Okay, so i made a change to the signature portion of the document in question.
As i said on Facebook, perhaps this will allay the fears of the Ex and her minions.
Archive for July, 2009
July 22nd, 2009 
anger, angst, annoying people, betrayal, EMOTIONS, ethics, exes, Facebook, frustration, moral dilemma, music, nostalgia, past, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, RELATIONSHIPS, social politics, Social Psychology, SOCIOLOGY, TIME 
No Comments » Turn Turn, Turn: the Phantom Ex
Okay, again, my heart is pounding, and again, I am off balance, trying to sooth my trembling hands…
I’m not one to go around asking for advice. I’m usually only giving it, but I just might need some insight from my Facebook 
friends. I just found a message on my phone from…..GUESS WHO?
The Ex. The one who wrote that inscription to me, and the the one that I suppose is at the root of all this crap with Becky Haynes. It’s surprisingly nerve-wracking to hear the voice of a person you were in love with over a decade ago. Surreal. (And after that long, still having any reaction at ALL–what’s that about?).
She was perfectly civil. This is what she said:
“Hey Kelli this is Tammy. I understand you posted some personal letter or card or something from me on your Facebook page. I would appreciate it if you would remove that, it was never intended for the whole world to see, and I don’t really appreciate that, and i wish you would remove that, and anything else like that. Thanks.”
Okay, first, obviously, she hasn’t seen it. Because she didn’t seem to know just what was posted.
Second, she obliviously doesn’t know much about Facebook, or she’d know that it was not “For the whole world to see”–it was only seen by those on my Friend’s List, of which Becky was a part, and this is the only reason it got back to her.
Third, what the hell about it is so personal? –That it reveals that someone named Tammy had a relationship with me 12 years ago, and at least one time, she wrote something cute and affectionate in side the cover of a book she gave me?
Oh HORRORS. What will all those BILLIONS of people think of her?
Seriously, why would she care? I asked myself that question yesterday. If the shoe were on the other foot, would i care that she posted an inscription JUST LIKE THAT, from me, on her Facebook? Um, NO. Why would I?
Even if I acknowledged that people have differing views of what is “private”, especially in today’s wide-open technology environment, respecting some dubious infringement on that privacy seems to be predicated on whether i should care, in relation to this person.
This is the person who managed to push me out of BOTH of my bands, and 
summarily took away my biggest dreams. Now, understand, i was the principal songwriter, lead singer, booking agent, publicist, bought the equipment on MY CREDIT, carried it all in MY van, which got trashed, and never got any compensation for any of it. Not even GAS MONEY.
This is the person who abandoned our first band and bandmates, without giving them an explanation, though I begged her to–and in so doing, also crushed THEIR dreams.
In fairness, she had just lost her younger brother and was grieving. So I was afraid to do anything BUT be supportive. Ultimately, though, I was too in love with her to stand up and say, “If you don’t explain it to them, I will.” So i went along with it, because i was supporting my partner in her needs.
Then she wanted to start a new project, and I didn’t understand, because i thought she wanted to be away from the music for a while. Again, another misjudgment I made by going along with that. But a
fter we broke up partway into that second project, I had to keep playing music with her while she was being cruel and hateful to me. She would place the other member between me and her on stage, (there were only three of us, it was an acoustic trio), and they would start songs without telling me what they were, and do songs i didn’t even know, and I was the Lead Singer.
How many times have you seen the lead singer off to one side, while the backup singer and guitarists were clumped together on the other? There’s a reason why the stage configuration is the way it is….So then that meant the other singer could sing all these songs SHE knew and I was left over on one side, trying to figure out what was going on. It felt awful.
I had to watch them leave shows, and go off together to talk about the experience, while I went 
home alone WITH THE EQUIPMENT, which i usually had to unload myself.
Finally, with visions of throwing myself in front of a train, I had to walk away from that dream, too. I contacted both of my previous bandmates and I offered an apology for what happened before with the first band; I told them both i had been a spineless ninny, and that they didn’t deserve that. I asked for their forgiveness and they both gave it and said they understood.
Since then, my Ex has apparently amassed some kind of musical posse from that past to collectively ignore and hate me. Everyone in that circle of people has discarded me like so much dryer lint. There are all kinds of examples, but I’d rather not resurrect any more of that crap from the past, than i have already done here, by way of explanation.
