Popular Music - the 1960's was the Golden Age

A Word about the Music of the 60's - to flag up some good memories....

Like all of us getting ready for ReUnions, we are looking at life from “both sides now” – thank you Joni Mitchell.

A “high school” ReUnion is going to be a chance to re-live (at least in memory) that period of time. A ReUnion of re-living people could HIT our self-image and consciousness-blazing saddles the hardest. Perhaps only second to Getting Married, a ReUnion is life-changing.

I am stewing over the Chronology of our Class:
What was happening when we came in?
What was “there” while we were there?
And what foam came down the moving wave of its afterwards?

1968 was in many ways a turning point for many things. Certainly the race riots, four political assassinations, the Apollo manned missions to the moon, Dutch Elm Disease, and the USSR invasion of Czechoslovakia, caused life as we loved it to change. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1968.html

There were many things “happening”. And until the late 60's nobody ever said “have a nice day”, or “what’s happening?”. Food was fast (McDonalds), and Cars were faster (e.g. Corvette). Politics and photography was polarized and Polaroid. Summers were still endless and people had vacations, and could remember when “The Mom” did not have to work. But of all the things “happening”, you have to really appreciate the fact that music just EXPLODED.

"Far Out" - AND THERE WAS MUSIC.

Our generation put unprecedented emphasis on Music. Not to sing, or play, but to listen to. Within a generation, we went from people who knew hundreds of songs “by heart” (hootenanny, caroling, canziones), to paying money to listen to Rock Stars playing in Coliseums. Why was the music so important? In this way?

We were born into the realm of mothers sending us for piano lessons, and dreaming of the glamorous life lived by the “Rat-Pack” – a nice metaphoric description of the entertainers’ actual (not-so-glam) life at the time. You could hear the “stars” in small clubs – Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and some wonderful female participants, including Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, Angie Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, and Judy Garland. All of them could remember lines and tunes, write, sing, dance, talk, mime and mimic and act – and as part of a group with a mission bigger than their egos. We have not seen their likes since.

I remember coming into the musicality of the age with revenant “Hootenannies” and Sing-a-Longs. Folk music brought us together. We were led by talent, not by Tyrants. People like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Odetta, Marion Anderson, and Pete Seeger were our guides.

Pete Seeger still lives, perhaps the greatest American of his generation – although Black-Listed from TV, in 1963 his amusing protest single, “Little Boxes” (written by Malvina Reynolds), was number one in the nation's Top 40's radio hits. His compositions remained the anthems of our age for a decade – Kumbaya, Turn Turn Turn, We Shall Overcome, If I had a Hammer, Long Time Passing. In the 1960s, Seeger toured college campuses extensively. He usually accompanied himself on a custom-made acoustic 12-string guitar, modifying an instrument of Mexican origin associated with black bayou blues balladeer, Lead Belly.

Other widely-beloved folk performers included three very independent women:

Joan Baez (daughter of Mexican/ Scot immigrants, 3-octave vocal range) "Blowin' in the Wind" - when she married David Harris in late 1967, it was reported as “the wedding of the century”. (Baez, performing while visibly pregnant - “Diamonds and Rust”, “The Night they drove Old Dixie Down”). Remember the way she sustained long notes--almost breathing into the tone, and sometimes lightly yodeling between registers. She never "oversung", never showed off her voice, but the emotion was "strong"--she had no mercy when singing about cruelty or war. We often wept.

Judy Collins (father was blind, she started as a child prodigy at classical piano, son suicide) “Send in the Clowns”, “Wildflowers” - stunning purity and sweetness of her soprano, accompanied by her acoustic guitar playing. Her 1968 album: Who Knows Where the Time Goes, with Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills &Nash). She was the major interpretive folksinger of the '60s.

Joni Mitchell (Canadian immigrant) - singer-songwriter folk-rock scene in Southern California, divorced and launched her solo career in 1967. One of the best female guitarists, famous for her open tuning and innovative harmonic technique – including polymodality, chromaticism, polytonality, and strict pedal points.

At the same time, Rock and Roll was sizzling. We actually saw Elvis Presley perform and become the King. But in Orange County we had a special variation of R&R, that sort of started in Southern California – the Surf Bands were everywhere. “Pipeline” was an irresistable, and frankly obnoxious, “wipe-Ooooouuuut !” Almost anytime, anyplace.

In the 60's, Rock & Roll matured into a full-bodied all-year everywhere throbbing river of infinite immersion. It was no longer bass blues arpeggios, with candy cane lyrics and swivelling hips. By the late sixties it was a wall of sound rolling out of stratocaster canons into the drug-haze of Woodstock. Let’s look at the details:

By the 60's we entered the first of many flowerings. Bob Dylan, started acoustic and ended electric. People would karaoke him before there was karaoke, memorize long poem-songs. In 1965 he rolled out “Like a Rolling Stone”.

The acoustic folk-rock musical traditions of successful bands like The Lovin' Spoonful were re-interpreted by new groups “going electric" and looking for a dirtier sound. For example, the Grateful Dead pulled terrain from everywhere–folk, jazz, country, gospel-- to make an incredibly eclectic synthesis featuring electric instrumentation for outbursts of passion, apocalyptic apotheosis, and dirt. The “Wall of Sound” was developed for the Dead (75-tons of amplification-- eighty-nine 300-watt solid-state and three 350-watt vacuum-tube amplifiers, generating a total of 26,400 watts RMS of audio power – the largest portable sound system ever built).

By the late 60's, historians like “Patrick the Lama” tell us we were at the Golden Age of psychedelic music. Bands were migrating down from San Francisco. http://members.tripod.com/lysergia_2/LamaReviews/lamaMain.htm

Electric music is the vernacular of the second half of the twentieth century, to use Pete Seeger’s old term. And this amplified language ran "psychedelic" for a few beautiful years in the late 60's. It was still rock, but the riffs included “far out” explorations of the mind, and the senses, and feelings no one had really interpreted before.

In 1968, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix played together. Separately, they led the way for later bands, combining guitar feedback powered by overdriven amplifiers with brilliantly original expansions of traditional blues (B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Elmore James) and rhythm and blues guitar skills ( Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper). Hendrix would mondegreen entire songs - deliberately misinterpreting and creating distortion in every part of the track – e.g. “Purple Sky” [kiss the sky, kiss this guy]. Hendrix's rendition of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is a complete departure from the original, and includes one of the most highly praised guitar arrangements in modern music.

In 1968, the Doors album, Waiting for the Sun " Hello I Love You " was so simple and complex that it created a kind of religion of its own. The Doors, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane became moving cathedrals of Rock & Roll, spewing a catholic catharsis.

The Cream (Eric Clapton), and Pink Floyd (with original founder Syd Barrett), embraced psychedelic music fully, becoming two of the first truly specialized psychedelic bands. Sometimes a band would switch from one “sound” to another. The Beatles did this with each album. Country Joe and the Fish suddenly dropped their tempo and came out with really psychedelic masterpieces, like "Bass Strings".

I remember Country Joe in 1966 performed an upbeat but shocking protest song in a raw jug band style. Just one year later, the piece changed dramatically – put into lower tempo, delayed vocals, added reverb, studio reversed cymbals, electric organ, traveler lyrics, and a continuous blues guitar solo which together turned the piece into a mind-blowin’-in-the-wind "psychedelic" track.

Curiously, almost all the popular bands were almost all male. The perfect pitch drummer, Karen Carpenter, was sort of the exception that proves this tune. At the same time, so many solo female vocalists of our generation were exceptionally strong.

1. Aretha Franklin - 1967 single, "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)", a blues ballad in gospel style. "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" in classic R&B. Her feminist version of Otis Redding’s "Respect" brought her superstardom. Then the album, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, reached million-seller status, followed by top ten singles hits including "Baby I Love You", "Chain of Fools" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman".

2. Tina Turner - “What's Love Got To Do With It?” R&B/Rock/Pop-fused “Private Dancer”

3. Janis Joplin (d. 1970) - April 10, 1968, invaded Anaheim Convention Center, with a relatively obscure group called "Big Brother and the Holding Company."

4. Bonnie Raitt - her eponymous debut album came out in 1971, singer and bottleneck guitarist at a time when there were very few. Her second album, Give It Up, was released in 1972 to universal acclaim. "Nick of Time" , "Something to Talk About", "I Can't Make You Love Me".

5. Joni Mitchell - "Both Sides Now", "Clouds", and "The Circle Game."

6. Billie Holiday (d. 1959) - “Bless the child” - her melisma may still be heard in R&B singer Mariah Carey, or any “American Idol” today.

7. Linda Ronstadt - “You’re no good” and 3 multi-platinum albums: “What's New”, “Canciones de Mi Padre” and “Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind”.

8. Diana Ross/ The Supremes/ The Temptations - "Where Did Our Love Go" · "Baby Love" · "Stop! In the Name of Love" · "I Hear a Symphony" · "You Can't Hurry Love" · "You Keep Me Hangin' On" · "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" · "The Happening" · "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me".

Powerful women kept the heart and intimacy in popular music.

In 1965-1967, The Beatles were recording psychedelic rock with tunes like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" , and the Summer of Love anthem “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”. They proceeded to lead the entire popular genre, each album anticipated for “familiar novelty” – so aligned with our lives that each cut seemed tailored to our counter-cultural creation myth. " Hey Jude ", “Norwegian Wood”.

Simon & Garfunkle - The 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, refined their folk rock-ballad sound in 1967, "The Sounds of Silence," "Mrs. Robinson," "Bridge over Troubled Water," and "Homeward Bound". The Bridge over Troubled Water album was released in January 1970, with Garfunkel's soaring vocals on its title track . The album includes other top-twenty hits: "El Cóndor Pasa", "Cecilia", and “The Boxer”.

Other R&R voices kept us dancing – Jackson Browne, Tom Paxton, Ani DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Eliza Carthy, Bruce Springsteen, Roger McGuinn, Indigo Girls, Dick Gaughan, Martin Simpson, Odetta. Blood Sweat & Tears re-introduced an entire brass section.

1964-1967 - “The British Invasion” - Arrival of The Hollies [still playing!], Dusty Springfield (with her late 1963 hit single "I Only Want To Be With You"), The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Animals [whose signature song is arguably the best version–beginning with A-minor chord arpeggio – of “House of the Rising Sun”, which is arguably the first US blues-rock tune], Cilla Black, The Dave Clark Five, Petula Clark, Donovan, The Who, etc.

Note also the films in 1964 “A Hard Day’s Night”, and the Sean Connery “James Bond”, and Julie Andrews “Mary Poppins” films.

Not to be confused with the “Second British Invasion” in the 1970's – David Bowie’s ballad – "Space Oddity" – the story of Major Tom, who becomes lost in space, and the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Police, Dire Straits, etc. The Rolling Stones big US tour was 1972. Bob Marley - mid 70s. By 1983, well over 50% of the Billboard Hot 100 in America were by overseas artists.

