NATIONAL MUSHROOM MONTH: All through September, National Mushroom Month celebrates the wide variety of "mushrooms" (the fruiting bodies of fungal mycelia) that are available.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also takes advantage of the opportunity to educate people on the versatility mushrooms offer, including their many health benefits.
As a result, mushrooms are gaining more and more appreciation as we learn more about them.
#NationalMushroomMonth
To fully celebrate the heritage of mushrooms (shrooms, toadstools, Easter eggs, fun guys in the garden...), we must first learn about the Mushroom Capital of the World.
Located just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one will find a small town known Kennett Square. Surprisingly, this small Pennsylvanian borough produces over one million pounds of mushrooms a day.
Each year Kennett Square holds the annual Mushroom Festival starting with a parade.
Visitors also enjoy tours of mushroom farms or visit vendors to buy food and other goods.
'Shroom Science
Scientifically, mushrooms belong to the fungi kingdom (not plant, not mineral, not animal).
Fungi grow from carbon and energy from dead plants (particularly the cellulose sugar and chitin proteins from husks) and animals. Interestingly, this has helped scientists to conclude mushroom DNA is more similar to humans than it is to plants, as previously thought.
Through the study of mushrooms, scientists learn more about fungi, especially identifying whether they are single-cell or multicellular organisms.
Mushrooms contain many useful nutrients. Because of this, mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamins (particularly Vitamin D, which significantly increases when cut mushrooms are placed in the sun). Eating mushrooms is a great way to naturally get copper, fiber, potassium, protein, selenium, Vitamin B, and zinc into the human body.
As scientists continue to study mushrooms, there is hope of discovering more medicinal uses -- such as treating depression, PTSD, phobias such as an intense fear of death, and other mental conditions, as with LSD, which is a fungus called ergot that grows on rye). These discoveries only add to the many benefits of mushrooms.
Mushrooms are either edible (nutritious, entheogenic) or inedible (toxic, poisonous). We find edible mushrooms in cuisine throughout the world. Almost all mushrooms available at the store are cultivated and safe rather than wildcrafted (foraged) and risky. These types of mushrooms are available year-round.
The most common cultivated mushroom are the white button, flavorful cremini (just a baby portobello), earthy adult portobello, shiitake, tasty tree oyster, maitake, but most mushroom eat (particularly in the form of mushroom soups) contains no soup at all but the more reliable mycelia).
"There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters, but no old-bold ones."
Inedible mushrooms are often found popping up in the wild, though many also grow in backyards and moist front lawns. However, it can be difficult to determine whether a mushroom is poisonous or safe to eat. It takes more than a guidebook; it takes an expert. There are no reliable shortcuts, hacks, or rules of thumb to depend on. For example, some think mushrooms that have red on the cap or stem are known to be poisonous, or that stems that bruise purple are hallucinogenic, but it is nowhere near that easy to tell. Avoid eating mushrooms with white gills, a skirt, or a ring on the stem -- or anything else until knowing with certainty that it is safe for consumption. Not all poisonous mushrooms are deadly; many might just cause a stomachache or voiding. But often there are no symptoms just liver damage leading to death days later. Because wild mushrooms are hard to identify, leave identification of wild mushrooms to professional mycologists and mushroom hunters and foragers.
Eating poisonous mushrooms, even if not deadly (like the famous fly agaric Amanita muscaria, can and often makes eaters very sick. It can possibly kill a person based on their personal constitution or susceptibilities. So, when in doubt, throw it out. Save it for examination rather than consumption. More
Hedonism? See the Buddhist story below about an ancient party just like EDC, Coachella, Burning Man, Woodstock. It's time to blast off to Vegas for the Electric Daisy Carnival rave and music festival. Since it unceremoniously got driven out of Los Angeles, it has found a home in Lost Wages, Nevada, near the Sphere where Gwen Stefani's No Doubt reunion shows are taking place. Oh, the traffic! But never mind that. It's time to party because it's the 30th anniversary of the event.
(Insomniac) #EDCLV2026. #insomniac. The official EDCLV2026 trailer has arrived! 💫 The event is May 15+16+17 as a worldwide community reunites Under the Electric Sky for the 30th anniversary of the event with three nights of celebrating life, love, art, and music.❤️🌈🎡 This is life, this is love, this is EVERYTHING!⚡️ The experience of a lifetime awaits…
Hedonism leads to happiness? A true story from ancient Buddhist texts: The Big Festival
1. YOUTH: Near the capital of the land there were small towns. The youths were born there as privileged Brahmins. One's family claimed important descendants from a town full of Brahmins, a very conservative place.
His father was from the most prominent family. Being high caste and from the town's most respected lineage, his dad acted like a petty king. So he grew up rich and honored, knowing very little about unhappiness or the real world.
He was educated like a [Boston] Brahmin, an education that included being taught about a life beyond this world.
