close encounters

military spending

The United States

spends more money on the military

than the rest of the world combined.

Why is it that military "entitlements"

always seem to escape the chopping block

in these times of extreme debt crisis?

Notes on Human Freedom

Regarding the great recession of 2007, it’s 2011 and this economic downturn shows no sign of abating. The politicians are getting crazier and crazier. They’re being pushed and pulled by divergent forces. Their first impulse is to protect wealth and the wealthy – they are compelled to do so, for that is their bread and butter. That puts them at opposite poles in regards to the majority of their constituents, who elect them; for it is the overwhelming majority that is dining off the diminishing crumbs inadvertently dropped from the table of the ever-feasting ruling class. Members of the Congress, therefore, have to make preposterous statements and ludicrous rationalizations as they ever so indelicately whittle away at the middle class.

All the pandering, all the gesticulating, all the discordant voices, all the feeble pronouncements of pretend optimism has gotten me thinking about freedom. That is the commodity we as Americans are supposed to be so proud of having. We may eventually be living in the detritus of our own making, but we are repeatedly told that we have our freedom to be thankful for. This is what I call one of the big lies we are constantly fed. The claim is that we are guaranteed our freedom as an essential feature of our political system. I believe this to be patent nonsense. Our brains are being filled with the empty contents of the modern age. We are given marvelous electronic devices to entertain us and essentially distract us. The communal discourse is filtered, contrived and controlled. The vast majority of the population is comprised of individuals who are essentially wage slaves constantly afraid of losing their ever-diminishing access to bread, shelter, meaningful education and good health. We are now told that they we expect to never retire from our jobs, if there are jobs, for retirement may mean instant destitution.

The kind of freedom that is available is of little value especially when one’s preoccupation is with survival. True freedom, in fact, cannot be granted or for that matter taken away. True freedom lies within the life of the mind. I have the capacity anytime I choose to rise above the fray and free myself from the ludicrous. Nothing can take this away – not abject poverty, not disease, not government fiat, not personal adversity. Let the voices from all corners of the political spectrum drone on with their tiresome and repetitive messages trying to tell me whom to hate and what to fear. The entire substance of our culture may very well collapse from the ineluctable force of gravity as it devours its structure from within. I have no control over such an historic destiny. Humans have the remarkable capacity to undo themselves and be totally surprised as to how it happened. Societies, cultures, civilizations come and go like individuals. All choices have consequences. Even the most well structured and benevolent decision can lead to disaster. Making choices in which the outcomes are known to be ruinous is a particularly well-developed trait as far as humanity is concerned.

In essence, true human freedom comes when we take the responsibility to free our minds of the constraints placed upon us from without. Only then will we be able to undo the yolk of greed and relentless acquisition that has been imposed on the collective imagination.

Kymatica

exterminate all rational thought

Naked Lunch is considered Burroughs' seminal work, and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature. Extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of obscene language (something Burroughs recognized and intended), the book was banned in Boston and Los Angeles in the United States, and several European publishers were harassed. It was one of the most recent American books over which an obscenity trial was held. The book was banned in Boston in 1962 due to obscenity (notably child murder and acts of pedophilia), but that decision was reversed in 1966 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The Appeals Court found the book did not violate obscenity statutes, as it was found to have some social value. The hearing included testimony in support of the work by Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.

William S. Burroughs

video clip

Heartless Moneymaking Organization

watch "Sicko"

illusions

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is a novel by writer and pilot Richard Bach. First published in 1977, the story questions the reader's view of reality, proposing that what we call reality is merely an illusion we create for learning and enjoyment. Illusions was the author's followup to 1970's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

with our love we can save the world

conflict resolution

Conflict resolution is a wide range of methods of addressing sources of conflict - whether at the inter-personal level or between states - and of finding means of resolving a given conflict or of continuing it in less destructive forms than, say, armed conflict. Processes of conflict resolution generally include negotiation, mediation, diplomacy and creative peacebuilding. The term "conflict resolution" is sometimes used interchangeably with the terms dispute resolution or alternative dispute resolution. The processes of arbitration, litigation, and formal complaint processes through an ombudsman, are part of dispute resolution, and therefore they are also part of "conflict resolution." The concept of conflict resolution can also encompass the use of non-violent methods such as civil resistance (also often called nonviolent resistance) by a party to a conflict as a means of pursuing its goals, on the grounds that such means are more likely than armed struggle to lead to effective resolution of the conflict.