1964-1971 - Big Sur Folk Festival. When I was there, everybody had a bedroll, and some kind of instrument – a guitar, or a conga. (I was the only “folk trumpeter”). Beautiful batiks spread out under the trees of the Esalen Institute. Everyone danced like children, and many of us were.

In 1969, Karen Carpenter, a drummer with perfect pitch, signed with A&M Records, with her piano prodigy brother Richard, as "The Carpenters". She sang most of the songs on their first album, Ticket to Ride. Their next album, 1970's Close to You, contained "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun" which was broadly construed. They peaked at #1 and #2, respectively (the latter was written by Paul Williams).


1967 - “The Summer of Love” - 130,000 young people migrated to San Francisco. “Hippies” also gathered in cities across the world at the same time – millions came out dressed in the “uniform” of bell-bottom jeans and long hair. A defining moment, whose failure was not then apparent, in an attempt to redefine cultural reality and the underlying unity of all humanity .

1969 - Woodstock - three days on a Bethel dairy farm in upstate New York, the biggest party in history on 600 acres with 500,000 mostly young people left remarkably to their own devices and virtually no disturbances in spite of rainy and uncomfortable conditions.

Many of the "descriptions" and books published laterly miss the point that a lot of effort was put into this -- the message of it as well as its execution.
The effort was to change the things that the young people thought needed changing. All unjust things were addressed by this generation. But the beauty of Woodstock was that these "changings" were not directed or even expressed: The event itself was a political statement, deliberately skipping the attempt to control or tell people things unnecessarily. This is a generation that showed what can be done when cultural social justice free-speech and emergent moon-landing stratocaster technology mix.

The Life-changing line-up included:

Folksingers (Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie [talking blues], Hardin, Sommer, John Sebastian);

International multi-genre (Incredible String Band, Sly and the Family Stone, Canned Heat, Crosby, Stills & Nash &Young, Santana, Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sweetwater, Keef Hartley Band, Blood, Sweat and Tears);

Indian ragas and talas (Ravi Shankar);

Gospel doo-wop (Richie Havens),

Blues (Johnny Winter, Paul Butterfield Blues Band);

Happening head bands (Quill - which has since disappeared in obscurity);

Psychedelic jam bands (Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish ); and

Classic Rock and Roll [now considered "retro rock"](Sha-Na-Na).

The late 60's also saw the rise of intense new performers like Stevie Wonder - who now holds the record for a solo artist, 26 Grammies. Mid-60's – "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", "With a Child's Heart", and "Blowin' in the Wind", a Bob Dylan cover, "A Place in the Sun", "I Was Made to Love Her", “For Once in My Life", and our 1968 anthem, "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day". But he had not yet even gotten into his “classic” production period.

REPRISE:

And then, somehow, we lost it. The Golden Age. Self-inflicted wounds, and then angry “performers” and mega-wealthy labels taking over the manufacture of “popular”. Music became industry, driven by greed and the mysterious attraction of manufactured "stars" to the herd of convention. The lip-synching ship was launched and “stars” would fill huge venues up with egos, illusion, and literally, “noise”. Nobody knows the words. And the words are no longer poetry. Consciousness-raising is not a thing to do.

Concerts are no longer about talent. Huge venues are sold-out to suckers and weak-minded dead-heads with too much time and money. The ticket prices alone tell you it is about greed. The Industry executives boast about their victims, their conquests, the market share they seized. Performers orchestrate victims -- mosh pits, denigration rap, grunge, the rape and fire nightmare of Woodstock ‘99, all-night boners “hittin’ it, and workin’ it, and doin’ other stuff to it". Digitization re-tooled the acoustic vulcanized rubber voice-overs with a “texture” of trance banging hypno-minimalia jumble-bum metal acid gear. Bobble heads famous for being famous. The musicians are somewhere in glassed-off rooms taping for shows they will never see, performed by "front" groups assembled by the Labels. Hard to believe this is a description of the Music World.

And yet, Pete Seeger still lives! And in the last decade, the industry has been collapsing to the raw origins of the Internet. The collapse is temporary. It is just a matter of a little time for the greedy predators to take over the Internet.

Popular Music: The Fender Guitar and the Air Guitar

The Fender Stratocaster has 21 frets crossed by six strings. It delivers 126 individual notes and tens of thousands of chord combinations. And it was the preeminent instrument, the great axe, which hued inside almost all of the Golden Age of 1960's music.

By the simple fact that the inventor had his work-shop in Fullerton, Orange County is where this instrument first appeared. The invention was more than mere amplification of the acoustic guitar. The following paragraphs may help explain the significance of Fender Guitar:

The two great Guitars: Acoustic, and Electric.

1. ACOUSTIC. "Classical Gas" is an instrumental piece written by Mason Williams. In 1968 he played the track on an acoustic guitar accompanied by an orchestra. It reached Number 2 on the American charts and went on to sell over a million copies. Williams asked an experimental filmmaker named Dan McLaughlin to create a video montage of classical art works edited in time to the music, using a visual effect now known as kinestasis. The pioneering work, "3000 Years of Art", premiered in the summer of 1968, widely broadcast on film and Television.

I mention this to emphasize that there was no market NEED for a “better” guitar. Many fine musicians were playing, and continued to play, acoustic instruments -- Denver, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, etc. The classic Spanish guitar, produced inexpensively in Mexico, was accessible, was performing very well in the hands of popular musicians, and is a fully-developed expressive instrument. It could shape the Melody, punch the Rhythm, and fill the Harmony -- an all-in-one instrument you could play while still singing the words or playing harmonica simultaneously! Bob Dylan was one of the first “folk” singers who moved from acoustic to electric, but many other brilliant musicians did not.

2. ELECTRIC. Enter, the Fender - the earlier “Telecaster” and then the more contemporary “Stratocaster” models. In the 1940s, Leo Fender, the owner operator of an electronics repair shop in Fullerton, California, developed a solid-body electric guitar. The solid body improved the amplified tone, basically by eliminating the “feedback” from the hollow-body of an acoustic instrument. The sound is bright and cutting. And of course, louder!

Leo Fender also introduced precision mass production techniques to the manufacture of his simple modular design. By eliminating the expense of individual luthiery, he dramatically reduced the cost. Even the components were produced inexpensively in quantity on an assembly line. The bodies were band-sawed and routed from unitized blocks of wood or other materials. In addition, Fender did not use the traditional glued-in neck. He bolted it on, making it removable and replaceable.

The Telecaster neck was cut from a single piece of maple and the fingerboard frets were set directly into the wood surface. On traditional acoustic guitars, a rosewood or ebony fingerboard would be glued onto mahogany necks. Fenders typically have 22 frets (the baritones have 24-fret necks). The characteristic Telecaster 'twang' can be produced by picking near the saddles, and players can mute strings at the bridge with the side of the palm.

Now add the electronics – humbucking pickups powered by active circuitry featuring a TBX expander and an MDX midrange booster with 12dB of gain. Other lineaments included a Freeflyte hardtail bridge and die-cast tuning machines with pearloid buttons. Eventually, the Fenders also featured a BiFlex truss-rod system, low-friction EasyGlider string trees and pro-active electronics. You could coordinate with foot pedals, wah-wah effects, and even simultaneous play-back harmonics.

Finally, and you’ll love this: The Fender body contours are curved for comfort - especially appreciated across the thighs in long rehearsals and marathon bungie-chord concerts. The design LOOKS sexy. You never see thousands of people wiggling around playing acoustic “air guitars”! It took the Fender to lift arms and bodies into the working space of integrated human senses so that virtual players could EXPRESS themselves with music they cannot actually play!

The Surge, The Army, & the Sons of Iraq

"The influx of 21,500 surge troops, combined with the cooperation of 90,000 Sons of Iraq, reduced the violence [sectarian war]significantly. But the tactics that have been employed have contributed little toward building a stable, unified Iraqi nation, according to Simon [author of "The Price of the Surge", published in Foreign Affairs May 2008]. Instead, the surge has inadvertently strengthened the three modern horsemen of Middle Eastern apocalypse: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism." Wilson Quarterly, "Unmasking the Surge" (Summer 2008].

The fourth horse, is galloping corruption. The bent refusal to accept facts and the thinking that every dollar is an open invitation to deception, distorts the media, the text of the Quoran, and the effort to implement any solution short of genocide. Killing everyone is now possible, and it is "final", but it has NEVER been a "solution", and is not now.

Dance - a collection of quotes and dancers

The quite surprising prefatory Quote: "We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. We should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh." -- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
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Carlos Aceituno (d. 2006) - Guatamalan/American founder of Fogo Na Roupa Grupo Carnaval, master and teacher of capoeira, the Brazilian blend of percussion, dance and martial arts, often called "physical chess".

Fred Astaire - an American film and Broadway dancer, choreographer, singer and actor.

George Balanchine - a choreographer credited for bridging classical and modern ballet. Put together numerous ballet companies, including Ballet Society, which became the New York City Ballet, with dancer R P Beard as a founding member.

Mikhail Baryshnikov - Russian ballet dancer.

Richard Park Beard (1925-2009) - trained by Balachine, Vladiminoff, Anatole Oboukoff, and Muriel Stewart. After joining Cuevas' Ballet International, worked with Bronislava Nijinska, Leonide Massine, Vera Fokina, and Boris Romanoff in ballet, often paired with Tatiana Riabouchinska. When the Company appeared in the Park Theater (in Manhattan), he was taken into the The Ballet Theater by the English choreographer, Antony Tudor, often partnering with Alicia Markova. Became a founding member with Balanchine's New York City Ballet, dancing with ballerinas Marie-Jeanne, Tanaquil Le Clercq, Yvonne Mounsey and Elise Reiman. Did choreography for Television and musicals (with stars Dinah Shore, Danny Kaye and Julie Andrews, as well as Cher, Mitzi Gaynor, Shirley Maclaine, and Doris Day).

"Burn the Floor" - contemporary Broadway production from the Gilkison Studio in Perth. Q.v.

Jean Butler -(born March 14, 1971 in Mineola, Long Island), American Irish dancer and choreographer. Began performing Irish dance at the age of four, trained by the widely respected teacher Donny Golden. Famous for mastery of a cheery step dance. QV. "Riverdance".

Jack Cole - American choreographer/coach and respected dance scholar with a large library. Died 1974 age 62. Product of fatherless home, born in New Jersey, schooled in modern dance ensemble run by Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis Denishawn. Went on his own to study India's bharata natyam.

