Prime example is the recent contretemps involving über moron Manny Ramirez. This buffoon has been manifesting his inner creep for years. But the jock sniffocracy* laughed it off with a catch phrase---they love catch phrases, in between mis-pronouncing words: ' it's Manny just being Manny.' Who now seems to have either Bob Marley's old hair stylist and/or actual hair. And Pedro Martinez' penchant for pounding old guys.

So, what did M. Ramirez do? did he snub the President of the US ( twice ), buy yet another really expensive car, walk through the Fenway Park scoreboard to wizz, or pose at home plate watching another lameass homerun, have a dugout fight with teammate Captain Ahab Youklis? Nope.

ManRam wanted some tickets for purported family & friends. When he couldn't get them, he knocked down the first guy he saw, a 60+ security guard. Now some ' fans' are shocked. Why? Manny Ramirez is a self-absorbed asshole. He's a thug, who has been encouraged because hmmm, he helps the godlike Red Sox win ball games.

Naturally, 99.999% Boston fans could care less, what Manny does. They want more pennants now they've had a taste. For 86 years Red Sox proponents had the sports equivalent of penis envy re: the New York Yankees. Oddly, they also had a hard on for all things NYC. Must have been very very confusing. No wonder they worship trogs like Jason Varitek, David Ortiz and M. Ramirez. I could say a lot about those guys, but they do have balls. And know how to use them. Sadly, now they've won some World Series, it's only gotten worse.

These days the once Ruthian cursed Red Sox, have been glossed greatest baseball team ever, by it's fans & their PR arm: ESPN. Another glaring solipsism jockos are guilty of, is using absolutes. As in declaring Boston's Peter Gammons a Renaissance Man, because he reports baseball and plays in a band. He's a yeomanlike guitar player at best (a colorless singer), maybe a cut above Madonna on a 6 string. Though she is curently more knowledgeable about Alex Rodriguez than Gammons is. . ..

Luckily, God, who has abandoned the Yankees ( don' t ask...), has this season become a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays, the team formerly known as the Devil Rays, mainly because they were previously too limp wristed to co-opt Stingrays from a minor league team, have cast out Satan in FLA! Also, they have changed colors to mostly blue( really creative palette fellas ) and now have the best team in baseball. Chalk one up for the fat white Southern Christians who plagued the Tampa Bay franchise, until they changed that brimstone laden monicker this year. A devil ray is a manta and a vegetarian sea creature, but hey! So, GO RAYS! yeah that's the ticket. . ..

THE HELP DEPARTMENT here is a tip for sports pronouncers: it's Wimble-DON, not -Ton. You have a whole year to practice, @#%&*! idiots.

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*©2007,2008 JukeofUrl Productions

The fact still remains, whether we like it or not, tremendous social, ecological, financial, and cultural issues are facing the world is time.  Either humanity will learn how to get it right, or humanity will have more trouble, other than what they have already had.  It is not for me to be the voice of reason for all humanity.  I'm old, my body is tired, and most people, almost all of my life, I found it much easier to laugh at me, and call me stupid and a fool, than they have been able to accept that I very well may be extremely intelligent, and have a great deal to offer a human condition.  For that reason, I am going ahead and pretty much said what I wanted to say, in my economic Journal, and my global warming Journal.  It will now be up to the holier than thou people, who live by this mentality, of, I'm better than you, and as a result will have huge egos that will cause them to believe that they are better than everyone in the world.  I will leave it up to these know it alls, for them to finally come to terms with their own stupidity and realize that what is happening here in the world is pretty much as a result of their own greed, stupidity, and religious, and/or political hysteria.

Having lived with death most of my life, I've been quite used to the fact that, on any given day, that they very well could be my last.  I've had no choice other than to have to live this way.  With the various physical and psychological conditions I have been dealing with for over 40 years, I've had absolutely no choice other than to be ready, on any given day, to live this way.  Furthermore, what I have said in both my economic, and global warming journals, speak directly to the succinct problems, that the world is having at this time.  It doesn't matter to me now, that most of the world will have no understanding, of what I've written in my global warming Journal.  I am fully aware, that in my global warming Journal, there are probably not more than between 100 and 200 people, in the entire world, who will have any understanding, regarding what I have written in my global warming Journal.  That's not my fault.  The fact of the matter is, I know this stuff.  I have been studying this material, pursuant to electromagnetic field representation, and multidimensional electromagnetic field, and particle, interaction, pursuant to the neutrino, for over 35 years.  And what I have said about my knowledge of Newtonian metaphysics, is completely true.  I've studied Newtonian metaphysics for over 12 years.  At this juncture, of course, I have studied it for a lot longer, because even though I'm getting older, I continue to study now.

There can be no further benefit, for me to speak out any further, regarding global warming, or the collapsing market structure of the United States, as it relates to the world markets, at this time.  I've already given the world pretty much what they need to know in order for them to make better decisions, regarding both of these aspects of the human condition, that are in fact in a very perilous state at this time.  So there's nothing more I really need to say along those lines because saying that is only going to put me into the fray whereby I will be yet another voice sounding out, such that the voice that I might have will in fact appear to be as shrill, as the other voices which are now quite hysterical.  There is no way that anyone can look at the white fundamentalist Christians, at this point in time, and not see them as being so hysterical, that they literally are resembling the Nazi movement of Germany in World War II.

Regardless of any of the posturing that these Christians want to do about how they are truly people of God, they do not resemble God when they are preaching such hatred for so many different groups, and/or causes, and/or organizations, and/or aspects of the human condition.  One does not appear to be cool and collected thinker, when one is in fact constantly coming out with hatred of so many different groups, and/or aspects of the human condition.  The Christians cannot have it both ways.  They cannot be claiming that they are loving, while at the same time, coming out and demonstrating nothing but hatred, and contempt, for so many aspects of the human condition.  Such behavior is not loving, nor is a compassionate, nor is it enlightened.

And so, for that reason, I shall be focusing more on this Journal, Flight of Man, where I will talk about the serious aspects of my life and the other conditions that are feeding my life at this time.

I just read this morning, in a paper in California, from some gentleman who claims to be a business whiz, that Windows Vista is really a good operating system.  This is nothing more than a whitewash effort, on the part of Microsoft Corp., to attempt to spread propaganda.  This is pretty much what is happened with information over the last 25 years.  Companies rather than come clean and become honest representatives of their products, and/or services, in the marketplace, will in fact do whatever they possibly can, to convince people that their good companies, and that their products are good products, and/or services, when in fact they are not.  This is the typical behavior of business groups, and political groups, and religious groups throughout the United States at this time.  In other words, if you don't believe me I'll go ahead and hit you with so much information that you'll be so confused and dazed you just give up and believe whatever I say.  And that speaks volumes about how dishonest, and absolutely reprehensible, almost all of these different groups, and/or businesses, have become as of late.

There is no way, under any circumstances, that I will ever say Windows Vista is a good operating, at least in its current state.  Furthermore, I will never say that people in the business world, or average consumers, and/or users, must be stupid enough to take a program that is so huge, that they must go out and buy a computer, most of which don't ever use, simply to run an operating system that is so large, that again, they won't use even most of the operating system itself.  Not only is that stupid business on the part of the businesses, it is stupid business on the part of the consumer to enter into a business agreement, pursuant to those type of conditions.

So I will not accept that that is a good way to go.  I won't accept that that is good business.  All that is happening as a result of this collective hysteria, that is taking place, theologically, philosophically, politically, sociologically, and psychologically, is that humanity, or the human condition, is suffering tremendously, psychologically, culturally, and sociologically.  And these factors indicate, very strongly, how tremendously, the human condition is suffering anthropologically as well.  As I've said in both of my journals, the economic, and the global warming Journal, I have no motivations, pursuant to the presentation of the information that I giving forth at this time.  I don't have any motivations.

