With Hurricane Helene, Trump & reich-wing influencers/conspiranoids once again show that hurricanes not only have eyes, but assholes as well

DonOld Trump and a host of crass attention whores across the GOP and the reich-wing idiosphere have been ruthlessly exploiting the tragedy of Hurricane Helene, spreading lies and conspiracy theories to further their own interests. And unfortunately this isn't just harmless nonsense; it is causing panic and hampering recovery efforts.

Hurricane Helene has been one of the deadliest hurricanes to make landfall in the mainland United States in the modern era -- with more than 200 people dead as of this writing, hundreds more missing, and the death toll sure to get drastically worse, according to Rowan County, North Carolina Sheriff Travis Allen. Thousands of survivors have had their lives upended -- many have lost everything -- and it's an ongoing nightmare for victims and aid workers alike. Unfortunately but inevitably, Helene has also provided endless opportunities for #NeverWasMyPresident DonOld John Trump and a host of lesser attention whores to mouth off and exploit the tragedy for their own purposes.

It should come as no surprise that Trump is using the storm to further his political ends, while much of the American reich is also politicizing it, and the usual run of social media conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians are milking the disaster furiously in their endless quest for a few precious drops of attention.

For his part, Trump has been busy pretending to care about the storm victims, while pretending that Kamala Harris doesn't care (spoiler: actually, she does care), and unjustly slamming the Biden administration for its response to the storm. From an AP story by Matthew Daly, September 30, 2024 (via the ABC News site):

Former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, even as his supporters have called for cuts to federal agencies that warn of weather disasters and deliver relief to hard-hit communities.

As president, Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. And Project 2025, backed by Trump supporters, would restructure FEMA to limit aid to states and says that the National Weather Service, which provides crucial data on hurricanes and other storms, “should be broken up and downsized.”

Trump claimed without evidence Monday that the Biden administration and North Carolina's Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” And Trump adviser Stephen Miller said President Joe Biden “failed to evacuate or rescue” U.S. citizens, “just like you failed in Afghanistan.''

And the Trumpian lies just went on and on. From AP, also on September 30:

Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.

The former president and Republican nominee claimed upon landing in Valdosta that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who he said was “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him.” He repeated the claim at an event with reporters after being told Kemp said he had spoken to Biden.

“He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden said Monday.

The White House previously announced that Biden spoke by phone Sunday night with Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, as well as Scott Matheson, mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, and Florida Emergency Management Director John Louk. Kemp confirmed Monday morning that he spoke to Biden the night before.

Like everything Trump does, this goes far beyond politix-as-usual. An October 4, 2024 piece on the conservative Bulwark site elaborates on the harm and chaos that Trump and his allies are causing with their campaign of lies.

Trump has argued that FEMA has depleted its storm relief funds because it spent much of that money “housing” illegal migrants. His allies have accused FEMA of confiscating property, of making people apply for help, of asking for cash donations, and of preventing everyone from Elon Musk to the Department of Defense from helping out with the response efforts. Virtually all of them have pushed stories insisting that Kamala Harris told storm victims they could get only $750 in aid. (That’s just one type of assistance they can get quickly, not the full amount available.)

Things have gotten bad enough that on Friday, FEMA took the step of posting a “rumor response” webpage. The White House put out a memo of its own accusing Republican leaders of spreading “bald faced lies” and “poison.” One official, speaking to The Bulwark, said they feared there could be on-the-ground confrontations involving people who believed FEMA was trying to plunder the dispossessed. 

Here is a direct link to FEMA's Hurricane Helene rumor response page.

To MAGAts, however, the fact that Trump and gang are out-and-out lying won't matter, nor will the government's attempts to set the record straight. And from what I've seen in various news reports, even some of the vics of the hurricane are apparently taking Trump's in-person appearances at some of the devastated areas as evidence that he actually cares about them (or more accurately, that he cares about something beyond getting their votes in November).

But, giving credit where it is due, infesting impacted areas with his orange presence and lying about Biden/Harris aren't the the only things Trump is doing. Despite his notoriously shaky history with charities, he -- or rather, his campaign finance director, Meredith O'Rourke --- has launched a GoFundMe that so far has raised more than 6.3 million bucks and counting, supposedly to help Hurricane Helene victims (or more specifically to help other charities that are providing hurricane relief).

Originally I wrote that the GoFundMe page did not actually list a charity, and it didn't, but this has since been updated; several charities are now named: Samaritan's Purse, Water Mission, Clinch Foundation, and Mtn2Sea Ministries. According to an October 2 update by the fund's organizer, "an initial disbursement" has been made and more will be made as donations continue to come in. Here's a fact check from Reuters, dated October 4, 2024. (But also see the last couple of paragraphs in this section.)

Notably, it's not at all clear if Trump himself has been among those who have made a contribution to this Very Worthy Cause...but I'm guessing not. And you have to wonder why. From The Daily Beast, October 1, 2024:

Former President Donald Trump has launched a GoFundMe to support those affected by Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction—but some are saying that the Republican presidential nominee, who is reportedly worth around $4 billion, could do a lot to help victims out of his own pocket. The “Trump authorized” campaign has already raised $3 million from some 19,000 donations since it appeared yesterday. The list of the campaign’s biggest contributors is a sampler of Trump’s most high-profile allies: it features musician Kid Rock, UFC CEO Dana White, hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, and Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, to name a few. It is unclear whether Trump himself has contributed to the campaign, but his name does not appear among the list of its top donors—those who gave between $5,000 and $500,000. Some wondered how much of an impact Trump’s personal wealth could make for those affected by Helene, however. “Why did Trump need to start a GoFundMe to raise money for hurricane victims?” reads a post with 22,000 likes from the X account @TheUSASingers. “Isn’t he supposed to be a billionaire? Can’t he just give them 10 million bucks?”

That Trump has formidable fund-raising clout is not in dispute. But more than funds are being raised: questions are being raised as well, at least by folks who aren't blinded and deafened by Trumplove. Even with the assurances by both GoFundMe and the fund's organizer, if you are willing to just take it on faith that every penny of every one of the contributions (minus GoFundMe's 3 percent cut) will go to the cause of helping Helene's victims... well, I've got a pair of gold clown shoes, a share in a social media company, and a $100k watch to sell you.

After all, as J.D. Wolf pointed out on the Meidas Touch site on October 4, the fund still has some basic transparency issues. After noting that Samaratin's Purse is an established charity (and that Trump had falsely taken credit for the charity's "truckloads" of hurricane relief supplies), Wolf added:

Trump's GoFundMe hasn't linked to the organizations for easy identification. MeidasTouch was able to find groups operating under the Water Mission and Mtn2Sea Ministries, but couldn't locate any entity providing hurricane relief under the name "Clinch Foundation."...

...We don't know the amounts Trump is donating to any of the groups or how much he has left to donate. With the Trump family history of impropriety involving charities, Trump needs to do better.

Also of note, the long-time President and Chairman of the Board of Samaritan's Purse is Christofascist and devout Trumpian Franklin Graham, who, among numerous other sins, defended Trump by deflection and whataboutism in the wake of the violent January 6 insurrection that Trump incited.* What I'm wondering is: will any of the funds donated to Samaritan's purse from the GoFundMe be redirected into Trump's pocket? It's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Harping on HAARP (and those evil Dems)
Meanwhile, in the larger reich-wing idiosphere, there's a new conspiranoid narrative in town: Democrats are responsible for Hurricane Helene. We've heard the wind blowing from the same direction before, regarding Dems being to blame for all manner of tragedy and evil and disaster, but here we go again. From The Daily Kos, September 30, 2024:

Brace yourself, because if you thought Donald Trump’s racist “cats and dogs” lies were bad enough, it won’t be long before this bit of QAnon and Q-adjacent insanity ends up in one of his rambling, incoherent campaign screeds.

I’m talking about Democrats controlling the weather.

Conservative influencer Matt Wallace, with his 2.1 million X followers, lays out the case here.

