What a lovely guy. I pass the entrance to the school he attended every time I visit my mother in Hemel Hempstead! Interesting that he managed to get beyond the experiences he had there and go on to be so successful in life. Christians who don't like hierarchies might try the Baptists, or maybe the Plymouth Brethren. I will now visit his website!
What a gentle man. I very much enjoyed this, and so much respect and affection between you. I will continue with my intention of 'love the person, challenge the ideas' and hope that James feels the first as sincere and sees the second as a desire to clarify my own thinking in the process of conversation and engagement.
James talks about the decision to send his sons to boarding school, where he had been bullied black and blue by the teachers (and it seems his parents still didn't pull him out), he says that he and his first wife were splitting up. He states, "I thought, well the boys have my place and they have their mum's place, and I think they should have their own place." He says the boys had a great time there. I don't, of course, know the circumstances but my heart breaks for their mum. She loses her husband, her family and her kids all at the same time. Did she get sent back to work, now that her job as a mom was done, as far as James was concerned? It reminds me of Solomon's choice of splitting the baby in half, so neither would have it. And I notices he said 'I' and not 'we' as making the decision.
Two anecdotes on rape seed oil or canola. I went to a cooking demonstration from a Mexican chef held at an organic grocery chain. She stated that you first needed your pan nice and hot. She then poured in a glug from a freshly opened bottle of canola oil and the smell of rancid fish filled the room. Embarrassed, she sent it back and they brought a new bottle, careful to check the expiry date. Same thing.
Second, did you know that rape was what the pregnant mother craved from the witch's garden? When the husband steals it for her and is caught, she has to promise her child to the witch, who names her Rapunzel. Interesting, eh?
And I'm halfway through so James is not into the Church yet. I'll save my comments until I listen to the rest.
Hi Tereza, bless you for your generous comments. So far as the school situation is concerned, my first wife was the one pushing boarding school harder than I was, and had done so for years before we split up. And it wasn't the same school; that would have messed me up. It was a lovely small school in rural Worcestershire. My son is now 42 so these events were 34 years ago. My ex wife, who trained as a nurse but then decided to give up work when we were married, did go back to work eventually, but not through any influence of mine. I certainly could not have 'sent' her back at that time! Actually if I’d even tried to push, she would have chosen to do the opposite! There was no one else involved in our break-up; that came later. My lawyer said these are the most difficult break-ups. So I’m sorry, I probably didn’t explain this very well. I’ve said to Ahmad that I have a blog rather than a podcast because I don’t always use the right words when speaking. And thanks for your most interesting comments on canola. Avoid it at all costs! My only problem is mayo, because I don’t actually like anything but Hellmans. I keep taking Clive de Carle's 'Fulvic Minerals' in the hope that it helps to counteract it. But rape/canola lurks in virtually every sauce, mustard etc etc. We can only do what we can, ultimately.
Oh James, it's you who are being generous! It occurred to me that I didn't know the whole story but that didn't stop me from making assumptions. My apologies for those, I broke my own rule about giving people the benefit of the doubt.
And there may have been some projection involved on my part. When we divorced, our youngest daughter was a HS senior and my ex felt strongly that I should be working. I remember a lawyer telling me, "The courts send 60-yr-old women back to work all the time." Fortunately we went through a mediator so I never had to go through the 'vocational assessment' where your value to the market is given a number.
When I look at the alignment of stars required for me to keep the family home (which I had bought prior to the marriage, when I did have a value to the 'market') and still own my own time, I can only see divine intervention. Our divorce didn't impact our daughters financially, and I've wanted to write a book called 'The Family-Friendly Divorce' providing the model I developed. Here in the US, a home is given its speculative value and split, just like Solomon's baby. So it becomes a dead asset to the family, and the kids often lose their home, neighborhood, friends and school.
It's also very rare, statistically, for men to leave a marriage without another partner already lined up. I commend you in ending one relationship before starting another. Ten months into our separation, I got a call from someone who said, "You don't know me but my ex-wife has been having an affair with your husband for four years." This made sense of some things for me and was useful, since we were still in what would be 30 months of negotiation. And then he said, "So what do you think about revenge sex?" It still makes me laugh. That turned out to be my ex's HS sweetheart, head cheerleader to his quarterback, homecoming queen to homecoming king. I don't begrudge him. I'm a complicated woman and he always wanted a simpler life.
