Paraskevidekatriaphobia: the Fear of Friday the 13th

Above: Still from the film Friday the 13th showing Jason Voorhees before he got pumped up and had a makeover.

Non haec sollemnia nobis,
Has ex more dapes,
Hanc tanti numinis aram
Uana superstitio…imposuit,
-King Evander
Virgil, Aeneid, VIII, 185-188

Neither these rituals, these formal feasts, nor this altar at this holy place of power have been imposed on us by empty superstition.-my translation

Or, more succinctly:

These rites, these altars, and this feast, O king,
From no vain fears or superstition spring,- John Dryden's translation

Virgil places superstition in a place outside of established religion. Virgil is stating that any belief which is empty (uana, vain, empty) is not valid and is unworthy to be compared to the devout practices devoted to the honor of the gods. Such thoughtlessly performed activities must be considered superstition by definition. Of course, most people today would place the religious practices of Classical Times in the category of superstition, devoutly performed or not. We might say then that in our day any irrational practice intended to placate invisible beings, avert bad luck or facilitate good luck and is outside one's accepted religious belief could be described as superstition. But Virgil seemed to be specifically consigning superstitio to those almost unconscious irrational behaviors performed without much thought.
At the beginnings of culture various practices of this kind may have been interchangeable with incipient religious practices. At some point the priest class has to sort out which practices will make the cut for formal acceptance in the religion. Some practices, known as "survivals" may have begun as superstition and trended into the realm of cultural custom, such as hand-shaking or toasting. Days of rest may have developed from tabu days when it was considered sacriligeous or risky to do anything. Friday the 13th is kind of a tabu day for me. I usually put in for a vacation day at work to avoid going out. Do I really believe something will happen if I go out. No. I don't think so; I just like 3 day weekends. But that's how these things can get started.
And do I keep an elderberry bush by the back door because it is traditionally anathema to witches or because I enjoy the shrub? Well, I aint got nothing against those witches.

Carefully Searching For Clues: Bogart in The Big Sleep, 1946, director: Howard Hawks, screenplay: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett

Fun Facts About Major Hasan

Nancy Gibbs has dropped some interesting titbits about Major Hasan in her Time article, "Fort Hood Killer: Terrified or Terrorist?". Let us remember that these are some things the establishment media want us to take away about the man who was the star of this event of November 5, also the date of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 to blow up Parliament.

1. He told his Imam before the attack that he was going to visit his parents before deploying to Afghanistan without mentioning that his parents had been dead for over a decade.
2. He was some kind of misfit who couldn't find a wife but spent lots of time in the strip club outside the base.
3. He had few friends; he was a loner but he loved his parakeet and chewed food for it before he let the bird eat out of his mouth. He mourned for months after he killed it by rolling over it during a nap and visited the grave of the creature for months.
4. He changed his major in medical school to psychiatry after fainting while watching a baby being born.
5. Why he had a problem finding a wife in America: "He wanted a woman who prayed five times a day and wears a hijab, and maybe the women he met were not complying with those things." the former imam of his mosque Faizul Khan told the New York Times.
6. While serving a Walter Reed Army Medical Center he attempted to convert patients and castigated them for their "unholy" behavior.
7. While in military training he let everyone know he put Shari'a, Muslim Law, ahead of the Constitution.
8. NPR reported that in the spring of 2008 top officials at Walter Reed debated whether Hasan was psychotic. Everyone agreed that no one would want to share a foxhole with Hasan in Afghanistan.

This piece describes the problems the military has dealing with Muslims and probably predicts what changes will be coming as a result of this event. Mainly, implies Time, Muslims in the military have been protected by "political correctness" and (I extrapolate) they can expect much tougher treatment if they display any unusual attachment to their religion or argue the morality of our far flung deployments in Muslim lands. I also predict conscientious objector status will be made much more available to Muslims.

There is a LINK in the Time feature called "Inside the Apartment of Nidal Malik Hasan." It is a collection of photos (presumably taken by the FBI) of Hasan's sparse digs. One photograph is very interesting. LINK It shows a collection of Hasan's prescription drug bottles. One was prescribed at Lackland AFB and contains combivir, an HIV medicine. Perhaps Hasan was taking it as an HIV prophylactic after being exposed to an infected patient. I'm definitely not an expert on that. I can't make out the other drug names on the bottles.

