On this day in 1997 that classic parental saying that "Television
will rot your brain" came true. Over seven
hundred Japanese schoolchildren became dizzy and nauseated while
watching an episode Pokémon.
Some even had seizures. Hospitals across the country were inundated
with retching, convulsing kids, and a few parents, in scenes reminiscent of a really bad Japanese sci-fi movie.
"I
was shocked to see my daughter lose consciousness," said Yukiko Iwasaki,
whose eight-year-old suffered a seizure. "She started to breathe only
when I hit her on the back." The spasmodic mass
reaction was triggered about 20 minutes into Pokémon episode 38,
"Computer Warrior Porigon," which, like other episodes of the top-rated
show, was produced in an intense version of animation known as anime. A
vivid explosion, with pulsating strobe-light effects, apparently
walloped those kids with their eyes glued to their television sets on
the evening of December 16. Warning, the following episode has been know to cause seizures in young children. Watch at your own risk:
Also on this December the 16th, I think we should
remember the hungry: it was this day in the year 2007 that experts from
the world Bank, with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund
and a few United Nations agencies, updated their statistical tables from
the Regan/Bush era projections to admit that the estimated numbers of
poor people in the world was five-hundred million more than previously
recorded. As Eduardo Galeano said in his book Children of the Days, "They, the poor, already knew."
Update, the number is 736 million as of 2015. That's right, 736 million people will go hungry tonight while we spend millions to send an ex-football player into space for the experience.
Maybe f&*king Bezos should send one of the 736 million poverty kids on a space flight instead, at least they'd get a meal out of it.
On or near this day in 1942, the English Poet Keith Douglas
found himself in the Western Desert during the Second World War
fighting in the North African campaign. These are his observations that
he must have been writing for a book one day: I looked down into the face of a man lying hunched up in a pit. His
expression of agony seemed so acute and urgent, his stare so wild and
despairing, that for a moment I thought him alive. He was like a
cleverly posed waxwork, for his position suggested a paroxysm, an orgasm
of pain. He seemed to move and writhe. But he was stiff. The dust
which powdered his face like an actor's lay on his wide open eyes, whose
stare held my gaze like the Ancient Mariner's. He had tried to cover
his wounds with towels against the flies. His haversack lay open, from
which he had taken towels and dressings. His water bottle lay tilted
with the cork out. Towels and haversack were dark with dried blood,
darker still with a great concourse of flies. This picture, as they
say, told a story. It filled me with useless pity....
Keith Douglas died in Normandy two years later.
Enjoy the Holiday Seasons and be thankful for the peace we have this year. It's Yuge!
Speaking of war, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine
were Hollywood's feuding sisters--leading ladies locked in a bitter
rivalry that reportedly went all the way back to childhood. "I married
first," Fontaine once commented on the enduring sibling spat, "won the
Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid
because I beat her to it!" On December 15, 2013, at age 96, Fontaine
did indeed beat de Havilland to the grave.
__________________________________________________________________________________
In 1939 on this date, the American film "Gone with the Wind"
premieres, in Atlanta Georgia. The movie, based on Margaret Mitchell's
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, became an instant hit, breaking all
previous box-office records and winning nine Oscars.
Clark Gabble
Was the most famous “love child” of Hollywood’s Golden Era actually
conceived when actress Loretta Young was “date-raped’’ by the legendary
Clark Gable? That bombshell accusation broke Sunday at Buzzfeed, and it seems to me there are reasons to be somewhat skeptical.
___________________________________________________________________________________
In case you forgot, December 15 is the first of seven Halcyon Days
prior to the winter solstice when, according to legend, the halcyon
bird creates a time of tranquility by calming the wind and waves.
During this peaceful period, the kingfisher
was able to lay her eggs in peace. A magical bird, the kingfisher is a
symbol of the Greek goddess Alcyon, daughter of the wind king.
It was the last thing Kaiser Wilhelm II needed after a gay sex scandal
had already embroiled not only the highest echelons of imperial Germany
but also the sovereign himself. On Novermber 14, 1908, Dietrich Graf
von Julsen-Haeseler, chief of the German Imperial Military Cabinet,
dropped dead at a private party for the kaiser while performing a
balleric pas seul, or solo dance -- in a tutu.
