Thoughts of Random Depth

Hell, Yeah...We Survived 6/6/06...Or Did We?

2006-06-07T17:58:00.000-04:00

While all roads, eventually, must lead to Hell, it seems that humanity managed to escape our collectively imagined fates on Tuesday as 6/6/06 passed with nary a whimper from Megiddo, the Anti-Christ, or even Marilyn Manson. Hell, Michigan, a tiny hamlet less than 60 miles west of Detroit, is usually home to approximately 70 souls of the darned. Yet, on Tuesday, according to Yahoo! News, Hell, had one Hell of a quiet day:

Thousands packed the ominously named small town in Michigan to turn the 6/6/6 day -- symbolic of Satan and other devilish matters -- into a party. They jammed the town's only bar, the Dam Site Inn, spilling out onto the street. But there was no sign of apocalypse. "You've got to have faith," said Faith Dzwigalski, 50, who spent the previous night writing 66 letters to friends around the globe so she could mail them from Hell. "I did it for the postmark," the Woodhaven, Michigan resident said. "I told everyone, You've better change your ways or you'll wind up here in Hell!" Asked if he thought the world might end, 41-year-old Vince Timlin said: "Im betting against it. I came because I knew the freaks would be here." 1

Um, yeah. There's a quotation for Hell's Chamber of Commerce to feature on all their public relations material.

Dozens of "normal" folk came to Hell from all over to stand in line to buy plastic "stick-on" devil's horns and "666" t-shirts. "We can't even keep those in stock," said Chad Wines, an employee at Screams Ice Cream, working to keep up with demand for souvenirs and ice cream on what proved to be a hot day in Hell."2

Hollyweird even hosted a dark mass to mark the day. The mass was the creation of the creator of modern Satanism, Anton Szandar La Vey. The mass, which was, not surprisingly, sold-out, also commemorated the founding in 1966 of The Church of Satan. Lavey was nicknamed the "black pope" of Satanism by the media. According to the Church of Satan Website:

"Satanists from around the globe are converging on that city-of-the-damned known in common parlance as Los Angeles," the group said on its website.

The mass, an original three-act dramatic ritual, will be celebrated in a theatre with a telephone prefix of 666 by Bryan Moore and Heather Saenz, married suburbanite Satanic priests and parents.

But Satanists say they actually have no regard for the number. "For Satanists, numbers are just numbers, and June 6, 2006 is a day like any other," says Satanic High Priest Peter Gilmore. Some believers though have tried to time childbirth with the date, and some of the superstitious have attempted to delay deliveries to avoid it, according to Gilmore's comments posted on the church website.3

Okay, then. In fact, Christians who have actually READ the Bible know that the KJV makes no mention of 666, the number (or 616, even) as a date to be feared.7 Las Vegas had the right attitude. apparently, the odds of 6/6/06 being the apocalypse were 100,000-to-1. Of course, then there's the little problem of being able to collect your winnings.6

Signs of DOOM

However, don't think the dark forces weren't at work Tuesday. " Michigan lottery officials reported that a disproportionate number of players bet on 666." Additionally, "33-year-old Michelle Driscroll, 33, of Howell, Mich., was shocked by her lunch tab. It came to 6.66 dollars. "It freaked me out," she said." 1

Vandals targeted the Trinity Lutheran in Minden, Nevada. They apparently left Satanic messages and vulgarities.4 I would hate to see what they would write on "Mother's Day." A Yonkers seminary was also vandalized.5

A Texas baby and a Tenessee baby were born weighing exactly 6.66 pounds.6 I hope they checked the children for a prehensile tail or signs of horns.

According to CTV, some of the signs of evil are in the form of marketing: "... on this day of the beast. Popular Christian writers Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, chose to release their new book The Rapture on June 6. The pair are signing the book at 6 p.m. on 6/6/06 in Littleton, Colorado. Some Christian book stores have even agreed to sell other paperbacks by the authors for ... $6.66."8

Christian Protesters also came to Hell in force. I'm not sure why. I suppose they failed to see the irony in the fact that their "Christian" dollars were happily accepted to support Hell's burgeoning economy as they stood on the street corners screaming their message of religious and entertainment intolerance.

They could have just chilled out and taken the short, 300 mile drive, north to "Paradise," a town in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan.

Oh, by the way, if you found yourself paralyzed with fear last Tuesday, you were suffering from: "hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia." I'm sure there's a pill for it. And if you just miss the fun of sitting on the edge of your seat awaiting the end of the world, drink John Nelson Darby's Kool-Aid and head to: "Rapture Ready!" Just leave your extra car keys with me.

FVSU Must Shoot For the Best For New Football Coach

2006-06-07T12:13:00.000-04:00

I suppose I have to be the one to ask the question that I thought was obvious. Fort Valley State University is currently looking for a new head football coach. FVSU's new administration dismissed former head coach John Morgan after a few years of Wildcat teams that played winning, but not the championship football, to which the fans and alumni had become accustomed.

So, a search committee is hard at work looking for Morgan's replacement. Please note that I am not on said search committee, nor would I want to be on said search committee. However, I cannot believe that the search committee, President Rivers, the alumni, nor the fans are screaming loudly, and in unison, that the institution hire local football hero Kevin Porter as FVSU's new head coach.

"Who is Kevin Porter," you may ask? If you do, either you aren't from around here or you have a short memory. Porter is a local sports legend. A resident of Warner Robins, Porter was a key player on the Warner Robin's National Championship football team. He starred in college ball as a linebacker at Auburn. He was later drafted in the third round by the Kansas City Chiefs. He played five seasons in the NFL, followed by time playing in the World Football League and then he discovered indoor football. He had a strong career as an arena league player, but really made his mark as a coach. According to the Kansas City Brigade website:

Kevin Porter comes to the Kansas City Brigade with a reputation as one of the Arena Football League's finest young defensive minds, based on his experience of a five-year NFL playing career and coaching tenure in the Arena Football League and af2. In his first season as an AFL defensive coordinator, the VooDoo finished the season with the second ranked scoring defense in the AFL, surrendering only 721 points, the sixth ranked defense and the fourth ranked pass defense. Porter is the winningest coach in af2 history with a 45-27 record. The head coach of the Macon Knights from 2001-03 before joining the VooDoo, Porter took his team to the ArenaCup 2003 championship final game. Porter started his coaching career as head coach of the Pensacola Barracudas, in 2000. As an af2 head coach, Porter took his teams to the playoffs all four seasons. Porter started his coaching career as the defensive backs coach of the AFL Orlando Predators in 1999. 1

On a personal note, Porter's wife, Annjela, is an amazing public-relations wizard. They also have two wonderful off-spring: Jacob and Kellen.

So, why would Porter be a great fit for Fort Valley State? Let me count the ways:

First, he is an amazing coach, who wins championships and teaches young men how to succeed in class and in life.
He has tons of local connections to the community and the Middle Georgia area.
He is a local and regional football legend.
He would be able to bring folks to the games who would buy tickets.
He would be attractive to potential investors and recruits (athletic and academic).
He has contacts in the NFL and NFL Europe so that players who have the skills to play in that level would get a legitimate shot.
He has tons of contacts in arenafootball and af2 so that our players who have the skills to play at that level would have a conduit directly into those leagues.
He would be able to bring in assistant coaches who are much more experienced than the average Division II fare. Folks like Tres Sullivan, Chris Siegfried, Webby Burnett, or Derek Stingley come to mind.

I realize that, as a Division II school, FVSU is not used to taking chances when it comes to hiring coaches. However, this time, I think they should take a shot and reach for the stars. Give K.P. a chance to come home and give the Wildcats a chance to have a championship caliber program and a legendary coach.

Opening the "Floodgates"

2006-05-29T22:59:00.000-04:00

Before the so-called "Seitz decision," in 1975, brought an end to Major League Baseball's "reserve clause," the individual players, whether they be stars or bench-warmers, were the property of the team. They were, literaly, chattel, or slaves, who had little to no rights to negotiate their salaries nor were they allowed to offer their services to other professional teams.

Now, don't get me wrong here, by the standards of the time, the players were paid relatively well; but their wages were miniscule in comparison to the amount the team owners were raking in. Baseball ownership engaged in blatantly monopolistic business practices; but were protected from the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts by the 1922 Supreme Court Ruling, The Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs which basically said that baseball didn't fall under the jurisdiction of anti-trust legislation.

So, despite a number of lawsuits which sought to throw out the reserve clause, no one was able to make a dent in it until Curt Flood chose to become a sacrificial martyr for his fellows. If you aren't an avid baseball fan or aren't from St. Louis, you may be asking, "Who is Curt Flood?"

Curt Flood was, by most standards, arguably the best centerfielder during his playing prime. According to Wikipedia:

A three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove Award winner, Curt Flood hit .300 or better six times during his 15-year major league career. Arguably the quintessential number two batter, Flood had a lifetime batting average of .293. Lou Brock even called Curt Flood a primary reason for his great success during the prime of his career. As a fielder, Flood was exceptional, and once went 226 consecutive games without making an error.

Curt Flood's greatest years were with the Cardinals. He had a league-leading 211 hits for the Cardinals in 1964, and played on his first of two World Series championship teams that season. Though not usually thought of as a power hitter, Flood had 11 home runs and 83 runs-batted-in World Series championship. In 1968, he finished fourth in the balloting for Most Valuable Player on the strength of a .301 batting average and 186 base hits. Ironically, had he not misjudged a Jim Northrup fly ball in the seventh game of the 1968 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, the Cardinals might have won their third championship of the decade. It was ruled a base hit. in 1966. In 1967, he hit for a .335 average in helping the Cardinals to another

Despite the uncustomary gaffe, Curt Flood was a solid contributor in all three World Series the St. Louis Cardinals played in that decade, scoring 11 runs and driving in 8 runs.

However, despite his stellar (and some would argue, Hall of Fame-caliber) performance during his career, Curt Flood's legacy was one of sacrifice. Believing that Major League Baseball's decades-old reserve clause was unfair in that it kept players beholden to the team with whom they originally signed for life, even though players had satisfied the terms and conditions of those contracts.1

It is that sacrifice which was most interesting to me. When he sued Major League Baseball, it became evident that the game had taken advantage of an impoverished, young, poorly-educated, black man. Flood's attorneys were quickly able to show that the reserve clause was nothing more than another form of slavery.

The testimony and arguments were powerful. When Flood v. Kuhn ran its course through the judicial system, Curt Flood eventually lost. But the case opened the eyes of players and the public. The players struck in 1972 and by 1975, the reserve clause was history.

Unfortunately, for Flood, he didn't share in the millions that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have reaped as a result of his sacrifice; but that is the price of martyrdom.

The original article I wrote about Flood for The Journal of the Georgia Association of Historians (v.25, 1997) has been archived online as a PDF file by Colorado State. Click HERE to read the article online.

What the Bleep Do We Know?

2006-05-28T10:54:00.000-04:00

An interesting, but in some cases flawed, film which attempts to change one's notion of reality by exploring quantum physics and a reculiar version of spirituality which, I believe is known as "Ramtha," is now available online as a free internet stream.

IMDB.Com describes the film as:

...part documentary, part story, and part elaborate and inspiring visual effects and animations. The protagonist, Amanda, played by Marlee Matlin, finds herself in a fantastic Alice in Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the uncertain world of the quantum field hidden behind what we consider to be our normal, waking reality.1

Wikipedia's description is a bit more precise:

What the Bleep Do We Know (according to the makers "Bleep" is a bowdlerization of "fuck" — William Arntz has referred to the film as "WTFDWK" in a message to 'Bleeps' "Street Team") blends a fictional story line, discussion, and computer animation to present a view of the physical universe and human life within it, often relating this to neuroscience and quantum physics. Some topics discussed include: that the universe is better thought of as being constructed from thought (or ideas) than from substance; that what has long been considered "empty space" is anything but empty; and that our beliefs in who we are and what is real are not simply observations, but rather form ourselves and our realities. Additionally, a brief discussion of the theory that peptides manufactured in your brain can cause a bodily reaction to an emotion brings a new perspective to old adages such as "think positively" and "be careful what you wish for."

In the fictional story, a photographer (Marlee Matlin) acts as the viewer's avatar as she experiences her life from startlingly new and different perspectives. In addition to the story line, a team of experts in quantum physics, biology, medicine, psychiatry, and theology discuss the roots and meaning of Amanda's experiences. However, the viewers are left in the dark on the credentials of the experts until the credits at the end of the movie.2

In other words, aftere viewing the film, we are left to believe that we, the viewer, create our own reality.

The film's website, is busy hocking a five hour long "Quantum" version of the film along with newletters and other goodies...so somebody has found their gold mine.

While there are numerous sites who disagree with "What the Bleep"'s message (see Skeptico, for instance), it's worth a watch, just for the lessons on Quantum physics and to test your critical thinking skills.

The feed is located HERE.

6/6/06: The Devil's Day? Or Marketing Run Amok?

2006-05-27T11:33:00.000-04:00

"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred three score and six." Revelation of St. John the Divine, KJV

I suppose it had to happen. When June 6th, 2006 rolled around on the Gregorian calendar (that's the one most of us use, by the way), the "numerologists" out there quickly noticed that the shorthand method of anotating the day would be 6/6/06.

Oh, my goodness, that's awfully close to the "mark of the beast."

However, other dates are watched carefully by law enforcement officials according to the Denver Post:

Some dates and anniversaries can be calls to action for white supremacists, racists, and conspiracy and prophecy theorists. April 19, for example, is the anniversary of the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas; the Oklahoma City bombing; and the raid on white separatist Randy Weaver's home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho .3

According to LiveScience.Com:

With 06/06/06 looming (June 6, 2006), authorities in some cities are worrying prophecy theorists or hate groups might read something ominous into the date and use it as an excuse to stir tension. Some expectant mothers are making birthing appointments to ensure they avoid the date, according to the Sunday Times in London.1

Now, if you are horribly naive and do not know what of what the Hell I am speaking; good for you. For the rest of us: It's going to be a fun few weeks because between the fundamental evangelical nutbags, the numerologists, Madison Avenue, and the conspiracy theorists, expect all sorts of of weird, wild, and down-right wooly claims, apparitions, and product launches. For the cynical, it should be amusing.

The fundamentalist evangelicals are making noises that the sixth will be the day that the antichrist will be either born, rise to power, or start armageddon. Despite the fact that, in all probability, the notion of "Antichrist" is a misinterpretation of "antichrists." in the scriptures. [But that's a blog for another day.] According to the Sunday Times of London,

While some Armageddon believers fear that 6/6/06 will be “a day of satanic power” that may be marked by a comet hitting the Earth, others believe that the world is coming closer to what is widely known as “the rapture” — the moment the Lord calls the Christian faithful home and millions of born-again evangelicals will suddenly disappear from the Earth, leaving non-believers behind. On one popular evangelical website last week, a “rapture index” that calculates the likelihood of the Lord’s arrival stood at 156 — which the website declared was time to “fasten your seatbelts”.2

The Numerologists, as usual, are making lots of noise about this date. Numerology, according to LiveScience,

"Numerology has a long history," [Mario Livio] told LiveScience. "You can trace it all the way from the followers of Pythagoras, whose maxim to describe the universe was ‘all is number.'" Thinkers who studied under the famous Greek mathematician combined numbers in different ways to explain everything around them, he said. Modern numerology has since morphed into a kind of para-science in the same vein as astrology, according to skeptics. Still, many numerologists claim to rely on Pythagoras' ancient system to divine the hidden connections between numbers—often a birth date—and an individual's life. .... Mathematicians are quick to dismiss numerology as having any scientific merit, however.1

To begin with, the number six is considered evil, by numerologists, because it is the number of man. According to Wikipedia:

Six was considered to be the number of man, of imperfection, or evil. It was probably chosen because 7 was considered to be the number of perfection, of completion (seven days of creation), the number of God. Each digit of 666 falls short of being perfect just as man falls short of God's perfection. Being the number of man it can be taken to be the number of the Antichrist, rather than Satan. The Antichrist is Satan's best counterfeit of the one perfect man, Jesus Christ. Yet the Antichrist falls short in every way. Alternately, 666 can be seen as representing the trinity of evil, perhaps, Satan, the Antichrist and the false prophet.5

However, as any good biblical scholar can tell you, the true number of the breast is, in all likelihood "616," so this is all much noise without signifigance or forethought. [again a blog for a later date.]

list of what the folks in Madison Avenue have in store for us:

Ann Coulter's new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism will be released.
Slayer is launching their "Unholy Alliance Tour: Preaching to the Perverted."
Decide, a death metal band, will be releasing a new album that day, entitled: "The Stench of Redemption."

The Conspiracy Theorists would take another book to cover. Here's a list of links to explore if you are so inclined:

The Master Number

The End Times

It should be a fun week. Assuming, of course, that we don't get struck by a tsunami from that comet fragment. Oh, but wait, that was supposed to end the world as we knew it on 5/25/06. Sheesh, I guess that was another close escape.

Summer School Update: I'm Teaching Genre: Drama (ENGL 4973)

2006-05-24T17:45:00.000-04:00

Head's up! If you are taking classes this summer at Fort Valley State University. I was, just today, assigned to teach English 4793, Genre: Drama course, which meets 3:30 to 4:45 MTWR in Bond 216. If you need to pick up a literature genre course or an literature elective, then please consider adding this course as it should be fun.

