Another damned blog.
This one posted by John Shirley on 4/25/08
DIARY OF THE DEAD Review
This may be the best of the Romero 'Living Dead' cycle. I think it's the tightest of the bunch and it's the best as metaphor. It sure makes its point--which is about obsessing on media, dehumanizing people through it, and the search for documentable truth.
It's part of two subgenres--not just the zombie subgenre of horror, but also the 'illusory self documentation' subgenre started, maybe, by the movie The War Game, but more recently come of age in The Blair Witch Project and, most of all, Cloverfield. This is very like Cloverfield but they found reasons why there'd be more than one camera, more than one camera angle, and why it'd be all cut together this way. And it works very well.
The first scene is a little rough, the dialogue over the top, and a lot of the actors in the movie are, perhaps, student actors, and sometimes it shows. But some of them can act and there are some pros here too.
One of the fun things in the film is the 'how many new ways are there to kill a living dead guy' game they seem to be playing. They're very amusing with this. The best one is the Amish farmer.
It's a witty film, and has a very powerful image at the end--and a very powerful last line...
It's like they've been visiting Signs of Witness.
When I looked at the imdb for this I saw the 'reviews' put up by random people (of course THIS is a review by a random person but never mind) and they're idiots. They think it sucks. And why? They don't get the point. And why? Because they're idiots. And what's the movie really about? People like them. Braindead already.
Why I Am NOT a Ron Paul Libertarian (Or a Reaganite, or a Bushite, or any other sort of Libertarian)
A friend posted “Why I am a Ron Paul Libertarian“ on the John Shirley message board with a link to the Lew Rockwell site which quotes Jefferson on the best government being the least government. This was my response:
”The government which governs best governs least” is a Jeffersonian principle.
When Jefferson was Secretary of State and then President, the USA was small, the civilized world fairly small, industry was almost non existent; the East India company was around but there were few really big powerful companies and they were mostly far reduced in their capability to do harm to the world (though their part in colonialism was pretty exploitive to say the least.) The population of the USA was small. The population of the world was small relative to the size of the globe.
Easy for Jefferson to say that then.
Now...
Now there are 6 billion people going on 10 billion, within 40 years, there are several hundred million in the USA. There is a slough of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas. The seas are overfished and getting towards empty, and they are acidifying--and they are rising. Gigantic corporations controlled by a handful of wealthy individuals create a merchant's despotism. Countless cars drive on countless miles of road; millions of people have guns. Nuclear weapons are proliferating. Mass murder is not uncommon. Millions of people addicted to serious drugs (including pharmaceuticals) are all around us. Weapons of mass destruction are stockpiled. The Clean Air and Clean Water acts were beginning to clean up the air and water until Reaganism (ie libertarianism) and Bushism (ie libertarianism in terms of much economic policy)weakened them--now we're struggling with pollution again, pollution Jefferson could not have envisioned. Diseases pass easily from one part of the world to another because of modern travel and population density. The health situation is utterly different now--in Jefferson's time medicine was negligible. Now we have really great medical possibilities--for those who can obtain them. (In a libertarian society, only the rich will access them.) And privatization of public works, when it has been tried, has been a repeated failure.
It is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITUATION than it was in Jefferson's time. We're like (and becoming ever more like) thirty people crowded in a lifeboat built for twelve. The small amount of food in the lifeboat has been appropriated by a couple of rich guys who brought along their bodyguards. They're thinking of throwing people overboard.
Time for libertarians to grow up.
In the real world of billions of people, high technology, vast crime (even apart from drugs), major pollution, the new pharmaceuticals, today's health care challenges, and multinationals, we need an involved, reasonably strong (but not despotic) central government, with extensive regulatory powers.
And here are MY links.
An entertainingly satirical piece:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,88788,00.html
One example out of many of deregulation NOT working:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/082700-101.htm
WHEN DEMS ARE UNFAIR TO MCCAIN THEY'RE UNFAIR TO THEIR OWN PARTY
Dems jumped all over a McCain statement that at first blush seemed as if he were saying we might be in the Iraq war for a 100 years. Actually he said something else--this was a true case of the Dems unfairly taking something out of context. (Explanation below).
This kind of unfairness--regardless of the fact that the Rove-led GOP indulges in far worse--will hurt the Democrats. It's important that the Democratic party show that it's a real alternative; that it represents real change. This kind of disingenuous misleading assault on McCain makes them seem less a viable alternative, more just same-old same-old politics as usual.
Yes the Democratic Party has to play hardball sometimes but it doesn't have to cheat to do it. Let the GOP do that. From AP:
THE FACTS:
The Democrats leave out a vital caveat.
When McCain was asked about Bush’s theory that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 50 years, the senator said: “Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it’s fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.”
A troop presence that does not involve Americans being harmed is, by definition, not a war.
STATE PLAN TO SPRAY LEFT-WING CITY WITH TOXINS ON ORDERS FROM RIGHT-WING EPA
The California state agriculture department plans to use airplanes at night this summer to spray a farm pesticide over urban San Francisco, Marin County and the East Bay, California, intending to eradicate a potentially destructive moth. The little-known proposal to wipe out the light brown apple moth has developed increasing opposition among some residents who fear for their health. Hundreds of people whose homes and yards were sprayed in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties from September to December have filed reports that said the pesticide seems to have caused coughing, wheezing, muscle aches and headaches, among other symptoms. One Monterey family reported that a child had a first-time asthma attack.
Spraying of the pesticide, called Checkmate, is expected to begin in the Bay Area in August and could continue for five years over San Francisco, Daly City, Colma, Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Tiburon and Belvedere. Other chemicals could also be used.
