Feral Children: John Ssabunnya, Kamala and Amala, Hessian Wolf Boy, Wild Boy of Averyon

Feral Children

Found in 1991, John Ssabunnya (pictured here) was reared by apes in the jungles of Uganda. Seeing his mother murdered by his father, John escaped into the jungle as a toddler, where Green monkeys adopted him and thereby saved his life. John learned their mannerisms, climbed trees, lived on fruit, nuts, roots, and berries.

To protect themselves, John and his monkey family made racket, and hurled sticks at John's would-be rescuers. When the villagers got the boy down from a tree, they found him covered with dirt, his eyes and body filled with fleas.

Raised in a Christian orphanage, John learned again how to speak and told his story. For those who were skeptical, he demonstrated behavior that put their doubts to rest.

The BBC tested John by taking him to the Uganda Wildlife Education Center. With a group of visiting children who harassed Green monkeys, John behaved differently. Crouched, and reaching an open hand toward the monkeys, he made a series of oblique glances and guttural sounds that left the humans in awe. In less than two hours he had been accepted by the monkeys.

The Hessian wolf-boy, found in the woods of Hesse, Germany, in 1341 and raised thereafter by local monks whose records indicate he was about 7 years old and kept by wolves. He soon died after capture but a second boy, about 12, was captured in the same region in 1344. This boy apparently died soon after being captured, but a second wild boy — this time a 12 year old — seized three years later (1344) in the same region but the woods of Wetterau this time and lived to the age 80. Records indicate both children as wild and immune to cold and discomfort, besides not being able to stand upright, consequently having to move around on all fours.

The Wild Boy of Hesse, captured in the woods near Hameln, Germany 27 July 1724, about 12 years old. He could not speak and ate only vegetables and grass and sucked the juice of green stalks; at first he rejected bread. Summoned to King George I (also Hanoverian King), he was briefly court favorite, dying in 1785.

The Wild Boy of Aveyron, captured near Lacune, France, 1797 and taken, kicking and screaming, by local peasants then displayed in the village square. He escaped and was recaptured in 1798. A widow fed and clothed him for a week, but he again escaped to the forest. Less wary of humans, in the 1800 winter, hungry, he wandered into Saint Sernin and was captured again. Dirty, inarticulate, he moved on all fours, grunting like a beast. He became known as Victor. Bonaparte's brother, Lucien, ordered Victor to Paris and exhibited him in a cage, wherein he rocked back and forth, dull, lifeless, apathetic. Jean-Marc Gaspard tried to educate him. Victor learned how to read, say a few words, and obey simple commands, but never spoke properly. He died in 1828.

Interestingly, this was Rousseau's age, the epoch of nature as pure and civilization as degrading. The boy put to the test such beliefs. Victor was no Garden of Eden child.

Kamala and Amala  Kamala, 7 or 8 years old, and Amala, about 1 and a half, were two girls supposedly discovered in 1920 living with a family of wolves in a cave-like den in the base of a huge abandoned termite hill in India. In an orphanage, they preferred the company of cats and dogs, and like wild animals, slept days and prowled nights on all fours. They bit and attacked other children if provoked. With acute sight, hearing and smell, they enjoyed raw meat. In 1921 Amala died. Kamala would not leave her sister's body and had to be removed from the coffin. Kamala learned a small vocabulary and died in 1929.

Jesus' Face Reconstructed

With the aid of computers, forensic anthropologists input the best data available for Jesus in his time and place. This representation differs markedly from the European version of him as lithe, long-haired, light-skinned, and delicate-featured.

Israeli and British scientists worked with computer programmers to create the face for the December 2002 Popular Mechanics magazine.

They used archaeological and anthropological science rather than an artistic interpretation. Following a model of a skull found near Jerusalem that dates to the first century, they performed CAT scans and forensic muscle reconstruction to recreate the face. They acknowledge that without Jesus' skull, theirs is not the actual face, but it does come much closer than previous artist renderings, which were filtered by the culture of the painter.

It is a broad, peasant's face, dark olive skin, short curly hair, and a prominent nose. People were much shorter in Jesus' time, so he would have stood about 5 foot 1 inch tall (1.55 m) with a weight of 110 pounds (50 kg).

Unlike paintings, his hair is short. The researchers found that in the Bible long hair was not customary, and was frowned upon. In the New Testament Paul wrote "If a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him."

