Ultimate Compassion

Philip Glass set this passage to music in his 5th Symphony. It is one of the most beautiful non-scriptural passages I have ever read, and I want to put it to memory. Reminds me a little of the prayer of St. Francis.

Gladly do I rejoice
In the virtue that relieves the misery
Of all those who suffer
And place them in happiness.

Thus by the virtue collected
Through all that I have done,
May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away.

May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Til everyone is healed.

May a rain of food and drink descend
To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger
And during the aeons of famine
May I myself change into food and drink.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all the things they could need
And may these be placed close beside them.

May I be protector for those without one,
A guide for all travelers on the way;
[May I be] a bridge, a boat and a ship
For all who wish to cross the water.

May I be an island for those who seek one
And a lamp for those wishing light,
[May I be] a bed for all who wish to rest
And a slave for all who want a slave.

May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase,
Powerful mantras and great medicine,
[May I become] a wish-fulfilling tree
And a cow of plenty for the world.

Just like space
And the great elements such as earth,
May I always support the life
Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain
May I also be the source of life
For all the realms of varied beings
That reach unto the ends of space.

Sãntideva: Bodhicaryãvatãra 3:1, 6-925; 3:17-21
(Sanskrit, translated from the Tibetan commentary by Thog-me
Zang-po)

Lohengrin by Richard Wagner (1850). The following scene is the climax of Act 1. "Durch Gottes Sieg ist jetzt dein Leben mein" are the words Lohengrin sings after defeating the villainous von Telramund in personal combat in defense of the saintly Elsa von Brabant, who has fallen in love with the mysterious and unnamed swan knight. In the annals of opera, indeed in the history of music, few measures achieve the thrilling agitation and collective ecstacy of this music, it's practically orgasmic. But for all its brilliance there is darkness to give the light clarity. Following Lohengrin's pronouncement, the chorus sings the infamous "Sieg Heil!" (hail victory) that the Third Reich so effectively coopted and made their own so that to this day, Lohengrin cannot be performed in certain locations in our benighted world. I attempted to capture this cyclonic agitation in my short story Vourdalak, in which my protagonist Nicolai awakens from a long undead torpor, to the strains of this very music. The first link is to the traditional view of this work, with Lohengrin performed by Placido Domingo (no, it's not the best, but it is the clearest and most traditional). First video This second link is to the same music set to film by Polish auteur Woyjech Jerzy Has called "Szyfry". It is an ironic juxtaposition of music and film, illustrating the degenerate darkness implicit in Wagner's music, which Hitler found so easy to exploit. Second video Freud theorized in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" that there was something called a "death drive" that was the equal in power and influence to the sex drive in the human psychology. Here we see the death drive given free reign. This is Wagner's shadow exposed and it is terrifying and unequalled in pure power.

Le Chateau Marmont

Here's a picture of Disney's Hollywood Tower hotel.

And here is its inspiration, the Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Boulevard:

Virtual Suicide

He decided that instead of actual suicide, he would plan a virtual suicide. First, he didn't like pain, and the continuation of his current life was like wading hip deep in a constant current of anxiety and loneliness. But he had two very good reasons to not commit actual suicide: he enjoyed living, and had hope that life would get better. He remembered better times, and there was no reason not to assume that he couldn't have those moods and feelings again. He didn't need a lot of money, success or fame (or actually any of it) in order to feel good. He just needed a peaceable companionship, and a notion that he was part of something larger, that he mattered.

But he couldn't perservere in the status quo. He began having death fantasies, of strangling himself or of eating himself to death. These were warning signals that he noticed and to some degree ignored because of his doubts. For doubt circled him like a flock of ravens. How would he live? Would he be able to pay his bills? How would he receive healthcare if he got sick? What would he do with all his stuff?

At last realized that it was his stuff that was holding him back: a vast collection of books, cds, dvds, media of all kinds; comic books, graphic novels, paper, paper, paper...

