tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131487562011-12-14T22:08:51.092-05:00For the last 7 years, I have been giving historical walking tours of my home village--Woodstock, Vermont. I try with each walk to turn this seemingly tidy and wholly unmysterious place upside down and inside out, to create perceptual surprises. That is what I would wish for this blogwalk to do as well. Thanks for joining me.troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.comBlogger231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-88040564378048519222010-01-13T20:21:00.007-05:002010-01-13T22:22:49.917-05:00<span style="font-family:arial;">Walking from Montreal to Manhattan this past spring, it seemed that every day I was traversing old ground, crossing some paths of </span><span style="font-family:arial;">my own biography</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> -- some recent, some </span><span style="font-family:arial;">long vanished. Never having been to Austin before, I have no past paths to cross, but tonight, walking out from the Ransom Center, knowing that my dad had been a law student here in 1952-3, I started to think about <span style="font-style: italic;">his</span> paths. I was thinking it would be fun to find a historic photo on the Web, and so I did a Google image search for "University of Texas Austin Law School."<br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06Ej_fmJvI/AAAAAAAAACQ/kTYVliLEvB4/s1600-h/sweatt.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06Ej_fmJvI/AAAAAAAAACQ/kTYVliLEvB4/s320/sweatt.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426420354902271730" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">The photo above was one of the first images, and reminds me that this was a very different place when Dad arrived here over a half century ago. Only two years before, Heman Marion Sweatt stood in the registration line for classes at the University of Texas School of Law, after a 4-year legal battle which saw an NAACP legal team, led by Thurgood Marshall, prevail in the US Supreme Court in forcing the University to admit a black man. Dad, did you ever meet Heman Sweatt while you were here?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Sweat is what I get to do down here while all my friends and family shiver up north. I'd had cold weather all the way to New Orleans, and was happy to watch the thermometer climb to the high 40s on Sunday as I drove across the bayou country towards Austin. Monday morning I rose to discover that my new digs (with Brad Riley and his wife Tara) back up to the greenbelt that flanks Barton Creek, which just a short distance downstream widens out to the Barton Springs Pool, which has been the mecca for Austin bathers for generations.<br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06J50M7GZI/AAAAAAAAACY/uB6jS1PdeIM/s1600-h/P1120029.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06J50M7GZI/AAAAAAAAACY/uB6jS1PdeIM/s320/P1120029.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426426227386423698" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Keen to get baptized in the local waters, I went for a swim yesterday morning in the 67 degree outdoor pool (free admission from 5 AM to 9 AM!); it felt almost warm compared to the 45 degree morning air. A regular told me that the temp used to be a steady 72 all year long -- quite refreshing in midsummer, and only tempting to a few hardy souls this time of year. They had turned off the water at the showers because of the freezing temps at night of late, but even so, the open air locker room in mid-January was a welcome treat!<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06Kp9uPKkI/AAAAAAAAACg/5pXLk9By-Yo/s1600-h/P1120027.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06Kp9uPKkI/AAAAAAAAACg/5pXLk9By-Yo/s320/P1120027.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426427054575790658" border="0" /></a>Yes Dad, those are your swimming trunks!<br /><br />The Harry Ransom Center is a sumptuous place to work, with an unparalleled collection of resources on the history of magic. I am going to do my disappearing act right now, as it's late, but I'll leave you with this poster from the heyday of Spiritualist showmanship. . .<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06NnfcMG4I/AAAAAAAAACo/3018PC5uwf0/s1600-h/Maskelyne-and-Cooke-B_Jhelp.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 308px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/S06NnfcMG4I/AAAAAAAAACo/3018PC5uwf0/s320/Maskelyne-and-Cooke-B_Jhelp.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426430310622174082" border="0" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-8804056437804851922?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-38882811283665788842009-06-24T08:47:00.008-05:002009-06-24T09:12:29.958-05:00The hoboing goes splendidly. Yesterday evening was so lovely that I decide to walk on from Bowdoin Park, through the happy hamlet of New Hamburg, where the porch sitters looked particularly serene<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIxTf5KySI/AAAAAAAAAA8/R0BQR40RhmA/s1600-h/P6230015.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIxTf5KySI/AAAAAAAAAA8/R0BQR40RhmA/s320/P6230015.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350893518318127394" border="0" /></a><br />and was thrilled when I got my first glance of the Hudson Highlands -- Storm King away off to the south -- and delighted by this little optical trick of the setting sun cast across the big puddles along the railroad tracks:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIvz1WxKKI/AAAAAAAAAAc/fNTJm_5EeBA/s1600-h/P6230005.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIvz1WxKKI/AAAAAAAAAAc/fNTJm_5EeBA/s320/P6230005.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350891874811979938" border="0" /></a><br />those little vertical shadows across my midsection are the upside-down reflection of my legs, and as I was walking I got to watch my legs walking both right-side-up and upside-down. Such ephemeral surprises are among this long walk's greatest graces. Just after I took this photo, the nice soft alluvium along the RR turned to foot-rupturing crushed stone, and, seeing an open hillside and what appeared to be a road, I cut cross lots. . . and a couple of minutes later, a pair of DEP (NY's Dept of Environmental Protection -- fully armed) cops pulled in front of me, lights flashing, and jumped out. They asked for ID, waited for the dispatcher to get back with info about whether I was a terrorist, and then released me when they got word I was only wanted in a single small rural state for ringing bells. As I headed for the HUGE gate, unsure exactly what sensitive government installation I'd trespassed upon, I was met by the gatehouse guard Phil, who somewhat awkwardly asked me to sign out on his clipboard, even though I hadn't signed in.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIwTE54ALI/AAAAAAAAAAk/E2XR4nu1FaY/s1600-h/P6230016.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIwTE54ALI/AAAAAAAAAAk/E2XR4nu1FaY/s320/P6230016.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350892411561705650" border="0" /></a><br />When I told Phil what I was up to, he very eagerly asked me: "Which way does Lake George drain -- into the Hudson or Lake Champlain? When I told him that it came into Lake Champlain via the La Chute River, he then, with a big, sweet, can-you-top-this?! look, asked: "Do you know why most rivers in the northern hemisphere drain south, and most in the southern hemisphere drain north?" "Coriolis effect?" I guessed. "No, the bulge at the equator. . ." and then he gave me a mini-geography lesson. All this hospitality from the guy who was in charge of keeping me out of the joint relaxed me, especially because as we were talking, the DEP cops went out the gate. "What is this place, anyway, that there is so much security?" Phil glanced over his shoulder both ways, then said he guessed he could tell me, since it wasn't any secret. "This is where the Croton Aqueduct comes back up after tunneling under the Hudson." He pointed to a little vent pipe coming out of the grass at a little distance (you can just barely see it above and to the right of my mando on my back in this photo)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIw6sUEMJI/AAAAAAAAAA0/J3yvBDsG-1o/s1600-h/P6230015.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIw6sUEMJI/AAAAAAAAAA0/J3yvBDsG-1o/s320/P6230015.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350893092155437202" border="0" /></a><br />Phil proceeded to tell me the whole history of New York City's water supply, and then invited me in to his heavily fortified gatehouse to show me some historic photos:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIwnx-yT_I/AAAAAAAAAAs/wDHxrRJ_Bic/s1600-h/P6230012.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIwnx-yT_I/AAAAAAAAAAs/wDHxrRJ_Bic/s320/P6230012.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350892767259283442" border="0" /></a><br />I felt so gratified to think of such a well-informed gatehouse guard protecting my destination city's water supply. Thanks Phil for the great lesson!<br /><br />Lingering so long with Phil meant that I wouldn't make it to Beacon by nightfall, and as the last light -- and the first fireflies of my walk! -- faded, I passed a darkened house for sale, with a big wrap-around porch. I tried the door, and it was open, and so I pitched my sleeping bag out back on the screen porch. There was a nice swimming pool out back, so this morning at 4:30 AM I got a little pre-walk swim in too!<br /><br />Oh my! The sun has come out here in Beacon, and a red-tail hawk is being mobbed by a pair of crows. Oh, leave the poor fellow alone! There has been so much rain this past month, that it seems that absolutely all creatures great &amp; small should live and let live for awhile. "I hereby declare a moratorium on all animal behaviors outside cooperation and compassion . . ."<br /><br />Maybe I could get the Hudson Valley's most celebrated and beloved citizen, Pete Seeger, to make this decree. Last week Pete was declared "Honorary Beacon Citizen." When my friend Mickey De Nicola saw Pete at the Clearwater Festival on Sunday, she asked him if he planned to come to "Maps &amp; Dreams" at the Howland Center tonight, he opened up his day planner, and she said the only thing written in for Wednesday was: "KEVIN DANN". I called yesterday and Pete's wife Toshi said she'd pass my invitation on to him, so there's a chance I'll get to sing "If I Had a Hammer" with him. I can still recall singing this in the 6th grade talent show in 1968, wearing plastic love beads and a funky scarf.<br /><br />Well, I guess some things never change. (That's Dick Tracy, ex-mayor of Hudson, giving me the key to the city. . . )<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIxzCrdMeI/AAAAAAAAABE/X3qTIux71C8/s1600-h/P6160011.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/SkIxzCrdMeI/AAAAAAAAABE/X3qTIux71C8/s320/P6160011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350894060231799266" border="0" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-3888281128366578884?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-86038036817436960902009-03-29T09:33:00.003-05:002009-03-29T10:09:16.935-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/Sc-HpMAeFOI/AAAAAAAAAAM/2FKvWm1OKQ4/s1600-h/small+CMC+cover.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 116px; height: 173px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m2mwkjdWEhw/Sc-HpMAeFOI/AAAAAAAAAAM/2FKvWm1OKQ4/s320/small+CMC+cover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5318618826615428322" /></a><br /><br />This morning I put up a short synopsis of the book that I have written with Robert Powell, <span style="font-style:italic;">Christ and the Maya Calendar: 2012 and the Coming of the Antichrist</span>, on the <span style="font-style:italic;">Reality Sandwich</span> website<br /><br /><a href="http://www.realitysandwich.com/christ_amp_maya_calendar_2012_amp_coming_antichrist">http://www.realitysandwich.com/christ_amp_maya_calendar_2012_amp_coming_antichrist</a><br /><br />and it has made me aware that it would be helpful to have some excerpts available for people to read. Here is the Table of Contents and Preface, which I hope will give a better glimpse of our research.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">-CONTENTS-</span><br /><br />Part I: The Mayan Calendar and the Apocalypse Code – by Kevin Dann<br /><br />Preface <br /><br />Chapter 1: Calendars Do Not Forget <br />The World Tree, the Milky Way, and the “2012 Window” <br /><br />Chapter 2: The Gospel in the Stars <br />The Apocalypse Code <br />The Incarnation of Ahriman <br />Krishna and the Kali Yuga <br /><br />Chapter 3: The Mexican Mysteries <br />The Sacrilege of Bloodletting <br />The “Prince of the House” and the Rise of Huitzilopochtli <br />The Attack on the Holy Grail <br /><br />Chapter 4: Redeeming Lucifer, Rediscovering Itzamna <br />Clothed with the Sun, the Moon under her Feet <br />The “Descending God” at Zama <br /><br />Chapter 5: Recognizing Evil, Manifesting the Good <br /><br />Part II: Penetrating the Mysteries of Time – by Robert Powell<br /><br />Chapter 6: The Dating of Kali Yuga in Relation to the <br />Mayan Calendar <br />Chapter 7: The Rhythm of 666 Years <br />Chapter 8: The Redemption of Lucifer <br />Chapter 9: The Rose of the World <br />Chapter 10: The Mystery of Love <br />Afterword <br /><br />Appendix: The Central Sun <br /><br />Bibliography <br /><br />About the Authors <br /> <br />Preface<br /><br />Katun 11 Ahau is set upon the mat, set upon the throne, when their ruler is set up. . . The heavenly fan, the heavenly wreath and the heavenly bouquet shall descend. The drum and rattle of the lord of 11 Ahau shall resound, when flint knives are set into his mantle. . . Ahau 11 is the beginning of the count, because this was the katun when the foreigners arrived. They came from the east when they arrived. Then Christianity also began. The fulfillment of its prophecy is [ascribed] to the east. . . This is a record of the things which they did. After it had all passed, they told of it in their [own] words, but its meaning is not plain.<br /><br /> -- <span style="font-style:italic;">The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel </span><br /><br />As we read these words from the Chilam Balam – the collection of Mayan oracular texts – we cannot help but feel grateful for the honesty of the Mayan chronicler who wrote them. Written down in the 19th century, in the Yucatec Mayan language, the images and sentiments stretch back to the time of the Spanish conquest, and there is much bitterness along with the honesty: “[Katun 11 Ahau:] when Christianity was introduced by the real Christians. Then with the true God, the true Dios, came the beginning of our misery. It was the beginning of tribute, the beginning of church debts, the beginning of the strife with purse-snatching. . .” Thanks to their passionate devotion to both prophecy and history, the voices of the ancient Mayan people resound into our own time, telling us something about this extraordinary moment through which we are living. Something . . . “but its meaning is not plain.” <br /><br />Indeed, despite the explosion of books and videos that claim to penetrate the mystery of “2012” – the numerical shorthand for the completion on December 21, 2012 of the thirteenth <span style="font-style:italic;">B'ak'tun</span> cycle in the Long Count of the Mayan calendar – consensus about its meaning seems ever more elusive. As metaphysical speculation mounts, professional astronomers and ethnologists dismiss the whole body of modern interpretations of the Mayan calendar as New Age gobbledygook. Among the supposed seers themselves – José Arguelles, Carl Johann Calleman, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck ¬– doctrinal disputes worthy of academics are now the norm. The scholars have every right to be miffed at the sometimes sloppy thinking and exaggerated claims – which tend toward enthusiastic proclamations of an imminent, universally accelerated psychic evolution – of the seers; the seers have legitimate critiques about the limits of scientific inquiry when it comes to the prophetic traditions of ancient peoples. <br /><br />For us 21st century moderns perhaps more than for the anonymous Mayan chronicler above, it would be deeply unsettling to think that Christian prophecy could be brought to bear upon the Mayan calendar in order to solve the riddle of 2012. That is the premise of this book.<br /><br />Five centuries ago, the Maya and other native peoples of the Americas saw their lives shattered by the long-prophesied arrival of the strange, cross-bearing peoples from the East. In the case of the Mexica (the name the people called themselves; “Aztec” became widely used in the 19th century by English-speaking students of the region), this shattering was facilitated by their indigenous prophetic tradition, as the courageous Lord Montezuma, mistaking Hernan Cortés for the Plumed Serpent deity Quetzalcoatl, allowed the conquistadores easy entry into the heart of Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Mexica empire. Given our historical knowledge of the terrible violence of the human sacrifice practiced there, we could perhaps sympathize with Cortés as he ordered the bloodthirsty idols in the sacrificial temple pyramids to be smashed and replaced by the Cross and the Virgin Mary. Nevertheless, we human beings of today resent the hubris of the act and correspondingly feel incensed by the arrogance of the conquistadores. Today we cringe to think of the destruction by the Spanish of the vast repositories of Mexican and Mayan chronicles, which might have helped us unlock the riddles of their calendrical systems, their myths, their prophecies.<br /><br />Those riddles are vast, persistent, and yet demanding of renewed inquiry. The question of the significance of the Mayan Long Count’s end date in 2012 has taken on particular relevance, given its imminence, and the variety and vociferousness of some of the claims made about it. In May 2008, in Tulum, Mexico, participants at a week-long field study and lecture series led by Robert Powell and sponsored by the Sophia Foundation of North America were able to take up this question of the mystery of the Mayan calendar. Inspired by visits to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, Coba, and Chichen Itza and by the discussions among the participants, Robert Powell extended his pioneering research on the Apocalypse Code to help make sense of the “timing” of the Long Count. Building from Rudolf Steiner’s important indications about the incarnation of Ahriman, and the activity of Lucifer and Ahriman on the American continent at another crucial moment in human history, he also has brought forth new discoveries about the nature and identity of the spiritual beings whose continued activity have played such an important role in the spiritual history of America and the world. Finally, Robert here presents crucial research about the cosmic dimension to the unfolding events of our own time.<br /><br />Teaching a course in Modern World History – “modern” in this case meaning from 1500 to the present – I have a wide range of places and times which I can choose to explore with my students. For the past three years I have focused on the encounter in 1519 of Hernan Cortés and the Aztec emperor Montezuma, since it brings so poignantly into focus the confrontation between the magico-mythological worldview of the Mexica and the rational worldview of the Spanish. While the early modern era saw countless encounters all over the globe between European rationalism and pre-modern native mentalités, there was for me a special urgency to bring new understanding to the story of the Aztec empire, in light of Rudolf Steiner’s stunning revelations about an earlier episode of spiritual battle in the region. Reading Morris Collis’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Cortez & Montezuma</span> (1954), my students were able to enter into the thought world of the Aztec, deeply enough to suspend their innate skepticism that an entire civilization could mistake Cortés for the god Quetzalcoatl.