVER!!! Pre-Buckingham Nicks

SHOCKING REVELATIONS: And if you're wondering why the GM boss was fired but the giant, gluttonous bankers aren't being fired too -- read below Ellen Brown's "Web of Deceit." There is no Federal Reserve. The bankers are the "THEY" behind everything from the beginning, not the MIC. You will be shocked. It took her six years across several continents to investigate and write this book.

Had a BLAST at Leap Back 2009 on Friday. Above is a collage of the pilot Genesis, filmed at Edwards Airforce Base. I'm the brunette -- played a pregnant pilot's wife, Sally. That is the same house they filmed The Right Stuff in. The Blue Angels were flying overhead on cue for the backyard barbeque scene.

We were on two giant video screens in front of 300 people. I had a blast with guest stars and will post their photos later.

Fans came from all over the world: UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, Burbank...
______________

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann in the 1920s

__________________


WEB OF DEBT

On Monday March 30, 2009, Ellen Brown will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas and simulcast worldwide on the web at: Basham and Cornell Radio

Ellen Brown, J.D., is a financial expert who has plunged in where others feared to tread, daring to swim against the sharks of Wall Street. She developed her research skills in other shark-infested waters, practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles.

Ellen has authored 11 books, and in her latest, “The Web of Debt”, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust."

She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back.

A prodigious blogger, Brown maintains a respected website that is heavily frequented by readers
eager to learn what is happening and what we can do about it.

Web of Debt unravels the deceptions in our money scheme and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

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 have 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, Rep. Robert Wexler, 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.

QUANTUM LEAP * 11:11 * LEAP BACK 2009 BENEFITS STARLIGHT FOUNDATION

I'll be signing autographs at Leap Back 9009 * The Quantum Leap Convention tomorrow. Please stop by! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO STARLIGHT FOUNDATION for seriously ill children StarLight.org


Tomorrow, Friday March 26th I will be signing autographs and talking about the wild experiences filming the pilot of the hit Univseral series QUANTUM LEAP starring Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula.

I will be at the Beverly Garland Hotel for "Leap Back 2009" 20th Anniversary of Quantum Leap - the series. All proceeds benefit the STARLIGHT FOUNDATION StarLight.org

If you haven't seen GENESIS 1 & 2 you can buy it on Amazon.com. The Blue Angels flew overhead for one of our pivotal scenes and we filmed the 2-hour movie at Edwards Airforce Base in California.

I have some very great stories of this 3-week shoot in the middle of winter. I had short dark hair in this episode.

You can still get tickets at the door. It's a three day convention. I will be there from 1:30 until 4:30 tomorrow, Friday March 27 and I'll drop by sometime on Sunday to visit with Scott Bakula, Series creator Don Bellisario and James Whitmore, jr. who directed my Hunter episode.

Starlight Children's Foundation™

The Leap Back 2009 proudly supports the Starlight Children's Foundation! Proceeds made from the convention after all expenses are paid will be donated to this fantastic organization. We're also holding a special charity auction featuring rare memorabilia of which 100% of the proceeds will be given to the foundation!

In "Quantum Leap", Dr. Sam Beckett leaped from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong. In real life, we can't change history, but we can make things a little more right for many of these children that the foundation assists! We believe every person can make a difference in a child's life. By purchasing your admission to this convention, you are helping make a difference in a child's life. If you are unable to attend, we hope you'll make a contribution to the Starlight Children's Foundation through their website or by calling (310) 479-1212.

Here is an introduction taken from the Starlight Children Foundation's website:

Starlight Children's Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making a world of difference for seriously ill children and their families.

We touch the lives of a sick child and family all along their journey through a serious illness, from the time of diagnosis all the way through, in the hospital and at home. Families become part of our community and we work hard to meet their needs in a wide variety of ways. We build playrooms and teen lounges in hospitals and provide PC Pals and Fun Centers so kids can play games, e-mail, chat with friends, and even do their homework from their hospital bed. We bring in entertainers and sponsor parties for kids who are stuck in the hospital. When the kids get to go home, we keep them connected them through online chat rooms and special outings for the entire family. We provide them with information about specific illnesses and treatments on our websites and through videos and games we create. We distribute hundreds of thousands of books and toys every year. We are there for them at the time they need it most.

Starlight softens the hard edges of what a family experiences when a child has a serious illness. We create a sense of community between families who are having similar experiences by providing opportunities for them to escape the hospital, doctors, nurses, needles and treatments and doing something fun where they get to join others and just feel "normal" again--perhaps even forgetting that anyone is sick for a short while.

