Lawrence R. Spencer's Blog, page 572
January 25, 2013
January 24, 2013
DO WHAT THOU WILT
(Image by Marianna Stelmach)
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François Rabelais (c. 1494 – 9 April 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs. His best known work is Gargantua and Pantagruel. Rabelais is considered one of the great writers of world literature and among the creators of modern European writing.
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"All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, "Do What Thou Wilt;" because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us."
-- Rabelais, description of how the Thélèmites lived and the rules they lived by.
January 22, 2013
HISTORICAL HAIR STYLES
Here is a fascinating series of videos that describe and demonstrate the hair styles worn by men and women of the ancient world: (see the full series here)
January 21, 2013
IMAGINE GOD
IMAGINE.....
GOD.
John Lennon (1940 - 1980)
THE OZ FACTORS: NEW AUDIOBOOK AVAILABLE NOW
The Oz Factors: The Wizard of Oz as an Analogy to the Mysteries of Life
Our humanity has long since been exceeded by the power of the wicked witches of science and government to destroy all life with nuclear weapons, alter our DNA and control our minds with psychotropic drugs and our lives with media lies.
Our thoughts and conjectures about life and the universe are often based on assumptions, unproven theories, hearsay, rumors and misinformation. Decisions we make in life may be based on ancient attitudes and archaic practices.
There are 12 common denominators that prevent observation, understanding, and workable solutions to problems of existence. How do each of these 'Oz Factors' influence our history, science, philosophy, our lives and our future?
We can chose our own Yellow Brick Road. We can pull back the curtain of rhetoric and dogma. We can build a better Emerald City for ourselves and our children.
Do you really want to go back to Kansas?
http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00B25HTUQ&qid=1358802443&sr=1-1
MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr. and THE FBI
"FBI wiretaps have "given us the most powerful and persuasive source of all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin Luther King was," as a civil rights leader, according to a leading civil rights scholar. "You see him being intensely self-critical. King really and truly believed that he was there to be of service to others. This was not a man with any egomaniacal joy of being a famous person, or being a leader," said Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar David Garrow.
Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the influence of Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under constant surveillance. The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism. But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- details the FBI was able to use against him. The almost fanatical zeal with which the FBI pursued King is disclosed in tens of thousands of FBI memos from the 1960s. The FBI paper trail spells out in detail the government agency's concerted efforts to derail King's efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement. The FBI's interest in King intensified after the March on Washington in August 1963, when King delivered his "I have a dream speech," which many historians consider the most important speech of the 20th century. After the speech, an FBI memo called King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." (SEE COPY OF MEMO BELOW)
The bureau convened a meeting of department heads to "explore how best to carry on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired results without embarrassment to the Bureau," which included "a complete analysis of the avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader."
The FBI began secretly tracking King's flights and watching his associates. In July 1963, a month before the March on Washington, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover filed a request with Attorney General Robert Kennedy to tap King's and his associates' phones and to bug their homes and offices. In September, Kennedy consented to the technical surveillance. Kennedy gave the FBI permission to break into King's office and home to install the bugs, as long as agents recognized the "delicacy of this particular matter" and didn't get caught installing them. Kennedy added a proviso -- he wanted to be personally informed of any pertinent information."
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"The most dangerous negro..."
The FBI File consists of 17,000 pages of materials about Martin Luther King, Jr. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted surveillance of Rev. King from 1958 until his death. Documents have been censored and many pages include blacked-out sections. Due to a court order any information about or from FBI wiretaps have been removed and will not be released until 2027. Because of the surveillance, this file constitutes an extensive record of Rev. King's day-to-day activities.
The King-Levison File consists of "verbatim transcripts and detailed summaries of telephone conversations between King and one of his most trusted confidants, Stanley D. Levison, a New York lawyer and businessman with whom the civil rights leader spoke on an almost daily basis for more than six years."
LINKS TO MORE DETAILED INFORMATION:
The Martin Luther King, Jr. FBI File microforms collection consists of two parts, the FBI File and the King-Levison File.
http://library.truman.edu/microforms/martin_luther_king.asp
OFFICIAL FBI WEBSITE FILES ON MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.
(MLK Jr. FBI FILES) http://www.paperlessarchives.com/mlk.html
FOR MORE REFERENCES, GOOGLE SEARCH "martin luther king jr and fbi"
January 20, 2013
MECHANICS OF MAGIC
Janis Joplin was, in my opinion, the most natively talented female rock and roll singer of all time. Her raw, untrained talent was nothing less than god-given. Yet, greatness must be earned with intelligence, hard work and persistence. Janis was an example of a genius who deserved her fame and fortune.... she paid her dues in the studio and on the Stage of Life. She knew her trade. She worked hard. She was passionate about her art. May she Rest in Peace in Rock and Roll Heaven.
This is the result of the recording studio session published on the album 'CHEAP THRILLS'
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter. Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Janis Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career include "Down on Me", "Summertime", "Piece of My Heart", "Ball 'n' Chain", "Maybe", "To Love Somebody", "Kozmic Blues", "Work Me, Lord", "Cry Baby", "Mercedes Benz", and her only number one hit, "Me and Bobby McGee". Joplin was well known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as "electric". At the height of her career, she was known as "The Queen of Rock and Roll" as well as "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul," and became known as Pearl amongst her friends. She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004,and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
