Meditating on Moss

When you conjure up images of European medieval woodland landscapes, as depicted in fairy tales and hero's adventures, the scenery is often an iconic archetype. The mosaic of images probably contains languidly moving brooks flanked by dense arboreal vistas and most certainly there is a vibrant lush green carpet stretching in all directions on the forest floor. This expansive and luxuriant green blanket is composed of an interwoven series of a singular and amazing plant; moss. Moss comes in a host of varieties including color, texture, geometry and so forth. The moss of fairy tale panoramas is more than likely the long-fibered sphagnum moss better known as peat moss. Peat moss is not restricted to Europe it also has its North American and Asian counterparts. Moss has a lively and lavish history in the social, medical, spiritual, horticultural and even economic realms of peoples lives all over the world.

Sphagnum mosses are the taxonomical name given to living peat mosses but the more vernacular term “peat moss” or “bog moss” is what they are generically called. Peat moss is found predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere in peat bogs, moist tundra and conifer forests. Peat moss adapts to its environs by manipulating its own habitat. It retains up to 20 times its weight in moisture which means that the water is not draining away, thus, creating a bog and a vast network of mosses.

Horticulturists, botanists, weekend gardeners, and florists have recognized the multitude of benefits and applications which moss provides. Along with its exemplary quality of water retention it is also known for its anti-bacterial attributes. More recently the moss Physcomitrella patens is at the forefront of research into the medicinal and healing properties of all mosses. In 2007 a consortium of scientists were able to map the entire genome of Physcomitrella patens which will certainly pave the was for more extensive studies into the remarkable benefits of moss. 

Nonetheless, the history of bog moss in Europe is as insightful and it is inspirational. For example, The Battle of Clontarf in 1014 which saw the King of Leinster trying to assert more muscle in Ireland by ordering his men, including Viking mercenaries, to launch assault on Dublin. Brian Boru was the reigning “High King” of most of Ireland at the time which was a loose conglomerate of independent kingdoms. The battle was won by Brian Boru as he and his men staved off the King of Leinster but at a heavy bloody cost to both sides. A chronicler of the event noted bog moss being used in battlefield triage care; “...(they) stuffed their wounds with moss.” Furthermore, it's generally accepted that during the middle ages certain peat mosses were used more frequently by surgeons on the battlefield than was previously thought. The term Blood Moss alludes to its sponge-like absorption as it was used by Hospitallers during the Crusades to soak up and halt the flow of blood. While the Europeans were cultivating and codifying their pharmacopeia of mosses the Asia was nurturing their spiritual constitutions with all things moss.

The Japanese are notorious for their spectacularly manicured gardens. Theses gardens have a subtle and sensory captivating ability to lull one into a meditative state. It follows that these meditation gardens were seen as a respite from a hectic urban and or suburban life. Although Shintoism is the overarching religion of Japan, there are still remnants of Zen Buddhism which can be seen manifested in the meditation gardens. Seated meditation is one of the disciplines essential to effective zen meditation. The idea behind seated meditation is to calm both body and mind while concentrating inwardly which will bring upon insights leading to enlightenment. Japanese spiritual culture is intertwined with the ubiquity of the elemental forces like water, fire, earth, wind and “heaven” which are all part and parcel to meditation gardens.

Cultivating these elements or immersing oneself into in a serene environment is at the core of Japanese seated meditation. Some of the oldest meditation gardens in Japan are designed to incorporate moss as reoccurring and thus, calming theme. The most famous of those gardens is Saihō-ji, the Moss Garden, in Kyoto. Saihō-ji dates from around 1339 and its establishment is attributed Muso Soseki who was court politician, writer and obvious savvy organizer. Today the Moss Garden is so popular that access is limited to 90 minutes per visit and only after a lengthy period waiting for your request to be processed. This is a discernible testament to the spiritual importance of moss in the daily lives of the Japanese. Although not quite on par with zen meditation the western world has embraced the esthetic and pragmatic elegance of moss. 

Moss has become an indispensable gardening tool which is characteristically used today as a decorative moisture sponge which is clumped at the base of potted orchids and succulents. Any garden shop worth is salt liberally utilizes moss in their finished products. Moss is loved by florists and gardeners working with succulents and orchids because moss so readily soaks up and holds the water like a mini reservoir. This allows the orchids and succulents to access the moisture when needed while avoiding rotting issues.

Here's a list of some of those uses for peat moss:

• Soilless Planting – Succulents can grow directly in moss.
• Making Forms – Like succulent wreaths and topiaries.
• Securing Plants – Stuffing and tucking the space around the succulent and orchid roots with moss to hold it in place.
• Soil Conditioning – Provides moisture retention, drainage, and nourishment.
• Container Accent – it just looks luxurious.
  
  

Admittedly, growing sphagnum moss in your Florida garden can seem like a daunting task. Florida, especially in the Summer, is not the boreal climate suited to wild moss forests. There are some ways by which you can enjoy many aspects of moss while not having to compromise on esthetics. Planting a terrarium using long stemmed moss, succulents and or orchids is one way to cultivate beauty and serenity. Visit your local garden shop for tips and tricks and many more ideas on how to enjoy the wondrous green plant Moss.

A List of 5 Hominid Evolutionary Dead Ends or Kissing Cousins

In order to jump the line with your “fast pass” and enjoy the ride you'll need to check your intelligent design preconceptions with the hat check attendants. This bumpy ride is a headlong plunge into the evolutionary underbelly of the taxonomical hominid. This classification of the hominid, codified by the Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus, groups humans (homo) with the great apes in the same category. Since that time hominid has come to be reclaimed by anthropologists, primatologists, evolutionary biologists and paleontologists to mean, in a stricter sense, humans who aren't homo sapiens but closer to us than chimpanzees. Until now no missing link type of Rosetta Stone bone fragment or DNA sequence has been found which can delineate conclusively how modern homo sapiens arrived at the top of the food chain. Scientists, therefore, still have a multitude of erudite coffee klatch to bicker over in their quest to explain whence we homos came. A couple of the hominids on the list of evolutionary dead ends were in a Darwinistic sense predestined to ossify into the annals of prehistory. They were either out competed for resources or unable to adapt to climate changes or succumbed to a hitherto unknown disease. These hypotheses are affectionately called the “Kill, Chill or Ill” theories. Recently new DNA evidence has revealed that some ethnic populations around the world have residual DNA from these dead end hominids. The logical conclusion for those traces of extinct DNA must be an alarming rate of sexual interbreeding. In other words, sex, sex and more sex is the key understanding some of the evolutionary dead ends which helped get us on top of the modern food chain.

