"Are you not ashamed to mingle domestic crops with blood and gore?"

image: MIT homepage of Dr. Stephanie Seneff (specific image link).

Many ancient philosophers presented philosophical arguments against the consumption of animal flesh and for the adoption of plant-based diets in one form or another, among them Plutarch, Ovid, and (at least according to long-established tradition) Pythagoras.

In one of his surviving treatises on the subject, Plutarch argues that resorting to the consumption of that which is (in his words) "contrary to nature" is a form of slander against the gods and the earth, implying that they cannot support us with their bounty. He asks:

Why slander the earth by implying that she cannot support you? Why impiously offend law-giving Demeter and bring shame upon Dionysus, lord of the cultivated vine, the gracious one, as if you did not receive enough from their hands? Are you not ashamed to mingle domestic crops with blood and gore?

A previous post from 2012 noted that, while Plutarch was applying these arguments to the consumption of flesh in an age long before the direct injection of foreign DNA into foodcrops, the same arguments could be applied with equal force to the creation and distribution of genetically-modified organisms for human consumption, a practice that has appeared only in the past two decades of human existence but which has increased exponentially since these GMOs were first introduced into the food chain.

Not only is it questionable and completely unproven to assert that the earth and the gods simply could not support human life without these newly-devised GMOs (and, Plutarch would say, slanderous and impious to say so, as well), but in light of data being presented by credentialed researchers, it may be that those who have been pushing GMOs into the food supply are also mingling domestic crops with, if not "blood and gore," a widespread increase in terrible neurological diseases and health problems.

Here is a link to a talk given on May 24, 2014, by Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a Senior Research Scientist at MIT who has focused her research in recent years on correlations between nutrition and health. The talk is long but critically important. In it, she presents evidence arguing that the sudden introduction of new, genetically-modified, herbicide-resistant corn and soy crops into the US food chain in 1991, and the corresponding massive increase in herbicide application on top of these food crops (see chart above) correlates almost one-to-one with the rise in autism diagnoses in the US (the red "line graph" or "mountain chart" line represents chemical herbicide applied to soy and corn, in thousands of tons, and the yellow "bar graph" columns represent the rising number of children identified as having autism). 

Her data further indicate a potential harmful synergy between this newly-prevalent herbicide and the increased exposure to aluminum, primarily through vaccines.

This previous post examines some of the powerful forces at work to marginalize anyone who questions the safety of the increased vaccine regimens for children, and the possible connection vaccines may have with autism.

Early in her talk, she also states that the lack of exposure to sunlight among children who now for various reasons may be spending too much time indoors and staring at screens instead of running around outside may also be a contributing factor, leading to dangerous deficiencies in natural vitamin D production from sunlight exposure on the skin and through the eyes. Interestingly enough, the health benefits of basking in the sun were known to the ancients and written about by various ancient authors and philosophers as well.

Dr. Seneff states that she has spent the past several years examining possible environmental factors that may be contributing to the rise in autism shown in the chart above. She notes that there is an argument that autism is only genetic, and a contingent of people who apparently do not want to take the time to examine hypotheses which include possible environmental contributors to this and other health problems. Beginning at about 0:00:40 into the talk, Dr. Seneff says:

So, people keep saying "Oh, yeah -- it's genetic; autism's a genetic disease." They're not spending the money they should be spending looking for environmental factors. And as much as you could try to think of increased diagnosis or whatever, you've still got a huge part that's unexplained, unclear, and that is almost surely environmental. I don't think this audience would disagree. So, I've been studying autism for about seven years now, reading extensively in the literature, and looking one by one at all the  different environmental toxins and all the environmental factors that might be involved in autism. And I've identified several. Certainly sun, insufficient sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes, was something I identified early on: people in northern latitudes have increased autism, for example. And poor diet I think is something that people are aware of. Nutritional deficiencies. Vaccines is something  this community's very are aware of. But there's another factor that I didn't recognize until about two years ago. I went to hear a talk by Don Huber, who's a professor -- retired professor -- from Purdue,  expert on plant physiology and plant pathology, who's been going around the world talking about the dangers of this, Roundup, and the damage that it's doing to our nation's health. And once I heard his lecture, I became a changed person, and I spent nearly all of my time studying this chemical, and understanding how it works biologically, and linking that to very many diseases and conditions that are plaguing us today: things like diabetes, and Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, various cancers, and you can see a very strong connection between this chemical and those diseases. 

