Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.
—Henry Ford

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.
—Buddha

A really interesting article in the New Yorker that is basically about the new age phenomenon ‘The Secret’, but also digs up some mid-1800-1900 ideas from the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson called ‘New Thought’, which seem to be the precursor for the ‘New Age’ movement—or at least it seems that way to me. According to the article, the New Age movement is—for better or worse—undercutting religion; making religion superfluous; making the differences between religion mean nothing. If only Richard Dawkins knew the New Age movement was destroying religion! What an irony. It reminds me of how, in the 1960s it was the Ku Klux Klan that sometimes sided with the black segregationist Nation of Islam—to which Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X belonged. Why? Because in many ways the Nation of Islam wanted segregation of the races, and so did the KKK.

An excerpt from the New Yorker article:

As Ralph Waldo Trine, one of the most popular New Thought [precursor to the New Age?] writers, wrote in 1897, the law of attraction was bound to dissolve creedal squabbling:

Minor differences, narrow prejudices, and all these laughable absurdities will so fall away by virtue of their very insignificance, that a Jew can worship equally as well in a Catholic cathedral, a Catholic in a Jewish synagogue, a Buddhist in a Christian church, a Christian in a Buddhist temple. Or all can worship equally well about their own hearth-stones, or out on the hillside, or while pursuing the avocations of every-day life.

This urge to transcend religious difference is also an urge, thinly veiled, to transcend religion itself. In Trine’s utopia, every house of worship is equally valuable—which is to say, equally superfluous.

Anyway, interesting article and overview of the roots of New Age (in my opinion, anyway), and the irony of The Ssecret. Check this article out.

Lots of love and good vibes, because what do we own other than or mood. Okay, our mood, our clothes and our car? No, seriously, at the end of the day, all we’ve got is our mood.

What a journey,

Pete

Yes, perhaps wonderful, or is it just some sort of laboratory/social confinement with subtle yet nefarious communist leanings? I don’t know, but having mentioned them in the last blog, I had to post this:

I couldn’t find the line about raising them for fun and profit, but I remember it clearly, so at some point I’m sure it was said. Notice the fine print, bottom left.

“Caricatures not intended to depict Artemia Salina.” Really? Not intended? Like the advertiser isn’t intending the stupid kid (say, me) to want something like the “caricature depicted.”

That’s life for you. Lots of love,

P.T. Barnum.

The how-to for success in a great recession was uncovered in this report from the Institute for Policy Studies (whom I know nothing about): Be ruthless and greedy—oh, and if you can get a tax-payer bail out while you’re at it, all the better. In a report called CEO Pay and the Great Recession, the Institute writes:

CEOs of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at S&P 500 firms, according to CEO Pay and the Great Recession, the 17th in a series of annual Executive Excess reports from the Institute for Policy Studies.

So what is an average citizen to do? Well, it’s a tough one, because even being a more aware, intelligent consumer can’t do much if one is largely on their own. But do what you can, learn what you can, and carry on…

Life remains, nonetheless, extraordinary. Oh, and did you hear the human brain has been getting considerably smaller since the time of the Neanderthal? Another blog, another time, but it must be true because I read it in Discover Magazine, and they write at the bottom of their front page: Plus cells that cure paralysis, a magnifying glass that could save the planet, cracking a coma mystery, and twenty things you didn’t know about teeth. Image saving the universe and knowing more about teeth all in the same issue. I haven’t felt so excited since it was possible to buy sea monkeys for both fun and profit. So why are brains getting smaller? Well, that’s open to opinion, but suffice to say primitive man may not have been so primitive…

Lots of love and flossing,

Pete

An interesting, off-putting “Big Brother” situation in Warren, Michigan, as pointed out on the libertarian website the Daily Bell. They quote Time Magazine:

Starting this week, fortune tellers in Warren, Mich., must be fingerprinted [fingerprinted!] and pay an annual fee of $150—plus $10 for a police background check—to practice their craft. The new rules are among America’s strictest on palmists, fortune readers, and other psychics—and part of a growing push to regulate a business that has never been taken, or overseen, very seriously.