For more information or to make a donation, please visit StarLight.org to learn more about what this great organization does worldwide for children with serious illnesses! Please watch this short video telling you a little more about Starlight Children's Foundation.

____________________

Last night I was reading Steve Pavlina's blog, which I discovered two years ago by accident. I saw the "11:11" in the bottom right-hand corner of his post. I couldn't believe it. I never knew he was also one of us. I checked to see if it was just a time stamp but it was on another post too. Then I discovered an article he had written quite recently called "11:11." When I read the first sentence -- that he started seeing this in 1994 chills went down my spine. 1994 was when I began to see the 11:11, after the most uncanny Twilight-Zonish coincidence of my life. I saw it many times a day on so many things you can imagine (not just digital clocks) and I began to manifest every thing I really thought about... For years I've been hesitant to write or speak about this except to close friends who are like-minded. I've written about it in my journals and have owned an email address for 15 years with a version of this name. But I just wanted to finally put this out there.

ALAN SHRUGGED: GREENSPAN, AYN RAND and THEIR GOD THAT FAILED

Below, read fascinating articles on Ayn Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness" philosophy, her drug habit, and a personal story from one of her followers.

Alan Shrugged: Greenspan, Ayn Rand and Their God That Failed

In a historic moment, former Fed chair Alan Greenspan acknowledged he had been wrong for years to assume that government regulation was bad for markets. Whoops—there goes decades of Ayn Rand down the drain.

by David Corn
In a congressional hearing room on Thursday, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, one of the most influential civil servants of the past century, saw his stock plummet—and his entire career lose its moorings. More important, the ideological battle over economic theory and the role of government in markets—a fight that has played out in the current presidential campaign—took a historic turn.

With members of the House oversight and government reform committee blasting Greenspan for his past decisions that helped pave the way for the current financial crisis, he acknowledged that his libertarian view of markets and the financial world had not worked out so well. "You know," he told the legislators, "that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." While Greenspan did defend his various decisions, he admitted that his faith in the ability of free and loosely-regulated markets to produce the best outcomes had been shaken: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

In other words, whoops—there goes decades of Ayn Rand down the drain.

Democrats on the committee made Greenspan eat ideological crow. And after the hearing, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California released letters Greenspan had written to legislators in 2002 and 2003 that now cast the former chief banker as out of touch with financial reality.

Back then, Feinstein was pushing for regulating financial instruments known as derivatives—particularly those called swaps. In 2000, Republican Senator Phil Gramm, then the chairman of the Senate banking committee, had used a sly legislative maneuver to pass a bill keeping swaps free from federal regulation. (Lobbyists for financial firms had helped to write the bill.) The swaps market subsequently exploded, as financial firms bought and sold swaps as insurance to cover their trading in subprime securities and other freewheeling financial products. In a nutshell: the rise of unregulated swaps enabled the growth of the shaky subprime securities at the heart of the current financial crisis. Greenspan was an ardent supporter of keeping swaps virtually unregulated.

In 2001, Enron, having gone crazy with energy derivatives, collapsed—after the firm had manipulated the California electricity market, costing residents of Feinstein's states billions of dollars. Following that fiasco, Feinstein decided the derivatives market needed to be reined in. As The Wall Street Journal reported in 2004, "When she telephoned Mr. Greenspan for support, he declined, telling her the proposal threatened the multitrillion dollar derivatives industry, which he considers an important stabilizing force that diffuses financial risk."

In September 2002, Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman James Newsome wrote a letter to members of Congress to note their opposition to legislation that would regulate derivatives. They wrote:

We believe that the [over-the-counter] derivatives markets in question have been a major contributor to our economy's ability to respond to the stresses and challenges of the last two years. This proposal would limit this contribution, thereby increasing the vulnerability of our economy to potential future stresses....
We do not believe a public policy case exists to justify this governmental intervention. The OTC markets trade a wide variety of instruments. Many of these are idiosyncratic in nature....
While the derivatives markets may seem far removed from the interests and concerns of consumers, the efficiency gains that these markets have fostered are enormously important to consumers and to our economy.
Greenspan and the others urged Congress "to be aware of the potential unintended consequences" of legislation to regulate derivatives.

They got it exactly wrong. Swaps and derivatives ended up undermining, not bolstering, the economy.