Paging Dr. Jerkoff, Dr. Wanker, Dr. Jerkoff!

You will be hearing a lot about this guy in the next news distraction cycle. Here's the story:

"Hundreds of women have trusted him with their bodies, and their dreams of motherhood. Many depend on him as their doctor today.

But for nearly seven years, none of Dr. Ben D. Ramaley's patients have known that the prominent obstetrician/gynecologist had been accused of an almost unimaginable act — substituting his own sperm for that of a patient's husband during an artificial insemination procedure.

The allegation was made against the veteran Greenwich, Conn., doctor in a 2005 medical malpractice lawsuit – which was quickly settled, then sealed, the very court documents shredded. The suit was filed by a couple when a DNA test revealed that the husband was not the biological father of their twin girls, born after an insemination procedure performed by Ramaley."-Debra Friedman, Hearst News Service "Wrong man's sperm produces twins-and a shocking accusation" the rest: (LINK)

It's a little convoluted but this guy's game began to fall apart when he substituted his own jizz for a patient's husband's apparently thinking the woman wouldn't notice the fact that her kids showed no resemblance to Daddy or maybe the good doctor just didn't know his patient's husband was black. There could be a lot of half brothers and sisters in Greenwich, Connecticut who might want DNA tests to avoid incestual relationships in the coming years.

"Who doesn't desire his father's death?"- Feodor Doestoevski, The Brothers Karamazov

The Dude stumbling over clues in a world that makes no sense. The Big Lebowski 1998 director: Joel Coen, screenplay: Ethan Coen

A Traditional Depiction of Mithras Slaying the Bull at the End of the Age of Taurus, A Tauroctony
scanned from Bullfinch Age of Fable, or, Beauties of Mythology, Revised by Rev. Loughran Scott, David McKay, Publisher, 1898

"The most famous sculpturings and reliefs of this prototokos show Mithras kneeling upon the recumbent form of a great bull, into whose throat he is driving a sword. The slaying of the bull signifies that the rays of the sun, symbolized by the sword, release at the vernal equinox the vital essences of the earth--the blood of the bull-- which, pouring from the wound made by the Sun God, fertilize the seeds of living things. Dogs were held sacred to the cult of Mithras, being symbolic of sincerity and trustworthiness. The Mithraics used the serpent as an emblem of Ahriman, the Spirit of Evil, and water rats were held sacred to him. The bull is esoterically the Constellation of Taurus; the serpent, its opposite in the zodiac, Scorpio; the sun, Mithras, entering into the side of the bull, slays the celestial creature and nourishes the universe with its blood."-Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings Of All Ages

You can hear the latest discussion between myself and Vyzygoth at Think Or Be Eaten Radio HERE. Direct link to mp3 file HERE.
We get into current events and I go on a long rant about bimetallism. I apologize for any mistakes I may have made (the ones I recall were minor; I said I was an officer in the Navy for five years at the beginning of the discussion; I was enlisted for about six months and commissioned for four years; I said we were briefed by the CO of the Marine Barracks in Beirut before the terrorist bombing; we were briefed by a Marine Intelligence Officer) and sounding a little lethargic and weak in the pipes. I had some kind of a nasty intestinal virus for about a week and a half that first emptied me out and then bound me up for five days. Yesterday was the first day I was feeling half human in almost a week. But it is a good discussion. We cover much.

"Immature Poppy Pod" photo by John Bonanno, July 2009

Observations On Veteran's Day

Here's a message to cable channels with a high definition feed: I will not watch your programming if you distort or stretch the picture in any way to fill the screen of a 16:9 TV.

It's being reported today that Major Hasan never submitted a formal request to leave the military. But he did submit an informal but very emphatic request on the 5th of November. Under the UCMJ Hasan may face the death penalty. Don't count on it. There has been no military execution since 1961. The President must approve all military executions.