Paper enough to forge a warm cocoon of inaction, of repose, indolence and solitude. What he thought he always wanted--but which had worn very thin in practice. Like a little butter spread across too much bread. He woke up one day to find that his spirit had turned into Gollum.

So he began to divest, to toss and discard the detritus of paper and media that he had spent 30 years collecting. The pieces he couldn't bear to part with, he digitized, with his camera, his scanner and his videocapture software, so that he could reduce his burden of stuff to a more manageable level. He began a process of whittling away the superfluous: books he had never read, or would never read, the computer games he would never play, the dvds and CDs he would never watch or listen to again. And if it was ever in question, he could just render them into pixels and take them with him, no more than airy nothing.

And he found as he cleared away the coagulation of crap that plugged his living stream, his spirit begin to flow and grow again.

The Black Swan

Last night saw the amazing new film by Aronofsky, The Black Swan. I have enjoyed previous Darren Aronofsky films, and this was no exception. It rose above mere entertainment to engage the viewer in an intimate psychological and artistic pas de deux. The film succeeds by mixing and coalescing the levels of narrative, symbol and psychodrama to transport the audience into a sublime moment of epiphany as the character of Nina transforms into the Black Swan.

Nina Sayers is a repressed young woman of 28 who lives with her mother in a NYC flat (obviously rent-controlled). Nina's mother is cloying, possessive and obviously has transferred her own ambitions onto Nina. Nina's bedroom is pepto-bismol pink, and full of toys and stuffed animals; the room of a 12-year-old. When Tomas, the artistic director, asks Nina if she's a virgin, we believe that yes, Nina is probably a virgin. Nina's sole obsession is to be perfect, to have perfect technique. Tomas tries to "loosen her up" in order for her true artistic spirit to shine through. That is the essential narrative. Juxtaposed against this story of artistic growth is a hint of mental unbalance as Nina begins to experience haunting, provocative and terrifying visions.

But The Black Swan works on more than just the level of narrative. Nina's pursuit of perfection is played out as psychodrama, with her desire for perfect technique emblematic of her EGO-based desire for total control, juxtaposed with her subconscious repressed urges, her Shadow-Self, yearning to be set free, to be expressed, symbolized by the Black Swan. Nina sees doppelgangers of herself on the train, on the street, these are visions of her own Shadow, which is alluring to her on a deeply emotional and sexual level.

It also works on the level of pure symbol. Everyone experiences the awful transition into adulthood from adolescence and the assumption of one's adulthood. Often that means sacrificing the treasured innocence of childhood in favor of the experience of the world as it is, including one's sexuality, one's ambition, one's innate ability to be satisfied with the self without external validation from others, etc. The movement from innocence, in which the personality is formed by the parent and the parent's values, to an individual with values chosen and won by experience is difficult and I've known many people personally whose lives pitiously ended prior to success. For Nina, fully integrating her Ego and her Shadow selves is a symbolic death.

Finally, The Black Swan does work on the level of pure narrative. In order for this to work completely, however, one must believe that Nina, at 28, is experiencing adult onset schizophrenia, which progressively worsens through the course of the film. But that interpretation alone would make this a movie-of-the-week, and The Black Swan is as far from that mode as it is from romantic comedy.

No, The Black Swan is a genius alchemy between narrative, symbol and psychodrama, and by far the best film using the world of the dance as its milieu since The Red Shoes.

Fantasy Thematics

Fantasy: stories about power and how it’s found, lost, and used.

In Low fantasy, characters have no struggles with power (Conan the Barbarian) they are always confident of their powers (like superheroes) and rarely question themselves or their powers. Sword & Sorcery. Their struggles are against more powerful beings, not themselves or their own weaknesses. Frodo, being half the height of a man, and thus a much less powerful being than the Men or Elves he hangs around with, gains ultimate power over Sauron. Though the necessity of Gollum there in the Cracks of Doom, is an ironic flourish.