Homo floresiensis (hobbit)

Era:     95,000 – 17,000 years ago

Habitat:     Island of Flores, Indonesia

Major find:    Near complete female skeleton dating back about 18,000 years ago—in Liang Bua cave       on the island of Flores, Indonesia.

Sex or dead end:   No DNA has been extracted from floresiensis so sex is still an unknown. Best guess now is either kill or chill

Gigantopithecus

Era:     9 million years ago until roughly 100 thousand years ago

Habitat:     Primarily China, India and Vietnam

Major find:    German anthropologist Ralph von Koenigswald found petrified teeth in a Chinese medicine apothecary in 1935

Sex or dead end:   No DNA has been extracted from Gigantopithecus so sex is unlikely. However, sex has been informally postulated because some forensic anthropologists claim Gigantopithecus to be the modern hominid mistaken for global bigfoot sightings.

Ardipithecus Ramidus

Era:     About 4.4 million years ago

Habitat:     Eastern Africa (Middle Awash and Gona, Ethiopia)

Major find:    First fossil remains were found in the Middle Awash area of Ethiopia between 1992 and 1994

Sex or dead end:   The pelvis seems to be designed for bipedalism which would suggest sex. Ardipithecus Ramidus is disinguished from the other Ardipitheci in this fact.

Paranthropus Aethiopicus

Era:     About 2.7 to 2.3 million years ago

Habitat:     Eastern Africa (Turkana basin of northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia)

Major find:    The “Black Skull" west of Lake Turkana in Kenya

Sex or dead end:   Too little is known about Paranthropus Aethiopicus to guess but sex seems to be the best fit. It is closely related to Australopithecus afarensis because it shares many attributes, or the other “robust” australopithecines like P. boisei, which many scientists claim might be a direct descendant of P. aethiopicus

Denisovan

Era:     41,000 years ago to present?

Habitat:     Central Asia, Siberia, Indonesia, Australia, Melanesia

Major find:    finger bone fragment of a juvenile female found in Denisova caves in Siberia

Sex or dead end:   Sex, Sex and more Sex. Much like the residual genes of Neanderthal which homo sapiens carry (e.g. red hair)so too Denisovan gene markers have been found in modern ethnic populations of Indonesia, Australia and Melanesia.

The Price of Corn Versus the Price of Freedom

"Politicks are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politicks, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it."

Samuel Johnson

With little fanfair and almost negative column inches the US Senate approved an extention of the Farm Bill with minor cuts. Despite the horrendous weather conditions in the plains states (i.e Corn Belt) and the failing harvest the proposed extention of the Farm Bill will fortuitously include a lavish provision for crop insurance programs that will protect farmers against both natural disaster and market fluctuations. In the press recently the spin doctors are ominiouly foretelling that the price of diary and meat will to go through the roof in the last quarter of the year. That hits all of US consummers hard in the wallet as we attempt to buy those government subsidised groceries. It's apparent that the Farm Bill of 2008 needs to be meaningfully overhauled AGAIN but when the US House of Representatives finally drafts their version it is likely to be a near carbon copy of the Senate's bill. The extention is slated to dole out about $96 billion a year to subsidies on “specialty crops” (read: primarily corn and soy) about $50 billion which will be in direct payments to mostly large agribusinesses. The non profit think tank, Environmental Working Group (EWG), has accumulated an impressive database of information about farm subsidies. Curiously, Nebraska comes in number 5 on the list of top recipients which is above states like California and Ohio with vastly larger populations. Offset that with more than $150 billion every year spent on government sponsored dietary programs and the subsequent medical costs of dealing with arthritis, diabetes and heart disease because of the ubiquity of cheap corn and soy in processed food. The subsidised corn is fed to live stock, used as supplement in refined gasoline (i.e. Ethanol) as well as being omnipresent in the form of high fructose syrup found in a mindboggling amount of processed foods. Where are the government subsidies for fruit and vegetables? They tout them as being cornerstones to a child's beneficial nutritional plan. In actuality it's nothing more than a shell game which highlights the collusion between government and big business. At worst it is a form of disinformation which pays lipservice to a glaringly false altruism. When will the smoke and mirror game played on the American public by the insidious marriage between big business and government finally be shut down?

Update (31 July 2012) on the aMAIZEing Farm Bill double dip. I tried contacting both US Senators from Nebraska, (D)Mike Johanns and (R)Ben Nelson, for an answer to the disproportional allocation of farm subsidies to their state. Neither was available for comment and I was politely yet resolutely encouraged to compile my questions for the Senators in an email. Strikingly, I was not told nor did I remember to ask if the Senators or someone from their staff will address my questions. Already chalked it up to a cub reporter mistake. If I ever receive a response I will post it asap.

An Index of Five Curious Indices Plus One

The human brain seems to be hardwired for designing order and structure out of the chaos of ignorance. Ignorance is used here in a purer lexical sense which implies a lack of knowledge or information. Science enters the arena of ignorance to supply us with a set of rules to demystify that lack of knowledge. Empirical scientific inquiry has led to an understanding of how complex human perception is shaped. The need for order and understanding has led science to codify and thereby explain by using sets of diagnostics. These sets help to simplify by categorizing the experiences. These categories which are established, purposely avoid the deviations of those sets in order to garner understanding out of the ignorance. The scientific order and structure which are created, fulfill an intrinsic need for comprehending why a perceived chaos is actually reflective of complicated system of harmony. Mythology has been the instrument which man has used to create the harmony and melody of understanding and acceptance before the development of empirical scientific research. Mythology allows knowledge to be acquired while simultaneously circumventing an analysis of the fractional mechanisms of how the order and structure are developed. Science and mythology are more intertwined than they are generally portrayed in modern culture. Here are 5 examples of science's efforts to demystify the complex human experience.

