Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan

Which Bob Dylan song are you?Tangled Up In Blue

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May -- National Bike Month

We're out there balancing on two wheels and a triangle; if you're in a car watch out for bicyclists, please.




One may go many places by bike




or maybe by boat







One could stop by the river




and see a swan




or an authentic Dutch windmill





or two.






One could bike to Lake Michigan and walk the pier.




Now, that's the knd of Rapture one can believe in.

Myth Taken

"Live a good life. If there are g0ds and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are g0ds, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no g0ds, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
-- Marcus Aurelius


"There is no g0d, and heaven is a fairy tale for those afraid of death."
--Stephen Hawking


"No gods, no masters. "
--Margaret Sanger

Must be Monsanto r/BST r/BGH Cows

Banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, and the UK, bovine growth hormones are AOK in the USA. Wassa matter? Why u no like pus in your milk?

 http://biggovernment.com/lrlee/2011/05/09/tea-party-and-hippies-unite-food-safety-and-the-presidents-food-safety-czar/

Obama/Osama

No matter how you look at it, we bin had.



Didn't Bush justify war in Iraq because Bush officials legally swore Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11? We do know that Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction was not proven by the facts. When and how did 9/11 get pinned on Osama? Benazir Bhutto said Osama died in 2001, and without any facts to the contrary, that's what i tend to believe.

I wonder if some Pakistanis would consider the actions of the Obama US government to be that of terrorists? I'm thinking of our use of drones that have been reported to have killed innocent men, women, and children; our "diplomat" who gunned a man down in the back, who was later proved to be a Blackwater contractor with ties to the CIA.

I would be amused at all of the conflicting "facts" from our government officials on the Osama raid, if i were not so sad. My hope was that this mission would result in the withdrawal of US troops from at least Afghanistan and Pakistan, we sure could use some of those billions of war dollars here at home. And, that all the infringements of our rights and freedoms by Homeland Security would ease up. Well, the latest reports are that the drone attacks have resumed, and information was found that Al Queda was planning attacks on our rail system. So of course we will need more unhealthy porno-scanners and pat-downs almost anywhere crowds might go. How much longer until our freedom of speech is gone? Watcha gonna do?

War and Torture, when i so prefer Peace n Love.

05/07 --  Our newest drone attack? It was to kill the American-born (New Mexico) cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. It was reported to have missed him, but killed three others. So now we're bombing in another country? And the prez is giving orders to assassinate our own citizens in foreign countries we're not even at war with? We don't believe in trials, or the justice system at all anymore? I want the old USA back, the one I could be proud of.

Cinco de Mayo

today, and tulips getting ready forTulip Time this weekend.








early birds (dang, where's a seagull when ya need one)





calm before the noisy circus




much as i like my jeep, i'd pick the hot rod




wheeeee




colorful front view




obligatory fun house




getting dizzy already

To the Beach

Waiting to turn left this view behind the storefronts always catches my eye.




Sunny but cold.

Spring Sprungs

Skeptics

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) is considered the Father of Modern Skepticism. Today, through the usual delightful interwebby way, i came across these quotes on wiki. Surprising, or not, how many i've heard paraphrased throughout my life.

"
I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.

If you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.

When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?

Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.

The continuous work of our life is to build death.

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.

Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them.

Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.

Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

No man is a hero to his own valet.

I believe it to be true that dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

Whether the events in our life are good or bad greatly depends on the way we perceive them.

The only thing certain is nothing is certain.

Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known."






Also caught in the web: http://www.economist.com/node/18584074?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/thegoodgodguide

First paragraph:

RELIGION is ubiquitous but it is not universal. That is a conundrum for people trying to explain it. Religious types, noting the ubiquity (though not everyone is religious, all human societies have religions), argue that this proves religion is a real reflection of the underlying nature of things. Sceptics wonder why, if that is the case, it comes in such a variety of flavours, from the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to the cargo cults of Papua New Guinea—each of which seems to find the explanations offered by the others anathema.

Follow the Money

Dictatorship in Benton Harbor, Michigan, not too far south of me; wish i could believe it is unbelievable. The city's mayor, commissions, and fiscal rights? Gone. Voting Rights? Gone. Democracy? Going fast. Dictatorship Nationwide? Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

Seems the city did not want to give up its public land on Lake Michigan. Seems a group known as Harbor Shores wanted the land for a golf course. Seems Whirlpool, which used to have a factory in Benton Harbor, but closed it to open a more profitable factory overseas, is a part of Harbor Shores. Seems State House Representative Fred Upton is a heir to Whirlpool.

Seems there will be a new golf course, and the annual pass to play there is expected to be be about half the average annual income of the typical Benton Harbor resident.



Something smells, fishier than a beach full of dead alewives, in the state of Michigan.

Or, Eostre

"Ishtar", which is pronounced "Easter" was a day that commemorated the resurrection of one of the gods called "Tammuz", who was believed to be the only begotten son of the moon-goddess and the sun-god.
In those ancient times, there was a man named Nimrod, who was the grandson of one of Noah's son named Ham.
Ham had a son named Cush who married a woman named Semiramis.Cush and Semiramis then had a son named him "Nimrod."
After the death of his father, Nimrod married his own mother and became a powerful King.
The Bible tells of of this man, Nimrod, in Genesis 10:8-10 as follows: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
Nimrod became a god-man to the people and Semiramis, his wife and mother, became the powerful Queen of ancient Babylon.
Nimrod was eventually killed by an enemy, and his body was cut in pieces and sent to various parts of his kingdom.
Semiramis had all of the parts gathered, except for one part that could not be found.
That missing part was his reproductive organ. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod could not come back to life without it and told the people of Babylon that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now to be called "Baal", the sun god.



Queen Semiramis also proclaimed that Baal would be present on earth in the form of a flame, whether candle or lamp, when used in worship.
Semiramis was creating a mystery religion, and with the help of Satan, she set herself up as a goddess.
Semiramis claimed that she was immaculately conceived.
She taught that the moon was a goddess that went through a 28 day cycle and ovulated when full.
She further claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates River.
This was to have happened at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Semiramis became known as "Ishtar" which is pronounced "Easter", and her moon egg became known as "Ishtar's" egg."



Ishtar soon became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays of the sun-god Baal that caused her to conceive.
The son that she brought forth was named Tammuz.
Tammuz was noted to be especially fond of rabbits, and they became sacred in the ancient religion, because Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun-god, Baal. Tammuz, like his supposed father, became a hunter.
The day came when Tammuz was killed by a wild pig.
Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz was now ascended to his father, Baal, and that the two of them would be with the worshippers in the sacred candle or lamp flame as Father, Son and Spirit.
Ishtar, who was now worshipped as the "Mother of God and Queen of Heaven", continued to build her mystery religion.
The queen told the worshippers that when Tammuz was killed by the wild pig, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree, and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight. This made the evergreen tree sacred by the blood of Tammuz.
She also proclaimed a forty day period of time of sorrow each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz.
During this time, no meat was to be eaten.
Worshippers were to meditate upon the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz, and to make the sign of the "T" in front of their hearts as they worshipped.
They also ate sacred cakes with the marking of a "T" or cross on the top.
Every year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a celebration was made.
It was Ishtar's Sunday and was celebrated with rabbits and eggs.

And that is how the bunny comes out of the tomb.

Hosanna Heysanna

Yesterday my son got married

 

 

 

 

Today it snowed.