<br /> <br />Participating in the Tulum field study, and subsequently editing the lecture material, has given me the opportunity to reflect further on both the history of the “Mexican Mysteries,” and their relationship to the Apocalyptic events now transpiring. Personally, it has been an extraordinary challenge to walk a path between exoteric and esoteric scholarship; I invite readers to walk that path with me and see what rings true. <br /><br />Perhaps the year 2012 and what it is bringing also offers an opportunity for a path toward the synthesis of the prophetic traditions of North American native and European newcomer. From the long-misused heart of Christian prophecy – the Book of Revelation – and two of its modern interpreters – Rudolf Steiner and Robert Powell – come images that can affirm and extend the deep intuitive wisdom that has rippled down through the ages from the Mayan astronomer-priests, scribes, kings, and common folk. Like the images that still adorn the ruins of Mayan temples, these Christian apocalyptic images become living only if we take them in deeply and discerningly. The time is truly at hand; let us begin.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-8603803681743696090?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1123113015247301982005-08-03T07:22:00.000-05:002005-08-04T06:54:26.420-05:00<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026939/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos23.flickr.com/31026939_2ecf78cb5b.jpg" alt="Finders keepers" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">While other investigative journalists have gone to great lengths to penetrate the secrets of Skull & Bones, the Bohemian Grove, or Hogwarts School of Witchcraft &amp; Wizardry, I am excited to publish this exclusive behind-the-scenes exposé of some of the activities of the enigmatic Sophia Foundation of North America, while they were gathered at the remote Windsong Retreat in Pittsboro, North Carolina.<br /><br />The first morning I found a small group of Sophians searching the ground feverishly. We believed they were hunting for salamanders or gnomes, but upon further investigation it turned out that the newly-wed Lucky Paul lost a stone from her wedding ring.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Following the mysterious Dr. Robert Powell and his new bride to an exclusive Pittsboro restaurant, Beyond Main Street paparazzi discovered that this esoteric group has as its central fetish object a curious straw hat, which apparently possesses powerful forces of levity.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026193/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos21.flickr.com/31026193_ceed81633b_m.jpg" alt="Newlyweds in hat" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31023941/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos22.flickr.com/31023941_bcc6e5820a_m.jpg" alt="M-H in hat" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31023945/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos22.flickr.com/31023945_a899b76a57_m.jpg" alt="Margaret hat" height="240" width="180" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026192/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos23.flickr.com/31026192_76b87a4c24.jpg" alt="Annie hat" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31023943/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos23.flickr.com/31023943_fef6247fa2_m.jpg" alt="Marlene hat" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31023942/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos23.flickr.com/31023942_c95894120b.jpg" alt="Kathy hat" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">We managed to catch Dr. Powell furtively collaborating with the famous <span style="font-style: italic;">danseuse pour les étoiles</span>, Marie-Hélène Hébert, in what magical act of computing we can scarcely imagine,<br /></div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026938/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos22.flickr.com/31026938_387304ae37.jpg" alt="Star hunting" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">although shortly thereafter we found participants cavorting merrily with their newly minted sidereal horoscopes. Out of respect, we will not publish photographs of the numerous participants who fainted away after discovering that their signs had shifted into a new region of the zodiac.<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026194/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos21.flickr.com/31026194_bb20861d3b.jpg" alt="Chart frenzy" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br />One afternoon, we discovered local ringleader Kelly Calegar and the wildwoman Sandy Bisdee being put through ther planetary paces by Dr. Powell.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026195/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos22.flickr.com/31026195_1ad1b6264e.jpg" alt="Planet mimicry" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br />We were relieved to discover that a few men had managed to penetrate the ranks of this Divine Feminine Mystery School.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026937/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos23.flickr.com/31026937_1bb4f0595b.jpg" alt="Boys" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br />They too participated in the alchemical hat ritual:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026191/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos21.flickr.com/31026191_73793c1dfc.jpg" alt="Jim hat" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Although we were unable to get photographic evidence of the cosmic dances the group performs, we did witness a harmonious choir one afternoon, under the tutelage of the composer Marcia Burchard, who seemed to radiate an extraordinarily brilliant light during the week.<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31026196/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos22.flickr.com/31026196_632c885f2a.jpg" alt="Chorus" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br />The most exciting journalistic moment came after an evening lecture by Dr. Powell, when we caught the group in a Bacchanalian feast upon chocolate chip mint ice cream.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31023940/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos21.flickr.com/31023940_42a03e00b4.jpg" alt="Empty Bowls" height="325" width="450" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The Sophians grew quite used to our presence, and at week's close they graciously posed for a group photo. We will return next year and see if we cannot uncover more secrets . . .<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/31023939/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos23.flickr.com/31023939_bc12a41d02.jpg" alt="Group" height="325" width="450" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112311301524730198?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1121867895324373832005-07-20T08:36:00.000-05:002005-08-03T20:39:34.473-05:00<div style="text-align: justify;"> <div style="text-align: center;"> <img src="http://movies.about.com/library/graphics/waroftheworldspubc.jpg" /><br /></div><br />Last week I went to see the new film, <span style="font-style: italic;">The War of the Worlds</span>. I still remember how frightened I was by the 1950s film, and I had always been fascinated by the 1938 Halloween incident, when millions mistook Orson Welles’s radio dramatization of the 1898 H.G. Wells novel for a real report of invaders from outer space. Having grown up in New Jersey, I wanted to see how “Grover’s Mills” or its analogue Garden State village would be portrayed in this Steven Spielberg remake. His film has Bayonne as the landing place of the aliens, and Tom Cruise as a divorced longshoreman who, with his weekend-visiting children, spends 90 cinematic minutes fleeing the death-dealing robotic invaders.<br /> <br />Wells’s story is said to have been inspired by Boston astronomer Percival Lowell’s writings about the “canals on Mars.” (Lowell mistranslated Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli’s canali–lines–for human-constructed “canals”) Lowell’s books on Mars were bestsellers, and though dismissed by professional astronomers, he singlehandedly spread the idea–still, amazingly, alive at NASA, witness last year’s Mars lander hype–of life on Mars. But for Americans in 1898, there was a much more dramatic possible inspiration for Wells’s story of visitors from another planet.<br /> <br />In American skies from California to Texas and north to Minnesota, in late 1896 to early 1897, thousands of people saw strange, unknown craft that they called "airships." Airships were variously explained as kites, balloons, the planet Venus, the star Sirius, or just plain hoaxes or fakes. Many explained what they saw as ships from an abandoned civilization on Mars.<br /> <br />The people who saw the mysterious airships also saw and heard the ship’s “pilots” and/or passengers. During the first sighting in Sacramento, several people reported hearing voices from the ship, including one that said: “Well, we ought to reach San Francisco by tomorrow noon.” Others heard laughter. Within a week or so, the airships were seen in San Francisco, by even more observers, and on December 2nd, two Italian fishermen offshore from Pacific Grove, watched a craft swoop down and land on the beach. When three occupants emerged and carried their ship into the woods, the fishermen headed into shore to speak with them. One of the aeronauts stopped and argued with the fishermen, and then allowed them to approach. Coming closer, they saw a 60-foot long cigar shaped object with retractable wings.<br /> <br />The next night, in Twin Peaks California, a similar craft crashed. Witnesses noticed a foul-smelling gas coming from the structure. A man calling himself “J.D. DeGear” emerged and said that this was the airship’s initial flight, and was not connected with any of the other ships sighted.<br /> <br />After a few months quiet, on April Fool’s Day in 1897, the airships started to appear again, this time in Kansas City, Missouri. Around 8 PM a powerful searchlight swept the air, the streets, the housetops and bluffs around the town, attracting attention, and the streets were soon filled with people watching the show. For more than an hour it hovered and wobbled, flashing its light beam along the horizon, then finally it lifted off, growing smaller as it climbed swiftly and vanished to the Northwest. A few minutes later, it was sighted over Everest, Kansas, sixty miles away.<br /> <br />There were thousands of witnesses to the Kansas City sighting, including the governor and many other officials, professionals, and ordinary citizens. All agreed that the unknown vehicle had made abrupt changes in direction and made other strange maneuvers. Once, for a few moments, it had extinguished its light and hung over the city as a dark, motionless mass. Then finally, after almost ninety minutes of aerial display, it was gone.<br /> <br />Suddenly, it seemed as if the heartland of the nation was under siege by an aerial armada of searchlight-equipped airships. The first week of April saw hundreds of reported sightings in Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, then the phenomenon spread northeastward to Burlington, Iowa. The airships then turned east through Illinois, appearing in Chicago on April 10. People watched the flickering green and red lights from the top of a downtown skyscraper.<br /> <br />Again, there were reports of “close encounters.” In Springfield, Missouri, a traveling salesman was driving his wagon when he suddenly saw an airship on the ground – and two creatures "dressed in nature's garb." Hopkins described to his local newspaper how the odd naked couple had communicated with him telepathically, inviting him into the airship, which then began to rise. Hopkins panicked and jumped off before it got far off of the ground.<br /> <br />Mysterious, advanced technology spacecraft. Naked, mind-reading aliens. The smell of fire & brimstone. Nonsensical stories. April Fool’s Day. In 1897, nearly fifty years before what is regarded as the official beginning of the “UFO era,” in 1945.<br /> <br />Things have only gotten wierder since then. I did a quick search for the week of the release of <span style="font-style: italic;">War of the Worlds</span> and found: Over Jalapa Mexico, a huge flotilla of UFOs were seen by thousands on successive nights; television crews filmed them. UFO reports came in from New Hampshire, Michigan, Arizona, Connecticut, Texas, Oklahoma. A 22-year-old woman in Queensland, Australia, who saw while driving, a 7’ tall, scaly, ashen-colored creature with the torso of a man and the head of a locust. In South Bend, Indiana, a number of people called police to report an escaped kangaroo, but there was no zoo in town from which it might have escaped. The same day, <span style="font-style: italic;">War of the Worlds</span> star Tom Cruise snapped at a German magazine reporter who asked him about his allegiance to Scientology and his belief in life on other planets: "'Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe? Millions of stars, and we're supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there. We just don't know."<br /> <br />A few nights after this, to “illuminate” listeners whose curiosity and fears about alien invasion might be rekindled by Spielberg’s movie, Larry King had on a panel of “experts” who succeeded in muddying the waters of knowledge about extraterrestrial life, UFOs, and alien abduction even more than it might have already been in their own minds. Too bad Larry wasn’t able to invite Cotton Mather, who would certainly have recognized these sky visitors as demons, or an expert on the Koran, which teaches that the jinn (which translates to mean “something hidden from view”) are beings that attempt to turn humans from God. Mather would no doubt have quoted the Apostle Paul, who wrote, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of the air." Indeed.<br /> <br />The battle with these powers and principalities -- demonic denizens of an unseen world -- has been going on for millennia, but the 20th century, especially in America, saw the demons, the jinn, increasingly make themselves temporarily at home in our world. In 1897 it was only telegraph lines that went haywire when the airships appeared; today, UFO sightings routinely see: cell phones and television sets and computers go dead; car alarms sound; hundreds of electronic door locks in shopping mall parking lots all seize up simultaneously. A few cattle, sheep, and chickens disappeared from midwest farms in 1897; in recent decades, livestock and domestic pets have been found mutilated in ways that baffle both seasoned ranchers and wildlife biologists, but not exorcists and demonologists. The turn of the century episode saw a few fishermen and farmers who encountered fairly friendly spectral airship pilots. The last half century has seen millions of Americans claim that when they were lifted aboard spaceships, the occupants performed horrific acts upon them, akin to what prisoners at Abu Ghairab and Guantanamo have suffered at the hands of their captors.<br /> <br />Many people who have been abducted –and tortured– claim that their captors are really benevolent, interested in the destiny of humankind. They return from their nighttime wanderings with messages from the aliens that man must stop destroying the earth, or they will soon perish. John Mack, the Harvard psychologist, who, with funding provided by Woodstock's own Laurance Rockefeller, celebrated alien abduction as a “transformational experience,” wrote: “The aliens stress the evolutionary aspect of the species-joining process, the repopulation of the Earth subsequent to a total environmental collapse.” How can one love the earth, and wish to preserve it, if one’s ‘love of the earth’ is the product of abduction, terror, and violation of one’s human integrity?<br /> <br />Similar salvific messages come from a host of channeled voices, many of whom claim to be angels or gods who actually created humanity. Prominent among these voices are ones who identify themselves as “Melchizedek,” “Enoch,” and “Metatron.” Metatron is the name of an Archangel. Enoch is an Old Testament prophet deemed immortal. Melchizedek is identified in the Old Testament as Abraham’s master, thought to represent humanity’s original and perennial knowledge of Truth.<br /> <br />If there is anything one can say about the slippery jinn who have been pouring through the fissures opening up between the subtle world and our physical world, it is that they have little relationship to the Truth. Indeed, their hallmark is deception. If, as Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them,” a cursory review of the history of airships and UFOs and alien abduction will provide a cornucopia of rotten fruits.<br /> <br />Here in the daylight world of Woodstock, the myth of the UFO is rather unappealing, and rather unworthy to be spoken of or thought about. Yet it is a myth -- and a sinister reality-- with which I believe we all need to reckon. It is a “sign of our times,” that the “visitors from outer space” are insistently telling us that “higher beings” are preparing to usher in mankind’s true cosmic destiny. This is not an April Fool’s Joke, but a counterfeit of an imminent truth – that not Christ, but the being who is “the ape of God,” the Antichrist, is finding a convivial home on the planet at this time. All of the contemporary responses to UFOs – the view of the aliens as redeemers of humanity and the planet Earth; the suspicion of dark govenmental conspiracies seeking to cover up the “reality” of UFOs and aliens; even the scientistic rejection of all eyewitness and other physical evidence as pure projection and hallucination– only serve the ends of the fallen jinn, in their perennial, and presently fully apocalyptic quest to deceive and confuse humankind.<br /> <br />Never since the beginning of the Christian era have demons appeared so openly and extensively as today, and their message is crystal clear: “Prepare for a savior; however, expect deliverance, not from the Christian revelation and faith in an unseen God, but from vehicles in the sky.” We do need to prepare ourselves for this ersatz savior, this impersonation of Christ, and one of the precursors to recognizing this false savior is to see his preparatory legions for what they are – superficially clever, cloyingly solicitous, and existentially absurd, pests. That a lifeform so much lower than the human has maneuvered itself into a position of being worshiped is a clear sign that the time is ripe for a much larger deception to play itself out on the stage of human history.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112186789532437383?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1121787589570543242005-07-19T09:49:00.000-05:002005-07-19T16:13:53.633-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1146058/photo_37_thumb.jpg" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I rarely go to the movies, but when I do, I like to wait for a film to come to our own Town Hall Theater. Sitting together silently in the dark for a couple of hours is about as communal an experience as we moderns can have, a wan echo of an ancient mystery school initiation rite. Sunday night I went with friends to Town Hall Theater to see the new Star Wars film, "<span style="font-style: italic;">Revenge of the Sith</span>." After the film, we panned its wooden performances and its weak plot, but said nothing about a much more disturbing aspect.<br /><br />My friend Geoff told us before we went that he had heard "the first twenty minutes are dynamite." I have just spent a half hour searching the Web to see if anyone out there in <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> fandom counted the number of explosions – of human beings and "droids" as well as of computer animated starships and their aerial fighting fleets –that happened in this first twenty minutes, not to mention the rest of the film. I would guess that there were far more explosions than we witnessed at the fireworks a few weeks ago. Over a thousand, I bet.<br /><br />In the publicity photos like the one above, the light sabers look so sexy, don't they? But in the movie, these glowing wands are the instruments of incredible violence. Anakin Skywalker defeats Count Dookov by first severing the Count's hands, then decapitating him, with a pair of lightsabers. Later, Obi Wan Kenobi will slice off both of Anakin's legs, and an arm. Even little Yoda enacts his share of carnage with the favored weapon of the Jedi knight.