This is the letter I wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle about this toxic outrage:
| San Francisco Chronicle
Letters to the Editor
2 - 15 -08
Dear Chronicle:
Apparently, ordinary concern for the safety of the people of the Bay Area is insufficient to motivate state officials to protect us from the planned toxic spraying by the Dept of Agriculture, in August. A similar spraying in Santa Cruz made people sick; the spray puts the elderly and children at risk; officials admit they don't understand the health implications--and it's going to go on for five years. But no one is going to stand up for us. Maximizing profits for Big Agribusiness, wine growers, and their investors is more important than protecting our health and environment.
But there are tactics that can be used to stop this outrageous project. If there is no provision to protect people from this kind of toxic irresponsibility, there are, anyway, laws that protect endangered species. Some of these species are extant in the bay area. A lawsuit to protect endangered species from the planned spray might prevent the project going forward, just long enough. We will have a change of federal administration next January. Hopefully a new, emocratic administration will appoint a new EPA that will not rubber stamp everything that
pesticide manufacturers and Agribusiness wants to do.
And those who are concerned with plunging Bay Area real estate prices should realize that five years of dangerous toxic spraying will not make the Bay Area more appealing to potential homebuyers.
John Shirley
GOD LOSES THE PLANET EARTH IN A POKER GAME
This came to me in a vision and it seems to me my vision is just as as reliable and trustworthy as your Biblical text. I can prove its rightness as easily as the Bible’s historicity can be proven. Here’s what I saw:
A being in the shape of an ordinary man in a nice Italian suit, with a blazing sun for a head entered a room in a higher dimension, the room created just for this purpose. This was God, in an appearance chosen for the occasion. Entering from another door–rising up from a trap door in the floor–was Lucifer, a winged, naked angel, very beautiful, except for the nails driven through his eyes, which streamed blood.
A poker table appeared, with green felt, and a deck of cards.
“Thanks for the game,” Lucifer said, sitting. “I’m caught up in that whole Hold ‘Em Poker craze. I’m a big fan of Doyle Brunson. He’s old school.”
“Okay if Justice Herself deals?” God asked, sitting in the chair opposite the devil.
“Who else could I trust?”
They played head’s-up no-limit Poker. The stakes were all the money that would ever be–which God had–versus all the money that ever was–which Satan had. Finally God won everything, with a better full house than the devil’s. It was one of those terrible suck-outs. The devil had AK and there were two kings on the board (which was KKA2J). But God had AA and there was an ace up there too. So God’s AAAKK beat the devil’s KKKAA. “That’s sick,” God said. “Sorry about that.”
“Tell you what,” the devil said. “I’ll bet you the whole world against all your winnings. I currently control the Earth, pretty much, after all. Most of it. One hand for the world.”
“Ohhhhhhh…okay,” God said. “You’re on.”
The devil got a full house again but this time his hole cards were 66 and the board showed QQ336.
God folded when the devil showed. “Full house! You got me beat, Lucifer. The Earth is yours.”
“What? You’re not going to show me your hand?”
“Hm? No, no, I folded. You got it. Your planet. I’m relieved. I’m pulling all my people out. You can do what you want with it. Rains of fire, whatever. Later, man. I got to go. Starting over in the Andromeda galaxy.”
God vanished. Lucifer checked God’s cards. God’s hole cards were two queens. God’d had quads. Four of a kind. He’d have won if he hadn’t folded.
“Damn it, God! You stuck me with the Earth on purpose!” Lucifer shouted.
“Sorry,” God said, just a voice from the air now. “But I gave them free will and they totally loused up the planet. It’s polluted, chock full of nuclear weapons, terrorists, and mostly run by greedheads. They’re destroying all the wildlife, they’re poisoning the seas, and they’re cooking the whole world in greenhouse gases. They permit slavery, they thrive on sweatshops, they allow millions of their own kind to starve every year, and they burn out their creative energies on videogames and the like. You can have them, man. All yours. I’m quitting in disgust. And my folding those cards–that’s within the rules, pal. Ask Justice. Got to go. Won’t be asking you to my new place. Whole new system. Enjoy!”
“Wait! Don't leave me with these people, God! You take 'em back!“
But it was too late. God was gone.
WHEN I'LL SUPPORT RON PAUL, LIBERTARIANISM, and REAGANITES
I'm all for Libertarianism and Ron Paul's “small government“ vision of America, just as soon as:
Polluters voluntarily stop polluting.
Big companies reliably regulate their workplaces to make them safe.
Food and meat manufacturers reliably make their food safe to eat without government enforcement and other manufacturers make products, like children's toys, safe for children to handle.
Big health care syndicates voluntarily lower their prices to give the poor and under priveleged health care.
The highways voluntarily fix themselves and airplanes fly safely in and out of crowded airports all on their own.
Corporations and businesses in general decide all on their own, with no need of insisting or troublesome intervention, that people should be paid fairly, there should be no child labor, and people should have reasonable work hours.
People who are now racists or who bully women or who are religious bigots will definitely and surely cease to consider discriminating on the basis of race or gender or religion in business or in the provision of housing.
And it's probably best that criminals stop hurting people and stealing, and that the rest of the world takes a pledge we know we can rely on never to become aggressive.
As soon as those things happen I'll be a Libertarian because minimizing government, as an idea, sounds good.
Republicans, Ron Pauls of all Stripes and the Southern Cal Wildfires
The out of control devastation of the wildfires is a message about the value of government and taxes. “Big“ Government and taxes have their place.
After terrible wildfires in 2003 it was decided that the area needed more fire control stations, more money for firefighters and consolidation of firefighting teams to prevent further tragedy.
But Republican supply-side privatization free-marketers fought the appropriations and "big government" of organizing fire control, and the result is --as has been noted in newspaper after newspaper and by professional fire commentators over the past few days--that the improvements never happened and more than half a million people are driven from their homes; thousands of homes destroyed and there are people hospitalized and dead.
