Private Police Forces

Private Police Forces

In Raleigh, N.C., employees of Capitol Special Police patrol apartment buildings, a bowling alley and nightclubs, stopping suspicious people, searching their cars and making arrests.

Sounds like a good thing, but Capitol Special Police isn't a police force at all -- it's a for-profit security company hired by private property owners.

This isn't unique. Private security guards outnumber real police more than 5-1, and increasingly act like them. (Schneier on Security)

I don't have to read you Your Rights, for starters...

For Want of a Dentist

You can't make this shit up

Pr. George's Boy Dies After Bacteria From Tooth Spread to Brain
Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.

If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth. (More...)

Fighting them there so...
I'm trying to stay away from the political, but fuck man!

The Yes Men

I've been of the opinion that while massive marketing campaigns can get an idea about reality into the popular consciousness, by most products very uselessness this idea is short lived. Additionally, popular culture is so easily undermined because its grip on reality is so tenuous. Built on fantasy and illusion of the consumption machine, "mainstream" culture is ripe for pranking and hoaxing. I have a particular penchant for fucking with peoples ideas about "reality" and turning their assumed truths on their head. I actually toyed with bumping over the Psyops while in the service, but it was not to be.
This leads me to the Yes Men. Some folks who have managed to present themselves a corporate types representing companies at some presentation or another, only to take it to absolute extremes to point out the inherent absurdity of the system.
An example:

At the International Payments Conference on April 28, 2005 'Dow representative' Erastus Hamm unveiled Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable Risk mascot — a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda — to an audience of about 70 banking professionals. (Yes Men at Wikipedia)

There's more videos and fun stuff at their website.

The Yes Men movie (about an hour and a half long).

If you don't have time for that right now, here's a six minute video of "Jude Finisterra of Dow Chemical" on BBC accepting responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.

Printable Cold Sores

A tip from Boing Boing

Take action!

Printable Cold Sores - Geek Grafitti
Nowhere in advertising is the gap between natural beauty and manufactured perfection more apparent than on subway posters. As we wait for transportation, we are unwillingly assaulted by larger-than-life representations of supposedly beautiful salespeople. The large scale of these ads and their extremely close proximity to the viewer offer up more than perceived intimacy, however... they give us the chance to see the mechanical flaws designed to correct their physical flaws.

Links - Nerdcore v. Hardcore

It seems there's a little fashion of music lately called Nerdcore. What is it? The few samples I've heard sound like oddball techno, with some scratching and rapping on top. Nothing "Core" about it. Core is derivative of Hardcore with core being inseparable from the meaning. While core represents something fundamental, it always implied the "hard." Even if one is to say "core" it suggests the Hard part and any music utilizing the term would thus be a derivative of Hardcore. Nerdcore for all its charm, isn't.
I'm not offended by the name. It's just coming across as basing your street cred on the work of others and that isn't too cool. I spent a lot of years as a kid literally fighting for the sake of alternative/sub-culture. You couldn't walk down the street with some clown giving you grief and wanting to do harm. Then maybe we'd fight. Provocation was the point. Now that it's safe, everybody's doing it. Safe isn't core nuthin'.
And for Rap, Hip Hop, whatever...just like today's RnR is corporatized yet packaged to look indi, same goes for most of the urban crap I hear out there. You want some Hardcore Rap/HipHop? Here ya go!
But I wax angrily. No fucking wonder I got an ulcer.

Hardcore came from the 1980's with my rough estimation of it's death to be around DRI's Crossover album in 1987 and the release of Kurt Cobain's Teen Spirit which placed a premium on bands signed to indi labels that THEY bought them all up and regurgitated something called Grunge.
Here's a sample of the Hardcore bands I listened to growing up:
The Exploited
M.D.C
Flipper
The Cramps
G.B.H.
D.O.A.
Dead Kennedy's
Reagan Youth
Decry
Descendants
Bad Brains
Circle Jerks
The Meatmen (Man, I can't think of them and not hear Tesco Vee going "We're the Meatmen and you suck!")
Angry Samoans
Suicidal Tendencies
Black Flag
Agnostic Front
Stiff Little Fingers
Fear
Peter and the Test Tube Babies

And what's up with this emo shit? I haven't heard it that I know of, but it doesn't sound promising.

I'm going to find my records....

A fairly accurate listing of Hardcore at Wikipedia.

A place to buy a lot of the old and new stuff. No recommendations implied by its listing here. Just a link.

2039

Visionary writer/artist Paul Pope presents a futuristic mystery of epic proportions set in a dark, dystopian world devoid of privacy and filled with government conspiracies, psychic police, holographic caller ID and absolutely no room for "secret identities."

Batman: Year One Hundred (warning: will link to Amazon for the product)


It seems that Batman isn't a big fan of Big Brother in this story.

Here's a piece on Paul Pope at Wired.

And the artist's website.






Hattip to Boing Boing

Blank Maxine

As I've envisioned Complex 39 to be a multi-disciplined project of sorts, with multiple feeds documenting, through a retro-future lens, my certainty that things are getting really weird and dystopian, I've recently brought my partner of 20 years on board. I've changed all the references to her to reflect her Complex 39 pseudonym and increase the anonymity. I like the term "partner" as opposed to wife (we're not actually married), or finance, or girlfriend in this forum for obvious reasons. It is our years of collaboration which most reflects our work here.
I hope to actually expand the offerings of Complex 39 as it continues to flesh out and more contributers may be added in time. Any suggestions are welcome, but will be met with close scrutiny, skepticism, and possibly reactionary hostility.

"Look at 'em, ordinary fucking people, I hate 'em." - Bud

If you haven't seen the movie...
Repo Man.

Some of the best lines in any movie I've ever seen.

No kidding

I can't comment any further than this. It speaks for itself.

By Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank
Research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law. Bergen is also a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. (More...)

