The temperamental nature of the iMac made working with Journal Home impossible. Pages took forever to load, blipped and lost entries, could barely read my friends' pages, you know. The whole process became a major pain in the ass.

Fortunately for me, I have John. He was going to pass his laptop on to me when he got a newer one to start his classes with, but it started to act wonky and he didn't want to give it to me if it was having problems (which I appreciate). So he replaced his laptop and gave me his desktop instead. It's a Dell (a regular PC - ::happy dance happy dance::), about four years old but hasn't been used much in the last two years because John was using his laptop, and works like a dream. He wiped it, reformatted it and, as if I didn't already know he was the sweetest guy in the world, he installed an antivirus program and an assload of games.

F.E.A.R and the entire Doom Series (including Final Doom and Ultimate Doom).

Doomy Doom Doom.

Yeah, baby!

Finally I can watch streaming media without having to stop and start, wait a seemingly interminable amount of time until it loads or having the system lock up on me from the effort. And I can use JH again.

Yes indeedy. Life can be good.

In other news...

Larry seems to be past his horrible period of pain, and the doctor reports that the kidney stone that was causing him all that misery has, in fact, passed. However, there is another one twice it's size currently sitting in his other kidney. A veritable time bomb of potential agony just...sitting there. He's going to have to have a Lithotripsy, which sends waves of sounds to break up the stone and make it easier to pass. He's had it done before so at least he knows what to expect. I hope they do it soon and get it out of there before it works it's way loose like the other one. I've never seen him in such pain. It really makes me feel helpless because I want to help him but there's nothing I can do except hover over him like a bumblebee when he's home or take him to the hospital - where I am less than useless to him. It's an awful feeling. He has his chucklehead moments but I love him madly and want to take care of him.

At least he's okay for now.

I think I'm going to go watch the Halloween remake. Or what I can see of it before I pass out. Kinda sleepy. John and I have plans to watch it tomorrow morning anyway but I just can't wait to see it again.

Three of the sweetest words ever thought, spoken or written; Unrated Director's Cut.

Have I mentioned that Rob Zombie is a worship-worthy freaking genius?

A few months ago I happened upon a blog at which had been left a comment to the effect of one day, perhaps 20 years from now, the Bush presidency will be vilified, and Bush himself shown to be a strong leader and visionary who wasn't afraid to take a risk.

Of course he wasn't. It's not HIS head on the block. He's going to be out of here in a year or so and someone else will be left with the monumental task of clearing up the cluster-fuck that is Iraq and fixing the devastating debt this subhumanoid moron has left us with. As I have said before, I do not envy this person his or her job.

Meanwhile, we are not only left with a crippling debt and a pointless, expensive and deadly war (that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of the very people it was supposed to 'save', by the way, many of whom were killed as the result of poor intelligence pointing out a 'terrorist hideout' that just happened to be full of unarmed innocent people), but our international reputation is, in fact, ruined. People of other countries see the US as a bully, an oppressor and an outlaw who ignores the UN and has forsaken the decency required in the Geneva Convention for vigilante justice. The reasons for such widespread hatred of us have little to do with religious intolerance (though, granted, the 'impose sharia law on the entire world' crowd does loathe us primarily for that reason, they are but a small portion of the people the Bush administration has pissed off) and far more to do with the ridiculous way the Bushites have gone about things.

Let's say fictional President X of Nowhereland decided to invade the US. The time he spent between his mind hatching the plot to invade and the actual execution of said invasion is approximately four weeks, and the motivation is personal interest, only it's justified to the citizens of Nowhereland as a necessary evil.

They have WMDs, says Pres. X.
They were in on an attack that crippled this country for weeks, says Pres. X.
They are planning to use nuclear technology to attack us again, says Pres. X.