Horror is a subgenre of Fantasy. Thus it also is concerned with power. But the most prevalent theme in horror is fear. What scares us, to some extent is also what renders us powerless. Acrophobia, is the fear of giving into a sudden and overpowering impulse to jump making us doubt our power over our own actions. Claustrophobia, is fear of being in a tight, confined space, where the power to move is greatly incapacitated, making us doubt our ability to function to breathe on a physiological level.

The New American Gothic (S. King, Danse Macabre) is a story in which the character's morbid introspection drives the plot. Rooted in narcissism and anxiety (the self-centered fear of Alcoholics Anonymous), the new American Gothic concerns the inability to see beyond the horizon of the self. This closed minded, compartmentalized, blinkered, bracketed cognition on the part of the protagonist is the impetus for horror. Constantin Stanislavski's "Circles of Attention" reduced to a fierce, laser like dot of light in the center of the self. These characters have axes to grind, fierce prejudices to overcome, preconceived notions to abandon, malevolent childhoods to rise above, addictions to accept.

Also, the New American Gothic protagonist is different from the noir protagonist because their fears are existential rather than actual. The perfect example of a New American Gothic protagonist is Jack Torrance from The Shining.

The Violent Nation

We live in a democracy, but to believe the television, it is a democracy teetering on the brink, where mainstream politicians can use the rhetoric of violence against one another with impunity, until an act of violence occurs and such people recoil in feigned revulsion and crocodile tears.

Certainly speech didn't put a bullet through Congresswoman Giffords' head, that was a young man with "a head full of bad juice," as one of my favorite characters would put it. So, in a fundamentally uncivil society what is the rational response--forget civility, that's tres passe.

We are left with the "Chicago Way" from Brian DePalma's film, the Untouchables:

You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife,
you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his
to the morgue.
That's the Chicago way...

And so, we wring our hands and come to the conclusion that being forearmed is the only way to negotiate a society in which the police cannot be counted upon to maintain law, order and peace, we must arm ourselves.

In a society in which guns are prized above the lives of 9 year old girls, federal judges, ladies of small consequence, and political aides, the only rational response is to murder in return. Therefore, I announce that my 25 year principle against the death penalty officially ended. If summoned to serve on a jury in a capital case, I will unhesitatingly be able and willing to vote to put to death a person capable of this kind of violence. Especially, ESPECIALLY! if he uses a handgun to do it.

The Paladin Club

So I'm working on this steampunk novel called "The Paladin Club," but that's not what this post is about. No, I'm going to write about my other passion: World of Warcraft. I love my pallies in WoW (I have one that's 85 and one at 80 that I haven't started to level in Cata yet). They're both Ret/Holy. I tried tanking and I disliked it. What's the point of getting better gear and going through all that effort if you don't get to do something flashy once in a while? We'll maybe tanks do, but the rhythms of the tank class just didn't appeal to me. I'm much more comfortable as a healer and that's all right.

I just read the following on the WoW Insider site:

For us, it procs an effect called Hand of Light that lets us use any of our holy power-based abilities as if we had the full 3 holy power stored up without actually using our holy power. As I said in the section about haste, Hand of Light procs off of auto-attacks, so while a slow weapon might be better for your attack abilities to work with, a faster weapon will cause more mastery procs.

This means that my insistance on 2-handed weapons may not be the wisest course! A shield with sufficient strength, expertise, mastery and crit could equal or exceed the 2 handed weapon because of the greater frequency of proccessing the Hand of Light through auto-attacks, which happen more frequently with a one-handed weapon! Thus allowing me to cast the important Templar's Verdict. I hate it that my Exorcism spell is my top dps function. That's because I haven't understood the full implications of Hand of Light. I must remember that whenever Hand of Light procs, I must use Templar's Verdict--which acts as though I have 3 holy power, no matter how much holy power I have. If it procs while I have x3 holy power, I can get off 2-3 Templar's Verdicts in a row, causing as much as 60k dmg. This is really big.