Don’t worry guys, weather modification isn’t real! It’s just a coincidence that Hurricane Helene is one of the most devastating “inland damage storms” in history and that hundreds of pro-Trump counties are being massively impacted during the most important election of our lifetimes. 

Obviously the elites would never be evil enough to create hurricanes designed to interfere with “democracy”… Pay no attention to the storms currently brewing in the Atlantic either! You can ask any mainstream scientist and they will tell you that it isn’t even possible to create those or target them at certain areas. 

Just stay silent. No need to vote or expose anything. You wouldn't want to be called a conspiracy theorist right? Couldn’t have that. So please ignore your own eyes and don’t share this post or investigate further.

In truth, of course, if there are bad guys in this tale of yet another storm of the century, Dems/liberals are definitely not it. More from The Daily Kos article:

...liberals didn’t control [Hurricane Helene]. In fact, we’ve been trying to tell anyone who would listen that these megastorms will become the norm if climate change remains unaddressed, and they don’t want to listen. Quite ironically, it is them, the climate deniers, who are in large part to blame. 

Instead, they’re claiming that HAARP—a research project in Alaska studying the ionosphere for communication and surveillance technologies—can’t just control the weather, it can even cause devastating earthquakes. 

High-profile conservative nutbags have spent the weekend blaming HAARP and the dastardly Democrats behind it for specifically targeting Trump counties for malicious purposes (you can see here, here, here, here, and here, just for starters).

The thing is, if Dems really had that much control over the weather, wouldn't they just target Mar-a-Lago, at a time when they were pretty sure Trump would be home, and/or hit key Trump areas closer to Election Day, and/or spare Asheville, North Carolina, a key blue area?

Alas, logic has rarely been a criterion for the conspiracy-minded. Among the logic-free loonies are reich-wing legislators such as Marjorie Taylor "Jewish Space Laser" Greene, who has been spreading the weather control narrative on Xitter. On September 30 she shared a map, created by the aforementioned Matt Wallace, that shows hurricane affected areas with an overlay of 2020 election results, and apparently is supposed to demonstrate that red areas have been targeted and blue areas spared. (In truth, the damage caused by Hurricane Helene has created challenges up- and down-ballot for both political parties, particularly in the battleground state of North Carolina.)

This is far from the first time that the conspiranoid loons have harped on HAARP and weather control and whatnot, and it won't be the last. I wrote about this back in 2017, in the wake of yet another devastating hurricane, Harvey (which hit my neck of the woods).

Apart from the election-manipulation narrative, other conspiranoid stories are making the rounds as well. In a recent post, a proudly Trumpian blogger claimed to know the real, true cause of hurricanes and floods, 'cause it's on seekrit government documents. The post links to a section on a conspiracy site called Stop World Control [spoiler: it's WEATHER CONTROL]. But and the blogger added her own pet theory about Asheville.

I fully believe that the flooding in Ashville [sic], NC was a purposeful land grab just like the direct energy weapons unleashed on Maui…

Ah, yes... the Maui Wildfire Conspiranoid Loonapaloooza. I wrote about that one too. Never one for originality, the Trumpanzee blogger is far from the only person to promote the land-grab lunacy re Hurricane Helene; in fact, apart from the election manipulation theory it's it's one of the top nutter narratives.

Not that setting the record straight on the weather-modification articles of faith will matter to those who are attached to conspiracy tales like orange glop to Trump's face, but there's this from Politifact:

Hurricane Helene was not a product of weather modification. That’s Pants on Fire!

There’s no proof that Hurricane Helene was formed through weather modification. Bart Geerts, professor at the University of Wyoming Department of Atmospheric Science, told PolitiFact that’s "false."

"NOAA confirms that there are no weather modification activities that could have resulted in Hurricane Helene. Hurricanes form on their own given the right conditions and that was the case with Helene," Monica Allen, director of public affairs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Research division, told PolitiFact.

Allen cited Project Stormfury, a NOAA project in the 1960s that "involved seeding existing hurricanes." Attempted on four hurricanes, the project studied how seeding clouds with silver iodide could lead to a decrease in the hurricane’s strongest winds.

"This project ended in 1983 because it had, at best, mixed results, and there were concerns about unintended consequences," Allen said. "Since then, NOAA has done no weather modification."

But hey...that's what They want you to believe. Conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians, of course, know better. And they will continue to let everyone know what they know throughout the aftermath of this storm and the next one and the next.

And it can't be emphasized enough that as Hurricane Helene recovery efforts continue, this is causing genuine harm to thousands of people. People are even threatening to kill FEMA workers because of the toxic lies being told by mega-influencers such as Trump's arguably most powerful ally at the moment, the profoundly evil Elon Musk.

It's gotten so bad that even some of the GOP officials who are actually in the thick of things are pleading for the nonsense to stop. North Carolina State Senator Kevin Corbin, to give but one example, wrote this on Facebook on October 3, 2024:

Friends can I ask a small favor? Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in WNC. Example: FEMA is stealing money from donations, body bags ordered but government has denied, bodies not being buried, government is controlling the weather from Antarctica, government is trying to get lithium from WNC, stacks of bodies left at hospitals, and on and on and on. PLEASE help stop this junk. It is just a distraction to people trying to do their job. Folks, this is a catastrophic event of which this country has never known. It is the largest crisis event in the history of N.C. The state is working non-stop. DOT has deployed workers from all over the state. Duke power has 10,000 workers on this. FEMA is here. The National Guard is here in large numbers. My Senate district is 8 counties and it takes 3 hours to drive across it in good weather…. And this disaster is 25 counties in N.C. This is going to take MONTHS if not years to overcome. Government will play a role in this cleanup. We are going to make sure the state chips in some massive money. But Government is not the total solution. YES, there are a lot of neighbors helping neighbors and that’s good and the way it should be. Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true. I just talked to one Senator that has had 15 calls TODAY about why we don’t stop …….. “fill in the blank.” 98% chance it’s not true and if it is a problem, somebody is aware and on it and not waiting for a post to go thru 10,000 people to be addressed. Thanks for listening but I’ve been working on this 12 hours a day since it started and I’m growing a bit weary of intentional distractions from the main job …. which is to help our citizens in need.

I hope Senator Corbin's message is doing some good, but my feeling is that the dedicated conspiranoids will just consider that Corbin has gone over to the Dark Side.

Meanwhile, as Trump blows on and lesser loons babble on, here is one of many sources of legitimate information about how you can actually help the victims of Hurricane Helene.

* While Franklin Graham's nose has an ugly orange stain, on the other hand, Graham's niece, Jerushah Duford (whose mother Virginia "Gigi" Graham Tchividjian is Graham's oldest daughter), has spoken out strongly against Trump and for Kamala Harris.

This post has been amended and updated since its original publication on October 3, 2024.
~ CC

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Stopping hurricanes: tough love v TLC. (Also some stuff about bug farts)

By now you have almost certainly heard about #NotMyPresident Mad King Donald J. Trump's proposed suggestion to stop hurricanes before they hit the US of A. An August 25 Axios piece by Jonathan Swan and Margaret Talev reported that on several occasions Trump has asked senior Homeland Security and national security officials about the idea of using nuclear bombs to disrupt the storms as they're making their way across the Atlantic from Africa. A source said that the attendees at one such meeting were stunned into silence at the suggestion, a silence so profound that "you could hear a gnat fart."

Which raises a whole new series of questions about whether gnats really do fart, but I don't want to get too far off point.

Let's get the really important stuff out of the way first.
What Trump said about nuking hurricanes was... Well... okay, since you didn't ask, but might ask at some point, and I want to save you the effort of Googling, I did some further research on the gnat-fart question. I may be a lazy blogger, but I will always, always go the extra mile, or at least an extra few feet, for my four or five faithful readers. Gnats are insects, and it seems that some insects do fart, though it is highly unlikely that the farts are audible, no matter how quiet a room might become in response to a profoundly stupid utterance that a given Oaf of Office might make.

