(Near-Death Experiences) White American Southern man and farmer dies, which becomes a profound near-death experience for him as he meets the spirit Jesus, which reveals shocking truths about Black people. He never thought he hated them, nor did he notice his implicit biases, only "preferring to stick with his own kind."
"A smart, endlessly interesting exercise in connecting cultural dots to learn how we got here." — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
From the New York Times best-selling author of Jesus and John Wayne, a revelatory history of white Christian womanhood in the United States.
In her “paradigm-influencing” (Christianity Today) bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, which has changed how countless Americans understand their [Christian] faith, historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez showed how evangelicals made Jesus into an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism. Now she uncovers the roots of today’s glittering, Instagram-ready culture of white Christian femininity.
Live Laugh Love explores a world intimately familiar to millions of American women: Christian bookstores and radio, Hallmark movies, multilevel marketing companies, and contemporary lifestyle brands.
This consumer culture may seem trivial, but Du Mez demonstrates that it has an unlikely and revealing history that stretches all the way back to the late nineteenth century and the emergence of New Thought, a movement that championed the power of the mind to shape reality.
Du Mez shows how this idea drew together disparate traditions, including Mormonism, holiness evangelicalism, and holiness theology’s charismatic offshoots. Usually seen as distinct, these creeds in fact overlapped, and in the process gave rise to prosperity theologies and to the gospel of positive thinking.
But positivity had a dark side. Du Mez introduces us to religious innovators who taught that positive thinking was the secret to spiritual and material success, and reveals how these notions gave rise to a new feminine ideal.
As women read prairie fiction; bought and sold Tupperware containers and Mary Kay makeup; shopped at Hobby Lobby, Target, and Altar’d State; and decorated homes with shiplap, they moved freely between the religious and the secular.
Marketed as empowering, these products were part of a consumer culture that elevated domesticity and vulnerability while exposing women to systems susceptible to manipulation.
Combining sweeping cultural history with intimate storytelling, Du Mez explains how theological exclusion led women to build their own brand of Christianity, rich in cultural influence if thin in formal doctrine.
Ultimately, Live Laugh Love explains how a powerful yet elusive vision of womanhood has shaped lives, families, and politics for more than a century now—and how it has brought us to our reactionary moment. More
Irish American Charles Francis Feeney (April 23, 1931–October 9, 2023) was a businessman and philanthropist who made a massive fortune [from the U.S. military] as the co-founder of DFS Group (Duty Free Shoppers Group), the travel retailer of luxury products based in Hong Kong.
He was the founder of the Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest private charitable foundations in the world. Feeney gave away his fortune in secret for many years, wisely choosing to remain anonymous while doing it, donating more than $8 billion in his lifetime....
PERSONAL LIFE: Wise Saint Feeney was known for his frugality. According to a New York Times article in 2017, "Until he was 75, he traveled only in coach [the lowest class, discount seats], and [he] carried reading materials in a plastic bag."
He did not own a car or a house and wore a $10 Casio F-91W watch [41, 16]. As of 2016, he lived in a rented apartment in pricey San Francisco, California, with remaining assets of $2 million [1]. More
Dāna (sharing, generosity, liberality, giving, supporting, helping) as an internally-motivated spiritual act or a formal, externally-influenced religious act is directed by Buddhist laypersons first at monastics and spiritually-developed persons [37].
In the Buddhist understanding, it has the effect of purifying and transforming the heart/mind of the giver [38], the one who lets go.
Generosity developed through unselfish sharing and generous giving leads to the experience of material wealth and the possibility of being reborn in happy states (defined as rebirth in the human world or the many superior planes of existence above it).
In the Pāli canon's Dighajanu Sutta, "generosity" (denoted there by the Pāli word cāga, which can be deemed synonymous with dāna) is identified as one of the four traits conditioning happiness and wealth in future lives (after this karma comes to fruition and ripens. Just as a seed sown does not immediately burst into a sprout or blossom into a flower or fruit, it is foolish to expect immediately obvious karmic resultants. And it is exactly for this same reason that unskillful misdeeds do not show the harm that comes from them immediately in what John Lennon foolishly popularized as "instant karma." There is nothing instant about most karma, and even to the extent that karma can produce immediate mental benefits, these are not always obvious).
Conversely, lack of letting go, sharing, providing for others, liberality, giving leads to woeful (unhappy) states in the future, after the ripening, as well as poverty.
Dāna (having done acts sharing and generosity) leads to one of the development of one of the "perfections" (paramis, pāramitās, known as dānapāramitā, the perfection of letting go, detachment, giving up, benefiting others).
This can be characterized by unattached and unconditional generosity, giving and letting go [39].
The Buddhist belief that actual letting go, actual giving, the kind without seeking anything in return, rather the transactional variety of this-for-that, leads to great spiritual wealth and immediate mental satisfaction and calm. Otherwise, we are subject to great disappointment.