The course will cover the history of drama, the elements of drama, stage-craft, we'll delve a little into the construction of character on stage, touch on direction, criticism and analysis, and look at both ancient and contemporary works. Depending on the time we have, I'd like to look at four plays, including:

Steambath
Streetcar Named Desire
The Tempest (or Troilus and Cressida)
Streamers or In the Company of Men

If you have questions, email me at sophist@bigfoot.com. Or call the English office at 478.825.6392

World to End Friday--Update Saturday Morning

2006-05-24T17:05:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this, and it isn't yet Friday May, 25, 2006 then you still have time, at least according to Eric Julien. Julien says, on his website savelivesinmay.com that on the 25th the Atlantic will be hit with a fragment of the comet 73P which will lead to an enormous tsunami on the east coast of the United States and those of us who live thereupon will be pretty much *ahem* f*!@ed.

However, if you are reading this on the 26th, or later, I'm right and Mr. Julien is just the latest of a long list of individuals who have been called upon, by some greater power, to become false-prophets of the non-apocalypse. (Another gentleman has already started screaming -- via the Internet--that Julien is wrong and the correct date is June the third, while others, naturally point to June 6th--which will be 6/6/06--666, get it?)

These guys probably got their start with the first caveman who, on a cloudy morning some millions of years ago screamed, "Oh heavens, some giant bird has eaten the sun and it will never rise again and we'll all die." After much general panic, when the sun rose again, he was beaten to death and life returned to normal.

People, especially, it seems, fundamentalist and evangelical protestants, have been claiming that we are living in the "end of days" as set forth in the Book of Revelation probably since St. John of Patmos set the document out for the ink to dry.

Why this happens should be obvious. Imagine how empowering it would be to realize that you are the only person who has been given inside information about how the world is going to end and how people can survive the cataclysm. Now you can not only save those you care about, but you get to play god by choosing who lives and who dies. In addition, you will receive enormous amounts of adoration and if you are condemned by anyone as being a fool, your admirers will lash out at those who condemn you and praise you as a martyr. What a life!

Just in the past few years, how many times have we seen "great prophets" of doom appear? There were hordes of them surrounding Y2k, the avian flu, remember the suitcase nukes scares after 9/11? Religion has also seen hordes of them. Individuals who use numerology or "bible codes" to predict the dates of "raptures" or "second comings" or armageddon. (Even though they wouldn't know what har Megiddo was nor could they find it on a map.)

I'm not saying that, someday, one of them is not bound to be right. What I am saying is don't waste your life fretting about each new "prophet of doom."

Live joyfully and love boldly each day as if it were your last; because one day will be.

Other sources:

Jim Morrison's Ghost?

2006-05-24T16:29:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are too young to remember, Jim Morrison was the charismatic lead singer of the enigmatic 1960's rock band, "The Doors." They are probably best known for such carnival-esque anthemms such as "Light My Fire," "L.A. Woman," and "Riders on the Storm."

Morrison became an enigmatic figure himself because of his aura of pure sexuality onstage and off; combined with the legends of his off-stage chemical-fueled antics. He upped the growing archetypal ante when in Miami, in 1969, he allegedly exposed himself during a concert. The trial which followed left him a pop culture legend. This was rapidly followed by his "alleged death" from a heroin overdose in France in 1971. The drug overdose death of a rock star was rapidly becoming a critical part of establishing the individual as rock-and-roll icon (see Hendrix and Joplin).

After Morrison's death, The Doors refused to go away. They continued to sell records and thanks to oldies radio and film directors who continued to feature Doors' songs, they may be more popular now than they were when Morrison was alive.

Enough back-story. Because it seems that at least one Rock-and Roll junkie is afraid that Morrison is back to enjoy the renewed attention. Rock-and-Roll historian Brett Meisner says that Morrison's ghost showed up in the background of a photo that Meisner had taken of himself in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France (see photo below):
You can imagine the flood of Doors' fans that have come to visit Meisner since word of this has gotten out. "Hey, Mister, can you touch my records? Can you tell Jim that we love him, dude?"

Meisner says that the results are worse than anything we could imagine:

A failed marriage and the loss of a young friend to a drug overdose were just a few of the tragedies that have befallen Brett Meisner since he rediscovered the photograph. “I’ve lost some high paying clients and nothing but bad luck has plagued me for the past few years.” A spiritual adviser and close friend recently told Meisner that they believe the photograph is part of a curse and that he needs to find a respectful way to part with the image and bring closure to both Brett and the spirit of Morrison. “Part of me wishes that I would have never stepped foot into the graveyard in the first place,” admits Meisner. “While I also know I’m partly to blame for talking about it in the first place. I should have kept it to myself and not let the media have a field day with something so special and private. Meisner is currently trying to find a private and reputable organization to donate the photos and negative. So far he has no takers.1

Gee, it makes me glad I'm not John Edwards. So, if Jim shows up in your photos; be smart and keep it to yourself.

Close Up of Morrison Image

Something Else to Blame Your Failures On

2006-05-22T18:21:00.000-04:00

So, you're 35 years-old, single, still living at home, broke, unemployed, sleeping on the broken-down couch, and dating trailer-trash. Of course, thanks to the media and their steady line-up of pop-psychologists who are ready to tell you who to blame (other than yourself), you know that none of this is your fault. In the past, your life has been tragically destroyed by parents who abused (or didn't...Mr. Garrison), government mind control projects, aspertame, the greed-filled, evil, and soul-sucking corporations, abusive priests, second-hand smoke, subliminal messages, alien implants, fast food, war toys, psychiatric drugs, dust mites, bird flu, porn, illegal drugs, glue sniffing, poverty, pick an -ism, Republicans, Liberals, the teletubbies, well, you get the idea.

Now, according to Scotland On Sunday, you may have been handed an excuse that even old Rush Limbaugh can't refute; because, poverty may just be passed down genetically. Richard Gray writes:

SCOTTISH scientists have discovered a "poverty gene" which causes people from deprived areas to age rapidly, pass on health problems to the next generation and might even explain negative attitudes to employment. Research in Glasgow has established that deprivation can lead to an overactive immune system which quickly uses up the body's supply of spare cells needed to keep ageing at bay. It means a typical 55-year-old from the city's East End might have a "biological age" closer to 70. Centuries of natural selection among poor communities mean those with highly active immune systems are more likely to pass their genes on, condemning the next generation to grow old before their time. Most astonishing of all, it is suspected that a hyperactive immune system floods the brain with a cocktail of chemicals which suppress the natural desire for self-advancement.1

Naturally, poverty rights' advocates have siezed on the news of this discovery with the glee generally reserved for announcing that one has finally ended one's virginity. They are shouting from the moutaintops that this is proof that poverty is not the result of merely idle hands and that, what else, more governmental money should be sunk into providing health care for the poor to see that the "cycle of deprivation" is broken. On the other side of the spectrum, "fears have also been expressed that linking poverty to genetic traits could have the opposite effect by encouraging the view that the poor should be abandoned as a lost cause."1

Researchers point to a history of disparity in levels of quality of health care between the wealthy and the poor as a cause for this genetic distinction:

Initial findings from the new research have shown that those from poorer areas are hit with a 'double whammy' of unhealthy environmental factors and an inherited predisposition to poor health. Dr Chris Packard, a biochemist and principal investigator in the study, said: "We are looking at the idea that these people suffer from a chronic state of inflammation where their immune systems are constantly on a high state of alert.

"Compounds called cytokines, which talk to other parts of the immune system to prepare it for the invasion of bacteria, are far higher in people from deprived areas compared with the more affluent ones. This constant state of alert seems to be prematurely ageing the body beyond chronological age and so accelerates chronic diseases - they are, in a sense, old beyond their years."

Packard believes this overactive immune system has developed in poorer communities by being inherited over generations. He claims that children with more aggressive biological defences were better able to survive potentially deadly Victorian-era diseases such as measles and so were able to pass on this trait to their own children. This has led to large swathes of deprived communities who have lived for generations in the same area, now suffering from high levels of immune activity. While this can provide protection during childhood against diseases, it causes additional stress to the body in adulthood, which causes it to age far faster.1

The Cytokines also affect mood, so those who are negatively affected are also more likely to be depressed. Their overall mental outlook will be affected as well, in that they are likely to feel "trapped in poverty and unable to see any benefits in changing their lifestyle or extending their life."

One critical point that we must all be wary of. This discovery should lead no one to think of the poor nor the ill as being less than human. That is the road that leads to eugenics, a road that the Nazis tried to pave once before and their attempt to travel that path was disastrous to humanity.

Click HERE to read more about Poverty.
For some pictures that resemble the America in which I was raised, click HERE.

Is Life That Horrid in Iowa?

2006-05-22T17:17:00.000-04:00

84 year-old Great-grandma tattoos "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" on her chest

According to the May 16th issue of The Des Moines (Iowa) Register, life in the great state of Iowa is no longer worth living, at least according to 84 year-old great granny, Mary Wohlford. You see, Granny Wohlford has had the words: "Do Not Recususcitate" tatooed on her chest. That's right. Tatooed. Permanently. With a needle. On her, *ahem,* "heaving" bosom.

Most women with tats, these days have dolphins, flowers, unicorns, or butterflies, bunnies, or, at worst, the ubiquitious "tramp stamp." But, "Do Not Recususcitate?" Wohlford is a retired nurse and, should she ever become incapacitated, she wants to be certain that everyone involved knows where she stands on the matters of her medical medical care. According to the Register:

She [Wohlford] said her decision to enter a Galena, Ill., tattoo parlor in February was the culmination of what she witnessed during her almost 30 years in nursing and during the Terri Schiavo controversy last year.1

The real question is, are the doctors going to pay attention to the tattoo? Actually the better question is, are the lawyers going to let tattoo artists start taking money out of their mouths? According to the Register:

Medical and legal experts expressed doubts that Wohlford's tattoo would prove binding, either in the emergency room or in the courts, but they give her credit for originality.

"I'll be darned," said Bob Cowie, a Decorah lawyer and chairman of the Iowa Bar Association's probate and trust law section. He added, "There are easier ways to do it than that," such as signing a living will or authorizing a medical power of attorney.1

Would the tattoo stop an emergency room doctor from firing up the paddles and bringing her back from across the veil?

"According to Iowa law, the answer is no," said Dr. Mark Purtle, who works in internal medicine at Iowa Methodist Medical Center.

He said Iowa law spells out when caregivers are permitted not to resuscitate a patient, and a tattoo wouldn't be good enough. He suggests a living will or an advanced directive, with a copy placed in the patient's medical chart, as well as discussing your wishes with trusted family members.

Lawyers agreed with Purtle.

"Just having that tattooed on your chest and doing nothing more, I'm not sure that's going to do you much good," said William Bump of Stuart, who has expertise in living wills and estate matters.

In addition to a living will, Cowie said, another approach is to authorize someone who can make decisions for you using what's called a medical power of attorney. If traveling, place a copy with your airplane tickets, he said.

Cowie said some clients have their living will or medical power of attorney form reduced in size and laminated, then carry it in a wallet.1

I always thought my grandmother would look cool with a tattoo. A winged and flaming cross would have been much more appropriate for her, though.

Click HERE to learn more about living wills.

Fun and Games with the FBI

2006-05-22T08:39:00.001-04:00

The Memory Hole has posted a file entitled the "FBI Beta Report" (Behaviorial and Ethical Trends Analysis) which is an internal FBI report detailing dozens cases in which FBI agents were dismissed for behavior "detrimental to the agency." from 1986 to 1999. According to the Associated Press, as archived byInformation Clearing House, this report was hushed up for three years because it kept delicate details about bureau misbehavior under wraps.

Those details included reports of "agents fired for egregious misconduct and crimes, including drug trafficking, attempted murder, theft, misuse of informants and consorting with prostitutes.1"

IFCH quoted Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who released the report, and he:

found that about one in 1,000 agents was dismissed for serious misconduct or criminal offenses by the FBI during the period examined, from 1986 to 1999. The average was between eight and nine per year.1

IFCH continued:

Although the numbers were small, the FBI's attempts to keep the report's disclosure from the public and Congress since its completion in June 2000 is raising questions among FBI critics about an attempt to avoid embarrassment. Grassley, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller that he was concerned about "a lack of response to the findings and recommendations, a general lack of support for the project and even efforts to prevent its completion." Grassley said the report "almost never saw the light of day." It was only provided to legislators in July 2003, months after it was requested, and was accompanied by a Justice Department letter urging that it be kept confidential.1

The specifics are frightening and sound more like a frat party than a government employee evaluation. According to the Beta report, agents were dismissed for:

Rape.
Reckless endangerment of family, witnesses, emotionally and physically abusive to family members, using Bureau weapon to shoot at family members.
Physical and/or sexual abuse of minors.
lying.
Stealing government property.
Drinking or drug use on duty, gambling addiction, and/or Alcohol Abuse.
Using government property to receive sports betting materials.
Selling drugs.
Calling Phone-sex hotlines while on-duty.
Public exposure, masturbation and, needless to say, lack of discretion.
Falsifying receipts for expense accounts and/or travel reimbursements.
Shoplifting.
Illegally disclosing sensitive information. (For instance telling your employer about your psychiatric history).
Obstruction of Justice.
Abusing the power of the position by engaging in illegal background checks of citizens.
Embezzlement.
Engaging in espionage against hostile foreign governments and smearing famous media personalities.
Manslaughter.

You can see that this report is either A: very disturbing reading; or B: More entertaining than the latest edition of The Weekly World News. Regardless of your POV, this is an important file to read as you need to remember that these agents are human and disturbingly fallible as are all of our law-makers and law enforcement representatives.

Baby Truman May Shed New Insight on Language Acquisition

2006-05-17T17:15:00.000-04:00

Remember the 1988 Jim Carey film, "The Truman Show"? The entire idea of the film was that the protagonist's life was one enormous fiction that was being played out, unknown to him, in front of cameras, for the entertainment of millions of television viewers nationwide. The perfect reality show, covering the development of a human from infancy to adulthood.

According to The New Scientist (Which is frankly too expensive to subscribe to) as reported by Physorg.Com, researchers at MIT are recreating a shorter version of "The Truman Show," a kind of "The Real Life of Baby Truman," in hopes of getting a better understanding of how the process of humans acquire language and language skills. According to project leader Deb Roy of the MIT Media Lab, researchers are going to film a newborn baby 14 hours a day until the rugrat turns three years-old.

Ignoring the Orwellian overtones of all of this, this research project promises some positive outcomes:

The unique project seeks to pierce the mysteries of how babies acquire speech and may one day help treat language disorders and develop robots that can learn to speak all by themselves.1

Who is going to play "Truman"?:

Deb Roy of the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has so much faith in the project that he volunteered his own family as guinea pigs. Since his newborn son returned from hospital nine months ago, 14 microphones and 11 1-megapixel "fish-eye" video cameras, attached to the ceilings of each room, have been capturing a continuous stream of experiences, such as the mother using a melodious voice or frequently repeating a certain task, which the researchers hope to match to changes in the baby's linguistic performance.2

It is hoped that this experiment will bring new light to two old mysteries of human development. The first is the mystery of how children manage to learn the complexities of human language skills. The second would be to gain insight into why some people develop speech impediments.

Roy says that another good thing will come from the hours of digital data that his team records:

. . .Roy believes he is providing his child with a wonderful gift, the report says. "He might be the first person to have a memory that goes back to birth," he said.3

Just the kind of thing you want Mom to pull out when you bring a girl home. The hundreds of hours of digital video of you as an infant. Great.

The BBC has a more complete story HERE.

US Updates Battle Plans for Iran

2006-05-16T21:31:00.000-04:00

Today's issue of The Herald (UK) included Ian Bruce's report stating that the Pentagon has updated their contingency plans for dealing with Iran's continuing attempts to develop a nuclear research program. Bruce writes:

THE US is updating contingency plans for a non-nuclear strike to cripple Iran's atomic weapon programme if international diplomacy fails, Pentagon sources have confirmed. Strategists are understood to have presented two options for pinpoint strikes using B2 bombers flying directly from bases in Missouri, Guam in the Pacific and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

RAF Fairford in Gloucester also has facilities for B2s but this has been ruled out because of the UK's opposition to military action against Tehran. The main plan calls for a rolling, five-day bombing campaign against 400 key targets in Iran, including 24 nuclear-related sites, 14 military airfields and radar installations, and Revolutionary Guard headquarters. At least 75 targets in underground complexes would be attacked with waves of bunker-buster bombs. Iranian radar networks and air defence bases would be struck by submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and then kept out of action by carrier aircraft flying from warships in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

The alternative to an all-out campaign is a demonstration strike against one or two high-profile targets such as the Natanz uranium enrichment facility or the hexafluoride gas plant at Isfahan. UK sources say contingency plans have also been drawn up to cope with the inevitable backlash against the Basra garrison in neighbouring Iraq. 1

This should be no surprise as anyone who has been in the military can tell you that it is standard operating procedure (SOP) to keep officers busy by having them continually revise and update battle plans for not only enemies of the state, but also for possible action against nations or groups who are, at the moment, allies of the U.S.. Allegiances change. Iran used to be a close ally, until 1979 when the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and President Carter, thought it might be nice for Pahlavi to see Disney World; thus allowing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers to seize power. America became the "Great Satan" and the rest is History. A history of a long slow build-up to eventual conflict.