If furthermore, I have a lighter, faster sword, then Hand of Light will proc more frequently! Thus allowing me to cast Templar's Verdict more frequently! While the damage Templar's Verdict does is dependent on the amount of damage a weapon does, it could be a wash without the shield, given that the frequency of TV proccessing increases. Add in the strength bonuses from the shield, the armor bonus, and the enchantment and you could even have a greater dps than with a 2-handed weapon.

The Lamentations of Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a genius, but a genius with a strong moral character and sense of loyalty and duty. What he wasn't was a good businessman. A recent immigre from the Balkans to the U.S., he assumed that people were as good as their word. In the person of Thomas Alva Edison, however, he found his sinister, dark, pathological identical twin.

We Americans love our heros. Edison was not only a genius, he was a shrewd businessman. But his treatment of Tesla was nothing short of despicable. In the documentary I watched last night from PBS, Master of Lightning, the hum between the lines became obvious that Edison was envious of Tesla's genius. Their feud over currents, DC (Edison) v. AC (Tesla) was the stuff of legend. Their showdown at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1892-3), which Tesla won, is the stuff of epic drama. You can feel the pathology working in Edison's mind, as he strives to show people the dangers of AC current by electrocuting animals and finally human beings. Repulsive.

Tesla, the airy, disconnected, obsessive-compulsive idealist and dreamer, spent his early paydays on mature research and development, and ended up penniless. He'd signed his lucrative Westinghouse contract back over to the company during Westinghouse's financial rocky period. The AC motors he had patented, and which drove the industry of the world, had made billions for corporations, yet he was a pauper. Finally, Westinghouse granted him an allowance for food and lodging for the rest of his life. Ironically, exactly what he would have enjoyed in the communist/socialist state his homeland became. It is precisely this trenchant irony, which gives his story so much dramatic potential.

Social Security Theater

Social Security is a political football, but is it really in any danger of being greatly altered in the imminent future? Doubtful. The world of politics is rarely concerned with real, substantive change, but more often fanning the flames of the electorate's fear and anger over proposed changes. That's what's happening here. Social security is such a fact of life that it just can't be messed with. While bankers may own and fund the government to a large extent, even they are powerless against the vast horde of social security recipients who vote. But political fearmongering? No harm, no foul. The democrats look good to their base when they oppose efforts to derail social security by privatizing it, and the republicans look good to their far smaller base when they propose to do just that. Nothing changes, but both parties earn political capital.

Social Security is monolithic and unstoppable. If ever there was a structure that has earned the title "too big to fail," it's SS. I've paid into it every day of my working life. I expect and depend on it to be there for me. Not as my sole means of support in my old age (unless I live to be very old), but as a supplement.

Unfortunately for us, the bankers and Wall Street have decided that if Social Security is to survive, then they can get a drink at the public trough too, every now and again. It's what we're left with. Two social structures, monolithic in attitude, diametrically opposed, looking at each other with hatred blazing in their eyes. But neither one can afford to strike first.

This Day

In the catalogue of classical Christmas music, there are a few obvious standouts. Handel's The Messiah is probably the most famous, with the Bach Christmas Cantata and Vivaldi's Gloria close seconds. My personal favorite, however, is Ralph Vaughn William's Hodie (This Day). What's it like? Well, it's extremely programmatic, which is to say, it tells a story. This is not music to enjoy, as much as it is to be inspired by. In tone and sonority it's rather like a sacred version of Holst's The Planets. Vaughn Williams has set a variety of sacred and Christmas themed secular texts to music. Parts of the New Testament that deal witht the birth of Christ are interposed with set pieces, arias, which have as their texts mystical poetry in the English tradition of Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Drummond, and the father of the entire genre, John Milton.

Mystical, mysterious, the sonorities are largely in a minor key, which makes the occasional shifts into major chords exceedingly dramatic. In this scene, the Angel of the Lord appears to Joseph, to convince him to "take unto thee, Mary thy wife..." The angel prefaces his comment with "Fear not." Were I to hear such mysterious and turbulent minor chords under an angel's command, I would fear aplenty! But I'm not a saint. Maybe they can withstand more ambiguity than I.

