Hindu holy cows? (Praveen Mohan)

(Danny Jones) The shocking historic reason why Hindus worship holy cows | Praveen Mohan

Happy World Chocolate Day (7/7)

I must be a hybrid space alien-terrestrial human Earthling because I love sweet cacao paste.

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I'm a substitute love drug, so go easy.

Today is World Chocolate Day. But there's always tomorrow, which allows for the addition of almonds. What joy!

• Different types of chocolate and how to use them (so long as we do not get carried away and clingy)
• Mindfulness of Eating is one way to establish a healthy relationship with food
• American Dharma Teacher Ruth Denison's Dharma Talks from Dharma Seed and Dhammadena

Chocolate in its rawest form: fruit

We look forward to National Chocolate with Almonds Day when it pops up on our calendar every July 8 (NATIONAL CHOCOLATE WITH ALMONDS DAY, July 8, 2025) and we celebrate one of the world’s most popular confections.

• It's also World Allergy Day (July 8): the world's most common allergies and their symptoms

We at NT confess, this national day is not just another day we circle on our calendar. We also add this one to our to-do list for today so we don’t miss out. We know we really don’t need a special day on the calendar to indulge in one of our favorite guilty pleasures.

Mexico invented chocolate (Aztec Codex)

But doesn’t having a day on the calendar to celebrate such a heavenly confection help negate the guilty part of a guilty pleasure? We think so.

Today, we are indulging unashamedly because chocolate [Theobroma cacao fruit seeds or nibs] and almonds are incredibly satisfying. This makes us wonder if the reason we crave chocolate with almonds and find the combination so satisfying is because our bodies know what is good for us [like the "gods" or theo knew, presumably because they were advanced alien life forms looking for high antioxidant foods].

[Dark] Chocolate and almonds both are separately documented to have heart health benefits. More

• MSN.com, July 7, 2025; National Today, July 8, 2025; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Bundy fights Feds and wins: gunfight

 

Is there a better place to live with less state

oppression, less armed paramilitary police abuse?

Mermaids on Manatee Appreciation Day!

Portrait of a selkie "A Mermaid" (by artist John William Waterhouse, 1900)

Why are boats so mad at our kind, cutting us up with their metal teeth and racing away?

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Manatee Appreciation Day: protecting the gentle giants of the sea

"The Mermaid's Rock" by Edward Matthew Hale, 1894 (thevintagenews.com)

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Buddhism says mermaids live under the sea

Celebrated annually on the last Wednesday in March, "Manatee Appreciation Day" is more than just a tribute – it’s a global call to protect the gentle giants [related to elephants] of the sea. 

Manatees have no natural predators [other than motorboaters swinging brutal propeller blades], which contributes to their serene demeanor. However, this does not mean they are without threats. 

Human activities pose significant risks to manatee populations. Despite these challenges, manatees have shown remarkable resilience, with conservation efforts playing a crucial role in protecting them.

A childlike heart will yet believe even as adults scoff at ancient lore.

I know what I saw! (Cristobal Columbus)

• MERMAIDS (mythical half-female, half-fish creatures) have existed in seafaring lore at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. Typically depicted as having a woman’s head and torso, a fishtail instead of legs, and holding a mirror and comb, mermaids live in the ocean and, according to some legends, can take on a human shape and marry mortal men [as in the selkie lore of Ireland, Manx, Scotland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, the British Isles]. Mermaids are closely linked to sirens, another folkloric figure, part-woman, part-bird, who live on islands and sing seductive songs to lure sailors [like Homer's Odysseus and his crew] to their deaths. Mermaid sightings by sailors, when they weren’t made up, were most likely manatees, dugongs, or Steller’s sea cows (which became extinct by the 1760s due to cruel human over-hunting). Manatees are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces... (HISTORY*)

• 

  Psychic Maha-Mog' was dark

  SUTRA: In a very strange Buddhist sutra, Great Moggallana, the male disciple declared by the Buddha as "foremost in psychic powers" mentions that at the bottom of the sea, there are indeed mermaids who dance seductively. A reference to shapeshifting space aliens living in bases below the ocean? There is worldwide awareness that at some point in the past, there really were vicious creatures who swam the seas, just as reports of harpies and others were reported by many cultures. Let's examine what one of the Buddha's four chief disciples said of these mysterious creatures from MN 50:

"In the middle of the ocean

There are mansions aeon-lasting,

Sapphire-shining, fiery-gleaming

With a clear translucent luster,

Where iridescent sea-nymphs dance

In complex, intricate rhythms"

(MN 50.25, translated by Ven. Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi)

"Mansions stand for an eon

in the middle of the sea,

The hue of beryl-stones,

brilliant, glowing, radiant;

There dance full many

nymphs in divers hues"

(Isaline Blew Horner, born 1896, translation of MN 50)

"There are mansions that last an eon

standing in the middle of a lake.