All of this later turns out to be untrue. But in the process of learning this the military of Nowhereland has cost his country thousands of lives and billions in property damage. They have also cost themselves thousands of soldier's lives and run up a debt so ridiculously, outrageously high that not only is the surplus that existed at the beginning of President X's adminstration gone, his country is trillions of dollars in the hole. Trillions. Because President X in essence told the UN to fuck off, he was going ahead with said invasion regardless of their concerns and advice, he has alienated most other nations including those who used to be supportive of his country and his people. Allies become enemies who refuse aid and publicly speak against President X and his strongarm tactics. Then it becomes known that President X couldn't care less about treatment of POWs and some members of his administrations say the use of torture is an okay thing as long as it yields the information they want and the general view of the Nowhereland citizenry (the majority, who helped elect this misguided man), is agreement with this policy. This same majority supports President X because he agrees with their religious views and goes out of his way to promote them at every opportunity in spite of the fact that it directly violates national policy against establishing a single, nationally recognized and priviledged religious tradition, whose adherents enjoy rights of religious expression that other groups do not (or can not). President X claims that his god - the god of Nowhereland's majority religion - tells him to do things and his supporters admire him for it while condemning the actions of other leaders who do the same because these leaders do not belong to the same group that President X and his followers wish to have established as the only free and recognized religion in their own country.

Would we not hate them if the roles were reversed? Would we not see them as an evil empire which needs to be destroyed?

So is it any great shock that most of the free world despises us right now? Americans were angry with the French when they refused to back us in invading Iraq, and now we see that this was quite possibly the best thing they could have done for their citizenry and their financial future. In so doing they took a hit to their international reputation for awhile but when the dust settled they did not have a huge loss of life and funds to contend with and the overall negative view of them has largely shifted. In short, the French were right. They helped us during the Revolutionary War and during WW2 but had the courage and intelligence to keep themselves out of this one. Foresight rather than hindsight.

So what happens now? I shudder to think. Bush and co. have less than a year left to rule. I refer to it this way because he and his administration care nothing for the desires of the citizens of this country unless those desires are religious in nature. He panders to the majority and shows a clear bias because he knew he needed them to stay in office, and he needed their support for his disastrous and unnecessary (and illegal) war. Thus far his motto seems to have been 'go big and lie'. It makes sense that he will 'go out big (and still lying)' as well, and I can't help but wonder what the human cost of that will be.

Ten months from now can not come soon enough. Most of the potantial candidates for both of the major parties are walking disasters. This has got to be one of the most despicable lineups of people ever considered for the job, several of whom have taken Bush's example and begun pandering to the religious right.

I do have some sympathy for Romney. Don't get me wrong, in no way do I feel that he is qualified to be president, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for him. He's the odd man out. Who knew that in order to be qualified to lead you not only have to be christian, but the right type of christian? I'm sure Romney was shocked to learn that his religious beliefs would trump his political record and views on important political issues. They have taken to persecuting their own for political gain. Such a sterling example to set before the rest of the world.

I hope whomever does inhabit the office next is objective enough to put his or her religious sensibilities aside and do the job as expected.

I also hope they bring heavy equipment and a construction crew. There's an awful lot of repair and rebuilding to be done.

I checked the template system, setting, etc., and it looks like Blogger is working fine. Perhaps they've gotten all of the post-merge bugs out. Anyway, it's less stressful than trying to use the JH interface on the Mac.

Bye, everyone. JH has a nice community and I really liked it here until this latest round of Mac issues.

I don't see what was 'horrible' about her VMA performance. I saw so many comments about her looking drunk or stoned, but to me she looked completely terrified. Deer caught in the headlights terrified. She was obviously self-conscious as well, and who can blame her? In the last four years she has had the media riding her ass constantly, been married to a loser who used her for her money and treated her like shit, had two babies in a very short period of time, been accused of child neglect, been threatened with the loss of her children, started hanging out with Hilton and Lohan (truly a gruesome twosome of bad judgement and stupidity) her marriage went south under intense media scrutiny and she had a very VERY public meltdown.

She should be admired simply for the fact that while dealing with all of this she managed to get her latest CD finished. Not only that, but the first song - is really, really good!! It's been stuck in my head ever since I first heard it a couple of days ago.

