Beautiful sight Herd of Horses

Please turn up  the sound on this! The clopping of hooves is even more enchanting than the sight of all these horses swiftly trotting along the path, one after the other. 

Nefarious motives: the eyes of Elizabeth Holmes

Excerpt from: Body Language Analysis №4195: Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, and Red Flags — Nonverbal and Emotional Intelligence

Three years ago, Elizabeth Holmes was the newest Golden Child of Silicon Valley. Her company, which she started when she was just 19 after dropping out of Stanford University, had claimed to have revolutionized the practice of medicine by being able to perform testing on just a few drops of blood — from only a finger prick (only 1/100 to 1/1000 of that typically needed with conventional methods). Such a discovery would also dramatically decrease the costs of blood tests. Ms. Holmes also had quite a knack for convincing investors to bankroll her company — which they did to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

But in October of 2015, based on the work of John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal, deep concerns as to the credibility of Theranos’ technology were raised — and the facade failed.

What follows is a partial nonverbal analysis of Ms. Holmes from this April 2015 CBS interview.





The aberrant behavior of Elizabeth Holmes’ eyelids is striking. Note how widely they’re opened. The “whites of her eyes” (sclera) are visible 360º around the colored portions (irides or irises) of both eyes.





Moreover, her eyelids are open to this extreme — not just for a second or two — but nearly continuously throughout this interview. This is extremely unusual.

Additionally, in the image immediately above (2:25), Ms. Holmes is also displaying a component of Disgust (note her tightened and forward-vectored mid and lower face — along with her nostril flaring and tightened lips).





You may have also noticed that Elizabeth Holmes blinks much less frequently than normal. This should immediately jump out to you as unnatural. This red flag is a behavior correlated with nefarious motives — so much so, that it’s even been used in animations for decades.





Now, you may say that maybe Elizabeth Holmes’ forehead had been treated with Botox — and you’d be correct. But although her forehead activity is somewhat diminished due to Botox — the dynamic movement captured here (3:48) proves that it is still quite functional. Concave-up furrows are clearly visible on her forehead and her eyebrows are also momentarily elevated.

It’s profoundly important to stress — that when a person’s eyelids are opened wide during moments of verbal emphasis — there is almost always a simultaneous contraction and elevation of their forehead muscles too — as was imaged in this last example.

But the fact that such forehead contribution was rarely seen throughout this interview — that her eyelids were opened wide with a relaxed forehead — and this display was virtually continuous — is a tremendous red flag. It screams of deception. It also signals psychological pathology.

Intriguingly, although the frequency of Ms. Holmes’ voice is quite deep — witnesses have documented that she’s feigning. It’s another affectation.

Jennifer Lawrence will be playing Elizabeth Holmes in a 2019 film version of this fall from grace. It’s to be titled Bad Blood and will be directed by Adam McKay (The Big Short).

SUMMARY: In the absence of a few medical conditions (such as Thyroid eye disease), when the eyelids are opened so widely, with such high frequency and long duration — coupled with a relaxed forehead (e.g., as is demonstrated in the first three images and during almost this entire interview), there’s a very high correlation with:

• Deception
• Antisocial Personality Disorder (commonly referred to as Sociopath Behavior)

Dr. Jack Brown

Body Language/Nonverbal Communication Expert and Physician
May 29

BLOGGER'S OBSERVATIONS. So why do I keep on posting stuff about Elizabeth Holmes? She is one of the more fascinating criminals of the 21st century, maybe of the last 100 years. It is said that she created a niche for herself by ascertaining a yearning, need, or even a guilt or shame in society that ached for redemption. She WAS that redemption: a supernaturally-blue-eyed blonde (hair color as natural as that alabaster stone forehead), a barely-in-her-20s wunderkind, a self-proclaimed genius who was - gasp - female! An actual live woman, doing the Steve Jobs bit, bucking the trend, breaking the mold (but not really, because that's not how you create and fulfill a need. You slip very slimily INTO the mold, thus easing and filling the hollow howling ache in the collective consciousness, redeeming and forgiving the meanness of our faith in womankind and their ability to create and transform.)

