Alice Von Kannon and I will appear on Louisville's WFPL 89.3 FM program, State of Affairs, on September 10th at 11AM (rebroadcast 9PM).
WBro. S. Brent Morris will preside over his final meeting as Master of London's Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 on Thursday, September 11, 2008, at Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London, with the gavel falling at 5.00pm. Brent has a long-standing promise to buy the first pint for any US brethren who make the trip. 
The paper for the evening will be presented by Very Worshipful Brother Trevor W. McKeown, entitled 'An Historical Outline of Freemasonry on the Internet'. Brother Trevor knows the subject well. If his name is not familiar to you, it should be—he is the driving force behind the incredible website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon. Its plain, gray welcome page is a deceptively simple gateway to the largest collection of Masonic information on the web, and is truly a labor of love by Trevor and his brethren. According to his biography, he is the Grand Lodge webmaster, Masonic Bulletin editor, library and archives curator, chairman of the Library and Archives Board of Trustees, Representative from the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, and Grand Historian since 2005. He served as Grand Steward for 2001-2002.
Brother Tom Accuosti has let the cat out of the bag—I'll be traveling to New Britain, Connecticut to speak to the brethren of Unity Lodge No. 148, and the 5th District Blue Lodge Council on September 25th.
Barring the unwelcome interference of Gustav, I'm looking forward to speaking at Oklahoma's Guildhall Lodge No. 533 on Wednesday evening at the Petroleum Club in Tulsa. Guildhall is a Traditional Observance lodge, and is the lodge of WBro. Robert G. Davis, author of Understanding Manhood In America.
The grandfather-of-two, nicknamed as 'Chris' by his customers has even had a new bar there named in his honour.
"I'll keep going for as long as I can. I love chatting and serving the customers, the club is a second home to me," the Telegraph quoted him as saying.
"There's no secret to how I'm still working. I just do normal things, eat normal food and do the shopping," he added.
Christou, who's not touched a drink or smoked in nearly 30 years, despite working in a bar, said that working helps him keep fit.
"It certainly helps you keep active, and that's just what I need at my age," he said.
Club secretary Ken Richardson said: "It's absolutely incredibly that he still insists on doing work behind the bar.
"He loves serving members when they come in. We had a beer festival recently and he insisted on helping out at the door as well.
"Everyone who comes in loves him. He's a star behind the car," he added.
Hi, Chris
Back from the Cave Degree in TN... this was my third year, and it's generally been a wonderful time. This year left me with a _really_ bad taste in my mouth.
In short, the Degree Team from Georgia put on the most banal, disgusting Parody of the MM that I've seen in all my 26 years as a Mason. If I had been Raised with such Tomfoolery, I'd never have set foot in a Lodge again. Period.
If I were their GM, I'd jerk their Charter so fast, they'd find their butts spin-driven into the ground. But apparently, GA is a _very_ different place than Indiana. . . If (as it's reasonable to assume) a Degree Team invited to another Jurisdiction is putting on their most solemn, refined Work, GA insulted every Brother in attendance. I'd heard that GA was "a little rough" on their Candidates. I don't even want to think about how bad it would get, if they weren't on their "best behaviour". :/
The Three Ruffians were literally transformed into the Three Stooges. "Nyuk. Nyuks", noogies, head-slapping, eye-poking, pratfalling fools. (Jubelum was actually wearing a black, bowl-cut Moe wig, to make the slapstick all the clearer.)
If that wasn't bad enough, the Graveside Prayer turned into a 25-minute Sermon, calling Jesus down to Bless us, our Children, our Grandchildren... and damn the Unbelievers into the Firey Pit for Eternity if they don't see Jesus (mentioned at least 25 times) as Lord and Master of all. I was half-expecting the guy to pull out a basket of snakes from under his Apron, and start handing them around.
It was so bad, that most of us who hadn't escaped beforehand were in slack-jawed Shock by the end, and the Cave emptied in record time. . . I haven't begun to chip at the Iceberg. IN and TN are fairly distinct in our Working... yet our Bro. down there was just as apalled as I was. Rewording the Obligation (to explain that "Clandestine" means "Prince Hall" in modern English) really riled me.
I'm sorry to have bothered you with this... but I don't know anyone who's Travelled as you have. Their disgusting, juvenile performance has left me a little wounded . . . I've never seen anything so utterly Unmasonic as what was pulled on us last Saturday . I know it's not the Norm... but have you ever seen anything similar ?
