Thoughts orf 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.