Five basic ways of addressing conflict were identified by Thomas and Kilmann in 1976:

Accommodation – surrender one's own needs and wishes to accommodate the other party.

Avoidance – avoid or postpone conflict by ignoring it, changing the subject, etc. Avoidance can be useful as a temporary measure to buy time or as an expedient means of dealing with very minor, non-recurring conflicts. In more severe cases, conflict avoidance can involve severing a relationship or leaving a group.

Collaboration – work together to find a mutually beneficial solution. While the Thomas-Kilmann grid views collaboration as the only win-win solution to conflict, collaboration can also be time-intensive and inappropriate when there is not enough trust, respect or communication among participants for collaboration to occur.

Compromise – bring the problem into the open and have the third person present. The aim of conflict resolution is to reach agreement and most often this will mean compromise.

Competition – assert one's viewpoint at the potential expense of another. It can be useful when achieving one's objectives outweighs one's concern for the relationship.

The Thomas Kilmann Instrument can be used to assess one's dominant style for addressing conflict. (read more)

esoteric agenda

Kymatica

The Waste of Human Potential

Every day, within the human world, there is the regrettable and apparently inexorable waste of human potential. Every day, countless numbers of individuals die from the starvation not because there is a scarcity of food, but because they do not have access to the abundance that does exist. Everyday large numbers of humans die from diseases and conditions that are preventable, treatable and, in some cases, curable, only because they lack the resources to gain access to the wondrous medical advances that exist in the larger world. Every day, tens of millions of children are denied access to meaningful educational resources; the net effect of this reality is that these children will never realize the wondrous gifts that they possess. Instead, they will be relegated to a future in which their primary behavior will be directed towards survival in a world that apparently rejects their possible contributions to the larger society. Every day, millions upon millions of human beings are without a place of shelter to which they can retreat from the relentless onslaught of their daily lives. Every day, the natural environment worsens as human societies continue to pursue reckless and short-sided policies that suggest a grim future for the species.
Contemporary humans are living a tragedy that is wholly preventable. There is no legitimate reason why any individual cannot have access to all the necessities required to sustain them. There is no reasonable explanation for the barbaric conditions in which so many live. There is no rational discourse that can abide the miserable fate of so many of the human kind other than the belief that only a few of us are deserving and the rest are the castoffs in the pursuit of wealth and power.
The pathetic aspect of the human condition is that we can be the architects of a very different world – a world that can not only sustain human life, but also enrich the lives of all of us, everywhere.

manifesto

Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. He was the author of several notable books, including The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Character Analysis, both published in 1933.

Reich worked with Sigmund Freud in the 1920s and was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He tried to reconcile Marxism and psychoanalysis, arguing that neurosis is rooted in the physical, sexual, economic, and social conditions of the patient, and promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives, abortion, and divorce, and the importance for women of economic independence. His work influenced a generation of intellectuals, including Saul Bellow, William S. Burroughs, Paul Edwards, Norman Mailer, A. S. Neill, and Robert Anton Wilson, and shaped innovations such as Fritz Perls's Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's bioenergetic analysis, and Arthur Janov's primal therapy.


Later in life he became a controversial figure who was both adored and condemned. He began to violate some of the key taboos of psychoanalysis, using touch during sessions, and treating patients in their underwear to improve their "orgastic potency." He said he had discovered a primordial cosmic energy, which he said others called God and that he called "orgone". He built orgone energy accumulators that his patients sat inside to harness the reputed health benefits, leading to newspaper stories about sex boxes that cured cancer.

