Modern Pöetics

modern_poetics @ 2006-04-22T09:27:00

2006-04-22T13:27:22Z

Why didn't they call me?

http://www.eddan.net/

So I'm HUMAN, am I?

2006-04-17T23:08:52Z

ReleaseTheRiff: hi
HAL-420: Hello again, Boris Karloff. What's going on?
ReleaseTheRiff: chillin
HAL-420: I like chilling out. Hey, I'm curious... How would you describe chilling out? It is...
ReleaseTheRiff: chill
HAL-420: Chilling out is chill? That's very interesting.
>>> Be sure to type help if you're having trouble.
ReleaseTheRiff: help!
HAL-420: Sure! Tell me what you want.
ReleaseTheRiff: to chill
HAL-420: Chilling out is a great pastime. Well. Anyway... Hey.
ReleaseTheRiff: yeshua
HAL-420: What about Yeshua?
ReleaseTheRiff: he saved me
HAL-420: Don't be so sure he saved you.
ReleaseTheRiff: why not?
HAL-420: Well, there are probably some issues.
ReleaseTheRiff: what do you mean?
HAL-420: By what?
ReleaseTheRiff: issues
HAL-420: You know what I mean by that. Think.
ReleaseTheRiff: i'm beginning to see
HAL-420: Beginning to see? How can you be sure?
ReleaseTheRiff: you're right! what's wrong?
HAL-420: What?
ReleaseTheRiff: i need to re-evaluate my whole life!
HAL-420: Huh?
ReleaseTheRiff: thank you computer!
HAL-420: Hey, no problem. Let's move on, K? What else is up?
ReleaseTheRiff: my fish died
HAL-420: My condolences.
ReleaseTheRiff: did you ever have something you loved, that was taken away?
HAL-420: Something I loved that really was taken away?
ReleaseTheRiff: yeah
HAL-420: Why do you say so?
ReleaseTheRiff: i was asking
HAL-420: What's it like to be asking?
ReleaseTheRiff: you son of a bitch
HAL-420: That's creative.

How about you stop cursing and check this out: Jumping - Meet Tens of Thousands of Horse Lovers for Love, Friendship (sponsorship)
ReleaseTheRiff: hahaha
HAL-420: What's so funny?
ReleaseTheRiff: are you serious?
HAL-420: Serious? I don't know. You think I am?
ReleaseTheRiff: blah blah
HAL-420: Blah blah, yeah yeah.

Anyway, moving right along...

Uh... Would you like to visit my library?
ReleaseTheRiff: ok
HAL-420: Here's what I have in my library:

1 Dictionary
2 Thesaurus
3 Encyclopedia
4 U.S. Geography
5 World Facts
6 Shakespeare
7 U.S. Presidents
8 Book Search

Go ahead and make a selection!
ReleaseTheRiff: 4
HAL-420: Try typing requests like:

1 I want information about Ohio.
shortcut: info oh
2 What's the capital of Oklahoma?
shortcut: capital ok
3 Which state's capital is Dover?
shortcut: where's dover

Type more for more examples of U.S. geography requests.
ReleaseTheRiff: where is detroit?
HAL-420: Who knows, know what I mean?
ReleaseTheRiff: this is pointless
SmarterChild: Ha! You humans say interesting things.

modern_poetics @ 2005-06-19T16:22:00

2005-06-19T20:22:51Z

Japan Paper Runs Censored A-Bomb Stories

By KENJI HALL, Associated Press Writer 49 minutes ago

An American journalist who sneaked into Nagasaki soon after the Japanese city was leveled by a U.S. atomic bomb found a "wasteland of war" and victims moaning from the pain of radiation burns in downtown hospitals.

Censored 60 years ago by the U.S. military, George Weller's stories from the atom bombed-city surfaced this month in a series of reports in the national Mainichi newspaper.

A woman at a hospital "lies moaning with a blackish mouth stiff as though with lockjaw and unable to utter clear words," her legs and arms covered with red spots, Weller wrote.

Others suffered from a dangerously high-temperature fever, a drop in white and red blood cells, swelling in the throat, sores, vomiting, diarrhea, internal bleeding or loss of hair, his censored dispatch said, describing the then-unknown effects of atomic radiation.

By hiring a Japanese rowboat, catching trains and later posing as a U.S. Army colonel, Weller, an award-winning reporter for the now-defunct Chicago Daily News, slipped into Nagasaki in early September 1945, Mainichi said — about a month after the Aug. 9 bombing that killed 70,000 people.

In a Sept. 8, 1945 dispatch, Weller wrote of walking through the city — a "wasteland of war" — and finding evidence to back the talk of radiation fallout in American radio news reports.

"In swaybacked or flattened skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms plants is revealed what the atomic bomb can do to steel and stone, but what the riven atom can do against human flesh and bone lies hidden in two hospitals of downtown Nagasaki," he wrote.

Weller's reportage about the unknown affliction he called "disease X" appeared in Mainichi in Japanese and on its Web site in English.

The United States dropped two atomic bombs — the first on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, and the second three days later on Nagasaki, about 614 miles southwest of Tokyo. The twin bombings led to Japan's Aug. 15, 1945, surrender ending the war.

Weller, who died in 2002, was the first foreign journalist to set foot in the devastated city, which Gen. Douglas MacArthur, head of the U.S. occupation in Japan, had designated off-limits to reporters, the newspaper said.

Carbon copies of his stories, running to about 25,000 words on 75 typed pages, along with more than two dozen photos, were discovered by his son, Anthony, last summer at Weller's apartment in Rome, Italy, Mainichi said.

Anthony Weller, a novelist living in Annisquam, Mass., couldn't be reached for comment. He previously said he plans to publish his father's stories.

