Google yourself

My astro reading from Rob Breszny says that it's time to Google myself, so that's what I did.

I found out that I'm the director of the Music Ministry at St. Olaf Church in Austin Minnesota, that I'm a Chicago skateboarder who won the Twin Cities StreetJam skateboard contest in 2001, that I'm an instructor in the Michigan public schools who won the 2005 Lyle Spalding Award for Leadership in Educational Technology, that I am a research professor of astronomy at UMass with an expertise in low noise wave reception with a Ph.D. from UC Berkely, that I am active in the Gainesville Community Playhouse, that I have a home in Seattle but I dream of retiring to Mexico, that I am the Assistant Secretary of State for Elections in Nebraska, that I sell my own BBQ sauce at the Yah Butz in the Woods market in Siren Wisconsin, that I race my car at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway, that I've done design work for the Colorado Rockies Baseball Club, that I am a spokesman for the Wrinch Memorial Foundation in Hazelton British Columbia, that I am a sergeant in the US Air Force, that I sold the family business Sacramento Aggregates for over $10 million, that I earned an advanced degree in robotics from the University of Kentucky, and that I am the editor and publisher of Adam's Blog (that last one took a little digging to find).

I'd say that's a fairly accurate description. Rob also suggests that I buy myself some gifts, and spend some time gazing into the mirror and making love to myself.



Well, it is my birthday soon . . .

swamiji

Last night I met a guru from India. You might say his message was "Ask, and ye shall receive."


Shivabalananda ( R.B. Singh), a scientist
and engineer at the India Space Research
Organization, is a direct disciple of Shiva
Bala Yogi Maharaj. He, along with other
disciples, carries on his Master’s mission.



Shiva Bala Yogi Maharaj (1935-1994) is
one of the most revered spiritual teachers
from India. He traveled world-wide for
thirty-three years offering initiation into
dhyan meditation.

What's it all about, Johnny?

John was performing purification rituals, called baptism, in Bethabara beyond Jordan.

And religious leaders, sent by the Pharisees in Jerusalem, came to ask him, "Who are you, and why are you baptising these people?"

And John said to them, "I baptise them with water. But standing in your midst is another whose sandals I am not worthy to loosen. Although he will come after me, he truly comes before me."

The next day, when John saw Jesus approaching, he said, "I was sent to baptize in water, because another would come to baptize in Spirit."


"I didn't know this man; but I was told - by the One who sent me - that he would manifest in Israel, and that I would witness his alignment with his own Divine Spirit."

"And now I have seen it: a vision of the Spirit descending upon Jesus in the form of a dove."


(paraphrased from John 1:24-33)

painting by Leonardo daVinci, John the Baptist

this is the future

The Bush administration's 2005 budget cut funding for the shoring up of New Orleans' levees by more than 80%, to under $4 million. And it's not because they didn't know there was a problem.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Pres. Bush has requested, and Congress has authorized, $60,000,000,000 of new funding for FEMA, a DHS (Homeland Security) agency. Here is a sample of FEMA's activities in New Orleans:

There have been many reports of FEMA blocking relief efforts. Globalstar reported that a truck carrying more than 1,000 satellite telephones was barred from the disaster area. Aaron Broussard, the President of Jefferson Parish, which neighbors New Orleans, criticized the governments response on the September 4, 2005 edition of NBC's Meet the Press. Broussard described how FEMA blocked water deliveries from Wal-Mart, blocked the shipment of fuel to his area, cut emergency communication lines and described how the local sheriff posted armed guards to protect the lines after they were reconnected.

"We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, 'Come get the fuel right away.' When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. 'FEMA says don't give you the fuel.' Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice."

- wikipedia

Meanwhile, inside the city . . .

What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable.

Welcome to New Orleans in the post-apocalypse, half baked and half deluged: pestilent, eerie, unnaturally quiet. . . .

Rush hour in downtown now means pickups carrying gun-carrying men in sunglasses, S.U.V.'s loaded with out-of-town reporters hungry for action, and the occasional tank. About the only ones commuting by bus are dull-eyed suspects shuffling two-by-two from the bus-and-train terminal, which is now a makeshift jail.

- Dan Barry, NY Times, Sept 8, 2005

They must have a reason, and that reason must be incomprehensible.