Why Rachel Maddow needs reading glasses and the public needs Romney’s tax returns

Let me say a at the outset, I am a Rachel Maddow fan, but the other night when discussing Mitt Romney’s missing years at the Olympics and his income form Bain Capital, Inc, she kept asking the question: why was he paid  $100,000 a year by Bain from 1999 to 2002. That was a big mistake, because the Financial disclosure form with the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission for 2001, Romney  disclosed not $100,000 from Bain capital but “Over $100,000” As others have pointed out, this means we don’t know how much Bain Capital paid Romney more than $100,000. Was it a million? Two million?

But there is more. Actually Romney was paid “Over $100,000” by four other Bain related entities: Bain Capital LLC, BCIP Associates, BCIP Associates II, and BCIP Trust Associates.You can view the whole disclosure form at: http://romneyfacts.com/assets/Personal%20Financial%20Forms/Personal%20finances/SFI/2001%20SFI%20WMR.pdf

Assuming that his actually take from each of these five Bain entities was “only” one million dollars a year, that would mean he received five million dollars a year. Without his income tax forms, we can only estimate his income.

Does any one really believe that he was uniformed of  ‑ or informed and opposed to ‑ the actions of Bain while he was pulling in “over” $500,000 a year and quite likely more than $5,00,000. There is only one way to get real answers to Romney’s Bain related income from 1999 to 2002. He should release his income taxes for those years.

He gave John McCain 12 years of income tax returns in 2008 when being vetted for a possible Vice Presidential nomination. Does the public deserve any less.

“Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose ... I suspect that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of,’  in any philosophy.”

 (J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds))

 Salon.com, the Internet equivalent of MSNBC has a lengthy article by a author of a book to be released next week entitled “Brain Wars.” It’s about Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE) and Near Death Experiences (NDE)

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained/singleton

 It is my position that the Shroud has a direct relationship to the issues raised.

I think its time that inveterate skeptics understand that existence is not a simple phenomenon and at our existences most basic level, is weird, and does not yield to logic and common sense. OBE  and NDE are windows to another level of existence. We interface with that level of existence at the quantum level.

 Here are some points about quantum mechanics:

 1. Reality is consciousness based. The existence of any object is not defined until it has been observed.

 2. Quantum phenomena are  electromagnetic waves. That includes all the constituent parts of the atom.

 4. Human consciousness is  electromagnetic waves derived of the human brain.

 5. Quantum phenomena can operate independent of time and space.(quantum entanglement)

 6. Quantum mechanics defy reason  and common sense, but all calculations using quantum mechanics work and achieve predictable results.

 7. If human consciousness is a quantum phenomenon than OBE and NDE are rational in the quantum sense.

 8. Religion and science do not collide and at the quantum level they will merge and coalesce

 My observation:

 The quantum level is the interface between material existence and the creative force. It answers to a higher logic that is beyond our understanding. OBE and NDE are glimpses of that existence and its promise.

So is the Shroud of Turin.

Science and the Resurrection

There is a great deal of controversy over a book by Thomas de Wesselow, The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection” Wesselow finds the Shroud of Turin to be the authentic burial cloth of Christ but denies that Christ was physically resurrected. The reported apparitions of Christ after his Resurrection were, in essence expositions of the Shroud. Wesselow is an agnostic who has stated that he doesn’t believe in miracles. I disagree but,

Those who claim the Resurrection was a miracle against the laws of nature have, perhaps, a limited view of the laws of nature. Atheist in chief Richard Dawkins writing in his epic screed against religion found the quantum theory of existence incomprehensible even though it works and was a factor in creation of the atom bomb.

“Perhaps there are some genuinely profound and meaningful questions that are forever beyond the reach of science. Maybe quantum theory is already knocking on the door of the unfathomable. But if science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can?”

Quantum phenomena operate at times independent of time and space. Nothing is defined until it is observed. That’s what confuses so many and why they find it inexplicable. Two quantum particles can become entangled. What happens to one happens to the other simultaneously even though separated by light years..  Einstein called it “spooky,” I call it love.

Some believe that human conscience is  quantum phenomenon.  Beneath the quantum level of existence is another level of existence that defines the quanta.  None dare call it God. But as it seeks to unravel the mysteries of the quantum, science is staring God in the face, it's just that some scientists refuse to see it.

The Resurrection? Under these circumstances is not a mystery, but a piece of cake.
In October 2007, I wrote reflecting on the death of my adult son Michael. http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html  

I used the scientific phrase “event horizon” as a metaphor for death: A black hole of such enormous gravity that even light can not escape its grasp. I also stated that those who love are joined in their psyches. At that time I was not aware of the concept of quantum entanglement except in a vague way.