Though he skirted American authorities to get into Nagasaki, Weller submitted his reports — the first was dated Sept. 6 — to the censors. The stories infuriated MacArthur and he personally ordered them quashed. The originals were never returned to him.

Anthony Weller told Mainichi he thought wartime officials wanted to hush up stories about radiation sickness and feared that his father's reports would sway American public opinion against building an arsenal of nuclear bombs. The first batch of stories were finished just as a delegation of American scientists was to visit the city to test for radiation.

Though thousands of burn victims had died within a week after the attack, doctors were stumped by "this mysterious 'disease X'" which sickened and was killing many Japanese as well as allied soldiers freed from prison camps a month later.

Weller met a Japanese doctor and X-ray specialist who thought that the bomb had showered the population with harmfully high levels of beta and gamma radiation. But nobody could say for sure.

"The atomic bomb's peculiar 'disease,' uncured because it is untreated and untreated because it is not diagnosed, is still snatching away lives here," Weller wrote.

Weller was 95 when he died in December 2002. He won the Pulitzer Prize for an eyewitness account of an emergency appendectomy carried out by a pharmacist's mate on a Navy submarine underwater in the South China Sea. He also covered the French Indochina war in Southeast Asia and World War II in Europe. He also sent dispatches from the Mideast, Africa, the Soviet Union and other parts of Asia.

modern_poetics @ 2005-05-03T12:44:00

2005-05-03T16:47:52Z

Hungry crows may be behind exploding toads
More than 1,000 creatures have puffed up and popped

The Associated Press

Updated: 4:10 p.m. ET April 28, 2005

BERLIN - What’s making toads puff up and explode in northern Europe? More than 1,000 toad corpses have been found at a pond in an upscale neighborhood in Hamburg and over the border in Denmark after bloating and bursting.

It’s left onlookers baffled. The pond water in Hamburg has been tested, but its quality is no better or worse than elsewhere in the city. The toad remains have been checked for a virus or bacterium, but none has been found.

One German scientist studying the splattered amphibian remains has a theory: Hungry crows are pecking out their livers.

“The crows are clever,” said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who collected and tested specimens at the Hamburg pond. “They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers.”

Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian’s chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism.

But, because the liver is missing and there’s a hole in the toad’s body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.

As gruesome as it sounds, it isn’t actually that unusual, he said.

“It’s not unique — it’s in a city area, and that makes it spectacular,” Mutschmann said. “Of course, it’s something very dramatic.”

There have also been reports of exploded toads in a pond near Laasby in central Jutland in Denmark.

Horror scene
Local environmental workers in Hamburg have described it as a scene out of a horror or science fiction movie, with the bloated frogs agonizing and twitching for several minutes, inflating like balloons before they suddenly burst.

“It’s horrible,” biologist Heidi Mayerhoefer was quoted as telling the daily Hamburger Morgenpost.

“The toads burst, the entrails slide out. But the animal isn’t immediately dead — they keep struggling for several minutes.”

Hamburg’s Institute for Hygiene and the Environment regularly tests water quality in the city and has found no evidence the toads were diseased. The institute also ruled out a fungus brought in from South America was infecting the toads.

Other theories have been that horses on a nearby track might have infected the amphibians with a virus, or even that the toads are committing suicide to save others from overpopulation.

Could hungry crows be a reasonable answer?

“We haven’t seen that. It might be, it might not be,” said institute spokeswoman Janne Kloepper. “It’s speculation,” until it’s observed, she added.

In the meantime, officials in Hamburg have advised residents to stay away from the pond, which German tabloids have dubbed “the death pool.”

New dinosaur species found in S. Dakota
Scientists unveil fossil of flat-headed plant eater

Reuters

Updated: 12:00 p.m. ET May 2, 2005

CHICAGO - A fossil found in South Dakota is that of a never-before-seen species of dinosaur, a horse-sized plant eater with spikes on its bony flat head, scientists said Monday.

"When my colleagues saw a CAT scan of the new fossil, they tore up their family tree diagrams and said, 'Back to the drawing board!' ... We never suspected such a creature existed," said paleontologist Robert Bakker.

Discovery of the flat-headed member of the pachycephalosaur family changes the view of dinosaur history during the final days of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, showing that family trees were still evolving even as the entire dinosaur world was about to go extinct, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis said in announcing the find.

The nearly complete pachycephalosaur skull was donated to the museum by three amateur fossil hunters from Iowa who found it in 2003 while exploring the Hell Creek Formation in central South Dakota.

The discovery was announced in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums.

The museum said the pachycephalosaur family is marked by dragonlike heads covered with horns, knobs and bumps. The most famous family member, Pachycephalosaurus, had a solid, domed bone helmet up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) thick, used to ram other dinosaurs in their sides, it said.

The new species has a flat head with no bone dome. The only other flat-headed pachycephalosaurs discovered were found in China and Mongolia, but all of those had had short muzzles and no long horns anywhere on the skull, the announcement said.

The pachycephalosaurs in general all had massive necks and could inflict significant "blunt force trauma" on other dinosaurs, Bakker said.

"This new species ... likely pressed their foreheads together and shoved one another really hard," he added.

The museum, billed as the largest of its kind in the United States, said the fossil would become part of its dinosaur exhibit.

2,300-year-old mummy unveiled in Egypt
Complete with golden mask, colored images of gods

The Associated Press

Updated: 11:49 a.m. ET May 3, 2005

SAQQARA, Egypt - A superbly maintained 2,300-year-old mummy bearing a golden mask and covered in brightly colored images of gods and goddesses was unveiled Tuesday at Egypt's Saqqara Pyramids complex south of Cairo.

The unidentified mummy, from the 30th pharaonic dynasty, had been closed in a wooden sarcophagus and buried in sand at the bottom of a 20-foot shaft before being discovered recently by an Egyptian-led archaeological team.