But oh, woe. How could we miss this? She wasn't a genius at all (even though she TOLD us she was, damn it! That's just not fair.) She was this sour little bundle of megalomaniacal greed, not smart at all but merely crafty, wily, manipulative, supremely egotistical, and so Antarctically indifferent in her icy core that she could actually feign warmth with that froggy adenoidal voice of hers. She could produce a dizzying facsimile of deep interest in her victims by allowing her sclera to show 360  degrees all around her irises. No kidding, that is how she did it - that, and not blinking, not ever, probably practicing it in front of the mirror or, perhaps, watching old videos of Marshall Applewhite.

Elizabeth was a cult, a shiny blonde one-woman cult, and people fell into line, but they fell into line largely due to a burning, almost unbearable hope that Some Day, Some Woman would come along, someone so glowingly and world-beatingly successful  that they could bow down and worship, lift her up, put her on magazine covers like Forbes, and thus tell themselves and the world, SEE, see how we're acting, we don't discriminate, and we DO think women can do all kinds of swell things and be blonde and blue-eyed at the same time!

But oh. No! Now those blinded worshippers have been knocked on their asses, and sit there stunned and blinking. Wait! How could a GIRL. . .But that's the thing. Didn't we already know women could be ruthless and heartless and utterly-self-servingly-sociopathic? Look at Cruella de Ville. That chick in Fatal Attraction. The Sunset Boulevard lady. (Never mind that they're all fictional.) But Elizabeth had so much confidence, she seemed to know something, and there is nothing more seductive than a woman who seems to know something. So here was this mega-billion-dollar phenom who turned out to be crass, tin-plated, shallow, and utterly uninformed about ANY aspect of medicine or science (and if you saw transcripts of some of her interviews, undazzled by those icy ever-open scleral globes, you'd recognize her laughable ignorance at once). She was all show and no go, and the vaporware she didn't produce wasn't just another talking vibrator or a refrigerator that anticipates your grocery needs. It was all about blood - human blood -  literally, about sucking blood out of people's fingers with some ludicrous thing called a "nanotainer".

The old videos, the early 2015 ones (which is really not so long ago) are now embarrassing to watch, with rich old men (board members, mostly) grabbing their scrotums every time she told a lame joke or made a ridiculous globally-transformative prediction.  Well, she did change the world, sort of. She knocked a whole lot of people on their asses, but for all the wrong reasons.

The one question that lingers in my mind is: since it took nine years for her bubble to burst, and since she couldn't have spent ALL that time grasping the scrotums of rich old men, what did she DO all day? How did she fill her time? Doing eyeball exercises, having her forehead frozen and her hair foiled?  Getting voice lessons for that dull drone she used, or was that just Steve Jobs-style steroids?

Like Martha Stewart, Elizabeth may rise again. But those crazy eyes disturb me. Something is just not right there. They have a feverish quality. a shininess that is unnatural.  Madness can, if turned just the right way, change the world. We've seen it. But the ideal of blonde and blue-eyed has had its share of bad press. 

Yugoslavia - and so do I

Slavic Superstars of the '70s!

Christopher Walken reading "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

I am a late-blooming Christopher Walken fan, meaning that I don't think I appreciated his oddness before. Now I do. Has that anything to do with my OWN late-blooming oddness? (Let me think.) But Walken transcends any category, and it was no surprise to me when I learned he is a classically trained dancer (pay attention next time he jumps up on a bar in that movie, that. .  .) and stage actor. Back then, actors had to actually learn their trade: dance, sing, enunciate, project, all while putting their individual stamp on their characters.

It shows in the performances.

Early Walken was almost surreally beautiful, with those lips, those eyes. . . Then he seemed to outgrow that baby-soft androgyny and became really interesting. Good bones are the key to an actor keeping his looks, and these Walken has, those marvelous cheekbones and, no doubt, a skeleton which is very fine indeed.