Revelations about the influence of Cole in the iconic images of his clients continue to surface. Genre-busting, fusion jazz-based supper club beatnik forms with signature floor work and slides. Moved from New York to Hollywood where he ran a resident dance group, and coached "bombshells": Rita Hayworth ("Mame" 1946), Betty Grable ("Meet Me After the Show" 1951), Mitzi Gaynor ("I Don't Care Girl" 1953), and Bacall, Russell, Ann Miller, Lana Turner, and Dolores Gray. He worked extensively with Marilyn Monroe who was a keen student -- six movies (including 1963 "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".) Her vocal coach Hal Schaefer recalls them working together:

"He [Cole] wanted her to make a move, and she put her arm out. It just kind of drifted. Jack said, 'No, wait. Sharp, I want it sharp!'/ 'But Jack, I'm supposed to be a sex queen,' she said./ And he answered, 'That's not sexy. That's like a limp fish. Put that arm out there, strong! That's sexy! That's life, that's alive, that's energy!" This ancecdote speaks volumes.

Dick Crum - American, prominent folk dance teacher. (Not to be confused with infamous cartoonist.)

Merce Cunningham - (American) - 2010 died in his sleep age 90. Dancer/choreographer, soloist in Martha Graham's company, then his own, with life partner John Cage (music composer). Established "modernism" -- its abstraction, decentralization, I-Ching quality of chance in dance. Cage said they were aiming at "the imitation of nature in the manner of her operation": a bird flies, a rabbit runs, their directions, different. Joan Acocella described his work: "You seemed to be seeing dance for the first time." [Critic, New Yorker 2009]

David Dassa (Israeli/US) - teacher of the ebullient and genial life-loving forms of community dances, including traditional and modern choreography. Israel remains one of the few places on earth with freshly commissioned folk dance masters.

Doris Day - singer and dancer.

Edward Denby - New York dance critic. Good reviews during Dick Beard's dominance in Balanchine's NYCB Company.

Isadora Duncan - Born 1877, San Francisco, school drop out, musician, teacher, now aka the Mother of Modern Dance. Devoted educator, started three schools across Europe (the "Isadorables"). Flouted tradition, became a red (Soviet citizen) with hostility to the "commercialism" of the arts, and declined into drunken-ness as she aged. As she stepped into a wasp-tailed Amilcar designed by a handsome mechanic she had nick-named "Bugatti", she declared "Je vais à l'amour" ("I am off to love".) She hoped to bed the mechanic. Unfortunately, her scarf caught in the rear wheel of the open car, and she was strangled. She had previously lost her two children to automobile accidents. Composer Percy Grainger called Isadora's autobiography a "life-enriching masterpiece". I think she was a delicious poet as well. Writing to one of her lovers, the poet Mercedes de Acosta (in 1927):
A slender body, hands soft and white,
for the service of my delight,
two sprouting breasts round and sweet,
invite my hungry mouth to eat,
from whence two nipples firm and pink,
persuade my thirsty soul to drink,
and lower still a secret place
where I'd fain hide my loving face....
Gosh. Questions anyone?

Agnes De Mille - Great Broadway and ballet choreographer. "To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth, and it is yours for the taking."

Jean Erdman - Born in Hawaii 1916, dancer/choreographer, taught at Sarah Lawrence with her husband, Joseph Campbell.  Martha Graham influences.

Vladimir Estrin - "If ballroom tango can be compared to a 'seasoned relationship' that has withstood the test of time--sharp, clean, and precise--then Argentine tango is a 'sizzling love affair', passionate, unpredictable and insatiable." Instructor at 3rd Street Dance, Los Angeles.

Michael Flately - (Born 1958, Chicago) Irish-American dance prodigy, boxer, promoter, and flautist. Began dancing lessons at 11. Flatley was taught by Dennis Dennehy in Chicago, then went on to producing his own shows with his own school, on Chicago's Southwest Side. Began world tours with Green Fields of America, whose members included Liz Carroll, Father Charlie Coen, Jack Coen, Sean McGlynn, Mick Moloney and Bill Ochs, with a slightly less flamboyant Donny Golden dancing alongside Michael. Later he toured with The Chieftains in the 1980s. Co-designed / choreographed the "Riverdance" (qv) phenomenon with Jean Butler (qv). Quote: "I will be a dancer until the day I die."

Loie Fuller - Born in Chicago, 1891 - actress and burlesque skirt dancer, embodied theatrical Art Nouveau movement. Experimented with gas lighting effects on her silk costumes. Fuller developed a form of natural movement and improvisation techniques that were used in conjunction with her revolutionary lighting equipment and translucent silk costumes. She patented her apparatus and methods of stage lighting that included the use of colored gels and burning chemicals for glow and shadow effects. Toured with Duncan and St. Denis in "free dance" expression. Died of breast cancer, age 65, in Paris.

Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod) - Dutch Parisienne, built up her own stage-spa-fashion house. Introduced oriental influences and a "natural" shape -- undistorted by corsets, bustles, etc. -- but revealed with diaphanous shadows and veils. Wrongfully accused by disappointed suitor of being a German spy, executed by a French firing squad, October 15, 1917. In the year 2017, the French army will release its court-documents about Mata Hari's trial and execution, to the Frisian Museum which has already investigated the charges and the life of this influential woman. There is evidence of injustice, but no evidence of spying.

Garity sisters, Caroline and Kimberly - "The beats and rhythms become stuck in your head, almost in your heart, when you are dancing". [CG] Performers with Kelly School of Traditional Irish Dance, often playing with live pipe and drum.

Mitzi Gaynor - American Motion Picture Actress and Dancer

Jason Gilkison - Australian director dancer choreographer, maternal grandmother having founded the famous family Dance studio in 1931 in Perth, known for raw, personal "edge" and grit. International ballroom champion. Now playing the Longacre theatre in New York, with "Burn the Floor", which aims to reinvent ballroom dancing on Broadway. When associate producer Peta Roby was asked what is the dance, she replied: "It's a cha-cha. It's traditionally an afternoon dance, not like the rumba or tango, which are more sensual evening dances. It's the kind that a young man could dance with his mother or auntie." (!)

Ailes Gilmour - Early Martha Graham dancer, socialist activitst, and sister of Isamu Noguchi

Alexander Godunov - Russian dancer who defected to the West

Jeffrey Golladay - American ballet dancer

Ginger and Fred -- Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire

Betty Grable - American Motion Picture Actress and Dancer

Martha Graham - American dancer and choreographer

Yury Grigorovich - Russian dancer and choreographer

Audrey Hepburn - ballerina, stage dancer and movie star

Catherine Hepburn - stage dancer and movie star

Tame Iti - Maori dancer, male lead in 2011 Ponifasio (qv) production, "Tempest".

Joel Jacinto - (Philippine American) founder/teacher of Kayamanan Ng Lahi studio. "Our dancing is a means of cultural empowerment."

Michael Jackson (1958-2009) - singer, song-writer, choreographer and dancer. A prodigy at four, beginning with the Jackson Five, leading to multiple world tours and 40 years of intense performance, crossing generational, artistic, cultural and racial lines. Many technical innovations in hip-hop, pop, and R&B -- "moon walk", costume, and unique speed and hand gestures. "Thriller", "Off the Wall", "Bad", "Dangerous", "HIStory", "Beat it" and "Invincible" are all part of the transformation of multiple cross-over art forms around the core of dance. Died after the last rehearsal of a pre-sold 50-show "This is It" Tour.

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival - In Massachussetts US, one of the world's legendary arts organizations, home to America's longest running dance festival, a US National Historic Landmark. Annually, visitors, dancers, choreographers, composers, teachers, experts, and novices converge to explore the art of dance, and themselves. In 2010, more than 50 dance companies performed on three Festival stages. Many photo and program exhibits, galleries, and more. 

Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis bought 163 Acres in 1931 for the Arts.

Rocio Jiménez - (Mexico/American) dance leader of Jaliscience (1990), and De Colores Mexican Folk Dance Company. Cf qv. Sandoval.

Danny Kaye - forced to leave Russia, a great quintuple threat artist - singing, dancing, choreography, magic and puppetry acts, lyrics and acting.

Gene Kelly - American film and stage dancer, choreographer, singer, actor and film director

Theodore Kosloff - acting as if they personally invented the full-figured fouetté, in 1909 Ballets Russes debuted in France and redefined dance, with such superstars as Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova. Only one of these stars made his way to Los Angeles to achieve fame, and this was Fedor Michailovich Koslov, known as "Theodore" in California. He was also a character actor, fencing master, painter, pantomimist and violinist. (In Russia, dance masters accompanied on fiddle.) He abandoned the hierarchic world of Russian ballet to pioneer in LA. He franchised schools, performed in vaudeville and was a key producer in the Hollywood Bowl. He was the first coach for Agnes DeMille (qv) with whom he had an enduring association, and was able to teach the traditions of movement while introducing (and pilfering) new ideas. Married ballet dancers, three, sequentially, each bearing the brunt of his vodka tempers. The last, Natascha Rambova, left him for Rudolph Valentino after Theodore shot her in the leg. Died in 1956 age 74 with no heirs to his dream dascha deep in the San Fernando Valley. In 1957, his attorney sold the house filled with objets d'art for $175,000.

Rudolf Laban - choreographer, inventor of Labanotation

Louise Lecavalier - Icon of Canadian contemporary dance

Judson Lipply - Dancer "Evolution of Dance" in six minutes, viral video: .

Jung Im Lee - Korean American, teaches in one of the largest Korean dance academies, often combining traditional Korean dance, with hip-hop, ballet, and jazz.

Tracy Li - Chinese ballet dancer who is a senior principail in the Cape Town City Ballet, South Africa

Maude Lloyd - South African ballerina and dance critic

Lydia Lopokova - Russian ballet dancer

Shirley Maclaine - triple threat singing, dancing and acting. Also authored a number of books exploring "consciousness", spirituality, and self-awareness.

Sabrina Matthews - Canadian ballet choreographer and former ballet dancer

Donald McKayle - born in New York, a dancer in Martha Graham and in the original West Side Story, American choreographer. Founder of troupes, Contemporary Dance Group ("Games" 1951), Angelitos Negros. Director, California Institute of the Arts. "Donnie" to his UCI dancers.

Sulamith Messerer - founder of Japanese ballet

Barbara Mettler - founder of Tucson Creative Dance Center, theorist of language of movement and kinesthetic sense, dance as primary art. "Art is not an escape from daily life but a dimension of experience without which human life is incomplete."
[I took some of her classes, did some editing, and helped with the grounds/garden.]

Ann Miller - Great American Tap Dancer, Singer & Actress

Lin Hwai Min, the choreographer and artistic director of the Cloud Gate Dance company from Taiwan

Arthur Mitchell - American artistic director, educator, choreographer and dancer

Arthur Murray - a famous dance instructor and businessman, known for Arthur Murray Dance Studios franchise.

Music Visualization - this modern dance concept calls for movement equivalents to the timbres, dynamics and acoustic shaping in music, including the rhythmic bones. In 1916 Ted Shawn choreographed the first, as "Inventions and Fugues to Bach" as a heuristic exercise.

Natonal Museum of Dance - Saratoga Springs, New York, perhaps the only museum dedicated to professional dance. Associated with Jacob's Pillow (qv).

