August update

Above, left: State Representative Leola C. Robinson-Simpson (District 25 - Greenville County) speaking at our local 50th anniversary celebration of the Civil Rights March, in Greenville's Cleveland Park on Saturday.

Above, right: Traci Fant, event organizer and local activist extraordinaire.

~*~

Back from Texas! (Did yall miss me?) You can see my purty family-photos HERE. My grandchildren (below) are both huge. And my grand-cat Napoleon is almost 9 years old! (as always, you can click all photos to enlarge)



~*~

And hey, I got old cars! (waves to the car-photo lurkers) You knew I would. (below)



I barely managed to get the first photo, as we went zooming by at breakneck pace. (Texans all drive like maniacs, including my beloved daughter.) I have no idea of the make, model or year of first one (it was for sale) or even the exact location--except that I snapped the photo somewhere between Fredericksburg and Kerrville. I am thinking: 60-61 Buick? It has fins!

The second photo, a Monte Carlo (75 or 76?), was taken in back of the Mellow Mushroom after the rally on Saturday.

~*~

Lots going on, as our awful Governor Nikki Haley (spits for emphasis) announced her re-election campaign right here in Greenville yesterday. When in trouble (as Haley certainly is), conservative state politicians ALWAYS run up here to hide amongst the GOP faithful. (As I have said many, many times, this IS the most conservative county in the USA, according to Rick Santorum's former campaign manager, who should know.) Haley's decision to announce here signals that she is in trouble in her own backyard, which is Columbia. (She avoids the coast at all costs.)

At yesterday's event, Texas Stoner Governor Rick Perry was on hand for comedy relief and her other good buddy, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (I mentioned here how chummy they are) was also present, for back-up.

She needed it.

Our own Double A, one of my two dynamite radio co-hosts, attended the demonstration against Haley, and reported on the foofaraw. Other than a few small, brave news outlets, the counter-demonstration was mostly ignored by local media.

~*~

HEAT and TRANS update, all in one

Recently, whilst sitting and baking in the ungodly heat, I have read/seen a good number of young trans men ecstatically bragging that they are post-op (known as "top surgery" i.e. mastectomies) and now, ohhh happy day, they can jump in the pool topless and sit around the house topless and at long last, go without a shirt! As if it is somehow intrinsically impossible to do these things unless one is male. These statements are utterly infuriating, and incidentally, feed the (unpopular and oppressive) radfem perspective that gender IS entirely a social construct (and therefore, they believe, surgical/hormonal transition should be unnecessary, and society itself should change or "transition" instead). Because going shirtless is not an intrinsically male or female activity, but IS entirely socially constructed, as we all learned as children, leafing through National Geographic and seeing photos of topless women in the Amazon or wherever.

The fact that these young trans men do not question their cultural environment, and make a big point of bragging about their newly-acquired social superiority (i.e. they are FINALLY FREE of having to do what those NARROW, CONSTRICTED, REPRESSED, GROSS WOMEN ARE FORCED TO DO: keep their shirts on), is very reactionary, offensive and sexist.

Wanting to shed one's shirt does not make you a man, it makes you conscious of the goddamn heat. Living in the broiler that is summer in South Carolina, I want to take my shirt off every single day. Every. Single. Day. And I am not a man and have never wanted to be one. As regular readers know, this is one of my big FEMINIST ISSUES--that men have this right and women do not, all because the almighty sacred titties are arousing to men and obscenity laws were written by men. (NOTE: This is rightly called PATRIARCHY, since the laws were written by MEN, using men's desires as a guide to what is regarded as obscene; women's desires have not been a factor.) I see no reason why WOMEN should not enjoy these so-called "male" privileges too. Instead, as in THIS VIDEO, it is simply understood that men have this seemingly-God-given right and women do not, period. Consequently, the young trans man brags that he can now, finally, at long last, hallelujah, take off his shirt.

(sigh)

And so, instead of properly fighting for everyone to have this right, it is presented as evidence of manhood (and in this context, transgender feelings), thus preserving the patriarchal status quo. This is backward, not forwards.

