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MonthJune 2008

Baltic Midsummer Feast Draws on a Distant Past

June 23, 2008 /

“Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians around the world are set to celebrate midsummer festivals Monday night with rites drawing deeply on pagan traditions of the Baltic people. “Marking the two longest days of the year, the celebration is called Jani in Latvia, Jaanipaev in Estonia, and Saint Jonas festival in Lithuania.

Christianity adopted the sun-worship holiday as the one dedicated to John the Baptist, but centuries later, pagan traditions still remain an integral part of the celebration. On June 23, Latvians crowned with wreaths of oak leaves flock to the countryside. Regarded as a holy tree in pagan times, the oak still features widely in Latvian folk songs. As the evening draws in, Latvians and Estonians light bonfires and sing folk songs or jump through the flames, seen as a way to guarantee prosperity. The white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Riga light up with bonfires as Latvians and Estonians flee cities to nature.”

(via Top News)

The Fat Lady’s Aria? Humanity’s Last Stand? Or Just Another Apocalypse Soon?

June 23, 2008 /
The Fat Lady's Aria? Humanity's Last Stand? Or Just Another Apocalypse Soon?

“For the third time in less than 15 years, the End of the World draws near. It’s discussed in coffee shops and saloons, and texted from couches by punks of the New Age while UFO Hunters flickers unwatched on TV. Theories inundate the Internet and books are already in print. Although apocalyptic theorizing might seem a hard sell in these grim times, conferences are being staged, at least two major motion pictures are planned, and the collective consciousness wonders if the date 2012 is already copyrighted. We can be certain we are going to hear a mess of both ominous and grandly metaphysical predictions for 2012 before the crucial date arrives.

We have, of course, seen all this before. In July of 1999, after much consternation and endless documentaries on the History Channel, we survived the quatrains of Nostradamus predicting terror descending from the sky. Then, on New Year’s Day 2000, we made it unscathed through Y2K and the near-hysterical scenarios that every computer across the planet would crash due to a basic time-keeping glitch. Airplanes were supposed to fall from the sky that time, and the Midwest find itself without power in mid-winter. A third major End Time in less than a decade is hard to embrace. Too many hints of that cracker-barrel ‘fool me once’ proverb that George Bush can never quite remember. On the other hand, stress levels are currently running high, and that is frequently when an Armageddon panic pops.”

(via Los Angeles CityBeat. h/t: Doc 40)

Summer reading lists from Richard Metzger, Daniel Pinchbeck, Erik Davis, and more

June 23, 2008 /

Roy Christopher collected summer reading lists from a ton of interesting people, including Daniel Pinchbeck, DJ Spooky, Steven Shaviro, Ashley Crawford, Erik Davis, Gareth Branwyn, and a bunch of Disinfo staffers (past and present).

Summer Reading 2008

(via Bruce Sterling)

What are you reading this summer?

Dolphin deaths: Expert suggests ‘mass suicide’

June 23, 2008 /

dolphin suicide

Full Story: Guardian

(via Disinfo)

L. Ron Hubbard’s 5 Most Impressive Lies (Besides Scientology)

June 23, 2008 /

#5.On His Native American Upbringing …
#4.On His Study of Nuclear Physics …
#3. On L. Ron Hubbard, War Hero …
#2.On Living The Drug-Free Lifestyle …
#1. On Inventing the Concept of a Moral Code …

Full Story: Cracked

(via Disinfo)

R.I.P: George Carlin

June 23, 2008 /

http://www.hokiesports.com/rothreport/images/GeorgeCarlin.jpg

“Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart and drug-dependency problems, died at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.”

(via Reuters. One of my favorite routines: George Carlin talking about “Stuff” )

Obama caves on FISA

June 22, 2008 /

Obama has caved on the FISA bill. Full details at TPM Election Central. Very sad.

I Create Gods All the Time – Now I think One Might Exist, Says Fantasy Author Terry Pratchett

June 22, 2008 /

Terry Pratchett

“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist. But it is true that in an interview I gave recently I did describe a sudden, distinct feeling I had one hectic day that everything I was doing was right and things were happening as they should. It seemed like the memory of a voice and it came wrapped in its own brief little bubble of tranquillity. I’m not used to this.

As a fantasy writer I create fresh gods and philosophies almost with every new book (I’m rather pleased with Annoia, the goddess of Things That Get Stuck In Drawers, whose temple is hung about with the bent remains of bent egg whisks and spatulas. She actually appears to work in this world, too). But since contracting Alzheimer’s disease I have spent my long winter walks trying to work out what it is that I really, if anything, believe.”

(via The Daily Mail)

A New Look at Mystical Los Angeles and its High Priest, Manly Hall

June 22, 2008 /

“Last Sunday evening at the Silent Movie Theater, a clip from the 1938 astrological murder mystery “When Were You Born?” was shown as part of an “Occult L.A.” program curated by the author Erik Davis. In the clip, legendary occult scholar Manly P. Hall, who had also written the movie’s script, appeared on screen to introduce the concept of astrology. With penetrating blue eyes, thick dark hair and a rakish mustache, Hall had the looks of a silent film star, and he radiated intensity as he explained the various personality traits of the different sun signs — Leos are loyal, Capricorns are brave, and so on. But that’s not all: “Astrology can solve crime!” he exhorted. “It has solved many crimes in the past.”

At this the audience burst into laughter: Yet another absurd Hollywood twist. It wasn’t the late Hall’s finest moment — in fact, he’d done the scene reluctantly. But afterward he held out hope that “When Were You Born?,” the first major motion picture to treat the subject of astrology seriously, might help “open the way for a great cycle of occult philosophy,” he wrote.

The film was a bomb, but the fact that this obscure clip was being screened before a sold-out crowd of artists, intellectuals and spiritual seekers shows that the cycle of Hall’s influence continues. And it may grow in the coming months, for Process Media has just published “Master of the Mysteries,” the first biography of Manly Palmer Hall, written by Louis Sahagun (who is a staff writer at The Times).”

(via Los Angeles Times)

SMS Addiction Awakens ‘Sleep-Texting’ Phenomenon

June 22, 2008 /

“Drinking and texting is a recipe for disaster, but you’re not likely to text an ex when you’re asleep in bed, right? Wrong, ’cause some now suffer from a sleep-texting affliction, it’s been claimed. According to a report by Texan newspaper The Star, a 24-year old Italy, Texas woman recently awoke to discover that she’d sent several text messages to her boyfriend – while she was fast asleep.

Although Jessica Castillo’s Pantech C300 phone required her to go through 11 menu options before reaching the text message screen, her state of slumber still didn’t prevent her typing out and sending a vaguely coherent message. Dr Ron Kramer, a spokesman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, claimed that sleep-texting is entirely possible because ‘texting for some of the younger generation is probably as ingrained as driving is for some’.

(via The Register)

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