Todd Bentley is sometimes sarcastically called ‘Fraud Bentley’ by the more discerning critics and for so many good reasons. From what I can gather, the ‘long-story-short’ on Todd is that he claimed to have come out of some sort of hardcore life of prison and gangs, converted to a born-again life and was called to a Ministry endowed with amazing gifts of healing, prophecy, wrestling moves and even the ability to resurrect the dead. At some point, Todd Bentley bumped around with Charismatic Catholicism during which time he claims to have been possessed by demons (lots of them) and eventually found his way into the whole Third Wave, Joels Army, Miracle Channel, Kingdom Now, Dominionism, Five-Fold Apostolic movements. (Its like identifying the shapes in a Lava Lamp with these people sometimes).  Todd starts his own Ministry (Fresh Fire) where he preaches and evengelises and eventually hangs with Bob Jones and Patricia King and recently was invited to speak at some sort of Revival Meetings in Florida, USA. Now thats when Todd’s ministry powers and healings ‘blow up big time’ and Todd becomes the centre of what was called the ‘Florida Outpouring’ which is a way of saying his stage show was seeing a high volume of allegedly supernatural healings, signs and wonders. GodTV starts running these day and night as Bentley’s performances become increasingly bizarre - Todd throws ‘Holy Spirit’ like it were an object and namely a weapon, shouting “BAM!” as he struts his self-satisfying power about the stage. Todd screams the new tallies from ‘Resurrected Dead List’, a man with stomach cancer is violently kneed in the guts by Todd and in another case he boasts of how he kicked a woman right in the face as she stood at the end of the stage, another man violently ‘body-checked’ to be sent flying. Welcome to the Ultimate Fighter Championship of Faith-Healing! Its really hard to imagine Todd is capable of such strengths as he is just about the pudgiest man with the slimmest little arms and legs and small frame but then carrying what appears to be about 90% body fat. So I suppose any 300 lb man in his 30’s could very well beat up cancer patients and old ladies. That doesn’t mean he should. Todd claims God instructs him to assault people.

Todd is what you might call a ‘Poser’ or a ‘Wannabe’ anyways. Recall Todd claims for himself some hard time in prison. This might give you the impression of a hardened tough-guy who was running about with some of the roughest gangs. Nope. Todd was probably in segregation to keep Gangs away from him.  Todd was in Custody as a youth after he sexually molested a younger boy and in another incident its said he assaulted his own Mum. Honestly, I do accept Todd’s explanation and justification but I just resent he wears the ‘Street-cred’ of a ‘Gangsta’ when, in fact, he was in Juvey and likely segregated for his own safety for disturbing sexual assaults and not for his ‘thug life’ lifestyle he alleges to have lived. You might notice Todd has tattoo’s all over his body and some may recognise a few that are specifically ‘gang tats’ as well as a few others that are by style and location known to be prison tattoos. They are not Gang or Prison tattoos though. In fact Todd’s biker gear, tattoos, piercings are all fairly recent accessories he bought long after he became a Christian and even long after becoming a Minister. Honestly, I don’t really care that he does have tattoos but I find it annoying he chose to get inked so as to ‘appear’ to have earned them back in his hardcore gang lifestyle which didn’t exist anyways. I know why he did this, of course - it gives him much more ‘church-cred’ with the charismatic crowds who see the worse and more deplorable pre-conversion lifestyle as making one even more miraculous of a salvation. It insinuates he received some sort of ‘extra spirit-filling’ so to speak. I might just mention something here - I know something about Motorcycle Clubs in the Vancouver area. Todd wouldn’t last 10 seconds.