It may not be great art, but is less misleading as to the appearance of the true face.

Chris Langan & His IQ

Chris Langan is one of the smartest people in America—his reported IQ is said to be off the charts. Yet, if it's a criterion of anything at all, he has not made it big in the business world. At the time this is written he’s in his mid 40’s, works as a part-time bouncer at a bar and lives in a one room home. He claims that he manages to support himself on only $6000 a year.

From a modest background, Chris had an abusive father. His exceptional intelligence only seemed to heighten the problems in their relationship.

Langan says that being a genius does not necessarily make life easy. Although he has never cared much about money, he explains that his lack of a consistent and professional career path is a result of negative experiences in school.

The following is excerpted from On 20/20 Downtown, no date given, in which Cynthia McFadden moderated for Langan, who answered questioners. The account states that he is working on a mathematical and philosophical book that will present his theory of the universe.

As an online chat Langan answered posted questions.

Questioner--How do you think you can prove the existence of God using mathematics?

Chris Langan--You have to prove that the universe is a self-referential system. Then you have to examine the attributes of this system, analyze the system to determine how it behaves. It turns out that in certain ways it behaves mentally like a mind. The natural question to ask then is: whose mind are we talking about? The answer to that question is the mind of God.

Questioner--What is the correlation between genius and IQ? between motivation and IQ?

Chris Langan--There appear to be aspects of motivation in intelligence. Whether or not these show up in IQ depends on the test that is taken. For some tests, motivation is a factor; for others it isn't. The ones for which motivation is not a factor, are those that tend to measure mental reflexes. However, even mental reflexes can be depressed for a variety of reasons. So if one's motivation is lacking, one should always be retested when it's high.

Questioner--What is the extent of your education? Did you ever go to college? Why or why not? If you did, how did your relationship with other people change?

Chris Langan--I graduated from high school. I got an academic scholarship to college which lasted for one year. Lost it due to a bureaucratic oversight, and paid my own way back to college for a little under 2 quarters after that. By that time, I'd had a sufficient number of negative experiences in academia that I didn't want to go back. However, although I remain disappointed with academic bureaucracy, I understand that it's a system from which some people have much to gain.

Questioner--Have you read any Hindu or Buddhist texts relating organization of the universe? I've read that similiar texts have inspired Tesla.

Chris Langan--Yes I have read such texts, and have found remarkable insights in them, and yes I have been inspired by them.

Questioner--Are you a member of MENSA?

Chris Langan--No. I never joined Mensa. The first high IQ society I joined was the Mega society, with a much higher cutoff than Mensa's. Whereas Mensa has a cutoff of 1 in 50, the Mega society has a cutoff of 1 in 1 million. Subsequently I joined the Prometheus Society which has a cutoff of 1 in 30,000 and the Triple 9 Society which has a cutoff of 1 in 1,000. Together, these and other high cutoff societies form what is called the Superhigh-IQ Community. The Mega Foundation is working to develop the Superhigh-IQ Community on a global level.

Questioner--Does language limit our thought?

Chris Langan--Most people think that a language must be a natural, spoken or written language like English, French or German. But in mathematics and logic, the definition of language is far more general. Reality itself can be viewed as a language, and the language of thought is closely related to that of reality at large. So we might just as well say that the language of thought, rather than limiting our ability to understand reality at large, facilitates it. However, if one's mental language is artificially constrained, then one's insight and creativity may indeed be impaired. The surest proof against this is an open mind and a desire to learn. Samuel--Hi Chris, you mentioned that the universe behaves in certain ways like a mind. Can you elaborate on this?

Chris Langan--The mind works according to the principals of mathematics, including inductive and deductive logic. This goes back to Kant who held that the human mind has categories of perception and cognition. These categories are constraints on phenomenal reality. But phenomenal reality is the only reality we can know. Therefore, constraints on mind function as constraints on reality and systems that function according to similar constraints are similar in function.

Questioner--Chris, Do you believe in creation science or evolution?

Chris Langan--I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible. Questioner--Do you play an instrument, draw, paint, etc??

Chris Langan--Yes I do. My main instrument is the guitar. I own several electric guitars including a Les Paul, and a Gibson bass guitar. I've also played the piano, although I took it up too late to be especially good at it. I own a synthesizer, that is an electronic keyboard. In fact, I've even played the drums! Most recently I've been into composing music on my computer. There are now a number of good programs that will let you do this. In addition, I draw and occasionally sculpt. I've also written a novel or two, now molding in the bottom drawer of my desk and I love to write songs and poetry. I guess I'm just a romantic at heart.