I saw her VMA performance and I think too much is being made of it. She probably had some hardcore anxiety about the whole thing. After what she's dealt with over the last few years and how hyped the whole 'comeback' thing was, no wonder. Anyone would be terrified.

As for how she looked...are people BLIND?!?! This woman has had two babies and there isn't an ounce of cellulite on her!! She has no stretchmarks and she has no physical marks or imperfections of any kind. Her skin is GODDESS-LIKE. The 'paunch' everyone was referring to is probably the least traumatized post-children belly I've ever seen. If anything she's more voluptuous now and more attractive than she was pre-baby. So what if her tummy looks a little different? Considering what childbearing does to the appearance of most women's bodies (mine included - seriously, I'll never wear a bathing suit again, not even a one-piece), Britney got off extremely lucky.

She is not even remotely fat. I think she looked beautiful.

I used to love her 'Baby One More Time' CD but after that...I don't know. 'OOPS' was good, didn't like 'Slave', but the new song...I am loving it. Gonna have to pick that CD up ASAFP.

All of the fuss over the VMA thing is much ado about nothing. Once she gets back into performing the energy will come back. She just needs to get her bearings. I was never a huge fan, but I've found some common ground with her in the last couple of years. A situation I can relate to. It's that whole 'being married to a jerk' thing, I guess. I'd love to see her do a Tina Turner, get back into her former (pre-federline) Britney-ness and freaking dominate. And I think she will.

I hope she doesn't let this all get to her overmuch before she has the chance to accomplish it.

I already knew the use of prayer beads pre-dates christianity. Like most of their beliefs and traditions, it was borrowed from other faiths. Hindu monks, early Pagans and Buddhists first used pebbles as a tool to count their prayers while reciting them, then later the Hindus developed the practice of stringing the pebbles together to make the first prayer beads.

When catholics picked up the practice they adapted it to their faith; Jahweh (or Jehovah, if you prefer), Jesus and Mary all were honored by the different stations of the catholic rosary. The use of the rosary was one of the very few positive things I remember from my years as a struggling christian and still use today. Catholics do not revere Mary as a Goddess but I do. She is the mother of a god. In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, when a God wed and/or procreated with a human woman she then was elevated to the staus of a Goddess. Mary did both. She was approached by her god and asked to make a tremendous sacrifice in terms of her own reputation, social standing and personal safety (women were routinely stoned for perceived transgressions in biblical times, and muslim women are often murdered similarly today for the same reasons). She could have chosen to save herself the attempted stoning, the potential for permanent shunning due to being labeled as an adulteress and the potential for living her life ostracized and alone because as an adulteress she would have also been considered a 'whore'. Joseph needed some convincing to marry her after finding out that she was pregnant. By law he would have been justified in havning her killed and his people would have not only supported his decision but applauded it as godly. Yet, knowing the potential for disaster, she did what she thought was the right thing and became the mother of a god.

Gnostic christians revered both Mother Mary and the Magdalene, most likely because they had access to the original scrolls that were later cut from the bible then hidden, or because the early Gnostics had access via family connections or friendships to the oral history directly passed down from Jesus' own followers.

I'm straying off-topic here. Anyway...

As the mother of a God, Mary is a Goddess by association. Yet the catholics do not revere her as a Goddess, but as a vessel. She is a mediator between humans and their Gods (Jahweh or Jehova and Jesus), and as the mother of a God her prayers have great power to heal. In a sense she is the great messenger, the direct line to the Gods. But she is not, to catholics, a Goddess.

So I was shocked to see non-catholics bashing the practices of saying the rosary and honoring Mary so viciously on the message boards I found. Apparently many of them believe that the catholic rosary is one form of idolatry and that such devotion to Mary is another. It never ceases to amaze me that she, who according to christian belief, sacrificed so much to do what was asked of her and brought the son of her god into the world receives no respect or honor from non-catholics. Because of Mary, who birthed, raised and nurtured the Christ, christianity exists in all of it's various (borrowed) beliefs, forms and traditions.

