St. Patrick's Day: So long to Pagans (video)

Pat Macpherson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly  HAPPY "PAGAN GENOCIDE DAY"!

(Bet You Didn't Know) St. Patrick's Day secrets and its strange history

     

The Pagans the Patriarch Destroyed

(Lillian Ewing) Documentary: Pagans of Ancient Times in Ireland and the British Isles

Patriarch Patrick, not Irish

Paganism refers to a group of polytheistic traditions -- primarily those of cultures known to the classical world. In a wider sense it has also been understood to include the non-Abrahamic (as opposed to the Dharmic), folk, or ethnic religions.

The term Pagan was historically used as one of several pejorative Christian counterparts to "gentile" (גוי / נכרי) as used in the JudeoChristian Bible -- comparable to "infidel" or "heretic." Modern ethnologists often avoid this broad usage in favor of more specific and less potentially-offensive terms such as shamanism, polytheism, pantheism, or animism when referring to traditional or historical faiths.

 

College Paganism: "Blarney Blowout" (UMass)

Since the 20th century "Paganism" or "Neopaganism" has become the identifier for a collection of new movements attempting to continue, revive, or reconstruct historical pre-Abrahamic religion.

There are roughly 300 million Pagans worldwide today (possibly many more who do not yet realize they are yearning for a more authentic Earth-based spirituality torn from us by sexist patriarchs, male-dominated religions, genocidal conquerors and enslavers). More

 
The Home of the Destroyers

Patriarch, ex-CE) Benedict

(History Channel) What drove the Holy Roman Empire/Church to switch from Mithraism to Catholicism, keeping the same hill in Rome, many of the same symbols and traditions, and just changing worship from the god Mithras to the new pop sensation god Jesus (Saint Issa, tulku and former Buddhist monk, later glorified as if he were Messiah/Maitreya (the teacher-to-come, which means "Friend" or Mitra, from the Sanskrit root maitri, which calls back to Mithraism -- as if all three of the world's great religions were rooted in Buddhism)? 

Religious symbols of the world

We may never know for sure, but the Vatican may have just been pandering to the masses it aimed to conquer, lead, and tyrannize. In some decades as a world capital (the "Holy See") of great wealth and luxury, more Satanism is practiced in the Vatican than Christianity, according to whistleblower Father Malachi Martin.

• The Real History of St. Patrick's Day
• St. Paddy's Day police checkpoints, Los Angeles
• AUDIO: Exorcisms and Possession
• AUDIO: "Prophecy of the Popes"
• The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church
• Hostage to the Devil, Keys of this Blood, Windswept House: A Vatican Novel

Yes, we molest. But it's not like it's a secret! It's not like it's just your kids. God wants us to!

Happy Pi Day! (Science Friday) π

Pat Macpherson vs. Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; ScienceFriday.com; Vihart (video)

E=MC2 thinks Einstein (NVOR)

Today is March 14th, which means Pi (π) Day. You know that stupid math thingy, not the time Peter figured out how much he really loved pie (or not). Sorry, pi (and pie) lovers! Both can be solved with toothpicks. Maybe pick a better favorite number and food next time? Here's a celebratory video from sexy Flora(l) Lichtman, MA Shumin, and Ira Flatow over at SciFri.
 

Ooh, Pat, who gives an s?

Friday 3.14 is Pi Day, and we're all celebrating. Sci Fri even hit the streets of New York City to spread some math-holiday cheer. One might be surprised how many π enthusiasts are lingering outside of New York University's Math Department.
 

P.S. It's also famous Jewish-Buddhist-Pantheist Albie Einstein's birthday.

(Family Guy) The love of pie in another part of the multiverse

 

Winnie on what sucks

Twenty-five years ago, physicist Larry Shaw, of San Francisco’s Exploratorium, established the first “Pi Day” on March 14th, or 3/14 -- a fitting date to commemorate an irrational number that so familiarly begins 3.14. 

 

The event started as a little staff get-together but ballooned into an international holiday. (Really, just listen to this SciFri segment).

I love pie, and pi is nice, too.