Anyways, I promised to make that a long-story-short and so lets ‘cut to the chase’ and be happy to report that Todd Bentley was quickly criticized and held up to the light by Christians just as fast as Geraldo could jump on it. Not just CRI either but it warmed my heart to see so many in the online Christian community boldly call this nonsense for what it was. It might have carried on a bit longer but low and behold there turned out to be another reason why Todd was forced to disappear from the stage. Adultery. It seems that Todd had decided that his disabled wife and children were less interesting than another woman in his company. Interestingly, the affair has been described as ‘emotional adultery’ but one in which Todd and his mistress (a former Nanny to the Bentleys no less) are unwilling to give up. Divorce proceedings go into effect. Todd insists that his marriage was already irreconcilable regardless of the new lady in his life. Patricia King and all the other Prophets are still able to get revelations about masturbation or that some people will find a dime on the ground in a given year  - but didn’t get tipped off about the inevitable shame and adulterous affairs about to bare in those ‘chosen prophets’ right beside them? Fascinating, sad, disturbing and once again I don’t need to reinvent the wheel on Todd Bentley criticisms when there are just so many excellent online critiques and articles on this whole mess that attempted (with limited success) a mockery of Christianity:

•  Bezel calls out the main problem with Bentley - Its all about ‘glory’ and barely a mention of Christ Crucified.
•  CRS has a mega-video documentation page!
•  CRS extensive Bentley Article Archive.

My Optimist Spin:  Maybe the good news in all this is that Christians (as a Body) were fairly quick to call BS and apply some sort of discernment even if it was on the most obvious false gospel to spot in the first place. Of course, we should be serious to pray Todd comes to his senses, repents and especially pray for his family to come through these hard times. I shouldn’t be happy about people he hurt but I am happy it led to the end of the counterfeit Christianity.

In Part One of ‘The Secret is Poison’ we pretty much just described what is presented in the film ‘The Secret’ and hopefully by now you won’t feel the need to spend any money on it. It asserts there is a ‘Universal Law of Attraction’ and whatever you want and desire can ‘come to you’ by way of simply thinking about it. There is little else to it.

So the first thing I want to do is explain why ‘The Secret’ can accidentally appear to be ‘working’ but its nothing to do with you desiring wealth, happiness or a Universe granting it to you but rather a beneficial side-effect of ‘not’ doing something - namely, when you do not allow negative thinking you can and will experience more alertness, better timing, more energy and often a renewed attitude ideal for taking advantage of new opportunities, working harder and better and being more attractive to others. Let me put it to you with this analogy - imagine someone asks their Physician for some magic formula that can increase their health. The Doctor instructs them to go to the local pool, toss in a handful of pennies, dress like a duck and while quacking out loud, they should dive to the bottom of the pool and collect a coin each time. A few months later the patient is delighted to report they have increased strength and stamina… proof that the duck costume and magic pennies worked? No. The fact is that the patient’s health actually did improve because they were not sitting about eating sweets but instead were exercising their muscles with swimming. Maybe that wasn’t the ideal analogy but it was fun to write and communicates the very real idea that by simply ‘not thinking pessimistically’ you are gaining increased energy, alertness and renewed spirit and confidence…. the duck suit that is the ‘desiring wealth and love’ is not why you are getting more done, thinking clearer and making better choices. Its actually good old cognitive discipline. Simply training yourself to be optimistic while not allowing pessimism is the key. Again, benefits you enjoy are because of your refreshed state of mind and body but certainly not because a ‘Universal Force’ is obeying your commands.

The next thing I would explain would be the ’seemingly convincing’ testimonies that ‘The Secret Sellers’ would give to you with all the same credibility as would your daily horoscope. Statistical probability in its simplest form will have it that, at any given time, as many people who practice ‘The Secret’ will also happen to be receiving wealth, health and happiness in this life. If the economy is on a big upswing for upper-middle class families than just as many who are practicing ‘The Law of Attraction’ will also (coincidently) be experiencing an upswing. Its not because they were ‘attracting wealth’ by some wonderful power of their own willpower but more likely because oil revenues went one way and interest rates another. Just as it will for as many of their economic neighbours who are not practicing ‘The Secret’.  Its just as likely some poor bastard in another part of the economy lost out for what was gain to another.