Hattip to NewsTrust

Screw kids

There's no ironic twist coming. I mean I don't like them. Not that much anyway. We worship the little buggers like some sort of sick cult of the child. We've fucking morphed kids into little, Disneyfied, creepy Margaret Keane figures. I think they're unpredictable (like bugs are), they smell funny, and you can't have a decent conversation with them. At least not a conversation that last any more than a few minutes.
And then there's all the patronizing you have to do for their parents and the rest of society. "Oh look at him/her. Isn't he/she so cute."
"No, your kid isn't that cute or interesting. Get over it."
Parents shouldn't expect any particular consideration or quarter from the rest of us because they wanted to boink. It's their choice/their responsibility, they should know what the extra burden entails. I'll treat them with the same civility I would anyone else. If I go out of my way to help, it's because I see you have your hands full and need help, not because the diminutive human you have in your company is somehow imbuing you with special status.
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate kids, I just don't worship the immature little buggers. Sure they're innocent and all (much less than I think many would believe though) but they all grow up to be ordinary fucking adults, quite capable of shitting on his fellow man.
One bit of irony is that a lot of people think I'd be a great dad.
Just keep them minimum 10 or 15 feet away from me and we'll do just fine. More if they're making noise.

Creepy Cult of the Child
Now a substitute teacher in Connecticut is facing 40 years because she walked into a classroom, operated the crappy computer provided, and got a lot of porn pop-ups to which the little shits came gawking at. The jury couldn't imagine getting a flood of pop-ups. They convicted her of running to get help with a machine she was told not to turn off when she came to fill in that day an she didn't turn it off. And it was twelve year olds. I can't even begin to tell you what I was up to at twelve. I wasn't that fucking innocent.
I started smoking at twelve. Fuck the porn, I want fucking 40 years from the executive who fucking got rich off of getting kids hooked.
If kids are so weak and addle minded as to be corrupted by a little bit of porn, God help us all. I'm a little more concerned with the 10000 plus fucking ads they're hit with every year. I guess anything we can do to maintain their innocence, right? Or is it THEY want a breed of fucking ignorant and naive fucking consumption cattle that'll buy any fucking lie the over-fucking-lords jam down our fucking throats?

Protect the Children From Porn
By all means, let's Protect The Children. Because that's what it's all about, right? It doesn't matter whose life gets mowed down in the process, as long as we are clear that it's all in the name of keeping kids innocent. (Wired opinion)

However, I do like Edward Gorey's kids.

Extracts from the Gashlycrumb Tinies

Edward Gorey at Wikipedia

Pulse art show NYC

I'm sorry I missed it.

Make Magazine's
Photos from Pulse NYC

The Drowned World

Some of the land/mindscapes from JG Ballard's The Drowned World have etched themselves into my subconscious mind. As I look toward (forward?) the accelerating bizarreness that is modern/future society/dystopia and the serious effects of global warming with its accompanying three to nine meter rise in ocean levels, I've been thinking "a boat. That's it, I'll get a boat replete with green power and deck guns to ward of the pirates."




I might be nuts, but at least I'll be prepared.
I'm thinking of maybe modifying something similar to a Huckins or a Higgins PT boat like this one.




More of The Drowned World at Wikipedia



If you want the book, here's one of many ways to buy it...

Angels Wings

A long time reader of my ramblings commented on the post You've come a long way, baby! and I want to reprint the comment and promote her daughter's website concerning Anorexia Nervosa & Bulimia Nervosa.

Middle Child said...

Have a look at my daughter's small website http://www.angelswings.com.au/

and read her story "anna and the bull " and mine "The Mother's story" and others some of us know exactly the tragedy of this subject you have raised...its effect is as bad as heroin etc etc...


luckily she has recovered fully but not without a lot of heartache.

Friday, February 23, 2007 3:06:00 AM EST

• Angels Wings

Thanks Middle Child

1,4,9

Just something I'm thinking about.
Easy as 1,2,3

Here's one possible direction to get started.

I reject your reality and substitute my own - Icons

All things are in essence symbolic. The quantum waveforms collapse into "recognizable things" when we observe those things. They are more than the "things" which we recognize...a blue pen being the sum of many parts which are the sum of many more, smaller parts ad infinitum. And the blue is all the visible color that the pen didn't absorb, not to mention all the radiation that we don't perceive from reflected ultraviolet and infrared to the minute, radioactive radiance from the weak force. For convenience, we round off and use symbols. It would take altogether too long to write out Pi every time we had to describe a circle being the number is probably infinite. Or we just say cat rather than describing the animal's physio-psycho-social nature with a full relevant history.

With that, there are a several metaphors for higher ideas that have a significant impact on what is seen by observers as Blank Snag, or whatever label of convenience I or someone else assigns this entity, an image which is a metaphor for some composite of experience of direct and indirect history and a confluence of time lines and decisions that bring us all to this point...oops...this point...wait...this point...damn...wait...now!

Reality is what you can get away with. - RAW
I know this quote in my bones. My head doesn't always agree, but at the core I know reality is malleable. It's just the who decides to mold it part that's at issue? You or some advertising jerk in marketing land, pimping death in a burger promising comfort and salvation at the hands of their friendly but homicidal clown?
I keep icons that represent who I am, who I want to be, and what I stand for before me to keep me from getting sucked into complete mediocrity. If you look on the lower right of this blog, you will see an incomplete list of the characters that populate my imagination and support the amalgamation of experience known as Blank Snag. I've also been known as other labels to other people in other relationships as well.

What are the fictional icons that have contributed to Blank Snag? Again, I keep a list on the side to remind me of those things I use to communicate with myself and others. I keep metaphors before me, not as a substitute for any specific aspect of being, but as a summarization for convenient discourse. Icons are also an exchange between the external and the internal, educating us on one hand as a representation of an external idea and reminding us of important lessons on the other as we shape those icons to fit our identity. It's a busy world and sometimes we get caught up worshiping false icons; the icon of not being late for work, the icon of that asshole who took your parking place, the icon of the jerk who bumped you on the subway.
Icons can be a powerful tool for meditation and focus, yet can be abused and be the source of restricting and limiting one's knowledge of the world. The question is, do you absorb the icon or does the icon absorb you?
We all group and categorize information into systems that we understand whether we're conscious of it or not. Some folks compartmentalize in sections that they might not have names for while others hold information like spreadsheets with clearly defined row and column headers. Short term memory tend to be more compartmentalized than long term. Symbolic association helps remind one of important facts and features.