To get everyone -- including Winnie from in the celebratory mood, here are some tributes to those endless digits, and to the Greek letter that symbolizes them. More

Definition: (Wiki) The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century also sometimes spelled out as "pi."

Math sucks because math is a religion, and religion sucks (Calvin & Hobbes)

• The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower...
• The NSA has impersonated Facebook to spread malware (Gizmodo)
• Three years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown 
• Delving into security of Internet of things
• The Internet's DARK side, exposed in three new films

Los Angeles, World's Music Capital (webcast)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Seven, Pat Macpherson, Dev, Wisdom Quarterly; KROQ.com

Acoustic X-mas weekend, FREE WEBCAST, Dec. 7-8, 2013 beginning at 5:00 pm PST

(Cage the Elephant) "Come a Little Closer" from Melophobia (I. Rentz/S. Buchanan)

Lost City of Angels rocks! (Occupy LA)

Living in Tinsel Town has its advantages. Among them is the variety of music concentrated into a smoggy basin girded by a mountain sign, golden coastline, and a smoggy desert expanse mostly covered by asphalt.
 
The intermittent heat makes artists half baked. As previously noted, America is like a box of cereal with its seams split, shaking out on both ends, littering coasts east and west with flakes, fruits, and nuts. Los Angeles has more than its share of nuts. And many of them occupy positions of influence in the music industry.

Frenzy of excitement at a big KROQ rock show in Los Angeles (craveonline.com)

 

Miley Cyrus in L.A. twerked for the holidays

The monopolistic corporate media powers that be have assembled numerous mega-concerts for the holiday season: (CBS, Inc.) KROQ's alternative "Acoustic X-mas," KPWR (Power 106)'s hip hop/gangsta rap "Cali Christmas" (to be live streamed Dec. 14, 2013), Ryan Seacrest's pop/rap KISS FM's giant Jingle Ball. Who's playing? Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Robin Thicke, Selena Gomez... went on last night in an enormous downtown concert stadium.

24th Annual show (kroq.cbslocal.com)

But tonight and tomorrow, all for charity, KROQ will be live webcasting a more spectacular alt-rock-pop show featuring Lorde, Cage the Elephant, Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, Grouplove, The Neighbourhood, Queens of the Stone Age, AFI (A Fire Inside), Kings of Leon, New Politics, Fitz and the Tantrums, Portugal. The Man, Bastille, Atlas Genius, Foals, Arcade Fire, and Phoenix (plus a special surprise guest).

(JK) Arctic Monkeys "Do I Wanna Know" on former KROQ DJ Jimmy Kimmel's late night show

Rap for the holidays (Power106.com)

The First Thanksgiving (cartoon and dinner)

Ashley Wells and Editorial Team (confessions) Wisdom Quarterly; dinner organizers Dave, Adam, Allyson, Justin, Kristina, Lisa, Prabhat, Tony (L.A.V.G.) HAPPY THANKSGIVUKKAH!

(JM) Instructions on how to prepare a proper cruelty-free Thanksgiving meal are given below.

Hungry Alicia Silverstone was raised to love ALL kinds of living beings like these:

Kind food tastes good (WQ)

A few years after coming onto the human plane, my mother said to me, "You know you were an accident?" "Thanks," I shot back. That was the first time I gave thanks. Been saying it ever since. How about you, Ash?

I was born just outside of wedlock to parents too caught up fighting about waspy matters to take much notice of me. I, apparently, led to their marriage and therefore their unhappiness, which didn't keep me from being a bastard. (Is that the feminine form of the word, or is it the other B-word?) We were Christian back then, obviously, through no fault of my own. Other than choosing it, pre-birth, all part of my divine plan to graduate to a more sublime teaching.
 

(Simpsons) Lisa became a Buddhist on Xmas.  Bart ruins Thanksgiving.

Thank you. That's nothing. My dad used to yell, "You kids are going to drive me to the insane asylum!" I always wanted to go out and start the car, to make a statement. I would have been punished. We didn't have nice, neat "groundings" like everyone else. We had punishments. Wow. You're dark. Next? That's not all! He also used to say, "You don't s--t from Shinola!" And I would ask, What's Shinola, dad?" "I'll show you what it is!" he would threaten. He drank a lot. How about you, Sands?

