Primal Faith Foundation

Having read many complaints today about the “Pork” found in the new health care reform bill I am at once disgusted and inspired. Follow me here okay?

Disgusted: I am truly enraged by the people who cheered on George Walker Bush while he raped our country of it’s resources, rights and soul. I am more disgusted by those who gave silent consent to his heinous actions by saying nothing. I am furious that these same people are scouring the new Health Care Reform Bill and picking apart it’s “pork” to tare it apart because they are afraid of it due to a group of knuckle heads who said things like “the government is going to abort any baby from women who already have a child.”

Lets look at that shall we? Why would the government cut off it’s source of tax payers and why would the government put that kind of money into it. Honestly the business of government like any business is to MAKE money not destroy it’s income. To all those who have started picking apart the new Health care reform bill; Where were all you Dick Tracy’s when Bush sent us to war over imaginary WMD’s? Where were you when he signed a bill that allowed Haliburton to gain Rebuild contracts in Iraq with out bidding? It’s Pork you all know it and it’s nothing new.

These same people swallowed the lie of WMD’s in Iraq and the Haliburton contract scandal and think nothing of it.

But the sad fact is that our government has been hi-jacked by a cancer, a blight on society. It is not some foreign party of mysterious mustache twisting villains it is the lobbyists. And we pay them to do it.

The problem is called Pork and every bill is full of it, that is the unfortunate side effect of our government. People can be bought into supporting a bill they know nothing about if you give them something in it. Kind of like Ed Wood changing his movies to make his investors happy.

Inspired: And this my friends is where the inspiration fits in. I think that like the late great Mr. Wood we take control of our “movie set” away from the bankers and christian fundies who are ruining our “movie”. It is time we turned down their dirty money and showed up on set in a pink angora sweater and take back our “set” if you catch my drift.

Lose the lobbies and add more watch dogs!

Bark bark

Gothi Michael Jason Lush D.D.

ISBN: 978-9652294685
I received this book from the LibraryThing Early Reader’s Program.

Of all the nonfiction I have been asked to review this thick tome is the first to meet all the criteria for a great reference book. First off, the work is authored by thirty experts in the Psychiatric field, including the editor Dr. Levav. There is no fluff, no anecdotal nonsense and no speaking down to the reader.

As the title states the book covers psychiatric and behavioral disorders in Israel. The studies that the book is based on take many things into account that many people would not think to, such as the economic environment, the influx of immigrants, war and sexual trauma in the region. Also the studies compare side by side the differences between men and women as related to the topic, and where relevant, the social and financial situations of the subjects. The studies in this work are thorough and conclusive.

On the down side there is the length. You are looking at 333 pages of hard, dry data and there are “out there” studies, like an attempt to find the link between obesity and schizophrenia.

Again I say that Dr. Levav’s book is of incalculable worth for anyone in the psychiatric field or any serious mental health worker, for the layperson, not so much. The heft of the work has ensured that it will not turn up on my reread pile, but I will keep it around for future research and I will use it as the yardstick by which I will compare any similar book.

The Sprinklers Don’t Know It’s Raining.

A word on faith and fate by Gothi Michael Jason Lush D.D.

If you were responsible for watering the lawn, you would look out of your window and see the clouds building in the sky and you would kick off your yard working shoes. You would do nothing.

The sprinklers can not see the clouds nor can they hear the rumble of thunder. Even as the deluge pours down; the little plastic spickets pop up and do their assigned duty. Spinning in tiny one hundred and eighty degree arcs spitting into the ocean. They do what they are supposed to do, without knowledge of usefulness or futility.

There are poor Casandra like creatures who know that it is raining, but yet they are expected to do what they are supposed to do. And they need to. The world could not function as we know it if all the little sprinklers knew about the rain.

Each person needs to do their jobs regardless of the rain.

Most people can not see the influences that wash around them and compel them to action, so they continue to do what they are supposed to do, even when they don’t, their rebellion is what they are driven to do by the world around them.

The timer winds down. The hose fills with water. The heads pop up and spits a spray of water onto the already saturated lawn.

If a normal man knew the vastness of existence and knew that his ripple would be imperceptible in the fullness of time, the history of our planet and all the accomplishments of man can not prevent the inevitable… he would be stunned with the soul shattering heart break of his own insignificance. Now imagine you are one of those poor mortals who knows how it all ends. Not something you read in a book or sussed out with your friends in some hypothetical over coffee, but know really know down in the pit of your being. Imagine the effort it would take to go on with day to day life and how hard it would be to enjoy anything.

Trust that you are where you need to be, know that if you pop up and fruitlessly carry on with the task of watering the lawn. Have faith that when you rave on to your loved ones about the rain and they make their tiny little pivots anyway; you are both doing what has to be done.

Fish need to swim.

Dogs will hunt.

Humans will feel like they are important.

And sprinklers will sprinkle.

This book was received through the LibraryThing Early Reader’s Program.

ISBN: 9781932603774

First off, the subject matter narrows the reader pool down to those living with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and the people who care for them. But that is where the problems end. The Mayo Clinic Guide to Living with a Spinal Cord Injury is written by leaders in medical research and successfully avoids, or explains where needed, medical jargon. But the writing also isn’t dumbed down to the point of being patronizing either.