At approximately 4:00PM today, Brother Robert Emerson Hancock Jr., PGM, passed to the Celestial Lodge. Bob was indeed one of a kind, and his shoes will be very difficult to fill in Indiana Freemasonry. He once remarked during a meeting I attended that there was no reason to be a Freemason if it wasn't fun, and Bob made sure his Masonry was fun every single day.
MWBro. Robert E. Hancock, Past Grand Master of Indiana, suffered an aneurism last Tuesday, after a hospital procedure that was intended to clear his arteries of blockages. As of this weekend, he remains in St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, paralyzed on one side, and unable to speak. He is able to breathe on his own, but is on a ventilator to make breathing easier.
I had the honor yesterday of joining 70 brethren from Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio in being admitted into the Royal Order of Scotland.
Modern Freemasonry began in the pubs and taverns of London. So it with great sadness that I read over the weekend that more than 1,400 pubs in Britain closed last year, and more than 6,000 are expected to be shuttered within the next five years. Nationally, an average of 4 pubs shut down every day. Once source claims that more than half of British villages are dry for the first time since the Norman Conquest in 1066.
The culprit? Some are trying to blame cheap supermarkets selling beer and a frankly small increase in the beer tax. But the real reason is the recently enacted smoking ban. Smokers have been hounded out of their favorite haunts, and their friends have gone with them. Instead of socializing at the bar, they pick up a cheap 6-pack and stay home, away from the clucking of the anti-smoking crowd—who have NOT flocked to support the now smoke-free pubs. They have killed off businesses they never intended to set foot into in the first place. And a social activity that has been the backbone of English working class society for literally centuries has been destroyed.
The European Union has enforced the smoking ban all across Europe, removing the decision from local lawmakers, citizens and business owners. And the trend of pub closures all across Europe is increasing at an alarming rate.
Brother and friend Stephen Dafoe has been a busy lad lately. His new book, The Compasses and the Cross, is due out in September. It comes on the heels of last year's Nobly Born. Coming soon is his four-part Templar comic, Outremer. 
The Grand Lodge of New Jersey's Masonic Home in Burlington is on the cutting edge of solar power technology. They are installing one of the largest solar panel arrays in the state. From today's Burlington County Times:The Masonic Home of New Jersey, a retirement community on Jacksonville Road, is one of the latest to embrace this technology. The plan is to erect more than 5,000 solar panels on a 3-acre farm it owns off Oxmead Road.
“This seems like a no-lose situation,” said George Heflich Jr., who is on the board of trustees at the Masonic Charity Foundation and chairman of the solar panel project. “We are going to create our own electricity. We'd like to go green and do our part in the environmental sense.”
Heflich said the Masonic Home pays an electric bill of $1.5 million every year. The solar panels should supply 11 percent of the home's electricity needs. If it is successful, Heflich said the home would consider adding even more panels in the future.
“Ideally, if this works, in 10 to 15 years, we'd like to produce all our own energy,” he said.
Heflich said the project, if it moves forward, would be one of the largest in the state.
“For a nonprofit, I know we are cutting-edge,” he said.
The Hermetic Order of Martinists (HOM) has a new website this summer. HOM is a Martinist Order that is only open to Master Masons of a Lodge under the authority of the United Grand Lodge of England, or of a Grand Lodge recognised by them, who are trinitarian Christians and are members of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia (SRIA). The Hermetic Order of Martinists (HOM) was developed from the French Ordre Martiniste et Synarchique (OMS) in 1984 by Louis Bentin, Grand Master of the Britannic Grand Lodge of the OMS.
Most American Masons (and non-Masons alike) have rarely, if ever, heard of the Martinists. Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin was a poor French nobleman who was born in 1843. As a young believer in mysticism, he traveled throughout Europe, making many converts. He was briefly imprisoned during the French Revolution, but survived because local authorities were in desperate need of schoolteachers. Louis-Claude was only too happy to oblige and become one.
Saint-Martin ‘s writings slipped into obscurity after his death in 1803, but an enthusiastic student would rediscover them and change all that. Gerard Encausse (who went by the name of Papus) resurrected . Because of Saint-Martin, they came to call themselves Martinists. Not surprisingly, there was much crossover between the usual suspects involved in 19th century esotericism: Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Gnostics, and these new Martinists. In 1888, Encausse formed a mystery school called the Ordere Martinist, and by 1900, there were chapters in a dozen countries, with hundreds of members.
