Hampton Roads Publishing Company Blog

This has the “feel” of being genuine. From http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080211.wjack11/BNStory/National/home

And doesn’t that final quotation sound like John F. Kennedy!

I am JFK’s love child, B.C. man says

MARSHA LEDERMAN

From Monday’s Globe and Mail

February 11, 2008 at 5:49 PM EST

The man who American journalists are investigating as the possible illegitimate son of John F. Kennedy lives in British Columbia and bears a striking resemblance to the 35th president of the United States.

So much so, that people will sometimes stop him on the street.

“Not in a funny way, but in a scary way,” the man named Jack said during a meeting Saturday morning.

Jack, who has asked that his full identity not be revealed at this time, approached The Globe and Mail on Friday after the newspaper ran an article about the possible existence of a John F. Kennedy love child living in Vancouver. Wary that he would become the subject of a media hunt to discover his identity, he said he chose to come forward.

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This article, from The Economist, http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10534077, was called to my attention by the Schwartzreport. It is sad to see that exactly what E.F. Schumacher predicted long ago is happening — and the people most affected seem not to have a clue that the cause can be laid at the door of an inappropriately sized technology. Note that the article describes the change as improvements in farming technology. Do improvements lead to death?

The Great Plains drain

Jan 17th 2008 | CHEYENNE WELLS
From The Economist print edition
How the interior is learning to live with a shrinking population

IN EASTERN Colorado, the human tide ebbs. Cheyenne county, which had 3,700 inhabitants in 1930, now has just 1,900. And the drift away from the area seems to be speeding up. In the old county jail, which is now a museum, a photograph from 1910 shows a three-storey schoolhouse towering over the town of Cheyenne Wells. The new school is one storey high—yet it already seems too big.

America as a whole is growing briskly. Between 2000 and 2006 its population swelled by 6.4%, according to the Census Bureau. Yet the expansion has passed many areas by. Two-fifths of all counties are shrinking (see map). In general, people are moving to places that are warm, mountainous or suburban. They are leaving many rural areas, with the most relentless decline in a broad band stretching from western Texas to North Dakota. In parts, the Great Plains are more sparsely populated now than they were in the late 19th century, when the government declared them to be deserted.

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How many times have we seen the same thing? In the name of the great god “science” induction goes out the window when it leads to results that seem to contradict what they call “the laws of nature” — as if nature rather than scientists had deduced and codified them and decided to worship them.

Anybody who has investigated psychic phenomena knows all about dismissal by these “authorities” who refuse to investigate because they “know” it can’t be so. Translation:: the laws they learned can’t be wrong, or inadequate, or incomplete, or incompetently interpreted. If it’s experience versus theory, then follow theory of course. Pompous idiots!

From http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/300042

Turning physics on its ear
SEAN KILPATRICK/TORONTO STAR

Inventor Thane Heins with his electric motor invention, which he has dubbed the Perepiteia, in lab in the basement of his home in Almonte, near Ottawa.

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This column interested me because long ago I read a book by a man named Alexander Dolgin (if memory serves) called An American in the Gulag. He related how one time after the Russians had beaten him and dumped him in his cell, he rose out of his beaten, quivering body and looked down upon it with compassion for quite a while until he re-merged with it. I made note of it because he did not associate it with out-of-body experiences and probably never even heard of them, so his experience struck me as uncontaminated by wishful thinking or even suggestibility.

In Michael’s case too I think pain drove him out of your normal consciousness – not out of his mind but out of his normal consciousness – so that his conscious mind retained a memory of functioning at a higher level. Hard to describe this; our language was not designed to describe such things, but I’m hoping you get the idea sort of by osmosis. I think that psychological theory is backwards. Our consciousness is not the apex of the pyramid, but the bottom of the whirlpool. What psychology calls the subconscious or unconscious is actually our connection to the wider reality above and beyond us. We extend beyond time and space, but are only intermittently aware that we do. In his case, and Dolgin’s, he was driven by extremity to change his viewpoint for a while. Note, by the way, that the normal everyday personality continued to function, which it certainly could not have done had his “you” been identical to it and he been away.