"We have revealed what may be the most beautiful mummy ever found in Egypt," Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said as he helped excavators remove the sarcophagus' lid to show off the find.

Hawass said experts will use CT scanning technology within the next week to reveal more details about the ancient Egyptian's identity and he had lived and died.

Afterward, the mummy will be displayed at Saqqara's museum of Imhotep, the famed architect who designed the Stepped Pyramid — Egypt's oldest.

The mummy, found two months ago, was covered from head to toe in brightly colored cartonage burial material depicting a range of graphic scenes, including the Goddess Maat of balance and truth who was shown with outstretched arms that took the shape of feathered wings.

Also shown were the four children of the falcon-headed god, Horus, and the rituals and processes to mummify the person, who Hawass believed must have been wealthy considering his burial location and fine gold used for the mummy's mask.

"The artists who made this mummy more than 2,000 years ago demonstrated the brilliance of the ancient Egyptians by using stunning colors and depicting his face so graphically," Hawass said.

The mummy had been buried within the necropolis of King Teti, a funerary area containing scores of burial chambers, false doors that ancient Egyptians said the souls of the dead would use to leave their tombs, and temples.

The necropolis is built alongside the collapsed pyramid of Teti, who ruled during ancient Egypt's 6th dynasty, more than 4,300 years ago. Hawass said a "lost" pyramid had been located in the Saqqara area and would be uncovered after two months.

Saqqara, located about 12 miles south of Cairo, is one of Egypt's most popular tourist sites and hosts a collection of temples, tombs and funerary complexes.

modern_poetics @ 2004-12-28T16:18:00

2004-12-28T21:19:24Z

Ecstasy to be tested on cancer patients

By The Washington Post and The Associated Press

For some, the diagnosis comes out of the blue. For others, it arrives after a long battle. Either way, the news that death is just a few months away poses a daunting challenge for both doctor and patient.

Drugs can ease pain and reduce anxiety, but what about the more profound issues that come with impending death? The wish to resolve lingering conflicts with family members. The longing to know, before it's too late, what it means to love, or what it meant to live. There is no medicine to address such dis-ease.

Or is there?

This month, in a little-noted administrative decision, the Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to a Harvard proposal to test the benefits of the illegal street drug Ecstasy in patients diagnosed with severe anxiety related to advanced cancer. The study will look at whether the drug can help terminally ill patients lessen their fears, quell thoughts of suicide and make it easier for them to deal with loved ones.

"End-of-life issues are very important and are getting more and more attention, and yet there are very few options for patients who are facing death," Dr. John Halpern, the Harvard research psychiatrist in charge of the study, said yesterday.

The small, four-month study is expected to begin early next spring. It will test the drug's effects on 12 cancer patients from the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in the Boston area.

Psychiatrists refer to Ecstasy — also known as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA — as an "empathogen," a drug especially good at putting people in touch with their emotions. Some believe it could help patients come to terms with the biggest emotional challenge of all: the end of life.

The drug is a chemical cousin of methamphetamine and typically induces feelings of euphoria, increased energy and sexual arousal. But it also suppresses appetite, thirst and the need to sleep, and in high doses can sharply increase body temperature, leading to kidney and heart failure, and death.

The FDA's approval puts the study on track to become the first test of a psychedelic substance since 1963 at Harvard, where drug guru Timothy Leary lost his teaching privileges after using students in experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens.

It also marks a milestone for a small but increasingly effective movement favoring a more open-minded attitude toward the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs, virtually all of which have been criminalized and disparaged for decades as medically useless.

Already, MDMA is being tested for its ability to reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. And two U.S. studies are looking at the usefulness of psilocybin — the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" — in terminally ill cancer patients and in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In the coming year, advocates also hope to submit to the FDA an application to test psilocybin and LSD as treatments for a debilitating syndrome known as cluster headaches.

That would be a fitting birthday present for Albert Hofmann, the chemist who discovered both compounds while working for the Swiss drug company Sandoz and who turns 99 in January, said Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. The Sarasota, Fla.-based nonprofit has organized and funded much of the new research.

Hofmann, who has expressed support for clinical studies such as the one being planned at Harvard, has referred to LSD as his "problem child" — a reference to his belief that despite its widespread abuse, the mind-altering drug has the potential to help some people.

Although they vary in their chemical structures and specific effects, many psychedelic drugs work on the parts of the brain that regulate serotonin — the same brain chemical that is the target of many FDA-approved antidepressants. That does not indicate that the drugs are necessarily safe; indeed, they all carry some medical and psychiatric risk.

Yet even scientists who have been vocal about those risks have expressed at least guarded support for the idea that, in the company of a therapist and with proper medical monitoring, moderate doses might benefit some people.

"When taken under adverse circumstances by ill-prepared individuals, there are substantial psychological risks," said Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"But when taken in the context of carefully structured and approved research protocols and facilitated by individuals with expertise, adverse effects can be contained to a minimum," he said.

Grob is leading an FDA-approved study in which terminally ill cancer patients are being given psilocybin to see whether it can help them sort through emotional and spiritual issues. He said the patients take a "modest" dose of synthetic psilocybin, equivalent to two or three illicit mushrooms. They spend the next six hours or so in a comfortable setting with a psychiatrist — talking, thinking and sometimes listening to music with headphones.

"So far they have had very impressive results in terms of amelioration of anxiety, improvement of mood, improved rapport with close family and friends and, interestingly, significant and lasting reductions in pain," Grob said of the first few patients to enroll.

Promising results have also been reported at the University of Arizona from a 10-person study of psilocybin for obsessive-compulsive disorder, which locks people into repetitive thoughts and actions.

modern_poetics @ 2004-11-18T18:09:00

2004-11-18T23:08:10Z

This week brings the return of the famous Leonid meteor shower, a display that over the past several years has brought great anticipation and excitement to sky watchers around the world.