The Daily Bell’s “free market analysis” is as follows:

We have been writing about regulation lately because the regulatory state is one of the very biggest of all power-elite themes. The financial crisis has actively fanned the flames of regulation. But at some point, regulatory society must surely crosses the divide between democracy and authoritarianism (a democracy being bad enough but an authoritarian one being worse). Eventually, inexorably you end up with a kind of totalitarianism. And what then? Dominant social theme (nonetheless): the marketplace needs to be tweaked and good government stands ready to do it.

I think their fears are relevant, and because they are relevant, the average non-lobbying citizen is put in one hell of a position: put (way too) simply, between a rock (state regulation) and a hard place (Big Business regulation—by their very actions of disregard for both people and environment).

With regard to Big Business, I mean this: Let’s say, for example, there is no regulation on a corporate polluter, and the corporation, in this deregulatory state, poisons drinking water. Well, people are therefore, ironically, “regulated” (ie limited in what they can do and how they can live) by said poisoned water. This is, indeed, a subtle point, but the line between regulation and deregulation is not as obvious as it appears to be. In a more extreme example, obviously: if bombing another country is allowed—in a sense, deregulation on the bombing of that country—the bombed country is indeed regulated by being bombed. You see? If I can’t safely leave my house due to “deregulation” (due to bombing), I am being regulated. I have a regulation on me, whether stated or not.

Anyway, on the Daily Bell website I asked a few other questions. Any wide thoughts or insights are always appreciated. I wrote:

Let’s face it, if mystics are on the run [from the state authorities], what of religious believers? Thanks again to Daily Bell for pointing out such a striking, cancerous danger zone, whose tipping point is so hard to know: “…at some point, regulatory society must surely crosses the divide between democracy and authoritarianism (a democracy being bad enough but an authoritarian one being worse). Eventually, inexorably you end up with a kind of totalitarianism. And what then?”

For many reasons, I have been for years in opposition to the disastrous, even criminal, Big State/Big Business (ie prison/military complex) War On Drugs policies, with a system currently “regulated” by drug lords and aforementioned Big Business/Big State interests. The alternative offered is often legalization with (state) regulation. This has its own concerns, as you [Daily Bell] point out. What are your thoughts on that? What options are there in your minds?

And one other question. Would a free market system (wherever that may be!), if it ever came to be, still be, by definition, corrupted/manipulated by advertisement of the kind we see today: everybody who drinks is happy/everybody who eats McDonald’s is happy/ everybody with car X gets the woman etc? Put another way, are the billions spent on advertisement that is largely playing with our senses through manipulations outside of the products usefulness, in some ways its own sort of “Keynesian intervention?” Is it not, I ask, half tongue in cheek, “stimulus by other means”? Put another way, for a true free market, would advertising as we see it so often today, need to be, irony of ironies, “regulated”?

Ah, the mind. The world. Love more!

Pete

Note: The Daily Bell, who respond with remarkable and appreciated speed, answered the question about “legalization with (state) regulation” of the illicit drug market this way:

Here is one answer: This [legalization with (state) regulation] is the perhaps best that can be done currently within the current system. But there was a time when states were truly differentiated. In fact, according to economist Murray Rothbard, pre-revolutionary Quakers were loath to travel to Massachusetts for fear they might be hanged. The best solution today would be if states really did begin to compete again to offer alternative visions of society. New Hampshire has differentiated itself a little. This is a hopeful sign.

The Ashmolean museum is considered “the first truly public library in Europe,” and it was begun on the collection bequeathed by the relatively celebrated scholar Elias Ashmole (23 May 1617—18 May 1692). This is a great historical era, of revolutions and uprisings, of Charles I, the King who lost his head, Oliver Cromwell, who took his head (and who himself was later exhumed by angry people), and Charles II and so on.

It turns out Elias Ashmole is my ancestry on my mother’s side. My mother’s grandmother was Constance Ashmole. This line goes back to the brother of Elias Ashmole—Elias never had children. Anyway, Elias was both a scientist and into the mystical arts, or what some would call the occult: astrology, alchemy and so on—and what some others would call pointless drivel. I recently (ten minutes ago) found this list of obscure books or papers, written by Elias Ashmole.

