We gathered about 10:00 am on a warm day, high tide, threat of a mysterious storm affecting the water due to some distant storm. We huddled and headed for the hills, six miles to the summit. Others biked, lounged on the sandy beach. Climbing to the first loop, some returned, whereas others soldiered on to the peak. Affirmations, a land acknowledgement to the Chumash's unceded land, and gratitude for all Nature were given at the top of the first loop. The cool breeze made the direct sun bearable, with temperatures in the upper seventies. Then we made our way down the mountain above Leo Carillo State Park to wooden tables tucked between PCH and the seashore. Dave got the BBQ grill going with Beyond Burgers and buns; Annie Vitality had a raw fruitcake; a special guest broke out his new product, vegan sorbet and gelato (the day's winner for biggest treat); everyone else had salads, rice, sauces, creams, sprouts, tofu dogs (Smart Life), cookies, and sundry creations. Lots of socializing, hugs, stories, a moving share by a Palestinian guest, who reports that Israelis (illegal occupation forces) have been changing "sewer water" signs with "drinking water" signs. Many of the Jewish anti-Zionist guests commiserated. When it was time to dance, we hit the water in high surf, rocks, and seaweed fragments as if some distant disturbance were uprooting plants and coral.
Can’t make the hike? Attend the cookout BBQ (or vice versa).
The hike starts at 10:00 am. The potluck cookout portion with beach BBQ starts at about 2:00 pm.
Leashed dogs welcome at the beach, but not on the hiking trail.
All the pleasure of savory (umami) chewing, none of the crime of killing helpless cows
Plant based foods are delicious
See details about the hike and where our cookout will be in the "Notes from Hosts" section. In order to participate in the potluck portion of the event, all participants must bring a ready-to-eat vegan dish to share or vegan items to grill and share (veggie kabobs, vegan burgers, tofu hotdogs, etc.) Not doing so may not seem fair to those of us who do.
VEGAN means leaving out dead animals and their byproducts, avoiding meat, fish, eggs, dairy, honey -- free of all animal byproducts.
Everyone, bring a prepared dish and food to grill to serve at least 10 people to have enough food for all to enjoy. This is a FREE event. Donations welcome but not required. Funds pay pricey Meetup dues, supplies, and other costs for future potlucks.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, held in the month of September, is a community event that inspires mindfulness and reflection as friends and family gather together.
In keeping with Taiwanese and Chinese cultural tradition, treats such as rice ball desserts and yummy mooncakes are offered to the community.
Often, the youth make paper lanterns to adorn the festivities of the event or perform musical performances for the Buddhist community.
As everyone contributes in some way to the event, both generosity and gratefulness can be observed in action.
Under the West Coast's bright full moon for the Mid-Autumn Festival, we often reflect on our own bright intrinsic Buddha-nature -- an inherent purity and perfection of the heart/mind. Similar to how sometimes the light of the Moon is hidden behind clouds, our own difficulties and hardships can sometimes obscure our intrinsic (and fundamentally good) nature.
Buddhist nuns sit under moon with American visitors for tea in courtyard of massive LA temple
It is through right-practice and right-mindfulness that we can dispel the dark clouds from our own minds/hearts and reveal the full splendor of our Buddha-nature, our innate capacity to attain enlightenment (bodhi) and liberation (nirvana), awakening to the great ultimate truths of existence.
"Coming West" (Hsi Lai) Temple welcomes all to share in this reflection while spending time with family and friends and visiting this nunnery and monastic complex during this month. More: Hsi Lai Temple
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras use the image of a Buddha (a fully awakened being) inside a lotus flower as a metaphor for the tathāgatagarbha: Sanskrit तथागतगर्भ, buddha-dhātu, sugata-garbha, buddha-garbha (a "womb for a buddha," us realizing our intrisnic Buddha-nature as human beings in this world that seems so far from budhhahood). The term Tathāgata-garbha can mean "the womb" or "embryo"... More
Hsi Lai Temple (hsilai.org/en); CC Liu, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Trump’s threatening ramble at the UN, his minions defend news ban censorship
CNN Hound dog Kaitlan Collins
(Jimmy Kimmel Live)
Sept. 22, 2026: Dick-tater Trump is now polling at the miserable low of 29%, his decision to ban major networks from covering him in the White House has resulted in him not being on TV, much to his dismay CNN's Kaitlan Collins got invited by the UN to cover him this morning, all of Trump’s minions have been bending over backwards to try to please their master and explain away Don Fuhrer Trump’s decision, his UN speech threatening to annihilate Iran (another war crime on top of his other genocidal promises and terroristic threats) was a rough and threatening ramble, he demonstrated his low intelligence by mispronouncing the names of countries he likes, and the show goes live to the set of Dancing with the Stars to talk to Guillermo and his partner Witney Carson. #Kimmel
Trump's rampant corruption, bribes, Zionism, Iran war crimes, soaring gas prices
In a new biography of Trump's creator, Jewish lawyer Roy Cohn, lead author Kai Bird (who also wrote American Prometheus about Jewish arms manufacturer Oppenheimer, the source material of the eponymous film) looks at how the scheming lawyer taught his apprentice President Don Trump to lie, deny, delay, attack, sue and countersue, never admit defeat or confess to being wrong about anything, sidestep paying any bills, and avoid leaving a paper trail that could be used against you to prosecute you in court. Bird's book with his wife and co-author Susan Goldmark is American Scoundrel. Here he speaks with Fresh Air Host Terry Gross about it. (Ken Tucker also reflects on three of Dolly Parton’s performances that he says demonstrate her range and her unique takes on romance and heartbreak).