The fire would have been contained far sooner and most of these homes and people protected if southern california had NOT listened to the Ron Paul types.
It's that simple.
Meanwhile, President Bush has been seen touring the area of the burn, and hugging well-to-do white people whose houses have burned down. During Hurricane Katrina, he simply flew over...and looked out the plane window.
Well. Those were black people. Poor black people.
ANOTHER REASON TICKETMASTER TOTALLY SUCKS
I made the mistake of buying some concert tickets via ticketmaster online a few months back. Apparently buried in the seething wordage of the “I agree“ contract they make you click on before they take their egregious fee, is an agreement to let them do as they please with your email address. I didn't see that part. But it must've been there--and I've heard that's exactly what they do. I don't post my email address, for fear of spam, and until I bought those tickets I got no spam.
Now I get spam all the time, from companies that claim they're sending ads within the limits of the law, and who offer you an out, you can clink on a link and fill out a form taking you off their mailing list “after seven business days“...only, not really. Apparently you only get off the mailing list for the individual franchise trying to sell you insurance or airline discount tickets or whatever. But the company that Ticketmaster sold the email address to, mine along with thousands of others, simply sells the list to another franchise. The spams haven't stopped, no matter how many forms I fill out.
Ticketmaster is ruthless, greedy--and this misuse of our email addresses is underhanded. Despite the considerable inconvenience--I don't live anywhere near the box office--I'll never buy from them again. If you plan to buy from Ticketmaster online...buyer beware.
Of spam.
Lawsuit Filed Against Pentagon Evangelicals
From a truthout.org piece By Jason Leopold
A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused.
The complaint, filed in US District Court in Kansas City, by the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), on behalf of Jeremy Hall, an Army specialist currently on active duty in Speicher, Iraq, alleges that Hall's First Amendment rights were violated beginning last Thanksgiving when, because of his atheist beliefs, he declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony commemorating the holiday.
"Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military personnel, by the senior ranking ... staff sergeant who asked plaintiff why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he is an atheist," says the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to Truthout. "The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless, plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal."
Moreover, the complaint alleges that on August 7, when Hall received permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other soldiers who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major Paul Welborne, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate against the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The complaint also alleges that Welborne vowed to block Hall's reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to meet - a violation of Hall's First Amendment rights under the constitution. Welborne is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
"During the course of the meeting, defendant Welborne confronted the attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with plaintiff Hall's and the other attendees' rights to discuss topics of their interests," the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley, Kansas, has been forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army," a violation of Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said Defense Secretary Robert Gates is named as a defendant in the lawsuit because he has allowed the military to engage in "a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense and the United States military."
The lawsuit seeks an injunction against Welborne from further engaging in behavior "that has the effect of establishing compulsory religious practices" and asks that Gates prevent Welborne from interfering with Hall's free speech rights.
Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that seeks to enforce the law mandating the separation between church and state in the US military, said the lawsuit would be the first of many his group intends to file against the Pentagon.
"This landmark federal litigation is just the first of a galaxy of new lawsuits that will be expeditiously filed against the Pentagon in a concentrated effort to preserve the precious religious liberties guaranteed by our beautiful United States Constitution," Weinstein said Monday. "Today, we are boldly stabbing back against an unconstitutional heart of darkness, a contagion of fundamentalist religious supremacy and triumphalism noxiously dominating the command and control of the technologically most lethal organization ever created by humankind: our honorable and noble United States armed forces."
A Pentagon spokesman said he could not comment on the lawsuit because he has not yet seen it. Weinstein, a former White House attorney under Ronald Reagan, general counsel H. Ross Perot and an Air Force Judge Advocate (JAG), has been waging a one-man war against the Department of Defense for its blatant disregard of the Constitution. He published a book on his fight: "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military." Weinstein is also an Air Force veteran and a graduate of the Air Force Academy. Three generations of his family have attended US military academies.
Since he launched his watchdog organization nearly two years ago months ago, Weinstein said he has been contacted by more than 5,000 active duty and retired soldiers, many of whom served or serve in Iraq, who told Weinstein that they were pressured by their commanding officers to convert to Christianity.
The lawsuit also includes examples of other alleged constitutional abuses by Pentagon officials.
“Pentagon Being Taken Over by Apocalyptic Christians“
An apocalyptic, dominionist, end-times evangelical preacher was allowed to preach, over a PA system, to Pentagon employees, as reported in the Daily Kos…
In consideration of that and other Dominionist events at the Pentagon, let’s just state what should be obvious 1) The Pentagon controls nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. 2) If leaders at the Pentagon believe that Armageddon, Judgment Day, is supposed to happen and will be brought about by military confrontation in the Middle East, they may well choose on their own to obey that “Higher Authority” and bring about World War Three. They may imagine they have a duty to do so. They may imagine they are *supposed* to carpet bomb Iran with Hydrogen bombs. And thus create a true end of the world. Unfortunately, if it happens, there is no reason to believe that Jesus will then come along and bail us out of this…If Christ is watching, he’s sure to be repelled by such murderous insanity.
From the Daily Kos:
I made a research finding that demonstrated, in my opinion, that apocalyptic Christianity has become the quasi official religion endorsed by top leaders at the United States Pentagon, headquarters of the most powerful military on Earth.
Currently, many Americans - here and elsewhere - are concerned that George W. Bush may order an attack on Iran. If President Bush does so, many in the leadership of the US military will, it seems, be fighting what they consider to be a religious war with apocalyptic overtones.
The American people did not vote, in 2000, 2004, and 2006, for religious war and apocalyptic conflict.
