Saint Jesus Malverde: Patron Saint of Drug Dealers

Just to be clear, Jesus Malverde is not an officially recognized saint by the Vatican. But don't tell that to the countless believers who flock to his shrine and offer prayers.

Malverde is a folklore hero in Mexico and legend says he was a bandit killed by law enforcement on May 3, 1909. His manner of demise often changes, from hanging to epic shootout, making his life a veritable choose-your-own-adventure of turn of the century Mexican violence. Some tales even say he was betrayed by a friend for a reward, while others claim he once turned water into black tar heroin.

So Why Drug Dealers?

In the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Malverde has been turned into a Robin Hood figure, robbing from the rich and selling drugs for profit. This outlaw image made him popular amongst the poor and the drug trafficking business adopted him as their Patron Saint. He has a shrine in Culiacan where thousands travel to ask for miracles. Not being picked up by DEA while praying there is one such miracle.

Writer Sam Quinones says that there is no evidence that the Malverde of the legend ever lived, and that the story probably emerged by mixing material from the lives of two documented Sinaloan bandits, Heraclio Bernal (1855-1888) and Felipe Bachomo (1883-1916). Bernal was a thief from southern Sinaloa who later became an anti-government rebel. Cañedo offered a reward for his capture, and he was betrayed and killed by former colleagues. Bachemo was an indigenous Indian rebel from northern Sinaloa who was captured and executed. 

If Quinones is correct, that the Malverde legend is a hodge podge of stories from two historical bandits, that begs the question: Which one of those guys turned the water into heroin?

But did you really do nothing?

Do nothing for 2 minutes

Donothingfor2minutes is a site that asks you to just relax and listen to waves for 2 minutes. There is only one rule, DO NOT touch your mouse or keyboard for 2 minutes. To try it out, click on the image below. If you want to hear the wave sounds, be sure your volume is adjusted BEFORE you click on the image. Adjusting the volume once the countdown begins will cause a Fail message to appear.

If you find that 2 minutes are not enough for you to relax from your tight schedule, you can go to Calm.com, which gives you a 10 minute version of doing nothing. And on that site you are under no pressure to avoid touching your keyboard.

Happy relaxing!

Damien's question: How many of you were able to do this by watching the clock count down and counting along with it in your head?

Does that qualify as doing nothing?

I admit I did a brief Metta Bhavana meditation. Nice, but not nothing.

Happy July Second! Uh, July 4! Uh, August 2! Whatever!

 We celebrate on July 4, the date in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress. But in a letter to his wife, Abigail, John Adams wrote that July 2 would be the day celebrated as “the great anniversary Festival,” as the Continental Congress met that day and voted to approve the resolution for independence. After a draft by Thomas Jefferson and editing by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, it was presented to the Congress two days later. And it wasn’t signed by most of the delegates until Aug. 2. And it didn’t become a legal federal holiday until 1941.


n July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail with this prediction: “the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.”
Why July 2nd? Why did he not write her another letter, on July 4th, and say he had been premature?

Because it was on July 2, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia voted to approve a resolution for independence from Britain.
On that same day, the Pennsylvania Evening Post published this: “This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States.”

So why do we celebrate July 4th as Independence Day?

We do because of a little thing called the Declaration of Independence. The document was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4th. The first draft of the declaration was written by Thomas Jefferson, who gave it to John Adams and Benjamin Franklin for editing. Jefferson then took their version, refined it further and presented it to the Congress.
Scholars don’t even think the document was signed by delegates of the Continental Congress on July 4th.

 The huge canvas painting by John Trumbull hanging in the grand Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol depicting the signing of the Declaration is, it turns out, a work of imagination. In his biography of John Adams, historian David McCullough wrote: “No such scene, with all the delegates present, ever occurred at Philadelphia.”

It is now believed that most of the delegates signed it on Aug. 2. That’s when the assistant to the secretary of Congress, Timothy Matlack, produced a clean copy.

John Hancock, who was the president of the Continental Congress, signed first, right in the middle of the area for signatures. The last delegate to sign, according to the National Archives, is believed to be Thomas McKean of Delaware, some time in 1777.

The city of Philadelphia, where the Declaration was signed, waited until July 8 to celebrate, with a parade and the firing of guns. The Continental Army under the leadership of George Washington didn’t learn about it until July 9. 

As for the British government in London, well, it didn’t know that the United States had declared independence until Aug. 30.

Burger Pride and questionable censorship

Burger King is celebrating gay pride with a message on its Whopper wrappers.
The fast-food chain has posted a video online Wednesday that shows scenes from a San Francisco location where it sold a "Proud Whopper." Customers were not told what is in the burger, which comes wrapped in rainbow paper. Once opened up, a message inside the wrapper states, "We are all the same inside."

