tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71164317201184215572024-03-14T03:43:18.104-07:00Esoteric Synaptic EventsUFO, transhumanism, scifi, space, futurism, artUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1743125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-73652230542530138702023-10-20T15:03:00.002-07:002023-10-20T15:03:35.952-07:00The government vs UFOs vs my interest<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXpLpUg76nT3k6ZyzcJDOHxX0wuL4DvXPs9czt0Y6TTPGAuHj0PWWuiqC2sgnKPV5WyvNkqJiZDMDAubqwRsRqCQjaVcQ4EbPw3zXyqQHuVS6lxlq9TwQaoKFtOUlchdJCWgZ5TQIy3TIHLZdZNl6Rwei2urNUu6zra6qCpyuRf2Ye-KTXcUl8dvWBT_e4/s800/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXpLpUg76nT3k6ZyzcJDOHxX0wuL4DvXPs9czt0Y6TTPGAuHj0PWWuiqC2sgnKPV5WyvNkqJiZDMDAubqwRsRqCQjaVcQ4EbPw3zXyqQHuVS6lxlq9TwQaoKFtOUlchdJCWgZ5TQIy3TIHLZdZNl6Rwei2urNUu6zra6qCpyuRf2Ye-KTXcUl8dvWBT_e4/w354-h199/image.jpg" width="354" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">I glanced at CNN yesterday morning, just as I always do.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s only for a quick rundown. When
I read in-depth I go elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, the usual stories of global collapse were there.
Israel/Gaza, Ukraine, environmental pollution. There was, however, a new and
odd addition.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">UFOs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The new program the Pentagon launched to collect UFO (or UAP
as its officially been designated) data has received a windfall of reports. To
the possible dismay of the “true believer” crowd, the vast majority of these reports
have already been identified as prosaic in origin, such as balloons or civilian
drones.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wonder if I could start a trend of calling them “over-the-counter
drones”?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This program stems in part from a Congressional hearing on
UFOs last July, where it was basically agreed that if there are these UAP
sightings at or near US military airspace, we should probably take the reports
seriously regardless of any stigma. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Reasonable. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Said same hearing also featured David Grusch, a former USAF
officer and intelligence official who asserted that the government is
possession of both “non-human spacecraft” and “biological material” from those
supposedly acquired craft. When asked for any concrete evidence to support his
assertion, Grusch said that would require the hearing to go to closed session.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which they did. If any names or files were given up, we don’t
know.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure I care, either.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s a staggering realization to come to considering posts
I’ve written, and hopes I’ve held far earlier in life. At this point, I’m too
overwhelmed to give the subject any energy. There are too many immediate
concerns.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Things have changed considerably for us this year, as they
do for most anyone as they age and pivot to care for those who once took care
of us. Also, my workload keeps increasing, or so it feels. Conversely, the
value of what I do seems to be viewed in an increasingly dim lit by American
society as a whole. In turn, I question my own value. If you’ve read my book,
then you know how viscerally I’ve come to realize how one good shove in the
right place can send all the dominoes tumbling, and your life goes to pieces. What
will I do if it all falls out from under me again? Especially at my age? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have bills to pay, a wife who needs tacos, and a dog to
send to college. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Seriously, I have been on close, personal terms with the Nietzschean
abyss the past few months. As turmoil plays out in my microcosm, terrors, both
foreign and domestic, burgeon and boil over in the macrocosm, threatening all
of us. How do I keep the ones I love safe in such insanity? So unless they’re
somehow going to fix my problems, the revelation of an alien presence on Earth
wouldn’t mean much to me in the face of the existential. Would it really change
much, or would we be too immersed in our own very real problems to even care? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Somewhere, I think I hear 8 year-old Jon wailing. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Follow me on X: @JntweetsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-11215112597165836812023-09-05T20:17:00.001-07:002023-09-05T20:17:42.048-07:00The Jondroid is in<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaM7D2d5rPAGwNXf8SeHY4QsILi-khXxYIF6CnIz0oB-8nduZJxXjt3fmWLu9XcuyEPvRxOO_kx4OaxB---fWLg-caG0l1xk_pMWQRbeTwQHIQhUmULah98kpYUEP4Y6PGVkeSt7SQ643CL3klyPjWc-ojaVWAOaddPLqW4_5nuWb9o4RCHI_h3qO0Frdo/s515/bot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="391" height="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaM7D2d5rPAGwNXf8SeHY4QsILi-khXxYIF6CnIz0oB-8nduZJxXjt3fmWLu9XcuyEPvRxOO_kx4OaxB---fWLg-caG0l1xk_pMWQRbeTwQHIQhUmULah98kpYUEP4Y6PGVkeSt7SQ643CL3klyPjWc-ojaVWAOaddPLqW4_5nuWb9o4RCHI_h3qO0Frdo/w287-h377/bot.jpg" width="287" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">There is a lot of promise in that pic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At least to me there is…or was…anyway. That picture is of a
toy robot I had as a kid. Back then, it wasn’t too hard for me to imagine a
future where interaction with robots or other intelligent machines would be
commonplace. It was a non-threatening notion. I mean look at the guy. He’s
clunky. He’s boxy. He’s cute and inoffensive. He’s here to help. But never
once did I contemplate standing before it and saying, “So tell me what I should
do next,” or “Write this for me.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I probably should have. Because that’s where we’re at.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since I’ve written about artificial intelligence off and on
over the past 12 years, a few people have asked me if I know what’s going on,
or if I have new predictions for us in this age of ChatGPT, large language
models, and the multitudes of other AI applications. I find it helps to assess
our situation by stacking it against the idea of “the singularity.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What’s that? Depends who you ask. But believe it or not, it’s
that variability that has help me get an understanding of current AI…or to try
to, anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alan Turing thought the truly revolutionary moment would be when
one could no longer confidently know whether they were interacting with a
person or a machine. If you’ve played around at all with any of the LLMs, then
you know we could probably make a good argument that we’ve already hit that
point. Now that we’re here, it feels like that bar might’ve been set a bit low.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then there’s Ray Kurzweil. In his book, <i>The Singularity
is Near</i>, he called the singularity, “a future period during which the pace of
technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will
be irreversibly transformed.” One of these transformations may be that humans
will merge with technology to the point where any difference between human and
machine will be meaningless. We could upgrade ourselves from this flawed,
ever-decaying “meat” we inhabit. As someone with off and on health problems, I
grabbed on to the promise of that new future and became something of a Kurzweil
fanboy. I even assigned his books in a few classes, and was ready to extol his virtues to all who would listen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I now think he was overly optimistic, and…by extension…so
was I.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Turns out, to my way of thinking at least, that the most
accurate descriptor of our current moment is the original definition of “singularity.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It comes from 1950s computer scientist John von Neumann. He
said, “the ever-accelerating progress of technology will yield some essential
singularity in the history of the human race.” Mathematician and science
fiction author Vernor Vinge gave the greater depth by calling it a time when “technological
progress in the realm of intelligence will reach a point where the future is
very difficult to predict.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s it! And viola we’re back in the 50s.<br /><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because in many ways, I’m as intoxicated with the
possibilities of AI, especially when coupled with robotics, as the tech mavens.
In many other regards though, I’m as terrified as the rest of you when I think
about what could go wrong, or especially when I consider my impending
obsolescence…and being an English professor in higher education, I’ve had many
years to ponder that latter point.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t believe the doomsayers are correct. There will not
be a superintelligent HAL 9000 telling us, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t
do that.” I was fortunate enough to have a colleague in psychology explain to
me years ago that the complexities and true nuances of the human brain are
unlikely to be replicated by a computer.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dSIKBliboIo" width="320" youtube-src-id="dSIKBliboIo"></iframe></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Conversely, I don’t believe it’s wise at all to dismiss AI
as “just another tool like YouTube or Google.” That analogy doesn’t work.
Neither YouTube nor Google can produce work for you. This really is like
nothing we’ve seen before.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s why nobody knows anything.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I guess that's why I miss those days of playing with that little robot.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghd7BjHBlqL-OKHMt9DvJqQCTZzuH0iyC5fUJgLriTI8a4AkMhWv4hZopsG86HnR19taUuohSowhCapTo1fa-pEALCucl6s_IOvX0UMOViPVIuwrpiThC66xRFUCXw9yUwxOED6f0f8JfEMO_h3owQkWfQINF5iHuUGWbQ-bpPZ8k6i8dfI6uqK3-nXP5f/s220/bot2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="147" data-original-width="220" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghd7BjHBlqL-OKHMt9DvJqQCTZzuH0iyC5fUJgLriTI8a4AkMhWv4hZopsG86HnR19taUuohSowhCapTo1fa-pEALCucl6s_IOvX0UMOViPVIuwrpiThC66xRFUCXw9yUwxOED6f0f8JfEMO_h3owQkWfQINF5iHuUGWbQ-bpPZ8k6i8dfI6uqK3-nXP5f/w284-h190/bot2.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">In other news, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66594520">India successfully landed a rover </a>on the south pole of the Moon. This region of our lonely satellite has been particularly enticing as it promises to hold a good deal of water. Elsewhere on the Moon, a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/deep-structure-mass-moon-crater">"massive structure"</a> (not my words) has been found underneath the Aitken basin. As one astronomer put it: "Imagine taking a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii and burying it underground."</p><p class="MsoNormal">It's all likely from a massive asteroid collision, but I'm hoping for something else.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmyA9LfUeeYPF6r_tqL8UPmDbZC3U21hj7PeOkKDcPAFIMmb3CmP6sSe3-yLA3z3VgrMWMSDnvq40IFBIT-IsMuNlB4SAIjnZyzxRZV8MofG7jLXAJownXR3KWBAzMb_Fp0YoWTdd5WaUGaLihA4E-gVlXp8tSi28NlbLpTAdffgfUJF5n_5rKj0SUJg56/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmyA9LfUeeYPF6r_tqL8UPmDbZC3U21hj7PeOkKDcPAFIMmb3CmP6sSe3-yLA3z3VgrMWMSDnvq40IFBIT-IsMuNlB4SAIjnZyzxRZV8MofG7jLXAJownXR3KWBAzMb_Fp0YoWTdd5WaUGaLihA4E-gVlXp8tSi28NlbLpTAdffgfUJF5n_5rKj0SUJg56/w357-h201/maxresdefault.jpg" width="357" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p></div>Follow me on Twitter: @JntweetsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-21852375632449517292022-08-26T18:11:00.000-07:002022-08-26T18:11:58.672-07:00Where I'm Calling From<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqA_hsjy9LD7MVIM1BcjRQURtMwW8ooETsla1O-tlKn8nrIfbIU8uxx6kyh6lVPujpftY5l0PLt4WaoM0itbDMI_LGNH_xbEwMgr8GXuid8-LXeT4pVTW8D9xtRMSrT6v2D0ru_cxU20_VQe4qm5WMMDT4qNKSqn7yh-d-PvFYzaBgD8N7H0dxK0oXQ/s5195/Nichols-6808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3602" data-original-width="5195" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqA_hsjy9LD7MVIM1BcjRQURtMwW8ooETsla1O-tlKn8nrIfbIU8uxx6kyh6lVPujpftY5l0PLt4WaoM0itbDMI_LGNH_xbEwMgr8GXuid8-LXeT4pVTW8D9xtRMSrT6v2D0ru_cxU20_VQe4qm5WMMDT4qNKSqn7yh-d-PvFYzaBgD8N7H0dxK0oXQ/w366-h254/Nichols-6808.jpg" width="366" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Hey! Look!
An actual post!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A blog is
a living document.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That’s
both good and bad.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Go back to
2010 when Esoteric Synaptic Events had its genesis (although it misguidedly
started as Strange Horizons, but I don’t want to get into that) and root
through every post across the 12 years…though why anyone would have the
patience or desire to do so is beyond me…and I’m certain you will find
something I wrote that would embarrass me. My reaction to such a post (or more
likely “posts”) will no doubt be “I thought that??” Fortunately, as I mentioned
at the outset, a blog is a living document. It should show an evolution of
thought. There should be changes in opinions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve been
inspired to post for the first time in a long time because I’d like to make my
current self clear. I’d like to provide a 2022 snapshot of “where I’m calling
from” (with apologies to Raymond Carver), and offer my current thinking on
topics I typically covered on ESE.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">-Transhumanism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’m well
aware that I’ve proclaimed myself as “an unabashed transhumanist.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’m a fair
bit more “abashed” these days. Why?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Covid
changed my mind. At the onset of the pandemic of 2020, a few of the more vocal
proponents of transhumanism opposed lockdowns. Their argument ran something
like this paraphrase: scientific research labs should remain open. Sure, we
will lose a few people now, but that number is small compared to the number we
will save in the years to come if we keep at our work. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve never
been a fan of cold equations, so this line of thinking didn’t sit well with me.
I’m not willing to toss human lives on the bonfire of transhumanism for the
dream of something that might materialize tomorrow, with the feasibility of
said somethings…such as total body prosthesis…being questionable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">These
claims really drew my attention to the strong strand of libertarianism inherent
in the transhumanist movement. My attitude towards that particularly political
ideology is not exactly xenial. As my friend Armando says, “The only place
either libertarianism or communism work is in a sophomore’s dorm room at
midnight after a few joints.” One of the criticisms of transhumanism is related
to the widening gap between rich and poor. Would only those with means reap the
benefits of transhumanism? If the attitudes expressed during Covid are to be
taken as any indication, then it seems signs say “yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This is
not to say I oppose continued efforts in cybernetics, body modifications, and potentially
life-saving developments. I still wish I could transcend my human frailties and
take control of my biology. Rather it’s the “crypto bro” style of thinking
involved that has allowed this new daylight to emerge between the transhumanist
movement and me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">There is,
admittedly, one other more personal…”objection” is almost too strong a word,
but I don’t know what else to call it. While I don’t want anything to happen to
me too soon, I don’t want to live forever. Both of my beloved dogs died in 2020
(I wrote about them <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/01/two-of-my-greatest-lessons.html"><b>here</b></a>). If there is any chance of existence hereafter, then
I want to see them again.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A
book-length exploration of that subject is in the pike.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">-UFOs</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It may seem
counterintuitive in what might appear to be a halcyon era of UFO research and
political attention for the subject, but I’m actually more skeptical now than
I’ve ever been. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Sure, Navy
videos, tac-tacs, “go fast” and so on and so forth all the livelong day. What’s
getting lost in the circus of opinions is that many prosaic and reasonable
explanations have been offered for these videos (check out Mick West). Of
course, many “ufologists” have summarily rejected them. Additionally, just
because the government and the military deny they possess any flying objects
with the flight characteristics in the videos doesn’t make it true. Previous
assets such as stealth aircraft were openly denied until declassification. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">My other
sticking point is that I’ve seen too many cracks develop in what I once thought
were strong cases. Rendlesham, Malmstrom AFB, and Barney and Betty Hill are but
a few examples. When these corrosions are combined with how, as I see it
anyway, the concept of “aliens are here” falls apart under close and logical
scrutiny, I can’t help but be disabused of any likelihood of the pop culture,
ufology equation of “UFOs=ETs.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Another factor
that has rather soured me on UFOs is how members of the alt-right have grown increasingly
involved in the subject. After all, if you operate from a conspiracy theorist
mentality and believe the government is “out to get the people,” then the UFO
mythos is an automatic fit. As one researcher of conspiracy rhetoric described
it, QAnon, white supremacy, and UFO conspiracies are all different conspiracy
trees, but their branches have started to intertwine. These conspiracy theorists
are dangerous and must watched. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I remain fascinated
by the topic, though. It’s a genuine mythos, a complex narrative more human in creation
than anything else. I’m intrigued by how it has affected culture, politics,
and history really. Many turn their noses up at hoaxes, and that’s
understandable if one’s mission is to conclusively prove that UFOs are signs of
alien visitation. Me? I’m so intrigued by the motives and the lengths to
which someone will go to in order to pull off a fake. Like everything else in
human existence, there is a rhetoric to UFOs, and that means there are
conflicting interpretations of what constitutes “reality.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">By the
same token, I must also leave the door open for spectacular possibilities.
Falcon Lake, Belgium 1990, Tehran 1976, and RB-47 1957 are examples of the
small percentage of cases that have solid evidence and remain unexplained. Does
that mean aliens? Well, maybe not in the popular sense. It might be even
weirder. Want to know more? Read Jacques Vallee.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">-Cyberpunk<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We’re
living in it. One of the many many definitions of the subgenre is “High tech.
Low life.” Many characters in cyberpunk narratives are just trying to carve out
an existence, but are unable to get past certain social barriers. There are the
ultrarich, and there is everyone else. There is no real “government” to speak
of in texts like <i>Neuromancer</i> or <i>Blade Runner</i>. There are, however,
mega-corporations that seem to be happily running the show and making a hefty
profit. Think back to the early days of the Covid pandemic and recall a) the
sense that no help was coming, and b) Amazon’s treatment of its “essential workers.”
