...Rense Refrains...

Like "the hunchback" getting water, or sad Ahab’s Moby Dick (sold to me a monster to make me scared, and keep me sick), I've found that there is reading! More than reading, understanding! Moreover, I've found it's not an empty room! There are motes here with me, standing!

I wipe sweat from humble countenance, and breath a sigh of sweet relief. I’d have gone on speaking anyway, but alone _is_ lonesome, chief!

Now the stars can speak in whispers we can better understand... if in the time allotted us we explore what must be grand.

We are real; We are genuine. I’m what I say I am! I can frost your errant cookie! I campaign against the *plan*!

Free as the bird, we can fly self-assisted! Across a free landscape, we soar! It’s electrical freedom created in kind, as it’s so hard to find, anymore!

Let's talk about *sex* for a moment – work with me! It’s been going on for half a billion years! Successfully done, it jazzes your “T” cells; this happens regardless your thinking what’s *queer*.

It boosts a good heart rate, while it butters your muffin. It adds years to your life, while it spices your stuffin’.

Kids are not told that this *sex* is a good thing. The focus is messy, and detail’s mad. We hard-sell the danger, then avoid what is sweet, ...And the kids will still do it, but believing it’s bad!

...And how about that limbic? Ain’t it great for what ails, though? ...How it smooths all your short hairs. ...Soothes a fever in snow? It’s where we touch base with what was the pre-Cambrian. It’s a _truth_ in the real world! It’s a truth that is _twice_ championed!

How to be limbic? Yes... you _must_ to let yourself go... show _respect_ to your partner, but then _go_ down _below_ ...

But, enough about sex, a mere fact we misuse... We've slipped surly bonds of an Earth we've abused! The moon they have *conquered*; their tracks in her dust! But an angry red planet's traversed, then... ...by us!

The sky’s of larger Texas blows a yellow flower down? The yellow rose of Texas had its petals knocked around...

I know what that can be... ...Was there when Justice came a'calling. The sky and sea are angry now, and they are fighting, blowing – brawling!

...We'll lick our wounds, and dry our tears, then set our chins hard forward... Then face an awesome future, but making port turns over starboard.

*Anything* includes what happens Off our tiny planet. This mote of dust we live on; all our eggs in just one basket!

...With antimatter spewing from the center of our galaxy... ...With neutron stars colliding, ripping time -- I thank the *AlienView* that's being proffered, as a squeegee... a squeegee for the third eye... of my mind.


alienview@adelphia.net
http://www.alienview.net/


There is so much good to be so easily hindered by so little bad, folks, when all we have to do is cop our reality, such as it is – and yeah, it will cost...

...But we only have to pay it once, reader, I suspect, instead of paying down the unending interest on a loan from psychopathic loan-sharks -- arrogant prevaricators you don’t know, and who won't even let you know what the freaking _loan_ is! ...what the terms are... Just "sign here" is the pompous admonition. Then pay a sliding scale forever.

That’s what you're doing now... building castles in the air – or so says the Alien View. Debt relief costs... but relief is relief.

No apologies tendered for my unstructured poetic romp above -- nobody's payin' me. The moving finger writes and having writ moves on; however, piety and wit shall call back the occasional line to alter, and tears, conversely, be an effective and clarifying wash for it. No apologies there either, even to Omar...

...And thanks. It's all in a day's work when the activity sought is to soar and cleave, to leave behind what others would avoid as too far ahead? I get better and better at it. You can too.

...Soaring Cleavers... from a quote by Monk Bruno in the illustration... Soaring to the infinite... "I cleave the heavens and soar! What others see before them I leave far behind me." ...Said upon looking through a telescope for the first time... Naturally, his capering detractors burned him alive for it. He was perhaps the first to consider that we were not alone...

...Soaring Cleavers like Jeff Rense... for instance, for whom I am reported to employ a shameful sycophancy... but which only comes remotely about anyway as a result of my intellectually insulted and so provoked defense of same. The real problem?

Words...

Words, thought out loud, are an altogether different entity than that which may later be manifested in the real world, reader, as *activity*. No, Rense's program is more than a vanishing conduit for unfiltered words of not just free thought ... Rense is a rarest conduit, a conduit for -all- thought. Did you hear that? The difference is not that subtle.

Thought (or lack of same?) precedes action, only, and cannot legitimately be said to precipitate it. It's the individual, after all, puts words to action...

When you do believe words must precipitate action? ...And then censor to preclude that activity? It's an EASY slip to the "triple T's" of totalitarianism, tyranny, and terror, or maybe the legitimately distracted reader has not paid attention. Rense is not the one facilitating such, folks.

Rense is a cultural filter (a societal distillery) left behind after all other filters have disgraced themselves and clogged to non-usability. This is to say that I suspect he does not nurse a serious drug problem and knows the difference between a Belgian waffle and a bath sponge.

No, my evaluation of Rense only -seems- kind when it is merely observational over a period of almost a decade. Reader, you -will- read only later what you're reading at Rense NOW... if you read it at all... and this is forgetting that *Everything* you're reading now (especially *off* Rense but even *on* Rense) isn't accurate, reflective, or even remotely fair... Still it's Rense grinds the lesser, much smaller ax, is my take, if one is even ground to begin with...

