April 2nd: a New Teflon Don.

April 2nd, not quite as prevalent in our minds as that of April 1st, or as it is commonly becoming known: Donald Trump Day, because there never has been a bigger April Fool than Donald Trump as he tries lying his way out of his stupidity that now has the USA -- as we use to say in the Navy -- DIW: Dead In The Water.  More on that later, first, we are talking about April 2nd, which, in pagan days of old in Germany was the day of the year when the old "carrying death away" was carried out.  This was a celebration of  Winter's demise when special straw dolls were burned in sacred bonfires or "drowned" in sacred wells.  It's very similar to the Czech celebration on March 21 called Marzanna.  Funny, but if you go to the Wikipedia page for Marzanna, they offer this image:

Remind you of anyone?  Oh, I don't know... maybe....

Satan!



I'm just saying.

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If my predictions are right, today is the day Donald Trump becomes the new "Teflon Don."  Why?  Because the universe just works that way.  On this day in 1992, the mobster boss John Gotti who had been called the "Dapper Don" because he had gotten away with crimes all his life, became the "Teflon don" when a jury found him guilty and he was proven to not be "untouchable."  Devastating testimony from Gambino underboss turned FBI snitch Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, as well as incriminating taped conversations, scratched right through the Teflon surface, resulting in Gotti's conviction on 13 counts, including murder and racketeering, and a life sentence.

So keep your eyes on the news today, especially the New Teflon Don's Covid-19 briefing where the truth is scratching through our president's Teflon exhistance.  As of today, 5366 Americans have died of the Covid-19 virus, more than any other country in the world.  And all because until a week ago, Teflon Don said it was a hoax.

That's right, until now the news hasn't printed the truth about Teflon Don.  Now they have to.  Those of us who follow the teachings of Nichiren know that until now we were given the "transient manifestation" of Teflon Don's presidency.  Now, however, we are seeing the "true reality" of the Teflon Don's presidency.  The SGI president explains it this way:

"Let's say a fire takes place.  The fire itself is the 'true reality,' and the article in the newspaper about the fire is the 'transient manifestation' of that reality."

So the "transient manifestation" of Trump's response to the Covid-19 crisis is that  he banned people from coming from China on January 31, and this action prevented deaths from the virus in the USA.  Teflon Don says this false claim every day.  It's not true!  Americans were still coming and going as they wished without any restrictions, test, or quarantines. 

The "true reality" is in the statements Teflon Don has made in his own publicized words:

Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

Jan. 30: “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five — and those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for us … that I can assure you.”

Feb. 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”

Feb. 14: “There’s a theory that, in April, when it gets warm — historically, that has been able to kill the virus.  So we don’t know yet; we’re not sure yet. But that’s around the corner.”

Feb. 23: “We have it very much under control in this country.”

Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

Feb. 26: “So we’re at the low level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”

Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Feb. 26: “I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

Feb. 28: "It's a Democratic Hoax!" -- on the eve of the first Covid-19 death in the USA.

Feb. 29: “And I’ve gotten to know these professionals. They’re incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they’re very, very cool. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it well. Everything is really under control.”

March 4: “[W]e have a very small number of people in this country [infected]. We have a big country. The biggest impact we had was when we took the 40-plus people [from a cruise ship]. … We brought them back. We immediately quarantined them. But you add that to the numbers. But if you don’t add that to the numbers, we’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.”

March 4: “Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.” — Trump in an interview on Fox News, referring to the percentage of diagnosed COVID-19 patients worldwide who had died, as reported by the World Health Organization.

March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”

March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

A day later, on March 11, the WHO declared the global outbreak a pandemic.

April 1st historcially speaking: we're f*&ked!

The month of Venus begins with April Fool's Day (also known as All Fools' Day), an occasion for playing practical jokes on friends, family, and coworkers.  This custom dates back to olden times, when inmates of insane asylums were allowed out in the streets for one day each year for the sadistic amusement of those who were (supposedly) normal.

April first is ruled over by the Norse trickster god Loki.  It is also the Roman women's festival of Fortuna Virilis, seeking good relations with men and ruled over by Venus. 
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In her twenties she became famous in the 1970 film Love Story.  In that film she played Jenny Cavilleri, a dying girl who isn't told she is dying until her husband and parent have been told first.   Yes, a poor, helpless, woman. 

