Sunday, June 3, 2012

nnnyaaaa


There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

...Albert Einstein...

Friday, June 1, 2012

guernica

"Guernica" by Pablo Picasso.


Guernica was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at the Paris International Exposition at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.

While living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, Picasso suffered harassment from the Gestapo. One officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did." (read more)

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Monday, May 28, 2012

Memorial Day

"The falling soldier"

Robert Capa 9/5/36.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Friday, May 25, 2012

Thursday, May 24, 2012

kaleidoscope


Mexicans Protest Ties Between Politics, Media - WSJ.com

Mexicans Protest Ties Between Politics, Media - WSJ.com:

 "MEXICO CITY—Thousands of students are joining a growing street-demonstration movement to protest Mexico's top two television networks, which they accuse of colluding to secure the leading presidential candidate's election this summer."

'via Blog this'

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

fastwalkers

Leaders Bicker as Europe’s Crisis Gains New Urgency - NYTimes.com

Leaders Bicker as Europe’s Crisis Gains New Urgency - NYTimes.com:

 "BERLIN — With Greece’s membership in the euro zone teetering, fears of bank insolvency rising and Europe’s leaders bickering about what to do, the euro crisis is once again intensifying and threatening to undermine fragile growth globally."

'via Blog this'

Che


Ernesto "Che" Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was radically transformed by the endemic poverty and alienation he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region's ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, instituting agrarian land reform as minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful motorcycle journey across South America. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a "new man" driven by moral rather than material incentives; he has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist-inspired movements. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled Guerrillero Heroico , was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as "the most famous photograph in the world". (read more)

"Guerrillero Heroico"
Che Guevara at the La Coubre memorial service.
Taken by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Friday, May 18, 2012

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

babalon working


The first in-depth look at the life of John Whiteside Parsons--better known as Jack Parsons pioneering rocket scientist, and ardent disciple of the notorious magus, Aleister Crowley--is finally available courtesy of Feral House in Sex and Rockets by John Carter.

For those not in the know, Jack Parsons was a founding member of Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) back in the late 30's, and one time head of the California branch of the magical order the Agape Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientalis (O.T.O.). Parson's infamous reputation was fueled by several nefarious undertakings and associations, notwithstanding his alliance with the self-proclaimed "Wickedest Man Alive!"--Aleister Crowley--who directed O.T.O. operations from his base in England.

In Sex and Rockets, Carter brings a measure of much needed clarity to the life and times of the enigmatic Parsons; an enigma that has been compounded over the years by varying degrees of misinformation and exaggeration as to just who Parsons was, and exactly what he was trying to accomplish with the Babalon Working rituals, performed in part with L. Ron Hubbard, the future founder of Scientology. The end result of the Babalon Working was to birth an elemental being; a 'Moonchild' that--as Crowley stated in his Book of the Law--would be "mightier than all the kings of the Earth."

According to Thelemic legend, in 1918 Aleister Crowley came into contact with a interdimensional entity named Lam, who by the way is a dead ringer for the popular conception of the 'alien grey ' depicted on the cover of Whitley Strieber's Communion. From this purported encounter, some have inferred that the industrious Mr. Crowley intentionally opened a portal of entry--through the practice of a magick ritual, The Amalantrah Working--which allowed the likes of Lam and other 'alien greys' a passageway onto the Earth plane. Furthermore, this portal may have been further enlarged by Parsons and Hubbard in 1946 with the commencement of the Babalon Working, thus facilitating a monumental paradigm shift in human consciousness.

In Sex and Rockets, Carter quotes Crowley successor Kenneth Grant, who wrote, "The [Babalon] Working began...just prior to the wave of unexplained aerial phenomena now recalled as the 'Great Flying Saucer Flap'. Parsons opened a door and something flew in." Carter also suggests it might have been the atomic bomb that opened this door between dimensions. He then further illustrates the importance of the year 1947, which ended the first stage of the Babalon Working, as Parsons and Hubbard parted ways amid a cloud of turmoil. 1947 was the year that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. In that very same year, Israel became a nation state, the transistor was invented and the sound barrier broken. Last, but certainly not least, the Modern Age of UFO's flew into view with the Kenneth Arnold sightings, followed not long after by the alleged saucer crash in Roswell, New Mexico. 1947 was also the year the Great Beast, Aleister Crowley died. (read more) (Jack Parsons)

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Friday, May 11, 2012

blue skies

Is Bradley Manning a traitor or hero ?


OSLO, Norway -- The Nobel Peace Prize jury has received 231 nominations for this year's award, a spokesman said, with publicly disclosed candidates including a former Ukrainian prime minister and the U.S. soldier accused of leaking classified material to WikiLeaks.