Roy Marcus Cohn (Feb. 20, 1927–Aug. 2, 1986) was born into an affluent Ashkenazi Jewish family in the Bronx (NYC) and became a corrupt, hypocritical, American lawyer, a closeted AIDs-stricken homosexual Republican, prosecutor, Mafia enabler, conservative GOP political activist, and the most special friend and mentor Don John Trump ever had.
He first gained notoriety and infamy as the lawyer son-of-a-judge, a prosecutor of fellow Jews Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in their trials (1952–1953) and as Sen. Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954. What we now call McCarthyism should really be termed "Cohnism."
I love Jews. I was trained by Roy Cohn.
Cohn pushed for McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists. In the 1970s and 1980s, he became a prominent legal and political "fixer" in New York City [1, 2]. He mentored and represented corrupt landlord and real estate developer Donald J. Trump during the dimwit's early attempts at a business career [3] no longer able to rely on his daddy's handouts and help.
Cohn was born in the Bronx in NYC and educated at Columbia University. He rose to prominence as a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor at the espionage trial of fellow Jews Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, where he successfully prosecuted them, much as the homosexual Cohn would later pursue, prosecute, and destroy many gay Americans. This led to the Rosenberg's execution in 1953.
After his time as prosecuting chief counsel during the McCarthy trials, his reputation deteriorated during the late 1950s to late 1970s as he settled in NYC and became a private lawyer to many clients, including the Mafia (Italian mobsters, known murderers, organized crime families), real estate magnates, political operatives, and child molesting gay Catholic clergy.
In 1986, Cohn was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the NY State Supreme Court for unethical conduct after attempting to defraud a dying client by forcing him to sign a will amendment leaving his fortune to Cohn [4].
Cohn is the cowardly bully who created "Trump"
Cohn died five weeks later from AIDS and related complications, having all along always vehemently denied that he was gay, HIV-positive [5], or dying of AIDS, claiming instead that he just had liver cancer. Cohn has been the subject of many media portrayals before and since his death.
Creating the Don Trump we all know
You like Roy Cohn, Bibi? - I love him; he's one of us. - What, a Jew? - No, a U.S. Zionist.
In 1971, Don Trump first tried to negotiate large construction projects in Manhattan [72]. By 1973, the Department of Justice accused him of violating the Fair Housing Act at 39 of his properties [73].
The government prosecuted Trump because his corporation quoted different rental terms and conditions and made false "no vacancy" statements to Black applicants for apartments it managed in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island [74].
Sleazy attorney Roy Cohn, representing Trump, filed a baseless countersuit against the government for $100 million (to make a splash in the media), asserting that the charges were "irresponsible and baseless" [73, 75]. This countersuit failed [76], but it served to boost Trump's image and esteem for corrupt Cohn.
Hi, I'm Don. Meet Mini Me, Roy. - No, you're Mini Me, dummy!
So Trump -- as Cohn taught him -- settled the charges out of court in 1975, saying he was satisfied that the agreement did not "compel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant" [73].
The Trump corporation was required to send a bi-weekly list of vacancies to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and give the league priority for certain locations [74].
He-he, yeah, I did biz with Trump
By 1978, the Trump Organization was again taken to court for violating terms of the 1975 settlement; Cohn called the new charges "nothing more than a rehash of complaints by a couple of planted malcontents." So Trump denied the charges [74, 76, 77], following the Cohn teaching to deny deny deny and delay delay delay, cutting a corrupt deal later rather than going to court.
While representing Trump, Cohn started representing Italian American mobster Anthony Salerno, who along with other Mafia members controlled the concrete unions in New York. Cohn is alleged to have introduced Salerno to Trump, which later led to Salerno's aiding Trump in the construction of Trump Tower by providing concrete at reduced prices [78].
In Trump's ghostwritten 1987 book The Art of the Deal -- which was wholly Cohn's idea and project, asking a favor of a publishing company to create it by someone else to give Trump a boost as a competent businessman, which Trump later parlayed into the TV show The Apprentice.
Trump in writing said, "[of] all the hundreds of 'respectable' guys who made careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty….What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite" [all loyalty and no integrity] [79].
Trump, who was a good student learning from his Jewish mentor, is often described as having abandoned closeted gay hypocrite Cohn once he found out that Cohn was dying of AIDS.