I now believe that love is a quantum entanglement of two or more consciousnesses. Our path to the  entanglement with God is entanglement with others, but the straightest path is entanglement with Jesus Christ.
Dame Isabel Piscek has called the Shroud of Turin an event horizon of Christ’s Resurrection. I was unaware of that when I wrote in 2007. 

But as we used to sing in a hymn popular in the heady days of Vatican II:

We stand before your altar lord,
To share a common meal.
Love has brought us here today,
For love makes symbol real.


Amen and Happy Easter.

A question for Palm Sunday: Whose Son is he?

Richard Dawkins is refusing a debate challenge from William Lane Craig, a fundamntalist academic  at the Sheldonian Theater in Oxford http://shroudofturin.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/speaking-of-issuing-challenges-to-dawkins/

I think Dawkins has anointed himself as the "Atheist Pope." The jacket for God Delusion modestly described Dawkins as "the world's most prominent atheist." "The world numbers about eight billion individuals and climbing. What a terrible burden it is for Dawkins to be the foremost atheist among the eight billion.

That being said, when it comes to the slaughter of innocents in Canaan, I tend to agree that this was inexcusable barbarity. I remember watching a History Channel program on ancient generals two  or three years ago which recorded Joshua's slaughter of women and children in Jericho after "the walls came tumbling down." I was appalled. When I discovered that Joshua was acting on a divine command, I decided that I could not worship such a God. I was deeply saddened when a Jewish friend of mine gave the human reasoning behind that: Leaving the women and children alive would have resulted in the leaving the seeds of idolatry to blossom and grow. That came to mind a year or so later, when on another History (or Military Channel rebroadcast) I heard a Himmler speech to the German Generals as WWII ground to its close and the Third Reich was collapsing. “We had to kill the children,” he said, “because they would grow-up to seek revenge upon us killing their parents.”

Much of  Bible is rationalization for human endeavors. Of course, that argues against it not being history. Some of its history is sad.

But I highly recommend the direction of religion which is the basis of Richard Wright’s “The Evolution of God.” Jesus challenged the Pharisees” “What do you think of the Messiah [Christ], whose son is he?” Wright is somewhat dismissive of the universality of Jesus message adopting the “Paul did it view.” But I think the last paragraph of his book sums up not only the direction of religious thought, but of Christianity itself:

“Though we can no more conceive of God than we can conceive of an electron, believers can ascribe properties to God, somewhat as physicists ascribe properties to electrons. One of the more plausible such properties is love. And maybe, in this light, the argument for God is strengthened by love’s organic association with truth—by the fact, indeed, that at times these two properties almost blend into one. You might say that love and truth are the two primary manifestations of divinity in which we can partake, and that by partaking in them we become truer manifestations of the divine. Then again, you might not say that. The point is just you wouldn’t have to be crazy to say it.” *

Amen, Mr. Wright, amen. Wright is using the mysteries of quantum mechanics as an analogy to God and love. But, in my view it isn't just an analogy, its' an essential truth. Here I stand: Human conscience is a quantum phenomenon. Love is a "quantum entanglement” where two quantum entities develop a relationship that is independent of time and space. Einstein called the concept which as been scientifically demonstrated "spooky."

Einstein called it spooky, I call it love. 

*(Wright, Robert (2009-05-20). The Evolution of God. Little, Brown and Company, Kindle Edition.)

Oxford is as Oxford Does:* The Christ Icon and the Shroud of Turin

Oxford is as Oxford Does*


I have recently read the original Paul Vignon book on the Shroud of Turin originally published in 1902 which was reissued in English in 2002. I got it through Amazon. In 1902, three decades before he published his “Vignon Markings” he compared medieval depictions of Christ and found them inferior to the Shroud image and quite different.

 I was originally attracted to Christ to Coke because its author Martin Kemp was the leading art historian backing the DaVinci origination of what he dubbed "La Principessa" an art scandal par excellence when Christie evaluated a 100 million dollar drawing for $17,000 and sold it on consignment. See National Geographic Feb 2012, p. 101

 Kudos to Martin Kemp for "La Principessa." Really! Bronx cheer for "Christ to Coke!!" 

 His opinion is ignorant and a disgrace for an expert. I say "ignorant" because he obviously didn't do his homework on the Shroud. He cites Pantocrator as the seminal Christ  icon and ignores or does not know about the well publicized Vignon markings linking it the Shroud image to the Pantocrator. He is dismissive of Ian Wilson’s “Mandylion theory,” and list Wilson’s latest book as “Reading” as well as the entire Shroud.com cite. (Kemp, Martin [2011-10-13]. "Christ to Coke : How Image Becomes Icon" Kindle Edition location 1005). He ignores the Vignon markings even though they are discussed in the Wilson book he lists as “Reading.” (Wilson, supra: Figure 26, Kindle location 2680)

 And he sort of grouses about the carbon dating controversy and then swallows it whole hog. His attribution of it to the Medieval/Renaisance times as a painting by an unknown Italian or French artists is – GIVEN THE EVIDENCE – absurd.