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index: designed in 1990 by American entomologist Justin Schmidt at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tuscon Arizona 

The scale measures the relative pain caused a sting cause from different Hymenoptera insects. It ranges from one through four where four is the most painful.

Examples:

1.0 Sweat bee and Fire ant

2.0 Bullhorn acacia ant, Bald-faced hornet and Yellowjacket

0 – 2.0 Honeybee and European hornet

3.0 Red harvester ant and Paper wasp

4.0 Tarantula hawk

4.0+Bullet ant

The Scoville Scale Index: designed in 1912 by American Pharmacist Wilbur Lincoln Scoville.

The scale measures the spicy, piquant heat from chili peppers in the amount of Capsaicin the pepper contains. Capsaicin is a chemical found in plants which causes tissue irritations in mammals.

Examples:

0 units SweetBanana pepper

500-700 units Red chili pepper

3,500-8,000 units Jalapeno pepper

30,000-50,000 units Cayenne pepper

2,000,000-5,300,000 units US grade pepper spray

15,000,000 units Pure Capsaicin

Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale: developed by Stanley Kay, Lewis Opler, and Abraham Fiszbein and first published in 1987. 

The scale measures the severity of schizophrenia in patients with either positive or negative symptoms. Positive symptoms refer to overabundance or interference of normal functions (e.g. hallucinations or delusions). Negative symptoms are reduction or absence of normal function.

Positive questionnaire has 7 components (min. score = 7, max. score = 49)

Negative questionnaire has 7 components (min. score = 7, max. score = 49)

General psychopathy scale has 16 components (min. score = 16, max. score = 112)

There are no zero points allocated so the minimum aggregate score is 30. In the initial prepublication testing the scale was administered to previously diagnosed schizophrenics to arrive at mean averages.

Positive scale 18
Negative scale 21
General psychopathology 38

Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale: designed in 1948 by Alfred Charles Kinsey a professor of Entomology and founder of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. 

The scale measures and plots sexual history and experience of a persons sexual activity. It then assigns them on a sliding scale to being entirely homosexual (0) or entirely heterosexual (6). The implication is that the variants between 1 and 5 are bisexual. The scale applies to both men and women.

Examples:

0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual
1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6- Exclusively homosexual

Gross National Happiness Index: designed by The King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck in the early 1970's. 

The index attempts to create a holistic mechanism to determine a country's economic progress while ensuring that the psychological and cultural well being of the country is not undermined. The index was first applied to the country of Bhutan but, in principle, can be applied to any nation state.

The four main variables are:

good governance

sustainable socio-economic development

cultural preservation

environmental conservation

The index is scaled from 0 through 1 whereby 1 is “full happiness”. A 2010 survey held in Bhutan concluded that Bhutan is .743 Happy.


Bristol Stool Index: designed and developed by Dr. Ken Heaton in 1997 while at the University of Bristol.

This index endeavors to approximate the transit time of stool within the colon. It continues to be used clinically when evaluating various diseases and pathologies of the bowel as well as the success of their subsequent treatments.

The seven types of stool are:

• Type 1: Separate hard lumps, like nuts (hard to pass)
  
• Type 2: Sausage-shaped, but lumpy
  
• Type 3: Like a sausage but with cracks on its surface
  
• Type 4: Like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft
  
• Type 5: Soft blobs with clear cut edges (passed easily)
  
• Type 6: Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool
  
• Type 7: Watery, no solid pieces. Entirely liquid
  
  The range of stool begins with types 1 & 2 reflecting constipation; 3 & 4 indicating the ideal range; and 5, 6 & 7 displaying increasing forms of diarrhea.
  

The Gods Must Be Stingy

Cargo Cults, Welfare and Political Drivel

     Libertarianism social policy fits snugly into the ideological framework of the American Constitution which the “Founding Fathers” seemingly intended. There is deep chasm of political philosophy between Libertarianism and the original intent of a “common good”, which runs like a thread through the Constitution. Libertarianism, I feel, will prove to be inadequate for effective statecraft on a federal, state, or local level. As an illustration of the inherent shortcomings, consider the implications of one of the basic tenets of it's political ideology; self-reliance. If you carry that to one of it's logical and pragmatic conclusions then there is scanty provision made for civil utilities like fire departments or police forces. Remember that until the end of the 19^th century and beginning of the 20^th century fire departments were privately owned and operated. This meant that if your home or business didn't bare the placard of one of the privately held fire departments then those companies would not respond to the fire. Fortunately, that civic mayhem has been rectified by cities incorporating the fire departments into their municipal jurisdiction. The evolution of political “common good” as it pertains to civil concepts has come to be accepted as a right of citizenship and residence and can't be easily reversed. When it comes to abject poverty and marginalization of economic, cultural and ethnic groups not only do the Libertarians receive a failing grade but so do the Republicans and the Democrats alike. I will attempt not to oversimplify but also refrain from getting mired down in the nuances of their respective ideologies. I will try to succinctly describe American's popular conception of the political parties stance on welfare as it refers to the “common good”.

     Republicans assume that the poor or needy, whether chronic or temporary, stick their hands out expecting a material or monetary freebie from the leaders without having to be concerned about self-reliance. This is their classic example of a welfare state kept on life support by the majority of hard working tax payers. The Democrats, in contrast, are portrayed as the weak bleeding heart handmaidens to this “nanny state”. The question arises, then, who has the moral and political high ground? Has striving for the “common good” devolved into a situation where an underclass has become so despondent that they have come to view the government as their earthly salvation? After the end of World War 2 curious quasi-religious movements sprang up on the islands of Melanesia which embodied that same despondency. Those movements yearning for an earthly salvation are what are known as Cargo Cults.

     The concept of the Cargo Cult has been erroneously linked to the culture of poverty in American society. Although many aspects are similar and one can understand the spurious conclusions drawn between them and the perception of a permanent American underclass. However, as will be shown, the idea of redemption by the government doesn't hold up to scrutiny. In order to do that we will have to tease out what constitutes a cargo cult by briefly describing the John Frum movement. After we have established our parameters of a cargo cult we will delve into a lingering sociological concept that continues to obscure an objective discourse on rampant poverty and its tenacious staying power in the United States. The outdated sociological concept of a culture of poverty is behind this ideological conundrum.

     Cargo Cults, like The John Frum movement of the island Vanuatu, emerged during World War 2. These small islands were used as weigh stations and springboards for thousands of American troops in the Pacific Theater. Anthropologists view Cargo Cults arising out of encounters with an outside culture which stand out in contrast to the indigenous culture as it relates to material wealth. There develops a mysterious reverence to the outsiders because the local population can't comprehend from where such a limitless supply of goods and resources originate. The local peoples assume it's the workings of magic which is perhaps summoned from the spirit world by veritable gods. While the war raged on in the Pacific these cargo cult built symbolic airstrips for the planes and erected statues of airplanes made from palm fronds and coconuts. They even built churches with coconut radio transmitters to contact these gods. Once the Americans had withdrawn from the Pacific Theater following the end of WW2 the Cargo Cults took an even greater mythical hold on the local population. They began venerating those symbols of the gods. They prayed for their return when they hoped the gods would bring with them the material wealth of the spiritual realm. As was told to Paul Raffaele of the Smithsonian Magazine on his visit in 2006 by a ranking member of the John Frum movement; “John promised he’ll bring planeloads and shiploads of cargo to us from America if we pray to him...(like) radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things.” These pre-literate island cultures were in awe of the material wealth and benevolence of the gods who descended upon them. There were no precursors for grasping on an abstract level why the American soldiers were being supplied and from where these supplies came. It can easily be seen how these local populations could succumb to deifying those gods and in turn, on a deep cultural and religious level, expect the gods to care for them. They were inadvertently thrust into a cycle of subservience; a culture of poverty.

     The culture of poverty was a mid 20^th century (1959) sociology paradigm that was able to garner both wide spread acceptance within academia and coffee shop pundits. Originally it was conceived by social anthropologist Oscar Lewis in his book titled “Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty.” Lewis' ethnographical study of this Mexican subculture delineated how exclusion from the overarching dominant culture tended to influence the subculture to modify and adapt. Due to the lack of resources, like second language acquisition, formal higher or skilled education and absence of community role models, subcultures manufacture aberrant value systems from the generally accepted social norms. As a side effect of this insular enculturation these value systems were in turn inherited by the children. This precipitated the generational adoption of these mores and norms and thusly, allowed them to be perpetuated. Furthermore, Lewis postulated that because these mechanisms of adaptation have been engrained so thoroughly in the members of these subcultures, notably children, they are inevitably held captive to those ideals and social conventions. This ultimately leads to a perceived continuum of an underclass; a culture of poverty. During President Lyndon B. Johnson's “new deal” the concept was used to describe the plight of the urban ghetto namely, the black communities. It has since lost most of it's preliminary luster because of the work of modern sociologists, like harvard professor William Julius Wilson, who turned the argument on its ear. He claims that many ethnic groups choose to isolate themselves from the homogenous American culture. The many China Towns found in American's urban settings is testament to this voluntary isolation. Asian immigrant populations tend to cluster together and in doing so establish networks of support for the newly arrived emigres. Of course, there are other ethnic groups who adhere to the same clustering after immigration; like Eastern Europeans or Caribbeans. Wilson asserts that the main reason for a perceived culture of poverty is the lack of social role models in the impoverished areas of America. A mixture of socio-economic classes are required to exist in close proximity to one another in order for them to interact on a meaningful level. Most notably the middle class has a pivotal role to play in this drama.

     The struggling underclass is not incapable of learning and adapting if given a fair and even chance to succeed. The fact that there is an exodus of the middle class from these areas proves the point that success is at least attainable. The real concern isn't a Cargo Cult mentality which is perpetuated from generation to generation. The focus shouldn't be on vilifying the underprivileged as gullible and lazy. The main thrust from all political parties should be eradicating the ghettoization of America. Mandating the “common good” is what being an America is all about.

List of 5 American Fakelore Hero's

Fakelore differs from folklore in that fakelore is consciously manufactured yarning whereas folklore has a more organic genesis. Here is today's List of 5.

Paul Bunyan is the anthropomorphized concept of 19^th century American continental expansion. He was depicted as a gigantic Lumberjack living and working in the America Northeast. He was aided in the deforestation of the Pacific Northwest by his colossal blue ox Babe.

John Henry is the embodiment of an allegory, namely man versus machine. It also has connotations of a general 19^th century angst of modernization. It is perhaps also a tribute to the abolition of slavery because John Henry is ascribed to African decent. The fakelore of John Henry recounts his physical prowess during a railroad spike hammering competition with a steam engine machine. Ultimately, the machine wins out the competition.

Febold Feboldson is a conceptual hybrid of Old World water divination and Native American elemental magic. Febold Feboldson is erroneously label a Swede (Febold is not a Swedish name) and is said to have been a cloud-buster or rainmaker. Febold Feboldson's fakelore is indigenous to the corn belt and tornado alley, most notably Nebraska. Therefore, it's not surprising that the peoples manufactured a benevolent weather liaison.

Joe Magarac is a incarnation of the necessity to safeguard steel workers while discouraging them to unionize. Joe Magarac and his fakelore is relegated to the Pittsburg steel industry area. His last name is derived from the Slavic word for donkey; which was due in part to the fact that Pittsburg had a large Slavic immigrant population. Joe Magarac was born out of a an iron ore vein in the side of a mountain. He was said to be made of solid steel and was a simple man who lead rather spartan life. Joe Magarac became the patron saint of steel workers who would call on him for his altruistic protection amid the hazardous steel mill working conditions.

Captain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong is the nostalgic personification of a whaling culture in decline. Alfred Bulltop Stormalong is retold as fakelore in the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts. The Captain is said to have been an enormous man who sailed on a ship so large that he had special hinged masts so as not to scrape the moon. The Kraken, of Norse Mythology, was a constant rival of the Captain until the fateful day that the Captain stirred up a massive eddy which swallowed the Kraken whole. Once thought to be a sailors tall-tale, the giant squid (Architeuthis dux) did occasionally surface as it was battling its arch enemy the Sperm Whale. The the mythologizing of the giant squid into the Kraken is analogous to the confusion between the unicorn and the narwal and mermaids and manatees. 

From Cars to Stars: A UFO Messiah Career Switch Guide.

Cars, automobiles, steam horses, whatever they happen to be called, are all what Freudians would label as fetishes to some men; generally speaking of course. We may snigger at the simplistic analogy of the psychological inadequacy of a man's sexual organ and the corresponding superficial glitz of the car he drives and or covets. However, the amount of influence cars possess over their male drivers can lead to out of this world theologies. If your considering reinventing yourself, either because of a midlife crisis or to stave off the economic woes, then establishing a UFO religion from behind the wheel of your car might be your calling. Here follows two stellar examples of UFO Messiah career switches plus a nugget of weirdness for each.

Raelism: Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon is a French born auto racing journalist and later test driver. Japanese business magnates funded a brief racing career for Vorilhon from 1999 through 2000. The impetus behind the deal was to generate publicity for the Raelism movement. Vorilhon changed his name to Rael (supposedly meaning "messenger of the elohim") after he allegedly was visited by the extraterrestrial Yahweh in 1973. The alien visitation took place within a French volcanic crater between Vorilhon and one member of a group extraterrestrial scientists called Elohim. Rael was instructed to communicate to the world that these aliens had created life on Earth through DNA manipulation emanating from 25000 years of advanced intergalactic technology. Rael also preached of the return of the Elohim which prompted him to build them an Embassy anticipating their need to negotiate with the primitive peoples of Earth. Weird Fact: Due to the basal tenets of Raelism they have established a cloning research center at their head quarters and are apparently well funded.

Aetherius Society: George King was born in Northern England just after World War 1. Although King worked a variety of jobs, like security keeping and a fire fighter during World War 2 in London, his time as a chauffeur and a taxi-driver are what caused him to make his career switch. King dabbled in the occult from an early age and eventually went on to become a Yogi, self-titled spiritual healer and UFO channeler. The Aetherius Society he founded in 1955 espoused a muddled doctrine of Yoga inspired spiritual teachings combined with the wisdom he garnered from his channeling with extraterrestrials. The philosophical contents of the Aetherius Society shared many of the same beliefs as the Theosophical movement, namely the belief that Mu, Lemuria and Atlantis were all highly advanced ancient civilizations with direct links to extraterrestrials of other dimensions. Weird Fact: George King asserts that he fought along side Martians as they defeated a race of marine aliens. These marine aliens, dubbed "Garouche", if not conquered, were hell bent to annihilate all terrestrial life on Earth in order to stake sole claim to Earth's oceans.

Sex, Celibacy and Science: My 2 Favorite 20th Century Doomsday Cults

     The word doomsday is ominous enough but it also has several synonyms which are just as sinister; like “Judgement Day” or “end time” or “end times” or even “end of days”. The word doomsday most certainly hails from the period directly following the conquest of England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD. William I, a.k.a. William the Conqueror, wanted a census held throughout his newly pacified dominion. The census taking was ostensibly to register the property holdings and livestock of the residents of England and Wales in order to levy sufficient taxes. The benchmark was to be established by assessing the revenues based on material wealth due the last Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor Military conquests are never friendly to a state's coffers and the subjugation of England and Wales was no exception to this rule. The census was finally completed as of 1086. This book, dubbed the “Domesday Book” in the vernacular, was an absolute codification and the last definitive word as it pertained to the law and material wealth and holdings. Although the survey was initially conducted as a purely secular means of filling the empty Royal treasury it eventually took on a life of its own among the general populace. The Domesday Book gained the perception of a written testament to the impending end of days among the subjugated peoples of England and Wales. The logic inferred by the people was that those whose names appeared in the Domesday Book were earmarked for imminent departure from this earth. The book took on a sacred and apocalyptic theme among some people. Of course, there were other end of days cults and religious movements throughout history. Most notably the movements centering around the first Millennium AD. Millenarianism (taken from millennium) is applied theologically to the concept of the second coming of Christ which will, according to Christian believers, usher in a Golden Age of rapture and dissolution of terrestrial evils. The modern social sciences of Anthropology and Sociology have in a broader sense termed these movements as Millenarian when they apply to religious, social and political movements. The definition we will employ is a simple working definition but one that will be able to set parameters in order to further enjoy my favorite Doomsday Cults. Millenarian movements are for believers a struggle between of good and evil which will culminate in the good triumphing and establishing a sovereignty of righteousness. After the triumph all historical misdoings will be rectified, and injustice and oppression curtailed. There will be retribution for those who have profited from the injustices and oppressions. The righteous and true believers are pivotal in this drama as the vanquishers of evil or the benefactors of the millennial reign.

     What set apart my favorite 20^th century Doomsday cults are three ingredients which they both acknowledged but not necessarily embraced. The first characteristic they both shared was the existence of a single charismatic omnipotent leader. A second attribute they acknowledged but were not uniform in embracing was sex and reproduction. It might seem odd that by espousing celibacy you de facto restrict your ideological movement from sustaining itself. Nonetheless, one abstained from procreation. Lastly, the 20^th century was a boon for scientific discovery and it's incorporation into the mundane aspects of everyday life. Again one of the movements manipulated and spuriously altered science to conform to their specific world views. While the other movement rejected out of hand any scientific underpinnings. As you read the two vintage examples of Doomsday cults it's perhaps interesting to bear in mind the parallels in the social, economic and political climates of those movements and today's social, economic and political incubator for potential Doomsday cults.

     The Koreshan Unity was established in New York during the 1870's by Cyrus Teed. Teed was an Electrical Physician and a “would be” alchemist by education and trade. An electrical physician was a branch of medicine which could most aptly be labeled a homeopathic physician. The electrical physician concocted tinctures and remedies based on herbs and botanicals which surely ld Teed to dabble in alchemy. Teed eventually changed his name to “Koresh” which is the Hebrew name for Cyrus. He changed his name after formulating his scientific and religious doctrines into what he deemed Koreshanity. Teed claimed divine providence as a Messiah after his 1869 epiphanies. A key component of Koreshantiy was the hubristic scientific theory of the Hollow Earth. The Hollow Earth theory contends that the Earth encompasses a sphere. The sphere contains on the outside surface all the stars, planets and heavens. Around 1894 Teed gathered his flock and traveled to Estero Florida to construct his version of a Utopian society. The compound was to be self sufficient and remain laboriously vigilant waiting for the end of days. Teed was embroiled in constant disputes with the residents of Fort Myers which ultimately sealed his fate and that of the movement. In 1908, as records show, Tweed was accosted at gunpoint by some Fort Myers men and received injuries from which he never recovered. He died a few days later and from that moment forward the Koreshan movement went into steady decline. Naturally, the Utopia established by Teed faced an inevitable decline which was foreshadowed by the strict celibacy ideals autocratically formulated by Teed. The remnants of the Doomsday cult, Koreshan Unity, can be visited in Estero Florida which is now a state historical park.

     Lou de Palingboer (the Eel Monger) was born Louwrens Voorthuijzen around the turn of the 20^th century in a small village in a Northern province of the Netherlands. His father was, according to posthumous documents, a deeply pious man who undoubtedly fostered a similar religiosity in Louwrens. The first divorce in a series of failed marriages caused Louwrens to equate a malevolent supernatural as the impetus for the failures; namely, the devil's influence on the women. He soon made his way to Amsterdam and set up an eel vendor's stand at the Dappermarkt. He is remembered to be an ironic funny yet extremely zealous orator at the market and at the nearby cafes. At some point Louwrens gained a foothold of notoriety due to his unwavering believe that he not only was he the Messiah Jesus Christ, but additionally that he was instrumental in writing the Bible. In the ensuing years Lou de Palingboer, as he was notoriously called, began amassing a moderate following of believers and devotees. He preached a mixture of Doomsday and redemption which naturally, only he could resolve. Lou left Amsterdam in 1957 for the town of Muiden where a rich patron had purchased a large estate for the cult. The “witte huis” (white house), as it was deemed, was simultaneously a spiritual center for the devotees as well as a boarding house. Lou would suffer not insolence and was above all else the benevolent messiah.This temperament led many followers to defect from the cult due to conflicts with Lou's increasing erratic teachings about the end of the world and the cult leaders devious behavior. There doesn't seem to be any substantial scientific rhetoric used by Lou to bolster his messianic claims. For those living at the compound life was spartan. There were no technological frills nor excessive contact with general society outside the witte huis compound. It was insular and mysterious and revolved around the veneration of Lou as the Messiah; especially among the women in the cult. The Dutch press began referring to Lou's megalomania as a religious figure as a cult due, no doubt, to the salacious rumors of loose sexual morals at the compound. Lou was accused in the popular media as being a sexual Svengali to the women in his following. To make the scandal even more tantalizing, Lou was married and divorced several times during these religious love tryst and apparently his wives had full knowledge and even engaged in the alleged affairs. In order to avoid the prying eyes of the press Lou relocated his movement to Belgium. Soon after the move to Belgium Lou died and the cult of Lou the Eel Monger died right along with him.

     Putting Doomsday cults into a historical frame work is the most prudent way, not only understand their acclaim, but also to allow us to identify the social, economic and political aspects of today's emerging Doomsday cults. Cyrus Teed was a first hand witness to the economic panic of 1893 in New York. The collapse of the railroad industry spawned a backlash of economic turmoil which ended in the collapse of many banking firms. The panic of 1893 was the first serious depression in the United States. In 1898 the United States under the military command of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in Cuba began its salt water colonies expansion. The period of expansion is known to history as the Spanish America War. America in only a few years captured Cuba and Puerto Rico as well as the far flung island nations of Guam and the Philippines. America was now a global colonial power and with that power came vast responsibilities which America had not yet been groomed to manage. Lou de Palingboer was confronted with a different set of circumstance which appear on a deeper level to be similar to turn of the century America. Europe in the 1950's was slowly emerging from the devastation that World War 2 had ravished upon it. The Marshall Plan was in low gear and the hope of prosperity which European saw first hand from the Americans stationed there only magnified the disparity of the post war period. The Netherlands was not unlike other areas of Europe where abject poverty was the norm. It's not hard to imagine the listless feeling that things may not get better soon coupled with the anxiety that for the past 40 years every 20 years meant a continental war with all its crippling ramifications.

    Today's maelstrom of economic malady and social unrest in the United States is the perfect storm for burgeoning Doomsday cults. If the CERN organization eventually pulls off the scientific coup of unraveling the God particle then we can throw religious ambiguity into the volatile mix. With these ingredients peculating we can rest assured that sooner rather than later we will witness the reemergence of more Doomsday cults.

B Movie Monsters and Emotional Memory

Saturday Morning Forget-me-not's 

     Some years ago I was charged with excitement to see a 4 episode DVD of “Land of the Lost” tucked away in the cut out bin. I came upon it in this enormous brick and mortar box store in Las Vegas was a bevy of all things electronic. Although at the end of a tech fad I wind up embracing the new gadgets the offerings at this store were not sufficiently old enough to peak my interest. No, I went like a bee to honey directly towards the DVD cut out bins where the misfits of tv, cinema and straight to video come to die a slow death. Sifting around I found that DVD of “Land of the Lost” which to me was the highlight of Saturday mornings “Croft Super Show”. The Will Ferrell's remake was a fools errand from its conception all the way through post production. Just another example of Hollywoods creative bankruptcy. The dailies and internet's social media have been able to adequately pan this dead in the water stinker so I won't devote anymore vitriol to lambasting it. To those of you unfamiliar with the show let me illuminate you on it's greatness; bullet style:

• Single parent family consisting of father, son and daughter set off on a weekend camping trip in a questionable rubber raft.
• The raft is not white water rapids sturdy and the family loses control and plummets off a steep waterfall.
• When they awake on the shore of the valley stream they are confronted with dinosaurs. They have gone back in time or fell into the “Valley that Time Forgot”
• the single family scurries and scrambles for safety eventually holing up in a cave several hundred feet above the ground on the side of a mountain.
• Through their explorations in the this forgotten world of time they encounter a race of missing links. The apemen are evolutionarily somewhere between homo erectus and neanderthal
• the family befriends a young apeman who has become separated from his clan. They adopt him to their nuclear family.
• There exists a race of lizard men who have developed highly civilized society which includes arcane mystical technologies. These Sleestak as they are called are immensely hostile to the family with one exception. These Sleestak provide the erudite moral tensions which drive the story line.

     That original 70's show had a mesmerizing and long lasting effect on me for a number of reasons. Reason number one without a shred of doubt was the reoccurring conflicts with the Sleestak. Sleestaks were a race of lizard men who were apparently highly evolved anthropomorphic beings. They reminded me of those irradiated humans who worshiped some ancient Surface to Air missile and lived below the “Forbidden Zone” in the film “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”. This 2^nd “Planet of the Apes” film from the 5 part series is to me the most ironic and therefore most engaging of the whole lot. The Sleestak also seemed to harken back to 802,701 AD where the Morloks from H.G. Wells' “Time Machine” resided. Check out the 1960 version with Rod Taylor playing the sensitive macho lead; plus the Morlok costumes are terrific. Yet, more than that, the Sleestak invoked an Americanization of Japanese monster movies and tv shows. Those adorable rubber suits out of the Gojira franchise or the budding Ultraman empire were translated into an American ideal of evolutionary mishap. Honing my ability to suspend disbelief willingly I owe to captivatingly watching “Godzilla”, “Ultraman” and the “Planet of the Apes” series. But the germ of that ability was planted while soaking up the side stories about the Sleestak from “The Land of the Lost”. Despite the heavy handed scripting of the Sleestak depicting them as the hostile villains I couldn't help routing for them. In retrospect I see it how similar in sentiment it was to attending a bullfight and cheering for the bull.

     The anticipated excitement of nostalgia ushered me like a lemming to the cashier to buy this DVD. Not only was I soon to be able to indulge my ravenous nostalgia for “Land of the Lost”; I was also about to embark on a 4 part Sleestak fest. The DVD was all about and everything Sleestak. It was a spartan lesson in self control but I managed to keep the DVD sealed until I came back to The Netherlands. This digital Holy Grail was too big; too important for me not to share. Overcome with the necessity of disseminating its knowledge onto a new generation much like a pre-literate nomadic bard recounting the origin myths of the clan; I sat my daughter of 7 down to watch with me. In a word she was nonplussed. She didn't get the plot. She was underwhelmed with the special effects. She just didn't like it; period. In her defense, she was completely and unequivocally right on all accounts. After watching 2 episodes at double speed we looked at one another and decided bilaterally to switch it out for an episode of Sponge Bob. As a self proclaimed film buff I couldn't look beyond the dismal special effects or the gigantic gaping plot holes. I began to wonder if memories, nostalgia and remembrances should remain just the way they are; in the past.

     As a mantra it seems to function relatively well: things in the past need to stay in the past. Add a mirror and a moment of daily affirmation and you'll at least feel like you're on the road to Wellsville. Once the genie is out of the bottle and you've consciously decided to recall those memories you can't squish the genie back into the bottle. It's what William Burroughs called the “Naked Lunch”. The “Naked Lunch” is that moment dangling in time before you stuff your mouth with the food at the end of your fork. You gaze in existential despair upon the bite in all its glory or its ignominious horror. In the case of the Sleestak DVD or any other object, you can rework your memories by supplanting them with fresh objective new ones. That methodology doesn't adapt itself well when your dealing with emotional memories. The most impish and precocious of emotions is that of love and attachment and affection. This amalgamation of emotions taunts us with its web of memory confabulations spilled out all over both hemispheres of our brains. Those far-reaching memory anchors construct alternative and contra- histories which fog any objective recall. For instance, 20 years of fabricating a contra-history about a the love of your life can't be untangled in a years time once you've let the genie out of the bottle. I am not disparaging the creative process of hypothesizing a “what if ?” coping strategy. Bereavement and dealing with loss is often best suited to a coping strategy centered around “what if? “ scenarios; as long as it doesn't morph into a psychological pathology like Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder). However, breaking the Gordian Knot that binds confabulated emotional memories of love and attachment and affection is a long process once you've let the genie out of the bottle.

     Repairing my Sleestak nostalgia was reasonably easy as I look back. I repackaged my love of the series for what it meant to me then; in a context of time and place. Overhauling a 20 year old alternative history might take some more time. Not all but some things are truly better left in the past.

Saints, Relics and Mitt Romney's Magical Underwear

Beatification of Political Figures

     The hagiographies of Catholic saints provide an insightful and useful blueprint to dissecting the populistic veneration of political figures when their historiographies get the revisionist treatment. However, potential Catholic saints are scrutinized on the merits of their wonders before their canonization as a bona fide Saint. If the Pontiff is swayed by the empirically fuzzy proof then the dead person enters an undefined period of beatification. The beatification marks a cooling off period whereby more “proofs” of exceptional earthly divinity are gathered and filed away. Once enough evidence has been amassed the reigning Pope can cast off the beatification and officially canonize the Saint “in waiting”. A frighteningly similar methodology is employed by populist movements when they embark on canonizing a political figure of some historical distinction. Every school child in America has been taught ad nauseum about the wonders of George Washington's unflappable boyhood ethics. The tale of him morally squelched and unable to lie about taking an axe to his father's cherry tree. That fanciful parable of innate American ethics embodied in a cultural hero is tantamount to the unverifiable deeds attributed to Catholic “pre-saints” during their beatification. Catholic saints are believed to fly about, to have stigmata's, heal the infirm and occasionally imbue their clothing with mystical holy powers. Their place of birth and/or death are transformed by the believers into shrines of devotion. These shrines are the locale where yearly pilgrimages terminate and relics are bought and placed to insure the sanctity of the pilgrim and the shrine. Take for instance the historical ramifications of the wooden dentures which George Washington wore for the first time on the battle field at his victory at Valley Forge. Or perhaps more mundane the jute suit which Ronald Reagan wore on the night he lost his virginity. These are intrinsically no different from the Catholic prerequisites to canonization. I will attempt to analogize between a famous political “pre-saint” and her road to beatification and the sub rosa attempts to start a beatification process for current American politicians. In order to make the comparison we first must define what is a relic entails.

     The word relic found it's widespread usage in the English language during the early 13^th century. The shift in meaning in the 13^th century lent itself to referring to a particular body part or other artifact associated with a holy person. Initially the Latin word reliquiæ was used to refer to mementos of pious men and women. The root word is linquere meaning to leave or depart which was coupled with “re-” as a form of “back” giving us reliquiae; something endowed to us from a saint.