There was another Brahmin family in a neighboring town. On the day he was born, in the other town, another son was also born. When they grew up they became friends and were soon inseparable. Whatever they did, play or study, pleasure or work, they were always together. They didn't quarrel or hold grudges against each other even though their dispositions were very different. One was a pioneer type, daring and enterprising, the other liked to cultivate what he had already gained. One was an only child, the other had three brothers and three sisters.
Their friendship meant a lot and filled their daily life, and they liked the other sex, light-hearted and indulging at their youthful age. Each was the leader of a group of friends with lot of high spirited play and sports. When they went swimming, their companions rode horses and others rode around like kings, playboys, enamored by the intoxications of youth, health, riches, and a good life.
In the capital, there was a giant annual celebration full of popular entertainment and amusement, the "Big Festival" on the hill. Of course, the friends all went to enjoy it. They reserved places to watch all the entertainments. When there was something funny, they laughed, when there was something fascinating, they got excited. They enjoyed it all so much that they went back for a second day to watch more performances.
But with the heightening of their expectations, their joyous mood failed. They still went back for a third day, since they had reserved it -- a new program of entertainments. They did not sleep well that night, however, as impressions of the previous partying haunted their minds.
While laying awake with insomnia, one thought: "What's the use of all this for us? Is there here that's really worthwhile? What's the benefit? Before long, all these glamorous people and actors will be old and decrepit. They will leave life and continue wandering on through existence (samsara), driven by sensuality and other insatiable cravings. And it's the same with us. These people can't even help themselves to solve the problems of their existence. How, then, can they help us? We're just wasting our time here instead of getting any closer to liberation!"
The other friend also had a restless night full of similar thoughts. He reflected how these dramatic performances had something to do with the reality of rebirth, but the joking and frolicking overlaying everything, pretending that there was only this life to worry about, was an artificial suppression, repressing the truth, all full of vain illusions.
On the morning of the third day, they went to their reserved spots at the festival, and one asked the other, "What's the matter with you? You're not your merry self like before. What are you depressed about?"
The other friend replied, "Tell me, what's the use of all these pleasures, all this candy for the eye and ear? It's worthless and useless! I'd rather be on a spiritual quest, searching for a way out, release, freedom, total liberation. The devastating law of impermanence, it all sucks. There has to be a way to liberation from all these fleeting illusions with their temporary allure haunting us and yet leaving us empty. That's what's been going through my head and making me think. Hey, but what you,? You look anything but cheerful!"
His friend replied, "I've been feeling the same as you. Why stay any longer for this BS vanity show? We should seek a way to something that's not BS!"
When he heard his friend had been thinking the same thing with the same wish, he happily said, "That's wild that we've been thinking the same thing! We've wasted our time and our lives long enough with all these worthless things. If one really wants a path to freedom, one has to leave home and all these possessions that possess us. We should go forth on a quest like pilgrims, free ourselves from the bondage of worldly crap and all this sensuality, rise above it like birds in the sky."
They agreed, and the two friends decided to ditch it all and become spiritual nomads, leading a life of simplicity away from it all, wanderers, on the road, surviving like ascetics.
They wandered around India searching for a guru, a spiritual teacher, or some teaching to guide them. When they had told their friends about their decision, most of those young men were so impressed that they joined them on their spiritual quest. All of them left home, took off their Brahmin threads, cut off their long hair, and put on the earth-colored garments of wanderers. Discarding the marks and signs of their privileged caste, they gave up the class system and entered among the classless ascetics. That's how the journey began.
In their travels, they met many wandering ascetics and temple priests who had the reputation of being exceptionally wise. They talked about God and the world, heaven and hell, the meaning of life and the way to salvation. But with their keen and critical minds trained as skeptics, they soon realized how empty all of those assertions were and how learned but ignorant these philosophers were. None of them could answer their probing questions. But the two friends were able to reply when questioned. How did the meet the Buddha?
This is where it gets personal and a little unbelievable. Following a lifelong wish to visit India and see the Buddhist circuit, I thought it was odd that no one much talked about the second most important place in Buddhist history. Sure, there's Bamiyan, Afghanistan, but people don't know that's the real Kapilavastu unless they read Dr. Ranajit Pal's book Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander. What with an inviting title like that, who's read or even heard of such a thing? The most important place is arguably "Enlightenment Grove" (Bodh Gaya).
But surely the second most desirable place to see and stand on is Vulture's Peak in the royal ringed city of Rajagaha (modern Rajgir), capital of Magadha, a legendary place of a ring of seven hills around an ancient royal city. On pilgrimage there, with its hot spring baths and lightly forested rolling hills, it was hard to believe I had made it. This was it with a commanding view of the area and not a vulture in sight. There have never been vultures here, as the place name is based on rocks that in the shadows look like vultures. Do they? If you squint your eyes, maybe.