(Note, put the marker to minute 5:00 to begin the Angel's recitation).

In the above section, minute 5:00 through the end of this cut, Vaughn Williams introduces the themes which he will return to twice more in the piece. Note the dramatic shift into major chord on the the word "Jesus!"

Of the several standalone arias in the piece, my favorites are The Oxen (text by Thomas Hardy), sung by the baritone soloist, and Bright Portals of the Sky (text William Drummond), sung by the tenor. The former is an idyllic lullabye, perfect for a Christmas Eve candle-light service. The latter is a glistening, jewellike, piercing stab of mystery, like looking at the face of God.

The absolute highlight for me, however is the Chorus of the Three Kings, which in my mind creates even more mystery and power than Ring Out Ye Crystal Spheres, the thundering epilogue, set to text by Milton, which is the penultimate moment of the cantata.

All in all, with Hodie, Vaughn Williams has used the mystery/mystic traditions of his English heritage (the mystery plays) and set it in a blistering and heartrending 20th Century minor key which only resolves into major keys infrequently but to tremendous dramatic effect in this piece. It's something to listen to in the candle-lit darkness. If you're in a Gothic cathedral, so much the better.

The Psychopath Beside Me

Wow, what a title to post the day before Christmas Eve. Please be comforted. Tomorrow I will write about Christmas music. Today, however, I must get down in black and white what transpired yesterday that froze my blood.

An individual and I have shared many pleasant conversations in the past. He has shown me pictures of his trips, notably to the Gay Games in Berlin last year, where he was feted and received an award as a volunteer. I've also seen a side of him which has not been pleasant, a kind of darkness. It has been exposed on occasion when he has had a particularly difficult commute. He's confessed to me that he feels as though he hasn't been taken seriously, that his work hasn't been held in sufficient esteem, nor has he been properly recognized, and success has been elusive. At one point he opined that he might give up his professional altogether and take up male modeling. He has striking features and physique; so it's not a strictly delusional prospect, though he would need to lose the spare tire and get his teeth fixed, IMO.

Just two days ago he showed me a picture of an artwork he had created, drawn and painted. I had no idea he was an artist, but apparently so. As I recall I reacted solicitously.

Yesterday, I happened to open Facebook to see a picture of my sister. I asked him if he would like to see a picture of my sister. I was so delighted with her picture, she is gorgeous in it, and I was so thrilled and wanted to share my excitement. His reaction, "Well that's a strange request but I guess so."

Thereupon I again saw the darkness in his face which I've seen at times before. I regret to say, I ignored it. Standing next to Karen in the picture is her best friend Sue. Sue lost her eldest child to suicide a few years ago, and I said, "That's Sue, she has had a lot of tragedy in her life. She lost a son to suicide a few years back."

His response, I kid you not, was, "Well that's not the WORST thing that could have happened..." Verbatim, just as I have typed it here, with the emphasis on "worst." My immediate response to that was a volcanic rage so intense I could hardly see straight. I said, "I'm going to remember that. I'm going to put that away in my bag of tricks to pull out at a vulnerable moment so that I can completely minimize your feelings too."

He turned his back and spoke not another word.

Then my blood cooled and began to freeze. This guy is completely inappropriate. What's wrong with him? And then I realized--it's a character disorder. A Character Disordered person, according to M. Scott Peck, is a person who blames the world and causes outside himself for his problems. The obverse is a neurotic person, who blames some inner deficiency as the cause of their problems. The character disordered person sees the world as broken; the neurotic sees themselves as broken. Dr. Peck states that the neurotic is easier to treat. I have always seen myself as neurotic, but I've also survived a lot of abuse, so I have very low tolerance to threatening situations, and as a result of that I'm perhaps too defensive.