Read more about it here:
Daily Kos
At this 11th hour we come face to face with the full potential of our collective distraction; the US Armed Forces have become the private preserve of a Dominionist Christianity which welcomes an Apocalyptic confrontation between the United States of America and Islam
And here:
Daily Kos
THEY DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT THEIR COMMERCIAL MEANS
People work for long periods of time on films and commercials and yet they often don't know what their imagery really conveys. The latest most obvious example is a TV (and probably internet too) commercial for BMW. In a spectacular demonstration of CGI animation, a car is seen to sprout from an oily black blot; the oily black blot stretches out, extends into the frame of a car, tentacle-like pseudopods forming the steering wheel and engine, organically, in seconds. I suppose what they're trying to convey is something to do with the car's “organic“ wholeness; also they're simply using startling images to get you to watch so you'll see that BMW logo at the end. So that logo will be duly imprinted on your brain.
But it doesn't seem to occur to the commercial's designers that the imagery is actually very negative, slightly repulsive, and suggestive of a system that runs on petroleum--at a time when everyone is concerned about conservation. The animation shows a black oil-like material (they probably weren't thinking of petroleum but that's exactly what it looks like) forming the car, in fast-action mechanical growth spurt. And the shape of the growth, before it becomes a car, is repulsive, Lovecraftian, Cthuluesque, like something from the slime on the deepest trenches of the sea rather than some superb example of engineering. It has the appearance of something monstrous.
The image conveys what the commercial's designers apprehend unconsciously: that our automotive lifestyle is a monster; that petroleum--a pollutant--is pervasive, controlling, ubiquitous. That the oil companies are fundamental to the Machine.
That something hideous and rapaciously consuming underlies the mechanism of society...
THE TICKING OF THE WORLD'S CLOCK
Worried about overpopulation? I am. Population growth has slowed somewhat but it still continues to be growth, not Zero Population Growth, not diminishing numbers. Growth. How fast? Click on the link and see. The various stat numbers, diseases, births, and so on, constantly change at the site, growing–you see how many people are diagnosed with AIDS, that number increasing unnervingly.
You can also see quite clearly that population growth is still far too vigorous, as BIRTHS outstrip DEATHS by about double. I copied and pasted the birth/death/population numbers, below–a second after I copied and pasted them, they went up. These are the numbers as of just before this posting. Since then they’ve increased and will continue to increase.
As of just before noon, July 30 2007:
World population 6,611,332,831
births 77,281,190
deaths 32,886,300
So with more than twice the births as deaths–where does that leave us? We’re already straining the world’s resources and biosphere.
What are you proposing, we hear someone say–more deaths? No. More birth control.
World Stats Counter website
CONGRESS PREVENTED FROM LEARNING ABOUT BUSH'S PLANS FOR MARTIAL LAW COUP
We are indebted to Logan Murphy at CROOKSANDLIARS.com for the following:
Constituents called Rep. Peter DeFazio’s office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.
As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure “bubbleroom” in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.
On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.
“I just can’t believe they’re going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack,” DeFazio said. Read more…
What are they hiding? I posted about this Presidential Directive in May, Bush Wants Full Control Of Government During Catastrophic Attack, which garnered a lot of discussion — it now appears the White House is attempting to block Congressional review of that directive. Contact your representatives in the House and Senate to let them know your thoughts on this. As I’ve mentioned before, please remind them (politely) that Congress is a coequal branch of our government and that President Bush is a public servant and therefore accountable to the people HE SERVES.
CONSERVATIVES ARE SCARED DICTATORSHIP PLANNED BY BUSH
The following is all snipped from THE RAW STORY
Thom Hartmann began his program on Thursday by reading from a new Executive Order which allows the government to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies.
He then introduced old-line conservative Paul Craig Roberts -- a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan who has recently become known for his strong opposition to the Bush administration and the Iraq War -- by quoting the "strong words" which open Roberts' latest column: "Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran."
"I don't actually think they're very strong," said Roberts of his words. "I get a lot of flak that they're understated and the situation is worse than I say. ... When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order] ... there's no check to it. It doesn't have to be ratified by Congress. The people who bear the brunt of these dictatorial police state actions have no recourse to the judiciary. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule. ... The American people don't really understand the danger that they face."
Roberts said that because of Bush's unpopularity, the Republicans face a total wipeout in 2008, and this may be why "the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush's follies or the war, because they expect his unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory in next year's election."
However, Roberts emphasized, "the problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that Cheney and Rove and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts, or it assumes that they are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his fling." Roberts believes instead that Cheney and Rove intend to use a renewal of the War on Terror to rally the American people around the Republican Party. "Something's in the works," he said, adding that the Executive Orders need to create a police state are already in place.
"The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," Roberts continued. "Chertoff has predicted them. ... The National Intelligence Estimate is saying that al Qaeda has regrouped. ... You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda's not going to do it, it's going to be orchestrated. ... The Republicans are praying for another 9/11."
BUSH'S APOCALYPSE
The truthout.org article quoted here, from a piece at truthout.org, suggests with robust reasoning, that George W. Bush is thinking about doing his part in starting what he thinks of as Armageddon and what saner people think of as World War Three. The meeting with Dobson is especially worrisome:
President George W. Bush has become dangerously steeped in ideas of Armageddon, the Apocalypse, an imminent war with Satanic forces in the Middle East, and an urgency to construct an American theocracy to fulfill God's end-of-days plan, according to close observers.
Historians and investigative journalists following the "end-time Christian" movement have grown alarmed at the impact it may be having on Bush's Middle East policies, including the current war in Iraq, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the strife in Lebanon and the administration's repeated attempts to find a cause for war against Iran.