There are only two reasons why I keep these journals at this time.  Neither of these two reasons is more important than the other.  They are both hand-in-hand, regarding their importance to me, and do everything I have been in my life.  On the one hand, I do not want to become old and suffer my death without having tried, to my very best ability, to reach for my own highest good, and thereby also to have helped humanity to reach for their own highest good as well.  Additionally, as I've said before, doing crossword puzzles and playing video games will only lend a certain degree of intelligence, and/or mental acuity, to someone's thinking process, as they get older and their brain begins to slow down.  As a result, things such as Alzheimer's disease, and senility, have become rather commonplace in people of my age, mostly in part due to how lazy, psychologically, and intellectually, people have become.  Because I do understand these processes, I have decided that I am not going to go down that road.  And so as a result, these journals in addition to being about my trying to reach for my own highest good, and to assist humanity in achieving their own highest good, are also about my using these journals as a way of causing my brain to interact with some of the most intellectual aspects of the thought process of life, pursuant to the different facets of the human condition, as I possibly can.  And as a result, I thereby than achieve more mental acuity, pursuant to my own brain processes, such that I have a better chance of fighting Alzheimer's disease, and senility.

None of these things are very easy to achieve.  To achieve helping humanity to reach for their own highest good, one must literally stand out in front of humanity, just like Joan of arc, or Camus, or Ibsen, or Cervantes.  These are only four of the major figures over the last several hundred years, who actually stood in front of humanity and to direct hits, socially, and culturally, in order to be able to help humanity to have a better chance of survival.  I understand that as a result of the choices I am making, and the information I'm presenting, that this places me directly in line with some of these other personalities, who have in fact stood in front of humanity attempting to lead humanity to their own highest good.

And thus I also understand, that the hysterical factions of the Christian religion, will never allow me to have a real serious voice in this culture.  Because if I do have a serious voice them they have no power.  And they will never let that happen.  Joan of arc tried to decentralize power of the Christian faith when she came forward in France.  And as a result the Christian faith took a position of not wanting to give up that power and so to Joan of arc being a heroic figure at her time in history, the Christian answer was to burn her alive.

And as a result, I am acutely aware that, for the most part, the very much hysterical Christian faith, along with the politically very hysterical Republicans, will do exactly what they have done all through history.  They will demand that anyone who opposes their hysteria, whether open white supremacy, whether open religious oppression, be killed.  This is exactly the attitude that the Republicans and the Christians who are both acting out extremely hysterically, are now taking.

In Cleveland, Ohio it's extremely evident.  As I've said before, Cleveland has become an extreme embarrassment.  The average value of homes in Cleveland has fallen from $65,000, one year ago, to an average value of only $15,000 today.  That speaks volumes about the mismanagement of Mayor Jackson's regime, and/or administration.  So, while Mayor Jackson wants to consider himself a good politician, these facts that are coming out about how terrible Cleveland is doing, speak volumes about how horrible Mayor Jackson is as a Mayor, and how disgusting his administration is at running the city of Cleveland.

While the Christians love to say that they're good at everything, the fact of the matter is, with the Christians owning 73% of this country, and running this country, to the tune of 73%; that means that the Christians are in control of 73% of everything that happens in this country unilaterally.  And that pretty much says that anything that goes wrong in the United States, is going wrong as a result of some form of Christian control, since Christians own almost everything in the country, and control almost everything in the country.  The same is true here in Cleveland.  With the black population now being so much of the majority in Cleveland, when things go wrong in Cleveland is not the white peoples fault in this much is the black people's fault since the black people own almost everything, in the city, and run almost every aspect of the city.

That being said, there is racism on both sides here in Cleveland tremendously.  And it is quite hysterical.  You have white hating blacks, and you have blacks and whites.  You have blacks hating blacks as well, due to the black on black prejudice that exists between the suburban blacks, and the inner-city blacks in Cleveland.  So Cleveland becomes almost a microcosm of the national hysteria that is now the national trend in the form of behavior that the United States is taking pride in.  And this microcosm of hysteria demonstrates quite clearly the lack of true intellectual creativity that United States is producing anymore.  The United States is in producing hardly anything anymore.  Televisions are no longer made in the United States.  Most of the products that United States uses, anymore, most of them are not even made in the United States anymore.  And so as a result United States is turned into more of a consumer nation that of producing nation.

Ally of this goes along the lines to pointing out once again the religious hysteria that is taking over this country due to how homophobic, and hateful, the white supremacist Christian movement has turned into becoming over the past two decades.  And when any movement takes on that type of behavior, the end result is nothing different truly, and what happened during World War II to the Jewish population.  And that's simply, is mass murder.  And we know that this is happening, because when we look at President Bush, we see that he is willing to spend $162 billion, not to help the people of this country, many of whom are starving and who are in desperate need of medical care; but he is using that money to do whatever he can to continue his mass murder campaign of Jews and Muslims in the Middle East.  And most of the Christians, who are extremely hysterical and stupid, in Cleveland, along with the hysterical and stupid Christians throughout the entire country, are solidly behind Mr. Bush and demanding that he continue his mass murder of Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, gay people, and anyone else that Mr. Bush and the hysterical Christians happen to hate at that particular moment.

And of course subsequently what is going to happen, is that this hatred, and this hysterical frenzy, will fold back into the Christian movement and those who are promoting this hysteria.  Where they may be feeling like they're extremely popular at this point and well endowed and well embraced; it will be but a short period of time before they realize they are not liked very well at all and they will have virtually no support.  There are many times in history that we can cite to articulate this particular point of view.  And many of these times in history the frenzy, has become so hysterical, religiously, and/or politically, such that the byproduct was in fact mass murder of one type or another.  And as these events unfolded, those promoting the hysterical frenzy, religiously, and/or politically, ended up becoming their own victims of their own frenzy because the population finally turned around and decided they no longer wanted to buy into this hysteria that these masters of propaganda were in fact promoting.

And so, as a result of my understanding of this entire situation, once again I am put in the location, culturally, whereby I impressed to either take part in this hysteria, or to attempt to rise above this hysteria.  In the past few weeks, especially pursuant to transferring my journals from blogger.com to WordPress.com, I have attempted to do just this.  I've been trying, to locate that kind of environment, whereby I would be able to generate the information I would need to, pursuant to the human condition, and my contemporaries, such that by presenting this information I would not only be assisting my mind and its mental acuity; but I would also be helping, in whatever way I could, for humanity to reach more of their own highest good.

There is no real point anymore, for me talking about the difficulties pursuant to my own life, regarding my mental illness, or the other physical conditions under which I am surviving.  What I presented so far has been quite beneficial, to the human condition.  And it has been so, as a result of other people reading some of these things and knowing that they now have more courage inside of themselves and they may have thought before.  Consequently as a result of that, these people are now talking about more of their own lives, which is in turn having a positive effect upon all of the information, pursuant to mental illness, and the hospital system throughout the United States, and around the world.  Doctors are beginning to get the message that either they must stand by the Hippocratic oath, or be known for liars, and basically moneygrubbing killers, that many of them are in fact behaving as.

Furthermore, Microsoft is beginning to realize just how badly they are hated in the world.  And I would hazard to say, that within the matter of a few months, pursuant to the journal entries I put up politically, regarding global warming and the economic conditions of this country and the world, that Microsoft will in fact he pressed into a situation where they will have to either admit that they are extremely arrogant and pushy, regarding their business policies, and their business methods, on the consumer.  Or they will in fact, be seen, by the general market, as more unsavory than they already are.  It doesn't matter to me that some people are saying that Windows Vista is a good operating system.  Because I know from having spent 40 years installing computers and being a financial, informational, and communications analyst, that Windows Vista is not a good operating system.  It never was a good operating system some of the elements of Windows Vista are good.  But that does not make the operating system, as a whole a good system.  In order for the system to be a good system, on the whole, it would mean that Windows Vista would have to be more consistent, regarding how it in fact related to itself internally, than it otherwise is able to do.  And at no time has Windows Vista been able to demonstrate, I did to the political community, or the business community, or to the regular user, a level of consistency, pursuant to expediency and efficiency, such that the program can be looked upon as something that isn't good enough for people to use on a consistent basis.

