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News Briefs 19-11-2009

By red pill junkieon

All we are saying… is give prawns a chance.

Thanks to Rick, Greg, Loren, Jeff & Sugarhush — & thanks also to the mailman, for *finally* bringing my hardcover copy of Darklore 4!

Quote of the Day:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

James Baldwin, American novelist.

red pill junkie
Agnostic gnostic, walking conundrum & metaphysical oxymoron (with emphasis in the 'moron' part), the mysterious RPJ leaves a double life: By day he serves as Grand Master of the International Sacred Order of Lucha Libre, but at night he pursues his life-long study of everything considered mysterious and/or 'paranormal' --a term he personally detests... When he's not exploring the web looking for his daily fix of Forteana, he can be found blogging, doodling, fooling around and offering his services as news administrator and writer at The Daily Grail. He also regularly participates in other websites and podcasts like Radio Misterioso and Where Did the Road Go? He impatiently awaits for the return of the mothership in Mexico City. absurdbydesign.com
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16 Comments

  1. Lynch’s extra-Sufi bit in Dune movie
    It’s always struck me as interesting that Lynch went out of his way to add an extra Sufi reference into the Dune movie…

    The specific bit is the line Paul Atreides says after demonstrating the “weirding module”/sound-gun (which of course is also a Lynch addition):
    “Some thoughts have a certain sound, that being the equivalent to a form. Through sound and motion, you will be able to paralyze nerves, shatter bones, set fires, suffocate an enemy or burst his organs. We will kill until no Harkonnen breathes Arakeen air.”

    That first line is a very slight rephrasing of a quote from the premiere Sufi sage, Jalaluddin Rumi – who admittedly did not go on to discuss the organ-bursting capabilities of the concept!

  2. computer viruses
    One of the most dangerous groups of computer viruses are the
    automatic updates by the anti-virus software providers, and by some software providers.

    Microsoft wakes up one of my computers to update the software, and prevents it from shutting down. If you have
    McAffee installed, it will do the same thing. The door is wide open to any kind of bad behaviour, and any kind of spying on the user.

  3. Tank Steak
    Talk about an overly optimistic article. While I applaud the development of meat grown in-vitro for its spaceflight and exploration uses, I really don’t see it wiping out traditional ranching or farming.

    The author ignores a simple concept:”You are what you eat.” Every animal or plant takes on character from its diet or environment, something that will be largely absent from factory food. There IS a difference between beef that is grass-fed and corn-fed. Free range chicken is superior to factory-farmed.

    I suspect meat that is nothing-fed chased with hydroponic vegetables is going to be one underwhelming gastronomic experience. If I’m going to eat this stuff, I better be en route to Alpha Centauri. Otherwise, no sale.

    1. You’re already aboard a spaceship.
      You & I are already aboard a spaceship. The USS Terra, traveling around the Cosmos at a speed of 30 km/sec.

      And, like all spaceships, its got limited resources, which are problematic if you keep the number of the passengers unchecked.

      Everything has its pros and its cons. If you raise the cattle on corn and grain, you use food that could be fed to humans. if you raise them on grass, you need more farmland, and those cows will burp more methane to the atmosphere.

      And let’s not forget that animals also need water, can die of disease or due to natural catastrophes, and can transmit nasty things to humans —mad cow fillet anyone?

      We’re already growing these animals for no purpose aside from ending in a food plant. Why not cut off some steps in the process? like, wasting time in the stage of breeding the animals for example, or wasting energy in letting them grow a brain?

        1. Possibly
          Possibly, the way some rich folks still keep horses around, purely for recreational purposes. But the majority of the world will be liberated of the tiranny of ranch meat 🙂

      2. Permission to come aboard Terra
        Interesting post. Could I add to your thoughts the USS Terra is also self regulating spaceship as implied by Valera & Maturana’s theory of autopoiesis suggesting that when it reaches critical mass it will shake of the fleas on her back in order to survive. It has done so many times in the past hence we are all just dead cells being cleaned. If we put more meaning to early mythology there has been more than one great flood. Now there is also this discussion of late that about 500,000 million people is considered a healthy number for Terra to remain sustainable. So it appears that this idea has been is being entertained and I shudder at the survival yardstick that will be used for its implementation. This dialogue leans with the support of the existing current climate changes along with the melting icebergs. Suddenly efforts are being raised in order to abort Terra’s going into her early wash and spin cycle.

        If we are to believe the Yuga cycles of the Hindus to the recurring changes to Terra it is a form of renewal and it will come like it or not. But that is still a long way to go. Everything that we can contemplate is subject to change and shall perish. We can’t change and all we are doing at present is re-arranging the deck chairs to the Titanic. We wrestle with the same thoughts but they’re not new. It’s what the american indians and earlier peoples have always promulgated. You do not think for this generation but always prepare for future generations. I think that what your thoughts and mine are doing going into higher complexities as we organise our relationship with USS Terra. We are not cutting ourselves at the knees for short term rewards. But everything we can focus on shall perish. The final curtains will come long before the Sun gives us his final wink. Then again final curtains are always exciting as they are followed by an encore so as we become more complex let’s hope we get bigger and better roles. Hey let’s look at USS Terra to begin with sitting on a turtles back spinning away beyond our comprehension. We measure ideas with mind and we will always return with mind like solutions. Let’s leave it open and see how this story reveals unfolds.

