We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous by Parmy OlsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Sunday, May 3, 2026
Review: We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous
We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous by Parmy OlsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Sunday, April 26, 2026
Review: A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man
A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man by Pete WayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Maybe I am missing something or it is just not for me, but while an avid music enthusiast, I never became a UFO fan. I did go to an arena concert in Detroit, Michigan in the 1980s. I was there for someone else (Ozzy? Maiden?) and didn't know for Waysted but distinctly remember "Women In Chains" song being played but no concert setlist matches that... Maybe that song was played over the PA and not performed live?
Way explains his plans with Waysted:
I decided to call the band Waysted. What it boiled down to was that I wanted to make a grittier, harder kind of rock music than I had been doing with UFO and to get out there and play again.
Well, this book didn't clear up that part of my memory while it does underscore the variations of memory as many Way colleagues, family, and contacts offer their own version of event, often contradicting Way's.
Way's extensive drug experiences in the retelling involve some name-dropping
Rick sold coke to Marlon Brandon, a who’s who of other ‘A’ list Hollywood stars and most of the top music executives in the city.
...
Drugs, of course, were a by-product of being on the road, but I also saw first-hand just how detrimental they could be. I came across many people of undoubted talent, but it was obvious they had been fucked up by cocaine, or else heroin. Touring Obsession, we did quite a few shows with Aerosmith, who were the biggest band in America at the time. I expected them to be a devastating live band, but they were so out of it by then that songs would virtually grind to a halt and the crowd would go quiet. That happened at every show.
Way's substance abuse as with other becomes isolating.
I don’t believe I ever wrecked a hotel room myself. But then, you don’t when you’ve got drugs in the room. Hotel security guards were generally off-duty cops, so the last thing I’d want would be to alert them to anything untoward. For the same reason, I kept my music reasonably quiet. Anything so there wouldn’t be a knock on the door in the middle of the night when I’d got half an ounce of coke on the bedside table. Fans would also sleep on the floor outside of our rooms. That started to get a bit daunting – stepping out of the room and having people literally lying in wait for you. After several months of that, there was nothing I craved more than a bit of peace and quiet. By the end of the Lights Out tour, I had also started to use heroin. As I said, I’d tried it when I was thirteen, but I took to it much slower than to cocaine. It was reintroduced to me by a dealer – but it could as well have been by anybody around us at that time – to be used as part of a speedball with cocaine. To be honest, by then I would try anything that was put in front of me. But the way it was explained, it made perfect sense to me to take heroin like that. Coke allowed me to talk all night and appear interesting, but the trouble was that I would be wired for hours at a time. The heroin in a speedball took the edge off the cocaine high and allowed me to come down.
Calling out Joe Elliott of Def Leppard for being a cheapskate is namedropping that is itself contradicted.
Joe Elliott: I’m sure Pete has said that I always forgot my credit card; wouldn’t expect anything less. The truth is that I didn’t have any money when the two of us first got together, and by 1984 when our Pyromania album had taken off, he’d be round at my house emptying the bar. He is a pathological liar, but in the funniest sense. I’ve often told him as much. Ultimately, I’m a huge Pete Way fan, but like most people he’s flawed and massively so.
I didn't know of Way's production work for Twisted Sister and the Cockney Rejects.
I also got a second offer to produce a new album for a London punk band, the Cockney Rejects. It was the Rejects’ fourth record and they wanted to move towards more of a hard-rock sound, which of course was fine by me. However, the title of the album, The Wild Ones, turned out to be all too apt, since the Rejects were like nothing so much as a gang of football hooligans. When the four of them weren’t drinking, they were fine – pussycats, really. But if anyone so much as looked at one or the other of them after they’d sunk a few beers, all hell would break loose. They would all want to start a fight, and the Rejects’ idea of diplomacy was to hit first and ask questions later. I found being around them very testing. If we went to the pub together, there would be a lot of, ‘Here, that geezer over there’s a cunt’, and, ‘Oi, what the fuck is he staring at?’ I could do no wrong in their eyes and we managed to make a decent-enough album, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to stop them from smacking other people at a moment’s notice.
There is the tale of the deterioration of Fastway and brief touring with his party-partner Ozzy
‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke: Next thing I knew, Pete had popped up in Ozzy’s band and Sharon-fucking-Osbourne had poached him from me. She had known Pete was in a right state over the business with Chrysalis and behaved like a total cunt. And then what happened? She and Ozzy went and shat all over Pete. He was supposed to do the whole world tour, but they kicked him into touch after just a handful of British shows. Apparently, Tommy Aldridge told them he wouldn’t play with Pete. It was a crying shame, because Pete and I had a great thing going together, we really did, and I missed him. The trouble with Pete is that he’s his own worst enemy. He never called me after walking out on Fastway, not even once out of courtesy. I know that he’s let other people down and suffered because of it, but he broke my heart. I get torn up from thinking about it even now. Four, five years later, I ran into him again on the road outside his house. It was good to see him after all that time and he invited me in for a cup of tea. I asked him: ‘Now, what the fuck did you do that for, piss off without so much as a by your leave?’ He couldn’t give me an honest answer even then. That’s Pete for you. We were good mates and he pulled a disappearing act like that on me.
There are also personal life details, such as Way's marriages. One was an unfortunately convenient marriage to a doctor with access to drugs.
The other substance we began to use was the anesthetic that Michael Jackson was on when he died – Propofol. It’s a white, creamy, quite thick liquid used in hospitals for surgical operations. Joanna had access to a ready supply of it, because she would use it when she performed liposuction.
A quote to end on a high note pulled from one of those praising way professionally and personally.
Mike Clink: With most of the bands that I work with there’s always one person who makes a big impression on me and ends up being a lifelong friend, not just a business relationship. That’s who Pete is for me. To meet him is to fall in love with him. I love his sense of humour and he’s vulnerable too. The persona that people see is sex, drugs and rock and roll, but there’s more to him than that. There’s a whole other side which is genuinely warm, funny and caring. He’s also extremely talented. Whenever I do a session these days and mention that I’m working with Pete again, I’m still surprised at how many individuals have been influenced by him. Nikki Sixx told me the reason that he plays his particular style of Gibson bass is because of Pete...
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Saturday, April 25, 2026
Review: Red November: Inside the Secret U.S.-Soviet Submarine War
Red November: Inside the Secret U.S.-Soviet Submarine War by W. Craig ReedMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is an overview of secret sub actions during the Cold War interleaved with military fiction in creating fictive, imagined conversations and motivations. I can do without the fiction. For one thing, the author has the worst metaphors, such as a face like a "dirty dishrag" or something and other things that would be better left out. But, assuming I am correctly drawing out the nonfiction history, a few things are fascinating, if true:
* multiple Cuba missile crisis subs came near to launching nuke "purple-tipped" torpedoes
* The U.S. Navy radio specialist John Anthony Walker Jr. spy ring gave the USSR the key codes to combine with equipment taken from the USS Pueblo. This allowed them to know conclusively something that made them vengeful, possibly around realities of a collision of USS Swordfish with K-129. (Here, that Soviet sub deemed intentional and not rogue.)
* In 1981, USS Drum collided with the Victor III-class submarine K-324 while attempting to photograph the odd pod on the back. The event was covered up by the Reagan Administration and never made public, though it nearly cost the lives of the sailors on USS Drum. The collision occurred in Peter the Great Bay, not far from Vladivostok. The incident was declassified and disclosed by the Clinton Administration in February 1993. This is one of multiple incidents described around tapping of Soviet navy undersea cables.
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Friday, April 24, 2026
Review: Seizure of State Power
Seizure of State Power by Michael VelliMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Supposing with voice transitioning to a tone consistent with historical events which I wish were being referenced.
thought experiment gedanken https://share.google/aimode/d4ej90TMU...
We might structure the scene around a large electronics plant which, from the standpoint of the revolutionary organization, was in the vanguard of the struggle from the earliest days of the insurrection. Let us suppose that on the first day of the general strike the assembled workers of this plant took decisions which corresponded, down to the last letter, to the organization's definition of the most urgent tasks of the day. For example, after deciding to put the plant's technology at the service of all striking workers, the assembled electronics workers formed a Workers' Council and democratically elected a Council Committee as well as a President of the Council Committee. Let us further suppose that the President of the Council Committee, unlike the militants described in earlier scenes, is not a professional organizer unfamiliar with the technical processes of the plant; on the contrary, she is a worker who had been employed in the electronics plant and had been a member of the revolutionary organization long before the popular uprising. And let us furthermore suppose that ...
... guided by its President, the electronics plant put its entire labor force and all its technology at the service of the revolutionary struggle freely distributed to the population; these devices helped coordinate on the barricades and in the streets. Two-way walkie-talkies were the struggles at different barricades, and enabled reinforcements
...workers personally participated in various struggles, and most of to come to the rescue of isolated neighborhoods. All the plant's them returned to the plant in order to design and produce two-way radio sets, 'barricade television' sets, and other electronic devices particularly suitable to the conditions of the popular insurrection. Furthermore, the Committee, and the plant's President as well, encouraged people who had not previously worked in the plant to participate directly in the production of devices...
A theory of creativity as necessary catalyst to revolutionary change.
Independent creative activity can in fact lead to the death of the old social order.²¹ A mighty burst of creative enthusiasm, 22 a revolutionary situation, is a historical possibility. Classical theory assumed that such a situation was the necessary condition for the seizure of power by a revolutionary organization.
...a mighty burst of creative enthusiasm stems from the people.
Aim
The aim of the revolution is not, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it. ...
A revolutionary situation as described by classical revolutionary theory smashes the dominant social order along with all of its bureaucrats.
Leninism?
https://share.google/0c8Xe2iS6vscmzKa6
The unique historical feat of V.I. Lenin was not to seize State power; this had been done before. Lenin's historical feat was to describe his seizure of State power with the language of a socialist movement determined to destroy the State. The application of Lenin's ideas to Lenin's practice is the foundation for modern revolutionary ideology. For aspiring leaders armed with revolutionary ideas, the revolutionary ideology provides a vision of the social power historically achieved by leaders armed with revolutionary ideas.
Sham?
https://share.google/aimode/BllDnMkwp...
...populations who struggle for independent creative activity by self-governed producers achieve a socialist society governed by a dictatorship of the proletariat led by the Workers' Party which follows a unitary ideology composed exclusively of the ideas of the party secretary-general based on the creative application of Marxism-Leninism. 170 As a result of the seizure of State power, the leader personifies all the resources, all the productive forces and all the activity of the society. Personifications of social activity animate the world. Estranged power of community-the State-is experienced as the only real community. Estranged productive power-Capital is experienced as the only real productive agent. The leader personifies the entirety of social Capital. Whatever we have, all we have built, is entirely owing to the correct leadership of comrade party secretary general. The Premier's ideas form the basis for what we call the unitary ideology espoused by the Workers' Party. Unitary ideology means there are no contending ideologies. The unitary ideology of the system of the party means the adoption, as the sole guiding principle, of the revolutionary ideas of comrade party secretary general, founder and leader of the party and great leader of the revolution. The leader founds and leads the party which is the vanguard of the working class and the general staff of the revolution. He is the supreme brain of the class and the heart of the party who puts forward the guiding ideas of the party as well as the strategy and tactics of the revolution. He is the center of the unity and solidarity of the working class and the entire revolutionary masses. There is no center except him.
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Sunday, April 19, 2026
Review: The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941: The essential events of American Life in the chaotic years between the two World Wars
The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941: The essential events of American Life in the chaotic years between the two World Wars by Isabel LeightonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
1919
Contents
The Forgotten Men of Versailles HARRY HANSEN
1920
The Noble Experiment of Izzie and Moe HERBERT ASBURY
1921
Aimee Semple McPherson: "Sunlight in My Soul" CAREY MCWILLIAMS
1923
The Timely Death of President Harding SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
1923
Konklave in Kokomo ROBERT Coughlan
1924
Calvin Coolidge: A Study in Inertia IRVING STONE
1926
My Fights with Jack Dempsey GENE TUNNEY
1927
The Last Days of Sacco and Vanzetti PHIL STONG
1927
The Lindbergh Legends JOHN LARDNER
1929
The Crash-and What It Meant THURMAN ARNOLD
1930
The Radio Priest and His Flock WALLACE STEGNER
1931
The Mysterious Death of Starr Faithfull MORRIS MARKEY
1933
The First Hundred Days of the New Deal ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR.
1934
Full House: My Life with the Dionnes KEITH MUNRO
1934
The Peculiar Fate of the Morro Castle WILLIAM MCFEE
1935
Huey Long: American Dictator HODDING CARTER
1936
"The King and the Girl from Baltimore MARGARET CASE HARRIMAN
1937
An Occurrence at Republic Steel HOWARD FAST
1938
The Man on the Ledge
JOEL SAYRE
1938
The Night the Martians Came CHARLES JACKSON
1940
Wendell Willkie: A Study in Courage ROSCOE DRUMMOND
1941
Pearl Harbor Sunday: The End of an Era JONATHAN DANIELS
Madge Oberholtzer who brought down D.C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan. Newsman Harold C. Feightner wrote about her saying, “Few deaths of comparatively inconspicuous people have had the far-flung effects that hers did”. Her passing marked the beginning of the end of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana; it resulted in the indictment of several political figures and the complete change in the capital cities’ administration, and it nearly wrecked a political party.
------------------------
Source: The Irish Times https://share.google/aL2vtNRCw7wR8Ey7C
It is not likely that Father Coughlin or any of his American imitators can ever again be more than public nuisances, vermin in the national woodwork. But let conditions again become as bad as they did in the deep thirties, and the vermin will reappear.
On the other hand, there will be thousands of Americans, burned by this one experience with fascism under an American and Christian label, who will be warier when the next demagogue arises. The last ironic act of Ben Levin's real-life drama was symbolic, and like the death of his son it had almost too pat a moral. When the contents of his dead son's pockets were sent him by the War Department, he donated the money not to any golden-tongued radio orator or any leader with a panacea, but to a Good Neighbor Association formed to resist the racial hatreds that the leader had brought on.
https://share.google/aimode/kxIq6DDLX...
Letters poured in. Some wanted to know, as correspondents wanted to know for the next twelve years, what a priest was doing talking on such subjects. Others cheered and wanted more. Taken together, that flood of mail meant that people would listen to anyone who sounded as if he knew answers. Father Coughlin's trial balloon had proved what people wanted to hear, and had shown him how to spread the walls of the Shrine of the Little Flower and bring into one audience thousands upon thousands of listeners. Most of those listeners were angry at the bankers; many were afraid of Communists. Though he added other scapegoats later, Father Coughlin really built his structure on those two. By a miracle of illogic, he eventually combined them.
By the end of 1930 the priest had organized his unseen listeners into the Radio League of the Little Flower, dedicated to the unraveling of the tangled economic web, and was pulling in letters in quantities that amazed WJR and may have amazed Coughlin. Other demagogues in the American tradition have been hay-wagon orators, shirt-sleeve spell-binders from park bandstands and town-hall platforms. But Father Coughlin was the first to discover how he could do the whole job by remote control, be free of hecklers, be just as sure of taking up the collection, and in addition have documentary proof by letter of what his audiences wanted.
From 1919 "The forgotten men of Versailles" by Harry Hansen
The day after the Jewish representatives made their plea for Palestine, a remarkable letter, filled with the spirit of good will, was sent by the Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter. In it he spoke of the deep sympathy with which the Arabs, "especially the educated among us,” looked upon the Zionist movement, and said the Arab deputation considered the Zionist proposals both "modern and proper." "We will do our best," he continued, "in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.... The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist; our movement is national and not imperialist; there is room in Syria for us both."
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Saturday, April 18, 2026
Review: Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. OrenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
From 1919 "The forgotten men of Versailles" by Harry Hansen anthologized in The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941
The day after the Jewish representatives made their plea for Palestine, a remarkable letter, filled with the spirit of good will, was sent by the Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter. In it he spoke of the deep sympathy with which the Arabs, "especially the educated among us,” looked upon the Zionist movement, and said the Arab deputation considered the Zionist proposals both "modern and proper." "We will do our best," he continued, "in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.... The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist; our movement is national and not imperialist; there is room in Syria for us both."
Was there a better way this could have gone?
Maybe, I don't know...
I do know that once the fighting started, but this history is a rather thrilling tale of underdog success as Israel triumphs over the distrusting and non-cooperative Arab nations. Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. I wasn't aware of the Jerusalem reunification under de facto Israeli rule as an outcome of this conflict.
The story told brings in roots from the Mandate era and later.
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Thursday, April 16, 2026
Review: In Search of Forever
In Search of Forever by Rodney MatthewsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Large, nearly full page color reproductions allow close, detailed appreciation of the fantasy art. Much evokes Tolkien and there was a long working relationship with Michael Moorcock for artwork for his novels.
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Saturday, April 11, 2026
Thursday, April 9, 2026
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Review: My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy
My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy by Randal Maurice JelksMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is written as a commentary on select Langston essays, poems, and speeches. These were published in diverse forums, and publications. It is my desire to have readers take in his views for themselves and not simply my interpretation of them.
Gerald L. K. Smith - https://share.google/KBXORkJY9JHNtUDLH
Fascism
Racism
Lure of communism
Abraham Lincoln brigade integration
https://share.google/aimode/cxpFdMeTB...
Historic 'Scottsboro Boys' linked to start of Woke movement
https://www.waaytv.com/news/historic-...
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Review: Phyllis Coates: Not Just Lois Lane
Phyllis Coates: Not Just Lois Lane by Bill CassaraMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Event model
In April of 1948 while Phyllis was under contract to Warners, she was assigned with another starlet, Patricia Northrup, for a photo shoot at Toluca Lake. The occasion was for a demonstration of a surfboard powered by batteries, called "The Motorboard." The inventor was Mr. Joe C. Gilpin who invited a publicity crew to document the maiden voyage. What better way than to have two beautiful women showing how it's done? A film crew showed up and Life magazine came to record the occasion. Phyllis was prominently displayed standing and in prone position to navigate the rudderless surf board across the natural lake.
The event drew none other than Harpo Marx...
Phyllis said that the place was packed with service men on leave. They hooted and yelled when Ken Murray would banter with his star performer, Marie Wilson. There were "boob" jokes galore.
Also on the bill was an old-time vaudeville musical artist by the name of Fred Sanborn. He was famous for his eccentric xylophone playing and his mute character. He had originally been one of Ted Healy's Stooges on Broadway along with Larry Fine, Shemp and Moe Howard in the film, Soup to Nuts. "
In later years on TV, The Mary Tyler Moore show, also in a newsroom office setting, Ed Asner (boss to Mary) told Mary that she had a lot of "spunk." Mary took it as a compliment until Asner said, "I hate spunk." If he had worked with Phyllis Coates' "Lois Lane," he would have seen spunk in spades.
In the first year of Adventures of Superman, the Lois Lane character was no "damsel in distress." She got herself in jams, but considered herself self-reliant. Lois often shook off Clark Kent's journalism partnership and even mocked him. She would often ridicule Clark for scurrying away before Superman arrived to save the day.
When Lois Lane enacted her primal screams, it was reaching a decibel level designed to repel dangerous men. That may have been her first line of defense, but Phyllis' Lois Lane was not afraid...
Scream queen Phyllis has been recognized with her distinct shrieks by all discerning viewers of Superman. She has often been compared to Fay Wray (King Kong's reluctant girlfriend). Randy Sadewater compiled a list of Phyllis' screams....
Coates comes across as spunky at least
Death Valley Days (1964)
The Left Hand is Damned was the title of this episode. It had a double meaning harking back to some cultures that the left hand was perceived to be sinister or evil (defined, of course, by right-handed people).
The main antagonist in this is a right-handed cowboy that gets his hand shot up. Phyllis is a saloon girl that witnesses the out-of-town gambler who is shot by the proprietor of the establishment. She scolds him for being insensitive to the badly wounded boy, then helps him recover. The incident did little to quell his anger at the proprietor and instead swells more hate, announcing revenge on him. His right hand incapacitated, he starts practicing shooting with his left hand. The cowboy seeks retribution and thinks he sees his adversary's silhouette through the window. Instead of hitting his intended victim, he shoots Phyllis' character, Dora, in the back. She gives a surprise expression, and then drops down for one of her infrequent death scenes.
I actually viewed this one with Phyllis when it was first released on videotape. She told me, "A whore with a heart, those are the best kind of roles."
It was time for Phyllis' daughter, Christopher, to go to college and she chose the University of Oregon. She came back with a new sense of self-awareness and embraced the woman's liberation movement. Not impressed, Phyllis told her: "I've been liberated my whole life."
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Sunday, April 5, 2026
Review: Red Star Rogue
Red Star Rogue by Kenneth SewellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is a _lot_ of speculation. The author overtly states that yet for this first third or so of the book I was thinking two stars and regret. But, the details on the possibilities of the K-129 sinking and especially the US recovery efforts, first with USS Halibut (don't remember knowing of that one), then with Hughes and the Glomar (long interested in this one).
It is fascinating to learn of the permissive action link and how informal sharing of this preventative tech with the Soviets may have prevented a rogue nuclear attack on Pearl Harbor (Honolulu) by bad actors seeking trigger a China-US conflict. (I am paraphrasing a main theory presented here.)
Sonic monitoring in the Pacific Ocean of a capability unknown to the USSR captured three explosions which led to locating the sub and suggesting what happened.
The Cold War history here ties together the possible fate of the USS Scorpion (torpedoed in revenge?), the USS Pueblo
Among the mysteries explored here is
* the anonymous 11-man unit added last-minute to the boat,
* bodies crowded in one end more like confined than anything explained by the disaster itself
* Potential role of Stalinist instigator Mikhail Suslov and in general KGB hawks.
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Saturday, April 4, 2026
Review: The Conspirators Hierarchy: The Committee of Three Hundred
The Conspirators Hierarchy: The Committee of Three Hundred by John ColemanMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
John Coleman (author https://sobrief.com/authors/john-coleman
https://www.conspiracywatch.info/en/c...
https://bookstation.org/library/commi...
Dr. John Coleman- The Committee of 300 (1994) Full" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/Sc1NxfmtOTc?si=baTta...
The Club of Rome
https://share.google/aimode/7WtijiYkQ...
Traditional views under assault
...Committee mandate to "soften up" the United States. After 47 years of waging war on the people of this nation, who will doubt that it has indeed accomplished its task? Look around and see how we have been demoralized. Drugs, pornography, rock and roll "music," free sex, the family unit all but totally undermined, lesbianism, homosexuality and finally, the ghastly murder of millions of innocent babies by their own mothers. Has there ever been a crime so vile as mass abortion?
Great replacement theory
The United States will be flooded by peoples of an alien culture, who will eventually overwhelm white America; people with no concept of what the United States Constitution stands for, and who will, in consequence, do nothing to defend it, and in whose minds the concept of liberty and justice is so weak as to matter little. Food and shelter shall be their main concern.
Social media face recognition
https://share.google/aimode/bNY8e1ZfY...
Lenin and Marx acknowledged was needed, we now have the In addition to religion, "the opiate of the masses," which opiates of mass spectator sport, unbridled sexual lusts, rock music and a whole new generation of drug addicts. Mindless people from what is happening all around them. In "The sex and an epidemic of drug usage was created to distract Technotronic Era," Brzezinski talks about "the masses" as if people are inanimate objects, which is possibly how we are viewed by the Committee. He continually refers to the necessity of controlling us "masses."
At one point, he lets the cat out of the bag:
"At the same time, the capacity to assert social and political control over the individual will vastly increase. It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous control over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date files, containing even the most personal details about health and personal behavior of every citizen, in addition to the more customary data.
"These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. Power will gravitate into the hands of those who control information. Our existing institutions will be supplanted by pre-crisis management institutions, the task of which will be to identify in advance, likely social crises and to develop programs to cope with them. (This describes the structure of FEMA, which came much later).
FEMA
... build up the cult of Christian fundamentalism begun by the British East India Company's servant Darby, which will be misused to strengthen the Zionist state of Israel by identifying with the Jews through the myth of "God's Chosen People," and by donating very substantial amounts of money to what they mistakenly believe is a religious cause in the furtherance of Christianity.
Population lessening wars also being out to eradicate the author's favorite Christianity
...settlers who came here and founded a country based on the Christian Bible and Christian morality. Of the 55 men who framed the Constitution, 52 were Christians. So-called "multiculturism" is tearing the United States apart-as was intended by our secret government.
"Moriah Conquering Wind"
a book regarding occult and Illuminati history, as well as a song.
Book: (Moriah Conquering Wind), the Cult of ... Adam Weishaupt is a 2008 book written by Jonathan Pentadragon (published by Lulu.com). It discusses topics such as the Illuminati, secret societies, Adam Weishaupt, and occult knowledge, often touching upon themes of "Ancient Moriah Illuminati" as a bloodline order.
Flat Earthers like current anti-vax population control even Great Replacement
Magic
What was their report all about? It did not differ fundamentally from what Malthus and Von Hayek preached, namely the old question of not enough natural resources to go around. The Forrestor-Meadows Report was a complete fraud. What it did not say was that man's proven inventive genius would in all likelihood work its way around "shortages." Fusion energy, the DEADLY enemy of the Committee of 300, could be applied to CREATING natural resources. A fusion torch could produce from one square mile of ordinary rock enough aluminum, for example, to fill our needs for 4 years.
International bankers, Freemason, Fabian Socialist
conspiracy a go go Slacker
How is it that the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry could brainwash John Hinckley into shooting President Reagan? Why do we have such secret orders as the Knights of Malta and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Round Table, the Milner Group, the Process Church, and so on down line of layer upon layer of secret societies? They form part of world-wide chain of command and control running through the Club of Rome, NATO, the RIIA and finally right up to the Committee of 300. Men need these secret societies because their deeds are evil and must be hidden. Evil cannot stand in the light of truth.
Three Mile Island staged for fema One world government
Today, in 1993, the National Teachers Association (NTA,) has become a formidable Socialist tool, in the struggle for possession of the minds of our children. Outcome Based Education (OBE), is the method whereby the wholesale socializing of American school children is being carried out. Another aspect of OBE is its heavy attention to "sex education," and its insidious pumping of lesbianism and homosexuality into the minds of grade and secondary school children.
Rock music
https://share.google/aimode/U3erpDwGv...
Following the Beatles, who incidentally were put together by the Tavistock Institute, came other "Made in England" rock groups, who, like the Beatles, had Theo Adorno write their cult lyrics and compose all their "music." I hate to use these beautiful words in the context of "Beatlemania;" it reminds me of how wrongly the word "lover" is used when referring to the filthy interaction between two homosexuals writhing in pigswill. To call "rock," music, is an insult and likewise the language used in "rock lyrics."
No outside evidence
Sheldon Arenberg "systems development corporation"
https://share.google/aimode/AXX4S7PpZ...
JFK
It is worthy of note that Tibor Rosenbaum's bank was used by the shadowy North American chief of British Intelligence. Sir William Stephenson, whose right hand man, Major Louis
Mortimer Bloomfield, a Canadian citizen, ran Division Five of the FBI throughout the Second World War. Stephenson was an early member of the 20th century Committee of 300, although Bloomfield never made it that far. As I revealed in my series of monographs on the Kennedy assassination, it was Stephenson who master-minded the operation which was run as a hands-on project by Bloomfield. ... assassination was done through another drug-related organization, Permanent Industrial Expositions (PERMINDEX), building in downtown New Orleans. created in 1957, and centered in the World Trade Mart
Bloomfield just happened to be the attorney for the Bronfman family. The World Trade Mart was created by Colonel Clay Shaw and the FBI Division Five station chief in New Orleans, Guy Bannister. Shaw and Bannister were close associates of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of shooting Kennedy, who was murdered by CIA contract agent Jack Ruby, before he could prove that he was not the assassin who shot President Kennedy. In spite of the Warren Commission and numerous official reports, it has never been established that Oswald owned the Mannlicher rifle, said to be the murder weapon, (it was not), nor that he had ever fired it. The connection between the drug trade, Shaw, Bannister and Bloomfield has been established several times, and need not concern us here...
NWO brave new world
Pornography shall be promoted and be compulsory showing in every school classroom, theater and cinema, including homosexual and lesbian pornography. The use of "recreational" drugs shall be compulsory, with each person allotted drug quotas which can be purchased at One World Government stores throughout the world. Mind-control drugs will be expanded and usage become compulsory. Such mind control drugs shall be given in food and/or water supplies without the knowledge or consent of the people. Drug bars shall be set up, run by One World Government employees, where the slave-class shall be able to spend their free time. In this manner, the non-elite masses will be reduced to the level and behavior of controlled beasts, with no will of their own, and easily regimented and controlled.
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Thursday, April 2, 2026
Review: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History by Stephen Jay GouldMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams is the title essay in this anthology and highlight's Da Vinci's brilliant insights in Bible-defying natural history facts from observing fossils. Also in the general theme here of evolution as promulgated and contended with is the epistolary respectful disagreements between
James Dwight Dana and Darwin wherein Dana long clung to a theological view before giving in to Darwin's mountain of evidence. More generally, Gould shows how assuming linear development as opposed to variational bushiness has led to entrenched inaccuracy in other fields.
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Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Review: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the Black Market
Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the Black Market by Eric SchlosserMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Porn Was Legalized 50 Years Ago, This Is How The Business Has Changed"
Fifty years ago something new and exciting was taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Scandinavian country had lifted the ban on pornography on July 1, 1969
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Review: The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins
The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins by Burton L. MackMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
As for Christian origins, it suddenly became clear that the conventional scenario was deeply indebted to the apocalyptic hypothesis. If Jesus had not been an eschatological prophet, the presence of apocalyptic language in the early traditions of the Jesus movements would have to be explained some other way. The conventional view of Christian origins assumed an apocalyptic imagination at the beginning and a gradual shift to the language of wisdom when the world did not end as expected. Now the sequence worked the other way around. The shift was not from apocalyptic announcement to instruction in wisdom, but from wisdom to apocalyptic. This switch forced a total reconsideration of Christian origins and of the way in which apocalyptic language had been understood to function. The assumption had been that preaching an apocalyptic message of judgment could attract people to a movement that promised salvation from that judgment. It now appeared that an apocalyptic imagination worked only in sup-port of social values and commitments that were generated by other attractions and persuasions already at work within the group.
.....
As interest grew in knowing more about the community of Q, however, studies began to appear that bumped up against features of the text that did not seem to fit the standard scenario etched in the Christian imagination. Not only was there no reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus, no mention of Jesus as the Christ, and no instruction to Peter and the other disciples about continuing Jesus' mission and baptizing converts into the church, the instructions in Q were couched in curious aphoristic discourse, addressed to individuals, and recommended strange public behavior. So the first attempts at describing the community of Q aimed at understanding how these odd features of the text could be made to fit the traditional picture of Christian origins.
Some modern scholars suggest Jesus shared similarities with ancient Greek Cynic philosophers due to his itinerant lifestyle, rejection of material wealth, and radical social critiques. However, this is a debated topic, as Jesus's apocalyptic, communal, and Jewish-focused message differed significantly from the individualistic, ascetic nature of Greek Cynicism.
Similarities to Cynicism:
Lifestyle: Jesus lived without456 many possessions and advocated a simple life, similar to Cynic "hardihood".
Rhetoric: Jesus’s direct, challenging teachings and parables sometimes mirrored the witty, biting, and confrontational style of Cynic philosophers.
Social Critique: Jesus critiqued the power structures of his society, promoting a "brokerless" kingdom in opposition to Roman imperialism and temple elites, note The Contemplative Life.
Distinctions from Cynicism:
Context: Jesus was deeply rooted in Jewish tradition and apocalyptic expectations, whereas Cynics belonged to the Hellenistic, Greco-Roman tradition, according to The University of Chicago Press: Journals.
Community: Cynics were often solitary, radical individualists, while Jesus gathered a community and taught about community, love, and the "Kingdom of God" rather than just individual virtue, note Reddit.
Mission: Jesus's actions were driven by a mission from his Father, rather than the rejection of conventionality for the sake of defying convention itself.
While scholars like John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack have explored the "Jesus as Cynic" hypothesis, it is generally not accepted that Jesus was a "card-carrying" Cynic, but rather that his methods of communication and social critique in Galilee may have resembled those of popular Cynic preachers.
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Review: On the Poverty of Student Life: Considered in Its Economic, Political, Psychological, Sexual, and Particularly Intellectual Aspects, and a Modest Proposal for Its Remedy
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Review: Villa Incognito
Villa Incognito by Tom RobbinsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I recall first enjoying this audiobook when it first came out. This was a time I was less rigorous about recording my opinions. Still I was intrigued as the commentary on American military/foreign policy from the Vietnam War to 9/11 was maybe the most political I have read from Robbins.
The character "Tanuki himself" is a randy rogue and kind of demigod
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Friday, March 20, 2026
Review: Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires
Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires by Carol PageMy rating: 0 of 5 stars
The exploration of "real vampires" seems to mostly uncover sad basket cases shifting from trauma to bloodsucking to high camp like Dracula Live from Transylvania (TV Movie, 1989). The author attended the production of this sad thing and also went to England to meet with the Highgate self-serving fraudster Sean Manchester. Maybe a bit closer to the mark and more authentic was Vlad whose band The Dark Theater produced Matters Of Life And Undeath while Vlad lived a donor-seeking vampire's life.
More fan than fang was rocker Paul Barrett. The author met Barrett in Whitby, England at a "Hunt-a-vampire weekend" celebrating the location Bram Stoker chose to write some of his famous tale.
Paul and Lincoln Barrett then joined me. Paul urged me to include a chapter on rock and roll and vampires in this book, and was delighted to learn I planned to do so. He told me about the song "Dinner with Drac," by John Zachalee, which was in the American Top 20 in 1958 and was then released in London, only to be banned in England by the BBC because of the lyrics, which seems ridiculous now. He sent me a tape of the song, along with some of his other favorite oldies. A passage from the song runs, "A dinner was served for three / at Dracula's house by the sea. /The hors d'oeuvres were fine, but I choked on my wine / when I learned that the main course was me."
Obviously vampires and music as an aesthetic and lifestyle makes me think of extreme goth and that gets referenced too:
They can be found in certain Boston clubs, such as the Rathskeller or the Channel, when certain bands are playing. The music is punk, new wave, or hard core, not heavy metal. Shannon doesn't like the devil-worship subject matter of some of the heavy metal bands. Curtain Society and Sleep Chamber are two Boston-area bands that draw the vampires out to dance. Some of their fans are rumored to practice self-mutilation. In the band Requiem in White, the lead singer dresses like Dracula. Requiem in White has as many as one hundred vampires in their crowd; other bands have perhaps forty mixed in their audiences.
This refers to a 1980s Boston goth/vampire subculture as depicted in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles—specifically in novels like The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)—where vampires mingle with punk/new wave crowds. Bands like Requiem in White, Sleep Chamber, and Curtain Society are associated with the era and scene building on and including rumors of extreme behaviors among devoted fans.
Of the sad, would-be vampires I feel the most insight is gained from James Riva II, known here as "Gabriel" and in the press as the "Vampire Killer," a Massachusetts man who shot his 74-year-old grandmother, Carmen Lopez, in 1980, believing her a vampire. Riva used gold-painted bullets, stabbed her in the heart, drank her blood, and attempted to burn the house down. In 1981, Riva was convicted of second-degree murder and arson, receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Riva claimed he was instructed to commit the crime. Defense lawyers argued he was insane and had a long history of mental illness, but this was rejected. As of 2025, Riva has been denied parole multiple times, with the board citing continued paranoia, lack of remorse, and danger to society. The author met and interviewed him while he was incarcerated for the 1980 murder. In the extensive quotes from that interview is, I feel, the most accurate analysis of the motivations of these souls seeking blood sustenance:
These people call themselves vampires, but they are just sick puppies who think that they're going to get power. See, most people start this nonsense because they're unhappy with what they are, and they think that by getting into Satan worshipping, they're going to be enhanced some-how, that they're going to be popular, they're going to get powers. I mean, you have vampires in the movies, they always have total control over their lovers. They manage to do whatever they like with impunity it seems, until the end of the movie. That seems attractive to some people, and they want it.
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Thursday, March 19, 2026
Review: Ulysses
Ulysses by James JoyceMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Back cover
The complete and unabridged text, as corrected and entirely reset in 1961.
Like the first American edition, published by Random House in 1934, this new edition contains the original foreword by the author, the historic decision by Judge John M. Woolsey whereby the Federal ban on Ulysses was finally removed, and the foreword by Morris Ernst on the importance of Judge Woolsey's decision.
Ulysses is now available for the first time in paperback
Woolsey read the entire book and included in the decision his review:
Joyce has attempted-it seems to me, with astonishing success
-to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious. He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which he is describing.
...
I hold that "Ulysses" is a sincere and honest book and I think that the criticisms of it are entirely disposed of by its rationale.
V. Furthermore, "Ulysses" is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, "Ulysses" is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.
If one does not wish to associate with such folk as Joyce describes, that is one's own choice. In order to avoid indirect contact with them one may not wish to read "Ulysses"; that is quite understandable. But when such a real artist in words, as Joyce undoubtedly is, seeks to draw a true picture of the lower middle class in a European city, ought it to be impossible for the American public legally to see that picture?
To answer this question it is not sufficient merely to find, as I have found above, that Joyce did not write "Ulysses" with what is commonly called pornographic intent, I must endeavor to apply a more objective standard to his book in order to determine its effect in the result, irrespective of the intent with which it was written
From the annotated decision on JSTOR:
Judge John Woolsey of the Southern District of New York issued what would become one of the most widely published (and perhaps even read) legal decisions in US history. The case, United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses,” began in 1932 when lawyer Morris Ernst and Random House co-founder Bennett Cerf arranged to have a copy of the novel written by James Joyce imported and seized by US Customs.
Woolsey’s decision, which found Ulysses to not be obscene, was appealed to the US Circuit Court and upheld, allowing Random House to begin publishing the novel in the US. The first American edition included Woolsey’s decision and an introduction by Ernst, who went on to become a leader of the ACLU (while acting behind the scenes as advocate and information source for the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover.)
Many of the parties involved in the lengthy journey of Ulysses—into print, and to the States—went on to become major figures in modernism, publishing, jurisprudence, and/or LGBTQ+ history (with Sylvia Beach covering multiple categories.) JSTOR offers substantial research on these topics, as well as on Joyce’s works, legacy, and heirs.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
https://biblioklept.org/2020/06/16/ca...
https://www.stephens-workshop.com/joy...
and recreation https://eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.ed...
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Wednesday, March 18, 2026
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Thursday, March 12, 2026
Sunday, March 8, 2026
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