The Rapture

I was having a chat on Sunday with AJay in New Delhi. Well he thinks five hours is more than a chat but later on I had yet another lovely time for a couple of hours with a good friend in Baghdad.

They were both forced to listen to my "three options for the species thinking" but only because it sounds so preposterous that I wanted some feedback, and good feedback it was. I'll be posting my "brave new capitalism post on that topic as soon as the time strikes right - I never know when that will be in advance. 

I know, I know. 

You can't wait can you? 

If it helps alleviate the anticipation then you might enjoy knowing that the meat of the idea was so disconcerting that Rob Campbell didn't want to read it when the inspiration struck and I emailed him. On reflection though, that was good of him to ignore me  because a) It would have scared him off b) It looks very bonkers as a raw idea and c) it's still just plain scary now I've applied some sandpaper to it. *winks at Rob*

OK, moving on because I know time is limited, I wanted to pick up that I was sharing some thoughts on eschatology (end of the world) language when I stumbled as I couldn't remember the exact word. 


I'd been explaining an article I read in terms of the self fulfilling biblical nature of Israeli archaeologists tunnelling away under Jerusalem's Old City Wall in close proximity to the third holiest mosque of Islam, the Al Aqsa mosque and of course the Temple Mount too which is considered the third holiest site in Judaism. If it weren't for the hostility between the faiths this is a subject I'd feel happy to study till the end of my days but it's just a bit too raw to be useful in this day and age.


It struck me that there's no better way of fulfilling prophecy than to either pick or respond to a fight over who owns what, at what time, and where or when, it's been articulated in scriptures. What makes that whole outcome really weird is that nobody knows if the future has been predicted or whether we are writing the future; to use Nike vernacular.

The word finally came to me. The Rapture. It's one of those provocative words because if we look at the nutty Christian fundamentalists in the US. Well they would LOVE shit to go down in Jerusalem because that fulfils their biblical end of the argument and to this end are quite happy to fight tooth and nail for the Israelis on any issue, at any time and at any cost. Which kind of leaves the door open for American backed hostility towards Muslims in the Holy Land and beyond.

I've added the Jungian art above because it fits nicely with my Baghdad learnings on evolutionary psychology, plus it looks kind of Holy Landy like, it is red (and thus progressive) and squeezes neatly into the end part of this post, where I thought if I waffle on enough at the beginning, the nutters will get bored and leave without misunderstanding my words about a Jungian analysis of UFO's. 

Basically I caught this rather interesting Youtube clip shortly after reading the Temple Mount piece and though 'that's kind of interesting' and 'somewhat coincidental'. I still have barely any idea what the video shows but if I use the Jungian approach then I ask myself, not 'what is it?' but instead the much more useful question 'what is its effect?'. 


Take a look for yourself what was filmed. Sure its a ball of light. But its behaviour is loaded with context.

And so I leave you with the final reason for posting this nonsense which is that I came across a second video of the same event just now, and while it doesn't capture the vertical action above, it is close enough for me to say finally and definitively. I DON"T KNOW.

Thank You.

Government Is Not Your Friend

Extraordinary footage turning up on Youtube.

Disconnect to Connect

The Thai advertising for DTAC, a local mobile network carrier (with strong Scandinavian shareholding) is making waves in China for its Disconnect to Connect brand advertising.

Scale

Crimes Against Humanity

Chomsky On Egypt

Don't Make Me Over

"When Dionne Warwick played the Olympia in Paris in '66 the house orchestra felt Burt Bacharach's music was too complicated for them. So Warwick who had studied to become a music teacher before she became a star taught the orchestra the songs. Here the orchestra at one point is losing it but Dionne doesn't skip a beat. One of the greatest song stylists of all time."

"I've seen Dionne a couple dozen times through the years and wether it was at Carnegie Hall or Radio City Music Hall, at certain points she would deliberately put the microphone down below her waist and then hit some spellbinding note and the folks in the back row could still hear it. She's not doing much of that any more but if you were lucky enough to have been there when she did it was something to behold. Great musician and greatest vocalist."

Singaporean Advertising

From & Via

Idioms, apophasis, paralypsis, proslipsis and ceasuras

I will never be of this calibre. Though as a card carrying, smile plagiarising 'Ye Olde Generalist' I notice he inadvertently invokes Wittgenstein's private language argument at 5.03. You can now enjoy that specific interpretation nicely transcribed via Youtube within this lecture. 

It's unusual that it's been transcribed given the length and youthful vintage of these lectures. In my experience, it's not a feature that world renowned quantum physicists can secure with their online Youtube presence; even with a hundred fold more views than the Prof has secured thus far. 

Maybe somebody realises he's contributing an historical analysis of history. That it's worthwhile to do this task promptly, as time is such a ruthless shredder of comprehension, context and nuance, when say scholarly Egyptology is peddling us informed opinion, in the early part of the 21st century. That's just one example.

Possibly it's just a great way (by his students?) to try and commit to memory the sheer scale and density of what this remarkable professor is able to linguistically retrieve, on-the-fly while loquaciously expounding on massively subtle different points. This is a talent I very much keep an eye open for given  the elegance that my (podcast) listening ear demands of me.

