White Light Black Light: September 2005

But in Bergotte’s case, my preconceived idea of him from his name troubled me far less than my familiarity with his work, to which I was obliged to attach, as to the cord of a balloon, the man with the little beard, without knowing whether it would still have the strength to raise him from the ground. It seemed quite clear, however, that it really was he who had written the books that I had so greatly enjoyed, for Mme. Swann having thought it incumbent upon her to tell him of my admiration for one of these, he shewed no surprise that she should have mentioned this to him rather than to any other of the party, nor did he seem to regard her action as due to a misapprehension, but, swelling out the frock coat which he had put on in honour of all these distinguished guests with a body distended in anticipation of the coming meal, while his mind was completely occupied by other, more real and more important considerations, it was only as at some finished episode in his early life, as though one had made an illusion to a costume of the Duc de Guise which he had worn, one season, at a fancy dress ball, that he smiled as he bore his mind back to the idea of his books; which at once began to fall in my estimation (dragging down with them the whole value of Beauty, of the world, of life itself), until they seemed to have been merely the casual amusement of a man with a little beard. I told myself that he must have taken great pains over them, but that, if he had lived upon an island surrounded by beds of pearl-oysters, he would instead have devoted himself to, and would have made a fortune out of, the pearling trade. His work no longer appeared to me so inevitable. And then I asked myself whether originality did indeed prove that great writers were gods, ruling each one over a kingdom that was his alone, or whether all that was not rather make-believe, whether the differences between one man’s book and another’s were not the result of their respective labours rather than the expression of a radical and essential difference between two contrasted personalities.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, September 30, 2005 1 Comments

Index to Creationist Claims http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Things Creationists Hate http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/thingscreationistshate.htm

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, September 29, 2005 0 Comments

* From The Ancient Teachings of Sri Poopy-Poopy (approximately 2000 BC, or before) translated into Modern Funky English by Sri Dookie-Dookie (2004 AD).

I say this, for I am Sri Poopy-Poopy,

Let there be funky Music and Art that extends from the Soul in honor of all creation !

Art and Music are mediums through which one can express their Joy and deep Love of the Supreme Reality !

So, let there be funky Music and Art that extends from the Soul in honor of all creation !

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, September 28, 2005 0 Comments

This picture, from a 15th-century English manuscript now in Lambeth Palace collection (Library MS6, folio 43v), features the prophetic boy Ambros (a.k.a. Merlin), revealing to King Vortigern how the fighting Red and White Dragons beneath Vortigern's Collapsing Castle cause the damage each night. I love this painting because it's full of symbolisms.

Note how Ambros looks very ordinary, not in the least like a wizard or a future Merlin. To the left are an 'adviser' and a soldier, clearly marvelling at the sight of the fighting dragons. In the background, the courtiers stay at a respectful distance.

Vortigern stands out in this illumination. His long red hair and beard clearly mark him as the archetype of a Welshman (this is, after all, an English manuscript). His robe is very royal, for some reason emphesizing his kingship, which after all is by no means certain with him being cast in the role of usurper. But is he crowned? His headgear could be a crown, but also a hat, the old guy in the red robe wears a similar one. A royal robe, but not a crown?

Another strange thing is his right foot, which I for all the world cannot identify as anything but a hoof! This is clearly not a shoe or a boot (see the enlarged image), so why a hoof? Any suggestions are welcome. And while I am talking about extremities, have you noticed that all people in the painting only show one hand and hide the other...

A last remark about the faces of the people in the foreground, which are all very vague. I would venture that these are rubbed off by the readers over the centuries, but one could think of a premeditated action.

Large

// posted by Alice @ Tuesday, September 27, 2005 0 Comments

Here

// posted by Alice @ Monday, September 26, 2005 0 Comments

*

A moon in the sky

After sunrise [a rare sight];

Seen it before, but --

A squiggly fractal--

the line of Monterrey's hills--

floats above the fog

The cat licks its paws:

I watch, three floors above: it

Looks up straight at me

Gay flamingo sings:

"The sun rises and the world

Is ablaze with Dawn"

"Weep, weep!" cries a bird

Lost somewhere in fog and mist.

Sunrise with no sun.

Fire on the mountain?

No, the deer are still, tranquil:

It must be sunlight

The orange cloudbank:

One bright touch in the grey sky

Above a grey bay

Dolphins in the bay

Playing, sporting, having fun--

World without money!

The weather bureau

predicted a sunny day:

All I see is fog

After the fog lifts,

A naked beauty: blue sky

With buttermilk clouds

Bay ablaze with light--

Tin-flash; silver; clear as gin--

After weeks of fog!

Flock of gulls appears

And suddenly -- disappears

Going God-knows-where...

White on white: bay lost,

Mountains lost, bleached into white:

A clean-cotton mist

Pre-dawn, silence, then --:

Out of unpulsating dark

An unknown bird chirps.

Bay like blackboard grey

Monterrey lost in white fog Shortest day draws nigh

While I slept they came:

Two unexpected flowers

Sprouting on the vine.

Grey and pastel pink --

A water-color painting --

This light before dawn.

*

// posted by Alice @ Monday, September 26, 2005 0 Comments

Local Protest Warriors thought it would be a good idea to antagonize anti-war activists as they marched on Turk St. toward Jefferson Square Park. Here's video of a large crowd challenging them to join the military themselves since they are such big supporters of war. http://www.indybay.org/uploads/s24_protestwarriorchickenhawks.mp4 * These idiots are not very popular anywhere they go. Don't miss the must-see video of Protest Warriors getting run out of a PRO-war rally in Crawford, Texas about a month ago. http://www.indybay.org/uploads/protest-warriors_sm.wmv

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 0 Comments

*

Peace Cranes *

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Boobs Not Bombs, Fuck Bush *

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// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 0 Comments

The Revolution Will Be Televised Josh Wolf I live in San Francisco. I'm an artist, an activist, an anarchist and an archivist; this is my videoblog. * ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 0 Comments

http://www.current.tv/ Right now, at this moment in history, TV is the most powerful medium in the world.

Its reach and influence are unparalleled. It makes or breaks products and politicians alike, paints our picture of the world, and glues our culture together. And yet, who controls it?

Now, you do.

This is our outpost in a locked-down television landscape. Here, the channel goes two ways. Here, you are viewer and producer. Welcome to Current.

Current is a new, independent cable and satellite TV network, available in 20 million homes around the United States -- and growing.

Current is about what's going on.

We follow the global pulse via Google Current, a real-time view of what the world's searching for, presented every half-hour around the clock.

We slice the rest of the schedule into short pods -- each just a few minutes long -- that range far and wide, from international dispatches to profiles of cool people to intelligence on new trends. This is not a traditional TV network; watching Current, you'll see more, on more topics, from more points of view.

And much of it comes straight from you.

We call it viewer-created content, or VC2, and it's created in the Current Studio, an online extension of our real studios in San Francisco and LA. Anybody can join in to produce VC2 (and get paid for it) or watch and vote for what goes on TV.

See those four squares in our logo? We call it the cursor, and like an old-school command prompt, it means we're awaiting input.

From you. * http://currenttv.blogspot.com/

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 0 Comments

The ANSWER Coalition reports that: 300,000 people surrounded the White House in Washington, DC today 50,000 people participated in a demonstration in Los Angeles. 50,000 people were at the San Francisco protest. *

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 0 Comments

This is What A Police State Looks Like by Josh Wolf Saturday, Sep. 24, 2005 at 6:57 PM

Around 4:00PM approximately 20 people were arrested while trying to cross the street and enter the Love Parade at Civic Center... this very raw video provides some insight into what happened. Video of the arrest at Civic Center in front of the Love Parade

*

i saw this

by Darren Saturday, Sep. 24, 2005 at 7:41 PM

I was literraly 2 feet behind the person who filmed this. The guy in the pink shirt talking mid way through is my friend who I went to the rally/protest with.

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 0 Comments

p. 122: Agreements Participant: "I don't have any trouble keeping important agreements, but I'm damned if I'm going to bust my ass to keep trivial agreements." Trainer: Oh yeah, how many times have we heard that one? .. Every tine in your whole fuckin' life you've felt like breaking an agreement, THE AGREEMENT HAS AUTOMATICALLY SEEMED AT THAT MOMENT TRIVIAL! That's hot the mind mind works! If someone owes you twenty bucks that's a fuckin' important agreement, right? But if you owe someone twenty bucks, surprise!, it's a trivial agreement. What is reality, anyway? There's a long section on this? The conclusion is that we are responsible for what we experience, as, if I get this right, we are responsible for the interpretation of what happens. We experience people, events, etc."as something." ************** p. 165: Anatomy of the mind Mind: The mind is a linear arrangement of multisensory total records of successive moments of now. Purpose of mind: The design function of the mind is survival, the survival of the being, but also of anthing which the being considers itself to be. ************** Sometimes we sacrifice our physical well being to save what we consider ourselves to be. Ego: state of affairs when the being comes to identify itself with the mind. Then the mind's purpose is the survival of the mind itself. Because now the purpose of the mind becomes the survivial of the mind itself, the survival of the records, the tapes, of the points of view of the mind, of the decisions of the mind, of the thoughts, of the conclusions and beliefs of the mind. Now the mind has a vested interest in all these. WHat it does to try to survive is to try to keep itself intact, replay the same tapes, prove itself right. That becomes now the purpose of the mind, to survive be again and again proving itself right. ... Some of you eggheads out there have read your Nietzsche, suppposed to be a great philosopher, one of the very greatest. he wrote a lot of books about how the mind wil do anything to dominate, anything to prove itself right. He was sort of a master detective going around smelling out how people would develop religions so that poor people would feel right in their poverty, how philosophers would develop philosophies to prove right what they were doing anyway, how writers would wite books whose secret purpose was to justify themselves. Nietzsche's will to power isn't a lot of Nazi goosestepping around to build up their thigh musles, it's about how all the world's religions, all the philosophies, all the great books, all of 'em, are just the mind's way of trying to prove itself right and dominate others. ************** p. 189 Summary of mind: The mind is a linear arrangement of multisensory total records of successive moments of now. Its purpose is the suvivial of the being or of anything the being identifies with its survival. Since the being in fact inevitiably identifies his being with his mind, the purpose of the mind becomes the survival of the mind: the survival of the tapes, the points of view, the decisions, the beliefs, the rightness of the mind. The mind this seeks always for agreement and to avoid disagreement, always to be right and avoid being wrong, to dominate and avoid domination, to justify itself and avoid invalidation. The construction of the mind involves two stacks, one containing records of experiences necessary for survival, a second containing records not necessary for survivial. Those experiences in the first stack are divided into three classes. Nonber ones are experiences haivn pain, the threat to survival, and relative unconsciousness. Number twos are experiences of loss or shocking loss associated with the number ones and involving strong emotion. Number threes are experiences triggered by important elements from either number ones or number twos. ... This goes on for a while, and the point is ... You're machines. ... All you're dramatic upsets are just your machine mind triggering off some past threat to survival ... The whole works is just stimulus-response, stimulous response, stimulus response... You've spend your whole life trying to find an escape from admitting you're a machine, your whole life trying to escape from admitting what is, is ... ***************** Other Links about EST: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~dbromley/est.htm http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eldon.braun/awareness/pressmn1.htm