The secretive committee doesn't reveal who has been nominated, but those with nomination rights sometimes announce their picks.

Names put forward this year include Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private charged with the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. (huffington post)

mothman

Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Ecological Worldview: Hearing the Cries of the World | Center for Ecoliteracy

The Ecological Worldview: Hearing the Cries of the World | Center for Ecoliteracy: Thirty years ago, the king of Bhutan proclaimed, "Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product." It's easy to trivialize personal "happiness" as a goal, and for that reason I find "well-being" to be a more helpful concept, but the analysis of the Bhutanese government, under the leadership of its remarkably eloquent prime minister, Jigmi Y. Thinley, is sophisticated. This happiness, he says, differs markedly from the common use of that word to denote an ephemeral, passing mood due to some temporary external condition like praise or blame, gain or loss. "Rather it refers to the deep, abiding happiness that comes from living life in full harmony with the natural world, with our communities and fellow beings, and with our culture and spiritual heritage — in short, from feeling totally connected with our world."

the sleeping prophet

Edgar Cayce (pronounced Kay-Cee, 1877-1945) has been called the "sleeping prophet," the "father of holistic medicine," and the most documented psychic of the 20th century. For more than 40 years of his adult life, Cayce gave psychic "readings" to thousands of seekers while in an unconscious state, diagnosing illnesses and revealing lives lived in the past and prophecies yet to come. But who, exactly, was Edgar Cayce?

Cayce was born on a farm in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1877, and his psychic abilities began to appear as early as his childhood. He was able to see and talk to his late grandfather's spirit, and often played with "imaginary friends" whom he said were spirits on the other side. He also displayed an uncanny ability to memorize the pages of a book simply by sleeping on it. These gifts labeled the young Cayce as strange, but all Cayce really wanted was to help others, especially children.

Later in life, Cayce would find that he had the ability to put himself into a sleep-like state by lying down on a couch, closing his eyes, and folding his hands over his stomach. In this state of relaxation and meditation, he was able to place his mind in contact with all time and space — the universal consciousness, also known as the super-conscious mind. From there, he could respond to questions as broad as, "What are the secrets of the universe?" and "What is my purpose in life?" to as specific as, "What can I do to help my arthritis?" and "How were the pyramids of Egypt built? His responses to these questions came to be called "readings," and their insights offer practical help and advice to individuals even today.

Many people are surprised to learn that Edgar Cayce was a devoted churchgoer and Sunday school teacher. At a young age, Cayce vowed to read the Bible for every year of his life, and at the time of his death in 1945, he had accomplished this task. Perhaps the readings said it best, when asked how to become psychic, Cayce’s advice was to become more spiritual.

Although Cayce died more than 60 years ago, the timeliness of the material in the readings — with subjects like discovering your mission in life, developing your intuition, exploring ancient mysteries, and taking responsibility for your health — is evidenced by the hundreds of books that have been written on the various aspects of this work as well as the dozen or so titles focusing on Cayce's life itself. Together, these books contain information so valuable that even Edgar Cayce himself might have hesitated to predict their impact on the contemporary world. In 1945, the year of his passing, who could have known that terms such as "meditation," "Akashic records," "spiritual growth," "auras," "soul mates," and "holistic health" would become household words to millions?

The majority of Edgar Cayce's readings deal with holistic health and the treatment of illness. As it was at the time Cayce was giving readings, still today, individuals from all walks of life and belief receive physical relief from illnesses or ailments through information given in the readings — some readings were given as far back as 100 years ago! Yet, although best known for this material, the sleeping Cayce did not seem to be limited to concerns about the physical body. In fact, in their entirety, the readings discuss an astonishing 10,000 different topics. This vast array of subject matter can be narrowed down into a smaller group of topics that, when compiled together, deal with the following five categories: (1) Health-Related Information; (2) Philosophy and Reincarnation; (3) Dreams and Dream Interpretation; (4) ESP and Psychic Phenomena; and (5) Spiritual Growth, Meditation, and Prayer.

Further details of Cayce's life and work are explored in the classic book, There Is a River (1942), by Thomas Sugrue, available in hardback, paperback, or audio book versions.

Members of Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), the nonprofit founded by Cayce in 1931, have access to the entire set of 14,306 readings in a database residing in the member-only section of our Web site. The readings can also be found in their entirety in our on-site library, located at our headquarters in Virginia Beach and open to the public daily. For more information on A.R.E., please visit our About A.R.E. page.

(edgarcayce.org)