I have just sent away for a DVD of one of Walken's early performances, a very poorly-rated Israeli musical version of Puss in Boots. I want to see Walken as Puss (in Boots!) and see him dance cat-ly, which I can picture him doing. 'Til then, people, listen to him inhabit Poe's Raven as no one else, enunciating clearly yet naturally, and making the time-worn poem somehow seem conversational, like a particularly gifted Shakespearian actor bringing iambic pentameter to life. 

I love his somehow-seductive Queens-ly vowel sounds, love his lack of melodrama, his deep understanding and ability to walk around inside this American epic (see him Walken?). The only thing I double-dog HATE about this video is all the crappy noise in the background. Almost everyone remarked in the YouTube comments section that the poem was marred by fake wind noises, wailing electric guitars, over-dramatic thumps and bumps. Ironic, because Walken always avoids that kind of shit himself. If I find an isolated vocal track of this gem, I will post it, but so far no.

Aside from the worlds within his face, this I love about Walken: he says he never chases after anything. Unlike me, diametrically opposed to me who has flung herself bodily against brick wall after brick wall after brick wall, to gain only broken bones and soul-bruises while the walls stand laughingly whole, he doesn't chase work, he doesn't chase fame, he doesn't even chase women (he has been married even longer than I have). It comes to him. This is one spooky power, and it is beyond even self-confidence. It can't be manufactured. Bob Dylan had/has this same ability to magnetize, even with his extreme introversion and basic selfishness. People are sucked towards him helplessly, never knowing that the vacuum is actually inside themselves.

The incredible Camel Toe Sisters

SOLID POTATO SALAD

The Ross Sisters '44

Some folks like their 'taters Lyonnaise,
Some prefer French fries,
But I like mine fixed with mayonnaise,
Coleslaw on the side.

Solid potato salad,
That's solid salad, Jack!
Solid potato salad, boy,
Take a plate, fill it up, bring it right back!

Solid potato salad,
And let's have no "yak-yak!".
Solid potato salad, boy,
Take a plate, fill it up, bring it right back!

The farmer said to the spud,
"Your skin looks mighty pallid,
So I'll dig you later, bud,
For some solid - potato salad!".

Solid potato salad,
That's solid salad, Jack!
Solid potato salad, boy,
Take a plate, fill it up and bring it right back!

Take a plate, fill it up and bring it right back!

Take a plate, fill it up and bring it right back!

Take a plate, fill it up and bring it right back!

Solid potato - salad,
These are really fine and you'd better latch on!
Solid potato - salad,
For there's a date, get a plate before it's all gone!

The farmer said to the spud,
"You're skin looks mighty pallid,
So I'll dig you later, bud,
For some solid - poatao salad!".

Solid potato salad,
That's solid salad, Jack!
Solid potato salad, boy,
Take a plate, fill it up,
Take a plate, fill it up and bring it right back!
Take a plate, fill it up and bring it right back!

PLEASE NOTE. This is, without a doubt, the strangest video you will ever watch, or at least the strangest 1940s/movie musical/sister act/contortionist routine. These girls appear to be half snake/half rubber, and could likely ooze under the crack of a door if they wanted to. Their scant costumes and the impossible writhing that happens underneath them lead to a distinct recurrence of camel toe. (Maybe it was part of the act?)

Most videos of this legendary routine start with the contortionist "dance" number, but the song was so strange, so incomprehensible, that I had to post the whole thing. These women were no doubt extremely talented, but it was a specialized thing suited to vaudeville, which by the 1940s had pretty much died out. Radio still ruled supreme (and didn't lend itself to contortionist acts), there was no TV yet and thus no Ted Mack or Ed Sullivan Show, and by that time they would've been too old for these incredible contortions anyway. 