At first, I was skeptical about how useful this 200 page tome would be, but with the clear, helpful illustrations and truly useful tips about life style changes that will be beneficial no matter the degree of damage sustained by the patient, my mind has been changed. The unique thing about this title is that the authors did not focus solely on the effects SCI has on the patient’s spine, the book also thoroughly explores the effects SCI has on the patient’s other systems, such as cardiac, nervous and digestive. It also sheds light on the psychological effects on patients and caretakers. The Mayo Clinic Guide to Living with a Spinal Cord Injury is a pleasant, easy read, suitable for anyone affected by an SCI.

This book was donated to the Primal Faith Foundation by author Michele Lee.

Read it for the information about archeology and the people who study coptic writings, but not to learn any thing of Judas or the document “The Gospel of Judas”.

Simply put, this is an informative and interesting book, but it has nothing to do with its sensational title. The man Judas is mentioned briefly, but the remainder is about the documents’ procurement and the people involved with its translation and preservation.

Nothing…nothing of the document itself or any of its content. The spiritual content of this book is no more than any thinking reader of the New Testament could surmise on their own.

Good book, over blown title.

Really should have been called “When Humans with College Educations Do Really Stupid Things”, but I guess that wouldn’t be sensational enough.

When Science Goes Wrong is informative and engaging, but I believe it may have been rushed to press to capitalize on some event. The book covers twelve events in recent history in which seemingly smart people committed decidedly careless or outright stupid deeds, always at the cost of others.

Each of the twelve stories are factual and informative, but every one of them is jam-packed with worthless fluff and personal anecdotes that distract from the point. My advice is read the first three and last three pages of each chapter and you’ll get all the relevant information you need.

One hundred and ninety pages of political masturbation disguised as a supernatural suspense story. Of the three main characters we have; Dorian Gray, who is a brainless puppet that personifies vanity; Basil Hallward, the artist who painted the fabled portrait and represents the sorrowful conscience; and Lord Henry Wolton, who is the quintessential 19th Century fop whose sole purpose in the book is to act as Wilde’s voice on politics, religion and homosexuality and as a driving corrupter of everyone else in the book.

The pacing is horrendously slow, the chapters devoted to explaining Gray’s hobbies and the pictures of his ancestors in his hallway don’t help with the lousy pacing. The whole story could have been condensed to a 30 page novella and would have been enjoyable.

And, as a side note to the posthumous Mr. Wilde, forty is not old and hideous.

Asatru is the pagan path that follows Norse tradition. For laypersons, this means Odin, Thor, Loki, their stories and their kin. Ask any pagan their views on Asatru and you’ll get mixed responses. While many people, especially men, find their spiritual home as followers of the Asgardians, it’s also been adopted by hateful, racist sects. Asatru, however, is not a racist belief system, in fact it’s one of the few ancient paths that holds men and women equal. Goddesses and gods are equal, Odin accepts men and women into his ranks of warriors and in the Norse lifestyle men and women could both own land and hold respected social positions.

Because of Asatru’s adoption by small groups of racists, and the reputation even centuries later of the Viking invaders, books on the subject often hint at the faith only being applicable to those of Northern European decent. However, Essential Asatru is different.

To begin with it points out that the Vikings traveled so far, to the Americas, even into Africa, that it’s possible that many people who don’t look Nordic might still have Norse blood.

Essential Asatru also focuses on the other thing that makes Asatru different from other pagan paths. Asatru is a functional religion, it’s designed to blend into a life, not rule it. In Asatru the gods are allies in every day life, not overlords who must be appeased for humans to survive. Interacting with the religion is, and was, a low priority (which is not surprising when considering that the original Vikings lived with 9 months of winter a year, implying that they often had little time for anything other than survival.)

Essential Asatru is the first fully satisfying non-myth book we’ve added to our collection on Asatru. It’s a choice pick for those interested in the faith, readers interested in religious studies in general and writers looking for research books on the Norse faiths.

In his study of the American male Guy Garcia exposes the ugly truth that all men want to hide but desperately need shown, our weakness in today’s age of networking and social strong arming. The author adequately displays how the feminist movement empowered women but in essence castrated an entire nation of men.

We live in an age where all the strengths that helped us make it out of the caves has made us all but useless in the world we created. Guy Garcia points to a lot of statistics making the work informative but a little dry, then blind sides you with two chapters about Mattel’s Ken and Superman, referring to them as both real men and symbols of what we are and what we used to be, respectively a useless metrosexual and an idealized figure of manhood. The fact that he spoke of both characters as if they were true flesh and blood men seemed a little silly and out of place in this particular work.

In the end we see that our Pop Icons are mirrors of what we think a “Man” should be but can never live up to ourselves. In short the implication is that instead of living up to our traditional ideas of manhood we should just redefine what it is to be a man.

Seems a bit lazy to me, but hell what ever makes you sleep better at night.

Summer Knight – Jim Butcher

Death Masks – Jim Butcher

Stash House – Michele Lee (Not yet published)

Odd and the Frost Giants – Neil Gaiman

Psychiatric and Behavioal Disorders in Israel – 30 different experts in the field, Edited by Itzhak Levav

Secret Societies: Decoding the Myths and Facts of History’s Most Mysterious Organizations. – Time Inc. Specials

Judge Dredd: d20 RPG by Mongoose Publications.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

World War II by Eyewitness Books

Days Gone By: Michele Lee (not yet released)

The Prose Edda: Snorri Sturluson

Evil Genes: Barbara Oakley