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 24, 2005 0 Comments

The philosopher-psychologist Henry James observed almost a century ago: "The most profound discovery of my generation is that, by changing one's thinking, one can change one's life." Increasingly, science is finding that, by engendering positive and uplifting thoughts, we can not only improve the quality of our emotional and spiritual lives, but we may be also able to influence the quality of our physical health. In the last twenty-five years a new field has emerged called psycho-neuroimmunology. This field explores the relationship between the mind and the immune system with the nervous system serving as the mediator. Initially viewed with much skepticism, the influence of emotions on health has earned a respected niche in the medical community. A review of past civilizations can be helpful in understanding our present evolution. Hippocrates, the father of Medicine, would often place his patients in the Chapel of Aescalapius for the night. Sick people would be placed on cots and told to recall in the morning all their dreams and memories from the previous night. This "dream psychology" told the good doctor the secret attitudes harbored by the patient, and these beliefs were often at the root of many illnesses. In Healing, the Divine Art, Manly Hall says, "Health was not merely the dosing of the sick. It was the cultivating of a proper relationship between the individual, the world, and the divine power which governs it. Hippocrates was one of the first to point out that all healing comes from God. The physician is merely a servant of deity." In the second century A.D., another Greek physician, named Galen, observed a higher incidence of breast cancer among melancholic women than those who were not depressed. These ancient Mediterranean physician-philosophers perceived a unity of mind, body and spirit that was supported by all the natural forces of nature. "Attitude" has been defined as a state of mind or feeling with regard to a person. Most of us experience states of mind that fluctuate from happiness to depression, and these emotions come and go in our lives. Emotions can generally be viewed as signposts for self-awareness rather than necessarily as feelings we need to suppress. However, strong emotional states that persist may, in fact, become destructive to the body. The strongest of these are worry, fear, anger, grief and pretense. Anger can be a powerful motivator for change in one's life, but left to stagnate, it can deplete the physical body and mind of vital reserves. Depression can slow the heart rate while excitement can increase it. Unabated, these strong feelings will adversely affect the heart. The Chinese found that every emotion has a physical correlation. Anger affects all organs, but specifically stresses the liver. Fear affects the kidneys; grief, the lungs; worry, the spleen-pancreas; and pretense or excitement, the heart. This means that various attitudes affect organs and structures of the body according to the type of emotion stimulated. Keep in mind that these emotions are not "bad" in and of themselves; in fact, suppressing emotions creates its own stress on the body. But when sustained over a long period of time, the aforementioned states of mind can become toxic. Manly Hall expresses it clearly when he states: "Most ailments begin with tension, and wherever there is negative thinking or negative emotion, there will be tension. It makes no difference whether our indignation is righteous or otherwise. We pay for the pressures that we permit to develop within us." This persistent emotional tension results in overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. Such a response is similar to driving the car with one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator; we wear the car out and, likewise, the human machine. It is, therefore, necessary to our well-being that we attend to our emotional health with as much attention as we give to our bodies. When we experience strong negative states, we must activate the reset button immediately afterwards with such tension-reducing methods as exercise, yoga, visualization, meditation or any natural relaxation method. We may also need to replenish certain vitamins and minerals lost during prolonged stress and examine the body for physical weaknesses such as hypoglycemia or adrenal exhaustion that could contribute to a negative outlook and diminished health. The dream temple of Hippocrates is no longer available to us to investigate the long-held negative beliefs or attitudes that feed our strong emotional states, but the means can and should be found today to pursue this avenue to well-being. Hippocrates was searching for sub-conscious attitudes that were making his patients ill. Similarly, we must bring buried resentments, fears, and griefs to conscious awareness. Perhaps there was a specific time in our lives when a situation warranted fear, but circumstances do change as we mature, and we may still be reacting with fear when no such alarm is required. This is the first step in emotional healing. Once we are aware of destructive attitudes we harbor, we have the option of replacing them with more positive, health-promoting states such as love, trust, faith and forgiveness. We are the managers of our physical and mental health. Henry Thoreau recommended the same approach when he advised: "Every man is a builder of a Temple called his body." Now is the time for us to build our own temple of health within our bodies and minds with the tools we have at our disposal in this age. The famous Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung stated: "What we do not make conscious we experience as fate." Let our destiny be a fuller, freer and more harmonius life.

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 24, 2005 0 Comments

French painter, one of the leading Symbolist artists. He was a pupil of Chassériau and was influenced by his master's exotic Romanticism, but Moreau went far beyond him in his feeling for the bizarre and developed a style that is highly distinctive in subject and technique. His preference was for mystically intense images evoking long-dead civilizations and mythologies, treated with an extraordinary sensuousness, his paint encrusted and jewel-like. Although he had some success at the Salon, he had no need to court this as he had private means, and much of his life was spent in seclusion. In 1892 he became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and proved an inspired teacher, bringing out his pupils' individual talents rather than trying to impose ideas on them. His pupils included Marquet and Matisse, but his favorite was Rouault, who became the first curator of the Moreau Museum in Paris (the artist's house), which Moreau left to the nation on his death. The bulk of his work is preserved there. Hesiod and the Muse Oedipus and the Sphinx Jupiter and Semele

// posted by Alice @ Friday, September 23, 2005 0 Comments

http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/gardeners.html "The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command." -Samwise Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings, Part III, p. 206. * If you go to the garden of the Heart, You'll have beautiful perfume like a rose. If you fly to the sky, Your face will turn into a moon like the angels. -Divan-i Kebir Meter Rumi * "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. That is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention." --Francis Bacon

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, September 22, 2005 0 Comments

This booklet is for people who are dissatisfied with their lives. If you are happy with your present existence, we have no argument with you. However, if you are tired of waiting for your life to change... Tired of waiting for authentic community, love and adventure... Tired of waiting for the end of money and forced work... Tired of looking for new pastimes to pass the time... Tired of waiting for a lush, rich existence... Tired of waiting for a situation in which you can realise all your desires... Tired of waiting for the end of all authorities, alienations, ideologies and moralities... ...then we think you'll find what follows to be quite handy.

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, September 21, 2005 0 Comments

A program to achieve freedom from government coercion for those who understand and want it and are responsible enough to live it.