Sapphire-colored, brilliant,

they sparkle and shine.

Dancing there are nymphs

shining in all different colors."

(Bhante Sujato translation of MN 50)

• 

  The Connected Discourses of the Buddha
  with the manatee's land cousin on the cover

  Alas, no further mention of the sea-nymph mermaid selkies is made in this sutra, Is it reasonable to think the great monk was simply repeating Indian or Scythian lore? He was addressing Mara, to warn him what was to happen for bad karma of the sort this mara was accumulating. Modern people don't believe in Mara, despite the Mara Samyutta, and all those references to him by the Buddha. There's a thick translation of The Connected Discourses by American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi that includes it. So if Mara, a kind of Tempter -- Lucifer, Cupid, Eros, Devil -- figure in Buddhism could be real, are mermaids so hard to believe in, existing underwater by inhabiting vimanas ("mansions" that are USOs) so hard to swallow?
• MN 50: Māratajjanīyasutta—Ven. Sujato (suttacentral.net)

The plight of the manatee

Boat strikes are a growing threat (earth.com)

Human activities have not been kind to manatees. Boating, pollution, and habitat destruction stand out as the three greatest threats.

Despite legal protections against hunting, manatees continue to be poached for their meat and hides. Furthermore, their natural habitats, crucial for their survival, are being decimated by human development and intrusion.

Boat strikes are particularly alarming, leading to tragic injuries or even death for these gentle creatures. This dire situation underlines the urgency of increasing awareness so that manatees will continue to exist in the future.

Getting to know sea cows

Secret places, Mexico's cenotes, near Belize

Manatees, also known as the cows of the sea [even though their closest relatives are elephants], are a marvel of marine life, characterized by their gentle nature and slow-moving grace [which caused people like Christopher Columbus to report mermaid sighting, possibly with the intention to violate them as he was planning for the gentle Indigenous humans he met].

These large, aquatic mammals belong to the order Sirenia [which is interesting because the Spanish word for "mermaid" is sirena], which also includes three species of dugongs. 

• *VIDEO: Columbus mistakes manatees for mermaids [or did he see mermaids that get written off as manatees?] Jan. 9, 1493 (HISTORY)
• A bilingual brain maintains its youthfulness with age

Vegan diet

One of the most captivating aspects of manatees is their all-vegan herbivorous diet, as they feed on a wide variety of submerged, floating, and emergent plants in fresh and saltwater environments. More

• TEXT: Staff writer Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com, 3/27/24; Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Shauna Schwartz (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
• ART: Boat strikes were apparently a problem even in ancient times ("The Mermaid’s Rock" by Edward Matthew Hale, 1894 (thevintagenews.com).

Jainism and the new "Miss Liberty" film

CompassionConsortium.org, Vegan Spirituality Meetup; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

JAINISM AND MISS LIBERTY FILM

Mahavira, naked ascetic, founder of Jainism

The Compassion Consortium (compassionconsortium.org) service on Sunday, March 17, 2024, features spiritual guest Saurabh Dalal (DC and NYC areas), an engineering consultant and physicist.

He is passionate about promoting a vegan lifestyle of Ahimsa (non-violence, non-harming), which provides compelling solutions to many global problems. He is a member of the Jain tradition, an Indian religion with ahimsa at its center.

Not the Buddha but his contemporary

Saurabh is a lifelong vegetarian and has been an ethical vegan since 1991. He volunteers for numerous groups as a board member or advisor for like-minded organizations, has been active in the Jain community internationally, and has practiced ethical investing for decades.