There can be no reason for anyone to pay attention to a program that takes almost 30 minutes to close down when it is restarting the computer.  There is no reason for anyone to accept an operating system that can take almost 30 minutes to start up when you start your computer.  That's not a good operating system regardless of any of the filthy lies Microsoft wants to tell you.  Good operating systems don't take 30 minutes before you can move your mouse on the screen.  Just like the computer industry lied to everyone in the 1960s saying that the advent of the personal computer would eliminate paper; when in fact the absolute opposite is what happened.  Computers did not eliminate paper, computers actually gave birth to so many tons of paper, that most companies are drowning in a sea paper.  Over the last 40 years, as business analyst, I have seen more than my share of companies who are not only drowning in a sea of paper, but they are drowning in a sea of information that they have virtually have no way of controlling, understanding how to prioritize, let alone being able to file it and use it efficiently.

So once again, this is yet another aspect of the hysteria that is taking over the business world, and the human condition.  There is no excuse for businesses to be so stupid as to allow computer companies, or software companies, to put them into such an untenable position, regarding their own products, and/or services.  There's no reason for that.  However, that's exactly what companies are allowing themselves to be subjected to.  Furthermore, that is what the general populations of so many countries are allowing themselves to be subjected to as well.  And that's just not right.  The people of this planet deserve better.  All of you deserve better.  My life is coming to a close.  It's only a matter of time before the physical conditions that I face on a daily basis become so strenuous but I finally lie down for the last time.  I know this.  I have been preparing for my entire life since 1968 when I was operated on, on the third floor of Hana Pavilion, at University hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, at 7:00 a.m., on September 1, by Dr. Charles H. Herndon.  For all these years, I knew this particular time in my life is coming where I would be literally fighting every single day, to continue going.  So this is not something, that I am unprepared for.

But that being said, I still want, to try to do the best I possibly can not only for myself, but from my fellow humans here on Earth as well.  There is no way in the world, and I'm going to face my own death, without having tried, to the best of my ability, to give back, with all the energy I have inside of me, to my fellow humans and to humanity as well.  There is no way that I will do that.  I will do whatever I possibly can to give humanity the benefit of all the years of my knowledge, and all the years of my expertise in the various aspects of educational information and knowledge that I have amassed over the years.  Whether humanity is smart enough to read what I'm talking about a tape up any of the information I'm presenting, that is a choice humanity must make on its own.  I cannot make that choice for them.

So, as I said, I have a choice at this juncture, to either fall into the same level of dark hysteria, but is overtaking the political, and theological environments, at this time, or I can rise above it.  And that is what I'm choosing to do, the latter.  I am not going to reduce myself and fall into the fray of open hysteria that is overtaking the religious and political movements throughout the planet at this time.  What I will do is to use this Journal, and my medical Journal, to push forward, in various presentations, such that these presentations will then be able to be of benefit, hopefully, to readers who, in fact take part in reading my journals.

If no one reads the journals and no one will take part in any of the information I'm presenting.  But I know that's not true.  I know that a lot of people are reading my journals all over the world.  And I know that a lot of people are taking a great deal of pleasure from what I write.  To say that I am honored, and/or gratified, regarding this type of attention is truly an understatement.  I've never felt that I was worthy of such attention.  Mostly what I saw in my life is to be good enough for others, which I have always felt I never was.  However, in any event, that is the direction I'm planning on taking.

In conclusion, the speech program I'm using, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, is working a great deal better using the dictation box, in conjunction with the extra training I have done.  Plus, during my personal posting, right on the WordPress website, is working quite well because, the WordPress text editor, seems to work very with the dictation box.  This is a little bit different, then the blogger.com editor, which does not seem to work very well with the dictation box.  When I try the dictation box of blogger.com, the system is always gone into a hang.  And so I've been somewhat at odds as to how to transfer my text to the text entry screen for my post, when the editor in the logging service, was not very receptive to the dictation box, that I use in order to maintain as much accuracy or my dictations as possible.  And this again, is where WordPress is a better service, for me, because using my dictation box with WordPress.com, does allow me to transfer the text more easily than on other services.

Additionally, I have made a total and complete migration to Firefox, and Thunderbird, so that I'm no longer using IE 7, or Outlook express.  This is a good thing, from my point of view, for while I am very used to using Outlook express is an e-mail program, I am finding, that using Thunderbird, and Firefox, is really much better for me, since it has more functionality, in addition to the fact that it is getting me away from Microsoft Corp..  And this is something that I definitely want to do.  I do not want to use hardly anymore Microsoft programming.  I'm pretty much tired of their programming.  And when they try to force Windows 7 on me I will simply rid of my Microsoft programming altogether and then go to your Linux, or Apple.  There is no way I'm going to give Microsoft anymore attention, or cretins, under any circumstances.

And for those who might be interested in alternative programming, pursuant to Microsoft products, I have a host of probably 500 listings, whereby I can direct people to any one of a number of programs that are alternatives to Microsoft products.  Instead of using MS office, I use StarOffice, as one example.  Additionally, instead of using Outlook express, I use Thunderbird.  I also use a very small program from Russia, called, Vomail.  VoMail is a recording program, the records anything you say as a wave file, and then compresses it so that it can be transmitted e-mail quite easily.  It has no limit on how long the recording can be.  I've recorded things up to several hours, pursuant to various dictations that I have on my computer, and VoMail handles it quite easily.  And it is also a free program.  Additionally, I use an FTP program that comes with Firefox, and works very well as an alternative to most of the FTP programs out there that are Microsoft supported, that cost a good bit of money.

I also saw in the news this morning, but NBC is purchasing the weather Channel.  And basically what that means financially, is that free whether it will probably be going away, because NBC does not believe in giving anything away for free.  NBC has never believed in giving anything away for free.  Not to mention the fact that NBC is pretty much a very arrogant news service.  We know this, because when Barbara Walters came out and pretty much destroyed Rosie O'Donnell and the other people she wrote her book about, NBC applauded Barbara Walters as if she was some hero, when in fact Barbara Walters basically acted, journalistically, as a terrorist.  So when a news media celebrates someone who acted so coldly, and so terribly, this says to me, that the new service basically can't be trusted.

Our Walters has never impressed me as anyone with any kind of compassion, under any circumstances, unless she was going to get a lot of money for what she was demonstrating, or that she was going to generate a lot of ratings for herself as a result.  And that's not someone with compassion.  That's someone who is pretty much a vulture in the journalistic world.

So as I said there's a lot of hysteria going on in the marketplace, not only environmentally, but religiously, and politically, and as well of his journalistically too.  And as I said before, my choice is whether or not I'm going to fall into this fray of mass hysteria.  And I'm not going to.  I can't.  With what I face every single day, not only on the account of my own mental illness, but on account of the physical limitations, and/or physical conditions, that my body is facing everyday; I don't really have the luxury of being like chicken Little, rushing around in total hysteria castigating everything inside and not really producing anything positive.  And so these journals will in fact attempt to be more of a positive pay it forward, kind of endeavor for me.  As I said, the only agenda I have, in this Journal and the journals I shall keep from now on, are going to be for me to try to reach my own highest good, while helping humanity to reach their highest good as well.

