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News Briefs 14-03-2008

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before…

And away we go…

Quote of the Day:

…If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.

Thomas Pynchon

  1. Congratulations, Turner
    Allow me to be the first to say “Felicidades” on your very first TDG News Briefs. Welcome aboard!

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

  2. Mindball
    [quote]”You mean you have to use your hands? That’s for little kids!”[/quote]

    from the movie ‘Back to the Future II’

    Robert Zemeckis has once again been proven to be a true prophet.

    Now, about that damn hoverboard I’ve been waiting to have for 20 god-damned years…

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

  3. Thanks…
    …for the Gravity’s Rainbow reference. Takes me back to my high school days when I mistakenly tackled that most obtuse and brilliant of books.

    Welcome.

    1. Gravity’s Rainbow
      Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon is available at Amazon US & UK:

      Amazon Editorial Review:

      Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), “a screaming comes across the sky,” heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel’s title, Gravity’s Rainbow, refers to the rocket’s vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.

      Slothrop’s father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy’s future Harvard education, he took cash from the mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone’s privates to respond to its presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany.

      That’s just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is Pynchon’s book. It’s pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon’s cartoon inferno far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger’s brief companion to the novel, which sorts out Pynchon’s blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz’s dream about a serpent biting its tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.

      Pynchon doesn’t want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. Gravity’s Rainbow uses beautiful prose to induce an altered state of consciousness, a buzz. It’s a trip, and it will last. — Tim Appelo

      Steven Weisenburger’s A “Gravity’s Rainbow” Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel is also available at Amazon US & UK.

      Kat

  4. Founding Mothers?
    They mothered 95% of us? What about the other 5%? No mothers, or is 6 not the right number?

    I recall not so long ago the announcement of “Eve”, the hypothetical great^X-mother from 200,000 years past from whom we’re all descended. If they can show me that those six are also from that one, I’ll be half impressed. No more than half, since it’s all modelling with no real data from the hypothesized original aboriginals.

    They STAYED in “Berengia”? Some anthropologist(s) are dipping into the Ken Kesey Kool-aid. That land area was above sea level because so much sea water was taken up in the massive glaciers that extended the arctic ice shelf to cover that very same area. To misquote Sam Kinison, “It’s a FUCKING GLACIER. You CAN’T LIVE THERE.”

    Plus, the article clearly states they didn’t come from Asia. Let’s see, one end of “Berengia” is in Alaska, and the other in, well golly, a whole lot of ASIA.

    I’m going to become an anthropologist so I can claim that white people didn’t get to the US in many small waves of wooden boats from many different points in Europe, but rather they walked here en masse across the frozen north Atlantic portion of the arctic. And then I’m going to get a digging permit a dig into the cemetaries around Mayberry, North Carolina, looking for artifacts from the Sheriff Taylor tribe.

    Nah, I’m just kidding. They’d never have survived that walk.

    No, I am not the brain specialist…..
    YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.

  5. Is the Grail changing focus and content?
    KJA
    Of late it appears that the tone and content of the grail has changed or maybe there is just less of the kind of info that interests me. The Daily Grail is my homepage, I’m not an occasional visitor, also it doesn’t seem as straight forward and is heavier on politics as well. Was there a philosophical change that I missed?

    1. Hey Kathy
      I can only speak for myself, but I admit that I tend to have a heavy interest in politics, and I try to include a link or two that I feel would be of interest for the rest of the Grailers.

      Since there are currently 5 admins providing News Briefs every week, these tend to reflect the personal tastes and interests of each one of us. There are no guide lines we have to stick to, because Greg is just that awesome a boss 🙂

      However, if there are some particular topics you feel we have been neglected, please list them and I’ll try to provide some links about them during my thursday news briefs. Remember that your input and comments are invaluable to mantain the high quality of TDG’s content, and make this the Greatest. Website. Ever! 😉

      Saludos,

      Red Pill Junkie

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

      1. Thanks!
        KJA

        I had no idea how the Grail got out every day – wow, I’m even more impressed!

        As stated, it’s my home page and my daily source of all things worth reading on the net. I really dont’ have the words to express my gratitude for what the Daily Grail has meant to me and where it has taken me over time.

        Personally, I enjoy everything related to consciousness, non ordinary states, its evolution and how it constructs reality, to include its continuation after death. I’m more into the white crows than the heavy science perspective.

        Thanks for responding and for all you do for the rest of us daily seekers!

        Kathy

        1. TDG – and it’s voluntary masochists
          >>Of late it appears that the tone and content of the grail has changed or maybe there is just less of the kind of info that interests me. … I’m more into the white crows than the heavy science perspective.

          As it says on the bar at the top of the webpage, “TDG – Science, Magick, Myth and History”. And as Greg has explained from time to time, TDG’s overarching theme is ‘paradigm shifts’.

          In August, 2006, The Guardian posted an article about influential websites, which ended by saying “Doubtless you’ll have more to add. Please do so.”

          So I did, saying:

          There’s only one science site – The Daily Grail – which includes all the latest mainstream science news in every category – space, biology, archaeology, physics, the environment – as well as outstanding coverage of such ‘mad science’ topics as near-death experiences, shamanic perception ala Daniel Pinchbeck’s ‘Breaking Open the Head’, crop circles, the Bosnian ‘pyramid’ controversy, and UFOs, while also throwing in a few articles on history, conspiracy theory, politics, religion and philosophy for good measure. Everything about The Daily Grail, from site design, to content that’s both broad and relentlessly up-to-date, to the spectacular in-house magazine ‘Sub Rosa’, is consistently top notch. (/quote)

          While we admins do consistently try to provide you with the latest on all these fine subjects, to no small degree, our coverage is dependent on the news that’s available at any particular time. And as if keeping up with the news isn’t hard enough, Rick just emailed all us admins, telling us that we missed Pi Day.
          😛 <--- There's what I think about us missing it, Rick! 😉 >>I had no idea how the Grail got out every day…

          At one point, Greg referred to us TDG admins as his voluntary masochists. Simply out of love for TDG, we all volunteer our time — searching for articles for the News Briefs, writing book reviews, helping out with Sub Rosa, and more. Jameske’s been at it the longest — about 10 years! Counting the two years I spent apprenticing under Jameske, I’ve been at it about 5. Rick’s been an admin for about 3 1/2 years — or so he recently guessed. Time flies when you’re having fun. 😉

          But when you have a weekly schedule to keep, time can also be rather relentless — which is why 3 new admins recently came onboard. So please – give ’em a little time to get their sea-legs.

          In case you’re unaware, whenever any of you TDGers buy books via TDG’s Amazon links, Amazon gives Greg ‘gift certificates’, which he generously shares with us admins from time to time. So if you’d like to give us a ‘thank you’ for all our hard work, just buy one of the books we occasionally feature.

          Kat

          1. A pi for Albert
            [quote=Kat] And as if keeping up with the news isn’t hard enough, Rick just emailed all us admins, telling us that we missed Pi Day.
            😛 <--- There's what I think about us missing it, Rick! 😉 [/quote] Not only that, we missed Albert Einstein’s birthday, which is —relatively— unforgivable!! 🙁
            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

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