I'll stop there for now. Discussion of symbols continues deep into tangents that I'd like to address at a later time in more detail. I want to touch on the use of icon for control (Mohamed, Jesus, "Bob") and the use of icon for understanding, communication of ideas, and focus (Mohamed, Jesus, "Bob"). Also Quantum Sorcery, Chaos Magic, and other magic systems uses the idea of icon or "sigil" as a tool for influencing events through will. Icon's in marketing and social control, from Britney Spears, to Mickey Mouse. Also, icon's in semantics and the use of semantics in systems of control.

The nice thing about having a robust pantheon of archetypes, it's a lot easier to detect other people's bullshit when they throw up their own totems of control. Small penis, talk about guns. Xenophobic, talk about welfare mothers and terrorists. Uncertain about moral/ethical values, talk about heathens, infidels, and criminals.

Icon's in more or less tangible forms than I use, shape us all. What we remember about our past is selective. We choose to remember, consciously or subconsciously that which we want to remember and shape our understanding of reality based on those memories. It is an impossibility to remember all things, so we remember select things. We create images of who our parents were, who our influential teachers were, what movie characters we like, and so on. The truth is, the value of things in our past is largely based on the value we assign it.

Like a remote TV control, take the unit out of Their hands and take charge of the icons in your own life.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage (MythBusters)

Just remember when using icons..."the map is not the territory." (A. Korzybski)

Niger Delta

It's interesting that such small, decentralized elements can put such a hurt on oil production.
Mark these little insurrections. We'll see more and more of this as oil supply diminishes, capital is consolidated in the hands of fewer and fewer, and demand continues to increase.
In fact, watch the same effect as potable water continues to diminish.

Photo: George Osodi/AP
Nigeria's militants highlight woes amid wealth
"We ARE not terrorists," screamed a black-masked militant brandishing an assault rifle. "We are freedom fighters!"
He had arrived minutes earlier in a motorboat bristling with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades held by fighters in camouflage body armour and balaclavas.
White flags, a tribute to their tribe's god of war, fluttered from the stern.

The Niger government recently requested a contingent of US Marines to hunt MEND down. The US declined...for now. Just wait 'til we really start feeling the pinch.

MEND at Wikipedia including timeline and tactics.

And from NPR's On Point:

Oil in the Niger Delta
The Niger Delta is rich with oil, but the local residents are some of the poorest in the world. We'll look at the rise in militancy and the fight for oil money.

A little side analysis. I want to draw attention the photos because I think they're an important element to the story. First indicator - they have embraced the media, which is significant in itself. Second - notice how they're outfitted? Matching vests, balaclavas, reasonable weaponry. These are folks who want to be seen as organized, reasonable, competent. They don't want to be seen as crazed, back-water terrorists, reactionaries. In no way do I mean to diminish their fight, but I find it interesting that they've managed to get so much coordinated gear. I'm sure the guerrillas in the bush aren't quite as well uniformed. They imply as much in the text, but these people understand the power of image.

It'll be an interesting struggle to keep an eye on.

Links

From their about:
HazardFactory is an industrial Arts studio that serves as a collaborative platform for high risk, interdisciplinary, and emerging artforms.

I love these guys:

Survival Research Labs
Producing the most dangerous shows on earth


I've only listened to episode #1, but there's some interesting work at Cyberpunk Radio with discussions of the anxiety future. 72 episodes are available.
Cyberpunk Radio

Know your overlords

Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) since 1919.

• Kellogg, Brown and Root at Wikipedia
• KBR's Corporate Website
• Kellogg, Brown & Root at The Center for Public Integrity

And of course the tie-in...

• Halliburtonwatch.org

And a couple of under-the-radar clippings...

Gulf Coast slaves
Halliburton and its subcontractors hired hundreds of undocumented Latino workers to clean up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay. (More...)

The battle scars of a private war
Contractors wounded or killed in Iraq are the anonymous casualties. Ceremonies are secret, and benefits are scarce.

In Tough Times, a Company Finds Profits in Terror War
From building cells for detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba to feeding American troops in Uzbekistan, the Pentagon is increasingly relying on a unit of Halliburton called KBR, sometimes referred to as Kellogg Brown & Root.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

You paid how much for the Biometric security?

Without needing to display a name badge or pass, the tester was able to “easily gain access” into the building through a back door that was left open for smokers, the firm said

Once inside, the tester used the social banter of smokers to help gain directions to a meeting room, amid claims he had been summoned by the IT department. (More...)

Hattip to Schneier.

Not much longer now

US 'Iran attack plans' revealed
US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned. (More...)

And a little something from the 1980's...

"We've Got A Bigger Problem Now" and they're all the "Friends of President Reagan"

Last call for alcohol.
Last call for your freedom of speech.
Drink up. Happy hour is now enforced by law.
Don't forget our house special, it's called a Trickie Dickie Screwdriver.
It's got one part Jack Daniels, two parts purple Kool-Aid,
and a jigger of formaldehyde
from the jar with Hitler's brain in it we got in the back storeroom.
Happy trails to you. Happy trails to you.

I am Emperor Ronald Reagan
Born again with fascist cravings
Still, you made me president

Human rights will soon go 'way
I am now your Shah today
Now I command all of you
Now you're going to pray in school
I'll make sure they're Christian too

California Uber alles
Uber alles California

Ku Klux Klan will control you
Still you think it's natural
Nigger knockin' for the master race
Still you wear the happy face

You closed your eyes, can't happen here
Alexander Haig is near
Vietnam won't come back you say
Join the army or you will pay

California Uber alles
Uber alles California

Yeah, that's it. Just relax.
Have another drink, few more pretzels, little more MSG.
Turn on those Dallas Cowboys on your TV.
Lock your doors. Close your mind.
It's time for the two-minute warning.

