BS: Cargo Cult US

Subject: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 02:18 PM

Shades of "Guns, Germs & Steel"!

Billboard Leads Michigan in Prayer for restored economy

Sort of reminds me of the time on Star Trek when rational Spock made the rational decision to execute an act of desperation.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 02:24 PM

This is the kind of spirit America really needs -- more innovation, ingenuity from the private sector, a cool, optimistic analysis of the real factors, and a LOT of better putters.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:00 PM

be cheaper (and more environmental) to install one of them Buddist prayer wheels beside the road.....every driver could slow down & spin it. I'm sure any divine being worth his salt would rather have that than more billboards.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:18 PM

"In God we trust" translates as "Gawd help us".....

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: bobad
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:40 PM

Seems to me this guy is mistaking spirituality for consumerism.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:43 PM

I recall a book I liked very much as a youth: "God Is My Co-Pilot". I developed my own take on things: You should trust in the Lord, but you shouldn't rely on the Lord.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 07:54 PM

The page's banner ad is all about luxury.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 12:34 AM

More like an esCargo cult U.S. as I see it from here! ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: robomatic
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 01:07 AM

As in we're so slow in the States we're likely to get eaten . . .
. . . by the French?

not quite the point I thought I was making...

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 03:51 AM

I have an idea - how avbout wind-powered prayer wheels so us lazy folks don't have to do anything except watch the prayers go round and round?

Naw.,,just kidding.

I think that guy's thinking is that as people see it and read it, each 'reading' is in effect, a prayer. It sure beats the billboards with mutilated fetuses that are all over Flordia, Georgia and Alabama. The only thing I don't like is it seems to have a subtle anti-union message to it. Some dude who went to college on an athletic scholarship who manufactures luxury goods thinks we need to ask God to get Michigan to stop relying on the Auto Industry? Now, that's not too suspect. (wink wink)

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 03:11 PM

more snailmail !

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 04:13 PM

IF we don't clam up we'll be accused of being a buncha Escargot Cult slugabeds.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 05:44 PM

I think that I shall never see
A Billboard , lovely as a tree
In fact , unless the Billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all!

                            Ogden Nash

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 07:22 PM

Of course if you're into prayer wheels, the whole planet is a prayer wheel. As is the Solar System, the Galaxy, and every atom in the universe...

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 07:30 PM

Good point, McGrath. Now we've got THAT sorted -- all possible prayers are on full auto and no user intervention is needed. Now we can get on to technology.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 09:46 PM

I actually won first place in a poem competition with:

I think that I shall never see
A poem as bad as Kilmer's TREES.
So here I leave the rhyme scheme of that horrid verse
In hopes that never e're shall I be known to write
A poem that's any worse.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: M.Ted
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 08:36 PM

I just got back from Michigan, and, since I passed through the Ann Arbor area, I saw a number of these amusing things--the problem being that, for all the claims that this guy makes about being a a marketing whiz, he doesn't know the " seven words " rule about billboards, and, as a consequence, no one is able to read what he has to say--

As born and bred Michigander, I have always thought that that the economy is bad because Michigan entrepeneurs, like this clown, tend to ignore the basic principles of marketing and just do what ever ding-dong thing pops into their heads--

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 10:31 AM

...and keep your powder dry.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Entertainers have all the vices of politicians, and none of the excuses. :||

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 10:00 AM

"Of course if you're into prayer wheels, the whole planet is a prayer wheel. As is the Solar System, the Galaxy, and every atom in the universe... "

Not if there is no intent.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 10:02 AM

In the panhandle of Texas, Amarillo, there is a well known, very wealthy, well, nutter. I've heard stories about him from several locals. Among his eccentricities is a penchant for putting up signs with his own devisements. One person had a picture of a sign painted over with full lips and proclaiming: "You can always find one woman to save you from another." This was on an American style 'stop sign' only posted in the backyard of the house, with permission.

Many years ago I had been driving across this part of Texas and seen a billboard so unusual I had stopped to take a phot of it. If this thread survives I'll find and post or recite the words when I find the photo. It was colorfully loony, and obviously wasn't selling anything. On hearing these tales I realized that Amarillo fello must be the source.

The same guy is behind the buried automobiles with their tail ends sticking out known as Cadillac Ranch

However, crazy as he is, he is not beseeching the Lord for rescue.

I return to the well known saying: "The Lord helps those who help themselves" and the tale of the man of faith who had waited too long for faith-based intervention during a flood only to be told that heaven had sent "a rescue team, a rescue truck, a rescue boat".