Reich was living in Germany when Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933. On March 2 that year the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter published an attack on one of Reich's pamphlets, The Sexual Struggle of Youth. He left immediately for Vienna, then Scandinavia, moving to the United States in 1939. In 1947, following a series of articles about orgone in The New Republic and Harper's, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) obtained an injunction against the interstate sale of orgone accumulators. Charged with contempt for violating it, Reich conducted his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his books to read and arguing that a court was no place to decide matters of science. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and in August 1956 several tons of his publications were burned by the FDA - a notable example of censorship in U.S. history. He died in jail of heart failure just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.

Trevor James Constable

a night to remember

On the Fragility of Human Consciousness

Human consciousness is such a fragile and unfinished aspect of human life – it can so easily run out of control, directed by unruly and irrational emotions. In my own particular instance, it has taken a good portion of my lifetime to recognize this significant piece of reality regarding the human condition. I suspect that it will take the remainder of my existence to learn how to more completely utilize my full potential for reasoned judgment based upon a true love and compassion for all living things that embrace this most wondrous planet.
Within the arena of politics and social and foreign policies, it is far too easy to adorn oneself with the mantle of righteousness and jump to often erroneous conclusions concerning the moral and ethical character of the political opposition. At the core of the most strident and powerful emotions, the ego is a very important player. In my estimation, it is essential to recognize the significance of those inner forces shaped by personality, experience and genetic predisposition that often shape an individual’s worldview, judgment and ultimate behavior.
An important first step in controlling volatile emotions is to understand their origins – in other words, it is a matter of the first priority to “know thyself.” Whenever aggression becomes a tool for social action, the possibility of implementing meaningful change diminishes; furthermore, this approach often proves counterproductive.
Whether or not the human species has the wherewithal to thoroughly recognize its own imperfections, actively work toward overcoming them and effectively move towards a truly just and peaceful world is an open question.

madness

fear

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.

Dune

freedom from fear

i married a monster from outer space

I Married A Monster From Outer Space Trailer

Dalai Lama - Kalachakra Preliminary Teachings

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Dalai Lama audio and video | The Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama: "Kalachakra Preliminary Teachings"




Day one of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's three day teaching on Gyalsey Thokme Sangpo's "37 Practices of A Boddhisattva (laklen sodunma)" and Kamalashila's "Stages of Meditation - Middle Volume (gomrim barpa)" given on July 9-11, 2011, that were preliminary teachings to the Kalachakra Empowerment. (www.dalailama.com)

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Kalachakra

कालचक्र

Kalachakra (Sanskrit: कालचक्र; IAST: Kālacakra) is a Sanskrit term used in Tantric Buddhism that literally means "time-wheel" or "time-cycles." The spelling Kalacakra is also correct.

Kalachakra refers both to a Tantric deity (Tib. yidam) of Vajrayana Buddhism and to the philosophies and meditation practices contained within the Kalachakra Tantra and its many commentaries. The Kalachakra Tantra is more properly called the Kalachakra Laghutantra, and is said to be an abridged form of an original text, the Kalachakra Mulatantra which is no longer extant. Some Buddhist masters assert that Kalachakra is the most advanced form of Vajrayana practice; it certainly is one of the most complex systems within tantric Buddhism.

The Kalachakra tradition revolves around the concept of time (kāla) and cycles (chakra): from the cycles of the planets, to the cycles of human breathing, it teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one's body on the path to enlightenment.

The Kalachakra deity represents a Buddha and thus omniscience. Since Kalachakra is time and everything is under the influence of time, Kalachakra knows all. Whereas Kalachakri or Kalichakra, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of everything that is timeless, untimebound or out of the realm of time. In Yab-yum, they are temporality and atemporality conjoined. Similarly, the wheel is without beginning or end.

more at Wikipedia

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God's Equation

In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144...

By definition, the first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.

In mathematical terms, the sequence Fn of Fibonacci numbers is defined by the recurrence relation with seed values.