Homosexuality had long been an unmentionable subject in Germany, one
that the press avoided assiduously--until 1906, that is, when a
journalist by the name of Maximilian Harden launched a campaign to
expose the sexual proclivities of the kaiser's inner circle. And much
of his scoop was provided by none other than Otto von Bismarck, the
"Iron Chancellor," who, like Harden, had vigorously opposed Wilhelm II's
policies and was dismissed by the kaiser as a result. In a letter to
his son, Bismarck wrote of the relationship the kaiser enjoyed with his
devoted friend Philip Frederick Alexander, Prince of Eulenburg and
Hertefeld--the details of which could "not be confided to paper."
Harden was wise enough to know that any compromising insinuations about
the monarch's personal life with Eulenburg would be foolhardy, so he
oped to discredit Wilhelm by disclosing instead the homosexual
relationship between Eulenburg and the kaiser's adjunct, Count Kuno von
Moltke-- or "Sweetie," as Harden referred to him--the military commander
of Berlin. In so doing, historian Alexandria Richie wrote, Harden
"broke on of the most sacred taboos in imperial Germany."
Kaiser Wilhelm sought to insulate himself from the emerging scandal by
distancing himself from his loyal friend Eulenburg and dismissing
Moltke. But neigher man was prepared to slink away with his reputation
so thoroughly shredded. What resulted was a flurry of libel suits,
filled with salacious details, that sent the press into an unprecedented
feeding frenzy.
"German newspapers were full of the story," wrote historian James
Steakley, "and it dominated their headlines for months; an
anti-homosexual witch-hunt of unparalleled proportions was unleashed.
Nealy every high government official and military officer was suspected
or accused of homosexuality." A number committed suicide in the face of
such shame; Wilhelm II suffered a nervous breakdown.
"It has been a very difficult year which has caused me an infinite
amount of worry," the kaiser wrote in December 1907. "A trusted group
fo friends was suddenly broken up through ... insolence, slander and
lying. To see the names of one's friends dragged through the gutters of
Europe without being able or entitled to help is terrible."
The, just as the scandal seemed to be simmering down, Dietrich Graf von
Hulsen-Haeseler performed his fatal piouette. Worse, rigor mortis set
in before he could easily be extricated from his tutu.
_________________________________________________________________________________
On this day in 1940, 500 German bombers pound the English city of
Coventry. The raids killed over 1,000 civilians and destroyed most of
the medieval cathedral. This raid followed Adolf Hitler's public
promise that an attack on the capital of the Nazi movement would not go
unpunished. Historians surmise that Prime Minister Winston Churchill
had advance knowledge of the raids and chose not to inform city
officials. This seemingly barbaric decision was an act of tactical
genius. Had Churchill informed officials, partial evacuation of the
city would have been ordered. German pilots would have noticed and
reported back to Hitler. This would surely have revealed Ultra, Great
Britains' top-secret system for decoding German communications.
__________________________________________________________________________________
On this day in 1945, Tony Hulman buys the dilapidated, disused
Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Edward Rickenbacher. Renovations
allowed the post-war resumption of the famous 500-mile races.
_________________________________________________________________________________
In ancient times, the Feast of the Musicians, a Druidic festival
dedicated to barbs and musicians, took place on this date. It's
celebrated today by some neo-pagans with offerings to the Celtic gods of
music. It is customary to gather around a bonfire for an evening of
songs and storytelling, ending with everyone tossing a wish into the
flames.
So it is December 13, the real day that begins the Christmas season to me. In Sweden they celebrate Saint Lucia's Day (St. Lucy's Day).