The idea is that the Proud Whopper is no different from the regular Whopper, despite its colorful packaging.

You probably saw stories about this online or on the news. I mention it because when I clicked on a link to the story -- on my Bing homepage in their newsfeed -- I was told that I would have to change my settings in order to view the article. My Safe Search settings were set at Strict for some reason. I usually have them at Moderate.

At any rate, there is nothing remotely objectively offensive about this story. I suspect the problem is that the computer filter screens out everything that has to do with gay or maybe pride in an article that also contains the word gay. Or even whopper, I suppose! Especially in relation to gay and pride! 

Some years ago, to test software that claimed to "protect your children from dangerous blogs", I created two blogs on which I posted the same news article. The article was a perfectly harmless one about whether or not there is such a thing as gaydar. One version used the word homosexual, the other replaced that word with gay.  

The software found the post that talked about homosexuality safe for children, but blocked the duplicate post that only differed by the use of the word gay.

So silly!

The truth is out there?

July 2 is World UFO Day.

It's a day to raise awareness of what some think are extraterrestrial visits to our planet. The day roughly corresponds to the date of perhaps the most well-known UFO story.

In July 1947, debris was discovered on a ranch northwest of Roswell, N.M., that some think came from an alien spacecraft. Eye witnesses claimed they saw alien bodies at the crash site.
An initial statement from the Air Force said a "flying saucer" had crashed. Later the service said the debris came from a weather balloon.

Decades later, the Air Force issued a report saying the debris was likely from experimental surveillance balloons. Any "aliens" observed in the desert were in fact "anthropomorphic test dummies" that were in the balloons, according to the 1994 report.

The Air Force also investigated UFOs from 1947 to 1969 under Project Blue Book to determine if any sightings threatened national security. It concluded there was no threat and none of the "unidentified" objects were extraterrestrial vehicles.

But one UFO expert says the government has covered up the truth about Roswell and the existence of extraterrestrial visits in general.

"It's cosmic Watergate," said Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist who has studied UFOs for more than 40 years. He added, "We're dealing with the biggest story of the millennium."

Why they believe

Thirty-six percent of Americans say they are certain UFOs exist and have landed on Earth, and 11% say they're confident they have spotted one, according to a 2012 National Geographic Channel survey. 

[Damien's note: Scary stuff, boys and girls! The stats, not the UFOs. And, of course, a recent survey shows that 18% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth.]

Drinks

When I was in seminary -- no, that's okay, I never mention it myself -- one of my classmates was called on the carpet for excessive consumption of alcohol. There was plenty of drinking in the seminary and one did have to overdo it to get in trouble. In this particular case, he had gone out with another seminarian on Good Friday night, got drunk and then drove his car onto the tracks of a trolley car line.  A patrol car came by right then and got them off the tracks and brought them home. Of course, he went to wake up one of the staff to get someone to drive him back to get the car. The staff member, no fool, told him that he -- the seminarian -- was still too drunk to drive the car back to the seminary, and he had to go rouse the student master and confess all.

Despite this, he got through seminary and went on to become a quite reactionary priest in a most reactionary diocese. The reason he came to mind today is that when he was reprimanded about his habit of drinking every night at the seminary, he asked if they were going to start restricting the intake of coffee. The rector looked at him steadily and said, "When we start having to send men to rehab and bail them out of jail because of coffee, I imagine we will address the issue."

Today there is a sad story about a young man who died from a caffeine overdose -- not too much coffee, as such, but even so:

A caffeine overdose has been ruled the cause of an Ohio prom king's sudden death before graduation in May.

The Lorain County Coroner reports Logan Stiner of LaGrange, Ohio, had toxic levels of caffeine in his body, and died from an irregular heartbeat and seizures after ingesting caffeine powder.

Stiner was found by his brother near the white powder on May 27, having taken enough to cause the overdose while at home from school for lunch.

"I never thought it would hurt an 18-year-old child," resident Lora Balka told WKYC.

She says she hopes his death will encourage other youths to consume caffeine in a mindful manner.

While it's not sold in stores, caffeine powder is available on the Internet and is stronger than traditional forms of the supplement. One teaspoon of the powder contains up to 1,600 milligrams of caffeine — about 70 cans of Red Bull. Comparably, energy drinks contain about 280 milligrams, and a 12-ounce Starbucks coffee contains 260 milligrams.

A warning label on the caffeine powder suggests using a micro-scale to measure a safe amount, and companies claim that it improves focus, increases endurance and elevates mood.

A Mari Usque Ad Mare (Latin) "From Sea to Sea"

Happy Canada Day to my friends up north!

And a thank you on behalf of those from the United States

who were able to get married in your fair land

while ours continues to struggle to become fair.