Feinstein was not convinced by Greenspan's argument, and she continued to press for legislation to regulate swaps. And Greenspan continued to resist. In a June 11, 2003 letter—also signed by the new Treasury secretary. John Snow, the new SEC chairman, William Donaldson, and CFTC chairman Newsome—Greenspan praised derivatives and called them an essential part of the economy:

Businesss, financial institutions, and investors throughout the economy rely upon derivatives to protect themselves from market volatility triggered by unexpected economic events. This ability to manage risks makes the economy more resilient and its importance cannot be underestimated. In our judgment, the ability of private counterparty surveillance to effectively regulate these markets can be undermined by inappropriate extensions of government regulations.
They were asserting that government regulation undercuts market-driven self-regulation. But as events have demonstrated, unregulated swaps did not protect Big Finance firms; they weakened the entire financial industry in the United States and overseas.

In a November 5, 2003 letter, signed only by Greenspan, the Fed chair again took a shot at Feinstein's proposal to control derivatives. He noted that "enhanced market discipline" would address concerns about the manipulation of markets.

Before the oversight committee, Greenspan said that he had been "partially" wrong to believe that swaps did not need regulation. But he did seek cover by claiming he had not been alone in screwing up: "The Federal Reserve had as good an economic organization as exists. If all those extraordinarily capable people were unable to foresee the development of this critical problem...we have to ask ourselves: Why is that? And the answer is that we're not smart enough as people. We just cannot see events that far in advance."

But not everyone got it wrong. In the late 1990s, regulators at the CFTC wanted to regulate swaps. Gramm, Greenspan and others—including senior members of the Clinton administration—did not. Following the Enron debacle, Feinstein took a run at this. But Greenspan and Bush administration officials said no. And it was not an issue of smarts; it was a matter of ideology.

In fact, it was always a matter of ideology for Greenspan, a libertarian champion. In 1963, writing in Rand's "Objectivist" newsletter, he noted, "It is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product." Regulation, he maintained, undermines this "superlatively moral system." Self-governance by choice, he said, would be more effective than governance through government. Regulation, Greenspan maintained, was the enemy of freedom: "At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun."

Well, it turns out that at the bottom of the system that Greenspan oversaw for years, there was nothing but a pile of bad paper. And testifying to the House oversight committee, Greenspan, one of the more ideological Washington players of the past few decades, essentially said that Ayn Randism had let him—and the entire world—down. It was truly a God that failed.

David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief.

© 2008 Mother Jones

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary edition

Comment from Lydia:

"As I searched for the words, "compassion" "empathy" or "love" in articles on Ayn Rand, I could not find them. This is what is lacking in Ayn Rand. She has missed the core of everything. She talks in the periphery, all around the substance but never hits home. Her mind is brilliant in its analytical arguments, but it is a small mind. She spins circles and she can justify anything intellectually. But the intellect is limited.

I'm sure that wherever she is in the vast consciousness of the afterlife -- she has found by now that love is all that matters. Losing interest in selfish things is all that really matters. Smashing the ego, not building a shrine to it.

Now I realize why Ayn Rand never spoke of love and seemed to be so disconnected from humanity.

Now I see why Rush Limbaugh is such a fan of Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness" principle. Whether or not Rush is still taking pharmaceutical heroin (Oxycontin) he is at least numbing himself with self-righteousness, megalomania, resentment and ego (as a lot of us are!) These are drugs in themselves.

FROM BIOGRAPHY.COM:

FAQ: I heard that Rand was addicted to speed. Is this true?

As with many claims about Rand, this one is rather exaggerated. According to the most reliable information available on the matter, Rand had an ongoing prescription from a doctor for a diet drug that included dextroamphetamine as one of its active ingredients. She took two pills per day until the early 1970s, when another doctor told her to stop taking them. If you refer to any and all amphetamines as "speed," then she did take "speed," although it is probably not accurate to say she was addicted to it. She certainly did not take the street drugs to which the term 'speed' is more commonly applied.

The documentary evidence on this subject is limited. Nathaniel Branden mentions the matter very briefly in his memoirs. All he says is the following:

I did not attach significance to the fact that, since her late twenties, she had been taking amphetamines daily for weight control, on the advice of a physician. I do not think the discovery had yet been made that a protracted use of amphetamines can precipitate paranoid reactions.