This gets us all the way down to the Poisonous Secret and why it can and will destroy individual lives but also why it is a poisonous attitude for all of society. Recently, a young woman came to me very distraught. The problem was ‘The Secret’ and having bought into this idea she had been training herself to think of money, an expensive Jeep and money. At first she was thinking about money and Jeeps all the time but eventually she was even ’speaking out loud’ about the money and the Jeep. Unfortunately she had lost her job and her financial situation was becoming increasingly worse. The Secret wasn’t working and the only possible explanation she had was that she wasn’t ‘desiring hard enough’. Doubling her efforts led her down the road to the worst possible conclusion - obsessive thinking. Like night follows the day, Obsessive thinking brought on all manner of anxiety and exhaustion. While she should have been concentrating (not obsessing but careful thinking) on debt repayment or job opportunities, she would quickly put aside those ‘negative thoughts’ and again concentrate harder on visualising more cash and newer vehicles which would never appear. You see here is the ‘inverse’ logical consequence of the ‘Law of Attraction’ because if all the wealth, health and happiness you attain is because of your ‘desire’ and ability to call it into your existence… …then so too all of the poverty, debt, sickness and misfortune you receive a result of your own doubtful and negative thinking. Indeed, everyone who is poor, diseased and unlucky is to blame for their situation. Our girl had invested in this contradicting belief system and as a consequence was obsessing over desires that would not pan out as promised and were to be corrected by more obsessive desiring.. lusting, obsessing which again were contradicted by the lack of production. This, according to Secret Sellers was her own fault. It may seem like a downturn in her field and her lack of seniority put her on the unemployment line but it was her, she did it, her own thinking (or lack of desire) was to blame. She reasoned that something inside her must be wrong, her very mind must be broken, she must have lost the will to desire. In fact, The Secret sets up its successful students to become as smug and superior as humanly possible and allay any sense of social responsibility to they may have for the poor, the needy, the economically disadvantaged, who, by following the logic, are responsible for their own state of affairs. In fact, you may well loan the homeless man your copy of the DVD and inform him he must ‘desire a home’ and should you see him a few years later, still living in a box… wash your hands of it because, after all, you did give him everything he needed for wealth, health and happiness. If he has not attracted it then its entirely his own blame now. He must want to live like that.

Sometimes when i write big rambling articles like this I later learn I did not need to re-invent the wheel when better articles already exist on the interweb. For a truly brilliant deconstruction visit Terry Melanson’s page.

It’s called the The Secret and it’s a ‘documentary’ being touted by Oprah, hyped on Larry King, and promoted by Olivia Newton-John. It is supposedly a way to get yourself money, wealth, power, sex, health, and, I gather, revenge upon your enemies, a solid gold jetcar and, if you’re like any of the sickos promoting this evil mentality, lots of praise and worship, too. And it’s not just some New Age bullshit repackaged in DVD Oprah-friendly form; it’s an evil philosophy already ruining the lives of many of those deceived by its claims. What are those claims? What is the Great Secret and how come it can inadvertently work on some while ‘rightfully’ ruining others?

Lets review the The Secret DVD: marketed as one of the greatest teaching tools available to mankind, it fiercely fires up on your screen with all the production values and soundtrack you might expect from a Da Vinci Code theatrical trailer. Enter none other than Olivia Newton-John, exhausted, distraught, in mourning, and hiking through the sweltering heat of the Australian sun as if she had been wandering the desert for ages, crying out into the wilderness. I assume a parallel is being drawn to John the Baptist, minus the life of fame and fortune made possible by an inherently beautiful appearance and abundance of talent. Anyway, Ms. Newton-John is then quick-edited to where she has discovered the Great Secret of Mankind in an expensive chest she keeps in her home! She knows The Secret has been established throughout history, as we are then shown by virtue of dramatic re-enactments. It seems great armies have marched into Egypt only to have The Secret hidden away, later found by Crusaders and given to Roman Catholic Bishops who then give it to… maybe the Pope… (at this point the words “it has been coveted” appear on screen). Eventually, someone who might be William Blake and/or some enlightened 18th century scientist is seen scurrying away with The Secret as a frenzied mob descends upon his home. Finally, we see the dreadful scene (cue metallic thuds as background noise) of a smoky conference room where a table full of rich old white men puff cigars. A CEO grimaces as he looks at a piece of paper in front of him, then up at a tableful of smugly affirming faces. A typewriter then fires off the following sentence “The Secret will never be made known to the public…”.