• COMPASSION CONSORTIUM: JAINISM AND MISS LIBERTY FILM, Sun, Mar 17, 2024, 1:00 PM | Meetup
• Miss Liberty The Movie - A Taste of Freedom
• Ethics of eating meat (complicity in killing)

Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta)

He explores ways of integrating sound science into related areas of his activism. Jainism is one of the three most ancient Dharmic religions of India, along with Buddhism (protestant Shramanism) and Hinduism (Vedic Brahmanism) with roots that extend back to at least the mid-first century B.C.E.

Today, Jainism remains an integral part of Indian culture. It teaches that the path to enlightenment is through nonviolence and harm reduction to living beings (including plants and animals) as much as possible.

Jains believe plants, animals, and even some inanimate things (like fire, air, and water) have souls (or the divine spark), just as humans do.

The principle of nonviolence includes doing no harm to humans, plants, animals, or nature. For that reason, all Jains are strict vegetarians — so strict, in fact, that eating root vegetables and some fruits is not allowed because removing the root would kill the plant.

However, Jains can eat vegetables that grow above the ground, because they can be picked while leaving the rest of the plant intact in complete dedication to nonviolence.

Miss Liberty

Miss Liberty The Movie - A Taste of Freedom

The Compassion in Action segment on March 17 features a presentation of the feature film Miss Liberty.

Victoria Moran and Rev. William on March 17th introduce their feature film Miss Liberty:

SYNOPSIS: Bob Sanders, a computer tech, is owed money by the owner of a slaughterhouse in their small Midwestern town. When a used up dairy cow manages to escape the packing plant and take refuge in his backyard, he keeps her as collateral, resulting in human drama, legal intrigue, a hint of romance, and you-didn't-see-this-one-coming ending.

That, in a capsule, is Miss Liberty, the family feature film currently in development and co-written by Rev. William Melton and Victoria Moran. It gets the message of farm animal rights, workers' rights, and veganism out to a larger audience who would never voluntarily watch a "vegan movie" but would love a darn good movie about a cow with a vegan as its female lead.

That lead is Patricia Levinson, aka "Cow Patty," the animal rights attorney who comes from NYC to attempt to save a cow named "Miss Liberty." 

n a change of pace for Compassion Consortium Sunday services, the screenwriters will temporarily move from their regular 3rd Sunday assignments and be interviewed by Elaine Hutchison as Compassion in Action guests.

Victoria Moran, a vegan for 40 years and an animal advocate and vegetarian for over 50, is the author of 13 books, with a 14th, Age Like a Yogi, coming in early 2025.

She was also lead producer for Thomas Jackson's 2019 documentary, A Prayer for Compassion, about food choices and spirituality.

In the CiA segment, Rev. William and Victoria discuss with Elaine why the time has come for Miss Liberty and how viewers can be part of it.

The Compassion Consortium is Miss Liberty's nonprofit partner, so all donations to the project are both tax-deductible and matched dollar for dollar, bringing it that much closer to "a theater near you."

Visit the website (misslibertythefilm.com) and follow the project on X (Twitter), @MissLibertyFilm. More

Woke-leftists-for-Aubrey drink Wood Milk :)

Dr. Steve Turley; Earthling Ed; Crystal Q., CC Liu, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Supreme Nurturing Mother Tara

Would you drink Wood Milk? I would. It sounds good. I wood spread it all over gluten-free sorghum and brown rice pancakes or sip it through a bamboo straw with lots of ice. I might even add coconut tree fruit and turmeric, maybe some MudWtr powder or vegan spices and call it chai. Wood would be good, syrupy maple flavored or oak acorn jellified, all that protein once the tannins have been leeched out. Yum, wood! Try sustainably grown hearts of palm. Tell me if it's good.

C'mon, laugh. It's funny. Don't make me shoot.

Aubrey Plaza is joking. She's a funny comedienne. That's what she does. She gets paid for it, in this case by the cruel dairy industry. Cruel? It keeps cows in pens and artificially pregnant for years with infected teats, pumping pus-filled "animal milk" full of lactose that most adult humans in the world are intolerant of. We cannot digest it, so we get gassy and bloated, harming our insides.

Mammal milk is for babies before weaning, after which most of us no longer make lactase, the enzyme that digests lactose. Leave cow milk to baby cows.

The Goddess nurtures us like a cow her young.

