Current News from The Looking Glass:


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Dark "Relapse"

Let's hope that Eminem's (MM) new Joker persona isn't going to have a severe street backlash...



http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/05/16/eminem-as-the-joker-relapse-rapper-takes-cue-from-the-dark-knight-in-new-album/

by: Rick Marshall
Eminem’s new album, “Relapse,” hits shelves Tuesday, and it looks like the Punisher-themed promotional shoot he did for XXL Magazine a month ago isn’t the only comics connection in the album. Among the various imagery in the album liner is a shot of Eminem decked out like the late Heath Ledger’s award-winning interpretation of The Joker in “The Dark Knight.” The shot depicts Eminem with scarred grin, painted face and suit, holding a set of alphabet blocks that spell the word “KILL” — and appears in a collage of psych charts, pills and prescription forms at the center of the booklet.

Sure, the full album is available on MySpace right now, but “Relapse” will officially be available for purchase this week at shops. Check out MTV’s “Relapse” preview for some context on the album, as well as our extensive coverage of all things Eminem as we approach the May 19 release date.

Eminem will also be taking the stage during the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, and with so many comic book references in the time leading up to this album, there’s always the chance that we could see a few more call-outs to the comics world on Sunday, May 31.




Friday, May 8, 2009

Lunatic Fringe?


Paul Laffoley's Orgone Engine

This out of Africa...man, this guy really has all the answers. Wonder if he knows the meaning of life too?

http://allafrica.com/stories/200905070830.html

Analysis (?) by Paul Fauvet

Maputo — The four people accused by the Mozambican police of using a supposedly "highly corrosive substance" in an attempt to sabotage the Cahora Bassa dam are in fact members of a lunatic fringe group called "Orgonise Africa".

The four have now been named as Georg Ritschi (a German architect), Carlos Silva (a Portuguese hotelier), Tino Phutheso (a Botsanan aircraft pilot), and Joseph Ngusato (a South African self-styled "prophet").

There was nothing clandestine about this group's visit to the Cahora Bassa lake. They advertised it on their Internet websites, where they called the journey "Operation Paradise".

"Want to come on our next Zambezi expedition, April 2009?", asked Georg Ritschi on an "Orgonise Africa" blog. "Our next big expedition will be the continuation of our last great water gifting effort on the lower Zambezi", said Ritschi.

What can they possibly be talking about? Orgonise? Gifting?

It turns out that Orgonise Africa is a band of dedicated followers of the Austrian psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, who died in an American jail in 1956. Reich did some valuable work on human sexuality in the early part of his career, but in his later years switched his political allegiance from left to right, and showed signs of mental illness and paranoia.

He claimed that he had discovered a universal form of energy which he called orgone. This energy - undetected by science both then and in the 52 years since Reich's death - was responsible for everything from the weather to gravity and the formation of galaxies. Reich built machines called orgone accumulators which were supposed to concentrate orgone energy. This would be a good thing since, according to Reich, illness and diseases are caused by insufficient orgone.






RED RIDER'S "Lunatic Fringe"

Monday, May 4, 2009

The Limits of Control

thanks to Erick Clapp for sending this along...!



By: William S. Burroughs

I

There is a growing interest in new techniques of mind-control. It has been suggested that Sirhan Sirhan was the subject of post-hypnotic suggestion, as he sat shaking violently on the steam table in the kitch of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while the as-yet unidentified woman held him and whispered in his ear. It has been alleged that behavior-modification techniques are used on troublesome prisoners and inmates, often without their consent. Dr. Delgado, who once stopped a charging bull by remote control of electrodes in the bull's brain, left the U.S. to pursue his studies on human subjects in Spain. Brainwashing, psychotropic drugs, lobotomy and other, more subtle forms of psychosurgery; the technocratic control apparatus of the United States has at its fingertips new techniques which if fully exploited could make Orwell's 1984 seem like a benevolent utopia.

II

But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control.