Go on. Listen to the first few minutes. Then get back to your copywriting or blogging or whatever. He's rather good. 

Neo Scientology

This is my beloved Terence talking about Science. Ordinarily I'd feel obliged to elaborate on the thesis where we differ but on reflection only an obsessive could ever misinterpret me on what I have written thus far. And in this respect the matter is ended.

Deferred Gratification is Psychopathy

You all know the model. Leave the kid in the room with the Oreo or whatever and the ones who can defer gratification are later found to be more "successful" in life.

Bullshit (Just look at weasel beard above). That's not success. That's psychopathy.

It's industrial scale, corporate-brainwashing and nutmeg-psychology that flies in the face of of the very essence of being a human FUCKING being. 

I mentioned it back on Rob's blog a couple of days ago that the change from arboreal, fruitarian, peaceful and (ahem slightly orgiastic - yay for SEX) Homo Sapiens of an honourable and inspirational nature compared to the 21st century mendacity of homo mutatitis that hoard their grain and self implode on the metaphysics of attempting to temporarily own the perma-unobtainable, through war and coercion that leaves half the planet glued to the the carpet-embedded-sofa, cheered on by a TV & Fossil fuel Drug dependency while the other half are out in the fields on the other side of the planet,  tilling the soil for mere pennies a day while oscillating geographically and in a temporal sense from exhaustion into starvation and back into exhaustion again to grow food for "me me me" and not themselves. 


Is this the poetry of deferred gratification? 


Put off today what you can industrial-strength kill off tomorrow?

Surely the very essence of enlightenment is to live in the intelligent and harmonious moment instead of breeding a species that shit-hoards, spits on frugality, wastes 40% of it's food, crushes its global brethren and celebrates this as toxic material-science enlightenment?

Do me a favour. Eat that fucking pancake kiddo and live in the moment while we the supposed adults figure out how to take care of the urgent problems of today instead of breeding a child who becomes professionally psychopathic at ignoring and deferring the impending ecocide debt-blowback.

Embedded Reporting

Platonic Pentagon

You can be damn sure the Pentagon have put some of their best and brightest into this (note the lo-fidelity  front cover, non senior soldier-anonymity and so on).

I'd like to comment on how it potentially extrapolates thematically in terms of emotional liminality but lets face it. Nobody gives a stuff what I think of the Pentagon. Though maybe I should write one up for the Office of Homeland Security? 

Every little helps. (Via Euan)

Iconic

Dear Mr, Eisenstaedt:

Now that I'm 60 - it's fun to admit that I'm the nurse in your famous shot "of the amorous sailor celebrating V.E. Day by kissing a nurse on New York's Broadway." The article in the Los Angles Times, which described your talents, stimulated the recall of the scene on Broadway.

I had left Doctors' Hospital and wanted to be part of the celebration but the amorous sailor and a subsequent soldier motivated a retreat into the next opening of the subway. I wish I could have stored that jubilation and amour for use P.R.N.

​Mr Eisenstaedt, is it possible for me to obtain a print of that picture? I would be most appreciative.

I regret not having met you on your last trip to Beverly Hills.

Perhaps next time. If not - I'll understand because "it's not only hard to catch him - its hard to keep up with him."

Have fun.

Fondly

Edith Shain

Abracadabra - אברה כדברא

John Allegro was an Aramaic scholar who was invited to inspect the Dead Sea scrolls by the Vatican. Prior to this, his intention was to become a Methodist Priest but he changed career to Oriental studies and then during his radical translation and interpretation of the scrolls he made the mistake of releasing his findings earning the vindictive wrath of his peers who excommunicated his views and trashed his career with accusations of anti Catholicism. To this day the Vatican prevents us from knowing what other information contradicts the epistemological teachings of the present day Pope from their findings and as will one day be shown the Vatican library is chock full of ancient texts that don't support their erroneous and paternalistic business model.

There's a much more visually explanatory video of the discussion through the Pharmacratic Inquisition videos on Youtube though I think it's important to champion the Aramaic scholar first and also point out the two chaps who are interviewing him were famous 70's Dutch comedians who merely pursued their own interest in the topic of metaphorical mycology and so you need to contextualise the Citizen Smith headgear they are wearing at the end, even though a bit of silliness is very integral to this topic as you may have picked up from my Twisted post.

Update: As the years have passed I've often reflected that even if John Allegro was right, he was remarkably pompous and this might have contributed to our understanding.

Fresh Perspectives

Last night I had an epiphany. Or more accurately I watched my reality being torn apart blow by blow, minute by minute, word by word over an extraordinarily long article. It was tough. There's nothing tougher than keeping an open mind.

Do you all have heroes? Mine are mostly listed in Facebook if I think about the easiest place to find them and the most convenient way not to list them right now. 

They tend to be a bit more of the heretics turned prophet types. I've no interest in the main stream, all the progress and action is on the edge. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the awesomeness of just being. That specific feeling can occur walking down a street, entering a lift or traversing a hotel lobby if I'm mindful about what is going on. A quality I've yet to develop so it's more integral to my temporal appreciation of living in the moment.