According to entomologist and presumed bug-fart expert Elsa Youngsteadt of North Carolina State University, it's possible to hear insects masticating (that's masticating, you naughty person) and defecating (apparently insect poop is called "frass," and when the frass hits the grass it can make a sound if someone's around), but there is no literature suggesting that insect farts can be heard, at least by humans. Youngsteadt helpfully adds that termites are the fartiest insects, but she seems closemouthed about gnats. I keep my mouth closed too when gnats are around, and there are far too many of them around in my neck of the woods this time of year.

In any case, if you care to do further research, you may or may not find the answer to the gnat-fart mystery in a 1994 study titled, "Methane production in terrestrial arthropods" by JH Hackstein and CK Stumm. My careless perusal of the abstract leads me to believe that gnats, of which there are numerous species in the dipterid suborder Nematocera, are not among the farters, although cockroaches and millipedes are, which as far as I'm concerned is yet another reason to intensely dislike cockroaches and millipedes. (And yes, I know that millipedes are not insects, but they are arthropods.) We have had an infestation of millipedes here this year, and they're especially thick after it rains, and they are just plain icky. Now that I know that every individual in those big clusters is not only looking disgusting but is also probably farting his or her little brains out, my life is nearly complete. A nearly complete nightmare, that is, at least after the rain.

But gnats? Not gas-passing arthropods, apparently.

So does all of this mean that the un-named source who said that "you could hear a gnat fart" is unreliable, and that we can therefore conclude that Trump did not in fact suggest bombing hurricanes?

Well, Trump himself has repeatedly dismissed the reports about his hurricane Rx as "fake news." He tweeted it on August 26, for instance, and got mightily trolled, so you owe it to yourself to follow that tweet link. And here's another one, for good measure.

But Jonathan Swan, co-author of the Axios piece, responded to Trump's initial accusation by tweeting:

I stand by every word in the story. He said this in at least two meetings during the first year and a bit of the presidency, and one of the conversations was memorialized.

Who you gonna believe, then? A fake-news journalist, or a man for whom truth-telling has always been a sacred duty?

The tough-love approach
As you are probably also aware, Trump did not just pull the concept of nuking hurricanes out of his aperture. Well, maybe he did, but the concept didn't originate with him. He simply swallowed it whole, repeatedly, and it came out of his other end, repeatedly. (Allegedly.) Or maybe he regurgitated it; it's difficult to tell, but either way there's a smell.

But apparently the idea can actually be traced back to the Eisenhower era. That said, it has been debunked, repeatedly, though it keeps resurfacing, to the point that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a fact sheet online to explain why nuking a hurricane would not work and would almost certainly create far more damage than it prevented.

But my guess is that Trump does not read factual stuff like that. (I know, I probably lost some of you at the concept of Trump reading.)

Of course Donald Trump is far from the first and will be far from the last person to allegedly suggest a wackadoodle plan for battling a natural disaster. WaPo ran a good capsule history of some of humanity's harebrained ideas to fight hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes and whatnot. F'rinstance:

In the early 1960s, the U.S. Army decided to dispose of more than 150,000 gallons of nerve gas by drilling a well deep into the Colorado earth and pumping the toxic waste into it. Soon after, earthquakes began breaking out in the Denver suburbs. The implication was tantalizing: if they could figure out how to set off small earthquakes, maybe they could do so selectively, thereby relieving seismic pressure and preventing “The Big One.”

“They actually proposed this idea, to drill wells and pump in water and trigger small earthquakes along the San Andreas,” William Bilodeau, chair of the geology department at California Lutheran University, told VCReporter. “And they got fairly far along in the planning process and then people began to say, ‘Wait a minute — what happens if we set off a really big earthquake?’ ”

We should know by now, Jones said, that we can’t stop earthquakes, we can’t stop plate tectonics. And if we keep trying, we might just make them worse.

Yeah, what Jones said.

And not all of the loony-tunes schemes proposed have been in the service of saving hapless human creatures from the wrath-o-God. Some plans have apparently been proposed for no higher purpose than to advance a big dick war. I'm thinking of a certain Cold War era plan by the US to detonate nukes on the Moon, just to show Russia who was boss.

On the other hand, there was a mathematician and crackpot named Alexander Abian (1923-1999) who thought we should just blow the whole Moon up, which, Abian theorized, would solve virtually all of the problems of human existence. He claimed that a Moonless Earth would not wobble, which would eliminate seasons and associated events such as heat waves, snowstorms, and hurricanes. He was full of crap, but at least he had a higher purpose in mind than showing Russia who was boss.

The TLC approach
If the idea of blowing stuff up -- of fighting destructive forces with yet more destructive forces -- does not appeal to you, you will be delighted to know that there is an alternative, which involves meditation, prayer, and direct loving communication with the destructive forces of nature, most especially hurricanes. Intrepid reporter that I am, I have reported on this alternative numerous times on this Whirled (hint: you'll get more results if you follow the Google image search). One of my favorite hurricane communicators is a woman named Lynn S. Marks, who also calls herself "Phoenix" and SpiritDiva, and who actually channels messages from hurricanes. She believes that contrary to their bad press, hurricanes are forces of love, and if you talk nice to them, especially in groups over the phone or the Interwebz, you might be able to persuade them to kill fewer people than they would if left to their own devices.

I have been writing about SpiritDiva since the early daze of this blog, back in 2006. A more recent post covered her communications with Hurricane Irma in 2017. Here's a direct link to SpiritDiva's messages from Irma.

But Lynn/SpiritDiva/Phoenix is not the only wind whisperer in crazy town. There's also Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, an even more frequent snarget here. By his own objective self-assessment, Mr. Fire has not only been able to neutralize hurricanes with his love-and-light techniques, but also oil spills and even wildfires. You can get an idea of his magickal powers right here, and there are links to previous musings on his awesome wind-whispering skills. I remain especially impressed by the way he and his group of meta-taters neutralized Hurricane Ike in 2008.

As you may have predicted, thinking about Joe Vitale leads back to the topic of insect farts. I am pondering now on how bug farting might possibly be harnessed for the greater good. I know that farting and burping, at least from cows, supposedly contribute to global warming and the climate crisis, but Trump et al. claim that that all of that climate stuff is a hoax, so one just doesn't know what to believe. Be that as it may, I was thinking that it might be possible that insect farts could somehow be channeled to fight... well, something -- maybe those dangerous murderous rapey immigrants who are constantly threatening the US's Southern border. After all, it has been proven that in the insect world, farts can be deadly, at least to other insects. So maybe bug toots can be weaponized to fight greater threats.

But that is most likely worthy of a whole other blog post. We were talking about hurricanes, and, all things considered, if I were forced to choose, I believe I'd opt for Phoenix the wind whisperer's tender-love approach over the nuclear option. Pretending to channel storms might be totally useless, but at least it's harmless and entertaining.

As for the deeply unnatural disaster currently infesting the White House, though, I think the solution lies in getting a sufficient number of rational, informed, and intelligent people out to vote in 2020. It's our only hope. Otherwise, it's four more years of loony ideas and policies from the White House and Mar-a-Lago. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Trump did actually promote the weaponization of bug farts.

PS ~ Here are some marginally saner ideas about weather modification, but most of them probably won't work either. And besides, we have enough weather-manipulation conspiranoia already.

PPS added 3 September 2019: When it comes to dealing with hurricanes there's another tough-love advocate, who also happens to be a yuuuge Trump fan: a pink-haired "Christian" prophet named Ket Kerr. Upon hearing that Hurricane Dorian might be threatening Herr Twitler's "Winter White House," Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Kerr declared that she would not tolerate it. From what I can understand of her babbling, it seems that hurricanes are created by God but have been co-opted by Satan, but Kerr said that she and her "Weather Warrior" followers have taken authority over this evil, with the help of Jesus H. Christ Himself, whom Kerr claims to know personally and who she says is a big Trump fan too. I guess the Weather Warriors' directed fury was effective, because as disappointing as it may be to many, Mar-a-Lago will most likely be spared from a direct hit from the storm. Better luck next time, Satan.*

* NOTE: I want to make it clear that I absolutely would NOT wish any physical harm on any human being or other living creature, not even a Trump, as a result of any given storm. But if Mar-a-Lago itself were flattened, let me just say that I would not grieve.

