Welcome to the blogosphere, Tammy Bruce

Tammy Bruce is a pro-abortion Democrat but she also is a Second Amendment defender and has written two excellent books (The Death of Right and Wrong & The New Thought Police) which are deadly accurate attacks on liberals whom she says are suffering from "malignant narcissism" and she is a lesbian who criticizes the gay subculture.

The Communist Cult

I haven't had time to blog this week because we had another one of "those weeks" at the RV park. I had to evict one tenant because I found out that she had stolen money from one of my elderly permanent tenants, a disabled man whom she conned.

Then the entire electrical circuit of one wing of the RV park blew out and we had to move tenants to other places so we could break up the paving and dig trenches to get to the electric wires. We then got a nasty surprise. The wires had not been put into a conduit and it would have been a waste of time to repair them. So we had to fill in the trenches and replace the paving and instead we have to run the wires overhead from poles. We dare not dig anymore because we could damage the underground water and sewer pipes.

But I've had time to read my favorite conservative blogs and have watched how viciously the commies have been attacking anyone who criticised Cindy Sheehan or the anti-war protests. The left is like a cult. I say that because I once was in a cult.

I lived in swinging London in the 60s and took lots of drugs especially pot and LSD which made me nuts. I stopped working in pharmacy and "dropped out, turned on and tuned in" as Tim Leary said I should. I discovered Hinduism and read Baba Ram Dass nee Richard Alpert's "book," Be Here Now, which seemed to explain a lot of the weird things that I had experienced on LSD. (I say "book" but I recently re-read it and it sure is a bunch of horse-whappy.)

Anyway, there I was twenty-something, nuts from drugs, miserable because I was so confused and lonely. By now I was a homeless hippie bum. Then a Hindu guru arrived from India in 1972. He was only 14, kind of cute, obviously happy and fun-loving. He said that he could give me peace of mind and joy if I did his meditation. So I learned how to meditate and, yes, it worked for me. I found inner peace and joy.

I also got hooked on the guru because he seemed to me to be the source of my bliss. For the next ten years I followed him all over the world. My only possessions were a backpack and a sleeping-bag. I worked odd jobs and gave all my money to the guru. The guru came to live in the USA so I followed him.

But something happened when I came to the USA. I started changing. In South Africa I had hated the apartheid culture and in the UK I had hated the class culture and had never fitted into either society. In the USA, I found that I did fit right in. I felt that I had always been a freedom-loving American. I started to enjoy the world just the way it is. I became happy. I went back to work in pharmacy and made lots of money and began to realise that I was a filthy capitalist pig not a hippie at all really. I used to love the hippies who were the devotees of the guru. I now began to see them as bums. My political views also changed (when I became a US citizen, I was thrilled to get a form letter form Ronald Reagan which I still have) but the guru's devotees were all Marxist/John Lennonist Utopianists. I drifted away from the guru and his devotees but I still did the meditation.

20 years later I had to have emergency surgery and was given a 50/50 chance of survival and in fact "died" on the operating table but was fortunately revived in time. The meditation helped me get through this ordeal. It gave me strength, took away my fear and let me accept with equanimity the fact that I might die.

When I recovered I wanted to know if the guru was still teaching the meditation because I felt that it could help people. So I tracked down my old guru and his devotees only to find that the guru had changed too. He was now grossly fat, stinking rich and completely corrupted. He was no longer interested in helping people to be happy but was running a money-making scam. He now controlled his devotees with fear and brainwashing. It was a cult and the devotees were pretty much all insane.

I discovered a website which criticised the guru. It was run by former devotees many of whom I had known in the past. By this time I had started to realise that most of the incredible experiences that I had with the guru were a product of my own faith and hope. But I now also found that the guru business, which has been around in India for thousands of years, has it's own tricks of the trade designed to ensnare gullible seekers. I began to contribute to the website and was attacked online by the guru's devotees.

By now the guru had enough money to hire the best lawyers and he used intimidation tactics to try to silence us former devotees. They created websites which published lies about us as well as our home and business addresses. They contacted peoples' bosses and tried to get them fired. Fortunately I was my own boss but the cult tried to destroy my business which, at that time, was a famous South African restaurant in San Francisco.

What has this got to do with leftists? The way that they attack conservative bloggers reminds me so much of the guru-cultists' attacks on me. Their paranoid defensiveness and illogical groupthink makes the commies sound just like brainwashed cultists.