The point is, this person (The Ex) has never given me any reason to respect ANYTHING she might want. She never showed any respect to me at all. And I’m aware of, and am now recalling, how many times I took the high road with all that, and how many times, i erred on the side of “being nice” and “doing the right thing.” Being honorable only got be a boot in the teeth. And it got me ostracized from my own life. I became the Historical Pariah of that Clique of people. That Clique that is now all intertwined again in more musical projects together.
So now, I’m supposed to take down that little inscription photo, as if I had been reprimanded like a child, take it on the chin, and grin and shuffle and say “Yes massah”?
I don’t fucking think so.
It makes me want to have it printed in the newspaper in a full page ad.
If someone asks me to protect their privacy, I would normally do that–I don’t infringe on that unless a person has betrayed me, and then I just don’t care. It becomes material for my own evolution, community property for others to mull over and perhaps learn from, and fodder for my writing.
And yes, sometimes it becomes my own paltry revenge, the only way I know how. Someone screws me over, and they usually end up being an exceedingly unlikeable character in one of my books. This, in lieu of tire slashing or keying their car. I am patently nonviolent. My wars are usually intellectual ones.
So, to a Jury of my Peers….what say you?
July 21st, 2009 anger, angst, annoying people, anxiety, Behavior, betrayal, CHALLENGES & MISHAPS, conflict, EMOTIONS, ethics, exes, Facebook, friendship, frustration, harsh realities, HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON (HSP), honesty, Human Nature, life, music, nostalgia, pariah, past, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, quirks, RELATIONSHIPS, rudeness, sadness, self-awareness, self-respect, sensitivity, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, social politics, Social Psychology, society, SOCIOLOGY, stress, TIME, triggers 27 Comments » Turn, Turn, Turn
{reposted from Facebook}
I just had a really unsettling experience. I’m trying right now to just calm my thumping heart, and take a breath.
One thing that is no secret about me, is that I don’t have many secrets. I am pretty open. I have to be, because I am a creative person who produces creative material. 
But I don’t pretend that I’m so special that i don’t have a day to day life with day to day struggles and victories that i wish to share with those in my life. Nor do I pretend that human nature is always simple. There’s something else I make no secret of about myself. I will be the best friend in the world to someone, if they treat me right. But the second they turn on me, all bets are off. A longtime friend with whom I haven’t had much regular contact in recent years, just got really hateful & posted a couple of confrontational and venomous statements to me. I tried to click her on my friends list to write to her and find out what the hell was going on, but discovered she had removed herself from my friends list, so I couldn’t.
BACKSTORY: Earlier today, a friend called and asked my permission to give this person i mentioned above, my new phone number. I told her of course, but was confused because she was on my friend’s list and could have just asked me. A bit later, i wrote to this longtime friend and asked her why she didn’t just ask me for a phone number instead of asking another friend of mine. She was on my friends list. I would have been happy to provide it. But since we hadn’t been in touch a lot lately, I didn’t think to give it to her. I wasn’t hateful, i just wondered why she went through the other friend, instead of simply asking when she was on Facebook posting about her shows. Her response?
“No, I have better things to do than sit on Facebook for hours looking up information. I went straight to a source so that would have it.”
Better things to do than be on Facebook–I guess like THE REST OF US LOSERS. She effectively managed to trivialize the relationships we build by keeping in touch with each other each day. And some of us do want to be able to network according to other things we wish to share, like our music, our writing, our art….She had better things to do…Yet, has no problem using that friends list to announce her performances. I guess it’s just business, then, and not that she really cares about all those people.
It seems the big transgression was that i posted an inscription in a book given to me from an ex gf from TWELVE YEARS ago. I did it because it was a blast from the past & gave me a chuckle. This angry person made that hateful comment, and then I discovered she made another, under the inscription picture i posted. See, she’s still friends with that ex of mine, so that’s the connection. beneath all the other posts on that page, she said:
“Facebook is a wonderful tool for staying in touch with friends but digging up personal business and making it public is crossing the line. It absolutely serves no purpose.”
Um—digging up PERSONAL BUSINESS? An ex who wrote that she thought i was an alien sometimes but she loved me? TWELVE FREAKING YEARS AGO?? how personal can that really be? And it only had her first name on it…WTF?
I will say this. I am aware that there’s a group of people from that period in my life who insist on judging me by who I was then, during some pretty tough times for me. I moved on, i tried to evolve, and I even tried to remain friends with them. But no. I was evil. That’s just really sad.