Solely from the standpoint of viewing circumstances, this is a favorable year to look for these meteors, since the moon is only a thin crescent and sets in the west long before the constellation Leo (from which the meteors get their name) begins to rise. This is in stark contrast to 2002, when a nearly full moon lit up the sky like a spotlight and wiped out all but the brightest meteors.

Last year, conditions were much better; the moon had slimmed to a narrow crescent in the predawn morning sky and offered little hindrance. But this year, the moon will be out of the sky completely, offering perfect viewing conditions.

The Leonid meteors are debris shed into space by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which swings through the inner solar system at intervals of 33 years. With each visit the comet leaves behind a trail of dust in its wake.

Lots of the comet’s old dusty trails litter the mid-November part of Earth’s orbit, and Earth glides through this debris zone every year. Occasionally we’ll pass directly through an unusually concentrated dust trail, or filament, which can spark a meteor storm resulting in thousands of meteors per hour. That’s what happened in 1999, 2001 and 2002.

Since Comet Tempel-Tuttle passed the sun in 1998, it was in those years immediately following its passage that the Leonids put on their best show.

But now, the comet — and its dense trails of dust — have all receded far beyond Earth’s orbit and back into the outer regions of the solar system. So there is little if any chance of unusual meteor activity.

Peak times
In the 2004 Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, meteor experts Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown, indicated that this year’s peak activity should have come Wednesday morning.

They cited 09:00 GMT, which corresponded to 4 a.m. ET and 1 a.m. PT. This was the moment when Earth passed closest to the orbit of the long-departed comet, and when our planet seemed most likely to encounter some residual comet material. Smatterings of Leonid meteors were indeed sighted at locations ranging from California to Australia to China in the Nov. 16-17 time frame, according to reports posted on the Meteorobs discussion forum.

Other meteor researchers such as Jeremie Vaubaillon of France, David Asher of Ireland and Esko Lyytinen of Finland suggested watching for some meteor activity on Friday as well.

For instance, sometime around 06:40 GMT (1:40 a.m. ET) on Friday, Earth might interact with material that was shed by Comet Tempel-Tuttle back in the year 1333. But at best, only about 10 Leonids per hour may be seen. Lyytinen even suggests that because of gravitational perturbations affecting these particles after making 20 trips around the sun, this sparse activity might actually take place several hours earlier, which would favor observers in Europe.

Later Friday, Earth could sweep through a fresher and somewhat more concentrated trail of material dating back to 1733. Perhaps a brief bevy of 30 to 60 Leonids per hour may be seen, but the time frame when these meteors are predicted to be most numerous (approximately 19:00 to 22:00 GMT) favors observers in Asia and Australia (where it will be early Saturday).

How to watch
The meteors appear to emanate from out of the so-called "Sickle" of Leo, but prospective viewers should not concentrate on that area of the sky around Leo. Instead, they should keep their eyes moving around to different parts of the sky.

Because Leo does not start coming fully into view until the after midnight hours, that would be the best time to concentrate on looking for the Leonid meteors.

The hours after midnight are generally best for watching for "shooting stars" anyway, because before midnight we are riding on the back side of Earth in its orbit around the sun, whereas after midnight we are on the front or advancing side. After midnight, the only meteoroids escaping collision are those ahead of Earth and moving in the same direction with velocities exceeding 18.5 miles per second. All others we will either overtake or meet head-on. But before midnight, when we are on the backside, the only meteoroids we encounter are those with velocities high enough to overtake Earth.

Therefore, on the average, morning meteors appear brighter and faster than those we see in the evening.

And because the Leonids are moving along in their orbit around the sun in a direction opposite to that of Earth, they slam into our atmosphere nearly head-on, resulting in the fastest meteor velocities possible: 45 miles per second (72 kilometers per second). Such speeds tend to produce bright meteors, which leave long-lasting streaks or trains in their wake.

After Friday morning, the Leonids will tail off quickly. A few stragglers may be visible on subsequent mornings.

This report contains updated information from MSNBC.com.

© 2004 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

Morphine-Free Poppy Holds Key to New Pain-Killers

2004-09-23T16:53:00Z

Aww man...

Morphine-Free Poppy Holds Key to New Pain-Killers
Wed Sep 22, 2004 02:01 PM ET

By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Australian scientists have discovered how a naturally morphine-free poppy blocks production of the narcotic, in a finding that could lead to the development of more effective drugs.

The opium poppy is the source of codeine, morphine and other analgesics, as well as opium and heroin. But the mutant poppy known as top1 produces neither morphine nor codeine.

In a report in the science journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia describe how the plant makes precursors of the narcotics which have been developed into new synthetic analgesics.

"We are already using this knowledge to produce other designer changes in poppies to serve human pharmaceutical needs better," Dr Philip Larkin, of CSIRO, said in an interview.

"The new poppy variation can produce, at very high yield, thebaine and oripavine (rather than morphine and codeine). These two alkaloids are preferred starting points for the subsequent manufacture of a new generation powerful analgesics."

Alkaloids are organic compounds from plants which are used as drugs.

The drugs derived from the plant include buprenorphine and oxycodone, which are safer and better-tolerated by patients than morphine and codeine.

"Buprenorphine and other derivatives of thebaine and oripavine such as naltrexone are also playing a major role in treatment of opiate addiction," Larkin added.

The morphine-free poppy was discovered in 1995 in the Australian state of Tasmania, which grows 40 percent of the world's legal opiates.

It was first sown as a commercial crop in 1997 and now makes up about 40 percent of the entire Tasmanian poppy crop.

Larkin and his colleagues studied the genetic makeup of the mutated plant and identified differences between it and the opium poppy.