Vaslav Nijinsky - Russian ballet dancer and choreographer

Ivan Novikoff, Ballet master, founder of Novikoff School of Russian-American Ballet

Rudolf Nureyev - Russian ballet dancer

Leon Neshanian - Armenian ballet dancer; performed for Queen of England (1958); at Opera La Scala (1961); live on KCET - 10/67

Friedrich Nietzsche - (German author, faced with the struggle of the Gods to replace themselves): "I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance." After seeing Lou Salome dance and falling in love with her.

Anna Pavlova - legendary Russian prima ballerina, who brought ballet to the world

Shida Pegahi - traditional Persian dance, now outlawed in Iran under the heretical "fundamentalist" construction of the Quoran. Teaches an emphasis on The Dancing Face -- expressions -- integrated with the choreography and hip/leg/upper body movements.

Plato - (or Socrates, his mentor) In The Laws, Plato writes that dance should be taught to both boys and girls as an integral part of their education. Interestingly, he taught that the children should not only be instructed in the noble and aspirational forms, but also the comic and ridiculous; to show contrast.

Lemi Ponifasio - Samoan choreographer, founder of MAU, collaborator with Helen Todd (lighting). Produced "Paradise", "Requiem", "Bone Flute", and 2011 "Tempest: Without a Body" - he calls it a meditation on life after 9/11.  Features Maori chants, magical creatures, and "ordinary warriors":  He says "We are living in dangerous times. I don't propose solutions, but if we ever stop talking about the terrible things occurring, we are finished."  And "We are so paralyzed and frightened by the political disasters in the world that we are impotent and simply watch. I don't want our lives to be defined by the repetition of the horrors in our history. We have to do something about them. And we can."  He says, "I create to open people's eyes."  The Tempest is Inspired by Paul Klee's painting "Angel of History" (anguished angel unable to prevent evils' repetition), the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, and Shakespeare -- The Tempest' themes of institutional injustice.  Punctuated slow oceanic mythology.  Works with MAU, and the dancer Tame Iti (qv). 

Pearl Primus -

"Riverdance" - world tour of traditional Irish clog and step-dancing, notable for rapid line-syncronized leg movements under stationary arms and erect body. First performed in 1994, with Jean Butler and Michael Flately (to Celtic choral score written by Bill Whelan).

Wade Robson - contemporary Australian/US dancer choreographer, becoming a star at age 5, teacher at 12, choreographer at age 14. At 16 he was invited by Britney Spears to choreograph, write, direct, remix and co-design the world tour, "A Dream withina Dream", and with NSYNC, the PopOdyssey World Tour. EMMY in 1007 for "So You Think You Can Dance" entry, "Ramalama". Working with Cirque du Soleil. Signature dances are story-telling cross-overs.

Ginger Rogers - American film and stage dancer, singer and actress, most remembered as partner of Fred Astaire.

Gema Sandoval - (Mexican/American) Teacher/director of Danza Floricanto in Los Angeles. The passionate and coquettish Mexican folk dance.

Jerry Savin / Asteria Greek Dance - Teaches dance as a celebration of life's peaks and valleys, love and tragedy, the Greek troupe forms intricate lines that re-create Aegean village life.

Ted Shawn - Born Kansas City 1841, died age 80 in 1972, co-founder of Jacob's Ladder (qv), early notable male performer/choreographer of natural style free form modern dance. Partnered with St Denis (qv) to develop the principle of Music Visualization (qv), and Norma Gould, with whom he toured as "Interpretive Dancers". Taught M.Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. QUOTE: "Dance communicates man's deepest, highest and most truly spiritual thoughts and emotions far better than words, spoken or written".


Dinah Shore - triple threat singing, dancing and acting.

Ruth St. Denis - born 1879. A famous pupil was Martha Graham (qv). Co-founded the school, Denishawn, with her husband Ted Shawn. They helped created the festival, Jacob's Pillow. Showcased modern dance solos in the program, "The Art of the Solo". Influenced by the actor Sarah Bernhardt and Japanese dancer Sada Yacco, developed her translations of Indian culture and mythology. Brought first full-length (8 hour) Balinese Shadow Puppet play to US. She became popular and toured extensively whilst researching Oriental culture and arts, often coupling spirituality.

Muriel Stewart - trained Pavlova.

Twyla Tharp - American dancer and choreographer

Agrippina Vaganova, founder of Vaganova method

Gwen Verdon - Broadway dancer and actress

Ben Vereen - Tony Award winning,Emmy Award nominated actor,dancer & singer

Dame Ninette de Valois, founder of the Royal Ballet of London

Lula Washington - (Los Angeles / African) dancer, studio instructor - ballet, hip-hop, Senegalese, Caribbean. In 2004, she said "Dance is life. You came into this world moving. Dance can change your whole life."

"Indian" beads and cholita skirts - Trade

The "concept" of culture is rooted in misconception. There is almost nothing authentic in the word "traditional culture". For example, the "clovis point" can be seen gradually spreading across the planet, the augured shell necklace appearing in gravesites far from the sea, the seed-beads decorating the classic American Indian decorated buckskin imported from Hungary, the Aymara cholitas wearing felt hats from Italy and skirts from Korea. The tribal Arab claiming adherence to "traditions" while firing a rifle into the air at a wedding celebration. The physical "culture" of a people is often the very first manifestation of borrowing, change, inter-action and novelty.

Any claim for "tradition" should be measured solidly against the evidence left for us by our ancestors. The Caves -- Chauvet and Lescaux, etc. -- the kitchen middens, the hearthlands and burial sites. 15,000 to 30,000 years ago we suffered no kings or priests, although our hunting skills and pictorial arts were as well-developed as they are today. We find no evidence that our communities had Kingship or God. Thus, any "tradition" claimed for royalty or religion should be suspect.

Bush Legacy - it's time to Account

The key to responsibility is accountability: Tell us what you did. Any Public Authority which refuses to disclose the actions it took in the name of the public, should be prosecuted; the act of withholding evidence or failing to disclose is a breach of the Public Office.

Will the Bush-Cheney-Rove cadre give a full account?

According to the economic reports coming in from the "Executive Departments" of the US government, ALL of which are headed by Bush Appointees, here is a partial report:

DEBT. From the record-breaking income and retention surpluses at the end of the Clinton Administration, we now have an unprecedented National Debt; it is so large, the Government economists have not been able to project it even within 100 billion dollars. Once the actual expenditures and contracts are included, the debt will be in the Trillions.

JOBS. At the end of the Clinton era, over 22 million jobs had been created. At the end of this Bush era, we find fewer than 5 million.

INCOMES. At the end of the Clinton era, family incomes increased by more than $7,500. At this point, the family incomes of families with an employed spouse (not including the newly-de-jobbed) have declined by more than $2500.

POVERTY. At the end of the Clinton era, almost 8 million Americans moved out of subsistence poverty. Today, more than 5.6 million Americans have moved INTO poverty. In an apparent effort to disguise this wholesale drop, the "poverty" standard was lowered and re-defined by the ideological appointees.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. At the end of the Clinton era, Americans were personally admired and America was revered as an example. At the end of the Bush era, we find Americans are derided, and the Nation is not even feared as a world power.

I have taken the statistics cited above from this administration's numbers. The "account" remains incomplete, and unreliable, but is already DAMNING. Fellow citizens and Believers, this picture will only get worse as more numbers and more efforts to distort the numbers, are revealed.

Actually, there IS proof gods do not exist (or even care)

The Proof that God is not a Jew/Christian/Moslem. For all People of The Book, it is the book which is worshiped. Holy Writ and Scripture is memorized, it is revered. Its decrees are applied in adjudications. And above all, its recitations are taken as Truths, and its “history” as History. Therefore, if the Scripture falls upon the sword of fact, it takes its revenant “religion” with it.

We are now in a position to examine the phenomenology of Scripture. The archeological, linguistic, and physical/chemical evidence is “in”. We are no longer in the realm of speculation or blind faith.

The Pentateuch-Torah/Bible/Quran can be traced back. Each of them is a compilation, and we find earlier traces in earlier languages and in civilizations which were strangers to Jehovah / Jahweh / God or Allah.

Judaic Texts. Entire passages of the Pentateuch are lifted from worshippers of Egyptian and Sumerian gods. The “Bible” as commandments, the Tribes as “chosen”, a jealous God punishing sins with Flood, Famine and Plague, the exact order of Creation, a forefather and mother created with mud and rib in a garden, fratricide, long begattings, a heroic figure found as a babe in a reed basket by a princess – all of these are traceable back to hieroglyphic and cuneiform stories only recently translated, but flourishing in Egypt and Sumer, and written well before there were Jews in Israel. Abraham, by the language of the text, was no monotheist, but worshipped a plurality–as everyone did in the absence of any better explanation for the phenomenon of existence–of gods, goddesses, angels, demons, ancestors, and “evil spirits”.

Jews developed a writing system and a devotional literature which has no equal for longevity. However, it is not continuous, was not in the same language, and it is not Mosaic. Priests began compiling tribal lore, canons, and inspirational speeches and songs. They did not invent the concept of “history” – they used stories to encourage and enfranchise the community and its leaders in a contested and mysterious world. There is no corroborative physical evidence of “twelve tribes”, an Ark of the Covenant, an Egyptian enslavement, a 40 year trek in the Sinai, commandments written by God on stone, or even a single “significant” King with a palace – like David or Solomon. No 800 concubines. No great Temple of gold altars. These were traders and shepherds telling shepherd stories shared with people from India to Africa.

Christian Gospels. We do not have a single “original” Gospel. The explanation for how the words of Jesus were stenographically recorded by a group of fishermen is not provided. Paul of Tarsus is a literature historical figure who never met Jesus and lived some 200 years after the period of time he believed the Christic Messiah was born. He clearly believed Jesus was the Messiah longed for since time immemorial. He clearly believed that Jesus’ return was imminent. That anticipation was the wheel and impetus of his teaching, and its falsity is the worm in the apple of his faith.

The Council of Nicea, not one of whose members is named, consolidated the compilation of “saint” stories circulating throughout the region into what is for Christians a New Testament. The Council omits as “Apocrypha” the plethora of teachings, often under discipled traditions (such as Thomas and Judas, and even Mary Magdalene) which were deemed heretical, and attempts to eradicate them. Not only did they fail to eradicate certain works, we find more “heresies” preserved than “Gospels”. Curiously, they failed to delete Arianism and Unitarianism from the Bible itself – apparently the anonymous scholars were more concerned about Constantine’s pleasure than religious consistency.

The Quoran. The modern “versions” are embarassingly abundant in spite of efforts to destroy “errant” work. The Quoran is remarkably short and is in two parts. The first part is basically a re-telling of the Judaic Pentateuch with the Torah clearly outlined, and updated with Christian stories directly taken from the pre-Nicinean Gospels. All of this material is drawn from Chaldean Christian teaching texts used for children. It is not in “Arabic” – the Arabs did not have a written language during Mohammad’s day. Children like Mohammad’s youngest wife, could not have taken dictation in Arabic.