But here’s the part that hurts. I never did anything to this angry longtime friend. We had kept in touch on and off over the years. So why now, is her allegiance to my ex so profoundly strong that she felt the need to attack me for posting an innocuous inscription from ancient history???
Is there something I’m missing here? What is my crime, again?
I have written this because I want it all out there. All honest and no pretense. I always try to take the high road. I always try to do the right thing. Sometimes I screw up, but I always admit to it and try to figure it out and do better. I want to be clear where i stand on this.
So, to Becky Haynes, my longtime friend who decided to attack me unprovoked, I say this with the utmost sincerity:
Fuck off.
Leaving no Pebble Unturned
So one day after this long dry desert of sexual activity, i finally had sex again. And as a joke, i put a glass pebble in this tall tubular jar. Then another one, each time I had sex again. And another. I was dating a very enthusiastic young woman. So after there were about 40 pebbles in the jar, i was feeling rather studly and my self-esteem got a much needed boost. So i kept putting pebbles in the jar each time. By the time I had booted 
the sex-hungry young woman for her pathological lying, i had about 84 pebbles in the jar. (And no, I’m not pathologically lying. I swear. 80-something. Those who have read my book, Plethora, will recognize her in the chapter, “A Wish Called Wanda.”).
So this trend continued throughout my series of dating excursions, until the jar was getting pretty damn full, since i was inevitably, and with a degree of mystery, intent on filling that jar with pebbles. Each girl was represented by a different color pebble, so that the jar became this montage of carnal delights every time i looked at it. (My best friend once asked–”What’s that one black pebble for?” I told her never mind, i wanted to forget that one).
Eventually, i hit the intimacy desert again, and the jar came to a screeching halt at a certain level. It gathered dust. And mostly, it mocked me. Where’s all that irresistible charm and sexual prowess, now, Baeli? it accused. I told it to shut up, but somehow couldn’t put that jar away because it meant something. It meant that for one prolonged period of my single life, I was in demand. I had had my way with a string of women and had ultimately done everything i could possibly think of to satiate my desires. I had sex. Lots and lots of sex.
Now, I am starting a new chapter in my life, moving to Colorado, and hoping to again end this desert of celibacy I’ve found myself in for the last two and a half years. But, perhaps bravely, I put that jar and its intact pebbles in the Moving Sale.
And let me tell you, there’s nothing like selling my sex jar to a little old lady who dangled her fingers in it, swirled the pebbles around and said, “Ooo, these feel good.”
And I stifled a rude cackle. “Why yes,” I said. “They certainly do. But I have to let them go.”
Father Furniss & Jesus Camp
Excerpt from Supernatural Hypocrisy:
The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology
by Kelli Jae Baeli
Available February, 2011
“We are the pure and chosen few
and all the rest are damned.
There’s room enough in Hell for you—
we don’t want Heaven crammed.”
~from an old saying of smug Jehovah’s Witnesses
A popular booklet for children in the late 19th century was authored by Father John Furniss, an English priest who wrote “books for children.” But his material will never share the same shelf as The Velveteen Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, or Winnie the Poo. That’s because Furniss delighted in describing the horrors of Hell. And not as fiction, but as a scare tactic to indoctrinate youngsters into the Christian fold:
…his eyes were like two burning coals. Two long flames came our of his ears…sometimes he opens his mouth, and breath of blazing fire rolls out. But listen! There is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle boiling? No. Then what is it? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalding veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones. Ask him why he is thus tormented. his answer is that when he was alive, his blood boiled to do very wicked things.[1]
and,
A little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out! See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the faces of all in Hell—despair, desperate and horrible.[2]
Father Furniss was paradoxically dubbed the “Children’s Apostle.” Some kind of horrible irony.
To illustrate the collusion present in hideous garbage such as this, one only has to glance at the top of this booklet, where there is the following statement:
Approbation: I have carefully read over this Little Volume for Children and have found nothing whatever in it contrary to the doctrines of Holy Faith; but, on the contrary, a great deal to charm, instruct, and edify our youthful classes, for whose benefit it has been written. (William Meagher, Vicar General, Dublin, December 14, 1855).
Charm? There is nothing charming about this publication, unless you’ve taken leave of your senses; and to deem it so is a blatant lie, and an insult to every compassionate person on Earth.
