Common Core Is Not A New Exercise Program

A Couple of Things 

Small Untitled Piece by John Bonanno

 

Common Core

 Isn't it funny that when the federal government implemented common standards under George Bush the right had no problem. "No child left behind" was a joke that taught tests not children. The Obama administration implements standards called "common core" to attempt to prepare children for college or the workplace and it is considered evil by the usual suspects. I think Common Core is a little better than the ridiculous "No child left behind" which really amounted to "No child gets ahead." What a country!

Personally, I think we need smarter and better teachers who really know their subjects. That would require raising pay (and changing the criteria used to hire teachers so that we have educators that have been trained more in subjects and less in the metatheories of education) and we all know Republicans will never go for that. So politicians just bump along trying to find some magic formula to overcome the crappy American education system. I doubt it will happen.

By the way, Jeb Bush is the politician who has been the biggest promoter of "common core" in the country.

Why Bowe Bergdahl Will Not Be Charged With Desertion and Why It Is Plain Wrong to Call Him "Deserter" 

    Bowe Bergdahl can't be charged with desertion since he was taken prisoner immediately by the Taliban. It doesn't become desertion until  AWOL (absent without leave)  continues for 30 days. Being taken prisoner obviously prevented Bergdahl from returning to base and abrogates any desertion charge. I would say that the majority of people in the military are AWOL at some point in their military careers, usually after getting drunk or hooking up with a woman. Bergdahl has never been charged by the military with any crime. The only crime under the UCMJ he can be charged with, in my opinion based on current evidence, is AWOL, for a day and, perhaps, failure to follow orders (I assume a standing "don't leave the base" order existed, but who knows?), not such a serious thing as desertion. But I can't blame all those rabid right wingers who never wore a uniform for their ignorance of the UCMJ, can I? 

Many stories were circulating about the 7 or 8 soldiers who were killed in the search for Bergdahl but it looks like that was all right wing hysteria. None of these so-called victims have actually been linked to trying to rescue this man when they were killed as far as I can tell.

'Hiram Fire Department, Late Winter 2014' 11" x 14"oil painting by John Bonanno

The Hiram Historical Society presents "Hiram in Art." Works to be displayed at Great Ossipee Museum of the Hiram Historical Society for a week beginning Saturday August 9, 2014 with silent auction ending Sunday August 17, 2014, a weekend filled with many Bicentennial events. Works to be displayed include my painting "Hiram Fire Department, Late Winter 2014."  The minimum bid on this painting will be $300, indeed a bargain.

FREELOADERS!

John Bonanno Painting, The Dive

Mitt Romney's screed on the 47% of the people who are "freeloaders" because they do not pay the income tax is most revealing about Mitt and his true constituency. His error was letting the cat out of the bag, even if it was among friends at a hoity-toity fundraiser. A more intelligent plutocrat would have been more careful with his words, even among peers. 

The income tax was presented as and sold to the people of the United States in 1910 as a tax that would ONLY affect the rich. The average pay at that time was 22 cents an hour, about $500 a year. When the income tax started, only 4% of the population was subject to it since there was a $3,000 exemption with an additional $1,000 for married couples.  So the first $4,000 for most people was not taxed.   Income over that exemption, up to  $453,292 a year, huge money back then, was taxed at only 1%.
I went to Measuringworth.com to calculate what a $4,000 income in 1913 is worth today.  

"In 2011, the relative value of $4,000.00 from 1913 ranges from $69,500.00 to $1,540,000.00.
 
A simple Purchasing Power Calculator would say the relative value is $93,700.00. This answer is obtained by multiplying $4000 by the percentage increase in the CPI from 1913 to 2011.

This may not be the best answer.

The best measure of the relative value over time depends on if you are interested in comparing the cost or value of a Commodity , Income or Wealth , or a Project . For more discussion on how to pick the best measure, read the essay "Explaining the Measures of Worth."

If you want to compare the value of a $4,000.00 Commodity in 1913 there are three choices. In 2011 the relative:
real price of that commodity is $93,700.00
labor value of that commodity is $381,000.00(using the unskilled wage) or $546,000.00(using production worker compensation)
income value of that commodity is $481,000.00
 
If you want to compare the value of a $4,000.00 Income or Wealth , in 1913 there are three choices. In 2011 the relative:
historic standard of living value of that income or wealth is $93,700.00
economic status value of that income or wealth is $481,000.00
economic power value of that income or wealth is $1,540,000.00
 
If you want to compare the value of a $4,000.00 Project in 1913 there are four choices. In 2011 the relative:
historic opportunity cost of that project is $69,500.00
labor cost of that project is $381,000.00(using the unskilled wage) or $546,000.00(using production worker compensation)
economy cost of that project is $1,540,000.00"

Any way you slice it, back in 1913, the income tax was a rich man's tax. You had to be making the equivalent in today's dollars anywhere from $70,000 to $1,500,000 a year, depending on how you look at it, to even start paying a 1% tax on everything over that. As Willie Sutton said, he robbed banks because "that's where the money is." 

You tax the rich for the same reason...and that is true now more than ever. But you have to hand it to the greedy bastards that they have been able to confound the meanings of Income and Wage and Salary. Traditionally wages were paid for labor by the hour, day, or week. Income was money received via gain, profit, or interest. Salaries were paid monthly for professional or non-manual work. Now they are all considered as equivalents by the IRS.  It was universally thought that labor or low salaries (such as those endured by women paid a "pittance" in the Chinese factories Mitt so admires) should not be taxed. And it wasn't then. But it is now. 
It was universally thought that money received by leisure class coupon clippers for bond interest and stock dividends was the fairest game for taxation. But no so much now.

This page at taxfoundation.org  has an interesting chart on tax rates through the years since the Income Tax began in 1913 after the 16th Amendment was purportedly passed in 1910, making income tax, which had been  first imposed in 1862 during the Civil War, legal. When first tried it was  soon abandoned in 1872 and then declared unconstitutional in 1894. The IRS was founded in 1862, with the income tax, but unfortunately it was not abandoned with the tax. Later on in 1913, on December 23, the Federal Reserve system was created. All in all it was a very bad year for most of the people and a wonderful year for the financiers and the war profiteers. 

So it is indisputable that the income tax was meant to only apply to the rich and it would never have passed if half the people had to pay it. It is frightfully honest of Romney to decry all the "freeloaders" who don't pay income tax as if Mitt would trade places with those lucky freeloaders who don't have to pay the income tax. This is pure projection, of course. Most of the population was supposed to be free of income tax. 

The rich have labored endlessly and successfully to get as much as possible of the income tax onto the backs of the working people and the middle class and away from the holders of true wealth. They have used pliable politicians, who are nothing but their public whores, to ensure that the income tax rates were not indexed to inflation and to create more and more esoteric deductions for the wealthy who are the only ones able to afford the accountants and bag men necessary to keep track of tax loopholes, understand enough to take advantage of them, and lobby for more. In fact, the rich are the "freeloaders" who do everything they can to avoid paying a fair price to flourish in the United States. This safe haven without peer in the world spends inordinately to protect the rich and all their possessions, property and corporate masks. If this were a poorer land we would not have to spend so many trillions fighting spurious wars, gathering intelligence on our own populace not to mention the world, and buying expensive superfluous weapons from the military industrial complex (owned by those same wealthy elites) to "defend" the country and invade countries that look at us cross-eyed while sitting on mineral wealth. The money the government spends propping up the interests of the wealthy is enormous compared to the pittance spent on welfare programs for the poor.

Beardsley Ruml

A lot of people in the lower tax brackets effectively avoided income tax before some genius (his name was  Beardsley Ruml and he was chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s board of directors) invented tax withholding on income during WWII. It was thought that 5,000,000 million people a year were avoiding taxes at that time as inflation and income tax increases for the war gently prodded the tax charts into swallowing up more and more middle income wage earners who had never paid the income tax before. The IRS had mostly gone after out of favor fat cats and criminals like Al Capone in search of tax evasion.   Federal withholding was a godsend for the IRS. It put a torrent of  money in government coffers before the workers ever saw it and the poor and middle class had to jump through hoops to get it back, much of it over a year after it was earned. At the same time,  the wealthy, who collected dividends and interest while sitting on their asses got the quarterly "pay as you go" treatment. Withholding also enabled the IRS to avoid the unpleasant publicity of bringing criminal tax evasion charges against average working and middle class Americans.

The point is, you had to be really really rich to pay income tax at the beginning. Inflation and corrupt politicians over the years gradually shifted the burden on to the middle class. The middle class noticed it at the beginning no more than a lobster tossed into a cold pot of seawater notices the moment the gas valve is opened and the flame is lit. 

Bos'n Higgs

Satyendra Nath Bose, for whom the boson is named.

The Higgs boson has been found...or has it?
The link goes to a Boston Globe story from the AP. 
There is a lot of hedging here.
These scientists are under pressure to produce results with their not so new expensive toy,
the Hadron Collider.
It looks like they have found another subatomic particle to go along with fermions, quarks, leptons, bosons (of which this is said to be another of at least six), and many many hypothetical ones.
Ho Hum.
It is all so reminiscent of the United States government
periodically announcing that Al Qaida Number Two has been killed.
By the way, the latest snuffed  Al-Qaeda  No. 2 leader,  was Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was blasted in "Pakistan's lawless frontier region" according to the Washington Post of June 5, 2012, by a CIA drone.
Watch out Al Qaeda Number 3; you are now Number 2.

There is always another Al Qaida Number Two to be tracked down. 
One can find anything one desires in this vasty universe,
From Higgs Boson particles 
to another Al Qaeda Number Two 
to Pink Unicorns.  
We do not even notice anymore. 

"This Book Is A Weapon" a painting by John Bonanno,
although it just might as well been named, "Appeal to Authority"

"As a layman, I think we did it...As a layman, I think we have it. But as a scientist, I have to say, `"What do we have?' ""- Rolf Heuer, CERN director

"Ladies and Gentlemen, We Got Him!" - Paul Bremer, USA Iraq director on the capture of former CIA asset Saddam Hussein who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda

Here is a rather extensive list of Al Qaeda leaders killed since 2004. 

Hobbes, "In the state of nature profit is the measure of right."

Saturday Morning EDT/

Saturday Evening Japan Time
Hell in a Hand Basket Update

With the punctuation of the words of
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679)

He was an English political philosopher and author of Leviathan (1651)

"My mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear."

The former long time governor of Fukushima, Eisako Sato, who at first supported the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, turned against it as he learned about TEPCO's shoddy safety practices. He was rewarded with smears, and  accusations of criminal behavior, for which he was convicted of bribery. The Independent UK tells us his story today.

From the article:

"Those who say that nuclear power is dangerous, like myself, are treated as state enemies. This is a truly terrifying logic, is it not? Whoever it may be, be it a Diet [council] member or governor, no one has been able to fight such logic so far." -Eisako Sato

And the lesson? Replacing Tepco's management won't solve anything, he says, because the logic of Japan's energy policies is that nuclear power generation is absolutely necessary. "So nuclear power must be seen as absolutely safe." Ordinary people must "take democracy into their own hands", he added. "If they do not, in 10 years time we will see another disaster. It's almost as though we are in a fascist country where information is hidden from the public. This is time for Japan to wake up and see what the situation is."

"for even they that be perfectly awake, if they be timorous, and supperstitious, possessed with fearfull tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Churchyards; whereas it is either their Fancy onely, or els the knavery of such persons, as make use of such superstitious feare, to pass disguised in the night, to places they would not be known to haunt."-Leviathan 

TEPCO has a history of cover ups with 200 proven falsifications of safety inspection reports. Here is a short history of their sins found at Aliran.com. This company lies and cheats for profit.

"Private Bodies Regular, but Unlawfull, are those that unite themselves into one person Representative, without any publique Authority at all; such as are the Corporations of Beggars, Theeves and Gipsies, the better to order their trade of begging, and stealing; and the Corporations of men, that by Authority from any forraign Person, unite themselves in anothers Dominion, for easier propagation of Doctrines, and for making a party, against the Power of the Common-wealth."-Leviathan

Bloomberg is promoting the "out of sight, out of mind" to the Fukushima Daiichi problem with this article titled "Tepco Must End ‘Whack-a-Mole,’ Cover Fukushima Reactors as Typhoons Loom". There is some dispute whether just sealing up with concrete will solve the problem here. Meltdowns have occurred and continue to occur. Radiation is likely escaping into the groundwater underneath the reactor at this point. Covering up the site would be a massive construction project that will take years to complete. As I have said before, there is probably no neat answer to this mess. All nuclear energy reactors must be decommissioned before we are visited with another unanticipated consequence of taking gifts from the nuclear djinn. TEPCO has said that they plan to festoon the site with "temporary covers" within three months.

"And in these foure things, Opinion of Ghosts, Ignorance of second causes, Devotion towards what men fear, and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques, consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion; which by reason of the different Fancies, Judgements, and Passions of severall men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another."-Leviathan

Counterpunch's Gavan McCormack may be indulging in wishful thinking when he proposes that Japan may be embarking into a non-nuclear future. However, the article gives a good overview of the state of the Japanese nuclear industry in a historical context.

"Another infirmity of a Common-wealth, is the immoderate greatnesse of a Town, when it is able to furnish out of its own Circuit, the number, and expence of a great Army: As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a naturall man."-Leviathan

It is still next to impossible to get accurate or any information about radiation in Japan, at Fukushima Daiichi or around the world.

"The secret thoughts of a man run over all things holy profane clean obscene grave and light without shame or blame."

Go to Forbidden Knowledge TV and watch Leuren Moret's lecture on the dangers we face from the activities of  the nuclear industry here in the United States. There is no such thing as safe radiation levels. Did you ever wonder why there seem to be so many more female babies born than before? 

Three Small Pieces, 1, John Bonanno

Three Small Pieces, 2, John Bonanno

Three Small Pieces, 3, John Bonanno

In Progress Part 2

In Progress Part 1

Work in Progress, Acrylic on Board with Detail, March 5, 2011

My Mothman Painting

The Billowing Breath, circa 1990, a painting by John Bonanno

Duck Pawn, construction by John Bonanno

"Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses, for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Thus it was that the impenetrability, the mobility, and the impulsive force of bodies, and the laws of motion and of gravitation, were discovered. And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea."—Isaac Newton

"Why do I call him a magician? Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt to the esoteric brotherhood. He believed that these clues were to be found partly in the evidence of the heavens and in the constitution of elements (and that is what gives the false suggestion of his being an experimental natural philosopher), but also partly in certain papers and traditions handed down by the brethren in an unbroken chain back to the original cryptic revelation in Babylonia. He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty - just as he himself wrapt the discovery of the calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibniz. By pure thought, by concentration of mind, the riddle, he believed, would be revealed to the initiate.

He did read the riddle of the heavens. And he believed that by the same powers of his introspective imagination he would read the riddle of the Godhead, the riddle of past and future events divinely fore-ordained, the riddle of the elements and their constitution from an original undifferentiated first matter, the riddle of health and of immortality. All would be revealed to him if only he could persevere to the end, uninterrupted, by himself, no one coming into the room, reading, copying, testing-all by himself, no interruption for God's sake, no disclosure, no discordant breakings in or criticism, with fear and shrinking as he assailed these half-ordained, half-forbidden things, creeping back into the bosom of the Godhead as into his mother's womb. 'Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone', not as Charles Lamb 'a fellow who believed nothing unless it was as clear as the three sides of a triangle'."- John Maynard Keynes, Posthumous Lecture "Newton The Man" delivered in 1946 to celebrate the war delayed tercentenary of Isaac Newton's 1643 birth

A Haiku by Yosa Buson, 1716-1783

Sound of a saw, poor people, winter midnight.

"Only So" John Bonanno, 1988, Acrylic on Cardboard with mirrors, 6" x 9" (approx.), $100

Ah! The Old Days! I found this one in a trunk of old work. I remembered it fondly if faithlessly.
The words I wrote (expand the illustration and try to read it yourself if you desire):

This entrance, this passage, is the very womb, the mother of Anubis.
Here is the threshold of the palace of the company of the gods, the very lords of heaven,
The spinners of the curtains of the false infinite crypt,
Each to each and side to side,
Presenting elegant true-hued wands,
Capped with their true signs.
They alter their noble array in the slow splendrous dance of the stars.
A sweet howl shapes these words:
"Thy candle hath burnt out.
The wick is drowned in a little puddle of wax warm as blood.
Thy flickering flame hath found this portal.
Lift this hasp. Build thine hand and put thee in my grasp.
Shape thee a face and turn it to me.
Let Ptahtenen and thee to squeeze new eyes to gaze on the edges of this form,
Which emanates not.
My body is naught but nothing manifest.
I am a facile aspect of the body of Nuit.
Only so. Only so."

"Gloved Dance" John Bonanno, watercolor, 1990, $150

"Glove-O.E. glof "covering for the hand," also "palm of the hand," from P.Gmc. *galofo (cf. O.N. glofi), probably from *ga- collective prefix + *lofi "hand" (cf. O.N. lofi, M.E. love, Goth. lofa "flat of the hand"). Ger. Handschuh, the usual word for "glove," lit. "hand-shoe" (O.H.G. hantscuoh; also Dan., Swed. hantsche) is represented by O.E. Handscio, but this is only attested as a proper name. To fit like a glove is first recorded 1771."-Online Etymology Dictionary

"A pure hand needs no glove to cover it." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!”-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly."-James Joyce, Ulysses

The following glove references, in this order, appear in Ulysses:

"I want puce gloves and green boots."
puce gloves
kid gloves
gloved hand
rich gloved hand
"Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulders and hips."
canary gloves
"one plump kid glove"
"his other plump glovepalm"
small gloved fist
small gloved fist
"Father Conmee drew off his gloves"
violet gloves
"It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns."
kid gloves
"Cigary gloves long John had on his desk the other day."
"Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track."
"elbowlength ivory gloves"
glovers
"doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet"
"fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc"
warmgloved
"lovely ladies saling gloves"
canary gloves
"Clipclaps glovesilent hands"
"a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves"
"the present of Byron's poems and the three pairs of gloves"
"touch him with my veil and gloves on going out I kiss then would send them all spinning"
"I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind"
"he kissed me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off"
"he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly watching him"
"when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out"
"when I put the chair against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove"

“It's a pretty sure thing that the player's bat is what speaks loudest when it's contract time, but there are moments when the glove has the last word.”-Brooks Robinson

"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."-Johnnie Cochran

"Glamour", John Bonanno, 1999, 4" X 6", acrylic on card paper, $150

Some Simple Suggestions to Instantly Reform Government

If I were in a position to issue the ukaz (указ, any proclamation of the tsar in imperial Russia had the force of law) these would be my first:

1. Henceforth, all representatives to Congress will be chosen by lot.

Candidates would have to apply. Only adult citizens may apply. Convicted felons may not apply.
I am certain we would end up with a more honest and representative Congress.

2. The Size of Congress shall be increased to 7,000 members.

A large Congress would ensure a costly effort to buy it; and it would be impossible to keep such a project secret. Punishment would be harsh if discovered. (See ukaz 6) And each congressman would represent less than 50,000 people. I would entertain the notion of more, not fewer representatives than this. But in no way shall a congressman represent more than 50,000 people.

3. The Term of a Representative to Congress shall be increased to four years.

It takes a while to learn a job.

4. Half of the standing members of Congress shall be chosen by lot to remain in Congress at the end of each term.

No representative should be assured of tenure. But, institutional memory is a good thing. And, new blood is a good thing. We shall have half and half. With this many representatives a few lucky ones may remain a long time.

5. Congress must abolish an old law before a new law may be passed. All old laws shall be reviewed by a committee of all the new Representatives at the beginning of each term who shall produce a list of at least a hundred laws to be presented to Congress for a vote on abolition.

This, my most brilliant innovation will eventually limit the great waste of human talent that goes into lawyering.

6. Corruption of a Member of Congress shall be punishable by death to all guilty parties involved.

7. Only legal residents of the district of a member of Congress shall be allowed to lobby that member.

Violation is evidence of corruption. See ukaz 6.

"Astrum Perpetuum" John Bonanno, 1996, acrylic, paper card, 4 1/4" X 6 3/8", $200

"Varium et mutabile semper
Femina."

Virgil, The Aeneid, (Orator per Mercurius)

"Partition in the Air" (scanned detail), acrylic on 16 1/2" x 13 1/2" paper, relatively early work by John Bonanno, 1986, $500

This painting illustrates some of the distractions a soul encounters on its sojourn to Earth.

"What then is the evil Soul?
It is, we read, the Soul that has entered into the service of that in which soul-evil is implanted by nature, in whose service the unreasoning phase of the Soul accepts evil unmeasure, excess and shortcoming, which brings forth licentiousness, cowardice and all other flaws of the Soul, all the states, foreign to the true nature, which set up false judgements, so that the Soul comes to name things good or evil not by their true value but by the mere test of like and dislike."-Plotinus, the Ethical Treatises

"The Culling" John Bonanno, Acrylic on watercolor paper, 10" X 14" circa 2000, substantial portion scanned. $500

This painting is concerned with human sacrifice.

"Cupid In Chaos" John Bonanno, about 2000, acrylic on paper, about 9" X 12", $400

"The First Meaning" John Bonanno, 1999, Acrylic on Paper, 2 3/8" X 4 1/4", $100

"The Red Robe" John Bonanno, 1999, acrylic on card paper, 4 1/4" X 6 1/2", $200

On Interpretation of Scripture and the Limits of a Literal Reading
(Or, Using Kabbalah to Clarify the Way to Understanding)

Rabbi Shim'on said,
"Woe to the human being who says
that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words!
If so, we could compose a Torah right now with ordinary words
and better than all of them!
To present matters of the world?
Even rulers of the world possess words more sublime.
If so, let us follow them and make a Torah out of them!
Ah, but all the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets!

"Come and see:
The world above and the world below are perfectly balanced:
Israel below, the angels above.
Of the angels it is written:
'He makes His angels spirits'
(Psalms 104:4).
But when they descend, they put on the garment of this world.
If they did not put on a garment befitting this world
they could not endure in this world
and the world could not endure them.

If this is so with the angels, how much more so with Torah
who created them and all the worlds
and for whose sake they all exist!
In descending to this world,
if she did not put on the garments of this world
the world could not endure.

"So this story of Torah is the garment of Torah.
Whoever thinks that the garment is the real Torah
and not something else—
may his spirit deflate!
He will have no portion in the world that is coming.
That is why David said:
'Open my eyes, so I can see wonders out of your Torah,'
what is under the garment of Torah.

"Come and see: There is a garment visible to all.
When those fools see someone in a good-looking garment
they look no further.
But the essence of the garment is the body;
the essence of the body is the soul.

"So it is with Torah.
She has a body: the commandments of Torah,
called 'the embodiment of Torah.'
This body is clothed in garments: the stories of this world.
Fools of the world look only at that garment, the story of Torah;
they know nothing more.
The do not look at what is under that garment.
Those who know more do not look at the garment,
but rather at the body under that garment,
The wise ones, servants of the King on high,
those who stood at Mount Sinai,
look only at the soul, root of all, real Torah.
In the time to come, they are destined to look at the soul of the soul of Torah.

"Come and see: So it is above.
There is garment, body, soul, and soul of soul.
The heavens and their host are the garment.
The Communion of Israel is the body,
who receives the soul, Beauty of Israel.
So she is the body of the soul.
The soul we have mentioned is Beauty fo Israel, real Torah.
The soul of the soul is the Holy Ancient One.
All is connected, this one to that one.

"Woe to the wicked who say that Torah is merely a story!
They look at this garment and no further.
Happy are the righteous who look at Torah properly!
As wine must sit in a jar, so Torah must sit in this garment.
So look only at what is under the garment.
All those words and all those stories are garments."-Zohar 3:152a

PaRDeS "Paradise"

"...Moses de Leon employed this highly suggestive term, so rich in shades of meaning, as a cipher for the four levels of interpretation. Each consonant of the word PaRDeS denotes one of the levels: P stands for peshat, the literal meaning, R for remez, the allegorical meaning, D for derasha, the Talmudic and Aggadic interpretation, S for sod, the mystical meaning."-Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism

"..the Bible must be understood on many different levels simultaneously. Certainly one level can be taught as simple stories to children. But many other levels exist at the same time. Jewish mystics have long regarded the Bible as manifesting four different yet simultaneous levels of meaning. These are the plain meaning, the symbolic meaning, the allegorical meaning, and the esoteric meaning. For example, the Bible's opening phrase, "In the beginning", must be understood on each of these four levels to fully comprehend its divine message. Interestingly, some Kabbalists have said that only through understanding the deepest, esoteric strata of the Bible can we come to an accurate understanding of even its plain level-that we must "work backwards", in a sense, in biblical interpretation."-David Sheinkin, M.D., Path of the Kabbalah

"This Book Is A Weapon"
Acrylic on canvasboard with decorated wooden frame.
SOLD

"Books rule the world, or at least those nations that have a written language; the others do not count."
Voltaire

"The Bottomless Cup" Acrylic on layered cardboard, 1996 This is the first painting I ever SOLD, from my first show.

"Intuition is the conscious experience -in pure spirit-of a purely spiritual content. Only through an intuition can the essence of thinking be grasped."-Rudolf Steiner, "The Idea of Freedom"

Dwelling in the Land of No-Memory, 
9" X 12", acrylic on paper, 2003, $555

"Our first work must be the annihilation of everything as it now exists."-Mikhail A. Bakunin, 1842