And on simpler topics, I also only like Hellman's. But none of the stores I frequent sell it, so I guess that saves me from myself and my memories of homegrown tomato sandwiches on white bread slathered with Hellman's.
And yes, we can only do what we can. I look forward to listening to the rest of your interview and thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt for my intentions!
No harm done, it's a fairly reasonable assumption. In my case, my ex got 100% of the house. I had to rebuild from scratch, but I didn't mind doing that. I have a very wonderful second wife and I feel truly blessed. The lesson of my life has been that when doors slammed in my face and things looked very dark, eventually other doors opened and I can now see God's hand on my shoulder in ways that I couldn't at the time. What incredible luck I had!
And what an incredible attitude you have, and I think that and luck go hand in hand. For my ex and I, we also both have the lives we wanted and I share that lesson of remembering that when things look very dark, that there's a hand on the shoulder to lean into.
Another great convo. Agree with everything you guys have to say. What a lovely man. I recently fitted this one to the house supply. Make a world of difference. https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/collections/types-whole-of-house-types/products/w_of_h_ukwf_20 only took about an hour to fit on the main supply. Removed 90-99% of Chlorine, trihalomethanes, Pesticides, Herbicides, Industrial Solvents (halogenated hydrocarbons) PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) PAHs (polycyclic hydrocarbons) and 85% up of Benzene, Petroleum Solvents, Oil Residues.
James, how kind of you to sub my stack! I listened to the rest with a loaded paintbrush, since I'm with you on listening while cooking, cleaning, gardening, painting. You'll see my Doc Malik wall in a future backdrop, that I painted during your conversation and his supporter stories.
As Ahmad knows, I've come to complex views on the Bible. For ten years, I researched the question, where did it go wrong? As you indicate by recommending some passages but not others, there are things neither you nor I agree with in it. To accept what we do and ignore the rest seems dangerous because those who read Noah past the rainbow, to the curse of Ham and Canaan, can use it to justify slavery and genocide, as has been done.
I spent that decade attending the Jesus Seminars, the int'l conference of Bible scholars, and researching the context of the history at the time. What I found is that it wasn't later translations and additions that corrupted the text--in fact, they 'softened the blows.' The more true to the original Greek (not Hebrew or Aramaic, as I'm sure you know), the more naked the attacks against Canaanites and Judeans became.
When you and Ahmad list the characteristics that you believe Jesus had, you're talking about the wrong Christ. Seen in historical context, the person you describe was Judas the Galilean, the Nazarene, the healer that also means the Christ, the co-founder of the zealot movement that--like Hamas and Hezbollah--was an armed militia against the occupation by Rome. He was also called Judas the Sicariot, meaning assassin, for the short daggers with which they took out the informants. Transposed, that's Judas Iscariot.
So when Ahmad talks about inversions, he's spot on. But when did they start? Certainly 911 and JFK. As many are now discovering, likely the world wars. But my research traces these inversions back to the origins of democracy, money and the Bible. It made the villains into heroes and the heroes into villains, the perpetrators into victims and the victims into the perpetrators, love into hate and hate into love, good into evil and evil into good.
What you, I and Ahmad see as good is respect for and intermixing with all people as equals, without hierarchy. The Bible, from my research, has used that love to trick us into empire.
Here are some episodes on some of the passages you recommend:
I get it. In graduate school, I was feeding a stack of punched cards into a mainframe. I hated computers! And in my first job, I was sorting software orders into 40 different formats for the kinds of floppy disk they needed for that kind of hardware. So I'm not far behind you!
Hi Tereza, I’m sorry I’ve been having IT problems, I hope now solved. I’m also totally ignorant about Substack. I thought I’d sent you an answer to this, but I now can’t find it. If you didn’t receive it, let me know and I’ll send it here (I saw this comment on the Substack home page but I don’t really know how that works.)