...See? People are -thinking- *it*, whatever *it* is. And you have the opportunity to value *it* for yourself... Sincerely, has the reader ever heard the story regarding the devil known being preferable to the devil not known? Rense understands the cautionary tale even as his scurrying and ideologically constipated detractors cannot.

A clear picture of -reality- is not necessarily pretty (...is it ever?), but it is a picture preferred by a sapient being who'd prefer to live in a real world ... make an individual contribution to it more personally satisfying and socially efficacious as a result of same? Perhaps.

Looking at the world this way... warts, evils, genitals non-pruriently exposed, and all... taking an Alien View, if you'll allow... allows the aforementioned sapient being an opportunity to see the proverbial forest for the freaking trees; see what works and hang on, perceive what might be better and reach out, discover the larger reality and meet its embrace! We were built to individually "soar and cleave", reader, Rense allows for more of -that-, that is to say, -less- individual ignorance, in my view.

...But I'm not being kind. I'm callin' it like I see it, taking responsibility for it, standing by it... and will be the first to report the antithesis the MOMENT that it is perceived. 'K? ...'K.

Sincerely, I don't have a dog in the fight that is a discussion on whether Jeff Rense should be allowed to do what he is doing on social/ethical grounds, but that what he is doing is a necessary thing, the preferred thing, I believe. I want exposure to everything, reader. I want to make informed decisions upon those things still allowed to me to decide, myself. I suspect you do, too. Consider: Jehovah, Christ, and Mohammed (Father, son, and grandson... and all crawling with ufological close encounter references)... The three major Religions of our day all codified, outlined, and frame-worked in a pre-Copernican time, back to a day when the interested and educated individual "Knew" that the Earth was at the center of everything (...whatever that was...) and that the stars were little holes in the firmament to let the light of *God* shine through... UFOs were these holes blown around in the breath of He who is most high... Right.

Our codes, texts, and fundamentals might deserve a re-look and a make-over given our more current knowledge. You think? Moreover, the universe loves novelty and hates stasis or the status quo, after all. It's changing, and accelerating as it does so. Back at the ranch, codes, texts, and fundamentals -won't- get that re-look and make-over in a world without the likes of Jeff Rense ... truly. That's my feeling.

Moreover, whatever the cause of the ongoing egregious struggle, there's a sociopathic human being at the center of it... and that person is decidedly NOT Jeff Rense, put your bottom dollar on -that-. The rest of us just heat the former's water for an ignoble non-admitted task. Informatively, we only read about that miscreant as a result of the bravery and courage of the latter. Rense is not the villain. He's the anti-villain.

We _might_ read about that aforementioned bastard at Rense.com I'm saying... we certainly won't from the hijacked, foully corrupted, and so illegitimate mainstream his detractors shill for...

Rense is a quintessential AlienViewer in my estimation. He would try to stand apart from that which is considered... and attempt that selfless consideration. As would I. As might you. Is reportage an endorsement as the aforementioned scurrilous maintain?

Well, Yes! ...But only over at Fox News and other Lap Dog media services! Associated Press? No. Rather, Affected Press, reader. ...Another not so subtle difference. Rense refrains from same. I refrain, too. Reportage is NOT endorsement, by definition. True journalists retch at the concept, I'd presume!

I'll let you know the moment, though, that I have a contrary thought on the matter. I've a history of same. When I'm wrong I say so. It's a step up, still. Admitted error always is. The preceding is shared but pointing out that it is obvious to a _balanced_ observer that I'm still held at arm's length, to a degree, over at Rense.com... as those are the wages of the true loose cannon, which I aspire to be, in spades!

Verily, so many "experts" have betrayed the aggregate trust around me I'm compelled to stop listening to them, now, pretty much, and aspire to be that "expert" myself. How about you, honored reader?

...Or maybe this is a function of being well passed the big double nickel, age-wise, and at that point where you just can't tell a guy anything any more and expect him to fall _right_ into line... Guilty!

Maybe, at that point, though, a tide turns... you gain the ability to look back more... where before you were consumed with the activity of looking forward. That backward look can improve the acuity, ironically, of that forward looking one, if you let it, I've discovered. It's a magic moment where one feels a new ability to mentor... rather than be mentored. Many achieve that. You shall.

I will, of course, continue to aspire to it. The smart person remains a student; however, to some extent... I digress...

Verily, all my mentors had their chance. That time, for better or worse, is done. In closing, let me say that I am revolted by a world that would gleefully, gladly, giddily, and even gaily discard a Jeff Rense as a clear and present danger... but continue to lavishly reward a Hannity, or a Limbaugh, or a Weiner/Savage, or an O'Reilly... or a ... and I'd continue but the gorge gets too high in the throat.

...Something wrong in the preceding picture, I suspect. You bet!

Read on...

...Memory Without Klass...

Klass, though dead, outdoes himself, and stokes corruption still. He remains, of course, an evil scourge... a toxic... bitter pill. The sin this man commits still lives ... extends beyond the grave. But he remains a coward, Sir. Mere death shan't make him brave.

Dead, he's a scoundrel-whisperer and a scourge... at present time. He is without all honor; his memory a crime. He poisons our search for self, throws mud upon our grace, disrespects our history... and spits upon our face.

It matters not a kindness, then, is paid because he's dead! He should, in fact, be vilified or cursed, indeed, instead. He was a social toxic spill, employed a poison pen, he was an undercover cur... a lurking cad, my friend!

It matters not the *good* Klass did, and there's a dearth of that... remember... Klass was just a panderer to *Mainstreams* turned to scat. But good must have a shelf-life; it shall not stand alone; the good men do, evaporates... is buried with their bones.

Evil -- on the other hand, the lower road endured... results in where we find ourselves... still shoveling Phil's manure. This lasting filth transcends his death, is never really gone. His *good* is immaterial. It's his *bad* lives on and on.


alienview@adelphia.net
http://www.alienview.net/

In the early 1980s, Stanton Friedman decided to immigrate to Canada from the US. Forgetting how prescient he may have been, I've heard Mr. Friedman say he did it primarily to take advantage of the superior health system.

Philip Klass got wind of it... ...somehow... ...and took it upon himself to write the Canadian Government a confidential letter ("...don't say it was ME, Oh Canada...") to warn them about the undesirable element they were getting ready to allow into their country. In effect, Klass was trying to poison Mr. Friedman's Canadian well before he got there, restrict Mr. Friedman's movements, and egregiously intrude on Mr. Friedman's civil rights. The scurrilous and unrepentant _bastard_!

In this just discovered letter, and on official letterhead, I understand, Klass warned Canada with regard to an "insidious threat" it faced... to the "security and stability" of their country... were they to allow Stanton Freidman, a "clutching, octopus-like snake oil salesman and uber-charlatan"... a destabilizing UFO believer (!) ... to immigrate.

Philip Klass, this shadow whisperer, this unethical miscreant, this back-stabbing proxy murderer (McDonald!) would now be held up in gracious eulogy as an elder statesman of ufology, and even as an improver of it at the denouement... ...or even, at worst... just a real good example of a bad example... but respected, reader, as an honored opponent from an honored opposition... and _true_ in his way!

No! NO! Not at this station.

Philip Klass was ever only a hurdle to aggregate enlightenment, an authoritarian dirty-trickster, a right-wing nut case, a back-stabber, a Judas, a liar, a cheat... and a consumptively corrosive scalawag. The best thing that could be done with the memory of Philip Klass is forget we ever had it, but as that is impossible... and also unethical (I'd allow a *truth* where Philip Klass would not!)... he can best be used as an illustration of the above verse... That the good men do is interred with their bones... but, their evil lives on and on...

...Do not _dare_ to defend Philip Klass to _me_...





















...In your memory Mr. Klass!

...Letters Under Our Door...

What about the fakes?

Isn't it true that these strange constructions in our cereal crops are of human construction? Don't they have to be ~entirely~ of human construction for the skeptic's position to have any validity? Just ONE 'genuine' circle, consider, and the game a'foot is altogether new!

...And Crop Circles get faked. Sure. But, when those 'fakes' occur... don't we, generally, know who the fakers ~are~? Don't THEY tell us who they are? Don't they strut and crow and smirk and patronize?

Aren't they stealthy people haters named "Doug" and "Dave," even as these self-aggrandizing psychopaths die off and evolve, change their names with the years, upgrade their techniques over time, and justify or attempt to legitimize their crass sociopathy... as art? Could it be that these offensive fakers are behind ~all~ the circles? Builders of ~all~ the constructions? Composers of all these glyphs?

Yes?

Then how is it, as Robert Nichol intimates in his compellingly sincere film documentary "StarDreams", that these alleged 'hoaxers' always finish what they start? Where are the failed attempts? Where do they 'practice' their completeness of vision, this exponential magnitude of astonishing endeavor... this meticulous 'perfection' of flawlessly breathtaking execution and timing... and... ...Where are the 'blunders' in these huge constructions, extant, otherwise abundantly found in other human executions of complicated tasks?

Why are the 'greater' circles never duplicated? Why don't we see a balanced explanation for complex circle construction making it into the "National Geographic" or a Postmodern Art periodical. Spin me a "Catherine's Wheel", again -- 'Doug'! Stomp out an additional "Adams Grave," for me -- 'Dave'.

Speaking of art and artists, where ~is~ this extremely improbable army of gifted performers "without egos" (astoundingly selfless and undeniably talented men and women), anyway?

Flatly, these uncharacteristically secretive persons are REQUIRED to execute (...without the smallest flaw, remember!) the delicate artistic balances of line and curve, light and shadow... amidst other conventions of accomplished artistry (...to include knowledge regarding the sacred or eternal geometrical... ...the strict adherence to the enlightened measure, or an educated unity in utility that is an artistic "golden mean"...), and this over a HUGE area on an entirely unique canvas!

These 'artists' ARE the real deal... reader ...And we haven't a ~clue~ who they really are! No. We're too well rewarded by society for not wanting to find out, for not being brave, and for not seeking out those clues. We're punished effectively for obstinately seeking them too... ...served painful irony in the form of reward for negative back-stepping behavior and punishment for the positive forward-looking pursuit of same.

Verily, WHO hoaxes roughly tens of tens of quality circles a year, world-wide, for the last ten years? Who operates with no professional 'recognition', no lucrative 'pay-off' -- no 'reward' of any kind? Who?