That being said, under no circumstances and lie going to turn away from the feminine gender that I am embracing at this time.  Never has my feminine gender ever been as a result of any determination, on my part, to insult, and/or negatively impact, any woman, or the female gender in any way, shape, or form.  Some might say that my feminine gender or trail, is my way of celebrating the female gender, and the females of the earth.  While part of that may be true, the actuality is, as I've said before, but my feminine gender, is merely a way of attempting to put something comfortable around me, psychologically, and physically, when in my life every single second, I am an extreme pain.  And the pain I suffer from is not only mental, but physical as well.  So the feminine gender that I pretrade, and/or take on in my life, is really a way of not revealing any of this pain or reducing any of this pain at all.  It is really simply nothing more, then putting something comfortable into my life, both mentally, psychologically, and physically, in such a way, so that the degree of comfort I am realizing, gives me something that is a police comfortable, while at the same time I am being presented with 20 and 30 pains every single second.

So basically living as a female is very enjoyable form a psychologically, spiritually, mentally, and physiologically as well.  However sexually, pursuant to my biology, I'm quite happy and satisfied with my male sexuality.  I've never wanted to change my male sexuality.  I have simply never enjoyed, under any circumstances, the male gender, as a portrayal of my personality, in this culture.  And I realize that by taking this particular stand, that I have set myself up as basically a very large target of hatred by a number of groups throughout my entire life and throughout the world.  And where in my professional career, when I was younger, I was more concerned with this; that concern is nowhere near as pronounced as it used to be.  In other words I really don't care anymore what people think about me.  For one I hardly ever go out at all.  This is into part, to the fact I can hardly walk.  But it's also due the fact that, psychologically, and/or mentally, I suffer from agoraphobia.  And as a result of suffering from agoraphobia, this means that I am rather tentative, and or apprehensive, about being around other people.  This does not mean I'm terrified of other people.  It simply means, that based on the number of mental things that are going on with me as a result my mental illness, the limitations upon me, as a result of that mental illness or these mental illnesses, have placed into such a position, whereby, my expression as a human being, publicly, around other people, is far more tentative, than it otherwise might be.

That being said, I have no problem, under any circumstances, with my feminine gender or trail in my life.  When I'm out in public I've never embarrassed because of my femininity, inasmuch as I am embarrassed as a result of my disabilities.  I've never been one who enjoys having anyone take notice of any of the disabilities that I have had to deal with in my life.  And so it is my disabilities that oftentimes make me more apprehensive around other people, instead of my gender portrayal..

And so, as a result of this, I do not believe that my gender portrayal will go away, or diminished, in any way, shape, or form.  However due to the level of hatred there is for transgendered people, in the city of Cleveland, and especially the hatred that Cleveland has for me, as a result of my coming from such a famous family, who was pretty much responsible, for building most of the city prior to the 1960s; I do not have a lot of safety in entering out into the public as a result of the level of hatred there is for me.

That being said, I probably will move to a different location in the country so that I do not have to be subjected to the level of castigation, and/or hatred, that the city of Cleveland finds all to easy to deliver to me as a result of their own homophobia and disgusting hatred.

If this Journal takes a direction whereby people show any degree of interest in various aspects of my life, and any form of a dialogue can in fact be substantiated, I very well may share more of my personal life and I have before.  But until such time as that happens I don't really see the need for presenting very much of my personal life, when most of the people in this society, not to mention around the world, would simply rather read me like a comic book or make fun of me, than they would rather to pay me any serious attention at all.

That being said, I think I've pretty much explained how things are going in my life at this time.  And so as a result of that, I think what I'll do is watch the morning news, and get ready for a rather warm day here in Cleveland.  It's supposed to be 80° today.  And for the next period of almost 10 days, the temperatures will be covering in the high 80s to love the 90s.  Of course,, when we get into the middle of July, and then late July and August.  For that is that time, historically, when Cleveland, or the North Coast is even likes to call itself, begins to fall into a pattern of what is known as, the drought.  It's when it doesn't rain much year and farmers a little nervous because they don't have much rain for their crops and it doesn't really pick up as far as rainfall until mid-September.  So it's just basically more of a warm time here in Cleveland.  But the lake, Lake Erie, being so close to Cleveland, Ohio in Cleveland being right on the lake, this water, does provide a certain degree of climate activity, pursuant to meteorological events, whereby Cleveland doesn't have as quite as much of a dryness about it, as many other locations in the country.

And so, we will talk again...

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Counterfeit

Counterfeit workings of evil spirits may accompany a true reception of the Fullness of the Holy Spirit, if the believer "lets go" his mind into "blankness," and yields his body up passively to supernatural power. As a "blank mind" and "passive body" is contrary to the condition for use required by the Holy Spirit....The abstract result is great "manifestations" with little real fruit...a spirit of division from others, instead of unity.

There is but one reception of the Holy Spirit: with many succeeding experiences, developments, or new crises, resultant on fresh acts of faith, or apprehension of truth; various believers having varied degrees of the same filling of the Spirit, according to individual conditions. The enduement of power for service is often a definite experience in many lives.

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Of spirit, soul and body, is simple yielding or committal to Him of the whole man, to do His will and be at His service, God asks the full co-operation of the man in the intelligent use of all his faculties. (Romans 6:13)

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Notes

Without exception the manifestations of the Holy Spirit is marked by (a) a Christ-like Spirit of love, (b) soberness of spirit vision, (c) keenness of vision, (d) deep humility of heart and meekness of spirit, with lion-courage against sin and Satan, and (e) clearness of the mental faculties with a "sound mind."

Taken from War on the Saints by

Jessie Penn-Lewis

Well this morning he gave a sermon titled "Is America a Christian Nation? and Does this Matter?"
I prayed when I saw this title, that he wasn't going to preach on what I expected. Well he did. He started it off with a quote from Barack Obama, which I thought was starting it off on a good foot (he's a staunch Republican, maybe he's giving to say to the other side). Well, he apparently was using the quote as a bad thing. I can't seem to find the quote, but it was something along the lines of: America is not a Christian nation because Muslims, Jews, athiests... etc. live here. Government policies should not reflect ideals of one group if they do not benefit the whole.
Something like that. I thought it was good. There are other religious groups here. They, too, are Americans. They should receive some say as well. Apparently, Obama, if elected is going to further deteriorate our foundations as a Judeo-Christian nation. Well that's what the pastor said. I don't really see that in the quote, but he was able to twist it to mean that.
He also gave another quote from Obama (which I was able to find). This was in response to Franklin Graham asking if Jesus was the only way to salvation:
"Jesus is the only way for me. I'm not in the position to judge other people."
Ok, he asserted his religious views. He also saved his butt from the non-Christian voters. Sure this was not the best answer, but it wasn't quite as wrong as the paster said it was. Jesus is the only way to heaven. True. Did Obama give the best answer, no. A better answer would have been "Yes, He is, but I am not in the position to judge others." Well, here's the thing. The pastor began judging Obama for saying that he could not judge others. Tricky.
There were many other things he spoke about, most notably that America should be a Christian nation. That is where its roots lay, so it should go back to them.
The biggest problem I had with the sermon was not that he attacked Obama; Obama has flaws. It was that he did not mention McCain at all. McCain, apparently is in the clear. In not evening the playing field, he used his pulpit as a presidential endorsement. Vote for McCain, because Obama will further secularize our Godly nation. I'm not sure about that.

I hate it when pastors preach like this. Go ahead, preach on political topics that have ties to our faith. Preach on what you believe the Bible says on abortion, war, or gay rights. Go for it, but do not use your position of power to push your personal political agenda on your congregation. God did not tell you you tear down Obama. From the quotes I've heard of his (and that were quoted mid-sermon), he his a Christian, a fellow believer. We should lift up and pray for a strengthening of his faith, not pulling it apart because of his party.

Vote for whomever you wish, but get the story from both sides.

A Life Restored (Remix of Sunday’s sermon – audio download - http://www.firstgrandville.org/content.cfm?id=213&category_id=4 )

To have it all on the outside – money, success, lots of stuff - but falling apart on the inside?