     Of course, relics come in various degrees of piety and super powers. Generally speaking there are three categories of relics in ascending order provide insight into the inherent powers they embody. The hierarchy of piety corresponds neatly with the particular cultural, social or political impasse which the relics are employed to help overcome. Bottom of the totem pole (excuse the pun) are classified as “third degree” relics which are items or objects which in some fashion were touched by the saint. Second degree relics are held in higher esteem because they were those used and or worn by the saint. Apparently the second degree relics have had more time to absorb the saints divine vibrations. The holiest of holies in the realm of relics are also the rarest of relics. First degree relics are the incarnation of the faith which function as touchstones of that faith among believers. Examples of first degree relics are slivers of the true cross, anything from Jesus or any generic body part from saints. During the early middle ages through the late middle ages in Europe a whole subversive thieving industry arose (furta sacra), to supply the enormous demand for holy relics. The fact that Jesus' foreskin, The Holy Prepuse, was claimed by as many as 18 different churches throughout Europe during the middle ages, doesn't negate the fact that this was a magnificently holy relic rivaled by no other. Naturally, if the first written documentation of The Holy Prepuse is of Charlemagne bestowing it upon Pope Leo III, then the currency of it's innate super power increases exponentially. Although Charlemagne exemplifies a person having the acumen of realizing the political value of a relic, he was never canonized. A saint who also understood the political importance of relics and miracles was Saint Catherine of Siena.

     Curiously and perhaps ironically extreme piety was one of the few avenues in which women could garner as much acclaim as men in the political arena of church affairs. Women were barred from holding posts in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church but little held them back from veneration as conduits of divine propriety. Catherine of Siena might be diagnosed today as labile and paranoid schizophrenic but in 14^th century Italy she was viewed as being divinely blessed with visions. We'll ignore the fact that she perpetually hallucinated because of her staple diet of Holy Hosts and consecrated wine; taking communion every single day. Catherine of Siena made the holiest of vows only to be broken later in adulthood for an even holier vow. At the age of 7 she purportedly took the vow of chastity and abstinence as a result of her first ecstatic vision she had of Christ. When she had reached adulthood she upped the ante on her piety and announced that she had entered into a holy union with Jesus; she wed the Son of God. Bold and brash as it may seem that singular act erected a bulwark against criticism from the male dominated Church authorities. Catherine was on her way to adopting a trifecta of ecclesiastical notoriety when the rumors of her stigmata accelerated to a fever pitch. Those three attributes (marriage to Christ, divinely inspired hallucinations and stigmata) would catapult her into the frays of perhaps the biggest power struggle to date within the Roman Catholic Church. The Western schism, which divided the papacy from 1378 through 1417, had two simultaneous Popes: one in Italy and one in France. The division was more about political discordance than any profound theological dispute. Catherine wrote extensively to both Popes, notably Pope Gregory XI. He was so enamored with her eloquent piety that he followed her heavenly instructions and returned his administration to Rome for the remainder of his Papacy. During the rest of her lifetime Catherine lived in Rome where she, under the protection of Pope Urban VI, lamented about her failed struggle to end the Schism. She died in Rome at the age of 33; a number which has immense religious currency within the Christian faith. My assertion is that the Church needed her and the people needed her which led to the unconscious manufacture of an exemplar of extraordinary divinity. It is irrelevant to apply any scientific litmus test in order to discern whether or not Catherine of Siena was indeed telling the truth. Whether she was neurologically, psychologically, or physiologically “normal” can't negate the perception of her contemporaries and their necessity to believe.

     Catherine was eventually buried in Rome. A list of miracles and wonders claiming to have happened there is testament to both her popularity among the lay members of the Catholic Church and the savvy clergy who recognized the political potential of her relics. Steadily her popularity transcended a mere holy man and the Pope was forced to move her body and it's relics inside the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva where most of her body resides today. However, her body; her relic was a hotly fought over commodity. It appears that the city of Siena also wanted a piece of the relic action. A macabre story of furta sacra ensues. A band of thieves at the behest of the city of Siena crept into the Basilica and exhumed Catherine's body. The shrewd thieves quickly realized that transporting the entire body would be a herculean task; the journey remaining undetected would be to risky. They need to travel less encumbered. The macabre conclusion arrived at by the thieves was to ignominiously lop off her head and return the first degree relic to Siena. As soon as Catherine's skull was placed in a sack the thieves set out on their trek back to Siena. Of course a hero' tale isn't complete without a challenge. A challenge which is really a test of the hero's moral constitution when his confronted with impending failure. Furta Sacra heroic stories are rife with seemingly contradictory feats of moral and ethical fortitude. As the hagiography informs us the thieves were stopped by guards as they were leaving Rome. The guards demanded to see the contents of the sack whereupon the thieves began to pray to Catherine for a miracle. When the thieves opened the sack and revealed the contents to the guards Catherine of Siena had performed the miracle of disappearance. The guards examined the sack but saw nothing; Catherine's skull relic had vanished. It wasn't until the thieves arrived in Siena that Catherine's head reappeared in the sack. It's clear that the need to have control not only of the physical relic but also to to be able to dictate the hagiography of the saint is what gave the relic meaning and it's cultural brevity.

     The same can be said about the burgeoning historiographies of political figures. The locales of the outhouses Abe Lincoln purportedly visited or used is of much less importance than the bullet which killed him or the stovepipe hat her wore. It's the perception and not the quantifiable evidence which starts the political figure's populistic beatification. Can we observe the fledgling beatifications of political figures operating in the current public arena? That is a question with a very slippery slope. However, let's take a stab at the 2012 Presidential election candidates and their potential relics. Eventually Obama's long-form birth certificate will be auctioned off and probably fall into the hands of the Trump dynasty. Or maybe the White House establishes a lucrative cottage industry which sells certified copies of Obama's long form birth certificate. “What about Romney?”; you might ask. When Romney departs this world for the distant Mormon planet of Kolob he will bequeath his “magical underwear” to this mortal planet. We can all imagine the pandemonium it would unleash as different factions claim sacred rights to his undergarments. Who will prevail? Michigan, Utah or Massachusetts? Undoubtedly the Church of Later Day Saints in collaboration with the future Mitt Romney Institute will fabricate enough replica undies to supply the burgeoning demand.