They're digging in Bates City (a perfect name for a crime scene), Missouri for evidence after five men ( a 77 year old father and his four sons) were arrested for various sex crimes against children. The charges include giving an 11 year old girl an abortion, forcing children to have sex with dogs, rape, sodomy, and possibly worse. There may be bodies. But the victims say the perps told them to write down their bad experiences and bury them in jars and the bad memories would go away. I hope they find the jars. Oh yeah, this was a multi-generational Mohler family tradition. (LINK)

It happens every now and then. Another idiot went to his high school reunion as a Marine in uniform wearing military decorations he didn't earn. 39 year old Steven Burton of Palm Springs, California arrived wearing a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and, get this, the highest honor the Department of the Navy bestows, the Navy Cross. Very impressive, very ballsy. Unfortunately for Stevie, a female Navy Commander attending the gala event smelled a rat and had her picture taken with him and then sent it to the FBI. They determined that Steve had never served in any branch of the military. I almost feel sorry for such a pathetic creature. His life must really be empty. He could do as much as a year in a federal penitentiary. Well, he'll have some stories to tell at his next high school reunion. (facts from the Marine Times) (LINK)

Oh, by the way, North and South Korea are at each other's throats again and are at high alert.

Germany has sentenced Alexander Wiens to life in prison with no possibility of parole for stabbing (sixteen times) a pregnant Egyptian woman, Marwa Sherbini in a Dresden courtroom last July. She died at the defamation trial of Wiens who had called her a "terrorist" and "Islamist" for wearing a head covering in a children's playground. Needless to say, German/Egyptian relations are at a nadir. The Dresden Orchestra has canceled a visit to Egypt. If you have a German name I wouldn't recommend a trip to the pyramids right now. (thanks for the details to the BBC)

The President of the World Bank is worried about the faster than expected recovery in Asia. I don't get it either.

An 11 year old Boston kid, Jigme Wangchuk, (sounds like a hockey player) has been declared the reincarnation of His Holiness the Second Galwa Lorepa, a lama who died in 1250 in Tibet. His parents have given up their Boston restaurant and moved back to the old country which would be in the old Himalayan town of Darjeeling. The lad will reside in the Drukpa Sangag Choeling Monastery and be trained to perform his duties as Rinpoche. I hope he's a Red Sox fan. Spin a few wheels for them and chant a few prayers towards Fenway, son, er Master. (LINK)

My friend Vyzygoth pointed out that John Allen Muhammad was executed yesterday at 9:11PM. It must be a coincidence. Ah, I can barely recall those weird tales of the shooters from the old days of 2002. Yeah, something about a homeless drifter who had the money to do a lot of traveling to the Caribbean, buy some nice weaponry, support a "foster" son, and whatnot. He died proclaiming his innocence.

On Bimetallism and Other Things


US 45th Infantry Division armpatch 1920-1935

Chase Logo: Note the thematic resemblance to the swastika. But to be fair to Chase, the swastika is an ancient symbol of life, the sun and power; but they use the counterclockwise wings as did the Nazis, which is rare. It was also found on the United States Infantry 45th division arm patch from 1920-1935 until they abandoned it to reject the Nazi taint.

A Few Notes On Our Magickal Monetary System



1) The Usual Suspects defraud the People
The same pattern reoccurs. Over and over again the plutocrats, the bankers, the industrialists, the investor class- those who live on the ability to manipulate money and not produce useful work or goods- take advantage of hard working and therefore ignorant people.
The robber barons of the "Gilded Age" used the insurance policy premium money of working people to create oil and railroad monopolies. Retirement account money and shaky mortgages have been used by the manipulators of this "Age Of Empty Promises" to create unfathomable baroque investment er, betting strategies which, when they inevitable fail, are salvaged by money soaked from the taxpayers. And surprise! Many of the institutions and individuals involved in these schemes are the direct descendants of those same culprits from the 19th Century, for example: the Rockefeller controlled Chase Bank.

2) Too Busy To Notice
The average person fails to notice what is happening until the theft of their money is a fait accompli; and that is when it hurts.