And further, radfems rarely (if ever) mention trans men and these kinds of sexist statements they make... its only when a high-profile individual like Chaz Bono is openly misogynist that anyone speaks up and says WHOA. I am tired of trans women taking all the heat for their choices, as trans men get off the hook, which by the way, perfectly mirrors our cultural sexism. As Julia Serano writes:

[The] media tends not to notice—or to outright ignore—trans men because they are unable to sensationalize them the way they do trans women without bringing masculinity itself into question. And in a world where modern psychology was founded upon the teaching that all young girls suffer from penis envy, most people think striving for masculinity seems like a perfectly reasonable goal. Author and sex educator Pat Califia, who is himself a trans man, addresses this in his 1997 book Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism: “It seems the world is still more titillated by ‘a man who wants to become a woman’ than it is by ‘a woman who wants to become a man.’ The first is scandalous, the latter is taken for granted.

Which brings me to the matter of Wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning, now known as Chelsea Manning.

I said most of my piece on the radio yesterday. As I said then, I fully support Chelsea, and I am very proud we have a woman-whistleblower (go team!), which took all kinds of nerve. Although I must admit -- as a blogger, my first thought was, how on earth do I change all the tags on my blog (LOL) to CHELSEA when they already say BRADLEY--including some headlines and photos. Indexing nightmare! I remember the same problem back when I worked in a record store and we had to figure out what to do with Walter/Wendy Carlos. I finally lettered and inked a sign myself, that said Walter/Wendy Carlos, since people would come in asking for both (no internet in those days) and often believed they were a married couple, not the same person.

Speaking of sexism, sometimes classical-music freaks would actually inform me (haughtily and knowingly) that Wendy wasn't nearly as talented as her husband Walter (!), totally unaware that Walter and Wendy were the same person. When I tried to tell them they WERE the same person, they often refused to believe me, since you know, Walter is a serious musician who would NEVER do something crazy like change his sex! I mean, this was the 70s.

In response, I would simply tell them to look it up, since as I said, there was no internet in those days. So it was difficult to prove my assertion, since Wendy was/is a pretty private person. I hung around bisexual-circles even then, and I heard about Walter-to-Wendy through general gossip. And my record-store boss also seemed to know by community-osmosis (wink-wink), so he never argued with me.

In all my time there, only one of the aforementioned snotty classical-music crowd came in to apologize to me and tell me I was right... and come to think of it, I realize now that he was probably gay.

~*~

I am tagging this BRADLEY MANNING until I figure out a new tag. Blogger used to make it fairly easy to change a tag (you could change them all at once), but now, they make you do it one at a time. Ugh.

Does anyone know how the "big blogs" manage this type of situation?

Glad to be back, hope your week is going well too.

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Yes, I trashed my L-Carnitine

Currently having an existential crisis over my stash of L-Carnitine, a supplement I have used off and on for about 10 years. I am now being loudly informed it can cause heart disease. Oh, such fabulous news!

The reason I started taking it, was because I learned it was an amino acid mostly concentrated in red meat and dairy... and as a vegetarian I assumed (there's that word, ASSUME) that any nutrient I would be missing out on (by eliminating meat from my diet), must somehow be necessary. That is so WESTERN of me; it certainly never occurred to me that one basic reason vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease might be due to the actual CARNITINE ITSELF, duh! (who knew?)

Apparently, it is. From HuffPo comes the following report, emailed to me simultaneously by three different people:

Two years ago, [cardiology researcher Dr. Stanley] Hazen and his research team discovered that microorganisms in the intestines can convert substances found in choline, a common dietary fat, to a by-product known as TMAO, trimethylamine-N-oxide.

This new study looked at l-carnitine, which has a similar chemical structure to choline.

Carnitine is a nutrient found at high levels in red meat, but fish, poultry, milk and other dairy products are also good food sources of it. Carnitine is also a popular over-the-counter diet supplement, often billed as helping to boost energy and bulk up muscle. It's found in some energy drinks and muscle milks.

The researchers looked at fasting levels of blood carnitine in nearly 2,600 men and women. The findings showed that carnitine levels could quite strongly predict participant's risk of existing coronary artery disease, as well as the risk of having a major cardiac event, such as heart attack, stroke, or death over a three-year period, but only in adults who had high blood levels of TMAO.

Hazen's group also compared mice fed their normal chow, which is basically a vegetarian diet, with mice whose food was supplemented with carnitine.

"We saw that carnitine supplements doubled the rates of atherosclerosis in the mice," Hazen said. It did this by dramatically increasing levels of TMAO, which is produced by gut bacteria that metabolize l-carnitine.

