HELLO SAMURAI KITTY

(That’s Kitty-san to you, gaijin.)

Having read the piece below and aware that armed Europeans surround him, Newton is now lobbying for a suit of samurai cat armor. (Thanks Valerie)

FIRST TO CATCH A BULLET IN AMERICA

Both MrMR and some girl have sent over versions of this fascinating report about the discovery of what might be the first shooting victim in the New World. We particularly like the line – “The individual may have been escaping from the Europeans.” (And, of course, the victim was an Inca, not a cowboy playing poker. I just liked the pic.)

"Archaeologists in Peru have uncovered the human skeleton of what they conclude is the earliest known gunshot victim in the New World. Digging in an Inca cemetery in the suburbs of Lima, they came on well-preserved remains of an individual with holes less than an inch in diameter in the back and front of the skull. Forensic scientists in Connecticut said the position of the round holes and some minuscule iron particles showed that the person most likely was shot and killed by a Spanish musket ball. Ceramics and other artifacts in the 72 examined graves established the approximate time of the burials, archaeologists said, and this indicated that these were casualties of combat between Inca warriors and Spanish invaders, who seized the Andean empire in 1532. Spanish chronicles describe a pitched battle, a last stand of the Incas that was fought in the vicinity in 1536.
Conquistadors were equipped with some of the first effective firearms, which had been developed recently in Europe, military historians say. The National Geographic Society announced yesterday the discovery of the gunshot victim by the independent Peruvian archaeologists Guillermo Cock and Elena Goycochea, who have conducted research at the Puruchuco cemetery for years. A NOVA-National Geographic television program on the research is scheduled for next Tuesday.
In a telephone interview Monday, Dr. Cock said that at least 35 of the excavated skeletons bore evidence of violent injuries: cheekbones crushed by heavy blows, broken hands and limbs, a smashed chest. Some had presumably fallen in hand-to-hand combat or been trampled by Spanish horses, another instrument of warfare new to the Americas. No similar evidence of a death by gunshot this early has been found elsewhere in the Americas, Dr. Cock said. The musket shot appeared to have entered the back of the man’s skull, punching a piece of bone from outside to inside, and emerged through the face.
“The individual may have been escaping from the Europeans,” the archaeologist said. These particular graves attracted the attention of the excavators because they were shallow and the bodies appeared to have been interred hastily. They were not ritually wrapped in shrouds and placed in a crouched position facing northeast, as was customary in Inca burials. Forensic experts at the University of New Haven, in Connecticut, confirmed the violent nature of the deaths. Albert B. Harper, executive director of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the university, said, “We tried to rule out all kinds of causes of the hole — a rock from a slingshot, spear, sledgehammer.” An examination of the skull with a scanning electron microscope detected the otherwise invisible iron traces, Dr. Harper said, sealing the verdict of death by a musket ball fired from a range of perhaps 100 feet."

The secret word is Capped

THE GREEN GODDESS GOES PUBLIC

The New York Times discovers absinthe at sixty bucks a bottle. My hope is that it will drive the apple martini crowd drooling insane and then return to being the secret of the bohemian elite. But I’m blind drink and hallucinating on my own green dragon home brew that I am unable to think this through. I will consider it tomorrow. (Thanks to Munz and Alex for the links.)

The secret word is Rimbaud

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S #17

The magazine industry might think long and hard about re-launching this title, or, at the very least, an online version.

POPE SAYS BABIES CAN GO TO HEAVEN

BUT DEFERS DECISION ON BUNNIES

The world rapidly becomes inhabitable. Species hurtle into extinction. The computers are down on the International Space Station. The Greenland Pump may soon cease to function. Nuclear weapons slyly proliferate. In Africa, ten year-olds with AK45s snort cocaine and gunpowder and fight endless, shapeless, wholly pointless wars of asymmetric attrition. Disguised reptiles may govern the United States of America. A month or more ago MrMR sent me the following, but I never posted it. I figured it was too whacked even for Doc40, but in the intervening time, I changed my mind. It’s amazing how time flies when the world is losing its reason.