All we’re missing are the cybernetic implants. Give Elon Musk’s Neuralink a
little time, and maybe we’ll even have those.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That is if
they can get their test subjects to <a href="https://abc7news.com/elon-musk-neuralink-monkeys-brain-chip-monkey-death/11581014/#:~:text=Elon%20Musk's%20company%20confirms%20monkeys,connect%20and%20communicate%20with%20computers.&text=Critics%20are%20raising%20concerns%20as,chip%20implant%20research%2C%20KOVR%20reports."><b>stop dying.</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">-Climate
change.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We’re
fucked. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I wish I
could be more optimistic, but every day there’s new evidence that the “chickens
are coming home to roost,” in the words of Malcom X. It was recently over 100
degrees in London. A report on NPR this morning talked about the water levels receding
at Lake Tahoe and Lake Mead. Will there be a population spike here in the Great
Lakes region of the Midwest? We’ll have access to fresh water at least. Superstorms
and rainfall might be a problem, though. You might be ok.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Then
again, when the consequences of climate refugees and economic fallout hit, we’ll
all be feeling it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Want to
boost your spirits? Check out these images from the <b><a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/08/22/webbs-jupiter-images-showcase-auroras-hazes/">James Webb Telescope.</a> </b><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div>Shameless self-promotion: My book Requiem for a College is available now on Amazon. I first let you know about it <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2017/09/yes-im-writing-book-about-saint-josephs.html"><b>here</b></a>, but my opus of literary journalism came to be at last.</div><div><br /></div><div>Might warrant a post of its own.</div><div><br /></div>Follow me on Twitter: @JntweetsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-51868883407993682982021-01-09T14:46:00.001-08:002021-01-09T14:51:23.267-08:001950s b-movies as a shared universe<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuj54YsckZyvsDn5F3L1Jh4nrbnIEid37Wq4CPCOFLqlFEt8irn3Jufj1JrHL99wHVvXtnifvEoYzd_MQ6K3T31fqeNIVOWRI3mmxBaql889BiTSWyiUT0xOLST0qHRjvwixCPidBwbhgt/s480/abomb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuj54YsckZyvsDn5F3L1Jh4nrbnIEid37Wq4CPCOFLqlFEt8irn3Jufj1JrHL99wHVvXtnifvEoYzd_MQ6K3T31fqeNIVOWRI3mmxBaql889BiTSWyiUT0xOLST0qHRjvwixCPidBwbhgt/s320/abomb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dedicated to my Svenpals!</div><div><br /></div><div><div>It’s 1950.</div><div><br /></div><div>World War II ended five years ago with the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. American life is a mixture of gleeful prosperity and existential dread. Sure, suburbia is booming and we’ve got a lot of cool stuff, but is another war ahead? This time with the “commies” and this time even more destructive due to atomic weapons? Little did anyone know that the copious atomic tests of the previous five years would unleash “atomic horror.” Fortunately, it would all be chronicled in b-movies…that I now propose as a shared universe.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few words about what I’m doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am engaging in fanfiction. Just in case you might not know, this is where someone takes plot and characters from established, copyrighted media, and writes their own stories using the content. It has been around for at least 50 years in the modern sense of the term, and I’ve been studying it off and on through the lens of Rhetoric and Composition. To me, fanfiction writers are reclaiming their agency in order to engage in the natural human need to contribute to mythmaking. Often this means taking liberties with the “canon” of the media. In my case, I will be monkeying with the timeline of these movies.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why am I doing this with no hope of publication or compensation? A couple reasons.</div><div>One, I am so tired of writing about small college closures, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Two, I am exhausted from a month of class-building in Canvas while watching America erode into chaos. To say I want something diverting is an understatement. Fortunately, I happened to be tweeting back and forth with a few pals during my weekly viewing of Svengoolie, and this idea of a shared universe was born. I couldn’t wait to play in it.</div><div><br /></div><div>And to be honest, that’s what I or any fanfiction writer is really doing. Playing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I feel I need to make one more point. As one may logically conclude, these 1950s b-movies are reflective of the ethos and ideals of the society that created them. That means they are very, very white. There is opportunity to add diversity. Maybe African American characters who overcame the Jim Crow of that era in defiance of all expectations? Not all characters in these films have explicit sexual orientations. Maybe someone is LGBT? There is much that could be retroactively fixed and lot of cultural baggage shed. I am currently trying to figure out how, but a handful of films did it already <a href="https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/invasion-of-the-female-scientists-9ca54ca637d0"><b>as this article on female scientist characters points out.</b></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Here is my attempt to weave together what a 1950s “atomic horror” (plus a handful of other pop culture properties thrown in for “seasoning”) shared-universe would look like:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0sdEjGwfkqQpKe47crWK0f3ziIvCWAVXjR6YQVXzxSpRqsHhCV9W_Q9Rr6b-takMNwbXR_gncG9k0eeg3sOw8U3HygcVVSOpe28dORV4geqragPzMNFgmcDXw16t5sReVw5YuSit54CMw/s690/Them-Giant-atomic-ants.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0sdEjGwfkqQpKe47crWK0f3ziIvCWAVXjR6YQVXzxSpRqsHhCV9W_Q9Rr6b-takMNwbXR_gncG9k0eeg3sOw8U3HygcVVSOpe28dORV4geqragPzMNFgmcDXw16t5sReVw5YuSit54CMw/s320/Them-Giant-atomic-ants.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><u>1951</u></div><div><b>New Mexico</b>-Authorities investigate a mute, wandering child and her parents’ apparent murder. Unbelievably, this leads to the discovery of giant, hostile ants inhabiting New Mexico. Radiation from the Trinity test mutated regular ants to the size of city buses. The military eventually destroys these ants. A few people stand out in the whole fracas. One is a G-Man named Robert Graham, and another is New Mexico State Trooper, Ben Peterson. Most of all, there is Dr. Harold Medford and his daughter, Dr. Pat Medford. Both are trained in the academic subfield of myrmecology (study of ants), but we’re open-minded and intellectually nimble enough to recognize and accept what was actually going on. As Dr. Harold Medford said, "When Man entered the Atomic Age, he opened the door to a new world. What we may eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict."</div><div>Once it was all over, these four all got a visit from a smiling “man in black” who said his name was “Indrid Cold.” He represented a covert government organization named Anomalous Scientific Events (heh! See what I did there?) or ASE (pronounced “ace”). The American government was growing aware of the unintended consequences of nuclear energy, and a team was being formed to meet the new challenges. The four accepted membership in the club. They might also have been persuaded by the presence of the ASE agents flanking Indrid Cold, as these men wore black trenchcoats, black hats, and their faces were obscured by black gas masks.</div><div>(Film source: <i>Them!</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEholrIjtsp2yMZYdzsmPD4B480drYMEDZZypFrEmFgSx_N-PgQAZDPDhzoKRKp9_YUSpx8NcpNVc2B0r9gh_V1R5xciOg4_UTNBdvzreNJa_UnwqCAKr8AKAvnxGCkSmpJlErFPjNL0_vFa/s835/Gojira.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="835" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEholrIjtsp2yMZYdzsmPD4B480drYMEDZZypFrEmFgSx_N-PgQAZDPDhzoKRKp9_YUSpx8NcpNVc2B0r9gh_V1R5xciOg4_UTNBdvzreNJa_UnwqCAKr8AKAvnxGCkSmpJlErFPjNL0_vFa/s320/Gojira.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Japan</b>-Something rose out of the depths of the Pacific. Resembling a dinosaur-like creature of enormous stature, it laid waste to a small fishing village. Dr. Kyohei Yamane, a paleontologist, determined the monster to have been in hibernation and then awoken, and perhaps mutated, by oceanic atomic testing. Given the name “Godzilla,” the beast attacked Tokyo and Japanese citizens suddenly felt like it was 1945 all over again. The Japanese military was less than useless against Godzilla, particularly as Godzilla could expel a fiery, radioactive breath. A scientist named Dr. Daisuke Serizawa was beseeched for help. Serizawa had built a device called an Oxygen Destroyer, but he refused to provide it, fearing it might proliferate into weapons even more deadly than the atomic bomb. As Tokyo burned, Serizawa’s conscience was moved and he agreed to use the device, provided he could first burn his design notes. Godzilla returned to Tokyo Bay and Serizawa dove down to plant the Oxygen Destroyer on the monster’s leg. The device worked, killing Godzilla, but Serizawa turned off his own oxygen tank, choosing to die and take the secret of the device with him. Yamane conjectured that if atomic testing continued, more Godzillas could await.</div><div>Indrid Cold met Yamane and invited him to join ASE. At the same time, ASE agents raided Dr. Serizawa’s lab and confiscated all they could to reconstruct an Oxygen Destroyer. Also, an ASE intelligence named Race Bannon spent two days interrogating Steve Martin, an American reporter who witnessed the devastation wrought by Godzilla.</div><div>(Film sources: <i>Godzilla, Jonny Quest</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie63X_lEb6YIyXz8SjPktV5mm74ORBE2gEYAue1MfJhkuHIsMQK-hqgmmbk1Uzs-K6AApOmUSDaX5IJ1wo-ahaqsA7EUTed5-hn_jQDPL-ycHA5cZTw-uzxophcGmgxyMNUqhl5a49737Z/s1023/DeadlyMantis1957_72575_1023x768_04142017035051.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1023" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie63X_lEb6YIyXz8SjPktV5mm74ORBE2gEYAue1MfJhkuHIsMQK-hqgmmbk1Uzs-K6AApOmUSDaX5IJ1wo-ahaqsA7EUTed5-hn_jQDPL-ycHA5cZTw-uzxophcGmgxyMNUqhl5a49737Z/s320/DeadlyMantis1957_72575_1023x768_04142017035051.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><u>1952</u></div><div><b>The Arctic</b>-A secret nuclear test at the North Pole had an unintended consequence. It dislodged a block of ice containing a gigantic praying mantis, frozen since prehistoric times. This mantis awoke and attacked US military forces in northern Canada who were building the DEW (Distant Early Warning) radar line. From there it headed south, attacking New York and Washington D.C. Members of ASE, such as Drs. Yamane and Medford, formulated the means to defeat the monster bug and it eventually died trapped in Manhattan Tunnel.</div><div>(Film source: <i>The Deadly Mantis</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div>The same classified nuclear test knocked loose yet another significant block of ice. This one contained a Nazi bomber of advanced design. It crashed in the Arctic in the 1940s as it was piloted away from American cities…by Captain Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America. The bomber and Rogers were found by ASE agents and US forces scouring the area following the deadly mantis attack. Incredibly, Captain America had been frozen in suspended animation all that time. Indrid Cold persuaded the newly-thawed Rogers that ASE…and all of America…still needed Captain America.</div><div>(Film source: <i>Captain America: The First Avenger</i>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>By sheer uncanny coincidence, ASE enlisted yet another “special agent” at this very time. A researcher and industrialist had perfected his own rocket pack. With such propulsion on his back, a leather flying jacket around his torso, and a streamlined and bug-eyed helmet on his head, he quietly pledges his daredevil flight skills to Indrid Cold, ASE, and the good ol’ US of A. His codename would be “Commando Cody.”</div><div>(Film source: <i>The Commando Cody</i> serials)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGHV7VCFhDA7fZBsB-B8MqcXNceC8f1rAuZGbkZ36NvrQEHXfJi_2iCn9mByI6-bHmTh6HJ6jtDqT9g8PAmzC4HUDiFpQ8wzdtqP5WqxbmaXn7rCQPwNxdykXQEaU_7VTJkVHsb2brKfY/s905/thething.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="720" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGHV7VCFhDA7fZBsB-B8MqcXNceC8f1rAuZGbkZ36NvrQEHXfJi_2iCn9mByI6-bHmTh6HJ6jtDqT9g8PAmzC4HUDiFpQ8wzdtqP5WqxbmaXn7rCQPwNxdykXQEaU_7VTJkVHsb2brKfY/w225-h282/thething.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><u>1953</u></div><div><b>The Arctic</b> (again)-The US Air Force responded to a call from Polar Expedition Six about the crash of an unknown aircraft. ASE agents Peterson, Graham, and Captain America accompanied. It was discovered that the downed aircraft was in fact an alien spaceship. The ship was accidentally destroyed, but the ship’s frozen occupant, presumed dead, was brought back to the research station. The alien thawed out and immediately began killing mammalian life in order to devour its primary food source: blood. Dr. Arthur Carrington, Nobel laureate and lead researcher at the polar station, determined that the alien was a form of plant-based life and demanded that “The Thing” (for lack of a better term) be captured for study. Captain Kenneth Tobey, commanding officer of the military expedition, rejected the proposal due to obvious security concerns. After a fierce battle with Captain America, the alien made its way inside the outpost. Dr. Carrington attempted to reason with the alien, but was killed. The alien was at last destroyed by electricity.</div><div>Ned “Scotty” Scott, a journalist who accompanied the detachment, radioed the story along with a warning to “Keep watching the skies!” This transmission never made it to the newswire thanks to interference by ASE. Scott and Tobey, however, were recruited into the organization, with a keen eye on Scott’s ability to manage public information. </div><div>This incident prompted a subdivision to form in ASE. The objective for this group was to confront possible extraterrestrial threats. Primary agents in this task force were Arthur Dales, Bill Mulder, and Carl Busch, the latter never giving his colleagues his actual name. This led to him simply being known as “The Cigarette Smoking Man” due to his three-pack-a-day-habit. Calling their subgroup “The X-Files,” these agents retrieved pieces of the alien’s destroyed ship. A computer was eventual salvaged and restarted. It contained numerous intelligence on terrestrial atomic weapons as well as data on Godzilla, the mantis, and giant ants. The three agents also confiscated all of Dr. Carrington’s analysis of the alien. This would become invaluable later.</div><div>(Film sources: <i>The Thing From Another World, The X-Files</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7A6gnzdhj2_kVdJAiFHBMlTA4xnIsUJaXTOJJ5vucSOXhIwRELlB6G7W7Zo5uf5LlwBbnFIGGA3JfKhqdNfmOQ-oygN4mGARHa1_lrfyS-n8TLkQScVN8RKL_gt7atKzbVAchPdMP5dd/s772/SPACE.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="772" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7A6gnzdhj2_kVdJAiFHBMlTA4xnIsUJaXTOJJ5vucSOXhIwRELlB6G7W7Zo5uf5LlwBbnFIGGA3JfKhqdNfmOQ-oygN4mGARHa1_lrfyS-n8TLkQScVN8RKL_gt7atKzbVAchPdMP5dd/w278-h207/SPACE.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b>Arizona</b>-A small town seemed to lose its mind. Local resident John Putnam and a schoolteacher named Ellen Fields blamed it on a crashed spaceship and its mind-controlling occupant. ASE took statements and noted that an extraterrestrial presence appeared to be growing on Earth. To keep pace with the growing threat, ASE recruited a scientist named Dr. Clayton Forrester into the fold.</div><div>(Film source: <i>It Came From Outer Space, War of the Worlds</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><u>1954</u></div><div><b>Los Angeles, CA</b>-Two scientists construct a robot named “Tobor” designed to take the place of human astronauts in space travel, thus presumably saving human lives. Tobor was briefly stolen by enemy agents (presumed Soviet), but the robot prevailed with the assistance of Commando Cody.</div><div>(Film source: <i>Tobor the Great</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKeY8ncMkfEUOTpVcObO8Oa5pTUKxjcCnzchxOs6KvmXBuGXmaISafFulbzYP_A9BH3ZtqoPs6p0tWdoRKsCi768MX2-XMr8pUXWTavSa98Dgoa_O4IGq3hTVnWaXIne2vemiSnjeEOg-f/s1200/The-Blob-1958.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKeY8ncMkfEUOTpVcObO8Oa5pTUKxjcCnzchxOs6KvmXBuGXmaISafFulbzYP_A9BH3ZtqoPs6p0tWdoRKsCi768MX2-XMr8pUXWTavSa98Dgoa_O4IGq3hTVnWaXIne2vemiSnjeEOg-f/w296-h167/The-Blob-1958.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><u>1955</u></div><div><b>Pennsylvania</b>-An object fell from space outside a rural town. Later, two teenagers found an elderly man with a strange, purple, jelly-like substance. The youths took the man to a local doctor, but the old man was consumed by the growing “blob.” The blob would have devoured the entire town if not for the quick thinking of local high school students. There were two main outcomes from this incident. Teenager Steve Andrews became ASE’s youngest recruit because Indrid Cold “liked the cut of his jib” and said he could “really handle himself.” Secondly, ASE scientists and investigators came to suspect that the “blob” was an alien weapon covertly dropped on Earth.</div><div>(Film source: <i>The Blob</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><u>1957</u></div><div><b>Mexico</b>-Yet another object fell from space, this time splashing down in the Pacific off the coast of Mexico. An enormous alien robot rose from the ocean and came ashore, absorbing all energy sources it encountered. The news media dubbed the robot “Kronos” for reasons unknown. ASE responded to threat as its scientists determined that bombarding Kronos with nuclear ions would reverse its polarity. This worked and Kronos fell to pieces. ASE collected the fragments and began to reverse engineer the device. Despite the work of Ned Scott and Race Bannon, it becomes more difficult for ASE to conceal the alien threat.</div><div>(Film source: <i>Kronos</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKN0Hl1NNb1HWv12UcbgG0iVtnnjz92-cVM4HwYUl8caAXhCw70_sGyoAbC26kzCUkWrXq0jQZ09MN3HFzBc0FCi97tC5bYdISQQ6HsZwIgOHGbuxVwfLd-k26-ZfopYXJl49B1dSTQMp/s640/day.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKN0Hl1NNb1HWv12UcbgG0iVtnnjz92-cVM4HwYUl8caAXhCw70_sGyoAbC26kzCUkWrXq0jQZ09MN3HFzBc0FCi97tC5bYdISQQ6HsZwIgOHGbuxVwfLd-k26-ZfopYXJl49B1dSTQMp/w296-h222/day.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><br /><u><br /></u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><u>1958</u></div><div><b>Washington D.C</b>.-All efforts of ASE and its “X-Files” to cover up alien visitation on Earth are negated when a flying saucer landed on the White House lawn. A human-looking alien named Klaatu met with ASE scientists to warn that human experimentation with nuclear weapons has garnered attention in the galaxy. If the human race did not agree to abandon the nuclear arms race for the sake of its own existence and prosperity, then other civilizations may regard humanity as a threat and wipe the face of the Earth clean. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was onboard with the idea, but said the Soviets would never agree, so it was judged as a non-starter. Klaatu departed for his home planet, but not before imparting the ominous threat, “Beware. They’re coming.”</div><div>(Film source: <i>The Day the Earth Stood Still</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_uyUvxiROVDUIkMzrC8LaMVMJwIwP5GUyL7lKErgO9E91nz4NZk2Hpg3sZegOq8GvZiLtx38F4BnbUck07su0UA4PSB-WmA3cjQUwnH9w4XJtdPriIOoJXRxJag2FqB6tOpM0tJ8Nred/s295/wotw.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="295" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_uyUvxiROVDUIkMzrC8LaMVMJwIwP5GUyL7lKErgO9E91nz4NZk2Hpg3sZegOq8GvZiLtx38F4BnbUck07su0UA4PSB-WmA3cjQUwnH9w4XJtdPriIOoJXRxJag2FqB6tOpM0tJ8Nred/w281-h163/wotw.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><u>1959</u></div><div><b>WORLDWIDE CONFLAGRATION </b></div><div>Earth was invaded.</div><div>Cylinders dropped from the sky all over the world. These cylinders disgorged hovering war machines armed with heat rays. Blobs, just like the kind encountered in rural Pennsylvania in 1955, plopped into major cities. Additionally, giant ants, just like the kind encountered in New Mexico in 1951, attacked heavily populated areas for the first time. Drs. Medford determined that these ants were under the control of the alien invaders. Mind control, just as seen in Arizona in 1953, was brought to bear as a weapon against humanity as the alien invaders created small armies of zombified humans. Captain America and Race Bannon fought these brainwashed citizens in the streets. Commando Cody struck the alien war machines from skies with mixed success. Response from the world’s militaries was swift, but ineffective as weapons such as tanks and jet fighters disintegrated when hit by alien heat rays. Not even the atomic bomb made any difference. As broadcaster Ned Scott noted, “it was the rout of humanity.”</div><div><br /></div><div>The tide of the war turned in the Pacific when the aliens awoke another Godzilla to do their bidding. Godzilla was not interested and turned his destructive force on the aliens. ASE agents, armed with experimental laser guns and commanding robot armies based on the designs of Tobor and Kronos, brought down war machines. Race Bannon single-handedly killed one of the aliens. He brought the corpse to ASE scientists, led by Dr. Clayton Forrester, in a makeshift lab built in the California hills after the loss of ASE HQ when Los Angeles. One breakthrough occurred at this lab when the aliens’ language was deciphered by Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones. Then analysis of the alien body found it to be identical the alien encountered in the Arctic in 1953. Using the notes of the late Dr. Carrington, ASE scientists developed a bioweapon against the aliens and dispersed it widely. The aliens abandoned Earth after many of them were felled by the virus, “the tiniest weapon ever known to man.”</div><div>Though victorious, humans faced a difficult situation. Over one million died and many more were injured, whole cities needed rebuilding, and we still had giant ants. What’s more, Godzilla still lurked somewhere in the oceanic depths. And rumors began to fly about a giant, pterodactyl-like creature that rose out of Japanese volcano. In its own significant blow, ASE came to learn that sometime during the war, Indrid Cold had disappeared.</div><div>(Film source: <i>War of the Worlds</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div><u>Addendum</u></div><div>Arthur Dales believed there was far more weirdness out there than ASE was investigating. He left ASE, went into journalism, and changed his name to "Carl Kolchak."</div><div>(Film source: <i>Kolchak the Nightstalker</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div>So there it is. The skeleton of a shared universe. A lot of grist for the mill, and plenty of nooks and crannies to fill in, but for now…I had fun. </div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Follow me on Twitter: @JntweetsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-19162573656889569842019-11-21T11:32:00.001-08:002019-11-21T11:32:42.906-08:00This is the year of Blade Runner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Figured I needed to get this <i>Blade Runner</i> post in while there's still a week left in the month.<br />