One of the reasons for the inevitability of conflict is the rhetorical vision that has been taught to generation after generation of young muslim men in madras' world-wide. The author of that vision was a man named Sayyid Qutb.

Sayyid Qutb is best known as the man who led the revival of radical Islamic fundamentalism while developing what is known as jihadi Salafi ideology and the beginning of modern political Islam. His teachings make him the most influential advocate of jihad in the 20^th century and the architect of dogma that legitimizes violent Muslim resistance to regimes who claim falsely to be Muslim yet fail to implement Shari’a (Islamic religious law). Qutb’s writings have influenced radical Islamic leaders such as Mullah Omar and Osamah Bin Laden and direct lines can be traced from Qutb to bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Mohammed Atta. [This material is from a chapter I am writing for an upcoming Facts on File book entitled: One Day In History: September 11, 2001.]

Qutb traveled to Greely, CO, to study Education at the graduate level. While in the U.S., Qutb says he was reborn. He was shocked by the racism, especially that against arabs, that was prevalent in a still-segregated America, by the open flirtation between the sexes, and American materialism. He decided that Americans were caught up in a “drought of sentimental sympathy” and that “Americans intentionally deride what people in the Old World hold sacred.”

Qutb cut his stay in Colorado short and returned to Egypt in 1951 after he learned of the assassination of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Upon his return, his vocal political and religious philosophy were deemed so dangerous by the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser that Qutb spent much of the next 15 years in prison. He used this time to write and he produced the two works which are the hallmark books of jihadi Salafi: Fi zilal al-Qur'an (In the Shade of the Quran), and the manifesto of political Islam called Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones).

After a trial, Qutb was hanged in 1966. After his death, he became a martyr for the cause of jihad, and his teachings were spread to a new generation of young muslims. As a result, the din, was revitalized by a new generation of radical activists who believed that the world required purification by jihad even if Islam was, itself, not being threatened; because, it was only through bringing sharia to the entire world, by force if necessary, that all peoples would be free.

To truly understand Qutb’s theological teachings, one must understand the basic concepts of his beliefs. Qutb argued that the key dogmatic elements of Islam are free will, individual reason, and the absence of compulsion. He held that Muslims must follow the din, the religious path as set out in sharia or Koranic law. The din is a “universal declaration of man of the freedom of man from slavery to men and to his own desires. . . .” Racial Equality and one’s relationship with God as well as the government’s relationship with God were also key issues of the din. The ultimate goal is tajdid, or the restoration of the Islamic religion as critically relevant to world governance.

Therefore, it should be no surprise that the West is seen as the villain in the morality play that makes up the rhetorical vision of Iranian leaders (and other Muslim extremists) such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Their narrative is still populated with metaphoric reminders of the westerner as "crusader;" an image that was only strengthened when US President George Bush, in the wake of 9-11, referred to the US response as "a crusade."

We, as simple citizens, are stuck between governments and religions who are spinning rhetorical visions which are on a crash course. A collision is imminent and may be unavoidable. In truth, this collision may be what both sides have been seeking for centuries as it is only through conflict that they have the opportunity to prove that their vision of the "truth" is the correct one.

May God, or Allah, bless us, every one.

Here's an interesting link: live web cams of traffic in downtown Tehrahn.

Whitewashing an Entire Genre

2006-05-16T13:09:00.000-04:00

When the SciFi Channel dramatized Ursala K Leguin's groundbreaking science fiction trilogy of novels, Earthsea, it was a huge event for fans of the science fiction genre.

Why was it such a big deal? Well, Earthsea is the first major American fantasy novel whose protagonists are not white anglo-saxon protestants with blonde hair and blue eyes.

When the folks in Hollywood decided to make Earthsea into a television show, they, for whatever reason, decided that a more marketable demographic could be found if the cast was whitewashed. So, the non-white heroes, became white. Brown eyes became blue.

Caucasian readers are probably thinking, "So?" Well, it is a big deal. Just as the act of Hispanic activists reimagninging the "Star Spangled Banner" in Spanish (with altered lyrics) was offensive because it alienated native anglos. Imagine a film which depicted George Washington or Abraham Lincoln as black. Or Christ, who was probably not as lily white as the European masters painted him, portrayed as a Kenyan. The average WASP would feel alienated, even angered by this portrayal.

This was also the case with non-white fans of Earthsea, as evidenced by this powerful essay written by Pam Noles, called Shame. Where she explains the main thrust of her complaint:

This I believe: If Hollywood has taken a groundbreaking, universally acclaimed, multicultural novel that has been in print for over thirty years and turned it into a white-boy romp, that is a news story. The cooperation of the author of the books is not needed to write that news story. If the genre news outlets exist to serve their subculture in a way more than pimping for the publishers and the production companies, the deliberate omission of characters of pigment in the Hollywood adaptation of Le Guin's Earthsea is the sort of news story a genre news outlet should notice and write about.

But they did not. When we live in this reality where a redhead white woman can throw down about Tupac with a hip hop Asian kid who can walk into a bookstore and get briefed about the proper pronunciation of Tananarive from a hipster white guy who first learned about the Beast of London from a Chicano low-rider. It's a crying shame.

Shame, too, on The Hollywood People for making me cry again, even though here I am all grown.

Be sure to give the entire essay a read. It's an important statement about how the media really effects our sense of self whether or not we realize it.

link: http://www.infinitematrix.net/faq/essays/noles.html

Making Light Travel Backwards

2006-05-16T10:47:00.000-04:00

According to Physorg.com, Robert Boyd, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester, has figured out how to change the speed of light. Not only can he slow light down to the speed of a jet airplane or your grandmother driving her 1985 Buick LeSabre. He can also make light go faster than the speed of light; but coolest of all he can make light go backward. That's right. Backward.

"It's weird stuff," says Boyd. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses.1"

Is Einstein suddenly spinning in his grave? After all, didn't Einstein teach us that nothing can go faster than the speed of light?

Relatively speaking, no.

"Einstein said information can't travel faster than light, and in this case, as with all fast-light experiments, no information is truly moving faster than light," says Boyd. "The pulse of light is shaped like a hump with a peak and long leading and trailing edges. The leading edge carries with it all the information about the pulse and enters the fiber first. By the time the peak enters the fiber, the leading edge is already well ahead, exiting. From the information in that leading edge, the fiber essentially 'reconstructs' the pulse at the far end, sending one version out the fiber, and another backward toward the beginning of the fiber."2
How does all this work? Physorg explains it this way:

"To understand how light's speed can be manipulated, think of a funhouse mirror that makes you look fatter. As you first walk by the mirror, you look normal, but as you pass the curved portion in the center, your reflection stretches, with the far edge seeming to leap ahead of you (the reference walker) for a moment. In the same way, a pulse of light fired through special materials moves at normal speed until it hits the substance, where it is stretched out to reach and exit the material's other side [See "fast light" animation].

Conversely, if the funhouse mirror were the kind that made you look skinny, your reflection would appear to suddenly squish together, with the leading edge of your reflection slowing as you passed the curved section. Similarly, a light pulse can be made to contract and slow inside a material, exiting the other side much later than it naturally would [See "slow light" animation].

To visualize Boyd's reverse-traveling light pulse, replace the mirror with a big-screen TV and video camera. As you may have noticed when passing such a display in an electronics store window, as you walk past the camera, your on-screen image appears on the far side of the TV. It walks toward you, passes you in the middle, and continues moving in the opposite direction until it exits the other side of the screen.

A negative-speed pulse of light acts much the same way. As the pulse enters the material, a second pulse appears on the far end of the fiber and flows backward. The reversed pulse not only propagates backward, but it releases a forward pulse out the far end of the fiber. In this way, the pulse that enters the front of the fiber appears out the end almost instantly, apparently traveling faster than the regular speed of light. To use the TV analogy again—it's as if you walked by the shop window, saw your image stepping toward you from the opposite edge of the TV screen, and that TV image of you created a clone at that far edge, walking in the same direction as you, several paces ahead [See "backward light" animation].

"I know this all sounds weird, but this is the way the world works," says Boyd. 3"

Now, if we could only find a way to hitch a ride on Boyd's manipulated light pulses, we could be traveling faster than light (like Piccard's Enterprise) or backwards which means that we could travel backwards in time. Fascinating, isn't it?

Big Love? or Big Target? in Eldorado

2006-05-15T23:06:00.000-04:00

WARREN JEFFS? If you're the next David Koresh, C'mon Down! You're the next contestant on 'The ATF and the FBI are gonna fight over who gets to fry your ass!'"

Tourists are flocking to Eldorado, Texas, to try to get a glimpse of 49 year-old Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the FLDS, or Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, before law enforcement officials arrest him or have him enbalmed. You see, according to ABC News, "Jeffs is an alleged polygamous leader who is on the FBI's Top 10 most wanted list, and some believe he is hiding on the Yearning for Zion Ranch on the edge of Eldorado*."

Jeffs became "Prophet" of FLDs when his father, Rulon, died in 2002 at age 92 (leaving 75 widows and 65 rugrats to mourn him) and took control of the polygamist sect. Jeff's theology is misogynistic, racist and has led the Southern Poverty Law Center to label FLDs a "hate group." National Public Radio Reports that Jeff's teachings are similar to those of Koresh:

According to former followers, the prophet is considered to be God's mouthpiece on earth. It is believed that God speaks directly to Warren Jeffs to reveal His will. And through the prophet, God directs which male members are worthy of entry into heaven (females are invited into heaven by satisfied husbands). Jeffs is also the only person who can perform marriages, and it is through him that wives are assigned to their husbands. Pleasing the prophet can result in loyal members being rewarded with one or more wives. Wives are considered to "belong" to their husbands for eternity. In order to reach the highest degree of glory in heaven, members of the FLDS believe that each man must have at least three wives. A significant means of prophet power is derived from his ability to punish followers by reassigning their wives, children and homes to another man. Obedience is highly valued, and it is rare for wives to resist reassignment. #

You can also hear audio clips of Jeffs sermons through NPR. The first one deals with the proper role of wives. While the second clip disparages the "dark skinned."

Jeffs became a notorious fugitive in 2005 when he hit the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list. He is wanted, allegedly, for facilitating and committing sex crimes with a minor. All this revolves around the issue of polygamy. Wikipedia provides this summary of the charges against Jeffs and his close supporters:

In June 2005, Warren Jeffs was charged with sexual assault on a minor, and with conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor for arranging the marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 28 year old man who was already married. The events allegedly occurred in 2002. He faces his charges in Mohave County, Arizona. In July 2005, the Arizona Attorney General's office distributed wanted posters offering $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of Jeffs. In late 2005, Jeffs was put on the FBI's most wanted fugitive list, offering $60,000 for information leading to his arrest. Shortly after being placed on the FBI list, Warren Jeffs was featured on the television program "America's Most Wanted." Around this time, Warren Jeff's brother, Seth Steed Jeffs, was arrested under suspicion of harboring a fugitive. During a routine traffic stop on October 28, 2005 in Pueblo County, Colorado, police found nearly $142,000 in cash, about $7,000 worth of prepaid debit cards and his brother's personal records. During Seth Jeffs' court case, FBI agent Andrew Stearns testified Jeffs told him he didn't know where the elder Jeffs was, but he would not reveal his whereabouts if he did. He was convicted of harboring a fugitive on May 1, 2006, with sentencing scheduled for July 14, 2006.
On May 7, 2006, the FBI placed Jeffs on their Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, placing him alongside the likes of serial murderers, drug lords and Osama bin Laden. In addition, the bounty on his head was raised significantly to $100,000. The updated posters warned that Jeffs had ties to Utah, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, South Dakota, British Columbia and Quintana Roo, Mexico. It also noted that "Jeffs may travel with a number of loyal and armed bodyguards." There is also information that he has ties to some rural farms run by some of his followers near Pioche, Nevada as well as construction companies in Mesquite, Nevada.
On the May 8, 2006 edition of Larry King Live, the FLDS and its fugitive leader were the main topics, featuring a panel of journalists who have studied Jeffs as well as several former FLDS church members. Most of the panel (including law enforcement officials) agreed that there was a high possibility that Jeffs would not turn himself in, and that there was also a chance that the situation at the group's new headquarters in Eldorado could eventually wind up in a violent standoff, resembling that of the infamous Waco, Texas debacle in 1993. One panelist noted that the best possible way to catch Jeffs would be while the man was on the road (where he would have little protection outside his bodyguards), due to the fact that Jeffs is the only person within the FLDS with permission to perform marriages and is most likely having to travel from community to community to perform such ceremonies.

Jeff's Eldorado compound makes Koresh's Branch Davidian Camp look like a shack. They are much larger and self-sufficient. According to ABC:

What is stunning about the ranch is its size, and just how self-sustaining it has become, according to Judge James Doyle, who regularly flies over the ranch to monitor its activities for law enforcement. "They have enormous warehouses, orchards, vegetable gardens, dairy, chicken coops, a cheese-manufacturing house, their own water plant," Doyle said. "We have heard they are spending a million a month on this compound.3"

The FLDs makes up about 1/3 of Eldorado's population right now. So far, they have been good citizens. But, as ABC's interview with Doyle continues:

"They have not caused any problems. They seem to be God-fearing people, and we have not had any trouble as far as the law is concerned," Doyle said.What about the polygamy?

"Polygamy is against the law, and I guess you can say they are violating the law. But that kind of law is hard to prove because that happens in every town. You have people living together that are not married," Doyle said.

Doyle said he was worried about a possible showdown at the ranch if Jeffs was hiding out there.

"When you have radicals who are armed, and they say they are, then certainly if they are cornered and someone fires a shot then we may never know what is going to happen," he said.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran is issuing urgent pleas for Jeffs to give himself up. "Warren Jeffs needs to surrender while he still can. . . .4"

So, will Jeffs take the, not so tiny, hint or will he become the next governmental whipping boy?

The real questions may be, however:

Is the prosecution of Jeffs an attempt to throw a wet blanket on religious practices that challenge mainstream beliefs?
Is this just an end-around means of a government controlling a church's dogma by military force or economic force?
Is our national belief in religious freedom strong enough to withstand the open practice of polygamy?
Why are so many people led to allow a single charismatic person to construct a rhetorical vision and world view for them?
Why are our governmental bodies so threatened by these so-called prophets and other charismatic leaders?

Interestin' Stuff That I Don't Have Time to Comment On

2006-05-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

I've been tied up this week with medical problems and publishing deadlines; but that doesn't mean that a lot of interesting news and research items haven't crossed my desk. Sadly, I don't have time to really comment on them in depth (not much more than a smart-assed comment or two); but, the original article links are included for your reading pleasure.

The Origins of Porn - In his feature article for "Smooth Operator," Mark Motz claims that porn has been around as long as mankind in the form of voyeurism. A bit of an oversimplified generalization; but that's not the main, excuse me, thrust of the piece. As he puts it: "Once early Homo Sapiens developed enough brain capacity to think abstractly, early forms of pornography were scrawled on walls inside of caves, perhaps as fertility icons, or just perhaps simply to arouse one's sexuality. Substitute a glossy photo in a Penthouse magazine, or a brief adult video trailer downloaded online, the effect is precisely the same. Voyeurism is voyeurism, regardless if it involves observing a 'live' sex act, or one on paper, or even on a video monitor. Its obviously pleasurable appeal is to arouse the libido, and prompt mating behavior." And all this time I just thought we liked it 'cause it was dirty.
The RFID Hackers Are Out To Get You - Annalee Newitz' article in "Wired" explains why everything that the conspiracy theorists have told you about RFID tags is true: WE'RE ALL DOOMED, again. Newitz says that hackers can already crack the supposedly secure tags (If you don't know RFID tags are tiny, the size of a grain of rice and growing smaller by the day, radio transmitters, which manufacturers and retailers are figuring out ways to out on and in products to track the product and our use of it. Click here for more.). The hackers can then: "They can steal your smartcard, lift your passport, jack your car, even clone the chip in your arm. And you won't feel a thing." RFIDs are becoming ubiquitous. They are in everthing from your car keys to your pill bottles. Soon, they may be in you and right now, they are wide open to even amateur hackers. This is a must read article.

There are also a few websites I stumbled across that are worth noting:

The Oz series of Books online in full text HERE. "The Wonderful Website of Oz has Baum's classics plus the books written by his successor available online. So acquaint your child with the works that are considered America's first "fairy tales" or reacquaint yourself with old friends.
PostSecret is a site that publishes post cards sent in by anonymous folk who have a deep, dark,secret to share. They have to share that secret, through words and pictures, in a manner that must fit on the front of a postcard. The results are impressive and touching. The site is updated each Sunday.
The Dead Letter Office is a site that engages you in an interesting thought experiment. You are dead. You can write one letter -- to anyone -- about anything. The anonymous results are posted to the site's server. Some are amusing, some depressing, many are thoughtful, touching, even chilling.