There are several sub-cults within the left, some more insane than others. The Cindy Sheehan cult is simply sad and kooky but the leftist gay cult is one of the worst. There is one website which specializes in "outing" gay Republicans.

Their latest victim is Jeff Berkowitz. I will not link to this website or even mention it as I don't want to give it anymore publicity. (You can find the links on Prism Warden whose post on this topic inspired this post.)

This what this website says:

President Bush's liaison to the Jewish Community, Jeff Berkowitz, is a gay man... In addition to speaking extensively with two of the four original tipsters, this information has been confirmed by five independent, separate, corroborating sources, including:

-A source inside of the White House;
-A lobbyist for a top conservative lobbying firm;
-An individual who had a sexual encounter with Mr. Berkowitz; and
-Two personal acquaintances of Jeff.

In addition to being the President's liaison to the Jewish Community, Jeff Berkowitz has had his hand in building the current anti-gay majority in Congress. And, on top of the many sources above, this story has been confirmed by an individual who used to work with Mr. Berkowitz at, get this, Generation GOP. GenerationGOP is the organization created to recruit young people to the GOP platform (including the denial of civil marriage equality) and candidates.

Here's a bit from Jeff's bio:

"Jeff Berkowitz is a political and communications strategist specializing in youth outreach. He serves as Senior Advisor and Web site Editor for Generation GOP. He was Northeast Field Director for the College Republican National Committee prior to the 2000 Presidential Primaries and has worked on numerous political campaigns throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions."

And, In Arkansas, Jeff helped to get conservatives registered in time for the vote against civil marriage equality:

"Over the past six months Generation GOP, the group led by these young men, has registered thousand of conservative students at college campuses across Arkansas."

"Jeff is an Eagle Scout and Vigil member of the Order of the Arrow, the National Honor Society of the Boy Scouts of America." -- Be sure to ask Jeff if he support the Boy Scouts, even though they refuse to have gay leaders and members.

The website then publishes Berkowitz's email address and tells its readers to contact all of the major Jewish organizations to let them know that Berkowitz is gay.

Why would gays do this to other gays? Because the Republican gays do not walk in lockstep with their leftist thinking; because they dare to break with the gay-leftist cult.

This disgusting gay website has "outed" many gay Republicans (including Rick Santorum's aide who has committed two sins in the eyes of this weird cult - not only is a gay Republican but he is a black Republican.)

They once threatened the founder of Gay Patriot so that he had to stop blogging for a while.

They recently attacked Anderson Cooper:

It was just a matter of time. Despite the best efforts of his handlers at CNN -- they're known to call sites and ask editors to delete references to Anderson Cooper being gay -- New York Magazine has now penned a 5,000 word article outing him.

Cooper defends not coming out like this:

"You know, I understand why people might be interested. But I just don't talk about my personal life. It’s a decision I made a long time ago, before I ever even knew anyone would be interested in my personal life. The whole thing about being a reporter is that you're supposed to be an observer and to be able to adapt with any group you’re in, and I don't want to do anything that threatens that."

Our country is in a place right now where the only openly gay people on the news seem to be self-loather Andrew Sullivan and once-closeted-DADT-supporting Pete Williams. Young, gay kids are in need of positive role models...and you can be a shining star to them. Lord know there don't seem to be any other propects in the CNN family to be the "out gay guy."

You guys should have the guts to put on intelligent gay men who actually represent a majority the community. Dan Savage and Michelangelo Signorile are two of the absolute best when it comes to TV and getting the message. They've worked on the liberal, pro-gay left for many years...never betraying us...and the best you guys can get is Sully and Rummy's former mouthpiece?

And Anderson, have you heard the bias of some of the CNN anchors? Between Lou Dobbs bashing of immigrants and Wolf Blitzer's Fox-like Situation Room, our side could use a boost, especially from a well respected, gay (gasp!) anchor like yourself.

I hope Anderson Cooper one day can be as proud of who is as a gay man as he should be about his riveting work from New Orleans.