In her second big film, Steve McQueen's character slaps her for having cheated on him.  No charges were pressed, even though it was a film, they should have been.  Later that year the two were married.

In her 40's she was invited up to Bill Cosby's hotel-room for a drink, she refused. 

Happy April's Fools Birthday.

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Other things to ponder on this day:

In 1924 Adolf Hitler is convicted of high treason and sentenced to five years in prison for leading an unsuccessful coup called the "Beer Hall Putsh." Hitler served nine months and used the time to write his autobiography, Mein Kampf.  Nine years later on this day in 1933 Hitler's government begins an assault against German Jews by calling a boycott of Jewish-owned business. 

Finally, on this day in 1778 the dollar sign ($) is created.  On this day in 2020 the symbol seems to be fading fast due to the mishandling of the covid-19 virus by Donald Trump, who, by the way has to be hurting too since his business's have to be hurting.  Maybe this is why he is finally giving a shit.  

I'm just saying.

 

"...never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

In old pagan days, March 31 was the celebration of the Luna goddess. 

“Luna’s themes are all lunar attributes – instinct, creativity, luck, femininity, water element, miracles (on a Blue Moon) – also safety in travel.  Her symbols are silver or white Items, water, moon images and the number 13.

The Roman Goddess personifying the moon, Luna had the additional unique quality of being a protectress of charioteers, which in modern times could make Her a patroness of automobiles!

While March came in like a lion, Luna escorts it out lavishly, with Her soft, shimmering light. She is the full moon, which symbolizes the growing awareness developed this month, the fullness of loving emotions, and charms and enchantments empowered by the silvery light of the moon.

 

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 Today in 1631 John Donne died in London.
This contemporary of Shakespeare's published almost nothing during his lifetime. Centuries later, we are lucky to have a few of the verses he left behind.

Like this:

         Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
          Before I knew thy face or name...

Or this:

          It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
          And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be...
          This flea is you and I, and this
         Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is...

Not to fret, poet John Donne did leave us words we can take to heart in these Covet-19 troubling times:

"...never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Which means (for my Republican readers): because we are all part of mankind, any person's death is a loss to all of us: “Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” The line also suggests that we all will die: the bell will toll for each one of us.
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On this date in the year 1848, the famous Fox Sisters supposedly made communication with the spirit world at Hydesville Cottage in upstate New York.  Their famous seances gave birth to the popular spiritualist movement, which was all the rage in the United States and England from the mid-1880's to the early twentieth century.

If they were fakes in life, they are certainly not in death.   For we still see them in mirrors, alone at night, try it.   They do come for a shilling. 

There have always been bad leaders in the world who have led their followers to death: Donald Trump.

I am amazed at how gullible people are.    They believe millionaire politicians -- about 80 percent, most of the them -- who's main purpose in government is to protect their fortunes and the fortunes of others in the same tax bracket, yet, they tell you they are going to get government off of your back by making it smaller when in reality they are just making it less for the people and more for the greedy. 

I guess I shouldn't be so amazed, that's the way it is, always has been, and always will be.  Someone with the gift-of-gab tells you what you want to hear and you obey.  Take for example this day (March 30th) in 1750.  John Taylor had a successful business with such clients as King George II and the pope -- who else could afford a doctor back then, or today for that matter?

Taylor in his Sunday Shirt

Back to my story: Taylor, who had adopted the title "Ophthalmiater Royal," rode from town to town in a carriage emblazoned with painted eyeballs, made grandiose speeches before gathered crowds at each surgery, and left a long trail of blinded people in his wake.  One of them was Johann Sebastian Bach.

The great composer had long suffered poor eyesight, but as his condition worsened, he had the misfortune of meeting the itinerant Taylor, who had just arrived in Leipzig to great fanfare.  On March 30, 1750, the celebrity oculist plunged his sharpened instruments into the musical genius's eyes.  Then he applied a healing poultice of pigeon's blood, pulverized salt, and just a dash of mercury.  After several days, Bach could no longer see.  Four months later Bach was dead, and just as we are blinded by the tax-cuts for the rich, smaller government to hide their lies, and a global Corporation to control it all,  eight years after Bach's eye-sight was taking away, Handel requested the same treatment and too went blind.
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Don't bat an eye, my friend, the illusion has been going on forever, take for instance on this day in 1218, in England: King Henry III proclaims the Yellow Badge Edict, under which every Jew older than seven must wear a yellow identifying badge.  (And you thought it started in Germany the Nazis.)

