Pokémon Christmas in the Arctic.

In 1997 on this day, that classic parental admonition of "Television will rot your brain" was given  sudden urgency.  Seems, over seven hundred Japanese schoolchildren became dizzy and nauseated while watching an episode of the popular Japanese cartoon series Pokémon.  Some even had seizures.  Hospitals across the country were inundated with retching, convulsing kids, and a few parents, in scenes reminiscent of a really bad Japanese sci-fi movie.

"I was shocked to see my daughter lose consciousness," said Yukiko Iwasaki, whose eight-year-old suffered a seizure.  "She started to breathe only when I hit her on the back."

The spasmodic mass reaction was triggered about 20 minutes into Pokémon episode 38, "Computer Warrior Porigon," which, like other episodes of the top-rated show, was produced in an intense version of animation known as anime.  A vivid explosion, with pulsating strobe-light effects, apparently walloped those kids with their eyes glued to their television sets on the evening of December 16.

Warning, the following episode has been know to cause seizures in young children.  Watch at your own risk:

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On this day in 2010, an ancient forest emerged in the Arctic from the melting ice line we all know as Global Warming.  Scientist found a petrified forest that dated from 2 to 8 millions ago.

Joel Barker, a research scientist at Byrd Polar Research Center, said, "Mummified forests aren't so uncommon, but what makes this one unique is that it's so far north. When the climate began to cool 11 million years ago, these plants would have been the first to feel the effects. And because the trees' organic material is preserved, we can get a high-resolution view of how quickly the climate changed and how the plants responded to that change."

Since this 2010 Arctic "mummy forest" finding, other interesting photos have been popping up on the web which show other things being seen from underneath the melting ice. 


These NASA photos show an ancient city:

The map of Turkish admiral Piri Reis in 1513

Historian and cartographer at the University of Cambridge, Christopher Adam, believes there might be a rational explanation for the NASA photos: "One of histories most puzzling maps is that of the Turkish admiral Piri Reis in 1513 AD which successfully mapped the coastline of Antarctica over 500 years ago. What is most fascinating about this map is that it shows the coastline of Antarctica without any ice. How is this possible when images of the coastline of Antarctica were only seen for the first time after the development of ground-penetrating radar in 1958?  Is it possible Antarctica has not always been covered under such an ice sheet?  This could be evidence that it is a possibility” he acknowledges, "A slight pole shift or displacement of the axis of rotation of the Earth in historical times is possibly the only rational explanation that comes to mind but we definitely need more research done before we jump to any conclusion.”


 




And, then there are the pyramids.

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Finally, on this December the 16th, I think we should remember the hungry:  it was this day in the year 2007 that experts from the world Bank, with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund and a few United Nations agencies, updated their statistical tables from the Regan/Bush era projections to admit that the estimated numbers of poor people in the world was five-hundred million more than previously recorded.

As Eduardo Galeano said in his book Children of the Days,  "They, the poor, already knew."

Merry Christmas 2017

Watch What You Say, It Might Kill You!

"By the time you receive this letter we shall be in Paris, barring of course a nose-dive into the channel."

Glenn Miller wrote the preceding words to his wife on December 4, 1944.  That was the last words he wrote her before he died in a plane crash just as he predicted.

On December 14, 1944, Glenn Miller was seen boarding a plane from England to France, and never again. 

The official report into the disappearance stated that a crash would likely have been caused either by engine trouble or by the build-up of ice on the wings, the latter affecting the plane's aerodynamics and causing it to stall.  The lack of a search for the missing aircraft can be explained by the delay in raising the alarm: three days had elapsed between the plane taking off and it being reported missing, greatly reducing the chances of finding anyone alive.  Nobody had any idea where the aircraft might have come down, so a search, even if it had begun, would have had to cover an enormous area.  Another factor was the progress of the war at the time; on December 16, the Germans had mounted a huge offensive in the Ardennes region, known now as the Battle of the Bulge, and it is perhaps understandable that resources were not diverted away from the fighting in order to search for three people who, in all probability, were already dead.

Thirty years later, in 1985, it emerged that crew members of a British Lancaster bomber, returning from an aborted mission over Germany, had seen a plane crash into the English Channel on the same day as Glenn Miller went missing.  The Lancaster was jettisoning its bombs over a designated area of the Channel because it was too dangerous to land with the bombs still on board.  The navigator, who was watching the bombs fall, spotted a small plane, which he identified as a Norseman (the same plane as Miller was in) spinning out of control and crashing into the water.

Almost as soon as Miller was posted as missing, rumors began to circulate about what had happened to him.  They were all based on the assumptions that he did not die in a plane crash over the Channel, but had died after arriving in Paris, with the incident covered up by the American military.  The most ludicrous of these rumors is that Miller had been ordered by General Eisenhower, the overall commander of Allied forces in Europe, to conduct secret talks with German officers concerning a surrender.  Why Eisenhower would pick a big band leader with no military experience of any description to go on such a sensitive mission is, unsurprisingly, not fully explained in this theory.

Another rumor, and one of the most persistent, is that, rather than dying in a plane crash, Miller was killed during a fight in a Parisian brothel and the incident was kept quiet because of fears over the effect it would have on morale.  Like all the other stories along these lines, this one doesn't stand up to examination because it does not account for what happened to the other people who went missing on the plane.

The exact circumstances of the disappearance may never be known for certain, but the most likely explanation is that, either as the result of mechanical failure or friendly fire, Miller's plane went down in the Channel and sank without leaving a trace; just as he had joked to his wife in his December 4th letter.

The power of suggestion is definitely a powerful thing.   Watch what you say, the universe is probably listening.

Other examples of this power of suggestion:

Mark Twain

In 1909, Twain joked that the next time Halley's Comet passed close to Earth, he would "go out" with it.  He didn't mean romantically: The comet had last been visible from Earth in the year Twain was born, 1835, so he claimed it would be the "greatest disappointment of my life" if it didn't also pass at the time of his death.

As you might know, Halley's Comet visits us once every 76 years and is only visible from Earth for a couple of months at a time. This means that at the moment of Twain's humorous prediction, the comet was due again in the following year; and what do you know, it showed up on April 20, 1910. The next day, Twain died of a heart attack.


"Pistol" Pete Maravich
 

In 1974, Maravich was 26 and had been playing in the NBA for four years. He was at the height of his career, but didn't feel like basketball was all there was to life. In an interview with the Beaver County Times, Maravich said, "I don't want to play 10 years [in the NBA] and then die of a heart attack at the age of 40."

On January 5th, 1988, Pistol Pete did just that.


Frank Pastore

If you like baseball, you might know Frank Pastore as a Major League pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds and Minnesota Twins in the 1970s and '80s; if you're into Christian radio, you probably know him from the most listened to Christian talk show in the United States, The Frank Pastore Show; and if you're into freaky coincidences, then you know him from the following story.

On his November 19, 2012 broadcast, Pastore and his listeners were discussing some of his favorite subjects, namely the immortality of the soul and riding bitchin' bikes. Pastore remarked:
"You guys know I ride a motorcycle, right? At any moment, especially with the idiot people who cross the diamond lane into my lane, without any blinkers -- not that I'm angry about it -- at any minute, I could be spread all over the 210."

On the way home from his radio show, a 56-year-old woman driving a Hyundai Sonata drifted into his lane and collided with his bike.  Pastore suffered a massive head injuries and died a month later after being in a coma.

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On this day in 1503, the famous French prophet and astrologer Michel de Nostradamus was born in Saint Remy de Provence.  He experienced many psychic visions during his childhood, and he later studied the Holy Qabalah, astrology, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics.  The first collection of his uncannily accurate visions, written in the form of rhymed quatrains, was published in the year 1555.  Three years later, a second and larger collection of his prophecies -- reaching into the year 3797 -- was published.  Nostradamus died on July 1, 1566.

DNA and Alfred Hitchcock

Double Helix

On December 11, 1951, after a disastrous demonstration of what they thought was the model for the structure of DNA, Francis Crick and James D. Watson were ordered to cease their research in that arena by Sir Lawrence Bragg, director of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, where both men worked.

"No attempt was made to appeal the verdict," Watson later wrote with the characteristic edge.  "An open outcry would reveal that our professor was completely in the dark about what the initials DNA stood for.  There was no reason to believe that he gave it one hundredth the importance of the structure of metals, for which he took great delight in making soap-bubble models.  Nothing gave Sir Lawrence more pleasure than showing his ingenious motion-picture film of how bubbles bump into each other."

All wasn't lost, for the DNA research was in the air, it had been materialized in the universal for in 1998 on the very same day, the first organism to have its entire DNA coded was completed:  a worm (Caenorhabditis elegans); it had taken eight years to map 97 million base pairs of the parasitic creature no bigger than a pinhead.

Speaking of DNA, Theorist such as David Wilcock and Giorgio A. Tsoukalos believe the first drawings of the DNA structure can be seen in Ancient Sumerian drawings. 

Other interesting DNA images can be seen in the medical Caduceus or Greek god Hermes symbol:

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Caduceus is a winged staff with two snakes wrapped around it. It was an ancient astrological symbol of commerce and is associated with the Greek god Hermes, the messenger for the gods, conductor of the dead and protector of merchants and thieves.

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Not only is December 11th, the day the film Psycho begins, it is also the Blowing of the Midwinter Horn which dates back more than two thousand years.  Farmers around the country take out their birch-wood horns and blow them to scare away evil influences and announce the presence of Skadi, fur-clad goddess of winter and spirit of the north wind. 

Oh, and getting back to the Psycho film, the esoteric beauty of that film can be seen in the opening scene when  Janet Leigh can be seen in the white bra, the innocent beginning, but then, after she takes the money, she is wearing a black bra to let you know there as been a change in her which will ultimately end in her death.  

Bravo, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, bravo!

“Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.”

― Alfred Hitchcock

The Nobel Prize Happens and so does war.

Elizabeth Taylor

And the Oscar went to Elizabeth Taylor for her work in Butterfield 8, a film so dreadful even the actress herself dismissed it as "a piece of obscenity."  A Grammy was given to Baha Men for "Who Let the Dogs Out," a song that asked the probing question "Who? Who? who? Who? Who?" Madonna, whose portrayal of Eva Peron came off stiffer than the corpse of Argentina's once celebrated first lady, nevertheless won a Golden Globe for her "acting" in Evita.  Yet no matter how colossally ill chosen the award winners were, nobody (except perhaps the worthier competition) was too adversely affected by these aberrations.  "That's entertainment," as the saying goes.

The Nobel Prize, however, is a different matter entirely.  The award, given every year on December 10, is supposed to recognize the very best in human accomplishment in various fields of endeavor.  Giants like Einstein, Mandela, Churchill, and Curie have all been named Nobel laureates.  But so have some vastly less deserving fold who, by virtue of winning the Nobel, gave the prestigious prize a bit of a black eye.  Among them:

Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber, 1918, chemistry, for the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen in the air.  Thanks to Haber's discovery, which allowed for the development of industrial fertilizers, the world became far better fed.  Yet this immensely beneficial contribution to mankind was made well before World War I, by which time the chemist was redirecting his creative energy toward something his own wife condemned as "perversion of the ideals of science" and  "a sign of barbarity, corruption the very discipline which ought to bring new insights into life" -- the annihilation of Germany's enemies on the battlefield with poisonous gas.

Antonio Egas Moniz

Antonio Egas Moniz, 1949, medicine, for pioneering the lobotomy.  Besides the fact that this radical brain procedure turned many patients -- including President John F. Kennedy's sister Rosemary-- into near zombies, there was nothing particularly inventive about the drilling holes into the skull and shoving in an instrument to disable the frontal lobes.  n fact, it was kind of medieval-- not like, say, creating the artificial heart (a feat for which Robert Jarvik was egregiously overlooked by the Nobel committee).  And when a place as oppressive and cruel as the Soviet Union bans lobotomies as "contrary to the principles of humanity," as it did in 1950, that might be taken as an indication that this monstrous procedure was bad medicine indeed.

Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat, 1994, Peace Prize (shared with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel).  Yes, it's true that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.  And certainly the Palestinian people have had plenty of legitimate beefs with Israel.  Yet when the massacre of innocents--coupled with hijackings, kidnappings, political assassinations, and other mayhem--becomes the paramount means to an end, as it did for the Palestinian leader, it tends to make a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize--especially considering the fact that Mahatma Gandhi was never awarded one.

Myron Scholes

Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, 1997, economics.  Less than a year after receiving their prize, "for a new method to determine the value of derivatives," as the Nobel announcement read, the laureates' esteemed hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management, lost $4 billion in six weeks.
(Bad Days in History, Farquhar, Michael).

(See this year's 2017 winners here.)

No conversation of the Nobel Peace Prize is complete without mentioning the year 1978.  For that is the year President Jimmy Carter somehow got Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat and  Menachem Begin together to talk and Egypt became the first Arab country to officially recognize the state of Israel. In return Egypt gained control of the Sinai Peninsula.  Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat and  Menachem Begin
both shared the Nobel Peace Prize that year.  It was one of the few serious hopes for peace I have seen in my lifetime.  But then....

On 6 October 1981, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. 

The assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā (death sentence) was approved by Omar Abdel-Rahman, "The Blind Sheikh," an Egyptian Muslim leader who was arrested and convicted for the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.  

Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.

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Obama

In the year 2009, on the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. 

In his acceptance speech, the president thought it wise to pay homage to war: "times when nations will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda

Four and a half centuries before, when the Nobel Prize did not exist and evil resided in countries not with oil but with gold and silver, Spanish jurist Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda also defended war as "not only necessary but morally justified."

Ginés explained that war was necessary against the Indians of the Americas, "being by nature servile men who are barbarian, uncultured and inhuman," and that war was justified, "because it is just, by natural right, that the body obey the soul, that the appetite obey reason, that brutes obey man, women their husbands, the imperfect the perfect and the worse the better, for the good of all."

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On or around this date each year, Inuít hunters of the Arctic coastal regions of North America perform the centuries-old December Moon Ceremony.  The observance begins with a series of purification rites, followed by a full-moon propitiation ritual for the souls of the animals that the participants have hunted and killed during the prior year. 


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Debunked:  Were Ringo Star and Yasser Arafat the same persons?  

No, but they both lived on Beatles somewhere in their lifetimes.

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Dec 8th and the immaculate reception, I mean, Conception.

the gods

On this day each year, the most ancient of the Shinto divinities, the solar goddess Amaterasu, is honored in temples throughout Japan.  This day is also sacred to Astraea, the star maiden, a Greek goddess of justice who chose to live among humans.  After Pandora's box was opened, Astraea was the last of the gods to abandon the Earth after Donald Trump was elected -- just kidding, she abandoned way before that, but was the last of the gods to abandoned Earth nonetheless.

Amaterasu

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In 1326 on this day, Zen master Daito Kokushi establishes the Daitokuji temple in Kyoto, Japan.  Now the site of one of Japan's most famous Zen gardens, it was particularly significant in the development of the tea ceremony and Zenga painting.
 

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In 1952 the first acknowledgement of pregnancy on American television occurs during the I Love Lucy episode "Lucy Is Enceinte" (the word "pregnant" was not allowed).


Way back in 1854 on this day, Pope Piux IX proclaims the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, in which Mary, mother of Jesus, was free of Original Sin because he believed it so.  No documented evidence was given (not to be confused with the the Immaculate Reception that occurred between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 23, 1972.)

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"I believe my interest in the occult was born out of a curiosity in the narratives of cultural outsiders," McVetty explained to The Huffington Post. "I have always had a mysterious attraction to the worlds these groups built around secrets, rules and symbols as a way to exist outside of the mainstream."

These are the words of Occult Artist Joseph McVetty.  Here are some of his images:

Ascending Currents

Fortelling The Future

Initiation Into Nothingness

Messages From The Dead

Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Commies.

 Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Marlowe and who rose to become the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after Marlowe's mysterious early death. Marlowe's plays are known for the use of blank verse and their overreaching protagonists.

A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May 1593. No reason was given for it, though it was thought to be connected to allegations of blasphemy—a manuscript believed to have been written by Marlowe was said to contain "vile heretical conceipts". On 20 May, he was brought to the court to attend upon the Privy Council for questioning. There is no record of their having met that day, however, and he was commanded to attend upon them each day thereafter until "licensed to the contrary". Ten days later, he was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer. Whether the stabbing was connected to his arrest has never been resolved.

Marlowe was also accused by author Thomas Kyd of being an atheist, which led to questioning before the Privy Council. After all this, Marlowe still argued over a bill at a bar and began stabbing another bar patron who in self-defense turned the knife on Marlowe and killed him. Marlowe was only twenty-nine years old.



Some believe Marlowe was assassinated by a request from the Crown.  Others think that Marlowe’s death was faked, and that he is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays. The theory behind this is that Marlowe faked his death, escaped, and hid so he could continue to work under the patronage of Thomas Walsingham.


You decide:

Malowe

Shakespeare

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Hallie Flanagan

On this day in 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, operating out of Washington, questioned Hallie Flanagan.

Hallie Flanagan ran the Federal Theatre Project.

Joe Starnes, a congressman from Alabama, led the interrogation.

Referring to an article Hallie had written, he asked: "You are quoting from this Marlowe.  Is he a Communist?"

"I am very sorry.  I was quoting from Christopher Marlowe."

"Tell us who Marlowe is, so we can get the proper reference."

"He was the greatest dramatist in the period immediately preceding Shakespeare."

"Of course, we had what some people call Communists back in the days of the Greek theater."

"Quite true."

"And I believe Mr. Euripides was guilty of teaching class consciousness, wasn't he?"

"I believe that was alleged against all of the Greek dramatists."

"So we cannot say when it began," sighed Congressman Starnes.

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James Joyce

On this day in 1933, a U.S. federal judge rules that Ulysses, by Irish author James Joyce, is not obscene.  The book had been banned immediately in both the United States and England when it came out in 1922.  Three years earlier, its serialization in an American review had been cut short by the U.S. Post Office for the same reason.  Fortunately, one of Joyce's supporters, Sylvia Beach, owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Co. in Paris France, published the novel herself.  Ulysses, with its radical stream-of-consciousness narrative, deeply influenced the development of the modern novel.

Sylvia Beach

Bona Dea, chemicals, heart transplants, and a Supermoon to boot!

During the ancient Roman festival of Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, the Vestal Virgins conducted the woman's rites, secret ceremonies from which all males were barred.

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Ellen Henrietta Richards 1848

Homemaking was crafted into a science thanks to the female chemist who was born on this day in 1842.  Ellen Henrietta Richards started the home economics movement by demonstrating that the need for balanced nutrition, sanitation, and hygiene practices in the home required basic understanding of simple scientific methods.  As an added result, she created a unique profession -- dietitian -- and discovered the naphtha-based dry cleaning process.


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Groote Schuur Hospital

Historically speaking, the first human heart transplant happened on this day in 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.  The donor was Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident.  The patient was a 55-year-old man named Louis Washkansky.  Surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the revolutionary medical operation.

Washkansky was Jewish, while Darvall was Christian.  The theological and gender crossover caused less controversy, though, than the fact that her kidneys were donated to a black boy named Jonathan Van Wyck.  The cloud of apartheid still hung heavy over South Africa at the time and the racial issues threatened to overshadow the achievements of Dr Barnard.

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In 1984 one of the worst industrial disasters in history, a Union-Carbide pesticide plant located in Bhopal, India, leaks a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate into the air.  Two thousand people were killed immediately, at least 600,000 were injured, and at least 6,000 have died since. 


Union Carbide India, Ltd. built a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India in the late 1970s in an effort to produce pesticides locally to help increase production on local farms, however, sales of pesticide didn't materialize in the numbers hoped for and the plant was soon losing money. In 1979, the factory began to produce large amounts of the highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC), because it was a cheaper way to make the pesticide carbaryl. To also cut costs, training and maintenance in the factory were drastically cut back. Workers in the factory complained about the dangerous conditions and warned of possible disasters, but management did not take any action.

On 03.12.1984, the SHO, Hanumangunj Police Station, Bhopal, who observed people dying around the UCIL plant due to escape of some poisonous gases from the factory, registered a case suo moto under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).  He arrested five officers of the plant including J.Mukund, the Works Manager and S.P.Choudhary, the production Manager.

NEW DELHI — More than 25 years after a plume of fatal toxic gas from an American-owned chemical plant wafted over the slumbering city of Bhopal, eight former executives of the company’s Indian subsidiary — including one who has since died — were convicted Monday of negligence. The seven surviving defendants were sentenced to two years in prison and fined 100,000 rupees, or $2,100.

Finally, as further insult, UCC discontinued operation at its Bhopal plant following the disaster but failed to clean up the industrial site completely. The plant continues to leak several toxic chemicals and heavy metals that have found their way into local aquifers. Dangerously contaminated water has now been added to the legacy left by the company for the people of Bhopal.

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on DIS dA n 1992, Neil Papworth snt d world's 1st txt message, makin it a v bad dA 4 d eng lngwij indeed.  Since dat day, teenagers hav stopped actually speaking 2 1 another, propR spelling hz bcum obsolete, & drivin whIl txtN hz nw fR surpassed drivin whIl drinkN az d most lethal activity on d rd..
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Tonight's full moon will bring the biggest and brightest of the year so far. This is because December 3’s Full Cold Moon will be the only supermoon of 2017.

Supermoons happen when a full moon approximately coincides with the moon's perigee, or a point in its orbit at which it is closest to Earth. This makes the moon appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than usual.