Sin, grief, anger – these things have a corrosive effect on our souls. But also, the stress, the pressure of keeping a job, finding a job, keeping a family or relationship together – what does all of this do to our souls? We depend on ourselves; we turn inward; we go off the path; we turn away from the one who loves us most.

And ultimately, our souls become like a wilderness or a desert.

We need to be restored!

Today, when we think of restoration, we probably think of the spa. But there is something better than anything a spa can offer…

The definition of restoration is, “to bring back to its former state; to bring back from a state of ruin, decay, disease, or the like.”

You see, from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis to the end in Revelation – the goal was reconciliation and restoration between us and God. God’s pursuit of us and then the cross through which the reconciliation was achieved. And because of the person on that cross, Jesus, God got personal, literally. And through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit we can be restored in souls and in our lives.        

Psalm 23 offers us this pathway to restoration guided by the Lord, the shepherd. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd in John 10. Think about it, a shepherd is personal, gentle when necessary, but also protective and patient.

As you might imagine the biggest obstacle to Jesus the shepherd leading us to being restored is …us…

But we are going to change that today…

Receive what His hand provides

He comforts…

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want

            Not lacking in anything spiritual

He makes me lie down in green pastures

            Being fed with and resting in, God’s best

He leads me beside still waters

                        What refreshes you?

Are you thirsty?

He restores…

He restores my soul

To lead away (Come away with me…) – meaning of restore – in Hebrew

Follow His guiding and protecting hand

He leads…

            He leads me in right paths for his name’ sake

            Not ours battle to win – it’s His.

He protects…

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me

Imagine being able to say to Satan and challenges – I don’t fear you – my shepherd is with me – I don’t fear a cancer diagnosis, I don’t fear losing my job…

            Your rod and your staff they comfort me

                        Shepherd - Rod for protection, staff for guidance

Embrace His open arms

He welcomes…

            You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies

                        Nothing can stop the hospitality of the Lord

            You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows

                        Both point to abundance

He embraces…

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

                        Hebrew understanding of “follow” is pursue

Romans 8:28 – God works for the good in all things…

            And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

                        God’s presence – belonging to Him above all things

He knows what we need. We don’t need a day at the spa, we don’t need more money, we need a restored soul. And he wants to give it to us abundantly. This Psalm begins and ends with the Lord – “The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Our souls were not meant to be deserts, dry and deserted - they were to be places of pastures and quiet waters – overflowing with the presence of God – the Holy Spirit.

Whatever is going on in your life today…

If you want rest and comfort,

If you want to feel his protection when you are in the darkest valleys,

If you want the “cup” of your soul to overflow with goodness and mercy,

If you want true abundance,

Then say it - The Lord Jesus Christ is my shepherd, and I am going let him lead me, and protect me, and let him fill me, and run to his open arms and never leave.

The restoring can start right now…

Amen.  

Discussion Questions

1. Have you thought of Psalm 23 in this way? Often you hear at funerals, which is completely appropriate. But how about it in the present tense – in the now?
2. What about restoration? What have you thought about it prior to reading this? Do you need some?
3. What is the state of your soul? What can we do about it?  
4. Have you let the Lord touch and restore you? How about today?

First the video, followed by juvenile excuses...

The "pro-life" crowd is sickeningly hypocritical. I'm not talking about all "pro-life" supporters, but rather the bulk of the crowd. The Christian, right wing, middle or upper class group that feels they are morally superior for opposing abortion and that liberals who support the right to abortion are the ones I'm talking about. These are the same people, remember, who oppose universal healthcare, give the wealthy giant tax breaks while taxing the poor, practice the racism that keeps minorities in poor situations, and would rather spend billions of dollars killing innocent people in the Middle East than saving lives back here. These are the people who are partly responsible for pushing mothers into situations where they can't provide for a baby--and teaching children abstinence only classes, keeping vital information about birth control away from them. Pro-life crowd? Why don't you focus on the lives of the people already living before you start a crusade against women's freedom. Let's start with bringing the troops home and spending those several billion dollars on universal healthcare, better education, and better police funding. Seems to me that would be a hell of a lot more valuable.

Sorry for the short post today. Still celebrating. :)

Exhuming Bob IX, Pensees 7:

Into The Lost Land

by

R.E. Prindle

Texts:

Dylan, Bob, Chronicles Vol. I, Simon And Schuster, 2004

Prindle, R.E.   Exhuming Bob, VIII The Walls Of Red Wing, idynamo,wordpress.com 2008

Thompson, Toby, Positively Main Street, U. Minnesota, 2008, reprint from 1971

http://www.hibbing.org/dylan1/story.html  Life In Hibbing: Hibbing Chamber Of Commerce

http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/85-dec.htm  Bob Dylan Is Not Like A Rolling Stone Interview, Spin Magazine, Volume One, Number Eight, December 1985

http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/play78.htm  Playboy Interview: Bob Dylan 1978

http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/66-jan.htm  Playboy Interview:  Bob Dylan  February 1966

     In attempting to put together a reasonable facsimile of Bob's life in Hibbing and Minneapolis, Minnesota and New York City as he mythologized it in his chapter of Chronicles, The Lost Land, I have come to the following tentative conclusions.

     Bob was born in Duluth, Minnesota on 5/24/41.  In 1943 he was taken to Hibbing where he lived from then until graduation from high school in the Spring of 1959.

     Within the concept of normal Bob had a fairly advantaged childhood.  His parents were indulgent buying him anything he wanted while providing adequate pocket cash.  Bob's family was one of the more important in town both within the Jewish community and the town at large.  In what appears to have been a tight small town social scene Bob either excluded himself or was excluded from the dominant social groups within which he had a right to be included.

     Perhaps Bob's conception of the Hibbing period could be best interpreted from his favorite movie, Rebel Without A Cause, starring James Dean.  Bob is said to have seen the movie several times.  This was unusual as few people ever saw a movie more than once. He would have been a very impressionable fifteen at the time.   Most of us didn't have the money while quite frankly few movies, if any, were worth watching twice including Rebel Without A Cause.  I was seventeen when I saw it and while I was in awe I wasn't submerged.  Of course Bob's relatives owned the theatres so he got in for free.

     As he set up a Dean shrine in his basement which greatly offended Father Abe we may be justified in assuming that Dean was a controlling influence in his life from the time he saw the movie.  It is of interest that Abe was to remove the Dean shrine from the basement after Bob left replacing it with a shrine to his own son Bob Dylan ne Zimmerman.

     Abe Zimmerman (1911-1968) worked for Standard Oil in Duluth when Bob was born.  According to the C of C he lost his job in 1943 moving to Hibbing where his wife's family, the Stones, could help the young couple.  Why Standard Oil should lay Abe off in the middle of the war during a manpower shortage seems to pose a question.  As can be seen from the photograph of Abe and Beattie above borrowed from the Flickr photostream of <drineevar> he was a well set up handsome man.  He appears to be exceptionally self-possessed, sound in the eyes.  Beattie appears to be a haughty high fashion queen which would accord with later facts.

      Abram Zimmerman, for such was his name.  Usually called Abraham, the name on his tombstone is Abram, and his two brothers Maurice and Paul bought the Micka Electric Company in 1943 changing the name to Zimmerman Appliance.  In 1968 Paul Zimmerman told Thompson that they had been in business for twenty-five years which would mean 1943 although the date seems odd.

     According to the C of C Abe came down with polio in 1946 requiring a lengthy convalescence.  The C of C says that the Zimmermans bought Micka's after his convalescence but if Paul Zimmerman is accurate it would have to have been 1943.  There would be no record of what Abe did for a living then from 1943 to 1946.  As Bob says both his uncles served in the Army it would seem that they bought Micka's going into the Army shortly thereafter leaving Abe to tend the business.

     Maurice and Paul became President and Vice-President of the corporation while Abe siginficantly assumed the controlling post of Secretary-Treasurer.  Managed the money, paid the bills.

     During the fifties at least Abe spent a fair amount of money on both Bob and Beattie.  Angel Marolt whose family bought the Zimmerman residence after Abe's death was trying to tell him of Beattie's several fur coats, diamonds and Cadillac but Thompson says he wasn't paying attention.

     Thompson quotes Echo Helstrom as saying that the Zimmemans had stores in both Hibbing and Duluth.  Having a customer base of approx. 250,000 makes more sense when one considers the amounts of Abe's expenditures and the fact that the profits had to be split three ways.

     The C of C describes Abe as a 'big man' in town partial to those big thick long cigars.

     The couple had enough money on arrival to buy the large nine room house that Bob grew up in so Abe must have been well paid at Standard Oil before he was laid off.  Both he and Beattie are well dressed in the picture while Beattie is actually overdressed.

     Bob was entrolled at Alice School for his kindergarten year in 1946 at five years of age.  The status of Alice School is unclear.  Perhaps it was closed the following year or consolidated with the Hibbing High complex.  Hibbing High housed kindergarten through twelve as well as the Jr. College.  Thompson describes it as a huge and rambling building.

     So from first grade to graduation Bob was with the same group of students.  I sure wouldn't have wanted to move into town in tenth grade and try to break into that one.  While he wouldn't have known them all well he must have known the entire student population on sight.  This presents the problem then of why Bob, who was the son of the Big Man in town, wasn't included in the top social cliques.  Those cliques undoubtedly formed early persisting through graduation.  If Bob was in one he was either forced out early or found it uncongenial to remain for whatever reason.  Perhaps he thought his Jewishness excluded him.  So if something happened we don't know what it was and won't; unless Bob tells it's going to be difficult to trace.

     Growing up in a small town anyone with any ambition looks around and sees very limited opportunities.  Working for his father wasn't a viable option.  Not everyone wants to be a doctor or lawyer either.  Nuclear Science is OK but a lot of those guys are out of a job now too.  My next door neighbor when I was a kid for one.

     Bob's mind turned early to music and then to Rock and Roll.  While Rn'R went on to conquer the world and become as respectable as such a spectacle could it was definietly considered discreditible and low class almost volunteer outlawry in the fifties.  At the very least it was 'pimple' music.  It took a certain amount of courage to say you liked Elvis Presley.  Pat Boone ws set up as his rival and you had better say you liked ol' White Bucks.  Pat wore white buck shoes while the rockers 'wore Blue Suede Shoes' and the popular mind credited Elvis with the song rather than Carl Perkins.  If you don't think Elvis was considered a social criminal check out a couple of his movie roles like King Creole and Jailhouse Rock.  If you can't put him in jail in real life put him there in the movies.  What was the Colonel thinking?  Clown roles, that's all Elvis ever got.

     And then Bob chose as his hero and model, Little Richard.  People looked at you funny if you said you liked Little Richard.  I mean, Bill Doggett was a respectable Negro with music you could understand, Fats Domino was as lovable as a chubby ten year old but Little Richard!  They hadn't even created the ghetto he could come out of.  His band might have passed but then he opened his mouth.  If there was ever a direct challenge to middle class sensibilities Tutti-Frutti was it.  Not only was the song incomprehensible it was about queers.  Nobody ever quoted the lyrics correctly while I'm walking around saying 'Tutti Frutti, I want Rudy?'  What does that mean?  I hope no one overheard me.  So when Bob gets up, ignoring Pat Boone entirely,  and launches into some screaming vision like Rip It Up or She's Got It or God only knows what, was the crowd taken aback?  Chuckle, chuckle.

     So Bob having opted for the lifestyle was forced to associate with the hoody crowd or have become a loner.  Besides Colin Wilson's book The Outsider  had appeared in 1956 that began a cult of The Loner that peopled the early sixties.  These guys, who were by no means rebels but deep thoughtful guys who had a line on the truth denied anyone else and that  penetrated sham and hypocrisy sat alone ever ready to resolve a situation setting things right were highly romanticized fellows.  There were as many Loners in the those days as there were Hawkeyes a couple generations later.  So Bob wouldn't necessarily have been thought of as weird, strange but a Loner.  A Loner was next door to weird and strange.  Thin line is you get my meaning.

     On the other hand the C of C describes the L&B Cafe as a regular jumping Bop Street right there in the heart of Hibbing, Minnesota.  Bands set up and played continuously.  They knew how to party in Hibbing.  The C of C even says there was a radio station in town playing Bob's kind of music thereby contradicting every other source even Bob.  He says he had to go to Shreveport on the radio waves  to get his kind of music.  In this case I'm betting on Bob.

     The C of C  tells of Bob's musical debut like this putting the best possible face on it:

Described by fellow students as polite, easy to talk with, and somewhat introspective, it was a total shock when he pushed back the piano bench and stood up to pound the first notes of a song into the auditorium, electrifying the student body.  Kids jumped up, stared at each other open mouthed not knowing what the reaction would be.

     Well, yes, they were electried but did they like it?

     According to the C of C, looking back fondly, Bob went over real well with his fellow students.  If you like this version don't check the other sources as this is at variance with every other known account but then this is the Chamber Of Commerce  speaking.  Up to this point in the C of C account there is no reason for Bob to be as bitter as he is about Hibbing at all.

     A note of interest is the reoccurence of Fourth Street in Hibbing, Minneapolis and New York City.  Quite a coincidence, I knew there had to be some association with Fourth St. in Hibbing.  So far we learn that Bob attended Jewish shule there.  Whether the synagogue was also located there isn't clear.  The synagogue Bob attended is no longer anywhere at any rate.  Tore it down.  It was in the way.  Even though Bob's father was the most prominent Jew in town, the President of B'nai B'rith and ADL as well as his business interests, and even though Bob had a mega Bar Mitzvah with four hundred people in attendance some say at the most prominent spot in town, the Androy Hotel, some say at the synagogue, he wished to conceal he was Jewish.  This attitude may have contributed to his renouncing the Jewish fraternity house to which he pledged at UM while also hiding his religion in New York.  The attitude was strange since he seemed to prefer Jewish musicians around him to  the exclusion of goys.

     Bob's father Abe, was quite frankly a marvelous provider, spending very large sums of money on son Bob, wife Beattie and his second son, David.  When he died in 1968 the house on 7th Ave., now Bob Dylan Ave. was sold.  The owners at the time of Thompson's visit were the Marolts.  Angel Marolt who was at home when Thompson called offered to show him around.  One thing he learned was that Bob had a clause in the sale's contract that allowed him to stay in his old room in the Marolt's house whenever he was in town.  Too weird.

     What quirk in Bob's mind compelled him to live in other people's houses?  Perhaps Rebbe Maier back in 1954 impressed on Bob that Biblical scripture presribes that Jews would live in houses they never built.  As an article of religion that injuction is a mind boggler.  One can't predict how anyone's mind will interpret instruction.  Bob who functions out of his subconscious very heavily must have accepted such teachings in literal ways.  Rebbe Maier was a definite turning point in Bob's life.  Imagine getting out of school, going upstairs at a Rn'R cafe to sit before the only bearded man you may ever have seen, dressed completely in black with a black yarmulke perched on the back of his crown intoning things like:  The Jews shall live in houses they never built and then go downstairs to boogie.  Pretty spooky, don't you think?  And then as Bob says, he disappeared like a ghost.  Let that roll around your brain for little while wand see what you come up with.

     Mrs. Marolt was trying to tell Thompson something about Mrs. Zimmerman's multiple furs, heaps of diamonds, I'm sure all the latest fashions and her own Cadillac.

     Bob was indulged to the extent of apparently more than one motorcycle, a car, lots of amplifiers and electronic gear for his bands, whatever he wanted plus free movie admissions and plenty of pocket cash.  He must have had a large record collection for a kid as he spent his spare time at Crippas record store ordering the odd title.  You can bet Crippas didn't discount either, charging full bore.  At the time (after 1958) stereo was 5.98 and mono was 4.98.

     As the profits from a sole Hibbing store divided three ways could not have supported this sort of expenditure, having a store in Duluth could account for it.  It is significant also tha Abram died in June 1968 and the store closed a few months later.  Was the store a losing proposition for the last few years?  Did Bob provide the difference so Abe wouldn't be embarrassed by going banko?  Then with his father gone there was no reason to support Uncles Maurice and Paul?

     There really is something happening here, isn't there?

     Also as a petty expenditure for Bob (it would have been huge in my life) according to the C of C:

Almost every day Bob came in after school for his regular snack: cherry pie a la mode and coffee (or Coke.)

     And then to dinner?  No wonder the young Bob had all that baby fat. 

     If Echo bought those hot dogs for Bob and bought his story that his dad didn't give him an allowance she was had in more ways than one.

     So, Abe was nothing if not a generous father and husband.  Beattie as President of Hadassah as well as a Stone must have made the Zimmermans the most powerful Jews in the syngogue while actually giving she and her husband the means to be petty dictators of the town,  I saw something like this in Eugene, Oregon in the sixties and seventies, or, as the C of C says a Big Man and big people.

     Bob must have a quirk in his mind to misrepresent his childhood so .  He was the Fortunate Son John Fogerty only sings about.

     In Thompson's interview with Beattie he quotes her:

How can you know you have a genius in your house, when all my time is spent trying to feed him and keeping his clothes pressed.

     In Bob's story, The Lost Land, Chloe Kiel is shown ironing Bob's shirts and at the end of the chapter she 'slaps' a plate of steak and fried onions in front of him just before he darts out the door to begin the next chapter, A New Morning, just as in the old days when he returned home from school for lunch and was fed by his mother he darted back to school.

     Ironing his shirts and providing free steaks was a signal service for bare acquaintances like Ray and Chloe.

     Chloe comes across as cold and indifferent and indeed there is a tinge of resentment and anger beneath Beattie's statement.  Motherly, of course, but there.  Still, she doesn't impress me as any Yiddishe Mama of the Mrs. Goldberg variety.  Whether Bob was a good boy or not he does have an ambivalent attitude toward his parents.  But then he claims that he was really raised by his grandmother, whether Stone or Zimmerman isn't clear.

     I believe the big change came over Bob with his Bar Mitzvah and I'm not talking puberty alone.  According to the C of C Bob attended Jewish shule during his young years.  This was done after public school hours.  Then in 1953-54 when his Bar Mitzvah was approaching Father Abe sent to Brooklyn, New York to have an ultra-orthodox, almost certainly a Lubavitcher Rebbe, sent to Hibbing to indoctrinate Bob in untra-orthodox teachings.  It can't be any surprise that when Bob exhibited his Jewish reverence after his Jesus indoctrination with the Vineyard Fellowship he chose to show himslef as a Lubavitcher.  Welcome home, Bob.  The C of C tells it this way:

According to a 1985 Spin Magazine interview by Dave Engel, Bob said it was above the (L&B) Cafe that Rabbi Reuben Maier stayed while giving Bob Hebrew lessons in preparation for his Bar Mitzvah.  The Rabbi and his wife showed up one day and stayed for a year while Bob get ready for his big event .  The article quotes Bob as saying he would learn Hebrew after school or in the evening for an hour, then go downstairs and boogie at the L&B.  After completing his Bar Mitzvah the Rabbi just disappeared.

     In the interview Bob tells it this way:

There weren't many Jews in Hibbing, Minnesota.  Most of them I was related to.  The town didn't have a rabbi, and it was time for me to be bar mitzvahed.  Suddenly a rabbi showed up under strange circumstances for only a year.  He and his wife got off the bus in the middle of the winter.  He showed up just in time for me to learn this stuff.  He was an old man from Brooklyn who had a white beard and wore a black hat and black clothes.  They put him upstairs in the cafe, which was the local hangout.  It was a rock n' roll cafe where I used to hang out, too.  I used to go there everyday to learn this stuff either after school or after dinner.  After studying with him an hour, or so, I'd come down and boogie.  The rabbi taught me what I had to learn, and after conducting the bar mitzvah, he just disappeared.  The people didn't want him.  He didn't look like anybody's idea of a rabbi.  He was an embarrassment.  All the Jews there shaved their heads and, I think, worked on Saturdays.  And I never saw him again.  It's like he came and went like a ghost.  Later I found out he was Orthodox.  Jews separate themselves like that.  Christians, too.  Baptists, Assembly of God, Methodists, Calvinists.  God has no respect for a person's title.  he don't care what you call yourself.

     The C of C knows the Rebbe's name was Reuben Maier and Bob Dylan doesn't?  There were enough people in Hibbing to have a temple and shule but they didn't have a Rabbi?  The Rebbe Maier showed up in time for Bobby Zimmerman's Bar Mitzvah but what? it was the first Bar Mitzvah in Hibbing's Rabbiless history?  No wonder four hundred people showed up.  The Jews in Hibbing shaved their heads and worked on Saturday's?  I presume Bob means they didn't wear beards but shaved their faces unlike the Lubavitcher in white beard and one of those funny round hats.  I serously doubt there were three hundred or more Jews walking around Hibbing with shaved heads in 1954.

     They took one look at Rebbe Reuben's weird beard and outre attire and told him to get out of town?  Now that I can believe.  Beards in '54 were a sign of great eccentricity or a psychotic desire to draw attention to oneself.  But why in '85 the mysterioso act?  He just showed up to teach Bobby Zimmerman, a complete unknown with no direction home Lubavitcher tales like this:  (actually this is pretty standard esoteric doctrine adapted for Jewish needs)

The messianic thing has to do with the world of mankind, like it is.  This world is scheduled to go for 7,000 years.  Six thousand years of this where man has his way and 1,000 years when God has his way.  Just like the week.  Six days work, one day rest.  The last thousand years is called the Messianic Age, Messiah will rule.

     Essentially what we have here is a variant of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy along with a little Hebrew Theology.  If one looks real closely one can see the outline of Sigmund Freud's notion of the unconscious.

     According to Beattie Bob knew, oh, two hundred words of Hebrew.  So much for several years of shule and a year of intensive training by Rebbe Reuben.

     Whether Bob knows or admits it, it must be ture that Father Abram sent for Reuben to instruct Bob in mysteries that Abe thought were essential to his vision of Jewish religion while not part of the services of the Hibbing congregation.

     It is possible that Abram brought the Rebbe in on the approval of the congregation who rejected him.  The comment by Bob of working Saturdays may be signficant here.  The Jewish sabbath begins on Friday sundown and continues to Saturday sundown.

     As a Lubavitcher Rebbe Reuben could not have tolerated working during the sabbath while the congregation found it essential amidst a gentile population.  Likewise beards are an integral part of the orthodox religion so that the congregation  also refused to stop shaving.  The only thing mysterious is why it took Reuben so long to catch on.  Or maybe he had a contract for one year and the year was up.  Of course Bob did need help on those two hundred words.

     So Bob's upstairs memorizing his two hundred words while the throbbing beat pounds insistently through the floor.  The super patient Reuben and his wife never object.  Bob shortly joins the revelers with his two hundred Hebrew words rattling round his skull, steps up to the mike and begins screaming: I've got a girl and her name is Echo.  Hmmm.  Quite an image out there in the Lost Land of Bob.