        Cheers
        Carloz

        1. Hey, that’s MY chair!

          We can’t change and all we are doing at present is re-arranging the deck chairs to the Titanic

          I like that metaphor; although it is still my hope that we come to our senses, throw our moron captain overboard, and change course before we hit that big-ass chunk of ice ahead 😛

          Saludos.

        2. thinking ahead
          I believe most of the old cultures get way too much credit for thinking ahead. Some wise people may have said some wise things. But native Americans hunted all kinds of animals to extinction. The meso-Americans did themselves in by abusive farming practices. Plenty of Eurasian old cultures did the same thing. Did the Sahara really dry up so much for natural reasons? Or because of over grazing?

          1. Let’s Acknowledge Them Anyway
            The old cultures are similar to our existing cultures in so many ways. Its the same insanity just different costumes. You are absolutely correct many animals were hunted down to extinction and a lot of areas were overgrazed. So in that sense nothings changed. Nonetheless the sayings of the wise are recognised today as they have finally over arch into our line of thought. I see this as a distance echo from our ancestors now reinforcing our own views and collapsing all this useless white noise. Think on the lines of Thomas Kuhn’s ideas with ‘Paradigm Shift’ or the saying when the student is ready the teacher appears. Because if your not careful you can get crucified, burnt at the stake or your books burnt. Think of Socrates, Bruno and many like them that were silenced. So yes it was the same melange even then, the fools outnumbering the wise. Remember Jesus always spoke in metaphors to his disciples because he felt that people were asleep. That’s mentioned seventeen times in the bible and the Sufi’s echo that with baraka. I’m in agreeance with RPJ let’s ditch the captain overboard.

            Cheers
            Carloz

          2. actually…..
            you are somewhat mis-informed. Was only a mere 400 years ago and much of America was prestine. Some pockets have been saved. Was not the native people that did that distruction.
            There very well could have been ancients that lived many thousonds of years before our current cycle. We have proof of this but is generally hidden. The earth can only sustain a certain amount, then it will change. Nature has a way of coping with things. It may be it will change differently or will create something to remain as it was. Either way we are in for a rough ride. Look to nature and the answers are there. You may not like the answers though.

          3. not really
            The prairie Indians stampeded entire herds of buffalo off cliffs. Hardly a sign that they were concerned about conservation.

            And the early inhabitants did hunt horses to extinction. We are not sure about mammoths. But very likely some of the Southwestern cultures disappeared on their own, from abusing the land they were cultuvating.

            No, America was not as pristine as the romantic myth says. Not everything is the white man’s fault, that is a 1960s thing, now very prevalent in the new-age and environmentalist parts of our societies. The ancients were just as bad as we were. We just have bigger tools.

  4. If District 6 Were District 9
    Apartness.

    That’s what ‘apartheid’ means. It’s an Afrikaaner word and predates the white racist regime it came to refer to. Yes, there was a District 6, yes it was a fairly egalitarian melting-pot region where people from all around Joburg as well as tourists mingled amicably. However, when folks went home at night, they went home to the areas their own cultural group lived in. They preferred to keep to themselves around home, different groups living in different areas very much like the later townships in one primary sense — apart. Apartness simply referred to this. There was nothing negative associated with it. Not until the media got ahold of it and created a handy term people could refer to without having to understand the multiply colonized nature of S.A., the convoluted social atmosphere of so many cultural groups in proximity, and especially without having to recognize similarities between the racist policies and their own countries.

    It was not apartness that caused problems, it was the white government co-opting the idea, creating the Group Areas Act and using it to redivide, subvert and effectively remove all power from all groups except themselves. Students of US history may compare this to ‘Gerrymandering’, though that was rarely used for anything other than voting district manipulation, rather than full political and financial control. Had the white racists not come to power, “apartheid” would have continued unpolluted by association with the cultural criminals and would have kept its neutral connotation. And District 6 would have continued to serve as an example of how people can live and work together peacefully just as the pre-racist apartheid areas served as an example of how they could live apart equally peacefully.

    I owe my education in S.A. history and politics, especially that of Joburg, and in fact literally owe my life to Marius Van Der Speck, an Afrikaaner native of Joburg. His father was white but he his mother was ‘colored’ (anything other than pure white), so he was colored. More, he was colorful, and mixed equally well with all sorts of people. He was also wise, and was one of the kindest people I’ve met. I can only hope I’ve lived my life in such a way as to earn the gift he gave me in helping me to keep it.

  5. Nazi Xmas
    Why should we be surprised that the Nazi party tried to exploit the fervor of the Christmas festivities for their own political and propagandistic advantage, when nobody would dare to disagree that Christmas has turned into a complete secular holiday by now? where Jesus has been supplanted with Santa Claus, who is merely a convenient anthropomorphical avatar of money.

    Even people who are not of the Christian faith don’t want to pass away the opportunity to leave their credit cards melting hot on the malls.

    The December festivities have always been a joyful celebration in which the replacement of the honored god with a new foreign one is the least of the cellebrant’s concern, as long as the wine and the food are being served at the dinner table. It is the most malleable of holidays, right along with Halloween.

    1. Christmas Observation
      Your Christmas observations are priceless RPJ. I echo your sentiments. You haven’t by any chance heard what the Nazi view is on Easter. Might start painting some swastikas on some easter eggs to cash up.

      Carloz

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