Other posts about wind on this Whirled:

• September 2008 -- After the storm: a wind whisperer and a Bible thumper weigh in
• July 2009 -- Horse farts and related matters
• August 2017 -- The dirty side of the storm

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Irma, Schmirma! Hurricane Diva is back on the job

For all of y'all who have been worrying about Hurricane Irma, your worries are over. The world's leading wind whisperer/hurricane channeler is back on the job, and she and Irma both assure us that all is well.

When I first wrote about Hurricane Harvey on this Whirled last week -- here's that link -- I mentioned that New-Wage huckster Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale was using the disaster as yet another marketing op. He'd done that before during various hurricanes and wildfires, so it wasn't really surprising. His willingness to exploit disaster and tragedy has made for some good blog fodder here over the years.
 
I couldn't help noticing that there was one person apparently missing in action from the Harvey party: "Phoenix" Lynn S. Marks, aka SpiritDiva, who in the past had led numerous phone meditations to help calm and redirect hurricanes.

Natch, I've written about Phoenix SpiritDiva a few times too. In the earlier daze of this blog, I was constantly getting emails from her, announcing one or another guided meditation to help uncover the storm of the week's warm and fuzzy side. During those times, my blog posts practically wrote themselves.

The way this hurricane communication thing works, according to the Messages from the Hurricanes page on Lynn's site (here's that link again), is that "just minutes before starting each global meditation I [commune] with each storm directly and [ask] if it [has] a message for us."

Apparently hurricanes are quite the talkative bunch, though they seem a little grammar- and spelling-challenged at times, and they are delighted to use Lynn to channel their messages of love and hope for humankind. You can read several of the channeled messages -- including not one, not two, but three messages from the 2008 disaster Ike -- on the page linked to in the paragraph above.

And SpiritDiva boasts quite a success rate...

We have successfully participated in prayer and meditation events to transform the path and intensity of several hurricanes and typhoons the past couple of years, including Dean, Ernesto, Ivan, Jeanne, Frances, Rita, Wilma and Alberto. We've seen them shift direction and decrease their energy within minutes of completing our meditations.

You forgot to mention your great success with Ike, Lynn. On the other hand, I don't blame you for not giving him a mention. Perhaps you're still stinging from his betrayal of you. After chatting with you on three different occasions, after he urged you and your fellow humans to "Know Peace. Radiate Peace. Be Peace," and assured you and the rest of us that "All is well"... he went on to nearly destroy Galveston and surrounding areas, and he did a good job of wrecking sizeable chunks of Houston as well. I'd feel betrayed too, if I were you.

Alas, I hadn't heard from Lynn in quite a while, and certainly didn't see anything from or by her in advance of Harvey's debut. I wondered if maybe she'd retired from the wind-whispering gig. I found that I kind of missed her.

But I needn't have worried. This morning I opened my email and was delighted to see that Phoenix SpiritDiva was back, and was all ready to tackle Irma, with our help, of course. The email header announced: Hurricane Irma Prayers & Meditation -- Today 9 AM EST. Actually we're still on Daylight Time here in the US of A, so I'm not sure what the "ST" (Standard Time) bit is all about, but I suppose the point is moot because unfortunately, due to my rising rather late this morning, I didn't see the email, which came to my in-box on 09/06/17 at 02:43 AM, until a couple of hours after the great meditation was presumably over. So I missed out on an opportunity to help talk Irma into becoming the loving, playful being that the Hurricane Diva insists all storms really are.

And it must have been quite a meditation, judging from the announcement. "Together," promised the email in big red letters, "we will transform IRMA." Then it continued in big green letters: "This 20-minute telephone call will make a difference." Then it continued with a few other promises in big letters in various other colors.

As of the moment I am publishing this, the transcript of the channeled message from Irma is not yet on the Messages from the Hurricanes page on SpiritDiva's site, but I'll keep checking back, and you can too. Meanwhile you can listen to a playback by calling 712-755-7029 (Access Code 912157#).

Or if you want to do your own 'cane meditation, Lynn offers these helpful guidelines.

On a more serious note...
I'm not trying to say that prayer and meditation aren't helpful for self-soothing or in some cases for comforting others. If you want to pray or meditate or dance or twirl or sing or play music to help get you and others through the "storms of life," be my guest. Just don't pretend that you're actually talking to hurricanes, and if you do, please stop trying to make folks believe that you think the hurricanes are messengers of peace and "the higher good."

That said, despite my years of having fun on this blog at her expense, I'm not actually placing Lynn Marks in quite the same category as cynical New-Wage crapitalists like "Mr. Fire." Sure, she's using the hurricane shtick to promote her life coaching services and products and whatnot, but she's just not on the same level of awfulness as so many others I've snarked about on this Whirled.

And she's certainly not on the same level of pure evil stupidity as those who, motivated either by religious fervor, political hyperpartisanship, or a combination thereof, declare the disaster du jour to be karma or God's punishment or poetic justice for whatever stupid reason. I'm looking at you, Ann Coulter. And Kenneth L. Storey (yeah, I know you apologized, but it was a stupid thing to say). And Charlie Hebdo. And all of you conservative "Christian" a-holes who, over the years, have said that the California wildfires/droughts/other natural disasters are God's punishment for the state's "liberalism." Just stop it, all of you.

For those who are or might be in the path of the storm, I hope you stay safe. And for anyone who is able to do so, please help out the vics of Harvey in any way you can. They will still be needing help long after Harvey has faded from the news cycle.

Update, 24 September 2017: The other day I received an email from Phoenix/SpiritDiva assuring me that all those prayers and meditations had indeed had a positive effect. Clicking the first link will take you directly to one of the messages from Irma.

Hello! Namaste! Welcome!

And, Thanks From My Heart!

Surely everyone's prayers and meditations made a huge difference in the outcome of Hurricane Irma across her entire path. 

Click the link to read my blog as she began to pass over south Florida and her channeled message: 

Yes, there was damage in Florida Keys and part of the west coast; and, thankfully, it was significantly less than predicted. And, when the electrical power was restored four days later it was like the cavalry arrived. You can read more on Hurricane Irma experience at my Facebook page.

One of SpiritDiva's buddies really got into the spirit of things too. Wrote SpiritDiva:

Lori, a longtime friend and former coaching client from New Jersey, joined the call this morning. Afterwards she shared vision she had during the meditation:
"A metaphor perhaps. What came to me was an image of Irma's loneliness and sadness and that she needed/wanted our 'embrace'. It came to me as if we were taking her core into our arms to dance with her slowly back to her joy. It felt incredible for the moment it lasted. Thank you for leading us to soothe her soul. Namaste my dear friend."

So there you have it: the essential problem with hurricanes is that they feel lonely and unloved. All we need to do to tame their fury is to dance with them slowly back to their joy. Good to know.

Harvey is bringing out the conspiranoids

Harvey, once a hurricane and then a tropical storm and currently a tropical depression, continues to dissipate, but Houston and numerous other smaller cities in southeast Texas are just now beginning to see their way past this hell. And other states are now being affected too. This horror story is far from over. Please, please help when and where you can.

But the blog beat must go on. And it is now clear that when I originally remarked -- on Facebook and on this Whirled the other day -- about the dearth of crazy Harvey-related conspiracy theories, I was posting too soon. In the time since I published those posts, cancer quack, phony doctor, alt-right bigot, and inveterate conspiracy fan Leonard Coldwell has been released from Facebook jail, where he had been placed yet again for hate speech, though as usual he lied about the reasons, this time claiming that he got blocked for promoting his "new" cancer book on Facebook. And with LoonyC's release from the virtual hoosegow it became more apparent to me that, contrary to my previous perceptions, the conspiracy stream is now overflowing its banks and spreading throughout the nutosphere.