...Further evidence is the Bush administration's transformation of the military. ... Army Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin made headlines in 2003 when he said he believed America was engaged in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling Satan. Adversaries can be defeated, he said, "only if we come against them in the name of Jesus." Despite his highly publicized rhetoric, Boykin remains Bush's deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Beneath Bush's benign-sounding words, "faith" and "Christian," lies the deeper reality of the authoritarian, doomsday religious beliefs of the ministers and spiritual counselors that surround him, say experts. ... For example, Bush's own personal minister, Franklin Graham, has called Islam "evil and very wicked." He has said, "Let's use the weapons we have, the weapons of mass destruction if need be, and destroy the enemy."
Respected journalist Bill Moyers says that for the religious figures around Bush "a war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared, but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption." ...
A potent example of the influence of end-time Christians in the White House developed in early May 2007 when the president invited dominionist James Dobson and 12 or 13 other "family value" ministers for a special meeting. They were called in to discuss the "disturbing threats" Iraq, Iran and international terrorism posed to US, Israel and other democracies around the world. Dobson is best known as the founder of Focus on the Family, an end-time lobby.
THE WORLD IS SHRIVELING!
NATURAL WORLD HALF GONE: MORE THAN HALF OF FISH, HALF THE BIRDS, HALF THE CORAL, HALF THE BEES
We've halved our most important natural resources. It's as if the world itself--the biosphere itself--has shrunk by half. As if the world is shrinking around us--but all the while, our population is growing. It's like being in a rubber boat that is losing air even as it picks up more and more people. Let's look at the list: Coral Reefs, songbirds, honeybees, fish:
1) Coral reefs dying. Rows of coral reefs generate billions of dollars a year in tourism spending. But pollution, warming waters from climate change, commercial fishing, development and ship groundings are jeopardizing them. Scientists warn that up to half of the world’s coral reefs could disappear by 2045. The reefs serve as breeding grounds for many commercial fisheries, so without them, an important food source for humans could be lost.
2) Songbirds dying out. “The dramatic decline in songbird populations is a crisis that’s unfolding worldwide, writes York University Professor of biology Bridget Stutchbury [in her new book SILENCE OF THE SONGBIRDS]. While this change may not at first appear as dangerous as global warming, the ozone hole, overpopulation, increasing pollution or massive deforestation, once again, birds — like the canaries used long ago to alert miners of invisible, fatal underground gases where they worked — have become universal biological indicators of rapidly worsening, urgent environmental troubles.
“Some estimates set the songbird population loss during the past four decades alone at almost half. Why should we care? Because, Stutchbury explains, “Their jobs as pollinators, fruit-eaters, insect-eaters, scavengers, and nutrient recyclers will not get done, and this will disrupt ecosystems and affect everyone on the planet.”
3) Honeybees going. Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation’s honeybees could have a devastating effect on America’s dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.
Honeybees don’t just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.
4) Big fish in ocean--almost GONE! Brian Skerry knows the ocean well. A diver for thirty years, and a photographer for 28, he’s spent decades documenting the magnificence of the sea and its creatures. But over as the years, as man perfected the hunt for fish and pollution poisoned the world’s waters, he began to notice a major decline in the wildlife that once flourished in the sea. His concerns were confirmed by science when he read a study showing 90 percent of the big fish in the ocean were gone.
“I was just blown away by that statistic,” said Skerry, who spearheaded a three-year effort to capture the global fisheries crisis, featured in the April edition of National Geographic. “I felt that it wasn’t on anybody’s radar. So I proposed a story on overfishing, but from an underwater perspective.” …What he found was sobering.
Nearly one billion people around the world, mainly poor, rely on fish as their only source of protein. A 2004 U.N. assessment says nearly a third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished. As this resource diminishes, these people will have to find another way to eat.
THE WORLD IS SHRIVELING.
New Creation Museum makes a Joke…of Logic
A lot of people are chuckling over the new "Creation Museum", opening today near Cincinnati. The museum claims to explain Creationism, which holds that the world is just 6000 years old, and the story of creation in Genesis is literally true. .
Those amusing Creationists. It's all just a joke, is it? Here's a quote from the AP story: "Adam and Eve fall from grace and Noah survives an epic flood at a new museum that tells the Bible's version of history on a theme-park scale. But the scene near the front lobby might stop a puzzled paleontologist in his tracks: a pair of ancient children frolic just a few feet away from a group of friendly dinosaurs."
It is to laugh, no? No. It's too sad to laugh at. Is racism a joke too? Racism, like Creationism, is based on pseudo-science: it tries to justify itself with fact-challenged notions of eugenics, mis-readings of genetics, garbled statistics. It uses its warped “logic” to justify genocide.
But how is Creationism like racism? They're both destructive—and in both cases it is a destructiveness that thrives on ignorance. Fundamentalism needs a literal interpretation of the Bible to sustain its house-of-cards version of reality. Creationism is part of the ideological net (in Janov's phrase, describing cultism) that keeps people caught up in the web of fundamentalism, which is inherently intolerant, and which is used to justify hate crimes. Christian fundamentalism--which depends on creationist ideas-- foments hatred for gays, and non-Christians; and since it's opposed to scientific rationalism, and is in league with the Republican power-base, most creationists are dismissive of environmentalism and issues like global warming. Many of them actively attempt to "debunk" global warming. That encourages the President, who came to power with the help of Fundamentalist Christians, to drag his heels on controlling greenhouse emissions; it encourages the administration to permit more coal-burning facilities to be built. It encourages egregious damage to the planet.
Creationism, then, is as destructive as racism…
Here's the executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, Gregory Farrington, on the Creation museum (excerpted from his op-ed piece at sfgate.com) :
Of course, the creation story in Genesis is not the same as the Greek and Hindu stories, or as the 50 or so other tales of the mystery of creation. Each claims to explain the origin of the world, but they all are different. Was the world created in one way in Kansas and another in the middle of India? ...