Now we come back to Olivia, who explains how many people have known about this; some of the greatest people in history such as Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Hugo, Beethoven, Lincoln, Edison, Emerson, and Einstein. As exhilarating choirs trounce to a climactic fury, she throws her head back and exclaims “Why doesn’t anyone know about this?!” She begins to search the Internet to find great people alive today who know The Secret too - lo and behold, the faster she types, the faster they emerge, starting with Bob Proctor who informs us that The Secret gives you everything you could ever want - happiness, health, and wealth.” Bob Vitale also appears to inform you that you can have, do, or be anything you want. Wow. John Assaraf is next, saying, “We can have anything we choose, no matter how big”. The list of holy Renew-age ‘prophets’ continues, including who might be the most insecure and over-compensating of them all, Reverend Doctor Michael Beckwith D.D., whose already audacious title is topped with the description Visionary by the producers. The bottom line is that all these great modern masters of humanity are in agreement - The Great Secret of Life can give you money and everything you ever lusted.. err.. desired.

GAD, ELPROXIMO - GET TO THE SECRET ALREADY!

Bob Proctor (the ‘pastoral’ Grandfather of the Secret-Sellers) explains that we are all guiding our own lives by very specific Universal Laws; he explains their exact nature by the fact that we could calculate the Moon Landing touchdown within seconds. OK. So now you know there is a very exact Universal Law and that we all work by it - it’s the Law of Attraction. Apparently, everything you get in your life you get because it is attracted to you, and it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you hold in your mind. It’s what you are thinking - that’s The Secret and the Babylonians knew it. Proctor demands to know: why do we think 1% of the world owns 96% of the wealth? Do we think that’s an accident? It’s no accident, dummy…a flashback to the rich old white men in a boardroom confirms this! Obviously, the explanation is that they think hard about wealth and therefore the Universe gave it to them by nature of the Law of Attraction. John Assaraf puts it this way: “Think of your imagination as a magnet attracting whatever it focuses on.” Dooley appears with the ‘kiss principle’ for you, which is three simple words: thoughts - become - things.