In a magazine interview, he expounded only slightly more on the topic:

She was taking a relatively small quantity of a drug called Dexedrine which in those days doctors were prescribing very freely for people who wanted to control their appetite. Today of course Dexedrine has a bad name and it's no longer recommended. But it was recommended to her, I think, when she was only twenty-eight years of age, and she had been taking two pills a day, I believe almost as long as she lived. I don't think she took heavy doses.[*]

Barbara Branden discusses the matter with more detail in The Passion of Ayn Rand. Her discussion in full is as follows:

It was during this period of nonstop work on The Fountainhead that Ayn went to see a doctor. She had heard there was a harmless pill one could take to increase one's energy and lessen one's appetite. The doctor, telling her there would be no negative consequences, prescribed a low dosage of a small green tablet which doctors had begun prescribing rather routinely. Its trade name was Dexamyl. Ayn took two of these pills each day for more than thirty years. They appeared to work: she felt that her physical energy had increased, although it was never high, and her weight stayed under reasonable control. In fact, medical opinion today suggests that they soon ceased to be a source of physical energy; their effect shortly became that of a placebo.

Dexamyl consists of two chemicals: an amphetamine and a barbiturate. It was not until the sixties that researchers investigated the effects of large doses of these chemicals. They found that extremely high doses were harmful, sometimes even resulting in paranoid symptoms; but to this day, there is only the most fragmentary and contradictory scientific evidence to suggest that low doses such as Ayn took could be harmful. As one pharmacological specialist has said: "Perhaps they hurt her, and perhaps they didn't."

WHO IS AYN RAND?
Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth," grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives. Rand initially expressed these ideas in her novels The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and other works. She further elaborated on them in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, and other non-fiction books.[4]

Objectivism holds: ... that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez-faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that he can comprehend and to which he can respond emotionally.
_______________________

An Insider's Look by Lee Stranahan Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/an-insiders-look-at-how-a_b_174752.html

I know my Ayn Rand. In fact, when it comes to Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism I'll put put my Ayn Cred up against almost anyone.

I attended her funeral in 1982. I was one of two students at experimental Objectivist high school back in 1980s. I did the audio taping on a lecture course taught by her 'intellectual heir', Leonard Peikoff. I've attended Objectivist conferences, owned first edition copies of Atlas Shrugged and I was personally kicked off the lawn of the Canadian power trio Rush's drummer by Neil Peart himself asserting his property rights.

Today, I realize that Rand's philosophy isn't just wrong or misguided - it's actually been destructive and dangerous.

This destructiveness has been true on a personal, human level for years. I'm not just talking about teenagers devouring The Virtue Of Selfishness and turning into belligerent, arrogant pricks - pubescent pontificating Penn Jillettes capable of quoting passages about epistemology and almost immediately killing any social occasion.

There were darker personal tragedies, too; fans of Ayn Rand in 1960s who had the misfortune to be in her circle and gay, something that Ms. Rand did not approve of. There were whispered rumors of an Objectivist therapist who broke with Rand after one of his gay patients committed suicide after being unable to reconcile his sexuality with the Objectivist philosophy.

It's even more than the shameful fact that the Objectivist movement and its purported belief in individual rights stayed completely on the sidelines during the Rand's intellectual heyday of the 1960s while the single biggest advance in individual liberty was going on - namely, the civil rights movement. Well, Rand did knock out a few pages in an article called Racism in 1963 that spent as much time blaming 'the Negro leaders' as it did the 'Southern Racists'.The reality is that Ayn Rand is pretty directly responsible for the economic destruction we see around us today.

It's a Rand-worthy ironic plot twist that people like Michelle Malkin are invoking her name today with their Tea Party and "Going Galt' dramatics. One thing, Malkin doesn't even know how to pronounce Rand's name. It's not 'Ann' Rand - it's Ayn, rhymes with MINE.

The real irony is that Malkin and the other Fauxjectivists don't really understand a lot about the specifics of Rand's ideas at all. A twisted version of Rand's thought is the basis for a lot of NeoCon movement, much of the modern libertarian / Ron Paul movement and much of the right wing economic rhetoric used by the tattered remains of the Republican party.

For decades now, Rand's work has given comfort and ammunition to brazen bozos like Rush Limbaugh and McCain economic advisor Phil "Don't Worry Be Happy" Gramm. Its defense of selfishness and unrestricted capitalism provided an air of intellectualism to bad behavior and horrible policy.

Behind of the ideological tossed salad nature of many of the self professed Ayn Rand fans, I don't think it's fair to criticize Rand's ideas on the basis of the scatterbrain sloganeer like Malkin. And besides, just looking at the work of Rand and her official band of lunatics still leaves one with so much to be critical of.