Moderator of questioning--Chris do you have any final thoughts?

Chris Langan--I'm very concerned about helping others who face some of the problems that I faced when I was growing up. That's what the Mega Foundation [an organization he founded] is about--gifted people helping gifted people. The profoundly gifted are the greatest and most cost effective resource that we as a species possess, and we should do everything in our power to see that they are not wasted. At the same time, every human being, regardless of IQ, has a microcosm in his or her mind and the abilities of ordinary people are in a sense as important as those of the gifted. If we all work together to solve the world's problems, future generations of mankind will have a much healthier planet to inherit

Home_____Fear and Loathing in Manilla

On 6 July 2001, from Manilla’s AM sports radio station DZSR Bobby Fischer did karaoke over Jackie Wilson’s "take it from me,don’t ask for a helping hand, mmm ‘cause no one will understand!" Yes, Bobby was on a roll. "Bright lights will find you, and they will mess you around! Let me tell you, millions will watch you! Have mercy now, as you sink right down to the ground!"

Poor Bobby, he had to hide in Manilla to sing that. Nobody in New York would understand the plaint behind his lyrics. He had gone to the Philippines to escape a world that didn’t appreciate him, lured there by Sports Radio management who, in exchange for interviews, gave him free air time for his classic Rhythm and Blues disks. This was his seventeenth Philippine radio broadcast and he used them to lash out at his enemies, former New York City mayor Ed Koch, Presidents Bush, junior and senior, and the Times Mirror. They were all "Jews, secret Jews, or CIA rats who work for the Jews."

Bobby complains that he is being persecuted by world Jewry.

His mother was Jewish.

Because of the United States government he claims he has been forced into exile. Because of book publishers, movie studios, and clock manufacturers, he has been swindled out of a fortune in royalties, brand name copyrights, and patents.

As for chess, why it is nothing more than "mental masturbation." Gary Kasparov is a crook and former KGB spy who won’t sign up to an honest match. He makes sure all outcomes are rigged.

On 11 September 2001, the day thousands died, some by leaping out of eightieth story windows, Fischer was interviewed on Bobo Radio, a public station in Bagnio City. "This is all wonderful news," he told his interviewer. "I applaud the act. The US and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them. Nobody gave a shit. Now it’s coming back to the US. Fuck the US. I want to see the US wiped out."

Misery caused him by the US is one thing, but worst of all is that the Jew Rothschilds, the closet Jew Clinton, and the probable Jew Bekins executives, have devastated him.

Bekins did it by stealing millions of dollars of material from his ten-by-ten foot storage space in Pasadena, California.

Childish? Acute paranoia? Slippery hold on reality? Deranged?

What about the royalties? All U.S. book royalties have been paid, although in escrow in California since 2000 as Fischer has not given a taxpayer-ID. A movie such as Searching for Bobby Fischer can use his name and persona without his consent. The "Fischer Method" chess clocks were not authorized by him, but then, he hasn’t filed suit.

What about the storage space heist? Bekins sold its contents at public auction because Fischer didn’t keep up his rental payments.

The storage room held old magazines, Mexican comics, John Gunther books, and nothing worth millions of dollars.

In fact, a Good Samaritan, Bob Ellsworth, bought up the lot at the Bekins auction and shipped it all to Fischer when he lived in Budapest. A receipt exists to that effect. Fischer denies it.

Of Ellsworth, Fischer said during a 27 January Philippine radio interview, "Some Filipino who loves me should say hello to that motherfucker. Bob Ellsworth is worthy of death for this shit he pulled on me in cahoots with Bekins. This was all orchestrated by the Jewish world governments."

In a more recent radio interview he urged the Icelandic government (yes, the Icelandic government) to close the local U.S. naval base. "If they refuse to go," he said, "send them some letters with anthrax. They'll get the message."
___________________________

Information for this piece derives from the December 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly's article titled "Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame" by Rene Chun

Home_____The Rape of Nanking

Because of a mutually convenient "gentleman's agreement" between Japan and the United States, little has been done to make the world aware of it, yet it stands as one of the greatest horrors in history. Be advised that what follows is not for the squeamish.