This publication is the most horrid, manipulative, fear-mongering collection of words I’ve ever seen. And it’s all designed to frighten children into honoring the church. Any child, I imagine, who read this abhorrent sewage was vexed with nightmares and hopelessly trapped in foreboding. It is nothing less than psychological child abuse, the likes of which few social workers have ever seen in this age or any other. The damage it offers to inflict is criminal, and I can only hope its author experienced at least a portion of the torment he describes.
Hopefully, this information requires no further comment from me.
“I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of
Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam…
I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the Gospel,
as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine.”
~Pastor Becky Fisher
Another example if insidious indoctrination?
Jesus Camp.
In 2006, documentary filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing recorded the goings-on at a Pentecostal summer camp, wherein children could practice their “prophetic gifts” and were taught how to “take back America for Christ.” The documentary, Jesus Camp, was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The damage was done, however. Jesus Camp shut down in response to the negative outcry against them from all types of Americans, including Christians. The charge—rightly so—was that Jesus Camp was nothing less than a camp to train juvenile Christian jihadists.
Pastor Becky Fischer ran the camp. She called on American Christians to become more radicalized. “Pastor Fischer equates the preparation she is giving children with the training of terrorists in the Middle East,” an article in The Guardian states. “I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam,” she tells the camera. “I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the Gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine.”[3]
David Byrne described the camp as “the Christian version of the Madrasas[4]…both sides are pretty much equally sick.”[5] These children are told, via common methods of brainwashing, that they will be part of “An Army of God.” The film shows many scenes of emotional breakdowns wherein the children cry and pray over issues like abortion, war, and the unacceptable number of unsaved souls.
The “Kids On Fire School of Ministry” near Devils Lake, North Dakota, is also run by Becky Fischer and her Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three of the children at the camp, all three self-described “devout Christians.” Many of the kids at the camp are home-schooled; their curriculum includes “Creationism Science,” the belief that global warming is a hoax, and that a theocracy should be ushered in as soon as she succeeds in ushering democracy out. In “training” sessions with these Jesus Camp children, all manner of cultish mechanisms are employed, to include the old Christian chestnuts, guilt and fear. Children are reduced to sobbing lumps and only saved by accepting the tenets of Fischer’s theocratic fascism. Her tactics are nothing less than psychological, emotional and verbal abuse of children. She should be brought up on charges.
As an aside, did Fischer forget the verse in her own Bible that says “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet”? Is this why she tries to corrupt the children instead?
On the Message in a Matrix blog, the blogger, Terry, elaborates:
Fischer, of course, believes that the Earth is decadent and that it doesn’t matter if we abuse it or use up its resources because the Rapture is coming when Christ will rescue us all. The planet isn’t forever (in a sense) in her eyes! She continues: “Muslims train their children…so must we!” When the children are on their feet (she uses the ‘crescendo’ method like Hitler) she gets the children to chant: “God, I’m here to be trained. I’ll do what you want me to do. I’ll give my blood for Jesus.”
The hysteria begins, and seeing this, Fischer instructs: “Let’s pray in tongues” as she bursts into a chorus of Hebrew. The children join in and many begin to cry, apparently overwhelmed by the ‘power of the Lord’. The room is eventually filled with screaming, crying and gesticulating wave of hysterical children eagerly joined by their parents.
Fischer later brags about how she can lead children to the ‘Lord’ in minutes and how they train converted kids to influence their friends. There’s repeated use of the verb (an action) ‘to train’.
Fischer makes all the “phonies”—those who pretend to be normal, or behave as themselves, at school—stand at the front. This is a ‘name and shame’ tactic that causes the kids to cry with guilt. The supervisors monitor the crowd looking for those who are not getting fully involved in the brainwashing. You can see the utter confusion and anxiety in the children’s’ faces. This anxiety is a recurring feature: it’s as though the false version of the world preached (forced?) into their heads clashes with the reality that they occupy, and so, they are constantly battling internally with their own identities and their own world view. Is this not the beginnings of psychosis?[6]
Another blogger chimes in on this subject:
Satan is everywhere according to Pastor Becky at Jesus Camp, but most of all he is in Harry Potter books.
“If Harry Potter had been in the Old Testament, he would have been put to death,” rants Becky, conveniently forgetting that Moses hit a rock with his shaft (oops, pardon,) and water gushed out, Ezekiel “connected dem dry bones” and Jesus was into tricks with water and wine, bread and sardines and raising revitalizing stiffs. just think, if he had confused himself and turned the water into sardines history might have taken a different course.