If you want to just see the contortionist routine, start at 2:24. But the song is so odd, so incomprehensible, that I suggest you watch it too. There were some weird "foodie" songs in the '40s, the one about "the frim-fram sauce with shifafa on the side", and the one about "hold tight, hold tight, Mama wants some seafood" (or whatever it is), so maybe this was in the same genre. Nat King Cole recorded it, and subsequent lyrics razor-bladed out "your skin looks mighty pallid" - a sly wink Nat would appreciate, but horribly racist to anyone else (and most of the lyrics I found on the internet omitted it). 

With or without pallid potato salad, watch this. Be amazed, and a little afraid. Or a lot.

I don't want French fried potatoes
Red ripe tomatoes
I'm never satisfied
I want the frim fram sauce with the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side

I don't want pork chops and bacon
That won't awaken
My appetite inside
I want the frim fram sauce with the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side

Now a Fellas really got to eat
And a Fellas should eat right
Five will get you ten
I'm gonna feed myself right tonight

I don't want fish cakes and rye bread
You heard what I said
Waiter, please serve mine fried
I want the frim fram sauce with the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side

Now a Fellas really got to eat
And a Fellas should eat right
Five will get you ten
I'm gonna feed myself right tonight

I don't want fish cakes and rye bread
You heard what I said
Waiter, please serve mine fried
I want the frim fram sauce with the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side

Now if you don't have it, Just bring me the check for the water

(and if that's not weird enough - )

Choo choo to Broadway foo Cincinnati
Don't get icky with the one two three
Life is just so fine on the solid side of the line, rip

Hold tight, hold tight, a-hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some sea food mama
Shrimps and rice they're very nice
Hold tight, hold tight, a-hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki

Want some sea food mama
Shrimps and rice they're very nice
I like oysters, lobsters too,
I like my tasty butter fish, fooo
When I come home late at night
I get my favorite dish, fish 

Hold tight, hold tight, a-hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some seafood mama
Shrimps and rice they're very niiiiiiiiiiiiice
Bad da do daa, da de do da do daa, ba da da da do daaaa
Fododododo Yacka sacki

want some seafood Mama
Shrimps and rice they're always very nice
Fododo dya, Fododo dya Fododo-de-yacka saki
want some seafood Mama
Oh won't you give it to me
cause I'm as happy as can be

When the seafood comes to me

La-da-da La-da-da La-da-da
I like oysters, lobsters too
Ba-da-da-dat-dat-da-dada-data
When I get home late at night
I get my favorite dish, fish

Hold tight, hold tight, a-hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some sea food mama
Shrimps and rice are very nice
Ho, ho, hold tight won't cha hold tight, Hold tight
Fododododo Yacka sacki

want some seafood Mama

Shrimpers a-hand ri-hice a-hare very nice
I like oysters, lobsters too,
I like my tasty butter fish, Joe
When I come home late at night
drip drip dripin' on the window pane
Wash it

Hold tight do-dat-do-day
Hold tight she wants some seafood Mama
Shrimpers and rice they're very nice
I like oysters, lobsters too,
I like my tasty butter fish, fooo

When I come home late at night
I get my favorite dish, fish
Hold tight, hold tight
Hold tight, hold tight
Want some seafood Oh Mama
Shrimpers and rice Oh Hold tight

Elizabeth Holmes: yes and no

My last Elizabeth Holmes animation/gif? Let's hope so.

Surprise!

SURPRISE!

Rare white 'spirit moose'

"Spirit moose" sighting in Ontario. Not albino, but leucistic (recessive gene).

Trolls! Trolls! Everyone trolls!

Trolls. Trolls! So when did this addiction start? I don't know, and I don't particularly care. How many trolls do I have? I don't count them. What are the names? Only half a dozen or so have names, and I tend to forget them anyway.

Am I attached to my trolls? As much as I'd be attached to a living thing, a pet, or at least a plant.