Then on this day in 1533, the protestant faith is created by Henry VIII so he can divorce his first of five wives and still get into heaven.  

On this day in 1581, Pope Gregory XIII forbids Catholics to use Jewish doctors.
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Finally, on this in 1945 in Berlin Germany:

     Today we heard the military bulletin at five, as we were drinking coffee....  The speaker formulated thus: "If we resist, we have the possibility of continuing to live; if we capitulate, we shall certainly die.  Because not only the Bolshevists want to exterminate us, but the Anglo-Americans want to do so, too, behind both is the Jewish will to destroy."  

This said after the Germans had murdered millions of Jews in the gas chamber.  

 

And on this day in 2020, Donald Trump is saying he has done a "perfect job" and that we would have lost "two million" people to the covid-19 virus if he did nothing.  The fact is we knew this was coming since December.  The fact is any-other president Republican or Democrat would have taken it seriously and been more prepared.  The fact is Donald Trump and his Republican do-nothing-but-cut-taxes-for-the-rich-and-make-laws-to-ban-abortion idiots took it as a "liberal conspiracy" to make Trump look bad.  Look at the history folks.  A month ago this is what they were saying.  A month ago, Trump said:  "It's a hoax."

There have always been bad leaders in the world who have led their followers to death: Donald Trump.

Wash you hands, Happy Birthday To You, Racist "Cotton Tom" and more.

 

Patty Smith Hill

Everyone knows the rules in washing your hands to help prevent the spread of Covid 19.  You do it by singing the Happy Birthday To You song twice.  In 1868 on this day, Patty Smith Hill who composed the birthday song was born.  I wonder what she'd say if she knew her song was now a medical procedure:

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Cotton Tom

Speaking of washing your hands, here's a man who's racist ways we should have washed our hands of by now, but haven't with the White Supremacist Revival going in the world.  His name was James Thomas "Cotton Tom" Heflin.  On this day in 1908, after just having introduced a measure in congress that would segregate the streetcars of Washington DC to be like the streetcars back in his hometown of Atlanta,  Cotton Tom boarded a trolley near the Capitol on his way to a temperance meeting and found two black men not only sitting in the trolley car, but sharing a bottle of alcohol. 

When his remonstrations to put away the bottle were met with "vile epithets" from "the negro," as The New York Times reported at the time, the enraged Heflin tossed one of the men off the streetcar.  Then, when his adversary continued to sass him from the street, the congressman natually shot at him.  The bullet missed, though, and hit a bystander in the toe.  Undeterred, Heflin fired again, this time wounding Lumby in the head.  He was arrested and charged with assault with intent to kill, and, after being accorded all due courtesy at the police station, released on bail.  Cotton Tom was never tried for the shooting, which he later cited as one of the greatest accomplishments of his career. 
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In ancient Rome, the fertility and wine-god Liber Pater was honored annually on this date (and sometimes on the seventeenth of March).  His festival, the Liberalia, was a time of feasting and drinking, and a day when young males entered into their manhood.
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First Lady Helen Taft

On this day in 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and the Japanese ambassador's wife, Viscountess Chinda, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac tidal basin.  Mayor Ozaki donated the trees to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan and also celebrate the continued close relationship between the two nations. Large and colorful helium balloons, floats, marching bands from across the country, music and showmanship are parts of the Festival's parade and other events.

One has to wonder if President Truman noticed the friendship trees on August 6, 1945 or August 9, 1945 when we dropped atomic bombs on them killing 75,000 people.   I wonder how good those apples tasted that day.

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 A person can escape the unhappiness that befalls her, but not the unhappiness she creates herself.

--Father Tolstoy

March 26th, a very pagan day, no politics today boys and girls.

Walt Whitman

 NO politics today, I actually chanted for Mike Pence and Donald Trump this morning in that they may get in touch with the Buddha nature in us all.  

It is Solitude Day.  This is a time for Wiccans and Neo-Pagans to spend the day (or at least part of it) by themselves, mediate in solitude and reconnect with their "inner selves."  Take a quiet walk in the woods or stroll down a deserted beach and listen to the music of the sea.  Explore an old barn or write a Goddess-inspired poem.

