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…Al Gore had been president?  I thought about this today when I heard that Gore threw his support behind the Occupiers.

This is the guy who won the popular vote in the presidential election of 2000, who went on to win the Nobel peace prize, became a climate change activist, started Current TV, and always seems to come down on the side of the people.

“With democracy in crisis, a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction,” he wrote on his blog. “Count me among those supporting and cheering on the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

Would Gore have invaded Iraq, as Bush did? Would he have allowed Wall Street to continue its heinous practices with derivatives? If we’d had 8 years of Gore instead of 8 years of Bush, how would our country be different now? Would  millions of homes be in foreclosure? Would the financial meltdown of 2008 have happened? Would banks and financial institutions that are “too big to fail” still be operating? Would we be in Afghanistan? Would we have universal health care?

I voted for Gore in 2000. But we had recently moved and had so much trouble at the polling station that we had to return two or three times with proper documentation before we were allowed to cast our votes. After the hanging chad debacle in our county that went straight to the Supreme Court, where Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote that ushered Bush into office,  Palm Beach County switched to Diebold voting machines.   Hardly an improvement.

In 2004, when I cast my vote for Kerry – Bush’s name came up. It took three attempts before I was able to cast my vote for Kerry. We all know who won the election in 2004.

But let’s say Gore had become president in 2000. Would he have invaded Iraq? Probably not, since Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. Would he have invaded Afghanistan? Probably not. I frankly can’t recall the specifics of what we’re doing in that country, but no one has ever conquered Afghanistan. Just ask the Russians.  Read James Michener’s novel about the country, Caravans. Gore might have cut off our access to Saudi oil, however, and forced the auto and power industries to find alternative solutions quickly.

I remember the embargo of 1973, when I used to sit at a local gas station for three hours, waiting to fill the tank in my aging Pinto. Between then and 2000, when Gore might have become prez, nothing changed. Gas got more expensive, cars got larger and hungrier, the cost of electricity went through the roof.

After Bush came into office and offered tax breaks that facilitated the purchase of a Hummer,  I saw so many Hummers on the road that the vehicle became  symbolic in my mind for the militaristic point of view. The local paper interviewed women who drove Hummers. Their consensus?I feel safer.

Really? Safer from what? IEDs? Sorry, wrong country.  Another woman replied that she liked sitting up high in traffic, so that she could see the the cars. Uh-huh. And while you’re idling in that traffic, you’re using up the gas in your Hummer, which gets – what? Five miles to the gallon?

I think Gore would have accelerated the creation of alternative fuels, green jobs, all the buzz words you hear these days from Democrats. But if Gore had won, would he be the activist and visionary he is today? How have these events shaped who he is now?If we’d had eight years of Gore, would Obama have won he presidency in 2008? That depends.

If 8 years of Gore had left this country in a more prosperous place, with more peaceful and environmentally aware policies, people might not have been so desperate for change. Then  McCain and Palin might have won. Sobering thought, that if Gore had won, we wold now have   a Veep who thinks she can see Russia from her front porch.

So in the bigger scheme of things, how would that alternative history play out? I can’t even go there.

In the end, perhaps it comes down a few simple tenets. We are where we are, the U.S. government is like a two-year-old in the midst of a temper tantrum, no one is held accountable for anything.  But, oh yeah, there’s a ray of hope in the Occupier movement that grows by leaps and bounds. Maybe it all comes back to that, the grass root movements that usher in real change.

The right wing has stopped just short of calling them terrorists. They are anti-American, un-American, anti-capitalism. Yet, when a few hundred Tea Party protestors got together last summer, the extreme right lauded them as heroes. The left wing has been reluctant to endorse the Occupiers – oops, we can’t rock the boat here, we don’t want to look too much to the left – but more of them are crawling on board each day.

Listen to what Matt Taibi, a writer for Rolling Stone who has been following the Occupiers since the beginning, has to say about this movement. 

And since Gore didn’t win and Bush did and Obama did and I’m living in this version of history, I’m off to make an Occupy sign to stick in my front yard.

We watched an odd movie called Timer recently. It had the feel of an extended soap opera or a made-for-TV movie. The concept was that, as a result of a new invention, people had an opportunity to find their true love – that perfect person – by having a timer-strip injected into your wrist. The strip is visible, about two inches long, half an inch wide. On it is a digital timer ticking down to the moment when you’ll meet your true love, who will show up with his or her own timer simultaneously ticking down to zero–the moment of truth and true love.