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November, 2019. As depicted above, that was temporal setting for one of my favorite films of all time, <i>Blade Runner</i>, based on the novella "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick. Thus, the movie is now about the present.<br />
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Maybe it always was.<br />
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So strange to think it is now November 2019, particularly when I remember my first viewing of <i>Blade Runner</i> sometime circa 1984. My young eyes and mind could not appreciate the depth and grandeur at the time. I thought it slow, boring, and most obtuse, but visually captivating. Oddly, my love for the movie grew in a snowball effect only after it was viewed in connection to multiple other texts (Derrida, I hope you're reading, because you were right...of course I would never argue otherwise).<br />
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A couple years after seeing the movie for the first time, I became a devotee of the short-lived ABC TV series, <i>Max Headroom</i>.<br />
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The show took place in a dystopian future where TV networks ruled the world. The character of "Max", while omnipresent in the series was also somewhat peripheral, allowing interesting plotlines to arise from supporting characters. I loved the show (still do) and began to recognize that I had seen a few of its aspects before. Like <i>Blade Runner</i>, the sun never seemed to shine in <i>Max</i> and everyone and everything operated under this oppressive atmosphere of weight. In my first months of undergrad, I would learn that this atmosphere and its accompanying generic motifs had a name.<br />
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Cyberpunk.<br />
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At my friend Chris' blog, <a href="https://dorkland.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-life-with-cyberpunk-gaming.html"><b>Dorkland!</b></a>, he does a fine job of explaining what that genre means, so I'll leave you to read it at the link. It was through Chris and the role-playing game, <i><a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2013/01/cyberpunk-2077.html"><b>Cyberpunk 2020</b></a></i> (odd yet again that next year will be the projected setting for that game) that I would be introduced to the wide range of books and films that fall under this umbrella category. Chris, in what he will no doubt eternally lord over me, introduced me to my most favorite writer, <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2010/09/meeting-man.html"><b>William Gibson</b></a>. "If you want cyberpunk, you need to read its foremost author," Chris said, or something to that effect. I read <i>Neuromancer </i>and then <i>Count Zero</i> and the rest, as they say, is history.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLAZB1_LjI3bJcI9-tuycceqR-q1tE1wrUxhpKIjBqAjneVUhzFqW5Qj-1JKgGKKqykhWapc2tEArZubkwRb7EImfG6Av1n06N0-caIDSp1sfCMMecg0O0WHEp_VxXZYIprI4mJIMzqe5d/s1600/d07d898aa4995194611b785bb336b6d3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1600" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLAZB1_LjI3bJcI9-tuycceqR-q1tE1wrUxhpKIjBqAjneVUhzFqW5Qj-1JKgGKKqykhWapc2tEArZubkwRb7EImfG6Av1n06N0-caIDSp1sfCMMecg0O0WHEp_VxXZYIprI4mJIMzqe5d/s400/d07d898aa4995194611b785bb336b6d3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Art by Liang Mark</span><br />
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Throughout my early 20-something deep dive into cyberpunk, I kept seeing the obvious connections to <i>Blade Runner</i>. In fact, William Gibson is said to have left a showing of the movie in deep distress. So much of what he portrayed in his book <i>Neuromancer </i>he saw depicted on the screen. He thought Hollywood had beaten him to the punch. But Gibson went on to do just fine, publishing numerous short stories in <i>Omni </i>and long line of books. It was <i>Blade Runner</i>, though, that took its time cultivating an audience. It was something a box office flop, but people like me gathered as a cult following and the film eventually came to be regarded as a classic.<br />
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Here in the actual November 2019, many are publishing articles of what the film got wrong and got right. Those "gotcha" pieces seem to satisfy a pesky need for people to crow, "Ha ha! Science fiction doesn't get it all right!" Of course it doesn't. Gibson said as much when I heard him speak in 2010.<br />
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"I'm surprised how often we [science fiction writers] get it wrong. There were no cellphones in <i>Neuromancer</i>," he said.<br />
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There weren't any in <i>Blade Runner</i> either. Neither Philip K. Dick, nor Ridley Scott, nor most anyone else involved foresaw the omnipresent connection of technology in the way we would have now. We also don't have Replicants, artificial constructs that mimic humans in most every way and only an empathy test can help tell the difference. This of course is probably the biggest disparity between real life and the 2019 of <i>Blade Runner</i>, but give it time as <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2017/11/she-has-citizenship-now-she-wants-baby.html"><b>we're getting close</b>.</a> Still waiting on the flying car, but we're <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/03/dude-wheres-my-flying-car.html"><b>getting there as well</b></a>.<br />
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So what did it "get right"? Well, voice-responsive technology is one check mark in the "got it" column. Image scanning and manipulation is another, even if it's not quite to the degree shown in Deckard's apartment. I'm going to guess going by the incessant rainfall in the film that there was a serious climate shift. The warmer air holds more moisture and the rain just keeps coming. It's also probably an acid rain, given the sheer amount of pollutants belched into the air by stacks in the film. We've taken steps to curb acid rain, but there is no doubt that our climate is changing in real life.<br />
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Corporations also dominate the world of <i>Blade Runner</i>. The Tyrell Corporation, manufacturer of Replicants and no doubt many other "must-have" products, operates above and outside the law, wielding influence over much and greeted with shrugs of "that's the free market." It's a paradise for Libertarians and a dystopia for everyone else. The gulf between the haves and the have nots is both wide and deep. Need I really draw any overt parallels between the two 2019s? When almighty business sits so high upon its lofty perch?<br />
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There is one other aspect of the movie that I believe stands out far and above all the others when compared to our 2019: people want to live authentic lives.<br />
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That sounds like a no-brainer, but I urge you to really think about it as you watch the film. The environment of <i>Blade Runner</i> is downright oppressive in economic, environmental, spiritual, atmospheric, and in many other senses. Yet people persist. They eke out livings using what is available to them, usually technology. J.F. Sebastian builds his own "family" using his skills in robotics and biotech. Scan the street scenes and pause from time to time, inferring the different ways people of the city find to survive.<br />
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In yet another connection to Gibson, this practice is evocative of one his better known quotes: "The street finds its own use for things." This is seen our time as <b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/11/photos-lasers-discontent/602263/">protesters in Chile use inexpensive laser pointers</a> </b>to confuse police drones and cameras.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo from <i>The Atlantic</i>.</span><br />
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What is amazing to me is that the people of <i>Blade Runner</i> still want to survive despite all reasons not to. I see little quality of life for the common person, I see little chance of them surmounting the draconian mechanisms which confine them to their stations, I see no room for avocations apart from vices, and yet...and yet...through either fear or courage, they persist. Perhaps as Camus suggests, they imagine Sisyphus as happy.<br />
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All of this, one may argue, is neatly encapsulated in the film's final scene. Why does Roy spare Deckard? The viewer is left only to speculate. That speculation is percolated (or spoon-fed, depending on your ethos) by Harrison Ford's noirish voiceover. Maybe in his final moments, Roy wanted life so much that he could not bear to take it from Deckard or anything else. Why am I here? How long do I have? Or as Roy perhaps less eloquently puts it to Tyrell in an earlier scene, "I want more life, fucker."<br />
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Speculation. Not all the blanks get filled. That is often the mark of great art. More to the pity of <i>Blade Runner 2049</i>, where I begged for them not to answer the questions. Unfortunately, that was but <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2017/11/film-review-blade-runner-2049.html"><b>the least of the sequel's problems.</b></a><br />
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We live in uncertain times. File that under Understatement for $100, Alex. Often I and others of a similar mind find ourselves asking just how do we continue during such an era of political and economic oppression? I don't just mean that in regard to myself, but more specifically to many others, such as the protesters in Chile...and if you don't understand why we should care about others then we really have nothing left to say to each other. Additionally, I question my own future vis-a-vis what I value and what I do. What place is there for someone of the mind in a "go into the trades" world? How do I have? How can I keep going?<br />
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Today, as in the <i>Blade Runner</i> version of 2019, there may be no way to win. But people keep going.<br />
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"It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"<br />
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I leave you with an instrumental piece by Nine Inch Nails which to me sounds most <i>Blade Runner</i>-esque.<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-2981979405864236392019-09-06T09:41:00.003-07:002019-09-06T10:00:27.320-07:00Hike for Hesed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In two weeks, I will be participating in the <a href="http://events.hesedhouse.org/site/TR?fr_id=1120&pg=entry"><b>Hike for Hesed</b></a>. This is a five mile walk to raise funds for Hesed House, the second largest
homeless shelter in Illinois.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Why am I doing this? It all starts ten years ago with
a man named Gordon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It was a chance meeting in the food court of Chicago
Union Station. I was in the city, killing time before meeting my adviser at
DePaul University. While in the Metra station, I saw CPD hustle out two
homeless men. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“They do it to me, too,” someone to the
right of me said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He sat reading a discarded newspaper. He wore a 49ers sweatshirt that had seen the better of days. I saw weathered
skin on his face, teeth a deep shade of yellow in his mouth, and detected the slightest
scent which indicated an absence of soap and deodorant. We started talking. He
told me his name was Gordon. In 2001, his wife contracted cancer. They found it
harder and harder to cover the innumerable bills that came their way, despite
their having insurance. They wiped out his 401k. They took out a second
mortgage on their house. Then the other shoe dropped.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gordon worked as a machinist at a Chicago factory. The
CEO of the business decided he could make a greater profit if he moved the
plant to Mexico. Gordon lost his job. He and his wife soon depleted their
savings. She died. He lost the house. With no other family to speak of, Gordon
went to the streets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I never forgot that chance meeting. For the ten years
since I have reflected on how we are all, in the end, subject to the capricious
whims of chance. You never, ever know how someone came into their situation, whatever it is. I am certain there are those who would greet this account with
counterclaims, such as, “He should have worked harder and saved more” or “Why didn’t
he just get another job?” To those claims, I offer yet another question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Would you say that to me?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you are reading this, then chances are you know me,
either informally through the ether of cyberspace, or as an intimate friend.
You might even be an extended family member. My point being, seriously, would
you say those things to me if I were homeless? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Because I easily could have been.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When Saint Josephs’ College closed in May of 2017, I
lost my job. As my wife has serious health conditions, I was the sole provider
for my family. I sent out hundreds of job applications and went on numerous
interviews. I ended up getting two part-time jobs, which still did not come
close to covering monthly costs of living. How did we make it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pure accident of birth. I am blessed and grateful beyond
belief to have been born to parents with both the love and the means to help my
family survive…and I do mean basic survival…for that year before I was again
blessed and acquired a wonderful, full time faculty position. If not for my parents,
my family would have been homeless. Every day I reflect on how few people have
such a safety net. I also believe that to whom much is given, much is expected. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Therefore, I must act.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are unique pathologies within our society. One
of them, I believe, stems from our pioneer times, times which disappeared well
over 150 years ago. This thinking goes: “As long as you work hard, you will make it.”
Another is a reductive equation which states wealth=virtue. If you don’t have
money, then you must be poor in character and morality as well as finances.
Thus, I concede the fact that someone out there would still have belittled me for my situation or worse, belittled someone like Gordon for his, with “You should have worked harder” or “it’s your problem.” I
posit that those harboring such an ethos are susceptible to the many myths
surrounding the human tragedy that is homelessness in America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Homeless people just don’t want to work, or if they
just got a job, they’d be fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/family_options_study.html#impact-scholarly-tab">A 2013 study from the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment</a> found that 55% of homeless had worked in the previous year. Gordon
had worked the year before I spoke to him. I worked in the first half of 2017. I
then worked two part-time jobs, just as many housing insecure people do. A
minimum wage worker <a href="https://reports.nlihc.org/oor/2014">needs to work between 69 and 174 hours a week</a> in order to
afford a two-bedroom rental.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Fighting homelessness is too expensive.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2014-05-21-os-cost-of-homelessness-orlando-20140521-story.html">A study from the Central Florida Commission onHomelessness</a> determined that subsidizing housing for people costs $10,000 per
person, per year. If left homeless, then people can cause a strain on jails,
law enforcement, hospitals, and other community services that amount to $31,000
per person, per year. If one cannot see assisting the homeless as a moral
imperative, then perhaps one might yield to the logic of numbers and finance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I am also struck by how many young people are
homeless. Last March, a student confessed to me that they were living out of
their car and were running out of cash for food. I connected this student with
campus services in order to change that situation post haste. But this student
was symptomatic of a larger and systemic plight. <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-homeless-students-20190905-u2g6xlxksvetzbyiex3gma5wxy-story.html">Yesterday’s <i>Chicago Tribune</i> reported</a> that 16,000 public school students qualify as homeless. “I felt very
embarrassed to tell people”, was a common comment from those students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Nationwide, one may see the scope, namely a 70% increase, of homelessness among school-aged children in <a href="https://www.the74million.org/1-3-million-homeless-students-new-federal-data-show-a-70-percent-jump-in-k-12-homelessness-over-past-decade-with-big-implications-for-academic-performance/">this chart:</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdpH2-qCXnRon-jD75j4cbTkuy4T2yOph_RCZLXYWvp7fmOxdKg_sO5SHyVuRwX2synaOOvZfJPFQJy-P9rvKinueKBewR72-8hShFcA0e2BiGJex8IC_Dtnjjq98xSwGXCNO2ftqo40im/s1600/homeless-report-Feb-2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="800" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdpH2-qCXnRon-jD75j4cbTkuy4T2yOph_RCZLXYWvp7fmOxdKg_sO5SHyVuRwX2synaOOvZfJPFQJy-P9rvKinueKBewR72-8hShFcA0e2BiGJex8IC_Dtnjjq98xSwGXCNO2ftqo40im/s640/homeless-report-Feb-2019.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Something must be done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That is why I like the simply stated mission of Hesed
House: “Because everyone deserves dignity.” Every human deserves the dignity of
a roof, heating or c</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">ooling, and food in their stomach.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Consider the many victories won by Hesed House:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Over 200,000 warm meals were served to people in need.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-80,766 Warm, safe nights of restful sleep were
provided.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-120 children were served over the course of the past
year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-So many people who now have jobs and their own housing via
Hesed House training and assistance programs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You may read of more successes at <a href="https://www.hesedhouse.org/about/">this link.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So that is why I am participating in Hike for Hesed.
Several of my fine colleagues at the college, along with a few of their family
members, will be joining me. Our team name is “Waubonsee Walkers.” I assure you
none of us are <i>Walking Dead</i> fans, but rather the name comes from my being
unimaginative at the time of registration. Because we’re from Waubonsee and we’re…well…<i>walking</i>.
If, howeve</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">r, you are a zombie fan and that motivates you to help, then by all
means.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I ask that you please consider <a href="http://events.hesedhouse.org/site/TR?fr_id=1120&pg=entry">sponsoring my team</a> in
this walk by making a donation of whatever you can afford. In doing so, you
will be helping so many people to change their lives. Yes, it is the moral
thing to do, but it also just makes good sense. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Everyone deserves dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Everyone deserves to feel like they matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i><b>Everyone.</b></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m going to do what I can to help make that happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Thank you all so much and take care.</div>
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-10991138574385765382019-06-11T08:23:00.000-07:002019-06-11T08:23:28.017-07:00RIP Stanton Friedman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymXuEmzzYZJlS3SaQhYvKVM8utrgTSrihiXViqZAgMd1VwIMPvl5Ehj6wkw3Xr-K2_7V0PIUM-qR5eBL88JRkLohSSOF6wAV8vTYI8mZNPvLZYTcOG3umjk8UVnUcL4E8l2PU3xEPrPM_/s1600/HAL500547615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="407" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymXuEmzzYZJlS3SaQhYvKVM8utrgTSrihiXViqZAgMd1VwIMPvl5Ehj6wkw3Xr-K2_7V0PIUM-qR5eBL88JRkLohSSOF6wAV8vTYI8mZNPvLZYTcOG3umjk8UVnUcL4E8l2PU3xEPrPM_/s320/HAL500547615.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Breaking my “blog fast” for what I consider to be
another significant news item. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/obituaries/stanton-friedman-dead.html">Stanton Friedman died on May 13<sup>th</sup>.</a> </b>I know
it’s one month since then, but end of semester grading and seemingly endless
amounts distractions at home have kept me from marking this sad passing on the
blog. That is to my own shame and disappointment, but I hope to make up for it
now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Who was Stanton Friedman? He was someone who spent his
life, in one manner or another, investigating. I once latched on to the
conclusions of his investigations with a wholehearted embrace. Then I came to
disagree with him. But I never once lost respect or admiration for him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Friedman was a nuclear physicist who at one point
worked on projects like nuclear-powered aircraft and rockets. He left all that
behind in the early 1970s to pursue full-time his own research into alleged UFO
cases, particularly<b> <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/11/why-ufos-part-4-they-know-that-we-know.html">Roswell</a></b>. In undertaking what would end up becoming a
lifetime endeavor, Friedman approached ufology, it seems to me anyway, in three
ways. First, he wanted to lift what he called “the laughter curtain” from the
subject, so that UFOs might be openly discussed without fear of ridicule.