It seems, however, that the nuts are still not blaming Trump the way they once blamed Obama, which is still no big surprise, since as I noted in my previous post about this matter, most of them are alt-right Herr Twitler fans. However, the perpetually rubescent right-wing conspiracy peddler Alex Jones suggested that Houston officials deliberately hosed Hurricane Harvey rescue efforts in order to make Mad King Donald look bad. Jones based his wacko premise on Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's decision not to mass-evacuate Houston ahead of the storm, a decision for which Turner has been widely -- but wrongly, in my opinion -- criticized. (Here's a more detailed analysis, from Turner's opponent in the 2016 mayoral race.) Jones, you bloviating gasbag, you do not know what you're talking about, so please shut up.

And Alex Jones is far from the only big nut pandering to little nuts. Don't think for a moment that conspiracy promoter Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams is staying out of the Harvey hoopla. An August 28 post on Natural News bears the headline:

“Weather wars” theorists claim Hurricane Harvey was engineered, “steered” toward Houston as a “weather terrorism” weapon

In this piece Adams pays lip service to "critical thinking." And on the surface he seems to be insinuating that some of the wilder theories that are circulating are bunk. But you don't have to read between the lines much to discern that he is clearly promoting his own agenda, which very much includes bolstering a general belief in conspiracies, as well as his ongoing theme that the "establishment" media are lying to you about nearly everything (whereas he, by contrast, is an unimpeachable source). It's understandable that he would take this tack. Not only does his sensationalism attract readers, but encouraging paranoia and fear helps advance his prepper/survivalist businesses.

And I can't help but notice how, in that August 28 article, Adams disingenuously conflates modern climate science -- which presents compelling evidence that destructive climate change is being fueled by human activity (but, contrary to Adams' insinuations, does not claim that extreme weather events are wholly human-created) -- with the wildest theories about "geoengineering" and weaponized weather systems. He's throwing "climate alarmists" like Al Gore in with the nuttiest of the nutcakes. (This isn't to deny that geoengineering exists, but Adams' brand of conflation only muddies the issues.)

Speaking of little nuts, here are some more dispatches from the craziest sector of Crazy Town. (As usual, click on pics to enlarge 'em.)

It should come as no big surprise that these true believers are harping on HAARP again. Also, I would like to note that Hurricane Harvey first made landfall on 08/25/2017, not 08/29/2017. But... shhh! Don't tell the coincidence-I-think-not conspiranoids.

PS added on 8 September 2017: Now we have Irma to worry about, but at least we know why Irma and Harvey were created! Herr Not-Doktor Stoopid strikes again.

The dirty side of the storm

Here at the Ranch at the Edge of Nowhere, located about 50 miles northwest of Houston, we continue to reap the blessings of Tropical Storm (formerly Hurricane) Harvey. We're not in the worst of it by far, but it's still pretty stressful, and it is far from over.

And in our front yard, it looks like déjà blew all over again. My husband Ron Kaye took the above photo early this morning. That lovely old tree fell some time in the wee hours, due either to high winds, loose saturated earth, or a combination of the two. Currently it is seriously threatening a power line and has pretty much wrecked the fence. The damage is more extensive than is apparent in the photo.

You know, it seems like we just went through this nine or so years ago.

But... good news!... all is not lost. New-Wage hustledork/selfish-help crapitalist/McSpirituality guru Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, whose email-orchestrated mass meditation saved Texas from Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurricane Ike in 2008 -- not to mention the wildfires in 2011 -- is on the job with Harvey, too. So we're in good hands.

In related news...
As some of you may know, one of my hobbies is tracking conspiracy nuts, something I originally became interested in because they have so often made good fodder for this Whirled. Accordingly, once Harvey became a thing in the news, I began Googling for any Harvey-related conspiracy theories. I expected to see all sorts of stuff about how Harvey isn't a genuine threat and is merely a product of the "fake news." Or, alternatively, I speculated there might be tales about #NotMyPresident Trump and his elitist buddies taking over the government's weather-control facilities in order to create Harvey, the way President Obama supposedly helped create Superstorm Sandy a few years ago.

I still recall how many conspiracy tales buzzed around natural disasters when Obama was in office. On more than one occasion the nut-cakes blamed him either for assisting the government/HAARP/the Illuminati in deliberately creating the storms, or for helping to perpetuate either hoaxes or "false flag" events to get us all into a panic. Some people managed to embrace both major theories at once. Of course the same loony theories were also put forth regarding mass shootings and some terror attacks.

According to the conspiranoids, the reason for false flag events or hoaxes or human-made storms was that the ensuing panic and chaos would make it easier for Obama and his henchmen to take our guns away and herd us into FEMA camps, where we'd either be killed or turned into slaves for the elite, and most certainly we would be forcibly vaccinated with microchips and whatnot. (The stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld, phony doctor and cancer quack Leonard Coldwell, was and remains one of the most passionate embracers of these narratives.)

At any rate, I have eagerly searched for the conspiracy tales around Harvey. But so far... nothing -- at least, not anything directly blaming Mad King Donald. Apparently Trump is as blameless as Obama was blameworthy. But I guess that is not terribly surprising, seeing as how most of today's passionate conspiracy believers also happen to be alt-right types. Another factor may be that at least two of the top conspiracy peddlers -- Alex Jones and Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams -- are actually in Texas, and perhaps are seeing some of the ongoing, and very real, horrors first hand.

But when searching yesterday, I did come across this August 25 piece from The Daily Beast, a reminder of the good old daze when we had a real president, and his haters were still for the most part on the fringe.

[Addendum, 29 August: There has also been a sprinkling of the usual geoengineering conspiracy speculation. I just now found this bit of nonsense, also dated August 25, on the Liberty Beacon site. And here is the MetaBunk site's take on that piece.]

I will be back with more soon. Meanwhile, my friends, if you're even marginally in the path of the storm, stay safe. And for those who want to do something to help the victims of the hurricane, millions of whom are floundering in my beloved former home town of Houston, and many of whom have lost everything but their lives, start here.

Farces of nature

I am well aware that this is the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and I have observed several moments of silence and so forth, and I even watched Paul Simon's poignant unplugged solo performance of his nearly 50-year-old classic, "The Sound of Silence," at Ground Zero. But I started this post yesterday so I'm going to publish it today while the issues are still hot (so to speak). No disrespect whatsoever intended to the people we lost in 9/11, or their families and friends.

~CC

As y'all may know, we've been in the midst of a wildfire crisis in the Great State of Texas. Much of the state is burning, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if legislation were passed to re-nickname Texas The Lone Char-State. The good news is that relief is on the way. On September 9, a blog post spewed forth from Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale (note to any newbies here: any irony in that nickname is completely unintentional). Mr. Fire wrote:

A few days ago I sent an email to my mailing list requesting people hold the vision of safety for all those affected by the Texas wildfires. I pointed out that more than two dozen scientific studies proved when a group holds an intention in meditation, that intention tends to come to pass.
People from all over the world sat and prayed, or visualized, or intended and requested that the fires diminish.

What happened?

Almost instantly a friend who had been evacuated from his home due to the fires wrote to me saying the smokes seemed to clear, the power came back on, and he was told he could return home safely.
Friends of mine who were preparing to evacuate were told they were safe.
Then I looked at the news and saw that while the fires were still burning and there was no rain in sight, most of the larger fires around my area of Austin, Texas were either contained, put out, or greatly improved in containment.
That’s progress, but we’re not done.

Do I smell a fire-clearing audio coming on? I bet Joe and his best bud and bidness partner Pat O. are already in the studio. After all, look what they did for the BP oil spill last year.

