Here Lies The Heart: Mercedes de Acosta and Ramana Maharshi

Descended from the legendary Dukes of Alba, daughter in a wealthy Cuban family, Mercedes de Acosta was born in 1893 in New York, raised near Fifth Avenue, and had a beautiful sister Rita de Acosta who was a model for artists John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini. Married to painter Abram Poole, Mercedes was socialite, poet, playwright, Hollywood set and costume designer as well as script writer. She knew many of the greats of her day: Bessie Marbury, Rodin, Edith Wharton, Stravinsky, Sarah Bernhardt, Elenora Duse, Picasso, Cecil Beaton, Elsa Maxwell, and Krishnamurti. Near the end of her life, she met and befriended Andy Warhol, and introduced him to many of the people who would count in his career.

Consuelo (Hatmaker) Sides, whose husband had been the World War I French flying ace Charles Nungesser, accompanied Mercedes on her passage to India. After arriving, de Acosta met former President Woodrow Wilson's daughter, Margaret, a devotee at Sri Aurobindo's ashram.

In 1960, she published an autobiography, Here Lies The Heart, dedicated to Maharshi, in which she wrote, To Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, the only completely egoless, world-detached, and pure being I have ever known. She spent three days with him and remembered them as the most significant of her life.

At a dinner party she became interested in Maharshi after she met Paul Brunton, an Englishman who had spent time with the sage, and had published A Search in Secret India, chronicling his transformative experiences at Arunachala.

She later read Brunton's book and of it, she wrote that it "had a profound effect on me. . . . It was as though some emanation of this saint was projected out of the book to me. . . . Nothing could distract me from the idea that I must go and meet this saint. . . . . I felt I would meet the Maharshi and that this meeting would be the greatest experience of my life."

As the car neared Maharshi's home she says,"the driver explained he could take me no farther. I turned toward the hill of Arunachala and hurried in the hot sun along the dust-covered road to the abode about two miles from town where the Sage dwelt. As I ran those two miles, deeply within myself I knew that I was running toward the greatest experience of my life."

"When, dazed and filled with emotion, I first entered the hall, I did not quite know what to do. Coming from strong sunlight into the somewhat darkened hall, it was, at first, difficult to see; nevertheless, I perceived Bhagavan at once, sitting in the Buddha posture on his couch in the corner. At the same moment I felt overcome by some strong power in the hall, as if an invisible wind was pushing violently against me. For a moment I felt dizzy."

"Then I recovered myself. To my great surprise I suddenly heard an American voice calling out to me, 'Hello, come in.' It was the voice of an American named Guy Hague*, who originally came from Long Beach, California. . . . " [*Some say Guy Hague is Somerset Maugham's Larry Darrell in The Razor's Edge. The Wanderling says his mentor was Maugham's inspiration.]

After I had been sitting several hours in the hall listening to the mantras of the Indians and the incessant droning of flies, and lost in a sort of inner world, Guy Hague suggested that I go and sit near the Maharshi. . . . I moved near Bhagavan, sitting at his feet and facing him. . . ."

"He moved his head and looked directly down at me, his eyes looking into mine. It would be impossible to describe this moment and I am not going to attempt it. I can only say that at this second I felt my inner being raised to a new level-as if, suddenly, my state of consciousness was lifted to a much higher degree. . . ."

"[I asked Maharshi,] tell me, whom shall I follow--what shall I follow? I have been trying to find this out for years by seeking in religions, in philosophies, in teachings."

"Again there was silence. After a few minutes, which seemed to me a long time, he spoke. 'You are not telling the truth. You are just using words--just talking. You know perfectly well whom to follow. Why do you need me to confirm it?' "

"You mean I should follow my inner self?" I asked.

"I don't know anything about your inner self. You should follow the Self. There is nothing or no one else to follow."

I asked again, "What about religions, teachers, gurus?"

"If they can help in the quest of the Self. But can they help? Can religion, which teaches you to look outside yourself, which promises a heaven and a reward outside yourself, can this help you? It is only by diving deep into the spiritual Heart that one can find the Self."

"He placed his right hand on his right breast and continued,

Here lies the Heart, the dynamic, spiritual Heart. It is called Hridaya and is located on the right side of the chest and is clearly visible to the inner eye of an adept on the spiritual path. Through meditation you can learn to find the Self in the cave of this Heart. . . ."

"Bhagavan pointed out to me that the real Self is timeless. 'But,' he said, 'in spite of ignorance, no man takes seriously the fact of death. He may see death around him, but he still does not believe that he will die. . . .' "

"To write of this experience with Bhagavan, to recapture and record all that he said, or all that his silences implied, is like trying to put the infinite into an egg cup. . . . On me he had, and still has, a profound influence. . . .I definitely saw life differently after I had been in his presence, a presence that just by merely 'being' was sufficient spiritual nourishment for a lifetime. . . ."

"I sat in the hall with Bhagavan three days and three nights. . . . I wanted to stay on there with him but finally he told me that I should go back to America. He said, 'There will be what will be called a "war," but which, in reality, will be a great world revolution. Every country and every person will be touched by it.' You must return to America. Your destiny is not in India at this time.' . . . ."

"Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi died on April 14,1950. He had said, 'I am going away? Where could I go? I am here.' By the word 'here' he did not imply any limitation. He meant rather, that the Self 'is.' There is no going, or coming, or changing in that which is changeless and Universal. . . . millions in India mourned the Maharshi. A long article about his death in the New York Times ended with, 'Here in India, where thousands of so-called holy men claim close tune with the infinite, it is said that the most remarkable thing about Ramana Maharshi was that he never claimed anything remarkable for himself, yet became one of the most loved and respected of all'."

Her meeting with Maharshi was perhaps most remarkable in view of her life that preceded it. Alice B. Toklas once said of her, "you can't dispose of Mercedes lightly, she had the two most important women in US., Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich." Other lovers of Mercedes included the great actresses Alla Nazimova and Eva Le Gallienne and the legendary innovator of dance, Isadora Duncan. "I can get any woman away from any man," she liked to tell her friends. But what de Acosta eventually wanted more than anything was the 1938 interview with Ramana Maharshi. A woman of great appetites, she sought somebody who taught the quenching of appetites.

Mercedes de Acosta moved to a 68th Avenue apartment and died in relative poverty in 1968. In her autobiography she had revealed too many secrets about her friends, who then cut her out of their circles.

Her book, Here Lies The Heart

Home_____Sex Crimes In The Distant Past

In Sex Crimes: From Renaissance to Enlightenment, William Naphy reveals that kinkiness has a long history. In 16th century Geneva, despite the effort of John Calvin to settle a repressive pall over the city, people looked for prurient pleasure wherever they could find it. Drawing on official court reports, Naphy shows the reader that sex crimes took a rather bizarre turn even then.

About 10,000 in population, Geneva had its morality presided over by about a dozen elders and the same number in ministers, always looking for behavior "tending towards fornication." This included somebody singing a bit too bawdily, even if only to themselves. A Genevan could be charged with a sex crime if dancing at a wedding. If an individual smiled too boldly at a stranger, he or she could be brought before the tribunal. Citizens were encouraged to spy on one another and report anything that even seemed like odd behavior. This must have been the hey day of busy bodies and voyeurs. Those who held grudges or were downright malicious also had wonderful opportunities. Court records show many situations in which spite, greed, and unrequited love were the causes of innocent people being charged with sex crimes.

Unmarried pregnant girls often wound up in court. They could not claim they were raped because they had to have an orgasm in order to conceive--so went the thinking. Thus, even if forced, a pregnant girl must have enjoyed it. If she named a long-time lover as the father, both risked probable imprisonment.

Adultery was also taken seriously as it threatened the marriage with a false heir to property. In Calvinist Geneva, money and business matters were taken seriously indeed, so much so that both the woman and her partner were likely to be executed. Given their choice, the condemned usually chose drowning. If a male servant committed adultery with his mistress, he frequently was executed because he had robbed his master of a valuable asset. The effect of economics went far to lessen a crime if the male adulterer was equal in social and economic stature to the cuckolded husband. He would be flogged and banished. (Eventually authorities realized that some people found flogging as sexually exciting, and they stopped it as punishment.)

Homosexuals were officially nonexistent. Acts of sodomy occurred, and were punishable by death. Even though homosexuality was not recognized, defense would take the form of one person pointing out that he had a wife and four children. The prosecution would argue that the offender had habitually committed offenses with other men.

In 1551 Jean Fontanna and Francois Puthod were arraigned before court for "wrestling in the nude." Fontanna explained that their relationship began when he noticed Puthod "had an enormous member." Much younger, Puthod tearfully pleaded that he hadn't realized he did anything wrong. He was banished from the city. Fontanna, with a wife and child, had a long history of nude wrestling and was chained to a large stone for a year and a day.

Despite the stern godliness of John Calvin, 16th century Geneva was no bastion of high morality. Overcrowded quarters meant that children regularly witnessed parents engaged in sex. Single men shared beds. Peasants lived intimately with animals. In 1660 a cowherd told the court he wasn't having sex, but had merely urinated over the cow's behind to rid it of parasites. He was acquitted.

In 17th and 18th century Britain, homosexuality had effeminacy as its characteristic. Fops paraded it and even heterosexuals adopted the pose as entree to certain artistic or thespian cliques. Effeminacy became camp. In the early 18th century Margaret "Mother" Clap became proprietress of a molly house, and she left her name as a lasting sign of those venereal times. In Samuel Stevens' testimony at her trial he stated he saw, "40 and 50 Men making Love to one another, as they call'd it. Sometimes they would sit in one anothers Laps, kissing in a leud Manner, and using their Hand[s] indecently. Then they would get up, Dance and make Curtsies, and mimick the Voices of Women."

Homosexuality had moved into the open, and unlike Geneva, had to be officially recognized. Sodomites were put in stocks and blinded with cow dung.

In our relatively more enlightened times, the public and the authorities still struggle with how to define and legislate such matters.

Sex Crimes by William Naphy at Amazon.co.uk

Home_____It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's Angle Grinder Man

As Andy Warhol Said, Everybody Gets His Fifteen Minutes of Fame. Now It's Angle Grinder Man's Turn.

Some people call him a Clark Kent lookalike. You can tell the difference, however. He has an AGM logo on his chest, not an S. He also helps damsels in distress. He certainly has a sense of humor.

In a 7 October 2003 New York Times article, the masked man gave an interview. Calling himself Angle-Grinder Man, he comes to the rescue of those whose car wheels have been booted by police for illegal parking. The New York Times reporter described him as dressed in cape and gold lamé underpants.

He has become a folk hero of sorts among frustrated South London motorists. He takes his name from an Angle Grinder, a power saw that cuts through wheel boots, Whenever he turns on his loud saw, people know he's around, but he always insures the police are absent. No matter--in less than a minute he can liberate a wheel from the clutches of authority and earn the undying gratitude of drivers who escape their fines.

Just like Superman and The Lone Ranger, he accepts no money for his deeds, as he is merely on the side of the little guy. He hides his identity behind his mask, and the public doesn't know, much as nobody suspected the mild mannered reporter Clark Kent. Like the Lone Ranger, he strides off into the sunset and townsmen turn to one another and ask, Who was that masked man?

A damsel in distress, Petite Tendai, found a boot on her illegally parked car. ("No signs saying `no parking,' " she declared.) She felt the weight of injustice and authority almost bringing her to tears when suddenly Angle-Grinder Man appeared.

Since then, he has become Ms Tendai's hero.

Ms Tendai said of him, "Basically, he jumped out of his car in his outfit and said, `If anyone can, Angle-Grinder Man can,' " She added, "Then he just started sawing it off. It was wicked."

He was brought to his noble duty by a boot clamped onto his own car wheel, and insult was added to injury by a £95 fine (a little over $150) to remove it. He did what any Robin Hood would do, renting a circular saw for about £30. Unemployed, he saved himself a hunk of change.

An extremely sensitive nature

He taped a photograph of the sawed-up clamp to his windshield, along with a note saying, "Please don't clamp me because I've got an extremely sensitive nature."

From that day forward, Angle-Grinder Man had found his calling. "There was so much injustice out there," he said.

A champion of the downtrodden must look the part. He worked hard on his appearance, but finally settled on blue and gold. He bought a fabric roll of gold lamé at a flea market after holding the material around himself to ask the salesgirl how he might look in it.

He spray-painted a pair of cowboy boots gold. The underpants are a pair of bikini briefs covered with the flea-market lamé. The gloves came from a piercing-and-fetish shop. Angle-Grinder Man designed the logo himself, including the letters AGM glued on his costume. "I wanted to have a balance between the political side and the comedy side," he explained.

"I'm a heterosexual superhero," Angle-Grinder Man told the reporter, "although I have no problem being a gay icon."

As he left the interview his gold cape glittered in the afternoon light. Unknowingly he had smitten the heart of another damsel who had been watching him. A sales clerk said she was a great fan of his.

"I think he's extraordinarily attractive," she said. "Especially the golden knickers."

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