Second, if the taint of automatic ridicule could be removed, Friedman made the
modest proposal that each case could then be fairly evaluated on its own merits
or lack thereof. Third, inquiries into these cases should by conducted
according to the scientific method (would you expect anything less from a
physicist?) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All of this I saw in Friedman when he first came to my
notice on a program about UFOs back in my teens. He was not a hippy-dippy New
Ager sleeping in a crystal pyramid, and any certainly was not like any of the
“Rockstar Ufologists” we have today, bringing us nothing but <br />"UFOtainment” on the History Channel. No. Friedman was scientist. He was level-headed,
thoughtful, articulate, and while he did believe that extraterrestrial beings
were visiting Earth, he believed they accounted for only a small percentage of
UFO sightings while the remainder were mis-identifications and mundanity. He
was, however, something of a conspiracy theorist. Often Friedman would use the
phrase “cosmic Watergate” to describe what he believed to be the government’s
concealment of alien contact. The first book of his that I read, <i><a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2010/10/book-review-top-secretmajic.html"><b>Top Secret/MAJIC</b></a></i>, was a deep dive into and
a thoroughly-reasoned examination of this cover-up conducted by the shadowy
figures known as “Majestic 12.” You can read my review of it here from
wayyyyyyy back when I first started ESE. The book even included the infamous
“SOM01-01” manual, an apparent field guide for covert operatives handling UFO
crashes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Since then I’ve read much that strongly suggests these
documents leaked to Don Berliner, one of Friedman’s writing and research
partners, were fakes. Friedman continued to hold to his argument that true UFOs
are extraterrestrial in origin and they are in fact “nuts and bolts”
spacecraft. As you dear readers know, I can’t accept that and I’ve only grown
more and more skeptical of UFO claims. I am certainly not a believer in the
so-called <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-deep-state-it-was-funny-for-little.html"><b>“Deep State”</b></a> and many other conspiracy theories or that “disclosure”
is on the way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And despite my disagreements, I still held nothing but
respect for Friedman. He was no “true believer” and would call out cases he
thought were weak and people he thought were questionable (I’m thinking of his
take on Bob Lazar.) He possessed a keen insight on the effect UFO phenomena was
having on society and media, an effect that remains real and palpable
regardless of the nature of the phenomena. More than anything, I think Friedman
just wanted the truth. As the field (if you can call it that) of ufology grows
more and more overrun by YouTubers, rock stars, and glitzy reality TV
personalities, the more difficult it will be to arrive at that truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If there does happen to be any scrap of validity in
UFO phenomena…and there just might be…it will take people like Stanton Friedman
to find it. Sadly, he is gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And he will be missed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-41707734365834309432019-04-11T14:08:00.000-07:002019-04-11T14:08:02.246-07:00Our first look at a black hole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrf2Yg-jF1wkuFEM_CBfRQeyb9uoDAOe2Tlsk-shJU0XoURdT9pnvDES_RKpSidebHsKjWF6WzOnGULI78nich_idyQSf98SuvB5MAtR6xb9CYLkZWzgQLXgMPUMTRFUdMYL_IxAdj2KQ/s1600/A-Consensus_f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="350" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrf2Yg-jF1wkuFEM_CBfRQeyb9uoDAOe2Tlsk-shJU0XoURdT9pnvDES_RKpSidebHsKjWF6WzOnGULI78nich_idyQSf98SuvB5MAtR6xb9CYLkZWzgQLXgMPUMTRFUdMYL_IxAdj2KQ/s400/A-Consensus_f.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from the National Science Foundation.</span></i><br />
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<br />
So I said I would break my blogging sabbatical if something big happened.<br />
<br />
Well, it has.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, in a series of press conferences around the world, astronomers and other space scientists announced that we at last <a href="https://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298276"><b>have an image of an actual black hole.</b></a> The image was obtained by specifically linking together a series radio telescopes located around the Earth, an effort called Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The black hole pictured is located in the M87 galaxy near the Virgo galaxy cluster, about 55 million light-years from Earth. As predicted by Einstein's general relativity theory, the picture depicts a dark, empty region in the center and a glow of superheated gas and matter being drawn in by the hole's immense gravity.<br />
<br />
I honestly didn't think I would see this in my lifetime. When I heard last week that this news would be released, yesterday morning had a certain "Christmas morning" feeling to it.<br />
<br />
There's something very human about this news. For a long while now, black holes were something astronomer's believed in, but never saw. Now when I say "believed in," I don't mean that in necessarily a "leap of faith" sense. The mathematics were there, the gravitational effects on nearby stars were there, but we just didn't have the means to see a black hole with our eyes. To see what we always sensed was there, to view it in the most tangible means available, answers so many questions for us. While at the same time, it raises just as many others. Ain't that existence, though?<br />
<br />
Additionally, as we go through a time of what looks like great division, it's nice to remember that humans of many nations can still do great things when we work together. One motivation for such behavior is studying the universe...something that is certainly bigger than any of us or all of us put together.<br />
<br />
So, yeah. I'm loving this.<br />
<br />
By the by, if you're loving it too, then thank <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47891902"><b>Dr. Katie Bouman</b></a> for the discovery. Her keen mathematical alacrity came up with the algorithm that helped make the EHT possible. Let's hear it for more women in STEM making great contributions to humanity.<br />
<br />
Sure wish <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/03/stephen-hawking-in-memorium.html"><b>Stephen Hawking</b></a> had been here to see this picture. Well, I like to think he saw it before any of the rest of us did.<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-469334848666348652019-03-01T11:38:00.000-08:002019-03-04T07:15:38.016-08:00So my Ancestry DNA results are in...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMsLcWPu0x2rTCe0RlJiXlDGHGxOuYLHA6CeRu5l4gTfjKNuCyMjyu5t2SSElp4ada3eqkPxsGdRrPOkH1s_6ns7Qp6ICaJ3himk-unRyJcSDBd3c6nOc0D_E0II1TASWfzPo7b3fkWeq/s1600/180096.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="1280" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMsLcWPu0x2rTCe0RlJiXlDGHGxOuYLHA6CeRu5l4gTfjKNuCyMjyu5t2SSElp4ada3eqkPxsGdRrPOkH1s_6ns7Qp6ICaJ3himk-unRyJcSDBd3c6nOc0D_E0II1TASWfzPo7b3fkWeq/s640/180096.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
Always living so close to Chicago, I would marvel at the wild revelries of Irish descendants on St. Patrick's Day. In the city one April, I stood in curious wonder at a parade celebrating Polish pride.<br />
<br />
I say "marvel" and "wonder" because I've never had a really good sense of my ancestors' origins. Truth to tell, it never made that much difference in my family and for most of my life, I didn't see it as significant. I would look at the above mentioned groups of people and think, "I wonder what it's like to have such a large portion of your identity immersed in origins?" Marrying a woman who is half Greek only furthered this mixture of bewilderment and detached rumination.<br />
<br />
Then last Christmas, my wife got me and her parents Ancestry DNA kits. For the uninitiated, it involves spitting into a vial which is then filled with a purple, preservative fluid. You mail off the tube, the folks at corporate process it, and then they send a full report to your Ancestry DNA app (or email, if that's more your speed.) Two weeks ago or so, I received my results, my "DNA story" as it were. My reaction to it was...unexpected.<br />
<br />
Here's the breakdown:<br />
<br />
-46% of me is from England, Wales, and Scotland.<br />
-40% of me is from Ireland (specifically Connacht) and the western section of Scotland.<br />
-12% of me is from "Germanic Europe".<br />
<br />
Based on that DNA "map", the assessment painted a fairly accurate physical portrait of myself without ever having seen me. The report stated, and rightly so, that I have pale skin, blue eyes, and thick, wavy hair. The only part it was askance on was that my hair color was likely light, whereas it's actually a dark brown. Good news? I am unlikely to ever go bald. It also said that I like cilantro...which I do.<br />
<br />
Now if you've done the math, you'll notice that 2% still remains in my DNA makeup. That remainder ended up being something of a shock to me.<br />
<br />
-2% Viking.<br />
<br />
Now anyone who knows me in real life would look at my slender hips, thin wrists, and ant-like arms and think, "Viking. Sure. First thing I think of." That is a point of view I can certainly understand. Just the same however, I have gotten a particular kick out of proclaiming...and I apologize...<br />
"I'm a fucking VIKING!"<br />
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<br />
It's given me a sort of odd sense of confidence, even to get through normal, day-to-day challenges. Now that is, of course, purely psychological. I am not any different today than I was the day before I received the results. Yet I cannot help but reflect on that 86% of me that comes from the British Isles, particularly it would seem, Scotland.<br />
<br />
Throughout my life, I've been an anglophile. Almost all of my favorite music, writers, and much of the film and television I enjoy come from the many cultures of those lands. In my youth I would see pictures of the English countryside, the Irish coast, and the Scottish Highlands and feel an odd sense of connection, like something was reaching out of the photo and yanking me back...home. Could there be something encoded at the DNA level, embedded deep in me somewhere, that instinctively brought about that connection? Then again, is it just because of what was popular during my "coming of age years"? Both, perhaps?<br />
<br />
That Scottish aspect though...it has me thinking...<br />
<br />
One of my all-time favorite films is <i>Braveheart</i>. Not only do I own the DVD, if I happen to see it's playing on TV, I will stop and watch it no matter where it happens to be in the narrative.<br />
<br />
DIGRESSION-<br />
<br />
Let me address two things:<br />
<br />
1. I am aware of the derision Mel Gibson has received in recent years, and it is not undeserving. Since I like several of his films, I must now place him with others such as H.P. Lovecraft, Roman Polanski, and Bill Cosby: artists and entertainers who despite having said and done terrible things, I still can't help but enjoy their writing. My relationship with their texts is...problematic to say the least.<br />
<br />
2. Were I to be teaching a class on medieval history, the only reason I would ever show <i>Braveheart</i> is so that students could pick out all of the historical inaccuracies. This is fraught with issues for a writer like me who takes the phrase "based on a true story" quite seriously, and that's even with the allowances one must accord an nonfiction writer. In summation, I'm never watching this film as a historical text. As for my views on literary nonfiction, in this case I'm afraid I must exercise my right to hypocritize myself.<br />
<br />
That said, allow me to proceed...<br />
<br />
<i>Braveheart</i>, even if ficitonalized, is the story of a man and a people who stood up and said "NO" to their oppressors. The clans of the Highlands said to tyrants, "You will take no more. You will grind us down no more. We will fight for our land. We will take back what is ours."<br />
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As it is with so much in recent years, I cannot help but think of my experience at <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2017/09/yes-im-writing-book-about-saint-josephs.html"><b>Saint Joseph's College</b></a>. I've even alluded to a few of these thoughts and feelings in last year's post, <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/04/lost-causes.html"><b>"Lost Causes."</b></a><br />
<br />
So often during those final months at SJC, my head overruled my heart. Yes, believe it or not. I wanted to say more. I want to take bold and defiant action. Deep inside I wanted to paint half my face cardinal and the other half purple and lead my army of like-minded Pumas to take a stand and cry out "you will not take this from us!"<br />
<br />
But I didn't. I was afraid of damaging my chances at getting another job. I was servile and obsequious to people I now have no respect for, fearing that if I did otherwise I might be dismissed on the spot and lose severance and a few months of remaining insurance. I kept tergiversating, moving in a frenzied circle of wanting to act but then retreating. I kept thinking an action of the "manning the barricades" sort would surely result in making matters worse.<br />
<br />
That was my brain talking. It was similar to the response from Sir Robert the Bruce's father when The Bruce described the leadership and passion of William Wallace.<br />
<br />
"And you wish to rush off and fight with him?" the father responds with condescending laughter. "Uncompromising men are easy to admire. But it is the ability to compromise which makes a man great."<br />
<br />
It reminds of responses I received to my own expressions of pain and anger in those awful spring months of 2017. "You're being emotional, not rational. Problem solve. Be positive."<br />
<br />
How does one compromise on being treated with human dignity? How does one react to an injustice without emotion? At what point do you take the risk, against all reason if need be, and stand up to say "NO MORE." Sometimes the only reasonable choice is the unreasonable choice.<br />
<br />
I keep reflecting on Wallace's famous, perhaps now somewhat trite, speech in the film:<br />
<br />
“Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live — at least a while. And, dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance,<i> just one chance</i>, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!! Alba gu bràth!”<br />
<br />
Yes. What would I be willing to trade?<br />
<br />
I know that I can't help but feel cowardly in retrospect. While I quietly worked to support a resistance, I still wish I would have done more. Much more. What did I learn from it? That may best be expressed by Sir Robert the Bruce in the film: "I will never be on the wrong side of anything ever again."<br />
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There may be no scientific evidence for this gut feeling, but I cannot help but feel a deep connection with the Scottish people represented in my DNA mosaic. I know the same can be said of many people and many cultures, but I am the biological product of humans who saw injustice, stood up, and spat back in the faces of their enemy. My physical and emotional reactions in the first half of 2017? They were pre-ordained. They were hard-coded into my biology via the experiences of my Scottish...and maybe even Viking...ancestors, and passed along as epigenetics. They never rolled over and took it. They fought.<br />
<br />
Yes, would that I would have done more, but while linked to the past I can only control the now. That brings me to my big announcement.<br />
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You no doubt have noticed the decline in the frequency of posts from <b>ESE</b>. That has been due to my teaching five English composition classes, finishing coursework for my terminal degree, and giving my family much-needed attention. If I am to get this SJC book done, I am going to have to knuckle down and just write. After all that's what writers do. They write.<br />
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Therefore, we here at <b>ESE</b> have decided to "suspend operations" (heh! Get it?) in order to devote more attention to writing the book. I am not saying I won't pop in now and then for a post if a news development warrants it...you know, aliens land or the Singularity happens...but I really must focus on writing.<br />
<br />
So it's goodbye from <b>ESE</b>...for now.<br />
<br />
I'm off to buy a Claymore.<br />
<br />
Alba gu bràth.<br />
<br />
<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-43583544343443498512019-02-13T19:45:00.001-08:002019-02-13T20:09:55.446-08:00RIP Opportunity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
Sad news from Mars today.<br />
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An announcement came from NASA. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/opportunity-rover-nasa-mars/582691/"><b>The Opportunity rover has officially been pronounced dead.</b></a><br />
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Last June, <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/07/mars-engulfed-in-dust-storm.html"><b>a sandstorm covered the planet Mars.</b></a> It was thought that the dust covered the solar panels on Opportunity, causing it to power down. Once the storm subsided, Martian winds might blow the panels clean and the rover might once more respond to signals. Nearly 1,000 command signals were sent to Opportunity since last year. No reply ever came. After a last, longshot attempt went unanswered yesterday, NASA announced it was finally cutting off communication and pronounced the Opportunity mission "complete."<br />
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Opportunity first arrived on Mars in 2004. Since then, it has not only broadened our understanding of Mars immeasurably, its very engineering and the undertaking of the mission has granted humanity considerable experience with space exploration. Hopefully, we may parlay this experience into future endeavors and build upon it with more extensive Mars missions. And yet I feel uneasy...<br />
<br />
I must admit, I'm feeling a bit sad for the inanimate rover. You see, for as dour as I can be about our future or the tendencies of human nature, I cannot ignore achievements such as Opportunity. The mission and the research gleaned from it stand as testament to what we can do when we work together as species, particularly when we have faith in reason, science, and a dash of imagination. As a writer, I tend to sometimes see things romantically, despite my penchant for bitterness. Opportunity represents the spirit of exploration and the acquisition of knowledge about not just another planet, but our universe. "What's over there? Let's find out."<br />
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Where else in our most immediate corner of the universe has inspired more wonder and attractancy than Mars?<br />
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Sure, would have been nice if it had come across definitive evidence of life, either past or present, on Mars. I for one was hoping Opportunity just might come across a rock that was a little more than a rock, and instead an artifact from a lost civilization. I can just hear the conspiracy theorists howling, but for the now...we have no such evidence. Instead, we have piles of data collected over 14 years, that scientists in various disciplines will be chewing over for a long while to come.<br />
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You have given us so much, Opportunity. We are forever in your debt. Rest easy, little soldier. Your job is done.<br />
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Now, a planet solely populated by robots must decrement its population by one.<br />
<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-85039530658658859722019-02-07T19:15:00.002-08:002019-02-07T19:15:31.435-08:00I am being haunted by Phil Collins<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
I play music before class.<br />
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Students who have had me before know that I take requests.<br />
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"I have a song," one of my guys said yesterday. "'In the Air Tonight' by Phil Collins.<br />
<br />
After tossing my pen on the desk and rubbing the bridge of my nose, I played the song.<br />
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"Was there something else you wanted?" the student asked, taken aback by my reaction.<br />
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"No, no," I assured. "It's not that. It's not you. Let me explain my situation."<br />
<br />
I am being haunted by Phil Collins.<br />
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It started just less than one year ago. After the collapse of Saint Joseph's College and the loss of my job in 2017, I had to get by with a few part time jobs. One of them was in the Writing Center of a local university. Students would bring in their writing assignments and I would help them either begin or revise drafts as best I could. In April, a student came to me with a dilemma.<br />
<br />
She had a paper due for her Art Appreciation class. Page length was a hard maximum of four pages.<br />
<br />
This student had close to eight.<br />
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Her subject? Phil Collins. Yes, this student was a superfan of the drummer, singer, solo artist, and member of Genesis. Well in order to meet the requirements of the prompt, something we professors are kinda big on, we needed to essentially cut her paper in half.<br />
<br />
"How do we do that?" she asked.<br />
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"Well, we have to decide on what the most important moments of his life/career are and then ditch the rest," I said.<br />
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"Are you kidding me?" she asked, eyes bulging through her glasses. "It's <i>all</i> important."<br />
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We talked and wrote for over an hour after that. I argued for the significance of Phil's trans-Atlantic performance at the two Live Aid concerts. She lobbied hard for the inclusion of his starring role in the film, Buster. This was a discussion my grad work in composition/rhetoric did not prepare me for.<br />
<br />
Nor was I prepared for what followed my shift in the Writing Center.<br />
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I began to hear Phil Collins <i>everywhere</i>. Turn on the radio and I'd hear "Two Hearts" or "Invisible Touch." "Take Me Home" came across the airwaves more than a few times and the lyrics truly resonated with me as I could not help but think of Saint Joe. Everywhere I went, I seemed to hear Phil Collins. I stopped into the vet's office and heard "Billy Don't Lose My Number," which I saw as a somewhat inspired choice by the universe as that's not really one of his go-to hits. Genesis' "Land of Confusion" even made an appearance once. Then came one Sunday when I finally had enough and began to think Phil was coming at me with full force.<br />
<br />
On weekends, my wife and I enjoy listening to old Casey Kasem Top 40 countdowns on iHeartRadio. It reminds us of halcyon Sunday mornings of when we, albeit apart and unaware of one another, would listen to these countdowns, anxious to hear the number one song. Last spring, we came across one from May of 1984.<br />
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"Oh no, he's still following me," I said.<br />
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"Phil?" she asked, for I had told her of my experience.<br />
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"Yes," I said. "The number one song will be 'Against All Odds.'"<br />
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"How do you know?" she asked.<br />
<br />
Sure enough it was. From that point forward, my wife dubbed my recurring quasi-paranormal experience as "The Philnomenon." I started to fall asleep reluctantly, afraid I would jolt awake and just see Phil hovering there next to me in the dark.<br />
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There is a concept known as "synchronicity." No, not the album by The Police.<br />
<br />
Carl Jung, the famous scholar and psychologist, once described the phenomenon as "meaningful coincidences that occur with no causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related." So in a way, like attracts like. So in theory, I spent so much time thinking about Phil Collins one night that I basically drew his music to me. Jung saw this as an explanation for the paranormal, meaning the human mind manifests these odd occurrences. What we are seeing in these sightings are reflections of what we are thinking, even if subconsciously.<br />
<br />
Richard Dawkins blows all that up in his book, <i>Unbending the Rainbow.</i> According to Dawkins, these "uncanny coincidences" are woefully mundane, given the sheer amount of observations and encounters someone has during a day. It's only a matter of time before at least a few coincidences happen. Given that humans have this, at times garish, need for wonder, we attach more meaning and significance to these events than is warranted.<br />
<br />
For example, it may be that I attach extra significance to any moment I hear a Phil Collins hit (and believe me, he had a <i>lot </i>of them) because he's just a bit outside of my musical wheelhouse. If I hear Duran Duran, U2, The Cure, or Echo and the Bunnymen multiple times in a day between radio and Spotify, that says far more about my tastes than anything synchronous. Then again, as I said, Phil isn't a musician I've listened to with any real frequency, so in that regard it is a bit strange. I'm with Richard Dawkins on many things, but certainly not everything.<br />
<br />
What do I think? Is Phil Collins really haunting me? Probably not.<br />
<br />
And yet...<br />
<br />
And yet...<br />
<br />
I have to admit it's weird. Plus, there were, right around the same time as the dawning of the Philnomenon, a good many changes that manifested in my life and every one of them was for the better. I got an amazing new job at a great college with fantastic co-workers. Home life became happier. Was the Philnomenon a side effect or perhaps a symptom of these roborant vibes? Maybe.<br />
<br />
The whole thing has also made me consider just what the criteria in order to call oneself a "fan" of an artist. There are songs by Phil Collins that I think are great ("Take Me Home", "Another Day in Paradise", "Against All Odds") and others that I think all right if you're in the mood ("That's All!", "Sussudio"). Does that make me a "fan"? As I said, there are songs I certainly like, but what's the minimum count of "liked" songs before you reach the official level of "fan"? Then again, does the true definition hearken back to that of "fanatic," of which "fan" is a shortened version? I don't know much Phil Collins trivia, so that probably counts me out as a fanatic. I sure as heck couldn't write eight whole pages on him. Not with doing research on him.<br />
<br />
It's not so bad being haunted by Phil Collins. Kind of a happy feeling, really. To commemorate the Philnomenon, my wife got me the shirt that's at the top of this post. It's pretty great, but I rather like this one, you'll excuse the profanity. <br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-31199327871199928102019-01-16T19:42:00.000-08:002019-01-17T10:34:48.392-08:00The Deep State! It was funny for a little while...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
