MEDIA FACTION HAS MOVED.
the new address is:

http://www.mediafaction.net/

Bill Moyers: There is no tomorrow.
Topic: Religious Nuts
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. (Star Tribune article here.)

Love and Illumination.
Topic: by Lenny
excerpt: The organization is the microcosm of the entelechy, the system that is all homo sapiens. Which is fine, as far as cold, impersonal forces of nature (Bloom's "Bloody Bitch") goes. But following the logic of the bio-evolutionists: we are not merely monkeys: we have art, song, augoeides. If there is an evolutionary function for the opposable thumb, is there not one for the Holy Guardian Angel? It is time to break down the structures and place the individual at the top of the heap. (more...)

Studies in BioPsychology
Topic: BioPsychology
atta boy, Rob Roy!

Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 28 January 2005
04:27 pm ET

Sex in High School Involves Long Chains of Relations
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 24 January 2005
01:01 pm ET

GNN: Good New Roundup
new feature: Good news for Happy Mondays.

and, on a related note, Bez wins 'Big Brother.'

A WAREHOUSE OF SOCIAL DEVIANCE
http://www.feastofhateandfear.com/archives.html

USS Flatley
USS Flatley (FFG-21)

USS Flatley (FFG-21), thirteenth ship of the Oliver Hazard Perry class of guided-missile frigates, was named for Vice Admiral James H. Flatley. Ordered from Bath Iron Works on 28 February 1977 as part of the FY77 program, Flatley was laid down on 13 November 1979, launched on 15 May 1980, and commissioned on 20 June 1981. Decommissioned on 11 May 1996, she was leased to Turkey on 28 August 1997 as that nation's TCG Giresun (F 491).

Flatley (FFG-21) was the first ship of that name in the US Navy.

"madness" and the visionary experience.
Topic: by Lenny
from Sanity: Friend or Foe.

Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behaviour and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an unusual personal symbolism. According to Laing, if a therapist can better understand the person they can begin to make sense of the symbolism of their madness, and therefore start addressing the concerns which are the root cause of their distress.

Maybe if “the content of psychotic behaviour and speech” is “a valid expression of distress” then the content and behavior of madness are a valid expression of the visionary experience?

…for Laing, madness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey. The traveller could return from the journey with importan insights, and may even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result. – Wikipedia entry on RD Laing.

My own reality-smashing experience has told me that the danger of “madness” is not in that you may go “mad,” it is the danger that you may go mad worrying about whether or not you are going mad!

The subjective nature of much of magic seems to me to be wholly at odds with the order the ego is trying to impose on this chaotic existence. And the ego is strong enough that when you think you are cracking it open you may actually be feeding it!

Regardie’s the Middle Pillar, Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger... all lend some important perspective on how to avoid this.

One thing I try to remember is that the spectrum of “sane” is very wide, that the poles of “cold, hard, rationality” and “stark raving mad” are very far apart indeed.

Comment by j. lenny flatley — 1/22/2005 @ 4:48 pm

Inauguration.
Topic: by Lenny
I blew off the inauguration this time around. Four years ago, when Bush was swore in, the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. It didn’t matter to the Republicans, however, as they were all snug in their fur coats and cowboy hats.

This year I’m watching the festivities on TV. I don’t feel like I have the proper perspective when I am part of history so today, like the rest of America, I merely watched history. And I wanted to sleep in.

The image is shocking: a gloomy Thursday, the public address and helicopters drone. A city full of angry militants, all victims of a war, that dull George W. Bush smile beaming away, oblivious to all, causing so much damn anger among those of us who know, who are not smiling. Smug.

I am reminded of another "War President," this time a real Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson: "In our home there was always prayer-aloud, proud and unapologetic."

And later: "I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling rejected by the American people. I’m tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the war."

Now, compared to "W," LBJ, the man that referred to his political opponents as "pigfuckers," was an intellectual. But, my God, "W" looks just like a 55-year-old Scooter Hanson!

The TV news is calling the dissenters a "vocal minority," and they’re having Fundamentalist Christians on the news to blast the separation of church and state.

Fundamentalist Christians are the followers of a bizarre cult that had it's heyday about a thousand years ago. It spawned thousands of other religious movements that wrought havoc on the planet for generations, having yet to recognize the Aeon of Horus.

I have been back and forth, trying to reconcile my sort of "magick humanist" beliefs and my political activism, and I think this is where I am at: one can remain aloof, and not buy into second circuit, emotional-territorial "politics." Still, you must see the game for what it is, as long as eating, sleeping and fucking are required to live.

...and here’s to another four years!

Rebellion.
Topic: Philosophy

"I don't preach revolution. I am utterly against revolution. My word for the future, and for those who are intelligent enough in the present, is 'rebellion'. Rebellion is individual action; it has nothing to do with the crowd. It is spiritual metamorphosis." - Osho, Religion, Rebellion and Righteousness.

"Evolution of personality starts only when we can muster up the courage to say 'no.' As a matter of fact man's soul asserts itself only when he is capable of saying 'no.' When one can say 'no' even though one's very life may be at stake in such a denial, and when once an individual starts saying 'no' and learns this art, then for the first time, due to such denial, his individuality begins its evolution. This dividing line to say 'no' invests a person with his individuality. The tendency to say 'yes' to everything makes him an indistinguishable part of the whole. That is why the society has always been so much insistent about obedience.

"A father may very well take pride at the obedience of his idiotic son because he is unaware that such a person as his son is cannot have the mettle to say 'no.' Some intelligence is necessary to say 'no.' As far as saying 'yes' is concerned, it needs no intelligence. 'Yes' is computerized; the less the intelligence, the sooner it emerges. Saying 'no' requires some scrutiny of the matter. It demands argument. One has to weigh the pros and cons in one's mind before one can utter 'no,' because with the saying of 'no' the matter does not end; rather, it starts from there. Saying 'yes' implies a closing of the subject rather than the starting of it. So if the son is intelligent, the father may not like him because his incontrovertible arguments may leave him (the father) dumbfounded on many an occasion." - Osho, the Hippie Rebellion.