Lawrence R. Spencer's Blog, page 27

DISINFORMATION PROGRAM

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WEAPON OF MASS HYPNOSIS

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This documentary reveals how television is used as a population control device. “Mass Media” mind control methods are a very ugly and uncomfortable reality of our “electronic society”. George Orwell predicted that “Big Brother” would use television to create a global totalitarian state in his book “1984”.  The book was published in 1949, about ten years before television became a common household item.  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four  )

In my lifetime television has become universal on Earth, and the totalitarian mind-control state described by Orwell has become a reality.  Digital Television sets and programming services are now MANDATORY in most of the countries of the world.  For example, as of January 1, 2013, whether you want to or not, even if you don’t have a radio or TV set – and now a computer or tablet – in your household, you are required to pay a monthly fee to help finance Germany’s public broadcasters.  This kind of “mandatory TV” legislation is being enacted in many other places as well.

It is not pleasant to watch this video. However, if you never turn on a television set again, it may save your sanity and your spirit from the intentional degradation contained in the “programs” shown. How can we defend ourselves from this “weapon”? If we don’t own a TV, don’t buy one.  If we own at TV, don’t turn it on!

INVISIBLE and INVINCIBLE

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TEN UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS

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Language is composed of symbols to which significance or meaning have been assigned.  It cannot express the ineffable.  The following article, by Esther Inglis-Arkell, illustrates the ineffability of certain concepts.

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“English is so limited sometimes. There are so many kickass words in other languages, that describe concepts that we just don’t have one word for in English. And that’s a shame, because sometimes we find ourselves in situations that English just can’t describe.

Science fiction and fantasy are full of those sorts of quirky situations and concepts, in fact. Here are 10 words that have no English equivalent, and the science fiction and fantasy classics that you’d want to use them to describe.

 10. Aware (Japanese)

The Meaning: Aware is a word, quite well-known, for the bittersweetness of a brief and fading moment of transcendent beauty. It’s that “last burst of summer” feel, or the transience of early spring.

The Work: The Lord of the Rings is the work that most needs this word to describe it. Sure, it’s an adventure and linguistics tale, but backing the battles is an ever-present tone. The whole point of this fantasy trilogy is a chronicling of the end of an era. The days of magic, both terribly evil and extraordinarily beautiful, are coming to an end. With destruction of the ring — the ultimate evil in the world — all the good of the dwarves and hobbits and elves retreat from the world as well, and the age of myth gives way to the more prosaic age of humans.

9. Maya (Sanskrit)

The Meaning: This word is one that could be applied to a lot of protest movements and many political speeches. It refers to belief — the often unfortunate belief — that the symbol of a thing is the same as the thing itself. It’s the, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” of the literary world.

The Work: V for Vendetta is a work that plays with symbolism and how symbolism becomes real in the eyes of the populace. The eponymous V is armed with a mountain of symbols, from the letter and roman numeral of his name to a particular kind of rose to London buildings to the Guy Fawkes mask that he always wears. Whether this mistaken belief — that a guy playing around with cops and bombs can free a whole country — would actually lead to the kind of sweeping social change depicted in the book is up to you to decide.

8. Wei-wu-wei (Chinese)

The Meaning: Wei-wu-wei is conscious nonaction. It’s a deliberate, and principled, decision to do nothing whatsoever, and to do it for a particular reason.

The Work: Zone One, by Colson Whitehead is the non-action zombie novel. Leaving aside stupid comparisons in reviews that shall remain linkless, it is an understandably frustrating book. The narrative meanders through the current clean-up job, past wanderings, and extended social commentary of a man in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. It’s light on action and heavy on description and sustained metaphor. Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, you know it’s a deliberate thing. Our own Charlie Jane Anders review of the book states, “you get the sense, after a while, that Whitehead is deliberately trying to deny the reader any feeling of narrative satisfaction, through denseness and obfuscation.” It’s a definite wei-wu-wei novel.

7. Bricoleur (French)

The Meaning: A bricoleur is someone who starts building something with no clear plan, adding bits here and there, cobbling together a whole while flying by the seat of their pants.

The Work: Oh, golly. We can all think of at least five different series that were worked on by some real bricoleurs, can’t we? But I’d have to say that Lost is the most recent, and the most startling, one of them. They seemed to be making it up since the beginning and hoping no one noticed. Bricoleurs don’t always make a shamble of things. The word can also refer to someone whose loose and improvisational style leads to an inventive and engaging whole. Doctor Who, in its continuous broadcasting under many different creative directors, can be said to be a, um, bricolage? And the series has built an engaging world with something for everyone.