That photo above was from when I was a guest on the Three Profs and a Pitcher podcast.<br />
<br />
It was a bright moment before the dark times, before the end of SJC. We talked about conspiracy theories and the people who believe in them. I spoke extensively on the subject of <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2011/11/dulce-still-in-dulce.html"><b>Dulce</b></a>, which was occupying my writing and research time, again before the fall of SJC and my change in thesis direction. In a tongue-in-cheek gesture we donned, as you can see, tinfoil hats to block out the signals supposedly being beamed into our brains by the government or the aliens or whoever. A good time was had by all and as I have for many years, I enjoyed discussing conspiracy theory through the prism of rhetoric and narrative construction.<br />
<br />
Lately, I've been thinking about the more dangerous side of conspiracy theories...and I'm troubled.<br />
<br />
In recent weeks, more than one person has told me the same story and both did so with all earnestness and sincerity. These were intelligent, decently-educated people. Their vision of the world goes something like this:<br />
<br />
"There is a globalist cabal secretly orchestrating a New World Order. Aiding in these efforts are a 'Deep State'--a US government within the US government--journalists (or the more derisive "MSM"), scientists, and higher education. Along with the Moose Lodge, this vast conspiracy is keeping alien contact a secret from the public at-large. But they can't for much longer. Disclosure is coming..."<br />
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<br />
Okay, so I made up the part about the Moose Lodge, but there's still so much to unpack in that claim.<br />
<br />
Normally, I'd love it. It has all the narrative elements of what makes James Bond and <i>The X-Files</i> so good. It's also understandable why someone might think these otherwise outlandish things. This world is an unfair and unkind place where bad things often happen for no reason. Or there may be a reason, but you are powerless in the face of it. Believing that happenings are secretly organized against you, or even the whole public at-large, begins to make a kind of sense. After a time, one may even feel a sense of comfort in it. It's a form of screaming back into the dark, impenetrable void of the absurdity of existence. Of course things aren't working out. "They" are all against you. There is a populism in such a philosophy.<br />
<br />
No one embraces populism more than Donald Trump. He has even openly claimed that there is a "Deep State", mostly composed of the intelligence-gathering apparatuses of the government, working against him. Last year at this time, Senator Ron Johnson, the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman mind you, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-fbi-blame-samsung-for-loss-of-strzok-page-texts-as-secret-society-details-emerge"><b>went on Fox News</b></a> and alerted all Americans that a "secret society" that includes the FBI is lurking about.<br />
<br />
The problem of course is that this is beyond impractical. Political scientist Joseph Uscinski is an academic (oh no!) who has spent considerable time studying conspiracy theories and why the vast majority are implausible. Here's a mental activity to help illustrate just why that is.<br />
<br />
Think of your favorite rock band. Got them in mind? Good.<br />
Now, are they still together? If they are still together, are they still the original line up of members? Unless you are thinking of U2 or another rarity, the answer to one of those questions is very likely "no." That's because people can't seem to work together for extended periods of time. Eventually, differences in philosophy and personality cause paths to diverge. Same goes for government as people regularly leave administrations. The current administration appears to excel at this very phenomenon.<br />
<br />
Point being, the so-called "Deep State" would require an enormous amount of people to perpetuate. In time, someone or more likely multiple someones, would walk away and talk. Dr. David Grimes is a physicist at Oxford University (oh no!) who mathematically computed just how long it would take for most conspiracy theories to unravel due to the amount of people involved. For example: Moon landing hoax? 3.7 years. There's secretly a cure for cancer? 3.2 years. <br />
<br />
Despite this reasoning, we have a president and a senior member of the Senate promulgating claims of "secret societies" and "the Deep State", claims few, if any, political leaders would previously have made. When conspiracy theory is passed off as fact by high-ranking officials, I tend to see a problem.<br />
<br />
This problem is compounded by the denunciation of journalism, or "the MSM" the conspiracy adherents term it, as "enemies of the people." That's how we end up with people like Robert Chain.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/08/30/fbi-man-threatened-shoot-boston-globe-staff-calling-them-enemy-people/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6c65aa53d25d"><b>Chain was arrested by the FBI</b></a> and charged with threatening journalists at <i>The Boston Globe</i>, leaving voicemail messages such as "You're the enemy of the people, and we're going to kill every f-king one of you. Why don't you call Mueller, maybe he can help you out."<br />
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Journalists. Scientists. Academics. The FBI. Those who work in those disciplines and organizations are among the most fact-driven people in our society. To be skeptical and look for bias is one thing. Any student of rhetoric will tell you that no writing or communication of any kind is possible without at least the smallest taint of bias. To accuse them of collusion in specious conspiracies and label them as "enemies of the people" however, can obviously have dangerous consequences. While I do try to avoid Godwin's Law and <i>agrumentum ad Hitlerum</i>, I can't help but see parallels between these claims and the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth"><b>stabbed in the back</b></a>" myth. Yes, I just linked to Wikipedia, which I also don't like to do, but it has a political cartoon from the 1930s which brings the subject into vivid clarity.<br />
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This conspiracy theory stated that Germany lost World War I not because of the Allies' superior military prowess, but because of sabotage at home by Jews and other treasonous undesirables. Nazis were able to implement this falsehood to stir up populist fervor and lead people to do unspeakable things. Bear in mind that Nazi leadership also believed in the Hollow Earth conspiracy. What then was Nazism if not a conspiracy theory run loose to a point where it swept up a nation and millions died?<br />
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No, we're not there yet. I think I'd like to avoid it just the same, though.<br />
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The milder aspect of the worldview presented to me is that of "alien disclosure."<br />
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It's obviously no secret I have a strong interest in UFOs. This interest stems mainly from my fascination with how people construct narratives and rhetorical meaning out of the phenomenon. While I am quite skeptical, I still see a small percentage of cases, maybe around 4%, that have no easy explanation and that may indeed require an answer with extraordinary implications. The extraterrestrial hypothesis is <i>one</i> of those possible implications, but I see it as a remote one.<br />
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To paraphrase my would-be television alter-ego: "I want to believe...but hard evidence has proven elusive."<br />
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Since life has knocked me from my high horse plenty of times in recent years, I have stopped mocking people if they do happen to be UFO "true believers." You never know what's going on in someone's life and that hobby or interest you find laughable might just be the only thing keeping them glued together. Derision is not only unnecessary, it's just plain unkind.<br />
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In fact, it might be something in the same vein as mocking someone's religion. I would be far from the first to compare UFOs with religion. Many who have had sightings or other experiences with UFOs are said to come away with a profound spiritual awakening. This is understandable. Their experience, even if probably explainable through any number of prosaic occurrences, has given them a glimpse of "the other." They received a taste of the ethereal, something fantastic, a connection to something greater than our humdrum lives and something that might just give meaning to our otherwise absurd and random existence.<br />
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Doesn't that sound like religion?<br />
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For years in Catholic mass, I spoke the words, "And He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His Kingdom shall have no end." Is that or "the rapture" really any different than UFO enthusiasts crying, "One day there will be Disclosure and the 'space people' will show up, twinkle their little almond eyes, and everything will be fine"?<br />
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Most of the time it's a harmless enough "religious" belief, except in cases such as the <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2011/09/heavens-not-in-tail-of-comet.html"><b>Heaven's Gate cult</b></a>. I've noticed however, how often UFO enthusiasts are also proponents of New World Order, Illuminati, Deep State conspiracy theories. Michael Barkun of Syracuse University (oh no!) has even likened this substrata of UFO enthusiast to fundamentalist religious zealots. It's a sort of "populist intellectualism." What happens, however, if these beliefs, such as "the Deep State", are granted validation from authority figures? Then the day the UFO devotee wants most, the day of Disclosure, is kept barricaded from them by secret societies, with the "MSM" and science itself complicit in the act. Therefore, shun all "mainstream media" and instead stay informed by some guy blogging out of his basement, with none of the text given peer review or even editorial scrutiny.<br />
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(Note: I am fully aware of the irony of my having just written that in a blog post, but I certainly don't try to pass myself off as harboring any "secret truth." No "files on the secret space program" around here.)<br />
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That, I believe, is a cocktail for an even deeper populist anti-intellectualism in this nation, a misplaced distrust of several of its most necessary institutions, and perhaps consequences far more horrendous than any of that.<br />
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Naturally, the conspiracy counterargument to all I have written might be a derisory cry that I'm "an ivory tower egghead" who has been "brainwashed by the MSM" in a "liberal indoctrination camp" (read "university") and that I'm "just one of the sheeple."<br />
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Given the alternative and its dark potential, I can live with that.<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-78800175563220083612019-01-09T18:47:00.002-08:002019-01-09T18:47:25.925-08:00Three big stories we're following<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from the NY Post.</span></i><br />
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Well, one big story and two pretty interesting ones.<br />
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And by "we," I mean the editorial desks here at <b>ESE</b>.<br />
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Which pretty much means just me. Anyway, here's what I've found fascinating lately.<br />
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The first story comes from the realm of transportation. Hyundai announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the organization is developing <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/hyundai-walking-car-elevate-concept-ces/"><b>a walking car</b></a>. You read that correctly. Why would anyone ever require such a vehicle? Besides the fact that it would look really cool? Additionally, if "cool" is a deciding factor, wouldn't you much rather have one that <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/03/dude-wheres-my-flying-car.html"><b>flies</b></a>?<br />
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If you can't have flight, then the walking car would still allow you to travel where other cars cannot. Floodwaters? No big deal anymore...not such a bad feature as sea levels rise. Streets strewn with concrete rubble? No problem...again, not such a bad feature as who knows where the hell our current situation is taking us. Plus, Hyundai claims this car will even be able to walk up stairs should you need it to. We'll see where this goes.<br />
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Reminds of when my friend George once bought a jeep and he developed a new philosophy of curbs: "F--k 'em."<br />
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Our next story is about <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172134/nasa-tess-exoplanet-hunter-spacecraft-hd-21749b-solar-system"><b>NASA's new TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) satellite</b></a> already being hard at work. TESS was launched last April with the mission of taking over for the Kepler space telescope which ran out of fuel in October, 2018. Like Kepler, TESS will search for exoplanets, but with greater ability to measure an exoplanet's mass and the composition of its atmosphere. TESS has already found three exoplanets orbiting a small star about 53 light years away from us. We should be able to study this newfound solar system in greater detail than ever before.<br />
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I don't know. While the promise of gaining a greater understanding of exoplanets is most tantalizing, I can't help but feel bad for Kepler. It's out there, 100 million miles from Earth. It's final commands were sent months ago, now it hears nothing more. It found us thousands of exoplanets, but will now forever drift in silence, because it's out of gas and a new and improved model has been found.<br />
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Might be a metaphor in that for the American worker.<br />
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The biggest story is, well, pretty big.<br />
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We have detected <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/radio-signals-fast-radio-bursts-frbs-galaxy-signal-repeated-space-scientists-a8719886.html"><b>repeated radio signals coming from space.</b></a> The point of origin is a galaxy 1.5 billion light years away, but this is still most encouraging. The radio bursts repeated six times and from the same location. They were "flung out with the same amount of energy the sun takes 12 months to produce," as it says at the link.<br />
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This is the second time that repeated radio bursts have been found coming from deep space, leading astronomers to suspect that such repeating radio bursts may be a bit more plentiful than initially thought. Before we get our hopes up about aliens, it would be prudent to check ourselves. These signals could be the product of dying stars, or strange astronomical phenomena we don't yet know.<br />
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And yet...<br />
<br />
And yet...<br />
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It's the "signal from an alien civilization" scenario that is the most enticing, isn't it? This is especially because the fact that they are repeating from a fixed location is rather suspicious. Have we somehow overheard someone else's conversation? Also possible, could it be another civilization similar to our own, one transmitting a signal into the void that asks the question, "Is anyone out there?"<br />
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Oh boy, do I want that to be true. To finally have, in my lifetime no less, scientific confirmation that there are alien civilizations...well, I'd be busting. I don't think my college would be very happy about it as I doubt I'd teach classes for a week or more. I'd be continually glued to the news, soaking in all the information I could. I'd pitch myself as pundit. Why not? I'm no less informed than many the cable news channels go to for perspectives. You would get daily, nay, <i>hourly</i> updates from <b>ESE</b> as the biggest story <i>ever</i> unfolded. <br />
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What would this mean to society? What would this mean for science fiction? Would it grow more or less relevant in the face of science fiction becoming fact? I would opt for "more relevant," for if a signal were confirmed, there would only be greater speculation about alien life as we would still likely know precious few details.<br />
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This all sounds a blog post in and of itself. More to come and well...let's keep hoping.<br />
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<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-34487209245558398162019-01-03T20:44:00.003-08:002019-01-03T20:44:58.367-08:00David Bowie and UFOs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It was round about this time of year when we lost David Bowie.<br />
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I suppose that's why I've plucked this topic from my overflowing "To Blog" folder in Google. It was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/aliens-pop-stars-music-believe-ufo-et-david-bowiee-robbie-williams-olivia-newton-john-a8269071.html"><b>a "long read" I found in <i>The Independent</i> many months back</b></a> about music stars who were also connected with UFOs. It contained this little tidbit I had not previously known (where I've added the emphasis):<br />
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"But the king of the UFO pop stars has to be David Bowie. If his oeuvre wasn’t enough – “Loving the Alien”, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, “Starman” – the young David Robert Jones not only <i>put out a UFO newsletter with friends when he was a teenager</i>, but spotted his own mysterious skybound object over London in 1967."<br />
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Bowie ran a UFO zine? I shouldn't be surprised, but geez, like I needed any more reason to worship the guy.<br />
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Of course I did know about his UFO connection. For further reading on the matter of rock musicians and UFOs, I recommend the book, <i>Alien Rock</i> by Michael C. Luckman. Naturally it has an entire chapter devoted to Bowie. Here's a precis of one of my favorite passages (p. 84-85) from that chapter:<br />
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It's 1974, and Bowie is on tour in America, making a stop in Detroit. A 6pm news broadcast on one of the local stations said that a UFO had crashed in the area. The downed craft was described as being "six feet wide and 30 feet long."<br />
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Just picture that for a moment.<br />
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Anyway, the report continued to say, as Bowie later excitedly related to <i>Mirabella</i> magazine, that "three creatures" in the craft were killed on impact. They were taken to a hospital and examined, and found to be human-like but smaller and with more developed brains. More news on the shocking development would come at the 11pm broadcast.<br />
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Unfortunately, the whole thing was revealed to be a hoax at 11pm and that the news crew who initially reported the matter was summarily fired as no UFO or alien craft whatsoever had crashed, landed, been intercepted, or anything of the sort. It was like the Roswell UFO crash and Orson Welles' <i>War of the Worlds</i> all rolled into one.<br />
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David Bowie, however, was undeterred. He had one of his personal assistants go buy him a telescope. He aimed this telescope out the moonroof of his limousine as he traveled to Minneapolis, the next stop on the tour, watching for UFOs the whole way. <br />
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Doesn't it just...make <i>sense</i>?<br />
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Bowie's <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2016/01/long-read-on-bowie-and-science-fiction.html"><b>connection to science fiction</b></a> is obvious, particularly with Ziggy Stardust, and his breathtaking role in <i>The Man Who Fell to Earth</i>, but it's more than that even. He truly seemed otherworldly to me. It wasn't an act, it wasn't a persona, there was just something that made him seem not of this Earth. I will never forget being in the third row at his concert in 1995 when Nine Inch Nails, honestly the real reason I was there at the time, were finishing up their set and Bowie just strode out in the midst of these sweaty guys who had just finished smashing their instruments, and stood regally at the front of stage. His presence, his voice, his visage, I've never seen any musician with that total package and that "I'm really not from around here" quality.<br />
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In addition to the book by Luckman, which I believe must be easily ten years old by now, there is a new text on this subject by Jason Heller called <i>Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded</i>. You can't miss its cover. It has a cartoon rendering of Bowie's face and the title is in the same font as the title for Gold Key's <i>Star Trek</i> comic book. The dust cover description says that the book goes into detail about Bowie sneaking into a movie theater to see 2001 and how much that changed his life. Can't wait to read it all, and fortunately I have easy access to it as I first learned of the book by seeing it in my college library.<br />
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That's when you know you teach at a joint that's worthwhile. It orders copies of quality reads like Heller's. I'm serious.<br />
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More than anything, I think part of Bowie's creative genius came from this sense he had that there was something far greater that lurked outside of ourselves. By "ourselves" I mean the collective consciousness of humanity. UFOs are a psychological, if not physical, manifestation of that sense.<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-81857455977810414542019-01-01T19:31:00.001-08:002019-01-01T19:40:49.870-08:00Portals<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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-“New Year’s Day” by U2<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is New Year’s Day. 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Last night I gleefully toggled between marathons of <i>Twilight Zone</i> and
<i>Space: 1999</i>. I had a small plate of Pizza Rolls next to me. I have precious few
New Year’s Eve traditions, but Pizza Rolls are one. My Dad would make them for my
brother and I as kids, part of a small buffet of snack foods. We were too young
for champagne, so it was a way of making it feel like a special night. It’s
different now, though. I am much older and when I get horizontal and wrapped in
a blanket, well, the result is usually assured. Though I fought hard, I fell
asleep at about 11pm. I was nudged awake 15 minutes before midnight so that I
might witness the arrival of the new year.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like always, the clock struck midnight and it didn’t feel
like much changed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As is the case with so much else, “New Year’s” is an artificial
construct we humans have concocted together. Of course, I’ve blogged bitterly
in the past about how much I dislike the concept of this holiday, but my stance
has softened quite a bit. I’m still not a fan, but I am left wondering about
how much the Eve/Day represent our desires. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I think we want to step through a portal. We want to move
through a ring of bluish-white light that washes us clean. Suddenly we find
ourselves somewhere new with a fresh start. Last year, I certainly came to
understand that desire. I’m going risk sounding grandiose here and not in the
way that I usually do. But that’s what happened. The year 2018 represented a
portal and I crossed through it into a new world, one I am quite pleased and
thankful to inhabit. More on that later.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I ruminate on these topics, I naturally look around at
what else has been written about them, from the neoteric to the arcane. All I
can say is my, we do love our portals and “wormholes” in popular culture.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sometimes it’s the thrilling idea that we’ve found a hidden
doorway to someplace else, such as the Hopi legends of people and entities
passing between worlds through portals. Other times it’s the utility of being
able to bypass vast stretches of time and space, like on <i>Stargate</i> (pictured
above). Both are telling about human nature. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was disappointed to learn that black holes are not
actually portals to a parallel universe. That was the thinking in my youth (see
1979’s <i><a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-black-hole.html"><b>The Black Hole</b></a></i>, perhaps the best film Disney ever made.) Turns out that,
according to the late, great <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/03/stephen-hawking-in-memorium.html"><b>Stephen Hawking</b></a>, these vortexes formed from collapsed
stars draw in matter and energy and then spew it all back out in a sort of cosmological
carnage and flotsam. So no traveling through a black hole to a new universe if
this one begins to collapse in on itself. Yes, yes, I know it would be quite a
feat to survive the crushing gravity and the distortion of all space and time,
but I was sort of hoping transhumanism could help us out with that. Then again
that’s pretty much my fall back for most things these days.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Guess I’ve been thinking about things in astronomical terms
lately. I wrote a “Socratic dialogue” between me and my dogs about the cosmos
for a nature writing class. Maybe I’ll post it on here if I can’t find a
publisher. Also, the cosmological perspective found its way into my book about
the College. I described the closing of Saint Joseph’s College as the center of
the universe falling out and a black hole left in its place. I was left adrift
to go find an entirely new universe to replace it. In redrafting, I realized that
is an imperfect metaphor. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Maybe, in a way, a portal suddenly opened beneath me. I fell
through the wormhole into terra incognito, being thrown and tumbled about in
all directions as I did. It’s not a ride I can recommend to anyone. It isn’t
much fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet…and yet…<o:p></o:p></div>
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The portal dropped me off in someplace that’s not too bad.