<br /><br />The Jedi are portrayed as superior beings whose use of violence is always seen as just – and triumphant. Substitute an arquebus, crossbow, cannon, flintlock or other weapon for the light saber, and you have a pretty handy picture of the process of European colonization of North America. Of course, our own memoirists of war have tended to emphasize the horrific violence of the savage enemy. One can read the journals of Columbus, Cartier, Champlain, Hudson, and scores of other advance agents of empire, or the Jesuit fathers, or Spanish missionaries for early drafts of George Lucas's screen action.<br /><br />When handsome Jedi Anakin Skywalker sliced off the evil Count's head, I wondered if anyone in the theater thought of Nicholas Berg or Daniel Pearl, or other Americans beheaded by Muslim terrorists. Ever since Columbus stumbled onto Hispaniola's shore, we've been fed images of cannabilistic enemies who would have our heads, but rarely do we see one of our own white knights imagined or real performing a beheading. Only "they" – Caribs, Mohawk, Muslim – could act so savagely, not us. Indeed, the only instance that comes to mind is that scene in the 1930s film of Kenneth Roberts' <span style="font-style: italic;">Northwest Passage</span>, where one of Major Robert Rogers' (Spencer Tracy) Rangers, a survivor of a murderous raid on his family by savage Abenaki warriors, furtively places an Abenaki head in his saddlebag.<br /><br />In <span style="font-style: italic;">Revenge of the Sith</span>, no heads are placed in saddlebags, for they and other body parts leave their host bodies in episodes of explosive fury. Though they haven't actually counted the explosions, the <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.youngmedia.org.au/mediachildren/07_04/07_04_162_star-wars-sith.htm">Young Media Australia</a> site does an excellent job of tallying the overall violence:<br /><ul> <li> In the opening battle between a Republican army and an army of droids there are many violent images: ships exploding, pilots tumbling through space, pilots consumed by cockpit fire, dozens of droids consumed by an oil fire, buildings in the air destroyed by explosion, bodies hurled against walls, Obi-Wan pinned unconscious underneath a section of wall. </li><li> Count Dooku's hands are severed and he kneels in front of Anakin, holding the stumps of his wrists in the air (minimal blood and gore). </li><li> Anakin holds two lightsabres at Count Dooku's throat, and Chancellor Palpatine entices him to kill the Count. Anakin decapitates the Count and there is an ecstatic look on Palpatine's face. (Actual images of the decapitation are not shown. Dooku's body falls to the ground and his head is seen rolling away in the background.) </li><li> Obi-Wan battles the leader of the droid army, General Grievous. At one point, Grievous tosses Obi-Wan around like a rag doll. Later Obi-Wan rips open Grievous's chest to reveal a beating heart, and then shoots Grievous with a lazar gun. Flames erupt from his chest cavity and eye sockets. </li><li> The scene where Mace Windu and the Jedi attempt to arrest Palpatine is dark and brutal. Palpatine resembles a rabid animal as he leaps from his chair, attacking the Jedi with his lightsabre. He impales one Jedi, and slices another through the chest (minimal display of blood and gore). Later in the scene, Palpatine's body is consumed by bolts of electricity, his face distorts taking on a horrifying, desiccated, pitiful, mummy like appearance as the electrical current consumes his body. Palpatine pitifully pleads for Anakin to save his life. Anakin responds by severing Mace Windu's lightsabre hand. Palpatine then hurls bolts of electricity at Mace hurling his body out of the window to disappear from sight His body is shown sailing past the buildings below. </li><li> Anakin/Vader uses his lightsabre to mercilessly slaughter numerous Jedi, including images of a temple floor strewn with Jedi bodies. </li><li> There is a scene where Anakin (implicitly) kills numerous defenseless Jedi children. Anakin stands in front of a room full of young children with his lightsabre blazing and a very dark and possessed look in his eyes. A boy of about five years if age, who seems worried, asks Anakin what's going on. Anakin's response is to fire up his light saber. It is obvious that he is going to kill the child. This scene is potentially very distressing to a child. There are later images of the same room littered with the bodies of dead children. </li><li> There are numerous scenes of clone warriors murdering their Jedi masters; images are shown of Jedi men and women, and a young Jedi boy of about twelve years of age, being ruthlessly shot with multiple laser fire. </li><li> Anakin/Vader ruthlessly slaughters several Separatist leaders. The scene is particularly brutal, with Anakin/Vader portrayed as completely void of all remorse. One Separatist begs Anakin/Vader to spare his life, but Anakin cold bloodedly looks at him taking his time to draw out the scene before he commits the murder. </li><li> Anakin uses The Force to strangle Padme into unconsciousness. Anakin stares at Padme with a very dark and hateful look in his eyes, then raises his hand as though pinching the air. Padme grabs her throat gasping for breath, and several seconds later she collapses to the floor. </li><li> The final lightsabre battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan is brutal and vicious, with images of Anakin/Vader strangling Obi-Wan, Anakin and Obi-Wan punching and kicking each other in the face and body, both striking blows at each other with their lightsabres. The fight takes place over a huge river of molten lava, and there is a strong sense of threat or menace, including very dramatic music. The scene goes on for quite a while and the final image is of Anakin/Vader somersaulting over the top of Obi-Wan, as Obi-Wan wields his lightsabre and Anakin falls to the ground in a heap. </li><li> At the same time as this fight is going on, Palpatine and Yoda are also fighting with lightsabres. The fight is carried out quite high up in the Senate chamber with the threat of a long fall. </li><li> The next image is of Anakin/Vader lying on the ground at the edge of the river of lava. Both of his legs have been severed and one of his arms. As Anakin uses his one remaining arm to crawl up the bank, the remains of his ruined torso catch fire; the fire starts at the bottom and works its way up until his ruined body is engulfed. Finally a wave of lava washes over his burning torso. The last image is of a completely ruined body with the flesh left raw, burnt and smouldering; the image is explicit.</li> </ul><br />Where is the conversation that all of us in Woodstock and in America should be having about the spiritual and social effects of such violence? Just as there is a direct line from America's colonial Indian wars to its first overseas imperial venture in the Phillipines, there is a direct line from <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> to the war in Iraq, where the boys who grew up on this orgy of simulated carnage now man the gunships and tanks that maneuver not through the outer reaches of the solar system, but Fallujah, Mosul, Karballah.<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112178758957054324?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1120664199944218882005-07-06T08:50:00.000-05:002005-07-07T12:56:17.890-05:00<p style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51); text-align: center;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="body"><img src="http://www.aei.org/imglib/20021218_Ledeen.gif" /></span></span></p> <div style="text-align: justify;">Taking just one day to celebrate America's revolutionary heritage seems rather stingy, so I thought I might go "beyond main street" to look at an American revolutionary who usually doesn't get to share the limelight with Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, and Benjamin Franklin. Neither the Huguenot night-rider nor the Founding Fathers can come close to the incendiary ambitions of <span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="body"><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.35,filter.all/scholar.asp">Michael Ledeen</a>, "Freedom Scholar" at the <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute">American Enterprise Institute</a>. Ledeen is one revolutionary guy, and oddly enough, I found out just how revolutionary in a surprising source, </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="body"><i>The American Conservative, </i>whose </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="body"> </span></span>June 30, 2003 issue<span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="head2"> includes an article, "<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html">Flirting with Fascism</a>," by John Laughland.<br /> </span></span></div> <p style="text-align: justify;" class="body"><br />Laughland opens his article with a quote from Ledeen's latest book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The War Against the Terror Masters</span>:<br /></p> <blockquote> <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div> <p style="text-align: justify;" class="body">Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.</p> </blockquote> <p style="text-align: justify;" class="body">On first blush you might wonder if Ledeen's inspiration for such violent rhetoric comes from Leon Trotsky or Aleister Crowley. Ledeen covertly proclaimed Trotsky as his ideological mentor with his 1996 book, <i>Freedom Betrayed</i>, whose title is a hagiographic echo of Trotsky’s <i>Revolution Betrayed</i>. Ledeen explains that “America is a revolutionary force” because the American Revolution is the only revolution in history that has succeeded, the French and Russian revolutions having quickly collapsed into terror. Consequently, “[O]ur revolutionary values are part of our genetic make-up . . We drive the revolution because of what we represent: the most successful experiment in human freedom. . . We are an ideological nation, and our most successful leaders are ideologues.”</p> <p face="georgia" style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ledeen's other books reveal just how revolutionary a fellow he is. In <em>Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago, </em>Ledeen declares that "Change -- above all violent change -- is the essence of human history."<br /></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The chief theorist of the neoconservative cabal is a fan of some other Italians beside Machiavelli: in 1976, he wrote a worshipful biography of Italian fascist Gabrielle D'Annunzio, and in his masterwork, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Universal Fascism</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> (1972), (in which he critizes Mussolini for not being revolutionary enough), he calls Berto Ricci—the editor of the fascist newspaper </span><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">L’Universale</i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">– “brilliant” and “an example of enthusiasm and independence."</span><br /></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"> <span class="BodyText">I guess that Ledeen's love of Italy was cultivated while serving as visiting professor of history, University of Rome, Italy (1975-1977) and as </span><span class="BodyText">Rome correspondent with <i>The New Republic (</i>1975-1977). Those are the credits listed on the AEI site, but it seems that he was up to some </span>"creative destruction" of his own in those years. In the wake of the August 2, 1980 Bologna train station bombing that killed 81 people and injured 200 others, Italian intelligence officials testified that the bombing had been planned by a coalition of British, Swiss, and American operatives. According to Barbara Honegger's <em>October Surprise</em> (1989), when Italian police raided the home of Licio Gelli, the grandmaster of Rome's extreme right-wing Masonic Lodge, P2, Michael Ledeen offered to buy the list of 953 P2 members in an attempt to keep it from becoming public. Along with his own name, the list included his friends Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig.<br /></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="BodyText">Ledeen's biography on the AEI site shows his Italy junket followed by posts as </span><span class="BodyText">Senior staff member, Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies (1977-1981) </span><span class="BodyText">and "Special adviser to the Secretary of State (1981-1982). That would be Secretary of State Alexander Haig. His "special advice" was on "anti-terrorism."<br /></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="BodyText">Jeff Wells has stayed on Ledeen's trail –</span><span class="BodyText">both the possibility of Ledeen's involvement with the <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/yellow-cake-and-black-shirts.html">Yellow Cake/Niger affair</a> and <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/07/italian-job.html#comments">Nicola Caspari's murder</a> by American troops in Iraq– </span><span class="BodyText">over at the Rigorous Intuition blog. Of course, the most recent unfolding of the "Italian connection" seems to be the </span><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/06/30/security.italy.kidnap/">seizure by 13 wildly uncautious CIA agents</a> of Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, from a Muslim community in Milan.<br /></p> <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div> <p face="georgia" style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51); text-align: justify;" class="MsoTitle"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The degree to which secret societies bent on global domination are emerging into the open is quite astonishing to me, although given the torpor of the mainstream media, they are easily hiding in plain sight. The "outing" of these sinister outfits seems to be more and more thanks to the students of esotericism, from dedicated bloggers to scholars. For an example of the new 007, see the most recent issue of Esoterica, for </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >an article by Ohio State University's </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >Hugh Urban</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">: </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >"<a href="http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVII/Secrecy.htm">RELIGION AND SECRECY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION</a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" href="http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVII/Secrecy.htm"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">: The Gentleman, the Prince, and the Simulacrum</span></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">."</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p> </span></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:georgia;" class="MsoTitle"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112066419994421888?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1120582498518954452005-07-05T10:59:00.000-05:002005-07-05T11:54:58.553-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/23788541/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos18.flickr.com/23788541_9808a27162_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Pledge" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I looked around to see who else was not reciting the pledge of allegiance yesterday at the opening of Woodstock's Independence Day celebration, but was stunned to see that all hands were over hearts, with full attention directed at the flag. Folks didn't even seem to see the irony of Pepsi's plethora of red, white and blue advertisements plastered beside Old Glory. Before riding my bike down to the gathering, I had had fantasies of creating some sort of guerilla theater to draw attention to the lamentable state of the nation on this its 229th birthday. A giant puppet of Dubya breathing fire or dribbling goo out of his smirking mouth. Or a Karl Rove garagantuan papier maché mock up running amok with the legs and torso of outed and offed CIA agents sticking out of his demonic mouth. . .<br /><br />I settled for a straight ahead reading of the Declaration of Independence to the convivial crowd assembled on the high school lawn for a pre-fireworks picnic. Sabrina Brown promised that next year I could read it to the whole crowd. This birth certificate for the American nation is powerful prose at any time, but particularly now, when our government has become a monstrous caricature of the imperial behemoth from which the signers were declaring their independence. The 4th has come and gone, but it's not too late to renew your acquaintance with the "unanimous declaration" of 1776.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src = "http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:mHZ6m0RSJCYJ:www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/uc06330.jpg" /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America</span><br /></div> </div><br />When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.<br /><br />We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.<br /><br />He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.<br /><br />He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.<br /><br />He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.<br /><br />He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.<br /><br />He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.<br /><br />He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.<br /><br />He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.<br /><br />He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.<br /><br />He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.<br /><br />He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.<br /><br />He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.<br /><br />He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.<br /><br />He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:<br /><br />For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:<br /><br />For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:<br /><br />For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:<br /><br />For imposing taxes on us without our consent:<br /><br />For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:<br /><br />For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:<br /><br />For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:<br /><br />For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:<br /><br />For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.<br /><br />He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.<br /><br />He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.<br /><br />He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.<br /><br />He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.<br /><br />He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.<br /><br />In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.<br /><br />Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.<br /><br />We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112058249851895445?