The second part of the Quoran is the lore associated with the Prophet Mohammed, PBUH, a historical figure. He is jealously messianic, and tries to bring peace to warring people, essentially fulfilling Paul’s hopes from a few centuries earlier. For each battle described, each event in the life of this warrior, there are many versions.

The provenance of the Quoran is remarkably similar to the other Scriptures; it was compiled centuries after the facts purported to be narrated, and first appears in another language. The earliest Quoranic stories were not first written in Arabic because (1) Arabic was not a written language, and (2) Mohammad and all of his followers and wives were illiterate.

The Quoran makes much of its claims for a divine origin: The arc-angel Gabriel apparently “dictated” the book to Mohammad. All of Mohammad’s companions were warriors with no training or tradition of memorization or accurate recitation. None were scholars or educators or students, although their sincerity and devotion is without question. The fact that the battle lore portion of the Quoran does not appear until centuries after the death of all of the members of this peerage, is a sufficient proof of its secular provenance.

The anomaly of an apparently minor god, an arc-angel, dictating stories of Mohammad’s victories to Mohammad, is not compatible with monotheism. Nor is the requirement of an annual Pilgrimage to the Black Stone of Kaaba / Al-hajar Al-aswad. The structure was for centuries a place of worship by pagans with many dieties and pagan mysteries. The name is Jewish -- Qabbalah - the Tree of Life - Creation.

The shape of the famous cornerstone and the black cube of the building is identified throughout the region with female worship, symbolized with the crescent moon of the Female Diety. The Hajj traditions –purification, circling the stone, proclamation, kissing– are female rites which pre-date monotheism.

The Meccan guards of the “cornerstone” will not permit it to be examined scientifically, which is curious since such examination no longer requires removal.

The Cave Paintings and Archeology in Israel / Iraq. Other than the biographical lore about Mohammad, the Quoranic themes are drawn from the Bible, and the Bible themes are drawn from Egyptian and Sumerian/Gilgamesh literary traditions preserved in papyrus, stone and clay. But the rise of Religion precedes the appearance of Jehovah. Theologians have yet to explain why it is important to “worship god”, or proclaim “There is only One”, when in fact, most human history has been lived without this form of Religion widely practiced today.

In the floors, walls, and ceilings of the caves of Lascaux (20,000 - 12,000 bc) and Chauvet (30,000 - 15,000 bc), there is plenty of evidence of worship, of sanctification, of prayer. But there is no indication of an Old Testament, Mosaic, or Islamic God. In fact there is no “god” figure at all – there are few “human” figures, none appear dominating. Most of the figures and figurines are gravid females.

__________________

Personal Note.

Some say that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. Historically, the question had practical importance – in matters of risk, it seems practical to take out “insurance” – consult the entrails or listen to an oracle.

Today, however, the existence of God is pure speculation. “Pure” in the sense of complete. We believe in stone and paint. There are tables of Elements. The “it” is chemistry and the wonders of physiology.

Of course, Religion remains. We are believers. Not for Jehovah/God/ Allah/ Spirit, but as a result of a thought-feeling that wants to listen and proclaim. I am grateful for existence and I pray every minute of the day. My genes perform a daily Hajj. I bow humbly to wonderful mysteries, links, images.

However, the images, graven or otherwise, never answer. Never. Ever. The message of most of our better angels and prophets seems to be that we are ourselves invested with a spark of divinity. THAT can be invoked.

As for a belief in a hereafter, I have none. There is earth, water, fire and air. There is Life struggling to reproduce itself. There is a visible interest in my inevitable and imminent death taken by condors, buzzards, meat flies, coyotes, and worms. There is no God – I do not feel the Love from above. Well, I did mention condors.

Unfortunately, the situation is even worse. Not content with merely NOT HAVING GOD/ALLAH, I have had to deal with Anger issues. Anger with God – as in, I really despise the son-of-a-#@%$$$. The colossal waste of time, the unforgivable disappearing act. To get over the anger, I finally had to just insist that I look forward to an Eternity in Hell. Ah, so much better...!

I join gently with C.S. Lewis, and with millions of Jack-Mormons, Apostate Catholics, and Loving Moslems to profess my aversion to any Heaven filled with hypocrites who lived only for selfish reasons. Let me never be trapped in any Heaven surrounded by those who were lured to paradise by tugs at their greed and after-life lusts! And that tugger? That “thing” which is most jealous, most vengeful, most damned of all! Give me the real Grace which will come from being as far away from such mind-sucking as is possible!

Senator-Nominee Obama's culminating call

The speech Obama made to 84,000 delegates at the Democratic Party Convention of 2008, concluded with this invocation of the Promise:

"America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done....

"Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of Scripture, 'Hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.'"


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Scripture may be drawn from Hebrews 10:23. Here is that verse in its context:

"Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries."

The book of Hebrews is a highly controversial document. But there can be no dispute that the passage clearly begs people to "consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds...encouraging one another".

Seamless science of religion; the Sin-Grace bridge

The deeper your search for truth, the more seamless it seems. As the light and the heat of the flame composes the fire, the transfixing truth is one thing for all its attributes.
The farther back in time we trace the human awakening, the more our religion and our science appear to be the same fire. Our notion of sin in pre-Galileo vessels was not confined to social condemnation, it was not in a thought-box entered one day out of the week, it was not neutered, or considered impractical for business. Private faith was tied to social duty. It still is.
Of course, there have always been false prophets, hypocritical preachers, and careless scientists. The Cheney of graft and war profiteering is paleolithic. The Bush of hypocrisy and fraud is burned into many of our texts -- it is actually the plot line of most of our stories and warning Gospels. The Rovian pretentions to statistics and authenticity are nothing new. Evil always acts under color of law and authority when possible. And this is where the idea of "sin" operates as the dragon at the margins, policing even a wrathful, wasteful, proud and envious god.
Pope Gregory (the Great) catalogued the Seven Deadly sins, which were put into theoretical and literary paces by Thomas Aquinas and Dante. One draws a bracing excitement from reciting the list: Pride, gluttony, sloth, lust, greed, envy and anger. For 15 centuries the Church decreed these to be sufficient to explain the misfortunes of mankind. For example, violence is derivative of anger, waste from gluttony, theft from greed, and all manner of tragedy from pride. None of these "sins" separate Man from God, as all of them are carefully attributed to the Gods -- in the Bible, the Popovul, the Olympiad, the Book of the Dead, the Book of Mormon. What is useful, of course, is the fact that "sin", unlike folly or crime, contains the spiritual hint of redemption.
Mohandas Gandhi was one of our first leaders to re-visit the list. His version of the seven deadliest sins: "Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, politics without principle, commerce without morality, worship without sacrifice, selfishness without responsibility."
Ghandi clearly addressed the falling gap between "spiritual" and practical morality, once again placing sin into the scientifically valid tool kit. We have always needed a practical measure not only of acts but of attitudes. The mens rea is not just problemmatic for Believers (after-life gamblers). It is also a concern for specialists in all human realms -- legal, social sciences, corporate enterprises, individual responsibility. The sin which begins in the heart, and the hope of salvation, is universal.
What is keeping us from grace? Clearly stealing, coveting. But also polluting, withholding evidence, and becoming rich at the expense of the gullible. There is authenticity and scientific method behind the usages of Sin. The world can be "saved", in every sense, if we understood that the condemnation is not just "spiritually" appropriate. It is apparent that survival requires us to recognize the acts and attitudes which are separating us from grace.

The attempted "swift-boating" of Obama

A book attacking a Presidential candidate with false allegations has surfaced in this election cycle. Negative advertising works. I know of no "effective" means to counter it, in light of the time-sensitivity of elections, and the perversity of humankind.

Recall the previous work of Jerome R. Corsi, a professional hate-mongerer. He coauthored UNFIT FOR COMMAND: SWIFT BOAT VETERANS SPEAK OUT AGAINST JOHN KERRY. That raft of speculation and falsity was launched against a Viet Nam War veteran, and it was condemned by John McCain in the 2004 election cycle for what it was: Pure slime.

Corsi has now published THE OBAMA NATION: LEFTIST POLITICS AND THE CULT OF PERSONALITY. Ironically, this attack by the same author, using the same methods, for the same political purpose (to defeat a candidate), has not (yet?) been condemned by McCain. However, he should. Although he may benefit from the same purpose and may share motives with Corsi, the means and methods of the two books are identical: To slime the candidate using profoundly hot-button conclusions based on fictional "evidence" which appeal to the prejudices of the public most likely to distort their good judgment. McCain has already clearly condemned the strategy.

The text of OBAMA NATION can be summarized: Obama is a jihadist drug user who is lying about his religion and his plan to impose a black supremacist communist state as soon as he seizes the reins of power.

The allegations in Corsi's latest book, to the extent that they advert to any "facts", are rebutted point-by-point on Obama's website. ALL of Corsi's conclusions are shown to be based on outright fictions. But the real point here, is that this publication is not part of political discourse. This is not "Oops we misstated" something, or "reasonable men may disagree". The repeated misquotations and mistakes cannot be excused. This book, and this repeated form of negative press, is a deliberate tool of deception designed to "win" an election by using fraud. Once again, Corsi is manipulating the gullibilities of the voters.

Who is Jerome R. Corsi? First, he is not a "conservative". He does not advocate ANY form of government, nor does he lay out any positive program or institutions in his books and articles. He is a professional attacker. Why bother building a bridge, if you can make millions blowing up the country?

His current work is a website in which he writes "stories" about how President George W. Bush has been conspiring to eliminate the border between the United States and Mexico. He has been working on an expose' of the secrets about 9/11 which the present administration has been withholding from the public.

Other books and articles by Corsi use racist epithets to inflame a hate-mongering fear of whatever is foreign, unifying, inclusive, or somehow "tainted" by color. He is being interviewed on "pro-white" radio, endorsing a confused ideology of State secession by the "Christian" nations. All government is a conspiracy.

"Corsi" himself, is of Sicilian extraction - that island first inhabited by Africans, then colonized by semitic phoenicians, and whose people enjoy to this day the interconnectedness of the Mediterranean. The Corsi's have long enjoyed the benefits of the mixed race, foreign exchange, and freedoms he now condemns.

It appears clear that Corsi can write. He cannot quote Obama or Scripture accurately, but he can write. The OBAMA NATION is now "number 1" on the Sunday New York Times' bestseller list. In other words, in spite of the fabrication of extremely hurtful personal defamation, in spite of logical incoherence, and hypocrisy you can measure on the Richter Scale, a publisher has decided there is money to be made in slime politics. Publish it and people who want to believe it will buy it.

History will duly note that OBAMA NATION is published by Simon & Schuster, which hired the Bush-Rove political operative, Mary Matalin, to edit the imprint. A network of book clubs and radio shows is in place to generate "buzz" for this slime.
The financially stressed publishing industry does not intend to lose money betting on the gullibility of the voting public.

