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If The Ten Commandments Are Displayed In A Public Park, Why Not Display The Seven Aphorisms?

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Mike Bock

If a community accepts a gift of a large marker displaying The Ten Commandments, must it accept and display a gift of a marker with the tenets of a different religion?

The US Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that might decide the question. (Nina Totenburg of NPR, reports on the case.)

Shown Summum Bonum Amon Ra, aka, “Corky,” with the Seven Aphorisms.

The city of Pleasant Grove, Utah, contends that just because it erected a privately-donated Ten Commandments monument in its public park, it does not have to accept a monument from a little-known religious group called Summum espousing its principles.

Summum claims that its Seven Aphorisms, or principles, underlie creation and nature and were initially revealed to Moses, but that these aphorisms were so far beyond the understanding of their time that they became hidden knowledge passed on only to a select few who could understand them. The Ten Commandments, according to Summum, were a lower set of laws that Moses gave in place of the Seven Aphorisms.

Pleasant Grove’s Ten Commandments memorial sits in a secluded area that honors the city’s heritage. The monument has been on city property since the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated it in 1971.

In its lawsuit, Summum says, “The rights of plaintiff Summum are violated when the defendants give preference and endorsement to one particular set of religious beliefs by allowing the Ten Commandments monument to remain in a public park or in a forum within the public park supported by taxpayers and disallow a similar display of the religious tenets of Summum.”

Moses, aka, Charlton Heston, with his Ten Commandments

Moses, aka, Charlton Heston, with The Ten Commandments

The Summum organization is based in a pyramid and mausoleum complex designed by its founder, Mr. Corky Ra, in Salt Lake City. Inside the pyramid are the mummified remains of the members’ pets.

Mr. Ra founded the religion in 1975. He was 30 years old at the time. He lived a short life. In January of just this year, Ra passed away at the age of 63. Ra was born Claude Nowell, but in 1980 legally changed his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra. At the time of his death, according to his instructions, his body was sealed in a vat of mummification fluids and remained in the group’s Salt Lake City pyramid for six months. During the time of his mummification daily rituals were performed in the pyramid.

Ra claimed that in the 1970s he had an encounter with “advanced beings,” that enlightened him and helped guide him in forming the Summum religion. Summum is Latin for “the sum total of all creation.” Ra wrote a book called, “Summum: Sealed Except to the Open Mind”

An article in The Wall Street Journal quotes a religion scholar at California State University, Sarah Pike, as saying that beyond its Egyptian trappings, Summum is a “UFO religion” with some ideas borrowed from Mormonism, the religion into which Mr. Ra was born. They are “very much under the New Age umbrella, with an interest in Gnostic Christianity,” she says. “The use of crystals, beliefs in aliens or UFOs, meditation practice and the turn to ancient Egypt are common in other New Age religions.”

These are the Seven Aphorisms of Summum:

SUMMUM is MIND, thought; the universe is a mental creation.
As above, so below; as below, so above.
Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.
Everything is dual; everything has an opposing point; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes bond; all truths are but partial truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.
Everything flows out and in; everything has its season; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing expresses itself in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.
Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is just a name for Law not recognized; there are many fields of causation, but nothing escapes the Law of Destiny.
Gender is in everything; everything has its masculine and feminine principles; Gender manifests on all levels

Posted in Features, Special Reports | 6 Comments

In Exchange For Bail Out, Auto Makers Must Clean House — New Directors, Managers, Labor Contracts

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Mike Bock

Paul Ingrassia, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Detroit Auto Makers Need More Than a Bailout,says that in exchange for a bail out of Detroit auto makers, the government should insist that a completely new board of directors and new management replace the boards and managers currently in charge of the auto industry, and that all labor contracts be torn up and new ones made. Excerpts from his article:

Let’s assume that the powers in Washington — the Bush team now, the Obama team soon — deem GM too big to let fail. If so, it’s also too big to be entrusted to the same people who have led it to its current, perilous state, and who are too tied to the past to create a different future.
In return for any direct government aid, the board and the management should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible.
That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others, and downsizing the company. After all that, the company can float new shares, with taxpayers getting some of the benefits. The same basic rules should apply to Ford and Chrysler.
Giving GM a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake. The company would just burn through the money and come back for more. Even more jobs would be wiped out in the end.
The current economic crisis didn’t cause the meltdown in Detroit. The car companies started losing billions of dollars several years ago when the economy was healthy and car sales stood at near-record levels. They complained that they were unfairly stuck with enormous “legacy costs,” but those didn’t just happen. For decades, the United Auto Workers union stoutly defended gold-plated medical benefits that virtually no one else had. UAW workers and retirees had no deductibles, copays or other facts of life in these United States.
A thorough housecleaning at GM is the only way to give the company a fresh start. GM is structured for its glory days of the 1960s, when it had half the U.S. car market where they fix catalytic converter— not for the first decade of this century, when it has just over 20% of the market. General Motors simply cannot support eight domestic brands (Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, GMC, Saturn, Saab and Hummer) with adequate product-development and marketing dollars. Even the good vehicles the company develops (for example, the Cadillac CTS and Chevy Malibu) get lost in the wash.
If public dollars are the only way to keep General Motors afloat, as the company contends, a complete restructuring under a government overseer or oversight board has to be the price.
That is essentially the role played by the federal Air Transportation Stabilization Board in doling out taxpayer dollars to the airlines in the wake of 9/11. The board consisted of senior government officials with a staff recruited largely from the private sector. It was no figurehead.
Wiping out existing shareholders would end the Ford family’s control of Ford Motor. But keeping the family in the driver’s seat wouldn’t be an appropriate use of tax dollars. Nor is bailing out the principals of Cerberus, who include CEO Stephen Feinberg, Chairman John Snow, the former Treasury secretary, and global investing chief Dan Quayle, former vice president.

Posted in Special Reports | 1 Comment

Barack Obama, Student In Chief, Will Inspire Thoughtfulness, Vitalization of Our Democracy

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Mike Bock

John McCain, with the help of Joe the Plumber, ridiculed Obama for wanting to be “Redistributor in Chief,” and said that he, McCain, as president would be Commander in Chief.

Of course a president is in charge of the military, in charge of protecting the nation, but a president has even more vital roles he must perform.

After the election, I saw this headline, “Obama, must be ‘Educator in Chief,’” by Mitt Romney. I like that thought. Among the three choices — Redistributor, Commander, or Educator — Romney’s is best. I agree, a president should be an educator, a teacher.

One thing seems certain. If the children of today are to have any chance to get to old age like their grandparents, and to enjoy a peaceful and prosperous world, there is much, much work to be done. Right now, our future doesn’t look too good. This is surprising because, as a nation, we have great potential, great resources. As a democratic society we should be able to insure a great future for all of our citizens. But, we are failing to do so.

The turmoil in our finances, our threatened economy, our war in Iraq, I believe, are symptoms of what might be called a Systems Failure. The red lights are flashing: Our democracy is in trouble. Our democracy is not working as it should. Our democracy is in trouble.

The key to getting America to work as it should, is getting our democracy to work as it should. This will require making reforms in the system — like stopping gerrymandering — but it will require something much more difficult to achieve as well. For our democracy to work, as a nation, we need to rise to new levels of understanding and thoughtfulness. For our democracy to work, we need a citizenry that is better informed, more engaged, more thoughtful.

The leadership we need is one that models and inspires thoughtfulness.

To educate means to lead, to bring out — that which is best. A president who sees himself as a student, sees himself as a teacher, an educator, will add immensely to a culture of thoughtfulness, will add much to the vitalization of our democracy.

Barack Obama, Student in Chief, I’m betting, and hoping, will be a very effective president, a very effective Educator in Chief. As every good teacher does, I’m thinking that Obama will help bring out the best in us all.