Religions resolve this dilemma through the power of faith. . .Science takes a very different approach. Rather than starting with the "answer" -- in this case, its own story of creation -- science starts with verifiable observations of the natural world and builds its theory on them. . .According to the best and most accurate scientific model we have today, life on Earth is billions of years, not 6,000 years, old; and the Earth is even older; and Darwin's concepts of evolution provide the best explanation of how life has changed over time, and continues to change.
On the other hand, if new evidence were to come to light tomorrow that refuted current views of evolution and the notion of a 4.6 billion-year-old Earth, then the scientists at the California Academy of Sciences and other science-based institutions would be the first to modify their theory of creation. The story would change, not the facts.
That's the key difference between the scientific and religious journeys toward truth.
Fetal “Programming“ Dooms Millions of Children to Sickness and Death
Anti-abortion religious conservatives are very concerned about the safety of a fetus–unless you bring up industrial and agribusiness toxins, then many of them suddenly don’t care about the safety of the fetus.
In league with big business and the GOP, they’re for saving fetuses unless fetal safety involves costing industry money. I have a friend who says that environmentalists are part of a conspiracy to “scare us“ because scaring us is big lucrative, supposedly. He says he's a skeptic. But he's only skeptical about environmental claims--not about claims that our environment is safe and no real regulation is needed come from people with close ideological and business alliances with big business, people like John Stossel and Rush Limbaugh. He never questions those sources; never researches the sources of their claims. His skepticism goes only one way. And meanwhile industrial, plastics and agribusiness toxins put the unborn at risk:
From the Los Angeles Times: In a strongly worded declaration, many of the world’s leading environmental scientists warned Thursday that exposure to common chemicals makes babies more likely to develop an array of health problems later in life, including diabetes, attention deficit disorders, prostate cancer, fertility problems, thyroid disorders and even obesity.
The declaration by about 200 scientists from five continents amounts to a vote of confidence in a growing body of evidence that humans are vulnerable to long-term harm from toxic exposures in the womb and during the first years after birth.
Convening in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, toxicologists, pediatricians, epidemiologists and other experts warned that when fetuses and newborns encounter various toxic substances, growth of critical organs and functions can be skewed. In a process called “fetal programming,” the children then are susceptible to diseases later in life — and perhaps could even pass on those altered traits to their children and grandchildren.
The scientists’ statement also contained a rare international call to action. The effort was led by Dr. Philippe Grandjean of Harvard University and University of Southern Denmark, and Dr. Pal Weihe of the Faroese Hospital System, who both have studied children exposed to mercury for more than 20 years.
The scientists are particularly concerned that the newest animal research suggests that chemicals can alter gene expression — turning on or off genes that predispose people to disease. Although the DNA itself would not be altered, such genetic misfires in the womb may be permanent, and all of the subsequent generations could be at greater risk of diseases, too.
“Toxic exposures to chemical pollutants during these windows of increased susceptibility can cause disease and disability in childhood and across the entire span of human life,” the scientists concluded. “Recent research now shows that even subtle effects caused by chemical exposures during early development may lead to important functional deficits and increased risks of disease.”
The Barker Hypothesis, conceived by a British scientist in 1992, says human fetuses are “programmed” for diseases by their early environment.
sfgate.com
HOW MY PEBBLE STARTED AN AVALANCHE
This is relevant to everyone--because it's about the quality of life in the 21st century. A couple of weeks ago, if that long, I wrote a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle about a new, painfully bright electronic billboard (please see the letter below).
The letter was published as a 'feature' letter replete with illustration and it was like the pebble that started an avalanche, causing numerous people to write in agreeing with me. I then wrote a note to the editor suggesting that as there was so much interest in the subject, they should do investigative reporting on the matter. They did! You can see the fruits of that investigation if you follow the link below. The editorial page editor, John Diaz, called me up and kindly thanked me for getting the whole thing started. This has led to Caltrans actually telling the company responsible it's going to have to make some changes, and it's led to two politicians, including Jerry Brown, being interrogated on the subject. Today there's a full page editorial in the Chronicle on the whole question. I'm amazed at what a letter to the editor can occasionally provoke. I provide the URL for that full page editorial, which, I'm proud to note, mentions me as having started this whole discussion, below my original letter which I reproduce here:
Dear Editor,
I can't be the only one dismayed by the big, brand new electronic (LCD?) billboard glaring at us as we leave the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, entering the East Bay. This is not just an eyesore, it's a traffic hazard. I wonder if it's in violation of environmental laws--certainly it demonstrates an indifference to environmental concerns. It's really quite stridently bright, so bright the glare makes it difficult to drive past, at night, coming off the bridge. (The other side of the billboard is not so bright, for some reason--still, it's an eyesore from the east and west both). It flickers from one vivid advertising image to the next, distractingly, like a gigantic television screen being channel surfed by an unknown controller. There is such a thing as light pollution, and this object is the very exemplar of it. It's probably deleterious to wild life. It has a Bladerunner-like affect, some glowering chunk of futuristic inner-city sleaze transplanted jarringly to an East Bay landscape. It is using vast amounts of electricity at a time when everyone is expressing concern about conservation. The thing seems to symbolize the very excesses we're all recoiling from. In short, it is appalling. Am I really the only one who's noticed?
John Shirley
And in the editorial linked below you'll learn that it was Democrats who betrayed the common man on this issue, for special interests's sake--and as a Democrat I found that dismaying...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/17/EDG7QPS4U11.DTL
So. The issue is being taken up. We learn that these electronic billboards are the coming thing--another technology that society will have shoved down its throat. Remember when we were forced to accept telephone menus in lieu of people?