Interestingly, my good Christian friends in the National Guard have been sending me email attachments containing breathless announcements of how important it is to buy the OBAMA NATION. Abomination, get it? And Obama is the anti-christ....etc.

These poor remnant soldier-citizens! Economically capsized more than most after eight years of Bush-Cheney-Rove, and continuing to bear the burden of a fight none of them asked for or knew anything about, and that so-called "conservatives" want to continue. They are the mainstay of the mixed-race Army, invoking the Love-Gospel Jesus of the Resurrection. And in this crazy world, they are making Corsi rich, and they want to drive a great leader from public office.

Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.

What do we know about The Tribes?

Racism is wrong--it is an economic, moral, and scientific error. In addition, the "traditions" of The Tribe suffers the same deficiencies. And yet, the invocation and "public policy" of race orientation continues.

Any invocation of loyalty to The Tribe should be scrutinized carefully. It is certain to be either rank naivete, or more likely, a cynical attempt by someone to gain power over others by using some means other than merit.

People have always been under the sway of Tribalism. We will never eliminate either "the poor" or "the aristocracy"; it's been tried. The poor have little to cling to, and The Tribe offers at least the illusion of a raft. The rich may find it easier or more convenient to demand loyalty to an abstration they control, than to earn respect, which is their remaining need. Hence, Tribalism is likely to remain an under-tow in the tide of humankind.

Today, we are looking at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I was almost stunned by how many different racial characteristics were evident in the participants just in the contestants from China. Although I am fairly certain that China has not implemented a policy of diversity -- many minority tribal groups are completely locked out (Uighurs, Tibetans) -- the diversity of the continent was reflected in the faces and bones of their Olympians.

In 1932, Jim Thorpe proved the metal of American Indian genes. The 1938 Olympics in Berlin show-cased the superiority of many non-Aryans over "Aryans" during the Guilt-en Age of Race Theory. Irish, Jewish, Hispanic and American Indians, and several African Americans (including Jesse Owens with 5 gold medals) competitively and fairly crushed the best that the Nazi ideologues of Aryan persuasions had to offer. The 1948-1956 victories of Emil Zatopek (Czek) showed the emptiness of tribalisms even within the realms of the Fatherland. Still, in spite of these individual performances, Race Theory did not die. It flourishes yet among the rich and the poor, and it is taught in text books throughout the Arab world, for example.

These 2008 Olympics offer some hope. Because of the scale of its manifestation, this laboratory proof leaves all Race Theory in the dust. It is not just a matter of individuals who are possible "exceptions" -- like Thorpe, Zaharias, Owens, etc.

The Finns (5 million), Norwegians (5 million), Ethiopians (50 million), South Koreans (49 million) and Australians (20 million) are racking up medals way out of proportion to their respective tribal pools. Clearly, the "races", if they exist, are irrelevant even if they were somehow defineable, which they are not. We do not know what "race" the ubiquitous "English" are -- Basques? Celts? Germans? -- or even how many of them there are.

The Arabs who are now spending the most money on teaching race theory to school children throughout Africa and the Middle East, ironically have the most serious problems with even defining race, much less proving it is in any way significant. For example, half the black Nilotic tribes of Ethiopia speak Semitic languages, and the Sabra "Jews" who are villified ("Death! Death!" shouted in Mosques) are genetically indistinguishable from the Bedouin tribes.

So, the Olympic lesson, once again. Perhaps it makes no difference when billions are spent on text-books that are indifferent to science, morals, or economics. Still, there are those golden victories. The Chinese team, the American team, the participation of 204 countries, and no single "race" being dominant. Not one. The Arab nations are represented by brave and beautiful athletes, but they are not examples of superiority over Jews -- in spite of the text books.

And there is that four-man team that won the 400-meter relay -- over all the boasts and bluster and threats of refusing to enter waters tainted by the sweat of Jews and "slaves" -- you have the victory of "Phelps", a mongrel English name, an African American, and two Jews.

Tolerance

Collection of materials on a core "Belief": TOLERANCE.

1. Amy Chua, a Yale law professor, has developed the idea of tolerance as the key to the rise of civilization as drawn from selected and curious historical examples. In DAY OF EMPIRE (2008), she describes the superpowers, and concludes that they arise by "attracting the best and the brightest from all over the world". Purges and exclusions have always triggered backlash and decline. She details the examples of Rome, the Tang Dynasty, the Dutch Republic, and even Genghis Khan (declared religious tolerance). And come to think of it she is exactly right -- the U.S. won the race for the atomic bomb by becoming a haven for persecuted scientists from Nazi Europe.

The Scale of the Living

I was thinking about things I thought I knew something about...and realized that I really cannot even comprehend the huge scale of the smallest things!

For example, I know a lot about mosquitoes. I grew up with them, not exactly as pets, but I could identify ten different species, with special attention to Anopheles oswaldoi, which carried the malaria in our area. But of course, there are over 3,500 species of mosquitoes! And many of them look alike, and in my forgetting, I don't think I could distinguish fruitarians from blood-suckers now.

I got to thinking that this SCALE of life forms is wildly beyond the comprehension of any of us. I checked the Smithsonian collections -- over 30 million insects, 7 million fish, 5 million plant specimens. These numbers are wild.

No one can keep track of the way life has expanded and diversified. I was pleased to see that the Smithsonian has bar coded the collections, although most field ecologists are not out there with portable barcorders. None of these forms of life are labeled or coded....

Except, what about their DNA? We bar code DNA, and all living creatures have DNA. You don't have to kill the creature to collect its sample. DNA could even distinguish species that look identical, such as some of the mosquitoes.

And the People fled their homes....

When families flee their homes, this is the bottom, the last loss. It is not just job loss, or the destruction of seed corn. It is not just chaos and loss of family members. It is everything. Maybe the last bit of life, hanging on.

In the history of migration, often it is native inhabitants fleeing their villages in the face of an onslaught of immigrants.

In modern times, often technologically superior groups flee from "laws", the extortion exerted by force upon legitimacy. The Karelians were not displaced by a sudden influx of Soviets, but 300,000 of them fled the USSR seizure of their jurisdiction. Millions of Jewish people were forced from their homes by public policies and laws of various European States -- although organized pogroms, and Crystalnacht, followed the legalization of the ethnic persecution. The point is that Law led the coersion.

Curiously, the Hutu-controlled government took the trouble to project a "public policy" which at least pretended a justification for slaughtering unarmed Tutsi in their homes and churches. In 1994, ethnic fighting in Rwanda led to the massacre of at least half a million Tutsis and sent more than a million Hutus fleeing to Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi.

The Darfurians are subjected to the most primitive form of persecution. The tribal Arabs are simply attacking them -- killing and burning. The government of Sudan does not even bother to project a public policy or "legal" authority for the persecution. Arab racist sophistication is devoted to blaming Israel, denying reality, and preventing investigation, or resolution. Three of the minority ethnic groups in Darfur--the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa--are being attacked by armed forces, the Janjaweed militias, and the entire government apparatus. Over 2.7 million have fled their homes.

In Kenya, after the December 2007 "election" was compromised by violence (President Mwai Kibaki claimed to have defeated Raila Odinga by 230,000 votes out of 10 million cast), thousands of people were killed in the streets, and more than 300,000 fled their homes.

The Palestinian Arabs also fled their homes during the first war between Israel and the combined nations on its border. However, no government had declared a public policy of extermination against Arabs, and no organized pogroms had destroyed their communities before they fled. It is true that many of them fled out of fear, but it is fair to say that it was the fear of war, not targeted persecution. It is also true that many Arab "villages", not all of which were entirely abandoned, were destroyed by the Israeli Army. (The number of destroyed "villages" is controversial as it is difficult to define the abandoned dwellings and propagandists have made it impossible. There is no such discrepant calculation in counting the villages in Darfur.)

In modern Kurdistan, the Kurds who once conquered the Middle East, are now persecuted by Arabs and Turks. Over one million Kurds fled and lost their homes at the hand of Saddam Hussein in the last decade of his rule.

Why is there any controversy at all? ANY essentially involuntary movement of people from their homes on any scale, reflects upon the leadership and comfort of all.

Who will lead us as we face Natural Foreseeable and Certain Disasters ("NFCD")

In assessing a "belief" system, or the ability of an ideologically-driven candidate to lead, it would seem practical to put them up against Natural Foreseeable and Certain Disasters ("NFCD"). How will your "Beliefs" steel your response? How will the candidate perform in the face of Disaster?

All ideological obsessions--such as judgments on the rectitude of abortions and the rights of gay persons to exist -- pale compared to NFCDs. Let's take an example: Harmful algal blooms (or HABs). These toxic blooms are commonly called "Red Tides", although they are not tide-driven and are not always red.

HABs present one of the most scientifically complex and economically significant coastal management issues facing the nations today. The micro-organisms are ancient, adaptive, and roguish. In the past, only a few regions were affected by these harmful algal blooms, but now all U.S. coastal regions, and vast areas across the globe, have reported major toxic algal blooms.

The Harmful Algae Page was started 9 years ago by Donald Anderson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His gallery of killers is alarming, diverse, and rich. For example, the dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense is among the most efficient poisoners. A Chaetoceros species stabs fish to death by plunging serrated spines into their gils. Over five kinds of human illnesses from seafood poisoning are directly caused by HABs, all of them potentially deadly.

How will your Beliefs help? Will we have a Leader with enough intelligence to understand how much we depend on leadership in the face of real dangers? Will our Leaders devote resources to mitigate the HAB attacks? For eight years, HAB attacks have increased while our leaders ignored them or even encouraged economic activities that have made them worse. All indications are that pollution run-off from human activity has increased the distribution and scale of the HAB attacks.

The importance of Religion

The comedic documentary, RELIGULOUS, is scheduled to be out in October 3. The director is Larry Charles, who did "Borat", and the interviews are conducted by the acolyte of George Carlin, Bill Maher. http://www.latimes.com/thebigpicture

Clearly the pre-opening announcement of this "documentary" -- interviews with real "believers" -- is part of a marketing plan, a ROI motive behind the mirror of comedy and the spin of entertainment. Still, since it promises to be a comedic exposure of the predators who continue to benefit themselves at the expense of "believers", I want to add to the pre-opening "buzz".

At the same time, it may be necessary for those of us in the "science" community to distinguish our positions from those who merely want to make fools of Believers.

The True Believers are already made fools of by the predators; I do not wish to add to their burdens, or even to their doubts. Religion is a powerful reality, and it is morally neutral, neither "good" nor "bad". Sam Harris' THE END OF FAITH does not make sense scientifically. There is faith, and it continues; it IS. Even if Harris refers to faith as a "neurological disorder", he misses the point: It is neurological. It is IN our brain. We are hard-wired -- send us your tired cliches -- for prayer, hope, belief, "spirituality", "not bread alone-ness".

