Guilty

The article about arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar and his arrest by the US in Madrid. He was charged with four counts of different conspiracy charges and one charge of money laundering. Of course this brings up an interesting question of when someone is "guilty" of something. How can one be charged with a crime if they haven't committed it? (Minority Report) In this country the law is changing and taking a rather scary direction wherein you can be arrested for something you didn't do. Grated this is on an enormous scale, which admittedly causes great destruction, but when will it "trickle down"? When will the average law enforcement officials be able to scoop you up off the street for something that you may or may not be doing? Has it started?

Civil War Photos

Some equally fascinating and morbid (as well as not so morbid) photos of the Civil War at this site.

Cool World War I Postcards

These are strange postcards, really, to send people during the war, but there are lots of interesting propaganda pieces and some genuinely disturbing ones (like the ones below). I love the quality of the photography: the gray value and blurred gradations of the postcards capture the ennui and constant terror so perfectly.

From the Bowman Gray Collection in the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina.

George Plimpton and Dinty W. Moore Crisscross Google Maps

This is a fantastic short nonfictional piece about the author, Dinty W. Moore, meeting George Plimpton. Over and over. And it's written on Google Maps:


View Mr. Plimpton's Revenge in a larger map

The effect is one almost of a comic strip or graphic novel. Seeing the locations and clicking on them to get the story adds to the humorous, yet detached (ironically almost observant) tone. Really a fantastic work.

A few years back, before Google Maps was really rolling, I wanted to write a hyperlink story. I had scanned a map and was in the process of creating links out of various parts of the map... I must have that around somewhere still. This makes me want to pick that back up.

Demonizing factions

• "Adherents of conspiracy theory, by manipulating history, enable dangerous decisions, undercut authorities and institutions and demonize opponents."

from "Fear Factor" by Robert A. Goldberg in Bookforum (FEB/MAR 2010)Be Very Afraid by Robert Wuthnow, Voodoo History by David Aaronovitch & Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen.

I think it is this last issue that we're see the most of in our bipartisan country right now. There is no debate, no concession when the other is less than human, Untermensch. I suppose the trick is to figure out how to undo the damage that seems to be so pervasive. How do we unfear the other?

• "The key, it seems, is to strike a delicate balance, permitting us to repose trust in public institutions and experts when they have demonstrated that such trust is warranted, while retaining confidence to question and even resist. This is our birthright. We cannot hide while others steal it." (Italics mine.)

I think more than anything else, it is through self-awareness and attacking ignorance that we will be able to hang on to that birthright. Stereotypes -- a form of conspiracy -- are so easy to accept and, in some cases, instill a sense of power in those who wield them. People have to be self-conscious enough to stop themselves from falling victim to that (conceived) power. Always question our own reactions as well as those of others. Bravery is action despite fear not due to lack of it. The political/cultural impasse at the moment (nothing ever gets done in Congress) makes it hard for people to do this -- they succumb to their fear. Americans need more education (one of those institutions that must regain our trust as an institute of the mind) to improve our critical thought abilities.

Zombified Cockroaches

This is a fantastic podcast about parasites, including the Ampulex compressa, which injects neurotoxins into a specific part of a cockroach's brain, immobilizing it. It then steers (steers!) the roach into a lair the wasp has created and lays eggs on its belly. The larvae then eat the cockroach from the inside out, being careful not to kill it until they're fully formed. Ahhh, zombified cockroaches.

It's an incredible act of nature -- violent and beautiful. Links to more detailed descriptions at Radiolab - Parasites. I want to know where to get these bad boys. Hello cockroach-free house (I wouldn't even mind a few wasps buzzing around for that kind of tension relief).

Phorid Flies

So according to Molly Keck, the type of zombifying phorid fly is actually the tricuspis species, not obtusus. Here's the article about the flies.
Phorid Flies

Zombie Fire Ants

A specialist in East Texas, Dr. Robert Ludwig, released a new species of phorid fly, Pseudacteon obtusus. Like the other species that was released in Texas, the Pseudacteon tricuspis, it is attracted only (apparently) to imported fire ants. They also lay their eggs in the fire ant's head, the larva of which then eats it's way out, killing the host. But unlike the other species, this one zombifies its host actually controlling it: the fire ant walks approximately 55 yards from the mound to die! This allows the phorid fly to survive undetected by the rest of the fire ant mound. Controlling a fire ant to walk 55 yards... That's really amazing. How is that even possible? The other difference between the species is that P. obtusus is not attracted to disturbed mounds but foraging fire ants, which makes them that much more effective. This fly is a natural born killer.

"Tales of the Zombie" by Steve Gerber & Roy Thomas

The three comic books are included at the end of Marvel Zombies 4. Some great quotes, even without all the drawings. I have tried to keep the emphasis of the text as much as possible.

"Long weeks have passed, Simon Garth, since the night your life was taken from you. Weeks -- time enough to learn what it means to be a -- ZOMBIE! -- a man without a soul!" (111)

"But then, you can't remember very far back, can you? You do not recall that, only weeks ago, he was your gardener -- and you were a captain of industry." (112)

"You are neither happy nor sorry for what you are about to do... You have no feelings at all... You are just blindly-obedient hollow shell!!" (114)

The zombie who is able to overcome the power of control, incontrovertable, even though he doesn't know why (Love? Come on. It couldn't be.).

"Now there are two dead men in the hut... one on the floor... one standing!" (117)

"For the first time in history a zombie has slain his master! For no matter how strong the power of black magic is... It's never as strong as the power of love!" (117)

"Erect now, you shake the mud from your languid form... oblivious at first to the evil sounds that greet your rising. But you watch as the animlas move closer -- and indifference gives way to -- can the word be applied to a dead man? -- curiousity. Why, you wonder, has this beast sunk his fangs deep into your wizened flesh?" (121)

"Then -- he [the hunter killing for sport] sees! The battered, wrecked bodies of the animals he made vicious -- the dogs he turned into killlers! And perhaps, just perhaps... he catches a glimpse of the sickness in his own soul -- of the price of killing for pleasure -- and he runs, and he doesn't look back." (122-3)

"And so you walk away into the night -- a cool breeze wafting at your sunken face -- and you wish that you could feel it." (128)

I wondered, as I read and then as I emphasized above, why did they decide to choose these words? Obviously some kind of emphasis? But why emphasize these apparently random selections? As I read them in my head, they seemed off (not iambic pentameter) or they seemed to fall on an already emphasized beat. Perhaps they were supposed to stand out visually.

Funny the perameters of a zombie here: lacks feelings and then has desire at the end. Is it that "love" has somehow given him back some of his soul? Also, what does it mean that in order to make him come back undead Layla "tears a bit of her own being away" and places it "in the soft, sucking earth --!"? (109) What part of her being was it? They are careful not to say "soul" here. Perhaps the part of being that Samuel Beckett so brilliantly wrote about. "I can't go on, I'll go on": The zombie mantra. Having desire and not being able to sate it, at least completely, which is actually the opposite of Beckett's existentialism. But still, the zombie goes on, at someone's will (and seeing as he does not pick up the amulet that controls him, that could be anyone after the story "ends"), unseen. Waiting for Godot, the zombie walks back to his grave, certainly, and lays back down.

Writing & Morality

I'm always interested in the idea of morality in and in the process of writing. This is an interesting view of morality and writing from A Commonplace Blog.