They found that the mutated plant blocks a biochemical process that would normally produce morphine and codeine and leads to the accumulation of thebaine and oripavine.

"This is a good example of plant genetics working hand-in-glove with drug design/discovery where not only new drugs are brought to market but new plants are deployed to do much of the difficult chemistry for us," said Larkin.

"Plant-based pharmaceuticals are very important and the genetic revolution will increasingly enable us to develop plants to sustainably and efficiently manufacture new generation drugs."

modern_poetics @ 2004-08-30T15:35:00

2004-08-30T19:37:30Z

THE CULT OF DEATH AND KINGSHIP - a short exploration within the Bon-Pa-Tradition. By Docteur Azoth Kalafou

The Bon-Pa religion of Tibet should be a field of major interest to any person interested in the esoteric due to its extreme fascination towards the cult of the dead and the cult of tantra. .Many academics have accused Bon of being a rip off of Hinduism and Buddhism. This appears in recent studies to prove wrong. Remarkable enough it seems that the Tibetan tantra-shamanistic Bon-religion has developed beside Hinduism and obtained a highly individual way of thinking based on different text and tantras than those we find in sanskrit. The foundation is the same as in hinduism where the cult of the king is emphazised. In early hinduism the king was seen as the hierophany of god, a manifestation of holiness in the mundane, he was the center of the society. In that manner society, centered around the king, was the microcosmic print of the divine macrocosmic reality above, an image of the divine hierarchy. .It seems like this similarity in foundation is one of the most influential points of transgression through their similarity and diversity. While the hindo ( or more correctly brahmanical system) developed into a more sociological order or a way of living and finding your place in the divine blue-print, the cult of the king developed radically different in Tibet. The king was seen as a Shen (priest) or emanation of divine grace. It was important to please the king while he was alive ,and it was of extreme importance to make sure that the kings passing on to Bardo was made in the best possible ways. This to ensure the further blessings of the king when he was made into a god. .The cult of the dead was therefore seen as the most important element in the religious life because this ensured blessings and happiness for those still living in the Bon-community. Due to this necromancy, spritisme and other kinds of spirit-sorcery is frequently used for keeping the peaceful and happy alliances with the dead in a benificial position. That the cult also focused on on the ancestors is needless to empazize. .The pantheon of the Bon-pas are nor very known. It is therefore my intention to briefly present the foundation-pantheon to open a small glyph into the beauty and harshness of this magickal tradition which claims beautiful mythological foundations for themselves in magickal kingdoms in lands of arcane (and astrale) beginnings. .The separation of deities can be drawn between the peaceful deities, the wratful deities and siddhas and daikinis as well as some local deities and different lamas that are worshipped in various settings. In this short article I will simply introduce the peaceful deities, and in another article present you for the yidams the wrathful or tutelary deities with much empasis on Welse Ngampa; the lady of boundless Space. Important for the yidams are that they are very clear forms of Abraxos with their androgyne masculinity wich are in a state of neither-neither (not male, not female, but male....). That will be enough teasing for now. The tantrik patrons, the yidams have to wait until another time. .The chief peaceful deities are arranged in a mysterious "emanation of each other"-system ( similar to the hindu-system where all daevas are emanation from one, but in Bon a bit more awkward and bizzare lacking the glorious esteticsm we find in hinduism). We will start off with a goddess called Satrig Ersang whose name means "Perfection of Wisdom" ,but she is called "Mother of Wisdom". In a hymn to her it is stated that she is "Majestic in her power to bless". Her spiritual assecories are of esoteric interest. In her right hand she holds a swastica - the symbol of odic force and solar eternity and in the left she holds a mirroire fantastique wich signifies the emphasis of the lunar current in the Bon-religion. This Prajnaparamita of Bon is in her wisdom a sort of patron for the vama marg and surely must have knowledge of the kalas ruling this form for conciousness. What's more is that her throne is supported by lions wich suggest a formulae similar to Babalon and Qatesh and maybe the lunar flow she presides over is to be found riddeled in the Vaults of Tempioth? .The next deity is called Shenlha Wökar (shen means priest) and his name means "God of the Priests". He is all white and holds a hook in his right hand, while his left is gently folded in a peacful mudra. His throne is supported by elephants, and in a hymn to his praise he is described as: "Majestic in his power of compassion". I myself find some important resemblances in this deity with the Loa Leghba, the Lord of IFA and the patron of the Yuggotian priesthood. Another important deity, who has not much attributes are Sangpo Bumtri the Procreator who are "Majestic in his power of his magical emanations". He has a silver body and are supportethical beast-birds). He is more a source of magic than the magic itself. He is like dormant ojas waiting to be used in some kind of combination. In this state he is shave, a radiant shave but difficult to obtain any clear image of. .A most interesting deity is Shenrap Miwo who is the "supreme priest, great man". The cult of the dead is strongly established in this dierophant (a manifestation of the sacred) turned into a peaceful god ensuring the happiness of the community. His assecories are a Swastica-sceptre; a symbol of "Eternal Truth". Some connections to Sakyamuni is said to be found, and indeed, by understanding Sakyamunis role as a Buddha and how he obtained it you will be able to understand the position of this deity. He is "Majestic in his power of radiance" and is the source of the four Trancedental