Welcome to 1984
Are you ready for the third world war?!?
You too will meet the secret police
They'll draft you and they'll jail your niece

You'll go quitely to boot camp
They'll shoot you dead, make you a man
Don't you worry, it's for a cause
Feeding global corporations' claws

Die on our brand new poison gas
El Salvador or Afghanistan
Making money for President Reagan
And all the friends of President Reagan

California Uber alles
Uber alles California
- Dead Kennedys

Just change the deck chairs.

You've come a long way, baby!

Sexualization Of Girls Is Linked To Common Mental Health Problems In Girls And Women
A report of the American Psychological Association (APA) released today found evidence that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls' self-image and healthy development. (Science Daily Article)

No kidding?!? (I know sarcasm is difficult to convey in print, but that was.)
It's great that someone spoke up, but did it really take scientists?
Create an unattainable ideal that will affect everyone at the earliest possible age and then sell them the products that offer temporary relief; it's the same psycho-social mechanics as drugs.

And where is the indignation? This is turning young girls into sex objects and yet society tries to feign offense at pedophilia. It's all quite disturbing.
And if there is a backlash, I don't think it will come from a woman positive angle. I think it will come from fear of women's assertion of their own sexualities.

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person — typically someone who has an enthusiasm for self-education and a high degree of self-motivation. (Wikipedia)

It's that damn self motivation part...

But then there's John Hutchison and the Hutchinson Effect.

Hutchison claims that in the 1980s he worked for the American and Canadian military, investigating various alleged phenomena. He refers to several of these phenomena as "the Hutchison effect".Even the most broad-minded scientists seem to doubt the reality of these phenomena. In a recent posting to sci.physics.research, Marc Millis, who ran the now defunct Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program for NASA, wrote:

[The] Hutchison Effect has been claimed for years, without any independent verification - ever. In fact, its originator can't even replicate it on demand. This has been investigated more than once, been part of documentaries on the discovery channel, but still never seems to pass critical muster. This is in the category of folklore. In general, the "American Antigravity" web site caters to such folklore and its enthusiasts. – Marc G. Millis

Here's a link to an article and some pretty good Hutchinson resources.
John Hutchison, The Wild Scientist From Vancouver.
And a link to American Antigravity.

My take? Hutchinson is sincere, but goofy. I tend to think his effect was fabricated not faked, as faked implies a more willful and /or malicious thought process. I tend to believe his effects are possible, even though I don't think he's necessarily discovered how to create them himself.

Check out related ideas and experimentation at ZPEnergy or zero point energy. From their mission statement:

ZPEnergy is a news portal devoted to experimental research/applications in new revolutionary energy technologies . It aims to connect together people who have the same pragmatic goal: bring to the public amazing devices which can tap a seemingly unlimited supply of energy that fills the universe, the so called "Zero Point Energy" (ZPE).

Self-defence with a Walking-stick

There are some things a gentleman has to know...

Self-defence with a Walking-stick: The Different Methods of Defending Oneself with a Walking-Stick or Umbrella when Attacked under Unequal Conditions (PartI)
By E.W. Barton-Wright
Pearson’s Magazine, 11 (January 1901), 35-44.

Introduction

It must be understood that the new art of self-defence with a walking-stick, herewith introduced for the first time, differs essentially from single-stick or sword-play; for a man may be a champion in the use of sword or single-stick and yet be quite unable to put a walking-stick to any effective use as a weapon of defence. The simple and sufficient reason to account for this is that both in single-stick and sword-play a cut is always taken up by the hilt of the weapon, whereas if you attempted to guard a blow with a walking-stick -- which has no hilt -- in the same way as you would with a sword, the blow would slide down your stick onto your hand and disable you. Therefore, in order to make a stick a real means of self-defence, it has been necessary to devise a system by which one can guard a blow in such a way as to cause it to slide away from the hand instead of toward it, and thus obviate the risk of being disarmed by being hit upon the fingers. (More...)

Hattip to Boing Boing.

Links

Hacked...
On my never ending journey to becoming an overall hacker here's some links I've come across.

The "largest underground hacking event in the world."
I couldn't be called an electronics hacker necessarily, but if taken at its conceptual meaning, then I could be a hacker of the mind, body, combustion engines, vintage automotive sheetmetal, and so on.

"We are not a "cracking" site, we are hackers. Our inquisitive nature leads us to find ways of making technology work for us."

Mind Hacks
I've been reading this book in bits and pieces lately as it's neatly partitioned and broken down in a few page description of specific functions. From the title, I guess I expected more direct action applications, but I found it to be more of a description of many different process in the mind rather than modifications to actually make. Mind Hacks is good for core knowledge and understanding of mental mechanics and systems, from which an operator can then go and find applications for.
There's also an accompanying blog.





WARNING! You have been exposed to marketing! While the source of the previous advertisements in no way means to condition your behavior, your previous experiences with ubiquitous marketing may have made you susceptible to participating in the consumer culture not entirely of free will. As with all marketing, take a moment and think about your exposure levels before proceeding.

Two people

Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange
Yesterday evening, I looked out and saw a couple just inside a mall, quietly sitting on a bench. They might have been my age, maybe a little older. He was bent over, rolling a cigarette she was looking into the opulent, high-end store. I watched as she reached over and touched his chin out of tenderness. I've been in the city, on the job, long enough to see the signs of homelessness. They weren't particularly unkempt, but when you get paid to read people, you know.
I pointed them out to one of my coworkers, who said he had seen them in that area that morning. So it was, they were laying low, trying to stay warm in the sub-freezing weather. Now when I say "trying to stay warm", the semantics suggests avoidance of discomfort, and that's not really the case. The activity that the homeless are engaged in is survival at its most fundamental. Just trying to maintain enough nutrition to literally not lose your mind, the pain of sleeping/sitting/existing constantly in little safe areas, often numbing the pain, both emotional and physical with whatever is available.
When I left work again, I saw them leaving the mall and heading to where I was certain that they were going; the ramp that deposits onto the street from the interstate. They were walking, hand-in-hand toward their shelter for the night, hopefully neither getting mugged, raped, or killed by the predators of the homeless. I'm familiar with the place where they were heading. It's a series of interstate ramps under a mall/office complex, buried beneath the ground that eventually rise and break through the skin of the centuries old city to deposit their traffic onto the downtown streets. I've pursued folks down there and have seen the catacomb like structure and the signs of its nocturnal residents. I've seen the blankets of the survivors, the detritus of the nuts, the pipes of the crack addicts, the condoms from the whores, and the needles of the fiends.
The tenderness between the two touched me and made me want to hit someone responsible for the greatest nation on earth not being able to take care of their own. Yes, a mutually embracing and destructive reflex. I was as touched by their humanity as I was embarrassed and ashamed of the lack of it in others. I was angry again. I was sad. I was relieved to get to Kate's arms.
Of course this moment wasn't a revelation to me, it was not new. It hurts and angers me every time I pause to look at it.

We have a new intern in the office who comes from down the coast, beyond New England. This is the first that came from money. Nice enough kid, but a pencil necked rich kid also. I try and slowly share with him how bullshit his ivory towered background was on his world view and how, down here in reality, that rightwing/protect-the-money shit doesn't fly.
He's shown contempt for the homeless in the past and I wanted him to see. I made him look. I showed him what homeless was. There were not the aggressive, threatening panhandlers that he and his family uses as a model to justify why they don't fucking give more and why the government on average only takes 12% income tax from the top one or two percent. This was two people who can't go into shelter because they would be separated by gender. Two people protecting and caring for each other. Two people who don't have a phone number to answer when someone calls to offer a job. Two people without an address to receive a paycheck or a W2.
These were two people who had no home.

(cue Mercy Seat - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds)

Fuck!...Fuck!...Fuck you!
The rage boils up, lightly from the gut, through the tightening chest, down the arms, radiating from rough, white knuckles. I want to bless the fear and ignorance of the self-righteous, self involved, self-important gluttons in a baptism of brutality. Let me show you what it feels like to be a bad monkey. You pay for my services; services that keep that protect the haves from the havenots, but this I want to do for free.
I remain silent. I don't demonstrate to THEM what it is they pay for. I have to keep heat in my home, food on my table, a roof over my head for those I love. They could just get more of the likes of me, not yet enlightened to the absurdity and folly of the game, the pitting of us against ourselves, and hunt down a rouge element.

The only way the world can justify the personal levels of consumption that we see is to dehumanize. We often dehumanize the weakest and most vulnerable.
As an example, I often see the joy of folks from other departments when we arrest someone. They like to gawk at the bad monkey in the cage, while their tough enforcer monkeys like myself do what they fear to do themselves. They derive a sense of satisfaction from seeing the bad one suffer and be put on parade and think quietly to themselves "I might be a shit, but at least I'm not as bad as that monkey."
Or they think to their self, "Hey, that's an aggressive poor, homeless person who's only trying to get something for free from me. Well fuck him and his kind." This works especially well if the offender isn't the same skin tone as the offended.
Dehumanization. Its a word used a lot, particularly those that trend politically left, but what does it really mean? Here's Wikipedia's definition and here's an article defining the term, the psychology, and the dangers.

Major causes of homelessness as cited by Wikipedia

• Lack of affordable housing
• Low paying jobs
• Substance abuse and lack of needed services
• Mental illness and lack of needed services
• Domestic violence
• Unemployment
• Poverty
• Prison release and re-entry into society
• Change and cuts in public assistance

Strangely, I didn't see one that is one of the most prevalent. If you modify the second to last one, you get:

• Military release and re-entry into society

I won't provide links to charities or some such stop-gap measures. Those are easy enough to find. Here's links I think address the problem more at its core:

• Overcoming Consumerism and an article - Anti-Consumerism and The Alternate Economy.
• Whole Earth Magazine

Revisit

A recycled post from a previous incarnation. Still it captures something in me, particularly when I reflect on what I do for a living. I have no guilt nor shame when I make people face responsibility for their actions, but I really hate the fucking "law and order" whores who masturbate to someone's ill fortune and I hate the misery that this world allows.

Sin City Marv set to Nick Cave's Mercy Seat. As my friend Charlie pointed out...the story of Frankenstein's monster.

It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I..am..not..afraid..to..die.

I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner meals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind

I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade

Or at least that's what I'm told

Like my good hand I

tatooed E.V.I.L. across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.

In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.

Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.

My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L.
Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D.
`Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all that rebel blood.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is burning
And I think my head is glowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is glowing
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this looks of disbelief.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
Nor a motive why.

And the mercy seat is smoking
And I think my head is melting
And in a way I'm helping
To be done with all this twisted of the truth.
A lie for a lie
And a truth for a truth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is melting
And I think my blood is boiling
And in a way I'm spoiling
All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a truth for a truth
And anyway there was no proof
But I'm not afraid to tell a lie.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.

"The Fighting Quaker"

What do these folks have in common?

• Robert Sterling Clark
• Al Smith
• Irénée du Pont
• J. P. Morgan
• Remington Arms

They were probably stopped by this man...Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler aka "The Fighting Quaker"


Corporate/Fascist plot against the United States

And there are people who actually believe
It Can't Happen Here.

Assume

Makes an ASS out of U and ME

Boing Boing has a link to the National Security Archives release of an administration brief presented by Centcom called Polo Step. Looking at it, I was astounded by the mis-assumptions.
Real fucking Pollyanna. But when you're fundamentally based on a lie, it will keep going until everyone else's reality tunnel bores through yours. However, this doesn't sound like it came from DIA or subcomponents. I bet this came from policy people, passed down for digestion, and then bounced back for wider distribution.

Quote

There were times in its history when the United States came close to suggesting what a Utopian project might be, but the less appealing sides to American life now seem to be in the ascendant; there's a self-infantilism strain that gives America the look of Peter Pan's Never-never land. However, the future may well be a marriage between Microsoft and the Disney Company; an infantilized entertainment culture imposed on us by the most advanced communications technology. [JG Ballard - intv Hans Obrist, 2003]

Minority Report

Tapping Brains for Future Crimes
A team of neuroscientists announced a scientific breakthrough last week in the use of brain scans to discover what's on someone's mind. (more at Wired magazine...)

Tipped by Disinformation

As the author points out, often results are over dramatized by breathless reporters, but there will come a day...

Links

Important links:

Two places to get lost in enigmatic information:

- The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension


- ƒUSION Anomaly. This neXus is permanently morphing...

And a third to augment your quality, credible news source
(you have one right? yahoo.news doesn't cut it.).

Disinformation:: The Gateway to the underground - news, politics, and weirdness
From their about:Launched on September 13, 1996, Disinformation was designed to be the search service of choice for individuals looking for information on current affairs, politics, new science and the "hidden information" that seldom seems to slip through the cracks of the corporate-owned media conglomerates. Ironically, it was funded by one of the largest media companies in the world (TeleCommunications, Inc. (TCI), now part of Comcast), who paid for placement on Netscape's then ubiquitous search page.

Poetry

A tip from Boing Boing, gadgeteer and editor Joel Johnson discusses his take on over-the-counter electronics consumption.
A sample:

And you guys just ate it up. Kept buying shitty phones and broken media devices green and dripping with DRM. You broke the site, clogging up the pipe like retarded salmon, to read the latest announcements of the most trivial jerk-off products, completely ignoring the stories about technology actually making a difference to real human beings, because you wanted a new chromed robot turd to put in your pocket to impress your friends and make you forget for just a few minutes, blood coursing as you tremblingly cut through the blister pack, that your life is utterly void of any lasting purpose. (more at Gizmodo...)

It goes to my argument that even though everyone owns gizmos today, only a handful know about the technology that actually drives it, thus are incapable of doing much creative with it. Kids in my office are amazed that I not only know what their crappy little devices do, I can fix them and/or bend the technology.
Man, they are the Death-of-Innovation Generation!

23

I've been reluctant to discuss 23 recently as it seems there's a big production movie coming out called The Number 23 about the "enigma" and I was hoping the band wagon would pass by without enticing me. It was not to be. Below, there is a link discussing the flick at Disinformation.
For those unfamiliar with the Discordian "23 enigma" or Robert Anton Wilson's Reality Tunnel 23 it's like this...Once you are aware of the 23 enigma then you will start noticing 23 in more an more places. Very unlikely places. It's presence will surprise you. You'll see it in historic context or marketing or political, etc.
What's the mechanics behind this? Magical? Supernatural? Some mathematical truth like Pi or Phi? The Law of Fives?
All I can say personally is Maybe.
The point is once you open up to it you see it. This is an important lesson about life. If you open up to anything, use any totem or focus device, you are more receptive to its existence. As Wilson says "Reality is what you can get away with." Man, that's fucking profound.
"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." - Miller (Repo Man)
Here's my favorite example of the effect. Think of your car (this works well in the US because it's been decreed by sacred/secret law that every man, woman, and child have a car). Think of the color and make of your car. Now when you first got the, did you notice how many other people had the same car? What about before you owned the car, did you notice that make and model in particular?
Ok...now can this effect be applied to something that hasn't yet been realized? Can you image a thing to where once the thing is present, you notice it. Wilson has a little trick with quarters. You wanna see quarters, spend a some time thinking about quarters. The shape, the sound hitting the floor, the weight, and so on. Man, before you know it...fucking quarters everywhere. This effect lasts as long as you apply regular energy to thinking about quarters. But of course the bills are due, your late for work, that mother fucker just stepped on your toe...Who's got time to shape their own reality, the world's too busy shaping it for us.

Miller: A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.
Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?
Miller: I'll give you another instance: you know how everybody's into weirdness right now?...
-Repo Man

Here's a list of links for further (required?) reading (maybe save fUSION Anomoly for last...you can get lost in there)

• 23 - fUSION Anomoly
• 23 (numerology) - Wikipedia
• The 23 Enigma Goes Mainstream - Disinformation

and lastly...Maybe. A good introduction to Wilson's work on keeping your eyes open.

Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow!

It all makes sense now...

Thomas credits Ghoulardi for influencing the "otherness" of the Cleveland/Akron bands of the mid-1970s and early 1980s, including the Electric Eels, and The Mirrors, the Cramps, and Thomas's own groups, Pere Ubu and Rocket From The Tombs, declaring: "We were the Ghoulardi kids." (Akron's Devo aren't included on Thomas' list, but they were formed in the same era as the other groups and shared a similar esthetic.)

Who was this Ghoulardi?

This irreverent and influential movie host was a hipster, unlike the horror character prototype. Ghoulardi’s costume was a long lab coat covered with “slogan” buttons, horn-rimmed sunglasses with a missing lens, fake Van Dyke beard and moustache, and various messy, awkwardly-perched wigs. Ghoulardi's stage name was devised by Cleveland restaurateur Ralph Gulko, who was making a pun of the word "ghoul," and his own similar last name, tagged with a generic "ethnic"ending. (Wikipedia...)

Personally, I grew up with Ghoulardi's descendants, Hoolihan and Big Chuck and then Big Chuck and Little John, Super Host, the Ghoul, and the Son of Ghoul.
Interesting place, the Cleveland-Akron-Canton strip.

"Stay Sick!"

Softening Up

I hinted at this analysis a few posts ago. Here's someone who still gets paid for it...

US claims against Iran: why now?
Analysis
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC news website

At the moment, the US lacks a casus belli and by claiming that Iran is responsible for killing USA troops, it could be laying the groundwork for a 'self-defence' justification, according to this theory. (More...)

Of course, there's no foregone conclusion until the one actually sees the proverbial fecal matter striking the rotary style, vortical air, cooling device.

Real security

I've blogged about Bruce Schneier in a previous incarnation, but I wanted to point to his work again.
Mr. Schneier has been called by many a "security guru" and has been highly critical of what he terms the "Security Theater" that has been played out since September 11th, 2001. He is a specialist in computer cryptography, writes books, and blogs about security issues. His company was recently purchased by British Telecom.
Now a lot of people might think "great, security wonks talking about stuff. Real exciting." But really, anyone can benefit from the straight talk about the issues that goes on there. Some of it is pedantic, but mostly it's accessible to the regular joe. I actually have his blog RSS'd, as the topics are poignant and important for understanding just how fucked up and manipulated the response to the attack on the World Trade center has been and the drivel that is coming out of those that are responsible for securing the nation. But his blog isn't just bitching, Bruce also points out the recipes for good security and security policy.
For me the single most important function Schneier does is remind me to check the number's. At the core of security is risk assessment. While this seems obvious to many, we often over value some threats and undervalue others. For example, since 2001, 2752 died from terrorist attacks in the U.S., while 4875 pedestrians were killed in 2002 alone or multiplied by as many years, approximately 20,000 have gotten themselves run over in the same time period. I often tell people who are aware of my intelligence and counter-terror/insurgency background "In today's world of heightened security, one of the most effective things you can do to protect yourself is...Look both ways before crossing the street."
The same applies to practices. While we may garner an increase in protection from a practice, it may be insignificant statistically, have negative implications that are not immediately apparent, distract from a more effective program, and so on.
I've also acquired a great password safe that he designed, for free. Good for securely managing all the passwords without leaving scraps of paper around your desk.
Don't be a Security lemming, check out Schneier on Security.

• Schneier on Security: A weblog covering security and security technology.

Dodge this...

Oh death
Oh death
Won't you spare me over til another year

Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands taking hold of me
Well I am death none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell

Whoa death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me til another day
The children pray the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach

I'll fix your feet til you can't walk
I'll lock your jaw til you can't talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very hour come and go with me

In death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To drop the flesh off of the frame
The earth and worms both have a claim

Oh death
Oh death
Won't you spare me over til another year

My mother came to my bed
Place a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a movin upon my soul

Oh death how you're treatin me
You close my eyes so I can't see
Well you're hurtin my body you make me cold
You run my life right out of my soul

Oh death please consider my age
Please don't take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you'll remove your icy hands

Oh the young the rich or poor
All alike to me you know
No wealth no land no silver or gold
Nothin satisfies my but your soul

Oh death
Oh death
Won't you spare me over til another year
Won't you spare me over til another year
Won't you spare me over til another year

tDCS

transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is the application of very weak electrical currents (1-2 mA) to modulate the activity of neurons in the brain. (Wikipedia)

I was right!!!
I at least suspected it. Well, I just liked the idea of doing something where I got to hide in my basement and put electrodes on my head. I'm not crazy, but I like the thought of it. I mean have you seen all the "normal" fuckers out there? With their pent up neurosis, their constant chasing the elusive image of the American Dream® (and I use image quite deliberately), all bundled up in a warm, fuzzy blanket of false security brought to you by the folks at Haliburton.
But I digress. This is great...the idea of sending electricity through your head isn't necessarily bad for you, in fact it might even be good for you.
I'm just pissed I got beat on the story.

Brain-O-Matic
By PAGAN KENNEDY
February 7, 2007
Can a jolt from a nine-volt battery make you smarter? Happier? Medical researchers revive a discarded technology and set the stage for the ‘brain pod’. (More...)

Here's some discussion at Make about tDCS with a link to a podcast.

More screwing around with your own head
Along these lines, one device I've tried and I like is the Brainwave Generator which operates aurally. I had a headache for a couple of days. Not a rager, but it was incessant. I downloaded the software, put on the head phones, and set it to Headache treatment (circular). Ten minutes, the headache was gone.
The concept behind it is entrainment or brainwave entrainment, which is to put it simply, the natural tendency for frequencies to want to agree. Now certain overall states of the brain produce a certain overall frequency, which many of us have heard of as Alpha, Beta, Delta, or Theta wave states.
Now should you be in a state that you don't like, such as Alpha when you're trying to get to sleep (the deepest sleep state being Theta), you place your headphones on, select the preset you want (Sleep) and let the program walk your brainwaves down to lower frequencies with not unpleasant tones.
This process is essentially what one does using other techniques such a meditation or biofeedback, except that one doesn't have to spend a lot of time practicing until one learns who to adjust themselves. With the software, one frequency or the other has a tendency to want to give. The programs aren't responsive, which leaves your brain as the one to have to adjust.
It all made a lot of sense to me. I've used it on and off for a couple of years now and found the effects top be subtle but noticeable. Nothing was as profound as the headache treatment, but I particularly like to use the relaxation or meditation settings as I run. I figure that exercise is meant to calm and relax and if I associate those qualities with the activity it'll make the activity all the more desirable. I usually adjust the volume settings on the program so I can play it under music or a podcast as I workout.
The program is free, but after a month you'll get a ten second nag. Paying for it also unlocks forums where people discuss their experiences and discoveries as they try different settings. There are also other programs/devices out there which I haven't tried, but look promising. Search around a bit.
The point is that there are more ways than just the digestive system (eg. caffeine) to hack your brain.

• Brainwave Generator

Doctorin' the Tardis

If you've played the music on the right, you may have heard the track on there called Dr. Who (actually it's called Doctorin' the Tardis but I thought I'd keep it simple). The Timelords are actually a British one off from a group called KLF which most frequently stands for Kopyright Liberation Front, which made sense as I mentioned to Blank Maxine that it sounded like there was a bit of Gary Glitter in there. I checked and found that the Timelords/KLF are really a sort of an original mash ups/samplers with more projects than just music. The Timelords where also fronted by Ford Timelord, a Ford Galaxy police car. Really.
My '63 Fairlane's envious.

