RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

I’ve been thinking this thing for a couple of years now. The problem is, I now see it as a distinct possibility. Here’s how it goes. Iraqi leadership cracks down brutally in the name of security. Factions deepen within the fragile democratic government. Eventually a dominant faction emerges and seizes power. With support of the Iraqi military and the tacit support of a fatigued American presence and leadership (who voices concerns, but does nothing to stop the chain of events) the leader of this faction assumes what amount to dictatorial powers.

This leader condemns terrorism and plays lip service to democratic principles. As privately as possible, he aligns himself with the United States, who as privately as possible funds and supports his leadership. The debate in this country is minimal. Under Saddam-style leadership, Iraq is ‘stabilizing’ and troops start to come home in large numbers. Democrats and Republicans declare victory. The left, shuddering to agree with the neo-con idea of Middle East democratization can’t help but ask what it was all for. The Weekly Standard begins publishing essays on the inability of “Islamic Culture” to function under a democratic system. Everyone else soon forgets.

Oops… Philly mayoral hopeful Chaka Fattah may have just lost himself the internet vote.  From MoveOn.org earlier today:

Your representative, Chaka Fattah, dealt a blow to Internet freedom on Thursday.

All eyes are now on the Senate, which considers this issue next. We face a more friendly environment there, but we’ve got to act fast—the telecom lobbyists are working on every vote.

Why is there a large, colorful, brand new Toynbee tile at the intersection of Cottman and Torresdale Northeast Philadelphia? I have no idea, but its existence creates all sorts of questions for the oligarchy of tile scholars. Is this tile really a copycat? Look at the font on the ‘tabs.’

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Why is Philadelphia Eagles third string quarterback Koy Detmer painting African designs on this wall? All that, plus the picture of Donovan McNabb no one but me would ever publish coming soon to dovate.com…

I really recommend taking a week off. None of this computer shit. No newspapers or television. And most importantly, don’t go to work. I recommend taking 2 weeks, or if you can swing it a month or a year. Or if you’re like my host last month, you can move 11 miles down a winding and dangerous canyon lined dirt road in a largely inaccessible and sparsely populated corner of northern California and stay there for 38 years.

That’s what Charles and Vanna Rae Bello did when they abandoned greater society back in 1968. But the Bello’s aren’t your usual brand of eccentric backwoods recluses. The first thing that distinguishes them is their cause: a 2000-year plan to restore California’s giant Redwoods. Charles and Vanna Rae, under authority of their non-profit, the Redwood Forest Institute have bought and protected more than 400 acres Redwood covered land. Many of ‘their’ trees have been assigned an odd legal status, belonging to no individual and illegal for anyone to cut, ever. So long as the law maintains its legitimacy under whatever legal system passes through northern California over the next couple of millennia, many these trees will grow into giants.

The other thing that sets the Bello’s apart is their enormous wealth of building, gardening, electrical, architectural, mechanical, engineering and farming skill and experience. Charles Bello, a man in his mid-70’s with the body and mind of a 40 year old athlete and the work ethic of a team of sled dogs, designed and built the 3 beautiful, solar powered homes that sit on the ranch. He maintains his section of roads and bridges himself. His tool shed is the size of a small airplane hangar.

In his garage, Charles proudly showed us his backhoe. It sat next to the 10-ton truck that he bought (and rebuilt into working condition) to haul the concrete slabs he made for the new bridge he was building. When someone commented on the amount of money all of it must have cost, he shrugged it off with a dismissive and almost embarrassed “O yeah” before continuing on his regularly scheduled tour.

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Sitting at the bottom of a dangerous, 11-mile long, private, gravel road, which follows (without barriers) the rim of a large canyon, the ranch is about as secluded as California can get. Here is a little of what it looks like:

Charles Bello also worked with wood sculpture. Some pieces were carefully carved, while others were just placed suggestively.

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A Ford Galaxie powered sawmill:

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The Bello’s Glass house:

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A view from the porch of our rented cabin.

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Charles’s workshop:

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Our cabin had a bat. Before we chased it out, I managed to get this shot. Then everyone made me put away my camera and we chased it out.

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From one of the bridges:

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And the bridge itself:

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Do you see those tiny orange specks in the photo above this one. Here they are:

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And of course there were the Redwoods:

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No trip to a Redwood forest would be complete without this shot:

What else was he gonna put on his resume, video store clerk?

The American White Pelicans of Pyramid Lake, Nevada.

These birds are amazing. The lake, on a Paiute land, is supernatrually beautiful. That it is protected from development is one of the good things about the earth.

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Resurrect Dead the movie is coming together nicely. The Toynbee tile phenomenon continues to generate widespread curiosity. Buzz about the film has started to pop up in message boards across the internet and print articles around the world. Possibly best of all, interest in the street-tile-as-medium is getting thrown around all over the place. Keep an eye out for fresh new tiles of variant messages in a city near you.

As has said and reported here before, the Resurrect Dead team has solid evidence from multiple sources and print documentation of the tilests identity. Erroneous reports have been popping up on the internet that James Morasco of the 1983 Inquirer article has been named as the tiler. This claim is false.