Cue pseudoscience: Assaraf explains that we (whoever that is) can now measure thoughts (computers and graphs shown) and that these thoughts have frequencies. Special effects show people lusting for a car, boat, lottery winning, or life companion and a sort of shock wave emanates from them, presumably into the Universe. And it always works; it works every time with every person. The only problem is that most people are not enlightened yet and think about what they don’t want, and therefore that is what they get - over and over again. Next we see some loser getting a ticket on his vehicle… ahhhh… he was thinking about how he did NOT want to get a ticket for parking illegally and so he did for that very reason alone! If you focus on how badly you do not want to be late for work - you are calling those construction workers into existance! If you focused on some expensive jewelry you want - you can send ’shockwaves’ at the item and later it will be given to you by the Universe (via a boyfriend) and thats you - you did that. You made it reality! Bill Harris weighs (with ‘Chakras diagram behind him) in now to give us proof positive of this Principle by way of an email account provided to him online (clearly factual) and it involves a man horribly bullied and ridiculed by workmates, beaten up by Homophobes at every block and booed and assualted whenever he attempted his standup comedy. Our real-life victim then proceeded to ‘think of what he wanted’ and amazingly it not only stopped but he became popular and received standing ovations! PROOF! Look, since we have a lot of thoughts and cannot possibly keep conscious track of them - we can really use our feelings as a ‘feedback mechanism’. Basically your feelings are your guide and so in that sense if you are feeling ‘bad’ then you will get more bad events - just like the Poor who, because they feel bad about being poor (because they think about being so poor) then they become poorer. Conversely the rich make themselves richer by feeling good (because of thinking good) and therefore attract more wealth. Now our Presentation is wrapping up with the simple and joyous conclusion we are reaching now that we know the Giant Secret - Your thoughts and feelings create your life. You are the ‘Deliberate Creator of your Life’ and you can get stuff that makes you feel good by simply using the Universe - its that bloody simple. Guru Jack Canfield attests that once he started using The Secret he has attained a life you only dream of and he lives daily - a 4.5 million dollar mansion, a wife to die for (she is thin and blonde!) and he gets to take vacations and safaris. The Law of Attraction: Think about what you want and the Universe will give it to you. Done. No need to get into the continuing metaphysics about the positive ‘vibrations’ you manifest or the highly conjectured quantum physics ‘cited’ as confirmation. You have The Giant Great Secret of Mankind and Life.

That Concludes Part One.

Something fun for today…a Christian response to the sensational magic and illusion of Criss Angel, a.k.a. ‘Mindfreak’:

Criss Angel’s New Rival

Miracle Channel Founder Dick Dewart has resigned in disgrace after it was revealed he had been carrying on a three-year adulterous affair with another man’s wife. It might be tempting (for me) to find some perverse joy seeing the ringleader of hokey and deviant doctrines getting caught with his pants down, but the scandal is actually one of the least problematic things to come out of The Miracle Channel, namely, bizarre doctrines, New-Age mumbo-jumbo and a cavalcade of foolish preachers. A most curious aspect of the adultery scandal was the failure of its ‘Apostles’ and ‘Extreme Prophets’ to spot Dewert’s ’secret sin’ and to thereby protect TMC from the fallout. Funny thing: their ‘Prophets’ have the keen ability to detect ‘the sin of masturbation’ among their members (particularly troublesome ones), but a long term affair going on amidst them went under their psychic radars…

Dick and Joan Dewert have been described as the ‘Paul and Jan Crouch’ of Canada’s ‘TBN North’ and this is because The Miracle Channel is essentially a Canadian version/outlet/rebroadcast for most of the same Word-Faith, and Dominionist teachers, preachers and ‘prophets’ coming out of TBN in the USA. While Miracle Channel does supply many homegrown Word-Faith teachers, Prosperity Gospelites and a good collection of New Apostles, Prophets and Healers, for the most part they all hold to the same aforementioned deviant christian theologies. Prosperity Gospel and Supernatural powers - what could be more appealing!

The problem is that Miracle Channellers (and that’s the word for it) tout the Dewerts as nothing short of new apostles on Earth - not only specially ‘anointed’ but having the power and authority to ‘transfer anointing’ and to reward those who invest in their deeds. Among the Dewerts are a selection of ‘Prophets’ (also of the highest ranks) able to ‘prophecy’ peoples ’secret sins’ and therefore protect their Dominionist plans to take over the world for Christ. Oops… doesn’t look like they are ready to take over Canada ‘for Christ’ quite yet. Way to go TMCers; by merit of your owning teachings, you are keeping Jesus from returning.

On a related note: no sooner did the scandal hit and questions about the prophecy failure arise did I receive a ridiculous ‘testimony’ from a wannabe prophet retrofitting claims that he had ’sensed’ something wrong with Dick Dewart and that strange events such as accidental fires on the set would occur around Dick. The concept was that presumably God (working through this mans presence) was giving ‘warnings’. OK. Sure. Leave it to The Miracle Channelers to exploit the situation for their own ‘Prophet Cred’.