Although the story was intriguing in a humorous way and the characters surprisingly believable, the concept didn’t seem very well thought out. For instance, the main character’s timer was blank. No explanation was given and she didn’t seem interested in a refund. Finally, when she wanted it removed, it wasn’t because it didn’t work, but that she didn’t want to play the timer game any longer. The clinician who was going to remove it confessed he had never heard of anyone doing such a thing. So apparently no one had their timer removed after their true love was found. Why not?

We also wondered why so many people would want a timer to lead them to true love. Timers were wildly popular and you were a dork if you didn’t have one. In spite of the plot flaws and obvious questions raised by a digital implant guiding, if not directing,  your love life and future, we enjoyed the movie.

But as I watched it, I started thinking there was something somewhat familiar about the concept. Something from my past. At first I thought it might’ve been a story I’d read or maybe one I’d written long ago. Then I remembered.

Back when Trish and I first met, I took a course in hypnosis and started leading people – mainly friends and family – into past life regressions. I seemed to have a knack for it. Trish was my favorite subject because she was susceptible and imaginative. She had great past life stories, went very deep, and usually remembered none of it. I guess it was the latter fact, combined with the time the sessions took, that eventually led to her to decide that she didn’t want do it  any longer. Essentially, we both stopped at the same time and moved onto other things – mainly our writing careers.

Somewhere in my closet I still have a notebook filled with notes from those regression sessions. One of them, interestingly, involved a true love timer! In that regression, Trish moved into an alternate reality. She had just met me – an alternate Rob – and speeding ahead we were making love for the first time when alarms attached to Rob’s bed went off, ringing loudly, filling the room with sound. Rob bolted up, and shouted: “You’re the one!”

Apparently, he had invented a gizmo that allowed him to monitor his compatibility with women that he bedded. The alarm had a variety of tones that allowed him to judge the level of compatibility. Apparently, nothing had ever happened even vaguely close to the alarming reaction set off by Trish’s appearance in his bedroom.

I mentioned that regression to Trish while we were still watching the movie, but she had absolutely no recollection of it.  I’ll have to dig out those notes someday.

You’ve probably seen the ubiquitous Co-Exist bumper sticker that includes symbols of all the major religions. Right? Megan has one on her car. So does one of our neighbors. I’ve always thought it was one of the better bumper stickers because it doesn’t attack anyone.

But Florida Rep. Allen West has other ideas. It seems that West, who happens to represent the district where we live, thinks co-existing is bad news.

Take a look at what he says about the sticker. What’s particularly jarring is that West is black and co-existing is what blacks have been trying to do in this country for 300 years. Shame on Allen West. He should know better.

Here he is in his own words:

“Because as I was driving up here today, I saw that bumper sticker that absolutely incenses me. It’s not the Obama bumper sticker. But it’s the bumper sticker that says, ‘Co-exist.’ And it has all the little religious symbols on it. And the reason why I get upset, and every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are. The liberties that we want to enjoy.”

So apparently, according to West, in order to enjoy our freedom and liberty, we need to repress those who are different from us. What a guy. I’m voting against him…again in 2012.

Here’s the second part of Connie’s story. If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see a halo around the Guidestones and also above the distant landscape. How this photo came about is part of the strange scenario that occurred at the mysterious site.

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On with my experience…..Both sons were already walking around taking photos from various angles. Kenny has a professional camera but did not at any time change the lens or adjust the light meter on his equipment.  I had specifically asked him to keep everything unaltered other than to zoom in and out as he needed to do that.

I left the vehicle and went to read the time capsule plaque, walked around the Guidestones, then read the history.  After that,  I found the stone with the Egyptian language engraved upon it, and placed my palms against the granite.

It seemed to throb into my palms with some kind of pulsating energy, so I pressed the front side of my body against that stone, including the tips of my toes and my left cheek. I also pressed my palms and forearms against the stone on either side of my head. I closed my eyes.  The stone throbbed and pulsed.  It wasn’t my heartbeat. The sensation was definitely coming from the stone.

I couldn’t pull my body away from it.  It seemed as though there was a magnetic force, or energy, that held me against that rock the way a magnet hold a piece of paper on a refrigerator.  I didn’t resist  because it felt good, not frightening. I felt as if I couldn’t speak and didn’t try.