A Ray of Sunshine....

2006-05-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when one is surfing the web, churning through bot-produced search engine results, a brilliant, gleaming, gem surfaces that simply brightens one's day. This was the case for me today when I stumbled across the blog entitled, "And We Shall March," which was written by a former student of mine who is also a former writer for the Los Angeles Times, Pam Noles.

Pam's blog, "And We Shall March" on May 5th, said some very nice things about a former teacher and coach of hers:

Wicked smart, one of maybe five people on the planet confirmed to be funnier than I, deeply compassionate and one of the people who are not blood relations most important in my evolution from a teen spaz to an adult, slightly more focused spaz, DOCTOR Murphy means much to my heart.

While who she was speaking of is not overly important, (I'm trying to avoid this becoming another post pitching the book), what is important is that people know how much these statements mean to the people who receive them. Whether it be a teacher, minister, parent, grandparent, coach, scoutmaster, or even a neighbor, when you take the time to sit down and write a letter or an email or a blog post and tell that mentor, or that special person, how important they were in your lfe, you will not only brighten their day, you may be giving their life meaning.

Many of us who enter into the professions mentioned above, do so at great personal cost. We often do not have families of our own. You become our families. Even if you aren't aware of that simple fact. Not all of you; that would be impossible. Only the ones who manage to build that special bond between teacher and student are the ones who we carry in our hearts and minds throughout our lives. I've taught, full-time, for nearly twenty years now, and I can count the "special ones" on both hands.

We keep quiet track of you. Not that we are stalkers who hang outside your windows and watch you have angry sex with that cheap, trashy individual you picked up after drinking too much that one Saturday night. Rather we watch the alumni magazines, the Internet, and other forms of non-threatening contacts to see how you are doing. We won't ever be a bother.

Then, if we are incredibly lucky, it will happen. On a day that has been dark for us due to poor health, professional disappointments, personal disappoinments, or just the angst of living past youth, it will arrive: a gift, a letter, an email, an unexpected phone call asking how we are doing.

These moments, when you remind us that we had a positive impact in your development, make sludging through all of the excrement just to turn on your intellectual "light-bulb" worth all of the hell. Even when the contact is from a student I don't remember (which happens often to someone with MS) it is uplifting. For a mentor who is in the psychological dregs of life, facing the "long, dark night of the soul," a contact from you may be the light that saves their life. Don't underestimate the impact that the one candle you may light might have on the darkness of the soul of one who feels unappreciated or unloved.

You don't have to declare undying love, devotion, or that you will fly a plane into a building or drink poison-laced kool-aid for them. Simply tell them, in writing that they mattered to you, if only for a minute. Why in writing? Because it shows them that the minute mattered enough to you for you to make your feelings permanent. You didn't just get drunk and spout off something you didn't mean.

Doing this will make you feel better too. I've done it. As a letter, it costs only, what .39 cents, this week? An email is free, for now. Sending a book or a gift certificate via Amazon is relatively cheap; but thoughtful.

How to do it? Simple. Find their address through Google or by calling their place of work. Then, in your letter do the following:

Remind them of who you are (don't assume).
Tell them how they influenced your life (the more specific the better).
Give them concrete examples of the times they helped you (literally tell them stories of the times that they helped you, they may not have realized that they were helping you at the time.)
Catch them up on your successes.
Thank them again.
If you want them to contact you, tell them how.

Make it happen. The results, even if you never see the recipient, will be amazing. The recipient will be walking on air for days. Your letter will be framed, included in annual performance reports, re-read repeatedly, and kept forever. The bang you'll get for your investment of time and money is priceless.

Just Do It....Now!

Best Online Deals for "The Sandman Papers"

2006-05-09T13:41:00.000-04:00

It seems like all I have on my mind lately is this book....considering that I am doing nothing else in my "real life" but going to hospitals and emergency rooms perhaps you can understand this. Here are the best online deals right now for "The Sandman Papers" courtesy of Froogle.

$9.43 at Strand Books
$11.70 at Overstock.com
$12.32 at Amazon
$12.39 at Illustrated Books
$12.43 at Super Book Deals
$12.48 at ValoreBooks
13.04 at BooksaMillion.com
Bunches at 13 and 14 dollars and up on Ebay

Buyer Beware!! I can only vouch for the veracity of Overstock and Amazon as they are the only online services on the list I have actually used. Prices will be affected by shipping and handling costs so read the fine print...you may not be getting the bargain you think you are.

The Sand Man Papers: The Reviews are In!

2006-05-06T16:45:00.001-04:00

Initial Reviews and Blogs about the Sandman Papers

Recovering from a nasty MS spell this morning (my wife came home to find me naked, in the kitchen, sweeping the floor, with no memory of the past hour...yeah, I know, another letter to PlayGirl.) So, she made me sit in front of the computer and surf until I could walk a straight line. Idly wondering about the book's success, I googled the title of the new book, The Sandman Papers, and was surprised to see that there were nearly 15,000 hits already (as of 3-ish, 5/6). [By the way...If anybody sees one with this cover, call me and let's work out a deal. I can only find copies like the one below, the mass market version.]

For your entertainment (and, frankly, for my archiving purposes) here are some reviews at random (yes...at random, I'm feeling brave today.):

More to come, Here's the Google Advanced Search Phrase I used...I've got to go cover the Macon Knights game!

Please don't think that this is the only book the publishing world has seen fit to publish about comics. If you are interested in this topic, after you have purchsed The Sandman Papers, head to ComicResearch.Org for a full bibliography on the subject including a blog which announces new releases.

The Sandman Papers

2006-05-04T15:49:00.000-04:00

(Or, My New Publication Is Out!)

My latest publication is has hit the bookstores. The Sandman Papers: An Exploration of the Sandman Mythology is now available in all major bookstores and on Amazon.com (Click Here and you'll get my "author's discount" price) and Barnes and Noble.

The Book is a collection of essays which provide a thorough understanding and ask some devilish questions about the comic which is now considered one of, if not THE, greates modern comic book: Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Amazon.com describes the book in this way:

Neil Gaiman's Sandman is a phenomenon—a mass-circulation comic book that caught and held the attention of serious readers. Besides its mass appeal, The Sandman has long interested students and teachers in myriad disciplines, and they have begun sharing their reactions by writing analytical essays. This book gathers some of the best of this criticism, mostly by young scholars and all written in readable, jargon-free language.

The book contains 12 wide-ranging essays of criticism, exploration, and appreciation. The first half of the book addresses aspects of Sandman more or less in order of publication and the individual essays discuss particular Sandman episodes or story arcs, such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Kindly Ones," and "Ramadan." The second half widens the net and examines Gaiman's Sandman stories in relation to Gaiman's other work and work by other writers—such as Jorge Luis Borges's interest in variable truths or Terry Pratchett's adaptations of ancient myths for modern audiences. Others examine how Gaiman's stories relate to other genres such as horror fiction and to social and cultural concerns about the roles of women. Each grapples with questions of how script and art combine to make The Sandman an especially complex, rewarding comic.

This book of criticism is aimed at a non-academic, general readership who enjoy Gaiman's work as modern graphic literature and want to compare intelligent literary responses to their own. There is no comparable, competing collection available.

The book is published by Fantagraphics Press

If you were a student in my Comic Book course, Contemporary American Fiction, or Critical Theory, this would be an excellent work for you to pick up as a summer read. It provides examples of academic experts in literary and cultural criticism who engage in the application of critical theory to The Sandman as a cultural artifact. The articles are not, however, bogged down in crappy academe-speak. They are all written with the populat audience in mind and are all lucid, clearly-written, fun and enjoyable. The topics range from the Cultural, Literary, Tropic, and Comic History that converged in Neil Gaiman allowing him to be prepared to create the Sandman, across a broad spectrum of ideas and approaches to Lesbian Language in the works.

If you buy the work and are unfamiliar with the Sandman line of comics, I suggest you also purchase the Preludes and Nocturnes trade paperback, (Click Here.)
For more information about the Sandman line of comics, Here are some websites to check out: The Dreaming; Wikipedia on The Sandman; The Wake; or, Toonpedia.
Not the Sandman you remember? Where's Wesley Dodd?
For more of my bibliography and biography click Here.

See You In the Funnies!

BIRD FLU STRIKES US!!!

2006-04-28T16:30:00.000-04:00

Photograpic Evidence the Government Doesn't Want You To See!!!
The dying has begun in Florida. As this classified governmental photo clearly proves, the Avian Flu has struck the Gulf Shores of Florida. How long will it be before lawn ornaments, nationwide, begin dropping dead? Wit FEMA in shambles what will our government do?

Hats off to: "anonymous_freak19," thanks for the email and the pic!

Turning off Your Sense of Self

2006-04-26T11:22:00.000-04:00

The Journal Neuron (vol 50, p 329) has reported that Israeli scientists have recorded the brain actually switching off one's sense of self when the mind is simply too busy with a task. We've all had the experience of getting lost in a novel or in a video game or in a task. This sense of "getting lost" occurs when we set aside our sense of introspection because so much of our brain's attention is involved in the primary task at hand. Now, according to The New Scientist and Neuron, neurobiologists have actually caught the brain in the act and have learned a great deal about human consciousness along the way:

Self-awareness, regarded as a key element of being human, is switched off when the brain needs to concentrate hard on a tricky task, found the neurobiologists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

The team conducted a series of experiments to pinpoint the brain activity associated with introspection and that linked to sensory function. They found that the brain assumes a robotic functionality when it has to concentrate all its efforts on a difficult, timed task – only becoming "human" again when it has the luxury of time.

This ability to switch on and off may have evolved as some kind of a protective mechanism. The teleologic aspect of this study includes hopes that mental disorders such as autism and schisophrenia will be better understood. I hope that this research will provoke neurologists to began research into the "softer" aspects of consciousness. Perhaps it will urge them to ask research questions that are more difficult to frame using the traditional scientific method such as: "What is human consciousness?" and "Where do we draw the line between human and non-human consciousness?"

If consciousness is a construct that can be flipped on and off, this could also lead to new medical and theraputic tools such as new anasthetic therapies and new psychiatric approaches. The problem researchers face is that this area of research borders on the grey areas our understanding. When we look at ourselves too closely, we sometimes find that the answers fall into areas that we have linguistically deemed to be taboo."

Bill Gates Knocking on your Windows

2006-04-25T13:10:00.001-04:00

The folks at Windows have proven, once again, that they have very carefully read George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984. This time, they've proven it in their announcement that, as of tommorrow, April 26th, if you have a bootleg copy of WindowsTM, your computer is going to harrass you every time you turn on your machine.

Currently, it is estimated that up to 61 percent of machines, worldwide, use pirated software. That means that millions of operating systems will get tatooed tommorrow. When the Operating System updates, according to the Star:

Basically, a message stating “This copy of Windows is not genuine ...” will be permanently affixed to the operating system’s login screen, and a similar message will randomly pop up on the desktop whenever the machine is in use.

I anticipate that there will be a lot of embarrassed IT professionals who have not bothered to correctly register Microsoft software at corporations, governmental offices, colleges, and Universities tommorrow when these pop-ups appear on users' screens accusing them of being thieves. I also suspect that the Micrsoft customer assistance lines will be overloaded tommorrow as this new "addition" to Windows has gotten very little attention from the press.

Will it work? Will people pay Microsoft hundreds of dollars just to get their PC or laptop to stop calling them a thief? Some will, that is evident by the simple fact that the Microsoft server is painfully slow from overuse today. Most will not.

I'm certain that Microsoft will try to take the high road and claim that this is an attempt to protect its customers from piracy in that this patch will mean that bootlegged software, no matter how good the copied box looks, will now always trigger the computer to call you a thief. But how much of a protection is that to the consumer who may not know that she is buying pirated copies of software in a used laptop purchased on Ebay?

The first wave of this harassment will happen in the US, Britain, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Australia. What's next Bill?

The Chernobyl Wildlife Preserve

2006-04-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

Brown bear, lynx, and the rare eagle owl are all making surprising comebacks in the wilds around the exclsuion zone around what remains of the Chernobyl Power Station. According to the BBC on April 20, in the 20 years (Wednesday, the 26th, will be the 20th anniversary of the accident) since the human populations were moved out, the animals who survived have thrived.

If you are too young to remember what happened in Chernobyl in the Spring of 1986, you don't have the glowing, oozing granddaddy of all nuclear nightmares burned into your unconscious. A containment leak, an accidental explosion and fire caused by incompetence and poor design, forced the Soviets to evacuate a 30 kilometre contamination zone around the damaged Chernobyl reactor. According to Wikipedia: "Because there was no containment building, a plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. The disaster was ten times more powerful than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima." This mass evacuation included the towns of Pripyat and Opachichi, which are now a ghost towns. Radiation is still being emitted from the reactor site, 20 years after the explosion. Approximately 300 humans have returned to Chernobyl proper, but none live in the exclusion zone.

The incident killed 56 people outright. Another 47 clean-up workers and 9 were killed by cancer as a result of the explosion. It is estimated that another 9,000 people will die of solid cancers over time due to Chernobyl (most of them Russian). Greenpeace's estimates are considerably higher, they believe that 93,000 people will die of cancer as a result of Chernobyl.

According to the BBC, immediately after the explosion, animals faced the same fate as humans death:

The picture was not quite so rosy in the first weeks and months after of the disaster, when radiation levels were much, much higher.

Four square kilometres of pine forest in the immediate vicinity of the reactor went ginger brown and died, earning the name of the Red Forest.

Some animals in the worst-hit areas also died or stopped reproducing. Mice embryos simply dissolved, while horses left on an island 6km from the power plant died when their thyroid glands disintegrated.

Cattle on the same island were stunted due to thyroid damage, but the next generation were found to be surprisingly normal.

Now it's typical for animals to be radioactive - too radioactive for humans to eat safely - but otherwise healthy.

Now, however, birds are even nesting in the "sarcophagus," the steel and concrete shield erected over the damaged reactor. Even though radiation levels remain high, the animals are not threatened by man, man-made pollutants such as insecticides, there's no traffic, no hunting, and the wetlands aren't being drained for development. Other than the radiation, this is an ideal nature preserve. Even the wild boar and the wolf are on the comeback.

Sergey Caschak says that even though his search for mutation has found ample examples; he has found little damage to physiology or reproduction:

In all his research, Sergey has only found one mouse with cancer-like symptoms. He has found ample evidence of DNA mutations, but nothing that affected the animals' physiology or reproductive ability. "Nothing with two heads," he says. Mary Mycio, author of Wormwood Forest, a natural history of the Chernobyl zone, points out that a mutant animal in the wild will usually die and be eaten before scientists can observe it. And in general, she notes, scientists study populations as a whole, and are not that interested in what happens to particular individuals.

Perhaps this is a lesson we should take to heart here. Maybe we should consider storing Nuclear waste in the rain forests or in our wildlife preserves. At least it will be one certain way of keeping the poachers out.

Another Miracle at Malta ?

2006-04-23T21:00:00.002-04:00

Just when you thought it was safe to paddle back out into the deep waters of heretical disbelief, a priest in the Maltese city of Birzebbugia has confirmed that a statue of the Immaculate Conception is weeping human blood. This miraculous, and somewhat creepy event, was reported in the local newspaper, In-Nazzjon. I suppose it should be no surprise that if the Christian/Catholic God is still going to toss out a miracle or two, Malta would be a likely site for the event since, as Malta Today reports, Malta has the highest rate of churchgoers in Europe with over 70 percent of the Maltese in the pews last Sunday. Malta, of course, is also believed to be the site of St. Paul's ship wreck.

Here in the US, our miracles aren't quite as clear cut. In 2004 an icon of St. Anna, the grandmother of Christ, it was said, began to weep tears of myhr in a Russian Orthodox church near Philadelphia. According to the Press & Sun Bulletin of Greater Binghamton, NY:

A nun in Jerusalem painted the icon in 1998, he [The Rev. Igumen Athanasy Mastalski, pastor of a Russian Orthodox Church] said. "Until 2004, there was nothing happening that was noticeable with the icon," he told the packed church. On Mother's Day in 2004, a parishioner noticed what looked like perspiration bleeding through the paint. "About two days later," he said, "when we came back to church, we lifted the icon and it was inundated with oil." Streams of oil poured from the eyes, he said.

In November, Metropolitan Laurus, leader of the Orthodox Church outside of Russia, verified the icon was weeping. Since that time, Mastalski has traveled to Orthodox congregations around the country carrying the icon in a wood-and-glass case.

It is clear why the grandmother of Jesus Christ would weep, the priest said. "I don't think I or you need an icon to tell us things are bad," he said. "There's trouble in the world. There's trouble in our communities. There's trouble in our parishes. There's trouble in our families. There's just plain trouble." But salvation, he said, could be found in the church. "If only the churches were always as crowded as it is today," he said.

So, then, in the US, miracles seem to occur because we don't go to church and as a sign of looming trouble; while in Europe, God doles out signs and omens for full houses and as signs of good tidings of great joy or good futbol seasons. Perhaps a sign of how far we've come as a culture was our national non-reaction to South Park's take on the subject of bleeding statues of the Mother of God. According to Rolling Stone:

"One week we might do something totally political," Parker says, "and the next it's someone shitting out of their mouth."