• Kopyright Liberation Front
• KLF Online

BTW...

...a big fuck you to all the fuckers who blamed the failure to find WMD's on the Intel community.

Pentagon office produced `alternative' intelligence on Iraq
By Jonathan S. Landay 2.8.07
McClatchy Newspapers(MCT)

A special unit run by former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's top policy aide inappropriately produced "alternative" intelligence reports that wrongly concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime had cooperated with al-Qaida, a Pentagon investigation has determined. (More...)

Links

Bear with me...still flushing the sickness out. (I've heard of this getting viruses on the internet, so I believe Busker's right when he said I got it from him.)
With that, a couple of interesting places I've virtually been...

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Established 1990
From Wikipedia:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a non-profit advocacy and legal organization based in the United States with the stated purpose of being dedicated to preserving free speech rights such as those protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in the context of today's digital age.

Gallery Kranj - Beutiful photos taken in Kranj, Slovenia and The Alps

The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.



Tiki Bar TV

Further evidence of the impending kleptocracy/oligarchy

"I need Comms (communications equipment). ... I need ammo. ... I need Glocks and M4s. ... Guys are in the field with borrowed stuff and in harm's way,"

Even the merc's are getting short shrifted.

Blackwater e-mail outlines gear shortage.

But when you decide to contract with corporate, tassel toes with BS Business degrees, I guess you gotta play the hand you drew.

He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas. - Ben Franklin

Pause

Rhinovirus

Meta

One of Blank Snag's incarnations

For the nightcap...

Astronaut Arrested
Charged With Attempted Kidnapping After Confronting Woman She Believed To Be Rival For Affections Of Pilot (CBS News)

An astronaut drove 900 miles and donned a wig and trench coat to confront a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot, police said. She was arrested Monday and charged with attempted kidnapping and other counts.

U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak, 43, who flew last July on a shuttle mission to the international space station, was also charged with attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery. She was denied bail.

Do you think Ballard might have scripted this?

Police said Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport — wearing diapers so she would not have to stop to urinate — to confront Colleen Shipman. (More...)

Now we're talkin'

Boing Boing has the link for this.

That would be a 1100ci DOHC V8 Sherman tank engine.











Circuit Bending from Make
And I am so making one of these as soon as I complete any one of my 10498 projects I've got in the works....


"it makes me sound like a robotic puppy-eating demon. in a good way, of course."

It reminds me of Peace...





..aka Necron 99

Oil and water

This...
HY-2 Haiying

and this...

Aircraft carrier returning to Persian Gulf region from Somali mission (The San Diego Union-Tribune 1.31.07)

The carrier left Tuesday to return to the Persian Gulf region, where it had been supporting NATO-led forces in Afghanistan before going to the African coast, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. (More...)

if you mean this...

“We believe we can solve our problems with Iran diplomatically,” Bush denies preparing attack against Iran (The Financial Times January 26 2007)

Ballard radio

Links open in new window/tab.
Here's a link to seven half-hour mp3's of JG Ballard stories as dramatized on the CBC's Vanishing Point (If you can't get quick time to work there try this link). Of all Ballard's work that I have read, The Dead Astronaut made a particularly strong impression on me. When I was a child I had wanted to be an astronaut as many young children do and had even made it in to school studying Aerospace Engineering for a couple of semesters before joining the Army.
But, as far as being an astronaut goes, and I hope I don't sound bitter, it seems to me to get to that level in any profession it takes more single-minded obsessiveness than I'm capable of. For me, maybe I lack focus, but there are just too many interesting things out there to spend so much time doing just one of them.
It was in fact The Dead Astronaut that largely inspired the title of this blog, although at the time I only had the impression of the story in my head and not the story itself. Often I have a sense of melancholy for the death of the Space Age, the waning days of transcendent and maybe naive hope that America and much of the world had held as embodied by Collins, Aldrin, and Armstrong. Early on, even after tragedy, people held strong to the ideal. My generation experienced some of that, but I also remember the images of Nixon on TV when I was very young and maybe a bit of Vietnam. Then, after a peanut farmer, an actor was made president and was shot by a man who was inspired by a cult movie. Somewhere along the way, we fired one of our employees in Panama and one of our bogeymen walked away leaving us to scramble to find another lest the people get any ideas. Decaying space age enthusiasm killed 14 more, however not as many seemed to care about the second as they did the first. A quick war for oil preceded another one, with many of my fellow soldiers suffering from an ambiguous illness known as Gulf War Syndrome.
Many other things happened as well that has brought us to this point. Are we the first generation to believe that society's in decline? Studies have shown that ours is the first not expected to do as well as our progenitors. And our successors of half to one step seem content with their world of gimmickry technology and shiny things.
Now Ballard's land and mindscapes haunt me, as I watch Toffler's Thirdwave unfold while the jestor that made me laugh and gave me hope passed a short time ago.

RE/Search Publications has some great Ballard publications. I highly recommend starting with this independent publisher (V.Vale) for an introduction to Ballard's work.

Thanks to Rick McGrath for making these radio programs available. He's got a wealth of Ballardian Dystopia available online.

Links

• The Terminal Collection: JG Ballard First & Variant Editions.
• JG Ballard Radio Dramas on The Vanishing Point

Links

Why Blank Snag?

Engulfed Cathedral
Busker's on to something. This entry caught my jaundiced eye Paramilitary Police Terrorizing U.S. Citizens, Says Cato Institute and it's accompanying article.

I'm looking for the evidence to remind myself that all this....this wonderful world of plastic...is not real. Once we break from the pardigm. Really see outside of it...that is when we can learn how to game it. Somewhere outside of the images THEY would like us to believe is happiness. And not some Disneyfied world of sugarcanes and clouds made of cotton candy, but a world in which we embrace our humanity and the intriguing, fascinating challenges put before us.