They call Andrew Sullivan a "self-loather" (all gay Republicans are called "self-loathing" by the gay-left cult.) because Sullivan calls himself a conservative which he is not. Sullivan may disagree with some of the gay-left agenda but he is a fanatical proponent of gay marriage, endorsed Kerry and constantly criticizes Bush. He may be a slightly contrarian libertarian but he is definitely not a conservative (as he erroneously claims.) But he is attacked by the gay-left cult because he sometimes criticises the gay-left and is not a fanatical pro-abortion socialist.

There are plenty of cultists on the left. Start reading their rantings and keep this in mind and you will begin to see what I'm talking about.

Sunday pictures and poem

Well, autumn is definitely here. The fog is so thick this morning that you can hardly see the forest beyond the lawn and I had to jump out of bed and get dressed as soon as the rooster crowed at six o'clock because I was too cold - time to dig out the winter blankets.

John Keats' "To Autumn"

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Top pic: a reminder of summer - the bunches of fluffy white flowers framing Digby are those of the Holodiscus (or sea foam tree) an Oregon native plant which grows wild along the coast here.

Bottom pic: another reminder of summer - this beach mallow (Lavatera trimestris- which grows like a weed along the California coast) was a stow-away. I must have brought up a seed when I was potting some lilies to bring from San Francisco to Oregon. I noticed it last spring when I was transplanting some bulbs. It was about 6 inches high. By summer it was six feet tall and covered in purple flowers which attracted hundreds of bees and butterflies. It has since gone to seed and is brown and ugly (it's an annual) but I'm hoping it will naturalize.

Tales from Robin's Wood

A few months ago our well ran dry. Last week our nearest neighbors' well ran dry. Of all the ranches in our neighborhood, our two wells are the worst even in years when we have our full amount of rain. Last winter we had less than half of our annual rainfall - 39 inches instead of our normal 70 to 80 inches. Most of the winter storms went south to California. San Francisco usually gets about 19 inches per year. Last winter SF got nearly 40 inches (which also happened in the winter of 91-92.)

During the 25 years that I lived in SF, we went through a seven year drought in the 80's when we had to flush the toilet with bath water and take five minute showers so I'm used to conserving water. I also lived through droughts in South Africa and learned to treat water like gold.

When I moved to southwest Oregon which gets lots of rain, I thought my water worries were finally over. We have two acres of land that has been cleared around the house but the remaining 8 acres is dense forest mostly red and white cedar, hemlock, Douglas fir, shore pines and lots of alders and native willows. The forest has a thick undergrowth of blackberries, salmonberries, red and black huckleberries, thimbleberries and salalberries. You don't need to take a picnic if you go hiking through the woods as the berries are delicious and thirst-quenching.

As a contrast to all the conifers, I decided to plant some deciduous trees around the house. So I put in native Oregon vine-maples and big-leaf maples, Oregon oaks and three types of dogwood trees. I also planted coastal redwoods, Pacific yews, five kinds of ceanothus (California wild lilacs) and fruit trees - two types of apples, three kinds of cherries, three kinds of pears as well as peaches, apricots and figs. Trees needs lots of water during their first summer and it was because of watering them that my well ran dry.

The guy who first lived on this piece of land used to pump water from one of our creeks and the neighboring farm draws water from the other creek that we share along our border. Fortunately the creek runs all year round even through a low rainfall year such as we've just had. We figured, if they could use creek water, so could we.

Last year we deepened the pool below the little waterfall to use as a swimming hole. Last week we put a 100 gallon plastic water-drum into the pool and rigged up a sluice to direct the creek into it. Then we bought a 2,500 gallon storage tank and started pumping water 100 feet up the hill from the creek into the tank. The creek water is probably full of e.coli from all the wild animals feces so we still have to haul water from the RV park in a 400 gallon tank on the back of the truck to fill the water-tank that feeds the house. Now we are having to supply our neighbors' with water too.

To thank us for the water, the neighbors gave us a beautiful Rhode Island Red rooster and some white leghorn hens which lay eggs everyday. We couldn't say no but we were not ready for chickens yet. So they have been living in the woodshed while we race against time to build a poultry shed and wire-fenced run.

We did not want to build something badly that we would regret later so the hen-house and run have varmint protection. This meant digging a trench all around the periphery - 24 feet by 16 feet - which was two feet deep. We had to use a pick-axe to break through the rock hard clay and then bury two feet of wire mesh to prevent varmints from digging under the walls and the fencing of the run. We also built the actual hen-house big enough to divide into two barns - one for poultry and one for milking goats which we will get in spring.