St. Lucy's Day is a festival
observed throughout Sweden in which the first-born daughter of each
family wears a flowing white gown and a crown of candles around her
head, obviously in reference to the ancient Pagan symbols of fire and
life-giving light. The daughter traditionally serves her mother and
father breakfast in bed. So the story goes something like this: around the year 283 when Christianity was starting to catch on and replace the earth religions, a Christian virgin named Lucy was offered to a Pagan for marriage by her dying mother, but, before the God-forsaken Pagan could get his dirty hands on Lucy, Saint Agatha appeared to her in a dream and told her that her mom would be heeled and that she didn't have to marry the mean old Pagan, and could remain a devout virgin the rest of her life! When her Pagan suitor heard of this, he demanded she denounce her beliefs or be sold into prostitution. She refused and the shit hit the fan: a soldier stabbed her in the neck with his sword to stop her from talking bad about the Pagan Gods, but Lucy survived and kept on stating her love for the Pope. This infuriated the soldiers and so another stabbed her in the eyes which bled like crazy before miraculously healing. In other words, the bitch just wouldn't die, that is, until a priest came along and read her the Last Rites. Then all was well, so the story goes.
Another story says St. Lucy hid in the catacombs of the city attending to injured Christians with candles on her head.
The truth of the matter is that around the year 283, when the Christian Calendar was being used by some while most of the world was still on a lunar calendar, December 13 was the on the winter solstice and so it was the shortest day of the year and everyone outside had candles on their heads. And Lucy, well, an inscription in Syracuse
dedicated to Euskia mentions St Lucy's Day as a local feast that dates
back to the 4th century A.D., which states that "Euskia, irreproachable,
lived a good and pure life for about 25 years, and died on my Saint Lucy's
feast day, she for whom I cannot find appropriate words of praise: she
was a Christian, faithful, perfection itself, full of thankfulness and
gratitude"
So, the celebration was going on before Lucy came along, but, in a time when living to thirty was considered a long time, she lived a good life for twenty-five years, apparently, a rare thing back then. In other words she was a good woman and should be remembered as such. So, put those candles on your head in honor of her and pray to whom ever you want, winter is here!
Live, love, and prosper. And to all, a good night.
I made the mistake of reading an article titled "How The Super Rich Do Disney" before bed last night and couldn't sleep a wink; I kept waking up wondering, "Why do they need their own private Disney Land?" Isn't ours good enough for them?
I am not sure why it bothered me so much, but it did. I mean, I've learned to accept the facts that they don't go to the same prisons as we do for committing the same crimes we do, nor do they drive on the same roads as we do by building expensive tollways that lead to their gated communities... but a private f*(king Disney Land?
Here are the details: the secret Disney Experience cost around $33,000.00 a day, and is based on the travels of Mr. Walt Disney himself. Yes, the sexist, racist Walt Disney, just ask Meryl Streep; but then, what white guy wasn't a racist in 1952? And get this, they were allowed alcohol too from the beginning which wasn't available to the rest of us until until 2019.
Now, the reason this fact kept me up last night wasn't that they have this privilege, but that it is more proof that they are setting up a private world for after the bottom falls out of the economy for the rest of us; and trust me, it will. Every economist not being paid by Fox News or Citi-Bank Consortium knows that the rich can't continue owning 99% of the wealth while the rest of us quibble over the measly 1% that trickles out their excesses in the form of a luxury tax. The system is designed to fail. And instead of preventing this from happening by giving up a portion of their wealth -- which will never happen -- they are willing to let the world around them crash while they watch in comfort from behind the scenes.
Shit, I've told you before about their private space program to fly them away to their luxury space stations when it gets really bad. What do you think cryptocurrency is really about? Cryptocurrency is a place to keep their money safe from the rest of us when they start their own 1% government. It's not a Republican/Democrat thing. It's not a white/black thing. It is the rich keeping us down. Period.
Wake up, tax the bastard or cease to exist. Even Jesus knew this when he said, "Give to Caesar What Is Caesars." Jesus knew without the rich paying their share, society would fail.
On this day in 1901, Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi
succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic
Ocean, disproving detractors who told him then the curvature of Earth
would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message--simply the Morse code for s-- traveled more than
2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.
That successful endeavor aroused widespread interest in Marconi and his
wireless company and won him worldwide fame.
Mae West
A few years after that on this day in 1937, sex symbol Mae West was
invited to perform her usual shtick of purring enticements and double entendres on radio's Chase & Sanborn Hour, a weekly variety show broadcast on Sunday nights. Playing a seductive Eve in one sketch, and flirting with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's wooden sidekick, Charlie McCarthy,
in another, the sultry actress delivered as bawdily as might be
expected. At one point, for example, she reminded the puppet that he
had already kissed her in her apartment. "I got marks to prove it," she
said. "An' splinters, too."