Embarrassing. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’d ignored your comment.
We're all figuring out how Substack works, James! You did reply. I posted this also as a note, which appears on your home page, maybe because you've subbed me or Ahmad or because it mentioned you. Not entirely sure. So you replied to my note. And here's where it gets tricky--I only know that by looking at the little bell in the upper right corner with the number of notifications, all of which Substack sends to my email EXCEPT replies to my notes. So I'll periodically check it, but it fills up fast. Yours may be at 99, which is as high as it goes. So somewhere there it will tell you that I liked your reply.
We need a little support group of Substack muddlers. Later today I'm recording a new episode in front of my Doc Malik wall ;-) as it will henceforth be known.
I recall reading Jame's comment on you being an incredibly skilled interviewer - so true! James was a wonderful guest, completely open, so wise, knowledgeable, humourous, and quietly outspoken. On top of his book recommendations (btw, love the P.G. Woodhouse one - a must read indeed), I refer you to the late (I reckon he was 'taken out') Terry Jones. I worked with him in 1983 but was too young - and daft - to know what he was really about. To make up for that I am currently reading his non-fictional works and am absolutely blown away! If you read no other then read his history book called 'Barbarians'. Thank you to you and James for a brilliant conversation. xx
I got ours from ITS Europe here in UK. You have to follow the instructions quite carefully. £29.99 it covers most things but it won't, for example tell you which pesticides it's found - just that this category has failed. You can then go for a more detailed test, but as Ahmad has said, you can't remove these through filtration, only distilling. Have a look at some of the videos on the Waterpure site - they’re very informative
Such an interesting podcast! as all of them to be honest. Where did you buy the water tester James? We have a under sink filter for years (a german type called Grohe ) but I always wonder if it actually get rid of all the nastiness as they claim.. I think it's time to test the water and also get a distiller.
What a lovely guy. I pass the entrance to the school he attended every time I visit my mother in Hemel Hempstead! Interesting that he managed to get beyond the experiences he had there and go on to be so successful in life. Christians who don't like hierarchies might try the Baptists, or maybe the Plymouth Brethren. I will now visit his website!
What a gentle man. I very much enjoyed this, and so much respect and affection between you. I will continue with my intention of 'love the person, challenge the ideas' and hope that James feels the first as sincere and sees the second as a desire to clarify my own thinking in the process of conversation and engagement.
James talks about the decision to send his sons to boarding school, where he had been bullied black and blue by the teachers (and it seems his parents still didn't pull him out), he says that he and his first wife were splitting up. He states, "I thought, well the boys have my place and they have their mum's place, and I think they should have their own place." He says the boys had a great time there. I don't, of course, know the circumstances but my heart breaks for their mum. She loses her husband, her family and her kids all at the same time. Did she get sent back to work, now that her job as a mom was done, as far as James was concerned? It reminds me of Solomon's choice of splitting the baby in half, so neither would have it. And I notices he said 'I' and not 'we' as making the decision.
Two anecdotes on rape seed oil or canola. I went to a cooking demonstration from a Mexican chef held at an organic grocery chain. She stated that you first needed your pan nice and hot. She then poured in a glug from a freshly opened bottle of canola oil and the smell of rancid fish filled the room. Embarrassed, she sent it back and they brought a new bottle, careful to check the expiry date. Same thing.
Second, did you know that rape was what the pregnant mother craved from the witch's garden? When the husband steals it for her and is caught, she has to promise her child to the witch, who names her Rapunzel. Interesting, eh?
And I'm halfway through so James is not into the Church yet. I'll save my comments until I listen to the rest.