Had Harry Potter been in The Old Testament he would have been put to death before he ever got his wand out to impress The Daughters of Israel. He is a gentile, a non Jew and the Jews were on a mission to prove they were God’s chosen people by killing everybody who wasn’t a Jew. Nothing much changes in Israel.[7]
In the Jesus Camp documentary, one of the children, Rachael, calls non-evangelical churches “dead churches” and says that her particular establishment is a church “God likes to go to.” Wonder where she got that? If there is a more blatant example of a brainwashing, anthropomorphizing, religious elitism cult, I’d like to hear it.
The documentary also shows one of the children in the film attending New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to hear a pastor they admire. The pastor’s name was Ted Haggard. You might recall him as the pastor who was caught up in a scandal involving soliciting a male prostitute and purchasing methamphetamines in 2006, only a few months after the release of Jesus Camp. Haggard was jettisoned to special counseling with four of his minister-friends, and they later pronounced him cured of his homosexuality. Once again, this misses the point repeatedly. Somehow Christians always manage to blame anything immoral or unethical on their version of dark outside forces such as homosexuality, lack of faith, the Devil, or other various and sundry religious scapegoats.
Regarding Jesus Camp, David Edelstein of New York Magazine said,
There is far more demagoguery on display in Jesus Camp, a frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right. The directors, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, bring the same rapt attention to the faces of little Christian campers that they brought to the subjects of their wrenching The Boys of Baraka. Except that these impressionable children are “saved” by being bombarded with the rhetoric of holy war and commanded to blow up that wall between church and state. Although the film tracks several kids—among them the adorable, snub-nosed Rachael and the dapper budding evangelist Levi—its dark heart is preacher Becky Fischer, who tells children that in the Old Testament a warlock like Harry Potter “would have been put to death.” Oh, sure, she believes in democracy, she says to Air America host Mike Papantonio, but “we can’t give everyone equal freedom because that’s going to destroy us.” Jesus Camp makes the best case imaginable for atheism.[8]
Papantonio also asks the burning question: “Why does a 5-year-old feel like it is necessary to cry about their spirituality?”[9]
The answer is, that five year old was brainwashed by an adult with an agenda.
——————————————–
[1] John Furniss. “XXVII. The Fourth Dungeon: The Boiling Kettle.” The Sight of Hell (PDF). http://www.saintsworks.net/books/Fr.%20John% 20Furniss%20-%20The%20Sight%20of%20Hell.pdf.
[2] John Furniss. “XXVIII. The Fifth Dungeon: The Red Hot Oven.” The Sight of Hell (PDF). http://www.saintsworks.net/books/Fr.%20John% 20Furniss%20-%20The%20Sight%20of%20Hell.pdf.
[3] Dan Glaister. “They Cry, Pray To Bush And Wash Out The Devil—Welcome To Jesus Camp.” The Guardian, 29 September 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/sep/29/usa.danglaister.
[4] Madrasa – A building or group of buildings used for teaching Islamic theology and religious law, typically including a mosque.
[5] David Byrne. “American Madrassas.” David Byrne’s Journal. 2 August 2006. http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/08/american_madras.html.
[7] Ian R Thorpe. “Satan in the Spreadsheets: Fundamentalist Christianity Just Gets Crazier.” 7 May 2008. http://www.authorsden.com/visit/ viewArticle.asp?id=39214.
[8] David Edelstein. “Wake up Fall.” The Movie Review, New York Magazine, 25 September 2006. http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/21366/ index1.html.
[9] ABC News. “Jesus Camp Pastor Says She Does Not Manipulate Children.” 28 September 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/ story?id= 2501819&page=3.
(c) Kelli Jae Baeli
Stick Buggin’ in the Grocery Store
It’s no secret that I am a student of human nature. I enjoy watching people and trying to understand them. Sometimes this understanding is predicated on experiments. I call that Stick-buggin’. It’s like when a child pokes at an insect with a stick, to see what it will do…
Once, in a grocery store, I was ruminating to some friends about how people have certain boundaries, and that I like to cross them to see what they’ll do. They wanted an example.
So I took a lady’s basket. She turned and said “Hey! That’s my basket!” I 
stopped and said, “No, it belongs to the store.” “I mean the stuff in in it,” she said. “That belongs to the store too.” I countered. “You haven’t paid for it. And I like what’s in here, so I’m taking it. “
And I shot around to the other aisle, and me and my friends were cracking up. I went back after a few seconds and she was still standing there, dumbfounded, with a can of peas in her hand. I laughed and told her it was a dare, and I was just kidding. Fortunately, she had a sense of humor and didn’t bean me with the beans.