NBC had approved the script, but when a coordinated protest by the
Legion of Decency and other morality Christian groups erupted, the
network immediately disowned the star and declared her an "unfit radio
personality." n a spineless attempt to shift the blame, network
executives claimed West took the script they had found acceptable to
unexpected levels of indecency by the way she delivered her lines.
Subsequently, even the mention of her name was banned on NBC radio.
Fortunately, there were more reasonable observers, like the Chicago Daily News, which excoriated the network's cowardice in an editorial:
"NBC and the commercial sponsors of the program knew Mae West. They
knew her technique. They'd heard her and seen her. They coached her in
rehearsals. But when the public protests swamped them they pretended
they had Mae all mixed up with Mary Pickford or Shirley Temple."
So it is the day for the Noble Peace Prize, December 10th. Each year I wait to see who win's the great award. This year... wait for it... Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression; that's right, that thing that allows me to blog to you a few times a week... well, at least in theory, for if I were to tell you how I really feel about things... wait, I do... silly me, we are lucky to still have our freedoms that they don't in countries like the Philippines and of course, Donald Trumps: Russia.
Ressa, 58, a former CNN bureau chief in the Philippines, and Rappler, the news site she founded
in 2012, have faced multiple criminal charges and investigations after
publishing stories critical of President Rodrigo Duterte and his bloody
drugs war. Yet, she keeps writing.
And, equally as impressive, the other winner, Muratov is the founder and editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, one of
Russia’s last big newspapers to regularly criticize President Vladimir
Putin, and which has reported extensively on government corruption in
the country.
Both of these journalist are fighting against governments that use lies and fake news to keep in power... sound familiar? Yes, like our very own Fox News.
Okay, here's some fun facts about the Nobel Prize:
The award, given every year
on December 10, is supposed to recognize the very best in human
accomplishment in various fields of endeavor. Giants like Einstein, Mandela, Churchill, and Curie have
all been named Nobel laureates. But so have some vastly less deserving
fold who, by virtue of winning the Nobel, gave the prestigious prize a
bit of a black eye. Among them:
Fritz Haber,
1918, chemistry, for the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen in the
air. Thanks to Haber's discovery, which allowed for the development of
industrial fertilizers, the world became far better fed. Yet this
immensely beneficial contribution to mankind was made well before World
War I, by which time the chemist was redirecting his creative energy
toward something his own wife condemned as "perversion of the ideals of
science" and "a sign of barbarity, corruption the very discipline which
ought to bring new insights into life" -- the annihilation of Germany's
enemies on the battlefield with poisonous gas.
Antonio Egas Moniz,
1949, medicine, for pioneering the lobotomy. Besides the fact that
this radical brain procedure turned many patients -- including President
John F. Kennedy's sister Rosemary--
into near zombies, there was nothing particularly inventive about the
drilling holes into the skull and shoving in an instrument to disable
the frontal lobes. n fact, it was kind of medieval-- not like, say,
creating the artificial heart (a feat for which Robert Jarvik was
egregiously overlooked by the Nobel committee). And when a place as
oppressive and cruel as the Soviet Union bans lobotomies as "contrary to
the principles of humanity," as it did in 1950, that might be taken as
an indication that this monstrous procedure was bad medicine indeed.
Yasser Arafat, 1994, Peace Prize (shared with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin of
Israel). Yes, it's true that one man's terrorist is another man's
freedom fighter. And certainly the Palestinian people have had plenty
of legitimate beefs with Israel. Yet when the massacre of
innocents--coupled with hijackings, kidnappings, political
assassinations, and other mayhem--becomes the paramount means to an end,
as it did for the Palestinian leader, it tends to make a mockery of the
Nobel Peace Prize--especially considering the fact that Mahatma Gandhi was never awarded one.
Myron Scholes and Robert Merton,
1997, economics. Less than a year after receiving their prize, "for a
new method to determine the value of derivatives," as the Nobel
announcement read, the laureates' esteemed hedge fund, Long-Term Capital
Management, lost $4 billion in six weeks. (Bad Days in History, Farquhar, Michael).