One direct result of Rand is Alan Greenspan. This will be met with hue and cry from Objectivists who will claim that Greenspan doesn't pass their purity, which means he should have wanted even LESS regulation than he did and should have never have run the Federal Reserve but instead blown it up with dynamite and replaced it with the Gold Standard.

But Greenspan himself has admitted that he was tragically wrong about how people would act in unrestricted, unregulated markets. And this philosophy is part of what trigged the current economic crisis.

The ultimate horrible truth is that most of Rand's 'philosophy of the real world' has worked out very badly in the real world. It's a collection of ideas that haven't been tested or just don't work but its adherents still have a Bush-like unshakable faith in it because...well, it's just RIGHT and reality be damned.

Sadly, it's damned a lot of the rest of us, too.

A BEAUTIFUL WORLD

On Monday March 23, 2009, Michael Lux will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.

Lux was a member of the Obama/Biden Transition Team. In that role, he served as an adviser to the Public Liaison on relationships with the progressive community and gave strategic advice on structuring the Office of Public Liaison based on his past experience working on the Clinton/Gore Transition, as well as in the White House.

Mike Lux is the co-founder and President of Progressive Strategies, L.L.C., a political consulting firm founded in 1999, focused on strategic political consulting for non-profits, labor unions, PACs and progressive donors.

His first book is titled “The Progressive Revolution:How the Best in America Came to Be.”

Previously, Mike was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW), and the PFAW Foundation, and served in the Clinton White House from January 1993 to mid-1995 as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison. He also played a role in five different presidential campaign teams.

In recent years, he co-founded the influential progressive blog OpenLeft.com, and served in a key liaison role to the progressive community upon being named to the transition team for Barack Obama.

Mike serves on the boards of several important organizations, including the Arca Foundation. In addition to serving on the board, Mike was also a co-founder of Americans United for Change, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Center for Progressive Leadership, Grassroots Democrats, PoliticsTV, Progressive Majority, and Women's Voices Women Vote.

He also played a role in helping launch the Center for American Progress and Air America.



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 in our audio archives. Basham and Cornell RadioWe 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.
________________

Need a break from politics? The world is going through a cleansing now, and all the ego-driven, archaic ways are ending. There are so many wonderful things on the horizon. I have to tell you about an amazing trip I took to Pompeii with a Shakespearean actor who was starring in an Italian Zombie movie years ago. We travelled up the Amalfi Coast. Someday soon I want to visit Switzerland: St. Moritz where there is sunshine 322 days a year. It would be great to check out the biosphere in Entlebuch - a totally sustainable idyllic village. You can get "Hay Soup" there. Another place I'd love to go is Iceland, to an Ice Hotel!!!To clear the mind, take a look at these gorgeous places in the world:

SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES IN THE WORLD

1. Norway: Fjords and the Preikestolen cliff

2. France: The Versailles Palace, South-west of Paris

3. Zimbabwe-Zambia: Victoria Waterfalls

4. Vietnam: The Halong Bay, Gulf of Tonkin - East of Hanoi

5. Pakistan: The Badshahi mosque at Lahore, south-east of Islamabad

6. Germany: The Neuschwanstein castle

7. Brazil: Aerial view of Rio of Janeiro

__________________

ANNE RICE: GOOD ALWAYS TRIUMPHS

I just heard an amazing interview with Anne Rice (the author of "Interview with the Vampire", etc.) discussing her latest book "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana." She reminded me that good always wins, and we have to stop giving the bad guys equal power.

We have to stop acting as if evil has power equal to good. It does not. I am going to stop pretending to be afraid of the "evil doers" like Rush Limbaugh, Cheney, and the mindset of those who will not see their crimes. We have to stop being afraid of the crooks; we're giving them too much power. They are paper dragons.

Obama is our president for a reason now. Enlightenment is here. We are on the way back to a great world, where fair is fair and truth defeats lies. This is America. We don't have a caste system as India has. We are the great hope for mankind; we are the brave new world. As a reminder of the good in life, take a look at some of the most beautiful places in the world.

How can anyone be depressed?

Eckhardt Tolle was suicidal and said to himself, "I can't live with myself anymore." He heard himself say these words and suddenly woke up. "Who am I talking to? Maybe only one of me is real. I have a choice. Maybe only the good is real." He chose life and from that moment on had a revelation: he would live in the moment only. He would not worry about tomorrow. He spent 3 years being homeless but ecstatically happy, living at peace with himself. Of course now he's a multi-millionaire having written two books that sold over 8 million copies.

We have everything we need at every moment. We just have to wake up.