Joan Crawford is Coming For You

Friday Morning EDT/

Friday Evening Japan Time 

I'm Melting! I'm Melting! Update


With the Assistance of Joan Crawford

"Don't fuck with me, fellas. This cowgirl has been to the rodeo before."

Superb photographs of Fukushima Daiichi can be found here.  At the Cryptome website where you can find photographs and documents of all kinds on the nuclear industry in this world. The first link brings you inside Fukushima Daiichi 1 for the first time since the earthquake.

"I love playing bitches. There's a lot of bitch in every woman - a lot in every man."

CNN reports Prime Minister Kan wants to shut down the Hamaoka nuclear plant with three reactors in Omaezaki until earthquake and tsunami protections can be built. Authorities are very concerned about the high risk of earthquake at the site. Perhaps the concern would have been more appropriate when plans for construction were brought before authorities. 

"The primary reason for this request is in the interest of the safety and security of the people of Japan," Kan said. "We came to this conclusion because of the grave impact on Japan's people that could be incurred as a result of a serious accident at Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant."

"During 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?', I knitted a scarf from Hollywood to Malibu."

It is now, as reported in Discovery Magazine, believed that the early African hominid Paranthropus boisei used his huge flat dentition to eat grasses rather than nuts as previously believed. Scientists cleverly pulverized the enamel of twenty two of the primates who lived 1.4 to 1.9 million years ago to determine carbon signatures of the foods consumed. The various carbon isotopes matched up with a grass and sedge diet rather than the nut diet.  It sounds like an evolutionary dead end to me. Primates competing with grazing animals for grass sounds like a losing proposition. Primates had no chance until they picked up weapons and fed on the grazers, which is a much more efficient way to get nutrition from grass.  Oxygen isotopes in the samples revealed the climate was “semi-arid savannah with woodlands along rivers or lakes.”

"I was born in front of a camera and really don't know anything else."

Fans of CSI will be interested in this article about forensic anthropologist Doctor Bill Bass. Bill has run  a "body farm" since 1971 for the University of Tennessee where dozens of corpses of different sexes and age are scattered in various states of decay under different circumstances, such as bagged and buried or left in the open air. It is a sort of pilgrimage site for the Gil Grissoms of the world. From the article:

Law enforcement is asking two questions when bring you a body. First is: who is it? And second is: how long have they been there?" said Bass.
The corpses are placed in all sorts of positions and conditions to duplicate crimes. They're buried in mud, locked in trunks, submerged in water. They're even hanging from trees.
"Because you think about how people dispose of bodies. You wrap 'em. Wrap'em in plastic or you have trash cans," said Rebecca Taylor, assistant coordinator of the Body Farm........

"I cannot abide the odor in the body farm," said Carol Bass. "It takes you three days to get it out of your nose, it really does. I don't care what anybody says."

Highly recommended. And what Carol says about the smell of a corpse is absolutely spot on. When I was a young man living in Dorchester there was a horrendous smell coming from under a porch I had to pass on the way to the Savin Hill Station. The next day it was said that they pulled out the decomposed body of a Whitey Bulger associate.

"I, Joan Crawford, I believe in the dollar. Everything I earn, I spend."

Meanwhile, politicians are resuming meeting about the "budget crisis" and all are just so ready to work together to resolve it. From a PBS talking head show yesterday:

REP. JOHN BOEHNER [Majority Leader Of the United States Congress, in a clip] R-Ohio: When it comes to increasing the debt limit and the need to have reductions in spending nothing is off the table except raising taxes.

LORI MONTGOMERY [The Washington Post] : I don't think they are. I think what they're saying is, we recognize that Democrats have pledged to protect these programs. We believe that these are the largest drivers of future deficits -- and they're absolutely right about that -- however, we also recognize that we need to reach an agreement to pass this debt ceiling pretty quickly. Therefore, instead of arguing forever about health care and taxes, like we always do, why don't we start looking for some common ground and start from there?

LORI MONTGOMERY: That's an excellent question, and I wish I could answer it fully.
They say that they're still plowing ahead. Sen. Tom Coburn, who is a member of the gang of six, had to suddenly go home because of a family emergency. So they aren't meeting right now. But they say they're going to return to the table when they get back next week.
And I think the problem they're facing at this point is, you know, these are three very conservative Republicans who desperately believe in this goal. But the package that they're looking at would involve a tax reform proposal that raises additional revenue but it leaves to the committees to decide how that will happen. And I think they're having a very difficult time signing off on something where they can't control the particulars.

Republicans think they can balance the budget without raising taxes. No one ever mentions the defense budget. Medicare and Social Security are always on the table for these people. They are hallucinating that they even have a chance to balance their imaginary dollars. The central bank (Federal Reserve) will not let them. Debt is too profitable.