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1120154524425937242005-06-30T12:35:00.000-05:002005-06-30T13:09:55.810-05:00<div style="text-align: justify;">When I read Bush's Fort Bragg speech yesterday, I wanted to count the number of times that he used the word "terror," or "terrorist," but was too lazy to do so. My thanks to Pascal Riché, a journalist for the French newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">Liberation</span>, who has kindly posted on his <a style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);" href="http://usa.blogs.liberation.fr/" target="_blank">blog</a> a synopsis of the speech, with an itemization of Bush's subliminal vocabulary of fear. Here it is, in the order in which the words appeared in Bush's speech: </div> <blockquote> <p>“Global war on terror, <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">September the 11th, 2001</span>, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists, terrorists</span>, totalitarian ideology , freedom, tyranny, oppression, terror, kill, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, September the 11th, freedom, enemy , war, terrorists, kill, murderous ideology , <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorism, terrorists</span>, free nation, war on terror, freedom, violence and instability, dangerous, violence, bloodshed, violence, sacrifice , war on <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terror,</span> violence, killers, freedom, criminal elements, hateful ideology, freedom, liberty, democracy, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, war on <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terror</span>, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, Osama Bin Laden, murder and destruction, enemy, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, car bombs, enemy, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, suicide bomber, enemy, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, violence, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists, terrorists, terrorists</span> , freedom, enemies, September the 11th, Bin Laden, enemy, free, tyranny, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, anti-<span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorist</span>, free, al Qaeda, free nation, <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists, terrorists</span>, enemy security <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists</span>, anti-<span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorist</span> <span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);">terrorists, terror</span>, enemy, tyranny , enemies, freedom, freedom, ideologies of murder, atrocity, <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">September the 11th</span> 2001, car bombers and assassins, freedom, freedom, flying the flag, freedom, freedom, <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">September the 11th 2001</span>, enemies.</p></blockquote> <div style="text-align: center;"> <div style="text-align: justify;">The antidote to the sort of false terror engendered by the neocons, it seems to me, is twofold: discernment, and delight. Tim Traver, the missing band member from our State House session (he's the handsome one at the base of the rock), supplied the first antidote this morning as we rode home from a gig at the AMC's Highland Center up in Crawford Notch. The whole band supplies me with perennial and nonstop delight, and on this 50th birthday of Tim's wife Delia, I delight in showing off Delia's photo of us up in Crawford Notch. Thanks fellas.<br /></div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/22633524/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos15.flickr.com/22633524_613b810e0a_b.jpg" alt="Da Boyz" height="270" width="210" /></a><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112015452442593724?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1120063496997574192005-06-29T09:36:00.000-05:002005-06-29T12:16:15.000-05:00<blockquote> <div style="text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/images/20050628-7_f1g5232-515h.jpg" height="180" width="240" /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Last night, I rode my bike around the village looking for someone with a television, so that I could watch Bush's speech from Fort Bragg. I ended up playing with my friend Susannah, and didn't get a chance to read the <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050628-7.html">speech</a> until this morning. The White House web site accompanied the text with photographs that were eerily reminiscent of ones I had seen before:<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><img src="http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/images/pt36/scan1.jpg" /><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></div><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Albert Speer surely would have recognized the dramatic effect of this shot:</span><br /><br /></div> <img style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" src="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/images/20050628-7_g8o0263-515h.jpg" height="180" width="240" /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <div style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <div style="text-align: justify;">After all, <span style="font-family:georgia;">Nuremberg could have been nicknamed Hitler's "Fort Brag," since it was the site each September </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">for the Party Day rallies that showed a German State in obedient lockstep with its leader and his twisted ideology. Bush's Speer, Karl Rove, set a perfect backdrop for Bush's latest round of mendacious sloganeering. </span></span></div><br /><img style="width: 440px; height: 230px;" src="http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/images/pt36/scan4.jpg" /><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Though the sycophantic American media may now dare to disbelieve Bush's propaganda (today's <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/opinion/29wed1.html?"><font>New York Times</span></a><font><font><font><font><font><font><font> says that "<span style="font-family:georgia;">we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks"), its blindspots continue to glare as brightly as the Speer's Nuremberg klieg lights. What has the New York Times or the Washington Post had to say about the <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=1">World Tribunal on Iraq</a>, which ended the day before Bush's latest rally?<br /></span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><img src="http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/img.php?img=i/db/resim/00/-IS-24%20June%20-%20Jury%20of%20Concscience.jpg" /><br /><font><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font>The </span><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=91">Jury of Conscience</a> at the World Tribunal on Iraq, less than 24 hours before President Bush delivered another round of lies at Fort Bragg, made the following recommendations:<br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font></span><font></span></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font> 1. The immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the coalition forces from Iraq;<br />2. That coalition governments make war reparations and pay compensation to Iraq for the humanitarian, economic, ecological, and cultural devastation they have caused by their illegal invasion and occupation;<br />3. That all laws, contracts, treaties, and institutions established under occupation which the Iraqi people deem inimical to their interests, should be considered null and void;<br />4. That the Guantanamo Bay prison and all other offshore US military prisons be closed immediately; that the names of the prisoners be disclosed, that they receive POW status, and receive due process;<br />5. That there be an exhaustive investigation of those responsible for crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity in Iraq, beginning with George W. Bush, President of the United States of America; Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and other government officials from the coalition of the willing;<br />6. That we initiate a process of accountability to hold those morally and personally responsible for their participation in this illegal war, such as journalists who deliberately lied, corporate media outlets that promoted racial, ethnic and religious hatred, and CEOs of multinational corporations that profited from this war;<br />7. That people throughout the world launch actions against US and UK corporations that directly profit from this war. Examples of such corporations include Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle, CACI Inc., Titan Corporation, Kellog, Brown and Root (subsidiary of Halliburton), DynCorp, Boeing, ExxonMobil, Texaco, British Petroleum. The following companies have sued Iraq and received “reparation awards”: Toys R Us, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Shell, Nestlé, Pepsi, Phillip Morris, Sheraton, Mobil. Such actions may take the form of direct actions such as shutting down their offices, consumer boycotts, and pressure on shareholders to divest.<br />8. That soldiers exercise conscience and refuse to enlist and participate in an illegal war. Also that countries provide conscientious objectors political asylum.<br />9. That the international campaign for dismantling all US military bases abroad be reinforced.<br />10. That people around the world resist and reject any effort by any of their governments to provide material, logistical, or moral support to the occupation of Iraq.<br 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style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 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at 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/></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font>The members of the Jury of Conscience, convened from ten different countries, issued these recommendations in hopes that they would "lay the groundwork required for a world where the international institutions will be shaped and reshaped by the will of people and not fear and self-interest, where journalists and intellectuals will not remain mute, where the will of the people of the world will be central, and human security will prevail over state security and corporate profits."</span><font><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The Jury of Conscience needs our voices to echo loudly its outrage and its courageous call for justice. Six years passed between Hitler's invasion of Poland and the 1945 war crimes trial at Nuremberg; I take heart that the world has only taken two and a half years to indict the criminals who perpetrated this war.</span><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font></span><font><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style="text-align: 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/></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-112006349699757419?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1119900036008230392005-06-27T12:26:00.000-05:002005-06-27T23:21:17.393-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://photos17.flickr.com/21938885_a3bb732952_m.jpg" alt="Ethan & the Boys" height="180" width="240" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">On Saturday night, after a wedding gig in Stowe, 4/5 of <span style="font-style: italic;">Damaged Freight</span> detoured into Montpelier for an impromptu jam session with a famous Vermonter who is celebrated for his military heroism, his pioneer spirit, and oratorical prowess. We heard from reliable sources that he was also a nifty dancer,<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/21943425/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos16.flickr.com/21943425_080ca84054.jpg" alt="State House Jam" height="240" width="180" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">so we sidled on up to Ethan Allen and started playing a few jigs and reels, and sure enough, he cut capers right along with us. We had just gotten a blues improv going ("My name is Ethan Allen, I'm a Green Mountain Boy. . .") when wouldn't you know it, in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress, a latter day Green Mountain Boy – a State House security patrolman – came striding up the steps at us.<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/21938886/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos17.flickr.com/21938886_981b27a5c2.jpg" alt="The Law" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">We stopped playing, and Randy asked if we were in trouble. "Naw, as long as you're not skateboardin' or hangin' from the trees, you're fine." He even said he was enjoying our music.<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/21938887/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos16.flickr.com/21938887_7d4c3b48fe.jpg" alt="Meeting" height="240" width="180" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Randy told the security guard that his grandfather Dudley L. Leavitt had sat in House seat # 200 for quite a few years as the Representative from Pomfret. It was nice to think we were welcome on the State House steps, even if we hadn't had relations who served in the Legislature.<br /><br /></div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/21943424/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos17.flickr.com/21943424_aaca611ab8.jpg" alt="Proud Randy" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111990003600823039?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1119718218472568952005-06-25T08:46:00.000-05:002005-06-25T11:50:18.520-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><img src = "http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Places/images/psalter1260.jpg" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b><span style="font-size:85%;">On this globe, East is on top, and North is on the left. Gog and Magog are placed in the region of Russia or Mongolia, at the 10 o'clock position:<br /><br /></span></b></i></div> <img src = "http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Places/images/gogpsalter1260.jpg" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"> <div style="text-align: justify;">I've been in Canada the last couple of days, staying in Magog, at the north end of Lake Memphremagog, home of Vermont's other lake serpent, and – if I hadn't been chaperoning three children – an interesting place to meditate on the nature of identity, history, and memory. Though it still says "<span style="font-style: italic;">Je me souviens</span>" on the Quebec license plates, in this town founded in 1799 by refugee Loyalists, there were no visible signs that Saint Jean Baptiste Day was being celebrated any differently than Independence Day south of <span style="font-style: italic;">la frontière</span> – i.e., as an excuse for fireworks and loud music. And I wondered what any locals of Abenaki descent made of Quebec's motto; the typical Quebecois has little idea of the meaning of the motto (from Eugene Tache's poem, ca. 1880: "<span style="font-style: italic;">Je me souviens que ne sous le lis je fleuris sous la rose</span>." -- "I remember that born under the Lily, I have prospered under the Rose."), much less the meaning of "Memphremagog," the <span style="font-style: italic;">Wonbanakiak</span> name for this big border lake.<br /><br />How many Montrealers or Quebeckers or Americans stay in or pass through Magog believing that the village name alludes to the Scythian nation of the Old Testament? And for that matter, what exactly was the "Magog" of Ezekiel 38: 2?: "<span style="font-family: georgia;">Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him." "Magog" appears in the New Testament too: "</span>And when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his place of confinement, and he will go forth to deceive and seduce and lead astray the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth -- Gog and Magog -- to muster them for war ..." [Revelation 20:7-8] Apocalypse hunters can peruse this 13th century map or current events all they wish, but they won't come up with the right location. I agree with Saint Augustine, who in his <span style="font-style: italic;">City of God</span> points out that John says that Gog and Magog are "the nations which are in the four corners of the earth," i.e., all nations. Evil will issue forth from all nations because the Tempter can – and does – work upon each and every one of us.<br /></div> <table style="width: 679px; height: 16px;" dir="ltr" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /> </td> <td valign="top" width="24"><br /></td></tr></tbody> </table> <div style="text-align: center;"><img src = "http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/images/planetdan.jpg" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Gog. Magog. Blog. There's a nice symmetry there, the twin loci of Evil from the Bible finding sonorous sympathy with this vehicle of communication seeking to redeem Evil. In the wake of the Downing Street Memo, and wan pundit commentary from Michael Kinsley to Daniel Schorr, it truly feels as if the blog has eclipsed forever major news media as the hope of making meaning from current events.<br /> </div> </div> </div> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111971821847256895?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1119389925269351732005-06-21T12:35:00.000-05:002005-06-21T17:31:54.700-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/20736790/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos15.flickr.com/20736790_d8eb90ad50_m.jpg" alt="Trials rehearsal" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The evening of my recent arrest, our church choir (here’s a photo of some of us noodling in the sanctuary) had its annual end-of-the-year potluck gathering, and I told bass singer and local activist Chris Lloyd about the detoured tour. <a style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" href="http://www.timken.com/">“Timken</a>! You know they are a major defense contractor, don’t you?” Nope, as a matter of fact, I had no idea, but spent a couple of hours online discovering what role Timken plays in America's Iron Triangle.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://logo.cafepress.com/nocache/0/44113.405390.jpg" /><br /><br /></div> A leading international manufacturer of highly engineered bearings, alloy and specialty steels and components, and a provider of related products and services, Timken employs 28,000 people worldwide in operations in 29 countries. In 2002, its combined companies had sales of approximately $3.8 billion. A considerable portion of those sales are from military contracts – including parts for the <a style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" href="http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2004/01/284087.mpg">Apache attack helicopter</a>, the CH-47 helicopter and the F-16 fighter jet:<br /><br />- under George W. Bush, Timken's military contracts rose $45 million, a 176 % increase over the last four years of the Clinton administration;<br /><br />- the majority (60%) of the Timken weapons systems contracts were awarded without competitive bidding (and you thought it was only Halliburton that enjoyed such special privilege – oh, by the way, Timken Director <a style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jay_A._Precourt">Jay Precourt</a> is also a Director at Halliburton);<br /><br /> - Timken paid no federal income taxes in 2002 on its $3.8 billion in sales;<br /><br />- in 2002 and 2003, Timken received more than $92 million as a result of anti-dumping penalties on foreign steel makers;<br /><br />- in June 2003, company chairman W.R. "Tim" Timken Jr. (who is also a member of the Diebold Company’s Board of Directors) co-hosted a fundraiser in Akron, Ohio that raised $600,000 for the president;<br /><br /> - in the 2004 election, Tim Timken raised over $350,000 for the Bush campaign<br /><br />The Timken Directors were not in Woodstock accidentally; along with a manufacturing plant across the Connecticut River in Lebanon, a Timken family/board member has a vacation home here. And Timken has friends in key places in New England as well as in Washington. As it turned out, the week before my original misadventurous walking tour, New Hampshire Representative Charlie Bass, in his "Capitol Link" newsletter reporting on his activities in Congress, had proudly reported his affirmative vote on Resolution 114, then as proudly crowed that the Timken operation in Lebanon had recently been awarded over $5 million in US Department of Defense contracts.<br /><br />In April, 2003, <a style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" href="http://www.muc.edu/news/james_w_griffith_speaks_of_the_importance_of_business_ethics">Jim Griffith</a> – the cordial CEO of the Timken Company, who introduced me to the Timken Board of Directors when I gave them a pre-dinner lecture about the history of manufacturing in the Ottauquechee Valley last Tuesday night – welcomed President George W. Bush to Timken’s ball-bearing and steel manufacturing plant in Canton, Ohio. Bush delivered a speech trumpeting his administration's economic accomplishments (a cover for selling his third tax-cut for the rich), and tipped his hat to the workers at the Timken plant: ""The greatest strength of the American economy is found right here, right in this room. . . Here at Timken, last year productivity rose 10 percent. Which means that America can compete with any nation in the world, because we've got the finest workers in the world." Within the year, Timken announced that it would close three plants and eliminate 1,300 jobs, including a quarter of its workforce in Canton. At about the same time, the company opened a fourth plant in China.