The first thing I noticed about the blog post, apart from the overall silliness of the premise, was that all of the "miraculous" results Mr. Fire reported -- things that he implied were a result of his email blast -- happened in Central Texas and the Austin area. That's his neck of the woods. Meanwhile, in my neck of the woods (Waller-Grimes-Montgomery counties), things are still iffy, though they're better for the moment, thanks to the dedicated efforts of the firefighters and those who have helped keep them fed and hydrated. In fact, things are still iffy in Central Texas, too. Not that you'd ever know that from reading Mr. Fire's blog post.

Burned By Fire, the author of the Mr. Fire's Pyre blog, had an almost immediate response:

But here we are again, with Mr. Fire saying that people should use the power of their mind -- and use intentions -- to make the wildfires stop. It worked for his friends!

But in other communications, he'll tell you that intentions are for wussies. Or that he never said that thoughts create magical miracles.

So. What is it? What's the truth? If thoughts, words, intentions and unconscious beliefs create reality, what is Mr. Fire creating every time someone types in mrfire.com? Fire. Everywhere. Fire. Central Texas. Fire. Joe Vitale. Fire boy.

But don't try to blame Mr. Fire for thoughts creating reality, unless it somehow makes him look like he isn't unconsciously Law of Attracting Fire to central Texas.

What stuck out the most for me in Mr. Fire's post was the part where he waxed profound about the true meaning of the wildfires:

These fires probably represent our own inner anger.

Jeez, I would really hate to think that all of these fires in my area happened because I am such a hater and have so much inner anger. However, I did notice that Joe used the hedging phrase, "probably represent." That way, when the inevitable back-flash of criticism comes roaring his way, if he chooses to publicly acknowledge it at all he can invoke the Rorschach excuse, as he did a few years ago during the San Diego wildfire brouhaha (we'll have more on that momentarily). He can say that the critics are negative and are misinterpreting his words due to their own inner stuff -- spiritual or emotional imbalances that can, of course, be fixed by one or more of his miracle products or services.

On Salty Droid's blog, my friend Mojo commented:

If indeed “These fires probably represent our own inner anger”, then that also explains all the torrential, monsoon-like rain WE’VE been getting here in the northeast. Because I tend to be a fairly happy and contented person, and I assume, in this whole spirit of taking-our-lame-metaphors-way-too-literally, that rain is the opposite of fire.
If my neighbors were planning a barbecue or a day at the beach, well, sorry. I’ll try not to be so goddamned happy next time.

To which I facetiously replied:

Oh, silly girl. The rain can be likened unto tears. Perhaps there are too many sad and depressed people in your region, or too many negative thinkers in general. I’m not saying that YOU, personally, are sad and depressed — at least not on the surface. But what about all of that unconscious muck, the stuff beneath the surface? It sounds to me as if you need some expensive Miracles Coaching or some other frauduct or flopportunity to uncover and release your inner sadness once and for all. Meanwhile, could you PUH-LEEZE send some of that rain our way?

That exchange happened before there were any comments published at all on Joe's blog, but it was prescient. Later I went back to his post and saw this comment:

Hi Joe,
I agree that the outer world is a reflection of our inner world. Sending out love and energetic healing can do wonders for the world.
Here in Maryland we have been dealing with massive rain and flooding. Does this represent an outpouring of emotion or sadness like crying?

Joe replied:

Maybe. I’ve been flying back and forth to Ohio as my mother is in critical condition. I’ve seen the rains and my tears have added to it.

So... maybe our problem in Texas is that not that there are so many angry folks but that not enough people are grieving. I'm sure many are grieving over their losses in the fire, but maybe that's not enough to send the rains. You have to try harder, people.

This is not the first time Señor Fuego has put his foot in his mouth regarding fire. Some of you may recall that in October of 2007, when wildfires were raging through the San Diego area, Joe wrote a blog post that brought the critics out in force. He mentioned that his friends and fellow "stars" of The Secret had escaped the misfortune suffered by so many others in the area.

It's interesting to me that 45 homes burned near the home of John Assaraf but his is safe.
Same with the home and office of James Ray.
Same with the manager of Lisa Nichols.

Said Mr. Fire: "Instead of wondering why they attracted a fire, it might be wiser to wonder how they didn’t attract a fire." He also noted that he had spent the previous day or so riding in a limo with Lisa Nichols and John Assaraf, who, he declared, "are not focused on fires. They are focused on the fire in their soul." Instead of fretting over mundane things like wildfires, they "spend their time working, making a difference, writing, speaking, and changing lives." He added, "Fires don’t stop people like this."

I didn't provide a link to the original post, because the post has since been removed from Joe's blog. But I wrote several blog posts about it (here, here, and here), and so did my pal Steve Salerno at SHAMblog. Steve wrote:

Statistically speaking... Vitale's original premise was way off the mark. There are tens of thousands of private homes in the areas of San Diego ravaged by the fires. Out of all that, about "365 properties" were lost. Even in the hardest-hit areas, most residents avoided disaster. Some 48,000 people live in Rancho Bernardo alone, occupying some 20,000 homes. If Assaraf and Nichols defeated the fire through positive vibes, they had plenty of company. Thankfully.

Many people took such umbrage at Joe's blog post that the next day he turned it right back around and blamed the critics for choosing to interpret his words in a negative light.

Yesterdays’s [sic] blog post seems to be a type of ink blot test: people responded to things that weren’t even there. A few people even got angry, which I find surprising and revealing.

For example, I made no direct comments about my fellow Secret co-stars and why they escaped the San Diego fires; I also made no direct comments about those who were harmed by the fires.
What I did say was I found it “interesting” and I invited readers to consider asking a different question about the experience.

From there, the blog post was interpreted depending on the readers’s [sic] mindset.Considering the few people who seemed upset, it seems under their feeling is the idea that victims and victimhood are real; there is such a thing as powerlessness and bad luck; no amount of healing or cleaning or clearing can help.

I find that mentality to be the real problem...

I personally find egocentricity, insensitivity, and nonstop hustledorking to be the real problems, but I digress.

In his latest post Burned By Fire also mentioned the San Diego fire flap, and had more to say about it in the comments section:

Isn't it amazing that John Asshataraf was completely unscathed from wildfires because of the wildfires in his soul?

"Fires," says Mr. Fire, "don’t stop people like this."

Too bad that wildfire in his soul couldn't save his coaching business, which has, apparently, gone out of business.

And of course, we all know what the wildfire in James Arthur Ray's soul was about to do.

Knowing all we know now, reading some of Joe's words from that time are downright frightening. No wonder Tattoo took down that blog post

"Tattoo" is a reference to Burned By Fire's take on Joe's recent offer to hold a $50,000-a-pop "mastermind" on Richard Branson's Makepeace Island off the coast of Australia. Joe said a $50k weekend with him and his cronies would be like a Spiritual Treasure Island. I thought it might be more like Gilligan's Island, except the comedy would be unintentional. Burned By Fire envisioned Fantasy Island, with Mr. Fire as the midg...er... little person, Tattoo.

(For more details about what some of the stellar "teachers" in The Secret have been up to in the past few years, click here.)
I sent this comment to Mr. Fire's blog on the same day his Texas wildfires post was published:

And here’s what’s going on in my part of Texas, where we’ve been under mandatory evac since Tuesday.http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8342579

Must be a lot of angry people out here. Or maybe they just didn’t get your email?

To his credit he published it and merely replied, "Stay safe." Really, that's the only appropriate thing to say to a hater like me. So far, though, my comment has been the only remotely critical one he has published. Most are more along the lines of this one:

Aloha Joe,
Thank you for cleaning on the Wildfires. I have been doing this work for many many years as a spiritual practice.

It is wonderful that you can inspire so many people to join in and lovingly minimize the impacts of Natural Disasters. Earthquakes, floods, storms, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires, tornados [sic], pollution, global warming, HAARP, chemtrails, etc. can all be mitigated with enough conscious directed Love Power. Keep up the Good Works.

Peace of I,
Bishop Howard Dugan

And then there was this:

I am grateful that you reached out to your community on this. I did ho’oponopono and prayer work when I first received your email newsletter request.