I'm reminded again of that darkness, not just metaphorical darkness, but a coagulation of blood in the face, a real physiological darkening of the features. I beheld his demon. And the blistering effect of his words. The way he was able to choose the most damaging thing to say that he could possibly have said. Fortunately for both of us he didn't insult my sister, or I might have leapt from my chair to strangle him then and there. Good for both of us. Meanwhile, I continue to detox from my SSRI preparatory to switching to a different medication. I'm fat, I'm single, I've only achieved moderate success, and I'm facing bankruptcy. I wouldn't trade places with this dude for anything.

A Confession: I Know Squat about Politics

I cannot remain silent on this day of epic moral victory for lovers of freedom and the theory implicit in the American experiment that freedom includes the right to be different, even despicably different in the eyes of some.

Barak Obama signed the law 86ing DADT about an hour ago. It is a moral and political victory for the President and quite an achievement getting this law passed and signed against forceful and irrational opposition.

I must confess, however, that the president's brand of political consesus building was difficult to endure the past few months in the face of exceedingly vile, extremist right wing diatribes aimed at him. First, he came across as weak. Second, he came across as being a back-door deal maker, the kind of thing he campaigned against, and which the Republicans lambasted him for, even as he was caving in to their demands. Oh, how I wished someone would have just given it right back to them. In your face Mitch McConnell. Someone like ... Hillary Clinton?

But in politics, the proof is in the pudding. The echoes from the bully pulpit fade away, but the ink drying on the page is permanent! I voted for Barak Obama because I thought he would be a uniter and a consensus builder. I got what I WANTED! And then about 7 months into his term, I didn't really want it anymore. Instead, I wanted someone who would step on some toes and speak up against the unconscionable obstreperousness of the conservative wing of the Republican party (which is now 90% of Republicans it seems).

But Barak Obama didn't do that. He kept his head down and worked, worked, worked for the end goal. Meanwhile Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, slapping themselves on the back and crowing about their mandate, mistook the bully pulpit for actual political work. 3 weeks ago it looked like DADT repeal was DOOMED. But today? It's like a rabbit from a top hat. Obama delivered big-time. He'll have my vote for a second term. Not only am I glad I voted for him the first time around, I'm glad he stuck fast to his principles and didn't get involved in tit-for-tat childish, churlish screaming matches that could have ensued had someone else spoken from a strictly emotional point of view. The Republicans have been doing that now for 2+ years, after having decided that they'd done enough soul searching after the 2008 election. What has it got them? Tax breaks for the wealthy that will be repealed as soon as everyone realizes that continuing them will bankrupt the country. When push comes to shove, what will fall? Tax breaks for the top .001% of the population, or Social Security for millions? I'm banking on the former.

Let The Right One In

Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in), 2008's best vampire flick, was a work of profound emotion, artistry and beauty. Ravenous for beauty, art, and depth, American audiences embraced the film to the extent that a Hollywood remake was assured. Hollywood doesn't play nice with independent films. Hollywood is about, without putting too fine a point on it, prostitution. Hollywood is a sewer which doesn't care or comprehend what storytelling is or should be, it is about money. Don't get me wrong, I like Hollywood movies as much as the next fellow, but I don't expect depth, tenderness, or relevance from them. This is why I am reluctant to see the remake of Let the Right One In, with its Americanized title, Let Me In. Hollywood is about dualities, right and wrong, black and white, truth and lies. It eschews the shades of gray that might frustrate audiences with their ambiguity and make them reflect on their lives. If they have to think, or feel anything other than excitement, audiences stop buying popcorn. Hollywood films agitate their audiences, they do not make them feel; they stir them up. Hollywood is to film making what the Bush Administration was to war making: the only two emotions they care about are shock and awe.

Let the Right One In is a profoundly better title than Let Me In. It communicates layers of meaning. Let Me In is about teenage love: "stop being so self-absorbed and pay attention to me, you little twit!" Let the Right One In is a weighted phrase that conveys sadness, grief, desire, pain, longing that stretches across generations, hoping for the fleeting embrace of a soul-mate in spite of the defensiveness with which we guard our persons. It has nothing to do with teenage lust or even love for that matter. It is about rebirth, transcendence and communication; of becoming a different being when immersed in the dyad of love. If they didn't even come close with the title, how can the underlying film fare any better?