Between December 1937 and March 1938 a terrible massacre took place. Japanese troops captured the Chinese city of Nanking and embarked on a campaign of murder, rape and looting.

Based on estimates of historians and charity organizations, between 250,000 and 300,000 people were killed, many of them women and children. The number of women raped was put at 20,000 with many accounts of civilians being hacked to death.

Soldiers used prisoners for bayonet practice, which is well-documented. Women suffered most; rape is reported as embedded in the Japanese military. Thousands of females, as young as eight and as old as eighty, were raped and many were then murdered. One Japanese soldier stated, "no matter how young or old they could not all escape the fate of being raped... each was allocated to fifteen or twenty soldiers for sexual intercourse and abuse."

A Chinese man, named Tang, was captured and taken with hundreds to a pit in which sixty Chinese already lay. Tang recalls a soldiers' game with the living Chinese, a killing contest to see who could kill the most the fastest. Tang remembered a pregnant Chinese woman fighting for her life as a Japanese soldier dragged her away to rape her. No Japanese moved to help. Tang states, ". . . in the end the soldier killed her by ripping open her belly with his bayonet and jerking not only her intestines but a squirming fetus. . . ." Tang survived only by falling into the pit under a beheaded man.


Does the Japanese public and its government acknowledge and apologize for these horrors? No. The public shrugs, or speaks of tall tales. Many Japanese officials and historians deny that there was a massacre on such a scale. They admit deaths and rapes, but say the scale was much smaller. And in any case, they argue, these things happen in times of war.

In his late eighties, Azuma Shiro recalled one episode: "There were about thirty seven old men, old women and children. We captured them and gathered them in a square. There was a woman holding a child on her right arm ... and another one on her left. We stabbed and killed them, all three--like potatoes in a skewer. I thought then, it's been only one month since I left home . . . and thirty days later I was killing people without remorse."

Has his voice been heard? No. The official Japanese position is that their troops comported themselves no worse than other soldiers in combat. The only problem is that the Japanese were fighting nobody. The city had fallen. Chinese troops had fled, leaving civilians defenseless.

Having recently published a book on the Rape of Nanking, Azuma, appealed a Tokyo court decision ruling that his memoirs wrongly accused his former commander of atrocities in the city.

Azuma said this at news conference at the YMCA in Tsim Shai Tsui: "If the matter is allowed to rest . . . then obviously the massacre will be treated as fiction and the Japanese people will ignore this piece of history."

(The Japanese are notorious for selective amnesia about their own past. In public schools very little text book space is given to Japan's role in World War II, nor do students know Japan started it. A Japanese university professor tells of a student who hadn't learned that Japan and the United States had been at war. When he found out, he said, "Oh, really? Who won?")

A singular witness was John Rabe, a German Nazi and loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler (for the economic recovery of Germany). Leader of the Nanking International Safety Zone, Rabe was responsible for saving the lives of nearly three-hundred thousand Chinese men, women and children in the safety zone. He used his swastika arm band to good purpose, as he repeatedly shoved it under the noses of Japanese soldiers about to rape Chinese women.

Iris Chang has brought this holocaust to the attention of the world in her book, The Rape of Nanking.

Mind Shadows_____Adbusters

Historically, Americans have been regarded as naive by Europeans. Mark Twain wrote Innocents Abroad, a title which suggests a view held even by Americans of themselves. To add dignity to a role, English movies once cast as Canadian any character with a North American accent. The general perception of Americans was that they were well meaning, although somewhat uncouth, prone to wearing Hawaiian shirts at a dinner party.

This view of naive Yanks has changed, at least in terms of Americans' regard for themselves.

Modern US society has become extremely self-conscious, with a high sense of the ironic. Why? Because the public is now flooded with words and images; we live in an electronic age. Information and graphics almost overwhelm as they tend to manipulate. Self-consciousness and irony come about as a defense against media manipulation. They are a means to distance the beholder from the beheld. Attendant upon them is cynicism, also a distancing function.

In an age before universal literacy, and to prove the truth of his belief, a rube might have declared, "It says so in the book," as if printed media decided any issue. During the 1930s people panicked into their cars and scurried onto roads after hearing Orson Welles' radio broadcast of a Martian invasion. For the general public, media had a different kind of power to persuade because it tended to be trusted as another form of communication, one that complemented speech, press, the town hall, or a stump speaker.