The Charleston Gazette is reporting new developments in the case of Frank Haas vs. the Grand Lodge of West Virginia. There must have been no shortage of heartburn in the Grand Lodge office when it was discovered the case was being heard by an African American woman, which, considering some of the issues in the case, pegs the irony meter. The edict expelling Haas would be part of a report presented by the grand master at the end of his term, Tinney said. Members of the Grand Lodge then have the opportunity to vote to accept or reject each part of that report.
Following that, Haas could appeal to the Grievance and Appeal Committee, who would also present their findings for the approval of Grand Lodge members, he said.
Haas could finally appeal to the Jurisprudence Committee, whose report would again be subject to approval of the Grand Lodge members, he said.
Tinney asked Berger to adopt a "hands-off" policy toward the Masons, saying that courts in West Virginia generally do not interject into an organization's processes until they have run their course.
Haas' attorney, Bob Allen, maintained that any effort by Haas to seek reinstatement in a Masonic setting would be a sham.
"If this court dismisses this complaint, he's a goner," he said.
Members of the committees that hear appeals serve at the will and pleasure of the grand master, and their findings could be easily influenced, he said.
Haas tried to appeal his expulsion within the organization, but received no formal acknowledgement of his grievance until he filed the lawsuit, Allen said.
In their court filings, the defendants have asked Haas to identify the names, e-mail addresses, aliases and/or pen names of all individuals who contribute or comment on the Masonic Crusade site.
The interrogatories specifically ask for information on individuals who post under the names "I.M. Hiram" and "A Mason," and ask Haas to describe his involvement in "the mass e-mailing campaign of the individual or individuals" writing as I.M. Hiram.
The Telegraph.co.uk is reporting today that the Knights Templar in Spain have decided to sue the Vatican to get their stuff back:The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth €100 billion (US$150 billion).
They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.
But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar.
"We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order," said a statement issued by the self-proclaimed modern day knights.
Freemasons and friends in and around central Indiana next weekend - stop in and enjoy the day at the Indiana Masonic Home Festival in Franklin on Sunday, August 3rd. It's earlier in the month this year than in the past.
If you are in the northern Indiana/Chicago area later this month, consider attending the Masonic Workshop on August 23rd, hosted by Garfield Lodge No. 569 F & A M. Here are the details:7AM-8AM: Registration, Coffee, Doughnuts
8AM-9AM: WBro. James McNabney, PM, author of 'Born In Brotherhood'
9AM-10AM: WBro. Marvin L. Ford, PM, "The Anti-Masonic Presidential Candidates"
10AM-11AM:WBro. Lawrence V. Kaminsky, PM, Past Grand Commander of Indiana Knights Templar: "The Holy Saints John"
11AM-12PM: WBro. John Bridegroom, PM: "The Enochian Ties To Freemasonry"
12PM-1PM: LUNCH (Freemasonry is about food)
1PM-2PM: WBro. James Dillman, PM: "Indiana Freemasons' Hall"
2PM-3PM: WBro. Christopher L. Hodapp, PM, Author of 'Freemasons For Dummies', 'Solomon's Builders', 'Templar Code For Dummies', and 'Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies'
Pasco County once had a host of benevolent organizations that were responsible for teaching, maintaining rituals, socialization and transferring customs from one generation to another. Some were Masonic in nature and some were purely social. They aimed to build stronger communities by developing responsible men and women.
In east Pasco County, these groups became popular in the 1940s and '50s. As time passes, though, it's becoming difficult to find remnants of their existence.
Such organizations stand contrary to the common belief that the essence of the black community begins and ends with the black church. There is no doubt about the role the church has played and will play in the future, but it never has been the panacea for every ill in the community.
In areas where the church's reach was too short to serve the needs of the people, benevolent organizations were established, especially during the tough Jim Crow years as former bondmen and women transitioned into communities of free people. Community-minded leaders established a network of organizations that did things for the people that the church, schools and even families were not always capable of doing.
Most of the organizations offered members burial insurance policies. The organizations helped with the planning of funerals. Job benefits and government assistance were not as available in the '30s and '40s as they are today.