I still say the occasional rosary to her, though my prayer is modified a bit to honor her only. To me she will always be a christian Goddess (like Mary Magdalene, to whom I also sometimes pray the rosary).

Early Gnostics had greater knowledge of their theology then any sect of christianity that has come along since, because they knew the full history of Mary, Jesus and Mary Magdalene and based their practices upon the history and their own beliefs regarding that history rather than believing the half-story that was later edited to death and thrust out into the world loaded with inconsistencies, contradictions and mistranslations.

Oops. Got off-topic again. So many interruptions this morning are making it difficult to keep my train of thought from derailing, and christianity is not a simple topic to think or write about.

Going back to the rosary...

Catholics and non-catholics were going back and forth with one another over the question of whether or not praying the rosary is a form of idolatry ('Mariolotry' - how ridiculous), and it got me thinking again about how goofy this debate is. Catholicism was the first form of christianity. The first church, so to speak. Other groups formed off of this basic nucleus. So how is it that praying the rosary is almost exclusively a catholic practice? It makes no sense to me that a religion that borrowed it's beliefs, practices and traditions from Buddhism, Hinduism and various Pagan traditions (even the concept of a virgin birth and resurrection are borrowed from pre-christian religions), spawns others like it who then go on to bash it and it's practices at every opportunity.

It's not that I haven't seen it before, it just manifested itself so well on the boards. Along with the accusations of idolatry the question arose of repetitious and time wasting monotony, which is apparently also unbiblical. What these people don't realize is:
1) NO positive prayer experience is a waste of time
2) Repetition does not always breed monotony, indeed it is considered the mother of learning
3) The repetition of prayers helps to center a person and create a sense of calm, thereby intensifying the connection between human and divine
4) Once that calm and centering has been achieved the person is not only able to communicate with the divine more effectively, he or she is more open to receiving communication from the divine
5) The catholic rosary is not merely a boring, monotonous single-prayer tool; it contains prayers to God and Jesus as well as appeals to Mary to pray for all sinners, and it contains 'mysteries', or meditations upon the different aspects of the life of Christ. Some rosaries also contain similar meditations upon the life of Mary, but she is still seen as a mediator and the actual prayers go to god and Jesus. Memorizing the different prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostle's Creed, etc.), at the different points on the rosary is not a simple undertaking. You have to really think about it, reflect upon it and eventually it does become like second nature and the rosary becomes a tool of deep, meditative prayer.

People who condemn it are often the type of people who don't truly understand the rosary and what it represents, or the benefits. They also tend to be the type of person who are unwilling to expand their horizons and take up the prayer beads for a little while to understand them and their purpose better because their specific tradition frowns upon it. We have to be willing to grow, to reach out and experience new things within our various faiths. To refuse growth is to become stagnant, and having used prayer beads myself I definitely recommend them. It's not idolatry. It's a deep, calming, beautiful and uplifting prayer experience and a way to achieve deeper communication with the Gods and Goddesses.

According to one idiot whose remarks I found particularly offensive, 'While some are playing with their stupid pebbles, others are praying to God with their heart and getting their prayers answered. I'm sorry for being so blunt, but Jesus was blunt when exposing false teaching.'

Use of prayer beads has nothing to do with stupidity, false doctrine or false prayers. It's been my own personal experience that they actually deepen the connection and communication with the divine. It comes completely from the heart. prayer beads can also be personalized and given a purpose. I have separate sets for Mary, Mary Magdalene, Kuan Yin and am about to create one for Gaia and Pan.

I do recommend crafting one's own prayer beads, as you don't have to follow someone else's template and the design has greater significance and meaning. Catholic rosaries and Buddhist or Hindu malas can be modified as well, which a lot of Pagans do if they don't have access to beads they like or specific materials for home-crafting.

What I don't recommend is taking advice on the theological aspects of prayer beads from people who have never used them and condemn them based upon the misconceptions and rules of their particular sect. People who refuse to explore are ill equipped to give others direction.