I also got two cats to patrol the hen-house for rats and mice. Chicken-feed attracts rodents. I'm not much of a cat person but I have really become fond of these two furry purrers. I found the first one hiding under a trailer in the RV park. She had been abandoned by some idiot. This happens quite a lot.

Smudgie was about 2 months old when I found her. She's part Siamese and I called her Smudgie because she has a smudge on her nose. Then one of my tenant's cats had a litter and she could not find homes for one of the males so I adopted it. I called him Swankie because he has six spots on his tummy which make him look like he is wearing a fancy fur coat with big buttons. Smudgie hated him at first but now they just adore each other so I think I'll let them have one litter before they get their naughty bits snipped out.

We have another cat who was also abandoned at the RV park that we cannot bring home because she has been declawed and could not protect herself from our four dogs or the wildlife in the forest. She cannot climb a tree to get away from our two border collies or the racoons, skunks, weasels, coyotes, bobcats, bears or cougars that live in the forest. So she lives at the RV park and everyone there loves her.

The funny thing is none of the "dangerous" wildlife has posed a problem for us yet although three of the local bears have become garbage eaters which could be dangerous because they are now intruding into human life.

The most problematic wild animal so far has been the slow, peaceful, vegetarian porcupine who would normally not harm a fly. I came home from work one day to see the two border collies heads and faces full of porcupine quills. I managed to pull them out of my older dog, Saffie, with some pliers but Digby (who was living on the ranch when I bought it) was a problem. He would not stand still and let me pull the quills. I had to wait for Chuck and Andy to come home and it took both of them to hold Digby still while I pulled out the quills.

The other problems animals are the deer because you never know when they will suddenly jump out of the forest into the road in front of your car. The dirt road to the ranch is unlit so you have to drive really slow at night. We have a family of three deer - mom and two bambis who were born last year. The bambinos are now almost grown. No, I won't shoot them because hopefully they will make more babies and provide us with lots of venison in the future.

We also found one crawdad in the creek which we threw back hoping that there'll be more next year.

Pic one: Robin's Wood

Pic two: all four dogs; left - Corrie and Saffie, the two old ladies in the family; right - Digby and Herbie, the young studs.

Pic three: Smudgie

Pic four: Swankie

Sunday pictures

Top: red schizostylus (another South African lily)

Bottom: the pink version. Schizostylus was commonly know as kafir lily. Now that the word "kafir" is impolite (the equivalent of "nigger") I have no idea what they call it.

Muthi, mobs and murder in Mpophomeni

Muthi is the Zulu word for voodoo.

Inyanga is the Zulu word for a practitioner of muthi, in other words, a witch doctor.

When I was kid we had a servant, Katie, a Zulu woman who had worked for us and lived with us for so long that she was part of our family. When she had a baby, he lived with us and I would baby-sit the toddler, Cuthbert, while Katie cleaned the house. Cuthbert became part of the family too and we watched him grow up.

When he was seven years old, Katie decided to send her son back to the family farm in Phongola, a tribal area of Natal/KwaZulu, to live with her mother. Cuthbert would take care of his grandmother and go to school at the local Catholic mission. So she put Cuthbert on a train to Phongola.

Katie waited for a letter from her mother letting her know that Cuthbert had arrived. Instead a letter arrived asking her why Cuthbert had not arrived. Katie was worried and frightened and took a week off to go to Phongola to find out what had happened.

When she returned she told us that there was no trace of Cuthbert. He had disappeared off the face of the earth. My mother contacted the police and asked them to investigate. We waited for weeks but there was no news.

One day the police came to tell Katie and my mother that they had found Cuthbert's corpse. He had been kidnapped by an inyanga and his heart had been cut out and used for muthi.

o The following article was originally published on page 3 of The Tribune on September 11, 2005. I reprinted it in full because you have to subscribe to read it.

Muthi, mobs and murder in Mpophomeni

By Chris Makhaye

An uneasy calm prevailed over the small Howick township of Mpophomeni and nearby villages this week - the scene of a number of recent grisly killings.

Last Sunday morning the body of Sizeni Shelembe, a 23-year-old woman who had been missing for more than two months, was found in the Inguga River. Her body was left standing upright and tied to rocks.

