Superman is Real

Being a collection of real world encounters by comic book creators with their characters. . .

Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers in Wired - The Myth of Superman

About a decade ago, Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips in the 1940s and '50s, published one of the great Odd Books of our time. In An Unlikely Prophet, reissued in paperback this spring, Schwartz writes that Superman is real. He is a tulpa, a Tibetan word for a being brought to life through thought and willpower. Schwartz also says a Hawaiian kahuna told him that Superman once traveled 2,000 years back in time to keep the island chain from being destroyed by volcanic activity. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, but it does sound like a job for Superman – all in a day's work for a guy who can squeeze coal into diamonds. Schwartz then tells of his own encounter with Superman in a New York taxi, when he learned firsthand that Superman's cape is, in fact, more than mere fabric. . .

(via Technoccult)

An Unlikely Prophet arrived at my door early this morning. It begins with the author receiving a phone call from a Tibetan tulpa named Thongden, who appears a few days later on a bicycle. Seeking to be made real by Schwartz, it is Thongden who started the author on the path that would eventually lead him to the Man of Tomorrow.

Schwartz, however, is not the only comic book writer to have an encounter with one of their characters.

Grant Morrison speaks frequently of meeting an incarnation of Superman during a shamanistic experience, as well as a wide variety of his Invisibles characters, and in fact has developed an entire occult system based on interacting with them.

It was Superman Plus. I wrote most of it after meeting the Man of Steel at 2am opposite the Sheraton in San Diego - a true shamanic moment.

"He was wearing the best Superman suit I've seen and looked fantastic as Superman, a cross between Chris Reeve and Billy Zane, so we asked him if he'd answer some questions which he did in the character of Superman! It was like a possession. I'd say to the guy, 'So how do you feel about Batman?' and he'd come back with 'Well, Batman and I don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things. He's so hung up on the darkness in everyone's soul and I just don't see it that way…' and so on. He spoke to us for about an hour and a half.

"The thing that really hit me, wasn't so much what Superman was saying as how he was sitting. He was perched on a bollard with one knee drawn up, chin resting on his arms. He looked totally relaxed…and I suddenly realized this was how Superman would sit. He wouldn't puff out his chest or posture heroically, he would be totally chilled. If nothing can hurt you, you can afford to be cool. A man like Superman would never have to tense against the cold; never have to flinch in the face of a blow. He would be completely laid back, un-tense. With this image of Superman relaxing on a cloud looking out for us all in my head, I rushed back to my hotel room and filled dozens of pages of my notebook with notes and drawings."

Link

http://electricchildren.com/wordpress/?p=334

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BUT FIRST THE GOOD NEWS

by Andrew Tobias

His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan on Meet The Press yesterday morning:

MTP:  "What's the image of the United States in the Middle East today?"

KING ABDULLAH: "Fantastic."

MTP:  Really?

KING ABDULLAH:  I have been following, by chance, President Obama around the world.  I was in England a day or two behind him, I was in the Czech Republic.  I just come from Japan on the way here to Washington.  Wherever you go, and all the leaders that I've spoken to in the Middle East . . . this president provides hope.  Now, there was tremendous sympathy internationally for the United States and anger after 9/11, but today there's a collective hope that there's a new America.  And a new America means new values for, for the world.  What everybody believed America to stand for is what I think Obama encompasses . . .

☞ "Hope unbelieved," wrote Jim Wallis, "is always considered nonsense.  But hope believed is history in the process of being changed."

Lots of work still to be done, but it's nice to think we're headed in a better direction.

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/090427.html

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Houston, We Have A Solution

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U.S. officials want "swine" out of flu name

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - What's in a name? U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.

At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the "H1N1 virus."

"This is not a food-borne illness, virus. It is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that's not what this is about," Vilsack said.

Israel has already rejected the name swine flu, and opted to call it "Mexico flu." Jewish dietary laws forbid eating pork.

The Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health also objected to the name, saying the virus contains avian and human components and no pig so far has been found ill with the disease.

And there is growing sentiment in the farm sector to call it the North American virus -- although disease expert Anthony Fauci told a Senate hearing the "swine flu" designation reflected scientific naming protocol.

For U.S. pork producers the swine flu name has hurt, forcing government officials into the position of stressing that American pork is safe to eat and that other countries should not ban imports.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE53R7GJ20090428

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Army Investigating Disappearance of Lethal Pathogen at Fort Detrick

 

The U.S. Army is finishing an investigation into the disappearance of three vials of a potentially lethal pathogen from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 10).