They are comforting to me, and sometimes I truly need comforting and can't find it anywhere else. These two lovelies are the ones I ordered from Etsy recently and haven't received yet. And I was going to just be happy and wait for them, and then. . . 

I shouldn't have gone on eBay, I know. My cat tries to get me to stop.

But somehow, it never works.

I think the vendor of these trolls either has NO idea how much they are actually worth, or is salting her shop with incredible bargains to draw people in, as most stores do.

But here. 

BEHOLD!

The thing you have to realize is that I live in Canada, so trolls will cost me easily twice what they are in the States. Shipping and handling is ludicrous, often much more than what the troll costs (even for tiny ones that weigh a few grams). And this set of three, all told, was $57.00 in Canadian dollars. 

Any one of these large-sized (7", 8" and 9") beauties could command a couple of hundred in this country, given the pristine shape they're in. There is not much in the way of clothes, but I provide those, handmade with love and tailored to fit. Troll outfits are seldom very impressive unless you get those fancy custom-made ones from Etsy vendors such as Lucretia's Lair, and they'll run you $50.00 each (plus $65.00 shipping and handling).

The hair is in particularly good shape in this group, and the orange hair is gorgeous, a rare colour, and might even be a mohair replacement which would up the value by at least another $20.00 or $30.00. I only have one other mohair troll, and though he's totally lovely, there are flaws in the vinyl that would likely cut his market value in half.

So. . . sigh. More trolls. I had to buy them before someone else snapped them up, which has happened to me more times than I can count. I need something to make me feel better, I guess, as I wander through this wilderness alone.

I do troll box openings on YouTube which command the usual one (or zero) views, but I guess I do them for myself, and because I desperately needed a fulfilling hobby once the grandkids became adolescents and Grandma was no longer "cool".

Trolls take me back to the very best year of my life: 1964, when everything happened for me. The Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time on my tenth birthday. My Dad gave me a horse. (Yes, a horse.) I was in an accelerated Grade 5 class in school which was total mayhem, a 1960s educational experiment in which nobody learned anything all year and the teacher had a nervous breaktown by Christmas. Sheer bliss! I also stopped taking violin lessons, which was like having a thousand pounds of chains slide off my shoulders.

And - trolls. There were trolls. Two close friends also had troll fever, and it cemented the bond between us and made it magical.

Trolls aren't like Barbies or Cabbage Patch Kids or ANY other doll. Even calling them dolls doesn't seem to fit. They have a spooky, slightly creepy quality that some people frankly hate, but that makes them all the more appealing to me.

So I have FIVE trolls coming, five times the excitement, five times the bliss! 

Three speeds of Baby Thumbelina

Belle Epoque: The most beautiful girl in the world

An animation made of photos of the stunning Edwardian actress, Arlette Dorgere.

Maybe some people DIDN'T evolve: The Vintage News discusses evolution

Nothing is more entertaining than an evening of perusing the Facebook page for The Vintage News. The Vintage News has nothing whatsoever to do with ANY kind of news, vintage or not. It's a chopped-up mixture of Weekly World News/Believe It or Not-type article, with some random quasi-historical/scientific stuff culled from other Facebook pages and just sort of glommed in.

Usually the articles are boring and kind of pointless, except for the fact that most of them are written with atrocious grammar and spelling and seem to be bad translations from some other language (which I love dearly). But the comments! The comments are something else again, and are often highly entertaining because of the mentality of the readers - or lack of same.

I didn't even include the article, which was about Charles Darwin marrying his cousin, but oh MY - what a "discussion" it sparked about how the theory of evolution is "just a theory", there is no evidence for it, it has never been proven, so therefore IT CAN'T BE TRUE. There's also lots of indignation about how we don't "come from monkeys", which reminds me of Spencer Tracy thumping the Bible in that old 1950s movie Inherit the Wind. Things haven't come  so very far since then - I don't mean the 1950s, but 1925 when the Scopes Monkey Trial took place:

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school.The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he purposely incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant.