Hers was the second body to be found in that river. Two weeks ago, a search party looking for her found the mutilated body parts of a man in two bags, only metres away from where she was later found.

After the gruesome discovery of Shelembe's decomposing body, a several hundred-strong crowd torched the mountainside house of a local inyanga or traditional healer. His herbs and other tools were also destroyed. The community accused 26-year-old Bheki Sibiya of killing the two people and severing their body parts for witchcraft purposes.

Sibiya was not at home when his homestead was burnt down.

On Monday (the next day) he went to open a case of arson at the local police station.

At about noon that day, six policemen escorted him to his homestead, on the rocky mountain overlooking Mpophomeni township.

An angry township mob, including women and young children, began to approach Sibiya's house and a stand-off ensued. The mob pelted police with stones, overpowered them and managed to grab Sibiya away.

He was then beaten and stoned to death as police tried to call for back-up. Police say they could not fire into the crowd as there were many young children around.

A 13-year-old schoolgirl who witnessed the mob killing said, "He (Sibiya) did not offer any resistance at all or answer charges people in the crowd were throwing at him. Neither did he try to run away. I saw him being smashed with stones until his body moved no more."

Other police vans and cars arrived later and the crowd ran back to the township and people vanished into their homes, said the schoolgirl.

The Sunday Tribune was told that Sibiya had been a practising inyanga for several years in the township.

Some residents said he came to Mpophomeni from Phongola, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, about five years ago and rented a house from which he started consulting as an inyanga.

Six months ago he moved to an isolated rocky area of the mountain separating Mpophomeni Township and the KwaShifu village.

A middle-aged man - who was stealing the dead healers' wire fence when the Tribune arrived at the scene - said Sibiya was well-known in the township.

"This man attracted wealthy customers from big cities driving smart cars.

"On weekends and weekdays we saw these cars ascending the mountain to his house. Some of them stayed overnight.

"He (Sibiya) was quickly amassing wealth for himself. What we didn't know was that he killed people to make his muthi."

Police say the two bodies found in the river were taken to Durban for pathology examinations.

No one has been arrested for the mob killing of the traditional healer but police say a murder docket has been opened.

On Saturday, Sibiya's family from Phongola came to the township to collect his body.

The family of Sizeni Shelembe was still shocked this week. Thombi Zondi, her aunt, said her niece went missing on July 20 when she visited relatives in the township.

"We reported her disappearance to the police because it was the first time that she had suddenly gone missing," she said.

"When weeks passed we consulted several traditional healers. One of them told us that she had been killed and her body was floating in the river."

Zondi said the community of KwaShifu helped her search the nearby mountains and river.

"I was in the group that went looking down the river. At some point there was a heavy stench and we saw a bag. When we opened it, we saw the human head and the upper part of a body."

Zondi said that further down the river they discovered a second bag which contained a torso and legs.

"We thought that it was the body of Sizeni, but when we turned it around we saw it was a man, because it had a beard and there was no breasts.

"We reported the discovery to the police and went back to the sangoma who told us to look again further down the river," she said.

"On Sunday we went back there and found my niece (Sizeni) tied to the rock in the river."

Howick is near Pietermaritzburg where I went to a Catholic boarding school. Howick Falls (picture below) is the main attraction.

Sunday pictures

Top: blettilla (Chinese ground orchid) growing in a tree stump. They are lavender colored. You probably have to enlarge the pic to see them.

Bottom: A view of the ocean from above the cannas. Our neighbors on the hill behind us have a panoramic view of the Pacific.

Sunday sermon and pictures

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Top pic: Dietes, another South African lily, commonly known as "fortnight lily" because it supposedly blooms every two weeks. Actually the blooms come and go at odd intervals throughout spring, summer and autumn. It is not a deciduous lily like most but an evergreen which sofar has withstood our fairly mild frosts in Oregon. Dietes is also sometimes known as "South African iris."

The red flowers in the background belong to another South African native species, phygelius or "Cape fuschia." It is definitely not a fuschia. The misnomer is because the flowers look like fuschias with their pendulous and trumpet-like flowers. It can be invasive and isn't that good for small gardens but I have two acres of garden to fill so I hope it does take off. It also comes in yellow which I have not yet obtained.

Bottom pic: A close up of the dietes. Dietes also comes in a yellow form which blooms less often but has done so since I transplanted it to Oregon.