WALKING NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

by MICHAEL VENTURA

The thing about doing radio is that you can’t stop and think. That’s what they call “dead air.” Radio artists of old – Jean Shepherd, Fred Allen – knew how to pause and let a moment hover, but you don’t ever stop. I had stopped. I was being interviewed in a dingy Pacifica station in Studio City. Dingy is dingy, I don’t mind it, but suddenly that day (some years ago) I minded a lot. I noticed the little broadcast booth was dark and there were coffee stains on the table by the mics, and the carpet was worn almost through, and it was dirty, there was stuff around – stuff, scraps of this and that… a used paper cup by the trash basket (someone missed the throw?), a stapler on its side on the table, why hadn’t anyone put it right, how long had it been like that, an hour, all day, days? A man was interviewing me and I’d been talking. Can’t remember about what. And I heard Lady Brett , in The Sun Also Rises, say clear as a bell, “Don’t talk rot, Jake.” And I stopped. The interviewer was quick, he filled in, continued my thought, asked another question. I began talking again, apparently making sense – anyway, he seemed interested. I had no interest at all, wasn’t even listening, just talking. What I was really doing was watching.

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icWales.co.uk

Link to Article

Antarctic ice shelf did not just melt away

Feb 7 2008 by Abbie Wightwick, Western Mail

THE dramatic collapse of an Antarctic ice sheet in 2002 may not have been caused by global warming alone, research published by a Welsh academic today claims.

When the 10,000-year-old 400-metre thick Larsen B ice shelf crumbled into the sea in 2002, it was assumed to be a victim of climate change.

But a controversial paper published by Professor Neil Glasser from Aberystwyth University says the glacier may have crumbled anyway.

It was riddled with cracks and fault lines and weakened by sea currents beneath, it says.

Last night Prof Glasser told the Western Mail, “Climate change may have been the last straw, but it was not the only straw.”

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Fascinating article forwarded by a friend. From http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4216350&page=1

Mystery Behind the Damanhur Temples
Hand-Built Maze Hidden in a Mountainside Is Home to a Secret Society

The Damanhur Temples of Humankind sit undergo in an Italian mountain 30 miles north of Turin. The massive structure was built by hand and is only 10 percent complete. (From the book “Damanhur Temples of Humankind”)

By CHRIS CUOMO, ALBERTO ORSO and IMAEYEN IBANGA
Jan. 31, 2008

Hidden away in a country renowned for its architectural beauty lies a massive hand-built place of worship many tourists never see.
Photos
The Damanhur Temples

An entrance that looks like a mineshaft opens up to a maze carved inside the mountain holding the Damanhur Temples of Humankind in the Valchiusella Valley, about 30 miles north of Turin.

Damanhur narrates the history of human potential through art. With at least nine rooms — some with 25-foot high ceilings — it looks as if the secret doors and passageways were built centuries ago.

In truth, the unlikely temple is no ancient wonder and was built piecemeal by 150 people over a 15-year period beginning in 1978. The work was so secret, the Italian government never knew it was going on and never gave permission for it.

“We were very good at keeping the secret,” Damanhur spokeswoman Esperide Ananas said. “When there was maybe loud work going on we would play records.

“If somebody happened to hear they would think we were just having a party,” she said.

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From the Las Cruces (New Mexico) Sun-News http://www.lcsun-news.com/healthyliving/ci_8110969

HANDS-ON HEALING:

Art therapy creates an outlet to cope with trauma too intense to express in words

By Torrey Meeks For the Sun-News
Article Launched: 01/30/2008 12:00:00 AM MST

Christine Sharpes of Las Cruces is a nationally accredited art therapist… (Photo by Torrey Meeks)

It seems like an innocuous and unrevealing request: Draw a tree, or use watercolors to paint a picture of your family at the park. Don’t worry about making something that’s going to hang in the Louvre, just do the best you can.