// posted by Alice @ Tuesday, September 20, 2005 0 Comments

Telesis is the purposeful use of natural and social forces. It is planned progress. Magickal activism. Power does not reside in church or state, but in the manipulation of words, images, and symbols. The power of reality engineering. In the past, church and state held a monopoly on this power. Today, this power is in the media. The popular media was first to show people ways of life from outside of the clenched provincialism and parochialism of their family and community. Cultural currents were able to cross-fertilize each other and media was able to confer a cosmopolitanism on even rural-living individuals. Media is the foundation of the emerging Global Village and the key to the alchemical Great Work of manifesting the Aeon. The common usage of the word "media", a plural noun, as a singular noun indicates unconscious movement toward that manifestation: an all-inclusive medium growing and progressing in all directions and dimensions simultaneously. The animating purpose of Dada and Surrealism was to smash all accepted values and expectations; to jolt perception awake from robotic sleep and into seeing the world in a new, fresh way that is nonlinear and multidimensional. Picasso's "Man with a Violin" depicts an ordinary scene, but from all sides and angles at once. In Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending A Staircase, No.2", we see what the title describes, but from a perspective of nonlinear time. The Surrealists investigated dreams and the unconscious, automatic art and writing, the art of "primitive" peoples and the art of children and schizophrenics. They were on a quest for magickal perception, a shaman's view of the world. When Duchamp submitted a urinal for display as an art object, he broke the trance of expectation and at the same time returned aesthetic quality to an object previously regarded as not only mundane but repulsive. With this urinal, Duchamp performed an act of alchemy, turning lead into gold. With his "ready-mades", constructed from "found" objects, the mundane blazes in an aura of previously unnoticed color, texture and form. Later, sections of neighborhoods would be roped off to be examined as works of art. This is saying that we live in art. Our lives are art. This is why the Zen monk, after his illumination, was so deeply moved by his amazing ability to chop wood and carry water. In this alchemy of Surrealism, the Stone of Philosophers is a state of consciousness that perceives Spirit and Matter, Sacred and Profane, as one. Andre Breton said that convulsive beauty shall be erotic-veiled, explosive-fixed, magickal-circumstantial, or not be. We have in our minds a description of reality. This description defines the reality that we live in and gives us detailed instructions on how we must perceive our reality. For most people, reality is pre-programmed because their description was taught to them as children and reinforced by their role in society. Most people live in a reality that is inherited as a legacy of cultural and personal history. They (we) live in a rented house, a house that is not a home. The mistake is believing that this is the only reality possible. The problem is that all of our perception, energy and will is focused on this reality. It captures our total attention and in turn is reinforced by our attention. Most people are unaware that they are the creators of reality. They are yoked to a pre-programmed, pre-packaged description of reality with detailed values and belief-structures, which they unconsciously sustain with their power. In ritual, the contents of the mind are exteriorized into the environment. Objects that are symbolic of desires and abstract principles are manipulated physically, mimicking mental process. All of the props, tools, elements, and actions of ritual are means to activate, engage, and focus our attention and intent, our reality-engineering power. Media is also an exteriorization of the contents of the mind into the environment. Mass media is an environmental exteriorization of the contents of the collective mind. Any process that would unfold through ritual or meditative manipulation of word, image and symbol can be carried out on the mass scale, through media, in the collective consciousness of humanity. Magick should be applied to and include within itself the most powerful and efficient tools available in order to accomplish its aims. Mass media has been a vehicle for the values, belief-structures and programs of the consensus reality-complex. However, we can rise up and seize the means of perception and use media to deprogram and short-circuit cultural conditioning as well as to refocus and remake the mind to access any desired state of awareness or consciousness. We seek to create and propagate a New Description. Or, rather, we seek to program a reality that is fluid and multidimensional; offering the individual infinite choice of description, navigating a self-determined course among the potentials of being, exploring new selves and alternative realities. Even to discard descriptions altogether and enter into the Garden of Infinity as a clear and unconditioned awareness. In this campaign, there are basically three types of action that can be implemented with regard to the values and belief-structures of the consensus reality-complex: Destruction, Deconstruction, and Transcendence. DESTRUCTION: sacrilege, blasphemy, iconoclasm and protest. The control virus is in the word-image-symbol programming that makes up our environment. Our first task is to use media to disrupt, disorientate and destroy these lines of control. Break up those words and images, remix them randomly and absurdly and throw them back in control's face. William Burroughs has given us the method: smash the control images, smash the control machine. For example, in medieval Europe, the spirit of the people was held in bondage by the Roman Church. The ritual that generated the occult power of the Church was the Mass (the name itself is a clue to its nature). The so-called Black Mass was a highly sophisticated weapon of liberation. It paralleled the Mass of the Church, but every aspect was distorted in some way. The Crucifix was inverted. The Lord's Prayer was recited backwards. Women, held in contempt by the Church, offered their naked bodies for use as altars. The performance of this ritual generated a sort of computer virus within the reality-complex of the Church, making it unstable, breaking it up and releasing some of that hoarded spiritual fuel; contributing to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the philosophical and political revolutions of that period. New and improved Black Masses should be devised for use today. What words, images, values and traditions hold us captive today? These should be identified and isolated and we should endeavor to sin against them in thought, word and deed. Disrupt, disorientate, destabilize and destroy. Apply the discipline of Dada to the icons and dogmas of today, both obvious and subliminal. How are these control icons and dogmas implemented? We should find out and use those same methods to disarm them. The destruction-mode is the confrontational front-line assault in the culture war. It is also the most problematic of the three because it makes you a target and a possible scapegoat. Also, there is a trap in which you allow yourself to be defined by opponent groups (if they are THAT, then I must be THIS). Be strong, be vigilant, be bold and be prepared. DECONSTRUCTION: If Destruction is the way of the wrecking ball, Deconstruction is the way of the termite: careful observation of institutional structures and methods, in-depth analysis of the history and motivation behind and implications of cultural memes and then systematic breakdown. The investigations and explorations of the deconstruction-mode produce a wealth of information useful to both the destruction and transcendence modes. TRANSCENDENCE: This mode is beyond inherited cultural values, belief-structures and reality-complexes altogether. They are denied any reality whatsoever. They do not exist (and they never did). Action in the Transcendence mode is based on expressing a fierce, powerful and sincere intention, integrity and love with regard to your reality and its evolution. This is the mode of CREATION. In the course of our research and experimentation, certain target areas have emerged as important. It seems that focussing our attention and energy on these target areas and disseminating their "emanations" through various media will effect a profound cultural transformation. CHAOS: as described in the first essay of this Manifesto. The basis of reality and ground-of-being is a fluid and dynamic "substance" that is pure potential and infinite creativity. This description can not be a dogma as it embraces all possibilities. It is a "root" which branches off into infinite choice of realities. As such, it forms a bond of unity among diversity. GAIA: the living Earth. The emerging scientific view of the Earth as a super-organism merges with the archetype of the Mother. Earth magick is renewed: sacred sites, ley lines, feng shui, seasonal rites and festivals. An aware, active relationship with Gaia and the power of Earth magick inspire and fuel the passion behind ecological activism such as lobbying, protests, boycotts, recycling and ecotage. However, we also understand that while nature is our HOME, it is not our MASTER. We are not against technology or progress. We are against waste and short-sightedness. We seek the implementation of appropriate technology such as wind, water and solar power, clean fuels such as hydrogen, biogas and biodiesel, and reforestation and organic farming. EROS: The purest and most chaosmic manifestation of Eros is the Quantum Inseparability Principle, the Quantum Interconnectedness which holds all thing-events in unity. The unity of friendship, love and sex are more personal manifestations of Eros. We seek freedom for sincere, uninhibited love. We seek freedom for expression and fulfillment of such love wherever, whenever and with whomever. Free Eros manifests as an ability to immerse oneself in communion with all aspects of life, to surrender to bliss. In sexuality, it is the ability to sense and feel, to reach out to another. Free Eros is a rampaging flood of polymorphous, polyamorous, polysexual passion, the flow and force of which breaks and bursts through the barriers of social propriety, neurotic clinging and flabby sentimentality. LIQUID: promotion of the liquid state as an ideal and seeking fluidity. All the action is in stuff that flows. Liquefy all structures. Dissolve all barriers, borders and boundaries and everything will melt together. Removing all blocks, the flow is unimpeded and the free elements form new, creative, chaotic, dynamic relationships. Make more connections, increase the flow of information and promote the holistic, interdisciplinary integration of arts, sciences, philosophies and lifestyles. LANGUAGE: Words define and grammatical structure shapes thought. Thus, language conditions the mind, programs reality and determines experience. The first priority is to promote clear communication. We need a language discipline that clarifies murky communications between people and penetrates the meaningless but manipulative newspeak used by institutions and institutional media. This includes familiarity with semantics, memetics and critical thinking. Next, we can weed out those words and phrases that symbolize obsolete and/or undesirable postulates, values and beliefs. This will erase them from thought. At the same time, we can create new words and phrases which represent new and desirable postulates, values and beliefs. Archaic words can be unearthed and reinterpreted to recapture "lost" ideas. These new and recycled words evoke new experiences, ideas and realities. From there, we can go on to create new forms of language for expressing and communicating new forms of awareness and consciousness. Consider: Speedtalk from Robert A. Heinlein's novelette GULF, pictographic and visual languages, musical languages such as those used by Australian Aborigines and the Master Musicians of Joujouka, or something that incorporates all of these and involves the other senses as well. OCCULTURE: The integration of the magickal interpretation of the world and existence with everyday life. The Historical Museum of Magick is preserved for academic purposes, as a knowledge bank and a treasure-house of images. However, the important work is spreading the good news that the Individual is the SOURCE of their reality; and developing the most powerful and efficient magickal technology for using the imagination and the will to engineer reality. For example, we have read books and heard motivational tapes on building "wealth-consciousness" that are classics of sorcery with an emphasis on finance. It is important to reposition the image of magick in the minds of the general public. The institutional media would have them believe that magickal practitioners have nothing better to do with their time than molest children while drinking dog's blood and urine. Or, at best, they are portrayed as merely "wacky". Anything evolutionary is depicted by the institutional media as dangerous and/or foolish. Certainly there are neurotic (and even psychotic) people who cling to magick as some kind of gimmick; but when the larger picture and the personal and cultural value of magick is clearly shown, it will attract the interest of healthier, more capable minds and personalities. SCIENCE: Complementing the promotion of Occulture is the popularization of what is being called "New Science". Of particular importance are the Quantum and Holographic views of reality and their ontological and philosophical implications. At the same time, we should be careful not to distort or exaggerate those implications. S.M.I².L.E.: Space Migration, Intelligence Increase and Life Extension. Timothy Leary's prescription for the human condition. More space and more time to enjoy space and time. Space Migration, Intelligence Increase and Life Extension are common raw materials for science fiction. Because they are evolutionary, they are often depicted as dangerous and/or foolish endeavors. Space is the domain of marauding aliens, where puny man doesn't stand a chance. The Supersavant is an insane megalomaniac. The Immortal yearns for death as a release from boredom. Immortality without Space Migration and/or Intelligence Increase might well become dull. It would certainly contribute to overpopulation and the burden on Earth's resources. However, the Earth is already overpopulated and seriously depleted of resources. Space Migration is a survival imperative. Anyway, why should we stay in one small place even if we could? Because of the vast distances involved in space travel, Life Extension is necessary. All three components of the formula work together; and intelligence increase is the key to the whole scenario, as well as being a worthwhile pursuit in itself. All of humanity should be inspired to put their attention, energy, will, effort and resources into these goals. We desire enough space, creativity, and time to bring out the best that is within us. EVOLUTION/APOTHEOSIS: Evolution is not finished. The work described in this Manifesto will create a new environment. This new environment will draw out new qualities and behaviors from its inhabitants. At the same time, the environment will inhibit obsolete qualities and behaviors. These are the environmental dynamics of evolution. The internal dynamics of evolution can be engineered by promoting the general themes of evolution, metamorphosis, transformation and apotheosis. The desire must be built up; the tension steadily increased. Although the scope of this process is grand, its magickal methodology is basically the same as that we use in our personal lives. Austin Spare referred to sigils as the means of accelerating evolution when desire is organic enough to reach the subconsciousness. We can create homo novis out of ourselves. The Process will unfold at the level "below" the individual and collective unconscious, where mind and matter are not yet differentiated. Burning the automaton armor from us all, we will be propelled into dimensions and dynamics of experience and expression that were previously unimaginable. Some will be in a position to facilitate the Telesis Process widely and deeply. Others will focus on their own locally intensive scale. Everyone can do something. Here is one idea that illustrates making use of available resources. Throughout the United States, cable television companies offer public access service to their area. Individuals and groups can receive a free basic education in television production, use studio equipment free of charge to produce their program and get air time to run it. Now, say three groups or individuals in different places have the time, talent and creativity to produce high-quality programs based on the issues, ideas and aims of the Telesis Process. If twenty more groups of Individuals in different places simply go through the procedures to carry programs on their local public access, then a network can be formed for circulating the tapes. Now an underground cable television network exists that is active in 23 areas. Similar scenarios apply to community, college and pirate radio. Xerox, fax trees, websites and e-zines...the list goes on and on. Telesis is a total process of cultural transformation. In this essay we have focused on media, but The Process will unfold in education, engineering, architecture, cuisine, fashion and finance. We seek an initiative, efficient and empowered by will, to change our ideas about reality, ourselves and each other and to revolutionize the dynamics of life. Our greatest strategy is in living our own example; Individually, in cells or in communities of our own, as Brothers and Sisters in Abbeys of Chaos. We will to change life. We will to transform the world.

