Spitzer & Perry ~ Coming & Going

Two characters who've given the chattering classes plenty to chatter about in the past, and present, shimmied into focus again this week - Eliot Spitzer and Rick Perry. Strange to say, neither of these guys sends me into paroxysms of fury and hatred such as I've noticed in several comment threads, and even in a few articles by writers who fail to see the fairly obvious motes in other eyes.

Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York who resigned in 2008 after his habit of consorting with prostitutes was made public, causing a scandal, made worse because he was well-known, in his professional capacity, for having zero tolerance for anyone engaged in the oldest profession - whether service giver or client. Spitzer announced this week that he hopes to return to public office and will run for the New York City comptroller's position, a more modest post than he was used to, and a job he'd likely be capable of with one hand tied behind his back.

I like what I've seen of Eliot Spitzer in interview and when he has appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time. He's been outspoken against the injustices perpetrated by Wall Street's financiers. He's a Democrat, but doesn't seem to have been infected by the spineless kowtowing to oligarchs that has been so evident in that party since they've been in office. He has made some serious errors of judgement in the past, no doubt about that - but no more serious than several other disgraced public servants who have been allowed to bounce back into political life, and are likely far less able than Eliot Spitzer.

Rick Perry, 3-term governor of Texas , announced this week that he would not run for re-election in 2014. He has held the office since 2000 when he succeeded George W. Bush. Perry ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 but blotted his copybook famously during a televised debate. He said he'd eliminate three federal agencies, then could remember only two of them. He covered his embarrassment with an "oops" and a laugh. He was heavily criticized by his opponents for holding more moderate views on undocumented immigrants. As Governor he promotes stiff abortion and reproductive rights legislation, so is not popular with many female Texans. His announcement this week sparked curiosity as to whether the Governor will risk another stab at the presidency.

Rick Perry is, for me, an attractive guy, looks-wise, I do enjoy seeing his photograph - daft as that might sound! His face belies his nature though. I despise most of his policies - but then I despise most of the policies of our President too. Gov. Perry seemed, during those presidential debates in 2011/12, to have a certain charm and nice sense of humour, but not always a firm grasp on reality. Rather than pursuing another job in politics he could do well as a TV personality, though due to what's known about him, at least half his potential audience would already be alienated. I rather hope he does run for the Republican presidential nomination again 2016 - just for the fun of it - and he is easy on the eye, which is more than can be said for the rest of 'em.


Perry and his natal chart were featured in an archived post HERE.
Ha! Looking back on that post I'm reminded why I feel some weird and irrational affinity to Gov. Perry: his natal Venus is just a degree away from my natal Sun.

Eliot Spitzer's chart (12 noon version, no time of birth available) for any passing astrology buffs. He's Gemini Sun and Mercury with Moon and three other planets in Leo. A good combination for a politician- mental acuity, great communication skills, versatility, with an innate draw to leadership and the spotlight.

History's Secrets

According to Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News website:
"A 1991 statute mandated that the State Department publish the documentary record of U.S. foreign policy (known as Foreign Relations of the United States, or FRUS) no later than 30 years after the events described. They were years behind when President Obama, still in his sunshine mode, hit the Oval Office and ordered State to complete the processing of the backlog of 25-year-old records awaiting declassification by the end of December 2013."


Tom Engelhardt writes, referring to the above, (See The Sunshine Presidency Takes History to a Dark Place)

Didn't happen, of course. And that, it turns out, is the least of it. A State Department historical advisory committee (HAC), a "panel of distinguished historians," has just weighed in with its own fears that "a substantial percentage of those records that have been reviewed by the NDC [National Declassification Center] have not been cleared for release to the public. In the opinion of the HAC, the relatively high number of reviewed documents that remain withheld from researchers and citizens raises fundamental questions about the declassification guidelines." The historians wonder, in fact, whether the majority of the FRUS volumes will ever see the light of day.

When I read Mr Engelhardt's piece Orwell's 1984 immediately sprang to mind:

"Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, and every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day-by-day and minute-by-minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence after the event – years after it." (2.5.14, Winston to Julia)

I wonder what it is that's so incriminating to.......? Isn't that one likely reason documents are being kept from researchers? They are probably waiting for........to die. Fill in the blanks, dear reader!

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," repeated Winston obediently.

"Who controls the present controls the past," said O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. "Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?" (3.2.39-40)

Surfing the Waves of Revolution ?

Andrew O'Hehir's piece at Salon yesterday , The Age of Revolution: 1989 to 2013 and Counting, - "From the Berlin Wall to Cairo, we live in an era of anti-authoritarian revolution that may transform the world" had me rifling through the ephemeris and my saved astrology links to discover whether 1989 was part of the Uranus-Pluto cycle we hear so much about these days.

For background, a few snips from Mr O'Hehir's interesting essay:

.......But if you can separate the populist and/or military coup against Morsi’s government from short-term political or ideological questions, it fits into a much larger historical pattern that is global in scale. We live in an age of revolution, and specifically of anti-elite, anti-authoritarian revolution. It’s an age that began in earnest with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and shows no signs of slowing down. Edward Snowden, who on Friday was reportedly offered asylum by both Nicaragua and Venezuela, is in his own way a soldier in that revolution, one who has exposed the secrets of the world’s greatest imperial power and made it look both foolish and vulnerable. That’s the thread that connects this week’s explosive news out of Egypt to the bizarre episode of the Bolivian president’s airplane, which was forced to land in Vienna (almost certainly at the behest of someone in Washington), based on false rumors that Snowden might be on board. Screw national sovereignty – the most powerful nation on earth is hunting a computer nerd! In other words, both these things are driving powerful people crazy.

Indeed, historians of the future – assuming there are any – may well compare our era to the great wave of social and political revolutions that transformed Europe in the middle of the 19th century, and ultimately led to the sweeping away of the old aristocratic order. What the conclusion of our current revolutionary wave will look like, and whether it will sound the death knell for the dominant liberal-capitalist world order, I have no idea. But I feel certain that a lot of people in boardrooms, executive suites and presidential palaces are wondering the same thing.

Comments below the article were interesting, at least they were when they didn't descend into the usual skirmish between right and left, or snarks by the grammar/spelling police. One brave soul (cckelsey) even dared to say:

There are those who have studied astrology who suggest that Uranus-Pluto alignments correlate with emancipatory humanitarian impulses across the collective. From what I understand, we are in one of those alignments that will run through this decade though it is not as pronounced as the periods that offered the French Revolution and 1960's. From what I've seen presented, these periods tend to swing into Saturn-Pluto alignments which often offer authoritarian backlash.

That was put down immediately by:

Agent C: @cckelsey I hope you're trying to be funny.

Sigh! Double sigh!!

Commenter Graham Clark said (among other things):

Well heck, if we're going to allow for the twenty years of status quo between the dissolution of the Soviet sphere and the Arab Spring, we might as well go back another twenty and say the new "age of revolution" started in 1968.

He was right - and the 1960s do link back to Uranus-Pluto.

I couldn't see any Uranus-Pluto link in 1989, but there was a fairly rare triple conjunction of Uranus-Saturn-Neptune - in Capricorn that year. The conjunction linked the cycles of Saturn/Uranus (approx. every 45 years), Saturn/Neptune (approx. 35 years), and Uranus/Neptune (approx 172 years).

Looked at from one perspective, the period 1989 to the present (and onward) can be seen as a revolutionary age, still ongoing, for its full flavour hasn't reached the USA yet. While 1989 isn't part of a "matched set" of astrological aspects, it's another piece in the jigsaw puzzle - and fits right in, showing that certain points in the outer planets' cycles do indeed correlate noticeably with mundane events here on Earth. We ride the varied waves of time along with the planets.

From section 87 of one of the most often consulted favourite books sitting on the shelf under my desk: Carl Sandburg's The People, Yes ~

The people learn, unlearn, learn,
a builder, a wrecker, a builder again,
a juggler of shifting puppets.
In so few eyeblinks
In transition lightning streaks,
the people project midgets into giants,
the people shrink titans into dwarfs

Faiths blow on the winds
and become shibboleths
and deep growths
with men ready to die
for a living word on the tongue,
for a light alive in the bones,
for dreams fluttering in the wrists . . .

Sleep is a suspension midway
and a conundrum of shadows
lost in meadows of the moon.
The people sleep.

Ai! ai! the people sleep.
Yet the sleepers toss in sleep
and an end comes of sleep
and the sleepers wake.
Ai! ai! the sleepers wake! . . .

Anecdotal Evidence

Current news on the Edward Snowden front: CARACAS, July 5 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro offered asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on Friday in defiance of Washington, which is demanding his arrest for divulging details of secret U.S. spy programs. "In the name of America's dignity ... I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to Edward Snowden," Maduro told a military parade marking Venezuela's independence day. "He is a young man who has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the United States spying on the whole world.".

We await further developments - will Snowden meet further unexpected difficulties before he can take advantage of the offer? In the meantime, and in spite of many opinions that roughly go "why should we care about all this surveillance if we haven't done anything wrong? He shouldn't have been giving away secrets anyway", or: "everybody's doing it, so what...", there are still arguments illustrating why we should care - and care a lot.

Arnold Lakhovsky, "The Conversation".

 When politicians are on the campaign trail a favourite ploy is to collect anecdotes from people they've met on the road (or they perhaps sometimes make them up, Aesop's Fable-style). President Obama keeps this tactic in his bag of tricks and uses it regularly, as I recall. Let's play him at his own game then, but to do so I need help from a couple of columnists who've led more exciting lives than I have. My only (known) experience of being spied upon was when I'd been in the USA for a few weeks and couldn't find any comparable over-the-counter headache tablets such as those I'd used in the UK. I found the nearest available formula in tablets available from a Mexican pharmacy, ordered a pack of 30 tablets. I was unaware of the drug law restrictions on tablets containing with the usual ingredients even a teeny-tiny amount of codeine, a "listed" drug. I'd used such an over-the-counter formula for years in the UK (Solpadeine, as it was 10 years ago, anyway) with no problems. Anyway, my package was stopped in the mail and a letter sent to me from the DEA (I think it was the DEA) slapping my wrists and threatening action if I was so naughty again. Nice welcome to the USA - all over 30 headache tablets! Still, I do realise there was a good reason for that particular kind of spying.

So, for more apt anecdotal evidence I need a couple of snips from pieces appearing recently at The Smirking Chimp - and thank you gentlemen:

#1 What's In Your Mail? Inquiring Minds Want to Know by Stephen Pizzo:

Let me tell you a little story... a true story.

One day I went off to the post office where my group had a PO box to pick up the day's mail. We got a lot of mail, mostly contributions from supporters. So much mail in fact that the PO box would not hold it all, so we usually just found a note in the box to come to the counter window where we'd be given the mail in a large flat box.

That day the clerk looked around and, when sure the coast was clear, gestured that I should lean towards him. He whispered something to me. He said that the FBI had been requesting all our mail be handed to them before it was given to us. They weren't opening it, apparently, but rather scanning the return addresses.

A week later I was at home in my SF apartment and noticed that, after the postman put my mail in the box, two guys in suits who had been sitting in a nondescript Ford Galaxy got out, went up to my mail box, removed the mail and calmly began copying down the return addresses on the envelopes.

Back at our modest office, we already were fully aware that our phones were being monitored. But mail monitoring was a new wrinkle.

Oh, sorry, I need to stop here and orient you. I'm not talking about the current NSA revelations. I am talking about 1968. Back I was part of a group that organized all of the Bay Area's antiwar rallies - the Vietnam War for you youngsters. Back then the guys in charge of all this snooping were Richard Nixon and that chubby little cross-dresser, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover.

My point being, we've been here before. But I never dreamed we would be. That we never again could be. That we'd learned our lesson back then; that, wholesale snooping on ordinary Americans not only violates the core principles we as a nation claim as our patrimony, but also doesn't work.

#2 A Noir America: Killers and Roller-Coaster Rides by John Grant

We're all aware of the reputed Chinese curse about living in interesting times. Upheaval seems to be in the air. According to Wikipedia, the interesting times curse was linked with a second, more worrisome curse: "May you come to the attention of those in authority."

If a young computer nerd like Edward Snowden can access so much secret information concerning US citizens’ lives, what’s to stop some righteous NSA employee with the moral intelligence of Adolf Eichmann from accessing the same material and, in collusion with a para-military cabal of like-minded and armed patriots, deciding someone (me!) is a national security threat in need of neutralization?

Paranoia? Maybe. But I see it as paying attention and having the historically-based imagination to understand we’re no longer in Kansas -- that we actually live in Oz and Toto has been declared a terrorist. The basis of Franz Kafka’s absurd world, of course, is that what you know about yourself doesn’t matter if powerful, secretive elements act hostilely against you based on what they think they know about you. (My highlighting.)

At an anti-Iraq War demonstration in Philadelphia some years ago, a Civil Affairs cop took me aside and told me the FBI had just called him about me. He seemed to be warning me so I could clean up any suspicious behavior. Since I was exercising my first amendment rights, I felt I had nothing to hide. But, then, I began to wonder why exactly some FBI drone thought I might be a threat and how dangerous for me such a person might be.

It all distills down to Power versus Truth and which one is the lodestar for one’s actions.

“The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals.”
― Glenn Greenwald

Arty Farty Friday ~ Round Trip

Undecided on a subject or artist to feature this Arty Farty Friday, I cast around for ideas.

First, I noted that American artist/illustrator John Schoenherr was born this day, 5 July, in 1935; he died in 2010. He is best-remembered as illustrator of the now iconic 1965 sci-fi novel Dune by Frank Herbert.


I could never match the information on this artist already available in the bog of his son, Ian devoted to the life and work of his father.

So....onward I went.

Noticed that an arty photographer died recently (26 June): Bert Stern who will be remembered most for his 1982 book of photographs The Last Sitting, a collection of 2,500 photographs taken for Vogue of Marilyn Monroe over a three-day period, six weeks before her death. The camera loved Marilyn and the feeling, it appears, was mutual. Who else, before or since has managed to depict such joie de vivre and/or sexy come-hitherness? The skills of the photographer, no doubt, had a lot to do with it too!

Not enough there for a post though.

On Father's Day one of my husband's sons gave him a book Outsiders (Art by People); looking through its numerous illustrations I noticed some artwork by Sage Vaughn, a contemporary artist, born 1962. His website is HERE. I felt especially drawn to his delicate paintings of butterflies, one reason being that for the past 24 hours an old song kept buzzing around in my head - Bob Lind's Elusive Butterfly - I always loved that song, but why I should suddenly think about it and keep hearing it in my head was a total mystery.

Sage Vaughn specialises in delicate paintings of wildlife - birds, butterflies abound - in juxtaposition to foggy illustration of aspects of modern life and its technology: a tension between the natural world and the artificial.

I'm wary of showing any of Sage Vaughn's work for fear of copyright slapped hands (or worse), but I'll risk a small representation or maybe two, to illustrate the point which brought me full circle to where I began this post:

See....a coincidental round trip from the huge Dune worm illustrated by John Schoenherr to Sage Vaughn's butterflies and a wormy looking creature.... via Bob Lind:



Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Happy Birthday USA!

"Landscape photography, most of it done by photographer Bud Lebens from Port Townsend, Wa accompany the Neil Young/Crazy Horse version of Woody Guthrie's song This Land Is Your Land. Bud has been a photographer for over forty years and studied with Roger Staub at the University of Washington.".

Magna Carta and All That

Independence Day is approaching, I shall wish the USA a happy birthday tomorrow by ceremoniously hoisting the Stars and Stripes up our flagpole, but today I'm dipping into English history, to highlight something not totally irrelevant to USA's history.

Pupils in English schools have 1066 (Battle of Hastings and Norman Conquest of England) engraved on their hearts - or did when I was in school long ago. 1066 marked a pivotal event in English history, the native ruling class was replaced by a foreign, French-speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. It's one of few dates to be so well remembered, so much so that a couple of 20th century humourists, W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman wrote a series under the title 1066 and All That for the famous Punch magazine. The series, later developed into a play and a book, is a parody of English history. I'll not go into much detail of the book's content; it truly is an acquired taste, to the uninitiated unused to this type of humour, it'd come over as just silliness. You really had to be there (in England over many years) to "get it". There is a little something which might go down well here though; there's an astrological link too.

Skipping through the years from 1066 to what's known as the Tudor Age, or Middle Ages, we come to King John's reign. He is noted in the book as "An Awful King". During his reign, in 1215, came the Magna Carta, which, in many ways, could be likened to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Magna Carta (Great Charter), the straight version, in a nutshell:

King John was compelled to sign the document by the Barons (members of the nobility/aristocracy, mainly of French descent). It required King John to proclaim certain rights (pertaining to freemen), respect certain legal procedures, and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered — and implicitly supported what became the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment.

Magna Carta was arguably the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today in the English speaking world. Magna Carta influenced the development of the common law and many constitutional documents, including the United States Constitution. Many clauses were renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and continued to be renewed as late as the 18th century. By the second half of the 19th century, however, most clauses in their original form had been repealed from English law.

Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. (From HERE)

1066 and All That parodied the intent of Magna Carta in ways that remain relevant even today:

1. That no one was to be put to death, save for some reason - (except the Common People).

2. That everyone should be free - (except the Common People).

3. That everything should be of the same weight and measure throughout the Realm - (except the Common People).

4. That the courts should be stationary, instead of following a very tiresome medieval official known as the King's Person all over the country.

5. That no person should be fined to his utter ruin - (Except the King's Person).

6. That the Barons should not be tried except by a special jury of other Barons who would understand.

Magna Carta was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus A Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People).

The Common People in most countries, even nowadays, are still in the category "except for"! And Number 6 sounds eerily familiar too. Things do change, but remain much the same.....as the French are wont to say, but more prettily.

On an astrological note, is there anything in astrology that ties into Magna Carta? This article on Jupiter/Uranus and Saturn/Uranus cycles is interesting. From Astrology for the 21st Century
http://www.astrology21.co.uk/c1humanrights.html

Human Rights: The planetary cycles of human rights

In astrology the development of human rights is often associated with Uranus and Aquarius, and the periods of history that coincide with the rise in awareness of human rights and human wrongs are usually linked with the Jupiter-Uranus and Saturn-Uranus cycles. But does this stand up to scrutiny?

This article examines landmark events in human rights in the UK, the USA and France, as well as major political thinkers/philosophers whose work influenced the way human rights were thought about and practised, and looks for correlations between these and the Jupiter-Uranus and Saturn-Uranus cycles.

Landmark events
These are said to be some of the major landmarks in the development of the current Western thinking on and practice of human rights :

Magna Carta
15th to 19th June 1215
Saturn conjunct Uranus (approaching)


USA - State of Virginia's Declaration of Rights
12th June 1776
Saturn trine Uranus


USA Constitution
4th March 1789
Jupiter conjunct Uranus (the aspect is wide but approaching and growing in strength)

USA Bill of Rights
15th December 1791
Jupiter just past sextile Uranus
Mars on the midpoint of Jupiter/Uranus

(Many other examples are listed.)

ASYLUM ?

Some news sources around the net today make it sound as though Edward Snowden had, after a week or so holed up in a no-man's-land inside a Moscow airport, applied only to to Russia for asylum. Others, though, more fully stated, citing their source, that he had put forward requests for asylum to 15 countries, one of which was Russia. It's interesting how easily a news source can bend/spin a news story without actually telling an untruth isn't it? By indicating Snowden had made a single request, it opened up lots of sneering commentary, none of it complimentary to the whistle-blower, and was probably exactly what corporate media leaders had demanded from their minions.

A common sense conclusion, I think, would be that a short-term Russian agreement to asylum for Snowden would be essential to allow him access to flights or other transport to a second destination where asylum might eventually be on offer.

UPDATE: 2 July 2013

According to WikiLeaks, Snowden has requested asylum from Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela. (Common Dreams)


BBC has even more up to date information:
A growing number of countries have rejected the asylum requests of fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, as he attempts to avoid extradition to the US.

Eight European states including Spain and Germany said asylum applicants had to be on their soil.India and Brazil have also said no................

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Snowden had withdrawn the application to Russia because Moscow had said he should give up "anti-American activity". "After learning of Russia's position yesterday, voiced by President Putin... he abandoned his intention [of staying] and his request to be able to stay in Russia," said Mr Peskov.


Things are not looking good for Mr Snowden.

Voyager I & Distant Earth

News that NASA's Voyager I spacecraft is still within our solar system (just), after some 35 years of travel at unimaginable speed, is truly mind-blowing.

Since last summer the spacecraft has been exploring uncharted territory where the effects of interstellar space, the space between stars, can be felt. Scientists don't know how wide this new found region in the solar system is or how much farther Voyager I has to travel to break to the other side. "It could actually be anytime or it could be several more years," said chief scientist Ed Stone of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.


What an achievement though ! When held against 21st century drone strikes and cyber-snooping doesn't it show how far we have fallen into disrepute since 1977 when Voyagers I and II were launched? It reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress....but in reverse: from Celestial City to City of Destruction!



From NASA's website

(Voyager I has come up before in posts, in 2007 and 2012.)



Harking back to my old "Music Monday" habit, a piece of music occurs to me in relation to the above.

Songs of Distant Earth, Mike Oldfield's album released in 1994, based on Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction novel The Songs of Distant Earth, which I'm currently reading. The whole of Mike Oldfield's album, almost an hour long, is available on YouTube, as well as some shorter versions. Here's a 5 minute taster comprising two sections The Chamber and Hibernaculum

Arthur C. Clarke's novel is set in the far distant future: the 39th century, some 200 years after Earth's sun had "gone nova". Mankind had had a thousand years' warning of coming destruction, and had sent seed ships out into space in the direction of what appeared to be hospitable systems and planets. These ships contained seeds to rebuild mankind - human and domestic animal embryos, and the bacteria necessary for human survival. Early life would be shepherded by robots. Vast distances involved would take hundreds, maybe thousands, of years to cover. After the seed ships were launched, and during the following century or two discoveries were made enabling faster space travel, close to 20% of the speed of light. By the time Earth's destruction was imminent, a million humans, in hibernation, in a state of the art spaceship named Magellan, were able to escape the devastation. Their ultimate destination was a planet named Sagan Two.

The Magellan's route passed close to a planet named Thalassa, one of the destinations of an earlier seed ship. Colonization of Thalassa had been initially reported to Earth, but then all contact had been lost. The Magellan, needing to re-ice its deflector after collisons with space dust, decided to investigate the possibility of using water from Thalassa's vast oceans. The planet being mostly ocean with just three large islands where the colony of humans could have survived. Humans had survived - and flourished - in what appeared to be an idyllic existence. The Magellan's arrival upset the serene lifestyle of Thalassans. Magellan crew mingled with the Thalassan population, became involved in various ways with those who, though of the same species, fellow-humans, had never known life on Earth, and had felt little in the way of challenge or stress, throughout their lives. The people aboard Magellan, now out of hibernation, inevitably carried horrendous memories of Earth's last years.

Culture clash!

How could humanity thrive without the existence of challenge, one wonders. Human history has been filled with challenges and struggles from its outset, first against the elements, the search for food, wild animals, and of course struggle against one another, individually and communally. If the "struggle gene" were bred out of the species over several hundreds of years what would happen?
Thalassans?

I shall not get into the astrological argument which hovers here, I've strayed far enough from Voyager One already.

1) Gays' Hurrays.....2) Zodiac Types in Fiction

#1....Good news arrived for the LGBT front this week:

In a pair of major victories for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that married same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits and, by declining to decide a case from California, effectively allowed same-sex marriages there................(SEE HERE)

Lots of articles and commentary have flooded the net on this topic already, so I'm limiting my own contribution to links to previous postings touching on the Gay rights issue (most have some comments attached):

From March this year:
GAY MARRIAGE

from June 2011:
Homosexuality, Astrology, Prejudice

From June 2009:

Stonewall, Prejudice, Astrology.

#2..ZODIAC TYPES in FICTION (Gone With the Wind, Little Women, Ally McBeal.)

I wonder how often authors of novels, or screen writers for film and television consider astrology, or more likely, simplified Sun Sign astrology, when describing characteristics of the individuals who bring to life their books and dramas? I've thought about this several times in the past - there are posts on this very topic relating to Gone With the Wind (HERE) and Little Women (HERE) with suggestions in the posts and in several comments beneath them as to astrological matches to characters in the novels.

Another instance of what I'll call ZIF (Zodiac in Fiction) came up for me recently. We're years late catching up with what used to be a hugely popular TV series in the USA from 1997 to 2002: Ally McBeal.

My husband, out on some errand by himself spotted a garage sale in the neighbourhood and came home clutching a big white box, still cellophane wrapped. It was the entire 5-season series of Ally McBeal on DVD, and he paid only $3 for it plus another, single DVD (can't even recall the film). Such sets cost a lot more than $3 on the net. We suspect this set might have been produced for the Chinese market, a clue: choice of subtitles = Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin - and English. We're almost to the end of Season 2 now, and greatly enjoying the series.

Ally McBeal was created and mostly written by David E. Kelley whose series are always A-grade (LA Law, Boston Legal, The Practice, Picket Fences, Harry's Law to name the best known).
More on Kelley, and his natal chart in an archived post HERE.

The Ally McBeal series had a super cast, good musical interludes with vocalist Vonda Shepard, well-written characters, humour, romance, whimsy, fantasy and frequently interesting courtroom dramas.

Ally McBeal, played by Calista Flockhart, and one of the senior partners of the law firm for which she works, John Cage, played by Peter MacNicol, share a birthday we were told in the course of Season 2. This revelation immediately had me surmising on a Sun sign for them. It had already become obvious the two had similar characteristics: a definite quirkiness, romantic awkwardness, mild eccentricity and frequent dips into whimsy, while both remained talented in their professional life as courtroom lawyers. A quick Google search sent me to a site where commenters were betting on Scorpio as Ally's likely Sun sign - mainly because it's Calista Flockhart's, who plays Ally. That could not possibly be correct, here's why.

Each season devotes an episode to Thanksgiving and an episode to Christmas, presumably to be screened during November and December. Characters are always muffled in scarves, gloves and hats for outdoor scenes, it's often snowing in Boston,where the series was set, in these episodes. In season 2, in an episode following fairly quickly after the Christmas one, there was a combined birthday celebration for Ally and John - so it could not possibly have taken place in Scorpio time. More likely, and I had already suspected, Ally and John, and their shared whimsy, fantasy, and eccentricities alongside otherwise very astute legal minds, must surely have Neptune/Pisces and/or Aquarius/Neptune/Pisces prominent, with likely some Capricorn in there too, strong link to the law.

It's all just fiction, of course. I doubt that David E. Kelley gives two hoots about astrology, though perhaps one of his assistants might have offered hints.

If any passing reader has an instance of ZIF, a pet fictional character or situation, from well-known novels, TV or films, with likely matching Sun Sign - do let me know !

Arty Farty Spyday

As espionage is currently in the news, courtesy of Edward Snowden, I thought I'd take a look to see whether, over the centuries, spying has ever inspired artistic endeavours. It has been said that spying ties for first place with prostitution for the "Oldest Profession" award, so I'd expect some artist somewhere, at sometime, would have been sufficiently inspired to show it to us.

Several pieces of art depicting spying, found via Google Image, related to a Biblical story telling how Moses sent 12 spies, a man from each tribe, to suss out the land of Canaan. Their task: to find out about the land and its people. Did they live in cities or in camps? What the fruit of the land was like, and if they had forests or not. He asked them to bring back some of the fruit found there. Lots of illustrations show the men returning with grapes etc. I chose these rather more "arty" examples instead:


Escape of the Spies from Canaan by James James Lesesne Wells (1932)

The Spies Escape by Frederic Lord Leighton (1881)

Moving away from biblical stories, there's this, from India:

Krishna spies on Radha from the rooftop, Punjab Hills, Nurpur, India circa 1710.

There's also The Spy by Arthur David McCormick (1860-1943)

For a more contemporary take:
As part of the 2009 centenary celebrations of the British Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, artist James Hart Dyke was invited to record their work in a series of paintings and sketches. This unique project saw James working closely with SIS for a year, both in the UK and abroad. Given the sensitivity of the work, James had to observe the need for secrecy and his access to SIS was carefully controlled. Whilst the paintings do not identify actual officers, agents, operations, or actual events, James managed to produce a series of images illustrating this unusual and secretive world. (See HERE)


One of the paintings by James Hart Dyke

And, perhaps also relating to that centenary:

The Spy of Her Majesty by Eugene Ivanov (2009)

Finally, a painting closer to home - actually at home in fact. I featured it in one of my first Arty Farty Friday posts, in 2007. It does fit today's category so:

The Powers Trial

An oil painting by Himself - my husband. He painted it sometime in the early 1960s and called it The Powers Trial. (A larger view should be available by clicking on the picture).

When I first noticed this painting it was stored in a closet with a pile of others a young Himself had worked on many years ago. I liked it immediately for the shapes and colours. I later discovered that the main figure represents Francis Gary Powers, the U.2 pilot shot down while flying over Soviet Union airspace on May 1, 1960, sparking one of the greatest international crises of the Cold War. Husband said that for some reason the trial of Powers had affected him deeply, and this painting was more of a doodle than a serious painting about it. He just started drawing shapes on canvas one day and ended up sketching directly with oil colour.

I'm not sure the detail will show clearly on computer screen, but the scales of justice appear in the centre, some heads of observers in the background, representing the eyes of the world upon the proceedings, and a small depiction of Powers' wife in the lower left square. The figure to the left represents an attorney.

Gary Powers was born on 17 August 1929 in Jenkins, Kentucky. On the date Powers was shot down, 1 May 1960, his natal Pluto at 18* Cancer was being opposed by transiting Saturn at 18* Capricorn - such an opposition between two powerful planets might well be significant here. Saturn represents the law, limitation, and possibly imprisonment. Pluto is the modern ruler of Scorpio, said to represent, among other things, secrets and spying.

When Powers returned to the USA (as part of an East/West spy-swap) he was criticised for not ensuring that the revolutionary plane was destroyed, or killing himself with a suicide pin or pill. Powers was cold-shouldered by his former employers at the CIA. He died in 1977 at the age of 47 when a TV news helicopter he was piloting crashed in Los Angeles. On May 1, 2000, U.S. officials presented Powers' family with his posthumously awarded Prisoner-of-War Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the National Defense Service Medal.
Info. from http://www.answers.com/topic/francis-gary-powers

Our Native Gland

The following is obliquely related to yesterday's post:

If the heart is our human powering pump, the brain a computer, then the glands are keys on a keyboard required for our human machine to function efficiently, but in ways personal to each individual. (I made that up, it's simplistic and quite possibly erroneous academically, but it works for me!)

A book by Frank McGillion, Blinded by Starlight, provided me with cause to hope that some scientists might retain open minds on the subject of astrology. I bought this book in 2006, it was first published in 2002. I would recommend it to anyone who has given up on the idea of an astrological "mechanism", or a theory of cause and effect - something astrologers these days tend to deride.

The book's central thesis is as follows, from Garry Phillipson's review:

"The pineal gland is an important factor in the way we perceive the world and act in it; the pineal produces its effects by secreting melatonin; it has been demonstrated in laboratory conditions that magnetic fields and exposure to light affect the production of melatonin; therefore anything which affects light levels or changes magnetic fields on Earth (which of course includes some celestial phenomena) may be linked to human character and behaviour; if scientists were less blinkered they would pursue research into correlations between celestial and terrestrial influences; the pineal gland is a promising place to start such research, because by examining responses in the pineal to celestial phenomena we could, so to speak, cut out the middleman - avoiding the need to isolate significant behaviour patterns in large groups by going directly to (some of the) causes of that behaviour - light and magnetic fields, and their effects on the pineal...........................

More important than any reservations, the fact that I was left wanting more reflects the fact that this is a book of real intelligence and substance. McGillion claims to have "made an irrefutable link between the positions of at least the traditional planets at the time of our birth and our later development and behaviour." (p.201). Whilst some might want to contest the use of 'irrefutable', he certainly succeeds in suggesting that - within a scientific frame of reference - there is something going on in the relationship between celestial and human affairs. He also provides abundant evidence to sketch the means by which this something may be operating. I think he would acknowledge that it can't yet be clear where an investigation of this work might lead, but the case for pursuing it is clearly established here."

I'm convinced, always have been, that one day proof will be found that there is some kind of "cause and effect" mechanism behind the basic premise of astrology, i.e. that the Sun, Moon, planets and their relative positions in the sky at time of birth, have physical effect on humans (and other creatures). Most astrologers moved away from this type of theory in the face of attack from scientists intent on discrediting astrology. I am not an astrologer, and I am not interested in what skeptic scientists have to say on the matter. I know what I know.

What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
~ Aldous Huxley

A Standing Ovation - A Slow Handclap - and A WHERE ARE THEY? ( Extra-terrestrials) and A Little Astrology.

Standing ovation and 3 cheers for Texas state senator Wendy Davis (Democrat), who last night spoke for more than 10 hours, a filibuster attempt in a bid to run out the voting window on a bill which would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and required all clinics to be graded as surgical centers, with all doctors required to have admitting privileges at hospitals, due to which most of the state's clinics wouldn't have been able to meet the new standards. Her attempt stalled about two hours ahead of the deadline over a complaint that she had violated rules. The Republican-controlled Senate then began voting on the bill, amid protests from spectators. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst (Republican), after meeting with lawmakers, said some of their votes came in after midnight local time (0500 GMT), the effective end of the 30-day special session. He blamed the "unruly mob" at the capitol, according to the Dallas Morning News. (Three cheers for the "unruly mob" too!) Governor Rick "Oops" Perry could still revive the proposal by calling the legislature into a new special session. HERE.

BUT

Sarcastic slow hand clap for SCOTUS and especially for Chief Justice Roberts (Sun Aquarius, 27 Jan. like me) who should know better, for invalidating part of the Voting Rights Act, thus allowing several pieces of legislation in the states, designed to make voting more difficult for minorities, stalled by Section 4 of the Act 'til now, to go through unhindered - until Congress writes a new Section 4 (could be never!)HERE.


Oh my! So, let's talk of other things...."shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings", and extra-terrestrials:

I can't now remember which online article set me on a search - a wild goose chase for information on Fermi's Paradox (aka "Where are They?"). Whatever I'd been reading must have been about the likelihood of contact from extra-terrestrial civilisations.
(Illustration: h/t to William M. Briggs )



Wikipedia's page details numerous ideas on the possible reasons for extra-terrestrial non-communication to date.

In a nutshell Fermi's Paradox is explained HERE thus:

The story goes that, one day back on the 1940's, a group of atomic scientists, including the famous Enrico Fermi, were sitting around talking, when the subject turned to extraterrestrial life. Fermi is supposed to have then asked, "So? Where is everybody?" What he meant was: If there are all these billions of planets in the universe that are capable of supporting life, and millions of intelligent species out there, then how come none has visited earth?

For anyone who holds the belief that "there is something" in astrology, in its most basic premise anyway, a whole different set of questions arises in addition to "where are they?" Fermi's Paradox really proves the height of human hubris: based on the assumption that alien life forms will be similar to us in desires, aims, broad personality traits, similar technological advances, and ability, or wish, to be communicative, and communicative in some way we'd appreciate and associate with what we know as communication.

From Wikipedia's page on Fermi's Paradox this explanation for the non-communication, so far, came the closest to my own feelings:

They are too alien

Another possibility is that human theoreticians have underestimated how much alien life might differ from that on Earth. Aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to communicate with human beings. Perhaps human mathematics is parochial to Earth and not shared by other life, though others argue this can only apply to abstract math since the math associated with physics must be similar (in results, if not in methods.)

Physiology might also cause a communication barrier. In Contact, Carl Sagan briefly speculated that an alien species might have a thought process orders of magnitude slower (or faster) than humans. Such a species could conceivably speak so slowly that it requires years to say even a simple phrase like "Hello". A message broadcast by that species might well seem like random background noise to humans, and therefore go undetected.

Scientists routinely ignore astrology, of course. The vast majority of 'em look on astrology as absolute rubbish or ignorant superstition. I don't accept, wholesale, what astrology textbooks set out either, I believe there is some rubbish to be found there, a fact which has done the reputation of astrology no good at all. But I believe that there is something in astrology's basic premise.

At one of my favourite websites on the net The Library of Halexandria Dr. Dan Sewell Ward quotes Arthur M. Young on Astrology, and mainstream science’s inability to come to grips with it. the whole extract is great stuff, here's the part I want to highlight:

“..........So I must take the gods and their correlation with the planets on faith. Let us see what this faith entails.

“I . That the solar system is an organon.

“II. That the organon is ‘a process machine’ having a number of distinct periodicities or rhythms.

“III. That said rhythms are indicated by the planets.

“IV. That the direction in which planets ‘point’ at any given time indicates, or creates, the zeitgeist of that time.

“V. That the pointing of the planets produces such zeitgeist because the directions are themselves different in quality.

“VI. That the planets, because of their difference of period, contribute to the different powers of persons.

“VII. That a person’s birth is an introduction into this organon. A birth is an enrollment, as it were, to ‘take a course in the universe.’ The birth establishes the central stance. The motion of the planets thereafter" establishes the scenario.”

For the sake of argument, even if a passing reader be a devout non-believer in astrology, just assume for a moment that there is some validity in the ancient doctrine's basic premise. If life has arisen on another planet, either in our own Milky Way galaxy, or in another galaxy far, far away, planetary components, in relation to position of the Sun (or a star in place of our Sun in another galaxy) will be very different from what we experience on Earth. Life forms, even if vaguely comparable to humans physically, would be psychologically different, in ways we cannot even begin to contemplate, because our Earth-bound minds are just that: "bound" - unable to stretch.

I looked around the net to discover whether any brave astrologer had tackled this topic head-on. The only examples touching on this, even obliquely, I was able to find were:
HERE

"• First you have to deal with a larger question: What happens to astrology if humans colonize space?
• And, of course, does astrology even make sense for fictional characters and stories?
• Another consideration is whether or not our science fiction tales reflect an astrological zeitgeist?"

And Extraterrestrial Astrology by Luciano Drusetta HERE.

Our Earth-bound minds are shackled to narrow perceptions, on every issue.

The more I think about this, the more I believe that expecting communication from extra-terrestrial living beings has to be a lost cause. A passing reader might consider it strange that I chose that particular photograph as my overall blog header: The Very Large Array in New Mexico. It's a daily reminder of an exciting trip there, and it proves one thing about Earthlings, myself included of course: we live in hope.

New Fashion Fascism?

Very little in the news is uplifting these days, the best at present is that Edward Snowden has not yet been arrested and was reported yesterday to be en route to a country where he could be granted political asylum. We'll discover exactly where he's headed soon enough, but where are we, as a country, headed? Although, as has been acknowledged before here in posts and comments, blanket surveillance of the population of the USA and elsewhere by our government didn't come as an absolute surprise; recent re-revelations have opened up valuable new conversations on the topic and have kick-started more writings on "where we'll be headed" if nothing changes.

Is there a "new fascism" either already in place or on the rise here in the USA? Our view of what fascism means is coloured by what we know of history, comparatively recent history from the 1930s onward. I've seen, from time to time around the net lists of "symptoms" of fascism - many are easily identifiable in today's USA, but I'm certainly not qualified to make a confident diagnosis. As in physical disease, certain symptoms can mask other problems, or the same set of symptoms combined in different proportions might be evidence of some other, still serious, ailment.

A good, reliable, starting point to understanding what's what is investigative journalist John Pilger's article: There's a New Fascism on the Rise, and the NSA Leaks Show Us What It Looks Like: The power of truth-tellers like Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema, the corporate academy and the corporate media.

Snowden’s revelation that Washington has used Google, Facebook, Apple and other giants of consumer technology to spy on almost everyone, is further evidence of modern form of fascism – that is the "abyss". Having nurtured old-fashioned fascists around the world – from Latin America to Africa and Indonesia – the genie has risen at home. Understanding this is as important as understanding the criminal abuse of technology.

I liked this comment from the long thread beneath Pilger's excellent piece - it's from William W. Haywood:

The US form of fascism does not look exactly like any thing we have seen so far, and why should it? There has never been a nation like the US. There is no exact form of fascism, either! Fascism is based on taking control of a nation's economy like an aids virus compromises an immune system. The fascists mutate into a form we don't readily recognize to get their work done. It doesn't attack from the outside but learns how to unlock the defenses of our democratic system using the power of wealth. This is what you see when a fascist form of government has taken control: first, it starts to prey on the citizens and institutions that once kept it democratic, and then it reverts to a full blown disease that destroys its host. This is the phase we are entering now.

An offshoot - and a dangerous one - is brought to our attention by a article from "Digby"

This Really is Big Brother: The Leak Nobody's Noticed

SNIP: Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans’ phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions.....................President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of “insider threat” give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.
The program could make it easier for the government to stifle the flow of unclassified and potentially vital information to the public, while creating toxic work environments poisoned by unfounded suspicions and spurious investigations of loyal Americans, according to these current and former officials and experts. Some non-intelligence agencies already are urging employees to watch their co-workers for “indicators” that include stress, divorce and financial problems.

And, from Bernie Sanders:



I found, among my drafts a list a commenter at Common Dreams, some months ago, provided on a topic touching on fascism in the USA - this is a list of "symptoms" by commenter "Jimbo.  "Jimbo"   set out to illustrate to readers that in the USA we are on the edge of a precipice, likely at any time to fall into a 21st century version of a fascist nation, albeit fascist with a pretty bow on top, a smartphone, i-pad, and a large-screen TV attached - initially. The commenter presented a list of evidential facts to support the premise. (I'm confident that the author of the comment would not object to my spreading the word, blanket permission was given another individual to do so.)

The List (slightly condensed here, for brevity's sake)

Some of the achievements during Obama's "Lesser Evilism Reign of Terror Traveling Road Show." The list is not exhaustive and covers only recent history:

Obama and the Democrats' Fascist Maneuverings:

Executive Order to create a Cat Food Commission stacked with anti-Social Security / Social Program corporatists.

White House opposed bringing back Glass Steagall.

WARS fully funded and EXPANDING- see AFRICOM.

Trillion dollars given to friends and campaign contributors on Wall Street.

Military Spending INCREASED.

Trillion+Dollars given to the Health Insurance Industry.

Killed possibility for a REAL “Public Option” or REAL Universal Health Care for at least another generation, and begin the “Entitlement Reform” defunding of Medicare (-$500 Billion).

Blocked ANY re-regulation of BIG BANKS and Credit Cards.

Protected the Bush War Criminals and Torturers from JUSTICE.

Expanded Drone Assasinations.

Reinforced the worst Police State provisions of the Patriot Act.

Expanded government surveillance.

EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) killed in the crib

Free Trade Job Off-shoring.

Supports De-regulation (see: Clinton & Death of Glass-Steagal)

NDAA / Expansion of Government Power.

Bernanke, Geithner. Holder.

Monsanto @ FDA.

Linking Social Security to the Deficit via the Payroll Tax “Holiday”

Crackdown on Occupy movement via Homeland Security.

Whistleblowers, a-la Bradley Manning & WikiLeaks attacked

Shielded BP for its Gulf Disaster

Pushed through the Trans Pacific Partnership

Expanded Military Involvement in Africa

Education plan boosts privatization, victimizes teachers

Put Pesticide Pusher in Charge of Agricultural Trade Relations.

Indefinitely imprisons detainees without charges

Promotes the Militarization of Mexico

Supports the Permanent War Budget

20,000 Airstrikes in President Obama's First Term Cause Death and Destruction From Iraq to Somalia.

Signed the NDAA into law - making it legal to assassinate Americans w/o charge or trial.

Initiated, and personally oversees a 'Secret Kill List'.

Waged war on Libya without congressional approval.

Started a covert, drone war in Yemen.

Escalated the proxy war in Somalia.

Escalated the CIA drone war in Pakistan.

Maintained a presence in Iraq even after "ending" the war.

Sharply escalated the war in Afghanistan.

Secretly deployed US special forces to 75 countries.

Sold $30 billion of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.

Signed an agreement for 7 military bases in Colombia.

Opened a military base in Chile.

Signed the Patriot Act extension into law.

Deported a modern-record 1.5 million immigrants.

Continued Bush's rendition program.

Sent U.S. troops to Niger to set up drone base

Warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, Indefinite detention
without charge or trial, Targeted killings of suspects by drone,
without any pretense of due process (even if they are US citizens).
These are not opinions these are ordinary facts- if it smells like fascism.............


From elsewhere a down-to-earth view of our plight and the difficulties we face in addressing it, by commenter "Nevada Liberal" (I've stupidly lost the source)

You would have to elect 218 Alan Graysons to the House. 60 Bernie Sanders' to the Senate. And Elect Dennis Kucinich as President in order to stop this thing you profess not to like. Off the top, 50% of the Nation would vehemently disagree with me. And, even if you could do that, it would still take you.....????.....10 - 20 years to turn the Supreme Court to that ideology, if you could maintain power that long???? You starting to kinda sorta get a feel for where we are at folks. Until then, keep calm and carry on.
(Nevada Liberal)

OR....if an opportunity should arise the more pro-active route would be
:

If fascism is indeed the disease we face, it will prove to be terminal to our way of life. Whereas socialism and capitalism might prove, with much sincere and determined effort from both sides, to become workable bedfellows in government, that other "ism" - fascism - is good for nothing and nobody in any civilised and humane society.

Minding Our Progress

Our great contemporary scientific geniuses are to be admired, one of these, Raymond Kurzweil about whom there's an archived post HERE - was mentioned in a piece at HuffPo's Science section this week, by Tanya Lewis: Mind Uploading' & Digital Immortality May Be Reality By 2045, Futurists Say. ...SNIPS:

NEW YORK — By 2045, humans will achieve digital immortality by uploading their minds to computers — or at least that's what some futurists believe. This notion formed the basis for the Global Futures 2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held here June 14-15................................
By 2045, "based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," Kurzweil said...............................

Mind uploading~~~~The conference took a surreal turn when Martine Rothblatt — a lawyer, author and entrepreneur, and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics Corp. — took the stage. Even the title of Rothblatt's talk was provocative: "The Purpose of Biotechnology is the End of Death."

Rothblatt introduced the concept of "mindclones" — digital versions of humans that can live forever. She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on "mindware," a kind of software for consciousness. "The first company that develops mindware will have [as much success as] a thousand Googles," Rothblatt said. But would such a mindclone be alive? Rothblatt thinks so. She cited one definition of life as a self-replicating code that maintains itself against disorder. Some critics have shunned what Rothblatt called "spooky Cartesian dualism," arguing that the mind must be embedded in biology. On the contrary, software and hardware are as good as wet ware, or biological materials, she argued. Rothblatt went on to discuss the implications of creating mindclones. Continuity of the self is one issue, because your persona would no longer inhabit just a biological body. Then, there are mind-clone civil rights, which would be the "cause célèbre" for the 21st century, Rothblatt said. Even mindclone procreation and reanimation after death were mentioned.

That's all very "skiffy". If predictions by would-be futurists from the past are anything to go by the date 2045, a mere 32 years ahead, will be found to have been decidedly optimistic. But in any case, is this the kind of thing the best and brightest scientific brains on the planet ought to be focusing on? How about lending a few genius-tinted thoughts to climate change, water shortages, new power sources? We need the best and brightest minds on these right now.

I'm the last one to criticise the human urge towards progress, but it does depend in which direction the progress would seem to be heading. A few with more fluent pens than mine have said something along those lines:

“Some upstarts always try to get closer to the source of creation by ascending to the source's level. The story of Icarus is of course a parable about the folly of such an effort. Get too close to the sun and your hubris will get you burned. Yet in the eyes of twenty-first-century capitalist culture, which worships at the twin altars of the individual and technology, Icarus had initiative. And his melted wings do not represent some deep character flaw; he just needed better beta testers.”
― Marcus Wohlsen, Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life.



“Progress is something with no pity, and no purpose. It just happens. It chews up all you ever knew, and spits out things you can't understand, and the only value it seems to have is to make a few people a lot of money.”
― Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.



“We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen.



“The farther you go, however, the harder it is to return. The world has many edges, and it's easy to fall off.”
― Anderson Cooper.



“After the monkeys came down from the trees and learned to hurl sharp objects, they had had to move into caves for protection--not only from the big predatory cats but, as they began to lose their monkey fur, from the elements. Eventually, they started transposing their hunting fantasies onto cave walls in the form of pictures, first as an attempt at practical magic and later for the strange, unexpected pleasure they discovered in artistic creation.
Time passed. Art came off the walls and turned into ritual. Ritual became religion. Religion spawned science. Science led to big business. And big business, if it continues on its present mindless, voracious trajectory, could land those of us lucky enough to survive its ultimate legacy back into caves again.”
― Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito.



“It would be advisable to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies.”
― Theodor W. Adorno