Ashmole was also a Freemason, evidently, and of which I know very little, not even the handshake. But a book was written about Ashmole in this regard: The Magus of Freemasonry: The Mysterious Life of Elias Ashmole—Scientist, Alchemist and Founder of the Royal Society. All kind of intriguing, what with turning lead to gold, and the price of bullion these days.

But where am I leading? Yes, I looked up books by or about Ashmole at the Vancouver Public Library (on line) and found this book by William Lilly, with the strange title: Mr. William Lilly’s history of his life and times from the year 1602 to 1681 / Written by Himself, in the sixty-sixth year of his Age, to His Worthy Friend, Elias Ashmole, Esq. Obviously, Elias funded the enterprise. He was also the editor. The book can actually be found here.

Here’s a painting of Elias. My wife thinks he looks like Kevin Spacey with a wig on, but I can’t quite see it. Feel free to agree or not.

But either way, perhaps it is a little woo-woo that the real Kevin Spacey actually narrated a documentary I directed (Uganda Rising). Although we did the narration on a Vancouver-London feed, in a studio, there is a very remote possibility that Kevin was wearing a similar wig, but I doubt it. First of all, it would have been troublesome with headphones. Secondly, why would he? Unless he too believes he looks like this painting of Elias Ashmole, and enjoys the similarity.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I then looked up William Lilly, who was a well-known astrology of the same era. It turns out Lilly (allegedly) predicted the Great Fire of London of 1666, fourteen years before the blaze began. So when the fire actually happened, burning down the city, Lilly was accused of having started it (from Maurice McCann’s William Lilly’s Prediction of the Fire of London):

On Friday, October 25, 1666, the famous English astrologer William Lilly was ordered to appear in the Speaker’s Chamber of the House of Commons to give testimony before the special Committee set up to examine the cause of the great fire which had devastated the city of London in September. Lilly, it was claimed, had successfully predicted the outbreak of the fire fourteen years before when he had published Monarchy or No Monarchy in England a book containing nineteen hieroglyphic drawings giving carefully disguised predictions. As a consequence of one of these, featuring a large fire (see figure below [go to the link to see it]), Lilly was seriously suspected of causing the fire. It was also thought that he wished to obtain credit for forecasting the event. Being fearful of what might happen to him, Lilly persuaded the committee that his prediction had not been precise and he was allowed to go.

For over three hundred years Lilly’s hieroglyphic prediction of the Fire of London has been dismissed, even by astrologers unable to work out his code, and no one has attempted to interpret it. Now, however, the code has been deciphered and the hieroglyphics shown to be a disguised horoscope for the moment of the outbreak of the great fire on Sunday, September 2, 1666.

I haven’t looked farther, but here is more about Lilly, and the deciphering of his coded hieroglyphics, for what it’s worth. His relationship with Ashmole was described this way, by the same writer:

Though a staunch parliamentarian, [Lilly] was consulted by people of various political views and could rightly claim to have one or two friends on the Royalist side, the most famous being Elias Ashmole, a fellow astrologer and founder of the Ashmolian Museum in Oxford. Lilly later studied medicine and Ashmole used his influence with the Archbishop of Canterbury to obtain a licence for him to practice. The two men remained firm friends until Lilly’s death in 1681.

That’s it. Just a little quirky history. What a world of dreams and genes and memes and schemes. And whatever else rhymes, slightly.

Lots of love,

Pete

One from Voltaire, quoted justly and liberally by Libertarians:

“…the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.”

And the one they quote more conservatively:

“…the art of [Big Business also] consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.”
– Voltaire’s Variations

Yet through both of these systems lies human nature, or human nature lies, and also does good, and the perfect tension then is what needs to be found. The perfect tension, of course, is always shifting slightly, with thousands of different places and scenarios and cultures requiring different means to maximize quality of life for themselves. And then there’s the miracle of the individual…

Ah, life.