// posted by Alice @ Monday, September 19, 2005 0 Comments

Dr. Laura Naked

Scary

*

In the sixth novel, The Emerald City of Oz (1910), Baum writes:

"There were no poor people in the Land of Oz, because there was no such thing as money, and all property belonged to the Ruler [the Fairy Queen Ozma]. The people were her children, and she cared for them. Each person was given freely by his neighbors whatever he required for his use, which is as much as any one may reasonably desire. Some tilled the lands and raised great crops of grain, which was divided equally among the entire population, so that all had enough. There were many tailors and dressmakers and shoemakers and the like, who made things that any who desired them might wear. Likewise, there were jewelers who made ornaments for the person, which pleased and beautified the people, and these ornaments also were free to those who asked for them. Each man and woman, no matter what he or she produced for the good of the community, was supplied by the neighbors with food and clothing and a house and furniture and ornaments and games. If by chance the supply ever ran short, more was taken from the great storehouses of the Ruler, which were afterward filled up again when there was more of an article than the people needed.

*

Yertle the Turtle Dr. Seuss

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 18, 2005 0 Comments

every man is born a poet, lives like a thief, and dies a vampire. †.ideas i am currently synthesizing:.cultural theory: process philosophy, semiotics, chaos linguistics, cybernetics, memetics, hermeneutics, deconstruction, neojungian psychology, transpersonal and integral psychology, information theory, neoplatonism, mythomechanics, cosmic octave theory, morphic field theory, bicameral and unicameral modes of mind, holographic models of information and reality, liminocentric geometry, modes of being, modes of space/time perception, the eternal recurrence, quantum ambient consciousness, nonlinear dimensionality, pattern nebulae, novelty manifolds.cultural practice: magic/k, alchemy, qabalah, notariqon, QACian myth engineering, shamanism, entheogens, kundalini yoga, reiki, i ching, meditation, gnosticism, synchromancy, sigil bombing, neuro-linguistic programming, qi channeling, luck†Æ‡96†.current music:guided by voices, clouddead, califone, neutral milk hotel, dangling meat syntax, sunny day real estate, interpol, xiu xiu, pinback, the brian jonestown massacre, yume bitsu, merzbow, fennesz, inverted blood friendship, junior boys, lungfish, passage, subtle, the preserving machine, ms. john soda, lali puna, erlend oye, tv on the radio, primal scream, analog demon clot, soft pink truth, scissor sisters, annie, bloc party, autolux, duo505, hymie's basement, why?, doseone, gustav, dead-void heretic, m83, secret machines, the books, broadcast, the russian futurists, iran, autechre, odd nosdam, four tet, caribou.projects:.generalizing heisenberg's uncertainty principle to information theory.constructing machines that exchange space and time via s=t*c, in analogy to e=m*c^2.liquifying history in order to [eliminate time and therefore] immanentize the eschaton.building labyrinths [places to hide during the apocalypse].automatic detection of peoples' opinions[/ideas/agendas/...] in media [masters thesis].gaining ground in the ascension war.quantifying and describing the human religious experience with post-20th century tools.stenciling cities with occult symbols with the dual purpose of promoting a shift to a less rigid tagging/bombing aesthetic and giving people the spooky realization that they are in someone else's dream.constructing my own personal synchronicity-inducing library and then testing it on other people by lending them books.developing the theory and practice of thoughtform architecture, psychic mirroring, epicognition and synchromancy (coincidence invocation using novelty waves).advancing the art of the rock poster.characterizing the perennial theophany.building the tesla-babbage synchronmaschine.constructing an alternate eschaton point [of analinear temporality] via egregore.temperament metrics:.jungian/keirsey/mbti: entp[/enfp].enneagram: 9[/7]†LVX‡NØX† Interests: 150: 23, 96, analinear eschatology, anticipating zeitgeists, archetypes as information channels, austin osman spare, autopoiesis, belief as truth, bicameral mind, book of antennae, book of lies, book of the dead, carl jung, chaos linguistics, christian mysticism, codex seraphinianus, coincidentia oppositorum, concresence, confluence, consciousness as pattern, consciousness as standing waveform, consilience, constructing paradigms, cubo-futurism, david bohm, david lynch, deconstructing paradigms, diachronicity, dictionary of the khazars, doppelgangers, enantiodromia, entheogens as psychic telescopes, epimetheus, eternity, fringe theologies, gnosis, gospel of thomas, grant morrison, gurdjieff, heraclitus, hermann hesse, holographic universe, holons, hypnerotomachia poliphili, i ching, individuation, integral psychology, isaac luria, isolated meridians, jacob boehme, jesu christo, joachim of fiore, jorges luis borges, julian jaynes, kairos time, ken wilber, kundalini yoga, labyrinths, liminocentric geometry, linguistic geometry, living scripture, logos vs. nomos, lucid dreaming, lvx=nox, meister eckhart, memetics, metaesthetics, milorad pavic, mimicry in nature, mind physics, modes of being, morphogenetic fields, mushrooms, mythic vs. linear time, neologism obsession, nicholas of cusa, nikola tesla, nlp, noosphere, novelty, occult philosophy, omega point, ontology shifts, orthogonal time, ouroborus, past lives as resonance, pattern nebulae, pattern philosophy, paul laffoley, phenomenology of revelation, philip k. dick, pink truth, plato, pleiades, plotinus, process philosophy, psychedelics, psychohistory, qabalah, qualia, quantum nonlocality, reality hacking, reiki, religious criticism, robert anton wilson, rudolf steiner, salvia divinorum, schopenhauer, semiotics, seriality, shamanism, sigilization, soul vs. spirit, stanislav grof, starseed, sufism, symbols as doorways, synaesthesia as hyperlanguage, synchromancy, synchronicity, syzygy, tachyons, tao teh ching, tattvas, teilhard de chardin, terence mckenna, the angel of history, the ascension war, the dreamtime, the eight-circuit model, the ray of creation, the religious experience, the russian futurists, the world dream, the world tree, thomas nagel, thunder perfect mind, transmissions, tree of life, urgrund, valis, voynich manuscript, whitehead, will=perception, william blake, wittgenstein, yerba mate, zaum, zebra, æ. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=automaticwriter

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 17, 2005 0 Comments

Nothing Is True Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin By John Geiger. The Disinformation Company, 336 pages, $27.95 hardcover Two decades after Brion Gysin's death, the obscure Beat buddy of William Burroughs gets the biography he has long deserved. Gysin, a fellow cosmic traveler whose oeuvre was overshadowed by the likes of Paul and Jane Bowles and Allen Ginsberg, wrote compelling poetry and two challenging novels, but to mixed reviews. He was a visionary multimedia artist, but with few shows and slow sales. He came up with the "cut-up" method of automatic writing, but others made it famous. He conceived the Dream Machine, a flickering-light device that induced altered states of consciousness, but was never able to market it. He even contributed the hash brownie recipe for Alice B. Toklas' infamous cookbook, but Toklas got the credit. Although Gysin is the Beat most people never heard of, Geiger's brisk, thorough biography more than makes the case that he was among the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century - as Geiger notes, the likes of David Bowie, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, and the late Keith Haring were all inspired in their art by Gysin's life and work.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, September 16, 2005 0 Comments

1975 and John began his own daily late - night show, a slot he would famously front for almost 30 years. The following recordings are taken from a Monday night Radio 1 show aired May 1978. Each file is Mp3, 32Kbps, 15 mins long (3.5Mb).