Hi Tereza, bless you for your generous comments. So far as the school situation is concerned, my first wife was the one pushing boarding school harder than I was, and had done so for years before we split up. And it wasn't the same school; that would have messed me up. It was a lovely small school in rural Worcestershire. My son is now 42 so these events were 34 years ago. My ex wife, who trained as a nurse but then decided to give up work when we were married, did go back to work eventually, but not through any influence of mine. I certainly could not have 'sent' her back at that time! Actually if I’d even tried to push, she would have chosen to do the opposite! There was no one else involved in our break-up; that came later. My lawyer said these are the most difficult break-ups. So I’m sorry, I probably didn’t explain this very well. I’ve said to Ahmad that I have a blog rather than a podcast because I don’t always use the right words when speaking. And thanks for your most interesting comments on canola. Avoid it at all costs! My only problem is mayo, because I don’t actually like anything but Hellmans. I keep taking Clive de Carle's 'Fulvic Minerals' in the hope that it helps to counteract it. But rape/canola lurks in virtually every sauce, mustard etc etc. We can only do what we can, ultimately.
Oh James, it's you who are being generous! It occurred to me that I didn't know the whole story but that didn't stop me from making assumptions. My apologies for those, I broke my own rule about giving people the benefit of the doubt.
And there may have been some projection involved on my part. When we divorced, our youngest daughter was a HS senior and my ex felt strongly that I should be working. I remember a lawyer telling me, "The courts send 60-yr-old women back to work all the time." Fortunately we went through a mediator so I never had to go through the 'vocational assessment' where your value to the market is given a number.
When I look at the alignment of stars required for me to keep the family home (which I had bought prior to the marriage, when I did have a value to the 'market') and still own my own time, I can only see divine intervention. Our divorce didn't impact our daughters financially, and I've wanted to write a book called 'The Family-Friendly Divorce' providing the model I developed. Here in the US, a home is given its speculative value and split, just like Solomon's baby. So it becomes a dead asset to the family, and the kids often lose their home, neighborhood, friends and school.
It's also very rare, statistically, for men to leave a marriage without another partner already lined up. I commend you in ending one relationship before starting another. Ten months into our separation, I got a call from someone who said, "You don't know me but my ex-wife has been having an affair with your husband for four years." This made sense of some things for me and was useful, since we were still in what would be 30 months of negotiation. And then he said, "So what do you think about revenge sex?" It still makes me laugh. That turned out to be my ex's HS sweetheart, head cheerleader to his quarterback, homecoming queen to homecoming king. I don't begrudge him. I'm a complicated woman and he always wanted a simpler life.
And on simpler topics, I also only like Hellman's. But none of the stores I frequent sell it, so I guess that saves me from myself and my memories of homegrown tomato sandwiches on white bread slathered with Hellman's.
And yes, we can only do what we can. I look forward to listening to the rest of your interview and thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt for my intentions!
No harm done, it's a fairly reasonable assumption. In my case, my ex got 100% of the house. I had to rebuild from scratch, but I didn't mind doing that. I have a very wonderful second wife and I feel truly blessed. The lesson of my life has been that when doors slammed in my face and things looked very dark, eventually other doors opened and I can now see God's hand on my shoulder in ways that I couldn't at the time. What incredible luck I had!
And what an incredible attitude you have, and I think that and luck go hand in hand. For my ex and I, we also both have the lives we wanted and I share that lesson of remembering that when things look very dark, that there's a hand on the shoulder to lean into.
What a lovely man James is I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation between the two of you.
Another great convo. Agree with everything you guys have to say. What a lovely man. I recently fitted this one to the house supply. Make a world of difference. https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/collections/types-whole-of-house-types/products/w_of_h_ukwf_20 only took about an hour to fit on the main supply. Removed 90-99% of Chlorine, trihalomethanes, Pesticides, Herbicides, Industrial Solvents (halogenated hydrocarbons) PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) PAHs (polycyclic hydrocarbons) and 85% up of Benzene, Petroleum Solvents, Oil Residues.
James, how kind of you to sub my stack! I listened to the rest with a loaded paintbrush, since I'm with you on listening while cooking, cleaning, gardening, painting. You'll see my Doc Malik wall in a future backdrop, that I painted during your conversation and his supporter stories.
As Ahmad knows, I've come to complex views on the Bible. For ten years, I researched the question, where did it go wrong? As you indicate by recommending some passages but not others, there are things neither you nor I agree with in it. To accept what we do and ignore the rest seems dangerous because those who read Noah past the rainbow, to the curse of Ham and Canaan, can use it to justify slavery and genocide, as has been done.