People sometimes ask how the policies of the War on Drugs—criminalizing illicit drug users—are fuelling the HIV epidemic, as peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown. Consider these daunting Canadian statistics, which of course I haven’t verified. The following paragraph is from a National Post article about the RCMP officers in Kamloops BC supposedly watching two female inmates having sex, and not intervening. If the two are in prison for, say, drug use, should they even be incarcerated? The world is certainly a weird one. Anyway, these statistics are stunningly unfortunate and dangerous, and a health disaster:

The same [CSC study released in March] found that the rate of HIV infection in federal prisons is 4.6%, about 15 times greater than that in the general population. In addition, the rate of infection of hepatitis C in federal prisons was found to be 31%, a rate 39 times greater than that in society as a whole.

And as counter-intuitive as it sounds, drugs evidently can not even be kept out of prison, let alone a country, so how the enforcement policies of the War on Drugs are going to stop “drugs at their source” is absolutely beyond me.

In some parts of the mainstream press, the shift is definitely happening towards support for evidence-based drug policy. For sure changes in policies won’t save or fix everything—far from it, and this fact will cause great backlash if policies do change—but according to the studies and some other countries, evidence shows decriminalization tendencies or legalization with regulation or other harm reduction practices almost certainly reduce violence and (definitely) incarceration, and possibly drug use. If we can’t yet see the importance of this in Canada, consider common folk living in certain parts of Mexico. Supposedly, 28,000 people have been killed in War On Drugs-related violence since President Calderon took power some four years ago, and pushed the American War on Drugs policies/agenda (most Mexican drugs, of course, go to America. Conversely, 90% of the arms used in Mexico come from America. Compare the homicide numbers to, say, the 4,416 American soldiers killed in Iraq since the invasion there in 2003 and one begins to see the insane extent to which the War on Drug fuels greater violence, without stopping supply. Both rates of death are brutal, of course, but the latter puts the former in some sort of context, maybe.

Supposedly Mexico has 50,000 active troops involved in fighting the War on Drugs. Again, that is a civil war, in terms of numbers, and a wide definition of terrorism (from both parties) with regards to the general populace who must live in relatively constant uncertainty and distress.

But who knows what forces are pushing where, both visible and invisible? Hold onto your heart, your joy, your soul, your discernment…

Pete

Restorative justice is often described as an indigenous model for justice—more in the mode of communication, showing remorse, forgiveness between the victim and the victimizer. So what were the laws of some indigenous groups when it came to substance abuse? I have no idea. But as the war against the War on Drugs thankfully starts to see change in the mainstream press—at least we’re thinking now—this article in McLean’s magazine about dealing with alcoholism in Ahousaht an community of the west coast of Vancouver Island, near the resort town of Tofino. An excerpt:

This spring, community leaders—concerned by the poisonous impact of addictions, bootlegging and drug dealing—turned their back on modern legal remedies, and drew on the authority of their ancient laws. Hereditary chiefs and traditional law keepers went door-to-door on the Flores Island reserve in a lightning quick sweep of chronic offenders. They issued an edict: get clean or get out.

In all, 32 men and women ranging from 17 to 58 were transported 45 minutes by boat to a disused logging camp on the mainland at Sydney Inlet for eight intense weeks of cleansing, therapy and traditional teaching. Six refused treatment and were ordered to leave the community. Some threatened court action, but they have since backed down.

The results, or successes, would be interesting. The full article is here. Is this right? Is it right given the size of a given community? is it right given the damage alcohol (and other drugs) have fuelled with respect to the indigenous peoples and communities all over the world?

I read it super quickly in a short break, so I’ll have to reread it. ‘Get out,’ it may be enoted, is not incarceration—and, of course, utterly blasted, life-disrupting and even ruining alcoholism isn’t illegal. One statistic that isn’t mentioned is that a person of First Nation descent in Canada is almost nine times more likely to be incarcerated in the system than a non-First Nation person, or so I have read.

So before a Canadian wears himself out insulting the American system, it is worth knowing that although Aboriginal people make up only 2.7 percent of the Canadian population, they account for 18.5 percent of the federal prison population (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 2006).

From an essay I wrote called Noam Chomsky on Drugs (with tons of fun footnotes!):

According to Statistics Canada data, while the overall incarceration rate for non-Aboriginal people is 117 per 100,000 adults, the overall incarceration rate for Aboriginal people in Canada is estimated to be 1,024 per 100,000—or almost 9 times higher for Aboriginal persons.