The lodges also offered a safe place to socialize.
The organizations were support systems. Family training was offered to young couples to prevent divorce and fatherless children. The Masonic organization offered the promise of protection through an international brotherhood. The lodges established auxiliaries to address the needs of youths.
Beneath their logos and secretive natures, they all had common characteristics. For instance, they were most visible performing rituals during wakes and funerals for deceased members. These were great opportunities to promote the organizations before targeted public audiences.
. . .
In Pasco County, the benevolent organizations disappeared as quickly as they evolved. There are a number of theories as to why. Because their decline happened at the same time the community started integrating in the 1960s, that's the major reason given for their demise.
Former Pasco High School coach Larry Wright said that as the black community turned over responsibility for educating its children to others, kids did not learn to appreciate their own institutions.
Another common reason is that the older fellows did not share the leadership. It is one of the points Vernon Jordan, the former president of the National Urban League, made in his book, "Vernon Can Read": Civil right leaders did not transfer leadership. They died in those leadership positions. The same can be said of the fraternal organizations.
I find that unacceptable. Managing an organization requires a high level of skill, but the most important skill is the ability to motivate people and to make changes as they are needed. Hopelessness has never been an option for me. We need to build long-lasting organizations that will nurture strong communities. Some call it putting faith into action.
When the community cried out to our forefathers, they answered. The community is crying out now. Will you answer?
In between articles exploring such timeless topics like "What It Feels Like To Give Matt Finkelstein His First Lap Dance" Esquire Magazine salts in an article that, albeit briefly, examines the modern fascination with corporeal mortality and the Momento Mori. What used to be a symbol for borderline-sociopathic tough guys with weird design fetishes -- Hells Angels, pirates, Nazis -- has become a trope de luxe, the kind of image you find on Gwyneth Paltrow's scarf when she's taking baby Moses for a stroll.
No one has embraced the image of the skull as an accessory like Damien Hirst, the forty-three-year-old British provocateur and darling of the nouveau riche. He set a standard for himself when his tiger shark in formaldehyde, "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," sold for $8 million in 2004. Now he's ensured his status as the world's most expensive living artist with "For the Love of God," a diamond-encrusted platinum skull, sold in 2007 to an investment conglomerate for $100 million. What's even more incredible than the price tag is that the buyers got their money's worth. "For the Love of God" is a work as powerful in its way as Duchamp's urinal, so simple and so perfect a gesture that it's instantly unforgettable. Hirst ends what Warhol began: Art as commodity cannot go any further.
At the glittering, chilly heart of the work's success is a combination of the oldest truths and the latest superficialities. The diamond skull is both an expensive version of the mall rat's skull-covered Vans and the inheritor of the grand tradition of the Christian memento mori. A kind of Hamlet with Yorick's skull, set in the food court. For Hirst, the aura of profundity is just another luxury good.
Friend and Brother Stephen Dafoe is seemingly indefatigable. In the last year he has published Nobly Born: An Illustrated History of the Knights Templar, one of the best introductory works to the history and legends of the medieval Knights Templar, combined with beautiful illustrations and maps. 
The New York Times reported on Friday about an internal committee investigation concerning financial improprieties within the Shrine and its fundraising. The committee found that the chairman of the Shriners Hospitals Board of Trustees, Ralph Semb, sought to dismiss a fund-raising executive who had refused to hire a direct-mail company Mr. Semb and another board member tried to steer him to.
In its 23-page internal report, the committee found that Mr. Semb and the other board member, Gene Bracewell, who is also the imperial treasurer of the fraternal organization, had violated the organizations’ conflict of interest policy as well as their ethics code and recommended that they be “reprimanded.”
The board, however, decided against taking any punitive action against the men, who deny any wrongdoing.
The report also said that a longtime financial executive of the hospitals, which control an $8 billion endowment, made accusations that there were various financial improprieties in the organization, including the failure of Shrine leaders to report certain benefits they received as income and knowingly filing incorrect tax forms for the hospitals.
But the investigative committee, made up of three former senior elected Shrine officials, was disbanded by the board in June before it was able to finish its inquiry into those accusations, according to John C. Nobles, a member of the committee.
. . .