“The Vatican has determined that limbo does not exist, opening the gates of heaven to babies who die unbaptised. A member of a high-level theological commission made the announcement with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. "The many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptised infants who die will be saved." The medieval concept of limbo as a place where unbaptised infants spend eternity but without communion with God seems to reflect an "unduly restrictive view of salvation," the document says. The thought that stillborn babies, for example, would be relegated to a kind of no-man's-land in the afterlife tormented generations of Catholic families. The idea of limbo - from the Latin for "edge" - was meant to address the paradox that unbaptised babies could not go to heaven because their original sin had not been expunged, but nor should they go to purgatory or hell. In 1984, when Benedict headed the Vatican's doctrinal enforcement body as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he said he was "personally" in favour of scrapping the 13th-century notion, which he termed a mere "hypothesis". He has approved the document drafted by the International Theological Commission, the panel's secretary told reporters, adding however that its conclusions were not to be considered Roman Catholic Church dogma.”

The secret word is Dementia

This blog is still affiliated with The White Panther Party

WHAT'S A MONDAY WITHOUT A FEW PILLS?

This picture provided by Julien's Auctions shows a prescription drug bottle once owned by Elvis Presley, and prescribed by the infamous Dr. Nick. The bottle, sold empty, was among 15 objects connected to Presley that were part of Julien's Auctions Entertainment Sale in Beverly Hills last Saturday. Naldecon is kind of a bore, however, a simple anti-congestant. We have yet to learn from our man-on-the-spot HCB how much it fetched at auction.

The secret word is Demerol

BUT THIS IS MONDAY SERIOUS

While we continue to worry about the vanishing bees, let’s not forget the deformed frogs. This picture and story are from the BBC. (Thanks Valerie)

"The creature - which has six legs - has stunned a BBC wildlife expert who said it could be an early warning of environmental problems. Laura Pepper, from the Green Umbrella nursery in Weston-super-Mare, said: "We thought it was three frogs huddled together at first. "It is very strange. The children couldn't believe it." Mike Dilger, from the BBC Natural History Unit, said: "I have never seen anything like this. "Frogs are primitive animals - so the occasional extra toe is not that unusual. But this is very unusual." All the creature's eyes and legs appear to function normally, but it is not known whether it eats using all three of its mouths. The amphibian was kept in a container for several hours but hopped away later while nursery staff were showing it to curious parents."

Meanwhile, back in the USA, frog deformity is at epidemic proportions, and, in the Clinton era, research was linking it with industrial pollution. But then Bush arrived and the whole deal, like anything else that might be good for the planet, but bad for business, was instantly defunded to provide tax-cuts for Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and Paris Hilton. States still struggle on but it’s a story largely ignored by the media except as a three-legged geek bite. As the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency neatly summed it up…

"Deformed frogs have been found in Minnesota and in other parts of the country. They were being studied by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and other government agencies to determine the cause of the deformities. However, as of July 1, 2001, funding for the MPCA to work with deformed frogs was discontinued. Some federal agencies are continuing to work on the problem." For more.

SUNDAY MORNING

For months, I have been waiting for a reason to publish this breathtaking photograph of the greatly underrated Stella Stevens, but, finally, I’m posting it for no other reason that its Sunday morning, the cat sleeps, and it pleases me. Dawn will come soon enough and the squirrels will play in jacaranda trees before the late-rising crows arrive like the avian Gestapo. I also have a clip of one of my favorite tunes for this occasion. Lou has ensured the song has a totally different melancholy whether or not you are alone. Does Sunday mean toast and newspapers or merely an unmade void? (But surely Stella Stevens could ward off any too-early contemplation of blue Monday.)

The secret word is Bagel

ART, COMMERCE, AND THE LAST WORD

The great and revered Jamie Hewlett, who drew Tank Girl, in its prime, is now designing the packaging for an apparently very successful line of vibrators and adult toys.

MEANWHILE HCB may well have given us our last word on The Sopranos.
"Read this on a blog. I think it's my favorite…
Everything went black for the VIEWERS, not for Tony, AJ, Carmela or anyone else in the diner. WE, the audience were the ones who were whacked."

I have to take this to mean that Big Tony’s world abides but we are all in some television afterlife, but the we don’t know. I find this as plausible as the universe being balanced of the back of a giant turtle, or created by some bad-tempered, bearded, goat-herders' god six thousand years ago.