Speaking of poem, on this day in 1892 Walt Whitman died.  It was also on this day in 1874 that Robert Frost was born.  Whitman’s poetry was originally considered little more that smut in some quarters.  According to “On This Date” by Carl M. Cannon, “It wasn’t Whitman's death that changed that view so much as it was that the Civil War toughened Americans’ hides and literary sensibilities....”

Robert Frost

Robert Frost not only shared the same birthday as Whitman, but, as Carl M Cannon stated, was another “brawny bard.”  Everyone knows of his “Road Not Taken” poem, but few know that Frost gave us a poem called “Mending Wall” in response to the Russian wall in Berlin meant to keep democracy out.  Some would argue, including this bard, that the wall President Trump is building between Mexico and the US is also designed to keep democracy out.  Only time will tell, here is the poem: 

Mending Wall 
~~ by Robert Frost 

 Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

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We know the story of Demeter and Persephone: Hades, king of the underworld, lusts after Kore and kidnaps her while she's picking flowers in a sunny meadow.  Refusing to let anything grow until she gets her daughter back, Demeter, the grain mother, makes a deal with Hades that allows Kore -- now called Persephone, "She Who Destroys the Light" -- to return to the upper world.  The story is allegorical.  Vegetation dies for a season.  The Eleusinian Mysteries perhaps revealed the mysteries of life and death contained in a seed.

In Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, Charlene Spretnak retells an earlier version of the story, without the rape.  Humankind lives in a happy land of perpetual spring.  Grain and flowers are ever growing, ever blooming, and no one has a care in the world.  One day Persephone hears whispering in the meadow.  It seems to be coming from beneath the roots of the flowers and grass.  She investigates and discovers that she's hearing the whispers of the dead, who exist in a half-life in a shadowy place under the earth.  She feels sorry for them and, talking three poppies and three sheaves of wheat, she descends under the earth.  She tells the dead souls that she has come to be their comforter and their queen.  After she paints their foreheads with the juice of the poppy to initiate them into new life, they are ready for rebirth.

Reader, instead of seeing pale Persephone on her dark throne, let's build a new picture in our minds.  Let's see young Persephone sitting among the shades of the dead -- alone. She's telling them stories and singing to them.  She's holding their hands, caressing their cheeks, reminding them of the joys and sorrows of life.  When they're ready, she sends them back up to the land of the living (Andinger - Pagan Every Day pg86).

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Comparative folklorist Joseph Campbell once wrote, "Read myths.  They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols."  Born in New York City on this day (March 26th) in 1904, Campbell gained fame for his 1948 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which studied the archetype of the hero in Native American, Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, Mayan, Norse, Biblical, and Arthurian legends.  His concepts were intricately woven into film director George Lucas's scripts for the "Star Wars" trilogy.  Campbell's multi-volume Historical Atlas of World Mythology was only partially completed by the time of his death in 1987.  

Joseph Campbell was a Pagan.

Joan of Arc in a Salem Dream on this Palm Sunday.

I could well be allowed to hear mass as I am, which is my highest wish.  But I can not change my attire, nor does that lie in me.

It does not lie in me to do it.  If it lay in me, it would be quickly done!

Joan of Arc,  March 25, 1431 (from her testimony at trial).
Joan of Arc In Her Own Words 

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Not to be confused with March 25, 1692, when John Proctor of Salem Village encountered Samuel Sibley at Walter Philip's tavern for an ale and asked, "how are the folks of the Village?"

"Very bad last night," Sibley answered, "your maid (Mary) is at it again, she is practicing magic."

Proctor:  "I'm going there now then to fetch the jade (A jade is a worn-out horse, a term, when applied to woman is comparable to 'bitch').   If they are to continue (he was upset they had been hanging out laughing), we should all be devils and witches quickly.  I tried to keep her busy at the spinning wheel and threatened to thresh her if she tried that again.  It worked, too, until I had to be away...."

While they were drinking their beers and planning another whipping of a jade, away from the Village at Stephen Sewall's house in Salem town, Betty Parris had such terrible seizures that her hosts feared she would die.  When she recovered enough to describe the apparition, Betty told Mrs. Sewall how the dark shape of a menacing man terrorized her.  And in her dream he had promised her anything that she wanted, and a trip to a golden city besides, if she obeyed him.

The Salem Witch Trials, Marilynne Roach

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On this day in 1957 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's book of poems called "Howl and Other Poems" were seized by U.S. Customs agents.  

Why did these words scare the establishment?  You tell me: