Western Missouri Condemns Without Trial

By J. Bean (A Skeptic in Kansas City)

March 2010

“[For law enforcement officers] the level of proof necessary for taking action on allegations of criminal acts must be more than simply the victim alleged it and it is possible…. We need to be concerned about the distribution and publication of unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre sexual abuse.” – Kenneth Lanning, FBI

Dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackled at their wrists, ankles, and waists, six members of the Mohler family shuffle past local television news cameras and into a courtroom. Tethered together, they resemble fish on a stringer with the proud authorities displaying their catch.  On-the-spot reporters read the charges against them,“Forcible rape of a child; Deviate sexual assault; Use of a child in a sexual performance…”  Newspaper accounts are perhaps even more harsh: The men’s booking photos are posted beneath headlines such as “Incest Allegations Shatter Public image of Church-Going Clan”, [1] or “Child-Raping Missouri Family May Have Bodies in Yard”. [2 ] Posted on the internet  beneath these stories  are reader  comments reminiscent of 1692; judgments of guilt  and cries for harsh punishment along with suspicions cast upon any who question the charges dominate the boards.

The men are 76 year old Burrell Mohler Sr., his four sons, Burrell “Ed” Jr., David, Jared, and Roland, and Burrell Sr.’s 72 year old brother, Darryl Mohler. The arrests were made in November 2009, by Lafayette County, Missouri authorities based on accusations of ritualistic crimes against Ed Mohler’s (now adult) children from 1988 to 1995. The charges against the men involve numerous alleged child rapes, sodomies, and bestiality. They are also publicly accused of kidnapping, various murders, producing child pornography, breeding then slaughtering babies, performing forced abortions on minors, and holding an unwilling sex-slave for years in the family basement, although there have been no charges filed for those allegations.

“A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.” – Bertrand Russell

The case against the Mohler men first came to Lafayette County authorities in August 2009, when Ed Mohler’s 26 year old daughter (T.A.) contacted a western Missouri detective.   According to the probable cause statements: (T.A.) had “suppressed many of the memories” until recently. She “identified 8 specific memories of abuse and a 9th that was perpetrated on her brother”.  “She has many memories of abuse” but some occurred in other jurisdictions.  “She became pregnant and was made to have an abortion at age 11 ½.  She doesn’t remember any sexual abuse after that date.”[3]

Even if the word “suppressed” had not been used, the pointed use of the word “memories” in the report is indicative of repressed memory accusations. Generally when people report past events they do not do so under the context of “identifying memories”.

After those initial accusations in August, authorities made contact with, and began to question the other five siblings. On October 7th, three of the siblings (T.A.), (A.J.), and (E.M.) provided authorities with a 36 page collaborative report detailing several murders they witnessed spanning two Missouri counties. They were able to lead authorities to the approximate spot they say they helped to bury one of the murder victims. On October 29th, (T.A.) again spoke with the detective; this time alleging that she recalled her grandfather keeping a female child in his basement crawlspace. The siblings also told authorities that as they were being abused, the men told them to write down what was happening to them. These notes were placed in mason jars then buried.  The siblings say their abusers told them that if they buried these notes, their memories would also become buried. [4][5]

A fourth sibling (E.W.) told police that he had once unearthed some of those jars as a child, but reburied them at the request of his sisters.[4] Based on these statements, a search warrant was issued for the farm previously owned by Burrell Mohler Sr. to search for bodies, other evidence of murder, items from the crawlspace, and the mason jars. [6]

On November 10, 2009, as authorities swarmed the Bate City farmhouse with backhoes and shovels, detectives from Lafayette and various other counties were dispatched to arrest Burrell Sr. and his sons.

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill

As the arrests were made public, lead investigator, Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh, held a press conference. The stated purpose for the conference was to urge other possible victims to come forward. Specifically, investigators wished to locate the girl said to have been held captive in the basement crawlspace.

There were, however, other remarks of interest made during that press conference. One comment in particular gives further reason to suspect that all of the accusers are engaged in the recovering of repressed memories: Q: “How does the time factor complicate the case?” A: “Time factor always complicates a case. But when memories of this come out with the victims, as you talk about it, as you investigate it, more comes out.” [7]

Alumbaugh also defended the large amounts of county resources used to investigate the case, insisting the expenditures are important for protecting children: “You can read the probable cause statements as we leave and understand that this is money well spent of the tax payer’s dollars to bring these people to justice” …“They’ve had a threat to cut investigators…So, I mean, these are things that are really impacting our budgets and are very worthwhile to do because of the children.”[7]

Possibly most important, were the personal motivations Sheriff Alumbaugh expressed: “You personally attach it to yourself. You have children at home. You think about your children, you think about children that you know. Our biggest concern right now are those victims and those children that are out there that are potential victims. So, each one of us takes this very personally.”[7]

“All wrong-doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do” – Arnold Bennet

Perhaps Sheriff Alumbaugh was thinking of a 5 year old girl he met in 2006, and hoping that, through aggressively pursuing the Mohler men, he could begin to repair his part in that child’s tragedy:

In 2006, the nude, battered body of 41 year old Marsha Spicer was found in a shallow grave in Lafayette County. Lorie Dunfield, a friend of Spicer’s, reported to authorities that she believed Spicer may have been involved with a man named Richard Davis. Dunfield reported that Richard Davis had recently asked her to assist him in videotaping the torture and murder of other women during three-way sex. “He wanted me to help him kill women and get rid of the bodies.” Dunfield said.[8]  Lorie Dunfield managed to get away from Davis, but believed that her friend, Marsh Spicer, may have later hooked up with him. Sheriff Alumbaugh and his deputies were called to interview Richard Davis and his girlfriend, Dena Riley, in regard to the Spicer homicide.

Richard Davis was already being sought by his parole officer after serving 16 years for raping and sodomizing a woman at knife point. His parole officer had been unable to contact him for a drug screening. Upon arriving at Davis’ apartment, investigators noted a video camera trained on the bed, an open journal with notations about choking and sex, and marijuana on a table. During that initial interview, Davis’ girlfriend Dena Riley admitted that Davis was into violent sex.

Rather than detain Davis, Sheriff Alumbaugh told Richard Davis and Dena Riley to leave the premises while he applied for a search warrant. Alumbaugh and his deputies returned hours later. The investigators viewed the tape currently in the VCR next to Davis’ bed. It was a “snuff video” of the rape, beating, and strangulation of Marsha Spicer. It appeared that the couple may have been watching the video just prior to the Sheriff and deputies’ arrival. Regrettably, since Alumbaugh had not detained Davis and Riley, they had fled the city. It was eight days before a nationwide manhunt managed to locate the couple for arrest. During this time, Richard Davis kidnapped and raped a 5 year old girl. The child’s injuries were so severe; she had to be airlifted to a hospital.

Police Chief Fred Mills defended Alumbaugh’s decision, “You can spin the facts any way you want. But we had no probable cause to arrest them. What you need for an arrest warrant is a lot more than you need for a search warrant.” Alumbaugh said, “We just didn’t have enough (evidence). We weren’t ready to do hard questioning on them.”

None-the-less, Alumbaugh arrested the six Mohler men with only accusations from the alleged victims. These men had no parole violations, no drugs on their nightstands, and no past convictions for violent rapes. In fact they had no criminal histories at all. There were no bodies recently discovered in shallow graves, neither were the men holed up in shabby apartments with meth-addicted girlfriends. The Mohler men were arrested while at home with their wives or working for their longtime employers, to be charged with crimes allegedly occurring decades ago.

Newly appointed prosecutor, Kellie Ritchie filed the charges. It was while working as assistant DA in Buchanan County that Ritchie began concentrating on sexual assault cases. Four years out of law school, Ritchie was ready for greater responsibility at the same time that her boss wished to have one prosecutor handle all sexual abuse cases.[9] Ritchie readily accepted that challenge and helped to open a children’s advocacy center. Since her February, 2009 appointment to the Lafayette County office, Ritchie has continued her dedication to assisting victims of rape, raising awareness through a county Denim Day, [10] and promising the vigorous prosecution of any in possession of child pornography. [11] While these are all commendable pursuits; could this focus have clouded the prosecutor’s judgment in filing charges based on dubious repressed memory accusations?

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation” – Mahatma Gandhi

The Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI has assisted in investigations of hundreds of cases in which adults begin to report that they were victims of extreme abuses as children. Allegations involve multiple victims and multiple offenders and often include insertion of foreign objects, witnessing mutilations, as well as sexual acts and murders being filmed or photographed. In several of these cases, women claim to have had babies that were turned over for human sacrifice. Such accusations are most common in rural or suburban communities with high concentrations of religiously conservative people. According to Behavioral Science Unit Supervisory Agent Kenneth Lanning, “In none of the multidimensional child sex ring cases of which I am aware have bodies of the murder victims been found – in spite of major excavations where the abuse victims claim the bodies were located. …Not only are no bodies found, but also, more importantly, there is no physical evidence that a murder took place. Many of those not in law enforcement do not understand that, while it is possible to get rid of a body, it is even more difficult to get rid of the physical evidence that a murder took place.” – Kenneth Lanning, FBI [12]

In 1994, the US Government funded a study by The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. Researchers found more than 12,000 accusations of group cult sexual abuse, but none were able to be substantiated. The principle investigator in that study, Dr. Gail Goodman, commented, “While you would not expect to find corroborating evidence in many sexual abuse cases, you would expect it when people claim the rituals involved murders, and the reported cases come from district attorneys or police…If there is anyone out there with solid evidence… we would like to know about it.”[13][14] Large scale government funded investigations were also conducted in the states of Michigan, Utah, and Virginia with the same empty-handed results.

If Lafayette County officials were familiar with any of these reports, they should not have been surprised to find only one broken jar (no note), a bone fragment (unknown type), some broken eyeglasses, half a credit card, and a shoe sole in their excavation of the Bates City farm.[15]

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.  It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain

The Sheriff’s press conference proved more fruitful than the farm excavation. The following day, a woman came forward claiming to have been held in the basement’s crawlspace for several years as a child. “She recalls becoming pregnant twice while in captivity.   Burrell Sr. and Burrell Ed Jr. put the first infant in a box and buried it in the dirt floor under the window. Days later, the floor was covered in concrete.”[16] Ground penetrating radar was used to locate a “box-like” area under the concrete and a new search warrant issued. Detectives returned to the farmhouse, broke open the concrete floor, but found only dirt.  Samples of the dirt were removed for analysis.[17] Announcements of basement sex-slave and her murdered infant made for more sensational headlines, although no charges were ever filed in regard to her. Three weeks later, Sheriff Alumbaugh said that the woman “is longer part of this investigation.”[18] This proclamation has not been widely reported.

In addition to the basement captive, a local man whose ex-wife had once been married to Ed Mohler came forward following the press conference. Mark Young and Pamela Young divorced in 1993 with Pamela gaining custody of their son. Pamela then married Ed Mohler in 1999. Mr. Young has interviewed on several television news programs, as well as with print media, claiming that Ed’s ex-wife (mother of the accusers), Jeanette Mohler (Cyr) had come to him in January 2000 alleging that Ed was abusing Mark and Pamela’s son. Mr. Young says that he then filed complaints and won custody of the boy in an emergency hearing. Public records show, however, that Mark Young did not file for custody of his son until 2002.[19]  His ex-wife had already divorced Ed Mohler nearly a year prior, in the spring of 2001.[20]

The siblings’ mother, Jeanette Mohler, told investigators that she knew about, or suspected the abuse at the time it was happening. “At the time, complaints by the mother were taken to the head of the church rather than law enforcement”. [21] Bishop Tonga, now retired, recalls Jeanette’s complaints to him. Tonga says he interviewed both Ed and the siblings and they all denied the mother’s accusations. No further action was taken by the mother or by Mr. Tonga. Only Ed, Jeanette, and their children were members of Mr. Tonga’s congregation. No complaints were taken to any member of the other men’s churches.

The statements made by Jeanette Mohler are puzzling. Just as the original accusations have expanded to include bestiality, kidnappings, and murders, they have also expanded in time, now encompassing twelve years, from 1983 to 1995. Jeanette remained married to Ed throughout this time, not filing for divorce until 1997. During their divorce, both Ed and Jeanette continued to attend the Independence Missouri Mormon Church. It’s more probable that it was during this period that the mother began leveling these complaints against her husband to her church, and to her six children.

“There are people so prone to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying”. – Josh Billings

Defendant Burrell Mohler Sr. has been the most maligned in the media due to the finding of “incest pornography” at his home. On the day of his arrest, his wife, Sandra Mohler, voluntarily allowed investigators into all common areas of the house.  (Some areas were excluded as they are private quarters for an unrelated boarder). According to the investigator’s affidavit, Mrs. Mohler explained to Jackson County Detective Cathy Covey that she and her husband had arranged for separate bedrooms “after she had discovered he was viewing magazines and videos depicting persons involved in sexual activity”.[21]  (This statement has been consistently misquoted in the press). Mrs. Mohler reported that although they had begun to sleep separately, both had full access to all areas of the residence. She indicated that her husband commonly used the computer in her room because he had never set-up internet access for the computer in his basement bedroom.

Mrs. Mohler also “had full permission to enter his sleeping area downstairs”.[22] She stated that on two occasions she had looked in hidden areas of her husband’s bedroom to find his pornography. She told Detective Covey that she had taken away the magazines she found most objectionable and locked them in her file cabinet. Mrs. Mohler voluntarily supplied the investigators with the key to that filing cabinet. The magazines she had locked away included 5 digest style magazines which showed photos of adult models, engaged in sexual activity, with narratives depicting incestuous relationships.[22] “Incest is, in fact, sexual relations between individuals of any age too closely related to marry. It need not necessarily involve an adult and a child”.[12] Those 5 magazines are the most widely reported finding to imply the guilt of all six men, although none of them involve children or even models who appear to be children. The primary stash of pornography, later found in Burrell Sr.’s sleeping quarters, consisted of at least 65 more magazines, movies, and books – none of which were incest related.[23] In fact, many of these were specifically about and for senior citizens. One dvd has the words “Grandma and Grandpa” in the title and has been falsely reported as “incest porn” when in fact it is only about sexuality between aging partners.[24]

Many observers have noted that the search inventories included many unmarked or hand labeled videos. It’s been speculated that those tapes may contain child pornography but the information has not been released to the public. In fact, some articles on the case have falsely reported that illegal pornography was seized. Possession of child porn in the state of Missouri is a felony carrying up to a 10 year sentence. None of the men have been charged with this or any other offense resulting from the searches. Despite the wide assortment of accusations, the men are charged only with the crimes in which no physical evidence would necessarily be expected.

“They were distinguished for ignorance for they had just one idea and that was wrong.” – Benjamin Disraeli

When asked where the accusing Mohler siblings reside, Sheriff Alumbaugh states that they are “from all over right now”.[7] While this is true, the primary accuser resides in the college town of Provo, Utah and two other siblings show previous addresses in Provo. Provo, Utah is home to the Brigham Young University, run by the LDS Church. For a city of only 42 square miles, it has seen more than its share of repressed memory scandals. “Following a single article in the Provo weekly paper [about the FMS Foundation], in three days, over 150 families in this single geographical area called to report their experience.” Institute for Psychological Therapies, 1992

The student Counseling Center at BYU offers therapy to students for abuse issues. The Center’s website asserts, “Some individuals have little or no memory of being sexually abused and its impact upon them until adulthood.” [25] The Center also recommends books by repressed-memory therapists, Lynn Finney, Beverly Engel, and Noemi Mattis, as suggested reading. “The authors of these books all rely on the one another’s work as supporting evidence for their work; they all endorse and recommend one another’s books to their readers. If one of them comes up with a concocted statistic — such as ‘more than half of all women are victims of childhood sexual trauma’ — the numbers are traded like baseball cards, reprinted in every book and eventually enshrined as fact. Thus the cycle of misinformation, faulty statistics and invalidated assertions maintains itself….” -Carol Tavris

Lynn Finney is known for her promotion of self-hypnosis to recover memories of abuse, and for her belief that fully one-third of all women have been victims. In fact, Finney’s one-third statistic leads BYU Counseling Center’s website page for students seeking therapy.[25] One of Finney’s former patients, Martha Beck, authored the 2005 book Leaving the Saints. Beck is a Provo native, a therapist, and past professor of Sociology at BYU. It was while teaching at BYU, that Beck recovered memories of ritual abuse. In her book, Beck brags of her cruel confrontation with her 90 year old ailing father, “I grin, but my father is not amused. He looks longingly toward the hotel room door, apparently realizing I’m not about to let him leave.” [26] All seven of Beck’s siblings have expressed outrage and condemned these allegations.

Beverly Engel espouses, “If you still have a hard time believing a survivor…look at your own history for signs that you yourself may have been abused and are in denial” Engel gives a list of symptoms to assist the reader in determining if they have been abused and are in denial. Those symptoms include:  feeling ugly; a tendency to apologize; feeling helpless; or problems in relationships.[27]

Also recommended by the BYU Counseling Center is the 1993 publication Confronting Abuse.[25][28] Compiled by three Brigham Young University professors, Confronting Abuse is a collection of essays on ritual and sexual abuse. In it, repressed-memory practitioner, Neomi Mattis, describes the abuse she’s helped her patients to uncover: “In addition to all combinations of sexual intercourse genital, anal, and oral between child and adult or child and child (forced), victims are penetrated genitally or rectally with all kinds of objects, and are forced to submit to sexual activity with animals”. “They are forced to participate in all of the crimes, including sacrifice of animals; the torture and sometimes murder of babies, including in some cases the infants of young girls required to bear children specifically for sacrifice; the torture and sometimes murder of adults; and the systematic disposal of bodies.” Mattis explains why evidence of these crimes is never found, despite in-depth investigations: “Cultists include professionals, such as morticians and butchers, who are skilled at disposing of evidence.” She goes on to explain why many of the reports are verifiably false, “The victims are programmed to dissociate, so that they do not recognize or remember parts of their own experience or personality. They are trained to deny accusations, tell conflicting stories and retract their own reports”.  As for the seemingly normal, often charitable, outward lives of the accused in these child-rapes, breedings, murders, and torture, Mattis offers this, “[The Perpetrators are also]dissociative and thus unaware of their other cult-involved selves.” [29] (*See footnote) By this logic, any one of us could be not only victims, but also perpetrators of these crimes and never know it.

Just eight miles outside of Provo, the infamous “Greenbaum” [30] lecturer, Corydon Hammond operates a therapy office. In 2004, Hammond, along with Bennett Braun and Roberta Sachs of Chicago, settled a malpractice lawsuit against them by retracting repressed-memory patient Elizabeth Gale.  Hammond paid $175,000 of that $7.5M settlement.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein

It seems to be the perfect storm: A divorce with bitter custodial parent; the repressed-memory pied pipers of Provo; a lead investigator with an agenda; a newly appointed prosecutor who has specialized in sexual abuse cases; and regular sensationalist misinformation distributed in the media. Having made the allegations so public and over-extending county monies on the investigation, the likelihood that the charges will be dropped due to the lack of hard evidence is greatly lessened.

An entire generation has come up since the hysteria of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. We saw then how easily the hysteria spreads from one sibling to the next, to investigators, prosecutors, child services, the media, and to the public. Each points to the other as evidence that their beliefs are reasonable. At that time, it was daytime talk shows like Sally Jesse Raphael or Phil Donahue that disseminated these shocking tales to gullible audiences. Today, the internet has taken the place of those talk shows and it seems that audiences are just as gullible.

*Footnote:
A 1995 study found that in cases of alleged abuse with no claims of repression or amnesia by the accusers, only 22% of accused passed polygraphs.  In cases where accusers claimed a period of amnesia, 91% of accused passed polygraphs. [29]

References:

1. Bradley, D. (2009, November 23) Incest Allegations Shatter Public image of Church-Going Clan.  Kansas City Star.
2. Marttinez, E. (2009, November  12)  Child-Raping Missouri Family May Have Bodies in Yard. CBS NEWS
3. Schroer, Det. C. (2009 November 3).  Mohler Probable Cause, Lafayette Co., MO
4. Schroer, Det. C. (2009 November 9).  Mohler Probable Cause, Lafayette Co., MO
5. Reported by Sgt. Collin Stosberg , Missouri Highway Patrol
6. Bates City farm Search Warrant Authorization 11/9/09; Judge Frerking
7. Alumbaugh, K. Sheriff (2009, November 11). Press Conference. http://www.kmbc.com/video/21586514/index.html
8. Krajicek, D. (2005) Serial Killers: Partners in Crime: Ricky and Dena.  http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/partners/richard_dean_davis/1_index.html
9. Cooper, R. (2009, November 29) Former Local Attorney Involved in Huge Case. St. Joseph News Press.
10. Parmon, J. (2009, April 29) Rally Shows Support for Victims of Rape.  The Lexington News
11. Ritchie, K.W. (2010, January 25) First Year Report.
12. Lanning, K. (1992) Investigators Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse.  Behavioral Science Unit & National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.
13. Goleman, D.  (1994, October 31) Proof Lacking for Ritual Abuse. New York Times
14. Goodman, G., et al (1994) Characteristics & Sources of Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse.  Clearing House on Child Abuse & Neglect Information
15. Burns, Det. Ray (2009, November 10) Return and Inventory.   Lafayette Co., MO
16. Schroer, C. (2009, November 12) Affidavit.  Lafayette Co., MO
17. Burns, Det. Ray (2009, November 13) Return and Inventory.  Lafayette Co., MO
18. Kelleher, M.  (2009, December 12) Jared Mohler Returns to Court.  Fox 4 News
19. Pamela Young-Robinson-Mohler v Mark Young MO Case #7CV193002524 (1993-2006)
20. Burrell Edward Mohler v Pamela Robinson-Mohler  MO Case #01FC204320 (2001)
21. Lederle, Officer M.  (2009, November 10)  Affidavit.  Boone Co., MO
22. Wilson, Sgt. A.  (2009, November 10) Affidavit/ Inventory.  Jackson Co., MO
23. Cole, Det. P. & Kelley, Det. A. (2009, November 20)Return and Inventory.  Jackson Co., MO
24. http://www.over40videos.com/video/Detailed/132.shtml (WARNING – Explicit material)
25. BYU  Career and Counseling Center:  http://ccc.byu.edu/childhood-abuse
26. Beck, M. (2005) Leaving the Saints. Crown Publishing.
27. Engel, B.  (1989). The Right to Innocence. Ivy Books.
28. Horton, A.L., Harrison, B.K., & Johnson, B.L. (1993) Confronting Abuse. Desert Book Co.
29. Abrams, S. & Abrams, J.  (1995) False Memory Syndrome vs. Total Repression.  Journal of Psychiatry and Law
30. Hammond, C. (1992, June 25). “Greenbaum Speech “originally known as “Hypnosis and MPD: Ritual Abuse” Presented at the Fourth Annual Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality.  Washington DC.

Cartoon courtesy of Martha Churchill

Not Exonerated Quite Yet: An update on Missouri Mohler case
by J. Bean (A skeptic in KC)

The arrests in the fall of 2009 of Burrell Mohler Sr., his brother, and his four sons stunned Western Missouri residents.   On Friday, February 17, 2012, the community was again taken off-guard as Burrell Sr.’s impossibly high bond was reduced, then waved, releasing him from jail to  await a trial, still many months away.

On November 11, 2009 Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh, along with prosecutor Kellie Ritchie-Campbell, held a press conference, announcing the arrests of the Mohler men on charges that they had repeatedly sexually assaulted several young relatives during the 1980’s.   In the weeks following that press conference, information and speculations from authorities continued to be shared with the media.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the media frenzy came to a halt.  Questions as to why no charges were filed on any of the allegations which should have produced physical evidence went unanswered, as were questions as to why it’s taken over 20 years for the victims to come forward.   Now, the community is left with another mystery:  What has happened in the cases which would cause a judge to release the accused without posting bond?

Since his arrest, the legal wranglings in the case of Burrell Mohler Sr. have all centered around discovery – specifically the production of diaries and medical/therapy records.  The state’s primary justification for not producing these in the past two years has been that the alleged victims were stunned and terrified due to “unexpected” media attention.  The defense has pointed out that the only media attention the case received was immediately following the state’s calling of a press conference.   As soon as defense counsel was retained, the media blitz stopped.

In December 2011, a special appointed discovery judge issued a 30 day final deadline for the lists of physician names to be provided for subpoena.   Still nothing happened.   Burrell’s attorney filed a motion for sanctions, to be heard on Feb 17th.

In the weeks following the filing of that motion, there was a sudden flurry of activity, the accusers finally providing names of physicians and other materials.  On Wednesday, Feb 15th, the alleged victims made a statement to the Associated Press, which read in part:  “After four years of cooperating with the prosecution, we believe that a just and speedy trial can be reached without further compromising our privacy and safety”.   Due to this announcement, several media outlets noted the motion to be heard on Friday.

Friday at 10am there was a packed courtroom, as usual, on the side of the defense.  For the first time in over two years, there were also a few seats occupied on the side of the state – not supporters of the state, but members of the press.

Oral arguments began with Attorney Kim Benjamin reviewing the two years of attempts in obtaining necessary discovery.   She told of the original complaint having been brought to and investigated by neighboring Jackson County, with no charges filed.  The complaint was then taken to Lafayette County and the men immediately arrested and charged based on the victim statements alone. Only then did that county begin its investigation.

Attorney Benjamin showed color glossy photos of the original press conference, with the DA herself standing next to a chart which clearly identified the alleged victims as the children of Ed Mohler. Ms. Benjamin told of the allegations, made but not charged, of satanic rituals, severed heads floating down rivers, child prostitution as preschoolers, and live births at the ages of ten or eleven.  She said the state had denied this was a case of repressed memory, then read a quote from one of the first communications ever given to authorities, in which one of the accusers asserts she was the first of the siblings “to have adult memories of our childhood abuse”, only a few years ago. She explained how easily the defense was able to connect the accusers with a group of pet psychics and massage therapists who claim to be able to bring hidden memories out of your body cells.

The prosecutor admitted that it is a case of repressed and recently recovered memories, saying she’d never told attorneys differently.  She said she did not have control over the press conference, and spoke of the re-victimization of rape victims by having to hand over personal records.   She stressed that many records have been provided in the past couple of weeks.   The discovery judge, Hon. Michael Maloney, confirmed that he had recently received several thousand pages of materials.   In proceedings later in the day, he took the bench, and expressed some dismay that it is the defense, rather than the prosecution, seeking these and other records, as the state should have sought them in order to prove its case noting, “The results of the alleged abuse would certainly have required critical care”.

Burrell Sr.’s attorney reiterated that the appropriate time for the state’s investigation should have been prior to the arrests, rather than arrest first, and now attempting to gather the required evidence two and a half years later.  She argued that it’s not a matter of “what have you done for me lately”, but a matter of her client rotting in jail, while counsel has still not received a single page of this discovery.

Judge Harmon denied the motion for sanctions or dismissal.  Then, without it having even been asked, ordered Burrell Sr. released on his own recognizance.  The state asked there be a condition that he cannot be around children under the age of 17, which the court rejected.

Burrell’s hearing aid wasn’t working, so he had no reaction.  As the family broke into tears of joy and relief, Ms. Benjamin penned him a note saying, “You’re going home.”

Father of the accusers, Ed Mohler, awaits in jail in another county.  No similar motions have yet been filed by his public defender.

Burrell’s brother, defendant Darrel Mohler passed away in October, and thus will never hear of his accusers’ announcement that they are now ready to provide him a just and speedy trial.

]]> https://process.org/discept/2012/02/28/reminiscent-of-1692-a-modern-missouri-witch-hunt/feed/ 9 https://process.org/discept/2009/10/18/electric/ https://process.org/discept/2009/10/18/electric/#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:37:58 +0000 https://process.org/discept/?p=464 On a recent trip to mainland China I spent most of my time in a city called Hangzhou. The population of this beautiful city is somewhere around 3 million souls. A lot of Chinese people rely on the bicycle for transport as well as scooters. Chinese cities are very congested like their Euro counterparts so two wheeled transport makes sense on pretty much every level (except perhaps safety). But in China there is one difference that is glaringly obvious. Although the roads are packed, and I do mean packed with scooter pilots, the streets are quiet. The reason for this? It’s because 99% of the scooters are electric.  It’s quite surreal. It appears to the foreigner like a movie missing a quintessential piece of the sound track. Now here’s another interesting statistic, around a third of all Chinese bicycles are also electric mopeds or have electric assist. I’ve also witnessed this phenomenon in Japan where e-bikes and scooters are ubiquitous.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904334,00.html?iid=digg_share

This is all very interesting to me because I ride an electric bike and it’s made in China.

Giant Lite with Extracycle extension

I originally built this bike as a camera car. I was shooting the Marathon de Medoc in Bordeaux and wanted to shoot the host of my show in amongst the marathon runners. This is strictly forbidden for motor vehicles but my production manager talked the race organizers into allowing a bicycle on the course. So I built this Giant electric with an Xtracycle back end. The bike carried a rider, myself and all of our camera and sound gear for the whole marathon, just under 400 pounds or 200kg. I was sold. When i returned home with the bike it pretty much replaced my car and keep in mind that I live in Los Angeles. My Giant with two batteries has a range of about 60miles and a top (assisted) speed of about 28mph. It can easily carry two people and a weeks worth of groceries. The bike all in cost me around 2,500 USD. Of course the bike uses a bit of generated energy but according to what I’ve read (sorry no footnotes) it works out to over 800 mpg. If you are really industrious you could invest another $600 in a rooftop solar kit and your bike would be completely off the grid.

I find it kind of astounding that the electric bike or electric scooters haven’t become popular in North America. I think it’s partially due to the fact that electric vehicles are not considered to be a practical form of transportation here. An affordable electric car is definitely a ways off (unless you have 90k burning a hole in your pocket to buy a Tesla Roadster…drool). But here’s the thing, electric bike technology is totally capable of providing us with low cost zero emission transport right now. Especially for those of us who live in warmer climates. The only thing that’s really holding back the manufactures of e-bikes are the laws governing the bikes themselves. Most countries require that the top speed of any assisted bicycle be around 17-19mph. I think that’s ridiculous considering the fact that anyone in reasonably good shape can pedal a normal road bike a lot faster than that. Now, I’m not suggesting that legislation should allow unlicensed e-bikes an unlimited top speed, but something closer to 30 mph would be more reasonable and way more practical. That’s about as fast as your average rider would want to go on a bike anyway and is a totally reasonable speed for urban transport. Fortunately there are ways around these limitations and that’s what this article is about. Hacking the electric bike!

Disclaimer:

O.K. This is the part where I need to cover my ass. During the course of this article I may be giving you advice that would allow you to make or build your e-bike in such a way that it may go faster than your local laws allow. If you do this and have some kind of horrifying accident where you are dismembered, maimed or in anyway injured. Don’t come crying to me. Also if you are not completely comfortable on a normal bicycle, I would not recommend going this route first. Buy a nice slow stock e bike and ride it until you’re really ready to speed things up a bit.

The important thing to understand is that any bike can be made electric and it’s not a difficult process if you are using a ready made kit. I would argue that an e-bike that you construct for yourself will not only be a far superior ride in terms of stability and speed, but way cooler. Off the rack e-bikes are dork-mobiles for the most part, and those that aren’t are far too expensive for the level of performance they deliver.

O.K. Step one HACKING THE GIANT LITE

The Giant Lite was by far the best e bike built in it’s time. It still stands up pretty well next to what’s out there right now. Granted the motor at 350 watts is a bit underpowered but on the whole it’s one of the lightest and most efficient off the rack bikes that has ever been made. You can still find new ones on line and they usually about USD $1000. Which is a STEAL compared to other off the rack e-bikes bike out their today.

If you’re going to try a mod like mine try to find a step through model. The step through makes more sense if your going to extend the back end and make it a two seater. Throwing your leg over the back of a bike that’s 7 feet long isn’t so easy. Also I think the step through model is easier to find.

If you are truly in need of step by step advice on how to covert a Giant Lite to a faster viable urban transporter then send me an email and I’ll send you detailed instructions. I’m not going to post them here. I’ve had great success with this bike but I think there are better and cheaper alternatives that have developed since I built it. There are some links to said alternatives at the end of this article.

Batteries:

The Giant uses NiMh batteries and like all rechargeables, they have a finite life-span. The good news is they are easy and inexpensive to refurbish. The even better news is that when you refurbish your batteries you can buy new ones that have a higher storage capacity and will give you more range. The process of upgrading your batteries is called re-celling them. You can buy the kits on-line. The original battery packs for the Giant are around $400. The re-cell kits are half that price.

For any other kit avoid old school led acid batteries. They are cheap, but can’t be recycled and have a very poor power to weight ratio. There is a good on-line distributor for battery tech:

http://www.batteryspace.com/?SSAID=297581

I’m currently investigating LifePO4 batteries as the power source for my next bike. Lithium seems to be the way to go now.

Currently I think the best and also the easiest option is to go with a high output hub motor combined with some advanced battery technology. Just make sure you match the battery voltage to the motor your are powering. Most e-bike systems are either 24 or 36 volt technology. Hub motors can be configured to drive either the front or rear wheel and can be fitted to pretty much any standard bike.

http://www.falconev.com/E-Bikes.html

http://www.wildernessenergy.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1

For an in-depth DIY concept and overview

http://www.electricycle.com/ebike2.htm

Friday 3 April, 2009: David Lynch’s press conference is poorly managed and uninformative but well-planned enough – it seems – to achieve its intended effect. The attending Press are either convinced, or confused and cowed – by the PowerPoint presentation of statistical graphs and PhD presented data.

Nobody seems capable of a sensible question by the end. For a full hour, a presentation designed to publicize Lynch’s plan to bring Transcendental Meditation [TM] to “one million children” in public schools across America failed to approach the question of how this ambitious plan would be executed, and nobody thought to ask.

The David Lynch Foundation website is a bit more helpful: “[The Foundation] provides funding for schools that offer children in grades 6 through 12 the opportunity to learn the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program as part of a whole school, twice-daily, morning and afternoon, Quiet Time session.” Further, “The David Lynch Foundation bears all TM instruction costs, TM instructor cost, and the cost of the follow-up program, which includes faculty and staff training in the proper supervision of the Quiet Time period.” But who are these instructors, and why Transcendental Meditation?

Yes – to the lady with her hand raised: “What got you into Transcendental Meditation, Mr. Lynch?”

The only question suggesting some background knowledge comes from a man in a black fedora with a thick German accent… He wants to know what role Advanced Techniques such as “Yogic Flight” will play in this schoolhouse transcendentalism. Lynch seems coached enough to avoid overtly supernatural claims, but not bright enough to conceal his TM mysticism. He launches into some unclear rhetoric about TM’s ability to “bring bliss to the atmosphere” and “peace to the Collective Consciousness”. Not only that, but in areas where TM is practiced, Lynch tells us, crime rates, and even car accident rates, have lowered!

But what about Yogic Flight? We know that TM had once claimed that its practitioners could develop the ability to levitate… they even marketed the school of TM with pictures of lotus-seated students apparently hovering above the ground. But first-hand observations of the “levitations” left many unconvinced. The levitators never managed to levitate for very long; they never really “hovered”. In fact, they sprung up rather abruptly and dropped immediately to the ground again. Really, it looked quite a lot as one might expect if credulous transcendent hopefuls were merely hopping about on their asses.

But levitation isn’t all! An old advertisement boldly states: “Regular practice of the TM technique develops SUPERNORMAL POWERS such as:

• Levitating the body at will
• Supernormal sight and hearing
• Invisibility

(While pictures of “levitating” TM students may have been falsified, I’ve have not heard the same said of any such pictures of those who were practicing invisibility.)

TM was founded by a man known as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1956 in India, and has since grown worldwide. Its popularization was largely spurred by the endorsement of members of the Beatles. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are the first speakers at the press conference, stammering their way through a speech that they need not have mentioned was unprepared. TM is wonderful, is the gist of it. Oh, yes, and Ringo saw lepers in India when visiting Maharishi. Paul McCartney is just one of the performers scheduled to play at the next evening’s David Lynch Foundation benefit concert, raising money for the purpose of in-school Transcendentalism. Nothing is really said of the TM meditation technique. According to the Skeptic’s Dictionary online: “TM is said to bring the practitioner to a special state of consciousness often characterized as “enlightenment” or “bliss.” The method involves entertaining a mantra. Trainees pay hundreds of dollars for their mantras. Novices may be led to believe that their mantra is unique, though many practitioners will share the same mantra. As of April, 2007, the cost for TM training is $2,500. This is a one-time fee and financing is available.” (http://skepdic.com/tm.html) Though Lynch and his people are careful to stress that Transcendental Meditation is only a technique, it is quite clear that TM is an organization “which includes real estate holdings, schools, and clinics, […] worth more than $3 billion in the late 1990s.” (Brittanica: http://www.answers.com/topic/maharishi-mahesh-yogi).

Lynch’s goal of “one million children” seems reminiscent of another supernatural claim of TM, the Maharishi Effect: that a certain critical mass of TM meditators can affect change upon the material world.

“They’ve always maintained this,” James Randi (famed stage magician and arch-skeptic) explained to me later, “that if a certain critical number of people take up TM, they will protect everybody, and the world will be perfectly safe from then on.”

Randi came to be aware of TM through his friend and fellow magician, Doug Henning. “I knew [Henning] very well as a kid, and later as a mature magician. We were always in touch…” Randi describes a deeply cultic relationship between Henning and Transcendental Meditation that would destroy Henning’s career and eventually take his life. Henning’s career as a television magician was compromised as he strove to hire only TM initiates to work on the set. According to Randi, this was not only problematic for the fact that it was difficult to find people within TM who were talented in television production, but “every so often they went in to meditation and work just stopped…” Eventually, TV executives grew weary of Henning’s professional antics.

Henning became even more deeply involved with TM following his diagnosis of liver cancer, eventually removing himself from contact with non-TM practitioners. “He gave up all medical care… the Maharishi had told him that he could recover from his liver cancer simply from meditating… he meditated himself to death.” Henning died in February of 2000.

Therapist John Knapp, specializing in the treatment of individuals disentangling themselves from cult-type relationships, claims that he, too, had a cult-like experience with TM. After many years with TM, Knapp found himself far removed from friends and family outside of the organization. He began to harbour doubts about his relationship with TM, which caused for harassing behaviour from some its adherents. “I found that just raising various questions about the group caused me to be the recipient of extraordinarily painful language, and so forth…” Maharishi himself had once been accused of using “fear and intimidation” in order to work to prevent a disciple from leaving the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. The disillusioned student, Robert Kropinski, and six other people sued Maharishi’s University for $9 million on the grounds of “fraud, neglect, and intentionally inflicting emotional damage”. Kropinski stated that none of the promised TM benefits ever surfaced during his time as a student, and he was awarded $138,000 by a Washington D.C. jury. Maharishi did not appear in court, as he was never available to receive summons.

It was John Knapp who, in response to the David Lynch Foundation’s proposition to introduce TM into public schools, organized a web seminar to draw attention the possible violation of the separation of Church and State such a program suggests. “They try to tell you there is nothing religious about it,” James Randi, who was scheduled to speak during the seminar, explains, “but that is absolute nonsense. Doug [Henning] told me the mantras and such are prayers to Hindu deities. That’s all there is to it.”

I received an email from Knapp inviting me to RSVP to the event, after which I tried to help him generate publicity. But the event was never to be. The night before the seminar, William Goldstein, General Counsel for The David Lynch Foundation, sent Knapp an email strongly advising caution: “we intend to review the global web presentation for any false, defamatory, tortious, breachful, malicious or otherwise unlawful statements or materials made or published by you or the presenters.” Goldstein then went on to dissect sentences lifted from the Knapp Family Counseling website that he seemed to feel fit the criteria above, though he never answered the thrust of the charge: that teaching TM in schools is a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The next morning, Knapp cancelled the panel discussion. In an email to all registered attendants he explained: “Upon reflection, I could not in good conscience expose my co-panelists to possible legal entanglements. With regret, I have canceled this Web Event. The fight to overcome what I believe is a clear Church/State violation — teaching the religiously based Transcendental Meditation program in public schools — goes on.” I, too, believe the Church/State issue is a serious concern, and I feel that TM’s meditation practices planned introduction into schools is no different from a proposition that one-on-one therapy sessions be introduced in the form of Dianetics auditing as practiced within the cult of Scientology.

James Randi’s case against TM is far more personal, “I’m so angry at the TM movement for having taken an innocent person.”

Knapp’s opinion, as he explained to me the day after the seminar was to take place, is that any critical scrutiny of TM will prove its undoing. “…It’s just too damn strange.”

(Following is the email from Bill Goldstein, General Counsel for the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness Based Education and World Peace, sent to John Knapp the night before the web seminar was to take place.  The email is posted here in its original formatting)

From: bill goldstein <bgoldstein108@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 10:34 PM
Subject: Web Event
To: “Mr. John Knapp” <jmknapp53@gmail.com>

Dear Mr. Knapp:

I am General Counsel for the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness Based Education and World Peace. I have been forwarded the url which publicizes a web event which it appears you are hosting on April 2^nd entitled: Tell TM hands off our schools, http://knappfamilycounseling.com/tmconcert.html .

Your website is a fount of false, misleading, biased and entirely negative information on the TM program and the organizations and individuals which teach or have conducted research on that program[1]. The listed presenters at your event appear all to have a similar negative mission. Therefore, I wished to give you the courtesy of an advisal that we intend to review the global web presentation of the event carefully for any false, defamatory, tortious, breachful, malicious or otherwise unlawful statements or materials made or published by you or the presenters.

I would caution you and your presenters, therefore, to be most prudent concerning the truthfulness and propriety of any statements made by any of them at your web event or thereafter. As you have intentionally scheduled this event two days prior to the Foundation’s benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall it is clear you have planned it to have a negative impact on that event. Please know that you and your presenters will be held responsible for injury to any individuals or organizations, or their reputations, that may result from any unlawful behavior under US, UK and/or foreign law.

You will also be held responsible for the continuing publication of falsehoods on your websites and otherwise.

I trust you will act appropriately now after having been so clearly advised.

Very truly,

William Goldstein

General Counsel

David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness Based Education and World Peace

[1]- For example, by way of illustration and in no way attempting to be exhaustive, you state: I think there is evidence that [the TM program] is either not effective, not enjoyable, or downright dangerous for a certain percentage of the population, on the order of 10% to 20%.” http://knappfamilycounseling.com/mostly.html. And as evidence you link to another website of yours http://trancenet.net/research/index.shtml with extensive false and misleading statements and citations. You start by including therein a characterization of  “ the German High Court’s 1989 ruling that TM is a destructive cult — overruling all lower court findings. The current law of the land in Germany.” The facts of the case are 180 degrees removed from that statement, as you should well know, and are laid out in http://www.truthabouttm.org/truth/LegalIssues/GermanCourtCases/index.cfm.

You go on to state that according to one of your presenters, Barry Markovsky, “TM researchers” research is not designed to be sensitive to, and contains no indicators for, negative effects. In fact, all the 600 studies on the TM technique could potentially show negative effects (e.g., they could measure an increased anxiety instead of decreased or no change in anxiety; an increase in war-related variables instead of decreased or no change in war).

The next false statement is “Negative effects are not detected in TM research because they are infrequent, and therefore will wash out in a statistical analysis”. The fact is that all the major clinical studies had in place mechanisms for reporting adverse effects. No adverse effects have been reported from these studies, even though the data were collected in universities not connected with any TM affiliated university or organization, and the data collection personnel and attending medical personnel  were blind to the group assignment.  Moreover, case histories on individuals at risk or with pre-existing conditions, such as mental health patients, do not support that the TM program has adverse effects. This allegation is baseless. For details responding in detail to all the claimed “studies” to the contrary you can see, as you already certainly have: http://www.truthabouttm.org/truth/IndividualEffects/DoesTMDoAnyHarm/index.cfm#Harmful.

And then you go on to misrepresent that “Most of the research has been paid for and conducted by individuals committed to TM” .The fact is that the research on the TM technique has been conducted at over 200 independent universities and research institutions around the world. The National Institutes of Health have funded 0ver $20 million for clinical research on the TM technique, which has been conducted at independent universities.

Some of the Universities Conducting NIH-funded research on Transcendental Meditation

University of Pennsylvania
Effectiveness of Transcendental Meditation on Functional Capacity and Quality of Life of African Americans with Congestive Heart Failure
Published in Ethnicity and Disease, Winter 2007 Full Article

Cedars-Sinai Hospital , Los Angeles
The effects of Transcendental Meditation on cardiovascular disease in coronary heart disease patients with metabolic syndrome
Published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Internal Medicine, July 2006 Full Article

University of California , Irvine
The effects of Transcendental Meditation on brain functioning, stress, and pain as shown by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Published in NeuroReport, August 2006 Full Article

Howard University School of Medicine, Washington , D.C.
Morehouse School of Medicine , Atlanta
The effects of Transcendental Meditation in older African American women at risk for heart disease
Findings presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, March 2006

University of Iowa
The effects of the multimodality approach of the TM technique and Ayurvedic herbal preparations on coronary disease
Findings presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, March 2006

The Medical College of Wisconsin , Milwaukee
(1) A study on the effects of Transcendental Meditation on the prevention of hypertension in African Americans; and
(2) A study on the effects of Transcendental Meditation on morbidity and mortality in African Americans with heart disease.

Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles
(1) A study on the mechanisms of atherosclerosis—the effects of Transcendental Meditation on the sympathetic nervous system and the functioning of the arterial endothelium in African Americans; and
(2) The effects of Transcendental Meditation on carotid atherosclerosis.
Published in the American Heart Association’s Stroke, March 2000 Full Article

This may read as nonsense given the seemingly endless stream of news items in which guy from faith A attempts to kill person from faith B and recent quasi-scrutiny of the belief system birthed by that science fiction author; if so, suspend your disbelief for a moment. Tolerance of religious belief has causally allowed a regular discouragement of scientific inquiry, but what is more damaging than that is that it has allowed illogical ‘explanations’ of real world phenomena to gain social validity. I suggest that by allowing one large portion of people’s lives, of their tenets, to slide by completely unquestioned despite obvious flaws and contradictions, an underlying message of complacency towards the ‘okay-ness’ of irrational and unsupported policy claims is being allowed to permeate portions of society in which it has no place being.

As i was walking around Rome several weeks ago, it was impossible to dodge the overarching influence of Christianity which still shadows life there: from roving small packs of American priests in their 20s on study, to the density of churches, to, of course, the Vatican itself. While i don’t expect the wide spread conversion of churches to Starbucks, it is saddening to note that nearing the end of 2008, with centuries of inquiry and discovery under our collective human belt, with rapid information dissemination at our fingertips, with an increasingly egalitarian view onto our peers, that we can still find such large subscriptions to religious faith.

As is evidenced by published poll data, and anecdotally noted by the turn out at public celebrations of religious events, the vast majority of the human race¹ turn towards religious doctrine for their moral guidance and cosmological explanation. While surveying in the US did appear to give evidence to a shade of a down tick in religious adherence from 1990 through 2000², there was an apparent bounce-back (though not to 1990 rates) reported by 2008.³ Outside the US, the data is not very available (or, at least, very locatable) on a more global scale; though with the world becoming more economically and politically instable⁴ over the past decade, one can imagine an increasing trend in faith during this time.⁵

Confusing this situation even more: during this same recent era, the ability to communicate information across geographically separated communities has become ever easier. This is perplexing since, as communication of information has become increasingly easy, and more widespread, one would think that it must take more effort to actively discount and screen out ideas contrary to one’s personal religious beliefs. Unfortunately, this sort of willful ignorance cannot be easily grouped under the established correlation between poor education and religious belief.⁶ Since the majority of the population succumbs to some flavor of superstitious belief system, what we often see as a reluctance to pose rational questions on the belief systems of others could likely be the fear that their own fragile framework could not withstand a similar scrutiny.

Key to both illusionary magic tricks and religious indoctrination: the participation of two parties is required — someone willing to be fooled, and someone willing to fool. While it is more difficult to see the motivations behind those willing to be duped, it’s not hard at all to see the roots of interest in an established belief system’s discouragement, or forbidding, of rational inquiry into an area which it has already claimed to be able to define through divine insight. No one wants to look like an ass, especially an organization which believes they are able to steer one’s eternal existence; so whether it’s an earth-centric view of the universe, a six day formation of all the universe, or whatever, once the guardians of the belief system have stated X as fact, it is in their interest to discourage examination of X.⁷
The Judeo-Christian belief system carries an extra weapon for this discouragement: in their mythology, the cause of their banishment from an idyllic eden life is the very process of questioning — the search for knowledge, symbolically embodied in that whole serpent-apple routine; to Christians, it is the original, the first, sin.⁸

Once we, as societies, kowtow — giving power to religious ideals by accepting them to be a coherent piece of the fabric of an individual — then it greatly hinders the ability for remotely rational dialogue to enter the equation when a belief system jumps from somewhat loony⁹ to dangerously-and-completely-absent-from-reality loony¹⁰. If we cannot consistently and regularly apply rational scrutiny to matters impacting daily human existence, then there is muted value in those times that we can do it at all.
It is of cold comfort that, for example, sanity finally regained control of the Kansas School Board when the real problem is the large step backwards taken due a fundamental Christian worldview being given such validity within society that a subculture believed it to be something it wasn’t, something it couldn’t be.

Truly, not everything can be presently answered by scientific inquiry and research — and it is completely plausible that it will never entirely be able to be answered — but it is certain that when people are allowed to defer to ritual and willful blindness then inquiry and research is stunted at best, and, at worst, it is prevented outright. Especially in these times in which there is a rash of bad events arising partially from our inability to model a large system¹¹ and partially from our inability to engineer new production solutions¹², it is important that we turn our minds outward with vigilance to ask coherent and decomposing questions, not turn our minds inward to take refuge in constructed fantasy.

As a postscript: it should be noted that, while i am mentioning Christianity in this article, there is no reason this complaint does not apply to all faith based systems (including those ‘alternative’ types — the ‘magick’ spectrum, the wiccan variants, …): they all have, as their basis, a kernel framework of unverifiable supposition over which further ideas, also unverifiable, are added or inferred to form a body of ‘laws’ and a cosmology.¹³

1. pie charted for your visual consumption
2. for two frequently referenced sources, there are the ARDA studies and the 2001 ARIS study
3. the Boston Globe had a decent summary
4. including the re-inventing of societies previously dominated by atheism-enforcing governments
5. … given the indications that humans, in a perceived crisis do turn to religion. Anecdotal evidence abounds through Google – here is one of the more recent picks of the litter
6. … those nations which do have less resources with which to educate their population actually do have a more ‘religious’ population (with the United States being the anomalous, and embarrassing, data point in that set) — PewResearchCenter Global Attitudes Project study in 2002.
7. especially when the synthesized ‘fact’ is not based on fact at all
8. think briefly what it means to have a system in which this is the core principle describing the cause for a adherent’s lot in life. ‘you could have had an amazingly paradisiacal life, had only your ancestors not been inquisitive’
9. like “there exists exactly one omnipotent being who watches over everything in the universe”
10. like “there are young children in Nigeria who are actually witches, and whose evil magic is responsible for poor fishing harvests (and not the oil industries dumping regulation-free into the waterways)”
11. in this case an economic system
12. for example a new economically and environmentally sound energy generation source
13. as opposed to something like the field of study loosely termed ‘Physics’, which has a kernel framework of verifiable conjecture from and over which further ideas (including some thought to be unverifiable as portended in certain facets of ‘string theory’) are derived

The world population has a subset comprised of people who, for one reason or another, demonstrate an online desire to constructively expand and, at least in their view, build a better society around them; this phenomenon is repeatedly demonstrated through public knowledge repositories such as those backed by a wiki format. Concurrently, 2008 draws to a close with live web presence being broadcast in increasingly better quality, and with content of every day slice-of-life views.

Using the editors of Wikipedia as an example, we can see that there is a core of people¹ spread around the world who patrol the encyclopedic content watching for forms of vandalism and misinformation. It does not seem outrageous to claim that this behavior satisfies something within individual editors which is akin to the fulfillment of justice and the maintenance of a world view. Similarly, it is unlikely that, for the majority of these individuals, there is something peculiar to encyclopedic bodies which restricts this desire; instead, it is reasonable that this motivating desire could be applied to other arenas were they available.

The other ingredient to this cake, web cams, have had sort of a milk-jug-being-slid-across-the-kitchen-counter existence. Historically, development would occur to a certain resolution quality which was bounded by how much data could be transmitted upstream, during which relative-lull widely available upstream capabilities would surge ahead; rinse and repeat. At present, the quality of web cam broadcasts, thanks to both increasing resolution of cheaper cameras and the decreasing cost for wider upstream bandwidth, has become quite good. Getting an amount of general media exposure recently, there are two good quality example streams from the Tenderloin in San Francisco² at “Adam’s Block”³ — we’re not at the quality of license plate resolution at this distance, but it is generally sharp and with a spry frame rate.

So we have a world population of desktop vigilantes and an increasing population of good quality live web broadcasts of slice-of-life happenings. Further, thanks to the world-wide nature of the internet, observation can occur continually, 24 hours per day, without any one observer needing to perturb their sleep nor social schedule. The last, minimal and non-essential, ingredient would be an even easier way to contact law enforcement local to the geographical area for the camera feed. All of which leads to the prediction that 2009 will see criminal activity being reported by geographically truly remote observers.

The SF Chronicle is reporting on recent developments with Adam’s Block.

1. the Huggle whitelist lists over 30,000 editors, for example
2. simply the best city in the world
3. for those not familiar with the Tenderloin, it’s one of the more squalid neighborhoods in San Francisco; so, the likelihood of witnessing something dodgy from the stream is decent

Alice cover by doug mesner

The following short story was written by Carole A. Travis-Henikoff, an independent scholar specializing in paleoanthropology.  

Travis-Henikoff  began her literary career as a culinary writer . 

Her current research explores death, dying, grieving, dreams and anomalous occurrences. 

Travis-Henikoff’s recent book Dinner With a Cannibal has earned widespread critical acclaim.  Publisher’s Weekly gave the book a star, stating that the book is  “a meticulously researched, compulsively readable history of mankind’s greatest taboo.”
With Alice, Travis-Henikoff enters a whole new literary genre with a story just as enjoyable, exploring a topic no less taboo.  

Alice appears on The Process for the first time…

Carole A. Travis Henikoff

February 18, 2008

Conceived during the middle hours of many nights, October 2007,

aboard the barge, La Tortue, on the Canal du Midi, France.

Alice

As Alice Landsbury exited the jet-way, her mind went blank. The skin of her body began to prickle with fear. This was not La Guardia. Frantically her eyes swept the space in which she stood. There was a floor, a beautiful floor, but where were the walls? Then she saw a woman waving and smiling twenty feet in front of her.  In her hand was a sign that read “Alice Landsbury.”

The woman with the sign walked toward her. Mystified, Alice accepted the woman’s extended hand. Her handshake was somehow settling. “Alice! So glad you made it – wonderful to see you! I know this is all a bit confusing but everything is in order. Somehow you got shuttled onto another flight. We will get you back to New York on a 6:30 flight. Not to worry, my dear, not to worry. I have been sent to take you under my wing. My name is Martha Telling.”

Martha’s countenance was soothing, but Alice’s brain was still whirling in an effort to understand where she was. What was with this building, or whatever the hell it was?

Taking two cup-size bottles of water from her bag, Martha handed one to Alice, then opened the other and began to drink. Lowering the bottle from her lips she said, “I know you are thirsty from your travels. Our water here is the very best. Cheers!” Instantly, a tremendous thirst hit Alice’s senses and she quickly opened her bottle and downed its contents. By the time she lowered the empty bottle from her lips, every emotion and chemical response connected with fear had vanished. Alice still didn’t know where she was, but as Martha had said, “Everything was in order.” Actually, everything was wonderful and exciting.

“Oh, Martha! May I call you Martha? Wonderful! I want to know everything. Where am I? What is this building? Is it a building?”

“Now, now, now, my dear. Let’s take things at a decent pace. I have much to tell you. Come, we’ll go to my place where we can have a bit to eat and relax while I fill you in.”

Taking Alice’s arm, Martha walked her purposefully towards a road that appeared to run from the edge of the floor and stretch into the horizon. Suddenly they were outside. Martha steadied Alice lest she fall. Roads and buildings unlike anything Alice had ever seen filled her visual cortex, which strived to correlate the incoming stimulus to something in its memory bank. The building across a broad green road looked somewhat like a morel mushroom, while the one next to it resembled a Venus flytrap with strangely shaped windows where natural patterning would exist. Odd kidney bean-shaped conveyances of various sizes whizzed back and forth along the green road. Staring at them Alice realized they possessed neither wheels nor drivers.

Martha guided Alice onto a ramp. What Alice took to be a train pulled up and they walked into it through what appeared to be an ancient arch complete with lion heads.

The two women settled into small but incredibly comfortable seats that molded themselves to their bodies. Alice felt as though she was having a soft-touch massage, though there was no actual sensation of being touched.

There were others on the train. Like Martha, they were extremely good looking, in perfect condition, and dressed in an array of outfits. As if reading Alice’s mind, Martha explained that “everyone here has a profession and every profession is identified by attire. It makes things wonderfully easy and increases contact and the exchange of knowledge between the professions. One must never stop learning, but no one can know everything. In talking with a person from another profession, one can increase their knowledge base, thus enhancing their life. Everyone here is a teacher within his or her field of expertise.”

“Where is ‘here’? Where am I?”

“Nextime. You have been selected for a visit. I am a relater.  I was born with an eidetic memory coupled with a love of learning and history in combination with a passion for imparting knowledge to others. I was chosen to be your guide. In school I studied human history starting with the first up-right ape of some seven million years ago. For this assignment I went into an extreme-virtual-reality-study-mode concerning the  timeframe you are from. Is my English and dialect understandable to you?”

“Of course. Isn’t English your first language?”

“Oh no, my dear. We all speak several languages but find telepathy to be the most accurate form of information transmission. I’m using a great deal of telepathy on you at the moment, though your brain doesn’t recognize it as your visual cortex is watching the movements of my mouth.”

“During my learning period I visited your world from your yesterday back to three hundred years prior to your birth. I know and understand the world in which you currently exist. Oh, here we are.” Taking Alice’s arm, Martha guided Alice off the train through what looked like a tree-lined French country road. As the two women got up to disembark, Alice noticed that everyone on the train looked at her with wonderful eyes of kindness and acceptance.

“Nextime? What is this? Am I dreaming?”

“No, but you may very well tuck this journey into the safety of a dream should your mind be incapable of accepting the experience, which is a real probability. Then again, you may not remember any of this. It’s a common response.”

Alice stared out at a beautiful wooded settlement of low sprawling homes and occasional spires that she took to be condos. From the train they walked a ribbon of walkway across gently sloping ground.

“Is this where you live?”

“Yes, in the that spire over there. Third floor, lovely view.”

Coming upon a large plum tree dripping with deep purple fruit, Martha stopped and scanned the tree.

“Oh, marvelous! We have our dessert,” she said as she climbed a brown, bark-looking ladder to reach four perfectly ripened plums. Handing them to Alice she climbed down, took a small woven sack out of her bag and opened it for Alice, who gently placed the fruit within after sniffing their incredible perfume.

“Is this your tree?”

“No, it belongs to everyone. All of the trees you see produce some kind of fruit or nut. In certain weather areas hardwoods or wood pines are grown for human pleasure, but also for culling when the time is right. Everyone picks and gathers their own fruits and vegetables. Any excess is harvested and made into foodstuffs for the winter or sent to other climes. I have been watching that cluster of plums for some time now. It’s nice they reached their perfection in time for you to enjoy them.”

“It’s very beautiful here. Is this the outskirts of the city I landed in?”

“Oh no, my dear. We’re a thousand miles from there.”

“But we were only on the train for a few moments!”

“Yes, yes. But, you must understand that our technologies are far advanced from the technologies of your world. We have learned to use the power of various electromagnetic wavelengths, particularly that of visible light. Rembrandt was prescient when he said that light was everything. Your scientists are just beginning to understand the possible uses of our sun. Aside from getting our power base from manipulated photons, we heal all sorts of psychological and physical problems common to your era by focusing various wavelengths of light through the lens of the eye. Optical therapies work by genetically engineering brain cells so as to change or modify behavior. We have pretty much eradicated depression, addictions, epilepsy, convulsive disorders and extreme aggressive disorder. Of course there are many other therapies, from vibration centering to sound therapy, but such procedures are seldom needed today as the vast majority of people are mentally fit and well adjusted. It’s rare to come upon someone who has suffered from such ailments.”

Staring at Martha, Alice asked, “Are you a robot?”

“Ha, ha, ha! Marvelous! Smart question. Tells me why you were chosen. You are a thinker. The answer is no. I’m a human, everyone you see here is a human, though we do use robots and ultra-smart computers in multiple ways. Robots clean all our roads, walkways and outside areas. Every abode is self-cleaning. You might enjoy the fact that our cleaning robots sense when people are not around and immediately set to their task. If a person should exit a building or enter their abode while a cleaner is at work, the robot will beg their pardon and excuse themselves. They are programmed with all of the world’s languages and have extremely sensitive odor sniffers, mainly for ferreting out molecules of disease and so forth, but also to recognize people’s sex, age and often their profession. Some of their wild remarks can really make your day.”

By now the two women were walking up a pathway of muted colors that changed with each step.

“Here we are.” said Martha as they approached an amazing wooden door carved with a relief of a fabulous chestnut tree whose top branches appeared to have wormed their way into the wall. Holding up her wristband the door swung open. A non-existent butler said, “Good Afternoon, Madam.”

“Good Afternoon, Charles. Any calls?”

“Three Madam. I’ve posted them on your screen.”

“Thank you.”

Transfixed, Alice entered into a seventeenth century paneled room with coffered ceiling. Rembrandt’s self-portrait, the one done during his last years where he is heavily gowned and capped against the chill of an un-heated house, stared out at her from its gold-crusted frame. “Is that the real thing?”

“Oh, no. We can replicate anything with total exactness. Everyone chooses whatever kind of art and trappings from whatever era, or eras, they like in order to decorate their abode to their liking. If I awoke tomorrow and wished for a total makeover, I’d tell Charles my desires and he’d order a re-do to my specifications. It takes two to three days. I usually go on holiday.”

“Who is Charles?”

“Charles is my ATC. My all-sensory, total-knowledge, computer-servant… and a real friend, I might add. Charming fellow; a mega computer to your way of thinking.”

“Are you married?”

“No. Approximately 60% of us never marry. There’s no reason to. Marrieds are usually those who have signed up to win the right to have a child or people who have found everything they want in one person. I have never encountered one person that filled all of my needs, but I have four marvelous mates.”

“Would you care to fill me in on ‘mates’?”

“In your timeframe you would call them lovers, but here in Nextime they are more than lovers. They are mind-mates, food and drink mates, sports mates, strictly sexual mates, or a combination. Our ATC’s keep all of us apprised of availability and confirm meetings at our request. Oh, and I also have a wonderful sleep-companion, Don. I just love him. He’s such a special friend. You see, we seldom stay the night with our mates unless on holiday together, yet many of us love to cuddle or curl up with someone when we go to bed. Don often comes over for the night. In the morning we go our separate ways. Our lives are very full. Between work, play, continued learning, the arts, sports and agriculture, we’re a busy lot.”

“If everyone has multiple lovers aren’t you afraid of STDs?”

“I can’t remember what it stands for.”

“Sexually Transmitted Diseases.”

“Oh, my dear, those were wiped out a long time ago along with most of the diseases that plague your timeframe. The scientists of your era are just beginning to climb the stairs of knowledge.”

“What about people who want children?”

“Well, in the first place couples can’t just do it on their own. Those who are found to be eligible sign up for the raffle after they prove their qualifications for parenting and have their chemical make-up thoroughly examined for health and heredity concerns. Most importantly, they must show that they are truly in love and truly wish to marry and bear a child. After all, parenting is a big job; in our society it demands a great deal of work and dedication.”

“How would you know if someone truly loves another?”

“Our bodies are electro-chemical organisms with limited mass. It would be impossible to lie to testing computers. Only perfectly attuned people are allowed to be breeders. If chosen they are allowed two children so long as their genetic group’s population is low enough to accommodate a second child. The object is to keep the global population at the current optimum population of 2.65 billion people.”

“But – oh, I have so many questions – I mean, how do you keep people from having children? Where did all the people go? There are close to seven billion people living today – in my time, I mean.”

“That’s the problem, my dear, you are loving yourselves to death. Huge populations of people are having children for all the wrong reasons. From responses to age-old, to reptilian brain chemical stimulus, to religious and political beliefs that work against progress and a better life. You are running out of potable water, tearing down your forests, depleting your oceans, running out of food, killing one another, and the list goes on and on. And you know, I couldn’t find anything or anyone within the last decades of your existence that addressed the obvious! As I studied your timeframe I found it astonishing – and disheartening – to see that once again, humankind had chosen to blind itself to the obvious: over breeding breeds war, genocide, and can even wipe out a group or an entire species. It’s like a bloom in a Petri dish. Place a few bacteria on the bottom of a gel-glazed Petri dish, cover it and allow them to split, divide and multiply. All goes well until the bacteria cover the entirety of the dish, then there is a gigantic, frantic division of cells, which is called a bloom. Then, poof – every last bacterium dies en masse. The old Harvard rat experiments proved the same with mammals; and, as I’m sure you know, we are mammals with the same old reptilian brain that runs the hearts, lungs and emotions of all mammals. You, my beautiful friend, are living in the midst of a bloom.

While visiting your timeframe, I watched girls who had no bio-chemicals marking them for motherhood doing anything and everything to get pregnant. I saw children living in conditions that we wouldn’t allow any life form to live in and parents with unwanted children blaming others for their plight, as if others had forced them to conceive. Worst of all, everyone in your generation seems to think that everything that happens to them is someone else’s fault. More amazingly, is that many willingly take the blame for things they didn’t do. Only a child that is wanted by parents capable of caring for and educating it is allowed to enter Nextime.”

“So, let me get this straight, everyone’s life is controlled and some Big Brother is running the show, right? Are you communists? Or do you live under a robotic dictator?”

“Oh my dear, I have wounded your senses. I will have to do three hours of re-training for allowing my emotions to flail around like a half blown balloon. Communism only works within groups of a hundred or less, and only if like-minded, and dictatorships went by the boards ages ago. You must understand. Humanity, along with a majority of earth’s life forms, came close to total collapse… you know, extinction.”

“What happened? Did we blow ourselves to Kingdom Come? Did some disease get us?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you the near future, Alice. Suffice it to say, that many great minds came to recognize that over-population was the root cause of 90% of the world’s problems, from polluting the atmosphere, which adds to natural warming, to insufficiencies of essentials,to genocide. At that time, when humanity was on the crux of self-annihilation, various world leaders, from countries large and small, held secret meetings where they had the courage to formulate and execute measures that would ensure the continuation of the human species. Some of the measures were drastic, but they kept us from total extinction. Funny how people of that time period, appeared to be incapable of accepting the fact that our species could go extinct. Many of our scientists continue to debate on the psychological mindset of the times.”

“So, what did we do? Kill off sixty-five percent of the Earth’s population?”

“Have another bottle of water or there isn’t a chance of you remembering any of this. You are getting too emotional and it’s my fault. I was the first to get emotional – terribly unprofessional of me. Please forgive me. Like most people who love history, we often wish we could go back and save the world, even though we understand what you refer to as the ‘butterfly effect.’ You know, if you get in a time machine and go back millions and millions of years, then foolishly get out of the machine and step on a butterfly, you and the world you know wink out of existence because that butterfly was an evolutionary link to a mutation, etc. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s not on the mark, but it’s a good metaphor. The past cannot be messed with, but you can work towards a better future, and that’s what eventually happened and is still happening. Everyone’s goal in Nextime is towards a better future, including tomorrow and next week.”

“But how did we get to your Nextime?”

I can only give you a view of the treetops, that’s all I’m allowed. Besides, it would take months of lessons and the learning of new sciences for you to comprehend it all. What I can tell you is that people, great masses of people, were contained in learning centers where they were told the truth about their bodies, their minds, and how a child’s brain can be configured through his environment to believe whatever his teachers teach him. During the first week of learning everyone received a thorough mental and physical check-up and were non-invasively sterilized, but for a few who showed fine breeding potential. Those suffering from chemical dependences, aggressive disorders, and the like, were light-treated. Those who did not respond to treatment were incarcerated. Many eventually healed, though some had to be put to sleep.”

“People were sterilized and killed without consent or recourse?”

“Well my dear, the ‘people’ had chosen to believe that they could and should have children whenever they wanted and as many as they wanted. They never thought about the effect their fecundity was having on planet Earth. They cared not a wit about her. The earth’s biomass was dying. Daring people came to the rescue. For many it was horrible, so steeped were they in their beliefs. Some took their lives, being incapable of understanding the paths that, in time, would save their species and life on Earth …to say nothing of their descendents.”

“Nextime sounds dictatorial and atheistic to me!”

“No, no, no. A vast majority of us are religious though the word ‘spiritual’ would best describe us. Of course there are atheists, but they constitute a small minority. Most of the religions of your timeframe had a solid foot in the reality of what is, but sly and manipulative men and women took the essence of reality and molded demanding and commanding belief systems around the truth that is felt by all living things. In other words, they took a great and basic force and used it to their benefit. Innately sensing the truth-effect, populations followed religious leaders, even into battle where they stood by or helped to annihilate ‘non-believers’ in tortuous ways for not believing as they believed. There is only one truth – not multiples – and it existed long before planet earth came into existence. It resides in all things throughout the universe and cannot be separated or explained… even now. Our most amazing brains have tried to get a handle on what we feel but cannot see, sense, or explain. Most of us accept the wonder of the unknown and understand that we are the stewards of our planet and its inhabitants as are life forms on other planets scattered throughout the Universe. I’m sure it’s the same in the multiple universes that exist.”

“You have proven the existence of other universes?”

“Oh yes, quite some time ago. But getting back to The Transition and the point I was making, during those first times of reversal we tallied the people in each and every genetic group. Sterilization was performed in accordance with population tallies so that after a period of 76 years there were like numbers of people left within each of the major genetically distinct groups. Some peoples, living in small groups in deep forests, were left alone. Only those who chose to enter the populous world were subjected to the rules of child-bearing and sterilization.”

“It sounds brutally cold.”

“On the contrary! I have adopted four children whose electro-chemical signatures match with mine. I often take them on holiday or attend school with them so that after class we can communicate child to adult about their lessons. The children are all of a mental neighborhood, and the birthing parents are close friends of mine. They often have a get together and call for a time of feasting. Then all of the children’s adoptive parents, uncles and aunts – a child might have a dozen or more adoptives – bring books and games or pieces of art, along with favored foods. It’s very much like Christmas in your era; a big family gathering brought together through the love and caring of children. In Nextime, every child is encouraged to grow to their fullest potential.”

“Didn’t you ever want to have children?”

“Not really. My genetic group’s quota was full, and there were so many babies whose lives I could tap into. Besides, I was having so much fun working towards my life-degrees that I never gave it great deal of thought. When the parenting chemicals of the old reptilian brain are held in check and you learn how much it costs the planet to raise and maintain every individual that’s born, you simply want to do the right thing. Actually, when a person isn’t expected to produce offspring by their society, religion, or community, the brain is free to expand and add to the progression of knowledge.”

Slightly embarrassed, Alice asked, “Do they cut out your sex-drive through one of their ‘therapies’?”

“Oh, no! Humans are hugely sensual. We are totally sexually liberated. I have never had to worry about getting pregnant and am allowed full expression of my natural needs so long as I express myself in private so as not to offend others. And, unlike your timeframe, rape simply doesn’t happen in Nextime. If it was ever attempted, the victim’s wristband would sense the fear and panic and send out an alarm. The rapist’s wristband would take note of his brain chemicals and administer a sedative. Whenever stressful situations occur, our wristbands work to protect us and record the incident. Besides, there is no way a rapist could deny or get away with such a brutal act. In Nextime everyone knows that attraction and sex are normal, healthy, and wonderful parts of life. I might add, without all the hype that is so rampant within your timeframe, it isn’t a, what do you say? … a big deal? it’s simply a fulfilling, enjoyable part of life.”

“Mmmmm. I noticed that everyone on the train was beautiful, healthy and happy. Don’t you have bad or sad people? Or people less fortunate, you know, on the down and outs.”

“Heavens, no! Within an hour of my birth my chemical signature was registered. By the age of six I was found to be stable and my signature indeed marked me for being a relater. In Nextime every infant is screened and put onto an educational track that will allow them the most fulfillment in life. During The Transition, sociopathic personalities were eliminated. Even today, large business heads, politicians, philosophers, scientists, and the like are thoroughly screened against adverse personality traits. If a child is born with genes that code for lying and aggressive leadership, he or she is put through robotized therapy starting at the age of four. We came to understand the fallibility of human minds… so many of us have a natural desire to control the minds of others. But, computers can be programmed against partiality or false persuasion of any kind. Computer-psychiatrists converse with a person through a three-dimensional life-size optical screen, its questions and replies projected through the likes of a man or woman geared to the patient’s personality. This is done as even in Nextime we possess a need to feel connected with others of our own kind.”

“So you put little kids on a shrink’s couch?… ah, so to speak?”

“In Nextime, we never think of anyone or ourselves as patients; that is a very old term. We all recognize that it is normal to have attributes that may work against us, thus limiting our potential. There is a real desire within us all to be as healthy in body and mind as possible. Therapy is a blessing that allows for a rebalancing of ones emotions. Basically, we work against the human capacity for hurting others of their own species by helping everyone to be in tune with positive action. For instance, naturally born power seekers and builders of industry are encouraged to climb traditional business ladders, but their benefits are restricted; there are no billionaires. Those who attain high status through contributions to business, science, and the like are rewarded through recognition for their talents. Many achieve fame and award, but excessive greed is not allowed. In your timeframe you would say that such traits were against the law. Nevertheless, great minds are revered for their contributions. They live and travel well, but computers account for all profits and the distribution of funds. We don’t have terms for what you call ‘graft’ and ‘fraud.’ Big business and political positions are held for terms of four years. Top brains rotate positions within their individual fields of brilliance. This allows them to work with a great many people from various parts of the globe to whom they can pass on their knowledge, their unique ideas, and ways of solving problems. Since your timeframe, knowledge within the sciences has increased exponentially to the benefit and delight of the world at large.

During The Transition, chemical and light therapy, along with mental training, were used to retrain warlords, corrupt individuals, and anyone who was using power to harm others. Today, warmongers and wily business personalities are a rarity but are easily singled out and dealt with. During the roughest times of The Transition, some of these personalities proved to be beyond help, being incapable of change. Many went mad – what do you say? ‘Flipped off the deep end?’ ”

“Flipped out.”

“Oh, I do love your idioms. At any rate, many flipped out when they realized they could no longer control the lives of others in harmful ways.”

“What happened to them?”

“Some fell into depressions so deep we couldn’t help them. Many committed suicide, while others agreed to mind therapy and changed their lives around …I guess that would be ‘minds’ rather than ‘lives.’ After all, we are what we eat and think, and what you think is usually what you have been taught. That’s why every child in Nextime is taught various ways of thinking, how to question intelligently, and look at all things from many sides.”

“Oh.”

“Our world works towards the benefit of all living things, though to varying degrees. What I mean is that humans are similar to one another and yet each individual is unique unto him or herself. All peoples are regarded with respect as to the lifestyle they are most comfortable with, so long as they produce within their field of work and do no harm to others. There are many who love to live quiet lives in the mountains, in deserts, or on lonely islands, while others gravitate towards business and the immense job of running the planet. Gifted people enter the sciences or fabulous artist, music, or writers’ colonies. And, of course, there are those who carry the risk gene, who climb our highest peaks, explore neighboring planets, test dangerous space craft, and go to the bottom of ocean trenches to gather minerals and specimens for the making of medicines. No one earns the same number of credits – money in your world – as we all produce at different levels, but we all lead comfortable, and more importantly, fulfilling lives. What is demanded of each person are passing grades in higher education, continued learning (which I find the most fascinating), and respect for others. Every individual must prove him or herself self-sufficient through education and execution. By the time human over-population was decreased through natural attrition, children from every corner of the world were learning various languages by the ages of three to five and doing higher math by the age of twelve. In our early school years, we learn to memorize poems or parts of plays starting at the age of three. It was found that memorization teaches the young maturing brain how to lay down memory tracks, which benefit future learning processes, which leads to minds that can look at a situation and figure out a solution.

Following The Transition average intelligence soared. There hasn’t been a war for hundreds of years, and the last person to starve to death lived at least 200 years ago. We all know our history, and through knowing our past we are able to embrace life and enhance the future for up-coming generations. We are blessed to be living in our timeframe…”

Martha had ushered Alice into a sunlit room that had areas Alice equated with a living, dining room, and kitchen space, though none of the usual kitchen apparatus was apparent other than a counter and handsome cabinets. To her left was a six-foot wide, floor to ceiling window in front of which stood a rack. Each shelf held a beautiful six-foot planter with all sorts of herbs, lettuces, radishes and tiny peppers growing in profusion. On the far end the planters were attached to a floor to ceiling, six-inch wide housing that was delightfully painted with various foodstuffs. Martha explained how the planters were automatically watered in response to moisture sensors housed within the end panel. Martha chatted on as she picked, plucked, and cut various items for a salad that soon accompanied a delicious filet of aquamarine-colored fish served with a side of aioli.

“We make sure we get a full compliment of Omega3 oil. The gathering and processing of fresh foods is essential to our lives.”

As she fussed over lunch Martha explained that every building, be it a factory, house, barn, or condominium, was built over a cistern equal in size to its footprint.

“I know the word, but I’m not sure what it is. It’s not a septic tank is it?”

“Heavens, no!” said Martha. “Septic tanks are for sewage. They are still employed in certain situations. A cistern is a rainwater collection receptacle, somewhat like an underground, capped swimming pool. The water is used in multiple ways; our in-home herb gardens, as well as the flushing of toilets and the watering of plant life that surround the building.”

“You still use toilets?” Alice asked with a grin.

Laughing back, Martha replied, “Yes, but they use very little water. We still use something you would recognize. Our bodies haven’t changed in any basic way. All sewage is treated and processed into fertilizers; nothing is wasted in Nextime. I think your era coined the adage ‘waste not, want not’?”

Alice sighed, “Guess we have forgotten how to do that. You should see the trash we create.”

“I know. I watched a film of what happened when the sanitation workers went on strike in New York, Naples and other places. I couldn’t believe it. Amazing. What an incredible waste of resources!”

“What about bathing?”

“All condos and communities have bathing spas, much as the Japanese of your timeframe who bathe prior to entering their communal baths. We ‘bathe’ by walking through various scanners and ionic wave machines that destroy all harmful and odor producing microbes and molecules from our bodies prior to entering the baths. Each domicile has the same kind of machines – smaller of course. They are wonderful. They keep us clean and healthy and you can clean and refresh your clothes and linens without water, soap, or ironing in nothing flat. Our health monitors are quite thorough, down to the detection of a hangnail. Our homes use lasers to eradicate dust, mildew and dirt; it’s all automatic and done in our absence.”

Martha smiled as she set beautiful plates of food on the table and asked Alice to be seated. Alice was hungry. Very hungry. Funny, she couldn’t remember ever feeling hunger or ingesting food in a dream – at least not like this. Looking up, somewhat perplexed, Alice realized that Martha Telling was still telling. She was boasting that everyone worked at least three hours a week in a community garden or near-by forest, and that children were taught beginning gardening starting at the age of four, with a stair-step program that continued throughout their school years. It taught everything from grafting techniques to tree pruning. Those born with genetics geared for agriculture ran the large community gardens and large-scale agribusinesses. Hunger was unheard of and no one was overweight. The psychological underpinnings of obesity, and so-called edibles, that worked against the body rather than for it were well understood and counteracted, often through consensual banning. All foods grown, harvested, or produced worked towards perfect health. The phrase “junk food” had become slang for anything that might harm you, be it a comestible or a proposed gadget that didn’t make it through inspection. Changing subjects, Martha said that whenever a person’s wristband indicated they had a problem, be it medical or psychological, they immediately went to their local clinic for evaluation and repair – a word Martha said had no adverse meaning. Being “repaired” was equivalent to the intelligent act of putting a band aid on a cut. Excluding those who died in accidents, natural disasters, or war-games, the average age at death was 110. Martha said her grandmother lived to be a 126. Suicidal people were treated for depression. Should repeat treatments fail to work and a person persisted in wanting to move on, they were surrounded by loved ones and allowed to go their way. They were given full honor and funeral rights. There were no drug addicts or alcoholics. People partied, loved theatre, music, dance, fine food, wine, and all things enjoyable. Should a person consume a mind-changing chemical substance, their wristband monitored their intake. If one surpassed their intake capacity, their wristband set off a low frequency alarm. If the person persisted to imbibe, a second, louder alarm would sound and their wristband would administer a sedative.

“We live lives that seldom cause embarrassment, but hearing your wrist band alarm go off in a social setting would be embarrassing. Besides, should you be born with the genes that code of any kind of substance abuse or addictive behavior, the dangerous genes are deactivated. So it really isn’t a problem. But you know, even a perfectly normal person can get into a situation where they accept that extra glass of wine. We all love our wristbands.”

“Sorry. But your wristbands sound like Big Brother to me.”

“No, Alice. It’s very different. There are no humans monitoring us. Our wristbands are like having a wise teacher, the best of doctors, and a loving parent with you at all times, to say nothing of wearing a computer on your wrist twenty times more powerful than the biggest and most up-to-date computer of your time. Our wristbands are incredible, life-saving tools that help us lead wonderful lives. If I’m falling in love with someone I just met and act stupid enough to cause my alarm to go off three times within a period of a year, I would have to submit to rehab. Obviously, I’m not going to do that to myself. Besides, by the age of fifteen I had a complete understanding of the chemicals released by the brain when love is blossoming and knew the best ways in which to enjoy the experience and get the most out of it. Why would anyone take away his own innate ability to ‘fall in love’? There’s no reasonable excuse to prompt an alarm other than emotional trauma, so if a person repeatedly causes his alarm to go off, he obviously has an underlying problem he needs to have rehabbed.”

“Sounds great, but I still feel like I’m sitting in The Brave New World”.

“Heavens, no! However, the book is on the Classics list that everyone must read. It is an excellent example of how primitive we were in your era, while at the same time, being prescient to future possibilities. When the book was written, science had yet to understand the genetics and electrochemical realities of animals and plants, particularly humans. Good book. I remember loving the read.”

“So, I still want to know how we moved into Nextime. What happened? Was it all out war?”

“Classified. But large die-offs had begun in reaction to various occurrences, most of which were perpetrated or caused by humanity. At the same time, several positive things occurred. Science learned more about the chemical makeup of the human brain, physicists discovered how to harness the immense power emanating from our sun and surrounding universe, and great thinkers began to disseminate the truth, bringing vast populations up out of the darkness of misguided religious and political thought. The Transition, as horrendous as some aspects of it were, acted as a re-birth for the earth and its inhabitants.

“But how…?”

“Try to listen. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Through light beam technology an entire population could be calmed and educated to the wonders of reality. Reality had been stifled, history had been re-written – a devilish, arrogant deed if ever there was one – and people had clung to ancient, fearful belief systems as over-population crowded them into huddled, confused balls of fear.”

” So, again, you sterilized people without their permission?”

“My dear, it was that or the demise of the human race. You know, when you cut a five-inch high dandelion in the spring with your lawnmower, the plant will produce another batch of flowers with four-inch stalks. Cut it down again, it will lay its stems down into the grass. By the end of the summer it will produce at least one bloom with almost no stalk so that its flower can flourish below the level of your lawnmower’s blade. Bottom line? Life will persist at all cost. Prior to the 1900’s, fifty percent of all human first births resulted in the death of the child, mother, or both. If a woman had several children, few made it to adulthood. As for disease and accidents, until the advent of what you call ‘modern’ medicine, few people could be cured. In your Civil War, countless soldiers died of festering wounds that could have easily been handled in your day and age. But, as you improved your health and increased longevity, you failed to recognize that the very discoveries that were saving you and your babies would create a bloom. As more and more people crowded your cities and streets, the chemicals emanating from your old reptilian brain produced an underlying sense of fear brought on by the crowding of your senses. For millions of years, humans lived in small to moderately sized groups. Even here in Nextime, our central nervous systems haven’t learned to gear themselves for crowded situations. Of course, the outer, newer layers of our brains, being the most powerful on earth, learned to cope as survival mechanisms came into play and the strategist within figured out how to live under the constant threat produced by over-crowding. Your New York City is just one prime example of the incredible ability humans possess for adaptation. But, as crucial necessities of life became scarce and large-scale, over-population filled one country after another, several things happened: war, genocide, greed, and starvation, even cannibalism, circled the globe. And still, you didn’t notice. There wasn’t a problem on earth, from disease and war, to famine and the inability to the cut produce enough food for all peoples, that couldn’t have been diminished or eradicated completely with fewer people on the planet. Not only didn’t you notice, but billions believed that every child came from their chosen ‘god’, as opposed to an act of fornication. In many societies, men believed that only by making a woman pregnant could they prove to be a man, never realizing that any cow, lizard, or rodent could do the same. You, forgive me for saying so, are living in mental caves set in what you call ‘modern’ societies.

Prior to the fall, a global, subconscious fear arose within the human family. Knowing that potable water was becoming scarce, that all-out war was a real threat, and that you were killing the biota of the planet on which you lived, the old reptilian brain did what dandelions still do; it chemically signaled for more births. It was a Death Knell. Sterilization was the only chance humans had for survival. But we didn’t simply sterilize people, we opened their minds to the truth. The truth about their bodies and how brain chemicals could send a person down the wrong path, the psychological and emotional consequences of over-crowding, and also the fact that it was more humane to sterilize people and allow them to live out their lives than eradicate masses of people in order to cut numbers more quickly. A not-too-surprising outcome was that men started working together, rather than against one another. Women became better, more loving parents whether they were a birthing parent or an adoptive. People started to relax as multiple stresses were lifted from their lives. And of course, sterilization allowed millions of women to achieve numerous goals that raising a family would have precluded. Meanwhile, children were loved and cared for, each receiving the education best suited to their natural talents. The sick and elderly were treated with respect and caring, usually surrounded by comforting pets, children, and teenagers who did things for them in return for stories of the past.

Still, it must be admitted that the beginning years of The Transition were difficult. Over-population was such that the first two birthing cycles had to be spaced ten years apart. That decision produced a heartrending side. Women who had subconsciously responded dramatically to multiple fears and experienced overt chemical signals to bear children couldn’t handle not being picked for bearing. Many took their lives before programs were set in place to deal with their psychological and chemical problems. It was terribly sad. To me, they were the most poignant victims of over-population. Some were so distraught over losing the draw they tried to kill the chosen. Quick action had to be taken. Bearing couples were sequestered and protected while those who had become enraged and dangerous were taken in for treatment. Unfortunately, some had to be let go for the safety of humanity. Most understood the drastic state of things, and after listening to the facts, what was being implemented, and the reasons for measures taken, they took positive stands. There were many problems, especially in societies where men had ruled over women to the point of having the right to kill them should they displease them. The effect of having total domination rights stripped from them was simply too much for many of them. Once again, many withered away, while others took their own lives. Change is always difficult. Climbing out of our caves, taking the next step, has always been hard for us.”

“Didn’t the people rise up and try to fight against what was happening?”

“There were loud voices and many threats, but things were so horrific that anything that promised a future was seen as positive. Of course, without light treatment I don’t know if The Transition could have been implemented. Fortunately, the new technologies allowed millions, and then billions, to accept the realization that the only way to have every individual count and provided with a safe and full life was through the lowering of our numbers and the imparting of knowledge. As more and more of the general populous came to understand the situation, they joined ranks and helped with the process. There were many who dedicated their lives to helping those who had a hard time coping with the changes necessary for our survival as a species. With tight controls on population and each child being loved and well schooled a truly golden age began to emerge. When a child is loved and taught to think, when it is schooled in many subjects that mesh to present the whole, the child will grow to make intelligent, salient decisions. We Nextimers understand and appreciate the multiple freedoms and mandatory limitations that work in combination to produce an abundance of pay-offs that allow for global harmony. Would you like a nice cup of tea?”

“That would be very nice. Thank you. So, I think I understand the sterilization bit, though it boggles my mind. Anyway, I want to know something else. In Nextime everyone is happy, healthy, extremely smart, nobody makes war, and everyone loves everyone else? Right?”

“Not quite. This isn’t Pollyanna Ville. Some ethnic groups showed a dislike for people they considered to be ‘different,’ so antagonistic groups were kept apart. Once childbearing and genetic group size were precisely regulated, no one could build up a population large enough to overwhelm another. Actually, within a hundred years of The Transition, the separation of genetic groups became rather fuzzy, then disappeared all together. As new generations were taught the mistakes of the past, along side the wonders of new sciences, they realized how fulfilling life could be, so long as we continued to work against the natural aggression that continues to surface within us from brain chemicals that have governed our behavior since the beginning and continue to do so, even in this day and age. I mean, even in Nextime we can’t help but follow the Four F template: Flee, Fight, Feed and Fornicate. All living creatures maintain their species via the Four F’s, even plants – in ways of their own – follow these mandatory laws of nature. In your timeframe, and more so in mine, humans are capable of annihilating the lot of us. Such capabilities demand the restraint of the second F.”

“How do you do that?”

“First of all we have combative sports that test the strongest among us. No drugs of any kind are allowed and anyone who wants to be part of the games is tested. The testing is done by machine, so if a person fails to pass no one will know, as only the winning scores are recorded. We also allow young aggressives to fight in contained wars, using ancient weapons in land arenas that are surrounded by high walls upon which spectators can watch. Opposing sides can never be composed of a single genetic group, and regulations and admittance to war games are vigorous; few warrior applicants make the grade. Those who pass have their wristbands put on stand-still prior to competing in a war, then re-started afterwards.”

Alice sat staring at Martha. “Do they kill each other in these ‘games’?”

“Of course. It’s real war – small in scale, but very real. Sometimes the casualties are great, but the games seem to fill a human need we have yet to grow out of. The games confine the bloodshed and, how do you say it, blow the steam off?, the general population.”

“Amazing. You have banned war, worked towards peace and then let young men go out and kill each other in game-wars.”

“Alice, the human species is the most complicated mental-benderon the planet…I love that term, don’t you? Over the course of millions of years we became ever more intelligent and cunning, to the point where we actually thought of ourselves as being outside of the Animal Kingdom. Of course, physiology proves us to be animals. It’s just that we are way smarter than all others and possess self-awareness – the thing you call a conscience. Did you know that sociopaths lack a conscience? But never mind the sociopaths, we took care of them; still, the majority of humans born in Nextime carry many of our old weaknesses.’

“If you are so good at gene manipulation, why don’t you just excise all of the bad genes?”

“Because, it was found that if you over modulate the genes of any species it will lose its evolved potential and abilities to the point of extinction. In every species, including our own, it’s the same. We can do many things to enhance and correct the health, mind, and personality of an individual, but there are limitations and our scientists have learned them well. We have had to accept our strengths and our weaknesses. War is an expression of an old, beneficial survival mechanism that became a weakness when weapons of mass destruction were invented. Our war games cause as little harm as possible with willing subjects. You should understand that through the millions of years of our gradual evolution life was extremely difficult with everything from huge hyenas and lions to enemy neighbors threatening our lives on a daily basis. Life was extremely hard; more difficult then you or I can possibly imagine. That’s why we are so smart. If we hadn’t learned how to kill those that threatened us we would have gone extinct. We have yet to evolve out of the flee and fight defense mechanisms honed over the millennia.”

“But why don’t you just play brutal sports that are rough but don’t kill?”

“Oh, we do, and the attending crowds are huge, but it was found that, as with the bull fight of the Spaniards, Death must be given its due. There are great treatises on the subject and a great portion of the population shuns not only the war games but all sports that pit men against one another. Those who are drawn to the games are not looked down upon, nor are those who shun them. You see, we are individuals and we respect the likes and dislikes of others. Most of all we are taught to be individuals who show consideration for others. We live by what you call the ‘Golden Rule’.”

Alice went silent; her eyes focusing on the bottom of her cup as her neurons kept cadence with the whirl of her spoon. Martha quieted as she picked up on Alice’s mentalizations. Then, in tones used for quieting a troubled child, she said, “Alice. We cannot remove our wristbands, they are a part of us.” Raising open palms towards Alice’s contorted face she continued, “You are wrong. For the last time, our wristbands do not constitute a Big Brother. Every act, be it mental or physical, elicits brain chemicals that code differently for all known responses within the human form. Our wristbands only interact with us to give warning when we are in danger, sick or in the midst of a crisis. They are set so as to erase every moment but for the last 50 hours when we are young, 100 hours as we age in order to monitor possible warning signs of stroke, heart attack or a failing organ – they allow us to live safe and amazing lives. The first components are installed at two weeks of age. As we grow more modules are added. By the time of completed brain maturity at the age of 24, our wristbands are complete.”

Still staring into her cup, Alice said “But, you said that if you screwed up three times you had to go into treatment.”

“You have a good memory Alice. Anything that causes an alarm is permanently recorded in our wristbands in a file you would label ‘medical history’. Whenever we need to go to a healing center, for whatever reason, our medical history is downloaded so that we can be treated appropriately.” Alice looked up to find Martha’s eyes brimming with tears. She reached out and placed her right hand over Martha’s left. Martha asked, “Can you understand?” Alice nodded, as tears of her own filled her eyes. Every emotion seemed to wash through her, from rage and disbelief, to envy and awe seemed to swirl round and round in Alice’s mind leaving her in a haze of bewilderment.

“Allow me to tell you a story. We have world-class mountain climbers who challenge the most impossible peaks, often alone. They are favored sports heroes. A few years back Jeffrey Hightower was climbing K2. He was 14 feet from the top when he fell more than a 1000 feet to his death. He was a magnificent climber; it didn’t seem right. But thanks to Jeffrey’s wristband, which naturally signed off with condolences when all body and brain functions had ceased, we know that it was an accident, that all fear chemicals were released as the fall began, and that they were replaced within seconds with a calm euphoria overlaid with chemicals we equate with enlightenment. You know, the wonder of an anomalous occurrence, or something akin to the eureka effect. Don’t you see? We not only know that it was an accident, but that he died in peace. There was no fear prior to his ultimate death. All of his mountain climbing friends understood completely and said that they live with the knowledge that such a fate is always a possibility. The majority of the world attended his funeral via their screens, many gathering in homes for the occasion. Without his wristband we could have never known the details of his death.”

Observing Alice’s emotional response, Martha continued. “We view death as a transition. Matter can be turned into energy and energy can produce matter; neither can be annihilated. All things change. All things, at all times are in a state of transition. Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing can be completely nullified.

Sorry, this must be quite confusing to you. How about another cup of tea? I have some wonderful cookies. One of my neighbors loves to bake and we swap. I pick fruits and vegetables for her – she’s a tree-pruner – and she gives me cans of her wonderful cookies made with honey, eggs, raw oats, ground nuts and dried fruit meats. I’m sure you’ll love them.”

Alice looked out at the clear blue sky as a flock of birds flew passed what Martha had called a “lookout”. She had explained to Alice that what she took to be a window was a one-way lookout; one could look out, but no one could look in. Alice pinched her leg. This couldn’t be real.

Still reading Alice’s mind, Martha took to an easier topic. “You haven’t asked, but I suppose it’s obvio us that we had to fix the numbers of animals other than ourselves.”

“What did you do, gather in the squirrels and sterilize them?”

“I like your humor. Actually, we did. Sounds funny, but humans had annihilated most predators – but for himself – and gone to adoring ‘cute’ species that over-populated and often destroyed habitats. It took longer to work out the animals than it did the humans, but in time we cloned some of the extinct predators back into existence while cutting the populations of many prey species. Our biologists are still hard at work trying to get the earth’s biota back in balance. All and all, it’s much better than it was and the now-clean oceans and waterways are doing beautifully. Amazingly, as the planet became less stressed and a semblance of balance was achieved, some species, or species similar to extinct species, reappeared to the great and happy surprise of all.

Oh, oh. I’m afraid we must catch what you think is a train.”

As they exited Martha’s abode Charles said, “Have a nice day, Madam. Nice meeting you, Alice.”

“Thank you, Charles.”

“Uh, oh …thank you, Charles.”

As the two women walked down the rainbow walk, Alice asked, “Do you think I will remember any of this?”

“I don’t know Alice, but I have a strong hunch you will dream.”

www.dinnerwithacannibal.com

Plum Tree by Alethea Jones

“Hey!” I said. “Where are you at?” I was fishing for clues. This confused her.

“I’m really sorry to be calling so late…” she apologised. She explained that she works for a production company¹ that I had contacted by email several weeks earlier in regards to an upcoming film. The film, “Expelled” – a documentary that claims to “[blow] the horn on suppression” and give voice to “the silenced majority” of American creationists – promises to be controversial, and I had designed to write an advance feature article for a major daily exploring the issues it will present.

According to the film’s website, “Big Science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom. What they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel…” Of course, the “smart new ideas” are merely archaic, counter-reality creationist concepts re-labeled as “Intelligent Design”, and this generation’s “Rebel” – it turns out – is the aged, crusty, monotoned Ben Stein, a former speech writer for Richard Nixon, mostly unknown for his bit roles in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and the television show The Wonder Years.

This call represented a break-through. After having been treated with high suspicion by the media company for weeks, the girl on the phone was prepared to set a specific time and date whereupon I could finally interview the producers responsible for the film. Happily, I made arrangements for the following week. Ultimately, the interviews would never take place. After several cancellations, re-schedulings, and further erratically timed phone calls (all on the producers’ ends), Expelled’s people finally stopped responding to my inquiries altogether, for reasons not entirely clear.²

This wasn’t the first call I’d received from Expelled, though it was the least formal up to that point. Since I had sent my initial query, the apparently suspicious production company had called and emailed me numerous times with dozens of mostly redundant questions contrived to measure my “angle”, and, I presume, my level of sympathy toward Intelligent Design.

The first call had come during regular business hours from a chatty clone who initially sounded professionally scripted, with the air of a salon-tanned prick perfectly willing to take business calls on his Blue-Tooth while out to dinner with his wife. He was “excited” about the film. He spoke rapidly, and at length, regarding the film and its predicted impact, with little or no prompting from me. “It’s the best documentary I’ve ever seen,” he declared confidently. Abruptly, his tone changed, reflecting sudden insecurity. He admitted that it was the only documentary he had seen. I said as little as possible. I didn’t want his making a fool of himself to leave him with a negative impression regarding my intentions. Fumbling for a recovery, he added, “It’s just a great film. It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian or not, it has nothing to do with that. This is for anybody; anybody concerned with Free Speech and science.”

Of course, I’d not mentioned religion at all.

Had I known that this inane conversation would be the closest I’d come to an actual interview with a representative for the film, I may have taken better notes. He babbled on in what seemed complete confidence that I was “all right”. He promised me an advanced screening and a meeting with a traveling Expelled propaganda crew. At the time, I merely waited for an opportune break in his wild oratory to ask if and when I could schedule an interview with the producers. “I’m not sure,” he told me, leaving me utterly confused as to why he had called me at all, “I’ll check and get back to you.”

He called back later that day sounding far more sober and subdued. He began a subtle interrogation cheaply disguised as passing small talk. What are you in school for…? Oh, good for you… Who do you write for…? Oh, that’s great… What kind of research do you do…? Interesting…! So, who do you write for…? Ah! That’s right… What’s your area of study…? Eventually, he promised to send me an email scheduling an interview. Later that day, I received an email that reminded me that I would get an email scheduling an interview, but in the meantime, could I send an email reminding him who it was that I was writing for? Also, could I assure them, in writing, that it was actually me who was writing the article and conducting the interview? Strictly a formality, you understand.

I found this level of screening ironic, being that the filmmakers themselves have been accused – by those who participated in it as interviewees – of misrepresenting their motives in order to gain the confidence of some of the top minds in academia; it’s a charge that the film’s spokespeople seem to dismiss as sour grapes from the “Big Science establishment.”

In a New York Times article about the film, physical anthropologist and head the National Center for Science Education, Eugenie C. Scott – who was interviewed for Expelled – is quoted as saying, “I have certainly been taped by people and appeared in productions where people’s views are different than mine, and that’s fine. I just expect people to be honest with me, and they weren’t.”

I, on the other hand, was quite honest with the people representing Expelled about the type if article I intended to write – though I certainly never revealed my personal opinions on the topic to them. Mine was to be an “objective” treatment of the subject, which may seem laughable given my anything-but-neutral position in the evolution-creation debate. Of course I “believe” in evolution. Evolution is an established fact. My feelings toward the creationists oscillate between indignant disgust, and detached sociological interest… but not equally. More often than not, I feel indignant disgust at their willful ignorance, and strive to reclaim the detached sociological interest. I would argue that this doesn’t preclude me from writing objectively on the topic, as I see no reason for which “objectivity” requires me to suspend disbelief in the patently absurd. “Objectivity” need not imply a willingness on my part to indulge in the crude fantasies of the defiantly ignorant – rather, “objectivity” in this case would require that I suspend judgment, making no assumptions regarding the motives, intelligence, or sanity of the fabulists in question… At least in writing.

My model for this type of objectivity is Pulitzer Prize winning author Professor Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia, whose social history of evolutionary theory and acclaimed account of the original Scope’s “Monkey Trial”³ have established him as the authoritative historian of the evolution-creation debate. In an email exchange, he agreed to speak with me about Expelled: “Sure, I’d be happy to help… I’ve been following this movie. Interesting stuff. For once, a new twist in the creationism wars…”

In a phone conversation, I had Professor Larson delineate the difference between Evolution by natural selection, and the political theory of Social Darwinism. Expelled intentionally treats the two interchangeably, viewing genocidal holocausts as a natural result of society’s general acceptance of Evolution. According to The New York Times: “If it were up to him, [Stein] said, the film would be called ‘From Darwin to Hitler.'”

Interestingly, Professor Larson had been approached by Expelled, and he was asked to be interviewed for the film. “They were very unclear as to what the film was actually about, and I couldn’t see any reason why I’d want to be involved,” Larson told me. This surprised me, as I see the good professor as a neutral historian. Presumably, the creationists do not.

Another main argument that Expelled promises to present is the idea that the banishment of the Intelligent Design hypothesis from public schools is a violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees Free Speech⁴ . For the counter-point here I spoke with Daniel Mach, the Director of Litigation in the Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief for the ACLU, who described the invocation of the First Amendment as a tactic “related to the Teach-the-Controversy spin.”

“I don’t see this as a Free Speech issue at all,” he explained, “teachers shouldn’t be given a carte blanche to ignore curricular requirements or to convey educationally unsound information to public school students…” Further, to call upon the First Amendment “…misinterprets Free Speech while ignoring the Establishment Clause.”

Indeed, where would it end if teachers were allowed to teach whatever they wished in the name of Free Speech?

Playing the role of Jehovah’s Advocate while speaking with Mr. Mach and Professor Larson was difficult. Expelled’s arguments are easily flayed by the learned and rational. Unfortunately, a good number of the film’s viewers are sure to be neither, nor will rational arguments distract them from their cause. This dogged devotion to supernaturalism can be seen in the propagation of all of the so-called scientific criticisms against Evolution. These erroneous criticisms are debunked again and again, only to be presented by creationists to credulous Christians again and again, with no acknowledgment of their refutation.

Just as my feelings toward the creationists oscillate between disgust and sociological interest, so too do my feelings regarding their uprisings oscillate between fear and scornful amusement. It’s easy to feel that there is nothing to fear from the creationists, because their arguments are so clearly flawed and religiously motivated that one finds it difficult to imagine that they should ever win a significant court battle in their struggle to strangle science from public schools one school district at a time. On the other hand, there is reason to fear for the future, as supernaturalism seems to spread ever more malignantly, threatening a new Dark Age of unreason.

The impact of the film remains to be seen…

1. The same production company responsible for the Narnia fiasco, as well as Mel Gibson’s disturbing sado-masochistic blood-porn The Passion of The Christ. Motive Marketing, they are called. I think that the motive here is quite obvious.
2. Lest one adjudge me a fool, and see fit to point out that a mere Google search will probably reveal “Doug Mesner” as an enemy of Intelligent Design, allow me to confess that I don’t hold strictly to this name, and indeed I did not in this case.
3. Both books are highly, highly recommended to anybody at all interested in the topic
4. Even this argument – though it may seem somewhat original in the modern creationism war – is as old as the Scopes trial. Though William Jennings Bryan may not have invoked First Amendment privileges for religious concepts in schools (probably having a better grasp of the Establishment Clause than that), he did espouse a “majoritarianism” that maintained that in a democratic society, the majority rules, right or wrong: mobocracy.

Though Mother’s Day is still many months away, I felt I would share the piece with all of you now, as Loki’s previous blog brought the topic to the fore of my mind.

May it nourish your souls the way it has so many others…

The Celebration of Motherhood

Today we celebrate motherhood. Today we honour the care-givers, and the breeders. We give thanks to the thoughtful conceivers, and the broken condoms; the magnanimous matrons, as well as the fatuous fertile; the responsible guardians, and the dissolute town-pumps. Today we smile benevolently and express our heartfelt gratitude to all of those who have put their maternal impulses to work, blessing the world with the greatest gift of all: The Miracle of Life.

This is not to be denigrated. But conception isn’t really a “miracle”, is it? Circumstances vary, but we all know how it happened. “Miracle” would imply some type of supernatural intervention; an unpredictable and unstoppable act of God. This is hardly an informed or responsible view of motherhood. Nor, unfortunately, are many mothers to be considered responsible or informed.

In fact, it has become plain to see that the least responsible and least informed are ever the most likely to become mothers…. again, and again.

Nonetheless, today we celebrate motherhood – all of motherhood – for motherhood’s sake, because motherhood is the most demanding, and potentially the most rewarding job in the whole world.

And yet, nobody applies for the job of motherhood, and no qualifications are asked of a would-be mother. One needs to demonstrate proper cognizance to scrub toilets or pick produce, but nobody is too simple to have a child. Motherhood may be the most important job a person could take, and yet nobody is too incompetent to be denied the task. And it’s a good thing, too – for who would decide who is fit to breed and who is not? Selective breeding of any kind is eugenics all over again, and anybody who even mutters that foul word must be ridiculed from discourse as neo-Nazi swine.

Only a fascist could be so vile as to suggest that the laws of heredity could be employed toward the betterment of the gene-pool or – disregarding any such lofty notions of “improvement” – cessation of the propagation of severe dysfunctions from retardations to psychopathy.

Anybody who would recommend that parents who are unable to afford housing, food, or clothing – or is otherwise incapable of caring for a child – should thus abstain from having children is nothing more than a megalomaniacal totalitarian. You have merely to point at her and say aloud, “Hitler!” and your argument is won.

Breeding restrictions are a slippery slope, and it is absolutely inevitable that if the rapist is sterilized, so too will be all non-Aryans. Consensus means nothing here, because in a democracy “all men are created equal” – except when applying for jobs, or being accepting into schools, or looking for a loan….

But breeding is different. You can’t stratify there. An alcoholic inbred could possibly produce the next Einstein, (Though, I suppose, the alcoholic would be unlikely to be an actual inbred. There are laws against inbreeding. Inbreeding is known to propagate genetic defects, but that’s where we need to draw the line, or it’s head first down that slippery slope.) and infertile couples should care nothing of the background details of their sperm donor.

(Some things mustn’t ever be regulated. When you think about it, it’s scary how one is forced into testing before one can acquire a driver’s license. Even after being administered a driver’s license, “the government” is at liberty to take it away if “they” deem us “unfit” to drive by their subjective standards. Soon we’ll require licenses to walk, and only blond-haired blue-eyed Aryans will have the privilege of unrestricted ambulation.)

It is disgraceful form to suggest that Evolution isn’t necessarily equal to improvement, or that the death of natural selection in the civilized world may have brought with it the side-effect of dysgenics, a deterioration of beneficial traits. Such thinking may lead us to believe that the gene pool has become stagnant and putrid, and the dregs have over-flowed to the surface. The argument would surely shift from whether or not abortion should or shouldn’t be legal, to whether it should – at times – be mandatory.

We must gallantly play intellectual blame games designed to avoid the question of stupidity. We must hold that educational standards have declined, while sociolinguists declare simplified, un-nuanced, catch-phrase-laden slang speech as no less legitimate than actual English. We must litter the world with signs warning of every possible danger to coddle the irresponsible.

Today we celebrate mothers while every other day we’re told we must “do it for the children”, because we know that they’ve been born with every disadvantage.

Here’s a thought experiment to do with a second person. Find someone who is remotely capable of having a 10 minute rational conversation. Take that person into a quiet, safe room where you’re both at ease and obviously not in ear-shot of anyone else.
Once you’re both relaxed, pick a plausible middle ground at which to start describing a prototype of a person who has difficulty caring solely for themselves as an adult in the world. For example, let’s pick “Hasn’t held a job for longer than a month in their entire adult life.”
Now start adding further attributes to the prototype, each making it even less possible for the person to care for themselves, like:

• Addicted to a drug.
• Regularly in trouble with the law.
• Relies on friends and acquaintances for shelter.

Once you’ve found a line at which there is absolutely no doubt in the other person’s mind that the prototype couldn’t be trusted to assure their own welfare in any shade of light, then posit:
…and now what if they decided to have a child.
I have a finf that says that your second person will agree that this is simply a bad idea: bad for the hypothetical kid; bad for the prototype — bad all around.

If we’re still on the rails then, at this point, the conversation is a bit jocular since there’s common agreement on a point between two people (which always seems to lighten the mood); further, it’s common agreement on a situation which is far worse than either you or your friend has likely had to experience — so there’s probably also a flavour of ‘good that it’s not me’ adding to the mood.
Now — while the mood is still floating along, suggest that there should be legislative efforts to prevent that scenario.

I have an easy sawbuck riding on the notion that your second person flinched and stammered, and an uneasy miasma has settled over the room.

A good question here is ‘Why have you become uneasy about making concrete something with which you just agreed?’ Often when people are asked the Why question, the response will invoke the evil intents of the Third Reich, early twentieth century efforts in a number of countries toward eugenics, and other inflammatory-but-ultimately-orthogonal bombasts.
I’ve heard less inflamed responses such as:

• “We already have mechanisms in place in which to rescue children from bad parents”¹ but this is willfully turning a blind-eye to the poor job done at fixing broken children in general, and especially fixing ones that are generally not-adoptable (whether it be due to degree of broken-ness, race, or other factors).
• And the much weaker, “I am [or a person I know is] the product of what would be considered [a] bad parent[s] and I [or my friend] turned out fine.” To which, rather than drill down into the idea of citing exceptions as rule foundations, i’d instead choose to quote the oft-sagacious Chris Rock, “you could drive a car with your feet if you want to — that don’t make it a good fucking idea”.

I’ve also heard responses such as, “It’s an inalienable human right to procreate”. For two people living forever stranded and alone on an island (and if no concern is given for welfare of a previously non-existent sentient being), this is an idea worth purchase; however, once you start introducing a society into the equation — the impact of the parents on that produced being, and of that shaped produced being on the surrounding society and members of it — the idea of how this is the discretion of simply the individual begins to get weathered.
Nearly all societies already legislate that a person is not allowed to torture or inflict bodily harm on another human being; we even have mechanisms in place that prevent conspiring in plans to create future damage to others (bombings for example). Despite this, and despite that even granting that one can likely get a clear majority of the population to agree in private on standards of invalid potential parents, nobody wants to stand up and say this in public – we are unwilling to even discuss, let alone legislate, this in open society.²

I don’t think there’s a rational person on earth who can’t define a person who shouldn’t have children. I just wonder why we don’t get out of our closets and address this in public.

1. For example: ‘child welfare services’ or ‘social services’ in the US
2. Though there can be found ~legitimate related discussions of controlling procreation rights.

During the few years in which i was at Sun, i worked with several talented people. One of which, Ρ, was a very Silicon-Valley-normal, very intelligent, software developer with a great work ethic; after a while, he had taken a job across the street at Apple and as he was preparing to leave, he stopped me and confided, “Before working with you, I never thought anyone who looked like you could be intelligent.” It was one of those prize moments in life — certainly because of the compliment, but also because it put me precisely on the biting edge of that concept that i both most-love and most-hate: stereotypes.

In the personal approach, were there ever a mental civil war which waged within me it would be over the subject of stereotyping. Both at once, i think that it’s an immensely powerful and useful tool — required in daily existence, and something that potentially provides a competitive advantage when used within the right framework — and i find it quite murder inspiring when some schlub treats me as second class from the word go.
What I find most absurd, though, is the culture that we have in which we have equated ‘stereotype’ with ‘fallacy’; it has become the forensics ace card that a person is able to say “That’s a stereotype!”, and that incantation automatically invalidates the statement at which it’s aimed.

I imagine that everybody detests their schlubs as well and perhaps that’s why we seem to only ever hear about the negative side to stereotypes. In a world which often feels supersaturated with political correctness, it’s hard to think of a time when it wasn’t communicated to me that “stereotypes are bad”; it certainly has been the consistent message during my life-span in the parts of the world in which i’ve lived. That said, i can’t believe it’s historically omnipresent.

• When Virgil wrote in the Aeneid that Greeks couldn’t be trusted even when offering gifts, it’s unlikely he had to dodge the tsk-tsk-ers in the street imploring him to not be so stereotyping.
• It’s unlikely John Saris’ reports back to British East India HQ describing the Javanese as savages and man-eaters met with a “now, now – maybe not all of them are that way”.
• Even in the mid 19th century, there’s no evidence that anyone in major northeastern US cities was feeling uneasy with the Irish stereotype of alcoholic job stealing parasites (at least not enough to discourage NINA verbiage in signs and ads).

A likely start era¹ for the message of “stereotypes are bad”, at least in America, would slightly tail the women’s suffrage or civil rights movements — periods during which the average person increasingly adopted the idea that all humans are equal.

Before embarking on a grander sales pitch, let’s try to first defuse reader preconceptions for this article by doing some word substitution: consider that the act of stereotyping is little different than the act of classifying. Under that note, for the rest of this article i’ll use ‘classification’ and ‘classify’ as the noun and verb of choice.

With that out of the way, let’s ask “Why do we so easily fall into the rut of classifying everything, anyway?” A very plausible reason for this is because this is a natural feature of the brain evolution of humans.² From a species-historic perspective, it was fundamental to survival to be able to have classifying be well wired into the decision making process. For example, a caveman, Tok, is walking through some brush and comes across a saber-toothed tiger; were his thought process to give the same conscious level thought to “Should i be concerned about this creature?” as it would to “I wonder what Og is doing later today?”, he likely wouldn’t survive long. Instead, Tok has a very low level wiring which does the whole
receive optic input
    → decode scenery objects
       → recognize an object as a saber-toothed tiger
          → recognize saber-toothed object has been classified as imminent danger
             → trigger flee mechanism based on imminent danger
process chain in a very quick, very subconscious, fashion.
Is there a chance that his classification is wrong in this particular encounter — that perhaps this is the sliver-percentage case in which the tiger is actually the friendly Disney type just looking for loving companionship? Absolutely — but is the potential reward worth the potential cost? Not for your average caveman.

While most of us don’t spend our days around animals which would predate us, that hasn’t meant that our innate skill at classification has atrophied. At any given moment we can see it in action:

• Would i like this menu item which i’ve never had before?
• Would i find that new movie with this actor worth seeing?
• Would that person be sexually interesting to me?

All of these flavours of introspection rely at some level on our ability to group things by classification:

• Yeah, i love vindaloos and i have liked haggis.
• No, Keanu Reeves poisons everything he touches.
• Probably, she’s quite androgynous and has on a really interesting outfit.

Just like a modern-day-Tok, one’s classifications could certainly lead them into what ended up being poor choices:

• Vindaloo haggis turns out to ravage the GI tract.
• Keanu Reeves had a stroke resulting in believable acting skills.
• She turned out to be half-yeti.

Since, unlike Tok, few of our choices have a likely life-ending terminus, the result of these bad decisions is (hopefully) that the weighting in our classification system gets tweaked and we have the chance to re-apply it at some future date.

So: it’s not the creation and usage of stereotypes which is the bad apple here; it is, arguably, from where we collect the data with which we use to define the stereotypes that is the bad apple. The common places from which we do this could be ordered in the spectrum of excellent to horrendous like this:

1. Personal experience: excellent ↓
2. Information digested by friends
3. Information digested by relatives
4. Information depicted in docudramas and fictional media pieces: horrendous ↑

with the unable-to-be-ordered element being “news sources”, which can run the gamut from accurate to hype.
Where we get into trouble is when people start populating their stereotypes with incorrect data. What is, and what isn’t, incorrect data can, unfortunately, have a subjective component to it; it traipses in and out of the themes touched upon in the Belief and Common Reality article, and really merits a discussion of its own.
In some cases, though, the data is fairly correct and simply fits — and this really upsets people who fall in the classification (even more so those who are actually misclassified). With respect to the side of my relationship with stereotypes which is most-hated, i can indeed see (at more rational moments) that my anger at the schlubs is basically misdirected — and absolutely so in cases where the classification is similar to Ρ’s “People with weird hair and/or weird clothes and/or tattoos are unimpressive low-aim-ers.” classifier.
I’ll be the first one to call a spade as a spade and admit that the vast majority of people with weird hair and/or weird clothes and/or tattoos tend to be unimpressive low-aim-ers. Psycho-digging: what’s the true frustration here is that i am nearly impotent to change the situation — i’m not going to be able to change the masses of do-littles, and it’s equally unlikely that humans are going to be able to either discard the underlying classification engine or develop an extensive re-messaging framework over the classification engine through which to intervene in the decision cycle. As such, it’s not a frustration that i personally see evapourating any time soon.

The salient take-away point is that stereotypes and their use are inescapable, and that’s not a bad thing; their usage is prevalent in nearly all facets of human existence, and imperative to the survival of biological species (nor is this article immune, i’ve marked up some of the stereotypes in this article like this). This makes the common imploring of “Don’t stereotype” just as misguided, and just as futile, as would be an imploring of “Don’t produce adrenaline when startled”.

A more correct, more realistic, message that people should communicate is that of, “Populate your stereotypes responsibly and intelligently”.

1. Though i’ve been able to find no good studies…
2. …and likely any species which itself, or had an ancestor species that, survived through an extended period of predation