Clearly, few to none. Those who do ~are~ known to us, ply their trade for money, and even have their own trendy flash-fronted websites. No... it becomes obvious as one scratches the surface of this thing that these people are NOT the whole show. Something's hidden behind the official cultural tarp that is our corrupted and duplicitous mainstream...

Moreover, artists produce their work to be associated with it, to be defined by it, to be enriched by it... materially AND intellectually. I'm an artist of small note and legitimate award and I feel that's a fair statement. We won't ordinarily BE the artistic Samaritan (rare creature, THAT!) who disappears from the scene of the artistic 'accident' before they can be celebrated and feted by admiring fellow humans. An artist ~signs~ his work, boyo! It's been that way since the renaissance from the middle ages, reader, and even before that the interested knew who their artists were.

...And those people of the renaissance were baffled by (officially intimidated by) CropCircles then too, remember. Crop circles have ~long~ legs of history.

Let's cut to the chase. Most circles could ~be~ FAKE, respected reader. But MANY are ~not~ I suspect! Nichols suggests in "StarDreams" that this should, at least, give the reader pause... even if it does NOT fuel an ongoing epiphany of boundless optimism for the reader... like it does for ~this~ writer.

Guilty!

This writer wept with joy during the first of what has been (and will continue to be) many viewings of Robert Nichol's documentary. They are cathartic and appreciating tears, astonished and inspired tears... thankful and enlightened tears. They are tears that elevate, reassure, and validate. They are tears that cement conviction, legitimize confidence, and lubricate assurance, too. But assurance for, confidence about, and conviction with regard to... what?

Ok... a few of the high points.

...That reality is more fully featured and abundant than we are otherwise manipulated to believe by our duplicitous culture? That we are not now, have ever been, or will ever ~be~ alone in the unending light and darkness that is the expanding and changing universe? That 'existence' is not so much a 'competition to survive' as it is a 'cooperation to understand'? That we (you and I!) are the entire universe trying to comprehend itself? Finally, that it is the individual understanding (...the understanding individual!) that is truly key?

You ~matter~, reader, forgetting for a moment that I do, too. ~You~, reader, are the person that's reached out to with these crop glyphs. That's the message of "StarDreams". The individual is ~key~.

It's all about people, individual persons, Nichol implies... persons who can open their minds and hearts to an immensity of creative purpose, a plethora of quality potentials, and an infinity of efficacious intellectual productivity...! It's all about people willing to break free, at last, of the attitude we have collectively regarding an aggregate Earth we presently abuse like an unvalued rental property... and return to it the respect the truly intelligent would give ~any~ living creature! We would treat the aggregate Earth (you and I and everything else 'on', 'in', 'about' or 'of' this Earth!) as we ourselves would be efficaciously treated. For this, you and I would inherit the stars! What do we lose? Nothing. What do we gain? Everything. That's not the ~end~ of conviction, confidence, and assurance by any stretch!

Nichol's documentary is filled with individual persons, none of them seeming to scramble for individual recognition regarding the phenomenon, but standing out like individually shining stars for their lack of apparent desire to do so! It is easy to have 'regard' for these people - these individuals. The watcher can bask in the rich warm golden glow of the sincerity and honesty these folks are effused with, and be reassured by their integrity and frankness and openness and truthfulness... These are serious people, intelligent and educated people... scientists, philosophers, researchers, and persons ~without~ a lot of formal education. I found myself loving all these persons in the absolute best and most efficacious sense of that word. ...And ~these~ persons love, without doubt and beyond question, those 'artists' who compose the strange glyphs on a parchment that we can EAT. Think about ~that~.

Is there analogy there? I think Mr. Nichols thinks so. I think so, too.

~Who~ are these anonymous teams of selfless and talented artists manufacturing those compelling images? Who captivates our collective human intelligence so universally and further compels, at the same time, such intelligent love? Well -- they are artists, likely, NOT beholden to human agency, institution, government, culture or religion. They are, likely, NOT artists who celebrate the soulless corporate while they venerate the cloistered celibate! They are likely NOT artists who pander to duplicitous media while they sell their souls to officious and psychopathic sponsors. They are likely NOT artists who would dupe and disrespect you like they were doing you a favor. They are likely NOT 'artists' we would... know.

...It's ironic that they are likely artists we have always known (just forgotten, I'll bet)...

...Be that as it may, their works are charming letters thoughtfully composed, magically engineered, beautifully rendered, and then "slid under the doors" of our consciousness while we're not looking... by 'someone' or some 'thing' who would attempt a communication of some 'type' perhaps as nourishing to us as the grain that the artists compose in, on levels, quite simply, that we are incapable of appreciating, as yet. I'm gratified they take the time... and further gratified that Robert Nichol has produced something about this ...evolving reality... ...so enduring, informational, and prescient... that I'm moved to joyful tears. Thank you, sir.

Further information on the film can be accessed at http://www.stardreams-cropcircles.com/ . See this film.

...One more illustrative point before I go. Early this century William Gazecki produced an equally fine documentary about Crop Circles (I was ~as~ excited about!) called "Quest for Truth", and I provided, for it, a similar review. On the radio a few weeks ago Robert Nichol was interviewed and pointedly asked a question that compared his film with Gazecki's. I wondered if Nichol would ruffle his feathers, even if only a little bit, that ~his~ was the better film. That didn't happen.