Or bleeding out of their ass. In last season's finale, a statue of the Virgin Mary appears to be hemorrhaging out of her butt. Eventually, Pope Benedict XVI arrives to inspect the "miracle" and determines that the statue is simply menstruating. "A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle," the pope announces. "Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time."

"Bloody Mary" drew the ire of Catholics from around the globe, with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights campaigning to have Comedy Central take the show out of rotation. "I don't mind some fun being poked at the Catholic Church," says Catholic League president William Donohue. "But this was simply vulgar."

What's most interesting about all of this is the simple fact of the symbolism of the "virginity" of Mary herself. Those who composed the early narrative were most desirous of those who heard the tale to know that she was born under the zodiac sign of Virgo. For it is only under Virgo that a child of "the gods" or a "divine child" can be born. So...it's not so important that she was a virgin; but rather that she was a Virgo.

When Hollywood cranks up the money-making machine this summer and releases the "Da Vinci Code" you'll see an average movie about symbolism. If you are interested in the real thing, let me know. The truth is out there and it is fascinating.

Still Free....Meme of the Month

2006-04-23T18:33:00.000-04:00

Please spread the word and spread the video.

For more on the mystique of Air Force One

Remember, graffiti and other acts of vandalism are Illegal. The fine folks at TORD do not, in any way, encourage any of our highly intelligent readers to engage in such behaviors. Especially if they are targeting private, state, or federally owned properties.

For more info, check out: stillfree.com

Sign of the Times

2006-04-22T16:53:00.000-04:00

Bloggers Beware!!!: Soul-less Corporate Piracy 101

2006-04-12T14:43:00.000-04:00

Most of us tend to agree that theft is an unwelcome behavior among civilized adults. Even animals in communal settings will punish acts of theft and punish thieves. As Western Civilization (and I use that label loosely) becomes more technologically-centered, information (or data) becomes the most valuable commodity in our society. As our most valuable resourse, we cherish it and, it would seem that we would really demonize an individual who stole information; right?

That's what has happened in much of the Information Marketing Industry. Take the music industry. Technology led to a way for individuals to obtain information/data (in this case the music) which wasn't theirs through peer to peer file sharing (remember Napster?) At first, everyone scrambled, like kids chasing pennies scattered from a shattered gumball machine, to download as much "free" music as possible. But the orgy of free data meant that performers, technicians, and others in the industry were losing income. No money to make the music; no value to the music; then no reason to invest all the time and capital it takes to make a "studio quality" release and distribute it.

So, the industry needed a villain. With the help of the Federal courts, they started going after average Joe America. The industry was able to make us intellectually "honest" by making us afraid of going to jail. While this sounds heavy-handed; it is much the same way that teachers try to convince students to avoid plaigarism through the threat of punishment rather than through an appeal to the point of the educational process.

Why does this matter to bloggers? Because corporate America is as two-faced as ever when it comes to protecting intellectual property rights. It seems that the Associated Press has been caught red-handed stealing stories from blogs and not giving credit. Although, in a later statement, a spokesman for the AP says that they do "cite blogs that they know." Um, okay; but you'll steal from just anybody. That really makes me trust your veracity.

So why is this bad? "Professional Journalists" are supposed to be highly ethical individuals. If they do not see a problem with the theft of intellectual property for their own financial gain; why should anyone trust them when they bother to write a story of their own?

Second, this is an issue of soul-less corporate piracy. When the corporate interests want their data to be commercially protected for their profits; they are all righteous in-favor of protecting intellectual property. However, when they can financially benefit from being able to harvest, repackage, and re-sell data that once belonged only to you (Think about it; who owns your genotype? Your memories?). . . corporate America is not going to think about your interests. Not even for a second.

Blogs, facebooks, journals are just the start.

For more info:

Time to Be Scared? Ex-Soviet Secrets May Lead To Bio-Terrorism Fears Renewed.

2006-04-11T15:03:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that all of you were just lying in wait at your mailbox, waiting with great anticipation for the latest (March/April 2006) issue of Technology Review. Yeah, right, and you TiVo the overnight closed-circuit lectures that show up, in the wee hours of the morning, on those unlabeled corporate, University, and government channels on your satellite package [they're hidden between the pay-per view porn and the pay-per view futbol]. Therefore, in the haze of the government's, the immigrant's (both legal and all shades in between) and the media's failure to understand the "immigration protests" combined with Iranian sabre rattling and Iraqi board-games you may have missed the one story that is more likely to impact the individual human than all of these densely saturated stories.

The gist of the story is that Serguei Popov, a former Soviet Bio-Weapons engineer, now a professor of Biodefense and Infectious Diseases at George Mason, spoke at a Biodefense conference. He told the assembled professors and graduate students about the secret work the Soviets did advancing bio-weapons before the technology existed to engineer the genetics of an organism. No big deal. That is what we professor-types do. We go to conferences and share what we have learned through our research. So why was Popov's presentation a big deal? I mean a really big deal?

... why do Serguei Popov's accounts of what the Russians assayed in the esoteric realm of genetically engineered bioweapons, using pre-genomic biotech, matter now? They matter because the Russians' achievements tell us what is possible. At least some of what the Soviet bioweaponeers did with difficulty and expense can now be done easily and cheaply. And all of what they accomplished can be duplicated with time and money. We live in a world where gene-sequencing equipment bought secondhand on eBay and unregulated biological material delivered in a FedEx package provide the means to create biological weapons.

In other words. If the underfunded Soviet Union could weaponize germs on the cheap 35 years ago without computers and without Ebay. . . . What could today's Internet geeks and hackers do if funded by the right/wrong uber bad guy? In fact, as technology gets cheaper and the knowledge becomes more widespread and available then what was once science fiction becomes frighteningly possible. Just a few years ago it would have taken a super-power military with billions of dollars and technological infrastructure to genetically engineer a pathogen for a specific military purpose. Yet that curve is quickly narrowing. How long will it be before rogue nations will be creating a germ designed to infect and sicken only those who have a specific genetic profile?

In February, a report by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Academies entitled "Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences" argued, "In the future, genetic engineering and other technologies may lead to the development of pathogenic organisms with unique, unpredictable characteristics." Pondering the possibility of these recombinant pathogens, the authors note, "It is not at all unreasonable to anticipate that [these] biological threats will be increasingly sought after...and used for warfare, terrorism, and criminal purposes, and by increasingly less sophisticated and resourced individuals, groups, or nations." The report concludes, "Sooner or later, it is reasonable to expect the appearance of "bio-hackers.'"

This is not far-fetched. In 2002, reseachers reconstructed a functioning polio virus from information they found freely available on the web and from biological material they purchased from commerical biological companies. At the time, we were told not to worry, because polio was a fairly easy genome to crack. Scientists estimated it would take 15 to 40 years to hack and replicate the smallpox genome. It took less than one year.

What is most compelling about all of this is simply that as the technology improves, as Americans, we assume that we are staying ahead of the bad guys. We are actually supplying them. Most labs, universities, and research firms can't just dump old equipment. It is put into surplus equipment auctions where eagle-eyed buyers snap it up cheap and re-sell it; often on places like E-Bay. Now, indeed, some of this equipment goes to poorly funded schools; but most of it is sold. Tha's the American way. Who buys it? Joe Armstrong, Mr. Lower Middle Class? Hell no, he's busy bidding on the Elvis-shaped Jim Beam decanter. The folks who buy this technology are the hackers. The second generation technology may be slower; but it still serves their needs.

What can be done about this? Hmmmm. This is one of those times where my job is to ring the "fire bell" and go stand outside with everyone else. If the Anthrax "scare" frightened you (despite the fact that , unless you worked for the postal system or the government your odds of getting hit were low unless you worked with livestock or wild ruminants) ; this should terrify you. A hacker playing with bio-weapons is similar to the drunken man who decides to scare the rats away from his gasoline tanks with a flare pistol. The logic may seem chillingly, brutally, beautiful; until that perceived beauty is destroyed by the obscenity of its own success.

Lepine Law: Here Comes Peter Cottontail

2006-03-23T12:12:00.000-05:00

If you are a fan of Monty Python's "Holy Grail" film or are familiar with US presidential history, then you are aware of the archetypal symbol of the "killer rabbit."

This odd (oxymoronic) archetype is created by blending two archetypal concepts which seem to be at odds with one another: The archetypal symbol of the rabbit, which the media has bombarded us, is a symbol of a fluffy loving helpless childhood pet (However, anyone who has lived with them knows better. They are intelligent, cunning, and can, if forced to, inflict a lot of damage. Go to bunniwerks or the house rabbit society for more on bun behavior). This primary image of a cuddly bunny is then blended with an image of a psycho-killer to create a kind of cognitive dissonance in the viewer of the symbol. As a result, they see the victim of the killer rabbit as very weak since the victim fell prey to this cuddly little ball of fur.

Why is this important? Step into the time machine, Sherman,....back to April 20, 1979. A time of big hair, bell bottoms, and bad music in most clubs. Jimmy Carter, a good old country boy from Plains, Georgia, was on a fishing trip when he was attacked by a jack rabbit. The rabbit was, in all likelihood, fleeing another predator (can you say gator?) and was in full fight and flight mode. An animal in this mode is a ball of flashing teeth, claws, and adrenaline. According to press reports, the poor bun was, "hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared." Carter whipped out his oars and, swinging wildly, fended off the vicious beast.

If this had been you or I, dear reader, the story would have been over and done with at this point. However, a President has the bad fortune of being surrounded by his/her staff. As oddhistory explains:

Upon his [Carter's] return to the White House, Carter told his staff about the furry amphibian's assault. Most of them refused to believe him, insisting that rabbits can't swim (although since most mammals can swim, there's no reason to believe that rabbits cannot), and that even if they could, they certainly wouldn't attack humans, and certainly not presidents. Fortunately, a White House photographer had been on the scene, and had recorded the bizarre attack. The photograph showed Carter with his paddle raised, warding off a small creature which might, or might not, have been a rabbit. One staffer was quoted as saying, "You couldn't tell what it was." Undaunted by their skepticism, Carter had the image enlarged, and there it was--a killer bunny rabbit, apparently bent on assassinating the president.

It gets better. Jody Powell, Carter's Press Secretary told the story to a reporter with the Associated Press:

Several months later I [Powell] was chatting with Brooks Jackson, one of the White House correspondents for the Associated Press, over a cup of tea, as I remember. For reasons that I still do not fully understand, I told him about the President and the rabbit. I was the one who leaked the killer rabbit story.

Although an experienced reporter, Brooks also failed to appreciate the significance of what he had heard. He did not rush to file an "urgent" story. In fact, he continued the conversation for some period of time and several more cups of tea. Not until the next day did he get around to sending this gripping account out over the wires to a waiting public. And even then it was a pleasant, lighthearted piece. Although he may not admit it now, I had the definite impression at the time that Brooks thought it was nothing more than a mildly amusing incident, too.

We were soon corrected. The Washington Post, exercising the news judgement that we in the White House had come to appreciate so keenly, headed the piece President Attacked by Rabbit and ran it on the front page. The more cautious New York Times boxed it on page A-12. That night, all three networks found time to report the amazing incident. But that was just the beginning.....

It was a nightmare. The story ran for more than a week. The President was repeatedly asked to explain his behavior at town hall meetings, press conferences, and meetings with editors.

There was talk of a suit under the Freedom of Information Act to force release of the picture showing the President, paddle and rabbit in close proximity.

Shortly after the Reagan administration took office, they stumbled upon a copy of the picture -- apparently while searching for a foreign policy -- and reopened the old wounds by releasing it to the press. (click for link to full text and photo credits)

This one event served to help create an image of Carter as a weak president and helped cement his defeat in his re-election campaign. So, why am I bringing this up today? Well, if you've looked at your calendar, the weekend we celebrate the law of the lepus is nearly upon us and, although the Christian and Jewish faiths have tried to co-opt it, the lepus symbolism is still the most prominent on this celebration.

In addition, there have been a disturbing number of lepus-related "coincidences" of late which may point to a disturbing trend. To wit: The "Rumor Mill News" is reporting the tale of a police cadet nicknamed "rabbit" who had a similar brush with the rabbit gods:

Somewhere in a community in the United States, a group of Police Cadets are getting ready to graduate. Today the graduating class had to go on a "run" in the country. They are going to graduate tomorrow, and this run was one of the last runs the class would have together. Because it was the last run, it was a very special run.

Police Cadet "Rabbit" was one of the graduating cadets on this run.

"Rabbit" was running through the bushes when suddenly, out of no where, a gigantic animal, with teeth bared, lauched itself directly at his face. Police Cadet "Rabbit", in a move that was right out of the movie "The Matrix", deftly avoided being attacked by this gigantic killer animal.

The entire graduating class saw what happened. One of their "brothers" was attacked by some strange animal. All of this happened within a split second, but all of the cadets swore that it happened in slow motion and appeared to be a scene out of the Matrix.

It wasn't until AFTER the slow motion had stopped that everyone saw that the gigantic killer animal was actually a VERY large jack rabbit.

What the rest of the cadets don't know is the man who was attacked by the "killer" rabbit is called Rabbit by his close friends and family.

What is the likelihood of a man named "Rabbit" being attacked by an a ferocious gigantic rabbit on the day before he graduates from Police Academy? What is the likelihood of a person nicknamed "Rabbit" being attacked by a RABBIT anytime?

The Universe appears to be sending Cadet "Rabbit" a VERY powerful message. Does anyone KNOW what this message is?

Perhaps the message is that we should follow the white rabbit. Some human appear to be taking this all seriously as they are now trying to rid the public sphere of the symbols and rituals of these rabbit cults. The most recent example comes from St. Paul, Minnesota. As the 3/23 Yahoo! News explained:

The Easter Bunny has been sent packing at St. Paul City Hall. A toy rabbit, pastel-colored eggs and a sign with the words "Happy Easter" were removed from the lobby of the City Council offices, because of concerns they might offend non-Christians.

A council secretary had put up the decorations. They were not bought with city money.

St. Paul's human rights director, Tyrone Terrill, asked that the decorations be removed, saying they could be offensive to non-Christians. But City Council member Dave Thune says removing the decorations went too far, and he wonders why they can't celebrate spring with "bunnies and fake grass."

How far has it gone?

Your children could be next.

Porn Star Returns to Bush White House

2006-03-15T14:48:00.001-05:00

Ok, I don't get the joke. Why does the most powerful man in the world keep inviting a washed up porn star to lunch?

It seems that Mary Carey, pictured at left (and yes, it was tough to find a suitable picture of her to post here), has been invited to reprise her controversial lunch date with President Bush. Carey, who ran against the Terminator for California governor, was Bush's dinner guest last year and the visit caused quite an uproar in conservative circles. I'm betting that Laura was pretty pissed as well.

Ms. Carey is visiting the White House today as a guest of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The featured speaker: Karl Rove. Perhaps this speaks more to what Mr. Rove and his pals do with their leisure time than it says about GOP politics.

Carey, who is going to be named the 2005 California "businesswoman of the year" was guoted by Infowars.com:

"I'm really excited to be going back to Washington D.C. to see the president again," said Carey. "Everyone thinks that politicians are stuffy, but we all had a great time last year, and I had fun signing a lot of autographs. Wait till they see that I have lost 20 pounds since the last time they saw me. Watch out Mr. President!"

Uhm. Yeah. Carey, of course, is a Christian, and sees no problem between her faith, her politics and her occupation:

"I probably have less sex with those guys than any college girl [typically has]. It doesn't make me less moral," she said. "I'm sure a lot of Christians have had sex before marriage. God reads my heart. I'm a good person. ... I think I have more morals than the politicians in office. I don't rob, steal, hurt, or lie – a lot of politicians do that."

Mmmm PI

2006-03-14T12:28:00.000-05:00

According to yesterday's edition of the Independent, today, March 14 (3/14) is World Pi Day. This accolade doesn't merely mean that you should head down to your local diner for a slice of your favorite with a scoop of ala mode; but that you should take the time to learn (or rememer) a few facts about one of the most important numbers in mathematics:

The first and most interesting is working out the precise value of pi. That has proved something of a challenge since the decimal places of pi can theoretically run on for ever. For the benefit of this short history of pi we can say that the value of the constant is 3.1416. A purist would of course argue that this is a gross estimation, preferring the more precise 3.14159265358979323846. Ultra-orthodox purists would add a few thousand more digits, but even they wouldn't be quite right.

A supercomputer in Tokyo once calculated pi to more than 2 billion digits. It could not, however, reach the final decimal place because as every mathematician knows, that lies somewhere beyond infinity, a place they go only in their dreams.

"The mathematics of pi is often rather pretty," explained Ian Stewart, professor of mathematics at Warwick University.

"All numbers are interesting but some are more interesting than others and pi is the most interesting of the lot," Professor Stewart said.

The whole point about pi is it is both irrational and transcendental. Irrational because it cannot be written as a simple ratio of whole numbers and transcendental because pi is living proof you cannot square a circle.

If your concentration is beginning to wander a little, then let's start from the beginning.