Long gone are those days.

If you haven't visited the Adbusters site, you should. It is satire for the self-conscious--those who acknowledge they are consumers but feel guilty about it. They enjoy the hipness of its pages. One ad proclaims the viewer can become the next Tiger Woods if he buys a $5,000 golf club. The graphics are clever, and demonstrate talent, but that's not all.

Adbusters reveals no philosophy or other rationale than to appeal to those who share its cynicism toward corporate manipulation of consumers. Readers feel vaguely guilty about their participation in an acquisitive society and turn to Adbusters to assuage their sophisticated view of consumption. Meantime, they continue buying, unmindful of the remarkably privileged citizenship they hold in a first world country.

Don't get me wrong. I hold no brief for mindless consumerism and am also cynical about the manufacture of consent, which continues to subdue and control public behavior. (Presently in the United States five media conglomerates control 94 percent of all media.) No, my brief is not for consumerism. Instead, it is for thinking things through, which is not demonstrated by Adbusters and its conceived target audience. An Adbusters Q & A might go this way: Want to gripe about materialism? Turn to our pages. Sick of advertiser mind games? We're your first resource. Want to feel above it all while you go on spending? Try us.

Adbusters is in truth among the ranks of those it claims to oppose. It is slick, charges six bucks a pop for its newstand magazine, and appeals with images and captions rather than well-reasoned words.

It seems to subvert graphics with an anti-establishment counterpart, but that is not the case. With knee-jerk campaigns and captions, it does not reflect well-conceived philosophy or long-term strategy, but only feeds its own pretensions. It does not offer rationally alternative viewpoints but appeals to an audience used to the twenty second sound byte.

One could argue that its cynicism, irony, and sophisticated self-consciousness are the counterpoints to social outrage and social activism because they do distance the viewer. Suave hip is in; uncool anger is out. This serves to disengage rather than engage the public against Corporate America. Click: Adbusters

Home_____Charles Lindbergh & His Secrets

Lindbergh was their father and led a secret double life for almost two decades, a family adviser said Friday. Anton Schwenk, media consultant to the Germans, said DNA tests conducted by the University of Munich in October proved with 99.9 percent certainty that Dyrk and David Hesshaimer and their sister Astrid Bouteuil were Lindbergh's children.

"It's a delightful moment for them because they now have a feeling of belonging," Schwenk told Reuters. "They knew all along he was their father because they spent time with him growing up. But it's good to have an iron-clad confirmation."

Lindbergh, who also had six children with his U.S. wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, became famous for his daring 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 33 hours.

Lindbergh started a romance with Munich hat-maker Brigitte Hesshaimer in 1957 when he was 55 and she was 32. They had three children: Dyrk, now 45, Astrid, 43, and David, 36.

A restless world traveler, Lindbergh spent five to 14 days with his family in Munich up to three times a year until he died in 1974. Lindbergh and Hesshaimer kept the relationship a secret and the children knew the tall visitor only as "Mr Careu Kent."

The Germans said they did not discover the true identity of the mystery visitor until later. They described him as a loving man who devoted much time and energy to them, setting up trust funds and helping to buy a family house.

FROSTY SILENCE AT FIRST
The Germans first revealed the secret in August, two years after their mother died and despite promising her to keep quiet. They said they only wanted to set the record straight and had no interest in Lindbergh's estate or tarnishing his legacy. Article found at Liberty Post

Ferdinand Waldo Demaro, The Great Imposter

Home_____Ferdinand Waldo Demaro, The Great Imposter

He was the Great Imposter, and his exploits became a bestselling biography, followed by a 1961 movie. Bold, downright audacious, Ferdinand Waldo Demara pretended his way into challenges that would leave others drenched in sweat.

He didn't choose small deceptions. He was often drawn to situations in which discovery was quite dangerous to him. The danger itself seemed to whet his appetite for life on the edge. Consider these:

He faked his way into becoming a surgeon in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Korean War.

He doctored credentials and bamboozled interviewers so that he became a guidance counselor in an American maximum security prison.

With a phony PhD he taught applied psychology at a Pennsylvania college.

The list doesn't end there. He was also civil engineer, sheriff's deputy, assistant prison warden, hospital orderly, lawyer, child-care expert, and Trappist monk, editor, cancer researcher. These are only some of his roles.