The inquiry begun in 2008 by the service's Criminal Investigation Command is "in the final stages of its mandatory review process before being closed," according to command spokesman Christopher Grey. There is "no evidence to date of any criminality related to the unaccounted-for items," he said.

The Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus is considered a possible tool of bioterrorism, but poses a significantly smaller threat than anthrax and other disease agents handled at the institute.

The missing material is believed to have been destroyed when a freezer malfunctioned, said USAMRIID spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden. The absence was detected last year by a scientist conducting an inventory of samples that had been passed down by two other researchers upon their successive departures from the facility.

"We'll probably never know exactly what happened," said one Army official. "It could be the freezer malfunction. It could be they never existed."

Investigators spoke with "literally hundreds of people" in the course of their work, the official said.

"They caught me on my cell phone on the road, and I stopped and talked to them for quite a long time," said former laboratory scientist Alan Schmaljohn, who now teaches at the University of Maryland. "She was just going down this whole list of questions, including, 'Did you take it?'"

Schmaljohn answered in the negative. It would not be hard to lose three vials, particularly if they must be rearranged following a problem with a freezer, he said.

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090423_9776.php

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Cheney Links Swine Flu to Al Qaeda

By Don Davis

"IT'S WELL-KNOWN THAT KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED MET SOME YEARS AGO WITH ARNOLD ZIFFEL AT GREEN ACRES, AND THEN PASSED ON THE FLU WHEN HE BLEW WATER OUT THROUGH HIS NOSE AFTER WATERBOARDING."

http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=7020

 

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As Swine Flu Spreads, Conspiracy Theories of Laboratory Origins Abound

by Mike Adams

Perhaps due to the genetic makeup of the fast-spreading H1N1 strain of influenza -- which includes genetic elements from bird flu, swine flu and human flu spanning three continents -- there is considerable speculation that the origins of this virus are man-made.

It's not an unreasonable question to ask: Could world governments, spooked by the prospect of radical climate change caused by over-population of the planet, have assembled a super-secret task force to engineer and distribute a super virulent strain of influenza designed to "correct" the human population (and institute global Martial Law)?

Technically, it's possible. The U.S. military, all by itself, has the know-how to engineer and unleash such a virus. That doesn't mean they've done so, however. It would be an astonishing leap into crimes against humanity to intentionally unleash such a biological weapon into the wild.

Then again, governments of the world have routinely engaged in crimes against humanity, haven't they? The U.S., for example, dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations in Japan. Israel rained white phosphorous on Palestinians, Hitler exterminated countless Jews, and Americans fired millions of rounds of depleted uranium rounds into targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unleashing a viral biological weapon in Mexico City is no great leap beyond what governments have already done to achieve their goals.

Throughout human history, virtually all the great crimes against humanity have been carried out by governments -- mostly in the name of peace, prosperity and security, by the way. So let's be clear about one thing: Governments are certainly capable of doing this if properly motivated. Let there be no question about that.

Is there any hard evidence of laboratory origins?

As of this moment, I have not personally seen any conclusive evidence of laboratory origins for this H1N1 swine flu. I am open to the possibility that new evidence may emerge in this direction, however, and I am suspicious of the genetic makeup of the virus as one possible indicator of its origins.

I am not a medical specialist in the area of infectious disease, but I have studied microbiology, genetics and a considerable amount of material on pandemics. What seems suspicious to me is the hybrid origin of the viral fragments found in H1N1 influenza. According to reports in the mainstream media (which has no reason to lie about this particular detail), this strain of influenza contains viral code fragments from:

• Human influenza
• Bird Flu from North America
• Swine flu from Europe
• Swine flu from Asia

This is rather astonishing to realize, because for this to have been a natural combination of viral fragments, it means an infected bird from North America would have had to infect pigs in Europe, then be re-infected by those some pigs with an unlikely cross-species mutation that allowed the bird to carry it again, then that bird would have had to fly to Asia and infected pigs there, and those Asian pigs then mutated the virus once again (while preserving the European swine and bird flu elements) to become human transmittable, and then a human would have had to catch that virus from the Asian pigs -- in Mexico! -- and spread it to others. (This isn't the only explanation of how it could have happened, but it is one scenario that gives you an idea of the complexity of such a thing happening).

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/026141.html

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History Lesson from hell: CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study

by Robert Roos

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.

That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses.

Now, rather than waiting to see if nature spawns such a hybrid, US scientists are planning to try to breed one themselves—in the name of preparedness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.

CDC officials confirmed the plans for the research as described recently in media reports, particularly in a Canadian Press (CP) story.