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.simonpearce.com/Content/ProdImages/mill.jpg" /><br /><br /></div> While I was waiting to speak to the Timken directors the other night at Simon Pearce, there was a sort of feeding frenzy going on in the retail shop, as directors' wives snatched up glassware. The retail staff was delighted, as were the restaurant staff, who served a high end menu that evening. The next day, the Gallery on the Green was delighted to host the women for a breakfast reception and another buying spree. The Woodstock Inn was delighted to have the Timken Directors bed and board with them all week. I was glad to make a couple of hundred bucks for my performances, and I genuinely enjoyed all of the Timken people, especially Marlene Toot, who put herself in the line of fire when I was arrested.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.timken.com/aboutus/whereyouturn/images/timken-wyt.gif" /><br /><br /></div> In the lobby and conference center of the Woodstock Inn during the week of the Timken corporate retreat, you could find this sign, directing the Timken directors to their meeting rooms. "Where You Turn" is a new slogan for the Timken company, and while most Americans associate Timken bearings with race cars (that's Danica Patrick, Timken-sponsored driver who finished 4th in the recent Indy 500)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.timken.com/media/images/motorsports/patrick1-th.jpg" /><br /></div><br />The face that they would be more astute in turning to would be the one on the right below:<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.cohengroup.net/images/ralston,wolfowitz.jpg" /><br /><br /><br /></div>The newest member of the Timken board, <a style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" href="http://www.af.mil/media/bio/ralston_jw.jpg">General Joseph W. Ralston</a>, retired in 2003 from a 37-year Air Force career as commander, U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO, in Mons, Belgium. General Ralston previously served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1996-2000). Even if Danica Patrick should win the Indy 500 next year, I don't think that they will put her on the Timken Board of Directors.<br /><br />On my walking tours, I always celebrate Woodstock as a place of hospitality, and yet I wonder if Timken should really be welcome here – or anywhere. The bed &amp; board and shopping sprees and walking tour were all bought ultimately with money that has come avalanching into board and investor pockets because of arms contracts guaranteed by the Bush administration's mad imperial adventures. Apache helicopters and F-16s and every bearing and rotor turning inside them is paid for with our tax dollars. All of us here in the Upper Valley who took in Timken dollars last week were seeing our own money returned to us, with the devastating costs – whether the lives of innocent Iraqis and Palestinians mowed down by Apache gunners or the sacrifice of participatory democracy on the black altar of plutocratic manipulation of the American electoral process – well hidden. Where we need to turn is toward awareness, toward the conscious linking of our local economies to the larger economies that engulf and direct our lives. Only then will our hospitality be well-given and well-worth the giving.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111938992526935173?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1119273219574528542005-06-20T06:39:00.000-05:002005-06-21T17:27:00.450-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/19967063/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos15.flickr.com/19967063_a66d873195_m.jpg" alt="Courthouse" height="240" width="180" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In October 2002, I was leading a group of 25 "offshore investment counselors" (one of them, a fellow from Brussels, when I asked him what he did, very candidly confessed that he and his colleagues were "money launderers") on a walking tour, their first stop on a luxury "incentive package" adventure through New England. They had come in by Lear Jet to the airport in West Leb, the tour planner keen to give them a premium experience of peak foliage in the prettiest little village of Vermont.<br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br />A couple of days before this walk, Congress had by an almost 3 to 1 margin passed House Resolution 114, giving President George Bush authorization to use military force against Iraq. I got into a discussion with my group about the obvious preparations being made to invade Iraq, and to dramatize what I believed to be the sleepiness of the American citizenry, I ran in to the County Courthouse, and rang the big cast iron bell three times, thinking of Henry David Thoreau's action when the First Church authorities would not themselves ring the bell to summon Concord citizens to hear Thoreau's "Plea for John Brown."<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/19967061/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos15.flickr.com/19967061_1681a3bc29_m.jpg" alt="Standard Headline" height="240" width="200" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Rejoining the group out on the sidewalk, I told them how in the 19th century, the courthouse bell not only summoned the lawyers and judge and spectators back to the courtroom after a jury had brought in its verdict, but that it was tolled on occasions when the whole village needed to be called into action – for a fire, or an important meeting such as the one Thoreau felt compelled to call. I apologized to these Europeans for America's inaction, its failure to sound the alarm that its elected government was planning to embark another imperial adventure that was bound to put the whole world on a hair-trigger.<br /><br />We walked to our next stop, the Unicorn, where I began to speak about the need of every village, and every nation, for the Fool, the powerless one who would speak truth to power, and how the Fool was most essential when the <span style="font-style: italic;">polis</span> was fat and self-satisfied with its own imperial hubris. I was about to reveal to them Vilas's cupboard, when Patrolman David Singer pulled up in his cruiser and told me that I was under arrest, and would have to accompany him to the police station. "David, I can't go anywhere; I have to get this group back to the airport in an hour. I'll come see you after that," I replied.<br /><br />Back at the police station after seeing off my group (who took up a collection for my legal defense), I was told I had been charged with unlawful trespass and disorderly conduct, and that Assistant Judge William Boardman (the one who had phoned the police to report me) also had written up an order barring me from entering courthouse property. When asked by an AP reporter if his reaction was appropriate, Judge Boardman replied: "I don't understand why you would even ask such a question. . . Are we not living in a time of heightened security consciousness? Have you not heard of September 11?"<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/19967062/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos15.flickr.com/19967062_fc09d46136_m.jpg" alt="Globe headline" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Back in October of 2002, I could never have imagined how much we would hear that "Remember 9/11" injunction as a justification for military adventurism, erosion of civil rights, or for widespread torture and abuse of innocent Iraqi and Afghani citizens. Last week, as I toured a group of wives of the Board of Directors of the <a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" href="http://www.timken.com/">Timken Company</a> around the village, I told the story of the racism directed by Woodstock and other Vermont citizens at the so-called "gypsies," who throughout the 19th and early 20th century, periodically camped out on the floodplain meadows of the Ottauquechee across from the Billings Mansion. In 1927, Frederick Billings's nephew, Governor Franklin Billings, had been enthusiastic about the <a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.uvm.edu/%7Eeugenics/">Eugenics Survey of Vermont</a>'s findings that the reason the gypsies didn't stay put in one place was because they were afflicted by "a recessive gene for nomadism." Vermont found a solution for this in 1931, when the legislature passed "<a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" href="http://www.uvm.edu/%7Eeugenics/sterilization.html">An Act for Human Betterment by Voluntary Sterilization</a>." In this village with a long and illustrious tradition of hospitality, I told the ladies, there was an equally long history of the limits of hospitality. The root of the word is hospes, "stranger," and the act of hospitality is the act of transforming the stranger into a welcome guest. What, I asked them, were the contemporary limits of American hospitality. Which strangers are we now making unwelcome to our villages and our nation?<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://www.uvm.edu/%7Eeugenics/sterilization.html"></a><br /><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/19967060/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos13.flickr.com/19967060_7cdaf81b6e_m.jpg" alt="Citation" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">When I got to the Unicorn, it was time to end the tour, but the group insisted that they wished to see the Courthouse, which I had spoken about as a virtual portrait gallery of Woodstock's noted laywers and judges. I told them the story about my arrest in 2002, and that I was barred from courthouse property, but I thought that since I had spent the last hour celebrating Woodstock as a village of hospitality, I should show confidence that I could act as their host inside the building. We stepped inside and were greeted by an armed guard, who frisked us all with an electronic wand, after asking if we were carrying any sharp objects. ("Just my tongue," I whispered to the group.) We walked down the hallway to the great little historic photo exhibit on the wall next to the old probate court office. I was just showing them the photo of sheets dangling from the second floor jail cell from a 1900 jailbreak, when the guard returned and asked if we'd like to have someone more knowledgeable than she come take us on a tour of the building. I was thrilled that Woodstock's gracious hospitality was in evidence.<br /><br />A few minutes later, a Woodstock policewoman arrived and asked me to leave the building. She was holding a copy of Judge Boardman's trespass order. Outside, she informed me that I was still subject to arrest for coming on the property, and that the chief of police was on his way to speak to me. Hearing this, Marlene Toot, wife of Timken director Joseph F. Toot, Jr., stepped between me and the officer. "This is not right! This man escorted us into the courthouse because we wanted to see the building. What right do you have to arrest him?" "I am only doing my job," the policewoman replied.<br /><br />The ladies walked back to the Woodstock Inn, as Chief Byron Kelly pulled up. As usual, Chief Kelly was cordial and compassionate, and advised me that if I wished to go on court property, I would have to get Judge Boardman to rescind the trespass order. He also said that he would not fingerprint and photograph me now, but that if the county decided to prosecute me, I should come down to the station and have this done. . . (to be continued)<br /><br /><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111927321957452854?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1118275521929275422005-06-08T18:34:00.000-05:002005-06-08T19:15:32.466-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/18256196/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos13.flickr.com/18256196_78aea149bf.jpg" alt="Fisherman" height="300" width="425" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">About a week ago, the novice fly fishermen began once again to haunt the deep pools of the Ottauquechee right below my house. The outfitters send them here because they can park across the river at the Little Theater and follow an easy path right to the pools. I love to see them down there, casting, reeling in, moving upstream in their waders, and occasionally, unsnagging their line from the trees and shrubs lining the bank.<br /><br />This evening after a cooling rain I went down to take a swim, and was amazed to see that the surface carried along an endless stream of small white petals, which at first I mistook to be from apple or crabapple blossoms. Then a couple of larger petals that definitely were apple petals floated by. I roamed upstream a little, checking the trees along the bank, but the only plant in bloom was the viburnum, whose blossoms clung tight, and were not the right size or shape. Cherry perhaps?<br /><br />There is something so wonderful about standing naked in the middle of a stream and just letting its flotsam and jetsam float on past you. Along with the mystery petals, there were honeysuckle blossoms, red maple samaras, caterpillar-chewed beech and maple leaves, miniature oak leaves just unfurling from their buds, but now frozen in time after being broken off by the wind. Away they all go, bound for the Connecticut and beyond.<br /><br />I thanked the elemental beings of the river as I stood there, and hoped that they heard me.<br /><br />P.S. I wrote a book about another river that I love, Lewis Creek, over in the Champlain Valley. I have just inherited a few cases of hardcover copies that I am happy to sign and send off to anyone who would like to do some armchair exploring of a lovely Vermont watershed. See the sidebar below. Thanks.<br /></div> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111827552192927542?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1118170125938007112005-06-07T04:13:00.000-05:002005-06-08T19:28:20.250-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/ginger/images/scene11_0001.jpg" /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"General Donovan sure is tall! He was a very important man. He led the Office of Strategic Services, which came before the CIA in World War II."<br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">So says Ginger, the blue teddy bear who is the guide for a virtual tour of the CIA headquarters, available to kids who log on to the <a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.cia.gov/index.html">CIA's homepage</a>. I am not sure what exactly prompted me to go take a look at what sort of face the CIA presented on the Web. It could be that a couple of friends who have viewed my blog have told me that I need to lighten up a little, and talk about such local pleasures as the joy of slipping and sliding on the tent caterpillars that cover everything at the moment. But isn't it more fun to follow a teddy bear wandering the halls of our intelligence agency, whose mission statement, in light of the <a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" href="http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/">Downing Street memo</a>, invites review:<br /></p> <p style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"We are the eyes and ears of the nation and at times its hidden hand. We accomplish this mission by:</span></p> <ul style="font-family:georgia;"> <li><span style="font-size:100%;">Collecting intelligence that matters.<br /> <br /> </span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Providing relevant, timely, and objective all-source analysis.<br /> <br /> </span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Conducting covert action at the direction of the President to preempt threats or achieve United States policy objectives." </span></li> </ul> I promised comic relief, so I will steer clear of editorial comment on the ironic aspects of this threefold mission statement when considered alongside the CIA's "hidden hand" vis à vis Iraq. let's follow Ginger to a couple of other spots on the CIA tour.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/ginger/images/scene12_0001.jpg" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"> "Oh my, that's the CIA Memorial Wall! So many stars! Let me see, I count 83. That's a star for each brave Agency person who has given his or her life for our country."</p> <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Though it isn't on the virtual tour, on another nearby wall in the lobby of CIA headquarters is inscribed the verse from the Gospel of John (8:23): "And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free." As a paragon of truth-telling, Ginger lets us in on a little secret:</span><br /></div> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img src="http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/ginger/images/scene13_0001.jpg" /></span></div> <p style="text-align: center;">"Because of the secret work we do, not everyone's name is listed in the Book of Honor."<br /></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Book of Honor contains only 48 names for the 83 stars Ginger found on the wall. I wonder if Ginger asked to see the book containing all the names of those killed <span style="font-weight: bold;">by</span> CIA agents? People like Frank Olson, whose death leads us right back to Wild Bill Donovan, who, in the spring of 1942, launched the search for a "truth serum" that would eventually lead not only to the murder of Frank Olson, but to the widespread introduction of LSD into America. In one of our nation's darkest enantiodromic twists, Wild Bill's dream of controlling the minds of enemy agents instead created the uncontrollable minds of Haight-Ashbury and beyond. </span></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img src="http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/ginger/images/scene10_0001.jpg" /><br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: justify;">I just love how freely Ginger gets to roam round the Agency. Here is what she discovers about the CIA seal:<span style="font-size:100%;"> "The bald eagle is the national bird. When our country was being established, Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wished the national bird to be the wild turkey. Mr. Franklin believed the turkey was a good choice as it provided food for the early settlers. He also thought that the turkey looked noble. However, Mr. Franklin was outvoted by the other members of the Continental Congress who felt that the eagle symbolized strength and alertness and that it would look much better as our national symbol."<br /><br /></span></div> <span style="font-size:100%;"></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><img src="http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/images/cia_seal.gif" /></span><br /></div> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />Elsewhere on the CIA kids pages, we meet another bald eagle:<br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img src="http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/aerial/images/pigeon_02.jpg" /><br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> </div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> "Hi, kids, I'm Harry Recon. . . My parents named me after President Harry Truman, who created the Central Intelligence Agency when he signed the National Security Act on Sept. 18, 1947. My sister Aerial recon is named for our love of flying. We love being in the air because its so much fun and we take great pictures from up there, as well. We love flying so much that Mom has a hard time keeping us on the ground to do our homework and our chores!" Oh what a scream these CIA cartoon characters are! And so much more wholesome than <span style="font-style: italic;">The</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Simpsons</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">South Park</span> characters.