I was asked once, seriously, if "my people" celebrated Thanksgiving. Like we're not American enough to celebrate the same holidays. (It's like the time Joseph got asked on "King of the Hill"! Did you guys used to celebrate it?) Not really, not because we never did, but because it was too much trouble for my mom. I used to go over my girlfriend's house. Hey, just like Joseph. *Laughter*

I was raised without parents. So I guess that would technically make me an orphan. Worst thing about it was they were there. Physically. They were "checked out" in every other way. One drinking, the other spacing out. One emotionally distant, the other smothering. One aggressive, the other passive. One yelling like a lunatic, the other too brow beaten to speak up. So, essentially, we can agree, We were all raised by a Homer and a Marge?

What if the Griffins were America's first family, the Simpsons?

 

Native American Joseph is cheating with the asker's blond wife.

So is everyone going to a Vegan Thanksgiving (veganevents.org) this year? Unless you guys are planning to harass and hurt animals with paint balls? *Laughter* No, we'll be there, and I'm making California guacamole, which everyone loves all year long.

 

Everyone welcome to the potluck!

FREE Vegan Potluck Picnic on Thanksgiving

Vegan pizza (Animal Advocacy Museum)

When: Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013, 11:00 am-4:00 pm. Where: Rancho Park, 2551 Motor Ave., L.A., CA 90064. (Enter at the first entrance south of Pico on Motor Avenue or see this nice map). 

What: Veggie feast attended by hundreds because it is promoted all over the county, and most people do not RSVP. See Facebook.

 

There may be similar events all over the country, but this is the annual Vegan Thanksgiving Day Potluck Picnic. It continues for its third decade at the same Rancho Park location. Invite friends. Non-vegans are more than welcome, they are encouraged to attend. This is LA's longest-running single day vegan tradition.

 

It's a potluck to look forward to every year with hundreds in attendance. Join a peaceful, turkey-friendly Thanksgiving. Share delicious food, desserts, and drinks. Connect with beautiful people. Enjoy the outdoor environment with music, live performances, and an open mic! So feel free to bring drums or other musical instruments, a Frisbee or a ball to toss. It's a great place for children. Well behaved animal companions like dogs (on leashes) are welcome. More
 

Punk rock Thanksgiving means a mess in the kitchen and fun loud music.

(MS) Giving back to the community and our large impoverished homeless population

in megalopolises across the US. Give praise to giving, karma that does everyone good!

How to make cruelty-free treats

(Michelle Taylor/VeganBreak.com) Step 1. Go veg. First clean the fridge. Refill with a vegan version of everything. It's a cruelty-free life. Why put another living being through misery. Here are five more easy steps. Facebook
 

 
Compassionate Thanksgiving gratitude 

 

(Colleen Patrick-Goudreau) Bestselling author, podcaster, speaker, and creator of The 30-Day Vegan Challenge™ offers helpful suggestions for creating a beautiful, healthful, compassionate, traditional Thanksgiving meal (without paying someone to kill a turkey!) Let's remember the TRUE meaning of the holiday: gratitude, community, seasonal abundance, and generosity!
 

Vegan Ellen [who read Skinny Bitch then forced herself to sit through Earthlings (earthlings.com) looking into how edible flesh is made] interviews "veganist" author Kathy Freston (Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness).

• The Buddha on meat-eating
• 30-day Vegan Challenge
• Vegan Starter Kit (FREE)
• The Last Thankgivukkah
• Rancher Al Gore finally goes vegan (NPR)
• Warlord Obama pardons two turkey (that'll die soon)
• Vegan Break: Bite-sized videos
• "A Life Connected" (veganvideo.org)
• Colleen Patrick-Goudreau podcasts
• VIDEO: NBA Star John Salley is a turkey-free vegan
• Brooklyn construction worker Eddie Lama
• VIDEO: Why vegan? Gary Yourofsky explains (adaptt.org)
• World Animal Day Evening of Kindness
• SKINNY BITCH - With a sassy cover featuring a drawing of a slender young woman wearing a tight-fitting body suit and hoop earrings and holding a pair of oversize sunglasses, the book, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, promises a “no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls.” That brazen attitude and cussing makes this the best diet book ever.