Pt 1; Jah Lloyd, the Stones and British Lions

Pt 2; Dyaks and Dave Gilmore

Pt 3; More Dave Gilmore, The Slits & Radio Birdman

Pt 4; Meditations, Laura Logic, The Slits & Residents

(John hopes the Slits will be signed up)

Part 5 - Stranglers, Link Wray and close of show

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, September 15, 2005 0 Comments

A peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the transdisciplinary study of Western esotericism: Western esoteric traditions including alchemy, astrology, Gnosticism, gnosis, magic, mysticism, Rosicrucianism, and secret societies, and their ramifications in art history, history, literature, and politics.

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, September 14, 2005 0 Comments

NOT YET A SCIENCE but a proposition: That certain problems in linguistics might be solved by viewing language as a complex dynamical system or "Chaos field."

Of all the responses to Saussure's linguistics, two have special interest here: the first, "antilinguistics," can be traced--in the modern period--from Rimbaud's departure for Abyssinia; to Nietzsche's "I fear that while we still have grammar we have not yet killed God"; to dada; to Korzybski's "the Map is not the Territory"; to Burroughs' cut-ups and "breakthrough in the Gray Room"; to Zerzan's attack on language itself as representation and mediation.

The second, Chomskyan Linguistics, with its belief in "universal grammar" and its tree diagrams, represents (I believe) an attempt to "save" language by discovering "hidden invariables," much in the same way certain scientists are trying to "save" physics from the "irrationality" of quantum mechanics. Although as an anarchist Chomsky might have been expected to side with the nihilists, in fact his beautiful theory has more in common with platonism or sufism than with anarchism. Traditional metaphysics describes language as pure light shining through the colored glass of the archetypes; Chomsky speaks of "innate" grammars. Words are leaves, branches are sentences, mother tongues are limbs, language families are trunks, and the roots are in "heaven"...or the DNA. I call this "hermetalinguistics"--hermetic and metaphysical. Nihilism (or "HeavyMetalinguistics" in honor of Burroughs) seems to me to have brought language to a dead end and threatened to render it "impossible" (a great feat, but a depressing one)- -while Chomsky holds out the promise and hope of a last- minute revelation, which I find equally difficult to accept. I too would like to "save" language, but without recourse to any "Spooks," or supposed rules about God, dice, and the Universe.

Returning to Saussure, and his posthumously published notes on anagrams in Latin poetry, we find certain hints of a process which somehow escapes the sign/signifier dynamic. Saussure was confronted with the suggestion of some sort of "meta"-linguistics which happens within language rather than being imposed as a categorical imperative from "outside." As soon as language begins to play, as in the acrostic poems he examined, it seems to resonate with self- amplifying complexity. Saussure tried to quantify the anagrams but his figures kept running away from him (as if perhaps nonlinear equations were involved). Also, he began to find the anagrams everywhere, even in Latin prose. He began to wonder if he were hallucinating--or if anagrams were a natural unconscious process of parole. He abandoned the project.

I wonder: if enough of this sort of data were crunched through a computer, would we begin to be able to model language in terms of complex dynamical systems? Grammars then would not be "innate," but would emerge from chaos as spontaneously evolving "higher orders," in Prigogine's sense of "creative evolution." Grammars could be thought of as "Strange Attractors," like the hidden pattern which "caused" the anagrams--patterns which are "real" but have "existence" only in terms of the sub-patterns they manifest. If meaning is elusive, perhaps it is because consciousness itself, and therefore language, is fractal.

I find this theory more satisfyingly anarchistic than either anti-linguistics or Chomskyanism. It suggests that language can overcome representation and mediation, not because it is innate, but because it is chaos. It would suggest that all dadaistic experimentation (Feyerabend described his school of scientific epistemology as "anarchist dada") in sound poetry, gesture, cut-up, beast languages, etc.--all this was aimed neither at discovering nor destroying meaning, but at creating it. Nihilism points out gloomily that language "arbitrarily" creates meaning. Chaos Linguistics happily agrees, but adds that language can overcome language, that language can create freedom out of semantic tyranny's confusion and decay.

Next: Appendix B: Applied Hedonics Back: Ratholes in the Babylon of Information Return to TAZ Go to Pirate Utopias

// posted by Alice @ Tuesday, September 13, 2005 0 Comments

Oh Frankie!

// posted by Alice @ Monday, September 12, 2005 0 Comments

MISHLOVE: I would think that would be quite contrary to an earlier idea that mythology is pretty much the product of fantasy or imagination. CAMPBELL: Fantasy and imagination is a product of the body. The energies that bring forth the fantasies derive from the organs of the body. The organs of the body are the source of our life, and of our intentions for life, and they conflict with each other. Among these organs, of course, is the brain. And then you must think of the various impulses that dominate our life system -- the erotic impulse; the impulse to conquer, conquest and all that; self preservation; and then certain thoughts that have to do with ideals and things that are held up before us as aims worth living for and giving life its value and so forth. All of these different forces come into conflict within us. And the function of mythological imagery is to harmonize them, coordinate the energies of our body, so that we will live a harmonious and fruitful life in accord with our society, and with the new mystery that emerges with every new human being -- namely, what are the possibilities of this particular human life? And mythology has to do with guiding us --first, in relation to the society and the whole world of nature, which is outside of us but also within us, because the organs of our body are of nature; and then also, the guiding of the individual through the inevitable stages of life, from childhood to maturity, and then on to the last gate. And this is concerned with those matters. MISHLOVE: So in a sense, behind every fantasy, behind every mythological story, there is some type of deeper truth about life. CAMPBELL: Well, yes. A mythology is not just the fantasy of this, that, or another person; it's a systematized organization of fantasies in relation to the values of a given social order. So that mythologies always derive from specific social environments. And when you realize that every one of the early civilizations was based on a mythology, you can realize the force of this great, great heritage that we have.

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 11, 2005 0 Comments

Here

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 10, 2005 0 Comments

http://thrall.org/katrina/ http://www.ipl.org/div/hurricanekatrina/hurricaneKatrina.html http://www.katrina.com/ http://www.pleasenotifyme.org/ _________________________________ http://www.fema.gov/about/process/ FEMA: The Disaster Assistance Process for Individuals Help After a Disaster: Applicant's Guide to the Individuals & Households Program English (PDF 689 KB)English - Text Version (TXT 46 KB) Ayuda Después de un Desastre: Guía para Solicitantes al Programa para Individuos y Familias en Español (PDF 618 KB)en Español - Version Texto (TXT 56 KB) Register for Disaster Assistance online Call to Apply for Assistance 1-800-621-FEMA (3362). The speech or hearing impaired may call (TTY) 1-800-462-7585. You may also register online. For use ONLY by people in designated federal disaster areas. Be prepared to give your Social Security number, describe your losses, provide financial information, and give directions to the damaged property. What You Can Do If You're Having Trouble Getting Through If you get a busy signal, try to call in the evening after 6:00 p.m. or on the weekends when call volumes tend to be lighter. The information you provide is put into the computer You are now in the system The recovery process begins If you have questions, review the Applicant Assistance Guide or visit Frequently Asked Questions. If you are unable to find the information you are seeking, call FEMA's Helpline at 1-800-621-FEMA (3362). The speech or hearing impaired may call (TTY) 1-800-462-7585. Refer to the application number the registrars gave you when you applied. Making an optional visit to a Disaster Recovery Center to receive more information after you have registered by phone Here you will find local, state, federal, and voluntary agencies that may be able to assist youInspector will call to schedule an appointment. There is NO FEE for the inspection. Inspectors will set up an appointment to visit your property within a few days of application. Inspectors are contractors; they are not FEMA employees, but they will have FEMA ID. Inspector will visit damaged property. Be present for your scheduled appointment. They will inspect the damage, verify ownership and occupancy, and make a report. Inspectors do not determine eligibility. If eligible, you will receive a housing assistance check within 7-10 days. If eligible, housing assistance check will arrive. Money may be spent for housing needs. Packet will arrive in mail. There may be an SBA application enclosed. You MUST fill out and return this to be eligble for any further assistance. Refer to SBA home page for more information. To reduce future loss, consider taking steps to rebuild safer and smarter. Take measures to reduce losses in the future. Encourage community to participate in National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Consider buying flood insurance. Call the FEMA Fraud Hotline if you suspect someone is filing false damage claims1-800-323-8603 Make sure disaster aid goes to those who deserve it. It is a violation of Federal law to file a false claim.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, September 09, 2005 0 Comments

Here

// posted by Alice @ Friday, September 09, 2005 0 Comments

In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor... :)

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, September 08, 2005 0 Comments

Reply to: dsember@ptd.net Date: 2005-09-08, 9:08AM CDT Posted on www.craigslist.org this morning: ANYONE who can help with pet rescue efforts in the New Orleans area, PLEASE take the I-10 to as close to New Orleans as they can get, pull over & call (919) 259-0281 (Paramedics) -- they are people who care about the animals and they WILL GET YOU IN! They are expecting our help! Along with the hundreds (maybe thousands) of pets that need rescuing, there are an additional 150 dogs on the roof of the American Can Comnpany! If Volunteers can get their hands on any leashes, cat carriers and FOOD please bring it with you!!! These animals are running out of time! Please get out there if you can!!! Goodrichmjgoodrich1@verizon.net

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, September 08, 2005 0 Comments

(Etymology: Greek polymathEs very learned, from poly- + manthanein to learn) The dictionary definition of a polymath is a very learned person, of encyclopedic knowledge. There is also the connotation of having an understanding deeper than that found in an encyclopedia, that is, an expert in many fields. Anyone can be a polymath as long as he or she has the right motivation. A polymath is not necessarily a brain. In fact, a polymath usually does not think of his or herself as being particularly smart, only curious. Curiosity and interest are the true motivation for work, both intellectual work and the nitty gritty of hands on inventing. Thomas Edison said that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. He had a passion for getting his hands dirty, for tinkering, for inventing through trial and error. The polymath makes lots of mistakes. This is how new sciences are created. The brain requires constant exercise and continues to develop throughout life, save for disease and abuse. The polymath tries to exercises all parts of the brain. It is more than just acquiring general knowledge, not essentially memorization although some ability to remember is required. The polymath seeks to develop a highly tuned mental processing unit (MPU), which is really the computer everyone should be most concerned with. The polymath strives to preserve consciousness. It is the mind in control of emotions, but also the genuine integration of feelings and sensibilities with thought, so the polymath is also a poet, a composer, an artist, or a novelist perhaps. In the heart of the true visionary lies a realm of reality known only to those who share in the dream. To these souls, the spirit of said adventure lives on. The Guides of Old have breathed life into what was once only a fantasy and now exists in the minds of the true seekers of enlightenment: Those parties who wish to transcend the normal, go beyond the ordinary, stretch the linear experience. For those brave pilgrims, there is another place, a real place, open only to those with the open minds capable of viewing the vivid valley where knowledge and its inate beauty is shared, where all physical distinctions are erased and no gender, race or disabilities exist. Where air and fire can swirl about to spark a new model - a finer, higher existence - based on truthful self knowledge, shared intelligence and the advancement of both science and the arts.