However the act of seeing an idol broken irreversibly has suddenly opened new vistas on what means to be me, or even more importantly what it means to ask 'who am I?', or even for you to be thou through my eyes. 


As tough as it was I hope to be continually achieving this dynamic of reinvention and reappraisal for the rest of my life as there really is nothing more interesting than seeing the world anew. Life is massively interesting already but a fresh perspective rewires the possibilities. The potential if you will.

Next Generation

Next Generation Media Quarterly By Aegis. Nice little useful presso with sticky numbers that should help the plannerati. By Dan Calladine

Post-Materialist Science

I had a feisty old day today engaging with a materialist-science Twitterer. Well at least until it became clear that outside of a propensity for calumny there wasn't even a cursory grasp of 21st century historical reality.

As with most of my digital stalker detractors, it invariably becomes evident they are more obsessed with me than I am of them. 

Asymmetric love if I'm being kind. 

I only have two or three names of adversaries in my head that are worthy of a sliding tackle when the time arrives. The rest aren't up to standard. Sorry about that. I hope it stays that way too. If it gets to four or five names, a gentleman should ask himself if the problem is closer to home. 

However I didn't get a chance to demolish the 'Quantum Physics belongs to us' school of nonsense who I asset, understand no more than you or I about this fascinating life but demonstrably think they have a superior claim to intellectual ownership of life through old scientific thinking. 

I encourage you all to put a bit of Quantum real time search term feeds in your life because the point of it is not to understand. Which is brilliant really.

Not understanding is the foundation for true learning and is the start of a humble yet rewarding learning journey.

I counsel the less confident among you to reject those haughty bores and that you can spot the fundamentalist science frauds by their indignant shrillness that "normal" people don't get it. 

Neither do they none of us really do, but it's our willingness to admit it which makes a human being and not the atomic bean counters as outlined in today's New Scientist which is all you need to know. Do read it. It's double chocolate chip deliciousness.

Physicists don't, by and large, want to trouble themselves with philosophy. Questions over what, exactly, constitutes a measurement, or why it might induce a change in the fabric of reality, can be ignored in favour of simply getting a useful answer from quantum theory.

Unquestioning use of the Copenhagen interpretation is sometimes known as the "shut up and calculate" interpretation. "Given that most physicists just want to do calculations and apply their results, the majority of them are in the shut up and calculate group," Vedral says.

This approach has a couple of downsides, though. First, it is never going to teach us anything about the fundamental nature of reality. That requires a willingness to look for places where quantum theory might fail, rather than where it succeeds (New Scientist, 26 June 2010, p 34). "If there is going to be some new theory, I don't think it's going to come from solid state physics, where the majority of physicists work,"

Second, working in a self-imposed box also means that new applications of quantum theory are unlikely to emerge. The many perspectives we can take on quantum mechanics can be the catalyst for new ideas. "If you're solving different problems, it's useful to be able to think in terms of different interpretations"

Apocalypse Moby

Free .pdf book and recommended by Bruce Sterling.

Twisted - Art, Schizophrenia & Drugs

This is a portrayal of schizophrenic degradation over a period of years by a patient drawing cats; I think in the late 1920's. I don't want to get into the why a lot of mental disease is exacerbated by 20th century problem/pill solutions but I think it's a useful benchmark for codifying drifting reality.

I quite like the fire god pussy at the end. Frankly it looks splendid and if that's what cats look like, then I want some of that. Well, rather that, than the cheeky catwalk turn and that exposed-in-my face feline arsehole they serve up currently.

And so I also want to introduce to you something I came across from my subscription to dope nation the other day that I've been holding back for you while I get over  Wittgenstein's mesmerizing come down. Truly he is the peak.

In a way it's good coincidence, as I specifically want to talk about the effects of morphine because when I've been screaming so loud at an entire hospital complex, to put me out my pain that they've jacked me up on 200mg of Pethadine AND 200 mg of morphine (eight times the hourly dose they prefer to administer) that it's only when I saw this picture that I realised what went on through the blinding pain. 

That actually, even though it's the most cathartic transfer of schmerz to no pain in my life, I previously had no idea that beneath the sea of doped up tranquility, that what was really going on in the hospital bed festooned with pipes and wires and drips and gastric pipes up my nose was a lotta lotta sedated neurological activity.

OF COURSE NOW I SEE. The mind was merely being deceived. And I think you can see that in these pictures below which frankly are the most dangerous artistic and neurological experiment I have come across to date that the morphine tricked me into thinking the pain had gone away. Here is a portrait that portrays otherwise.

And so I claim that the Psilocybin (magic mushroom) below, is ostensibly cheekier, funnier, more dramatic and a little bit bucking bizarre. But as I've done both I'm allowed to shoot my mouth off about that. 

There's a lot more of the artist Bryan Lewis Saunders doing drugs for us all; that is him, you and I over here. 

Update: I can't find the exact post but Clif High talked about using snow to diminish burnt toes and the pain duration lasting infinitely longer than just dealing with it sans snow.