6. Schlimmbesserung (German)

The Meaning: A schlimmbesserung is a supposed improvement that makes things worse. There are actually a lot of words for this in a lot of languages, and that makes me think that English needs to get on the ball and coin a native word for this concept. Everyone needs it.

The Work: Did people want the ‘first’ episodes in the Star Wars series? You bet they did. Did they need them? Debatable. Did that new-old trilogy add anything to what was already there? No. Quite the opposite. And you could say the same for the many re-released CGI upgrades that the original movies received over the years. Some things shouldn’t be improved. Or at least, certainly not in the way they were.

5. Orenda (Huron)

The Meaning: Orenda is the invocation of the power of human will to change the world around us. It is set up to be the opposing force to fate or destiny. If powerful forces beyond your control are trying to force you one way, orenda is a kind of voiced summoning of personal strength to change fate.

The Work: For me, the most interesting part of the Matrix Trilogy was the part that can be described by orenda. I wasn’t too impressed by the first movie’s reveal of Neo as the chosen one, or the idea of all of reality being fake. What I liked was when we got to the second movie, and all that ‘chosen one’ stuff fell victim to the power of predictability and statistics. Neo wasn’t the chosen one. He was a familiar protocol, and he and his fellow humans would obey the dictates of that protocol. Changing that, and the moment when he went from embracing his ‘destiny’ to fighting it, was the point of the series, I thought.

4. Gâchis (French)

The Meaning: This one means ‘a wasted opportunity.’ Specifically it means an opportunity that was wasted by ineptness being hurled at it from all directions.

The Work: Sounds like the on-air run ofFirefly to me. I’m not among those fans who think that Firefly would have been a runaway success. It was a risk. It was a niche genre in a niche genre. Still, it seems like jumbling up the episodes and airing them, you know, whenever, was a bad way to handle an original concept.

3. Weltschmerz (German)

The Meaning: It could be termed world-weariness or ennui, but this particular has the quirk of almost only being applied to privileged young people.

The Work: Can anyone place the follow lyrics: Life can’t be easy/ It’s not always swell./ Don’t tell me truth hurts, little girl./ ‘Cause it hurts like hell. The fact that this was sung to, and about, a fifteen-year-old LARPing suburbanite with a room over-crowded with toys, a closet full of costumes, and a loyal pure-bred sheep dog makes Labyrinth the perfect movie to embody this word. What makes it even better is it is a call for such people to grow up and be more mature, all the while adding in enough dramatic elements that real-life people in the same situation (and let me reluctantly raise my hand, here) felt that it really spoke to them. I still love Labyrinth. It’s a fun and well-done movie. But it definitely resonated with a certain demographic.

2. Kalpa (Sanskrit)

The Meaning: Time passing on a cosmic scale

The Work: That’s what 2001: A Space Odyssey is all about. Everything, from the music to the subject matter to the deliberate invocation of shapes and symbols as a way of signalling both change and continuity, was meant to show how the ‘cosmic’ passage of unimaginable amounts of time. Since we’re now well past 2001, perhaps Kalpa would have been a better title for the movie, and novel, in the first place. But who knew – for sure – that it had that kind of staying power?

1. Razbliuto (Russian) Update: Or English!

The Meaning: This word, pronounced ros-blee-OO-toe, describes the feeling that a person (generally meant to be a man) has for the person who he once loved, but now no longer loves.

The Work: Take your pick. I have my eye on a few big franchises nowadays that I think will cause a lot of people some razbliuto in a few years. Maybe even a few months. For me personally, though, I suppose I’ve come full circle to The Lord of the Rings. I adored it at one age, and read it over and over on car trips and at school under the desk, and late at night with my room light being switched off – not at all sneakily, I’m sure – whenever my parents came by. And while I respect the work and world-building that went in to it, I have no desire to pick it up ever, ever again. I didn’t even see the movies. And there’s a reason why I added the pronunciation guide to this particular word. I think it needs to get in to circulation in general, since everyone knows the feeling of loving a story at one particular time in their life, and then that love falling away. But I suspect this kind of feeling is particularly strong in sci-fi and fantasy fans. These works don’t just offer a book to love, but an entire world to immerse oneself in, with every character, situation, and story a shining possibility. The stories in these genres can mold themselves to people’s inner lives more than realistic fiction can. But inner lives change, and the things that fill us with joy and inspiration at one point in our lives simply aren’t relevant at other points. While there are plenty of sci-fi and fantasy stories that endure, there are many that drop away as we change. There are some former Ann Rice fans out there who have something to say to Twilight fans. There are people who love Xena who have something to say to fans of Katniss. But to say it, they have to know the word. So say it with me: ros-blee-OO-toe.”

