This card is attributed to the letter Peh, which means a mouth; it refers to the planet Mars. In its simplest interpretation it refers to the manifestation of cosmic energy in its grossest form. The picture shows the destruction of existing material by fire.....
At the bottom part of the card, therefore, is shown the destruction of the old-established Aeon by lightning, flames, engines of war. In the right-hand corner are the jaws of Dis, belching flame at the root of the structure. Falling from the tower are broken figures of the garrison. It will be noticed that they have lost their human shape.
They have become mere geometrical expressions......
The dominating feature of this card is the Eye of Horus. This is also the Eye of Shiva, on the opening of which, according to the legend of this cult, the Universe is destroyed.

-The Master Therion (Aleister Crowley) the Book of Thoth, XVI. THE TOWER  [OR:WAR]

Thursday Morning EDT/

Thursday Evening Japan Time

A Corrupted and Disintegrating World Update

Punctuated by the Words Of 
Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, 

June 1, 1780 – November 16, 1831

A Philosopher of War

"War is the province of chance. In no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events."

Workers entered Plant 1 at Fukushima Daiichi today for the first time since it exploded on March 12.
They are limited to forty minute shifts due to the extremely high levels of radiation in the blasted plant.
They are attempting to install six special filtering units to remove radioactive dust from the air  which will allow workers to spend more time in the plant to install critical cooling equipment to pump in water with the aim to avoid further meltdown or explosive reactions by forcing a cold shutdown on the glowing melted pile of nuclear material in the gut of the plant.
Good luck lads. You couldn't pay me enough.
The Los Angeles Times also reports on this story today and also drops a few tidbits on radiation in the area:

Even as work to stabilize the reactors continued, officials announced new findings of radioactive contamination. Tepco said Tuesday that it found high amounts of radioactive isotopes along the sea floor less than 2 miles off Japan's northeastern coast. The company said that cesium-134, cesium-137 and iodine-121 turned up in tests performed April 129 in two places at a depth of 65 feet to 100 feet.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu, right, bows to a Nihonmatsu villager to apologize [again] for the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Associated Press / May 4, 2011)
I wonder if he is getting a sore back yet.

"We continue to monitor radioactivity levels in fish and other sea organisms."

-Taisuke Tomikawa, TEPCO flack

Yes, keep monitoring, but what are you doing with the information, Taisuke?

And what can you possibly do about it?

"Only great and general battles can produce great results"

The Wall Street Journal tells us that TEPCO is finally bringing in fresh bento meals to the belabored workers at Fukushima Daiichi. They had been subsisting on pouched-packed food, bread and noodles. Bunks are also being brought in to the nearby Fukushima Daini nuclear plant's gym. They had been using sleeping bags on mats on the floor. By mid May they will have showers.

Goshi Hosono, a senior aide to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, said that nearly two months after the onset of the crisis, the time had come to take better care of workers. He and Tepco officials were speaking at a news conference.
"I hope this will allow workers to refresh themselves and devote themselves to the hard task in hand," said Mr. Hosono, who is representing the premier at a joint disaster headquarters with Tepco.
"Until now, we haven't paid enough attention to conditions for workers, as we have focused squarely on containing the accident," he said. "It has also been hard for Tepco to improve conditions for its own workers, given the hardships faced by evacuees forced out of their own homes."

"If the enemy is to be coerced, you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not be merely transient - at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in, but would wait for things to improve."


Reuters reports that the problems in Japan have not prevented taxpayer assisted and indemnified new construction of nuclear facilities in the United States. New projects in South Carolina and Georgia are expected to begin soon without delay. These will be new reactors at existing facilities. Westinghouse which is mostly owned by Toshiba is the provider. 

"If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles."


The last know World War One combat veteran, Claude Choules,  who served in the Royal Navy, died at the age of 110. He witnessed the surrender of the German imperial fleet at the Firth of Forth, in Scotland.
Link at CNN. 

"It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means"


Jonathan Jones in the Guardian UK gives a strange take on the quest to restore looted Nazi art treasures to rightful owners. He claims that paintings like the Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I returned to the Bloch-Bauer family from Vienna in 2006 after a long legal battle, belongs in the museum that essentially looted it from the Bloch-Bauer estate after the Nazis absorbed Austria. Jones claims it would have acted as a kind of monument to the lost Jewish culture of the city. Antisemitism takes many contorted forms these days.
At any rate, if you or your family had art stolen by Nazis there is an inventory online at the Commission for Looted Art in Europe.

"Where judgment begins, there art begins."

Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
Note the Eye in the Pyramid motif in her dress.

Our meandering and aimless and impossible to win war in Afghanistan will reach its tenth anniversary on October 7, 2011. It continues without a goal, without strategy, and without meaning.


"War belongs not to the province of Arts and Sciences, but to the province of social life. It is a conflict of great interests, which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others. It would be better, instead of comparing it with any Art, to liken it to business competition, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still more like State policy, which, again, can be looked upon as a kind of business competition on a great scale."