The committee found that Mr. Semb had unilaterally tried to fire the fund-raising executive, Edgar McGonigal, after he declined to hire a direct-mail company that appeared to have ties to a company owned by the son of a close friend of Mr. Bracewell.
Most of the committee’s report relates to the dismissal and rehiring of Mr. McGonigal, who said he did not hire the direct-mail company favored by Mr. Semb and Mr. Bracewell because the company appeared to have ties with Vantage Financial Services, which had performed poorly for the Shriners in the past.
The Shriners employed Vantage to handle fund-raising for the hospitals from 1999 through 2003. Out of $46.2 million raised by Vantage, the Shrine received only $2.5 million, according to the report.
Early this year, the committee was asked to expand its investigation to look into the accusations by a longtime financial executive, Willard Fawcett, who during an exit interview said there had been wide financial improprieties, including inaccurate information on a 2006 tax form, known as a 990.
The three panel members, Mahlon W. Hessey, Mr. Nobles and Robert N. Turnipseed, wrote in their report that these accusations required a “comprehensive continuing investigation.” But the boards of the Shrine and its hospitals, which share members, voted to disband the panel before it had finished its investigation of Mr. Fawcett’s accusations.
When Mr. Hessey tried to present the committee’s findings at the annual Shrine meeting in St. Louis in June, he was booed and heckled off the stage. He warned that Shriners should expect to hear from the attorney general’s office or the Internal Revenue Service, said C. Douglas Mayes, a Shriner who attended the meeting.
The heckling of Mr. Hessey was not surprising, according to some Shriners. Three of the five Shriners initially appointed to the investigative committee declined to serve on it, said the report, because they might have feared “retaliation.”
The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania's program to provide telephone long distance calling cards for US troops got some good coverage in the Wilkes-Barre paper today.This is a true grass roots effort. Lodge funds are NOT to be used for this. The source of the funding is intentional; it is to be the pocket change you otherwise would have carried out of lodge and taken home with you. This is deliberate. Each donation is to be given directly from the hands of the individual brothers at our lodges to our troops in harm's way in the combat theaters of Afghanistan and Iraq. Cards will only be sent to our men and women in those two areas of operation - nowhere else. It is to be a conscious reminder of the price our men and women in the armed forces pay every day.
Each month, no matter what the amount of the collected funds may be, the Lodge Secretary is to send a check, issued by the lodge for that exact amount payable to the "Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania Change for our Troops Fund," to the Office of the R.W. Grand Treasurer in Philadelphia. By sending the contributions in each month, this will help to provide a constant and even flow of funding. The funds collected are to be part of the minutes to be read at the next Stated Meeting of the lodge.
Upon receipt in Philadelphia, the donations will be deposited into that fund reserved for that purpose. Records will be kept so each lodge has the full assurance that an individual accounting of their contributions occurs. These records will be updated upon receipt of the contributions, with acknowledgement being sent from the Office of the R.W. Grand Treasurer to the Lodge Secretary via e-mail.
Once a month, calling cards will be purchased in increments of 300 minutes; this amount has been chosen with consideration for the time it often takes for calls to be placed from our military men and women in these remote areas. The volume of cards purchased will be a direct function of the funds collected and sent to the Grand Treasurer. The cards will be placed in individual sleeves, (shown above) and transported into both Iraq and Afghanistan. Once on site, the cards will methodically be distributed to the servicemen and servicewomen of all branches of service.
Brother Peter Renzland who keeps very careful track of these stories, is reporting, on Wednesday July 16 , 2008, the Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario has voted to recognize the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Province of Ontario and Jurisdiction, at their 153rd Annual Communication in Toronto.
California brother Mark Sandstrom reports that tonight's program "Ancient Ink" on the History Channel features Brother Zulu of www.zulutattoo.com and Senior Warden of North Hollywood Lodge #542 in North Hollywood California.
Looking forward to hitting the road next week. I'll be sharing the stage in Alexandria, Virginia next Saturday July 19th with W:.B:. S. Brent Morris (seen with me here at Masonic Weekn in 2007) and W:.B:. W. Kirk MacNulty at the Scottish Rite Center for the Grand Lodge of Virginia's 2nd Masonic Education Seminar. I'm filling in for W;.B:.Mark Tabbert (who WILL be at the 3rd seminar in Roanoke on August 23rd).
Never heard of Solomon's Lodge No. 1? Read its historical marker:
