The Feast of Booths

Tonight is apparently Sukkoth or the Feast of Booths in the Jewish religion. This has nothing to do with the show “Bones” but rather camping out under a full moon in a lean-to booth you construct in the back yard. That raises the question that in ancient cities they didn’t have “yards” and much less lawns. If we believe Johnny Wendell, lawns were virtually unknown 200 years ago except among Royalty. But the Jew is to build a booth in his yard during these eight days and seven nights that ends tomorrow. Later I had Randy Rhodes on and she made reference to the holiday being yesterday and she pronounced it “Sookus” whereas Dr. Levy pronounced it “Sooka - - the first with a long sound and the second with a short sound. Anyhow the holiday commemorates the final in gathering of the people and the end of their sougern in the Wilderness. One might extend this to being the end of our sougern on earth when the rapture comes. I’m not expecting any rapture, at least tomorrow but I think “something” out of the ordinary just might occur tomorrow. I just hope it isn’t a cult of thirteen people committing suicide. We talked of how if something strange happens and evil comes from it- - then you can use words like deranged and crazy, and God was not in it. Dr. Levy said they were building one of these “tabernacle” structures in the church yard and having a potluck there tonight. But he didn’t have the time to construct his own.

Proposition 25 apparently has a dual whammy purpose, and both of them are good. It penalizes politicians in the state legislature for not coming up with a state budget by July first. One was just signed here in California yesterday or something. I think that is about a record. Meg Whitman says the politicians should not be paid, and she should be stripped of their per deum and perks, and should not be allowed to raise any money. I’d like to see her try and enforce that one. Yes, I really would. But also to facilitate the passage of a budget is the long overdue overthrowing of the two thirds requirement of both houses. No wonder we are in a log jam so much. With the carrot in front and the stick behind them, I wouldn’t think we will be having any more problems with late budgets. Of course some say that if we raise taxes that politicians will only use these to feather their own nests and we the taxpayer will be on the hook once more. Certainly they can pass rules against any such abuses that might occur. And I imagine they already have.

Wall Wall Street – Money Never Sleeps is out today. It features the starring return of Gordon Gecko, but Buddy Fox is conspicuously missing. You know that’s the kind of a part I would get if I were in the movies. If they did a sequel they’d forget I exist. Anyhow now Gordon has a grown daughter and I’m sure they get into a lot of adventures and a lot of politically ironic remarks will be made. You know they should make a movie as a sequel to the Bible. Call it The Bible = Temptation Never Sleeps. Of course like the original, it will strangely omit the burning of Rome, and also none of the apostles would be mentioned, even referenced. And Jesus would never be referred to by his first name. I have an idea for a scene with the Apostle Paul having his attorney press Rome to pass a bill of pardon, but his attorney, with a pronounced Ted Kennedy accent, is a really arrogant fellow and he takes an unnecessare all or nothing crap shoot risk- - and Paul ends up being beheaded. Of course all the star players will have ancient names like Clement, Justin, Lynus, and Ignatius. And you could name some characters after diseases like Paratenitus and Syphliticus. But every so often they will go back to the guilded text and read from that in King James English, to introduce the next event. I guess it would kind of be done in the movies, “The History of the World”.

I was lying down listening to the close of Thom Hartman when Dr. Levy announced that class was conveining. The room was pleasantly cool. I took the lone seat in the back row. Dr. Levy remarked favorably about my Lennon resport. He said we would see the film on angels as soon as Vince got here. But he started the check in. Marcia said something about inheriting a million dollars. Then she said something about trillions of dollars. I didn’t have the code to translate her words. Vince came with the monitor interrupting us. I changed seats and grabbed a big chair that someone had vacated. The film started off with this story about a fifteen year old teenage girl named Terra Moore, who on August 18^th 1992 was fatally killed in a car crash where the other two people lived. She had developed an interest in angels in June. Her remarks to loved ones became increasingly pointed making reference to “crossing over to a higher plane once my work here is done”. Then she gave her little sister her favorite book on angels. And then there was an oatmeal cookie in the kitchen the morning after she died and some “angel song lyrics” in her bedroom that weren’t there before. Nobody wants to shake the certitude of those who “believe” the way her family does. Trying to argue “these things didn’t happen because miracles don’t happen” would be rather pointless. There was another story where a teenage girl with a band had been given foreknowledge that the speeding truck approaching would run the red light and she called out “Look out” as the driver started to step on the gas. The truck barreled into the front of the vehicle but the passengers were unharmed. Otherwise they would have been killed. The next story involves a woman walking through the streets of a big city. Then a hand grabs her on the shoulder. She turns around and nobody was there. Then she prepares to walk up the steps of a building where she had an appointment. She feels the hand on her shoulder more strongly, and then she hears a voice saying “It would be unwise to go in there at this time”. She walks to a nearby church to think things over and then hears police sirens and they were outside the building she was to go into. As it turns out a woman was just reported murdered in an elevator. The next story takes place in 1991 where a trooper in the Iraq war is doing a mine sweeping operation with a partner. Then the guy sees an angel without wings who says “Everything is going to work out allright”. He turns to his friend and says “Did you see that?” But the partner saw nothing. A few days later the Iraq war was over and he was safe. The final story that we saw involved a guy who was hooked on cocaine. But one day he had an experience while in the shower of a wherling sensation beginning with his toes and working up his legs and eventually he felt his whole body was healed. He had just prayed to God that if he were allowed to live that he would give up drugs cold turkey. As it turns out he was successful. At this point Dr. Levy stopped the DVD. He seemed like a man who had something to say or else was just pressed for time. As you know we usually meet later in the day on Fridays. He said that he was neither an avid believer or an avid disbeliever but liked to balance the experiancial with the scientific evidence. The class, good Mormons that they are, seemed heavily biased in belief in Angels. Of course some (like me) would like to mix in a little UFO encounter but they don’t seem to count. I couldn’t remember the name “Unsolved Mysteries” or the other one “That’s Incredible” or whatever is it show that had six events in an hour and some were fake and some were real. I chimed in that for instance that last story we saw was from 1989 and that the film was nearly twenty years old, when lots of that psychic stuff was a whole lot more popular, not to mention that I had a whole lot more faith in that sort of thing back then. We never saw the end.

You psychics try and guess what the main content of the material omitted was where I indicate in brackets. I might or might tell you in the next posting. This paragraph should be in red if things are functioning properly. Well that's a hoot. This is in black and the rest came out in green from the original file. Now I'm going to try it again. OK now I'm going to try and deliberately turn the last paragraph blue by going back to the other file and altering that.