As for how carnitine in red meat may be linked with heart disease, Hazen explained that chronic ingestion of carnitine fundamentally shifts the metabolism of cholesterol. "It's changing it in a way that will make you more prone to heart disease," he said. Eating carnitine causes more cholesterol to be deposited onto artery walls, and less to be eliminated from the body.

Italics mine.

My existential crisis also comes from the fact that I have counseled approximately 40,000 (give or take) people to use it, also. (sigh) It was my job, remember? (sigh again) I even talked to a vegetarian cardiologist from India who told me he believed heart-conduction disorders in vegans might be related to a general lack of carnitine in vegan/vegetarian diets. He believed this because heart-conduction issues are more common in India (he said) than in the West, although coronary artery disease is more common in the West than in India. (Maybe they are both right? Is there NO WAY to win?)

And now, of course, you know what's happening... I am worrying about all of my other supplements. Good God. Its the domino effect! (I refuse to relinquish my beloved Ashwagandha, but I am now skeptical of other amino acids, such as L-Arginine... even though I really like its effects!)

In any event, I figured I would try to undue some of the damage by sharing this disturbing health information. I guess the vegetarian impact on my karma is intact (which is comforting), but the health effects? Probably a wash, at this point. Since carnitine is expensive (and I guess that will quickly change!), I have often gone without it for long periods. I have usually picked it up again because I noticed an energy boost from it... perhaps this mimics the energy boost from red meat? I assumed (there's that word again) that this meant it was a good thing, since ENERGY = GOOD. Again, Western stupidity writ large, yes? I mean, meth gives you energy too, and we all recognize that its not the good kind.

(sigh)

Yes, I trashed my L-Carnitine, and so should you.

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Odds and Sods - Don't you let that Deal go down edition

Back from Georgia, where the interesting ex-Democrat, now Republican Nathan Deal was elected governor in 2010, by less than 2500 votes. At least, that's the story, and they are sticking to it.

As you know, a Deadhead could never resist the lyrical reference. (song is below!)

~*~


And here is the recent scoop/scandal on Deal, all over the Atlanta Journal Constitution the day of our arrival.

Hmm:

Nathan Deal and his wife, Sandra, owned 90 percent of a failed sporting goods store started by his daughter and son-in-law by the time it closed, according to documents released by the state ethics commission through an open records request.

The state Ethics Commission's investigative file for the Nathan Deal cases is hundreds of pages long and contains complaints that resulted in him agreeing to pay $3,350 in fees but saw major complaints against him dismissed.

The ownership by the Deals in the Habersham County venture is greater than they had previously acknowledged. The financial woes of the business became an issue during Deal's 2010 campaign for governor.

During the race, Deal downplayed his involvement in Wilder Outdoors, which went out of business in March 2009. Deal — who with his wife co-signed for $2.3 million in loans that launched the store — said at the time that he was simply a father helping a child. The Deals also invested another $2 million in Wilder.

But Deal's actual ownership stake in the store had been in question. His 2007 personal financial disclosure, when he was a member of Congress, declared him a 50 percent partner in the venture. But a 2009 bankruptcy filing by Deal's son-in-law, Clint Wilder, and daughter, Carrie Deal Wilder, said the Wilders were 100 percent shareholders. Nathan Deal's name appeared nowhere on the bankruptcy documents which were filed in the midst of the gubernatorial race.

It just goes to show, don't trust opportunistic politicians who switch parties just to suck up and get a cushy government job, regardless of which party they start out in.

It never works out well.

~*~

Last year, I tried to get a job at JC Penneys, and didn't make the cut. Therefore, I experienced some rather unsavory Schadenfreude in reading about their recent financial woes.

Ha ha! 23% loss in the last quarter! They had their chance to hire me and make it right... unfortunately, the Dreaded Yippie Curse is now on their heads. Too late for you, JC Penneys!

Penney’s January pricing-shift confused customers who already had everyday low prices from Wal-Mart, monthly specials from competitors like Kohl’s, and clearance prices like, well, every other single retailer on the planet! So Penney’s made other pricing changes. And then cancelled advertising while they rethought strategy. Now, they’re making permanent cuts throughout the store and is jettisoning the month-long bursts of sales in what Mr. Johnson has characterized as simplifying pricing, which kind of makes you wonder what the ‘fair-and-square’ stuff was all about to begin with, beyond funny commercials

Anyway, [CEO Ron] Johnson had a call with analysts, where he was quoted as saying, ”early response to these efforts have been very encouraging.” But one can only suppose that’s true if you define “encouraging” as same-store sales not being down 30%!