In the Royal Canadian Navy, his role as physician Joseph Cyr was perhaps his most challenging. He performed risky operations at sea during the Korean war. Under severe battle conditions, he worked on patients needing tooth extraction, amputation, and a bullet removed from a lung. He was blessed with keen intelligence and a photographic memory, and before the operations he retreated to his quarters, intensely studying medical books. He also administered heavy doses of penicillin to guard against patients' infections. Eventually the Canadian Navy learned of his false identity but didn't doubt his credentials as a physician. The ship's captain, whose tooth Demara extracted, was among those attesting to his character. He was discharged honorably.

Did he lie and defraud because of an amoral personality? No, strangely, his quest was partly spiritual. A faithful Roman Catholic, as a boy he had fallen in love with the Catholic church and its trappings. He mouthed the names of priestly vestments, Amice, Alb, Cincture, Maniple, Chasuble, and dreamed some day of becoming a bishop. When feeling troubled or in need, he prayed with different words, those describing a bishop's clothing: miter, gloves, ring, surplice, cassock, tunic.

His life of course took a different direction, though he did pretend to be a Trappist monk who had sworn to vows of silence. This, because he desperately wanted to live the pious life of a monastic. How did a man who would turn from the tranquil world instead assume some highly tense roles?

He also sought respectability, however temporary. He seems to have been conflicted, wanting peace on the one hand while seeking power and authority on the other. He entered monasteries, desperate for a pious life, only to be kicked out because of his troublesome behavior. The rejection sent him seeking elsewhere, this time for the respect and attention he craved, which came from positions of authority.

This craving seems the key to understanding him, and is illustrated by one situation which combined both aspects of his personality, the spiritual and the cynical, the would-be contemplative and the arrogant anti-authoritarian.

The situation. Although he finished only the ninth grade, he faked his way into graduate theology courses, and earned straight A's in them. Of that experience he says,

"I knew I could do it but I had to have it proven to me. That experience really changed me. No matter how I might feel I still can't work up any respect for acquired learning. I can for character but not learning. A man with a good mind who trusts it can learn anything he needs to know in a few months."

Certainly his achievement is remarkable, but he took theology, not graduate physics courses, and he assumed that "acquired learning" is falsely based on the authority of institutions, which he sees fit to unmask as so much pretentiousness.

He strikes an interesting contrast between character and learning, as if they are distinct attributes. He disdained scholarship almost as if it called into question the character of the professor, which is strange, twisted logic. His conception of character is curiously unfortunate: the man behind a mask has less suspect character than the fellow without a mask. It seems he would undermine authority while seeking it himself.

Given the pretension he saw in the world, he became a pretender, somebody who put the lie to authority by showing how easily it can be assumed as prison warden, surgeon, or whatever. Demara observed that

"In any organization, there's a lot of unused power laying around which can be picked up without alienating anyone."

"If you want power and want to expand, never encroach on anyone else's domain; open up new ones."

Demara operated under two cardinal rules:

The burden of proof is on the accuser.

When in danger, attack.

For example, after being accused of a forgery, he explained "The ordinary faker would at least try to explain his way out at best. But I managed to plant a doubt, and once there was that doubt, for the time being, at least, the moral advantage was on my side. So I was outraged, of course." By the time anyone's suspicions became serious, Demara was off to his next role. He offers simple advice for the aspiring imposter:

[Use an] innocent bumpkin opening [and] ask such simple and naïve questions that the person would have to have an especially dismal view of humanity in order to figure this was the first step of chicanery.

Always use the biggest names [because] people are reluctant to bother important people on routine matters. And they don't suspect a fraud to use obvious names.

The irony is that Demara could exploit basic human decency while regarding this as a test of his character.

At least two books were written about Demara: The Great Imposter, by Robert Crichton and The Rascal and The Road, a sequel also by Crichton. A film, The Great Imposter (1962) appeared with Tony Curtis as the fraud. Demara believed himself slighted by Crichton's rendering of his life and planned an autobiography, but he died, lonely and deeply depressed, of a heart attack on 8 June 1982 at age 59. Dr John Zane, a friend and physician, said of Demara that he died a "broken man who felt his talents were wasted."

At the time of his death he was employed as a hospital priest in California.

The Korean Veterans Association of Canada has an interesting page on him.