III

A basic impasse of all control machines is this: Control needs time in which to exercise control. Because control also needs opposition or acquiescence; otherwise, it ceases to be control. I control a hypnotized subject (at least partially); I control a slave, a dog, a worker; but if I establish complete control somehow, as by implanting electrodes in the brain, then my subject is little more than a tape recorder, a camera, a robot. You don't control a tape recorder - you use it. Consider the distinction, and the impasse implicit here. All control systems try to make control as tight as possible, but at the same time, if they succeeded completely there would be nothing left to control. Suppose for example a control system installed electrodes in the brains of all prospective workers at birth. Control is now complete. Even the thought of rebellion is neurologically impossible. No police force is necessary. No psychological control is necessary, other than pressing buttons to achieve certain activations and operations.

IV

When there is no more opposition, control becomes a meaningless proposition. It is highly questionable whether a human organism could survive complete control. There would be nothing there. No persons there. Life is will (motivation) and the workers would no longer be alive, perhaps literally. The concept of suggestion as a complete technique presupposes that control is partial and not complete. You do not have to give suggestions to your tape recorder nor subject it to pain and coercion or persuasion.

V

In the Mayan control system, where the priests kept the all-important Books of seasons and gods, the calendar was predicated on the universal illiteracy since they operate through the mass media - a very two-edged control instrument, as Watergate has shown. Control systems are vulnerable, and the news media are by their nature uncontrollable, at least in Western society. The alternative press is news, and alternative society is news, and as such both are taken up by the mass media. The monopoly that Hearst and Luce once exercised is breaking down. In fact, the more completely hermetic and seemingly successful a control system is, the more vulnerable it becomes. A weakness inherent in the Mayan system is that they didn't need an army to control their workers, and therefore did not need an army when they needed one to repel invaders. It is a rule of social structures that anything that is not needed will atrophy and become inoperative over a period of time. Cut off from the war game - and remember, the Mayans had no neighbors to quarrel with they lose the ability to fight. In "The Mayan Caper" I suggested that such a hermetic control system would be completely disoriented and shattered by even one person who tampered with the control calendar, upon which the control system depended more and more heavily as the actual means of force withered away.

VI

Consider a control situation: ten people in a lifeboat. two armed self-appointed leaders force the other eight to do the rowing while they dispose of the food and water, keeping most of it for themselves an doling out only enough to keep the other eight rowing. The two leaders now need to exercise control to maintain an advantageous position which they could not hold without it. Here the method of control is force - the possession of guns. Decontrol would be accomplished by overpowering the leaders and taking their guns. This effected, it would be advantageous to kill them at once. So once embarked on a policy of control, the leaders must continue the policy as a matter of self-preservation. Who, then, needs to control others but those who protect by such control a position of relative advantage? Why do they need to exercise control? Because they would soon lose this position and advantage and in many cases their lives as well, if they relinquished control.

VII

Now examine the reasons by which control is exercised in the lifeboat scenario: The two leaders are armed, let's say, with .38 revolvers - twelve shots and eight potential opponents. They can take turns sleeping. However, they must still exercise care not to let the eight rowers know that they intend to kill them when land is sighted. Even in this primitive situation force is supplemented with deception and persuasion. The leaders will disembark at point A, leaving the other sufficient food to reach point B, they explain. They have the compass and they are contributing their navigational skills. In short they will endeavor to convince the others that this is a cooperative enterprise in which they are all working for the same goal. They may also make concessions: increase food and water rations. A concession of course means the retention of control - that is, the disposition of the food and water supplies. By persuasions and by concessions they hope to prevent a concerted attack by the eight rowers.