Two ways to make hybrids
The plans call for trying two methods to create hybrid viruses, CDC spokesman David Daigle told CIDRAP News via e-mail. One is to infect cells in a laboratory tissue culture with H5N1 and human flu viruses at the same time and then watch to see if they mix. For the human virus, investigators will use A (H3N2), the strain that has caused most human flu cases in recent years, according to the CP report.

The other method is reverse genetics—assembling a new virus with sets of genes from the H5N1 and H3N2 viruses. Reverse genetics has already been used to create H5N1 candidate vaccines in several laboratories, according to Daigle. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said recently it would soon launch a clinical trial of one of those vaccines.

Of the two methods, the co-infection approach was described as slower and more laborious, though closer to what happens in nature.

Any viable viruses that emerge from these processes will be seeded into animals that are considered good models for testing how flu viruses behave in humans, according to Daigle. The aim will be to observe whether the animals get sick and whether infected animals can infect others.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been "pleading" for laboratories to do this research, because it could provide some evidence to back up the agency's warnings about the risk of a flu pandemic, according to the CP report.

Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO's global influenza program, was quoted as saying that if none of the hybrids caused disease, the agency might be inclined to dial down its level of concern. But if the experiments produce highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses, the agency will be more worried, he said.

Safety precautions
Because of the obvious risks in creating viruses with the potential to spark a pandemic, the work will be done in a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory at the CDC in Atlanta, Daigle told CIDRAP News.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/jan1404hybrids.html

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reclaimed for art

 

Something monumental happened this weekend in NYC. A group of people demanded their public space back and they did it with remarkable artistic success. Pissed off and turned off by the force fed obtrusive nature of advertisements in the neighborhood, a group organized by Jordan Seiler took over 120 billboards. The program aptly named "New York Street Advertising Takeover" was 4 months of coordination. All the billboards were white washed by dozens of volunteers wearing orange vests on Saturday the 25th.

Followed by 40-80 artists (who will be named later...hard to tell who all was involved at this point) who transformed the once ad space into pieces of extraordinary art.



This guerrilla-style transformation was illegal per se, but was in retaliation of illegal activity by the actual advertisements themselves. You see, billboards have to be registered with the city. The owner of these billboards, NPA Outdoor, has over 500 street level billboards in the city, 132 which are illegal (or not registered with New York City). Although illegal, they are rarely prosecuted allowing them to dominate our public neighborhood and collect big time profits at the same time.

Obviously a well coordinated effort between Jordan, the volunteers and the artists. Most likely done in conjunction with or the knowledge of Municipal Landscape Control Committee of New York City because they were able to pinpoint exact billboards that were illegal.

 

http://artifactmarketing.blogspot.com/2009/04/reclaimed-for-art.html

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Why Pirates Buy More Music and Music Labels Fail

by Ernesto

A handful of studies have shown that those who download music illegally actually buy more through legal channels. But why? Are pirates really this generous or could it be that this is just a side-effect of the failing music industry?

In the past we've documented studies that showed how the majority of artists sell more music thanks to piracy and that those who download (more) also buy more. Last week another study was added to this ever growing list, arguing that pirates are 10 times more likely to buy music than those who don't.

So why do pirates buy more music? The simplest explanation for this finding might be that people who are not interested in music don't have the need to pirate or buy it. I have to agree that it's not the sexiest, most controversial or inspiring answer, but it does tell us something about the core of the piracy 'problem'.

The real reason is in fact very simple. The true music enthusiasts simply want to consume, sample and discover as much new music as they possibly can, and the most straightforward and convenient way to do this is through file-sharing networks. Music pirates are just regular consumers really, and they love music just as much as anyone else.

Music fans share more.

Although I personally believe that the ability to sample music through file-sharing has a positive effect on music sales, much of the correlation between piracy and sales is simply caused by a third factor - a passion for music. This is one of the main reasons why most users of music oriented BitTorrent sites love an initiative such as Spotify where they have access to one of the largest music libraries online.

Although piracy can breed consumers, it's generally happens the other way around. The Internet has freed music and the music labels' greed and abuse of copyright is the only barrier that stands between the artists and millions of potential fans. Creative business models where consumers have instant access to unprotected and high quality music are the future.