I do have a large number of posts coming up this week but it is best never to neglect the Self Help posts for those of us looking to eliminate anxiety from our lives.

This week features a very simple and yet highly effective way to reduce a signifigant cause of anxiety - the ‘would-be’ conversation. This is the dialogue you run in your mind of either a previous conversation or, more often, a potential one.

Example: Laying in bed you are almost subconciously imagining what you might say to your boss the next morning. The various scenarios play out like film vignettes and you are, in essence, rehearsing what you will say, what his reactions might be, and the resulting consequences. The same pattern repeats whether the dialogue is between family, friends, romantic partners, or authority figures - a continuous loop of what could happen IF.

Simply begin observing your thoughts and note how often you are projecting would-be conversations. Notice how often you do this on nights where you cannot get to sleep. Notice how often you feel angry or agitated shortly after having these sorts of ‘trial’ dialogues in your mind. Once you realise that these are unhelpful thoughts and do not actually prepare you for any real conversations, you can stop them. This is simply a technique whereby you actively cut them off as soon as you realise you are having them. If helpful, distract your mind by humming a tune, thinking up a math equation or, if you are attempting to sleep, count sheep (I’m serious).

By training yourself to arrest these ‘rehearsal’ conversations or ‘what if’ conversations you will be amazed at how much anxiety disappears from your life. Even more amazingly, you may even perform better when a real-life spontaneous or planned conversation does occur. Better.

This is another one of those Tips that is seemingly so simple or trite that too many people miss the tremendous rewards it can give you.

Its often brought to my attention I have very poor sentence structure and this is inside the run-on sentences, improper page breaks and redundant and unnecessary words which are not necessary. If you have the ability to translate the previous sentence into something that would communicate the thought - but be easily read by english speaking people… then I need your help.

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Brass Balls Benedict has done it again. As a Lutheran, I can tell you that Benedict is without a doubt the most Luther-like Pope in Centuries (imho) and has been right off the starting line of his Inauguration . ‘The Hammer’ lived up to his reputation as a no-bullshit enforcer for the RC’s. Can you please just marvel at the sheer balls it took to make one of his first orders of business a ‘zero tolerance policy’ for any homosexuality in the Priesthood ? Gigantic balls, I tell you. From there, he pretty much went on a mitre-wielding beatdown on pussy Catholicism and he all but named names - including so many Canadian RCs who were endorsing same-sex marriages or abortions (the fashionable thing to do in their dictatorship of relativism). Oh, and remember those colourful robes and hats the Popes used to wear before insincere critics pretended they were offended by the show of wealth? Well, Benedict is not only wearing them again but he took the top down on his Popemobile, too. Representin’, as the kids say. For that matter, nothing is too small for the Benedictinato, who woke up one day and eliminated Bingo from RC church basements across the planet. That’s how he rolls. A more substantial day of shit disturbing for Big Bad Ben is when he decided it was time to remind Muslims they follow Muhammed’s religion of death and, after dropping that IED beside the road, he merely had to sit back and watch them prove it. Then what does Brass Balls do next? Despite the Koran’s requirement that a good Muslim would want to kill the Pope, Benedict still goes to Islamic Turkey (despite the would-be assassin of Pope John begging him not to) and after that balls-out tour reminds everyone that Islam’s Koran is still ‘insufficient’ after all. But wait, because it gets even better: this week Benedict decided to surprise everyone with a zesty little article in which he effectively called Evolutionism out of its untouchable status and into the level playing field of debatable theory. To show he means business, he fired off a philosophical bunkerbuster stating correctly that ‘Naturalistic (a.k.a. Atheistic) Evolutionism’ is not only unscientific but indeed foolish. Score. Benedict continues to be brilliant in that he does not disallow for Theistic Evolutionism (well DUH) but he leaves enough floor open for goofy Evofundies to claim an endorsement… or does he?: “The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science,” the pope said. “I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science,”. No worries; in reality, Benedict is not endorsing theistic evolutionism as much as he is enforcing theism (although allowing the former to be held in concordance with Roman Catholic beliefs only as long as you’re theistic), which brings your ‘evolution’ up to Adam and Eve (you would take it from there as scripture and church suppose). Naturally, this will ignite all sorts of philosophical and theological debate and, best of all, speed up the inevitable worldwide acceptance of ‘ID Theory’ which for all intents and purposes is only waiting now for the old guard naturalists to die off in the next decade or two. How long will it be before Evolutionism (as we know it) is entirely rewritten and replaced with a different and entirely acceptable theory? Not soon enough. But until then, Benedict might as well have nailed another thesis to the door of the Hall of Secularism: Atheism is Dead.

