Dear Bill Maher:

Dear Bill Maher:

I dig where you're coming from about "know one really knows" when you get on your mighty manufactured soap-box and use the airwaves and satellites as your platform to broadcast these boring, mundane thoughts and ideas that may shock religious people of the right and left (of course in different ways) and stir some kind of echo w/ in those who believe their soul just flickers out like a candle blown-out by the wind.

For given that the universe is infinite-in-all-directions, it is really boring for me to hear you ram-rod people in the ears about how there is no God and that you and all your "learned" scientist buddys (that you hang out w/ at the Playboy Mansion -I'm sure-) know everything under the Sun and Moon.

It's the "what ifs" that are the little mysteries in life and death that a truly wise man or woman cannot deny.

Sure you may not be able to explain them - but that's what poets (priests and priestesses of the unknown) are for, anyway.

Your deductive reasoning leading you to the point that there is no God and there is no heaven or hell may be good to get young ladies to to lay-down-with-you but as far as room for something really exciting, stimulating and earth shattering, it's boring and leaves no room for creativity.

Sure, I give you kudos for being "fair and balanced" and having different guests on to represent different sides but then you always shoot everyone down and then just play tit-for-tat w/ Bill O'Reilly of the Factor on FNC.

It would be much better that if when you said, "no one really knows" that you truly meant it and were open to that "what ifs" as much as you are the "why nots" --- even if the "what ifs" are unexplainable and non-calculable.

Then you'd captivate my attention and I may find it worth while to see your new movie.

And, yes, given that the universe is "infinite-in-all-directions" and that it's well known scientific fact (well known for decades now) that we are all made of stardust. And, thus, just like stars we emit radio waves. And, moreover, just as when stars die, it's proved that they still emit radio waves - that there's still energy present for transmission - we too (made of stardust) like the stars still emit these radio waves after we die --- Thus, if one can eliminate the static withing their be-ing one is much more open to receive these radio waves --- more open to transmit and receive these radio waves.

Speaking of being open and receiving, emitting and transmitting --- I would find you much more entertaining on the subject matters of life and death, religion, art, humanity and, actually, in general, if perhaps instead of just snorting cocaine and drinking your martinis (to further feed and numb your ego) if you would partake in something that could actually open-the-doors a little for you by really cleansing your perception to make you more qualified to talk about matters of life and death, religion, art, humanity ...

For me your like a cactus that has rich nectar within but you're such a prick that you cannot and will not sustain yourself from within as you're too caught-up in the exterior and the material world to realize the potential of the immaterial world. When all you have to do is just taste the nectar from within ---

Under the right environment, why don't you try a little death? Bring yourself close to death so you can really see --- so you can perceive beyond the little pricks of the cactus and taste the nectar w/ in -which, of course, may first take you and introduce you to a little death but eventually, if you're a survivor and of substance, you'll experience the beauty of life like never before --- seeing it through doors which are of the infinite playground of all existence.

There is science behind this too, Bill... Beyond Aldous Huxley and more current scientific findings published in a more modern language for you to review.

For instance --- consider this information from Edgar Zignar, Jr. of the Daily Utah Chronicle about Wade Davis ---

Wade Davis, a Harvard-trained ethnobotanist, lectured on his mentor's years in the Amazons. Davis wrote a book titled One River chronicling Schultes' plant discoveries and experiences with indigenous tribes. The event was sponsored by the College of Humanities.

Venturing through the Amazon rainforest, studying plants, taking photographs and living with unknown tribes is how ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes spent a dozen years of his life. Along the way, Schultes discovered hundreds of plants and learned their medicinal uses and countless herbal concoctions.

Community members filled the main auditorium The City Library on Wednesday night to learn about Schultes' Amazonian adventures. Wade Davis, a Harvard-trained ethnobotanist, lectured on his mentor's years in the Amazons. Davis wrote a book titled One River chronicling Schultes' plant discoveries and experiences with indigenous tribes. The event was sponsored by the College of Humanities."I thought it was a fantastic combination to tell the story juxtaposed with photographs," said Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell, a graduate student going into architecture. "I think it's amazing when you see someone so invested in something that it becomes inspiring to be so unbelievably directed."Davis described Schultes as a man with an incredible knowledge of plants who spent most of his life trying to understand plants' roles in the human experience.

Davis said Schultes was able to communicate with the indigenous tribes because of his innate knack for languages. Schultes spoke several European languages and was conversant in a few languages indigenous to South America. With that linguistic ability and his interest in anthropology, Schultes learned how the indigenous tribes of the Amazon used ayahuasca, a jungle vine with hallucinogenic properties, and scores of other plants such as cariari.

The indigenous shamans learned how to combine these plants through trial and error, which would be considered empirical research in Western society. Davis said Schultes understood this and tried to learn and discover as much as he could from these untrained scientists.

Davis said people in cultures around the world have tried to change their ordinary consciousness through meditation and religious rituals with plants. Indigenous people know the need for drugs must be satisfied. They don't see it as deviant behavior, Davis said, but rather almost in a positive light because users are under a protective cloak of ritual reinforcement.

Davis said Schultes was a man who made his career possible because of the work he accomplished. Davis dedicated six years to researching Schultes' life and writing One River.

Davis admits that he was nervous at first about how Schultes would react to the book but said that the nervousness subsided when he later learned Schultes kept the book at his bedside and would read it when he couldn't fall asleep at night."I wanted to tell my best friend and mentor's story," Davis said.

So before you lay down your head tonight, I'd second guess yourself (-like all good inquisitive minds should about everything under the Sun and Moon, anyway- especially those of reasonable faith -as faith is not worth having if you do not have good reason to believe for "yourself") and dream about what-if there's some eternal breath that carries us to the otherside of morning - on the good side of the river - once are bodies flicker out like a candle flame blown by the wind.


Best of Organic Roses,

Giovanni French

mystrawhat.com