Post Censored

Well, I finally went over the edge at the Seattle Times. They posted this interesting story about a man in a banana costume getting arrested for indecent exposure. This, as you might expect, invited anyone with a budding standup comedy career to take their best shot. While several of my offerings made the grade (see Donuthole's posts), my favorite was censored. So I repost it here for the benefit and smiles of all:

How is a banana like a Liberal? They're soft and squishy on the inside, and yellow on the outside. How is a banana like a Republican? When they get older, they turn brown and are good for making bread.

Just Following Orders

Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist, is entertaining, that's why I watch his stuff. However, I can't buy into 9/11 was an inside job theory. It's more than simply a visceral rejection of the notion that our government could do something so evil and insidious. The facts simply don't add up. If the 19 hijackers were intelligence assets of the U.S., as Jones claims, how could they have been persuaded to crash planes into buildings? Conspiracy theorists might claim that they were simply patsies, who were duped into boarding and hijacking the flight, only to have the plane remote controlled into the trade center and the Pentagon. They point to the fact that these so-called Islamic fundamentalists led a rather debauched lifestyle leading up to zero-hour, going to strip clubs, getting drunk, and ordering porno. I don't know about you, but I have a lot more faith in a person's religious hypocrisy than I do in the government's ability to remote control planes into buildings.

Yes there are a lot of unanswered questions: The molten fragments dripping from the towers, similar to the reaction of steel to thermite. The extraordinary maneuvers of the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon after getting failing marks from his flight instructors one month before. The multiple reports of the sound of explosions before the collapse of the towers and building no. 7, as though it was a controlled demolition.

I recently heard a lecture by attorney Daniel Sheehan, who was involved in the Pentagon papers case, and investigated Iran-Contra, and Karen Silkwood's disappearance. He gave a succinct rundown of the conspiracy behind the JFK assassination that was amazingly lucid, and had the ring of truth. He spoke with absolute conviction and certainty, that it was the result of rogue elements within the intelligence community who felt betrayed by JFK, who allied with certain figures in the mob who despised RFK, to use their assets and resources (disaffected Cuban refugees) to murder the president, all financed by Henry Booth Luce and Howard Hughes. What makes Daniel Sheehan's recitation so convincing? It's because he connected the dots.

If Alex Jones were to confine himself to more rational claims, that rogue elements within the CIA allowed the hijackings to take place, or even greased the wheels to make M. Atta & crew's jobs easier, that would be a whole lot easier to believe than a conspiracy that went up to the to active involvement of the White House.

Because the claims are so wild, they suffer from what I would call David Icke syndrome: they seem like the ravings of cranks and kooks. Most people will reject them out of hand while there may be a kernel of truth embedded in the substrata of their arguments, because they can't be taken seriously. This is what happens to people on a crusade. It's so bizarre at times (David Icke's reptilians) that it seems to me as though madmen have pierced the veil of reality. They may really be onto something intuitively and psychically, but they've mythologized their own perceptions to the point that it seems fabulous. Maybe they're "useful idiots" to the conspiracy (if it exists) because their ideas are so far out. Or maybe they're just in on it and spreading disinformation.

The best lies are those that contain a germ of truth.

Pyramid Power

The eye in the pyramid purports to symbolize the Divine, the grace of Providence. On the dollar bill it is accompanied by the Latin motto: "Annuit Coeptis." Apparently it translates to: "God has favored our undertaking," which in that sense, means the formation of the United States. However, I wonder if there is a deeper occult significance to the pyramid, as a symbol in general.

The pyramid is the shape of the power base of all authoritarian/monolithic human organizations since the beginning of time. The power of the "head" or leader, flowing down through successively larger groups of subordinates, to the bottom. Just look at any org chart from any corporation in the world if you doubt me. An entire software program (Visio) was created to visualize this exchange of power.