But no one has yet discovered, so far as I've found out, how much electricity these EEs (Electronic Eyesores) drain. In a time that screams for energy conservation--they squander power.
How the VIRGINIA TECH Killing Could have been Averted
I wanted to make Edge Trend visitors aware of the following piece (after my commentary) about the mother of the Virginia Tech mass murderer. It appears she was a fundamentalist Christian who believed Cho demonically possessed. His mental illness was apparent to her for some time—but she chose to believe it was caused by "demons" and did not get him treated by a psychiatrist.
Instead she turned to people with an attitude like those who are proposing a CBS show:
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) — CBS has given a pilot commitment to an exorcism-themed story...inspired by the real-life experiences of Bob Larson, an expert on cults, the occult and supernatural phenomena… Larson is the founder of an international fellowship of churches and has written 30 books, including such titles as “Larson's Book of Spiritual Warfare”…
One of the worst national tragedies in recent years could possibly have been averted if the young man's parents had not assumed the supernatural. This is a perfect example—the most tragically perfect sort of example—of the kind of thing the proposed CBS show would be helping to promote. If Cho's mother had turned to psychiatry instead of superstition—those kids might still be alive. This is why television writers and producers need to think responsibly about what they develop.
WASHINGTON — Hyang-In Cho, desperate to find help for her silent, angry son, sought out some members of One Mind Church in Woodbridge, Va., to heal him of what the church’s head pastor called “demonic power.”But before the church could intercede late last summer, Seung-Hui Cho had to return to Virginia Tech to start his senior year, said the Rev. Dong-Cheol Lee, minister of the Presbyterian congregation. College might have been the worst place for Cho, according to interviews with classmates, church members and other acquaintances. At home, he had his parents, his sister and some structure and discipline. At Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., where he graduated in 2003, he was studious and had joined the science club.
Now, new details have emerged suggesting that Cho’s mental condition worsened at Virginia Tech, especially in his senior year after his mother had sought to step in back home. His isolation grew, and his attention to schoolwork and class time dropped, according to numerous interviews. On April 16, he killed 32 people and himself in the deadliest shooting rampage by an individual in U.S. history.
Cho’s family has said nothing publicly about his medical history, his academic performance or anything else that might explain what drove him to kill. Nevertheless, Hyang-In Cho knew last year that her son was troubled. Before finding One Mind, she had gone to several other congregations of various denominations seeking help, according to officials at several Northern Virginia churches.
“His problem needed to be solved by spiritual power,” said Lee, whose congregation met with Cho and his mother. “That’s why she came to our church — because we were helping several people like him.” Those churchgoers told Hyang-In Cho that her son was afflicted by demonic power and needed deliverance, Lee said.
a short-short story by john shirley
WITHIN THE PLASTIC VORTEX
Jared had been tracking the personal submarine Manifest Destiny for more than a hundred miles south of Hawaii, and all the time the billionaire piloting it seemed unaware of him—there was no mention of the hydrogen-powered cruiser following him, when he spoke by subaquatic radio to his employees ashore. "The biggest squid any man has ever seen and it's almost in my grapplers," the billionaire crowed.
"You going after it now, boss?" came the response from the crew on the radio.
"I've got it trapped against the walls of this big canyon down here!"
An activist, Jared listened raptly. He had hoped to find some way to stop the hunt. But how?
And up ahead was the nearer edge of the great "plastic vortex" where trash from scores of countries and ships had accumulated, whirlpooled by currents. It glittered like the membrane over an animal's eyes, there in the water, yet it was dead—and it was death. Millions of fish, oceanic mammals and birds had died in it, starved to death or choked.
"He's running from me to the surface!" came the billionaire's excited transmission. Moments later Jared watched in awe as the gigantic cephalopod surfaced, gushing water, flailing its enormous tentacles, its huge round eye gazing right at him…
"Got him, got him!" the billionaire shouted, as his submarine surfaced, its mechanical grapplers reaching to force the giant squid into the capture bag he trailed so it could be another of his trophies in a giant aquarium on his seaside estate. But the giant squid was manipulating the floating plastic trash, jamming the grapplers, winding debris around the sub's rudders, blocking its jets, piling on more and more, so that at last the submarine sank with the weight of the trash. The giant squid torked its way outward, past Jared's boat, to the open sea…and then it dove, gone from sight. Deep under the sea. And so was the billionaire—forever.
THE HUMAN RACE CROSSES A LINE
By now most of you have heard about this. A boy of about 12 is videotaped cutting a man’s head off: it is a terrorist killing of Pakistani man by the Taliban. The boy was guided by adult Taliban, who help him hold the living man’s head still as the youth saws the head from the neck. He holds the man’s severed head up afterwards and says those who spy on the Taliban “get this kind of fate.” It is my feeling that this is humanity crossing a line–taking a big step downward. It is devolution. Even the Nazis did not film children proudly murdering people, so far as I've heard. Using a child in this way to promote a cause somehow stabs down into the core of human nature–and it rips away what’s good in that core. It tears away human empathy. It deadens us, somehow, in some deeper sense, even more than the nightmarish bombings that routinely kill hundreds of innocent people in Iraq…It’s difficult to articulate what sets this apart from other atrocities–but it does need to be articulated because we have so very many atrocities, ongoing. We have the genocide in the Sudan/Darfur; we have people killing whole families because they fantasize it’s a family of witches, yes even now, in Africa; we have the daily atrocities in Iraq. And as for the ravaging of innocence–which is part of this story of the 12 year old boy decapitating an adult–we have plenty of that in other places. We have children forced into marriage in India (girls 12 years old, quite commonly) and into sexual slavery in SE Asia; we have the child porn mills of Russia. But there’s something about this story, the combining of television/internet propaganda with inducing a child to commit a particularly heinous act of murder–and the doing of it for political reasons…somehow, this event crosses a line for the human race. It marries “1984” with “Lord of the Flies”…
The news story:
The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive’s head to cries of “God is great!” and hoists it in triumph by the hair.