When the town planners of Babylon began building that ancient city, they took a keen interest in geometry. It became evident to them as early as the 20th century BC that when any circle's circumference is divided by its diameter, the result was always going to be about three. In fact they calculated a value of this ration equal to 25/8 which comes within 0.5 per cent of the true value of pi. A less exact value was given by another early reference to pi, this time in the Bible (Kings 7:23), which described a round basin with the dimensions: 10 cubits in diameter and 30 cubits in circumference.

Scholars point out that, although this gives us a neat and tidy value to pi of exactly three, it is unfortunately quite inaccurate. (This is perhaps why Professor Frink in an episode of The Simpsons managed to gain the full attention of a hall full of babbling scientists when he shouted "pi is exactly three!")

It was, in fact, an Egyptian scribe named Ahmes who gave one of the earliest and most accurate values of pi. He documented it in a Middle Kingdom papyrus scroll written around 1650BC, which was in fact a copy of an even earlier scroll. Ahmes described pi as the result of dividing 256 by 81, or 3.160.

It was however Archimedes who is credited as being the first to elevate the calculation of pi to a more theoretical discipline. It is for that reason the number is sometimes known as Archimedes' constant.

Chinese, Indian and Persian scholars all had a go at calculating the constant but it was not until 1706 that someone gave it the name we know it by today. If William Jones, a Welsh mathematician, is remembered for one thing it is his suggestion to call Archimedes's constant "pi" after the Greek letter.

But the real work on pi had still not begun. In 1761, Johann Lambert demonstrated the irrational nature of pi. In its simplest terms, that meant you could not describe the number as a simple ratio of two whole numbers. Schoolchildren are told that pi is about 22/7, but that this is only an approximation because pi defies mathematical rationality.

The second major discovery came in 1882 when Ferdinand von Lindemann proved that pi had another unusual feature: it was transcendental. In mathematical terms, it means pi is not the root of any algebraic equation with rational coefficients.

In non-mathematical terms this means pi is proof of the old adage: you cannot square a circle. In other words it is not possible with a ruler and a compass alone to find a square with exactly equal area to a given circle.

But the more elegant nature of pi has been subsumed by the all important quest to crunch its numbers. The obsession perhaps began with the German mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen who, in about 1600, computed pi to the first 35 decimal places. He was so proud of his accomplishment that he had the digits inscribed on his tombstone. A life-long obsessive called William Shanks spent 20 years calculating pi to 707 decimal places. Unfortunately, his achievement was discredited when the first digital computers found that he had made a mistake at the 528th decimal place - rendering all subsequent digits meaningless.

The infinite nature of pi has also attracted the interest of science-fiction writers, such as the great American astronomer Carl Sagan who, in his book Contact, buried a hidden signature of alien intelligence within the seemingly random digits of Pi, which have no known pattern. "It was rather naughty, because you can't in fact do this," said Professor Stewart. "You can't arrange pi to have a pattern. It was a nice little conceit on Sagan's part. In a sense a pattern within pi is not something that even God could arrange," he said.

But God or no, that hasn't stopped pi from playing a central role in other science fiction plots. In one episode of Star Trek, Spock saves the Enterprise from destruction when he orders the spacecraft's computer, which has been taken over by aliens, to calculate pi to the last digit.

Click here to read entire article.

So, go forth and learn about pi...and by all means enjoy a slice of some damned fine pie as well. Remember to tip your waitress.

ABC Tells Us the End of the World is Nigh! Panic Alert!

2006-03-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

It is March, after all. Madness is in the air, somewhere amidst all the sticky yellow pollen. Of course there's also mad cow in Alabama; but I'd be pretty pissed if I was a cow in Alabama. Yet none of this provides ABC with any reason to go off the deep end.

I suppose that Sunday could have been a slow newsday. Maybe they just wasn't enough carnage in the Middle East. Or Maybe 200 tornadoes in one day (we average 350 per season) wasn't newsy enough. Then, of course, there was that little baskeball tournament.... But, no, ABC decided to really get middle-class Americans riled up by telling them that it was time to stock up on essentials and have our "outbreak plan" ready 'cause the avian flu is comin' and bringin' the end of the world with it. That's right. The bird flu is story is migrating back to the top of the news cycle.

I do not mean to say that the virus is not a killer. It has already led to the death of millions of fowl and, what, a thousand or so humans (most of whom have worked directly with fowl)? There is also no doubt that the virus will migrate to wild birds in North America. However, if the virus has not mutated to a virus that can make the jump easily from bird to human, bird to pig to human, or human to human -- despite its long incubation and brewing in Asia where humans, pigs (a prime incubator species), and humans live and work in close contact, it seems that the odds keep getting longer and longer that the virus will mutate into a pandemic pathogen.

For that simple reason, it seems odd for ABC to be advising its audience that now is the time to stock "up today on at least seven days' worth of essentials such as water, nonperishable food, emergency and medical supplies" and to create an "worst-case scenario." This is the worst kind of rumor mongering. Spreading fear to sell papers.

While we should all be ready for unforseen emergency; we should all also know as much as we can about the world around us. Right now, those of us who live in the US face greater threats than the avaian flu. I would be more fearful of tornadoes, wildfires, tropical weather, or driving on Interstate -75 than the avian flu at this time. ABC should be ashamed of itself....but then, again, they used to employ Geraldo, didn't they?

Exit Mundi: This is the Way the World Will End

2006-03-05T17:26:00.000-05:00

I suppose there is a certain morbid fascination that we all have with the possibility of the coming of the end of all things. Armageddon, the Apocalypse, the Eschaton, whatever you choose to call this looming null event, the possibility of anhillation has seemingly captured the fancy of Western Popular Culture. Especially if we can take the pulse of the culture by sampling the media.

Thanks to the Evangelical's adoption of the Dispensational nightmare, "the rapture," that John Nelson Darby sold to those ignorant continental clergy in the early 19th century (for more on this, click here), we have millions of people waiting to be sucked up to some Wal-mart version of heaven while the rest of we heathen suffer something they call the "tribulation."

Despite this, and many other popular mis-interpretations and misunderstandings of the KJV, (And there are a lot of them in contemporary "Christian" teachings.) the apocalyptic imagery and symbolism which surrounds it have become very popular. So, it should be no surprise that some enterprising soul has put up a website which catalogs all the ways (and times) the world is said to end. A quick visit to www.exitmundi.nl will take you to a collection of hundreds of scenarios of which at least one person believes are the prophetic truth about the end of the world.With such scenarios as "The chaos cloud" to the extenction of men, this is an entertaining and, at times, thought-provoking site. Be sure to check out scenario: "#5633: The dreaded Earthquake-enhanced tornado being hit by a radio-active meteor event." Oh, and just in case they are right? You might want to hurry.

Films to Watch If Your Spring Break Sucks

2006-02-23T12:27:00.000-05:00

Not everyone can afford to head to Mexico or even Florida or the slopes for Spring Break. I haven't heard any plans for "Freak-nik" or the "Great Spring Riots" in Athens, Ohio this year either. So, if you find yourself at home, without much cash and without much to do, here are my suggestions for a culturally fulfulling and entertaining (not to mention cheap) home-made film festival.

These films are all culturally important in that they have added somthing of value to popular culture, film iconography, or cultural thought. They are films which have added to the mythic fabric of American culture and, as such, are films that you really should see. They are also quite good and usually very cheap to rent (or purchase). They are also much better than the dross that Hollywood has been spewing the last few years.

Casablanca (1942, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman). The ultimate date film. Set in the days preceeding World War II, this film combines the treachery of pre-war Africa and star-crossed love. Also known for the often misquoted line: "You played it for her, you can play it for me!"
Gallipoli (1981 directed by Peter Weir, stars a very young Mel Gibson) This very brutal portrayal of the World War I battle of Gallipoli is, in many ways, a metaphoric retelling of the Iliad in brutal, modern, times. The ending is disturbing. An important film about modern warfare.
The Maltese Falcon (1941) John Huston directed this remarkable version of Dashiell Hammet's hard-boiled detective novel. This film was not only a pioneer in the detective genre and in film noire; but, it also saw the debut of Humphrey Bogart's archetypal "Sam Spade" private dick character. The film is a great tale of conspiracy (involving the treasure of the Templars), affairs of the heart, and more plausible twists and turns than Ocean's 11, 12 and 13.
Young Frankenstein (1974) The work of director Mel Brooks can be an acquired taste. Some people just don't have the patience for the low-brow humor and slapstick of films like Space-Balls. Other times, viewers don't have the ear or patience for the quick verbal witicisms that Brooks' characters toss off, sometimes in passing. Sometimes, he just misses the mark, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, comes to mind. However, in 1974, for one shining moment, Mr. Brooks brought all of his skills as a writer and a film-maker together with the comedic skills of Marty Feldman, Gene Wilder, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr, and so many others to produce a film that is so, laugh out loud funny, that you will have to watch it multiple times to catch all the jokes. Because the texture is just so dense. Joke upon joke, visual gags in the background, puns flying with every breath, cultural and societal satire, and good old fashioned bedroom and toilet humor make this film a laugh workout. Just remember, it's a bad day when your supervisor asks: "Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME?"
Bladerunner (1982) Ridley Scott directed this PostModern version of Phillip K. Dick's dystopic novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?" The film starred a younger Harrison Ford and a pre-stigma Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah (also watch for a young James Edward Almos). This film is the most effective PostModernist statement made in the medium of film. It demonstrates the PoMo worldview. (For a primer on Post Modernism, click here.) For the less philosophically inclined, this is a thrilling science fiction/hard-boiled detective tale where Agent Decker has to hunt down killer androids who are escaped slaves who are masquerading as humans. Oh, BTW, his girlfriend might he an android too. Oh yeah, he might also be one. Hmmmmm. "That was irrational of you... not to mention unsportsmanlike."
Apocalypse Now (1979) Francis Ford Coppolla's epic take on Joseph Conrad's novel The Heart of Darkness, mixed with stories from Michael Herr's Dispatches. No, really. Starring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen and the number of cameo appearances will surprise you. This is a dark, archetype-filled, tale of good vs. evil; of man vs. himself and overcoming the evil within and without. This is a heavy film, but it is one of Coppolla's best. CRAP ALERT: DO NOT GET THE "REDUX" VERSION.
Citizen Kane (1941) Orson Welle's classic of film-making. Groundbreaking in terms of directorial style and actual fil making. Citizen Kane has a gripping story. Sorry, not much in the way of sex and violence, though. Considered by many to be the greatest American film ever made.
Pi (1998) Darren Aranofsky directed this tale which is another, in many ways more mature, take on the Matrix. In Pi, a mathematician searches for the mathematical expression that will unlock the math that expresses the universe. It's a fascinating, thrilling look at the world.
Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (1964) Stanley Kubrick's "suspense-comedy" in which an insane general starts a nuclear war that a roomful of eqaully insane politicians try to stop. Frighteningly close to the truth. Remember what General Ripper would say: "He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
Alien (1979) Quite frankly the best science fiction horror film ever made. You go get the alien, I'll get the cat. "Jonesy, here kitty...."

Wanna read instead? See the 100 books every college student should read.

Deja Vu All Over Again

2006-02-14T12:51:00.000-05:00

British researchers, according to the 2/13 edition of the Ottawa Citizen, are undertaking the scientific study of deja vu. the scientific study of deja vu. Wait, didn't I just say that?

Deja vu, which is French for "already seen," is the feeling that you have already witnessed a scene or a situation even though you are seeing it for the first time. It is also known as paramnesia (more big words to use at parties). According to the Citizen, deja vu was first described in the 1840s, and references in literature abound. In David Copperfield, Charles Dickens writes of the feeling "that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing have been said and done before," of knowing "perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!"

In fact, deja vu is a common memory error, one thought to happen more often to younger people and those with a higher educational background. Dr. Moulin explains it this way: Deja vu is a feeling or conflict of two opposing sensations -- one, which is the feeling of familiarity, the other the objective knowledge that you haven't encountered the situation before.Our memory system is organized in such a way that when information is recalled and retrieved, it triggers a feeling that guides our behaviour, telling us whether what we're thinking is a memory, daydream or fantasy. The temporal lobe, the portion of the brain behind the ears, is thought to be where deja vu originates. In normal deja vu, and in people with chronic deja vu, that area becomes overactive, triggering the sensation of remembering, Dr. Moulin says, "when you're not actually remembering at all."
The British study focuses on chronic deja vu, a disorder which may affect as many as one in 200 people with memory disorders. According to the Citizen, chronic deja vu: is unlike the fleeting, eerie feeling people get from time to time that they've experienced something before, and that they know what's going to happen next. Instead, chronic deja vu sufferers are constantly overcome by the sensation something new has happened before. Depression is common, and some sufferers are initially misdiagnosed with epilepsy or labelled "delusional" and put on anti-psychotic drugs.Dr Moulin told the Citizen that: Social interactions become impossible, because people think they've met everyone before, "which means they're overly trusting of people, and possibly inappropriately friendly." Moulin says that this study can help us better understand the relationships between feelings and consciousness and states associated with memory. We should as well gain a better understanding of how memory functions.

Moulin insists that his addled patients are not making up their tales of foresight. "They're really quite striking. The most important thing for us, scientifically, is they're not confused by mundane, repetitive events. It's almost like the more novel and the more striking the event is, the more likely they are to get these sensations of deja vu. That suggests they're not making it up."

Moulin and his associates are currently inducing deja vu in their test subjects, otherwise healthy student volunteers. According to the Citizen: Volunteers are asked to remember specific words, and then hypnotized to forget them. Then they're shown the words again to provoke a feeling they've seen the words before. The researchers have been able to stimulate deja vu in half the volunteers. The next step will be to reproduce deja vu while their brains are being imaged to see what areas of the brain are activated, work that may lead to more effective treatments.

For More Info:

Neppe Déjà Vu Research and Theory. Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute. URL accessed on November 29, 2005.
^ Dickens, Charles (1991). Personal History of David Copperfield, Time Warner Libraries. ISBN 1879329018.
Funkhouser, Arthur (1996). "Three types of deja vu"
J. H. Jackson (1888). A particular variety of epilepsy "intellectual aura", one case with symptoms of organic brain disease. Brain 11: 179-207.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1863). Our Old Home, Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co.. ISBN 1404374248.
Jung, C. G. (1966). "On synchronicity"
Scott, Sir Walter (1815). Guy Mannering or The Astrologer, Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne & Co.. ISBN 0766170713.

Thanks Wikipedia!

From Whence This Valentine Cometh

2006-02-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

The following is from a "love letters" project I am writing. Any interested publishers can contact me at sophist@bigfoot.com

Enter St. Valentine

Perhaps the biggest step forward in the growth of the love letter was the development of the holiday that we now celebrate as Valentine’s day. Valentine’s day may have begun as an ancient pagan festival. The Roman feast of Lupercalia honored Juno, the Roman goddess of women and marriage, and was held on February the 14^th. During Lupercalia, women would write love letters, known as billets, and place them in a large vessel. The men would draw billets from the vessel and would pursue the woman whose letter they had drawn.

February 14^th may have cemented its amorous reputation during the Middle Ages as Medieval Europeans, who believed that birds began mating on February 14^th, saw the day as an excellent day to send love letters.

There is a small bit of confusion as to which St. Valentine is honored by the holiday as the Catholic Church recognizes three saints named Valentine (or Valentinus) and all were apparently martyred on February 14^th.[1]

The most likely candidate is a 3^rd century Roman priest who, despite direct orders from Roman Emperor Claudius II, performed secret marriages for Roman soldiers. The emperor believed that single soldiers were more likely to join his legions. Claudius had the Priest arrested and, according to legend, the Priest sent a note to the jailer’s daughter which was signed, “from your Valentine,” before he was executed on February 14^th in 270 A.D..[2]

As was the case with many of our holidays, the ancient pagan festivals were replaced with holidays honoring Christian saints. Lupercalia, then, became St. Valentine’s Day in 496 when Pope Gelasius named the day in honor of the patron saint of lovers.

By the 15^th century, spoken and singing valentines were replaced by written letters of love. Charles, Duke of Orleans, is credited with being one of the earliest creators of valentines. After the battle of Agincourt in 1415, Charles was imprisoned in the Tower of London. While there he passed the time writing rhyming love letters, valentines, to his wife in France.[3]

The earliest known Valentine was sent in 1477. It was written by Margaret Brews of England and dedicated to her soon to be husband, John Paston, whom she called her: “Ryght Welbeloved Voluntyn.”

By the sixteenth century, the exchange of written valentines had become commonplace. Late in the sixteenth century, Giovanni Portia expanded upon Ovid’s recipes adding twelve new formulas for concealing writing in love letters.

The seventeenth century saw the beginning of “form” love letters as booklets appeared offering poems that writers could copy into love letters of their own.

The first commercial valentine cards appeared around 1800 and were, by today’s standards, quite crude. However within thirty years the cards had become small works of art decorated with gilding, lace, ribbon and satin. They were also quite expensive. By the 1840’s mechanical valentines appeared. These cards featured such gimmicks as pull tabs which, when pulled, caused another part of the card to move.

Of course, then came the the Hallmarks of the world, and the rest is Capitalism and hormones at work.

[1] Denton, Paul. “History of Valentine’s Day.” http//www.alivenetwork.com/content.asp?ID=41

[2] Denton.