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1395 in 2017), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the big-name lawyers who had agreed to represent each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion,[4] against Fundamentalists, who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen as both a theological contest and a trial on whether "modern science" should be taught in schools. (Wikipedia)

I've taken a few university-level anthropology courses, though I'm aware the field has exploded since then. The fossil record, which becomes more rich and complex with each new find, is slowly but surely illuminating the mystery of human origins, tracing them back to a COMMON ANCESTOR (not a monkey, you dummies!) which split into two groups before they even looked like monkeys. We looked sort of like lemurs back then, and before that, we were tree shrews. 

We had to start somewhere.

But the point is, connection led to connection in a multi-branched, incredibly complex pattern with many dead ends. The fact that people still blather on about "the missing link" just infuriates me, because that idea was completely invalidated in about 1918. It's just a "thing people say" because they know nothing whatsoever about anthropology or the evolutionary process. To rant against Darwin by thundering that "we didn't come from monkeys" is so simple-minded and the idea still so apparently prevalent that I honestly wonder if Trump will ever run out of supporters.

Ron Waid Lizzie Campbell - It's still just a theory, not proven fact. If natural selection were true, Eskimos would have fur to keep warm, but they don't. They are just as hairless as everyone else. Also, if natural selection were true, humans in the tropics would have silvery, reflective skin to help them keep cool, but they don't. They have black skin, just the opposite of what the theory of natural selection would predict.

Keith Blackwell Lizzie Campbell so if you have a baby with a deformed hand or no legs... is that evolution?age

Ronald Redman Maybe you did fall out of a tree and landed on your head,their is no factual evidence man derived from a flipping monkey you twit

Rastko S. Ilić  His empty heretical theory had only one purpose: to separate humanity from Holy Christianity. As always

Nancy McIlrath Ok Vintage here you go again. How many times are you going to post this? I have seen 4 so far. I am a fan of Darwin but I suspect something else is going on here.

Ronald Redman Imagine you're a monkey playing in a tree, now you're a homosapian, wow...you can believe what ever floats your boat but sorry mam didn't come from a monkey.you have no proof whatsoever, to observe the truth look at his sponsors and channels of funds for his work and all will be clear.

Ronald Redman But still no evidence of evolution

Robinson Yost No, because science is not about proving things with absolute certainty, that’s not what science is about. So saying the theory of evolution means it’s unproven shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the word theory and the scientific process itself.

Nancy McIlrath troll

Baby elephant chasing birds

Elephant video of the week

Three speeds of Elizabeth Holmes

An experimental gif featuring my favorite Silicon Valley sociopath, Elizabeth Holmes. A little small, due to the varying frame size/speed.

Kung Fu Kitty

"Shrink! Shrink!" Instant weight loss miracles

I want to subtitle this, "When I came, my brain was loose. . . "

There are some truly strange phenomena in religion. This is right up there with Mormon magic underwear: the belief that a simple prayer will instantly peel 20 or 30 pounds off your body, so that suddenly your skirt is literally falling off. Even the needle on the scale is shown edging down and down, right on camera. It seems ludicrous, and it IS ludicrous, and I can't help but be sad, because people who believe this will believe anything. They will believe anything because they make the evidence fit. Either it's a downright hoax and they're sucking in their gut or have a hidden tuck in their waistband, or they're trying so hard to believe in the miracle that they delude themselves into actually SEEING results on their own body.

Part of it is just - may I say laziness? Losing weight is hard work, it takes effort, commitment, and an endless dedication to keeping the weight off even when your body insists on putting it back on. But what if God was willing to do all this for you - no effort - no energy - and in only seconds?

It scares me because this guy, this evangelist, is very slick. He's one of these charismatics, and he's there to fill the holes in people's lives. Most of this audience (and I believe the church is in Zimbabwe) are poor and black, and most are middle-aged or older women. No doubt this instant weight loss has another kind of cost, a more literal cost, in having to pony up big bucks to line the preacher's pockets.

It's what used to be called cheap grace. Jesus will do it all for you. Just believe in him, surrender to him! It seems like another lifetime that I not only belonged to the United Church, but was a lay minister for years and years. It wasn't so much waking up one morning realizing it had all been a sham. It was a slow crumbling, an eroding, a gradual realization that this just couldn't be true. What was I having "faith" in? Was there a God, a separable force from brute nature, that cared about us? After a while, it just didn't make sense any more. In the eyes of the church, it had to be something benevolent that was kind of hanging above us, watching over us, counting the hairs on our head, etc. If I doubted, people would try to hook me back by saying, "Oh, but it's just something that lives in your heart." But that's not it. An atheist could (and many do) embrace this idea. I could believe in human goodness without believing in a separable, personal, unconditionally loving God. 

That time I thought I caught a dazzling glimpse of the power of the universe, that dizzying force was completely indifferent. Quite simply, it didn't care about us. This was the raw force of nature, and of all that is. If there's something more personal going on, then we must provide it for each other.

So where is God in all this?

Videos like this one, in which trusting people are duped and bled dry of money they can't spare, only erodes my sense of the Big Guy in the Sky even more. How many crusades were fought in the name of God, how many people tortured and executed - and on a more intimate level, how many people were shamed and blamed, how many innocent, trusting children sexually abused and emotionally destroyed by priests who were God's representatives on earth?

It's a grim scene. I had to learn to do without God, and it was a loss, and still is, now that I am grieving the loss of my best friend. He was a believer for years, but I am not sure what happened at the end, because it looks like his former church is not going to do a memorial for him. So much for the graciousness of God and his followers! When it comes right down to it, Christian forgiveness is practically never followed, though an awful lot of people play at it. So I am left pretty much alone with my grief, and it's bloody painful. Sometimes I feel him on the other side, sometimes I even hear his voice, but if  I made the mistake of telling a psychiatrist, I'd be given medication for it and have a note written on my chart: delusional. And it would be on my record forever. Don't start that God business, whatever you do, or it will follow you around forever.

POST-BLOG GLOB! Predictably, I just found a news article from a Zimbabwe paper about  this Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa, claiming that his church will soon be shut down (though I am sure that, like a poison mushroom, it will pop up somewhere else in short order. As P. T. Barnum famously said, there's one born every minute.) 

The fortunes and survival of UFIC leader, prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa, is hanging by a thread, with the prospect of an ultimate shutdown of his tricky church, after the already talked about Ghanaian pastors have sent an explosive letter to President Robert Mugabe, to be hand delivered by a local delegation of clerics representing them in Harare next week, the Telescope News reported.

Makandiwa had appeared to take the gospel in Zimbabwe by storm five years ago, with sugarcoated teachings bordering on a heap of what his critics say are "lying miracles", such as penis enlargements, miracle money, miracle babies, weight loss on live television, and dubious financial summits to empower men right in the House of The Lord, they charge. However, the letter sent last night to Zimbabwe, calls on Mugabe to immediately arrest Makandiwa without hesitation when Grace passes away, as evidence that he is a fake prophet, thus God has hidden this sad prophecy just to expose his wickedness, and alleged ties with the occult and voodoo magic, the pastors lead by Lawrence Ajoba, said.

The Telescope News claims that it has a copy of the letter, which is embargoed until 6 April 2014, thus we shall be publishing the full text of the letter on Monday, the 7th of April, as part 2 to this interesting saga fast approaching "Judgement Day".

Ironically, Makandiwa is preparing for a much hyped "Judgement Night" on April 19, at the National Sports Stadium in the capital. Some 150 000 people are expected to attend his meeting, including foreigners, which could be his very last shot at fame and crowd pulling. The Ghanaian pastors, as will be read next week also want Mugabe "to set bulldozers" on the UFIC Chitungwiza church.

(I'm afraid they lost me at the penis enlargements.)