Always we must remember the "as above/so below" mantra of all occult/hermetic study. What goes down, may also go up. I.e, the head dispenses power, yes, but does he not also "receive" his power from the stratified layers beneath him? Of course he does, whether it is physical, spiritual, economic or mystical.

I'm reminded powerfully of the image of the Viles in Stephen R. Donaldson's fantasy trilogy, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. The Viles formed wedges, in which the power flowed from the back to the front, and through a focus or channelling wand. In much the same way, I believe, is mystical/occult as well as temporal power focused through monolithic bureaucracies. Not only do these bureaucracies focus control downward on their subordinates, they also channel power upward to the master. In this way are organizations based on this model made into closed systems that keep change and evolution at bay.

Which brings us again to Crowley. "Do what thou wilt" was his battlecry. I have always understood that to mean having complete licentious liberty. However, in my unevolved, unenlightened state, this was what I projected onto Crowley's words. In actuality Crowley was advocating freedom from the psychic slavery imposed on us by the illuminati, those invested in the pyramid of power that governs modern life.

Citizenship Clause

Citizenship and immigration has been front and center recently in terms of issues of relative importance to the polity. One of the meanest spirited attacks from lawmakers out of Arizona, which seems to be the galvanizing locale for such xenophobic opinion, is a desire to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states: "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

On the surface, it appears that any individual, born within the borders or in the territories of the United States, is automatically entitled to citizenship.

Not so fast.

Read it again, carefully.

"...and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..."

Ah, the money quote.

The Supreme Court ruled in Wong Kim Ark that under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a man born within the United States to foreigners (in that case, Chinese citizens) who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are carrying on business in the United States and who were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power, was a citizen of the United States.

Note the conditions of the precedent: the parents had a permanent domicile and were carrying on business in the United States. They were here legally, and thus were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States of America.

In the case of an illegal alien, I think, as a lay person, it's entirely reasonable to doubt whether a person here illegally is "subject to the jurisdiction..."

The path forward for Ariz. Senator Russell may be instead to frame the law in those terms. "Be it resolved, that a person or persons, who is present in the United States through false or illegal methods, cannot and shall not be considered to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States."

The upshot would be to invalidate the children of such persons from automatic citizenship if they happen to be born here.

In the case of children who are older, who are socialized culturally to the United States, they could be considered to be "naturalized" in the common if not the legal, meaning of the word.

Most folks who know me know me as a liberal. However, I'm not so liberal as to want to give the country away, and I am contemptuous of those on the Left who seem to hold this position. Let me have it.

Mulholland Dr. (Part 2)

The Spine of Mulholland Dr.

The narrative spine of Mulholland Dr. is very simple. Diane Selwyn is experiencing depression and mental decompensation because of personal and professional problems. She suffers a professional setback when she loses a nice role at an audition to her former lover, Camilla Rhodes. This exacerbates her deteriorating mental condition. Diane fantasizes that some external force caused this to happen, like a mafia plot. At a party at Adam Kesher’s house, Camilla and Adam reveal that they’re an item. This severe cruelty further pushes Diane over the edge. Diane meets a hit-man at Winkies and hires him to kill Camilla. He tells her that he’ll leave a sign for her to indicate when the job is done. Diane notices that a stranger has overheard their conversation and has reacted with a horrified expression. Diane goes home and goes to sleep. She dreams of an idealized vision of herself named Betty Elms who is tantalized by a mysterious woman named Rita who is pliant to Betty. Diane awakens and discovers that the hit man has left proof of his deed. Camilla is dead. Diane suffers a psychotic break with reality, joylessly masturbates in a vain and pathetic attempt to reconnect with a reason to live, and then shoots herself.

Convincing UFO Footage

Okay, I've got a confession. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. That is not to say I believe. Seeing is believing. To date, I haven't seen anything. But, the next best thing to seeing, is seeing convincing video. And this certainly qualifies.

If it isn't a balloon, it's something very odd indeed. However, I can't rule out a balloon based simply on the way it moves.

The donut hole in the center reminds me of the Maury Island Incident.