     Now indoctrinated in quaint antiquarian rites Bob is bundled off to Webster, Wisconsin and Camp Herzl to steep himself in Israeli style Jewish living.  Camp Herzl was conducted as Israel in America so those two hundred Hebrew words came in handy in that surrogate for summer in a kibbutz in the Holy Land.

     The summer sojourns must have set Abram back a handsome fee for the times.  Six to eight weeks of essentially summer boarding school does have expenses.  Abe apparently was deeply religious: in Protestant circles he would have been known as a Fundamentalist nut.  He and Mike Huckabee would have gotten along fine.  One wonders if younger son David was given the same treatment.

     So Bob from 1954 on is definitely the product of two nations.  The world of the Three Hanks as the C of C puts it and this world of Adam, Moses and the Messiah.  Bob was named after Sabbatai Zevi the last acknowledged Jewish messiah in the seventeenth century, his Jewish name is Sabtai.

     As kids we all have a lot to reconcile, begin working out at graduation.  Bob had a double load; he had two Bobs to reconcile.  Personalities wander and widen in those years, Bob made a clean split.  On the one hand he was the twerp Bobby Zimmerman of whom it may be said:  There's no success like failure while on the other he was struggling to be the super successful Bob Dylan in which he failed to assume the mantle so that failure is no success at all.  At least he made this split off persona's name mean something.  As a note, it was not generally known Dylan was Jewish until after Blonde On Blonde.

     Thus in his movie Renaldo and Clara he is not Bob Dylan.  Anybody can be Bob Dylan he says, you can be Bob Dylan.  Toby Thompson thought he could be and did a pretty good job of it walking a mile or so in Bob's shoes.  Sounded just like him.

     As remarkable as it is that Bob realized his fantasy beyond anything he could have dreamed and became the hugely successful Bob Dylan he created an entire new set of problems whose solution eluded him.  Well, you know, there's something lost and something gained while it's hard to know whether the gain was worth the loss.  However the money has disappeared from the table.

     The result then is Bob looking backward from 2004 to create a fantasy of how it was in Ray and Chloe's place on Vestry Street in NYC.  The chapter is approriately titled The Lost Land or possible Never-Never Land might have been better.  The chapter isn't a complete fabrication but it is fiction.  Something like the various incidents might have happened but not exactly the way Bob tells it.  The framing story of Ray Gooch and Chloe Kiel is pure fiction however.  They could not possibly have existed.

     Bob tells the whole story of the Lost Land within the reference of Ray and Chloe and their fabulous aprtment near Vestry below Canal near the Hudson across the street fromt he Cathedral with its bell tower.  Thompson got it right.

     A troubling aspect of Bob for me is his insistance on bumming other people's apartments.  This seems to be compulsive behavior.

     Bob was actually voluntarily homeless from January of '61 to October  or November of the same year when he and 'roommate' Suze Rotol took up digs on Fourth St.  I suspect that Father Abe would have been only too happy to supply Bob with funds to live on Vestry Street if he had asked.  Bob is simply intrustworthy in any of his stories.  As he said of what he learned from folk music:  If you told the truth, well and good; if you told the untruth, well and good also, so in Bob's mind there are no lies, there is only the truth or untruth both having the same value and whichever is more serviceable at the moment.  You can't believe him.

     A troubling aspect of Bob's behavior is his habit of bumming couches in other people's nests; gaining meaning, as it were, from other people's lives.  Perhaps that was the way he felt of his life in his mother and father's house.  Or perhaps as a Jewish outsider in a goyish land it was his attempt to insinuate himself in the main stream much as he appropriated Woody Guthrie's persona.  Of the houses I have traced they have all been those of goys; he didn't choose to insinuate himself into the houses of his fellow Jews.  His imaginary hosts Gooch and Kiel are obviously goys.

     The Lost Land then is a mythologized version of his childhood and first few months in New York City.  To my mind Ray Gooch is a combination of Dave Van Ronk, Paul Clayton, Matt Helstrom and his father.  Chloe seems simply to be an idealized notion of his mother.  (Study her picture for a few moments again.)

     As the Gooch frame brackets the period from Bob's encounter with Gorgeous George to the apartment with Suze Rotolo it must represent a time frame from sometime in '58 to October '61.  In October Bob Dylan ceased sponging off others to take up his own apartment.

      The only one in this time frame he knew who had a large gun collection was Matt Helstrom.  the Helmstroms also had a large record collection that Bob listened to.  The couch and apartment undoubtedly belonged to Van Ronk while certain exoticisms of Gooch are characteristic of Clayton.  The library of Gooch may simply be the New York City Library of which the long narrow room would merely describe the stacks.

     The Southern character of Gooch must represent a time after Bob studied the South in the library since there are several references to his Civil War studies.  Gooch himself is a Southerner from Virginia gone North which is a symbol in itself.  This can be symbolically described as Father Abe being a Jew in Gentile America.

     Here then Bob creates or accentuates the more pleasant aspects of his memories in contrast to the very bitter unpleasant memories of the songs.  He tells us a great deal about his dream life but little of its realities.  At this point I am of the opinion that the party of Camilla ( who Bob says he gets to know quite intimately) is another fabrication of the based on a true story variety.

     As Bob would say, folk music taught him that if what you said was true,well and good; if you said was untrue well and good also.  We may probably construe the Lost Land as both true and untrue while a good folk tale.  Even the title has a fictive quality a la Edgar Rice Burroughs.

     To round off the period back in the C of C milieu of Hibbing:  Bob spent his last summer at Camp Herzl in 1957.  In the summer of '58 he was running back and forth between Hibbing and Minneapolis.  At that time he would have become familiar with Highway 61.

     In his Junior year of '57-'58 he took up his relationship with Echo Helstrom.  They were going steady hence were not supposed to be dating others.  As he was in Minneapolis most of the summer he left Echo sitting home alone.  She resented this.  As the Senior year began she told Thompson, she took a revenge on Bobby returning his token in public in the hall at school.  Boy, that hurts.

     The feelings must have been much harder than either Bob or Echo portray them.  A key problem area is did Bob spend time in Red Wing Reformatory on Highway 61 below Minneapolis and if he did what did he do to receive his sentence:  I examine this more fully in Exhuming Bob VIII:  The Walls Of Redwing.

     He says in Chronicles that he was absent from school from some time at the beginning of April of '59.  He was back at least by the June 5th graduation.  His birthday is May 24th.  After that date he would have been eighteen and subject to adult sentencing.  For what It's worth he says in his song that no inmate was over seventeen.  I'm suggesting that he spent a month of two at Red Wing returning in time for graduation.  Certainly a Big Man in town like Abe could have arranged the graduation if he couldn't get Bob off that time.

     The question is what did Bob do?  By the middle of this Senior year it appears that he had been in enough scrapes to be known as a troublesome boy; perhaps living out a Rebel Without A Cause persona.  Father Abe used his influence up to that time to avoid unpleasant consequences for the lad.

     I believe Bob's song The Chimes Of Freedom tells the story of his crime.  Quite simply Echo set him up.  She obviously was not quite as complacent as she tells it.  See Exhuming Bob VIII:  Walls Of Red Wing.

     Returning home from Red Wing his parents threw a graduation party for him.  Bob was reluctant to attend the party, perhaps with good reason but was persuaded to do so.

     This then leaves a very sketchy account of the three or four months of the summer of '59 for which Bob provides little information.  In Walls Of Red Wing I place his stint at Red Wing in August but that is probably wrong.  In any event the period from April of '59 to September of '59 needs to be explained more fully.

     Bob gives some brief details of his stay at Dinkytown but not much.   A little bit of the John Pankake episode while avoiding the important details of his theft of Pankake's records.

     Thompson has some good information from Ellen Baker whose father's folk song collection Bob used extensively.

     Then to NYC and his account of The Lost Land segues into his New Morning.

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation