God Is A Woman
God is
Omnipotent
Omniscient
The creator of
Everything seen
And unseen.
Human beings are
Powerless
Devoid of knowledge
Creators of nothing.
God, by definition, is beyond human.
Humans, by definition, are irrevocably human.
Therefore
If God is a man
Its just as likely
God is a woman.
Genesis says:
"God made man in his own image."
Could it be this "image"
Is not that of the physical,
But of the soul-image
The spirit-image
Of God
Reflected by God
Onto all of us.
God is a woman.
© 2009 Josh Haden
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Only God
Only God
No good or bad; only God.
No right or wrong; only God.
No love or hate; only God.
No honesty or dishonesty; only God.
No act of violence.
No act of kindness.
No act of selfishness.
No act of selflessness.
No act of cowardice.
No act of courage.
No downfall.
No redemption.
No life.
No afterlife.
Only God.
It has been said
God is everywhere and in everything.
God is outside and inside you.
Every word you speak comes from God.
Therefore
When you speak, God speaks.
When you say "no faith"; God.
When you say "no hope"; God.
When you say "no chance"; God.
When you say "no God"; God.
Only God.
© 2009 Josh Haden
No good or bad; only God.
No right or wrong; only God.
No love or hate; only God.
No honesty or dishonesty; only God.
No act of violence.
No act of kindness.
No act of selfishness.
No act of selflessness.
No act of cowardice.
No act of courage.
No downfall.
No redemption.
No life.
No afterlife.
Only God.
It has been said
God is everywhere and in everything.
God is outside and inside you.
Every word you speak comes from God.
Therefore
When you speak, God speaks.
When you say "no faith"; God.
When you say "no hope"; God.
When you say "no chance"; God.
When you say "no God"; God.
Only God.
© 2009 Josh Haden
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Barack Obama's America and the 12-Step Program
If George Bush's America was the corrupt and narcissistic money, power, oil, violence, and greed-addicted junkie always looking for a fix, Barack Obama's America is an addict in recovery, searching for peace and wishing to do whatever she can to better her ways and live a clean and healthy life.
So, then, here are the 12-Steps for the recovery of America, courtesy Alcoholics Anonymous.
1. America admits she is powerless over money, power, oil, violence, and greed—that her life has become unmanageable.
2. America comes to believe that a Power greater than herself can restore her to sanity.
3. America makes a decision to turn her will and her life over to the care of God as she understands Him.
4. America makes a searching and fearless moral inventory of herself.
5. America admits to God, to herself, to another human being, and to another country, the exact nature of her wrongs.
6. America is entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. America humbly asks Him to remove her shortcomings.
8. America makes a list of all persons and countries she had harmed, and becomes willing to make amends to them all.
9. America makes direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. America continues to take personal inventory and when she is wrong promptly admits it.
11. America seeks through prayer and meditation to improve her conscious contact with God as she understands Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for her and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, she tries to carry this message to other money, power, oil, violence, and greed-addicted countries, and to practice these principles in all her affairs.
Good luck America! See you at the next meeting!
So, then, here are the 12-Steps for the recovery of America, courtesy Alcoholics Anonymous.
1. America admits she is powerless over money, power, oil, violence, and greed—that her life has become unmanageable.
2. America comes to believe that a Power greater than herself can restore her to sanity.
3. America makes a decision to turn her will and her life over to the care of God as she understands Him.
4. America makes a searching and fearless moral inventory of herself.
5. America admits to God, to herself, to another human being, and to another country, the exact nature of her wrongs.
6. America is entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. America humbly asks Him to remove her shortcomings.
8. America makes a list of all persons and countries she had harmed, and becomes willing to make amends to them all.
9. America makes direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. America continues to take personal inventory and when she is wrong promptly admits it.
11. America seeks through prayer and meditation to improve her conscious contact with God as she understands Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for her and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, she tries to carry this message to other money, power, oil, violence, and greed-addicted countries, and to practice these principles in all her affairs.
Good luck America! See you at the next meeting!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Martin Luther King & Non-Violence
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 80th birthday, and while Barack Obama and CNN focus on his other important beliefs (commitment to public service, and struggle for civil rights, respectively), his belief in non-violence should not be ignored.
In fact, his commitment to non-violence as a means of social change was as important as his commitment to any of his other beliefs, and, I might suggest, overshadowed his other views because, he believed, his other views could not be implemented without being done so through the means of non-violence.
A few days ago NPR broadcast a piece about a heretofore unknown 1959 recording of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking on All India radio of his belief in non-violence and the importance it had in his vision of social change.
I quote directly from his speech: "No nation can win a war. Today we no longer have a choice between violence and non-violence, it is either between non-violence, or non-existence."
The NPR piece can be found here.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Josh Haden At The NAMM Show
Yesterday I attended the NAMM show as a guest of Gallien-Krueger bass amplifiers. NAMM stands for National Association of Music Merchants and this once-a-year four-day show is a chance for music instrument & equipment manufacturers to exhibit their latest products and talk business. There are lots of seminars with titles like "How to sell your product and not be a jerk about it" and "You have a website, now what?".
For musicians its a chance to be inspired by new instruments, products, and innovations, and to connect with merchants and see old friends.
I love Martin acoustic guitars, like this Stephen Stills model. Someday I'll own one, but I'll probably have to start with the basic model.
Fleabass is a new bass designed by Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It looks really cool, and seems to be geared toward younger players and those who are just starting out. I bet it plays and sounds great. I got to talk with Flea a little about it. He's an inspiration to me. He started a music school here in L.A. called the Silver Lake Conservatory of Music and its main purpose is to bring music education to kids who might not otherwise have access to it, due to financial stress and/or absence of music programs in public schools. Check out the Conservatory's website and make a donation if you can.
Dr. Lonnie Liston Smith.
Classic American Kazoos make pick-ups for kazoos. Plus their kazoos are made in the USA, very high quality. Thanks for the kazoos guys!
The NAMM disco party will start soon, but not yet.
Much appreciation to Gallien-Krueger for inviting me once again to the NAMM show. I've been using G-K bass amps since I was a teenager and I won't plug my bass into anything else. Thanks Bob, Brian, and Christine!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Bryn Jones June 17, 1961 – January 14, 1999
Ten years ago today Bryn Jones, aka Muslimgauze, died.
He was a profound artist the likes of which are seldom heard.
A website about him can be found here.
There will be a Muslimgauze tribute radio show today (1pm Pacific time), info below.
Tomorrow will be a special radio show for Muslimgauze on air.
It's from a local radio station in Rostock, Germany.
But it will be available as stream on the net too. http://www.lohro.de/
It starts GMT pm 9.00 and ends 11.00.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Neve Gordon On Gaza
From Democracy Now, 12 January 2009
NEVE GORDON: The problem is the—yes, intentions are important, but the facts are more important. And the fact is that Israel is the one that’s doing the harm to—much more harm to civilians than the Hamas ever did and ever will do. Israel has killed in the past two weeks 275 children, and not Hamas, regardless of the intentions. You mentioned the school. Israel is dealing with a propaganda war. Israel is the one that disseminated a video of Hamas shooting rockets from a school, a video that’s almost two years old, claiming that the video was taken a day or two earlier. So Israel is in a propaganda war. Yes, the Hamas is fighting out from a civilian population, but Israel has the choice whether it’s going to bomb the civilian population ore (sic) not, and it is intentionally deciding to bomb the civilian population. So in terms of intentionality in bombing areas where there are civilians, Israel is acting like a state terrorist. So, if your definition of terrorism doesn’t take into account the identity of the actor—and state actors can also be terrorists—then when you bomb a school and when you bomb a university and when you bomb a neighborhood and you’re killing much more civilians than militants, then you’re doing something that is an act of terror.
And I have a problem. I think my views are pro-Israelis. I would like to see Israel existing in the Middle East sixty years down the line, and not only the first sixty years. And the only way for Israel to continue to exist in the Middle East is if it changes its approach towards the region and see itself as a leader of peace and not a belligerent actor in the region. And Israel has been living on the sword. Some of our neighbors have been living on the sword. But we have to come out and say we no longer want to live on the sword, because those who live on the sword, as the Bible tells us, also die on the sword. We have to come out and say we are willing to talk with our enemies, even with people that say that they do not believe in the existence of Israel. The PLO—you mentioned Fatah—the PLO said that they do not believe in the existence of Israel for many years. And ultimately, we sat down and talked with them, and they are now considered our Palestinian partner. I believe that if there is a pragmatic side, a strong pragmatic wing in Hamas, that if we start negotiation with them, over the years these people will also agree to the existence of Israel and be willing to live side by side with us. If we do not talk with them, if we continue this cycle of violence, ultimately Israel will be destroyed, because ultimately, the technological edge that we have over our neighbors will not be meaningful. So we have to change our approach. We have to be pro—by changing our approach, we’re actually pro-Israeli. We say we want to see Israel a hundred years from now. And the only way we’ll see Israel exist a hundred years from now is if Israel makes peace with Syria, with Lebanon and with the Palestinian people.
NEVE GORDON: The problem is the—yes, intentions are important, but the facts are more important. And the fact is that Israel is the one that’s doing the harm to—much more harm to civilians than the Hamas ever did and ever will do. Israel has killed in the past two weeks 275 children, and not Hamas, regardless of the intentions. You mentioned the school. Israel is dealing with a propaganda war. Israel is the one that disseminated a video of Hamas shooting rockets from a school, a video that’s almost two years old, claiming that the video was taken a day or two earlier. So Israel is in a propaganda war. Yes, the Hamas is fighting out from a civilian population, but Israel has the choice whether it’s going to bomb the civilian population ore (sic) not, and it is intentionally deciding to bomb the civilian population. So in terms of intentionality in bombing areas where there are civilians, Israel is acting like a state terrorist. So, if your definition of terrorism doesn’t take into account the identity of the actor—and state actors can also be terrorists—then when you bomb a school and when you bomb a university and when you bomb a neighborhood and you’re killing much more civilians than militants, then you’re doing something that is an act of terror.
And I have a problem. I think my views are pro-Israelis. I would like to see Israel existing in the Middle East sixty years down the line, and not only the first sixty years. And the only way for Israel to continue to exist in the Middle East is if it changes its approach towards the region and see itself as a leader of peace and not a belligerent actor in the region. And Israel has been living on the sword. Some of our neighbors have been living on the sword. But we have to come out and say we no longer want to live on the sword, because those who live on the sword, as the Bible tells us, also die on the sword. We have to come out and say we are willing to talk with our enemies, even with people that say that they do not believe in the existence of Israel. The PLO—you mentioned Fatah—the PLO said that they do not believe in the existence of Israel for many years. And ultimately, we sat down and talked with them, and they are now considered our Palestinian partner. I believe that if there is a pragmatic side, a strong pragmatic wing in Hamas, that if we start negotiation with them, over the years these people will also agree to the existence of Israel and be willing to live side by side with us. If we do not talk with them, if we continue this cycle of violence, ultimately Israel will be destroyed, because ultimately, the technological edge that we have over our neighbors will not be meaningful. So we have to change our approach. We have to be pro—by changing our approach, we’re actually pro-Israeli. We say we want to see Israel a hundred years from now. And the only way we’ll see Israel exist a hundred years from now is if Israel makes peace with Syria, with Lebanon and with the Palestinian people.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Spain Live Music Archive
I'm in the process of uploading all of my Spain live bootlegs to archive.org.
If you go here you will be able to listen to, and, if you desire, download, a recording of a concert Spain played in Oslo, Norway, at a venue called Mars, on June 13, 1999.
The recording is available for free in a variety of formats, including mp3 and flac.
Please visit the Spain archive.org page to check when I upload more shows, which I will be doing in the coming weeks and months. Also on this page you have an option to subscribe to an rss feed that will automatically notify you when new shows are uploaded.
Of course, feel free to upload any shows you might have in your collection.
Thanks to all the fans who have given me copies of their live Spain recordings over the past 14 years. Thanks especially to Jan Saghaug.
There will be an upcoming Spain show here in L.A. in March of this year, details forthcoming.
If you go here you will be able to listen to, and, if you desire, download, a recording of a concert Spain played in Oslo, Norway, at a venue called Mars, on June 13, 1999.
The recording is available for free in a variety of formats, including mp3 and flac.
Please visit the Spain archive.org page to check when I upload more shows, which I will be doing in the coming weeks and months. Also on this page you have an option to subscribe to an rss feed that will automatically notify you when new shows are uploaded.
Of course, feel free to upload any shows you might have in your collection.
Thanks to all the fans who have given me copies of their live Spain recordings over the past 14 years. Thanks especially to Jan Saghaug.
There will be an upcoming Spain show here in L.A. in March of this year, details forthcoming.
Josh Haden On Gaza
Yesterday on my facebook page I reposted (as I did here) Brian Eno's recent article outlining his position on what's going on in Gaza.
The resulting facebook discussion helped me to better formulate my ideas on the matter, and I post my response below, slightly out of context:
I'm not an expert (far from it) on political and religious matters, so forgive me if what I say seems naive, simplistic, or even amateurish.
But it seems to me that Israel is perfect, and so is Gaza, for that matter, because they can't be anything else except exactly what they are at this point in time. They are the epitome of perfection.
Anyone who believes in God, or at the very least, says they believe in God, must concur, because God by definition is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. If...victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle for justice, unborn generations will live in a desolate night of bitterness, and their chief legacy will be an endless reign of chaos." (“Non-Violence and Racial Justice”)
I watched on CNN tonight how representatives of both sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict said to the other, in so many words, your killing of our babies justifies our killing of your babies.
How could this way of thinking by both sides ever end the cycle of conflict we’ve been seeing for so many years now.
One of the sides needs to begin an assault from the higher moral ground, and say, no, your killing of our babies does not justify our killing of your babies. This must end now.
On the History Channel this week (can you tell I watch a lot of TV?) there’s been a whole series of programs on “Armageddon.” One such program has Nostradamus, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, even Christians and a whole host of others saying that the world as we know it will end on Dec. 12, 2012.
I don’t know if this is true or not, and I hope it isn’t, but wouldn’t it be sad if it were true, and the only legacy our world could leave for the next world-to-be was one filled with hatred, intolerance, violence, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, selfishness, avarice, greed, narcissism, and an inability to even seek perfection, instead of a legacy filled with love, spiritual enlightenment, reconcilliation, truth and honesty, selflessness, and acceptance of the unknown and unseen by human minds and human eyes?
The resulting facebook discussion helped me to better formulate my ideas on the matter, and I post my response below, slightly out of context:
I'm not an expert (far from it) on political and religious matters, so forgive me if what I say seems naive, simplistic, or even amateurish.
But it seems to me that Israel is perfect, and so is Gaza, for that matter, because they can't be anything else except exactly what they are at this point in time. They are the epitome of perfection.
Anyone who believes in God, or at the very least, says they believe in God, must concur, because God by definition is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. If...victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle for justice, unborn generations will live in a desolate night of bitterness, and their chief legacy will be an endless reign of chaos." (“Non-Violence and Racial Justice”)
I watched on CNN tonight how representatives of both sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict said to the other, in so many words, your killing of our babies justifies our killing of your babies.
How could this way of thinking by both sides ever end the cycle of conflict we’ve been seeing for so many years now.
One of the sides needs to begin an assault from the higher moral ground, and say, no, your killing of our babies does not justify our killing of your babies. This must end now.
On the History Channel this week (can you tell I watch a lot of TV?) there’s been a whole series of programs on “Armageddon.” One such program has Nostradamus, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, even Christians and a whole host of others saying that the world as we know it will end on Dec. 12, 2012.
I don’t know if this is true or not, and I hope it isn’t, but wouldn’t it be sad if it were true, and the only legacy our world could leave for the next world-to-be was one filled with hatred, intolerance, violence, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, selfishness, avarice, greed, narcissism, and an inability to even seek perfection, instead of a legacy filled with love, spiritual enlightenment, reconcilliation, truth and honesty, selflessness, and acceptance of the unknown and unseen by human minds and human eyes?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Brian Eno On Gaza
This was posted over the weekend on counterpunch.org.
I hope they don't mind me reprinting it.
I would also add something about the importance of water-rights to the conflict. There's a good article about it here.
Stealing Gaza
By BRIAN ENO
It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.
The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
Brian Eno is a musician and music producer.
I hope they don't mind me reprinting it.
I would also add something about the importance of water-rights to the conflict. There's a good article about it here.
Stealing Gaza
By BRIAN ENO
It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.
The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
Brian Eno is a musician and music producer.
David Mauk's "12 Months"
Right now I'm listening to David Mauk's new cd "12 Months".
Its really great new age/ambient music. It puts me in a retrospective, thoughtful mood.
I was first introduced to David's music through his excellent soundtrack to the Tutenkhamen museum tour.
Check out his website for more info about this cd, from which the video below is taken.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Frida's Taqueria
Lisa and I were on the Westside of L.A. a few days ago and decided to try Frida's Taqueria, which Lisa had been hearing a lot of good things about.
Frida's Taqueria is a kind of "taco stand" version of the much more upscale Frida's Restaurant chain that has three locations around Southern California. Lisa and I ate at the Glendale Frida's and I didn't really like it. Its located in a shopping mall which really doesn't help the food any. The food might have been good but I couldn't tell because it was so cold by the time it got to us. Plus the entire restaurant staff seemed like they really didn't want to be there. It was just before Christmas so maybe that's understandable, but I won't be going back.
Frida's Taqueria, on the other hand, was great. I had the chicken burrito and it was one of the best burritos I've had in my life. It was simple (and pretty cheap) but had great flavors. The hot sauce was really good too. Also, its located in the Brentwood Country Mart which brings back nice childhood memories of going there (way before Frida's ever existed) with my parents when I was a little kid. I'll definitely be going back.
FYI last time I went to Paco's Tacos and ordered Paco's Burrito it had tortilla chips inside! Horrible! I asked my waitress if it was a mistake and she said the cook told her it always comes like that. I've never encountered this before, and I've been going to Paco's for a long time. Has this happened to any of you out there? Or is it a cover-up?!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
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