A version of this view of "Roy Trump" (aka "Donald Cohn") is summed up in a remark attributed to Roy Cohn: "Donald pisses ice water."
You gotta support all Zionists no matter what
In the tell-all book American Scoundrel (2026), researchers Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark argue that this is only partly accurate. Citing Chris Seymour, a switchboard operator at Cohn's Manhattan law firm, they write that Trump began to keep his distance and relied on Cohn less as a lawyer, the calls between them becoming fewer, but did not cut his gay best friend off completely.
[After all, if Trump was molesting children with Jewish super-spy and Zionist-asset for Israel Jeffrey Epstein, what would he care if his other Jewish mentor is a flamboyant gay hypocrite dying of AIDS as he outs, prosecutes, and ruins other gays?]
In fact, in March 1986, five months before Cohn's AIDS death, rich Trump hosted a farewell dinner for his beloved mentor Cohn at Mar-a-Lago.
Cohn was indicted three times in six years on various charges in the 1960s by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Robert Morgenthau. He got himself acquitted on all charges [8].
Cohn and fellow shady attorney Murray Gottesman were indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in September 1963, alleging that they had obstructed a federal investigation into allegations that Samuel S. Garfield and others defrauded United Dye and Chemical Corporation out of $5 million [51, 52]. On July 17, 1964, Cohn and Gottesman got themselves acquitted of all charges [53].
In January 1969, lawyer Cohn was again indicted for conspiracy, extortion, and blackmail. According to that indictment, Cohn had blackmailed some of the shareholders of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines into selling their shares, which led to the B.S.F. Company (a holding company headed by Victor Muscat) taking control of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines's bus routes [54]. Judge Inzer Bass Wyatt dismissed the blackmail charge against Cohn [55] and lucky Cohn was acquitted [56].
Did all the indictments and near misses slow Cohn down or make him question his life choices? No, like his protege Trump, they only invigorated him and pushed him to ethically dubious and criminal activity until he died prematurely.
(Gubba Homestead) Sept. 1, 2026: The doctor who invented the cloudbuster [atmospheric manipulator, not rainmaker] died while in a federal prison for contempt, and the court ordered his research and books was burned.
His name was Wilhelm Reich, a physician and psychoanalyst who spent decades studying what he called "orgone" energy, a force (orgastic potency) he believed moved through living things and the atmosphere.
Dr. Reich designed arrays of hollow metal pipes connected to water and pointed them at the sky. He claimed they could shift atmospheric conditions, dissipate clouds, and even bring rain.
Conspiracy theorist, IG grifter?
(Lea's Off-Grid Perspective) Queen of the Instagram Homesteaders fake?
Do beings have an aura?
In 1953, blueberry growers in Maine paid Dr. Reich after rain followed one of his experiments.
In the mid-1950s, he ran the same tests in the Arizona desert.
Then the FDA came for his medical device orgone accumulators, a federal court issued an injunction, and quantities of his publications were destroyed by burning under court order. He died in detention in 1957.
Gubba has been running her own backyard version of Dr. Reich's work:
copper pipes in the garden,
a gravel basin with water,
blackberries and strawberries responding on the copper side,
skies clearing after wildfire smoke, and
posts about her personal experiences getting flagged and hidden (ghost blocked, censored) online.
Back in August we asked the question, What will be the hit song of summer 2026? There are a few contenders, and the race is very close, but it would seem to be Tame Impala's "Dracula" (Jennie remix), which is still going strong. But still, in the office, we prefer "Lobotomize Me" by Rat Utopia!
Given the exigencies and erratic demands of the music industry nowadays, it is essential that one hit song be pushed to the top of the pop charts to rule each summer. A pop idol's shelf life could depend on it, or it might make an up and comer's career. This summer is tough because there's no obvious frontrunner. Taylor Swift? Yawn. Olivia Rodrigo has a new album, a new festival (Daisy Chain Fields), and everything she's done in the past has been so promising, but a runaway hit?
Who can win the music biz war battle by battle?
Not to our ears, not this time, not even "drop dead" or "the cure." Does it have to be a new song? Technically not because SAINt JHN had "Roses" due to a remix that went viral on TikTok or Instagram or my littler sister's cellphone and dance class. We used to be able to rely on Lana Del Rey to kick out the summer jams.
LYRICS: Party on the sand/ Bring your van/ Tan girls, macho fools/ Fun!/ Punk outing, people shouting/ Lots of fun/ Drugs and sun/ Fun! [CHORUS:] Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ We're having the fun, wasted in the sun/ Purple boards, short hair/ We're outnumbered and we don't care// The hippies, they hate us/ We take their chicks/ They beat us up/ They're still the dicks/ Dicks!/ Surf punks, we're not/ Skateboard, we do/ We have the fun/ We're the new crew/ Crew! [Chorus]
(Aubrey Hobert) I have a new song, guys! It's out Aug. 7, 2026!
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