VIII

Actually they intend to poison the drinking water as soon as they leave the boat. If all the rowers knew this they would attack, no matter what the odds. We now see that another essential factor in control is to conceal from the controlled the actual intentions of the controllers. Extending the lifeboat analogy to the Ship of State, few existing governments could withstand a sudden, all-out attack by all their underprivileged citizens, and such an attack might well occur if the intentions of certain existing governments were unequivocally apparent. Suppose the lifeboat leaders had built a barricade and could withstand a concerted attack and kill all eight of the rowers if necessary. They would then have to do the rowing themselves and neither would be safe from the other. Similarly, a modern government armed with heavy weapons and prepared for attack could wipe out ninety-five percent of its citizens. But who would do the work, and who would protect them from the soldiers and technicians needed to make and man the weapons? Successful control means achieving a balance and avoiding a showdown where all-out force would be necessary. This is achieved through various techniques of psychological control, also balanced. The techniques of both force and psychological control are constantly improved and refined, and yet worldwide dissent has never been so widespread or so dangerous to the present controllers.

IX

All modern control systems are riddled with contradictions. Look at England. "Never go too far in any direction," is the basic rule on which England is built, and there is some wisdom in that. However, avoiding one impasse they step into another. Anything that is now going forward is on the way out. Well, nothing lasts forever. Time is that which ends, and control needs time. England is simply stalling for time as it slowly founders. Look at America. Who actually controls this country? It is very difficult to say. Certainly the very wealthy are one of the most powerful control groups, since they are in a position to control and manipulate the entire economy. However, it would not be to their advantage to set up or attempt to set up an overly fascist government. Force, once brought in, subverts the power of money. This is another impasse of control: protection from the protectors. Hitler formed the S.S. to protect him from the S.A. If he had lived long enough the question of protection from the S.S. would have pose itself. The Roman Emperors were at the mercy of the Praetorian Guard, who in one year killed twenty Emperors. And besides, no modern industrial country has ever gone fascist without a program of military expansion. There is no longer anyplace to expand to - after hundreds of years, colonialism is a thing of the past.

X

There can be no doubt that a cultural revolution of unprecedented dimensions has taken place in American during the last thirty years, and since America is now the model for the rest of the Western world, this revolution is worldwide. Another factor is the mass media, which spreads all cultural movements in all directions. The fact that this worldwide revolution has taken place indicates that the controllers have been forced to make concessions. Of course, a concession is still the retention of control. Here's a dime, I keep a dollar. Ease up on censorship, but remember we could take it all back. Well, at this point, that is questionable.

XI

Concession is another blind. History shows that once a government starts to make concessions it is on a one-way street. They could of course take all the concessions back, but that would expose them to the double jeopardy of revolution and the much greater danger of overt fascism, both highly dangerous to the present controllers. Does any clear policy arise from this welter of confusion? Than answer is probably no. The mass media has proven a very unreliable and even treacherous instrument of control. It is uncontrollable owing to its need for NEWS. If one paper, or even a string of papers owned by the same person, makes that story hotter as NEWS, some other paper will pick it up. Any imposition of government censorship on the media is a step in the direction of State control, a step which big money is most reluctant to take.

XI

I don't mean to suggest that control automatically defeats itself, nor that protest is therefore unnecessary. A government is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course. It is encouraging that some behavior modification projects have been exposed and halted, and certainly such exposure and publicity should continue. in fact, I submit that we have a right to insist that all scientific research be subject to public scrutiny, and that there should be no such thing as "top-secret" research.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Conspiracies can't happen...


Oh! they can, and they do...wanna know how? Often they are small and insignificant (one's that no one notices or cares about) but over time if you add them up you can start to see how a larger far reaching one is even possible. It's shit like this that makes the world go 'round.



NEW YORK (CBS) ―A furious President Barack Obama ordered an internal review of Monday's [April 27th, 2009] low-flying photo op over the Statue of Liberty.

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration's James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor's office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.

What are your feelings on federal officials demanding the NYC flyover be kept secret by the NYPD and the mayor's office?

"To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it's just confounding," Sen. Charles Schumer said. "It's what gives Washington and government a bad name. It's sheer stupidity."

The flyover -- apparently ordered by the White House Office of Military Affairs so it would have souvenir photos of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background -- had President Obama seeing red. He ordered a probe and apologized.