Home_____Lukoil, Vladimer Putin, &
Russian Gas Stations in the USA

< Just you and me, kid. Together we'll change this stinking world so that some day the oil moguls can take over.

September 27, 2003, Washington -- In possibly the greatest show of political power ever to attend the grand opening of a gas station, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed up in Chelsea yesterday with Sen. Chuck Schumer to help inaugurate the first Russian-owned chain of petroleum stops in America.

There was no ribbon-cutting at the opening of the Lukoil station at 10th Avenue and 24th Street, but the diminutive Russian leader shook hands with nervous-looking employees, drank a cup of coffee - spiked with skim milk - and sampled a Krispy Kreme doughnut in the station's Kwik Farms convenience store.

Schumer said the Russian-drilled petroleum from Lukoil - which bought out Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc. in 2000 - would be a boon the United States because it could help free America from dependence on oil from the OPEC nations, many of which are hostile Middle Eastern states.

"I hope it does cause problems for OPEC," Schumer said. "I hope OPEC is hurt by this so they don't have a stranglehold on the oil market anymore."

Lukoil says it gets its oil primarily from fields in western Siberia and the northern Caspian Sea.

Lukoil, which controls the second-largest oil reserve of any company, also gets oil from South America and from Iran and Egypt.

Before the war, Lukoil had a contract with Saddam Hussein to drill in Iraq, but the dictator voided it before his ouster because Lukoil talked with the United States about keeping its interests in the Gulf region after any possible conflict.

The company now hopes to return to Iraq, although its contract situation remains in limbo.

"The more competition there is in oil, especially against OPEC - the better New York will do, and the better America will do," Schumer said.

Putin spent about 15 minutes at the station, which had a bright-red color scheme that made it seem like more of a Soviet creation than that of a newly emerging capitalist country.

Lukoil President Vagit Alexperov told reporters, "Through today's action, America will have a new source of energy."

Lukoil now controls 1,300 former Getty-owned stations, including 122 in New York City, which it will slowly begin to rebrand as red-painted Lukoil stations.

The takeover of Getty was the first time a Russian oil company ever took over a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

"If Lukoil is successful and Russia is successful, then the price of oil will come down," Schumer said.

When a reporter noted the prices at the station were not exactly cheap: $1.95 for regular and $2.09 for super, Schumer said, "The prices aren't going to come down in a day."

Confederates in the South. Way south in Brazil

Confederates in the South. Way south in Brazil at Santa Barbara d'Oeste

Each year they hold their Southern heritage festivals. Descendants of Os Confederados, they play the part at these events. Visitors will find the men dressed in Johnny Reb uniforms, the women as Southern Belles. The visitor will notice a certain irony in terms of what the South stood for. Some of these men and women are of mixed parentage. Some of them still speak English with a Southern accent, although most speak only Portuguese.

A band plays Dixie while the the gentlemen and ladies eat fried chicken, then later dance. Gentlemen bow to ladies, offer their arm, then, her hand daintily hooked inside his elbow, he escorts her onto the dance floor. The band begins and they dance quadrilles, first maybe a Schottische then a Mazourka.

One gentleman, with the unlikely name Frederico, explains that they are trying to preserve their culture. 23 years old, he is dressed as a Confederate general.

Few in the states remember today the Great Confederate Migration after the Civil War, but, fearful of their fates under Yankee rule, thousands fled for places below the United States border. Some emigrated to Mexio, others went to Brazil, where an estimated 6,000 people emigrated.

Brazil lured the most Confederates because it encouraged immigration even before war's end with offers of land ownership, and help with transportation. They were encouraged to seek a new life in a country where slavery remained legal and cotton could again become king.

Passage cost $20 to $30, with a voyage over several weeks. Families brought tents, light weight furniture, farming supplies, seeds, and provisions to last six months. Land was offered at 22 cents an acre, with four years credit, and rich farmland was promised.

Former slave owners, women who had never cooked a meal or washed a garment were cooking and washing over an open campfire. Malaria was prevalent, and a drought ruined most of the first crops in the colony of Rio Doce.

Some of them settled in Americana, Brazil, others in Santa Barbara d'Oeste. They went elsewhere as well: Campinnas, Sao Paulo, Juquia, New Texas, Xiririca, and Rio de Janeiro. One colony settled in Santarem, in the north deep up the Amazon River. In such towns Confederate flags fly today without controversy.