Moreover, letting go reduces the acquisitive (greedy) impulses that ultimately lead to continued suffering [40] from egotism. More
Could good Saint Feeney (as we call him, when Chuck sought no such title in his life and the Catholic Church has yet to recognize him) have benefitted by living in liberal California, in the Bay Area of all places, surrounded by Asian and Buddhist influences, like so many of the Golden State's remaining inhabitants?
[SPECULATION: We need to steal your biometric facial data to sell it on the open market to the government, intel agencies, Israel, China, and non-state actors and scammers, so we've come up with these tricks. Pick one. How about we predict what your soulmate is going to look like or age progress your face? It's fun. Tell all your friends so we can build a network and connect the dots between all of your contacts. Do it for national security before China takes TikTok back from the nice Zionist Jewish American capitalist billionaire Larry Ellison and his network of operatives like his son David Ellison and his installed CBS News Boss Zionist Bari Weiss, who captures media assets with Trump's help.]
DEATH: Hayden Panettiere, 36, is said to have died from cardiac arrest in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on August 16, 2026 [101, 102].
She was found unresponsive, and first responders pronounced her dead at the scene after resuscitation efforts failed [103].
Police said preliminary findings showed no signs of foul play [104], and an autopsy performed the following day by the local coroner's office found "no signs of trauma" [105].
TRIBUTES: Panettiere's former co-star, Viola Davis, called her "an amazing talent...so gifted" saying she was an "old, wise soul with such a deep heart" [106].
Bryan Fuller, who wrote on Heroes' first season, said she was "more than an actress, she was a muse"[107].
Wladimir Klitschko, Panettiere's former fiancé, said she had "built an incredible career through immense talent" [108].
Others in the entertainment industry, including former co-stars, also issued tributes on social media... More
International Workers' Day is observed on May 1st. It is also called "May Day" but differs from the pagan/heathen European fertility festival May Day (like Shinto Japan's Steel Phallus Fest), which is of ancient origins.
It marks the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on May 1, around halfway between the Northern Hemisphere's spring equinox and midsummer solstice [1, 2].
Festivities are also held the night before (on April 30th), which is known as May Eve. Traditions include gathering green branches and wildflowers ("bringing in the May") [3] that are used to decorate buildings and made into wreaths. Plus there's the:
Crowning a May Queen (ask Led Zeppelin), sometimes with a male companion (Jack in the Green) decked in greenery;
setting up a Maypole, May Tree, or May Bush, around which celebrants dance and sing;
parades and processions involving these [4].
Bonfires are also a major part of the festival in some regions.
Regional varieties and related traditions include Walpurgis Night in central and northern Europe [1], the Gaelic festival Beltane [5], the Welsh festival Calan Mai [5], and May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary (a Christian-Jewish version of Kwan YinorMother Maya). It has also been associated with the ancient Roman festival Floralia [6]. More
Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath is a documentary series that investigates the "Church" of Scientology through the experiences of American actress Leah Remini and other former members. She was a follower cult member of Scientology between 1979, when she joined at the age of 9 alongside her parents, and 2013. She subsequently became an outspoken critic of Scientology and published a bestselling memoir, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, in 2015.
Pasadena's Jack "The Antichrist" Parsons, creator of JPL (originally denoting "Jack Parson's Lab" then switched to Jet Propulsion Lab)
Prof. Frederick Philip Lenz III, calling himself "enlightened master" Rama (Sanskrit राम), Zen Master Rama, and "Atmananda" (Sanskrit आतमाननद), who died for 48 years between February 9, 1950–April 12, 1998, was a capitalist American cult leader, spiritual fraud, writer, coder, programmer, software designer from Atlantis, quasi-musician, and record producer.
He founded what he tried to sell as "American Buddhism," a hodgepodge of Zen gibberish, Hinduism, and Tibetan Vajrayana lite. He incorporated what teachings he could from Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Hindu Vedanta, general mysticism, and lots of New Age ideas.
"Busting Rama" (LA Weekly 1988)
After studying with Sri Chinmoy, who allegedly gave him the name "Atmananda" (atman-ananda, which is a name he gave to many around him besides Lenz).
Prof. of Literature Lenz lectured and taught classes in meditation, before forming his own school and assuming the Hindu name of God "Rama." Though calling himself a "Buddhist," Lenz steered clear of anything like asceticism. Instead, he lived a lavish lifestyle, and encouraged students to focus on financial independence and success.
Some former students accused him of cult-like activity, including financial and sexual exploitation. Prof. Lenz denied the accusations; no civil or criminal proceedings were ever successfully brought against him. More
I give up, Bibi. Talked me into it. Greenland next
(The Young Turks) U.S.-Israel (satan, the "adversary") likely to launch full-blown war on Iran, as it appears imminent on the eve of Ramadan to incense passions and drawn in other Muslim majority countries to expend and delete more military hardware and human lives.
Too bad Trump is not a man of God, as his Protestant Evangelical boosters in America, Christian Zionists, proclaim. Or else he would stand up to Bibi Netanyahu, who recently paid his sixth public visit to our beloved dictator to advocate for an attack on Iran by the U.S. instead of peace like good Jesus (Saint Issa, the Prophet Isa) would want and himself do if he were still in Palestine.
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