[3] http://www.techdirect.com/valentine/history.html

Kurt Vonnegut's Blues for America

2006-02-09T15:20:00.000-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut's latest book:

A Man Without A Country: A Memoir Of Life In George W Bush's America, (Bloomsbury), (which is available through Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/
158322713X/ref=nosim/002-5326326-
0975257?n=283155 )

Offers a cynical look at a war-torn America through the eyes of her foremost satirist. Scotland's Sunday Herald published the following excerpt :

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better and better. We lost that war, by the way. Order couldn’t be restored in Indochina until the people kicked us out.

That war only made billionaires out of millionaires. Today’s war is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress.

And how come the people in countries we invade can’t fight like ladies and gentlemen, in uniform and with tanks and helicopter gunships?

Back to music. It makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today – jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on – is derived from the blues.

A gift to the world? One of the best rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl from Finland playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.

The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country – an atrocity from which we can never fully recover – the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.

Murray says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can’t drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it’s being played. So please remember that.

Foreigners love us for our jazz. And they don’t hate us for our purported liberty and justice for all. They hate us now for our arrogance.

When I went to grade school in Indian apolis, the James Whitcomb Riley School #43, we used to draw pictures of houses of tomorrow, boats of tomorrow, airplanes of tomorrow, and there were all these dreams for the future. Of course at that time everything had come to a stop. The factories had stopped, the Great Depression was on, and the magic word was Prosperity. Sometime Prosperity will come. We were preparing for it. We were dreaming of the sorts of houses human beings should inhabit – ideal dwellings, ideal forms of transportation.

What is radically new today is that my daughter, Lily, who has just turned 21, finds herself, as do your children, as does George W Bush, himself a kid, and Saddam Hussein and on and on, heir to a shockingly recent history of human slavery, to an Aids epidemic, and to nuclear submarines slumbering on the floors of fjords in Iceland and elsewhere, crews prepared at a moment’s notice to turn industrial quantities of men, women, and children into radioactive soot and bone meal by means of rockets and H-bomb warheads. Our children have inherited technologies whose by-products, whether in war or peace, are rapidly destroying the whole planet as a breathable, drinkable system for supporting life of any kind.

Anyone who has studied science and talks to scientists notices that we are in terrible danger now. Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint.

The biggest truth to face now – what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life – is that I don’t think people give a damn whether the planet goes on or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.

Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the second world war, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so. The leading characters in our history books have been our most enthralling, and sometimes our most terrifying, guessers.

May I name two of them? Aristotle and Hitler.

One good guesser and one bad one.

And the masses of humanity through the ages, feeling inadequately educated just like we do now, and rightly so, have had little choice but to believe this guesser or that one.

Russians who didn’t think much of the guesses of Ivan the Terrible, for example, were likely to have their hats nailed to their heads.

We must acknowledge that persuasive guessers, even Ivan the Terrible, now a hero in the Soviet Union, have sometimes given us the courage to endure extraordinary ordeals which we had no way of understanding. Crop failures, plagues, eruptions of volcanoes, babies being born dead – the guessers often gave us the illusion that bad luck and good luck were understandable and could somehow be dealt with intelligently and effectively. Without that illusion, we all might have surrendered long ago.

But the guessers, in fact, knew no more than the common people and sometimes less, even when, or especially when, they gave us the illusion that we were in control of our destinies.

Persuasive guessing has been at the core of leadership far so long, for all of human experience so far, that it is wholly unsurprising that most of the leaders of this planet, in spite of all the information that is suddenly ours, want the guessing to go on. It is now their turn to guess and guess and be listened to. Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they could be right. It isn’t the gold standard that they want to put us back on. They want something even more basic. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard.

Loaded pistols are good for everyone except inmates in prisons or lunatic asylums.

That’s correct.

Millions spent on public health are inflationary.

That’s correct.

Billions spent on weapons will bring inflation down.

That’s correct.

Dictatorships to the right are much closer to American ideals than dictatorships to the left.

That’s correct.

The more hydrogen bomb warheads we have, all set to go off at a moment’s notice, the safer humanity is and the better off the world will be that our grandchildren will inherit.

That’s correct.

Industrial wastes, and especially those that are radioactive, hardly ever hurt anybody, so everybody should shut up about them.

That’s correct.

Industries should be allowed to do whatever they want to do: bribe, wreck the environment just a little, fix prices, screw dumb customers, put a stop to competition, and raid the Treasury when they go broke.

That’s correct.

That’s free enterprise.

And that’s correct.

The poor have done something very wrong or they wouldn’t be poor, so their children should pay the consequences.

That’s correct.

The United States of America cannot be expected to look after its own people.

That’s correct.

The free market will do that.

That’s correct.

The free market is an automatic system of justice.

That’s correct.

I’m kidding.

And if you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington, DC. I know a couple of bright seventh graders who would not be welcome in Washington, DC. Do you remember those doctors a few months back who got together and announced that it was a simple, clear medical fact that we could not survive even a moderate attack by hydrogen bombs? They were not welcome in Washington, DC.

Even if we fired the first salvo of hydrogen weapons and the enemy never fired back, the poisons released would probably kill the whole planet by and by.

What is the response in Washington? They guess otherwise. What good is an education? The boisterous guessers are still in charge – the haters of information. And the guessers are almost all highly educated people. Think of that. They have had to throw away their educations, even Harvard or Yale educations.

If they didn’t do that, there is no way their uninhibited guessing could go on and on and on. Please, don’t you do that. But if you make use of the vast fund of knowledge now available to educated persons, you are going to be lonesome as hell. The guessers outnumber you – and now I have to guess – about 10 to one.

I’M going to tell you some news.

No, I am not running for President, although I do know that a sentence, if it is to be complete, must have both a subject and a verb.

Nor will I confess that I sleep with children. I will say this, though: My wife is by far the oldest person I ever slept with.

Here’s the news: I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only 12 years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me.

But I am now 82. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.

Our government’s got a war on drugs. That’s certainly a lot better than no drugs at all. That’s what was said about prohibition. Do you realise that from 1919 to 1933 it was absolutely against the law to manufacture, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages, and the Indiana newspaper humourist Ken Hubbard said: “Prohibition is better than no liquor at all.”

But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed, or tiddley-poo, or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 40. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

About my own history of foreign substance abuse, I’ve been a coward about heroin and cocaine, LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn’t seem to do anything to me one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

I am, of course, notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s licence – look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut!

And my car back then, a Studebaker as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused, addictive, and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialised world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any left. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t the TV news is it? Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

I turned 82 on November 11, 2004. What’s it like to be this old? I can’t parallel park worth a damn any more, so please don’t watch while I try to do it. And gravity has become a lot less friendly and manageable than it used to be.

When you get to my age, if you get to my age, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged: “What is life all about?’” I have seven kids, three of them orphaned nephews.

I put my big question about life to my son the pediatrician. Dr Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”

Muslim Cartoons: The Right to Be Hypocritical

2006-02-08T14:12:00.000-05:00

By now you have heard the story. Radical Islam protesters continue to hit the streets across Europe, burning Danish embassies and missions, protesting, and killing otherwise innocent people. Over what? Over a handful of political cartoons published last semester.

In case you have been living under a rock it happened like this: On September 3oth of last year, The "Jyllands-Posten daily, one of Denmark's largest newspapers, publishes 12 drawings of the prophet Muhammad in what it calls a test of self-censorship among cartoonists when it comes to Muslim issues.(FoxNews.com)"
Two weeks later, ambassadors from ten predominantly Muslim nations demanded a meeting with the Danish Prime Minister telling him to go after all the folks involved in publishing those cartoons.

On October 21, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told them to get lost. On the 28th, a coalition of Danish muslim groups sue the newspaper, but a local prosecutor refuses to bring charges. The coalition heads to the Middle East to rally support from the greater Islamic community and to raise funds.

On Jauary 1st, Fogh Rasmussen told his nation that both sides should stop escalating the dispute. He also: "condemns any expression or action that "attempts to demonize groups of people on the basis of their religion or ethnic background" but reiterates Denmark's commitment to freedom of speech. (FoxNews.com)"

Throughout January the battle of words escalated and more and more newspapers reprinted the cartoons in question. On January 26th, the Saudi's pulled their ambassador out of Denmark. As January rolled in to February, more and more papers reprinted the controversial comics including Shihan in Jordan.

A fatwa is announced in regional mosques and on February 5th, protesters take to the streets. By the 6th, protests even target the US as protesters tried to storm a US/Afghani base in Baghram. Afghani soldiers killed at least four of the protesters in the mele.

So what's the story behind the story?
Those who are of the islamic faith will tell you that, just like Christians, whose Bible clearly prohibits the use of imagery to represent the Godhead or the Trinity. A prime example can be found in the Ten commandments, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that is in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth (Exodus 20: 4)." Islam, which is founded, in part, upon the teachings of the Bible, keeps with this taboo. Pictures or representations of Allah are expressly forbidden. In simpler terms, to Islams, it is a heinous sin for a Muslim to draw or carry a pictorial representation of God. That sin is multiplied when that representation is made by the unwashed heathens. The sin is further multiplied when it is fashioned in a manner that makes fun of their God.

But why is all the fighting Hypocritical?

Good question. The first issue we have to deal with is the issue of "Freedom of Speech." As Americans I think we assume that all nations have the same freedoms we do. I've spent time in part of the Indian sub-continent and, frankly, not only do they lack the same freedom of speech that we enjoy, since they have, for the most part, never enjoyed that freedom, they don't understand it. When the government or their mullah tells them to see the world "this way," most of them will without questioning. Why? It's the way their life has always been and it is safe. As Americans, we might have been angered by such art exhibits as Andres Serrano's infamous "Piss Christ." Many saw this work, basically it was a plastic crucifix immersed in a beaker of urine, as an "art crime" or as a sacriledge. Yet few questioned the Artist's right to produce the work. Even if we thought is was crap or even evil. Those in other countries would call for the imprisonment or death of the artist as well as those who owned the galleries who displayed his work. See the difference in mindset?

They also do not see the hypocrisy in their actions. The newspapers and websites of the radical islamic groups frequently have cartoons depicting Jews as bloodsucking lamia and baby eaters. Cartoons have called, repeatedly for the destruction of all Jews. Somehow, this is acceptable.

Perhaps, someday, the people of the world will actually start acting like seven year-olds. They will sit down at a table, share some cookies and milk, and really talk and listen to each other. Until then, it is just business as ususal.

I'll see you in the funny pages.

Aliens in the Attic

2006-02-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

According to the British paper, the Guardian, Barney Bloom has found an alien in his attic in Gunthorpe. The alien, preserved in an old toffee jar, was found wrapped in an October 1947 issue of the London Daily Mirror (For those of you playing the home game, the Roswell event was in July of '47).

Bloom's bottle baby is about 12 inches long and has an American serial number on its cute little foot. Although I am curious to know how Bloom and the reporter figured out the the serial number was American. The critter is a dead ringer for the bigger specimen featured in Fox's "Alien Autopsy" debacle a few years back.

One theory about Bloom's find is that the beasty was left in the attic by an American airman serving in the UK after WWII. But, as always, who do you turn to when such an anomaly appears? The experts at the Sci-Fi channel:

Mr Broom reported his finding to the Sci Fi Channel, who called in Professor Adam Roberts, an expert in science fiction literature, to examine the creature. "The easy thing to do is dismiss it all and say it's a hoax. It may be or may not be," said Prof Roberts. "The fact that it was found near a US air base suggests there may be a military component to it." A spokeswoman for the US air force said it had never made such models of an alien, the figure was not government property and the serial number could mean it had been catalogued by a museum. "It's a hoax," the spokeswoman said. Prof Roberts admitted it could be a film prop dating from the 1960s, but said he was not surprised at US denials: "That is the US air force line. They deny these alien encounters. It is quite possible they concoct stories to cover up for more nefarious activities."

Expect a Sci-Fi Channel special coming to the small screen near you soon.

Window on the Potential and Actual World-Wide Threats

2006-02-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

From Hungary comes this incredible site that offers real time threat assessment of nuclear, biological (including bird flu), severe weather, transportation accidents, seismic, and volcanic activity. The site, a product of information collected by the Hungarian National Association of Radio-Distress Signalling and Infocommunications and Havaria Emergency an Disaster Information Services offers both a world map with graphic icons displaying hotspots and text descriptions of the threat whether it be an emerging epidemic or a plane or automobile accident.

The site is available at: http://visz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert.php?lang=eng (or by clicking on the title of this article) and offers you a much more complete view of what's going on in the world than your favorite cable news channel or even what you might learn from surfing the net.

Bookmark this site for a guick macro-view of the planet.

Time to PAY for EMAIL$$$$

2006-02-07T12:15:00.000-05:00

Bet ya missed this in all the Super Bowl hoopla. It's starting. According to Sunday's New York Times, we are soon going to be paying for each email message we send on services such as AOL (also known as Borg Online) and Yahoo!.

Here's how, according to NYT's writer Saul Hansell, the scam is going to start:

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely

AOL and Yahoo!'s argument is that this will allow them to cut down on spam. As Col. Potter would say, "Horse Hockey!" This looks more like a move to increase the corporate bottom line. Here's how it will work, messages from paid senders will not be sent through AOL or Yahoo's spam filters. You'll still get the rest of the crap you get now, you'll just get the mail from paying vendors faster. Who is most likely to pay the 1/4 cent per message? ADVERTISERS! This gives hotbabes.com or an angry perseon with a virus an easy and relatively cheap way to duck my spam filter.

The companies say they are just offering a tiered system like the US Postal system's express mail. However, the postal system doesn't give free mail to some and hold others financially hostage. I hope that consumers will vent their wrath on AOL and Yahoo! and vote with their feet. Email is free. Spam is a problem, but I don't think that this is a well thought out nor salient solution.

Expect to see "Certified E-mail" in the next few months. Oh-Joy.

Rayfield Wright FVSU alum in NFL Hall of Fame

2006-02-05T12:48:00.000-05:00

Larry Rayfield Wright, "The Big Cat," a native of Griffin, Georgia, was the anchor of the Dallas Cowboys' offensive line through much of the 1970's. Now he is the first Fort Valley State University Wildcat, to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Wright had been named an All-American during his playing days at FVSC. He was then a seventh round draft pick of the Cowboys in 1967 and was given little chance to make the team. In his first three seasons, as a back-up, he was used as a tight-end, offensive tackle, and defensive end. His break came in 1969 when Right Offensive Tackle, Ralph Neely, was injured. Wright took over and, in his first game had to block Hall of Famer Deacon Jones. His performance against the superstar Jones was so strong that by the beginning of the next season, Wright was the starting tackle.

He went on to have a stunning career as a dominating offensive lineman. He led the Cowboys to two Super Bowl wins in the 1970s. Wright was named All-Pro five times between '71 and '77 and played in six consecutive Pro Bowls between '72 and '77. In 2004, his name was added to the Cowboy's ring of honor.

The real shame is that it took this long for his great play to be recognized. Now I can only hope the PTB on campus are smart enough to invite him back to honor him and have him speak to the students.

Terrorist Strike on Super Bowl? Conspiracy Theories Abound

2006-02-05T12:08:00.000-05:00

Ever since the despicable events of 9/11, Conspiracy Theorists, politicians, "psychics", paranoiacs, and regular folks have made predictions about possible upcoming terrorist attacks. An annual favorite target of suspicion is the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl is an easy target for such projections because it happens to be the single televised event that, both nationally and internationally, has the largest television, radio and internet audience. Frankly, for a terrorist of any ilk, you can't beat that for a stage. With Detroit serving as the host of Super Bowl XL, then you are in a city which represents the conservative, industrial, American heartland. Hollywood has already shown us such a scenario in such tragically bad films as "Black Sunday."

In past years, warnings from Conspiracy Theorists and "psychics" were relatively vague. The reason for this posting is that this year, in the morning before the game, I stumbled across one of the most detailed set of warnings concerning such a strike I have seen. Thanks to rumormillnews.com, "JS" begins by laying the groundwork for such a strike:

I. The Setup:
(a) A multitude of warnings from government officials of another domestic
terrorism event have aired in the [compliant] media.
(b) The new "bin Laden" speech threatening an eminent "muslim" terrorist attack
more devastating than 9/11.
(c) Patriot Act II ready to be approved by congress. (Martial Law)
(d) Plenty of time to place "terrorist" weapons in the stadium to be remotely
detonated on cue.
(e) This date, February 5, 2006, is an "11" day for the numerologists
(f) The football League has cut ties with the nationally respected security firm
it has used for the last 29 Super Bowls, and hired three smaller,
less-experienced companies (Owned or controlled by Bush family members as in the
World Trade Center on 9/11?)
(g) NORAD and other military entities are staging drills to "protect" Ford Field
on Sunday, February 5, 2006. (Remember 9/11?)

JS then goes on to tell us that the unnamed terrorists will unleash a mini-nuke (I assume from the Soviet stockpile) which will, on live international television, kill thousands of American civilians including football and media heroes as well as police and other civil service personnel. All broadcast live from blimps (I assume the blast will open Ford Field's roof). The result is the terrorist's version of "shock and awe."