When you mentioned wildfires in Texas as “contained” above, I must say a good part of me viscerally bristled at the suggestion. My whole upbringing consisted in being told to be obedient, and “containing” my fire.

I see that as the core message of the wildfires. It’s more about passion than peace. Be wild! Be fire! Blaze in all your glory! –or the will riots in a potentially destructive way as the will is enraged at being held down, dried and bound. God knows what happens when that spirit explodes. Homes are lost (homes reflect our self, or “being home for our own selves”) and trees burn down, land is parched. Sometimes lives are lost that didn’t escape before destruction engulfed them.

The message: If I don’t self-extinguish my flame, then the outer world is no longer bereft of my gift. And I don’t need feel or be explosive. I actually don’t feel THAT explosive at all; yet because of the email in my inbox, I took that as a personal call for cleaning… I explored it and, yes, I can consciously detect the seething and simmering anger at being denied to express creative will symbolized by the fire element...

Joe replied that these observations were very wise.

So... maybe what caused the wildfires was not an overabundance of anger, but unexpressed passion?

I think my own comment was was pretty mild, all things considered. Anything about Texas wildfires is going to hit pretty close to home -- literally -- since the area where Ron and I live is still under mandatory evacuation notice. As of this afternoon (Sunday, September 11), they will finally be lifting it in some areas because the firefighting efforts have gone so well in our county. Perhaps some of Joe's minions will credit that progress to the redirection of their love-bombing to our area. 

On the other hand, many Christians or other traditional religious people will no doubt credit it to their prayers. The other night I was reading the county fire updates on Facebook, and someone started a thread with a prayer to banish Satan, who apparently started the fires. I thought at least one person would respond skeptically, but it was nothing but a chorus of "Amen." I decided not to join that conversation.

Despite the New-Wage love-bombing and the Satan-banishment efforts, it's not a done deal yet, and Ron and I have evacuated, devacuated, and revacuated several times over the past few days. We've had to spend nights in our van, cooped up with five dogs, two cats, and what few essentials we were able to fit into the van. The stress level has been high, but we are acutely aware that what we have experienced has been extraordinarily mild compared to many, many folks who have lost everything, or don't yet know what they've lost because they can't return home. So even though it sounds like I'm whining, and I sort of am, I am more profoundly grateful than I can express that I don't have more to whine about.

We certainly have it easy compared to our dear friends Christian and Lisa Seger at the organic goat dairy Blue Heron Farm, makers of the most exquisite chevre I've ever enjoyed. Christian and Lisa, who are celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary today (9/11) let us camp out in their front yard the other night. They're also currently putting up thirteen or so members of an evacuated family from another area goat dairy, as well as that family's goats, alpaca, and assorted other domestic critters, plus the goats from yet another dairy farm. At last count there were 107 goats on Blue Heron's ten-and-a-half acres. Besides tending to the usual nonstop farm duties, the Blue Heron Farmers and the refugees (well, some of the two-legged ones, anyway) have helped to coordinate relief efforts for affected area farmers as well as for hard-working firefighters. They are all to be applauded.

While I'm pretty sure that many prayers have been said by the believer contingent during this ordeal, I don't think any of the harried workers on the premises have had much time or inclination to do any of the things Mr. Fire has suggested, such as practicing Ho'oponopono or EFT Tapping, and I am pretty sure that they do not have the money to hire a boiler-room Miracles Coach. But I bet they'll come through it just fine nonetheless. (They've been busy making special Fieldstore Fire Chevre to help get themselves back on their feet.)

Meanwhile, the firefighters here and elsewhere in my state continue their heroic -- and I do not use that word lightly -- efforts to contain and ultimately douse the flames. In my area, the firefighting team is made up of 98% volunteers -- people who have given freely of their time and energy, missing work and risking their lives, to keep the rest of us safe. Our county is asking employers not to dock these volunteers' pay. But according to the buzz on Facebook, some companies are doing just that, and some folks are afraid they may lose their jobs because they missed work.

And despite Mr. Fire's suggestions for us to affect reality by pretending we "remember" the fires being put out by rain, so far the firefighting team has been relying on trucks and various aircraft, such as Black Hawk helicopters and DC-10 tankers. The weather, alas, has been stubbornly uncooperative. At least that's how it is out here in Waller County. Maybe it's different in Mr. Fire's circle of influence in Central Texas.

* * * * *

At its essence, Joe's Texas wildfires blog post is little more than a rehash of his past messages about Hurricane Rita in 2005, and Hurricane Ike in 2008. And those "scientific studies" he cites about how group intentions influence events such as fires, hurricanes, and so forth are all affiliated with the Maharishi/TM cult, a fact he consistently fails to mention. I noticed that he now says there are more than two dozen of those studies. When he first began blogging and writing about them there were just nineteen studies. Later on there were twenty-three. Now there are more than two dozen. The evidence must really be mounting. (For more information on this and the Mr. Fire branded McMiracles, see http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2009/03/all-i-need-is-miracle.html.)

Regarding Mr. Fire's efforts with the mighty winds, I've written about this numerous times before, but will mention it again for the benefit of those who are new or who just want to review. He tackled Hurricane Rita via an email blast and a couple of articles on his Web sites in 2005 (http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/stop-rita.html). If you read the post to which I linked you will notice the implications that the loving intentions from him and his minions neutralized the storm; never mind that parts of Louisiana and East Texas were devastated, and the Hill Country, where he lives, was never in any danger anyway. A few years later he recycled the same email to "stop" Hurricane Ike. We saw how that one went over.

And just last month one of his fans, a guy named Jason who writes a blog about "secrets of manifesting mind power through forbidden science," recycled it again to "stop" Hurricane Irene on the East Coast: http://mindofpower.com/536/help-me-stop-irene-it-worked-before/
In a follow-up post, Jason wrote:

Well, the dreaded forecast for a Category 3 or 4 Hurricane Irene battering NC, NYC and the East Coast… didn’t happen.

She lost strength and began moving NNE, weaking [sic] to a Category 1 by the time she hit land. Of course the media is trying their best to make things sound as bad as they can… but in comparison to what they were expecting, Irene couldn’t withstand the multitudes of empowered people projecting their thoughts for Irene to weaken and dissapate [sic]. So, I’m calling the experiment a SUCCESS!

So you folks on the East Coast who were affected by Irene can rest easy. It would have been far worse if not for the noble efforts of a Joe Vitale wannabe.

As you may have figured out from Jason's comment as well as from "Bishop" Howard Dugan's remark above, Joe isn't the only F.M.M.D. (Faux Master of the Natural Disaster) workin' them storms and other forces of nature. I've written about several of them, most notably, a Florida woman who goes by the name Phoenix/Spirit Diva. She channels messages from the storms and is always saying that hurricanes are telling her that they're all about love and that they come in peace, so we should think loving thoughts about them and not be skeered. Matter of fact, for his latest fire post I think Mr. Fire may have borrowed some of her shtick when he advised, "Send love to the fires and see them burn out."

Maybe that's the problem with the fires that are still burning: the firefighters aren't sending them enough love. On the other hand, I would think that it would be difficult to convince a fire that you love it while you are furiously dousing it with water and chemicals in an effort to destroy it.
So what is it with these fires? Too much anger? Not enough grief? Not enough love? Stifled passions? Or Satanic influences? Maybe Goddess just hates Texas. That's okay; a lot of people do. I kind of like it here myself, but my liking it isn't enough to keep the fires away, apparently.

But enough nonsense. If you really want to help the firefighting and fire relief efforts in my area or in Central Texas, here's just one of many blog posts that lists some good options. (In the interests of fairness I will add that on his blog, Mr. Fire actually provided a link to real assistance sources, although it was focused on Central Texas.)