Rather, he embraced Gazecki's film as his own, graciously making indication that both films were short chapters in the same massive non-fiction, the same story that needed to be told. He implied that Gazecki's more pragmatic approach complemented the more metaphysical approach he'd employed and that the films, taken together, made for a more inclusive accounting of the ~more complete~ story... a stepping stone to even MORE inclusive chapters...
No reflexive competition here, good reader. Nichol's reflex, his astonishingly TELLING reflex, was for reflecting cooperation. Is that what the circles do to you? If so, I'll have more of that, thank you. See the sedition?

I've seen both films numerous times, and I can attest that the documentaries complement one another, magnificently. Do not tell yourself that because you have seen one film that you have seen the other. That would be unfortunate and inaccurate. Seriously, I think it would be synergistic if these gentlemen could get together, somehow, and provide both films in a boxed set or package. The films are extremely powerful individually, but together they are, I think, greater than the sum of their parts. See these films and begin to 'understand'.

That's enough -- read on!

alienview@adelphia.net
www.AlienView.net

...content to read, content to hear, content to see.....

"D" Is For Denialist...

From "The Space Review…" where Dr. Shostak responds, too quickly and ineffectively, to Gregory Anderson's criticism of SETI:

Dr. Shostak: While I am gratified that Gregory Anderson has addressed the matter of “SETI politics” in his recent article (see “SETI politics”, The Space Review, September 6, 2005), I believe that some of his facts are wrong and his arguments skewed.

Lehmberg: Dr. Shostak can believe anything floating his shallow draft and flat-bottomed marsh boat. But there are seas beyond his marshlands he won't acknowledge, oceans he won't concede, and other wide saline expanses... ...far outside his very limited and novocained imagination, benumbed sensibilities, and anesthetized thinking. This lackluster imagination, sensibility, and thought becomes problematic when it presumes reduced value regarding the very thinking of Gregory Anderson... ...thinking decidedly closer to the mark than that for which Dr. Shostak would most hollowly shill.

Dr. Shostak: His take on the respectability of SETI in the scientific community is unduly pessimistic.

Lehmberg: A "respectability" that is not enough, apparently, to provoke official investment from the scientific mainstream and must depend instead on the shallow purses of the many *believers* in lay society... *believers*, I suspect, with a little more expansive open-mindedness, imagination, and intelligence than a smirkingly conflicted Dr. Shostak, it would seem. In other words, truly interested persons who merely spread their ufological risks to include SETI, not dote on it to the exclusion of all others.

Dr. Shostak: While there are certainly individual scientists who are doubtful about the chances of a SETI detection, SETI has been specifically called out as a legitimate and worthy endeavor by the astronomical community in decadal reviews. This is an endorsement of considerable weight. Anderson also writes—erroneously—that “NASA started a modest SETI program in 1992,” but in fact the NASA SETI program dates from the mid-1970s. It was a long-term, but modest program that developed both observing strategies and the requisite technology.

Lehmberg: Dr. Shostak can call it what he wants. It will remain a Silly Effort To Investigate because it is a hubristic and homocentric assumption presuming to look for *smoke* from *campfires* around stars too far away to avoid significant signal loss, anyway... forgetting the erosion of any chronological relevance (what might have been heard now could already be millions of years dead!). Also, these "decadal reviews" may only, unfortunately, legitimize a culture of constipated scientistics (sic), valuing fundage over courage and corporatism over conscience. No points here.

Dr. Shostak: I’m not quite sure what the point is...

Lehmberg: Sincerely, this might identify the problem extant! It shows Dr. Shostak's conjectured inability to carry on in a debate without the intimation that his opponent may not have the cognitive ability to make his point clear. Ironic, when it remains that Dr. Shostak should never have put pen to paper if he wasn't "quite" sure what the point was to begin with, n'est-ce pas? He's a scientist, after all.

Lehmberg: Perhaps some small amount of time could be given to educating himself on "the point" whatever it is in a discourse... a task he has, time and time again, shown himself incapable of following through on... or how can he still be acting all these years like he can break-even in debate... when Stanton Friedman, et al, has, so often... handed him his head in same?

Dr. Shostak: ...but Anderson writes “Perhaps logically, the time of SETI has coincided with the UFO era…” This may be true if one speaks of geological time, but Roswell (the only UFO incident named by Anderson) was 1947, and the first SETI observations were a dozen years later.

Lehmberg: Anderson was making a memorable point in a small article, as Dr. Shostak knows, further showing how quickly Dr. Shostak is willing to use logical fallacy to score points in an argument he knows he must ultimately lose ... indeed must have already lost. The reader is reminded that Dr. Shostak felt compelled to respond to Mr. Anderson, at all, and rather quickly for such an important person otherwise consumed or embroiled by the parsing of ephemeral smokes from too distant stars...

Lehmberg: But if he really wants other examples (as fleshed out very satisfyingly at the Cohen Site... ) there are...

1. Kirtland AFB (11\4\57)
2. Hynek Blue Book Case (5\5\65)
3. Malmstrom AFB (3/20/67)
4. Incident at Redlands, Ca. (Hynek, BB, 2\4\68)
5. Exeter, New Hampshire (9\3\65)
6. Malmstrom AFB (11\7\75)
7. Iran F-4 Incident (9\76)
8. Belgium (1989\90)
9. Illinois, USA (1\5\2000)
10. Ad infinitum... forgetting the ones seen over my own freaking house (...I love a good hyperbole!)!