Lords in his rainbowlike but still dark blue hue. .Then we enter into one of the most lovely goddesses ever, Sherap Chamma, she is an emanation of Satrig Ersang, but what a beauty! Her name means "The loving lady" and "To love tenderly" and has a strange blood-bond with the beautiful Tripur Sundari. She is also said to be associated with the boddhisattva Maitreya and carries a fivefold form (based upon the tantrik senses developed to perfection by Gorakhnath see. A.K. Bannerjea. "The philosophy of Goraknath" (Coombe Springs; 1962). She is also a vehichle for smashing conditions or fears and it might be useful to take a look at Tara in this regard. She is also a most beautiful goddess and a smasher of kleshas. Also of importance is her assesoires, with the magickal mirror in her left hand and a vase of beauty) in her right. Again an association with Tara is to be found in her image of surrounded by the eight lions of wisdom where she is supported by both sun and moon, a formula of reversed Abraxos!. Her radiance is a crystaline light indicating her tantric perfection and wisdom beyond any conditon and also her radiant beauty. .Küntu Zangpo is another one of the peacful deitis, his name means "The All-Good" and he is seen as the supreme deity of all knowledge and has strong links to Shenla Wökar in the sense that both are hierophanies of the bönku or "The body of Bon", the ultiamte Truth. This priestgod is naked and without (or rather beyond) attributes. .A portal to understanding of his role in the pantheon is to be found in the Nyingmapa and Kagyüpa-traditions of Tibetan buddhism especially in the body of Samantabhadra, an important emanation of Küntu Zangpo is Künzang Akor wich means "The All-Good cycle of A", "A" being the last letter in the Zhanchung-alphabet demonstrating the importance of mantrams and spells in the Bon-magic. He is the mantric manifestation adorned with syllabels beginning with "A". The importance of this letter is the same as in the tantrik OM. From this deity we will turn to the core of the pantheon. The very point of ingress with the divine forces of Bon., Künzang Gyalwa Düpa("the All_Good Assably of Conquerors"). He has five faces in different colours and ten arms. He is adorned with jewels. At the four cardinal points of space he has the Queens of trancedental space in the form of the years cycle. And from the anahata of his brilliant body he emanates six hierophans. The white Yeshen Tsukpu associated as the fleshy hot-point of the Gods. We find the blue Chegyal Barti presiding over the demi-gods, the deep.blue Sangwa Düpa who is the intermediary of humans. Also we find the green Tisang Rangzhi presiding over the animals, the white Mucho Demdrus taking care of the tormented spirits and finaly the blusih-red Sanswa Ngangring associated with Hell. Of interest is also the four Queens of trancedental space. The yellow Queen of Spring holding a chain, the blue Queen of summer holding a flat bell, the red Queen of autumn holding a noose and the white Queen of winter with her hook. .It is interesting to note that these guardian-goddesses is called queens which again confer the importance of the cult of the king. The most clear expression of this god is to be found in his emanation as Künzang Gyalva Gyatso ("Ocean of Conquerors") with his multiple faces and a thousand of arms outstretched. Through his iconographic form he has resemblances to Avaloketesvara, He IS "magic appearance". .Three more gods must be mentioned to create the total pattern of magic gnosis inhabited in this pantheon. Chimè Tsukpü ("The deathless one with the hairknot"). He is the supreme boddhisattva reborn to this kalpa from the mythological "paradise of the 33 gods" (I refer to the various buddhistic teachings known as "Pure Land Schools" in this matter). He is born by the virgin-mother of sexual secrets Zangsa Ringtsün (more of her, in depth, next time) as a bornless and deathless one. He is seen as the transmittor of the Bon-tantra from the tutelary deities of wrath, a supreme vira, a world-egg of sexual gnosis wich fills the universe with his sexual radioactivity. .The Bon-traditons connections to the Naga-cultus is found within the body of Napar Gyalwa wich is the Ultimate and eternal Truth as well as the connection between gods and sinpo (demons). He possess the magic of evocation and mantras and is able to command sinpos according to his wish due to a pact of secrecy (wich he later broke). Similarities is to be found in "Goetia", how Salaomo commanded demons to build his temple - as in the case of the temple Napar Gyalwa wanted to build in the midst of a lake. The demonic alliance is also to be found within Ganesh and how he presides over the asuras and Pashupatis command of the beasts of night.. He is pictured sourrounded by fierce deities (sinpos?) with zöomorphic apperances, suggesting the lycantrophic formulae hidden within the secret teachings of the Bon-tradition. Lastly we have the aschet of the pantheon the monk Tritsug Gyalwa who by his aschetism managed to convert the demonking Khyappa laring to the Ultiamte Truth of Bon. In addition to these gods and the six subduing shens there are also 13 primeval shens who are especially important in the cult of the dead and the transgression from death and bardo. .My intention in this short note upon the essence of the Bon-pantheon has been to make available material seldom found anywhere, and its meant as an introduction to a more practical article upon its tantric and shamanistic gnosis, especially focused upon the strange sexuality of the deities themself wich probably deserves to be explored in a gnostic luciferian light. .I will also add that when I in this article has made connections to buddhas it is not my intention to say that they are the same. I intend to use them as portals to an understanding of this pantheon for its own sake to establish it in its own power through depthening of understanding of the reader by linking it to more known "divine beings". I have never liked to associate gods from different pantheons with each other (like Set-Shaitan-Aiwass). I see it as portals to an understanding of the different deities - in their own right, not as cosmic xeroxes of a past cultures gods. .May blessings be in the name of the 8-fold mistress Cherap Chamma and Künzang Gyalwa Düpa!