“A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end for a pleasant death. They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. ‘We have discovered happiness,’ say the Last Men, and they blink.” ~Nietzsche

The Premise: In the near future, the world is infertile and aging societies begin to fall apart politically as well as practically. The tagline: No children, no future, no hope… but, then again, is it a new beginning? The movie features superb attention to the subtle implications of the scenario, well-rounded plotlines, and some of the most frightfully realistic action scenes ever made. Clive Owen is solid as the Protagonist, Michael Caine is memorable in this ‘John Lennon at 70′ role, and the directing style of Alfonso Cuaron is most refreshing. See Children of Men and know that it is this generation’s Bladerunner (or anti-Bladerunner as Cuaron calls it).

Trivia: Look for animals kept as ’surrogate children’; what will be ‘future vintage gear’ such as an old London 2012 shirt or an old XM8 rifle (currently the latest technology); a clever Pink Floyd reference from ‘Animals’;the Abu Graib hooded prisoner in humiliating custody, and many more references to be spotted throughout.

Christian Worldview Rating:  None, really. Theism in any reference barely exists in this world with some brief and somewhat derogatory exceptions such as where Christians take to the streets declaring global infertility as God’s punishment for previous abortion rulings. A Hamas-type paramilitary shouts “Allah Akbar” in a funeral parade. Some references to God are made by some characters in pseudo-positive ways and there are pictures alluding to the story of Jesus’ Birth (the Infancy Gospel). Otherwise, you have the impression that this world is atheistic despite its impending fate. A thing called ‘The Human Project’ is mankind’s salvation in this world.

Lefty-Meter: There is a mitigated pro-leftist worldview; for example, it is established that immigration is good and just and that the military and nationalists trying to control the issue are downright evil thugs. On the other hand, it is also established that the leftist freedom fighters are entirely capable of being self-serving and equally destructive in their own right. On the whole, valid questions are asked of many different political worldviews even if a sort of secular progressive view emerges as the clear choice.

I don’t own many nice things. I don’t even own many things. Im not a pack-rat and I have done my best to simplify my collection of belongings. Even still, I am forever coming across weird stuff and have accumulated some interesting finds over the years. I now present to you the Minox Wetzlar ‘Spycam’. I’m told that this amazing little camera dates back to around 1955 and was featured in many of the old 60’s-style spy films. Honestly, it took me several hours to determine it was even a camera in the first place - I’m still finding secret compartments and functions within this miniature marvel of german engineering: slide-out flash bulb reflector, hair-trigger release compartments, some sort of focus meters, a genuine Moroccan leather carrying case, and a peculiar battery from the 60’s I’ve never seen before. The funniest thing is that I’m told the original owners guide offered glossy examples of photos you might take, such as a rather scantily clad burlesque dancer (that is, a stripper), which suggests that this was marketed towards the ‘upskirt voyeur’ of your Grandfather’s era - heh! I have no idea where to buy film for this but I’m serious when I tell you it is of such a lock-solid quality build that you will wonder why they don’t build digital cameras like this today. Weird Stuff I own.