"It was a mistake. It will never happen again," President Obama said.

The cost of the frivolous flight was about $60,000 an hour and that was just for Air Force One. That doesn't include the cost of the two F-16s that came along.

The flight by the VC-25, a modified Boeing Co. 747, and two F-16 fighter jets cost $328,835, Air Force spokeswoman Vicki Stein said.
That includes $300,658 for the larger plane, which flew a three-hour mission, and about $28,178 for the F-16 jets, which flew 1.8 hours each, Stein said in an e-mailed statement.

The NYPD was so upset about the demand for secrecy that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly vowed never to follow such a directive again and he accused the feds of inciting fears of a 9/11 replay.

"Did it show an insensitivity to the psychic wounds New York City has after 9/11? Absolutely. No questions about it. It was quite insensitive," Kelly said.

The mayoral aide who neglected to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg about it was reprimanded.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/air.force.one.2.996457.html

Interesting side comments from Christopher Knowles post "Stairway to Sirius: AF1BU photo OP, or...? " reveal that April 27th was also a date significant in the movie "Cloverfield" which obviously is closely connected with it's 9/11 theme and decapitation of the Statue of Liberty.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Ceres Strikes? (UPDATED)


Anyone familiar with my entire body of work will surely know that some of my earliest posts centered around the ancient mid-April festival of Cerealia, held in the honor of the Roman Goddess CERES. One of the "highlights" of the Cerealia was the porca pracidanea, the ritual sacrifice of a PIG. In previous articles over the past two years, I have attempted to exhibit some the "pork" related happenings which also seem to coincide with a bloodier human ritual which has become common place during approximately the same dates of mid-April [see Ok. City, Columbine, Virgina Tech]. Just when I thought we had turned the corner this year, and we wouldn't be seeing any signatures of what I had previous called "The Ceres Death Ritual"...the sickle dropped.




The Horn & Hoof flag from "Animal Farm" as stand in for the Hammer & Sickle...the Sickle (?) also serves as the symbol of Ceres.











An outbreak of SWINE Flu, has the world on edge...a shooting here in Athens, Georgia [ATHENA], Ft. Walton Beach in Northwestern Florida and finally yesterday at Hampton University in Virginia [VIRGIN] appear to round out this year's cycle. Researcher and oft cited Loren Coleman has found perhaps the most intriguing story connected with the current SWINE Flu scare...it appears that President Barack Obama came into direct contact with a recent victim of the killer flu on his recent trip to Mexico. Has anyone else noticed how bad things seem to follow this man around where ever goes?

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-flu-death.html

Also of note, the attempted multiple homicide shooting (two were injured as well as the shooter who turned his gun on himself) at Hampton University took place less than a stones throw from Smithfield, Virginia which is home to the headquarters of Smithfield Foods; originally thought to be one of the primary points of origin of the SWINE flu outbreak, Smithfield Foods claims that no pigs at either of it's two Mexican processing centers are infected.

Shades of Animal Farm?


Just moments ago...Strong quake felt in Mexico City. TRIDENT alert!

and Lynn Hayes over at Astrological Musings was kind enough to acknowledge the Ceres connection as well:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/astrologicalmusings/2009/04/ceres-and-the-swine-flu-connec.html

Previous articles on the "Ceres Death Ritual" and related topics:
http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2007/05/ceres-series-death-ritual-part-i_07.html
http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2007/05/ceres-death-ritual-series-sidebar.html
http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2007/05/ceres-death-ritual-series-part-ii.html
http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-scream-you-scream-we-all-scream.html
http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2007/06/grand-temple-of-ceres-pit-and-scrooge.html
http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2008/04/im-so-hungry-i-could-eat.html


Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Final Problem

A bizarre and unsettling 24 hours here in Athens dear readers...

"You crossed my path on the 4th of January,' said he. 'On the 23d you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one."