PLUG FOR MYSELF

Just reminding y'all, neighbors, I have a new and quite alarming non-fiction book – WHO’S WATCHING YOU? – published by Disinformation who describe it thusly on Amazon (while otherwise keeping it a well protected secret…)

“The threat of terrorism and the corresponding climate of fear encouraged by the government have together eroded our freedom to live our lives in peace and quiet away from the prying eyes of hidden cameras. The government is tightening its grip on us by watching and recording what we do. They are doing this because they know they can and because knowledge is power. But exactly who are "they" and why do they want to know so much about us? This book includes chilling, accurate, and up-to-date descriptions of the methods the government (and private company proxies) use to watch us.”

Boing Boing was very nice about it saying -- “Who’s Watching You? includes chilling, accurate and up-to-date descriptions of the methods the government (and private company proxies) uses to watch us. Essential reading for everyone concerned about privacy and freedoms of speech and association, even–perhaps especially–if you don’t plan on doing anything wrong.”

The secret word is Buck

PLUG FOR A PAL

This show was produced by our good buddy Erik. Set your Tivo.

WHALES WOULD LIVE A VERY LONG TIME IF ASSHOLES DIDN'T STICK HARPOONS IN THEM. (Official)

Having spent far too much of my time thinking about the fictional Italian Mafia, I find this whale story truly fascinating. I was always struck by a marine legend (that’s an urban legend except at sea) that, when seagoing humans switched from sail to steam, the vibration of all those propellers in the water totally fucking up the whale’s highly sophisticated sonar-style navigation system, and forced them to redesign their entire migration patterns to a much less efficient “short hop” system. (And, from that Star Trek movie I watched earlier in the week, they are also real tight with the aliens.) All in all, we really have to start treating our cetacean brothers and sisters with considerably ore respect.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A fragment of a weapon used by commercial whalers in the 1800s was found in a massive bowhead whale caught off Alaska last month, suggesting it may be more than a century old, officials said Tuesday. The fragment, from a bomb lance manufactured around 1880, was discovered in a bowhead harvested in the traditional subsistence hunt conducted by Alaska's Inupiat people, said officials from the North Slope Borough, the local government in northernmost Alaska. The fragment shows that the whale could be nearly 130 years old, said Craig George, a wildlife biologist with the borough's Department of Wildlife Management.

For more…

The secret word is Queequeg

Morton the Shark -- RIP

DOROTHY..?

"Dorothy, are you sure there’s no such thing as sequin poisoning?”

END OF AN ARIA

Of course I’m disappointed with what I wrote. (But I always am, kinda. I think it’s motivational.) I wanted to sum up seven years of The Sopranos – all 86 episodes – in a work of such critical brilliance that Oscar Wilde himself would rise from his Parisian grave to embrace my genius, literary prizes would be showered upon me, and ravishingly gorgeous mature women in high heels would worship me. I dunno. I did my level best and here it is. But I did also did discover that David Chase is another who can’t exit with the statutory Bob Dylan quote.

The secret word is Cannoli

BUT IF IT'S SLAYING WE NEED...

This link is to a very reasonable argument why Frank Lunz -- the human slime -- should be taken out and hung from a handy lamppost, or the historic sour apple tree.

And these smug boyos look like they too might benefit from at least a cull, if not extermination, possibly right along with their supposed target women and other men who believe that passion can only be measured in dollars and scents.

Death to transaction and doublespeak

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S #16

What can I say except this has to be a virtual artifact, and Ballard always saw it coming from the very get-go.

The secret word is Vermillion

WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME

We have a brand new Chinese Panda-cam but I suspect it’s having trouble with all the traffic and a lack of bandwidth because sometime it’s there and sometimes it isn’t. (From Valerie)

ALSO we have an unsolicited testimonial forwarded by SE. – YOUR SITE IS EXCEPTIONAL! A friend of mine, an internet expert of sorts, calls sites like yours "sticky sites"; a site that keeps the viewer looking and reading and looking and chortling and thinking and.
Praise in this century is praise indeed.

The secret word is Appreciative

IS THIS HOW YOU WANTED IT TO END?

The corpse of Albert Anastasia. Yet another theft from Tom Sutpen. I just can’t help myself. His shit is so cool.