3) "Solutions" Only Intensify The Problem
In these situations certain individuals finally act to describe and correct the problem. Politicians wring their hands publicly and dine with the miscreants privately. The plutocrats delay. They control the courts and the houses of congress. But after a while they allow properly scrubbed "reforms" that are largely irrelevant. Throughout the 19th Century they squeezed the people with the railroads. Farmers were choked to death by the rails and farms were lost. By the time the railroads were finally regulated in the 20th Century these plutocrats moved on to controlling the energy that drove the railroads and the suddenly ubiquitous internal combustion engine. In very little (and those we discuss here think very far ahead) time those small farmers who had complained so much in the 19th century were mostly gone, replaced by the corporate farmer with all the rights of the individual and few of the responsibilities thanks to the Supreme Court consisting of mostly corporate lawyers who had determined that corporations, a legal construct, must have the rights of human beings, with protections retained. Soon corporate farms would receive federal subsidies far larger than the consistently refused modest requests of those 19th century farmers. The Age Of Corporate Socialism, the partnership of government and the holders of the money was underway.

Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

4) The Monetary System Is Stacked Against Us
Beyond energy the plutocrats determined to own the mother lode of wealth itself, the monetary system would have to be placed under their control. Bimetallism was the original policy of the United States of America. The U.S. Coinage Act of 1792 established the United States Mint and set the ratio value of silver to gold at 15:1. This ratio had been very consistent for hundreds of years. The dollar was pegged at 371 4/16 grains of pure silver. In other words 15 ounces of silver got you one ounce of gold and vice versa at the mint; coined money could be gotten for weight equivalents of either of the precious metals. In 1834 the ratio was adjusted to 16:1 due to a fall in the value of silver. (England would soon adopt the Gold Standard and this project would affect the value of silver negatively.) This adjustment was necessitated, it was said, by the initial effects of Gresham's Law, which essentially states: Bad money drives out good money from circulation under legal tender laws.
As silver became more abundant due to increased production after discovery of new veins in the West, certain sophisticated and wealthy arbitragers redeemed silver for gold at the mint, taking advantage of the fixed ratio of value. Gold also tended to disappear from circulation into hoards partly because of its higher value than silver at the fixed ratio and the risks and inconvenience involved with carrying around high value money. How many of us carry around stacks of $100 (or higher) bills? But one must remember: both silver and gold are Good money. Only the ratio of value had gotten slightly askew and that ratio could be adjusted. Silver money did NOT have a considerably less value than its face; the difference was slight and the linkage with gold actually stabilized the value of BOTH metals. In fact, there was a shortage of silver coin in the 19th Century. Many of us old codgers remember when silver was removed from the coinage in the sixties (replaced by the worthless clink in your pocket today) and silver coins in circulation quickly disappeared into hoards: That was truly Gresham's Law!
After the Civil War as silver production in the West increased, the battle between Goldbugs (Eastern plutocrats as stalking horses for London bankers) and what I term the Silverfish (Westerners, silvermine owners, farmers) raged especially at the end of the 19th century. Goldbugs would scream about inflation caused by all that silver. Silverfish would wail of depression (and there were a lot of them then) and argue that more money in circulation would lead to a general prosperity. Since mostly it was the wealthy who possessed gold, they controlled the argument. Silver was murdered long before anyone noticed the death.
The champions of silver never won a significant battle in Congress once bimetallism was surreptitiously killed by the Fourth Coinage Act in 1873, which actually forbid the coinage of the silver dollar and which President Grant signed in total ignorance of this fact. The Sherman Silver Act was only a walking zombie corpse of silver(which forced the Mint to purchase a limited amount of the metal for dollar coinage) which was beaten down by Grover Cleveland in 1893. Argent was formally entombed by the Gold Standard Act of March 14, 1900. Silver officially became mere token coinage. The dollar was set at 25 8/10 grains of GOLD, about $20.67 dollars an ounce. Real money had effectively been taken out of the hands of the people.
Ironically, the value of silver plummeted after this change to a floating market and the ratio of silver to gold value rocketed to 40:1. Today, November 11, 2009 this ratio is about 64:1. Remember, a dollar at the founding of the Republic was worth a stable 371 4/16 grains of silver by Law; now a dollar gold would buy 1000 grains of silver. The age of inflation was underway. Silver, the money used by the people was inflated, i.e. became of lesser value and gold, the money held by the rich man deflated, i.e. increased in value, leaving the rich man much better off, as usual.
So a real inflation was born after the gold standard was put in place; the one stable monetary metal was gold only, and its price put ownership beyond the reach of the vast majority of the people. Bimetallism had actually kept inflation in check. But wait, the goldbugs saw the advantage of more plentiful money (gold, as well as silver, is in limited supply and it is difficult to transfer and protect); they just needed time to set up a system that would benefit them. Lo and behold; in 1913 the Federal Reserve Act was passed and inflicted on the people in 1914 as the panacea for the great (artificial) disturbances they had experienced in the economy since the Civil War, and especially the abandonment of bimetallism in 1873.
It was promised that this new system would stabilize the economy and the monetary system; but inflation the likes of which the American people had never imagined would be unleashed in the 20th Century. Now the money would be worth what the plutocrats said it was worth; and there would be as much of it available as they wanted to be available, at appropriate interest rates, of course. No one could fathom the magickal formulas performed by the High Priests of Mammon מָמוֹן, in the Temples of the Bankers to control the Current of these new and wonderful imaginary dollars printed in the Bank's name. No one dared to admit ignorance or knowledge of what was happening. But all believed in the Currency.

