( 12:04 PM )
Thurday, April 17, 12PM. Music Currently Playing: None.
Goddamn blogger. I wrote up this huge thing about language and writing and these interesting but weird films by Geoffry Reggio and I went to hit post and it all disappeared. What a waste of my time. This is why I dislike computers. If that had been a pen and paper, it would all still be there in front of me.
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( 2:37 PM )
Wednesday, April 16, 1:28PM, Music Currently Playing: Dredg, El Cielo.
Feeling weird. Been reading all afternoon about ghost sightings and supernatural occurences in Tucson. The music isn't helping... it's exceptionally good, something I received from Mike, and I may give it a review after a few more listens.... but there's this inexplicable uneasiness that resonates throughout the songs.... they're all sort of dreamlike, waves of guitar, clean vocals, reminds me of the later Tears For Fears (Raul and the Kings of Spain) or a much softer, stranger, more psychedelic A Perfect Circle. Also the liner notes are full of these weird hand-written confessions of sleep paralysis/HAG.
What is Sleep Paralysis? From a Canadian researcher's website: Sleep paralysis is a condition in which someone, most often lying in a supine position, about to drop of to sleep, or just upon waking from sleep realizes that s/he is unable to move, or speak, or cry out. This may last a few seconds or several moments, occasionally longer. People frequently report feeling a "presence" that is often described as malevolent, threatening, or evil. An intense sense of dread and terror is very common. The presence is likely to be vaguely felt or sensed just out of sight but thought to be watching or monitoring, often with intense interest, sometimes standing by, or sitting on, the bed. On some occasions the presence may attack, strangling and exerting crushing pressure on the chest. People also report auditory, visual, proprioceptive, and tactile hallucinations, as well as floating sensations and out-of-body experiences (Hufford, 1982). These various sensory experiences have been referred to collectively as hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs). People frequently try, unsuccessfully, to cry out. After seconds or minutes one feels suddenly released from the paralysis, but may be left with a lingering anxiety. Extreme effort to move may even produce phantom movements in which there is proprioceptive feedback of movement that conflicts with visual disconfirmation of any movement of the limb. People may also report severe pain in the limbs when trying to move them. Several recent surveys including our own suggest that between 25-30% of the population reports that they have experienced at least a mild form of sleep paralysis at least once and about 20-30% of these have had the experience on several occasions. A few people may have very elaborate experiences almost nightly (or many times in a night) for years.
Apparently this all has to do with the various levels of brain activity that occur during REM and NREM sleep. The body produces a hormone that causes paralysis during sleep so that the sleeper does not physically act out his dreams and harm himself. Sleep Paralysis occurs when the mind becomes conscious while still under the effects of this hormone...That's the whole medical bit; what's far more interesting to me is that during this period of conscious paralysis, some sort of "evil presence" external to the self is felt. I don't really beleive in ghosts, but I do think there is this inherent interconnectedness or synchronicity that happens, the spirtus mundi, the collective unconscious, so the idea that some element of it is malevolent is peculiar, sort of fascinating and disturbing...
How does this relate to Tucson ghost stories? It doesn't directly. But my mind has this habit of connecting things that are unconnected based on my mood. There is a Spanish mission on the Tohono O'odham indian reservation just outside of town called San Xavier. It was built all the way back in like 1790 (can't remember the exact date) and it's actually sort of strange and touching to visit. The altar inside is huge, gold, elaborate and intricate, and there are these murals all over the place. In one section at the bottom of one of the paintings is a cat. In the neighboring section a mouse. There are longstanding rumors that a figure shrouded in black will occasionally appear and point to the murals, specifically the two animals. The tradition is that when the cat catches the mouse, the end of the world is near.
Run mouse, run.
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( 4:31 PM )
Monday, April 7, 2:47PM, Music Currently Playing: Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain
So, apparently Mike replied to my most recent blog entry (immediately proceeding this one) with a response of his own (here) and I am more than a bit confused by his response...
I mean seriously, did I miss something? Did I write something and then forget about it? (It's possible, I mean, I have been a little groggy lately from taking allergy medicine...) Mike keeps talking about me allegedly comparing the Jewish Holocaust of WWII to the U.S.'s occupation of Iraq, but in point of fact, nowhere in the post below do I mention Nazi's in my argument. Scroll down and re-read that first paragraph (which, along with the final paragraph, is the only thing I can claim authorship for, the rest was, as I noted, good ol' cut & paste). I myself had to go back and re-read it because I thought I missed something...
So, Mike writes: "And I don’t want to believe Matt is comparing the deaths of 6 million Jews by the hand of Hitler over a short 11 year period, to what American military and scientists have done over the past 200 years."
Well, Mike, don't beleive it. Cause I wasn't. Re-reading what I wrote, I can't even figure out how the two correlate, how the whole Nazi bit was drawn from what I wrote... perhaps my mention of Japanese internment camps near the very end? Or looking back over it, the single reference to Nazi's in the entire post is the entry from 1940 where the Nazi doctors at Nuremburg cite an American study done on Chicago prisoners as justification of their warcrimes. But the Nazi's comparing themselves to American crimes against humanity is not the same as me making that comparison. Indeed, how the mention of that historical fact jumps all the way from me-attacking-the-moral-argument-for-Saddam's-removal to me-comparing-the-U.S.-to-Nazi's is totally, totally unclear, and frankly, I don't care for how it illustrates me as some sort of lunatic or conspiracy theorist.
Since when does challenging my government on some of it's bad decisions make me a crack pot? I care about my country, and I figure that if I feel strongly enough about it's future, challenging my leaders when I disagree with their activities makes me a patriot and a citizen. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother to disagree. No, I still hold to what I said in my response to that whole Michael Moore thing, it's far better to disagree with your government then to unconditionally accept their activity and go about business as usual...
I agree with Mike, humanity, as a whole, is one terrible lot, and I think the list demonstrates this, but no less so than human history itself demonstrates this; I incuded it partly because much of it came as a shock to me when I first read it. I grew up taking American history classes that were essentially propaganda. History was glossed over in patriotism and the unconditional, unquestioning approval of authority. We learned about George Washington's wooden teeth, and the glorious death of a hero in the assasination of Abraham Lincoln and later JFK. But no one ever really took the time to spell out stuff like segregation, like the shooting of protestors at Kent State, or blacklisting actors in Hollywood, or especially where the nose-bleeds came from that my buddy get's now about once a week ever since the time he spent in Saudi ten years ago. He wasn't sick before he went. Is that a conspiracy?
To be honest, I don't think continuing the argument is worth my energy, I suspect that Mike and I could go around and around in circles and never really convince each other. As with everyone out there right now, I admit I have alot of strong feelings about the war, so it is probably easy for me to come across as reactionary (and consequently, any response to me will probably feel the same), indeed my own post below feels a little knee-jerky, even though, unlike other arguments (both pro and anti war) I tried to cite actual facts to support my argument... Perhaps the blog is not the place for politics. I think from now on, I'll just stick to oberservations about every day life...
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( 12:38 PM )
Tuesday, April 1, 1:30PM, Music Currently Playing: None
The latest pro-war argument being made to me, perpuated by a friend of mine, is that the U.S. has every right to remove Saddam from power given his history of crimes against his own citizens. I present here for his benefit and the benefit of any other readers of my blogg, a list of crimes against humanity perpetuated by the United States on it's own soldiers and citizens. Note that this list was borrowed from Mothers Agaisnt War. My point in bringing this list to the reader's is to point out that if we now have the moral position that it is acceptable to be removing governments from power because of their history of crimes against humanity, then we should start with none other than our own. Now, I am not an advocate of anarchy or government overthrow, I am just tired of the self-riteous hypocrisy of the pro-war advocates and their unconditional support of the government based on some alleged higher moral ground.
Here's the list:
1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.
1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.
1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occurred within poverty-striken black populations.
1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.
1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.
1943 In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.
1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.
1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.
'Program F' is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.
1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word 'experiments' to 'investigations' or 'observations' whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.
1947 Colonel E. E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.
The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.
1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.
In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Francisco. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.
1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.
1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.
Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.
CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.
1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.
Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.
1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.
1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army's Chemical Warfare Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.
1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the European population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.
1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.
1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.
1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.
U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.
1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.
1968 CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.
1969 Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.
1970 Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility.
United States intensifies its development of 'ethnic weapons' (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.
1975 The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus).
1977 Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.
1978 Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.
1986 According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.
A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.
1987 Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.
1990 More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an 'experimental' measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.
1994 With a technique called 'gene tracking', Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasmaincognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.
Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War .
1995 U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.
Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.
1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.
1997 Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.
***
To be honest, I can't speak to the validity of some of the things on this list. On the other hand, there are also historical facts left off of this list that should probably be included, such as state-sanctioned human slavery, the U.S. Military providing blankets infected with Small Pox to Native Americans, and imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Sure, America is much better off than it was 20, 50, and especially 200 years ago. But "hasn't done anything really stupid or heinous in a while" is not a moral highground to justify an act of agression.
Enough for now...1
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