I have to finally admit that I think I’m gangstered out for a while. Last night’s Sopranos, took some thinking about and then some writing about and finally a period of decompression while I watched that really fucking dumb Star Trek movie about Kirk’s bunch coming back to the 20th century to mess with time and kidnap a couple humpbacked whales. I finally got to bed at 8.00am and today I’m doing nothing except facing the frustration that, in all the discussion, my brilliant 10 cents'-worth won’t come out until Thursday, but that’s the cross the print writer has to bear. Fortunately there’s four reruns of The X-Files tonight (it’s replaced Law & Order as my comfort TV). Plus there’s some epic on the History Channel about Mayan doom prophesies which will get me started back on 12.21.12 even though I don’t believe in it and am only trying to start a gratuitous mass panic.

Or I could watch Lawrence Welk play “Sister Ray”

And also, while I rest my weary hands we have a fortuitous and highly insightful missive from HCB…

Forgive me Mick for soundboarding you here. I knew you were writing about the Sopranos and it got me thinking a little with you in mind. Thing is, we know where to look for the hidden faces and all that--that's our heritage--we're professionals--you more than I--you're a fucking expert. But not many people out there are likely to relate it to the greatest sport of the sixties, conspiracy theorizing, just before Frisbees. So this is what I wrote thinking about you and T, a couple of lines of random shit mostly.
Where's the acid? Sopranos has turned the nation or the internet anyway into the greatest conspiracy-hunting machine ever. Tony buries Paul. Staggering numbers, all with theories. A nation of academic deconstructionalists, Funny though that one of the principle waste products of psychedelics, all that 3-D holographic connect-the-dots stuff, is happening without any substance more foreign than TV. Chase may be as clever a punning cryptic as Dylan. Think we saw his thought dreams as the plastic was melting and the chromium too. I knew it was a comedy when I heard Vanilla Fudge, but Phil's crushed head was as funny as any great seinfeld moment. I think what I liked best was how directly Chase was addressing the audience with that same combination of seduction and contempt that Dylan had--. Someday people are going to be looking at Chase and Milch (after Oliver Stone) as the neo-psychedelicists.

The secret word is Vig

HAVE A SEAT

From Valerie...

"...This amazing art installation was made by Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo for the International Instanbul Biennale in 2003. She used over 1,550 chairs stacked on an empty lot between two buildings!" Enjoy it while I wrestle with my appreciation of The Sopranos that you will be able to read on Thursday.

The secret word is Nanosecond.

Or you could build Mousey The Junkbot.

THE LAST SLICE OF THE PIZZA

So here we all are, approaching the evening of the final denoument and the last hour after which The Sopranos ends forever. I recall how, on Friday, I drew attention to the writer in the The San Francisco Chronicle who cited Yeat’s The Second Coming as a metaphor for big Tony in, I guess, a search for pop culture profundity. I posted the entire poem, mainly because I like it one whole lot, but also to illustrate just how intense academic analysis of The Sopranos has become. Hell, the shows finale made the cover of the New Yorker (above). A number of these earnest analysts have also reminded us with serious significance that the 2006 season started opened with a soundtrack of Material’s Seven Souls, featuring William S. Burroughs reading from his novel The Western Lands. What follows is an excerpt. For the non-Sopranos aficianados, just look on it as some free Sunday Burroughs. Beyond that I cannot commment. I still have my own learned analysis to write. (And I pray like a bride on her wedding night that I will not fail to beat out all the others.)

"The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls, Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director, He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in. Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons. Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out . . . depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense- but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go beck to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the Land of the Dead. Number four is Ba, the heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba. Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the western Lands. Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives. Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.I first encountered this concept in Norman Mailer's, Ancient Evenings, and saw that it corresponded precisely with my own mythology, developed over a period of many years, since birth in fact."

The secret word is Cartouche

Or, after all this pop profundity would you rather see a bunny whup a snake. (Thanks Wend)

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS

Which I guess have a common theme, and the theme is sex, or, to be more precise, the clichés of sex, which, right at the moment, and to be wholly frank, I view with an ambiguity that is close to visible. As my emotional life grinds on, like some grim panzer retreat from a metaphoric Moscow – only with mercifully better weather – the inevitable culmination of the sexual cliché has become a matter of such utter predictability, that, all too frequently, it’s instigation takes on an inert pointlessness. Alcohol has much the same effect. I would like to be protractedly drunk, but the hangover would kill me. Slowly and with pain.

We could look at it another way, however. Perhaps here in the Shaolin Temple of Rock & Roll – among the Cirque du Dreamseekers* – we search for the original cliché with the wholly unexpected twist. (Between walking on Zigzag rice paper, perceiving Elvis in a potato chip, and snatching the pebble from my hand, grasshopper.) Now wouldn’t that be something? A blow for the oxy-morons!