 “If I were asked to provide an art-historical date for the portrayal of Christ on the Shroud, I would estimate it have been made in the later thirteenth or first half of the fourteenth century in Italy or southern France. This is consistent with the much denigrated carbon dating.” (Kemp: Kindle Locations 954-956).

  It is not a painting. If anything, what Barrie Schwortz has estimated to be more than a quarter of a million hours of Shroud research has demonstrated that.

 However, I have a working theory or an opinion about Mr. Kemp’s astute blindness. One of the bases of his LaPrincipessa opinion is carbon dating that was done on its vellum which dated it to DaVinci’s time. Is it possible that Oxford Don Kemp used Oxford’s very own carbon dating lab to do the dating? If so, is his attack on the Shroud authenticity occasioned by a necessity to, at least indirectly, defend the Oxford carbon dating lab?

 Perhaps the good Professor could enlighten us on who did is carbon dating? Just asking. Were we in court and he was testifying as an expert on the Shroud, it would be an admissible question on cross-examination. It’s called bias.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Apologies to Forest Gump

Tunes of Glory

Does anyone remember "Tunes of Glory" where Alec Guiness pushes his rival for regimental command to commit suicide and then fantasizes a glorious funeral for his rival in his own nervous breakdown scene?


 I think both Romney and Santorum are headed for the deep end.  This may end badly, very badly. The best Romney can hope for now is begrudged nomination and a national campaign where he ends up denying everything he said to get the nomination. The most interesting thing about Michigan and Arizona is how a substantial plurality of Catholic voters rejected Santorum and chose a Mormon for Pete's sake!

Not totally unrelated is the quick action of the Archbishop of DC PUBLICLY chastising the priest who PUBLICLY snubbed a Lesbian Catholic at her mother's funeral. Santorum's remark, since retracted, that JFK's speech on Church and State made him "puke" is of the same genre as that priest's actions.

There is an old Pat and Mike joke about Mike seeing Pat leading a parade. "Pat," Mike asks, "what's this parade about?" "I don't know," Pat replied, "but these are my people and if they are in a parade, I'd better be leading it."

Actually, Christ has been leading this parade longer than the clergy will admit. For his time and place, Christ was a radical feminist.  He openly  discussed scripture with not only Jewish women but with a Samaritan woman at the well. You can look it up!

As far as the priest in DC is concerned: Mathew 5:5 says it all:  "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." God bless Lawrence O'Donnell. 

Both Rick S and Romney may have someone to answer to a lot more powerful than the voters. They both becoming increasingly flaky. Hey guys, GET A GRIP ON IT!

Did Mitt Romney launder money for "Latin American" investors?

Missing the forest for the trees (or counting cavities in the gift horse's mouth.) How many have actually seen the "When Mitt Romney Came to Town" video? http://www.webcasts.com/kingofbain/

Newt, the messenger may be extremely flawed to the extreme, but the message is "spot on." It is brilliant and to the point. Romney was a corporate raider of the worst ilk. Did you know that Bain Capital was financed by unidentified Latin American investors? I didn't. Did you know Romney's wealth is mostly parked off-shore in foreign accounts? I didn't. Those facts are off-handedly cited in the video which concentrates on the horrors inflicted by Romney and Bain Capital that impoverished men, women and children who were paying their dues to the American dream. No wonder Mitt won't release his income tax returns.

Did you appreciate that Romney and his friends drained 180 million from a company and drove it into bankruptcy when maybe looting it for only 90 million might have allowed it to survive? Maybe I should have known it, but didn't.

And how many of the personal stories of middle class workers impoverished by Bain Capital did you know? A couple maybe. But to paraphrase Stalin (ugh) about his atrocities: the loss of one job is a tragedy; the loss of a million is a statistic. The video tells the story of several US workers who had paid their dues but were nonetheless impoverished by Bain capital predatory practices.

Incidentally, one of the companies plundered by Bain is in Indiana where a right to work law is now being considered.

Bottom line: don’t get angry at Newt or weep for Mitt. Watch the video! This may be the video that saves America (if not the Republican Party) from Romney. Perhaps it should also be required watching for the Evangelical leaders meeting in Texas this weekend.

Perhaps Mormons are Christians, but Mitt Romney certainly doesn’t act like one. The Gospel of St. Matthew relates the parable of the Last Judgment where the only measure of our love of God is how we treat the least among us. Fear that judgment Mitt. Fear now.