No conversation of the Nobel Peace Prize is complete without mentioning the year 1978. For that is the year President Jimmy Carter somehow got Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat andMenachem Begin together to talk and Egypt became the first Arab
country to officially recognize the state of Israel. In return Egypt
gained control of the Sinai Peninsula. Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat andMenachem Begin both
shared the Nobel Peace Prize that year. It was one of the few serious
hopes for peace I have seen in my lifetime. But then....
On 6 October 1981, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal.
The assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā (death sentence) was approved by Omar Abdel-Rahman, "The Blind Sheikh," an Egyptian Muslim leader who was arrested and convicted for the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.
And of course, how can we forget 2009 when President Obama was awarded the prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and
cooperation between peoples. Well, that's what they said, truth is it was his award for finally giving us a president of color in the most powerful nation on the planet and the hopes that presented... unfortunately the backlash was Donald Trump which given us the first terrorist attach on a US Government State since the war of 1812 when the British burned our capital.
This day is sacred to Astraea, the star maiden, a Greek goddess of justice who chose to live among humans. She is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity and precision. After Pandora's box was opened, Astraea was the last of the gods to abandon Earth. Funny, but it does seem she comes back now and then, as for example, on this day in 2020 when the Supreme Court denied the Republican Party's bid to reverse the fair election results in Pennsylvania for no other apparent reason than too many people of color had voted, legally. No shit, that's the only possible reason they had!
No wonder the Republicans love them some Vladimir Putin, the king of the conservative ideas of a white country with no boundaries for the rich and voice for the poor.
"I ride naked on horse with Trump, because he remind me of beautiful Russian woman."
But I digress.
What I want to talk about today is the Chinese news report that "China's moon rover spots a mysterious cube-shaped object...."
Okay, so the big news here is that just maybe the TV Ancient Aliens' stars aren't nuts after all!
Well, accept for David Wilcox, everyone knows he been nuts since joining the January 6th nuts who believed Donald Trump's hair is real!
Trump has beautiful hair, like me!
Finally, on this eve of the overturning of Row vs. Wade being argued in the Supreme Court which will set women's rights back fifty years once passed, on this day in 1952 the first acknowledgement of pregnancy on an American television show occurred on the "I Love Lucy" show in an episode titled: "Lucy Is Enceinte" (the word "pregnant" was not allowed).
So I read today how China has a way of changing the weather by shooting chemicals into the clouds; it's called Cloud Seeding. This CNN article says that China used it at this year's People's Party anniversary celebration in Beijing where President Xi wore his groovy Chairman Mao jumpsuit -- I so want one.
Supposedly the government did some Cloud Seeding to clear away the pollution by making it rain and afterwards leaving clear skies to show the earth loves Xi.
I really want one of those suits!
Now, I heard about this from some of my conspiracy friends -- before they went QAnon and I had to get away from them for my safety -- yes, liberals like me are part of the problem in their paranoid aluminum-foil helmets.
Al's warning about QAnon Idiots.
Anyway, the conspiracy friends said the governments were doing Cloud Seeding to change our DNA, or something like that. It was a big secret.
Well, I had to know first hand so I called my good-friend in China. "Did you hear about Cloud Seeding?" I asked.
Oh, "人工降雨," she said. "That's old, we do it all the time."
"So it's not a secret?" I asked.
"No, not at all!"
"Hmmmm," I thought, "so then what is the problem?"
To which she reminded me, "It would only be a problem if our government was doing it in secret, like the USA."
"Dang!" I exclaimed, "that's right!"
And so fellow American's, the question is, "How long has the USA been doing it, and why are they not telling us the truth?"
Definition 1: a 15 year old high school kid having access to a 9mm killing handgun is senseless because we should have laws banning the mass-production of such weapons to keep them out of the hands of children.
Definition 2: it is senseless to have gun laws, prayers afterwards will solve the problem. Jesus will protect our children if we are all Christians.