* more later.

An opium den, wistfully published without comment.

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

A NEWTON REMINDER

Newton would like to remind yet again you that The Animal Rescue Site hasn’t gone away and still needs daily clicks to meet their quota of the free food donated to abused and neglected animals, by their corporate sponsors/advertisers. These donations are calculated by the number of hits on the site. So use this link, to go to the purple button that you press to register your hit. It costs you nothing and the animals eat. Okay?

The secret word is Foodbowl

DYSFUNCTIONAL MUTATIONS

THE SECOND COMING
By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And why, you ask am I reproducing Yeat’s The Second Coming, this Friday morn. Well, neighbors, apart from being one of my favorite poems, I have been reading up on all the speculation on how the last episode of The Sopranos will turn out on Sunday. I have the hard job, you see. On Sunday, I get to watch the last episode and the sit up all night writing the post-game summation for LA CityBeat. Please read it when it’s published Thursday.
Yeah, you say, but what the fuck does this have to do with Yeats? Well nothing, except one writer in The San Francisco Chronicle cited the poem as a metaphor for big Tony. I didn’t really agree with the thesis, but I was glad to see the poem, except, watching the news of the day – the Turks moving on Iraq, Paris fucking Hilton, Bush in a pissing contest with Putin and a new Cold War – would that I could identify the slouching beast now born and growing, but how can I can I spot it, and know which one it is, in this vast crowd of dysfunctional mutations.

Statutory Bob Dylan quote – “In Jersey’s everything’s legal, as long as you don’t get caught.”

The secret world is Stable

BRIGHTON LUNACY

The following tale comes from UK Steve…

LONDON (AFP) - A police force is to put more officers on the streets during full moons because they believe the lunar cycle may be linked to violent behaviour, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Sussex Police have found that drinkers in the seaside city of Brighton and Hove are particularly aggressive during full moons, despite mixed findings from researchers who have examined the issue previously. "I compared a graph of full moons and a graph of last year's violent crimes and there is a trend," Inspector Andy Parr told the Brighton Argus newspaper. "People tend to be more aggressive generally. I would be interested in approaching the universities and seeing if any of their post-graduates would be interested in looking into it further. This could be helpful to us."

This crime-at-full-moon has been an urban law-enforcement legend for as long as I can remember – kinda like the one that claims domestic violence peaks at 89F – but I never heard it officially acted upon before. Also I grew up in Brighton, during the Mods and Rockers wars, when – forget the moon – a careless discussion of the relative and contrasting merits of Jerry Lee Lewis and The Who could trigger a bloody battle with rocks, bottles, and lengths of primary chain.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S #15

There’s porno-kitsch, and there’s inept porno-kitsch, and then there’s this creation (stolen from the site RetroRaunch). If nothing else it really deflates the naïve ideas I used to entertain that to cultivate an outré sexual inclination required a certain modicum of intelligence and imagination to, at the very least, make some kind of choice in the matter. Seemingly all you actually needed was the sum of 2.95. (Which probably bought you a three-course meal at the time.) I love the sock garters on the male victim, however. He should have kept his tie on.

The secret word is Curiosa

IMPEACH CHENEY

Want to impeach the hideous Dick Cheney? One way to start the balls of retribution rolling is to click here. (Think Cheney wears sock garters?)

MORPH MAGNIFICENT

Well, I’m no longer busy, but, damn, am I tired. Indeed, if there was anything worthwhile on 400 channels of television, I would probably be too tired to watch it. And if fucking Bush gave Scooter Libby a pardon tonight, I would probably be too tired to hurl a boot at the TV and scream into the night. I fact, I think I’m really too tired to be doing this, but my ego will not allow Doc40 to lapse and thus, I can only offer…

500 Years of Women In Western Art

Which is an amazing piece of work (sent by one of our favorite Southern Belles) and I totally recommend that you watch if only for the incredible morphing. And talking of morphing, word is now out that breathtaking picture of sunset at the North Pole I posted Tuesday of last week was, in fact, created on a computer.

The secret word is Lips

Maybe (turn out the light)

OVERWORKED

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, but tomorrow I hope we’ll be back to normal. Is the guy third from the right holding a broom or a mike stand? (Elvis or the janitor?)