Dr. Shostak: These are all technical nits.

Lehmberg: No, Sir. These are house sized boulders broken too high from thawing glaciers and rolling hurly-burly down the incline you exacerbate to smash your timid ramparts and topple your squatting towers. Clean your glasses, Sir.

Dr. Shostak: Of greater consequence is Mr. Anderson’s mis-characterization of my opinion on interstellar travel, on which he writes “Shostak argues that interstellar travel will always be so expensive that societies will always elect to explore deep space through some version of SETI.”

Lehmberg: Nonsense, I believe I remember Dr. Shostak intimating similar sentiments, frequently over the years, in one way or another, justifying his spurious approach to "explore the universe in the most cost effective manner possible." And he'd be right, except that he also expends considerable energy in needlessly sneering at other approaches to the extraterrestrial, scientific approaches with more data and evidence in a nail paring (This irony is stunning!) than he would have in his whole corporate body. Consider, reader, that there is exactly zero evidence with regard to being able to pick up radio or TV (thin smoke) from the stars... just a hope and a prayer, really ... but six levels of evidence with regard to the physicality of UFOs...

Lehmberg: Six levels, Verily: A ponderous abundance of quality anecdotal evidence, compounded with the vetted photographic evidence, added to the documented historical evidence, framed by the serious artistic evidence, qualified by the available physical evidence, and then compellingly buttressed, conclusively (with no stretch at all), by personal evidence... and this only begins the evidential panoply.

Lehmberg: One can only be annoyingly astonished by the continued reluctance of _some_ to face the highly strange music that just cannot be _forever_ marginalized. Does the aforementioned information available justify the passionate attention by the mainstream (forgetting Dr. Shostak) to perform a more *in depth* investigation of UFOs? Absolutely!

Lehmberg: Finally, is there _any_ evidence that Dr. Shostak is on a substantive track? Nada!

Dr. Shostak: This is not my view at all.

Lehmberg: Dr. Shostak must agree to be disagreed with. It's a fair cameo in the opinion of this writer, and in the more educated opinion of an Army of more perspicacious shoulders on which this writer confidently stands. To a degree? It is his view, exactly.

Dr. Shostak: I have no idea whether interstellar travel for exploration will happen sooner or later, but I’m rather optimistic that it will eventually happen.

Lehmberg: I suspect that the immediately preceding is simply a communicational loss-leader so Dr. Shostak can appear more open-minded on the subject later on...

Dr. Shostak: I think that interstellar travel for biological beings is a long shot frankly, but if you’re either willing to send telesensing apparatus, or just spend a long time getting there, then going to the stars is possible, and at some level of technology, feasible.

Lehmberg: Which, arguablely, is a thin reversal of Dr. Shostak's complaint regarding his being "mis-characterized" by Mr. Anderson, reader. With the immediately preceding, Shostak sparingly dictates what is possible in the latter and what is impossible in the former. Dr. Shostak does, however thinly, then, profess that interstellar travel will always be so expensive that societies must elect to explore deep space through some version of SETI. Does the reader appreciate how Dr. Shostak feebly tries to have it both ways in the same article?

Dr. Shostak: I think, however, it is worth noting that our ability to build good telesensing equipment is far outpacing our efforts at making enormously faster rockets.

Lehmberg: That's a laugh... no, a hoot... no... a braying guffaw! Stanton Friedman points out that faster rockets were invented near the middle of last century, proven technology mind you, while we blithely let die, also, with Hubble in the near future, the best telesensing equipment we have ever had.

Dr. Shostak: Ergo, I suspect that we will send equipment, rather than ourselves, for any direct interstellar exploration.

Lehmberg: This is a digressive and meaningless remark. It's cheaper, quicker, and more efficient to send "Spirit" and "Opportunity" to Mars than "Dick and Jane"... So? This in no way ameliorates the disservice done to ufologists by Dr. Shostak and company when he won't recognize the evidence for UFOs as evidence for UFOs, marginalizes his, intellectually, more brave superiors to the fruit and nuts fringe, and discounts ufological substance for SETI-logical style.

Dr. Shostak: That’s my view of things. Mr. Anderson thinks otherwise, noting for example that “Long-term economics and trade may be another driver [for interstellar travel]; establishing English colonies in North America led to extraordinary economic advances…”

Lehmberg: Any thinking is thinking. Dr. Shostak will only demonstrate, here, a reluctance to facilitate same. Mr. Anderson, on the other hand and in one article, seems prepared to go outside Dr. Shostak's little box when required. Bravo Mr. Anderson!

Dr. Shostak: I respectfully point out that such examples all involved members of the same species, and even then, “trade” was not the driver. The Europeans did not wish to trade with the Aztecs (what did the Aztecs import?) but merely put them to work in silver mines.

Lehmberg: Merely? Seems our Dr. Shostak may have other problems. To their extreme chagrin and detriment it could be said that Aztecs imported gold and silver (and slaves) after all, bloated Spain, and so rather handily destroyed her. Spain wasn't a significant power all that long after her contact with the Aztecs, was she?