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, September 08, 2005 0 Comments

Louisiana Disaster Recovery Index Louisiana Department of Transportation Louisiana State Road Closure Information State of Louisiana Local Emergency Planning Committees Rev. October 30, 2003

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, September 07, 2005 0 Comments

Reference Section: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/ http://www.voltairine.org/essays.html http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/lee/gospels.html#p11 http://library.nothingness.org/ http://www.spaz.org/~dan/individualist-anarchist/what.html http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secG1.html http://www.zetetics.com/mac/agora1.htm http://emmagoldman.com http://riseup.net/ http://www.thenausea.com/documents.html http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/id6.html

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, September 07, 2005 0 Comments

Majestic

// posted by Alice @ Tuesday, September 06, 2005 0 Comments

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/ibkatrinahub/HUBBannerSMALL.jpg

// posted by Alice @ Monday, September 05, 2005 0 Comments

Q: What significant celestial event occurred at the time of Katrina? A: Like the December 26, 2004 Sumatran earthquake and subsequent killer mega tsunami, the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe occurred as the Moon attained its maximum declination north of the equator.

// posted by Alice @ Monday, September 05, 2005 0 Comments

- SPECIAL REPORT from THE TIMES-PICAYUNE - It's only a matter of time before South Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day. Five-Part Series published June 23-27, 2002 * Life is dry, but perilous in French Quarter Marty Montgomery stood on his second-floor balcony, playing blues on his harmonica into empty French Quarter streets that have never seemed so dark, so desolate - or so threatening. On the table beside him sat a shotgun that he calls "Kindness." "If something happens and I have to use it, I'll be killing them with Kindness," Montgomery said, laughing with a tinge of menace. * French Quarter bands together Rich and poor divide up work, supplies to live By Allen G. Breed THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW ORLEANS - In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor. As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim. While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods - humanity. "Some people became animals," Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White's Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. "We became more civilized." * French Quarter Tribe Says in Chaos 'We Became More Civilized' * But last week, the Superdome turned into a living hell for the 25,000 refugees who piled into it to escape the rising waters. Toilets became unflushable as the water pressure dropped, and urine and feces spilled out onto the floor of the bathrooms. Rotting piles of garbage were everywhere. People dropped as the air conditioning died, and as the heat and stench increased, their patience plummeted. The authorities were outnumbered, outmuscled and outgunned by roving gangs of angry, often intoxicated men. Crack vials littered the floors. Nobody seemed to be in charge, Zonia Thompson says. ``There was no food and no water,'' she says as she walks past rows of cots on the floor of the Astrodome, carrying a black plastic bag of clothes. ``Women were getting raped. People were shooting guns. This is better. At least we can get some rest and get some food. ``It was like they just threw all the black folks in there to fend for ourselves,'' she continues. ``Man, that ain't no coincidence.'' * Ya know...some things they plan for and others...ah well... The Emergency Medical Services Field Response Additional recommendations concerning communication failure protocols are included in the hospital response section of this report. 1. Managing the Response Finding 11: None of the responding agencies had planned for the possibility of a civil disturbance following the Rodney King trial verdict. It appears that none had a plan specifically geared to responding to a civil disturbance. Generally, the fire service's capability to rapidly establish a response structure using Incident Command System (ICS) compensated for this lack. Recommendation 11: This recommendation should be seen as part of the planning recommendations made in the. LAEMSA response section. While each disaster is unique, there are lessons that can be applied to a generic type of disaster, civil disturbances for example. It is abundantly clear that the findings, and lessons learned from the Kerner Commission and the Governor's Commission on the 1965 Los Angeles Riots apply here as well. An annex should be added to generic response plans that identifies unique issues and policy decisions that must be made early for responding to a civil disturbance. * THE POWER ELITE Thomas Dye, a political scientist, and his students have been studying the upper echelons of leadership in America since 1972. These "top positions" encompassed the posts with the authority to run programs and activities of major political, economic, legal, educational, cultural, scientific, and civic institutions. The occupants of these offices, Dye's investigators found, control half of the nation's industrial, communications, transportation, and banking assets, and two-thirds of all insurance assets. In addition, they direct about 40 percent of the resources of private foundations and 50 percent of university endowments. Furthermore, less than 250 people hold the most influential posts in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government, while approximately 200 men and women run the three major television networks and most of the national newspaper chains. Facts like these, which have been duplicated in countless other studies, suggest to many observers that power in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a single power elite. Scores of versions of this idea exist, probably one for each person who holds it, but they all interpret government and politics very differently than pluralists. Instead of seeing hundreds of competing groups hammering out policy, the elite model perceives a pyramid of power. At the top, a tiny elite makes all of the most important decisions for everyone below. A relatively small middle level consists of the types of individuals one normally thinks of when discussing American government: senators, representatives, mayors, governors, judges, lobbyists, and party leaders. The masses occupy the bottom. They are the average men and women in the country who are powerless to hold the top level accountable. The power elite theory, in short, claims that a single elite, not a multiplicity of competing groups, decides the life-and-death issues for the nation as a whole, leaving relatively minor matters for the middle level and almost nothing for the common person. It thus paints a dark picture. Whereas pluralists are somewhat content with what they believe is a fair, if admittedly imperfect, system.... * Houston?! Oh we LOVE Houston Mayor says city ready to help out Command posts set up in areas hit by flooding By DALE LEZON and HARVEY RICE Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle As the Houston area was being paralyzed by rains from Tropical Storm Allison, Mayor Lee Brown said early Saturday that city services are standing by for citizens who need help evacuating their homes or stranded in vehicles trapped in high floodwaters. Brown said the police and fire departments as well as the Public Works and Engineering and Solid Waste will provide assistance to citizens. At the time, the mayor said 90 streets are affected by high water. "It's clear this storm is not going away," Brown said at a midnight news conference at Houston's Transtar. " ... We will be prepared to take care of the problems."

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 04, 2005 0 Comments

Evacuees staying at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center will be able to make outgoing phone calls at no cost. Bell South set up 10 phones in the Civic Center Thursday. Evacuees will be able to use the phones to call family and friends, said Billy Tauzin III with BellSouth. The hope is that family or friends can help the evacuees find a place to permanently relocate. Bell South staff are working on having similar phone access at the East Park Recreation Center and the Bayou Black Recreation Center.

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

News and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts.

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

Here

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

Intercosmos needs your help! Please read this. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested.

You can reach me on ICQ at 21710340 if you're so inclined.
The live cam feed is being rebroadcast by the heroic freedom fighters at mises.org,: http://old.mises.org:88/NO2
RSS - American Red Cross - DirectNIC - vonmises.org - New Orleans LA post-Katrina Intel dissemination wiki
If you want to link to my blog, please use this URL: http://mgno.com/
IRC channel has been opened: IRC is on irc.freenode.net in #interdictor - #interdictor-scanner for transcript of NG radio and #interdictor-chat for discussion; JavaApplet
Photos can be found here: http://www.nola-intel.org/pictures/ & http://www.nola-intel.org/pictures2/ Media has permission to use the photos with credit to DirectNIC.com
If you are in the media and you want to contact me or any in Team SOTI here at Outpost Crystal, email me at operationn@yahoo.com
Thank you NextGenStats for helping out.

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

Red Cross of America Family Locator http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/katrina/people * Latest News

Donate by Phone Donate by Mail Donate Spare Change Donate In-Kind Products Donate Airline Miles Donate Stock Find your chapter

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

From NJ Star Ledger The Bernards Township Chamber of Commerce is collecting truckloads of canned food, baby supplies, soap and other necessities to ship to a Louisiana town filled with hurricane refugees. The chamber has set up more than 60 business and church locations in Hunterdon, Somerset and Morris counties where donors can drop off items. They will be trucked to the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce in Houma, La. The group is looking for baby diapers, wipes, bottled water, nonperishable food, can openers, paper plates, paper cups, plaster utensils, paper towels and toilet paper. They also need soap, toothpaste, bandages, ointments, bug repellent, pet food and pet supplies. To find or set up a donation site, contact the chamber at (908) 766-6755.