So who is the tiler? All will be revealed in time.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve lost my body and mind. I’ve been to too many places in too short a time and don’t remember where I may have left them. It leaves me staring out from behind something without real definition. Sustained, rhythmic, loud noise seems to create and maintain a temporary illusion of place and purpose, but when my ears stop ringing all that fades. But anyway, until I can find these things, let me tell you about Philip Gale.

Young Philip was born into the fourth generation of a family of Scientologists. He left MIT (at age 16) to take a job at Earthlink. He was a teenage millionaire. Eventually, Gale abandoned Scientology and joined the Church of the SubGenius. Then he jumped out of a window and died.

~ The End ~

Sweet Fucking Jesus! Just browsing my site stats with my morning coffee. Here’s what people searched for to find dovate.com yesterday:

Anyone else seeing a pattern here?

Excuse this digression into pompous jackassery, but I’d like to make a point. I’m a history person. I studied it in school. I did extremely well in school. The school I went to is regarded as one of the best in the country.

*obligatory caveat: I went to the University of Pennsylvania – although I went non-traditionally, working my way through part-time with a mixture of day and evening classes. I worked at Penn full-time and took classes year round. In the end I earned the same degree, from the same professors as any Penn student, only as a Penn employee, my classes cost me a total of $0.00. As Philadelphian’s well know, the stereotypical Penn student is a pampered, shiny faced, know-it-all, self centered asshole with an inflated ego and a delusional sense of entitlement. I was not one of those Penn students.

But where was I? O yeah. While at Penn I studied history… particularly American History. More particularly American History with an emphasis on the 20th century and a further concentration on United States culture and the country’s place geopolitically, especially the Western Hemisphere… (Although at this level it’s all just variations on a theme.) Got that? All that I’m really saying is that I know what I’m talking about when I say:

Whoever says it’s unfair to compare Iraq to Vietnam is out of their fucking minds. Sure they’re different (one was in a jungle and this one is in a desert) and sure, U.S. culture has changed in the last 30-40 years. No shit. But when people start talking about history repeating itself, this is what they mean.

Go to the library and read a New York Times from the year 1969. Replace the word ‘communist’ with the word ‘terrorist,’ ‘Viet Kong’ with ‘insurgent,’ ‘war on terror’ with ‘Cold War,’ ‘gunning down unarmed civilians’ with ‘gunning down unarmed civilians.’ Sure it’s not an exact parallel. It’s just a striking parallel in many of its most fundamental ways.

…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…

anyone?

The scary thing is, I’ve got this nagging feeling in the back of my head that quoting the Declaration of Independence may be regarded by some as being dangerously subversive.

READ 

…On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush’s 174, with fifty-five too close to call.(28) In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.(29)

As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states — including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida — and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush’s neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina.(30) Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000.(31) ‘’Either the exit polls, by and large, are completely wrong,'’ a Fox News analyst declared, ‘’or George Bush loses.'’(32)

But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show implausible disparities — as much as 9.5 percent — with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.(33)

READ 

I’m largely uninformed. I have no legitimate connections to the Beltway. (at least none that I actively attempt to exploit) So in this capacity, in reality, in this post, I’m really just a blind monkey poking away at a keyboard and spreading wild accusations.

With that said, Wayne Madsen, (ostensibly) has some deeper connections into the maggot ridden underbelly of Washington DC. I was introduced to Madsen while watching CSPAN’s broadcast of the reaction to the 9-11 commission report. The forum was put together by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and was intended to address the questions left unanswered by the 9-11 commission. Speakers included CIA and NSA analysts, various scholars and other credentialed folks who dance treacherously on the fine line of wild conspiracy. In that very interesting broadcast, (cut short by Hurricaine Katrina) Madsen impressed the hell out of me.

Months later I happened across his site, remembered his performance and have been following his daily reports ever since. Now don’t get me wrong… the guy probably spews as much bullshit as he does truth… but he does most definitely send out a good deal of reality. He’s far too reckless and driven by opinion for any ‘legitimate’ newspaper, but he does report things, things that pan out months or years later as being dead on true. Things like NSA eavesdropping…or state sponsored torture. You just have to know how to read.

But how does he do it? Madsen works and lives in the Washington beltway. He, like a legitimate journalist, really does have sources. Real, powerful, knowledgeable sources.

That’s one long disclaimer for the following.

The following = today Wayne Madsen reported what the supermarket tabloids (always based in a fraction of reality… who did the insider who carried out the 2001 anthrax attacks target first?) have been reporting for the last couple weeks. George and wife Laura are on the rocks. Wayne Madsen claims sources who report the reason… George W. Bush is sleeping with Condolezza Rice . Laura Bush has moved out of the Whitehouse and into the Mayflower Hotel.

If there is a God, then this is true. (Unfortunately) This would be bigger than Iraq, Katrina and Abu Ghraib rolled into one. This is more damaging than Rumsfeld practicing cannibalism on Iraqi children or Emperor Bush repealing the Bill of Rights. This is an extramarital affair! Good night and God Bless America. That’s all for now.