The secret word is Deadline

SATURDAY NIGHT AND I AIN'T GOT ETC...

Anyone for some Saturday deciphering? (The bloody Da Vinci Code is all over my television.)
Or you could watch a naked dog lip-sync to Bill Burroughs.

The secret word is Hangover

WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE?

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” (photo by Gerard Malanga)

The following (from Nature) was sent over by HCB a while ago, but I shuffled it into a file where it lay for some weeks until I took a look and realized that this is a perfect account of drug use, as it would be practiced, should We (the good guys) lose the War on Drugs to Them (the creepy motherfuckers), and a dire warning that Generation 2 of MKULTRA – the Sons of Sid Gottlieb – are still at it.

"A single, specific memory has been wiped from the brains of rats, leaving other recollections intact. The study adds to our understanding of how memories are made and altered in the brain, and could help to relieve sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of the fearful memories that disrupt their lives. The results are published in Nature Neuroscience. The brain secures memories by transferring them from short-term to long-term storage, through a process called reconsolidation. It has been shown before that this process can be interrupted with drugs. But Joseph LeDoux of the Center for Neural Science at New York University and his colleagues wanted to know how specific this interference was: could the transfer of one specific memory be meddled with without affecting others?
"Our concern was: would you do something really massive to their memory network?" says LeDoux.
To find out, they trained rats to fear two different musical tones, by playing them at the same time as giving the rats an electric shock. Then, they gave half the rats a drug known to cause limited amnesia (U0126, which is not approved for use in people), and reminded all the animals, half of which were still under the influence of the drug, of one of their fearful memories by replaying just one of the tones.
When they tested the rats with both tones a day later, untreated animals were still fearful of both sounds, as if they expected a shock. But those treated with the drug were no longer afraid of the tone they had been reminded of under treatment. The process of re-arousing the rats' memory of being shocked with the one tone while they were drugged had wiped out that memory completely, while leaving their memory of the second tone intact.
LeDoux's team also confirms the idea that a part of the brain called the amygdala is central to this process - communication between neurons in this part of the brain usually increases when a fearful memory forms, but it decreases in the treated rats. This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response. Greg Quirk, a neurophysiologist from the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico, thinks that psychiatrists working to treat patients with conditions such as PTSD will be encouraged by the step forward. "These drugs would be adjuncts to therapy," he says. "This is the future of psychiatry - neuroscience will provide tools to help it become more effective."

It is also a perfect line-item brainwashing tool for the thought police in the psycho-civilized total-control nation state.

The secret word is Zap!

“I don’t want to worry anyone, but I think the cat is radioactive.”

SLUTS OF THE SERENGETI

"The female cheetahs that prowl the Serengeti in Tanzania appear to live up to their name, scientists have shown. DNA analysis of the spotted cats found that they were serial cheaters, with nearly half of their litters made up of cubs from different fathers. Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society, the scientists say the infidelity may expose them to disease. However, it could also ensure the genetic diversity of the endangered species, the researchers hypothesise." For more… (This was a BBC furry critter story sent by Valerie.)

NOT SO FURRY is the media column I have in this week’s LA CityBeat about vanishing attention span and a brand-new, dumbed-down corporate innovation they call the “minisode”

CRYPTIQUE – The boa constrictor finished up working for a stripper.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S #14

Be-Bop-A-Lula is very definitely his baby.

And we do NOT mean maybe

The secret word is Rumble

HOW COULD I FORGET?

I hang my head in shame that Doc40 completely forgot to appropriately recognize the 100th birthday of John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison) last Saturday. Of course, he’s been dead since 1979, but that’s beside the point. To make up for the omission, however, here is one real manly picture of the Duke who – despite having weaseled out of World War II anyway he could* – was the unrivalled hero of every hippie hating, pick-up driving redneck, and gay bashing, gung-ho blow-hard who ever owned a shotgun rack or cursed the damned commie fags and figured the Indians had it coming. Behold above the man who was the global symbol of American masculinity and sure and certain certainty that the US of A was the greatest darned number one country on the face of the Earth, pilgrim.

* kinda like Dick Cheney and Vietnam. The Duke had more important things to do. Like making war movies where everyone’s only firing blanks, and shooting stops for lunch and cocktails.