But our three-year-old, mimicing Grandma, put his tiny body against the center stone with his little arms stretched out against it, and he shouted, “Mommy, Mommy!  It’s a drum!” I’m sure he was feeling the throbbing and pulsing.

The granite was hot, although the day was chilly.  However, there was full sun which could account for the heat.  I simply stayed there flat againt my Egyptian pillar until the heat and the pulsing gradually ceased. When it stopped, it was as if a switch was flipped and my body, of its own accord, released from the stone. I felt very light-headed and slightly dizzy; the throbbing and pulsing seemed to have transferred to the interior of my head.

I started back to our vehicle so I could sit down and wait for the others. If I hadn’t had a tall walking cane, I would have fallen to the ground. As I neared the SUV, a white pick-up truck drove up and parked in the adjacent space on the passenger side.  The pickup was new and unmarked as if it had just left the dealer’s lot. The driver got out, nodded at me, and leisurely walked towards the stones.

This fellow was about 38 or so years old, with very pleasant, attractive clean-cut features, sandy-blond hair and a nice haircut. He was perhaps 5’11” to 6′ tall, broad shoulders, an athletic body.  I sat in my vehicle with the door open, and watched him.  He wore jeans and a white polo shirt.  I somehow knew it wasn’t his first visit there.  With his hands in his jeans pockets, he meandered to the time capsule, stood there a few minutes as if reading the engraving, then made a slow circle around the stones. He looked at the historical plaque, then leisurely circled the stones again. I watched him closely.

Meanwhile, both sons continued to snap pics.  Hubby eventually came and sat beside me in the driver’s seat and the youngest son and his family got in their van.  Kenny was snapping his final pics as the fellow passed him on his way back to the pickup truck.

The stranger half-smiled at me.  I smiled back and said, “Interesting, aren’t they?”  He responded, “They are.”  I said, “I’d love to know who really had them constructed.”  He grinned and said, “Maybe Donald Trump.”  I shook my head and said, “Trump isn’t spiritual,” then added: “Some of the researchers say RC Christian took his pseudonym from a founder of The Rosicrucians.”

The man leaned towards me, pierced my eyes with his, and they were the most startling, extraordinary shade of shattered-crystal gray-blue. They were penetrating, mesmerizing. I couldn’t move my eyes from his. In a quiet voice with just a slight smile, he said,  “Maybe aliens.” I responded, “Yes?”  He held my gaze and said, “This could be a landing space for alien craft.” Then he broke the intense gaze and got into his pickup.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see his license plate because for a few moments I felt ridiculously paralyzed and couldn’t move my head, even though I desperately wanted to. There was absolutely nothing about this man to suggest craziness or any kind of off-the-wall nonsense. Just your average Joe?  Uh-uh.

Kenny was in the backseat by then, and as we drove away, heading north once again, he began to download the photos onto his laptop.  We’d driven a few miles when he suddenly exclaimed “Oh my God, Mom!”

“What? What?” I asked.  He handed me his laptop and pointed to two photos he’d taken after the stranger had walked around the entire knoll.  In those two photographs, the entire scene has a brilliant almost sapphire blue cast to it, and the Guidestones are emanating a wide light blue energy aura!  That energy aura is also emanating from the hedge all the way around the three sides of the grassy knoll.  It’s unmistakable. And there is a vague cloudy haze behind the knoll in the sky where there had only been normal mid-day clear sky.  Kenny did not do anything whatsoever to alter his pictures.  He didn’t shift his light meter or change his lens.  He simply kept snapping pictures.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  The spectacular blue tone of the entire scene, but the aura…or energy force….or whatever the heck it was….is astonishingly clear.

Who was that person?  Both my sons and my daughter-in-law were taking pictures with their different cameras, and not one of them caught an image of the man although he was all over the place moving in and out of their view-finders.  Say what? We have no picture of him, but all of us saw him, spoke to him, and I actually had a brief conversation with him!

I won’t attempt to explain the obvious shift that occurred on that knoll as he walked there, and the effects left on the photos. I’ll leave it at this, and let everyone decide what their own intuition may say.  I know what mine tells me, and am anxious to hear from others.

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I asked Connie if Kenny was using a polarizer filter. Such filters are used to enhance the blue sky on bright days to avoid a washed-out look. One twist of the filter could darken the sky. However, I don’t know if the polarizer filter would cause the halo effect. Regardless, Connie responded that Kenny was not using a filter on his lens.