So much of it remains unchanged with a large Jain and Hindu presence. But I found two Japanese Buddhist complexes to accommodate they annual rush of in-season Buddhist pilgrims. There was even a beautiful monastery/rest house nearby, a great place to meditate under a mosquito net. It was hard to sleep as the night wore on in this rural place because of pounding music. My fellow tourists in another room? Not likely; the place was nearly empty. It happened again on the second and third night when I left my room to explore the ruckus and stumbled on the Hilltop Festival! It's still going on as an ancient annual event. I had no interest in paying to go in or see what passes for "entertainments" in modern India, blaring loudspeaker bhangramusic, drums, parades, kathak dancing girls, alcohol, bhang (ganja)...who knows? I didn't go in. I just marveled at the bouncers who night after night kept this assembly going late into the night. For all of India's development and its leaping into modernity, there are things here that are unchanged since the time of the Buddha: ox drawn carts, mud huts, barefoot sadhus, rice harvests, women in saris working the fields, undeveloped rural villages, water buffaloes roaming around, cows treated like royalty, a thousand forms of Hindu worship...and this festival! So much of India has not changed since the British stumbled in and brought the world's largest rail system.
Now at the Royal Ringed City there was an annual event called the Hilltop Festival. Entrance was purchased for the young friends who sat together to witness all the festivities. When there was something funny, they laughed; when the spectacle was exciting, they got excited. And they paid fees for more shows. They enjoyed the fest that day and a second day, but on the third day their understanding started to awaken. They could no longer laugh or get excited, nor did they feel inclined to pay for more like they had on the first two days. Each had the same thought: "What is there to look at here? Within 100 years, everyone here will be dead. What we should do is become spiritual seekers looking for enlightenment." More: The Life of Sariputta by Ven. Nyanaponika Thera
The Buddha's future chief disciples at the Big Hill Fest by Hellmuth Hecker, edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
EDC is an electronic dance music (EDM) festival organized by promoter and distributor Insomniac.
The annual flagship event, EDC Las Vegas, is held in May at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and is the largest electronic dance music festival in North America with over 500,000 visitors in 2024 [2].
The event features electronic dance producers and DJs and incorporates a variety of electronic music, including house, techno, drum 'n bass, and dubstep [3].
In addition to the music, event goers experience 3D superstructures, colorful glow-in-the-dark environments, and LED-lit flora and fauna [4]. There are also interactive art installations throughout EDC, free-roaming carnival performers, and carnival rides for the inner-kids [4]. More
As the 20th century came to a close, 40 percent of all Buddhists in America resided in Southern California. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has become unique in the Buddhist world as the only place where representative organizations of every major school of Buddhism can be found in a single urban center [145]. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Northern California and Hsi Lai Temple in Los Angeles, Southern California, are two of the largest Buddhist temples in the Western Hemisphere. More
(Feb. 18, 2026) Los Angeles is known for being the home of Hollywood and having some of the world's best beaches, but it also has a much darker side: a notorious hub for human sex trafficking Pimp Epstein and Madame Maxwell would envy. More: abc7.com/post/sex-plain-sight...
Each team member got to sleep with the trophy as they passed it around between themselves.
RODGER SAYS:"Major League Baseball RIGGED this thing for the Dodgers, the West Coast Yankees, to win it again...""The good thing about the Dodgers winning is that there's going to be a hard salary cap next year...and you're not going to be able to buy Godzilla or Mothra or any members of the Yakuza next year...." "I hope ICE raids your parade." [Ally then asks, "Rodger, you're a member of the Latino community, correct?"] "That is correct, but I'm not a member of the..." Will his hate fuel more wins for LA's team? Tin Cap, was a giant magnet used to get the baseball stuck under the fence?
(KROQ) DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, Southern California - KROQ (106.7 FM)'s Morning Zoo "Klein. Ally. Show." took a call back in March from Rodger, who called back today to mock the suggestion of a "threepeat."
This whole thing is fake, Rodger says, with Chinese (Asian) AI and money spoiling the sport with big paychecks for a select few and a middle-class struggle for the rest of the team.
The "Klein. Ally. Show." dares to give this disgruntled naysayer and crank a voice on LA/OC's airwaves in an attempt to break "Dodger fever."
Since the hype was real for the Dodgers on opening day, of course K&A had to mark the return of listener "Rodger the Dodger Hater" by having him back. Is Roj right? Will the Dodgers choke, or will history repeat itself with another successful parade?
There's nothing like cake and parades to keep everyone from noticing the collapsing economy, starvation (food insecurity) of the needy, and ICE gangs roving the streets of the nation to raid whomever they want whenever they want backed by the orangest dictator ever.
Mass hysteria for city's sports team
Dodger Stadium tickets sold out in an hour, ranging in price from $38-$135 plus $75 parking.
Yummy, fine French pastry ideas for celebrants
Let them eat cake, some European royal allegedly once said. It was Paris before the guillotines were brought out onto the square for Le Revolution. There's going to be a cotillion at the new White House in Hermitage West Hall, the design for which dummy Trump stole from President Vlad Putin and the Czar's Palace, now a museum called The Hermitage.
Teammates honor Yamamoto and Rojas at rally
If you can't beat them, enjoy them: Watch live coverage of the 2025 Dodgers Championship Parade as LA celebrates its World Series champions. This LA Times feed features official pool video provided by media partners, along with live scenes from around the city. Source
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