I spent that decade attending the Jesus Seminars, the int'l conference of Bible scholars, and researching the context of the history at the time. What I found is that it wasn't later translations and additions that corrupted the text--in fact, they 'softened the blows.' The more true to the original Greek (not Hebrew or Aramaic, as I'm sure you know), the more naked the attacks against Canaanites and Judeans became.
When you and Ahmad list the characteristics that you believe Jesus had, you're talking about the wrong Christ. Seen in historical context, the person you describe was Judas the Galilean, the Nazarene, the healer that also means the Christ, the co-founder of the zealot movement that--like Hamas and Hezbollah--was an armed militia against the occupation by Rome. He was also called Judas the Sicariot, meaning assassin, for the short daggers with which they took out the informants. Transposed, that's Judas Iscariot.
So when Ahmad talks about inversions, he's spot on. But when did they start? Certainly 911 and JFK. As many are now discovering, likely the world wars. But my research traces these inversions back to the origins of democracy, money and the Bible. It made the villains into heroes and the heroes into villains, the perpetrators into victims and the victims into the perpetrators, love into hate and hate into love, good into evil and evil into good.
What you, I and Ahmad see as good is respect for and intermixing with all people as equals, without hierarchy. The Bible, from my research, has used that love to trick us into empire.
Here are some episodes on some of the passages you recommend:
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-devil-and-naomi-wolf
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/in-the-blood-of-eden
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/genesis-and-the-naked-deception
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-genesis-of-the-dysfunctional
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-curse-of-babel
There's more, but that's enough to intrigue you or scare you off. I'm hoping for the former!
That makes me feel much better! I thought it was my usual awful IT skills. My excuse is that I was 36 before the first PCs were sold!
I get it. In graduate school, I was feeding a stack of punched cards into a mainframe. I hated computers! And in my first job, I was sorting software orders into 40 different formats for the kinds of floppy disk they needed for that kind of hardware. So I'm not far behind you!
Hi Tereza, I’m sorry I’ve been having IT problems, I hope now solved. I’m also totally ignorant about Substack. I thought I’d sent you an answer to this, but I now can’t find it. If you didn’t receive it, let me know and I’ll send it here (I saw this comment on the Substack home page but I don’t really know how that works.)
Embarrassing. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’d ignored your comment.
We're all figuring out how Substack works, James! You did reply. I posted this also as a note, which appears on your home page, maybe because you've subbed me or Ahmad or because it mentioned you. Not entirely sure. So you replied to my note. And here's where it gets tricky--I only know that by looking at the little bell in the upper right corner with the number of notifications, all of which Substack sends to my email EXCEPT replies to my notes. So I'll periodically check it, but it fills up fast. Yours may be at 99, which is as high as it goes. So somewhere there it will tell you that I liked your reply.
We need a little support group of Substack muddlers. Later today I'm recording a new episode in front of my Doc Malik wall ;-) as it will henceforth be known.
I recall reading Jame's comment on you being an incredibly skilled interviewer - so true! James was a wonderful guest, completely open, so wise, knowledgeable, humourous, and quietly outspoken. On top of his book recommendations (btw, love the P.G. Woodhouse one - a must read indeed), I refer you to the late (I reckon he was 'taken out') Terry Jones. I worked with him in 1983 but was too young - and daft - to know what he was really about. To make up for that I am currently reading his non-fictional works and am absolutely blown away! If you read no other then read his history book called 'Barbarians'. Thank you to you and James for a brilliant conversation. xx
I got ours from ITS Europe here in UK. You have to follow the instructions quite carefully. £29.99 it covers most things but it won't, for example tell you which pesticides it's found - just that this category has failed. You can then go for a more detailed test, but as Ahmad has said, you can't remove these through filtration, only distilling. Have a look at some of the videos on the Waterpure site - they’re very informative
Such an interesting podcast! as all of them to be honest. Where did you buy the water tester James? We have a under sink filter for years (a german type called Grohe ) but I always wonder if it actually get rid of all the nastiness as they claim.. I think it's time to test the water and also get a distiller.