PROOF: Shroud of Turin Face is NOT Jesus
This is one example of why I love science so much!
The image on the shroud has the same proportions as Da Vinci’s face, a study found
By
Martin Evan
Wednesday July 1, 2009
AN image that has intrigued the Christian world for hundreds of years is a fake, it has been revealed.
A study claims to have unearthed evidence proving that the image on the Turin Shroud is not that of Jesus but is in fact Leonardo da Vinci – the Renaissance painter and scientist long suspected of faking the hallowed relic.
Experts believe the image was transferred to the cloth using early photographic techniques, the details of which have come to light thanks to computer technology.
The discovery was made by Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York, famous for her theory that the Mona Lisa was also based on a self- portrait of Da Vinci.
Ms Schwartz used sophisticated computer scans to reveal that the faces of the Mona Lisa and the Turin Shroud bear exactly the same dimensions as Da Vinci’s head.
Experts have described the breakthrough as the most exciting discovery in the shroud’s mysterious history. Da Vinci has long been suspected of faking what is believed to be Christ’s burial cloth and historians believe he would have had the necessary skills to pull it off.
According to the research, which will be revealed in a documentary on channel Five tonight, Da Vinci created the image using a primitive photographic technique known as camera obscura. He hung the fabric over a wooden frame in a blacked-out room before coating it in a light-sensitive substance.
Then he used a sculpture of his own head and face to project an image onto the linen.
The permanent print was scorched on the cloth when the sun’s ultra-violet rays passed through a crystal lens set in one of the walls.
Ms Schwartz came to prominence in the 1980s with her experiments to measure the Mona Lisa and compare it with a self portrait of Da Vinci.To her amazement, the faces lined up perfectly, leading to the conclusion that the famous painting must have been based on his own image. When she was asked earlier this year to compare another Da Vinci self-portrait to the face on the Turin Shroud, she was stunned to discover the proportions of the key facial features were again identical.
She said: “It matched. There is no doubt in my mind that the proportions that Leonardo wrote about were used in creating this shroud’s face.” The program claims Da Vinci was not only a heretic with no qualms about faking Christ’s burial cloth but was the only person in that era with the knowledge to produce it.
He was also a pioneer in the field of primitive optical technology, with his notebooks containing one of the earliest drawings and descriptions of a camera obscura.
The theory is that Da Vinci’s forgery was commissioned to replace an earlier version that was exposed as a poor fake, which had been bought by the powerful Savoy family in 1453 only to disappear for 50 years.
—————————————-
from http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/111039/Leonardo-da-Vinci-is-face-on-Turin-Shroud-
What Money Can Buy
I was at the store, returning some merchandise and then grabbing a few things while I was there. When i checked out, I used two gift cards, expecting to still pay a remainder in 
cash, since I had bought three shirts. I was pleased to see that the bill was not as high as I expected, and then started for the door. halfway there, I noticed the shirts were still draped over the basket, but they had been right there in plain site of the cashier. As I neared the security device, I thought Well, if these were not paid for, that thing will go off...it didn’t, so I continued on, my mind full of the next hundred things I needed to do. When I got out to the Cherryot, (the name I gave my new-to-me red Blazer) I dug the receipt out and looked it over. All the stuff in bags was listed, but the shirts weren’t on the receipt. I checked the other two gift card receipts. Not there either.
This is the part where you have to make those crucial decisions about your own ethics.
Everything had been going so well for me lately. My luck had finally shifted. All that past bitterness about always being the best person I could be, even when there was no reward and seemingly many punishments for it, had dissipated. Maybe three free shirts is my karmic reward for all the crap I went thorough, and all the times I did the right thing, even if everyone else did otherwise. Even if it cost me dearly. Even if it hurt like hell. And I thought maybe this was my little treat from the Universe.
I started to sense that gnawing little guilt-beaver in my gut…
Bullshit, came the other, more discerning voice in my head. Go pay for the shirts.
I knew that I would not have made it out of the parking lot with those shirts, anyway. I would have been watching for cops, getting paranoid…Just because I didn’t get caught, didn’t make it okay. The fact that I had a tiny moment wherein I tried to justify an unethical decision, made me feel even worse about it. That’s when I knew I musn’t ever let some misplaced bitterness alter what I believe myself to be, at my core. And someone who takes advantage of an oversight like that, is simply not who I wish to be.