Here's a wake up call everyone: 90% of the schools in the USA are Christian, so converting a few Buddhists like me, or Muslims like many of my readers — okay, one reader that I know of (hi Fadé) — are part of the problem because it allows people to think they are doing something caring about the senseless murders when in fact they are doing nothing more than easing their greedy, conservative, acid-head minds.
Funny that we are talking about this on the eve of a major abortion case being in front of the Supreme Court at this very moment, which begs the question: what if the Anti-Abortion Activist who care so much abort the life of a child in the fetus state, actually started caring about the fetus when it went to high school.
I am not making light of the situation. I will pray and chant for healing, but also, I will take action holding the gun manufactures and idiot parents who don't lock up their guns from their children accountable by voting against the NRA politicians every time, no matter if they support legalizing marijuana or not.
Finally, seems to be that the true baby killers are kids with guns, the true abortion clinics are the gun manufactures.
Okay, that it for today but have a look at my solution to this problem last time I wrote about senseless gun violence and wrote that the solution is returning to the Wild West and making people leave their guns out of Dodge City any way we can: the Wild West days!
Hello fellow Earthlings, sorry I have been away so long. I've been in heavy meditation since the firing of Jon Gruden, the headcoach of the Las Vegas Raiders. You see, if I haven't told yo before, I have been a Raider's fan since I was in the Navy and got stationed in San Francisco -- Oakland to be more precise.
Upon arriving at the Oakland/Alameda Airport, I saw the Oakland Raiders helmet in a glass encasement at the airport. I didn't know then, but the feeling that came over me from seeing that helmet is the same feeling I got when I saw my first Buddha. It's a spiritual feeling that is hard to explain, but very similar to that feeling I got when I first looked into my daughter's eyes. Love? For sure; however, "destiny" undoubtedly. I have been an Raiders fan since.
Why did the firing of Coach Gruden throw me in a retreat state? Well, karma. That's right. If you don't know the Gruden/Raiders story, it goes like this: Around 1998 Gruden was given his first head-coach job with the Raiders. Al Davis -- ommmmm - (reverence hum that is) gave him a break, and Jon helped develop the Raiders into a Super Bowl contender. Problem is that in 2001 Gruden was traded to Tampa Bay and the next year, was coaching Tampa Bay in a Super Bowl against the Raiders, his old team.
Al Davis
Mark Davis - Al's Son and Owner of the LV Raiders
Obviously, Gruden won the Super Bowl. He knew every weakness of his old team and so beating his old team was his great accomplishment. Very sad.
After that Super Bowl, Gruden became a Sports Talking Head, a know-it-all in a field of dimwits. Even sadder: he was one of the dim-wits.
Fast forward to three years ago and Mark David, the son of Al Davis, gives Gruden the keys to the Raiders Team along with a new football stadium in Las Vegas, and 200 million dollars in his pocket to boot.
Things were starting to turn around then private emails of Gruden are released showing that he had homophobic, sexist, and slightly racist views on a lot of things no modern-day man should have. Mark Davis who grew up in the Bay Area and so slants a little to the left -- ommmmmm, be still my beating heart -- had to fire Gruden... a week later, our start running back wrecks his car and kills a woman and her dog, he was drunk and so fired the next week.
In the late 1800s, many Americans toiled
12 hours a day, seven days a week, often in physically demanding,
low-paying jobs. Children worked too, on farms and in factories and
mines. Conditions were often harsh and unsafe.
It
was in this context that American workers held the first Labor Day
parade, marching from New York’s City Hall to a giant picnic at an
uptown park on Sept. 5, 1882.
The America Labor movement had begun and over the next century we would see a minimum wage, 40 hour work week, child protection laws, etc..
So my fellow humans, on this Labor Day 2021 I say: Put labor back in Labor Day. I say this the same way some Christians say: Put Christ back in Christmas. And just as they want to see a return to the days when Christmas was a day to honor Christ -- something I can't find in any history books, but I understand their plea -- I say, put Labor back in Labor Day. Maybe I'm just as blind as the Christians on this one. Maybe "Labor" never was in Labor Day.
Thoughts for you on this Labor Day. Happy Labor Day.