THIS IS A REPOST OF AN ARTICLE BY Esther Inglis-Arkell, from the book They Have a Word for It  by Howard Rheingold, via io9

OBSERVER

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UNTOUCHABLE

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Order  ALIEN INTERVIEW from the publisher

Download the ALIEN INTERVIEW Audiobook from Audible.com

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An excerpt from the book ALIEN INTERVIEW, Edited and published by Lawrence R. Spencer:

“Each IS-BE* is told that they have a special purpose for being on Earth.  But, of course there is no purpose for being in a prison — at least not for the prisoner. 

Any undesirable IS-BEs who are sentenced to Earth were classified as “untouchable” by the “Old Empire” * .  This included anyone that the “Old Empire” judged to be criminals who are too vicious to be reformed or subdued, as well as other criminals such as sexual perverts, or beings unwilling to do any productive work. 

An “untouchable” classification of IS-BEs also includes a wide variety of “political prisoners”.   This  includes IS-BEs who are considered to be noncompliant “free thinkers” or “revolutionaries” who make trouble for the governments of the various planets of the “Old Empire”. Of course, anyone with a previous military record against the “Old Empire” is also shipped off to Earth.

A list of “untouchables” include artists, painters, singers, musicians, writers, actors, and performers of every kind.  For this reason Earth has more artists per capita than any other planet in the “Old Empire”.

“Untouchables” also include intellectuals, inventors and geniuses in almost every field.  Since everything the “Old Empire” considers valuable has long since been invented or created over the last few trillion years, they have no further use for such beings.  This includes skilled managers also, which are not needed in a society of obedient, robotic citizens.

Anyone who is not willing or able to submit to mindless  economic, political and religious servitude as a tax-paying worker in the class system of the “Old Empire” are “untouchable” and sentenced to receive memory wipe-out and permanent imprisonment on Earth.

The net result is that an IS-BE is unable to escape because they can’t remember who they are, where they came from, where they are.  They have been hypnotized to think they are someone, something, sometime, and somewhere other than where they really are.”

* Is-Be (DEFINITION):  “the primary nature of an immortal being is that they live in a timeless state of “is”, and the only reason for their  existence is that they decide to “be”.”

* “Old Empire” (DEFINITION): “”Old Empire” (this is not the official name, but a nick-name given to the conquered civilization…) that served as the seat of central government for this galaxy, and other adjoining regions of space.”

WORK OF HUMAN HANDS

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PHOTOGRAPHS OF NATIVE AMERICANS BY EDWARD CURTIS

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My 6 times Great Grandmother was the sister of the Chief of the Mohawk Indians in New York circa 1750. This is part of my biological and spiritual heritage. Tragically, the greatest genocide in the history of Earth was the murder of native people in North and South continents of the Western Hemisphere of Earth, misnamed “America” by European “immigrants”.  It is estimated that as many as 100 million people were killed by disease and warfare waged on them by Caucasian invaders from European countries. By 1900 only about 200,000 Native people remained in North America. A photographer from Seattle, named Edward Curtis, undertook one of the greatest photographic odysseys ever when he set out to document North American Indians in the early 20th century. Today his work fetches record prices but Curtis died in obscurity, along with 100 million people from the Indigenous tribes of people who his photographs preserve as a memorial of their lives.

THE FOLLOWING VIDEO SHOW MANY MORE PHOTOS FROM THE EDWARD CURTIS COLLECTION:

LOTUS: DIVINE BEAUTY

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The lotus is an ancient symbol in Asian culture. Often used as an example of divine beauty and purity.  Its unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul. The growth of its pure beauty from the mud of its origin holds a benign spiritual promise.  In Buddhist symbolism the lotus is symbolic of purity of the body, speech, and mind as while rooted in the mud, its flowers blossom on long stalks as if floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire. It is also symbolic of detachment as drops of water easily slide off its petals.

The lotus in both Egypt and India symbolizes the union of the four elements; earth, air, fire, and water. The roots are in the earth, it grows in and by means of water, its leaves are nourished by air, and it blooms through the power of the sun’s fire. The lotus is therefore the perfection of the fourfold order of the natural world. The growth of a new flower directly from the earth-bound original may be interpreted as a symbol of transcendence as found in Indian philosophy: a spiritual emergence of a higher world directly from our physical manifestation.

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REMEMBER