But from such simple pieces of art a schematic develops, says Christine Sharpes — a lifelong art therapist — one with the ability to unlock the complex mechanics that drive the healing process.

Sharpes, a nationally accredited art therapist in Las Cruces, has spent more than 35 years in the field, and was one of the founders of the Art Therapy Credentials Board in the late 1960s.

Many times, Sharpes says, emotional or physical trauma can be so intense that it is impossible to express in words. For people in such situations, “Art gives them a voice. They may not be in control their own lives, but they are in control of the drawing.”

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The news item below, “Entire Synthetic Genome Created,” is via Stephan Schwartz’ Schwartzreport. Stephan, who is usually perceptive, here says “The road to Homo Superiorus just flattens and broadens.”

I cannot agree. This is appalling.

Here is all you need to know: “The new work is an important second step in a three-step process to the creation of synthetic life“

Does anyone really think that a science tied to (dependent upon) our present political and economic system can be trusted with matters of this consequence? Do we have any reason to believe that practical applications of this knowledge will be biased toward the well-being and advancement of humanity as a whole rather than specially privileged groups?

In that context, this is not wonderful news, it is awful news. It is Frankenstein all over again. It is not Homo Superiorus being created, but Homo Separatus, or perhaps Homo Tyrannis.

We can no longer separate out “Science” from the economic and political forces that drive it. To do so is to be in the position of Werner von Braun, helping the Nazis to develop the V-2 rocket because he was interested in the conquest of outer space.

Do we want to wind up cheerleading the people who are leading us toward an ever greater division between those who have power and those who do not?

From http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080125-artificial-life.html

Entire Synthetic Genome Created

John Roach
for National Geographic News
January 25, 2008

Scientists yesterday announced that they have successfully created an entire synthetic genome in the lab by stitching together the DNA of the smallest known free-living bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium.

Experts are hailing the research as an important breakthrough in genetic manipulation that will one day lead to the “routine” creation of synthetic genomes-possibly including those of mammals.

This is “a striking technical accomplishment,” biochemist Leroy Hood, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email.

“It represents the initial stages of an important new step in studying how genes function together in systems to create complex phenotypes [traits],” added Hood, co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington.

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THIS is an inspirational story. Not a story with a happy ending, exactly — but an inspirational story, all the same. You won’t forget it. From the Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com/bearattacks/story/288501.html

Mauling victim moves on with life

Grizzly took his sight, but not his future

By DEBRA McKINNEY | dmckinney@adn.com

Published: January 20th, 2008 03:21 AM
Last Modified: January 20th, 2008 11:20 AM

Dr. James Kallman woke the instant his pager went off that summer night in 2003, and soon had an emergency room doctor on the line.

“A young guy,” she said. “He’s been attacked by a bear. Horrible facial trauma.”

She had a lot of trouble articulating the injury, said Kallman, who was trying to figure out if other specialists should be called in too.

“It’s terrible. We can’t see anything. I just need you to come.”

Kallman arrived around 2 in the morning, took one look at his patient and froze.

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I like this. Imagine someone connecting our political and economic health with integrity. Who’d ‘a’ thunk, eh? From the Las Cruces Sun-News http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_8080412?source=most_emailed

Economic bailout: Losing our integrity?

By Gregory Zanetti For the Sun-News

One hundred years ago, the British pound sterling was already in decline and the US dollar in ascent. As the pound retreated, so did the once mighty British Empire.

When Soviet communism failed, the world focused on the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the collapse of the ruble, however, that led to the fall of the Soviet empire. Because when you can’t pay your military, tanks sit idle in the motor pools, submarines rust in the ports, and jets don’t fly.

History is clear. The fall of currency presages the fall of political, economic, and military power.

This is why today’s economic headlines must be viewed in a broader context than just recession, inflation, elections and stock markets.

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