In fact, the role of religion in the great suffering and pain inflicted by humans on others, should be looked at carefully. We seem to have suffered far more at the hand of Non-Believers: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and the pillagers of the Tutsi congregations in the churches. With this history, I'll take my chances with the Believers every time. Every time. Especially, because there is no god.... and Believers clearly are looking for redemption, which makes them gullible victims to predators.

I hope this film mocks the predation, and not the congregant victims. "Kill the monarchy, but not the King." -- Thomas Paine.

Cars, as weaponized transportation.

I am not one of those people who are lured to the highway by the hope of speed and envy which an automobile embodies. Nothing ruins a good walk more than the fact that so many others have chosen to drive--it is drivers and their motorways and means that makes walking a poor choice.

I confess that I was once injured when I fell off an ox-cart. I have been bucked off a calf twice, and a horse, maybe ten times. Damn, it was the same horse. But I never felt SERIOUSLY injured. Just shaken and stirred.

Between 1997 and 2001, I was in four traffic accidents -- three rear-enders and a T-bone at a controlled intersection. It changed my life. The injuries were life-threatening and severe.

So, by way of disclosure, I have a personal understanding that anything that goes faster than a horse can gallop, is "dangerous". It is not potentially dangerous, it IS dangerous. And to get so many people to engage in a dangerous activity, you probably have to trick them, lie to them, conceal the dangers, and eliminate alternatives they would otherwise rationally choose if they had any choice.

Vehicle "accidents" cause more than 40,000 deaths every year in the United States. The non-terminal casualties, ranging from whiplash sufficient to be reported (and claimed to insurance companies who are motivated to deny their significance), to every condition short of death, are ten times that number.

Tom Vanderbilt just authored a book titled "TRAFFIC", with the promising subtitle, "Why we drive the way we do (and What it says about us)". He does a pretty good job of showing that out on the highways, nothing is as it appears. He explores the appearance of chaos on the roads of India, the congestion fees in London, the frailties of urban planning, attempts at hard-shell traffic engineering, and driver behavior/ optical theory.


We live in an increasingly mobile world, but not really. We are increasingly "virtual" in our travels, and our traffic is bursting on cables. Energy costs are increasing. This is a great opportunity to get off the "driving anything beats walking" beat. In spite of the promises made by car manufacturers and engineering linguistics -- modal bias, dilemma zone, motion parallax, induced travel, traffic thrombosis -- traffic on our unwalkable and undrivable streets, just gets worse and worse.

Anything that travels faster than a horse can gallop, is considered, by a human body, to be a weapon. It is not a utility, a tool, or an extension of the body. It is going to kill. That speed is its only reality, the rest is illusion, and the speed is not compatible with human life on impact.

Of course, the fight against "cars" -- and the mythology created around them -- is marginalized. However, acceptance of the reality of a weapon in our midst is not an "extreme" position. It is simple realism. It faces the reality of slaughter.

The myth Believer gets into a car and drives to work or to the store for food, ignoring the fact that they are risking their life or their livelihood (injured people invariably lose or diminish their careers). The myth Believer is tricked by the reality of great comfort sitting in a car, into believing that this comfort is safe when launched on the street at speed.

The Business of Crime

On August 9, 2008, Edison International announced that its NET income nearly TRIPLED, from its publicly-announced second-quarter earnings of one year ago. Edison's President, Theodore Craver Jr., who added the CEO title a week ago, said that this eye-brow raising "success" is the result of "being able to realize our substantial growth potential".

Actually, Mr. Craver, it boils down to being able to be a criminal. You are realizing substantial criminal growth potential, and you are doing it under color of "doing business". Let's look at what Edison is actually achieving:

-- Edison is an "international" entity; it is "off-shore". It is taking money from rate-paying citizens who are always domestic, wherever they are.

-- The rate-payer paying for a utility owned by Edison, and which has No Competition at its point of purchase. The rate-payer is under Edison's monopoly.

-- Edison bought the Congress, and wrote its own laws concerning its "utility" services, building a monopoly for itself into the legal infrastructure. Under Reagan, and then perfected under a series of "conservative" administrations, this public utility proceeded to DE-REGULATE itself, while maintaining its market monopoly. We now have, literally, regulated and restricted Statism for the rate-payer (just TRY generating your own power onto the grid), and un-restricted un-regulated monopolist profiteering by Edison.

-- In the same quarter that Edison announced unprecedented gross profits, and NET profit increases, the price of oil had also increased. In other words, even though the cost to generate electricity increased-- Edison had to pay a lot more for their own fuel costs -- they made even more profit.

-- This same profit increase does not even include a claim made by the IRS (which remains the ONLY "regulator" or government intrusion on Edison's practices) concerning a (wait for it) for ONE AND ONE HALF BILLION in unpaid taxes, involving a "complex lease arrangement" made with a wholly unregulated subsidiary company, and with which Edison's lawyers intend to shield Edison further from tax exposures in the future.

-- This profit increase does not include any purchases of pollution allowances -- even though these costs were supposed to be incurred as part of their own pollution reduction compliance plan. For example, their own Edison Mission Group was required to post $48 million to the program. They clearly signal that won't happen. By setting up unregulated subsidiaries, such as Edison Capital, which supposedly invests in energy and infrastructure, Edison International intends to evade the pollution allowances. They see pollution reduction as an "impairment" to their profits.

-- Edison makes no claim that the profit increase is the result of increased efficiency, a better product or service, a new technology, or a market expansion.

-- Edison also announced its intention to increase rates for 2009, 2010, and 2011. It is almost breath-taking to see their interest in their future profit-taking....

-- The bottom line is that Edison has increased its profits by taking more money from consumers in local arenas served by its monopoly on power delivery, while avoiding the taxes and pollution regulations which would be imposed by the respective public agencies. Proposed rate hikes are based on extortion. There is no free market here. The "hidden hand" is not a free and informed market setting the price, it is Edison's off-shore and unregulated subsidiaries taking the benefits while shifting all the costs and burdens back to ratepayers and tax payers.

This is not Capitalism. This is predation. What ENRON got away with, is what Edison is getting away with: Money, taken under the false pretenses of "business". This profiteering enterprise will collapse because it is predation, it is not actually "business". They produce nothing. There is no informed exchange involved in this "profit".

Where you see the profits increase, in the absence of ANY improved product, service, technology or market expansion, you have to ask just what "business" is Edison in?

Competence vs Ideological Purity - the FBI Anthrax Investigation

THE ANTHRAX INVESTIGATION. The real mystery of this investigation is not so much WHO attacked America using Anthrax immediately after the 9/11/01 attack on New York City, but why the investigation was conducted with such misdirection from the top.

1. The Global Search. The FBI was tasked with the investigation. A competent detective, and there are many in the FBI, would at least consider a perpetrator from an American laboratory. It was widely reported in the press at the time that the quality of the material (armament grade) as well as the technology of its delivery system (a fine powder) could only have been produced in a few places and most of those places are here in the USA. And yet, the FBI launched itself into a global search. Global. Looking everywhere but here.

2. President Bush appointed the FBI Director and the Attorney General. The Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal appointed personnel based on ideology rather than competence or even common sense. They searched abroad, not because that is where the evidence pointed, but because of what it would "look like" politically to fix blame on an American. Our leadership spent millions on an investigation all over the world, getting nowhere. The perpetrator turns out to have been Bruce Ivins -- a life-long Republican, a donor to Bush-Cheney-Rove campaigns, and a "religious patriot". A Believer. As the long-delayed seven year investigation finally, finally turned in his direction, he committed suicide. After seven years, no charges have ever been brought against any person responsible for one of the most savage attacks on America.

3. How long will our society be paying for the consequences, and robust salaries, of the Bush-Cheney-Rove appointees? People have been appointed to public service positions of great importance, who once again have shown themselves to be incapable of performing service for anyone other than themselves. Folks, this is not what we need to expect. We need leaders who are competent, who surround themselves with competent advisors, and who make appointments of competent people.

4. Save us from the ideologues. The sooner we restore public offices to people of ability, the better. And simple Justice requires that those who are responsible for damage and harm, should pay compensation. The Justice Department now stands up trying to take credit for accumulating a vast amount of evidence against Mr. Ivins, now that he is deceased. Yet, they also announced that they are closing the investigation! Are the victims compensated? Are the people responsible for the Post Office deaths, and for the bungled investigation, accountable to the tax payers who paid their salaries? This is a clueless Justice Department. Where is the Justice? Going on seven years.

Entertainment - the cheap exploited bridge we mistrust

“Yet entertainment – as I define it, pleasure and all – remains the only sure means we have of bridging, or at least of feeling as if we have bridged, the gulf of consciousness that separates each of us from everybody else. The best response to those who would cheapen and exploit it is not to disparage or repudiate but to reclaim entertainment as a job fit for artists and for audiences, a two-way exchange of attention, experience and the universal hunger for connection.”

– Michael Chabon, LAT Bk Review April 27, 2008

Trial Perspective: Chance, Story, Theory, Data, Chance

PERSPECTIVE: As consciousness emerges, it seeks perspective. The Being is never content with itself, but must Do something about it, in the same sense that guilt accompanies the Big Bang of awareness, and the infinite dance of evasion begins to spin outwards. Do Be Do Be Doo....

CHANCE. We see in the cave paintings of 30,000 years ago (Chauvet), the alphabet being made. And there is no Round Table, no Ring-cycle, no Word, no God, no King-cipher, no ideology. There is only the spiraling out of seasons, the enumeration of gravid moons, the chance of salmon, the hunting hopes pinned on the mystery of birth. And behind the observed, there was only the guarantee of surprise, of waiting for an uncertain tomorrow. We were dealing with pure chance.

STORY. In the cave paintings of 20,000 years ago (Lescaux, N. Africa), we see the alphabet telling a story. We see events being recalled, and told in the re-echoing chambers of the caves to the hundreds of children who left their footprints in the hemp-lit darkness. This story gave us a bearing, a mirror, a generational link beyond the mystery of the birth canal, to the tribe.

MYTH. With the rise of agriculture, the control of land became important. The controllers added hierarchic imperatives to the story as a tool for connecting us not only to the tribe, but to the controllers. Not a coincidence that Homer was blind, he was the first story-teller to lead us out of the darkness of the cave, into a rich geography of mythology. We began to depict Gods and their pretenders, the Kings. The story elaborated into a theology based on an Adam-and-Even Mother.

THEORY. Theology always degenerates into a theory of everything, a Summa. Thomas Aquinas only compiled what his generation of believers were forced to reckon with -- a Summa Theologica -- ironically published in the very year Galileo looked through a telescope. A God of Everything in a closed system, a Unified Field, the goal of all theory. To understand this machine, Newton generated calculus, and we use the algorithm method to analyze the mystery of the birth-patterns of Relativity.

