The Next Book

Blog posts have not been frequent here because I'm in the midst of finishing off the outline/synopsis/plot/characters etc. -- a.k.a, "The Bible" for another book.

I'm already at about 100 double-spaced pages (close to 20,000 words) ... and probably 50 of that consists of condensations and summaries of all the various non-fiction, factual elements that will go into the book.

Another 25 pages are character biographies and resumes. I figure when I finish (this week or next, I hope) that the final "Bible" for the book will run about 25,000 words (120 pages or so).

By comparison,

Wisdom and Understanding

Most people don't realize that much of the biblical of Proverbs is mostly told through a female voice, that of Wisdom -- which, in Greek, is Sophia.

This is one of the symbolic underpinnings of my books, Daughter of God (1999) (and its predecessor, Linz Testament , 1985) and The Da Vinci Legacy (1983). Certain believers in Gnosticism see Sophia as the Great Goddess.

Mary Magdalene is also seen as Sophia and the embodiment of the Great Goddess by Gnostics and a number of more contemporary worshippers of The Magdalen/Sophia/Great Goddess. This is also the same symbolism used in The Da Vinci Code where the heroine (and offspring of Jesus and Mary), is called Sophie -- the diminuative of Sophia.

Following is one of my favorite passages:

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her."
-- Proverbs 4:7-8 (King James Version)

The Jewish Publication Society has a slightly different translation of the same verses:

"The beginning of wisdom is: Get wisdom; yea, with all thy getting get understanding. Extol her, and she will exalt thee; she will bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. "

For more enlightenment and context, head to The Internet Sacred Text Archive.

The same principles (but without the divine female involvement) can be found by searching the Holy Qur'an

Perhaps even more significantly, a search for "wisdom" in the Qur'an, reveals the following:

3. The Family Of Ìmrán (Al-Ìmrán)
003.048 And He will teach him the Scripture and wisdom, and the Torah and the Gospel,


5. The Table Spread (Al-Máída)
005.110 When Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Remember My favour unto thee and unto thy mother; how I strengthened thee with the holy Spirit, so that thou spakest unto mankind in the cradle as in maturity; and how I taught thee the Scripture and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel; and how thou didst shape of clay as it were the likeness of a bird by My permission, and didst blow upon it and it was a bird by My permission, and thou didst heal him who was born blind and the leper by My permission; and how thou didst raise the dead by My permission; and how I restrained the Children of Israel from (harming) thee when thou camest unto them with clear proofs, and those of them who disbelieved exclaimed: This is naught else than mere magic;

Reverse Boycott of Denmark

Great ideas have many fathers and mothers.

See this link for a list of products to buy.

I will be working on finding more.

Reverse Boycott of Denmark?

Yesterday, I got an email from a friend who is one of the top people at a major American financial institution. His is an idea worth considering.

Lew,

It seems that how the Danes are being harmed the most is through an Islamic boycott of their goods.

The number I am hearing that they are losing in global sales is a million dollars a day. Which is a lot in absolute terms, for you and me, however their economy is chugging along at 400 million dollars a day, so less than a percent in relative terms.

However there will likely be a few bankruptcies that would not otherwise have occurred that do occur.

So maybe a way to help the Danes is to see what products are being boycotted the most and get the word out to buy these goods. Sort of like a Berlin airlift in reverse.

Perhaps the product to buy would be Lego's or something.

We Are All Danes

This is a real conflict.

I have some very close personal friends here in the United States who are Muslims. Like Christians and Jews, my Muslim friends find insensitivity upsetting, but they do not riot, kill and burn when upset.

I am also a believer in freedom of speech and religion. I agree with my friend Clark Braxton that freedom of speech and religion protects hateful, insensitive speech and completely looney religions beliefs as long as they don't hurt others. In other words, regardless of whether you are a member of the communist party or the Ku Klux Klan, you have a right to express your views.

I am also very upset with the media as a whole, the ACLU and other "progressive" organizations which feel free to allow, protect and fight for hateful speech and disrespectful behavior when it comes to Jews and Christians, but who are silent now.

Newspapers seem content to allow their "arts" sections to publish articles and pictures ridiculing Christianity and Judaism. The treatment of The Passion of the Christ is a fine example. While I thought that was so bloody and violent that it was religious porn, (an opinion may disagree with) I support the right of Mel Gibson to make it and the right of his detractors to disrespect it.

But when fear and political correctness come into the picture, those who scream most boldly about freedom of speech -- The ACLU and the media -- run for cover.

The word for that is "hypocrite." Coward comes to mind as well.

Google is a particular hypocrite for censoring posts about this.

And if you cannot fight for the rights of all expression, then you stand for no freedom at all.

My posting of the Danish flag is my way of saying that freedom of expression and religion applies to everyone, not just those you agree with or are afraid of.

Please copy this flag, post it on your site. It does not imply support of insensitivity, but it shows solidarity with freedom of expression and condemnation of those who would suppress it -- whether by violence or silence.

UPDATE -- By popular demand, click here to get HTML code you can cut and paste into your site or blog.


(Clark Braxton said he is happy to serve the image off his site).

Let everyone know. The more flags that go up, the bigger the blow against tyranny, hypocrisy and cowardice.

GO SEE MORE POSTS ON THIS.

Google Censorship of Americans Continues

One of my favorite cartoonists, Darrin Bell, (Candorville) is having the same censorship problems with the Google-owned Blogspot, as General Braxton (see my last post on this).

When he tries to have the cartoons visible on his blog, he finds that the Google/Blogspot system reduces them to a postage-stamp-sized image that makes them too small to see.

Bell had to post the cartoons on a separate server (his own) in order to have them appear the correct size.

Go here to see what I mean: The Candorville Courier: About those Mohammed Cartoons...

This is a disgraceful situation and shows just how fragile the so-called freedom of expression is in the blogosphere.

Google Gets Evil

Forget about Google's censorship in China, they're doing it at home too!

Check out General Clark Braxton's tale about how Google, which owns blogspot, deleted a post he made about the Muhammad cartoon issue.

He's also got a link to the original post that Google and its Blogspot subsidiary could not handle.

Could Terrorists Hijack Your Brain?

This article from MIT's Technology Review offers a scenario which I first described in 1993 when I used it as the factual foundation for Slatewiper.

The concept was deemed so "far fetched" that it took almost 10 years to get published. It's one of four thrillers I haver written that have come true.