Drink human milk if dairy is so appetizing. Or be earth-friendly and eat raw soaked (and drained) nuts blended to make white water. The best "plant-based mylk" is made out of raw hemp seeds and pure water. Add a handful to a few cups in a blender, frappe, and enjoy immediately. It has all the nutrition filthy bovine-lactations stolen from enslaved beasts of burden are claimed to have. Oops, are we sounding like "woke leftists" who care too much about mammals (human beings and animals) and the planet mammals live on? We better keep quiet and let Dr. T. bask in his own happiness.

Woke leftists melt down over mockery

Remember that time Sister Aubrey offended Catholics for playing a wayward nun?

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"Woke leftists meltdown after actress roasts them in hilarious video!!!" claims right-winger Dr. Steve Turley back on May 17, 2023.

Aubrey Plaza is pretty whacky and often funny, as he pitches sale prices (66% off) on all Mike the MyPillow Guy Lindell’s products. (Use code TURLEY mypillow.com/turley).

Doc also encourages future insurrectionists and Capitol rioters to join his growing "Courageous Patriot Network" (group.turleytalks.com/insider...) ❤ . Then he goes on to celebrate as Prof. "Jordan Peterson TORCHES leftist on trans issues!!!" Dr. T. sure loves them exclamation marks.

Earthling Ed explains almond-milk-drinking Aubrey Plaza who was NOT out

to destroy veganism with pro-animal milk commercial she got paid to make.

DISCLAIMER: All clips are for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

The Far Side comic strip animated (video)

Gary Larson (comics); Kerry Uchida (Technomorph Sound Design, YouTube, 9/30/16); MSN.com, 10/29/23; Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Kerry Uchida Sound Design demo: Tales From The Far Side 1 & 2

(Technomorph Sound Design) Here are a few selections of Kerry Uchida's Sound Design work for Gary Larson's TV specials Tales From The Far Side I and II.

NOTE: Original material may have been edited down to pick up the pace to showcase the Sound Design material. Uchida also did the picture editing for this demo reel. More of Uchida's picture editing and video work: demo.technomorph.com, imdb.com, sounddesign@technomorph.com

Co-Sound Designer Irving Mulch Foley by Andy Malcom. Directed by Marv Newland. Music by Bill Frisell. Mix by Bill "Otis" Sheppard and Dean Giamarcco from DBC (dbcsound.com). Mixed at Sharpe Sound Studios in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Hi, I'm Gary Larson. I went bald up front from thinking up all these great gags.

Yeah, Doug, but what kind of life?

Gary Larson's The Far Side is known for its surreal humor and morbid perspective, including several comics where no human is left standing.

Whether taken out by space aliens, big animals, or their own hubris (overarching pride), humans are just another animal trying to get by in an often hostile world.

The people of The Far Side are prone to apocalyptic levels of foolishness, often reflecting the (hopefully) less lethal foibles of the comic strip's millions of fans.

Here are the 10 best The Far Side comics where -- for a truly impressive variety of reasons -- no human makes it out alive. Some are iconic, some underappreciated, but in each case, Larson leaves no room for doubt that his human characters aren't long for this world. More

• 10 Funniest Far Side Comics Where Everybody Dies

Employees EXPOSE McDonald's (video)

Spill, June 8, 2023; Sheldon S., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

McDonald's employees EXPOSE what they do, TikTok goes viral

Namaste. Bring money.

(Spill) It’s not hard to see the appeal of fast food. It’s cheap, inexpensive, gross, budget-friendly, convenient, and if one is not expecting Michelin star quality, it can have a lot of [cancerous synthetic chemicals and] artificial flavors for taste. But appetizing and safe are two different things. People are suing some popular fast food restaurants, items are being recalled, employees are being forced to serve food gone bad, customers have been hospitalized, and some "ingredients" have no business winding up on a plate. Is eating fast food worth the risk?

• Sources

Title card image by vecstock on Freepik (freepik.com/free-photo...). Music license codes: XVTQWYU2W3EVBF15, R7MERWLB2BTB1BPW, PF8EC92UPQZPTQ3S, DSXD24KUSA7KSRTD, TWWTY6M4AZ4L8459, 6EKMXVLVSHQANQWB, PNXADNQWT6XKEEQT, 5NJE5RENJMRXBXW9, 1QMWO3X1G1GBMIL5, 9K3DNGALW1WFSXDX.