Cheapie price-hunters, saddle up! You know what THIS means!

The prices should be bargain-basement level by the end of the month, especially for overstock from the summer. Bathing suits, shorts, all of that. Prepare to descend on the place. The 3rd Quarter will end in September, and the last week of September will therefore be the prime shopping time for markdowns, says Daisy the Retail Fairy.

GO GALS GO! Take all that inventory off their hands, and get some stuff at 75% off while you're there. Win-win all round.

Meanwhile, almost-employee Daisy has high hopes that JC Penneys goes under. (I know, that isn't nice, but I've never taken rejection well.)

~*~

I am sick over the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate. Mostly because this means we will have to listen to his worthless, Randian-groupie ass NON-STOP during the rest of the campaign. (screams)

Some interesting links: Ten reasons why Ryan is right for Romney (Salon)

The Washington Post Spews Paul Ryan Fan Faction (AlterNet)

Vice president nominee Paul Ryan’s love-hate with Ayn Rand (Politico)

Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and the Political Contradiction of Christianity (Daily Kos)

~*~

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization of Catholic nuns, is under attack from the Vatican for their feminist positions.

As I have heard approximately five thousand times: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. (And they say that with considerable pride, not shame.)

Uh-huh, we know. From last week's Washington Post:

Many, many Catholic eyes are on St. Louis as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, by far the largest representative body of U.S. nuns, has their annual meeting. On the agenda for the Silver Spring, Md.-based organization: Whether the group should remain an official arm of Rome, or become independent.

This is their first meeting since April, when the Vatican’s doctrine-guarding arm issued a report saying the Conference isn’t focusing enough on abortion and traditional marriage and is dabbling dangerously in “radical feminist” ideas such as whether women could be priests. The report said the group needs to be “reformed” and is calling for essentially a takeover and monitoring of the Conference, whose members represent about 80 percent of the country’s sisters.

You may be forgiven for scratching your head at this theological juncture. Baptists and Pentecostals, not exactly known for radical feminism, have women ministers and pastors, but women priests? Dangerously dabbling in "radical feminism"!

The conference ended with the nuns staying under the authority of the Holy See. (Daisy pouts) But I do understand why.

As Willie Sutton famously said, that's where the money is.

American nuns on Friday backed away from a direct confrontation with the Vatican, saying they want a respectful “open dialogue” with Rome about disputes over gender, human sexuality and authority.

The decision by the Silver Spring-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80 percent of American nuns, came at the end of an intense annual conference in St. Louis this week, where about 900 women met to decide how to respond to an April report by the Vatican saying the group had strayed dangerously far from orthodoxy and the pope and needs to be “reformed.”

The women considered generally accepting the report, rejecting it and becoming an independent Catholic organization (rather than an actual office of Rome), or finding some middle ground.

In a statement Friday, the women said that members want to pursue dialogue with the three-bishop team appointed by the Vatican to approve their conference speakers, literature and training programs.

Can this marriage be saved?

~*~

Every time I pass this sign, I think about how Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency was judged to be a complete disaster.

We had NO IDEA what awaited us, did we?


~*~

As all dedicated news-hounds and political junkies have undoubtedly heard by now, Fareed Zakaria is in hot water for plagiarism, and his popular Sunday-morning CNN show, "GPS", has been suspended. The question now is whether the suspension will be temporary or permanent:

Zakaria was suspended from both CNN and Time magazine after using several paragraphs written by another author in his Time column and a blog post on CNN’s website, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Zakaria issued an apology on Friday, saying in a statement that the incident was his fault and that it was “a terrible mistake,” The Journal reported.

Zakaria was suspended for a month at Time, pending a review. CNN pulled the blog post from its website and suspended his Sunday talk show, filling the time slot with other CNN programming. CNN is also conducting a review of the incident.

“Fareed Zakaria is a smart journalist who did a dumb thing, by his own admission,” said Howard Kurtz, a veteran media reporter, on his CNN show, Reliable Sources, on Sunday.

“I've seen a number of plagiarizing cases far more extensive than this one, but that misses the point,” he said. “Borrowing someone's words without credit is a journalistic sin, which is why Fareed did the right thing, which is quickly owning up to his mistake.”

Well, that's nice. But seriously, someone of this stature and importance?