In fact, it’s pretty damn great, really. Would I have ever chosen that portal
to open beneath me for me to fall through? No. I doubt I ever would have. In
fact, I know I wouldn’t have. Somehow though, it might have ended up being
exactly what I needed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop carrying a raging fury for the
operators of the portal generator, but that’s an entirely different can of tuna
and I’m already meandering into “vague blogging”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Life is made up of meetings and partings. Or at least that’s
what Kermit told me a week ago in <i>A Muppet Christmas Carol</i>. Another way to see
it could portals that suddenly open and take us away from somewhere or someone,
only to drop us off somewhere else, somewhere else that’s becomes home. If only
we could control and stabilize the openings and closings of these portals. But
we can’t. Sometimes that’s all right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So goodnight, America. Good luck nursing your hangover, should you have one.<br />
Wherever the portal of 2019 takes you, I hope it is even
better than the world you found yourself in during 2018 and that it will always
feel like home. <br />
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POST SCRIPT: The year 2019 is when the movie <i>Blade Runner</i> (one of my favorites) takes place. If you get a Replicant, be nice to him/her and may you always pass your Voight/Kampf test.<br />
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<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-8725049278350532692018-12-28T20:52:00.002-08:002018-12-28T20:52:32.593-08:00Art...in...SPAAAAAACE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Space is but a big black canvas for art.<br />
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Or at least that's the way it's looking. There are currently several artistic endeavors underway...or already accomplished...that are intended to end up in space. Why, you might ask? One artist explains the motivation at <b><a href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20181214-the-artworks-floating-above-the-earth">this BBC article:</a> </b><br />
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"The artist known as Nahum resists the idea that space is ours to conquer. He argues that artists must be included in the conversation about how we explore space or else humanity – namely rich countries with well-funded aerospace programs – risk making the same mistakes the colonising empires made in the past. Who owns the surface of the Moon or a comet and has the right to exploit minerals or precious metals there? Fundamental aspects of our culture such as land ownership and borders are called into question as soon as we leave Earth, says the artist. “If [artists] have different skills and ways of understanding the world, we can only enrich the conversation,” he tells BBC Culture."<br />
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Recently, Nahum created an interactive sculpture that was launched on a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station. From an Earth installation, art lovers may interact with the sculpture while it's in orbit. It's not alone.<br />
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Artist Trevor Paglen launched what he calls an "Orbital Reflector" into orbit via yet another SpaceX rocket. The piece looks like it might be an orbiter used for research or communications or the like, but it has no function apart from being a shiny light in the sky. A few astronomers have cried foul, claiming that the art piece obstructs the ability to conduct astronomical research. Whether that is true or not, it begs the question that has long been building of "just who gets to decide what goes into orbit?"<br />
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If Paglen's work has drawn ire, then astronomers must have loved Peter Beck. <b><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42808180">He put a "disco ball" in orbit</a> </b>back in January. It was called "Humanity Star" and Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab in New Zealand, said it was meant to be a "shared experience" for the people of Earth, something for us to look up at and remind us of our place in the cosmos. I didn't get to see it, but apparently it was only visible before dawn and it fell out of orbit sometime last June.<br />
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Back in 2017, artist Makoto Azuma attached a bouquet of flowers to four enormous balloons and sent the arrangement beyond the atmosphere.<br />
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Why?<br />
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Well, I'm sure many are asking that. Indeed, it must be quite difficult for several people of a certain mindset to get their heads around. These actions have no real practical outcome or "fair market value." They are inherently born of the creative spirit of humanity. If we are to expand outward into the solar system and indeed into the galaxy (I know, really stretching on that one), then should not the human impulse to create art come with us? Let's look at it another way.<br />
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The BBC article linked at the top of the post makes reference to the "golden records" placed on both of the Voyager probes. Electronically encoded on those records are several images from Earth that were selected by a committee chaired by astronomer Carl Sagan. A few of these images were works of human art. They were included because they communicate something about us. Why do humans create art?<br />
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Because we can. There is something intrinsic which drives us to do it.<br />
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In a way, these launched bouquets and orbiting disco balls are indeed something of a "shared experience." They communicate a message. Space is not relegated solely to those with the skill sets of technicians and engineers. It is a fundamentally human experience to set forth and explore and if humanity is to have a future in space, it should therefore include all varieties of human mentality. Yes, even writers. Preferably ones who can have their own berth on the ISS, blogging of their experience from orbit. Not too long, though. Being away from family is not as exciting of a prospect as it once was to a young, adventuring writer. <br />
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Anyway, I say why not gussy up space with a few disco balls?<br />
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<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-41472230642198120322018-12-18T18:37:00.000-08:002018-12-18T18:37:07.884-08:00Christmas Ghosts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>“There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago..."</i><br />
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That is, of course, a line from the famous Christmas song, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" by Andy Williams.<br />
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The song might not immediately come to mind, but as soon as you hear it on your car radio, your holiday Spotify stream, or...if you're one of those intrepid souls who still does this kind of thing...while shopping in a brick and mortar store, you'll recognize it. That lyric mentioning ghost stories might seem oddly out of place, more befitting for Halloween than Christmas. But my friend Jason posted <a href="https://www.allhallowsgeek.com/why-the-heck-does-that-christmas-song-talk-about-telling-ghost-stories/"><b>this article</b></a> on his Facebook wall that nicely sums up just how pivotal ghost stories once were to the Christmas season...and still are in British tradition. In case you don't want to read it (but I really wish you would), I'll render the gist...<br />
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Hate to break it to you, but Christmas does not have Christian origins. Its genesis is in the pagan observations of Winter Solstice and Yule festivals of the British Isles. As the sunlight failed and the temperature dropped, pagans would bring evergreens inside their dwellings as a means of holding on to life while all else went dormant and dead. Therefore, the traditional Christmas tree has absolutely nothing to do with Christ. Additionally, December is the darkest time of the year. This naturally lent itself to people gathering around fires and telling stories of spirits, goblins, and hauntings. These narratives, composed both textually and orally, in time grew woven into the overall fabric of Christmas.<br />
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Case in point: <i>A Christmas Carol</i> written by Charles Dickens. It is likely the most famous example of a Christmas ghost story and is retold every year during the season. There have been innumerable incarnations of this book, including one with an amazing performance by George C. Scott as Ebeneezer Scrooge, and one version where John Taylor of Duran Duran plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, but I still think <i>A Muppet Christmas Carol</i> remains my favorite rendition. As I said, this is but the most famous version of the "Christmas ghosts" literary subgenre.<br />
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M.R. James was a British academic, a medievalist, and at one time the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. He also loved writing ghost stories, something that might be snobbishly shunned by a contemporary academic as being "beneath them." James, on the other hand, would write a new haunting to read to his fellow faculty members every year at Christmastime. I highly recommend his collection of ghost stories, <i>Casting the Runes</i>, and somewhere I've heard tell of a BBC (I think) production where Christopher Lee just sits in a candlelit room at King's College and reads James' hauntings. Could it get any better? Point being, while we on this side of the pond have confined our mainstream consumption of spooky tales to Halloween, ghost stories remain a staple for a British Christmas.<br />
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And yet...<br />
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And yet...<br />
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I wonder if contemporary Americans aren't haunted by Christmas ghosts in other ways, beyond the literal. There is another rhetorical interpretation.<br />
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Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and I'm always glad to see it come around each year. However, each successive one fails to live up to my happiest memories. There's this shift, a palpable shift I can almost pinpoint in my early adolescence where I said to myself, "this just isn't as cool as it used to be." To be clear, it had nothing to do with presents. Our family Christmas tree that once looked tall and awe-inspiring to my little self, eventually became something I could probably twirl around in my hands.<br />
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My favorite Christmas memories all involve staying at my grandparents' farmhouse, one of the most special places in the world to me. Just being around them and feeling that joyance and warmth, plus the buzz of magical excitement on Christmas Eve and the anticipation of the following morning, that time when I first got my <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-not-shogun-warriors.html"><b>Shogun Warrior</b></a> or my Space:1999 Eagle, it wanders into cliche but I must say it was magical.<br />
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Both of my grandparents are dead now. Their wonderful house now belongs to someone I don't even know. I will never go back there again and I will never have those Christmas experiences again.<br />
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That doesn't mean all future yuletide seasons will be dour. Not at all. They just won't seem the same, and that will haunt me...like specters of a lost land I can never return to.<br />
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I know something about that. In several ways. Last Christmas was especially tough after losing SJC. This year I have much to be thankful for, very much indeed. Just the same, it will be very difficult in its own right, for reasons I'd rather not get into. All of it does make me wonder about the connection between Christmas and "home," however we may define the latter. We are pulled towards home at this time of the year with the gravitational force of a dead star.<br />
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There's a song for that. It's called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJoW2iigvk0"><b>"Christmas at Sea"</b></a> and it's by Sting from his album, <i>If Upon a Winter's Night</i> (go give it a listen for it's fantastic stuff.) In it, a sailor fights the elements on Christmas Day, trying to get back to "the house above the coast guard" for it is, as he says, "the house where I was born." He will brave wave and wind and "haul frozen rope" just to get back.<br />
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We all just want to be back home. Sometimes we can't be. Sometimes it's a place that now only exists in our memories, even if it's merely deceptively simpler times. We can see it, we can feel it, we can smell it, we can almost reach out and touch it...but we just can't seem to get there. And it haunts us. In our current times, that may be the American version of writing the Christmas ghost story. Maybe it's more universal than just our shores.<br />
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Again, I have much to be thankful for. So many have it so much worse than I do. The Christmas song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" reminds me of that as Bono belts out a plaintive "Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you" (he didn't much like that line and I can certainly understand why, but it sure did shake up 13 year-old Jonny and make him at least start to think about what Ethiopian famine and true want and need must be like.)<br />
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Yet even the best of us are sometimes haunted.<br />
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For more on British Christmas ghost stories, <i>The Guardian</i> (hey, I once wrote for them!) <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/24/christmas-ghost-stories-dark-jeanette-winterson"><b>published a good one last year.</b></a> Be on the look out for another this Christmas. Also, Jason tells me that Sax Rohmer, creator of the pulpy villain, Fu Manchu, has a collection of Christmas ghost stories as well.<br />
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Plenty to choose from if you're lucky enough to have a fire to sit round this season and feel haunted.<br />
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<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-23777609655840325682018-11-28T18:18:00.001-08:002018-11-28T18:18:12.271-08:00InSight lander arrives on Mars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo from NASA.</span></i><br />
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We have a new robot on Mars.<br />
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After a multi-month voyage through space,<b> <a href="https://www.space.com/42544-insight-mars-landing-first-photo.html">NASA's InSight lander</a></b> arrived safely on the Red Planet on Monday afternoon, Chicago time. There was the customary and nail-biting span of silence as the lander dropped through the thin atmosphere, but all turned out just fine. Soon after landing, InSight transmitted its first photo from Mars, showing a shot through a lens speckled with dust from the landing. This prompted someone online to cry, "See? Life on Mars! Flies!"<br />
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Heh. He was kidding. I think.<br />
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Not much more than a day later, we got far clearer photos. The one posted above is example of such.<br />
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InSight, short for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport," will eventually drill 16 feet into the surface of Mars. Over a two year period, it will complete the first 3D scan of the planet's interior. That, to me, is fascinating. Why, do you ask? Well, there are several reasons.<br />
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-If nothing else, appreciate the achievement of engineering that this is. Many smart people worked hard, used their minds to solve problems creatively, and made an astounding technical triumph. This, I believe, is an example of humanity at its best.<br />
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-Don't care about Mars or space science? Well, I might not be able to understand you, but I respect the opinion. Rest assured however, the efforts undertaken and the lessons learned in the InSight achievement will in time filter down to you, the consumer. It inevitably does with space technology,<br />
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-The more we understand Mars, the more we have to work with in terms of colonization. Yes, yes, I am aware of the difficulties and the innumerable naysayers. That's cool. I'm used to naysayers. I still believe that technological progress will one day allow for us to establish settlements on Mars. Knowledge gleaned from the InSight mission may help us better understand how to use the natural resources already available on the planet to create a sustainable community.<br />
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Hey. Elon Musk is hellbent on it.<br />
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-I'm curious what, if any, findings there may be as to large bodies of water beneath the surface of Mars. And life? Maybe? Would they tell us if they found it?<br />
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Ahhh were I a younger, free-wheelin' man, I might wonder if they'd like a writer on Mars.<br />
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Oh who am I kidding? I'd be in wonder for about ten minutes, and then writerly bitterness would no doubt settle back in.<br />
<br />
A guy sitting in a cardigan with a laptop in one hand and a martini in the other probably wouldn't be of much help in the colony. Might even inspire a little resentment. <br />
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<br />
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-6127423751069219882018-11-23T19:41:00.000-08:002018-11-23T19:41:01.609-08:00Why UFOs? Part 5: The mystery airships<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is Part 5 in a 6-Part series wherein I examine my fascination with UFO Phenomena through the lens of narrative and rhetoric. Much of the information found in this post comes from <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Solving-Airship-Mystery-Michael-Busby/dp/1589801253"><b>Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery</b></a></i> by Michael Busby and <a href="http://www.americanheritage.com/content/close-encounters-earliest-kind"><b>"Close Encounters of the Earliest Kind."</b></a><br />
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As I wrote of my childhood in Part 1, science fiction was my gateway drug to ufology. The idea that actual aliens could be visiting Earth in flying saucers was just too enticing to resist.<br />
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Imagine my surprise when I learned UFO sightings were nothing new. In fact, these unknown aerial phenomena have been seen for a very long time. I'm not even talking about the "ancient aliens" crowd. No, I mean something far less known, at least in pop culture circles.<br />
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I'm talking about the Great Airship Mystery of the late 1800s.<br />
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During the waning years of the 19th century, particularly between 1896 and 1897, a "flap" of sightings occurred of propeller-driven airships. While dirigibles were nothing new at the time and indeed were used during the Civil War, these airships were bigger, faster, and more advanced than anything else in the air at the time. These sightings stretched from the midsection of the United States to the West Coast. San Francisco and Sacramento, California had particularly significant sightings of these craft with multiple witnesses quoted in newspaper accounts. These balloon/propeller craft even had lights stationed about them, much as with their contemporary counterparts.<br />
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There were even accounts of these craft landing and witnesses meeting the occupants. Rather than the alien beings described in previous posts, witnesses reported these occupants as being fully human in appearance, wearing brown leather jackets, scarves, and goggles. Friendly and jocular, they often asked witnesses to perform menial favors, such as mailing letters. When asked who they were or where they came from, the crewmen responded that they worked for a genius inventor who was not yet ready to take his advanced airships public. This later fueled speculation that Nikola Tesla was behind the airships, but then what advanced development wasn't he supposedly responsible for? <br />
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In researching Dulce and UFO occurrences in New Mexico, I found that New Mexico <a href="http://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/1880-lamy-new-mexico-encounter/" style="font-weight: bold;">had its own Mystery Airship sighting </a>in 1880. This sighting was of a "fish-shaped" balloon, propelled and directed by fan. Occupants could be heard singing and speaking in a foreign language. That combined with the artistic design of the airship led many to speculate it came from Asia.<br />
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"Moreover, allegedly, people on board the balloon’s car tossed out stuff that was picked up by the alleged witnesses. Apparently, the stuff was a beautiful flower with some silk-like paper with characters which reminded the witnesses of designs they had seen on Japanese tea chests."<br />
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When I read these accounts now, several thoughts strike me:<br />
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-While they come off as "old timey", they hold true to the discourse and genre constraints of a UFO narrative. The craft are spectacular and unbelievable...but not incomprehensible. They could outfly anything in the sky at that time, but the idea of an airship was far from radical.<br />
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-The rhetorical tone, just as mentioned in previous posts, matches the science fiction of the time. These airships could have flown straight out of Jules Verne, who had been publishing books and short stories for decades before the time of the sightings.<br />
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-Related, the rhetorical stance, or the argument presented by the occupants, is waggish, one of wonder...almost whimsy. These "mystery men in their flying machines" are said to work for a brilliant inventor, but they can't say any more than that. Who is this inventor? What is his plan for his magnificent machines? Whatever it is, there appears to be no malice involved. The airship crewmen only want to mail letters.<br />
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Looking at these narratives from a modern perspective, they appear simple and quaint. That's not meant as an insult. In fact, I could go for simple and quaint right about now. What fun it would be to meet jolly adventurers riding about in a steampunk contraption, ready to whisk you away to a land that resembles something out of <i>Sgt. Pepper's</i>. Still, the incidences are recognizable as following the UFO paradigm, as if staying true to a writer's template or outline. This tends to make me believe that UFOs are quite human in origin. Or perhaps, "just perhaps" as Robert Stack would say, it is something responding to our own expectations and perceptions. If that is so, just how weird could it get?<br />
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More on that in a future post. <br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-61301833205826297422018-11-01T11:12:00.001-07:002018-11-01T11:12:03.911-07:00Why UFOs? Part 4: They Know That We Know That They Know<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is Part 4 of a series of blog posts called "Why UFOs?" intended to examine through the combined lens of narrative and rhetoric, just why I've always been fascinated with the UFO phenomenon despite any conclusive evidence.<br />
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"They're here! And they love strawberry ice cream!"<br />
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So <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-3-it-gets-scary.html"><b>Brad</b></a> told me early on a Saturday morning in 1988. We were boarding a school bus to head for a marching band contest. The night before, NBC aired a...unique documentary. For reasons likely related to our house only having one TV, I had to tape (on a VCR!!) the program, but Brad caught it live.<br />