In a graveyard outside Americana, 400 Confederate settlers lie buried under pine, eucalyptus, mango, and palm trees. Jimmy Carter's wife, Rosalyn, has an ancestor buried there, W.W. Wise, her great-uncle. Near his, another tombstone epitaph reads Roberto Stell Steagull--once a Rebel, Twice a Rebel, & Forever a Rebel. Born 1899, died 1985.

Pictures of a festival

Home_____Driving Mr. Albert: The Man Who Found Einstein’s Brain

Steven Levy said that he had almost a religious experience when he found it in Wichita, Kansas. A journalist for a magazine, New Jersey Monthly, he knew it had been missing since Einstein’s death. Yes, missing. The most brilliant mind of all time was buried without his head intact when he died in 1955. By 1978, when Levy’s editor told him to find it, the trail had gone cold. People speculated as to where it might be, but nobody had found it. After some investigation, Levy concluded rather logically that the brain might still be in the possession of the man who did the autopsy, the pathologist who examined the great scientist’s corpse.

Levy tracked the former Princeton pathologist, Dr Thomas S Harvey, to Wichita, Kansas. The day he chatted with Harvey in the physician’s office, he asked the man about the brain. Harvey, after some time, admitted that he had it. Where? asked Levy. Here, replied the doctor. Here? Yes, right here. Rather sheepishly he told Levy that it was in the very office where they sat.

He walked to a box marked Costa Cider and pulled out two big mason jars. Awestruck, Levy then gazed at the brain that changed the world, as the journalist put it. Most of the brain, except for the cerebellum and parts of the cerebral cortex, had been sliced.

Before he died at 76, Einstein had wanted his body cremated but granted that his brain be examined by science. Clearly, that didn’t happen until the brain was found. In 1985 a study examined Einstein’s brain against eleven men who died at age 64. The scientists examined the ratio of glial cells to neurons (nerve cells), in Einstein’s brain and compared them to the control group of men. They found nothing to indicate a remarkable difference.

In 1996 a study revealed that Einstein’s brain weighed 1,230 grams as compared to the average adult male brain at 1,400 grams. The physicist’s cerebral cortex was thinner than five control brains while his neurons were denser.

A 1999 paper revealed that the surface of Einstein’s brain had unusual groove patterns on both right and left parietal lobs, as compared to the brains of 35 men, average age 57. This lobe area is thought important for math and spatial reasoning. His brain had a much shorter lateral groove, which was partly missing.

What does all this prove? Nothing, really. Nothing at all. He was a genius who allowed that he didn’t know where his ideas came from. You can’t find the mind in the brain. No ideas, just meat is there. You can’t slice the mind on a dissecting table.

Don't get me wrong. Some day science may find a solid physical correlation between brain matter and genius. I suppose that the information will be useful.

But I find something else more useful. I speak of the mystery of life, of consciousness. It is that which pervades our being as the source of our lives. It is the fount of life. Some call it mystery. Others call it God.
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A good read--Driving Mr Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain, by Michael Paterniti.

Home_____Ahmed Chalabi, The Man Iraqis Love To Hate

Ahmed Chalabi was the Pentagon's sweetheart. He has friends in high places, among them Paul WoIfowitz and Richard Perle. State Department had also been infatuated with him until certain people came to see him in a different light. Iraqi lore has him being smuggled out of Jordan in the trunk of a car. Why? Because he embezzled millions from a Jordanian bank. That's where the account below begins. According to it, Chalabi now wants to make good with Jordan.

In an Arabic article published in Elaph Mr Chalabi would pay 100 million Jordanian dinars in exchange for dropping Jordanian government allegations over Al Batra Bank. The Jordanian government accused him of fraud when he was bank manager. He was sentenced in absentia to a minimum of 22 years imprisonment after he fled Jordan.

After Saddam's fall, Jordanian media and government resurrected the issue. At that time Chalabi denied the charges and claimed persecution for his anti-Saddam position.

If innocent, why would he offer to pay 100 million dinars? Since he is now a high mucky-muck on the Iraq Governing Council, he should first explain himself to Iraqis. The Iraqis might ask him to exchange money with Iraq. He would give them his dinars while they repaid Iraqis for the money stolen when Saddam's daughters escaped to Jordan.

The main information comes from Hammorabi, Friday 14 Nov 2003.