It gets worse. According to the Government of Canada and The Office of the Correctional Investigator (Oct 16, 2006), Report Finds Evidence of Systemic Discrimination Against Aboriginal Inmates in Canada’s Prisons:

“…the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) routinely classifies First Nations, Métis and Inuit inmates as higher security risks than non-native inmates; Aboriginal offenders are released later in their sentences than other inmates; and they are more likely to have their conditional release revoked for technical reasons than other offenders.

According to the Report, Aboriginal inmates often do not receive timely access to rehabilitative programming and services that would help them return to their communities.”

It sounds like the community, in one way or another, needs to step in. So what is the best way? If you have thoughts, drop a line (so to speak),

Pete

I have heard a lot about domestic workers in Canada—often Filipino. They come here for the money, for their family, but are therefore unable to raise their own children, who often remain in the Philippines. Later, if the children ever make it to Canada, they are not bonded with their parent, and the situation proves difficult. Here is an interview on the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) with Marissa Begonia, a Filipino domestic worker in England.

An excerpt:

I am a domestic worker and have been for 16 years now. Through this job, I have been raising, educating and giving my three children the decent living they deserve. I first worked as a domestic worker in Singapore, but the salary was very low, and so I decided to work in Hong Kong. My last employer in Hong Kong brought me to London. I didn’t know my rights at that time, but when I started to have my days off, my fellow domestic workers told me that I have the right to change employer. I changed because my salary was very low. I now have a very good and supportive employer. I have been with this loving family for six years now. They understand the work I do in J4DW [Justice For Domestic Workers]. My first daughter joined me here in 2008, but I am still having a problem bringing in my two other children. As a mother, this is all I dream of in my life: to have all my children by my side. I can still feel the pain up to this day from when I was forced to leave them. I preferred to go away rather than see them slowly die of starvation. I don’t wish them to go through the life I’ve been through. My children are my whole life, the very reason why I have sacrificed the most I can, and they are the future.

The full interview is here.

Another article called Modern Day Slavery, put out by (or at least related to) J4DW.

The inequities are too deep to grasp, but we must at least bear witness, I think. I don’t know.

Love more,

Pete

And what about Laika, the space dog? They put her in a Sputnik, and sent her into space. They attached wires to her heart and her brain to see how she felt. I don’t think she felt so good. She spun around there for five months until her doggy bag was empty. She starved to death….It bothers me to think of that poor dog Laika. Terrible sending a dog in a spaceship without enough food. She had to do it for human progress, she didn’t ask to go.
—Ingemar, in My Life as a Dog

Long before the disastrous industrial farming conditions that today make half-billion egg recalls inevitable (even if recalls are shockingly only on a voluntary basis by Corporations), a Russian mongrel dog by the name of Laika became, in Sputnik II (the Russian satellite), the first animal to orbit earth. And the first orbital death. Laika supposedly paved the way towards manned flights in outer space. What I didn’t know was the training that took place:

To adapt the dogs [several dogs were trained for the trip, Laika eventually chosen] to the confines of the tiny cabin of Sputnik 2, they were kept in progressively smaller cages for periods up to 20 days. The extensive close confinement caused them to stop urinating or defecating, made them restless, and caused their general condition to deteriorate. Laxatives did not improve their condition, and the researchers found that only long periods of training proved effective.

I don’t know why I found that interesting, but I did. Here she is, and she looks sad to me, or resigned—although I am undoubtedly projecting my human sensibilities, or insensibilities.

And from the BBC:

The animal, launched on a one-way trip on board Sputnik 2 in November 1957, was said to have died painlessly in orbit about a week after blast-off.

Now, it has been revealed she died from overheating and panic just a few hours after the mission started.

And now we have thousands of satellites in orbit (and thousands now non-functioning, orbiting space debris), and they are the key to our remarkable communication systems, from GPS to iphones to all the rest. And thousands of years ago, yogis said we are constantly receiving signals from elsewhere, if only we could learn to listen and get on the wavelength…

We were born before the wind…and here’s to Laika the space dog, and before that, a wild mongrel wandering the streets of Moscow….

Pete