So, what do the terrorist's gain from this? JS tells us:

(a) Shifting public concerns away from the Bu#####es* incompetence and criminal
acts, and back to even greater terrorist fears.
(b) Provision of a "reason" to attack Iran with nuclear weaponry. (Reason for
the neocons to use a mini-nuke for "terrorist" event.)
(c) Investigations of illegal spying on the American people scheduled to begin
this week will be quickly dispensed with.
(d) The Patriot Act that expires on February 2, 2006 is guaranteed to be
renewed, and Patriot Act 2, 3, 4 etc. would be passed.
(e) Congressional hearings on illegal wiretapping scheduled to begin February 6,
2006 will be cancelled or easily dismissed.
(f) A number of lawsuits, initiated by various citizen groups set to begin to
enter the court system on February 6, 2006 against the Bu#####es*, will be quickly
and quietly eliminated.
(g) The re-cycling of an "obsolete" major city with huge profit potential for
the "elite" is facilitated.

IV. Immediate implementation of the Fourth Reich.
(a) Complete loss of all remaining freedoms of the people of the United States
under martial law will result.
(b) All elections will be "Temporarily" suspended, and the establishment of a
permanent group of criminals in power will be quickly accomplished.
(b) There will suddenly appear a myriad of "patriotic" groups with appealing
acronyms. These will lure the gullible to do their "patriotic" duty and
report/fight anyone disagreeing with the NWO directives.
(c) Plans for policing and censorship of the internet are in place now and will
be used to eliminate individuals using it against the NWO.
(d) Heavily armed foreign troops now secretly housed in the U.S. will be
deployed to replace any uncooperative police and military units, and deal with
any militia threat to the New World Order being established.

Scary, huh? Would also make a great plot for a tv mini-series. You reading this Fox? I want a cut, some residuals and a writing credit. I also hope that this is yet another round of paranoid ranting. But, eventually, until the terrorist threat is ended, one of these folks is bound to be right.

*I believe that the B#####s nonsense means either "Bushies" or "Bushites"

Google Bares Your Soul To The Justice Department

2006-02-03T16:58:00.000-05:00

I realize that Blogspot is a Google product. That being said, Google's recent battles with the U.S. Department of Justice over the privacy of the data they collect on the searches Google users conduct has opened a veritable Pandora's box which leaves most Internet users personal predelictions a matter of public record. In other words, remember when you *ahem* stumbled upon that fetish site after a quick Google or Yahoo! search? The search engines track what you searched for and what sites you clicked through to. Now that might seem innocent, but I can imagine how that innocent data, in the hands of an attorney or the DOJ could be taken out of context and used against you.

Situtation A: Your high school aged child (as many do) discovers the occult and spends many evenings searching the web. He becomes very interested in Aleister Crowley's lurid descriptions of Sex Magick. So he starts searching using terms like "Sex Magick" and variations on that theme, including "deflowering" or "pedophilia." Or, more innocently, the boy is assigned to write a term paper on a contemporary social problem and chooses to research child abuse. While searching, he is intrigued by the research on sexual abuse and focuses his searches on those terms. Pick either of those scenarios; then, unfortunately, a child in your neighborhood is kidnapped and the lone witness describes a car that looks like yours and the witness'es description of the perp sounds like you. The local constabulary get a fistful of subpoenas, including one for Google....and guess what they discover that you've been researching? You pervert.

Situation B: You're a politically active blogger who actually bothers to do some research to boster your arguments before posting. This often means that you are searching for information from indivuals that the current government might find offensive; folks like Sayyid Qutb, for instance. While you are only exercising you 1st amendment rights and have not committed treason or called for violent overthrow, guess what's gonna happen when the DOJ wants to shut you down? They subpoena your search records and, with them, a good attorney can prove that you are an evil seditious bastard. You are then effectively silenced.

You might think, "Oh, there's no way the government would do that," but as ZDNET reports:

A North Carolina man was found guilty of murder in November in part because he Googled the words "neck," "snap," "break" and "hold" before his wife was killed. But those search terms were found on Robert Petrick's computer, not obtained from Google directly.

This kind of fishing by government is allowed because of a 1986 law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The ECPA predates modern search engines and was written with the old , late 1980's, BBSs in mind.

The really sad part of this is that the other search engines just folded when the DOJ knocked on the door and handed over the search histories. Google is at least fighting back; but, they will probably lose in the long run and have to turn the data over to the government.

So, what can be done to fix this mess before it becomes an Orwellian nightmare?

If the folks in DC had brains they would realize how important search engines are to the free flow of information and commerce on the net and pass legislation either forcing the search engines to make it impossible to link the searcher to the search query or give the relationship between search engine and searcher the same kind of privilige that is afforded to Doctors and their patients.
Search engines could, if they were smart, hash the data they collect every 14 days. If there is no data, then subpoenas do the DOJ no good. Or they could just stop linking individuals to search querys and click throughs in their data collection.
Do your searching at public terminals. Especially if your searching for information you wouldn't want your mamma to know you were looking for.
Find and patronize search engines that don't data mine user behavior; and spread the word. A student today told me that clusty.com isn't collecting. I haven't verified that yet. Of course there is always anonymizer.com or Tor. SearchEngineWatch.Com keeps up to date information about what each of the most popular search engines are up to and the site is a valuable resource.

What to Do IF You Aren't Watching the Super Bowl

2006-02-02T13:57:00.000-05:00

I must admit that I am surprised. I've only been doing this a few days and I'm already getting email. Who knew that people, real people, read these things? Anyway, a "reader," who wished to remain anonymous, sent me a long list of *um* unusual telephone numbers. I backtracked the list through Google and most of the list was apparently first posted by PhreaksandGeeks.com in April of last year. I don't have the time or the staff to verify the veracity of the numbers or if they are still active...and, frankly I would assume that once these numbers got out on the Web that our wise friends in government and business would change them; right?

***WARNING**** It may be less than legal to abuse these numbers. It is certainly illegal to harrass the folks who answer these phones. They are probably just poor schmoes making minimum wage. AND if you keep calling the governmental lines you can betcha that Don Rumsfeld is going to start paying attention to your business. BE SMART. If you choose to be stupid, It's not my fault. I cannot be held legally or personally responsible if you choose to pick up your HOME phone or your CELL phone and call these numbers. *****END COMMON SENSE ALERT AND LEGAL DISCLAIMER****

Note that I have removed all the numbers that would only be of interest to phone phreakers and hackers. You can look for these clearly illegal access points through a Google search.

Numbers to Hang on Your Fridge
202-456-9431 White House Situation Room (Still works)
213-974-6624 LA County sheriffs civil case info. line
301-688-6311 National Security Agency
303-273-8516 National Eartherquake Info Center
303-277-2450 Coors Brewing Company, Golden CO - Job Line
305-227-5869 Tropical Storm Tracker
703-260-0307 National Weather Service Forcast Recording
800-369-0010 20th Century Fox
800-369-5050 Best Buy
800-577-9997 Pizza Hut Survey line
800-704-9469 quaker oats press 1 for a recipe for meatloaf (Like the one in Rocky Horror?)
800-925-6278 Wal-Mart
916-445-2864 office of Governor Arnold Shwarzenegar

Weird Numbers (not all are free calls)
909-390-1390 Werid Shit Before millawatt tone
800-669-1542 whoa!! this is a crazy number (sprint)
401-863-7128 Elevator Phone @ Brown College
800-999-8375 A Jury News Line
808-973-6109 Hawaii Weather (When you really want to be depressed)
810-732-9037 Elevator
860-563-6571 Yet another Elevator...takes a while to pickup

Hotlines
202-293-1966 Motion Picture Association of America Telephone
313-438-2812 Twisted Hotline
800-223-5800 Clairol Hotline
800-225-5472 Mafia Hotline
800-225-5779 USA Army Spy Hotline
800-323-4848 Butter Ball Turkey Hotline nov.2- dec.24
800-365-3642 DoD Network Information Center
800-388-7478 SPA Anti-Piracy Hotline
800-424-8802 Report Toxic Chemical/Oil Spills (Voice-TRS)
800-424-9098 Box number 1053775 Defense Hotline (live operator)
800-424-9393 DOT Auto Safety Hotline 1 for English
800-457-6656 Federal Aviation News
800-633-4227 Medicare
800-688-9889 Federal Government Info line
800-737-6237 Alcoholics Anonymous
800-772-1213 Social Security Administration
800-829-1040 IRS
800-843-5678 NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN
800-882-6468 Cookie Hotline girl scouts cookies
800-974-0062 Narcotics Anonymous
888-283-2662 ATF
888-382-1222 Do Not Call List
800-235-8378 State of florida drug testing hotline

Frankly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you have interesting phone numbers (legal ones) that you want to see here, drop me an email and I'll collect them for a future post. If you call these numbers, any of them, be smart!

Use the 'Net? Ready To REALLY Pay For It?

2006-02-02T11:57:00.000-05:00

"AT&T calls for end to free internet People should pay for the use of our pipes"

That's the headline of today's front page of the "Inquirer" (www.theinquirer.net) where Nick Farrell reports that AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre has, apparently, according to the Financial Times of London, called for content providers (in English, that is those folks who own web pages, blog, and otherwise put content (stuff) up on the web) to start paying for the actual use of AT&T's network. We currently don't pay for that, our internet service provider has their own lines which hooks into AT&T's network and they pay to rent space and time on the network. We pay a small fee to our ISP or, our ISP covers this cost through advertising. However, if AT&T passes that cost directly on to you and me....guess what, most users will be driven out of the game of providing content.

When it used to cost 100 dollars or more per month to host a simple web site, most folks just didn't have one. Now, you can get them for free and decent ones for as little as 2 or three bucks a month. Vanity sites and joke sites are everywhere. The web is congested, but more democratic. Imagine what would happen to blogging if you had to pay a buck a post. Goodbye third world. Goodbye poor people anywhere. Goodbye students.

Whitacre offers an alternative. He says that the ISPs could start charging folks for visiting web pages. **Ahem** Goodbye grand electronic democratic frontier. Hello Internet as HBO or showtime. Where only those people who have disposable wealth can use the Web.

AT&T has a pretty powerful set of federal lobbyists. You know they are already working the halls of graft in DC. This may be one time to email your congressman. Or start looking into a European or Chinese ISP, because AT&T's money grab may not affect Asia or the EU.

I wonder if Al Gore knows that AT&T is planning on making a killing on his invention?

God May Be Banned From Voting In PA

2006-02-01T17:15:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News is reporting that a man who uses "God" as his legal signature may not be allowed to vote in the next elections in Reading, Pennsylvania until he appears at a Berks County, PA elections board to 'splain himself to "the Man."

According to Yahoo!, the voter in question is registered as, "Paul S. Sewell, but his form is signed "God." County Solicitor Alan S. Miller said Sewell claims his "God" signature is merely a legal mark like the "X" used by people who are illiterate. Sewell, 40, said he will be happy to explain. As the owner of a bail enforcement agency, he finds fugitives, he said. "Whenever I go to arrest somebody, they say, 'Oh, God, give me another chance. Oh, God, let me go. I'll turn myself in tomorrow,'" Sewell said. He said he thinks his designated mark is legal. "PennDOT accepted it on my driver's license. I have a credit card with it," he said. "It shouldn't be a problem."

There is one positive issue that arises from this development. Instead of having to rely on an intermediary like a priest, a minister, a mullah, or a rabbi to help us talk to God, now, since we have his name: Paul S. Sewell, and his hometown, Reading, PA, then all we would have to do is let our fingers do the walking through a good search site like Google to get God's phone number...you don't think it's listed do you? Naah. Couldn't be.

But this does explain so much. God is a Steeler's fan. Damn. That's how they beat the Bengals.

Truth in Advertising

2006-02-01T16:03:00.000-05:00

Just as we are getting over our fear of Mad Cows now, the Mirror tells us that is time to be sorely afraid of dog crap in our ham.

Apparently, according to the January 31st edition of the Mirror, 34 year-old Mick Woods "lost his appetite" when he scanned the ingredients list of his 99 pence pack of sliced ham and saw that the "premium" product claimed to contain a rather unusual and unsavory additive.

Woods told the Mirror that when he found "dog shit" listed as an ingredient, "It sort of puts you off." He went on to say that he and his partner, "spent 40 minutes laughing. But we haven't put any in the kids' sandwiches. . ." How thoughtful, Mick.

The Ham's manufacturer says that someone will be shit-canned over the incident.

How to Know When FBI Informants are Online With You

2006-01-31T13:33:00.000-05:00

So, the news is out, since 2003, the Pentagon has been planning to game the Internet and the networked world. So, how can we normal folk know if we are dealing with Jack Bauer or Stever Rogers online? WhatReallyHappened.Com offers us a handy primer called "On the Subject of Informants..."

Among the tips offered by the author of this site are:

"People who tend to want to be informants are those who feel they have no power or authority in life. Becoming an informant gives these misfits and losers a sense of power and of self importance. The surest give-away that someone has become an informant is that formerly meek people suddenly develop a sense of arrogance with no visible reasons why along with a sudden desire to join widely disparate organizations they formerly had no interest in." I have also noticed that this same change in attitude occurs in meth users and individuals who have just been elected to public office.

"...the TIPS (our author assumed we know what this program, obviously an evil relative of COINTELPRO, involves) program isn't really about fighting terror. Terrorists do not, after all, walk up to total strangers and ask if they want to help blow up a building (the same cannot historically be said to be true for the informants themselves). It should therefore be obvious that the TIPS program is intended to discourage people from talking to each other about what is going on, to keep the people of this nation from openly expressing their concerns out of fear who might be listening, to keep the people of the United States totally dependent on radio and TV to tell them how wonderful the war to conquer the oil is, how beloved our leaders are of the people, and how only wrong-thinking people could ever doubt the greatness of the nation." Hmmm. Here's where he or she starts to lose me. So, the goal of the informants is to stop us from talking? Then, logically extended, the goal of the soldiers would be to stop terrorists from dying. Nope. Sorry. This logic is a little too loose and relies on a bit too much on shared governmental paranoia and a shared Orwellian world view.

"The goal of TIPS is for you to THINK there is an informant in every office and in every classroom to scare you into silence, to publicly promise that you still have the Constitutional right to free speech and assembly even as they trick you into not using those rights.So, don't be scared of these losers. Most informants are harmless, preferring to stay home and jerk off to James Bond movies to the real world. Those who do venture out tend to be rather obvious, which has led to the joke making the rounds in the patriot movement that the easiest way to spot an informant is to find the guy with the dynamite trying to get someone else to blow something up." OK, I get it. So let's make little Bobby fear the Boogie man so much that he'll wet his pants every night and grow up with a psychological complex so severe that he'll never have any normal adult relationships. But, since the Boogie man isn't real, it's OK? Huh? That's not even a workable plot for bad, straight to DVD, science fiction films. Can you see someone pitching this as a film idea to James Cameron? This is a straw man argument. The same argument that holds that the government created and is orchestrating all the evils that we face. You've heard it, that Bin Laden, Al Quaida and their crew are all psyi-ops creations created by the US government to either A: usher in a One World Government (Seemed to be more of a theme under Wild Bill's regime) or B: Strip away your civil rights and freedoms (The theme under most GOP regimes).

So, what should we do according to our wise sage? "So when you find an informant, let them know that they are objects of scorn and ridicule, not humans of any substance to be feared. Make fun of them. Play the same kind of dirty tricks on them that they play on others. Feed them bad information. Make the TIPS people doubt their informants' credibility. make them burn up their budgets following false trails. You are justified in wrecking the TIPS system because the Constitution does not authorize the government to spy on the population of the United States." You know, I agree with him here; well, his central thesis, anyway. If the US or any government is gaming the internet, then we should, as a "free community" game right back. We, as a population, have more time and expertise than they have money. However, I disagree with his call to verbally, psychologically, and physically abuse individuals that he just recently dismissed as "harmless." Frankly, if a program like this exists it is in place to either make the average citizen fear the powers that be (or a shadowy bad guy) or it's there because the governmental elite sees the public as harmless, weak, and stupid. We shouldn't stoop to their tactics. If there are informants, we can police them without acting like barbarians. We should also remember that you're never going to win a "face-to-face" fight with the guy who is allowed to make the rules as the fight proceeds. Let's see, who makes the rules? Congress, perhaps? Hmmm, Just a thought.
Another cliche we have to avoid is loose and wild arguments-logic that the average person is going to read as wooly and paranoid. While the 'Net can hide the fact that you look like a loon, it can't hide you if you choose to sound like one. In this case, that's really a shame because, in the past, WhatReallyHappened.Com has been host to some remarkable posts. This just isn't one of them.

Bloggers Beware: " US plans to 'fight the net' revealed"

2006-01-30T12:39:00.000-05:00

The BBC is reporting that the Pentagon is planning to use the Internet and the networked world as a weapon. A Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University turned up a recently declassified document entitled: "Information Operations Roadmap".

The 2003 document, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, "calls for a far-reaching overhaul of the military's ability to conduct information operations and electronic warfare. And, in some detail, it makes recommendations for how the US armed forces should think about this new, virtual warfare," according to the BBC.

The full text of the document, in PDF, can be found at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

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Bloggers Beware: " US plans to 'fight the net' revealed"