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It was called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkqYZ-pzuWo"><i><b>UFO Cover Up-Live!</b></i> </a>The "documentary" was a live panel discussion of UFO witnesses and investigators, discussing sighting flaps such as the (at the time) recent Gulf Breeze encounters, as well as the <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-3-it-gets-scary.html"><b>abduction</b></a> phenomenon (both of which you may read more about in <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-3-it-gets-scary.html"><b>Part 3</b></a>). The whole thing was hosted by Mike Farrell. Yes, that guy from <i>M*A*S*H</i>. In fact, his emcee demeanor was most reminiscent of his dry-witted signature role, B.J. Hunnicutt.<br />
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That alone is remarkable (I can just imagine Farrell's agent pitching this thing to him. "Look, things have been dry since <i>M*A*S*H</i> and this has been the best gig in a while.") What is most germane to this series though, is that it marked yet another change in my perception of the UFO narrative. Note the "cover up" in <i>UFO Cover Up-Live!</i><br />
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Blacked out in silhouette and voices altered electronically, two men appeared via remote on the program. They were referred to only by the code-names, "Falcon" and "Condor." They were purported to be operatives deep with the intelligence community. And they dropped a whole lot of plot twists for me in the UFO narrative. Such as:<br />
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-For (what I believe, anyway) the first time, I learned that just after World War II, a UFO was said to have crashed outside a town named <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2013/09/ufo-roswell-wright-field-connection.html"><b>Roswell</b></a> in New Mexico. The U.S. military recovered the wreckage of this spacecraft as well as aliens, both living and dead.<br />
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-In the wake of this incident, President Truman convened an intra-governmental group that would make policy regarding extraterrestrials. It would be called <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2015/01/majestic-12.html"><b>Majestic-12</b> </a>and be headquartered out of the U.S. Naval Observatory.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from: https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/818083/Majestic-12-scientists-experiment-aliens-Roswell-UFO-DIA-leaked-document</span></i><br />
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-Project Blue Book, <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-1-childhood-years.html"><b>discussed in the first post in this series</b></a>, was basically a PR effort by the Air Force, meant to dismiss UFO activity. Any truly interesting sightings were filtered to Majestic-12.<br />
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-Eventually, the aliens met with representatives of Majestic-12 and brokered a deal in four parts: 1) We won't interfere with anything the aliens do on Earth. 2) The aliens won't interfere with how our society runs. 3) The aliens may abduct people. 4) In return, the aliens must give us technology.<br />
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-Alien operations on Earth are based out of a secret location called <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2012/05/area-51-google-earth-tour.html"><b>Area 51</b></a> in the Nevada desert.<br />
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-Our military sometimes test flies alien craft for our own purposes. Sometimes that goes wrong, such as with the <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2016/12/cash-landrum-incident-revisited.html"><b>Cash-Landrum Incident.</b></a><br />
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-Three alien beings have been guests of the U.S. government over time. In 1988, "Condor" stated that one being was visiting.<br />
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-We have learned much about these aliens. They come from a planet in the Zeta Reticulai star system. While their minds are beyond ours, their bodies are much simpler. They are vegetarians and enjoy strawberry ice cream as a snack. Their favorite music is ancient Tibetan chant.<br />
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-The alien visiting in 1988 had a crystal. Through this crystal, the being could show images not only of its home planet, but of various eras of Earth history. There was an artist's rendition of this alien standing with this crystal in what (kinda) looked the White House. The alien was wearing a suit and tie (!)<br />
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-Not only were aliens guests of our government, but a few of our own people went to Zeta Reticulai as part of <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-serpo-exchange.html"><b>an exchange program. </b></a><br />
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Wow. There is just so much going on here. Not only did this single, and admittedly quite cheesy, live program change how I saw the UFO narrative, it included so much of what are now considered fixtures of UFO lore in popular culture. Most of those points named by "Falcon" and "Condor" found their way into <i>The X-Files</i> and any number of other media. Brad and I also decided that the program provided an evaluation tool for one determine whether or not they are being abducted by aliens. Just by a carton of Neapolitan ice cream. Check the freezer. If one morning you find the strawberry section has been scooped out, you may be in trouble.<br />
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In all seriousness, this (at the time) newfound dimension to the alien narrative just added another layer of mystery. By "mystery", I mean more in the "spy thriller" sense. As the story goes, our government is fully aware of all the extraterrestrial goings on. All that fear I felt at the prospect of an alien abduction? Yeah, our government, our ostensible guardians, knows all about these occurrences and just doesn't care. Worse than that perhaps, they're profiting off of it.<br />
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A rhetorical tone that had already turned dark just got a few shades darker. Who can one trust? As one of my favorite shows would say five years after 1988: "Trust No One."<br />
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<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254377820_Conspiracy_Rhetoric_at_the_Dawn_of_the_New_Millennium_A_Response"><b>Scholars have been studying conspiracy theory</b></a> for quite a while now. I noticed that while working on research for my <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2011/11/dulce-still-in-dulce.html"><b>Dulce</b></a> book, which I will eventually get to after my <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2017/09/yes-im-writing-book-about-saint-josephs.html"><b>Saint Joe book</b></a> is done (believe me, after reliving the trauma of my college closing, getting back to fake alien conspiracies will be most welcome.) What these researchers have learned is that despite the hyperbolic rhetoric from conspiracy proponents, calling them "crazy" is both insulting and inaccurate. In truth, these are people who feel socially and politically marginalized. They have been made to feel, through various experiences, that they don't matter. A conspiracy, formulated and maintained by a shadowy and powerful group of individuals, is easier to get one's head around than the complete randomness of life if you're looking for reasons why things aren't working out for you. That's where notions such as "the Federal Reserve is keeping you poor" and other,<b> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/us/politics/caravan-trump-shooting-elections.html">more dangerous rhetoric</a></b> comes from.<br />
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Thinking back, I am also struck by the heuristic element of this alteration in UFO rhetoric. Earlier, I used the phrase "spy thriller." The introduction of the conspiracy changes the exigency of the UFO "text." It's no longer a mystery of "what are they?" It is an urgency of "<i>they</i> are all in it against us." Always check your back. Keep your tinfoil hat on tight. Only through "awareness" will we defeat the conspiracy against us. Yes, so much of that still, sadly, present today.<br />
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Is it any wonder that 1988 and onward sees a change in the shape UFOs sighted? In 1988, the government announces it had been clandestinely testing black, batwing-shaped aircraft that would be invisible to radar. Conspiracy theorists had conjectured about these aircraft for years and lo and behold, there they were. Later, the <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2010/09/black-triangles.html"><b>"black triangles"</b></a> become common in Ufology. Observations of more secret aircraft or a shit in perception?<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from: https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5061734/big-black-triangle-ufo-above-munibung-hill/</span></i><br />
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Obviously, there isn't a shred of truly verifiable evidence for anything "Condor" or "Falcon" said on the documentary. In fact, I believe Falcon was later identified as Richard Doty, an operative for Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Doty has a long history of <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2016/09/saucers-spooks-and-spies.html"><b>spreading UFO disinformation and even destroying a life</b></a> (see Greg Bishop's <i>Project Beta</i>.) Then again, a conspiracy theory need not have truth in order to flourish...or rather, it needs just enough truth. That, at the time, made UFOs all the more fascinating...and scary...to me.<br />
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Next time, we'll take a look at when I realized that the notion of "UFO" has been around for a very very long time...<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-7524040913544928092018-10-25T11:44:00.002-07:002018-10-25T11:44:38.293-07:00Why UFOs? Part 3: It gets scary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is Part 3 in a series where I examine my lifelong interest, despite all reason, in UFOs. Here are links to <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-1-childhood-years.html"><b>Part 1</b></a> and to <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-2-space-brothers.html"><b>Part 2.</b></a><br />
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It was late September in 1988.<br />
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I was at my friend Brad's house and we were watching <i>Unsolved Mysteries</i>. Delightful! That night, Robert Stack led viewers in an examination of what would later be called The Gulf Breeze Sightings. This was a spate of UFO sightings in, as the name implies, Gulf Breeze, Florida. Not only were there sightings, but there were also a series of spectacular photographs. Many of those photos came from a man named Ed Walters. Here's one of them:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS-07QHWRvCaJoyTe7jhLyhzZ3nD4JjGOXp2Tr7UtnICvBrEIYm6uQx9UYdaCufMpBziQXjvdHQLRJRef40XEQxalsHg_-8im0r2OSQ9h7ceYpR6y4Fg8oXd_Zlz3p3mOLiEWVg_Zr8ytu/s1600/gulf-breeze-florida-ufo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS-07QHWRvCaJoyTe7jhLyhzZ3nD4JjGOXp2Tr7UtnICvBrEIYm6uQx9UYdaCufMpBziQXjvdHQLRJRef40XEQxalsHg_-8im0r2OSQ9h7ceYpR6y4Fg8oXd_Zlz3p3mOLiEWVg_Zr8ytu/s400/gulf-breeze-florida-ufo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It was taken from inside an automobile and you can see the reflection of the UFO in the glass of the windshield. Brad and I were quite convinced. Later, as I understand it, plenty came to light that strongly suggested most of these photographs were hoaxes. I invite the reader to look into that and decide. Regardless, even if I knew the photos were fakes on that night in 1988, it wouldn't have helped me.<br />
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You see, Brad lived a fair ways out in the country. To get back home, I would have to drive along a two-lane state highway through nothing but lonely cornfields after dark. And let me tell you, it does get dark in rural Indiana. The sky is filled with stars. Sometimes one of those stars moves and proves itself to be a plane. Maybe.<br />
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Chilling. Why was I so afraid? Was I scared to see a UFO? Not really. I was more scared of what would happen if one saw me.<br />
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That's because just one year before, I had read a book called <i><a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2010/09/author-profile-whitley-strieber.html"><b>Communion</b></a></i> by Whitley Strieber.<br />
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As I might have mentioned, I am in a terminal degree program for nonfiction writing. Every once in a while, I am asked what my favorite nonfiction book is. I don't know about <i>favorite</i>, but if I were to answer what nonfiction book had the most profound <i>effect</i> on me, I would have to be honest and say <i>Communion</i>, for it made me sleep with all the lights on for at least a few weeks afterwards, and fueled my nightmares for years.<br />
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<i>Communion</i> is Whitley Strieber's account of his alleged numerous alien abductions. At this point in my ufological experience, we're talking mid-high school, I had already known of at least a few cases of people claiming to have been brought aboard UFOs, sometimes not by choice. <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-travis-walton-incident.html"><b>Travis Walton</b></a> would be an example of such cases. <i>Communion</i> was different. While Strieber was not the first to make claims of this kind, nor was he the last, he was, I would argue, one of the primary forces that thrust what would be known as "the abduction narrative" into public consciousness. Here's how that template narrative goes:<br />
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Someone wakes up in the middle of the night. They find themselves unable to move or speak. Strange beings appear at the foot of the bed. These beings are typically between three and four feet tall, with large, bulbous heads, pale skin, spindly forms, and their trademark feature: the black, almond-shaped eyes. A depiction of one is at the top of this post (it also happens to be the art that adorns the cover of <i>Communion</i>.) Through various methods, often levitation, the hapless, paralyzed victim is brought aboard a saucer-shaped UFO.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from CrystalLinks.</span></i><br />
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Once onboard the craft, the abductee is subjected to a series of medical tests, and most of them aren't much fun. They are said to be invasive, painful, and all the more traumatizing as the abductee is rendered immobile, save for responding to the telepathic commands of the, we presume, aliens. Later, the abductee is returned to their bed. The abductee awakes with no memory of what happened...for the time being. Bits and pieces come back in traumatic flashes. They may even have scars that they cannot explain or bouts of "missing time," where hours elapse which they cannot account for.<br />
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There are variations on this narrative template. Sometimes, as I feared would happen to me that night in 1988, the aliens may take someone on an isolated rural road. Other accounts speak of broad daylight abductions, or abductions involve multiple parties such as the<a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2011/11/allagash-abductions.html"> <b>Allagash Incident</b></a>. As I said, however, the template for the narrative and the genre constraints are more or less standard, despite the occasional and inevitable outliers.<br />
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The uniformity of abduction narratives is actually one of the arguments against it as a real phenomenon. This template enters the public consciousness and it becomes a part of the subconscious, thus perhaps creating vivid dreams or <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321070.php"><b>hypnagogic</b></a> dreams/hallucinations. There is also the criticism that abductees often recall their alleged experiences only under hypnosis, which is an imperfect practice at best. Additionally, more than a few abductees have been found to have sexual abuse somewhere in their past. Alien abduction might be how the brain masks such awful events, making it easier to deal with rather than facing the reality of a family member or someone else being responsible. Ultimately, aside from a few scars, there is precious little concrete evidence for this as a legitimate phenomenon, despite <a href="http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=8088"><b>3% of Americans claiming it has happened to them.</b></a><br />
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And yet...<br />
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And yet...<br />
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Even if my teenage self knew that in 1988, it would have done no good. It still would have scared me. To be honest, it still scares me today. Logically, I understand all of the valid counterarguments. Sometimes when I'm home alone, though, or sometimes when I'm walking my dogs under dark skies and a light moves in the sky...I shiver. Is this the time when they come for me?<br />
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That's because when I read <i>Communion</i> and encountered the abduction narrative as a whole, the entire narrative arc of UFOs changed for me. The aliens no longer looked like us. They resembled us, but those ominous eyes convey no warmth, rather they are expressionless and calculating. The rhetorical stance of the visitors shifts from "space brothers" to at worst hostility to at best indifference. They could take anyone from their bed, or anywhere else, against the person's will and perform invasive tests and experiments. There would be nothing you could do to stop them. In fact, one abductee is said to have been able to ask the aliens why they were doing this. The alien telepathically responded with a deadpan:<br />
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"You do it to lesser evolved species, don't you?"<br />
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Fair point.<br />
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Whitley Strieber's book conveys all of this experience in striking literary fashion. In certain regards, I am of the same rhetorical stance as I was upon reading it at age 17. I remain convinced <i>something</i> happened to him...I just don't know that it was aliens doing it. Could it happen to me? Therein is how the UFO phenomenon came to be something that caused me genuine fear.<br />
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In fact, abduction narratives, as I see them, are ghost stories of old, updated in brand new drag. Human folklore is replete with stories of people being taken in this night by strange creatures and later returned (maybe). What's more, many abductees report having sperm extracted or embryos implanted, thus creating alien/human hybrids. This is closely related to ancient myths of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus#cite_note-1"><b>incubi</b> </a>and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus"><b>succubi</b></a>. Skeptics would say that this is further evidence that abductions are linked far more with human psychology and mythology (Derrida's "ever-expanding archives") than with space people. Proponents would say that the folklore means this has been happening for a very long time.<br />
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Either way, this new dimension to the narrative changed my view of Ufology forever and not really for the friendlier. Still, like a good horror story, I could not help but remain fascinated, regardless of just how scared I was. One of the ways I dealt with this fear was by constructing snarky, mocking abduction stories with Brad. We were teenage boys and when you're that gender and age, that's kind of your super power. One of the experiments many abductees report having is an anal probe. You can just imagine what we did with that. Trondant!<br />
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Raunchy and scatalogical rhetoric? Sure. But laughing at it, shifting the stance thrown at me as invasive to ridiculous and absurd in a Camus-like way, helped me sleep at night. I can't speak for Brad, but I was genuinely scared. As I said, still sort of am.<br />
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Just one month later in 1988, NBC would air a prime-time special called <i>UFO Cover Up Live</i>. It featured UFO sightings, including Gulf Breeze. It covered abduction. It also introduced me to a whole other dimension of the narrative.<br />
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They know, and they can't let us know what they know, otherwise we would know that they knew.<br />
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More of that next time...<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-72288412165522389102018-10-19T20:27:00.003-07:002018-10-19T20:27:44.498-07:00Why UFOs? Part 2: Space brothers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is Part 2 of a reflection on why, despite all reasons not to, the UFO phenomenon fascinates me to this day.<br />
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As I blogged in <b><a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-1-childhood-years.html">P</a><a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-ufos-part-1-childhood-years.html">art 1</a>,</b> the UFO bug bit me at around age seven after pulling a book from a shelf in my local library. Yet another unsolicited testimonial as to how libraries corrupt the young. I kid, I kid.<br />
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I mentioned in that post that one of the library books published a photo of a saucer-shaped UFO, all in black and white and typically fuzzy and grainy. It was the caption that got me, though: "The witness of this UFO also claims to have met the occupants of the craft." It was exciting enough for my young mind to drink in narratives of flying saucers, but to add in actual face-to-face encounters with aliens? How do I get in on that sweet action?<br />
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One of the books even had a photo taken by a police officer of a purported bipedal alien in a spacesuit.<br />
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Imagine my disappointment years later to learn that it was a guy covered in aluminum foil. <br />
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Many other early encounters I read about sounded positively heartwarming. A bit unnerving, perhaps, just from fear of the unknown, but all in all a positive experience that someone could really get behind. The aliens weren't at all like the malignant types I saw in any of the various iterations of "invade the Earth" scenarios I saw in my science fiction shows. Instead, they were completely human-like in appearance. Perhaps more human than human.<br />
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They were tall, well over six feet. Their hair was blonde and their skin was described as being perfect. They came with a message for humanity: peace. As I kept reading, I found that there was a man who had been having interactions with these aliens for years. He even got a ride on one of the UFOs, the lucky schmuck. His name was George Adamski.<br />
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That's George, pictured with an artistic rendition of one the aliens.<br />
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Starting in 1946, Adamski claimed to have seen dozens and dozens of UFOs. On November 20th, 1952, he brought of group of friends to a remote spot in California, where they saw a massive, cigar-shaped object. Adamski claimed that the ship was looking for him, and ran off from his group of friends to attempt contact with the craft. After returning a while later, Adamski claimed that he met a being named "Orthon" who was reportedly from Venus. Orthon was described as being of average height, with tan skin and long, blonde hair. "His trousers were night like mine," Adamski added.<br />
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"The presence of this inhabitant of Venus was like the warm embrace of great love and understanding wisdom," Adamski said. Orthon professed concern about humanity's warlike tendencies, particularly our willingness to use nuclear weapons. Likewise disturbing was our mistreatment of our environment. As I mentioned earlier, Adamski claimed to have a longstanding, friendly relationship with these Venusians. He claims they even took him to the Moon, where saw cities and flourishing forests. What's more, Adamski published books about his interplanetary friendships in effort to let the world know that the "Space Brothers," as he called them, are looking out for humanity and have valuable lessons to impart if we will only listen. A whole movement began to build around Adamski, as more and more witnesses claimed to have met "the Space Brothers."<br />