"Nobody can imitate me. You can always see impersonations of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. But not me. Because I've always drawn on myself only."

Fox News actually used a President Obama impersonator to debate Ron Paul on the John Stossel Show. The amazing thing is that Paul went along with the farce.

"Recently I heard a 'wise guy' story that I had a party at my home for twenty-five men. It's an interesting story, but I don't know twenty-five men I'd want to invite to a party."

"The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'"- Bette Davis

Young Joan by Alfred Cheney Johnston

Check her out:
Mildred Pierce 
A Woman's Face
The Women
Sudden Fear

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."

José Benlliure y Gil, 1858-1937
La Barca De Caronte

With the reported death of the enigmatic Osama Bin Laden there have been expressions of hope for the Muslim World. But we must temper our hope for the inevitable change that must come to Islam. Only change coming from within will be real. And that change will proceed slowly. Reform can never be imposed from without on the cultures of the Middle East. As ancient as that part of the world is, Islam is yet the little brother of the world's important religions. Islam is an immature self-consciouse hothead, like an adolescent who refuses to admit any error or misdeed. The natural progression of any religion is towards flexibility and tolerance.
The stiff-necked religion is ultimately inimical to the spirit of man and will be rejected if it is not altered.
Humans eventually tire of the old and obvious yet effective trickery the masters of oppressive cultures use when they emotionally proclaim:

"You may be miserable but you are so lucky to be favored of [Place name of appropriate god here.] And you are so much better than [Place names of other people, religion, race here.] Now do as we order you to do."

Muslims are about fourteen centuries into their religion. That is around the time Christianity began to reform. And, Judaism began to get flexible (of necessity) about a millenia and a half in. Islam as a religion and a culture  will reform and get away from the strict norms and rules that hold back its people (and need I say it, their women especially). Perhaps a religion needs to get to the point where it stops taking itself so seriously in the sense that it needs to be on a mission to force the world to conform to the message. Would a true religion need to  force itself on people?  If a religion is not freely chosen how successful can it be? To paraphrase a certain guy: By their fruit you will recognize them. Ultimately men are swayed by results, not claims of future reward for donning a metaphysical straight jacket that induces unhappiness and neurosis.

Be careful what you wish for in the Middle East, in the Islamic countries. It is prudent to temper one's enthusiasm here. A popular democratic government in that part of the world will tend to support some policies that will appear very strange to us in the West. However, it is important to understand that changes which may   appear backwards and retrogressive could actually lead to liberalization. Martin Luther was a reformer of Christianity yet he was actually very conservative, turned on the peasants who first supported him, and despised Jews above all others. However, his notion that any man may interpret the Bible for himself sounded the first the death knell of the oppressive Catholic Church and opened the way for liberal Christians. Islam is at  the beginning of a very long process. Christianity has shown that for all the progress it has made from its bloody repressive past, there are still many flaws in its major institutions. Change never evades friction and never travels in a straight upward motion. 

The religion to fear is the next important religion to be born. Babies are beautiful, full of hope and trouble.

As in the United States where there are no good guys running things or wanting to run things, so in Libya there are no good guys on either side of their battle because there are no perfect men walking around today. When we see rebels sending a representative to the World Bank before they have won their rebellion, something is wrong. We should let the natural process take its course. But men with certain evil interests are already forcing that process to their own wills.

It's probably best not to speculate too much about these matters when you don't have all the information at hand. The theme of one of my favorite books, Voltaire's Candide, is  that a certain road to unhappiness is travelled when one is absolutely sure he has all the absolute answers on a meta-scale:

"Cunégonde grows uglier and more disagreeable every day. Cacambo works in the garden of the small farm. He hates the work and curses his fate. Pangloss is unhappy because he has no chance of becoming an important figure in a German university. Martin is patient because he imagines that in any other situation he would be equally unhappy. They all debate philosophy while the misery of the world continues. Pangloss still maintains that everything is for the best but no longer truly believes it. Paquette and Giroflée arrive at the farm, having squandered the money Candide gave them. They are still unhappy, and Paquette is still a prostitute. 
The group consults a famous dervish (Muslim holy man) about questions of good and evil. The dervish rebukes them for caring about such questions and shuts the door in their faces. Later, the group stops at a roadside farm. The farmer kindly invites them to a pleasant dinner. He only has a small farm, but he and his family work hard on it and live a tolerable existence.
Candide finds the farmer’s life appealing. He, Cunégonde, and his friends decide to follow it, and everyone is satisfied by hard work in the garden. Pangloss suggests to Candide once again that this is the best of possible worlds. Candide responds, “That is very well put . . . but we must cultivate our garden.”"

Death Carrying A Child, Stefano della Bella,  1645-1651