As an aside, I looked over the post late last night, made a couple of minor changes, then hit the update button. The story vanished and never re-appeared. So I retrieved the original e-mail and reconstructed it.  That’s the first time a post has vanished like that. – R

Connie Cannon, known here as MathAddict, has returned from her trip to the Georgia Guidestones and has provided a fascinating report of her experience. For those of you who missed the earlier post in which we  wrote about the Guidestones, these five slabs of granite rocks  – carved with script in several languages – are considered the most mysterious monument in the U.S. No one knows who created it or why.

While researching the Guidestones, we contacted Connie who used to live in Georgia just to ask if she knew about the monument. To our surprise, not only had she heard of them, but she was headed to see them in a few days, a stop en route to a wedding in northern Georgia.

She was hoping for something mysterious to happen, and she wasn’t disappointed. Here’s her story.

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The trip couldn’t have been more refreshing, especially for me.  A cold front ushered in the first autumn frost of the season a few hours after we arrived at our motel in Dillard, with low temperatures in the mid-thirties and highs in the mid-sixties.  Gorgeous clear skies every day, stars close enough to reach up and touch every night.

The Georgia Guidestones.  Oh geez.  I don’t even know if I can find words to adequately describe that experience, so will just jump in and try to put it all in sequence.

There were seven of us in two vehicles: hubby, me, our middle son Kenny, our youngest son, his wife, and our two little grandsons who are ages three and six.

Our usual route up U.S.1 takes us directly through downtown Elberton, and the Guidestones are located about nine miles north of there, on a piece of acreage near GA State Road 77. Driving along the two-lane road, we finally spotted the monument off to our right.

We drove up a slightly paved old country road, and there they were.

Topographically, the Georgia Guidestrones are erected on the highest point in that county.  They stand on a concrete base situated on a green grassy knoll that is perfectly level at its center.  The grass is obviously manicured, neatly mowed.  On three sides around the knoll, there is a hedge of shrubbery also obviously kept beautifully manicured to a height of about four feet.  The fourth side, where we parked our vehicles, is simply a small gravel area with space for about four vehicles, and the gravel has railroad ties preventing tires from touching the grass.  Outside the shrubbery hedge, and even behind the small parking area, there are open fields of tall grass, and no trees.

There was no one else there.  As I stepped out of our SUV, the first thing I noticed was that there was no sound.  No normal birdsongs, no insects chirping  or flying, (very unusual in such an environment), not even road noise.  The second thing I noticed was that, looking across the field towards 77 and across it, there were two white geodesic domes on  another knoll. I tried to visually measure the distance between the stones and the two domes, and it was approximately nine acres. (Later, when we left and got onto 77 again, I looked for a road to the domes but there was none. Weird.)

Our little boys were running wild after being in their van for three hundred miles, but there was nothing there to hurt them or that they could hurt, so we allowed them to play.  I stood by our vehicle for several minutes, just observing what my eyes could take in and waiting to see if I  sensed or felt anything unusual besides the utter stillness of the place.

To the right of the Stones perhaps twelve feet from the edge of the monument, there is a plaque, probably twelve feet by twelve feet square, flat on the ground. According to the inscription, underneath this marker is buried a time capsule.  No date is written on the plaque for digging out and opening up the capsule. Nor is there any kind of clue what might be inside it. It seems the only person who knows is (was) ‘R.C. Christian,’ the mysterious man who ordered the monument built and promptly disappeared, and the local businessman/granite company owner, who is deceased.   On the other side of the monolith is a tilted  pedestal holding a large plaque upon which is engraved the history of the Guidestones.

As an aside, the bible-belt evangelical graffiti, mentioned in the earlier post, has been removed.  We were told by a black gas station attendant that every time graffiti appears on the Stones, it is somehow erased.  The city has even put cameras at each corner around the knoll, but the cameras have never been able to capture who erases the graffiti. Yet they catch the people who put it there and are able to locate them.  The mysterious “erasers?” They simply have no idea, and the townsfolk seem to be afraid to go there now in spite of the fact that no one has ever been harmed or threatened at the site.

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In tomorrow’s post, Connie takes us up-close to the Guidestones, which seem to literally come alive with energy. Then, before she leaves, she encounters a man who has a startling affect on her, and who even seems to affect the photos that her son is taking. You’ll see a dramatic difference in the appearance of the Guidestones in the photo accompanying the post.

Steve Jobs, February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011