And if you're even thinking of spending money on frauducts or flopportunities from some New-Wage joker who claims to be able to help you communicate with hurricanes or wildfires, slap yourself on the wrist and funnel that money instead to genuine relief efforts for people whose lives and livelihoods have been torn asunder by the elements. If you can't donate money or food or clothing or other essentials, but still want to help out, donate time if you possibly can. And instead of drawing on New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality buffoons for inspiration, seek it instead from people such as Houston chef Chris Shepherd and his colleagues, who showed their love by organizing a food truck brigade rather than by tapping and Ho'oponoponoing.
 
At the very least, I recommend buying plenty of organic goat cheese and other products from small farmers affected by the Texas wildfires. (Blue Heron Farm, Swede Farm, and Fairwoods Farm, for starters.)* Eat at restaurants that buy from these farmers, such as one of my favorites, Backstreet Cafe in Houston. (Here for your drooling pleasure is Backstreet's autumn veggie menu.) Another good one I haven't tried yet but hope to soon: Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse. Haunt the farmers' markets, such as Urban Harvest and Magnolia Farmers Market. Patronize grocers such as Revival Market that specialize in locally sourced food. And no matter where you live, do whatever you can to support your local small farmers and producers. They work their butts off to bring you delicious, healthy, wholesome food, so the least you can do is to show them love in the way that matters most: by purchasing the products of their labor, and spreading the word about the good work they are doing.

* Disclaimer: I am not getting paid, either in money or cheese, for these endorsements. However, I do have a stake in keeping these small farmers in business because I really like them and I am utterly hooked on their goat cheese. So there's that.

Addendum 20 September, 2011: On September 15, nearly a week after he wrote the wildfires blog post I linked to above, Joe posted a follow-up.

Here’s an update on the Texas Wildfires situation that I asked you to help resolve in my last post:
The last I heard, the largest fires are mostly contained or stopped. The people I personally know in the Austin or Houston area have all returned home. And rain is expected by mid-next week.
All of your praying, meditating, visualizing and more, have all helped.
But we can’t stop now.
There are at least 1,500 people who lost their homes.
All of the fires are not out yet.
And we need more than a little rain...

To his credit, once again Joe provided a link to sources that are taking real-world action to provide wildfire relief. But his main theme was clearly that he (and of course his followers) were the miracle workers responsible for the fires being stopped or contained, as well as for the rainfall.

He used this post to address much of the criticism he'd received without directly acknowledging it. And as the fawning comments came in, he went out of his way to pat the fawners on the back, telling them that it's the good and loving folks like them who keep him going. And it also seemed clear that his main agenda, besides his usual self-promotional one, was to give the critics a big "so there!"

There's this, f'rinstance, from an Anders Svensson:

To be frank, what a piece of bullsh-t!

You would do a lot more good for the world if you started to spread understanding of human induced global warming and induced people to take action instead of doing meditation

Joe responded:

You might want to re-read the post and note all the action I requested. Meanwhile, thank you for proving my point.

Granted, Anders left himself open to such a response by going on the offensive and using an expletive, as well as by failing to acknowledge that Joe had recommended action. However, Anders' criticism did not "prove" any point Joe was trying to make. A fan responded to this little exchange:

Keith Powell September 16, 2011 at 2:05 pm

Thank you, Joe, for the laugh. I was first surprised that you even responded, then I wondered what I would read. You are full of love and understanding to a degree that actually made me litterally laugh out loud. I love you.

I kind of think that Joebot Keith is unaware that he's causing even greater laughter with his brown-nosing. 

Then there's this subtle attempt to demonstrate that Joe's noble firefighting efforts have been vindicated:
Scott Harrell September 16, 2011 at 11:53 am

Joe-
Thank you. Love your work. The call to action for Texas was inspired and I’m gladly participating. Looks like you’ve touched some hearts (and some others’ nerves)...
...Peace and blessings to you!

Joe responded:

Thank you, Scott. As I write this, it’s raining outside [smiley-face icon].

Then there was this one:

Marilyn Gordon September 17, 2011 at 11:01 pm

Dear Joe,
Thanks for the beautiful messages you’ve been sending out about the wildfires, about attracting our good, and about finding the spiritual source. I’ve been sending people in your direction by posting links in my newsletter to your articles, products and gifts. Thank you, Joe!

To which Joe replied:

Thank you, Marilyn. The day I posted my second blog about the fires, it started to rain. I love it!

Joe also tweeted several times about the rain and said he felt like going out and dancing in it. 

It's really no surprise that Joe would imply that his efforts had something to do with the rain. We saw that one coming a mile away. Yet despite the lovely vision he'd painted in a previous blog post/email blast about rain putting out the fires, it wasn't rain that caused the turning point in the fight against either the Bastrop fires or the fires in my area. It was the nonstop efforts of firefighters. In light of the early returns on his blog and Twitter page, though, I have a feeling those details won't be the focus of any of Joe's subsequent email blasts or blog posts about the magickal power of group intentions. 

Regarding those magickal intentions, I'm reminded of my guy Ron's recent comment on Facebook:

Just a thought: If all the LOA followers actually believe that their thoughts redirected the Texas wildfires (and previous storms) as Joe Vitale claims, they must also assume some responsibility for the people who were harmed or even killed by the redirected events. You just can't have it both ways.

In a subsequent comment Ron added:

Joe's pronouncement reminds me of an old joke: A man walks up & down the street, snapping his fingers furiously. After a while, a passerby stops him and asks, "Why are you snapping your fingers so frantically?"
"I’m keeping the elephants away," says the man.
"But there are no elephants here," says the stranger.
"See. It’s working," says the man.
Joe apparently never learned the real-world relationship between causation and effect (or more likely, he assumes his followers never learned it and aren't likely to learn it now).

One commenter on Joe's September 15 wildfire post decided to expand the conversation:

konstantinos September 17, 2011 at 2:47 am
Hello Joe, Moving on to a different topic, I sincerely think it’s time to give a “once and for all” response to the people who doubt your academic credentials. All of us who got acquainted with your work and mentality will not be affected whatsoever, but I think that you should now allow people to mess with your reputation. You owe to yourself! Again, thanks for your inspiration! Best, K

Joe responded:

Thank you for your support. No matter what I say or do or prove, there will always be a critic or two. My body of published work alone can out weigh any need for academic credentials. I simply don’t pay attention to people who mess with my reputation. I’ve been online for decades and the wonderful people I hear from every day, such as yourself, are who I work for. Again, thank you.

A critic or two? At last count there were many more than that. I do agree with one thing Joe wrote: "My body of published work alone can out weigh any need for academic credentials." It certainly is possible to publish lots and lots of stuff and even be successful without a college degree. But that only raises the question: Why did he feel the need to purchase questionable credentials and call himself "Dr." Vitale in the first place?

In case you're new here and are wondering, one of his "doctorates" is in metaphysics, from the University of Metaphysics/University of Sedona, which until a few years ago was on the accreditation blacklist in Texas, meaning among other things that it was a ... degree misdemeanor to use such a degree to publicize one's business. As I wrote about here in 2009, the company was taken off that list in 2007 because it was deemed to be a religious institution, and due to that whole separation of church-and-state thang, religious U's are not subject to the same accreditation rules as secular U's. This means that, generally speaking, it's easier to get by with phony or questionable religious credentials than other types of credentials. 

Heck, even I am an ordained minister (Universal Life Church) and am legally able to perform weddings and stuff in the Great State of Texas, even though I am an agnostic. I got the "ordination" on a lark years ago. Not that you'll catch me going around doing ministerial things; I kind of think that would be hypocritical. It would also be somewhat disrespectful of the efforts of my friends who really have gone to seminaries for years and have actually studied and worked to get divinity degrees. Joe is also an ordained minister, though I suspect he got his ordination the same way I did.

Joe's other "doctorate" is in marketing, and it's an "honorary" one, based on some of the books he's written, according to an interview published in one of his hometown papers a few years ago. That degree is from a very questionable online "university," Belford, which is still on the Texas accreditation blacklist. Here's that list.

And as for his claim, "I simply don't pay attention to people who mess with my reputation..." Uh-huh. And if you believe THAT, he also has a $50,000 Island Mastermind Weekend to sell you.

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