And this isn't the first time, according to the Huffington Post:

This is not the first time Zakaria has come under ethical fire. Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg accused him of lifting quotes without attribution in 2009. He also caused controversy for his series of off-the-record conversations with President Obama, though he said they were no different than those the president held with any other journalist.

A peon like your humble narrator (or, say, a reporter at a relatively low-level outfit such as the Greenville News) certainly couldn't get by with this, offering a simple ooops! It would destroy their journalistic reputation and career. But Fareed? He will recover nicely and go on to rake in more speaking fees at a staggering $75,000-a-pop.

As Eric Zuesse, another HuffPo commentator, carefully reminds us:

When Fareed Zakaria was suspended on Friday from Time and CNN, for plagiarism, this wasn't merely justice, it was poetic justice: it rhymed.

What it rhymed with was his own lifelong devotion to the global economic star system that he, as a born aristocrat in India, who has always been loyal to the aristocracy, inherited and has always helped to advance, at the expense of the public in every nation.

He was suspended because, as a born aristocrat, who is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, and many other of the global aristocracy's primary organizations, he is so well-connected that his writing-commissions are more than any one person can possibly handle, and he consequently cannot possibly actually write all that is attributed to him. He certainly cannot research it all.

Like many "writing" stars, he has a staff perform much of the research and maybe even actual writing for him, and many in his situation are actually more editors than they are writers; but, regardless, he cannot let the public know that this is the way things are, because this is simply the way that the star system works in the "writing" fields, and because the public is supposed to think that these stars in the writing fields are writers, more than editors.

And, it's a very profitable system for such stars. As Paul Starobin said, headlining "Money Talks," in the March 2012 Columbia Journalism Review, Zakaria's speaking fee is $75,000, and "he has been retained for speeches by numerous financial firms, including Baker Capital, Catterton Partners, Dreihaus Capital Management, ING, Merrill Lynch, Oak Investment Partners, Charles Schwab, and T. Rowe Price."

So, he's clearly a very busy man, with a considerable staff; he can't possibly do everything himself.

But he needs to appear as if he does. He needs to present everything "he" does, as "his."

Most of the top-paid people in the media are "writers" whom the public are deceived to believe do all the researching and writing of "their" material. The actual writers (usually called "research assistants," or sometimes just "interns"), unlike these bosses, lack the connections to be able to succeed "on their own," and are therefore obscure workers for these aristocrats -- the writing-stars who make the big incomes. If one of these workers bows down sufficiently to his boss so as to be plucked by him to become a star "on his own," then that lucky acolyte will almost certainly share the existing hierarchical values of his boss, and so may become a new aristocrat in the full sense, and go on to produce his own reputation, and perhaps even dynasty. But the others will never win the connections and thus the money.

This is the world Fareed Zakaria has actually lived in all of his adult life, and even before that -- it was the world he saw around him when his father was a politician with the Indian National Congress, and his mother was the editor of the Sunday Times of India. He knew how corruption works, because he was surrounded by it, all the time.

Fareed Zakaria knows the way it works. So, he cannot afford to admit when he is being credited with the work of his employees. Far less damaging to him is to admit that he has done plagiarism himself, as he has admitted in this particular case -- regardless whether it's true.

If Zakaria didn't actually do this plagiarism, could he very well announce to the world "I didn't do it; I didn't even research or write the article"? No. Romney and the Republicans say that the "job creators" at the top are the engine of the economy, and the aristocracy need to maintain this myth. It's very important to them -- that they are the stars, and that the people who might be the actual creators who work for them are not.

Zakaria wouldn't want to burst the bubble atop which he is floating. To people in his situation, it's a bubble of money, and it's theirs. They don't want to share it any more than they absolutely have to. (They despise labor unions for that very reason.) And their employees are very dependent upon them, so no one will talk about it -- not the stars, not their workers.

Although I enjoyed his show, I have no illusions that we couldn't get the same thing from someone else. Maybe better.

I heartily recommend my old friend, classmate, and former co-star in two class plays (we were fantastic!), Joe Johns, now seriously under-utilized at CNN.

Long before anyone ever heard of "nontraditional casting," African-American Joe played my father in a Junior High school play... totally shocking the 1972 Midwestern audience. Our radical drama teacher thought we had the best auditions, by God, and we were going to be the leads, race be damned. She would not be deterred.

It was supposed to be a comedy, God help us, but our first few jokes met utter silence. I still remember how we bugged our eyes out at each other.... our expressions conveying some version of: OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!