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

This link shows schools, hospitals, gas stations, ice, shelters, home supplies, gabage, power and emergency phone numbers in the Terrebonne Parish of Louisiana. http://www.houmatoday.com

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

From HalliburtonWatch.org

1 Sept. 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The US Navy asked Halliburton to repair naval facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the Houston Chronicle reported today. The work was assigned to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary under the Navy's $500 million CONCAP contract awarded to KBR in 2001 and renewed in 2004. The repairs will take place in Louisiana and Mississippi. KBR has not been asked to repair the levees destroyed in New Orleans which became the primary cause of most of the damage. Since 1989, governments worldwide have awarded $3 billion in contracts to KBR's Government and Infrastructure Division to clean up damage caused by natural and man-made disasters. Earlier this year, the Navy awarded $350 million in contracts to KBR and three other companies to repair naval facilities in northwest Florida damaged by Hurricane Ivan, which struck in September 2004. The ongoing repair work involves aircraft support facilities, medium industrial buildings, marine construction, mechanical and electrical improvements, civil construction, and family housing renovation. In March, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is tasked with responding to hurricane disasters, became a lobbyist for KBR. Joe Allbaugh was director of FEMA during the first two years of the Bush administration. Today, FEMA is widely criticized for its slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Allbaugh managed Bush's campaign for Texas governor in 1994, served as Gov. Bush's chief of staff and was the national campaign manager for the Bush campaign in 2000. Along with Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, Allbaugh was one of Bush's closest advisers. "This is a perfect example of someone cashing in on a cozy political relationship," said Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. "Allbaugh's former placement as a senior government official and his new lobbying position with KBR strengthens the company's already tight ties to the administration, and I hope that contractor accountability is not lost as a result."

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

Parish Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness Contact Numbers

PARISH	DIRECTOR	OFFICE	FAX

Acadia	Cecelia Broussard	(337) 783-4357	(337) 788-8852
Allen	John Richer	(337) 584-5156	(337) 584-5156
Ascension	Jim Wilks	(225) 621-8360	(225) 621-8362
Assumption	John Boudreaux	(985) 369-7386	(985) 369-7341
Avoyelles	Weber "Chip" Johnson	(318) 253-7291	(318) 253-9218
Beauregard	Glen Mears, Sr.	(337) 463-3281	(337) 463-6347
Bienville	Rodney Warren	(318) 263-2019	(318) 263-7404
Caddo/Bossier	Charles Mazziotti	(318) 425-5351	(318) 425-5940
Calcasieu	Richard "Dick" Gremillion	(337) 721-3800	(337) 437-3583
Caldwell	Dale Powell	(318) 649-5707	(318) 649-5930
Cameron	Freddie Richard Jr.	(337) 775-5111	(337) 775-5567
Catahoula	Debra Renda	(318) 744-5697	(318) 744-5697
Claiborne	Dennis Butcher	(318) 927-9118	(318) 927-2115
Concordia	Morris White	(318) 757-8248	(318) 757-7200
DeSoto	Alan Bounds	(318) 872-3956	(318) 872-2304
East Baton Rouge	JoAnne Moreau	(225) 389-2100	(225) 389-2114
East Carroll	Joseph Jackson	(318) 559-2256	(318) 559-1502
East Feliciana	Travis Prewitt	(225) 634-5113	(225) 634-7267
Evangeline	Liz Hill	(337) 363-3345	(337) 363-3308
Franklin	Bill Mulkey	(318) 435-3169	(318) 435-9420
Grant	Robert Meeker	(318) 627-3041	(318) 627-5927
Iberia	James Anderson	(337) 369-4427	(337) 369-9956
Iberville	Laurie Doiron	(225) 687-5140	(225) 687-5146
Jackson	Kenneth Pardue	(318) 259-9021	(318) 395-4263
Jefferson	Walter S. Maestri, III	(504) 349-5360	(504) 349-5366
Jefferson Davis	Ricky Edward	(337) 821-2100	(337) 821-2105
Lafayette	William Vincent	(337) 291-5075	(337) 291-5080
Lafourche	Chris Boudreaux	(985) 446-8427	(985) 446-3599
LaSalle	Joe P. Stevens	(318) 992-0673	(318) 992-4324
Lincoln	Dennis Woodward	(318) 513-6200	(318) 513-6209
Livingston	F. Ray Chidester, Jr	(225) 686-3066 (225) 938-0237	(225) 686-3074
Madison	Earl Pinkney	(318) 574-3230	(318) 574-2773
Morehouse	Scott Henderson	(318) 283-3382	(318) 283-3322
Natchitoches	Leigh Perkins, Jr	(318) 352-8101	(318) 352-7377
Orleans	Joseph Matthews	(504) 658-8700	(504) 658-8701
Ouachita	Dean Dozier	(318) 322-2641	(318) 322-7356
Plaquemines	Jesse St. Amant	(504) 682-0081	(504) 682-8632
Pointe Coupee	Donald Ewing	(225) 694-9014	(225) 694-5408
Rapides	Sonya Wiley	(318) 445-5141	(318) 445-5605
Red River	Russell Adams	(318) 932-5981	(318) 932-6651
Richland	Tommy Burgess	(318) 728-0453	(318) 728-7004
Sabine	Kenny Carter	(318) 256-5637	(318) 256-9652
St. Bernard	Larry Ingargiola	(504) 278-4267	(504) 271-7343
St. Charles	Tab Troxler	(985) 783-5050	(985) 783-6375
St. Helena	Brad Graves	(225) 222-4723	(225) 222-4724
St. James	Gerald Falgoust	(225) 562-2364	(225) 562-2269
St. John the Baptist	Paul Oncale	(985) 652-2222	(985) 652-2183
St. Landry	Lisa Vidrine	(337) 948-7177	(337) 948-9139
St. Martin	Sheriff Ronnie Theriot	(337) 394-3071	(337) 394-5705
St. Mary	James Bernauer	(985) 385-2600	(985) 384-9897
St. Tammany	Dexter Accardo	(985) 898-2359	(985) 898-3030
Tangipahoa	John Ballard	(985) 748-9602	(985) 748-7050
Tensas	William 'Rick" Foster	(318) 766-3992	(318) 766-4391
Terrebonne	Michael Deroche	(985) 873-6357	(985) 850-4643
Union	Brian Halley	(318) 368-3124	(318) 368-2728
Vermilion	Robert LeBlanc	(337) 898-4308	(337) 898-4309
Vernon	Kenneth Noble	(337) 238-7225	(337) 238-4987
Washington	Tommy Thiebaud	(985) 732-5200	(985) 732-5830
Webster	John Stanley	(318) 846-2454	(318) 846-2446
West Baton Rouge	Sharlot Edwards	(225) 346-1577	(225) 346-0284
West Carroll	Peggy Robinson	(318) 428-2704	(318) 428-0122
West Feliciana	Jesse Means	(225) 635-6428	(225) 635-6996
Winn	Harry Foster	(318) 332-1960	(318) 628-7182

* Louisiana Parish Emergency Preparedness Offices

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

Air America Radio's Public Voicemail 1-866-217-6255 Air America Radio's Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the wake of Katrina. Here's how it works: Call the toll-free number above, enter your everyday phone number, and then record a message. Other people who know your everyday phone number (even if it doesn't work anymore) can call Emergency Voicemail, enter the phone number they associate with you, and hear your message. You can also search for messages left by people whose phone numbers you know. Air America Radio will leave Public Voicemail in service for as long as this crisis continues. You can call it whenever you are trying to locate someone, or if you are trying to be found. Air America Radio brings you Emergency VoiceMail in conjunction with VoodooVox. -- Louisiana State Police Louisiana Road Closures Updates Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce 6133 Hwy 311 Houma, LA 70360 (985) 876-5600 info@houmachamber.com Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government FEMA Flood Maps Flood Map Graphic -- Liberal Blogs For Hurricane Relief -- katrinahousing.org hurricanehousing.org -- Houma Today Newspaper

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

Katrina Timeline: Why Bush is to blame for disaster

Timeline

1893, A hurricane in southern Louisiana and Mississippi kills more than two thousand people.

June 1957, Hurricane Audrey kills more than 600 people. Damages estimated at $150 million dollars. [read]

September 1965, Hurricane Betsy destroys southern Louisiana and kills 71 people. Damages total more than $1 billion dollars. Congress orders the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to design and install 16-foot levees around the city. [read]

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

"Betsy prompted Congress to authorize a ring of levees 16 feet high around the city — a project the Corps of Engineers is completing today. This level of protection was based on the science of storm prediction as it existed in the 1960s. The question remains, however, whether this level of protection would be sufficient to protect the city from a category 4 or 5 hurricane today — or even a category 3 storm that lingered over the city." [read]

August, 1992, With winds peaking at 177 mph, Hurricane Andrew kills 23 Americans and causes $26.5 billion dollars in damages. South-central Louisiana was hit the hardest. [read]

May 1995, Torrential rains, hail, and tornadoes devastate the southwest; Dallas and New Orleans being hit the hardest. 32 people die and damages exceeded $6 billion dollars. Congress identifies and addresses the problem of flood control in New Orleans, amending the Water Resources Act to provide additional funding. [read]

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

As a result of the extensive flooding in May 1995, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana (SELA) Project with enactment of Section 108 of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1996 and Section 533 of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 1996, as amended, to provide for flood control and improvements to rainfall drainage systems in Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Tammany Parishes, Louisiana in accordance with the following reconnaissance reports of the New Orleans District Engineer: Jefferson and Orleans Parishes, Louisiana, Urban Flood Control and Water Quality Management, July 1992; Tangipahoa, Techefuncte, and Tickfaw Rivers, Louisiana, June 1991; St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, July 1996; and Schneider Canal, Slidell, Louisiana, Hurricane Protection, May 1990. [read]

April 1996, Technical reports are prepared to identify the initial work to be implemented under the SELA project authority.

