Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/76686
ART soul BOOKS & NO Happy COwS Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Food Revolution John Robbins Diet For a New America. His newest release, No Happy Cows, is an ex- tension of that same theme, that an animal-based diet is harmful to all of us, spiritually, morally, environmentally and physically. The California Milk Advisory Board's ad series being shown across the John Robbins is an iconic figure in the Ameri- can food revolution. The heir to the Baskins- Robbins ice cream fortune renounced his in- heritance and introduced himself to America in the 1980s with his groundbreaking book, nation claims that, "Great milk comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California." There are some serious problems with this ad campaign, be- ginning with where it was shot—New Zealand, not California. But the real travesty is the unhealthy conditions in which California cows live. They are routinely confined in extremely unnatural conditions, injected with hormones, fed antibiotics and in general, treated without compassion. Our dairy cows are basically four-legged milk pumps. The ads portray California's cows as happy when in fact one-third of them suffer from painful udder infections and more than half suffer from other infections and illnesses. Our dairy industry is concentrated in the barren Central Valley where cows are kept in over- crowded dirt feedlots and fed an unnatural diet to fatten them as they wade knee deep in their own excrement. Drive up the I-5 and see them for yourself by the freeway, where CO2 exhaust adds to their long list of stressors. This well-written book explores other dietary issues we all need to be much more aware of, including GMOs, and serves as a strong indictment of the factory farms that produce 90 percent of the American meat-based diet. (Red Wheel/Weiser) GOD IS NOt DeaD what Quantum physics tells Us about Our Origins and How we Should Live amit Goswami, ph.D. The bombastic title and cosmogenic/moralistic subtitle aptly describe Goswami's directive. The heavily peer-reviewed and popular What 40 wholelifetimesmagazine.com —Paul Andrews the Bleep quantum physicist proposes a unifying metaphysics for science, phi- losophy and religion based on the primacy of consciousness, replacing that of matter or substance. God (quantum consciousness), both immanent and transcendent, continuously creates the universe at all levels as quantum possibil- ity, manifesting only with consciousness-induced wave collapse (more simply, a "reality" event). Abstract as this may seem, Goswami's gently instructive prose guides the reader through a philosophically tight and scientifically verifi- able rationale for the existence of God, escape-routes from earthly malaise, and avenues to a paradise of conscious evolution reminiscent of Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin. Anomalies in materialist/reductionist science he calls "quantum signatures of the divine"—mostly measurable perceptions of the senses. Less measurable are those of mind, emotions and intuition, belonging to the inner world. All are united as parallel, ongoing possibilities of one interconnectedness: consciousness. As a physicist, Goswami applauds modern achievements in science and technology, even as he offers remedies for their exploitive side-effects. His "newest science" retains their validity while allowing treatment of subtleties beyond the limits of reductionism--the nature of God and meaning, "non- locality" at gross and quantum levels, and "quantum activism": the evolution of godliness in societies, economies and the environment. Background in science or philosophy helpful but not required. Refreshing indeed, to find all your favorite New Age concepts, as well as those from sci- ence, philosophy and traditional religion, simply and intelligently presented, in a new light. (Hampton Roads) tHe LOSt SeCRetS OF Maya teCHNOLOGy James a. O'Kon, pe linear and cyclical. This conceptual mindset enabled them to "remember the future and anticipate the past." Such temporal cycling permeated all aspects of life, stimulating the devel- A professional forensic engineer, James O'Kon engages the reader with a tale of a scientific culture informed by cosmic philosophy. As he recounts it, the Maya, avid sky-watchers over millennia, evolved an elaborate four-di- mensional mathematical model of the universe, with time viewed as a living being. Past, pres- ent and future remain undifferentiated, both opment of mathematics, highly accurate astronomical calculations without the aid of optical instrumentation, and a sophisticated written language necessary to calculate and record past and future events. Even more remarkable, these achievements arose in the isolation of the Yucatan rainforest. The author rigorously details Maya technologies including tool fabrication (in the absence of metallic ore) using jadeite and obsidian, the invention of hydraulic cement and cast-in-place concrete, the construction of long-span —Mac Graham