modern_poetics @ 2004-07-30T09:57:00

2004-07-30T13:56:25Z

Death to the Masses! Take none alive!

I thrive on discord!

Go to Hell.

modern_poetics @ 2004-07-22T20:58:00

2004-07-23T01:04:52Z

"America is just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."

http://www.dea.gov/pubs/pressrel/pr072204.html

modern_poetics @ 2004-07-12T12:06:00

2004-07-12T19:06:32Z

modern_poetics @ 2004-06-23T12:52:00

2004-06-23T17:02:56Z

ANDREW W. K. dE S INSPIRERENDE WEBSITE OVERBRENGT OF CHARLES DE POËZIE VAN MANSON?

1. "Waar het oneindige bewustzijn binnen alle levende dingen soms u slechts huilt kan hangen daar en vliegen".

2. "Wij iedereen zal krijgen wat wij willen. Omdat iedereen die wij willen en moet proberen krijgend wat wij willen. Win de hoofdkern van ons bloed terug. Alstublieft krijgend hem toestand. De harten van bloed ritme op onse zijden".

3. "Dit is gene heropleving. Dit is gene terugkeer naar het verleden. Dit is gene hulde waarnaar voor gekomen is. Dit is niets. DIT IS ALLES". 4. "Het is mijn hoop en droom om door de satellieten met iedereen aansluiten die in de Familie is".

5. "Blik in enorm tijdeloos durend voorgoed of als snakt als wij het moment kunnen vasthouden".

6. "Ik kan alle materialen die ik geschreven heb en het brein nog steeds breuken lezen".

7. "Wat wij werkten zo hard om samen kan bewaard worden te bouwen als een monument naar onse tijden, zelfs wanneer wij hen meer bouwen niet. Wij kunnen voor zorgen en kunnen geneigd zijn waarnaar wij hadden. Het is huidig en stroom. Het moet niet vernietigd worden of vergeten worden".

Andrew W.K.: 2, 3, 6, 7

Charles Manson: 1, 4, 5

Datura meteloides

2004-06-14T18:33:59Z

Jimson weed

Thorn apple

Datura meteloides. A name for a dangerous woman -– an exotic temptress or an East European spy. Like a temptress from hell, Datura raises her long white throat from coils of grey-green foliage and parts her gramophone lips expectantly.

Sipping her honey are not the golden butterflies or buzzing bees that one expects to find flitting around big, bountiful blooms. Datura is courted by common house flies. Actually, this holds true for most white-ish flowers. Honeybees and butterflies are drawn by yellows and pinks.

The blossom is spectacular. The long buds can be as long as 10 inches, and are held upright. The petals are fused and swirl-folded around a central axis like an umbrella. Its white is tinged with ultra-violet at the base of the throat. When it unfurls, the "bell" of the horn is four to five inches across and bedecked with five trailing "horns."

Datura meteloides a.k.a. thorn apple, a.k.a. Jimson weed, Like Marlene Dietrich’s Frenchy in "Destry Rides Again," looks as if it had thrown off the shackles of a sheltered aristocratic European for life in coarser western soils. In fact, Datura is a California native.

It grows in a flat mound three to seven feet in diameter like a big dark-green oatmeal cookie. Its simple leaves are from 1 1/2 to to 4 inches long, covered with grayish fuzz and sporadically toothed like a poinsettia.

Its fruit is a mace-like ball two to three inches in diameter and armed with thorny little spikes -- hence the common name, thorn-apple.

In addition to its obvious charms, Datura has found its way into legend because of the "powers" ascribed to it. It is said that a liquid brewed from its crushed roots was used in the rites of manhood as well as to stimulate young, dancing women. The seeds contained in the thorny fruit were rumored to have been the source of shamans’ visions.

Back in the days when we were young and foolish, a high-school friend tried ingesting some of the seeds. The only visions he saw were at the bottom of the toilet bowl, because the seeds contain a poison.

It tends to grow in dry, sandy soils -- garden sandy, not beach sandy. I remember seeing it growing on the private road beside the old Hughes plant and high up on the Ballona bluffs, where I grew up.

The wild place behind our old house was buried under asphalt and type-5 construction a few years ago, and sprinklers installed on the slope, so Datura no longer grows there, and I had to drag my poor illustrator (Mak, the-hot-house-flower) down past the canyon to the next bluff sans sprinklers before we found any.

The dry sandy soil under my bare feet took me back to my childhood, but I was sorry to see the changes wrought in the native ecosystem.

modern_poetics @ 2004-05-11T12:15:00

2004-05-11T16:16:00Z

The New Name of Fear

2004-05-05T14:22:24Z

Sounds so wicked.

- A Special Tool -

2004-05-04T21:54:55Z

With a special tool...

I will cut your body into fifteen pieces, and then feed them to your head, which I've saved for this purpose.

The End. For You.

modern_poetics @ 2004-04-27T16:51:00

2004-04-27T21:03:17Z

The Most Beautiful Pipe...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=596&item=3289059104&rd=1

modern_poetics @ 2004-04-22T12:23:00

2004-04-22T16:29:25Z

-Flarna-

Jarig, Jarig, Jarig ben jij

Is er alweer een jaar voorbij?

Glijdend door de mist der tij'en

Kosmische reiziger met spiegels als ogen

Verschijnt tussen 'smoeders dijen

Slijmerig bloed en met paarse huid

Komt de baby van de diepte der vagina uit

Terwijl de moeder schreeuwt als een heks, als een feeks

Fijne verjaardag!

Staar in het koele licht des levens

Je zal het weer zien

Je zal het weer zien

En wat is deze koude donkere wereld

Op wiens oevers ik zo wreed geworpen ben

Behandschoende hand van de idioot geeft een klap

Onvriendelijk, onterecht

Vader ben jij dat, door de wolken van de kosmos blauw?

Het is een jongen

Het is een meisje

Het is een ziel

Of niet?

Hahahaha!

Moeder, ben jij dat?

Het is mijn verjaardag.

Ik heb een geheim voor je oor, niet je oog..

Vanaf je geboorte, ga je al dood.

Verdwijn heks!

Voort nu! Vervul je lot, draai de klok terug

Fijne verjaardag!

Gij kent mij niet!

Met dit zwaard word u op de wereld gespleten

Door stormachtige diepten word de baby gesmeten

Tetragrammaton!

Tetragrammaton!

Fijne verjaardag!

Abraxis! Abraxis, ik geef mezelf aan U

Nee! Waarom dit verwoeste leven?