A video circulating in Pakistan records the grisly death of Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan.
The video, which was obtained by AP Television News in the border city of Peshawar on Tuesday, appears authentic and is unprecedented in jihadist propaganda because of the youth of the executioner. Captions mention Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s current top commander in southern Afghanistan, although he does not appear in the video. The soundtrack features songs praising Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and “Sheikh Osama” — an apparent reference to Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
“He is an American spy. Those who do this kind of thing will get this kind of fate,” says the victim’s baby-faced executioner, who is not identified.
The victim is then shown lying on his side on the ground. A man holds Nabi by his beard while the boy, wearing a camouflage military jacket and oversized white sneakers, cuts into the throat. Other men and boys call out “Allahu akbar!” — “God is great!” — as blood spurts from the wound. The film, overlain with jihadi songs, then shows the boy hacking and slashing at the man’s neck until the head is severed.
a very short story:
The Cloud of Unseeing
"No one may leave here," said the Leader. "We must commune with the great Cosmic Eye. And after--"
"And after," interrupted Smythe, who had catalyzed this rebellion against the Leader of the Sect of the Cosmic Eye, "there will be more of the same. You will interpret the Eye's signals in a way convenient to you--as ever!"
There was a murmur of agreement from the sect's assemblage in the great hall they'd built in the forest. "Wait!" called Luella Fiske, known for her flares of inspiration. "Yes, our leader got lost in vanity and fell into darkness! Let us pray to the Eye and ask if the leader gives us light—or darkness!"
Even as she said it the Eye at the Center of the Cosmos sent its reply: Though bright with noon light, in the next moment the room was plunged into unbroken darkness; an obscurity deeper than eclipse enwrapped them. The Leader yelped in fear, ran gibbering out of the building—and was blinded by the sunshine when he passed out of the pool of black the Eye had imposed.
The others chose to stay in complete darkness, until the Eye should lift the shadow on its own. As the days and nights passed, their other senses became more acute, as if the darkness forced them to subtler feelings, an exquisite sensitivity that slowly allowed them to see again using a light conducted from within, so that the pool of darkness slowly dissolved, and they saw the world once more. Then they went their own way, none of them ever needing a Leader to tell them about the great Eye again, since they each looked on the world with the eye of the Eye.
The People In Charge Are Vile: Here's An Example
In this case, a young girl is abused by her mother, abandoned by her father, becomes enslaved (and beaten, raped) by a pimp who sells her to creeps who know perfectly well she’s a child, then goes to jail for life for killing him. Some of us think she should have gotten a medal for killing him, instead….Also notice the racial disparity figure at the end…
From Leland Yee, for the San Francisco Chronicle:
This year, California is finally taking the necessary steps to enact major changes to our prison system. As part of this year of reform, I have introduced legislation to abolish the sentence of life without the possibility of parole for youth offenders. SB999 would make the maximum sentence 25 years to life, meaning a child who commits a felony offense before the age of 18 would serve a minimum of 25 years in prison before being eligible for parole consideration.
As a child psychologist, I have firsthand experience with troubled children and understand that they have an extraordinary capacity for rehabilitation. The neuroscience is clear — brain maturation continues well through adolescence and thus impulse control, planning and critical-thinking skills are not yet fully developed until adulthood. SB999 reflects that science and provides the opportunity for compassion and rehabilitation for children.
In Roper vs. Simmons, the Supreme Court prohibited leveling the death penalty for children as the court confirmed that juveniles need to be considered differently than adults in sentencing due to concerns about brain development.
Nationally, 59 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole are first-time offenders. Of the approximately 200 juveniles in California serving this sentence, there are a number of cases that have brought into question this severe punishment.
One such case involves Sara Kruzan, who was raised in Riverside by her abusive and drug-addicted mother. Sara met her father only three times because he was in prison.
Starting at the age of 9, Sara suffered from severe depression for which she was hospitalized. At age 11, she met a 31-year-old man named “G.G.” who molested her and began grooming her to become a prostitute. At age 13, she was working as a child prostitute for G.G. and was repeatedly molested by him until she was 16, when she killed him.
She was sentenced to prison for the rest of her life, despite the California Youth Authority and a psychiatric evaluation determining that she was amendable to rehabilitation treatment offered in the juvenile system. . .
SB999, also known as the California Juvenile Life Without Parole Reform Act, would provide child offenders with the opportunity to request parole after serving a minimum of 25 years in prison. At that time, there would be no presumption of release. The state Board of Parole Hearings would consider the request and determine whether the individual deserved to be released or should remain in prison, which may continue to be for life.
The sentence of life without parole means absolutely no opportunity for release. It also means minors are often left without access to rehabilitative services. This punishment was created for the worst of criminals that have no possibility of reform — but this is not the humane way to handle children. While the crimes they committed caused undeniable suffering, these youth are often victims themselves. According to Human Rights Watch, the United States leads the world in the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without parole, claiming 99.5 percent of all cases. In fact, there are only 12 such cases outside of the United States. The oldest human rights treaty to which the United States is a party, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, prohibits this sentence. Nationally, 11 jurisdictions have prohibited this sentence including New York, Colorado and the District of Columbia.
California also has the worst racial disparity rate in the nation for this sentence. Black youth are given this sentence at 22 times the rate of white youth. Latino youth are sentenced to life without parole four times as often as white youth.
As a society, we have learned a lot since the time we started using life without parole for children. We now know that this sentence provides no deterrent effect. While children who commit serious crimes should be held accountable, public safety can be protected without condemning a handful of youth to life in prison without even the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption. |