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://wn.rsarchive.org/icons/SteinLect200.png" /><br /></div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span> <div style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Rudolf Steiner taught that, of the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> the four winged beasts –Bull, Eagle, Lion and Man – of Ezekiel's vision, the </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Eagle is an astral image </span><span style="font-size:100%;">of the head, particularly the physical brain, since the force that shapes our brain is the same force that works and lives in the feathers of the Eagle. In its higher</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> aspect the Eagle represents the highest spiritual level humans can develop out of their being, called "Spirit Man" by Rudolf Steiner. This is the faculty that lies in the far future (at the end of the 7th Post-Atlantean Epoch, 5737</span><span style="font-size:100%;">- 7897 AD), when human beings will attain the Resurrection Body, and thus become the immediate agents to transform the Earth into a Sun.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> Gnostics refer to this phase in the image of Christ as the Eagle in the top of the Tree of Life.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Since the 15th century there has been an increasing predominance of the Eagle-nature at the expense of the Leo (feeling) and the Taurus (will) natures. When the members of the Continental Congress opted for the eagle as the symbol of America, they prophesied a historical trajectory whose apotheosis is </span><span style="font-size:100%;">expressed in the eagle of the CIA symbol. Cut off from the ameliorating qualities of the Lion and Bull, the domineering Eagle nature has cut America off from spiritual realities, indeed, from Reality itself.<br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img src="http://www.niku.no/olavsfro/images/11_eva_l.jpg" /><br /></span></div> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br />The Eagle says:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> “Get to know my being. I will give you the power to create a world in your head”. This lower, physically-entrapped Eagle invites Ahriman in, and Ahriman knocks the Eagle from its flight toward the Sun, down into the darkness, where it becomes that pale creature of the Dark, whose sting means Death – the Scorpion.<br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img src="http://us.st7.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/directron_1844_99874937" /><br /><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The true symbol for the CIA – and, if we do not take hold of it soon, our own nation – is the Fallen Eagle, the Scorpion. Ahriman the Scorpion can not stand the Light - cannot abide consciousness about his being. It is imperative that he hide all traces of himself, even when he is in plain sight. During the 20th century, the Scorpion has found no more convivial home than the <a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/information/tour/OHB.html">big building</a> in Langley, Virginia. </span><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />Just as the CIA hides itself behind a web of falsehoods, Ahriman stays in the shadows, depending on humanity's increasing materialism to bring his victims to the point where they would never entertain that he even exists. Instead, the cleverest spy-hunters and conspiracy theorists point the finger at the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, Skull & Bones, Freemasons, the Council on Foreign Relations, or even </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-family: georgia;" href="http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Earth_Charter_Ark.htm">Maurice Strong and the Earth Charter</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">. The one-sided fanaticism of the conspiracy theorist is itself the product of Ahriman's attempt to derail human evolution. One can learn much about Ahriman's ways by taking a tour of "The Agency," but don't hire Ginger – or David Icke, Jeff Rense, etc. – as your guide. For your guidebook, take along a copy of Rudolf Steiner's </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >Evil</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003) or Bernard Nesfeld-Cookson's </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >Michael and the Two-Horned Beast: The Challenge of Evil Today</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> (Temple Lodge, 1998), and be sure to take a look at </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-family: georgia;" href="http://uncletaz.com/index2.html#anchor163341">Tarjei Strume's website</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">. And if you do see Ginger, please say hello to her from me!</span></span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><br /></span></span></span><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,geneva;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://www.steinerbooks.org/author.html?au=845"></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></span></div> </div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111817012593800711?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117820437568595632005-06-03T09:35:00.000-05:002005-06-04T12:28:17.416-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img src="http://store1.yimg.com/I/doverpublications_1843_84920185" /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://store1.yimg.com/I/doverpublications_1849_84494016" /><br /></div><br />Ever since I started thinking about the 1950s this week, the decade keeps inserting itself into my consciousness in the oddest little ways. Of late I have been struck by two different phrases running like wildfire through my community: "Peak Oil," and "connect the dots." <a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.peakoil.net/">Peak Oil</a> is shorthand for what began as geophysicist M. King Hubbert's mathematical model of global petroleum extraction. In 1956 (the year I was born – Dad, what was the price of gas that year?), Hubbert predicted that oil production in the continental US would peak in the early 1970s (it did), and that all US oil reserves would be exhausted before the end of the 21st century.<br /><br />Within the space of the last couple of days, the Peak Oil issue has come up in conversations with a variety of neighbors. Last night I even heard that on June 16, there will be a screening of "<a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.endofsuburbia.com/">The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the End of the American Dream</a>" at the Town Hall Theater. The film includes interviews with author James Howard Kunstler, whose book, <a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/362"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Long Emergency</span></a>, continues his longstanding argument that the automobile progressively destroyed American communities. (In <span style="font-style: italic;">The Geography of Nowhere</span>, Kunstler has a wonderfully insightful description of his visit to Woodstock, in the chapter where he examines a few American places that seemingly have preserved some architectural integrity in the face of the automobile's onslaught.) In the film, Kunstler declares that late twentieth century America engineered the "greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." The only positive effect of the war in Iraq is that it has stirred a sleepwalking American public into vague wakefulness that their extravagant lifestyle is endangered, and the only way to preserve it for a few more decades is to gain control of global oil resources. Perhaps that is why so many people who have heard the "Peak Oil" phrase are taking it seriously now that it has been voiced on NPR and in Newsweek.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;">The other phrase, "connect the dots," is especially popular with anyone who has been trying to make sense of the vast global conspiracies which daily affect our lives in America, even in hinterland spots like Woodstock. Though the mainstream media, thanks to <a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.interlinkbooks.com/Books_/911CommRep.html">David Ray Griffin's exposé of the Kean Commission's report</a>, is inching closer to the truth about the 9/11 attacks, none of the media's own ranks have done the work of thinking through the many inconsistencies and untruths in the official story. Jon Ronson's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Men Who Stare at Goats </span>(see my blog from a few days ago) connects the dots in a sensational story which is itself connected to the Bush administration's waging of a war <span style="font-style: italic;">of</span> terror, not a war <span style="font-style: italic;">on</span> terror.<br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img src="http://www.tvgameshows.net/jackset.jpg" /></span></span><br /></div> <span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />I haven't actually researched it, but it seems as if "connect the dots" is a 50s phenomenon too. On long automobile trips – most memorably on summer vacation visits to Hither Hills State Park in Montauk, Long Island – we used to amuse ourselves in the back seat with little "Connect the Dots" coloring books. It turns out that those games (hmm, whose popularity was most likely linked to the post-war cheap gasoline/new interstate explosion of automobile tourism in America) inspired a hit television show, "Dotto." The gimmick to the show was that as the contestants answered questions correctly, dots on a screen were </span></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">connected</span></span></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"> to reveal the face of a celebrity or famous person in history. In 1958, it was the most popular daytime TV show: housewives stopped their chores at 11:30 to spend a half hour with smiling host Jack Narz (who was the narrator who told the story of Clark Kent's youth and how the Man of Steel came to Earth, in the opening episode of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman</span> TV series) and his contestants. Businessmen arranged their lunch hours so they could view the show. Kids were obsessed too. Three million viewers each week sent in their names hoping to be called by Narz for the daily home viewer contest.<br /><br /></span></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img src="http://www.tvgameshows.net/jackmarie.jpg" /></span></span><br /></div> <span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />"Dotto" was making CBS and sponsor Colgate-Palmolive a great deal of money, so, when a contestant who had accidentally come upon a book full of answers to coach his opponent went to the FCC and accused the station of rigging the show, CBS and Colgate executives were reluctant to believe him. Once "Dotto's" producer owned up to the deception, CBS cancelled the show. A week later, the public found out why, and the grand jury inquiry that followed revealed that dozens of game shows were similarly rigged for pre-chosen contestants to win.<br /><br /></span></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img src="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/peopleevents/images/van_doren.jpg" /><br /><br /></span></span></div> <span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">While Columbia professor Charles Van Doren suffered a great reversal of fortune in the wake of the grand jury's disclosure that he had co-operated with "Twenty-One" producers, Marie Winn, the Columbia student given answers for her "Dotto" appearances, went on to become a celebrated author of <span style="font-style: italic;"><a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.mariewinn.com/plugin.htm">The Plug-In Drug</a> </span>(1978; a 25th anniversary edition was published in 2002), an early indictment of TV's influence on children.<br /><br />Though Marie Winn doesn't discuss it in her book, children across America in August 1958 cried when they heard that "Dotto" had been cancelled. Their parents, who always taught them to play honestly, were largely at a loss to explain how it was that adults were routinely cheating on their favorite TV game shows. Despite this early episode of pulling back the Wizard of Oz's concealing curtain, a half century later, television continues to be the principle agent of keeping Americans from connecting the dots to an authentic civic culture, a truthful body politic, and responsible thinking for oneself.<br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /><br /></span></span></div> <span style=";font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:6;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111782043756859563?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117646244645468742005-06-01T11:34:00.000-05:002005-06-08T19:23:30.560-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16898652/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos10.flickr.com/16898652_086daea569_m.jpg" alt="Singing Brothers" height="174" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">An astrologist friend once pointed out to me that I have one of my planets at the zodiacal point of my daughter's birthday, and he said that this was quite common. I suspect that my brother's and father's back-to-back-birthdays are of similar karmic significance. Since it is my brother Michael's 48th birthday today, and I'm not sure if my card reached him, I thought I'd send him a note through the blog:<br /><br />Mike,<br /><br />I was hoping to find a photo of us from the 50s, like some of those shots of us peeling the bark off that big plane tree at the Stralem's, or out in the gardens there, with our six-shooters and holsters, but since I couldn't find these, here is one from one of our increasingly rare jam sessions. That is what I would ask for for my birthday gift from you for the rest of my life: playing some music together.<br /><br />I have been thinking about the year of your birth – 1957. I know you have an exceptional memory, but I bet you don't recall much from that year. I did a little research, and you may be happy to know that your advent year also brought us:<br /><br /> – the debut of Dick Clark's <span style="font-style: italic;">American Bandstand</span> (and a few other TV debuts, including <span style="font-style: italic;">Perry Mason</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Leave It To Beaver</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Zorro</span>);<br /> – Little Richard's temporary sabbatical from Rock 'n Roll to become a 7th Day Adventist;<br /> – the Everley Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" and "Wake Up Little Susie";<br /> – Buddy Holly and the Crickets doing "That'll Be the Day" on <span style="font-style: italic;">The Ed Sullivan Show</span>;<br /> – Aldous Huxley's <span style="font-style: italic;">Heaven & Hell</span> (and here we are still poised between them!);<br /> – <span style="font-style: italic;">Life</span> magazine's piece on Gordon Wasson's psychedelic mushroom discoveries;<br /> – Jack Kerouac's <span style="font-style: italic;">On the Road</span>;<br />– the bombing of the churches in Montgomery; Pete Seeger's contempt of court indictment by McCarthy's HUAC; the National Guard blocking of nine Little Rock children from attending their school<br /><br />I know that you don't use the Internet, so this historical item will probably underwhelm you, but 1957 was the year the Soviets launched Sputnik, which motivated the Department of Defense to try to take the lead in science and technology applicable to the military, and this was a big step toward the creation of ARPANET, the precursor of the Internet. Man, you can never get very far away from guns when you play around in the past, can you?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16898653/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos14.flickr.com/16898653_b3c4477c83.jpg" alt="Gunslinger" height="500" width="326" /></a><br /></div><br />I did find this photo of myself as I was foraging for yours, and I'd say that it was probably taken in 1959 – where the heck are you? Maybe hiding behind that Chevy* with your own set of sixguns. For all my blog rants – and yours in song –against the military, we sure did like our guns back then.<br /><br />I love that along with your writing and singing about the darkness, you have written such beautiful songs of hope as "Nothing But Blue Skies" and "I've Been Waiting." I wish I could have that anthem playing as people read this letter, but I haven't figured out yet how to HTML-knit music into this blog. (Anyone out there who can give me hand?) In the meantime, I can at least show off one of your CD covers, and say that these 48 years, it has been a complete joy to know you.<br /><br />Love,<br />Kev<br /><br />* Thanks to my friend Bobby Matherne, who tells me that this is a 1954 Ford Country Sedan. Bobby, I am leaving this to stand uncorrected as a reminder of my fledgling blogging days and as proof positive of my automotive ignorance. Dad, could you have named the make and model?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.arpa.mil/"></a></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16898654/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos10.flickr.com/16898654_d022df0dfe_m.jpg" alt="Dave's Bar" height="240" width="238" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111764624464546874?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117563669076812912005-05-31T07:09:00.000-05:002005-06-08T19:22:57.323-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16663808/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos14.flickr.com/16663808_5861822c3f_m.jpg" alt="Cub Scouts" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Watching the local Cub Scout den at attention while Woodstock diva Sabrina Brown sang "God Bless America," I wondered if the <a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://www.goarmy.com/paths/index.jsp?hmref=va">Army recruitment</a> guys would see a spike in sign-ups after this Memorial Day, less than two weeks after the "stand down" in the wake of the recent recruitment <a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/20/national/main696991.shtml">scandal</a>. I also wondered how many Woodstock parents are aware that, under a provision of the Newspeak-christened "No Child Left Behind" law, recruiters can waltz in to our high school, set up tables, and leave with any student's personal information.<br /><br />As Sabrina was singing, I slipped into daydream mode. Since there were no recruiters in evidence on the Green (this free space for civic expression has in recent years become home for a classic car rally each Memorial Day), I imagined setting up a table where I would give away free copies of Jon Ronson's <span style="font-style: italic;"><a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://www.jonronson.com/goats_04.html">The Men Who Stare at Goats</a>. </span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <pre style="font-family: georgia;"><img src="http://www.jonronson.com/img/tmwsag.gif" /></pre> </div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I've just finished reading Ronson's book the second time through, and I am still slack-jawed from the tale he tells. The book opens with the 1983 scene of Lee Marvin-lookalike Major General Albert Stubblebine III, United States Army Chief of Intelligence (it goes without saying that all uses of the word "intelligence" within the United States government demand enclosing irony-signifying quotation marks), attempting to will himself through his office wall. Remember that episode of Superman, "The Mysterious Cube," where Professor LaSerne theorizes a way for Superman to catch a crook who is trying to escape the statute of limitations by living inside an impenetrable cube? Superman concentrates on rearranging his atomic structure, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Abracadabra</span>! he walks through the wall. General Stubblebine has no such luck, and keeps bumping his nose, but that does not keep him from flying down to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to convince a group of Special Forces commanders that they should undertake a program of turning certain enlisted men into Supermen, with powers of invisibility, psychokinesis, and killing at a distance through mental telepathy.<br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <pre style="font-family: georgia;"><img src="http://www.supermanhomepage.com/images/aos-1950s/i-1950tvguide.jpg" /></pre> </div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Though the Army brass laughed Stubblevine out of the room, in fact, Fort Bragg was already home to a special goat-execution chamber, kept quiet and undetected because some of the Special Ops forces had learned how to excise the goats' larynxes. Inspired by the Tarrytown motel reminiscences of General Stubblevine, Ronson sets off on a wild goat chase that leads him to Uri Geller, Ed Dames and the Army's remote viewing program, <a style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204);" href="http://www.jimchannon.com/KS.html">Jim Channon</a>'s "<a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_channon_0200.htm">First Earth Battalion</a>," Steven Halpern and subliminal suggestion, Guy Savelli's death touch, the Heaven's Gate suicides, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Barney</span> theme song employed as a torture interrogation device in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and finally, the 1953 "suicide" of CIA scientist Frank Olson.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://ejmas.com/jnc/UniformswithoutUniformity_sm.jpg" /><br /><br /></div> Ronson's book is an excellent primer on the process of enantiodromia – the process by which things turn into their opposites – in history. I can't help but feel that it all started in the fifties, that decade that was supposed to be so innocent and nostalgic, but which was as dark and terrifying as any decade in American history. George Reeves becoming one with that wall melds with the MK-ULTRA manipulative mind-bending of innocents. "Warrior Monk" Jim Channon – a product of Esalen and the US Army – plays with ideas from the California human potential movement as a template for an alternative military, and his metaphors and tropes get trapped in the literalism of the military mindset, ultimately ending in the tragedy that is Abu Ghraib.<br /><br />In 1953, the <a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://www.frankolsonproject.org/">CIA murdered Frank Olson</a> (and who knows how many others) to keep him from revealing dark secrets about our government's role in torture and chemical weapons development. <span style=";font-family:Callisto MT,Georgia,Book Antiqua,Palatino,Times New Roman,Serif;font-size:100%;" >(Leading the <a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd0828.html">coverup</a> from within the White House were Donald Rumsfeld, Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford, and Dick Cheney, senior White House assistant. </span><br /><br />The really sad thing is that in 2005, no secret assassinations of people who know too much are necessary. The public, freely given photographs of US soldiers brutalizing innocent Iraqi detainees, turn a blind eye, happy to make jokes about the <span style="font-style: italic;">Barney</span> "I Love You" song, while their government goes on torturing and killing in their name.<br /><br />P.S. In another enantiodromic twist, the once wildly successful Army recruitment jingle, "Be All You Can Be," Ronson tells us, was plucked from the First Earth Battalion manual. Jim Channon's New Age transformational motto rings awfully hollow in the wake of the photos from Abu Ghraib, or the ones that no doubt will soon come from "<a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);" href="http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/jul2004/a071404f.html">Operation Lightning Resolve</a>."<br /><br />P.P.S. Happy 75th Birthday, Dad! I know that these are not the histories that you were taught, nor do I share the American Dream that you might have nurtured in 1956, when your first born (me!) came along, but thanks for allowing me the freedom to tell new stories.<br /><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111756366907681291?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117491756262116822005-05-30T16:06:00.000-05:002005-06-08T19:16:45.500-05:00<div style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> <div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/images/propadubya_300505.jpg" /><br /></div><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div> <div style="text-align: left; font-family: georgia;"> <div align="center"> <div> </div> <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."</span></p> <div style="text-align: center;"> </div> <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><em><a style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050524-3.html" target="_blank">G.W. Bush</a> - May 24, 2005, Greece, New York</em></span></p> </div> </div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans serif;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">The President's latest subliminal slip into truth-telling came at one of the faux "town hall" Social Security privatization blitzkrieg sessions. For the full text, direct from the White House, go<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204);"> </span></span><a style="font-family: georgia; color: rgb(102, 0, 204);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050524-3.html">here</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, and you will read Bush's odd way of reassuring his audience that all will be well once his Wall Street buddies take hold of our retirement funds:</span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans serif;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">"If you've retired, you don't have anything to worry about -- third time I've said that. (Laughter.) I'll probably say it three more times. See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." (Applause.)</span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans serif;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">What disturbs me is not Bush's admission that the simple technique of repeating lies ensures their acceptance by the public, but that parenthetical recording of the response there in Greece, New York. The good folk of Greece might as well have been applauding Nero as he told them he was planning to torch their town.</span></span><br /></div> <span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans serif;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16507662/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos10.flickr.com/16507662_58a4235e1c.jpg" alt="IMG_2091" height="300" width="425" /></a></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans serif;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">I heard a small echo of this applause at our town's Memorial Day parade. The procession always comes up River Street and stops at the cemetery to lay a wreath at the tomb, which was built in 1865, after so many young men from Woodstock came home in cedar boxes. The color guard at the head of the parade circled in front of the tomb, and then an officer of the Vermont National Guard made a prayer that began: "Dear God, we give thanks for all of the wonderful material blessings that we enjoy. . . and also our spiritual blessings." A trumpeter from the high school band played taps, then half a dozen veterans in uniform fired their guns into the air. The drummer rolled, the band started stepping, and the parade resumed their march. A bunch of babies, their ears shattered by the gunshots, continued to cry, but the people lining the street all burst into applause.</span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans serif;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">I wish I could have stopped the band and the marchers and the audience, and asked what they were applauding. The standard Memorial Day rhetoric preaches that the veterans who lost their lives in combat "sacrificed themselves to preserve our freedoms." If we could not really see what those freedoms were during World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, or Gulf War I, perhaps "Operation Iraqi Freedom" finally gives us a clear picture.</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16507663/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos10.flickr.com/16507663_8c02bf17ac.jpg" alt="IMG_2125" height="300" width="425" /></a></span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Out on the River Road, just half a mile from the cemetery where the parade stopped, I passed "Maplewood," the latest makeover of an 18th century farm into a contemporary "I got mine, Jack" fantasy of rural Paradise. In 1869, the year that railroad tycoon Frederick Billings came back to Woodstock and transformed the old Marsh farm into a country gentleman's estate, millionaires were a rather rare American breed. I heard recently that there are over 7 million millionaires in America today. Billings had 100 men working for him to build carriage roads, plant trees, dig formal gardens, erect barns and sheds. He didn't need to get dirty to show that he was still a man of the people. He had grown up around farming people, and even knew a bit about farming himself, even if after 1869 he had a Scottish farm manager to see to the farm details.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/16507664/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos13.flickr.com/16507664_c799a5ab1f.jpg" alt="IMG_2127" height="300" width="425" /></a></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">As I passed Maplewood a few minutes after watching the parade, there was the new owner out doing the chores, on his Toro tractor. This Memorial Day weekend, few of us admitted to ourselves or others that this is the "freedom" for which 1657 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis have died – the freedom for each and every one of us to pursue the American fantasy of a little oil-powered suburban fiefdom of our very own. </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111749175626211682?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117228635817744882005-05-27T15:33:00.000-05:002005-05-27T16:17:15.830-05:00<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48822805@N00/15978139/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://photos9.flickr.com/15978139_b2b7170453.jpg" width="344" height="500" alt="vilas" /></a><br /><br />Last night I was up in Burlington to give a talk about the 1909 and 1959 Samuel de Champlain celebrations, in anticipation of the upcoming 2009 "Quadricentennial." Commemorative events like this are always interesting moments in the life of a community, when it strikes a balance between reflective and prospective visioning, poised between remembering the past and dreaming of the future.<br /><br />Memorial Day is <span style="font-style: italic;">the </span>holiday in the calendar year that should be particularly celebrated by historians, for it is a day set aside for that special activity of remembering. Though it is dominated by acts and rituals of remembering for those who have died in war, it can offer us an invitation to remember <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the dead.<br /><br />I just walked into the village to get a couple of birthday cards at the drugstore, for my brother and father who have back-to-back birthdays next week. At the checkout counter, there was a postcard of Vilas Bridge, who passed away just a few weeks ago. When I first came to Woodstock, in 1976, Vilas was the most famous man in town. At any time of any day, Vilas would be somewhere about the village, shuffling along the sidewalk; sitting on the Fruit Store steps; shoveling snow (in a t-shirt in January) or sweeping (in his heavy Johnson woolen coat in July); or perhaps, if you were lucky, you would catch him in one of his ecstatic moments, when he might draw your attention to a flock of passing geese, or tell you a joke about Mr. Rockefeller. Vilas was perhaps most famous for his headgear: when I came to town, I recall he used to wear a Yoda cap, and over the years he wore an antler cap, a Boston Red Sox helmet, and other fanciful tophats.<br /><br />I went downstairs in the drugstore to Gary Smith's office and found Gary, the owner, reading the newspaper. I thanked him for the lovely way that he remembered Vilas for the article in our local newspaper. In the years of leading walking tours, I'd often be joined by people who had been coming to Woodstock for summer vacations for twenty or thirty years, and many would ask about Vilas, "the town drunk," or "the town bum." It saddened me to think that so many visitors – and quite a few residents – never got to know and appreciate Vilas, who had both a kind and canny heart. He had come to Woodstock after working for Cy Osmer, who had a pig farm on Hartland Hill. Cy was also the "knacker," who made the rounds of the farms retrieving dead livestock.<br /><br />Vilas had lived a fairly hard life, and you could see it in his face. At 50, he looked a decade or two older. During his years in Woodstock, he mostly lived under the covered bridge, but there were stretches where he had a regular roof over his head. Dr. Hugh Hermann, who tended to Vilas's health even after Vilas had moved over to Rutland, loved to tell how someone at the Town Hall one winter had told Vilas that he could sleep in the boiler room, in return for a few odd jobs, including making sure the boiler never shut down. One of the Selectman didn't like the arrangement, and told Vilas he had to move out. A few days later, on a subzero night, the boiler stopped working, and by morning there were frozen pipes all through the Town Hall.<br /><br />Gary told me that on Sunday, some AM radio station in Florida was going to call him up and interview him about Vilas: "Can you believe it! Why would anyone in Florida be interested in Vilas?" I told Gary I thought that America – in some places much more particularly than others – was in danger of losing its soul in its quest for physical perfection, and that every community needed people like Vilas who had suffered, and were living to some extent by the gracious hospitality of the community. Vilas gave Woodstock, a place graced and cursed by images of perfection, an opportunity for soul-making, for a particularly gritty and grace-filled act of hospitality.<br /><br />I had taken the postcard of Vilas and placed it inside the little cupboard on the side of the entranceway into the Unicorn gift shop. All of Vilas's items of his Woodstock <span style="font-style: italic;">al fresco</span> life were inside – his gumboots, Red Sox helmet, some longjohns, matches, even the Yoda hat. It was his outdoor wardrobe, unseen by just about everyone. But as I was walking home, I turned back to get the card, thinking I'd like to live with it a little this Memorial Day weekend. Passing the courthouse, there was Greg Camp putting the finishing touches on a black granite memorial to Woodstock's war dead. "It'll be dedicated tomorrow, during the parade," he said. "Oh, my grandfather would hate that, Memorial Day on a Saturday just for convenience." I showed Greg –who is the fourth generation of his family to run the local funeral home – Vilas's photo. "I spent a lot of time with Vilas when I was a teenager, under the bridge. Yep, Vilas would buy our beer, and take one beer for every six-pack. Best deal in town, we thought."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111722863581774488?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117119927798420012005-05-26T09:05:00.000-05:002005-06-08T19:20:53.610-05:00<div style="text-align: justify;"> <div style="text-align: center;"> <pre style="font-family: georgia;"><img src="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/medny/unicor1.gif" /></pre> </div><br />Again, I take my cue from Jeff Wells's <a style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);" href="http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/">Rigorous Intuition</a> blog, where yesterday he moved even deeper into Ahriman's territory in reporting on a ring of paedophiles at the Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula, Louisiana (leading to a discussion of satanic ritual and Hekate worship in Clapham Wood in southern England), and breaking news in another frightening case – the 1982 kidnapping of a Des Moines boy named Johhny Gosch, and his alleged reappearance as the fake White House journalist/real pornographic call guy James Guckert <span style="font-style: italic;">aka</span> Jeff Gannon. The high strangeness and deep darkness of whatever real implications might materialize from either of these cases folds back upon itself, to a contemplation of the antidote mentioned at the end of yesterday's post – knowledge that Ahriman is here, right now, snapping at our heels.<br /><br />Along with that protective shield of awareness of Ahriman's presence and methods, we need the even more powerful protective amulet of the Unicorn. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</span>, Lord Voldemort drinks the blood of a Unicorn to preserve himself, and the Centaur Firenze tells Harry<span style="font-family:georgia;"> that Unicorn blood bestows upon the one who drinks it immortality, but at a price: "You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> As surely as we moderns deny the spiritual reality of the Unicorn, Harry Potter's crea</span>tor literalizes both the Unicorn and its blood, and thereby trivializes and obscures a crucial occult truth.<br /><br />The most popular shop in my village is "The Unicorn," a place that I suppose might be called a "gift store," or "novelty store," but which is truly a phantasmagoric arcade of desire. There is a wholly unrecognized ironic local undercurrent in that it was the recently departed local part-time resident Laurance Rockefeller's father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who gave the most famous modern icon of the Unicorn – the medieval "Hunt of the Unicorn" tapestries – to the Cloisters.<br /><br />Neither the "Unicorn" store's owner nor J. K. Rowling nor JDR, Jr. nor today's unwitting trackers of Ahriman seem to know just how real the Unicorn is, and how the Unicorn's blood – the etherized blood of Christ – is the ultimate antidote to all of Ahriman's machinations. And in this occult fact is revealed the real meaning of Steiner's "Behind the Scenes of External Happenings" prediction of a future where Ahrimanic forces will inoculate humans against knowledge of the spiritual world. If Ahriman and his agents can succeed in vaccinating humanity into unbelief in the spiritual world – a condition long prepared by modern materialistic science – then the Dragon will win. The Dragons and Vampires will invade the inner recesses of the human heart and mind.<br /><br />We are altogether too familiar with the Vampire, who leers at us from the cynical visages of our elected leaders, and altogether unfamiliar with the Unicorn. Let us be up and hunting Him. . .<br /><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111711992779842001?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13148756.post-1117020567506533862005-05-25T09:07:00.001-05:002005-06-08T19:20:17.190-05:00<div style="text-align: justify;"> <div style="text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <div style="text-align: center;"><code><img src="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1105/ahriman.gif" /></code><br /></div><br />About two years ago, I was invited to give a talk at the Anthroposophical Society Green Mountain Branch's annual conference, and I delivered an address that I called "The Vampire & The Unicorn." I must have ad libbed the "Unicorn" half of the talk, for it was missing from this computer file that just showed up. But today, as I begin this blog experiment, I am a lot more concerned about Vampires. Here's what was on my mind around October 2003:<br /></div><br />Lately I have felt just like Harry Potter, who, in the most recent book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix</span>, crouches in the shrubbery of the Dursley home as he listens through an open window for some foreboding sign to come from the evening news. Living without a television in what <span style="font-style: italic;">Ladies Home Journal</span> a few years ago christened “the prettiest village in America,” you would think I would be hard-pressed to discover apocalyptic omens in my local environment. In the 1860s, Vermont Senator Jacob Collamer, who lived in a stately brick mansion on Elm Street, a couple of blocks from the heart of the village, called Woodstock a place where the residents have “less incentive than others to yearn for heaven.” The village has been blessed with an extraordinary abundance of peace and prosperity since its founding around the time of the American Revolution, and today tourists flock here from all over America and the world to savor that continuing cornucopia of tranquility, which oozes from every bright white clapboard house, every well-tended garden and window box. If they were looking for an American location to shoot the Privet Lane scenes for the next Potter movie, Woodstock would surely fill the bill. Indeed, back in 1956, Hollywood wanted to film <span style="font-style: italic;">Peyton Place</span> here, but the good folks of Woodstock sent the producers packing, aghast at what such a marriage of fiction and reality might do to the town’s reputation as a bastion of genteel Yankee propriety.