We soldiered on through the mostly-silent First Act. Finally, during the Second Act, there was a titter, then a few giggles, and then ... (like a comforting wave) a roar of laughter at the best jokes, which were delivered by Joe--crossing his arms and sternly addressing me as "young lady!"--like a stereotypical TV dad. We had crossed over into borderline-camp, but it worked.

We ended with thunderous applause. It was nice.

I still remember the triumphant smile we shared, tempered with relief: whewwww.

Chant with me: WE WANT JOE! WE WANT JOE!

~*~

As promised, the source of our blog post title for today... it stops at around five minutes, since it probably went on for a good half hour! ;)

Deal - Grateful Dead




I been gambling hereabouts
for ten good solid years
If I told you all that went down
it would burn off both your ears

It goes to show
you don't ever know
Watch each card you play
and play it slow
Wait until your deal come round
Don't you let that deal go down

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Tuesday Tunes: Blue Collar

Blue Collar - Bachman-Turner Overdrive



I finally got a job, people! And thought I would post this nearly-forgotten gem to celebrate. Enjoy!

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Joel Osteen: Faster Horses

I admit, I am fascinated with Joel Osteen.

Primarily, the whole gospel-of-plenty thing, really blows my mind. Catholics will do a sneaky novena asking for greenbacks here and there, but nothing like Joel counsels us to do. He says you have to think BIG, like God does. He sounds like Cecil B DeMille.

As I've said before, this whole line of thinking was stolen wholesale from the late Reverend Ike, appropriately dressed up and taken to the white suburbs. Joel constantly tells us we deserve big things, better jobs, giant houses (don't settle for smaller!) and prosperity prosperity prosperity!

Listening to him, I have more than once recalled the chorus of the old Tom T. Hall song, Faster Horses:

Faster Horses
Younger Women
Older Whiskey
And More Money

I halfway-expect Joel to belt that out, at some point.

While I am admitting my fascination with America's foremost preacher of the Prosperity Gospel (note the link does not include Reverend Ike, whom they all stole from), let me catalog my points of fascination:

1) His smile and his teeth. The literary term, "he beamed at us" hardly suffices for what Joel can do... his smile is bloody incandescent.

Ronald Reagan Jr once said no man was a match for his father, when his father decided to "turn on the high-beams"--and I daresay, I have found the match.

Could anyone argue with this smile? I certainly couldn't. If he was in sales, he would be as rich as the Sun King... oh wait, he is and he is, I forgot.

2) His wife, Victoria. As a feminist, I don't usually call women Barbie dolls, since that would be mean, she winked at her readers. And besides, that would only be describing her appearance, not her famous diva-tantrums. Joel never talks about her tantrums, but I wonder how he feels about her periodic um, moods?

I'd love to be the proverbial fly-on-the-wall during one of their squabbles.

3) His hair. Nobody would listen to a promise of prosperity from a 49-year-old who was losing his hair. It's a psychological thing: since he has an enviable, profuse, heavy head of hair, he probably has LOTS OF EVERYTHING. Samson and Delilah, etc. His prayers keep his hair from falling out, don't they? Obviously, his prayers work pretty good!

4) The way he points upward (to God and heaven, presumably) at key points during his sermons. I once attended a retail-sales workshop in which I was taught that I should touch the item I intended to sell. Pick it up and make it "intimate"; you will notice on shopping networks such as QVC and HSN, there is virtual non-stop pawing of the merchandise. You have to make it real for people, and putting something REAL in your hands, is the way. And it does increase sales.

What do you if it's God you are selling?

Some preachers pound that Bible, or pound that lectern, or emote-in-extremis whilst explaining things (Jimmy Swaggart was famously very good at this). Joel points upward. Lots. It's like he's been there already, and has come back to tell you all about it.

Well, if having millions of dollars is the way to heaven, or is the equivalent of heaven on earth, or something... I guess he HAS been there, hasn't he?

My question is: In these harsh economic times, why isn't everyone jealous of him, instead of giving him even MORE money?

I think this is due to--

5) The amazingly-wholesome vibe he puts out. This is what keeps me glued to the screen. He is so POSITIVE, so, so, so... POSITIVE. There just isn't any other word for it. OPTIMISTIC maybe. And the people I've met who like Osteen, are just this optimistic and positive also. Although they tend to believe fundamentalist ideas (or at least give lip service to them), they are reluctant to judge others, and concentrate mostly on their own lives and spreading good feelings and love (while praying for prosperity).