-PROFESSOR Moriarty, speaking to Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem"


A nationwide search continues today (Sunday April, 26th) for a University of Georgia PROFESSOR who police say shot and killed his wife and two men at an Athens theater gathering on Saturday.

Current and former members of Town and Gown Players, a long-standing community theater group off Prince Avenue, had gathered for an annual reunion about noon when George Zinkhan started arguing with someone, left briefly and returned with two handguns, according to Athens-Clarke police Capt. Clarence Holeman.

Zinkhan fired several shots, Holeman said, killing three people: Tom Tanner, 40; Ben Teague, 63; and Zinkhan's wife, Marie Bruce, 47. All three were involved with the theater company. Two other victims were wounded and taken to Athens Regional Medical Center.

Zinkhan left his two young children in the car, and after the shooting, dropped off the children with a Bogart neighbor and left, saying there was an emergency, according to police. The children did not see the shootings, authorities said.

Holeman raised the possibility that the shooting could be a crime of passion.

"I can only speculate," he said. "Some people are saying it could be a love triangle or something like that."

Zinkhan appeared to target Tanner, Teague and Bruce, said Rick Bedell, an actor with the Town and Gown Players, but he did not know why.

"It was deliberate," Bedell said. "He shot these three people specifically and walked out.

"They were good people, and I have no idea why (Zinkhan) went nuts," he said.

Police and a SWAT team searched Saturday for Zinkhan anywhere they thought he might go, including Zinkhan's house on Chesterfield Drive in Bogart, his office in Brooks Hall on campus and Bruce's downtown law office, but did not find him.

Police said Zinkhan, 56, was last seen driving a red 2005 Jeep Liberty with a Georgia tag number AIX 1376. Police have not found the car, so he may still be driving it, Holeman said.

Authorities nationwide are looking for Zinkhan, including checking at airports to ensure he doesn't try to leave the country, Holeman said. Zinkhan has relatives in Austin, Texas, and may be on his way there, he said Saturday. Zinkhan also owns a home in The Netherlands.

"We'll be searching until we find him," he said via email today.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/042609/new_432988754.shtml

Marie Bruce juggled a family and law career and still found time to act and serve on the board of Athens' Town and Gown Players.

Ben Teague put his carpentry skills to work building great stage sets for more than a decade.

Tom Tanner joined the long-standing troupe later, but added technical skills that made the tiny sets sparkle.

Colleagues and neighbors of the theater gathered in small groups outside crime-scene tape Saturday afternoon, waiting for news and for police to release the guests who had gathered at the Grady Avenue building. By Saturday evening, actors, directors and theater supporters were gathering to comfort each other in the wake of a triple murder outside their longtime performance space.

The theater troupe's annual reunion was just breaking up around noon Saturday when University of Georgia marketing professor George Zinkhan opened fire with two handguns, according to Athens-Clarke police Capt. Clarence Holeman.

He fired several shots, Holeman said, killing his wife, Bruce, and two men, Tanner and Teague. Two others were injured.

Tanner, who had worked for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, was playing the role of Doc Watson in the Town and Gown Players' production of "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Problem."

As news spread of the murders, theater fans and Boulevard neighbors scrounged for news about whether police had identified the victims or caught Zinkhan.

"I went down to the scene today and I think everybody is in shock," said Athens-Clarke Commissioner David Lynn, whose district covers the area. "The professor was highly thought of and from what people say to me, at the top of his game, highly functional. How does someone go from such a highly rational person to something like this?"

The clamor surrounding Athens' TWILIGHT Criterium, one of the largest events of the year, added to neighbors' discomfort. [TWILIGHT Criterium]

"When helicopters continue to circle the neighborhood, that's disconcerting," Lynn said. "There are 30,000 people downtown and when you hear a siren, you wonder whether that is related to the event."

Gathered with friends, and well over a hundred locals just blocks from the scene of the event well after midnight last night; Don Chambers howled "There's a WEREWOLF MOON rising over the pines..."