Denouement, or Faith Based Money

President Roosevelt devalued the dollar during the Great Depression to $35.oo an ounce of gold and in 1933 made it illegal for the people to own gold.
In March 1968 a two tier system of gold value was set up; the favored banks continued to trade at $35 an ounce while the "free market" was on its own. This precious ingenium was unsustainable and the dollar finally and officially lost all touch with any metal at all in November of 1973.
The masters somewhat lost interest in gold and it was allowed into the possession of the people again since most really couldn't afford to hold this yellow luxury in a consumer age. The Bimetallism Debates of the 19th Century had been rendered moot. The world had a monetary system based on Nothing....
(Those familiar with Aleister Crowley's work will understand the deeper significance of that last statement.)

And the currency doesn't even have to exist much on paper anymore; it shimmers predominantly as binary code in mainframes willed into existence by the Hierophants of Finance. The flow of printed money into the economy has been stifled. The rich man's paradise has arrived: unlimited money for them and very little available to the people.




Today, November 11, 2009 spot gold was selling for $1,108 imaginary dollars an ounce after record highs earlier this week at $1,110 an ounce.

Some Quotes of the Day

When you look for it, you cannot see it
When you listen for it, you cannot hear it
But when you use it, it is inexhaustible
-Laotse, on the Tao

"Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes–epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness–have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism."-Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy definition: Nihilism [LINK]

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it."-William Jennings Bryan, The Cross of Gold Speech at the Democratic Convention, July 9, 1896

" I wonder that silver is not already coming into the mint tosupply the deficiency in the circulating medium. Experience has proved that it takes about $40,000,000 of fractional currency to make the small change necessary for the transaction of the business of the country. Silver will gradually take the place of this currency and further, will become the standard of value which will be hoarded in a small way. I estimate that this will consume from $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 of this species of our circulating medium. I confess to a desire to see a limited hoarding of money. BUT I WANT TO SEE A HOARDING OF SOMETHING THAT IS A STANDARD OF VALUE THE WORLD OVER. SILVER IS THIS. Our mines are now producing almost unlimited amounts of silver, and it is becoming a question, 'What shall we do with it?' I suggest here a solution which will answer for some years, to put it in circulation, keeping it there until it is fixed, and then we will find other markets.
-Letter written by President Ulysses S. Grant, October 3, 1873, indicating that he had no knowledge that the Fourth Coinage Act, which he had signed eight months earlier, prohibited the coinage of the silver dollar and limited the legal tender of silver to no more than a five dollar transaction.

"How glorious it is - and also how painful - to be an exception."- Alfred de Musset, December 11, 1810 – May 2, 1857

"One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real."-Klaus Kinski

What a pain in the ass must be the exceptional person.