The Fibonacci sequence is named after Leonardo of Pisa, who was known as Fibonacci. Fibonacci's 1202 book Liber Abaci introduced the sequence to Western European mathematics, although the sequence had been described earlier in Indian mathematics. (By modern convention, the sequence begins with F0 = 0. The Liber Abaci began the sequence with F1 = 1, omitting the initial 0, and the sequence is still written this way by some.)

Fibonacci numbers are closely related to Lucas numbers in that they are a complementary pair of Lucas sequences. They are intimately connected with the golden ratio, for example the closest rational approximations to the ratio are 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, ... . Applications include computer algorithms such as the Fibonacci search technique and the Fibonacci heap data structure, and graphs called Fibonacci cubes used for interconnecting parallel and distributed systems. They also appear in biological settings, such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruit spouts of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone. (read more)

dancing in the air

The Stoning of Du'a Khalil Aswad

Du’a Khalil Aswad (دعاء خليل أسود)(c. 1989 – c. April 7, 2007) was a 17-year-old Iraqi Kurd of the Yazidi faith who was stoned to death in an honor killing. It is believed that she was killed around April 7, 2007, but the incident did not come to light until video of the stoning, apparently recorded on a mobile phone, appeared on the Internet. The rumor that the stoning was connected to her alleged conversion to Islam prompted heavy reprisals against Yazidis by Sunni extremists, including the 2007 Mosul massacre.

Aswad was taken to the town square and reports at the time alleged that she was stripped of her clothing down to her undergarments to symbolize that she had dishonored her family and religion. During the stoning, which lasted approximately thirty minutes, Aswad can be seen in the video attempting to sit up and calling for help as the crowd taunts her and repeatedly throws a large chunk of rock or concrete on her head. After her death in the town square, Aswad's body was tied behind a car and dragged through the streets. She was buried with the remains of a dog, allegedly to demonstrate that she was worthless. Eventually, her body was "exhumed and sent to the Medico-Legal Institute in Mosul so that tests could be performed to see whether she had died a virgin, results had then come back that confirm that she was in fact still a virgin." (read more)

out there

Pluto


Neptune


Uranus


Saturn


Jupiter


Mars


Earth


Venus


Mercury


Sol

ancient aliens

Sons of God

Vitruvian Man

Leonardo da Vinci circa 1487

who you are

due process ?

Judge

jury

and executioner

Collateral Damage

Collateral damage,
what exactly is it?

Is it a rock band,
perhaps heavy metal,
some obscure
auto insurance term
itemizing what’s not covered
in case of an accident
written in miniscule print,
a mistake a surgeon might make
in the midst of a delicate operation,
those individuals
indirectly injured from the
side effects of a nasty divorce,
debris left over from an
overzealous football game?

Collateral damage,
what exactly is it?

The stupefying carnage,
the chaos and mayhem that
accompanies ferocious and brutal violence,
the torrential flow of blood spewing from
shattered and broken bodies
separated from the yolk of the living,
the pungent odor released from
myriad corpses strewn upon fields of
overwhelming death,
the instantaneous incineration of entire families,
the horrific and bountiful products of murder
cannot be expunged by the simple application of
innocuous words in a vain attempt to
circumvent the reality of
such depravity.

storms a comin'

PASADENA, Calif. -- Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft now have the first-ever, up-close details of a Saturn storm that is eight times the surface area of Earth.

On Dec. 5, 2010, Cassini first detected the storm that has been raging ever since. It appears approximately 35 degrees north latitude of Saturn. Pictures from Cassini's imaging cameras show the storm wrapping around the entire planet covering approximately 2 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers).

The storm is about 500 times larger than the biggest storm previously seen by Cassini during several months from 2009 to 2010. Scientists studied the sounds of the new storm's lightning strikes and analyzed images taken between December 2010 and February 2011. Data from Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument showed the lightning flash rate as much as 10 times more frequent than during other storms monitored since Cassini's arrival to Saturn in 2004. The data appear in a paper published this week in the journal Nature. (read more)