I went back inside and explained it to the clerk. She touched me on the arm and said, “Thank you. Most people would have kept going.”
“You’re welcome.” I told her.
She was effusive in her gratitude, saying that it would have come out of her check. No telling what that could have meant for her. It wasn’t much, but it still mattered.
Still, I know I didn’t do it for that reason–I hadn’t even thought of that. I did it because it was who I wanted to be. I gave her the cash to settle up, and on my way out of the store, I felt lighter, and smiled. Guilt gone. Proud to be me.
Sometimes money really can buy peace of mind.
Comment on "Blogs aren’t legit Writing" article
In my periodic Google search on my name, i found this comment which i forgot about:
Allena’s Freelance Writing Blog
http://freelancewrite.about.com/b/2008/03/23/blogs-arent-legit-writing.htm
By Allena Tapia, About.com Guide to Freelance Writing
“Blogs Aren’t Legit Writing”
Sunday March 23, 2008
I recently had a couple readers forward me a small rant from someone stating that blogs aren’t legitimate writing. This person indicated that blogs were basically a way for people to see their name in print, and nothing else. I think this was the attitude of “if anyone can do it, than it’s not legit.”
The thing is, everyone can blog. But, everyone cannot blog well.
What makes a form of writing legit? I’ve heard people say that if you’re paid for it, you’re therefore a professional. I’ve been paid for blogging in my writing career- some very lucrative, TYVM. And, despite the informality of a blog, I’ve written some decent pieces in blog form.
Do you view blogging as legitimate writing? Why or why not?
12) Jae Baeli says:
First, always consider the source. For someone to make this comment, I would first ask, Who says so?
Second, it is never about the form the writing takes, but the quality of the writing in that form. Yes, anyone can write, but not everyone can write well.
I have 12 books in print and I blog just about every day. Its a way to keep the juices flowing, but its also a legitimate form in and of itself. Anyone who thinks otherwise is, of course, entitled to their opinion, but I think he or she will find that serious writers object fiercely to this absolute. Almost nothing is absolute. Certainly not brains, as the critic you mentioned so brilliantly illustrates.
Jae Baeli
Independence Night for Phylum Annelida Luminaria
Very few people are privy to all the mysteries that surround us. I was not only witness to one tonight, but managed to capture photos of it.
In my usual evening walk around the golf, course, I heard the familiar crack of fireworks, now familiar since hearing them from inside the house all evening. It made me feel like a reporter in Baghdad. Now, i turned to see the
display, and immediate caught site of 
swiftly moving objects from the trees and the ground beneath the Independence Day light show. These “glow worms” began to appear closer to me, increasing in number each time the pop and bang of fireworks filled the sky. They were obviously being frightened by the noise.
display, and immediate caught site of 
swiftly moving objects from the trees and the ground beneath the Independence Day light show. These “glow worms” began to appear closer to me, increasing in number each time the pop and bang of fireworks filled the sky. They were obviously being frightened by the noise.
Lightworms feed on grass and leaves, but their favorite delicacy is the occasional crunchy golf tee they find in the swards of green. They are night creatures, who need no flashlights, for they are their own illumination, much like the nearby fireflies. Most people don’t know that fireflies receive the substance that makes them glow from eating Lightworms.
A relative of the Glow worm, Lampyris noctiluca, found in the United Kingdom, the 
American species iscalled Phylum Annelida Luminaria. In the daytime, they appear as normal earthworms, but at night, their skins illuminate by a chemical reaction that activates photosynthesis cells which have stored up light energy in the form of photons during the d
ay. They are indeed ecologically friendly, as they use solar energy to sustain themselves.
Once this bioluminescence is activated, they begin to jettison themselves from holes in the ground, usually with no more height than a grasshopper. But when frightened, adrenaline forces them out with three times the speed, and four times the trajectory height and distance.
There have been people injured by flying Lightworms, but most assume it was a June bug, and this is usually only reported on the 4th of July.
I feel privileged to have captured such a rare moment, and know that paranormal researchers everywhere will be seeking me out. But i will not tell them where the Lightworms live, as i feel it is their right to be left in peace. Once a year, they are scattered in fear, while Americans celebrate their independence day. I can only return the favor by allowing their freedom to exist in peace the other days of the year.
Be well, little LightWorms.