And on a Nichiren Buddhist note let me remind you that Nichiren Daishonin was the founder of this faith that has changed my life in so many ways, none more notable than saving my life by giving me a pain in my chest when I chanted which turned out to be my early diagnosis of lung cancer which they got in time to remove. The doctors were all dumbfounded saying, "There is no way that that early stage of a cancer node caused you any pain."
Nichiren established the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to the Gohonzon as the universal practice for attaining enlightenment. The name Nichiren means sun lotus, and Daishonin is an honorific title that means great sage.
Now you know.
Happy Labor Day boys and girls, good night, and fair wages for all.
In the Lotus Sutra, Bodhisattvas of the Earth are volunteers who have come to fulfill the mission to propagate the Mystic Law. I am a volunteer. This is my blog.
My name is Boogie, Doctor T V Boogie that is. I was born on a cold winter's day in an industrial city just north of Canada called Detroit Michigan. If you ever want to win a few dollars at a bar, just ask someone to name a major US city north of Canada that is not in Alaska. They can't. I just did.
I took religion serious from the beginning. I prayed to Jesus but somehow never felt anything other than one of those brain freezes that you get from drinking a cold drink too fast on a hot day. I can't tell you the first time I saw a Jesus cross, maybe because there were so many; I can, however, tell you the first Buddha statue I saw on Woodward Avenue and Nine Mile Road. It was outside a Chinese Restaurant that we past on our way to the Five and Dime Store -- for those too young to know, before there were Dollar Stores, there were Dime Stores, which begs the question: What's next, Twenty Dollar Store? Perhaps. But I don't want to talk about money, I want to talk about that Buddha I saw. I stopped and felt something. I asked my Grandmother, "Who is that?"
"It's a Chinese Big Boy Restaurant, stay away, they cook dog meat."
Yes, my grandparents were racially opposed to anyone who didn't have pinkish skin and round eyes, but then, they didn't like most white people either so I didn't think much of it until I got older and knew there had to be a better way, a Bodhisattva Way.
When I was about seven or eight, there was a hit television series called Kung Fu. All the kids loved it. It was about this half-Chinese/half-Western man who was raised in China and came to the USA to find his lost brother during the Wild, Wild, West days. He was a real badass, and the kids on the playground pretended to be Kung Fu by kicking each other. I didn't understand it, I wondered, don't they see that he doesn't want to fight? That he wants to avoid fighting and be peaceful! That was the Kung Fu who inspired me.
I tried to fit in, but always knew I was different spiritually than those around me. And it took years to figure out, but I eventually did, and that is what this blog is about.
Okay, so for those of you who understand how some Esoteric Objects can protect themselves, I have an item for you. For Sale, My Ouija Board. Happy Bidding.
I don't normally advertise items that I sell on my withinfilm account on eBay, but today I am compelled to because, well, just because... or should I say, "...because the sky is blue... trees are green...." Dang, my bedroom poet side is showing again, sorry, back to the subject at hand.
Around 2009 -- when I was still making bad movies -- I was walking into this thrift store and as I was entering, I thought, "There is going to be a Quija Board here." And there was. That's right, a Parker Brothers Glow-In-The-Dark Quija board. And so I bought it. Now, having been raised a Christian I thought it was Satanic so never touched it; I did, however, use it in a short film called "Empty Boxes." That short was about a Mannequin (which is also for sale) that comes to life from the power of a Ouija board. Yes, another terrible film by Dr TV Boogie.
After shooting that film, I left the Quija board on the table, not sure why. A few days later, fire, Fire, FIRE!!! I live in a 4 Plex and so there was a bad fire which totally destroyed the 2 units beside me, as well as smoke and water damage to the unit above me. My unit, no problem, clean as a whistle. When I came to look at the damage a few days later, my condo smelled a little smoky, but that was it. And in the middle of the room was that Quija board, dry, clean, and safe; wow, Wow! WOW!
Now, the big question is, did the Quija board burn the units around me or did it just protect itself.
Anyway, I have learned in my Nichiren Buddhist faith that there are evil spirits around, as well as good ones -- that's right folks, there is a Buddhist faith for the Pagan and Witches out there who want to get out of darkness and into the light of Buddha.
Maybe I should advertise the Quija Board under home security. Hmmm....