Dr. Shostak: And the Mesoamerican cultures are estimated to have been only 500 years behind their European counterparts in terms of technical development. The difference between interstellar societies will be far greater.

Lehmberg: ...Evidence for same?

Dr. Shostak: Mr. Anderson’s true agenda is to plead that SETI researchers should be accepting of “Little Green Men zipping through spacetime in flying saucers.”

Lehmberg: A fatuous estimation or appellation at best. It remains that there is decidedly more evidence for even the distortions ascribed to Mr. Anderson... than there is for Dr. Shostak's smoke signals from beyond the stars. Dr. Shostak's not getting over the net in any shape, way, manner, or form.

Dr. Shostak: I would be happy to accept this idea if there were only convincing proof.

Lehmberg: Great suffering and most baragrugous ZOT, reader. He says this when "SETI-logical" and "scatological" are words becoming roughly more synonymous! Moreover... I suspect that Dr. Shostak would be _anything_ but pleased if "convincing proof" crawled up his nose... and died.

Dr. Shostak: When discussing alien UFOs, it is a common canard to argue that the SETI community’s skepticism is simply due to their failure to be open to the idea. That’s wrong. Their skepticism is rooted in the lack of good evidence.

Lehmberg: Amazing! Intellectual obstinacy, round, firm, and fully packed... to the last! Dr. Shostak is to be commended for staying true to form, continuing to provide examples of scientistic (sic) insentience, and strengthening the ufological case for his more worthy opposition.
Lehmberg: Game. Set. Match. Mr. Anderson gallantly leaps the net to console a soundly defeated and gasping Dr. Shostak, who owes himself a new boat at the very least. A seafaring boat.

...Arrr, me hearty!

The acceptance of visiting ETI will destroy our civilization as it now exists. Good! It's replacement is bound to be better, and we'll be better for it! Smarter for it! Larger for it! Improved for it.

Read on.

The Worst of Times...

I was always fond of saying, with a large degree of pride, that "when things were at their very worst... ...we humans would abide." And that has been the story... ...until this recent thing, where mother-nature answered us with storms that she can bring. It may be true... ...we're at our best when things are at their worst... ...at other places in the world when they're the persons cursed... ...but right here in America? ...Where we'd presume the vanguard? Well... * ...seems it was we fall way short... ...showing all we are a blackguard...

THE UNVARNISHED: [CLICK]



alienview@adelphia.net
www.AlienView.net

Humans are at their best when things are at their worst, unless those humans are Americans...?

Additionally:

Saturday, September 03, 2005
Bush faked levee repair for photo op yesterday
From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out:

... "But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government."

The Kid...

Not a bleedin' thing to report this iteration. The skies were overcast and blustery. The obligatory meteorological lion roared threateningly through the beginning of a traditionally inconstant month of March... with any luck it'll "go out like a lamb" just as proverbially.

Truly, more than once over the last few days was it a... "dark and stormy night," ...on a ~multitude~ of different levels. Other nights with acceptable visibility saw nothing outside the glaring prosaic... but I was watchin'! [g].

Anyway, in as much as I've nothing to report (...but that I've put to sullen rest, once again, that usually sneering supposition that all I'm seeing during these nightly forays into inner and outer space is the 'prosaic' mundane), I thought I would share something that I observed here on Earth, or more to the point:

I want to tell you a story about the day Stanton Friedman made me cry.

Let me hasten to assure you that I am completely capable of ripping off ones head and crapping down ones neck given the appropriate motivation, but like any true sociophile —"I love humanity, it's people I can't stand"— I can be ~profoundly~ moved by random acts of genuine kindness...

I went to my second three day UFO convention in 1996, and while mildly irritated by the cheesy (almost dirty movie?) merchandising of the concept generally, I did enjoy myself ~hugely~, still! The speakers were refreshingly out of the box. Many of the people were fascinating and all of them were interesting. Engagingly, the optimistic carnival atmosphere had an otherworldly edge one would naturally expect from a gathering of... largely intelligent people... unsettlingly concerned with potential alien space ships piloted, perhaps, by equally alien beings.

I went to four of these "Project Awareness" affairs in the Gulf Breeze, Florida area, and at each of them I saw this same intensely interested kid and his accommodating father. It was clear who, of the two, had the real interest in UFOs.

The kid was the engine on that train. The father was an innocent (though doting) bystander.

I've written about this kid before. I'd noticed him at the first conference. He was about twelve or thirteen, maybe he was as old as fifteen (or even older); it's hard to tell with kids like him, sometimes.

Very slender, he had dark hair, and I only saw him smile on one occasion. We were in and out of different spots at different times, going different directions, and never had the occasion to mingle, meet, or even speak, actually.

Good thing too, as getting an idea that my suspicions in his regard were true would have been much more difficult to bear. In other words. I'd likely have lost it sooner...

I guess I should mention that the kid was in a wheelchair and very nearly completely debilitated with cerebral palsy. He was, physically, just a twitching mass of drooling wretchedness, for ~most~ of *genteel* humanity. This too quick assessment is made all the more tragic by the fact that many (most?) of these kids with CP still have active and intelligent minds inside their ruined bodies. Stephen Hawking, with a similar disease, comes to mind.   These persons have minds, reader, still capable of the same kind of unrestricted imagination and ardent hero worship as any other young boy, and more.