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <pre><img src="http://www.hp-lexicon.org/images/et/dementor-et.jpg" /> </pre> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="">"When they get near me--I can hear Voldemort murdering my mum."</span></span></span></i><br /><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style=""> -- Harry Potter on the Dementors</span></span></span></i></div> <p> </p><br />On the eve of the summer solstice back in June, local kids joined in the nationwide Potter-mania by lining up before midnight at the local bookstore so that they could get their copies of <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter and the</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Order of the Phoenix</span>. Three months later, at the fall equinox of 2003, the avalanche of signs has been unmistakable. The war in Iraq, escalating belligerence between Israel and Palestine, and nasty nuclear posturing by North Korea all suggest that the world is on a hairtrigger thanks largely to the imperial actions of the Bush junta. But the flames of war are far from the minds of the leaf-peepers who stream into the village as they tour Vermont to enjoy the flaming maples and golden birches. Hundreds of times each day, visitors will pose in front of the covered bridge, framed by the foliage and a halcyon sky, and give nary a thought to the signs of the week: the latest massive blackout (Italy); the 8.5 earthquake in Siberia; the massive fireballs in India and Australia; the treacherous ‘outing’ of the renegade truth-teller Ambassador Wilson’s wife by Bush’s aides; Arthur C. Clarke declaring that the discovery of vegetation on Mars means sure proof of life on that planet; continued speculation about whether the Dark Star twin of our own sun, or “Planet X” (aka Nibiru) is still due to sideswipe Earth; Arnold Schwarzenegger poised to become governor of California.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <pre style="font-family: georgia;"><img src="http://auctionfire.com/cgi-bin/auctiondata/photos2/1117687965.jpg" /></pre> </div><br />We have no public restrooms in the center of Woodstock, so visitors must walk down to the Town Hall, and last week as they entered the building, Arnold would have welcomed them. The movie theater kiosk sported the poster for <span style="font-style: italic;">Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines</span>: from out of a fiery apocalyptic background, there marched a horde of monstrous killer robots with glowing red ember eyes. Above them hovered the unmistakable visage of Schwarzenegger the Terminator, the flesh of his stony face peeled away below the cheekbone to reveal synthetic subcutaneous tissue. A smoldering red glow on one of his dark sunglass lenses confirmed his kinship with the menacing machine men.<br /><br />I had a notion once to manufacture “Leaf-Peepers,” cheap rose-colored glasses that would accentuate the crimsons of the foliage, to sell in all the drugstores and gift shops throughout Vermont. They would sit on the checkout counter right next to the chocolates and postcards, and would rescue visitors from any disappointment that they hadn’t arrived for the much-ballyhooed “peak” foliage moment. Our local drugstore displays no such aids to perception at the checkout counter; instead, you will find little boxes of plastic masks that sport the same expressions as the Terminator and his adversarial horde—the Death Mask, the Darth Vader/Grim Reaper/Evil Alien “look” that seems to have migrated from cartoon robots into our imaginations so deeply that we occasionally see it staring out at us from magazine models.<br /><br />Or children’s toys. The little masks are the magical “Kanohi” that must be found by the “Toa” heroes to rescue the island of “Mata Nui” from the evil “Rahi” beasts and their demonic leader, “Makuta.” The Lego Company’s ready-made mythology weds Polynesian language and lore to contemporary cyborg fears and fantasy, taking the brightly colored plastic blocks far from the simple construction world Legos once shared with Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys.<br /><br />In response to protest from the New Zealand Maori community, who were deeply offended by the appropriation and trivialization of their culture, Lego has changed some of the names of their plastic creations. (For example, the villagers of Mata Nui were originally called “Tohunga,” which is the Maori word for priest; Lego has changed the name to “Matoran”) No such protest has arisen from American parents, who are daily dragged into drugstores and Wal-Marts and K-Marts and Toys R Us by their boys to get the latest <a style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);" href="http://www.lego.com/eng/bionicle/default.asp">Bionicle</a> action figures, which are promoted by giveaways at McDonald’s, in video games and a soon-to-be-released<br />movie. The Bionicle Parents Guide reassures parents that the toys reinforce “family values”:<br /><br />“There is a moderate level of cartoon violence in the built-in storyline. The action is generally stylized, and the biomechanical nature of the toys themselves lend an unreality to the play, which help children separate associations of violence against people when the Toa attack Bohrok, or vice versa. The figures are just humanoid enough for the child to identify with, but not realistic enough that the child will often become frightened for the toy's safety in a comic book or online game.”<br /><br />Bohrok “swarms” are described in the manufactured mythology as “bug-like multitudes [which] destroy anything in their path.” Photos on the boxes show boys’ hands facing the Bohrok off with the Toa, but just as in the Terminator poster, it is impossible to tell the hero from the villain. Both have the same red-ember eyes, lobster-claw appendages, and Death Mask faces, which bear an uncanny resemblance too to the latest hockey protective masks. It is the visage of the Vampire, the dark, blood-sucking, energy-depleting undead shadow who has haunted the human imagination for millennia.<br /><br />Despite Woodstock’s perpetually sunny demeanor, the vampire is no stranger here. Chamber of Commerce literature, B&B brochures, and even the occasional local tell of the mysterious Mr. Corwin, exhumed by the town fathers in 1830 from his grave and found to have liquid blood – the tell-tale of the vampire – in his heart. After erecting an iron cauldron on the village green, townspeople are said to have cooked up the vampire’s heart and then buried its ashes along with the pot under a slab of local stone right there on the green. When I moved to Woodstock seven years ago, a backhoe was set up on the green for a week, digging test pits. Though the excavation was part of an archaeological survey mandated by a future road-widening project, everyone in town believed that they were looking for the vampire’s remains.<br /><br />America need not look underground for vampires, for they have left their crypts and walk in broad daylight among us. Today they do not wear black capes and sport fangs; they have almond-shaped black eyes, pallid skin, and spill out of spacecraft from Orion, Mars, or the Pleiades. And they sit in the governor's chair of our nation's largest state, and in the Oval Office they make their monstrous plans. . .<br /><br />Now why do my thoughts turn to Vampires today? I have just discovered the "<a style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);" href="http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/">Rigorous Intuition</a>" blog of Jeff Wells, who deftly dances along the border between the exoteric unfolding of events and their esoteric – he uses the word "occult" – background. I was just about to respond at length to his post from today: "Who shall I say is calling?" when I realized that I had such a different view of who is calling that perhaps it would be better to start a new blogspot.<br /><br />Jeff takes up the question of San Francisco radiologist <a style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);" href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/20/BAGQCCS7OI1.DTL">Robert Lull's recent murder</a>, as just one of 44 scientists with expertise in the field of infectious disease who have apparently been murdered since 9/11. He and others have sensed dark conspiratorial forces behind these murders, but I believe that they do not follow the trail far enough. . .<br /><br />The sense of dread for anyone following these horrible events inevitably combines with an acute sense of excitement that one is playing Sherlock Holmes, looking for clues in the ether, and matching wits with some very sinister adversaries. But all of the Web sleuths with which I am familiar – from Michael Ruppert to Amy Goodman to the Cockburn brothers and Jeff Wells and his fellow bloggers – end up in the position of the detectives from Edgar Allen Poe’s tale, "The Purloined Letter." They enter the room where the thief has concealed the letter, whose appearance he has changed by removing the original black seal and replacing it with a small red seal. The thief hid the letter in plain sight by smudging the paper and placing it in a card rack with other correspondence. The full force of the police department--all of whom have the incorrect search image--makes no progress in finding the letter. After their first failed search, they partition off the room into a grid and search every square systematically, but still it eludes them.<br /><br />The police know without a doubt that the letter is there, but they can never find it. The small but skilled and incredibly dedicated force of investigative journalists who have attempted to connect the dots of the global web of terror spun since 9/11 similarly know without a doubt that a pack of Vampires has been and continues to be at their dark work, sucking the blood both from very specifically targeted individuals like radiologist Robert Lull, and from humanity’s shrinking reservoir of hope and good will. These invisible foes have been – up until now – as successful as Poe’s thief at hiding in plain sight.<br /><br />Poe trafficked plenty with Vampires; his poetry and fiction rang hauntingly true because he’d seen them and felt them breathing down his neck. And Poe, like almost all investigative journalists today, was himself a dupe of the Thief, the <a style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);" href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1105/ahriman.gif">Grand Vampire</a>, since Poe – and all of us clever liberals – don’t believe that there are spiritual beings, good and evil, who intervene in human events. Their invisibility guarantees that all the muckraking and connecting of dots will produce no letter; unless today’s trackers of terror acknowledge the spiritual Vampires who inspire and direct these dark events, their earthly representatives will continue their bloodletting.<br /><br />When I first read about the epidemic of murdered epidemiologists, I thought of a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner on the 6th of November, 1917, entitled "<a style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);" href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/BehindScenes/19171106p01.html">Behind the Scenes of External Happenings</a>.” Steiner begins by speaking of two political assassinations – the murder of the Empress of Austria in 1898, and of French President Sadi Carnot in 1894 – committed by European anarchists. He links these assassinations to the secret Eastern order whose name became the moniker for all political murder – the Order of the Hashashin (i.e., “Assassins”). Like all of Steiner’s lectures, one must read this lecture at least three times before its full significance becomes apparent. I encourage you to read the lecture in its entirety – you will find it <a style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);" href="http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/BehindScenes/19171106p01.html">here</a> on James Stewart's remarkable Rudolf Steiner E-library site – but I will also attempt a summary here.<br /><br />Working from his clairvoyant spiritual scientific research, Steiner outlines how, in recent times, small groups had discovered how to wield enormous influence over large masses of people. He asserted that in the late 19th century, occult orders had strenuously argued over how this power could be kept from the wrong hands. Along with this knowledge came the ability to understand the workings of disease:<br /><br />Rudolf Steiner: “Two possibilities exist: information about these things will either be conveyed to men in a form which does harm, or it may be imparted in a way which is for the good of the world. These things are connected with the most intimate depths of certain conditions relating to human propagation, with circumstances connected with illnesses and with the onset of death, and when knowledge concerning them spreads among mankind they give rise to thoughts and impulses of deep import and significance.”<br /><br />In the spirit of the esoteric truth that all evil is just good “out of its time,” Steiner shows how, by assassinating certain individuals, the occult order was able to gain knowledge of secrets which would have remained concealed until a future time. The particular individuals selected for assassination, as they passed through the Gate of Death, would become privy to knowledge earlier than would be helpful to human progress. The “senselessness” of these late 19th century assassinations made perfect sense to the assassins, who, by targeting these particular individuals, knew full well that they could gain otherwise inaccessible secrets to help them in their quest for power. In order to receive the knowledge which these now dead individuals received once they passed into the spiritual world, the Assassins made use of mediums who, in somnambulic trance, could “catch” the reflection of the premature knowledge.<br /><br />My hunch is that Carnot and Empress Elisabeth were targeted because they would receive knowledge which the assassins would find useful in their manipulations of the world political order. What illicit knowledge are the Vampires seeking in their murder of these 44 scientists? Rudolf Steiner in 1917 leaves us a remarkable clue. The art of controlling the masses was one aim of this dark order; the other:<br /><br />"is something that will play an important role in the future: it is a matter of acquiring the secret means whereby factors connected with processes of disease, with the process of propagation, may be given a particular turn."<br /><br />If you are like me, you will likely immediately interpret this to mean that by acquiring – through occult, i.e., magical, means – expert knowledge of the working of disease, dark occultists acquire “weapons of mass destruction” – biological weapons. But such knowledge – and the actual biological arsenals – is widespread, and one needn’t use magical means to amass either the weapons or the techniques to produce them.<br /><br />Steiner intuits a much more terrifying end of this activity: in the future, human beings will be given inoculations to prevent them from realizing that they are spiritual beings. Anyone believing in a spiritual world will be labeled insane:<br /><br />"Attempts will be made to achieve this end by inoculations; just as viruses have been discovered as means of protection against illnesses, so certain inoculations will be used to influence the human body in such a way that it provides no place for the spiritual proclivities of the soul. Human beings will be immunised against any predisposition for spiritual ideas ... such, at least, will be the endeavour. They will try by inoculation to bring it about that even in childhood, human beings lose the urge towards the spiritual life."<br /><br />This last comment by Steiner invites the interpretation that the process of inoculation has already begun, via the use of mood-altering drugs like Ritalin, Prozac, Zoloft and others. But this apparently is only a beginning.<br /><br />Without further comment upon this stunning revelation of a future where George Orwell and Aldous Huxley’s dystopian visions merge into something doubly darker than <span style="font-style: italic;">1984</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Brave New World</span>, Steiner then turns to the past to explain the cause of all this darkness. He describes the battle that took place in the spiritual world between 1841 (which he calls “The Abyss of <span style="font-family:georgia;">Materialism”) and 1879. During that time, Spirits of Darkness, essentially backward or fallen Angels, attempted to prevent certain spiritual wisdom from reaching humanity. My understanding is that that wisdom eventually DID reach humanity, in the “Anthroposophy” or Spiritual Science, of Rudolf Steiner, who unfolded this wisdom between 1899 and his death in 1925. In 1879, the Spirits of Darkness were vanquished and cast down to Earth – an event that is pictured as the victory of the Archangel Michael, or St. George, over the Dragon. This victory in 1879 meant that humanity itself has become the battlefield where the Dragon – and his minion Vampires – wages war.</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <pre style="font-family: georgia;"><img src="http://www.bruisvat.nl/nummer5/ufopat1.jpg" /><br /></pre> </div><br />"In 1879, therefore, [the Spirits of Darkness, aka Vampires] were cast out of the spiritual world into the world of men — and here, in this world, they wander among humanity. They are present here, sending their forces into men's thoughts, feelings and impulses of will, egging them on to this undertaking or another. They have not been able to prevent the onset of the age when the spiritual knowledge flows down — their defeat in the battle lies precisely in this — for the spiritual knowledge is here and will unfold increasingly; human beings will be able to acquire the faculty of seeing into the spiritual world.<br /><br />But having been cast down to the Earth, these Angeloi-Spirits are intent upon doing harm with the down-flowing knowledge; they want to guide it into wrongful channels, to rob it of its power for good and lead it into paths of evil. In short, having been cast down since the year 1879, their aim is to achieve here, with the help of men, what they were unable to achieve with the help of the Spirits in yonder world. Their aim is to bring ruin to that part of the good plan for world-evolution which consists in causing the knowledge of the control of masses, the knowledge concerning birth, illness and death, among other things, to spread among men when the time is ripe. These Spirits of Darkness want to spread such knowledge too soon, by means of the premature spiritual births."<br /><br />I may be just another one of the sleuths looking in all the wrong places for the purloined letter, but I would like to think that the map of the room that I am given by Steiner’s Spiritual Science actually protects me from the epistemological blindness of Materialism. Not only does Steiner offer a way to actually see the whole room, but he gives us the weapons for doing battle with the Vampires:<br /><br />"The only way to combat the influence of these Ahrimanic Beings is to realise that against certain aims of <a style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1105/ahriman.htm">Ahriman</a> nothing avails except to see through him, to know that he is there."<br /><br /><a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1105/ahriman.htm">“Ahriman”</a>!!! Now that takes us into an even darker Vampiric cave. If you are still listening, I’ll take it up tomorrow. . .</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13148756-111702056750653386?l=beyondmainstreet.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>troubadourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16104121876525703468noreply@blogger.com2