The labels of course fail to see this all too obvious connection and continue to exploit their acquired (copy)rights.They would rather pump yet more millions into overpaid pro-copyright lobbyists and expensive lawyers trying to keep their outdated business model alive - the model where the artist gets 1 to 10% of the total music sales while the labels are filling their pockets. No wonder the passionate music fans flee to BitTorrent.

http://torrentfreak.com/why-pirates-buy-more-music-and-music-labels-fail-090428/

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DVD: Fat as a weapon of mass destruction

By NICOLE M. ROBERTSON

The greatest threat to American safety is not Osama Bin Laden -- it's obesity.

That is the premise of "Killer at Large," a shocking new documentary on DVD from the Disinformation company.

In it, pundits, celebrities such as Bill Clinton and dietary authorities describe the psycho-social causes of rampant obesity -- and diseases it causes, killing Americans with government complicity.

"There are children showing up in health clinics who are overfed, they're overweight, eating diets of fast food exclusively, who have nutritional diseases like rickets, things we thought we had banished a long time ago," says author Michael Pollan.

The film begins with Brooke Bates of Austin, Texas, who had liposuction at age 12 when she weighed 218 pounds. She just wanted to be popular, and after years of diets that didn't work, her parents agreed to surgery.

Her surgeon removed 16 liters of fat from her body, shown in graphic detail. But that's not the scariest part.

When it was over, she was 35 pounds lighter. Six weeks later, another 10 pounds was removed with more lipo and a tummy tuck. At 13, she was down to 155, closer to normal.

But in short order, she had ballooned again and sought lapband surgery.

In the film, people with obesity-related diabetes show their severed limbs and sores that don't heal. In scene after scene, marketing to children is shown as a major cause of the problem.

Radio host Jim Hightower says the corporate/government elite after World War II moved to make food a corporate industry, with big financial rewards not to farmers but to business leaders. Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon, told farmers to get big or get out. And corn became more valuable than gold.

The government role in obesity is made clear in an interview of Pollan with TV commentator Bill Maher.

Corn is in most processed foods -- corn syrup is in coffee, wine, TV dinners, canned fruit, McDonald's burgers, "it's even in the vitamins," Maher says.

Pollan notes, "The agricultural policy of this country is now captive of this corn complex.

"They give a farmer a check ... for every bushel he can grow, even though we have too much corn. And one of the reasons we're getting fat and have so many cases of diabetes is that we're eating too much highly processed corn. Largely high-fructose corn syrup.

"At the same time as we're having this health crisis in this country, the government is subsidizing the thing that's giving us this public health crisis. It's absolutely absurd."

Maher nails it down: "The (petroleum) oil goes into the fertilizer, which makes the corn, which goes into us, which makes us sick, and then we need the pharmaceutical industry (to treat illness).

"So the oil industry, the corn industry and the pharmaceutical industry, they're all killing us, and they're all making a lot of money. I know Bin Laden is a bad guy ... but he hasn't killed as many people as those three industries, has he?"

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2009/04/16/entertainment/doc49e656f395afd699075196.txt

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Best bank ad ever

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'Etiquette guide' for Thai monks

It is customary for Thai men to enter the monkhood for training at least once

A Buddhist preacher in Thailand has announced plans for new guidelines aimed at curbing the flamboyant behaviour of gay and transgender monks.

The "good manners" curriculum - the country's first - is being introduced in the northern province of Chiang Rai.

The senior monk told the BBC he was particularly concerned by effeminate activities among novices such as the wearing of make-up and tight robes.

More than 90% of the Thai population are followers of Buddhism.

The BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok says tales of monks behaving badly are nothing new in Thailand.

In recent years, they have been accused of abuses of their exalted position in society that range from amassing dozens of luxury cars, to running fake amulet scams, to violating their vows of celibacy, our correspondent says.

Senior monk Phra Maha Wudhijaya Vajiramedhi told the BBC he would address issues like smoking, drinking alcohol, walking and going to the toilet properly, which are all detailed in the traditional 75 Dharma principles of Buddhism, and the 227 precepts for monks.

He was especially concerned, he said, by the flamboyant behaviour of gay and transgender monks, who can often be seen wearing revealingly tight robes, carrying pink purses and having effeminately-shaped eyebrows.

Thailand has a very large and visible population of transgender men, and Phra Vajiramedhi acknowledged that it was difficult to exclude them from the monkhood but he hoped his course could at least persuade them to curb their more extrovert habits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8020311.stm

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The GOP: divorced from reality

The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.

By Bill Maher

If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.

And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party." No, it's not. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.

I know. It's not about what Obama's done. It's what he's planning. But you can't be sick and tired of something someone might do.

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build "reeducation" camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn't made any moves toward taking anyone's guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.

Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,6983740.story

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Cars don't kill people

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