As a trained educator of these physically challenged, I would know. The reader should know that their condition is likely caused by needlessly dumped toxins found within the world in which they must live... CP is likely a disease of the modern world... The reader will allow that small digression...

From what I was able to observe, and had written about years ago, the kid had moderate control of an arm and a leg. The arm was used to poke at a communication board reading out on a liquid crystal display, and the leg was used to reach out and touch the floor in front of him as his father rolled him along to the different exhibits and presentations. He'd reach out with the foot, set it down, and then let it return to him with the forward motion of the wheelchair. Then he'd pick it up and do it again like ~he~ was the one doing the walking and, though chair-bound, still had some part in his own locomotion.

The foot was accelerator and brake for his father's facilitating engine. That's enough to jerk a few tears from the reader, right there.

Onward.

It was between presentations in the greater hall of the hotel and a small chaos insued while the speakers switched out. Amid a confusion of meandering people, Stanton Friedman was standing in a small group answering questions and making general conversation with the conference attendees. The kid was rolled up in his chair.

Said kid would not take his eyes off Friedman. I could tell that this was no ho~hum drill for the kid. To the contrary. This was a seminal event... a singular moment... for him.

He was prepared. His dog~eared copies of Friedman's books were in the spring-loaded autograph position on the chair tray before him, and he had a question already tapped out on his little communication board. One could see, plainly, that he was over-the-top excited.

What I mentioned about hero worship, earlier, obviously applied here. This kid was ~very~ impressed with Stanton Friedman, the man. I saw him perform in the same manner with no other conference speaker.

An opportunity presented itself, at last. The kid's father took a break in the conversation to introduce himself and his son and to ask if Mr. Friedman wouldn't sign his son's books. As Mr. Friedman graciously addressed that task, he and the father were speaking about how enjoyable the conference was and other obligatory book~signing chatter... ...Then the kid held out his communication board in a trembling hand for Friedman to read.

I'd sneaked a look at the device over the kid's shoulder so I already knew what the question was..."Have you ever seen a UFO," the device spelled out.

Finishing the last book, Mr. Friedman took the kid's device and read the question aloud. He shook his head and laughed in that chuckling old grandfatherly manner that is trademark with him. "No," he sighed, "I have not..."

Then he turned a little more serious and speaking directly to the kid, said, " ...But me seeing a UFO is not ~evidence~ of UFOs, and there is a LOT of convincing evidence for real UFOs." Then he paused for what ended up being a huge effect for the kid, and said. "UFOs are real"!

The kid was transfixed. His eyes were shining, and his mouth carried the huge momentary grin I mentioned earlier. The kid obviously had something important validated for him, and I think I had a good idea what it was. It was an epiphany ...and not just for the kid, for everyone listening...

It was the kind of epiphany one's just not going to get from a sports hero. Consider, all ~they~ are is running, hitting, and jumping in a pretty valueless exercise... a ready reminder of what cannot be. Stanton Friedman, on the other hand, "cleaved the heavens and soared to the [freaking] ~infinite~" for this kid, and the kid ~got~ it! Stanton Friedman was about what can be... as outre as that may sometimes be. See the difference?

The kid was reassured and encouraged, I think. The kid had hopes a little less hard to keep alive, perhaps. The kid was awash in a self-generated glow of new optimism, I suspect... it was, I'd imagine, a "happiest moment" contender. I could go on to more finely grind this point.

Imagining, myself, what the kid must be feeling and knowing why, I suspected that the kid's wildest dreams could perhaps be realized if UFOs were as real as his bearded champion had just proclaimed! He'd heard it come from the "man" himself, and it was said directly to him. His "hero" looked right into his own unblinking eyes and was guileless.

...Truth can never be as certain as when it is perceived by a small boy ~directly~ from the serious countenance of someone he admires. Babe Ruth pointing at the rafters for his next home run in sweet favor of a similar child approximates the actuality of Friedman's effect on the kid...

The Sermon On The Mount was supposed to be as captivating, as inspiring, and as reassuring... to ascend to a little hyperbole.

"UFOs are REAL"!

The future had ~endless~ potential...; it was confirmed! And maybe, just maybe, a Gene Roddenberry-like Star Trek universe could exist for the kid, too! Maybe ~he~ could see a UFO (go aboard?). Maybe he ~too~ could be part of this magically monumental thing so much larger than himself...

Why... he might even find a way to make himself a better kind of whole! The sky can be ~no~ limit to a small boy's hopes and dreams... even (better, especially!) to one such as this thoroughly afflicted kid.

The bottom of my eyes began to fill up a little bit on the results of my too busy imagination, and I stepped away from the group, frankly, to surreptitiously wipe my eyes and compose myself... ...The reader should remember what I said earlier about ripping off ones head... ...poke fun at me and the reader can pull back a nub of ~whatever~ it was he was poking me with, sincerely...

...Besides, the sentiment in cameo ~here~ is a little more honestly drawn than the sentiment extracted from a lying "we like to make you smile" ~hamburger~ commercial on "family" television! These can provoke a tear, too.

This is forgetting entirely whether it was the kid, Stanton Friedman, or my own poignantly reinforced convictions that had made me cry, or a combination of the three? But weep I did, and, on the whole (?) I'm rather glad I can.

That's enough. I remain watching the skies.

Read on!