You might say Osteen has learned to combine the peace-and-love of the hippie era of his childhood, with the Reagan-era go-getter capitalist concepts of his adulthood... just add Jesus and stir. Works for Joel.

Joel is way better than the Mike Huckabees of the world, and yet, there are Christians who are driven bonkers by his warping of the scriptures, dragging in that tired old Prayer of Jabez and ignoring the words of Christ Himself.

Christ was no fan of the rich, and that is the Gospel. And yet, it seems this unabashed embrace of capitalist values insures they won't meddle too much in social issues. After all, unbridled capitalism IS a social issue, too, and I think Joel knows that. I watched an old sermon last night, dated 2009, and it was interesting in the way he says "Don't worry that you can't afford a new house, because God will provide!"--wait, I thought, did this idea contribute to the housing market crash?

Hanna Rosin has been there already, and is way ahead of me:

On the cover of his 4 million-copy best seller from 2004, Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen looks like a recent college grad who just got hired by Goldman Sachs and can’t believe his good luck. His hair is full, his teeth are bright, his suit is polished but not flashy; he looks like a guy who would more likely shake your hand than cast out your demons. Osteen took over his father’s church in 1999. He had little preaching experience, although he’d managed the television ministry for years. The church grew quickly, as Osteen packaged himself to appeal to the broadest audience possible. In his books and sermons, Osteen quotes very little scripture, opting instead to tell uplifting personal anecdotes. He avoids controversy, and rarely appears on Christian TV. In a popular YouTube clip, he declines to confirm Larry King’s suggestion that only those who believe in Jesus will go to heaven.

...

Osteen is often derided as Christianity Lite, but he is more like Positivity Extreme. “Cast down anything negative, any thought that brings fear, worry, doubt, or unbelief,” he urges. “Your attitude should be: ‘I refuse to go backward. I am going forward with God. I am going to be the person he wants me to be. I’m going to fulfill my destiny.’” Telling yourself you are poor, or broke, or stuck in a dead-end job is a form of sin and “invites more negativity into your life,” he writes. Instead, you have to “program your mind for success,” wake up every morning and tell yourself, “God is guiding and directing my steps.” The advice is exactly like the message of The Secret, or any number of American self-help blockbusters that edge toward magical thinking, except that the religious context adds another dimension.

...

Demographically, the growth of the prosperity gospel tracks fairly closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots. Both spread in two particular kinds of communities—the exurban middle class and the urban poor. Many newer prosperity churches popped up around fringe suburban developments built in the 1990s and 2000s, says [religion professor Jonathan] Walton. These are precisely the kinds of neighborhoods that have been decimated by foreclosures, according to Eric Halperin, of the Center for Responsible Lending

...

[Most] new prosperity-gospel churches were built along the Sun Belt, particularly in California, Florida, and Arizona—all areas that were hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. [Religious researcher Kate] Bowler, who, like Walton, was researching a book, spent a lot of time attending the “financial empowerment” seminars that are common at prosperity churches. Advisers would pay lip service to “sound financial practices,” she recalls, but overall they would send the opposite message: posters advertising the seminars featured big houses in the background, and the parking spots closest to the church were reserved for luxury cars.

Nationally, the prosperity gospel has spread exponentially among African American and Latino congregations. This is also the other distinct pattern of foreclosures. “Hyper-segregated” urban communities were the worst off, says Halperin.

...

It is not all that surprising that the prosperity gospel persists despite its obvious failure to pay off. Much of popular religion these days is characterized by a vast gap between aspirations and reality. Few of Sarah Palin’s religious compatriots were shocked by her messy family life, because they’ve grown used to the paradoxes; some of the most socially conservative evangelical churches also have extremely high rates of teenage pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births, and divorce.

In short, it's Joel Osteen's hour. He won't put you down for being divorced, etc.

He will point upward, and for some unfathomable reason, you just want to follow him up there.

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Ask me about Neem

The Neem lady took my photo and gave me samples of soap.

Now I ask you, what more could you want in life?

PS: How do I look? I got my skin through NEEM!!

~*~

What is Neem?

The Neem Foundation ("Greening India with Neem")

Neem Benefits: Make Neem Your Safety Net (American Chronicle)

Neem in Ayurveda

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