Postscript: Gresham's Law And A New Law
Let us leave with a note on the adage, "Bad money drives out good," as the essence of Gresham's Law. This was actually an assertion by Henry Dunning Macleod, a Cambridge trained lawyer, in 1857 to characterize Gresham's monetary ideas.
Isn't it interesting that Macleod would be setting up what we can show to be a flawed and fallacious representation of Gresham that was used as a criticism of perfectly good coin, silver, at this time and place when the City of London couldn't act fast enough to demonetize silver? Oh yes, let us remember that England had gone to a gold standard in 1844 partly citing a silver shortage.
Gresham actually stated: "that good and bad coin cannot circulate together." This is not exactly the same thing as saying "bad money drives out good." But that is a quibble. However we can see that gold coin and silver coin are both "good" money when honestly represented, something England found difficult to do. Applying "Gresham's Law," as it was, to the bimetallism debate of the 19th Century in the United States was a disingenuous argument. Gresham was warning his Queen about debased silver coin, which in no way applied to U.S. coinage in the 19th Century prior to the demonetization of silver. Gresham was concerned, while in service to Queen Elizabeth in 1558, about the highly debased silver coin still in circulation issued during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI to fraudulently finance the enormously expensive and frivolous wars of those times.
History shows that the gold standard always leads first to the official debasement of silver coin, rendering it token, and ultimately to the debasement of all currency, leading to institutionalized inflation. Gold value artificially pumps up on the steroid of positive government sanction in relation to the value of silver which is artificially suppressed by the negative government sanction of demonetization.

Bonanno's Law: The Gold Standard always devalues actual circulating money.

First Corollary To Bonanno's Law: Those who hold the gold establish a gold standard to effectively extract wealth from those who do not use or hold gold who are the vast majority of the people.

Second Corollary To Bonanno's Law: Once established, the gold standard can be jettisoned after the fiat monetary system is put in place and controlled by those who held the gold.

Donnelly's Most Popular Work



Ignatius Donnelly, November 3, 1831–January 1, 1901
(A Masonic Pose?)

Populist Party Platform (1892) [Preamble]

drafted by Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota

The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires. The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bond-holders; a vast public debt payable in legal-tender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people. Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at once it forebodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism. We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed together to ignore, in the coming campaign, ever issue but one. They propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires. Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the nation, and filled with the spirit of the grand general and chief who established our independence, we seek to restore the government of the Republic to the hands of the ''plain people,'' with which class it originated. We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the National Constitution; to form a more perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. . . . Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is not precedent in the history of the world; our annual agricultural productions amount to billions of dollars in value, which must, within a few weeks or months, be exchanged for billions of dollars' worth of commodities consumed in their production; the existing currency supply is wholly inadequate to make this exchange; the results are falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the producing class. We pledge ourselves that if given power we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance with the terms of our platform. We believe that the power of government—in other words, of the people—should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teaching of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land. . . .
The entire platform may be found here: (LINK)

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

"Now, as the Atlanteans carried on an immense commerce with all the countries of Europe and Western Asia, they doubtless inquired and traded for gold and silver for the adornment of their temples, and they thus produced a demand for and gave a value to the two metals otherwise comparatively useless to man--a value higher than any other commodity which the people could offer their civilized customers; and as the reverence for the great burning orb of the sun, master of all the manifestations of nature, was tenfold as great as the veneration for the smaller, weaker, and variable goddess of the night, so was the demand for the metal sacred to the sun ten times as great as for the metal sacred to the moon. This view is confirmed by the fact that the root of the word by which the Celts, the Greeks, and the Romans designated gold was the Sanscrit word karat, which means, "'the color of the sun'." Among the Assyrians gold and silver were respectively consecrated to the and moon precisely as they were in Peru. A pyramid belonging to the palace of Nineveh is referred to repeatedly in the inscriptions. It was composed of seven stages, equal in height, and each one smaller in area than the one beneath it; each stage was covered with stucco of different colors, "a different color representing each of the heavenly bodies, the least important being at the base: white (Venus); black (Saturn); purple (Jupiter); blue (Mercury); vermillion (Mars); 'silver' (the Moon); and 'gold' (the Sun)."(Lenormant's "Ancient History of the East," vol. i., p. 463.) "In England, to this day the new moon is saluted with a bow or a courtesy, as well as the curious practice of 'turning one's silver,' which seems a relic of the offering of 'the moon's proper metal'." (Tylor's "Anthropology", p. 361.) The custom of wishing, when one first sees the new moon, is probably a survival of moon-worship; the wish taking the place of the prayer.
And thus has it come to pass that, precisely as the physicians of
Europe, fifty years ago, practised bleeding, because for thousands of years their savage ancestors had used it to draw away the evil spirits out of the man, so the business of our modern civilization is dependent upon the superstition of a past civilization, and the bankers of the world are to-day perpetuating the adoration of "the tears wept by the sun" which was commenced ages since on the island of Atlantis. And it becomes a grave question--when we remember that the rapidly increasing business of the world, consequent upon an increasing population, and a civilization advancing with giant steps, is measured by the standard of a currency limited by natural laws, decreasing annually in production, and incapable of expanding proportionately to the growth of the world--whether this Atlantean superstition may not yet inflict more incalculable injuries on mankind than those which resulted from the practice of phlebotomy."
Ignatius Donnelly, The Antediluvian World, Part IV, Chapter 6,
Gold and Silver, the Sacred Metals of Atlantis