Happy Indigenous-Genocide Day! (video)

un-Happy Columbus Day (see)
I. Rony, Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; SantiagoTimes.cl; HuffingtonPost.com; America.AlJazeera.com; BigStory.AP.org; DemocracyNow.org

Native American Day (American Indian Day) is a state holiday in California, established in 1968 to honor Native American cultures and contributions to the state and the US.

Hey, is that the mast of an imperial fleet coming from the sea to invade, rape, and kill us all? What are you talking about? I don't see nothing. (Day-Off)

     

We laugh, we cry, we joke, we point out irony.

Clashes broke out between state sponsored police and indigenous protesters and their supporters in Chile's capital following a demonstration by thousands marching for indigenous rights on Saturday.

The Santiago Times reports protesters took to Santiago's streets on "Columbus" Day for political self-determination and to protest the government's role in land theft disputes in the country's south.

 

Genocidal conqueror (morzadec.es.free.fr)

The newspaper adds that while the protest started peacefully, groups of hooded demonstrators [or agent provocateurs sent in by police] vandalized street signs and sidewalks. Riot police answered [the planned provocation] with tear gas and water cannons.

The march was organized by the Mapuches, Chile's largest indigenous group, Al Jazeera notes. According to the Associated Press, the word Mapuche means "people of the land," and the group remains among those fighting for independence despite many Indian groups ending resistance to the Spanish [imperial] conquest in the late 19th century. 

"Look what I discovered!" "How awkward." Columbus Day invasion (iamhobab.com)

 

"Today is NOT a day to celebrate. It is a day to condemn and repudiate all the abuses that we’ve suffered for more than 500 years," one protester said, according to Democracy Now!

"We’re here today to tell the Chilean state and current government that we shall resist, that we shall be in defense and in resistance to what’s happening in the (Mapuche) territory."
  

In Chile, thousands of Mapuche indigenous people and their supporters took to the streets of the capital Santiago in an anti-Columbus Day march Saturday. The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group. They are calling for the return of ancestral lands and an end to the targeting of Mapuche activists under a supposed "anti-terrorism" law. One protester condemned the day marking 521 years since Christopher (Cristobal) Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. Meulen Huencho: "Today is not a day to celebrate.... More

Columbus invaded the future US in 1492 (CT)

Chile has used a controversial anti-terrorism law instituted under Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship to prosecute Mapuche Indians. The government accuses indigenous groups of using violence in their struggle to recover ancestral land.

 

According to U.N. special investigator on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson, Chile's government has used the law to discriminate against the Mapuche. More + Video

Indigenous People's Day

Wisdom Quarterly (Wikipedia edit)

Almost any holiday is a good holiday if it means a day off (greetingcarduniverse.com)

 

Indigenous People's Day (also known as NATIVE AMERICAN DAY) is a holiday celebrated in various localities in the United States.

It was begun as a counter-celebration to the implicitly racist, imperialist, genocide-celebrating Columbus Day. Its purpose is to promote Native American culture and commemorate the history of the Native peoples of the Americas. The celebration began in Berkeley, California and Denver, Colorado as a socially and historically conscious alternative to Columbus Day, which is listed as a federal holiday in the United States but in protest is not observed as a state holiday in every state.

Queen, I'll conquer and enslave "India"...

Indigenous People's Day is usually held on the second Monday of October, coinciding with the federal government's official observance. The idea of replacing Columbus Day with a day celebrating the indigenous people of North America first arose in 1977 from the International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1990, at the First Continental Conference on 500 Years of Indian Resistance in Quito, Ecuador... More

Couldn't see the mass murderers coming?
David Hambling ("I See No Ships: Questioning Perceptual Blindness," ForteanTimes.com)
European explorers found indigenous peoples unable to see their tall ships -- or did they? Are people blind to unexplained phenomena because their brains simply can’t handle anything they don’t understand? This story, quoted in social science circles and popular with New Agers, was repeated in the recent film What The Bleep Do We Know? – “When the tall European ships first approached the early Native Americans, it was such an ‘impossible’ vision in their reality that their highly filtered perceptions couldn’t register what was happening, and they literally failed to ‘see’ the ships.” More

Autumn Festival: story behind the cakes (sutra)

CC Liu, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Zen Vuong (Pasadena Star-News); Pacific Asia Museum

The glorious harvest moon refulgent with yin energy (donnalewisconan)

  

Father and son make lantern

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates harvest, family reunions, and hope for another year of good fortune.