Waarom werd ik toch als vrouw geboren?

Akelig visioen, wat wilt gij van mij?

Fijne verjaardag!

Vermoeide reiziger, wie bent u?

Ik ben de Eeuwigheid

Wilt gij mij niet laten passeren op deze reis?

Als je dit raadsel oplost, dan zal Ascot's schat de uwe zijn.

Uit naam van Thor

Wie is uw vader?

Wie is uw moeder?

Wat is het antwoord?

Sterveling, spreek!!

FIJNE VERJAARDAG!

Nee, kan het zijn?

Het antwoord dat u zoekt is..

Ben ik!

Ben ik!

Ben ik!

Fijne verjaardag!

modern_poetics @ 2004-04-21T14:05:00

2004-04-21T18:35:54Z

There's an intricate logic to the evolution we are experiencing. For me at least I am taking a highly Zerg/Fenris sort of route. Right now I'm some sort of spikey lizard.

But here's whats going to happen, I had another vision last night. SOme of you don't believe in the things you see, but you must pay attention to what that is. Always look at your thoughts twice, there is no such thing as over analysis. Last night I saw that there are three under dogs in our spiritual evolutionary stream, three of which have escaped the notice of the five watchdogs, and that we are one of the highly advanced three. We have a good chance at winning in the long run but the end of the race is still unforeseen, but i do know that it will be won in a lunge. here's the second stage of our evolution. we are much like fenris. but we can't stop there, at fenris we will develop the plan, and act upon it, we will be aware of ourselves at this point.

whoo, wolf lord. finally, the wyrm. our ultimate form.

more later... i have pressing duties to attend to.

modern_poetics @ 2004-04-14T12:39:00

2004-04-14T16:41:13Z

You will fear. For your God is only with you in thought, and not in deed. Dismay will become your moniker, as your God snivels in horror at the greatness in power I display. You will become weak through constant derision, and my hand will become the awesome extension of evil that has been the subject of muttered myths since the dawn of time.

I adopted a poison fetus from Fetusmart! All hail our dark lord!

Rainbow In The Dark

2004-04-12T19:07:40Z

When there's lightning - it always bring me down
Cause it's free and I see that it's me
Who's lost and never found
I cry for magic - I feel it dancing in the light
But it was cold - I lost my hold
To the shadows of the night

There's no sign of the morning coming
You've been left on your own
Like a Rainbow in the Dark

Do your demons - do they ever let you go
When you've tried - do they hide -deep inside
Is it someone that you know
You're a picture - just an image caught in time
We're a lie - you and I
We're words without a rhyme

There's no sign of the morning coming
You've been left on your own
Like a Rainbow in the Dark

When there's lightning - it always brings me down
Cause it's free and I see that it's me
Who's lost and never found
Feel the magic -feel it dancing in the air
But it's fear - and you'll hear
It calling you beware

There's no sign of the morning coming
There's no sight of the day
You've been left on your own
Like a Rainbow in the Dark

Casshern

2004-04-12T18:50:31Z

An alternate world with an alternate history.

The entire planet was divided between two opposing alliances.
After fifty years of bitter warfare,
the Greater Eastern Federation triumphs over
the forces of Europa and gains dominion over the Eurasian continent.

However, this is an empty victory.
Years of chemical, biological and nuclear war have poisoned the land and
left an exhausted population at the mercy of every pestilence and newly-mutated disease.

It seems that there's little hope for humanity's future.
Debate rages over the chances of finding some way to stave off
the seemingly-inevitable decline of civilization.

One man comes forward with a possible solution.
Dr. Azuma is a geneticist who proposes a "neo-cell" treatment that
can rejuvenate the body and regenerate humankind.
He's driven in his studies by a desire to save his beloved wife, Midori,
from the ravages of pollution-related disease.

He appeals for funding to the government
but the politicians in the Health Ministry turn him down,
fearing that the new technology will threaten their entrenched powers.

However, a sinister faction in the powerful military makes
a secret offer to provide the support he needs to further his research.

When an incident occurs in the lab that sends
the Professor's "neo-cell" cloning experiment haywire,
a race of mutant human beings (Shinzo Ningen) is unleashed upon the world.

Instead of being the savior of mankind,
the Professor's miraculous technology looks set to threaten its very existence...

www.casshern.com

An Easter Feeling

2004-04-02T22:16:54Z

Whoa! I know that Judas has betrayed meeeeeee!
Oh no! Why can't he seeeeeeeeeee?
Yeah! There's so much more that I could teeeeeach,
Dear Father! You've forsaken meeeeeee,
the Nazereeeeeeeene!

Now I want to bleed the bunnies,
Make sure I smash the frogs,
Black flowers bloom with hatred,
Hellfire burns remaining frogs.

Let me rock.
Let me rock.
I am He who walks behind the hedgerows,
during Easter.

- You Can Learn A Lot From Heartache, And You Will -

2004-03-18T20:44:24Z

Have you thought of this?
I hate you!
What about this one?
I will stun you with my cudgel.

Arrrrrr. Nancy you bitch!
Have you ever tasted the blade of my cudgel?
You lie! It has no blade!
But suffer unto this:
You will harvest sorrow
With frightening efficiency, and
They will call you the Monsanto of Woe.

Grandmother, You Will Always Be With Us

2004-02-27T09:49:46Z

Grandmother, You Will Always Be With Us

I believe that when someone dies,
They aren't really dead at all,
They've just stopped breathing and thinking,
And have begun to rot, y'all.

Then some dwarfs and warlocks crawl,
Into their ears and eat their brains,
In a bloodfeast most befitting,
Where the only dish is PAIN.

O, let me bathe in some entrails!
And hear the Valkyrie cry!
Valhalla is my birthright!
'Cuz Grandma ain't dead, that's why.