Quote of the Day:
"It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of ....another Jew?"-Heinrich Heine

"Let's go and study the primitives before they disappear."

Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist dies.
B. 28 November 1908
D. 30 October 2009

He was known for championing the position that so-called primitives are not inferior to Europeans and their societies are structurally similar. He was criticized for being more philosopher than anthropologist. (See "Claude Lévi-Strauss" by Edmund Leach for an adequate compilation of those criticisms) I only have an undergraduate degree in anthropology and therefore a too limited knowledge; However I enthusiastically embrace the rare real thinker in the field. There are far too many pedantic bean counter anthropologists who substitute meaningless observation acquired via tunnel vision for thorough holistic (I hate that word.) analysis. Indeed most anthropologists lose the forest in observing the trees. Yes, he was French and often used ten words when two might do. (Mais quels mots!) Anthropology remains for me more art than science thanks those like him (and that would certainly disappoint the old codger). His notion of 'bricolage' informs my art.

Il est le premier philosophe qui a expliqué les rouages de l'art et la science dans la culture.

Some quotes:

"There still exists among ourselves an activity which on the technical plane gives us quite a good understanding of what a science we prefer to call 'prior' rather than 'primitive', could have been on the plane of speculation. This is what is commonly called 'bricolage' in French. In its old sense the verb 'bricoler' applied to ball games and billiards, to hunting, shooting and riding. It was however always used with reference to some extraneous movement: a ball rebounding, a dog straying or a horse swerving from its direct course to avoid an obstacle. And in our own time the 'bricoleur' is still someone who works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman. The characteristic feature of mythical thought is that it expresses itself by means of a heterogeneous repertoire which, even if extensive, is nevertheless limited. It has to use this repertoire, however, whatever the task in hand because it has nothing else at its disposal. Mythical thought is therefore a kind of intellectual 'bricolage' - which explains the relation which can be perceived between the two.
Like 'bricolage' on the technical plane, mythical reflection can reach brilliant unforeseen results on the intellectual plane. Conversely, attention has often been drawn to the mytho-poetical nature of 'bricolage' on the plane of so-called 'raw' or 'naive' art, in architectural follies like the villa of Cheval the postman or the stage sets of Georges Méliès, or, again, in the case immortalized by Dickens in Great Expectations but no doubt originally inspired by observation, of Mr Wemmick's suburban 'castle' with its miniature drawbridge, its cannon firing at nine o'clock, its bed of salad and cucumbers, thanks to which its occupants could withstand a siege if necessary ..."- Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (La Pensée Sauvage) Quote found (HERE) Site of Le Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval

"I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact."

"Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize... the immense riches accumulated by the human race. By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished."

"Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing."

"Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress."

"The paradox is irresoluble: the less one culture communicates with another, the less likely they are to be corrupted, one by the other; but, on the other hand, the less likely it is, in such conditions, that the respective emissaries of these cultures will be able to seize the richness and significance of their diversity. The alternative is inescapable: either I am a traveller in ancient times, and faced with a prodigious spectacle which would be almost entirely unintelligible to me and might, indeed, provoke me to mockery or disgust; or I am a traveller of my own day, hastening in search of a vanished reality. In either case I am the loser…for today, as I go groaning among the shadows, I miss, inevitably, the spectacle that is now taking shape."
Tristes Tropiques, this quote from Susan Sontag's 1963 New York Review Of Books essay "A Hero Of Our Time" (LINK)