From the PA Daily News:

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside. [read]

2001, The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] ranks a hurricane strike on New Orleans as “among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country,” right after a terrorist attack on New York City. [read]

February 2001, Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, his campaign manager, to head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no prior disaster management experience and is mostly known for his role in Bush's funeralgate scandal back in the late 1990's. [read]

June 2001, Tropical Storm Allison produces rainfall amounts of 30-40 inches in regions of coastal Texas and Louisiana cause severe flooding, $5 billion dollars in damage and kill 53. [read]

2002, Bush begins a series of drastic budget cuts to the New Orleans U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

December 2002, Joe Allbaugh resigns from FEMA. Michael Brown takes his place, and like his predicessor, has no prior disaster management experience.

2003, FEMA awards $89,471,651 million in PDM [Pre-Disaster Mitigation] Grants; including $4,199,259.75 dollars to build Homeland Security Safe Rooms in nine Fort Smith, Arkansas public schools. Thirty-six states and nine Native American tribes benefited from the Presidential initiative mostly awarded for flood hazard mitigation or Homeland Security projects. Though Louisiana applied, they didn’t get a dime. [read]

Walter Maestri, Director of Emergency Management for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana:

"It is therefore difficult for me to understand how this parish, as well as any other parish in the State of Louisiana, was not approved for any PDM funding for (fiscal year) 03," he wrote, adding that FEMA's stated reasons for declining funds to Louisiana were vague.

"I can only simply state that FEMA has missed a golden opportunity to assist in furthering the process for resolving one of the most costly problems facing the National Flood Insurance Program, “Repetitive Loss,” Maestri concluded, "and would hope that you forward the contents of this letter to FEMA Region VI with a request that they be conveyed to FEMA Headquarters." He copied the letter to both of Louisiana's senators and three congressmen. A state DHS official wrote back, saying FEMA's headquarters would review Maestri's complaints. [read]

http://www.fema.gov/fima/pdmclist.shtm

March 2003, FEMA loses it's cabinet level status and is taken over by the Department of Homeland Security and refocused on terrorism.

From the Long Island Press:

In 2003, Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) inhalf. Previously, the federal government was committed to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a given disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush formula, the feds now cough up only 7.5 percent. ... And indeed, some in-need areas have been inexplicably left out of the program. "In a sense, Louisiana is the floodplain of the nation," noted a 2002 FEMA report. "Louisiana waterways drain two thirds of the continental United States. Precipitation in New York, the Dakotas, even Idaho and the Province of Alberta, finds its way to Louisiana's coastline." As a result, flooding is a constant threat, and the state has an estimated 18,000 buildings that have been repeatedly been damaged by flood waters—the highest number of any state. And yet, this summer FEMA denied Louisiana communities' pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. In Jefferson Parish, part of the New Orleans metropolitan area, flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue is baffled by the development. "You would think we would get maximum consideration" for the funds, he says. "We were more than qualified for it." [read]

2004, The war approaches $204.6 billion dollars. To cut corners, Bush proposes spending less than 20% of what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers need to repair the levees on Lake Pontchartrain. The Hurricane Protection project is left incomplete.

Feb. 16, 2004, New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

June 2004, Army Corps of Engineers Project Manager, Al Naomi, goes before the East Jefferson Levee Authority and enters an urgent plea for aide in the amount of $2 million dollars to continue work on the sinking floodwalls.

From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he [Al Naomi] said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them.”

Walter Maestri, Director of Emergency Management for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana:

"It appears that the money has been moved in the President's budget to handle Homeland Security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

2005, FEMA awards $27,445,817 million in PDM [Pre-Disaster Mitigation] Grants, but again Louisiana gets nothing. The federal funds aren’t there either. Having just experienced the worst hurricane season in decades, Washington cut the New Orleans hurricane and flood-control funding by two-thirds, from $36.5 million to $10.4 million dollars.

January 2005, A U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control ‘Project Fact Sheet’, dated January 26, 2005, explains the urgency of New Orleans flood-control and the lack of federal funding:

PROJECT FUNDING FY04: Available funds of $24 million were not sufficient to support all on-going contracts; MVN, in conjunction with the local sponsors, established priorities for which contracts would be funded. Exhaustion of funds occurred in February 2004 on seven on-going projects. All contractors continued to work, although progress slowed significantly on some contracts. MVN finished FY04 owing SELA contractors approximately $5 million.

PROJECT FUNDING FY05: The FY05 net work allowance is $32.2 million. It is anticipated that this amount will be just sufficient to maintain current contracts. Additional funds would be required to permit awarding new contracts; there are fourteen contracts now awaiting award. Moving forward with this urgently needed flood control work is of great importance to the local sponsors.

June 2005, The New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers FY 2006 budget is cut by $71.2 million dollars; the largest reduction to date.

I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. [read]

August 1, 2005, In preparation for hurricane season, the Louisiana National Guard requests emergency equipment to be sent back from Iraq.

When members of the Louisiana National Guard left for Iraq in October, they took a lot equipment with them. Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem. [read]

August 2, 2005, President Bush leaves Washington, taking a 5-week vacation in Crawford, Texas.

From the Washington Post:

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a stretch of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford -- nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further. [read]

August 29,2005, Category 5 hurricane, Katrina, is expected to hit New Orleans. The city is evacuated and those with money and means to leave, do. The poor, elderly and infirmed are left to stay put and hope for the best or seek shelter at the New Orleans super-dome. It’s predicted that the entire city could be washed away. [read]

The last-minute scramble to evacuate the New Orleans area Sunday ahead of powerful Hurricane Katrina put strains on the state's contraflow traffic system, especially for those heading west toward Baton Rouge. [read]

August 30, 2005, Massive Hole in Levee is Major Challenge for Engineers

From the Palm Beach Post:

Army engineers worked feverishly late Tuesday to haul in rocks, sandbags and heavy equipment.

They need more.

"We're attempting to contract for materials, such as rock, super sandbags, cranes, etc., and also for modes of transportation — like barges and helicopters — to close the gaps," said Walter Baumy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager overseeing the work. [read]

August 30, 2005, Corps scrabling to plug levee breaches as New Orleans floods [read]

August 30, 2005, The President travels to the San Diego, North Island Naval Air Station to celebrate the 60th anniversary of V-J day. He begins his a 40-minute WWII/Iraq speech, with a one minute address to the devastation that has occurred in New Orleans. Then he goes golfing.

August 31, 2005, The unrepaired levees give way in New Orleans; city under water

From the Associated Press:

Two levees broke and sent water coursing into the streets of the Big Easy a full day after New Orleans appeared to have escaped widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 80 percent of the below-sea-level city was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places, with miles and miles of homes swamped. [read]

August 31, 2005, Levee Pump Fails; a second flood in New Orleans.

From the Associated Press:

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin says a new wall of water is expected to flow into the east bank of the city beginning around 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m., causing floods of nine feet or more in some areas. ... Nagin had hoped to have Army Blackhawk helicopters drop 3,000-pound sandbags on the levee at Pumping Station No. 6 before it became too waterlogged to continue operating. That, he says, "didn't happen" because there were too many chiefs calling the shots in responding to the disaster, he told WWL-TV. "My heart is heavy," said Nagin, as he ticked off New Orleans' current problems: no electricity, for at least four to six more weeks; contaminated drinking water; gas leaks sending flames shooting up from beneath the water; bodies floating in the water; a leaking oil tanker which ran aground; two bridges gone; both airports flooded; and no clear path in or out of the city. [read]

September 1, 2005, Bodies float through the streets of New Orleans, thousands are predicted dead, one million people are expected homeless, and we find this disaster was completely avoidable.

A business week has passed since hurricane Katrina demolished New Orleans, and STILL there has been no coordinated military action to provide relief to the victims. No water, no food, no airlifts, no medical assistance -- Bush has done nothing.

From Channel 4 News:

Where is the airlift? Where is the water? The food? Why has it taken nearly an entire week for our federal government to respond with help on the ground to the hundreds of thousands of Americans struggling to survive along the Gulf Coast? Tangible help. The kind you can drink and eat. Not words, fly-bys and news conferences. Food and water are needed. Today. Now. [read]

September 1, 2005, Condi Rice does some shopping and plays tennis with Monica Seles.

SECRETARY of State Condoleeza Rice, here on three days' vacation to shop and see the U.S. Open, hitting some balls with retired champ Monica Seles at the Indoor Tennis Club at... [read]

From the LA Times:

September 1, 2005 -- A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. The Louisiana Superdome, once a mighty testament to architecture and ingenuity, became the biggest storm shelter in New Orleans the day before Katrina's arrival Monday. About 16,000 people eventually settled in. By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. A few hundred people were evacuated from the arena Wednesday, and buses will take away the vast majority of refugees today. "We pee on the floor. We are like animals," said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies are running low; one mother said she was given two diapers and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again. At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. [read]

September 2, 2005, New Orleans Descends into Anarchy [read]

[The timeline is an ongoing project that will continue to be updated as information becomes available. If you would like to make a submission, please use the email link on the upper right side of the page.]

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, September 03, 2005 0 Comments

http://www.earthchangestv.com/ http://www.disasternews.net/

http://www.hurricanes.net/ * This all reminds me of Masque of the Red Death. Posted by: Meg at September 1, 2005 08:36 PM

"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

*

https://secure.hsus.org/01/disaster_relief_fund_2005?

Humane Society of the United States to assist the animals affected by Katrina.

*

http://www.secondharvest.org/

America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network, the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization has activated its disaster mode in response to Hurricane ‘Katrina’.

*

http://www.energyintel.com/

*

Web sites help lost loved ones find each other

Desperate for information, concerned friends and families look online

http://neworleans.craigslist.org/laf/

http://www.wwltv.com/forums/

http://www.wdsu.com/news/4919183/detail.html

http://www.hurricanekatrinasurvivors.com/main/

http://www.nopundit.com/bb/

http://www.nowpublic.com/node/17228

http://qso.com/satern/emailfrm.htm