DATA. Theories are overthrown by facts. The data are indifferent to the organization we require for our own understanding. The brain itself is data, in a sunset of "consciousness" falling like a subjectivity tree in an forest of inputs from proprioceptive devices with hopelessly mixed metaphors. The arbitrariness of birth is highlighted by the mystery of Google rankings across PetaBytes of information. There is still "content", but the content is entertainment. The search for patterns in an incomprehensible surplus, in effect, a flood of chaos choked with Chance.

CHANCE. The patterns in the data become more meaningful than the content of the information. No distinction is made between the baby and the bath-water, one molecule at a time, spiraling into the Black Holes in the center of every galaxy. We are back in the cave, trying to come to terms with the darker older colder slower. The perspective of a riparian creature observing motions which can be understood only by emerging wet drying onto the kitchen midden beach to gather grapes and mushrooms. We try to think up stories to tell. Submerged, we look for the floating Ark nobody built. Somewhere, there is a golden engagement ring-cycle.

Entropy and Hawking Radiation.

As I get older, I increasingly "get" the fact that I DON'T "get it". Nothing brings this more home to me than the dissipation of energy from Black Holes, or what is known now as Hawking Radiation. Named for the conjecture made in the 1970's by the "theoretical physicist", Stephen Hawking (Cambridge).

What concerns me here is the Black Holes themselves; they appear to be entirely too significant. Virtually every thing we see in space is oriented around these huge sucking places. Black Holes are gobbling everything up. Where they go, there goes the universe, literally, and nothing "theoretical" about this Physics.

How can galaxies--ALL of them--ever, or in the spitting instant of the Big Bang, or in an eternity, ever be "built" around places that gobble up stuff?

It gets worse. This concept of "evaporation", or the escape of heat, from the Black Hole horizon. As an object descends, orbits, into the Black Hole, it clearly reaches a point, the invisible "horizon" from which there is no return. From the descending object, the other stars will appear frozen.

There may be a similar "horizon" of time and light as a result of the accelerating expansion of the universe. The light from the most distant galaxies will be receding at light speed, and will not reach us. The distant objects will appear "frozen".

And worse. A central principle of Physics, and certainly quantum mechanics, is that energy is conserved. The information does not just "evaporate" or radiate off to become lost in some way like steam from a boiling pot of water. Within the collapse of an dense Black Hole, there is heat that is getting shredded and scrambled, but it is not "lost". The information falling into the Hole must exist, perhaps as a coating of the Black Hole's horizon.

What is the peculiar nature of the singularity at the small revenant center of a Black Hole? Is the principle of conservation of energy operating here? Or is Entropy itself destroyed in the infinitely dense. At that point, in the center of the Black Hole, as stuff collapses to a point, the concepts of large and small, heavy or light, macro and quantum, old and new, are all transformed.

I just cannot "get it". The foundations of our Physics are apparently at stake, right? Everything getting older, colder, darker, slower, and collapsing into Black Holes -- now that makes perfect sense, but then this What? These things "radiate"? We need more than Susskind's 10-dimensional strings projected in holographic horizons to cobble our universe together.

Scots mythology; family lore (on the white side)

This is the Great Story of my kin, on the Scots portion of the white side, which Aunt Winifred swore by. She told it to myself as her audience while standing in her trophy room, decanting a fresh myth to give it some air....

The Keys, a sept of the Mackay clan, were pressed to the most remote rock of the land's end North, and only 12 warriors left after centuries of feud and thuggery. As the MacLeods circled in for the kill, the final extinction, the Keys resolved to dispatch the remaining apostolic number South to appeal to the English for salvation. In passing through the MacLeod lines, four warriors sacrificed themselves so that eight remaining got through.

To the English, their appeal went something like this: "You are boatmen, and we are but poor shepherds on a cold and desolate rock at Land's End north. As an act of charity, send us but one of your ships and transport us to some other desolate rock where we can raise sheep. In return, while we have no treasure in exchange for our lives, we can offer you the loyalty of a Scots clan to the English people who trade in wool we can provide."

The warriors sought to return to their highland homeland. As they crept through the lines guarded by the MacLeods, again they were given no choice, but that another four had again to sacrifice themselves against the broadswords of their enemies to enable the last four warriors to get through. And then they gathered the women, the children and the sheep and hid among the stones of the beach and waited.

The sight of an English bottom raised them from their final desolate hour. Of course, having no boats themselves, the hideout was without a landing wharf. Undeterred, the Keys flung themselves into the beating tide and swam the freezing sea to the ships.

The women of the clan tied their children to their necks, and used the galls and bladders of slaughtered sheep for floats. The men tied their remaining and un-shorn sheep to their necks. They praised their Presbyterian God the sheep were buoyant with lanolin-oil wool. In this manner all pressed out to the waiting ship, and the English, who turned out to be fishermen, netted them like flotsam from the sea.

With the entire remaining Scottish Keys, the British bottom simply headed South West, away from the feuding Highlands. It stopped at the first desolate landfall it found. This happened to be Northern Ireland. It was cold, wet, storm-run and rocky. But sheep be raised, it was not inhabited.

Far to the South, it was known that there were a farming people. The Irish were another Celtic group, but they had no use for sheep, and could never farm the rocks. They traded nothing with the English who had their own farms. The Scots in Northern Ireland multiplied their sheep and rapidly offered the wool in trade. Thus began the English mariner's tradition -- first started by importing wool from Northern Ireland. The first great diversification of the Bristol fishing fleet.

And Scots continued to board British bottoms, even colonizing as they were brought to successive landfalls stowed by British merchant mariners. Centuries passed and instead of extinction, the Keys went on the colonize other islands and continents across the globe. In America, the Keys burst upon the New World to the dismay of the Powhattan and the Iroquois Confederacies, the Cherokee nation, and the leagues of many other tribes engaged with the Spaniards and French who really never sought to unload surplus populations on them. Within a few generations, the Scots asserted the favors of the trading English over the Spanish sword and closed even the great delta of the Mississippi to France.

In the South, the indentured Scots served their English "masters" as slave-drivers, foremen, living closely with the workers on the plantations. This exposure, and the extremities of plantation life, resulted in children whose mothers were African. The half-Scot/Negro generation of Keys led the charge of runaway slaves into the wilderness to further mix with the Creek, Seminole, Sauk, and other tribes. The black Keys were already in Texas before Austin arrived with his patent from Mexico.

In the War of 1812, Francis Scot Key served as a diplomat for the "United States", and American entity the English King did not recognize. It was his loyalty to the English, although not to the Crown, which enabled him to diplomatize the shooting. There is no better explanation for how the War of 1812 ended; the Scots could fight, and they preferred fighting FOR the boon of trade rather than against the British whose mariners they had long been accustomed to welcome.

In sum, history is largely untold. Is there some truth to the story that the last revenant Keys were delivered to Northern Ireland by the English as an act of pure charity? Is it written upon the hearts of the Keys? All the fighting and breeding members of their grateful descendants -- my great Aunt makes a point of this -- are remarkably loyal to those who show mercy generally, and to the English merchandisers specifically.

Now today, of course, back in Ireland a thousand years after that soi-disant landfall, and we reflect that there were "the troubles" that came upon Ireland. For reasons few can understand, counting among the mystified those participants in the conflict themselves, the Irish of the South and the Scots-Irish of the North took up centuries of feuding. People have their reasons. Perhaps the lore of one minor sept of a clan which was on the edge of extinction, helps explain the loyalty of the Northern rock inhabitants to the British.

Of course, the English often failed to be merciful, their trade was not always redemptive, and foreign transport is not a solution to every petition by a people facing extinction.

Maria Sibylla Merian - renaissance woman 1647-1717

Just back from an exhibition of Maria Sibylla Merian's paintings and notebooks, presented at The Getty. Merian was born in Germany in 1647, and lived a quiet 70 years. She was one of the great women of science and art, who surpassed her peers, but was forgotten -- was and is actively obliterated -- by the publishing charade which pretends to be "history".
SCIENCE. Merian studied the natural world, completely changing our views of our own gardens as well as introducing specimens of tropical flora and fauna from Surinam to Europe. She was perhaps the first serious Entomologist, making meticulous observations illustrated with accurate images. She studied insects, in a period when many bugs were considered Satanic, and no one else was bothering.
ART. Merian's favorite subjects were the caterpillars. Her accurate images of their complete life cycle transformations are stunning for their scale, dimensionality, shadowing and color. These are portraits of kings and queens, who happen to be worms.
The Exhibition traces her life and art, and notes her contributions to science in the most understated manner possible. If any one of these paintings had been found in the notebooks of a man, historians would have credited the author with having anticipated the theory of evolution.
When I taught History of Science, I actually challenged students with what I thought was an observation of fact: Why are there so few great women of science and art? Now it seems so clear to me. What I was observing was their supression, not their absence.

Parable of the Sultan with an ugly wife

A very long story in one parable:

In order to become Sultan, a young prince was forced to marry the daughter of a rich caravaner. The young wife was widely believed to be ugly because she was so skinny. In those days the Sultan then commanded that all women in the village be covered in public. In this way, he would not have to look at the beautiful fat wives of the other important men, and no one would be able to see that his wife was thin.
Even today, when you visit this village, the Sultan with the ugly wife will kill any woman who is not covered with cloth, head to foot. It is said that the ugly wife had many ugly daughters, all of them so thin and tall that they walk swaying and tinkling bells like camels. And they all married and had many children. Of course, no one knows how ugly they are, because they are never seen.
The men with beautiful wives beat their foreheads with frustration: No one knows how lucky they are. No one knows how lucky any man is, when he is with a woman no one can ever see.

Faith and Justice

What is the relationship between Faith and Justice? Both are universal ideals. Both require and result in belief. Both explore and demand examination of intention. Cicero wrote that "The foundation of justice is good faith".

When the judges ignore good faith, justice is uprooted. When an Attorney General disobeys the law, justice is denied.

Bruce Einhorn served as a prosecutor in the Justice Department, and later as a federal judge appointed by President H.W. Bush. In an editorial printed 6/28/2008 in Opinion, LAT, he summarizes a report issued this week by the Department's inspector general. He notes that while serving as Attorneys General, JOHN ASHCROFT, and ALBERTO GONZALES, set up screening committees for career positions in the Department based on ideological rather than merit-based factors. They politicized the hiring and promotion, in violation of the law. Reference: title 28, Section 42.1(a), US Code of Regulations. Compare also, the Civil Service Reform Act specifically prohibits discrimination based on political affiliation.

This injection of illegal bad faith has poisoned the Justice Department.

How to conduct ourselves...top down.

Accounts of Alexander the Great's attempts to conjure Rules of War, appear to be historically accurate. Curious. The lists themselves, however, are more disputed than the Ten Commandments. Still, for a dead on guideline, no matter the author, can this be beat?

LET US CONDUCT OURSELVES IN SUCH A FASHION THAT ALL NATIONS WISH TO BE OUR FRIENDS AND ALL FEAR TO BE OUR ENEMIES.

The next step is to have no enemies who know who They are.