The secret word is Revolver

SUNSET AT THE NORTH POLE

The Chinese have a saying that goes something like this: "When someone shares with you something of value, you have an obligation to share it with others!" From SE

BUT THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH GRINDS ON

Since no one in either Congress or the Senate bothers to read the legislation they’re passing, this little gem (brought to our attention by HCB) could well produce absolute total chaos in the near future. Seemingly even US citizens who apply for a job will need prior approval from Department of Homeland Security under the terms of the immigation bill passed by the Senate this week.American Civil Liberties Union pointed out that the DHS's Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS) is error plagued and if the department makes a mistake in determining work eligibility, there will be virtually no way to challenge the error or recover lost wages due to the bill’s prohibitions on judicial review. Even current employees will need to obtain eligibility approval from the DHS Within 60 days of the Immigration Reform Act of 2006 becoming law. "EEVS would be a financial and bureaucratic nightmare for both businesses and workers," said Timothy Sparapani, ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Under this already flawed program no one would be able to work in the U.S. without DHS approval - creating a ‘No Work List’ similar to the government’s ‘No Fly List.’ And, of course, it would be headed up by yet another Bushie incompetent. For more.

And these would appear to be the top 25 stories of 2007 that we weren’t supposed to hear, and it’s hardly June yet.

The secret word is Totalitarian

NEWTON HAS NEWS

BEIJING - China’s former top drug regulator was sentenced to death for taking bribes to approve untested medicines, as the country’s main quality control agency announced its first recall system targeting unsafe food products.

OUTLAW MEMORIAL DAY

Henry McCarty 1859 – 1881, better known as Billy the Kid, but went by the aliases Henry Antrim and William Harrison Bonney, verteran of New Mexico’s Lincoln Country Range War, and reputed to have killed 21 men, one for each year of his life. He has been played in the movies by, among others, Paul Newman, Kris Kristofferson, and Emilo Estevez

Playin' around with some sweet senorita
Into her dark hallway she will lead ya
In some lonesome shadows she will greet ya
Billy, you're so far away from home.

There's eyes behind the mirrors in empty places
Bullet holes and scars between the spaces
There's always one more notch and ten more paces
Billy, and you're walkin' all alone.

There's always some new stranger sneakin' glances
Some trigger-happy fool willin' to take chances
And some old whore from San Pedro to make advances
Advances on your spirit and your soul.

Guitars will play your grand finale
Down in some Tularosa alley,
Maybe in the Rio Pecos valley
Billy, you're so far away from home.

Why are these old Bob Dylan songs running around in my head? It’s like the new Patti Smith CD, I must have written well over a hundred songs with various people and maybe 60 or 70 of them have been recorded one way or another, yet all that pops into my mind are other folks covers. Is it the onset of some rock & roll senility? Or just the need to do a bit of uncomplicated singing.

The secret word is Wanted

Charles Nelson Reilly – RIP

TIPS ON AVOIDING ALIEN ABDUCTION

We don’t hear much from logicgrl these days, but this was with some stuff about leeches she sent and us, and a damned useful tip it is too.

1) Do not panic. The extraterrestrial biological entity (EBE) may sense your fear and act rashly.
2) Control your thoughts. Do not think of anything violent or upsetting—the EBE may have the ability to read your mind. Try to avoid mental images of abduction (boarding the saucer, anal probes); such images may encourage them to take you.
3) Resist verbally. Firmly tell the EBE to leave you alone.
4) Resist mentally. Picture yourself enveloped in a protective shield of white light, or in a safe place. Telepathic EBEs may get the message.
5) Resist physically. Physical resistance should be used only as a last resort. Go for the EBE’s eyes (if it has any)—you will not know what its other, more sensitive areas are.

The secret words are Zeta Reticuli

REGGIE BUSTED

After two years on the lam, they caught Reggie. Reggie was a probably-no-longer-wanted former pet alligator dumped in Machado Lake in Los Angeles, way back in 2005, who has been attracting media, tourists, and dumb-ass, trailer-trash croc hunters ever since. Sadly Reggie was busted last Thursday on dry land by park rangers, firefighters and a zoo worker. They exploited his appetite for chicken and set a trap. Reggie was suckered and is now an inmate in the LA Zoo.

MINDBENER'S MIND BENT

Wayne Fontana of the Mindbenders (who of you is old enough to remember “The Game of Love”?) would seem to have totally lost his aging mind. Full story from Valerie.