Sunday, August 21, 2011

Palimpsest





Is it possible: manipulating time, worlds, history?
For just one moment, let us take a brief break from the 'immediate gratification'/'low attention span' reality we've been enmeshed in for some time now in our beloved Westernworld. Allow ourselves the eccentricity of entertaining a different sort of observation from a distance, of not only our own earthly world, but our solar system, galaxies and universes containing our tiny little spec of dust we call earth. For just one capricious moment, allow ourselves to wander into non-linear areas of thought and attempt to imagine that all the major events (natural and cultural) that shaped and transformed earth and humanity (at least in this present incarnation), were probably not all the result of natural forces and/or fashioned by human effort and ingenuity as we have been taught or lead to believe.

I recently read an interesting and captivating short novel imagined by Charles Stross, entitled 'Palimpsest', which posits a reality by which an organization known as 'Stasis', have been responsible for transforming, manipulating and egging 'our' planet along since pretty much the dawn of time (i.e. for millions if not billions of years!). The Stasis' fantastic endeavours are not solely limited to our own planet, but also extends to modifying and controlling the sun, as well as neighbouring planets an other heavenly bodies in our cosmic vicinity. The Stasis, an advanced and extremely well organized technological culture, is engaged in the sole quest of assuring the self preservation of 'humans' or 'humanity' in perpetuity. To achieve their goals, Stasis is endowed with the complex task of having to repopulate and revive our dear old planet from time to time, as not all iterations of our planet and mankind survive natural and man-made disasters alike. The Stasis seem to have a dislike or disuse for societies that tend to evolve into blind energy-consuming industrialized civilizations. So, when things don't look very good from above, the plug is pulled, and a so-called 'natural' upheaval or a civilization created apocalyptic disaster is manufactured by The Stasis in order to conveniently clean the slate. The latter of these scenarios being carried out and spawned by armies of agents working on behalf of the Stasis organization, and aided by the clever use of technological marvels such as wormholes, time, dimensional travel, and most importantly, the gathering and storage of historical data relating to every human being and event that ever existed since time zero, is a magic the likes of which we would assign to the power and domain of the gods.




It is possible!
Preposterous you may think, but the premise is certainly a very interesting one to say the least. Take a closer look at Dr. Michio Kaku's theory concerning civilizations zero to three: whereby zero represents a civilization with the ability to alter and manipulate its local environment (like us in a way, though minus zero may be a more accurate description of our current human civilization) and a level three civilization that can exhibit such capabilities as moving, transforming and creating entire worlds, solar systems and perhaps even universes! So, from a theorical point of view, this mind-blowing reality can be a possibility, apparently it can even be a probability in our universe(s). But, I must take a short break now before getting too ahead of myself.
What does the concept or term of palimpsest have to do with any of this anyway...and what is a palimpsest? Well according to our most trusted resource, WikiP: it "...is a manuscript page from a scroll or book, from which the text has been scraped off to be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek παλιν + ψαω = (palin "again" + psao "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice." Okay, there's more to it than that, but in a nutshell one can also interpret a palimpsest in another light, as a city street that once was paved in cobblestones then covered and repaved some years later with asphalt. Over time, through decay and erosion, the asphalt surface crumbles and breaks-up thus revealing remnants of the initially paved cobblestone surface. There is something poetic about this process, as if layers of time passed are revealed and intersect with layers of time present. I'm reminded of a cubist drawing or painting whereby different planes or perspectives intersect and somehow occupy the same picture space. The process in Stross' novel 'Palimpsest' is something altogether quite different though. The Stasis have encountered problems with things like time travel and historical data collection. It would appear that once an agent leaves or emerges from a wormhole, 'ur-historical' (i.e. bogus or false) data is then recorded and collected. In other words, agents must constantly go back and forth through time and dimensions in order to 'repair' anomalies as it were that would otherwise seriously affect the lives and paths of their own future selves and those of others. That's quite an undertaking, I might add, and not an easy thing to do! This process generates all kinds of strange protocols by going way beyond our ethical comprehension that would have to be observed by agents (such as having to terminate, in cold blood, an alternate version of oneself that may be encountered seconds after emerging from a wormhole!) Agents are forced to 'spy' even on their future selves in order to insure their integrity and that of the Stasis' version of the space-time continuum. Failure to do so would most certainly create a situation where a palimpsest of an agent or event would appear at any given time in one time-line or another. In other words, traces of a former self or event can seep into one or another reality and cause confusion and mayhem. Thus presenting problems for the Stasis. As mentioned above, when things are compromised and cannot be totally controlled according to the plans, the reset button is then pressed. However, not before examples of the 'best of the best' of humanity (i.e. mostly tribal peoples over urban-ites) are safely carted away and preserved for future reseeding ventures on Earth, and in many cases billions of years in the future.


Of course, I don't want to spoil the whole story for you, as there is more to this ingenious piece of writing which I cannot do any justice here in this marginal post (you'll just have to sample the novel for yourself), The notion of re-seeding humanity in a new epoch on a future earth with humans taken from a distant past earth reality is an unsettling one (not unlike the potential 'marriage' of Ernie and Bert), and is also an example of a 'palimpsest'. A weird form of human epochal leap-frogging. I often wonder if this has happened to us; Is it happening now?

So, what is it you may be asking again that I might be getting at with all this? In light of the fantastic and unbelievable 'historical' events that have unfolded in what appears to be a frenzied succession until now, and especially since (as a contemporary point of departure) the impossible mega event of 9/11, I am reminded of the world-manipulating activities and agenda managed by the Stasis and their agents in Charles Stross' novel. To say that since the events of 9/11 the world has never been the same, is an understatement.
I will go out on a limb and propose that something weird and unsettling occurred since the 9/11 disaster as far as our own space-time continuum is concerned: it is as if reality itself shifted and the course of history had been nudged or artificially altered into a new and different trajectory. Witness the strange quality of unbelievability and surrealism when viewing and re-viewing the trade towers disaster video clips. Perhaps the phenomenon can be attributed to a form of individual and mass denial. But I argue that the scene of the collapsing buildings itself feels 'unreal' or out of place, as if this horrible result was not in the cards so to speak. In other words, I propose that we (this current iteration of humanity) find ourselves now in an altogether different dimensional reality track. Our future and history have been 'co-opted' as it were. But for what end, what purposes and by who: (who or what is doing the mixing and the editing?) Is it possible that a Kaku-sian level three civilization is responsible for the plethora of natural and man-made disasters we have been accustomed to witnessing now in ever increasing numbers,? To the point, I may add, whereby anesthetized people live their lives as if all is normal: "pass the pablum please". As preposterous as this theory may sound, take a closer look at the series of geopolitical events (e.g. the Iraq and Afghan wars, tsunamis, the Fukushima meltdown, etc.)





Fukushima: A Bad Event
and lest we forget the bizarre policy directions (e.g. homeland security, erosion of civil liberties, etc.) our governments have adopted since 9/11, which have taken on a rather one-dimensional - or as I like to put it , a 'Marvel comicstrip-esque' scripted quality. Could it be possible that agents from an advanced 'intra or extra planetary' organization be stealthily carrying out missions designed to alter and re-shape our planet, humanity and the course of history itself? Creating a new and unprecedented historical and geological palimpsests? Definitely food for thought and by Dickens, 'ya sure why not!?' Nothing surprises me anymore anyway. Once humanity decides to pull their heads out of the ostrich hole and stop consuming mainstream's mind-numbing pablum, maybe we will collectively see things as they are.

PD Cafargo August 2011 (no longer contributing to this site)

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Hell Or England (The Dr.Morbius Dilemma)


"I wash my hands clean of all responsibility" said Dr. Morbius in the 1950's Sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet.
Now England is burning, a North Sea cinder, and the pundits, analysts, and sociologists are weighing in trying to explain the root causes for the violence that has gripped Great Britain this past week. Those who hold a larger 'slice of the pie' have a tendency to reject the simplistic notions that the violence is due to the frustrations of 'the have nots'.
They are quick to point out complex social problems such as bad parenting, rap and 'gangsta' culture, and worst of all, the freedoms and permissiveness encouraged by our lax moral standards. Although I agree that all these points play a role in the recent escalation of lawlessness and wanton destruction, it's important to note that even these factors are in and of themselves not only causes, but effects too.

"They were warned!"
 In what way are these effects? Well to begin with, everything that exists in this world exists for a reason. In any ecosystem there are immutable Laws, and a 'Law', as one of my favourite authors Daniel Quinn likes to point out, is not something that can ever be changed by voting. 
Yes, there is a 'Law' in the world of cause and effect, most of us agree on this, where we don't agree is on identifying the properties of this Law and how the Law works. We can attempt to control or modify the effects of this destructive madness by passing and enforcing new laws, but our laws will never be exempt from 'The Law' if you know what I mean? 

Until Britain, or the greater human family for that matter, get together and make a sincere attempt to come to a logical understanding of what the Laws of these truths are, the pundits and idealists will continue to worsen the problem by implementing dumb measures and ridiculous laws whilst justifying their actions by seeking refuge in sophist arguments.

I visited England this past spring, and for many of you who have also visited the U.K. you certainly must have noticed the great abundance of CCTV cameras. Apparently Britain has more surveillance cameras per-capita than THX-1138, George Orwell's 1984, and The NORAD base underneath Cheyenne mountain Wyoming COMBINED!!!. 

 It is my opinion that highly regulated societies like Great Britain exacerbate the problems they attempt to mitigate by the nature of it's encroachment into the lives of the less fortunate, and by virtue of its idealistic methods of social control and regulation. The working class culture in major urban centres in the U.K. is, and has been, a very bleak one for many years, one of alcoholism, gang warfare and hooliganism. My perception is that the poorer classes there(in the U.K.) have a much harder edge than our overfed and pacified underclasses, who, if under sufficient duress, can always chose to lose themselves into the abyss of cheap credit and Chinese products… oh, and when things get really bad, have many more options of self-implosion available to them should the 'metaphorical frog' wish to jump out of the boiling pot. 

 Off the top I mentioned the quote by Dr.Morbius because I feel there is a parallel between him as an archetype and the ruling elite in Britain (or anywhere else for that matter). For those who may not have seen this film, Dr.Morbius, played by the debonair Walter Pidgeon, was a brilliant and erudite man who sought refuge on a distant planet in order to escape the "scurry and strife of human kind" He believed he was above the greater bulk of humanity, and somehow detached from the community which spawned him. Unfortunately for Dr.Morbius, the fear and contempt that drove him to remove himself from the human family, also travelled with him to Altair 4, and once he learned the psychic-mental science of the planet's long since extinct culture, known as 'The Krell', his fear bred a strange monster, which despite his complex and sophisticated security systems, ultimately consumed him, due to his inability to control his own Id.

I love science fiction, because it has the ability to condense truisms of the human condition into an easily understandable allegorical narrative. It can serve as a warning to those wise enough to heed it's wisdom. Writers and Artists are humanity's 'nervous system', able to sense pain by virtue of having a better understanding of their internal emotional dialogue in a way those who dedicate their lives to the metaphorical, and in many cases literal, building of their empires and personal shrines cannot.

I see parallels in our world between the class struggle and Dr.Morbius' desire to protect himself in isolation. I can understand how brilliant wealthy people might want to live in gated communities, and give their well funded authorities unprecedented powers to suppress the Id monster knocking on their door, whilst fostering a climate of neo-feudalism. 

When Al-Qaeda came knocking, simplistic memes started circulating, which essentially boiled down to the belief that Muslims 'hate us for our freedom', yet now that the problem is internal, many who embraced simplistic explanations in the past are ironically rejecting them whilst attempting to address the root causes of this latest internal violence.

The best way to find out the reasons for this recent madness is not to consult 'the experts' but to ask the rioters themselves. Why would anyone want to burn down buildings and communities Britains laid their lives on the line to protect during the two great wars? Perhaps not all of them have the emotional self-dialogue necessary to understand why they act the way they do or their simple desires to destroy for the 'fun of it' and 'Nik' a flatscreen or two. But to dismiss everyone in the underclasses and riot mobs as incapable of articulating their feelings would be a HUGE mistake. Not 'walking a mile in their shoes', the elite classes do not have an emotionally visceral understanding of the despair that grips these peoples lives, this does not excuse the rioters for what they have done, however, I believe, empathy is the key to opening a dialogue which will do more to stem future acts of delinquency, than the intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible implementation of draconian measures and the curbing civil liberties will ever do. 

Dirty CT  August 2011

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Murdoch Mysteries...and more!


Rebekah, you owe me a little favour?

  Do you remember when the news of the phone hacking scandal in Britain broke a few weeks ago? Remember how the players involved were being arrested and questioned? Who can forget the arraignment of the raven haired Rebekah Brooks, and soon after the mysterious death of the main whistleblower, Sean Hoare?  Oh,and how the situation became a political tinderbox for their coalition half-breed Prime Minister David Cameron for having hired News Of The World editor Andy Coulson as his 'director of communications', and how the Judge appointed to oversee the hearings had attended parties at Murdoch's daughter's house, or how the chief of police, Sir Paul Stephenson, and his deputy dawg in training John Yeates had no choice but to step down, and how then some Johnny, who had lost his marbles, breached security to deliver a 'foam and kidney pie' to the face of Rupert Murdoch? and how his son James Marbles watched on dumfounded, and how his Asian Tigress wife began wailing away whacking anything that moved, knocking a woman down in front of her? That seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, but please forgive me, or as educated people like to say "I digress" or is that "Tigress"? ba-dum-pum…tschhhhhh!!!

The remarkable thing about this 'scandal' is how it has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from the headlines, no thanks to that monster in Norway, or those clowns in Washington, or the hooligans of Tottenham.

Whenever a BIG news story breaks these days, it often seems to be accompanied with some form of uncanny 'coincidence' one that authorities deem not to be related. The most recent of these coincidences is the tragic downing in Afghanistan of the Chinook helicopter carrying members of Navy Seals team 6 , the team that supposedly 'killed' Osama Bin laden. When The Iraq war began, 'whistleblower' David Kelly mysteriously turned up dead by what was deemed by authorities to be suicide. Then of course there was the case of the D.C. Madame:  'Whistleblower' and 'suicide victim'. Now with the 'unrelated' death of Sean Hoare, a man very much on the inside of the Murdoch media empire, another 'coincidental death' has been registered. Of course there are many nefarious possibilities, one of which would be that there is a hidden third party at play wishing to capitalize and take advantage of any given crisis… or confuse it!

I'm not jumping to any conclusions here, but I would like to point out how, more than ever, there always seems to be a 'coincidental yet suspicious' event accompanying a scandal or tragedy involving the loss of life of people whose testimony, under oath, would be invaluable to help clarify whatever deceptions or wrong doings may have occurred.
Is this the new reality of life in the twenty first century, where nothing is simple anymore? or have these things been going on since the invention of the wheel and it's first flat tire, through the disputin' of the Romanov dynasty, right down to that 'theatre of the absurd' also known as the O.J. trial?   There's a lot of power and money in the offing, and the political stakes are even higher.

Back to the Murdoch Empire for a moment, and the phone hacking scandal from The News Of The World…This is serious; complicity with police in obtaining private information? Do these people all sleep in the same bed too? It seems like they're all just one big club who have complete contempt for those that are not part of their clan. let the blame game begin!
The only pre-requisite seems to be that if you are rich and powerful, authorities will not only turn a blind eye to any mis-deeds, but may actually help you out in the process. Talk about the pitfalls of technology!?!

Let's not be naive to think this kind of abuse of the public trust is isolated in anyway, this kind of nonsense goes on with elites in society the world over, and it is for this reason we must question officials, and 'watch 'em like hawks'. It begins with total transparency, and return to critical thinking by finding a way to break the addiction of the dumbed down infotainment we consume daily.

                                                                                                          ~

Whilst we were sleeping, Asian stocks (Hang Seng) lost consecutive thousand point drops, and now today, in the last hour of trading, the Dow climbed 200 points out of the hole to finish the day over 400, Was this some sneaky investment banks deleveraging manoeuvre, or hedge fund hyenas at work?  These little shenanigans seem to happen with great frequency these days on Wall Street and other markets. On Monday, Bank of America lost 20 percent of its volume, and today made back 17 percent, I don't know what's more absurd, The wild ride of Bi-Polar banking stocks on the heels of specious credit downgrades, or the news that the Spanish Football club 'Real Madrid' just tendered a contract to a SEVEN YEAR OLD (in crayon no doubt)  but alas I'm naive, just another coincidences I suppose!?

                                                         Rupert Murdoch: Life of Pie:
                                                                                                 

Monday, August 1, 2011

Tattooed Ewe

  You can start me up, but there's a new craze sweeping 'cool culture' these days, no it's not Mood Rings, Cabage Patch Dolls, Pet Rocks, Pop Rocks, The Beatles, The Rutles,  The Rolling Stones, The Flintstones, Moonwalking or the Hula-Hoop, but instead a more permanent manifestation, also known as Tattoos.
"Baaaaaaaaaaaa-d"

Tattoos hold a deep meaning for many who have chosen this method of communication. When challenged, many have very defensive attitudes about their 'tats' , where as many others probably don't give a 'flying fuck' what anybody else thinks about their tattoos.

Yes, we all know Tattoos have been in our culture for a long time, traditionally as fraternal tribal badges worn by prisoners, bikers and sailors, but 'tats' have really gained momentum within the past ten years or so, especially among artsy youths who love to emulate 'white-trash culture'  perhaps in their wish to define their independence from the generations which preceded them. 
Someone wishing to have their bodies tattooed these days does not face the stigma, ridicule and judgement they would have faced had they tried to 'assert their individuality' during previous generations. With this social impediment removed, the young kids of today are now taking that 'courageous step forward' and getting themselves 'all inked up'.

I was recently involved in a 'discussion' over a few beers with some crotchety old men (aka: my friends) addressing this new 'tattoo reality', where we basically lambasted the 'youth of today' and women in particular, for succumbing to the social pressures of this permanent fad. 
I didn't have much to add, only because I never really had given it much thought. My assumptions were simply that tattoos had become the new 'badge of youthful conformity'…whatever!?!   It's normal for young people to want to be accepted by their peers, and I suppose the new way to earn some 'street cred' is to adhere to these new paradigms of normality.

I often weighed the benefits of getting tattoos against it's detriments. The benefits of tattooing oneself seems obvious: it's a chance to receive multiple superficial lays from easily bedazzled members of the opposite sex. The downside to getting tattooed would be an exemption from the privilege of being able to 'time travel', given how ones markings would certainly be distressing to 'residents of the past' , and would probably set off a long sequence of unfortunate personal consequences.
After balancing my options, the choice then seemed obvious, with the 'yeahs' outweighing the 'nays' many times over... oh, with the exception of course of one SMALL oversight…which is the potential for one of these 'multiple lays' to impede ones personal freedoms by virtue of the partner in question having you over the 'barrel of fatherhood', and let me tell you, it's these kinds of thoughts that makes concepts like 'time travel' seem plausible.

My other concern was one of 'collective morality'. Was I helping to encourage a precedent which could then lead future generations to 'top' the absurdities of this one by the inevitable modifying of their bodies to Frankensteinian proportions, in the form of 'voluntary amputations', the sewing of their own mouths shut, or the possible bone grafting of 'devil horns' to their foreheads?
Due to our unprecedented access to credit and the sheer amount of disposable income these days, this algorithm of madness could go on until the end of time, or the close of the 'cheap oil era', whichever comes first.

 I once toyed with the idea of getting a tattoo, but I had trouble thinking of an image I would want adorning my body…FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!  an image that would be as relevant to myself in adulthood as it would be during my 'irreverent youth'.
I had made the mistake of telling some 'friends' that I liked the idea of 'tattooing the logo of my favourite BBQ chicken restaurant onto my forearm', one where a golden basted chicken roasts slowly over a smokey fire under a stylized chalet canopy.

The design that wouldn't be
 Then one day, my 'friends' decided to 'take me for a ride', which involved the consumption of more than a few beers, in hopes that I could be 'persuaded' to have this dreaded tattoo engraved at last. One of the guys, and this was in the mid-nineties, was already 'littered in tats' and knew an artist who had the' fowl design' all sketched out and ready to go. They then proceeded to drive me around town, and 'joked' about me getting this tattoo... but they 'joked' a little bit more than I was comfortable with. Sitting in the back seat of that mat grey '83 Oldsmobile, with punk music blaring, I had at that point realized that nothing short of a MacGyver like escape would prevent my 'friends' from following through on their nefarious plan. I managed to appease them long enough to find an opportunity to wiggle out of their determined grasp, in this case, with the mutual consumption of even GREATER quantities of beer!!!
Yes, I may have 'chickened out' of getting 'a tattoo of a chicken', but I did manage to maintain my epidermal sovereignty. Many other an 'artsy brat' would not be so lucky, and have henceforth learned to love their colourized corporeal canvas, which must now certainly be a statement of 'who they are'…and why not, if the 'chicks' dig it, I suppose!?

Personally I find tattoos suit women better than men, call me 'old fashioned', but I think the act of decorating ones body is more innately female than male. Women use make-up, paint their nails, wear jewelry, dress in revealing clothing, pierce their ears and many other places of concern. So tattoos, for me, seems to be a natural progression of this basic nature to decorate and celebrate the feminine. For me, manhood is a more 'Spartan kind-o-thing', with minimal emphasis on decoration, like pretty tattoos. Perhaps this makes me un-liberated, oh well, I'll just have to chalk it up and file it away with all of my other backward thinking ways. 

Since the 'Me generation' of the 1970's, who of us really can claim exemption from the modern day psychosis that is narcissism? As a guy, I'm perhaps a little harder on my own brethren than on the females of our species. When I see a guy with sleeve and neck tattoos, my inner programming tells me " there's a sheep who is ruled by cool"…or something like that.  However, I know that voice is just the grouchy ol'man within me talking, yet when I see a beautiful woman demonstratively displaying racy tattoos I think "You go girl…a Tattooed Ewe!"


Dirty CT  August 2011