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Young Jon ate these stories up. Why wouldn't he? Adamski even had convincing photos of the UFOs he witnessed and they are far clearer than their contemporary counterparts. Sadly, there wasn't much evidence for Adamski's accounts and as you might have guessed, Venus was determined to be uninhabitable and the Moon was found lacking any trees or buildings. The UFO photos Adamski published were found to be faked using a surgical lamp in a few cases and the top of an air conditioner in others. It wasn't long before people were using words and phrases like "hoax" and even "con man."<br />
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I get it though. The rhetorical stance of the "aliens" in the narrative at this point is one of benignity in the extreme. They are single-hearted and want only to help us after we have lost our way. The threat of nuclear war is a scary thing. Anyone who lived through the Cold War will tell you that. The 1950s and 1960s also saw a burgeoning sense that our environment was feeling the pressure and strain from fossil fuels and massive consumption. Now, <a href="http://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/10/we-have-12-years-to-save-world-from.html"><b>we're looking at the whole world falling apart from it</b></a>, but not many seem to want to even consider the notion. Indeed, many would rather burn more coal.<br />
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Maybe if aliens said something we'd listen.<br />
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You can see that them at work in the films of the 1950s, especially The Day the Earth Stood Still. The message Klaatu, the quite human-looking alien from the film, has is a stern, paternal, "Get it together, humans. Or we'll do it for you and you won't like it." The message of the Space Brothers is similar, but expressed with far more peace and love.<br />
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It intrigues me how much this area of the narrative matches religious beliefs. Allow me to explain.<br />
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I have made no attempts to hide just how difficult the past year and a half have been for me. If I am to be fully honest, I could palpably sense a small child inside me at times, silently crying, "Mom, Dad, fix this. Because I can't." I believe reports of these "Space Brothers" are born out the same need. War is a horrible thing, and it can feel like whether it starts or not is out of the hands of the average person. I made a snide remark earlier about no one wanting to face climate change, but really, who does? How do we tackle something so large and looming, and face an effort so herculean?<br />
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If only there were a higher power that loved us, looked out for us, and could fix things when they break, while we can only sit immobilized on the floor, tears streaming down our cheeks. <br />
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For a few brief years in elementary school, I thought the Space Brothers might do that for us. Who wouldn't be comforted by such a story? I mean, read once more the description of these aliens. Tell me there aren't deep similarities between them and Christian depictions of angels. I also must wonder what this narrative says about us when the savior aliens are said to be more Caucasian than most Caucasians. Not sure I like where that might lead.<br />
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Despite the wide discrediting of George Adamski, "contactees" to this day still claim to encounter the "Space Brothers," only now these aliens are called "Nordics" and they are said to be from the Pleiades star cluster. Guess that's because Venus didn't pan out. I'm not surprised the sightings continue. Our problems remain massive and our solutions are few. Humans still cry for someone to save us and the composed narratives reflect that yearning. Perhaps these stories are generated by our collective subconscious, arguing to us what we already know deep down: Things aren't right. Fix them.<br />
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I mentioned last time that the UFO narrative also held a strong strand of fear to it. After reading about these benevolent, Nordic-looking aliens, you might wonder where any fear would come from. Don't worry. It gets creepy next time.<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-84134868506517510702018-10-12T21:45:00.001-07:002018-10-19T18:38:27.568-07:00Why UFOs? Part 1: The childhood years<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photograph of a purported UFO over Minnesota in 1979. Found <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/1979-minnesota-ufo.htm">here.</a></span></i><br />
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This is the first of a series that discusses writing, rhetoric, history, modern myth...and UFOs.<br />
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"It's not 'What are these things?' It's '<i>Why</i> are there these things?'"<br />
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I don't remember where I read that or who said it, but it perfectly encapsulates my thinking at the moment.<br />
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Eight years ago, I started this blog for several reasons. It would serve as a mental distraction. I could plumb subjects that serve as real-life inspirations for my favorite literary genre, science fiction. Most of all, I saw myself as a sort of Art Bell-wannabe...the blog could be a Coast-to-Coast AM in my own, minuscule corner of the Internet. My primary subject matter would be UFOs.<br />
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Obviously the blog has evolved quite a bit over the years. I've come to cover...well, just about anything I want (it is mine, after all). But lately I've been considering what was once my primary subject matter and asking myself, "why?"<br />
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Why did I ever get interested in this subject? Why did it stick with me for so long? I'm a college professor, a reasonably educated person, and I have at least a foundational understanding of science. Why then would I devote any mental bandwidth to this cultural phenomenon, risking possible ridicule or even worse, professional detriment in the process?<br />
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When couched that way, why would <i>anyone</i> pursue it? For any reason?<br />
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Yet many do. Take a spin around your cable or satellite guide, and you'll find <i>Ancient Aliens, The X-Files</i>, or something of the ilk. Why? Over a series of blog posts, I want to give deep consideration as to why. For this first installment, I decided I must start with a reflective, autobiographical piece...<br />
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I was seven.<br />
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Every two or three weeks, the first grade class of St. Augustine Elementary School in Rensselaer, Indiana would walk to the Jasper County Public Library so that we could check out books to read just for fun. The idea was of course to encourage a love of reading, for if you read read read, you will likely learn learn learn. I got the reading part down, anyway.<br />
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First grade came right after I saw <i>Star Wars</i> and that movie became my whole life. I was an obsessed little six year-old, ravenous for anything even remotely like that film. On one of those visits to the children's section of the library, I pulled a book from the shelf. It was a hardcover in "that library kind of way" (hoping you know what I mean). It had a green cover, and a series of circular spaceships. It's title? <i>Unidentified Flying Objects.</i> I have googled and googled, but have been unable to find this exact book.<br />
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I flipped through the pages of what I thought would be a science fiction story. Instead I found photographs. They were fuzzy, black and white, and I thought the special effects looked nowhere near as good as <i>Star Wars</i>. That is until I read the text and learned that they were photos of things witnessed by other people. I took the book to my first grade teacher.<br />
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"Is this real?" I asked her.<br />
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"No," she said with vehemence. "It's cruddy garbage and you'd best not waste your time with it."<br />
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So what did I do?<br />
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I found and read every book I could on the subject. Here is one of them:<br />
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My mind drank in all the narratives of the sightings. As humans are predisposed to do, I began to discern patterns in the narratives. The sightings would most often take place at night and in rural areas. They would begin as a cluster of lights in the black. They might hover, or they might dart about with incredible speed, or just generally exhibit flight characteristics beyond anything anyone had seen...but no so weird as to be incomprehensible. If the lights drew closer to the witness, a structured craft, often saucer or cigar-shaped, might come into view.<br />
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And then it would be gone.<br />
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All of that was exciting enough for my little first grade self, but I wasn't ready for the tidbit that would really send me over the edge. One UFO book, the title lost to my aging memory, ran a photograph with the following caption: "The witness of this UFO also claims to have met the occupants of the craft."<br />
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Oh. My. GOD.<br />
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<i>Real</i> extraterrestrials? Visiting Earth? All of the science fiction I had been gorging on <i>might </i>be coming true somewhere? Was it anywhere near my house by any chance?<br />
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While I was a ravenous reader on the subject, it would be disingenuous of me not to take into consideration the influence of television.<br />
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Turning my TV dial one day (yes, I'm that old), I found the show <i>In Search Of</i> with "that guy from <i>Star Trek</i>." Nimoy's gravitas-laden voice paired with weird music that was probably made by some guy on a Moog...it was just classic stuff. The show drew me into the paranormal as a whole, but the UFO episodes naturally stuck with me. Right around this same time, NBC also aired a series called <i>Project UFO.</i><br />
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It was produced by Jack Webb of <i>Dragnet</i> fame. I think I have his opening voiceover committed to memory:<br />
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"Ezekiel saw the wheel. This is the wheel he said he saw. These are unidentified flying objects that people say they are seeing now. Are they proof that we are being visited by civilizations from other stars? Or just what are they? The United States Air Force began an investigation of this high strangeness in a search for the truth. What you are about to see is part of that 20-year search."<br />
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Each show was (as the producers claim, anyway) based on a real case investigated by USAF's Project: Blue Book. I've re-watched a few of the episodes on YouTube and they're diverting, but void of any real substance. At the time, however, it was yet another enticing aspect of the phenomenon. There's such a chance that this might be real, that the government is investigating. Little did I know...<br />
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There was of course <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>, but I wouldn't end up seeing that until almost out of grade school. Rensselaer only had one movie theater, you know, and if I was going to beg my parents to take me to see something, it was going to be another showing of <i>Star Wars</i>.<br />
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Naturally, there were adult figures in my life who pumped the brakes from time to time on my enthusiasm for UFOs. As they should have. My father asked me to consider each case and its evidence...or lack thereof. In a form of the Socratic method suited for a lad my age, he would ask me questions about UFO cases and eventually force me to realize that I had not fully considered all possibilities and that the boomerang-shaped mothership from Zeta Retculai might have actually been geese flying in formation with light reflecting off their light-colored bellies. Other adults weren't so kind. Like so many before me, I learned that to have this interest is to subject one's self to ridicule.<br />
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Regardless, I would persist. Why?<br />
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Meditating upon the question, I've come up with the following, preliminary reasons:<br />
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1. Story. We all form our understanding of the world through narrative, but I feel like it has always held an especially important role in my life. Books, comics, TV, movies, all of it consumed my free time as a child. So enraptured was I by story, that I extended these narratives through play with my action figures and other toys, or even through my first fledgling attempts at writing. A UFO sighting, I subconsciously determined, held a narrative pattern and the elements of a great story. As we say in nonfiction studies, "You can't make this stuff up." Well, you can, but I think even when my younger self doubted a UFO account, I still liked reading it. Why? It was simply a helluva story. Often great stories contain an element of...<br />
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2. Mystery. It was an intriguing puzzle. Was it or wasn't it real? I believed it was at the time, but it would be an intellectual challenge to find the evidence and "solve the case," so to speak. Other people liked "Whodunits." I liked "how do we prove it?" As with most things mysterious, there was also...<br />
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3. Fear. My little self often wondered, "If these things are real, what would I do if I ever saw one? More to the point, what would they do to me?" These visitors from strange, alien worlds were obviously far beyond human capabilities. If malevolent, what could any of us possibly do to stop them? This x factor brings an excitement that is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. Fear of the unknown...<br />
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4. But not too unknown. A UFO story was fantastic, but not so utterly bizarre as to be incomprehensible, disorienting, or weird in the traumatic way. I could understand the concept of a spacecraft and aliens. In other words, the narrative was relatable.<br />
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This marked the beginning of my lifelong but ever-changing journey with the UFO phenomenon. Many close readers may be looking at the above four points, asking, "Well, can't you give any examples to support yourself?" Yes.<br />
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Next post in the series...<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-44975367555679452992018-10-09T19:06:00.001-07:002018-10-09T19:06:59.165-07:00We have 12 years to save the world from climate change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's times like these I'm so glad climate change is a hoax.<br />
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The UN <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><b>just dropped a significant report on climate change.</b></a> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report yesterday that asserts humanity will face "dire" consequences of climate change far sooner than expected. To avoid this, it will require changing the world in way that "has no historical precedent." This report paints a portrait of a future world that has "worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population."<br />
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Good news is, I suppose, that the report states that this can be avoided. It is still possible to keep the world's temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. To do this, however, we will need to cut the world's fossil fuel emissions in half in 12 years.<br />
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That means we'd have to really work for it. That means to me, in turn, that we will likely do nothing. As evidence, I point to the current administration's vehement pledge to keep spewing coal into the atmosphere.<br />
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Aside: I don't know if I've blogged this before, but I have a new perspective on coal mining since my College closed. Whole communities depend on coal mines for their livelihood. And what is a coal miner in his fifties to do if we take away his job? While the environment is indeed at risk, what will we do for these people?<br />
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What can writers do in the face of this news? I suppose a few more cautionary tales of "hellish visions of the future"...as I've once been accused of...couldn't hurt.<br />
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Last night I watched a Saints game, and I just couldn't shake the memory of the people who died in the Superdome back in 2005. They sought shelter from a superstorm. As I watched the game, yet another hurricane gathered force in the Gulf of Mexico. We are just now entering the age of the superstorm. What will it be like to live with them on the regular in the future? What will a world of pervasive drought be like? Yeah, don't just say "dry." Think about it.<br />
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Drought, heat, and severe weather often bring scarcity. Lack of access to food and water tend to destabilize things. Military control might be necessary. What would life be like in that world.<br />
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As warmer temperatures melt permafrost, a good ol' pandemic becomes more likely. Hope you liked the move <i>Outbreak</i>, because you may soon be LARPing it.<br />
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We have 12 years...<br />
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Might I recommend Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler be kept on everyone's nightstand?<br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7116431720118421557.post-89867762206006363232018-10-03T20:24:00.000-07:002018-10-03T20:24:04.997-07:00When it comes to horror, I keep it old school<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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October has finally arrived.<br />
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For many, it will be a month-long celebration of Halloween. For anyone who has spent time in goth culture or who loves the weird and the unexplained, they'll tell you "October 31st is for tourists."<br />
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One of the ways people will observe the holiday is by watching horror movies, and channels like TCM are serving up a full and tasty buffet. I know that my students, especially my current ones for whatever reason, certainly devour the contemporary products of the horror genre, but me? I keep it old school. It's Universal Monsters all the way. Here's why...<br />
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1. Literary heritage.<br />
Given that the Universal films were written towards the early end of the 20th century, the reservoir of film inspiration that could be drawn from was nil. Instead, writers turned to folklore and literature for sources. In the realm of scary stuff, one could hardly do better than Bram Stoker's <i>Dracula</i> and Mary Shelley's <i>Frankenstein</i>, with that latter text being the true masterpiece of the two. While the film adaptations may at first appear to have little in common with their literary progenitors, I enjoy watching the movies and finding the themes that remain, hiding just beneath the surface like a child under a sheet. In certain respects, the films mimic the synthesis and composition techniques of Stoker. He drew together history and folklore to create his magnum opus. Tod Browning, in directing <i>Dracula</i>, took the best of the stage play adaptations (namely Bela Lugosi) and added the touches of German expressionism as Tchaikovsky's <i>Swan Lake</i> plays in the background.<br />
Stoker might have also had a little help from John Polidori and that perhaps mythical night that birthed Shelley's <i>Frankenstein</i>, but that is probably best left for another post.<br />
The outlier in the "holy trinity" of Universal Monsters is <i>The Wolf Man</i>. It has no "origin text" and relies solely on myth and folklore.<br />
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2. Old ones work for it.<br />
As with so many of today's mass market films, screenwriters in the horror genre seem to rely on bombast and jump scares. Everything is bigger and louder, while also being utterly disposable...as is the case with so much of consumer culture. Use once. Then destroy. Then there's the gore factor. "Torture porn" has never appealed to me, because...among other obvious reasons...it's just too easy.<br />
Given the film standards of the time, Universal Monster films needed rely on creating an ambiance. You might not be especially scared watching <i>Frankenstein </i>or <i>Dracula</i>, but it's hard not to come away with getting a creepy vibe. Just take a look at the graveyard scene that opens that former film. Wow. A straight masterpiece. Black and white film only adds to the effect and directors like James Whale and Tod Browning sure knew what the hell they were doing. There is an artistry at work on the screen that looks good enough to eat. That is if your tastes tend towards the gothy and expressionistic.<br />
It takes thought and a creative eye to bring about this milieu...far more work than "crazy guy with a chainsaw."<br />
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3. Shared Universe.<br />
Yes, I hear tell that all the <i>Conjuring</i> films and spinoffs are linked together in a single story. Sequels, such as the bazillion <i>Nightmare on Elm Streets</i> and so forth, are one thing. It's quite another to take separate mythologies and weave them together in a way that makes sense. But that's exactly what Universal did. While a few of the entries (<i>Bride of Frankenstein</i>) are better than others (<i>The Mummy's Hand</i>), I appreciate and enjoy how the different stories get drawn together. <br />
It's a shame that a few of those films are more or less forgotten today. I'm thinking of <i>Son of Frankenstein</i>, which was the basis for the comedy Young Frankenstein. Not only does it feature a strong performance by the inimitable Basil Rathbone, it's meditation on how wrongdoing can taint an entire family, leaving its members unable to get out from under it.<br />
As for my favorite, "everybody and the kitchen sink" Universal film? Probably <i>House of Frankenstein.</i><br />
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4. Comfort.<br />
It sounds completely antithetical, but I like watching the Universal Monsters precisely because they <i>don't </i>scare me. I've often said, "My real life is scary enough. I don't need to add terror to it." Current horror, with its predilection for serial killers and "ripped from today's headlines" storylines, likes to leave viewers with the thought, "This could happen to you." I can understand how this naturally heightens the terror for those who enjoy such a sensation.<br />
I don't need that. Watching entries in the Universal Monsters mythos, I seldom if ever think the scenario could happen to me. Well, I'll admit that at around age 8, I did have the night sweats while wondering if I was adequately prepared to defend myself against an intruding vampire or werewolf, but that was a long time ago. These films let me enjoy the creep factor from quite a safe distance. So safe that they eventually become the cinematic equivalent of a comfort food like mac and cheese. It's no wonder I love watching <a href="https://esotericsynapticevents.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-tribute-to-svengoolie.html"><b>Svengoolie</b></a> every Saturday night.<br />
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I have a similar fondness for Hammer films, but that's probably best left for another post.<br />
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Happy Halloween. <br />
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Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0