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: GUEST,Paranoid Android
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 10:19 AM

Now don't y'all go KNOCKING this religious thing. Have any of you ever been to Lourdes or Knock (Co. Mayo, Ireland.) Divine intervention created tourist industries in these otherwise deserted locations. Mr. Johnston should "arrange" a saintly apparation and the sky is the limit after that.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: bobad
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 10:24 AM

Ah yes, the marriage of heaven and hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 11:05 AM

Hey, take it easy on the Cadillac Ranch! They just painted them all pink in support of Breast Cancer research.

Prayer wheels come in all forms. This one is water driven. There are electric ones also. Lots more here.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 11:19 AM

Not if there is no intent.

Ah but "if you're into prayer wheels" surely implies intent?

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 11:55 AM

"I believe there are three human dimensions: mental, physical and spiritual,'' said Johnson. "Michigan has exhausted the mental and physical. Maybe we should look at the spiritual.''

Mr Johnson is dead right. The USA and the World in general have largely exhausted the physical and mental abilities of human beings in their search for happiness, and MUST work through the spiritual avenues now.

That's not an exclusively Christian concern, though. Mr Johnson probably is a Christian, so he sees it through that cultural mode. It is a concern that transcends religious identities.

If I may explain briefly:

You can organize a society toward physical and mental ends...which will take you a long way...but...it will always end up being concerned with money and material rewards of one type or another. In the absence of Love (and that is all that true spirituality IS)...the mere pursuit of money and material rewards will end in exhausting the physical environment and exhausting people psychologically. It will ruin both Man and Nature and create a disaster. We have seen that happening plainly for centuries now.

Love, in its full sense, is that impulse which loves ALL of life, not just the girl or guy next door, not just your family, not just your party, not just your community, not just your country...but ALL of life.

Love regards all of Life as sacred and of equal value. Love ensures that any decision or course of action benefits ALL, not just a selected few. Love does not compete, it does not divide, it does not separate, it cooperates toward mutual goals which benefit everybody. Love does not judge or condemn. Love does not punish. It does not attack. Love is not cruel or greedy. Love does not show favoritism or prejudice. Love gives all to all, and by giving, receives.

And THAT is exactly what is needed to rescue human society now. That is a spiritual solution. There are a million practical ways of applying it, all of them based on helping EVERYONE, not just someone.

You don't need an organized religion to practice Love. You don't even need a "God" concept to relate to. You just need an open heart, allied with a clear and inspired mind and a willing body. That's spirituality in action.

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 02:07 PM

As if, even if there was a 'Ghad', he'd give a flying rats ass about the 'American Economy'....

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 03:12 PM

Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Clinton--You apparently don't know that worldly success God's reward for inner virtue--That's why the religious right support tax breaks for the wealthy--

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 05:34 PM

"worldly success is God's reward for inner virtue"

That's typical of the self-serving thinking indulged in by ego-driven people in the social elite who know all about "religion" (at least their brand of it) and precious little about spirituality.

If there was a "God", he would, by definition, care about everything, Clinton. Why? Because he would be connected with everything. That's why it says in the Bible that "even the sparrow's fall is noted". Since everything emanates from God, God is involved in everything. It can't BE otherwise if God is what God is reputed to be in virtually every sacred tradition: omnisicent and omnipresent.

God is in you, Clinton! ;-) Whaddya think about that?

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 05:40 PM

" God is in you, Clinton! ;-) Whaddya think about that?"

Show me ONE single scrap of evidence....

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 06:49 PM

Little Hawk:

God WANTS you to prosper; he wants you to have all the good material things money can buy!! He WANTS you to enjoy massage bathtubs and EZ_Boys with built in headphones and large remote controls and wall-size TVs and huge, leather-lined automobiles which can go for ten miles on a single gallon of gasoline.

WHY does God want you to have all this? Because He wants to REWARD you for your spiritual purity. That is too obvious!! Isn't this plain? He knows class when he sees it!

Whassamadda you?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Cargo Cult US
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 07:29 PM

Ha! Well, I'm thinkin' on that, Amos, I'm thinkin'...

I think what God really wants (if anything) is for us to be happy. So...I am happy. So I guess God is giving me what I need to be happy, so I must be on the right track, eh?

Now if God were just giving me what I want, I would've been having a torrid affair with Winona Ryder all through the 90's! And that might not have necessarily led to happiness...

See what I'm sayin'?

Who CARES about the leather-lined automobiles anyway? My father had those, and it didn't make him happy. ;-)

Clinton. You want evidence? Well, okay. You are energetic and conscious, right? I think of God as the source and actual living Being and Presence of all energy and consciousness. Therefore, God is in you.

Besides, you haven't been lynched by an angry mob yet, and that clinches it! ;-)