Some believe the celebration’s roots originated from the Chinese rebellion against the Mongols, who detested moon cakes. The Chinese rebel leader, Zhu Yuanzhang, had a hard time organizing a coup because large gatherings were outlawed, reports ChinaTravel.com. So the rebels baked a slip of paper into moon cakes. It ordered insurgents to attack on the 15th day of the 8th lunar year. Thus the Chinese eat moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival to celebrate this successful overthrow.
  

Tea with dense, sickly sweet cakes.

Thanksgiving [means] the centerpiece for this Chinese and Vietnamese harvest celebration doesn’t include a bulky dead bird. During Zhongqiu Jie, or the Mid-Autumn Festival, people give family, friends, and colleagues moon cakes, a small but filling pastry embossed with a description of its innards or the name of a bakery. Others have patterns of clouds, the moon, or a rabbit [a lucky symbol of the moon]....

 

“It’s almost like a Christmas fruitcake. It’s a traditional gift...,” said Becky Sun, a Pacific Asia Museum spokeswoman. “Adult children give them to parents and seniors. Friends and business partners give them to each other...” More 

The Miserly Treasurer

Ken and Visakha Kawasaki (trans), Illisa Rebirth Tale (Jataka 78)

The miser didn't enjoy his riches either

This story was told by the Buddha while at Jetavana Grove about a tremendously rich royal treasurer.

He lived in a town called Sakkara near the city of Rajagaha and had been so tightfisted that he never gave away even the tiniest drop of oil that could be picked up with a blade of grass. Worse than that, he wouldn't even use that minuscule amount of oil for his own satisfaction. His vast wealth was actually of no use to him, to his family, or to the deserving people of the land.

 

Moggallana, however, led this miser and his wife to Jetavana, where they served a great meal of cakes to the Buddha and a large number of monastics. After hearing words of thanks from the Buddha, the royal treasurer and his wife attained stream-entry.

That evening the monastics gathered together in the Hall of Truth. "How great is the power of Ven. Moggallana!" they said. "In a moment he converted the miser to charity, brought him to Jetavana, and made possible his attainment. How remarkable is the elder!" While they were talking, the Buddha entered and inquired as to the subject of their discussion.

 

When they told him, the Buddha replied, "This is not the first time, monastics, that Moggallana has converted this miserly treasurer. In previous days too the elder taught him how deeds and their effects are linked together." Then the Buddha told this story of the past [past life].

 

The best cake is raw vegan berry cheesecake California-style (TheRawtarian.com)

 

Long, long ago, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benaresaranasi, there was a treasurer named Illisa who was worth 80 crores of wealth. This man had all the defects possible in a person. He was lame and hunchbacked, and he had a squint; he was a confirmed miser, never giving away any of his fortune to others, yet never enjoying it himself either.

 

Interestingly enough, however, for seven generations back his ancestors had been bountiful, giving freely of their best. When this treasurer inherited the family riches, he broke that tradition and began hoarding his wealth.

 

One day, as he was returning from an audience with the king, he saw a weary peasant sitting on a bench and drinking a mug of cheap liquor with great gusto. The sight made the treasurer thirsty for a drink of liquor himself, but he thought, "If I drink, others will want to drink with me. That would mean a ruinous expense!" The more he tried to suppress his thirst, the stronger the craving grew.

 

The effort to overcome his thirst made him as yellow as old cotton. He became thinner and thinner until the veins stood out on his emaciated frame. After a few days, still unable to forget about the liquor, he went into his room and lay down, hugging his bed. His wife came in, rubbed his back, and asked, "Husband, what is wrong?" "Nothing," he answered. More