Immediately after this, Dr. Seneff says that it is her hope that everyone listening to her will be convinced to investigate the evidence for himself or herself. This approach is a major differentiating factor between those who are encouraging real analysis (which I argue here and here to be an antidote to mind control) and those who argue that there is nothing to investigate, the issue is already settled, and their interpretation is the interpretation that must be accepted -- on faith, without doing your own research (which is the kind of argument that typifies those who seek to control others, exemplified in the original 1968 Planet of the Apes movie by the  characters of Dr. Zaius and the orangutans).

The safety of the food supply, and the application of honest, open-minded analysis of the evidence regarding the safety of the modifications and ethicality of giving genetically-modified foods to people largely without their knowledge, their consent, or their awareness of the potential health hazards that may be associated with such foods, is a subject of such fundamental importance that it demands all of our attention. I hope that everyone will take the time to listen to Dr. Seneff's presentation linked above (here's the link again).

We simply must engage our critical thinking and do our own analysis when we see data such as that shown in the graph and discussed in the talk, or we risk "mingling crops with blood and gore," as Plutarch puts it.

No one who does military analysis before a military operation would ignore such data points or dismiss them as not worthy of further investigation. No one who does stock analysis before investing in a stock would see so many red flags in the data and argue for buying it anyway. When the health and safety of others is on the line, we do not have the luxury of just sleepwalking forward with our eyes shut.

Dr. Seneff has bravely presented evidence and a hypothesis, based on seven years of research and a host of data -- of course, those who wish to offer a different hypothesis can and should do so along with their arguments of why their hypothesis might be a better fit for the data.

Here is an article from October of 2014 discussing Dr. Seneff's research.

Here is another article, published yesterday, also discussing aspects of Dr. Seneff's research.

For those who might ask what this topic has to do with the topics usually discussed in this blog, the answer is: plenty. 

First, and perhaps foremost, there is the question of natural law (or, as it might be better labeled, natural universal law). The doctrine of natural universal law argues that the prevention of violence to another's person is fundamental, that we always have the right (and in fact the duty) to stop violence being done to ourselves or to another human being, and that it is for this purpose that governments are established.

Related to the question of natural law is the important subject of "mind control" -- used in a broad and general sense in this case (there are other, narrower, and more technical uses of that term which are also valuable but not necessarily in view here). In this broad usage, we can define mind control as the propagation of illusions and ideologies which are primarily designed to mask or even try to legitimize the violation of natural universal law, often on a grand scale. In fact, some have argued convincingly that mass-violation of natural universal law is always necessarily accompanied by forms of mass mind control.

Further, as intimated in the opening paragraphs of this post, this question is by no means unrelated to the questions treated by the ancient philosophers, especially those prior to the arrival of literalist Christianity, who clearly saw food as a proper subject for philosophical discourse, and a topic with deep moral implications.

Finally, the debate over this subject, in which there is a consensus view being promoted and a clear marginalization of those voices which challenge the consensus view, directly parallels the pattern found in the subjects most-often examined in this blog and in my research. There is a clear failure among conventional academia to seriously consider the overwhelming evidence pointing to ancient trans-oceanic contact between the "Old World" and "New World," for example, or the abundant evidence that consciousness may in fact be independent of the physical body, and many more subjects which are just as critical to our health and well-being as is the question of what foods are best and most healthful and safest for us to eat.

The question of the safety of our food is one we really do not have the luxury of ignoring. I believe that for various important reasons, the others discussed on this blog are equally pressing. 

The possibility that the creation of what came to be known as "the west" (and that is today embodied in governments and other institutions that can be seen to be descended from the western Roman Empire) might have involved the deliberate creation of illusions and the adoption of ideologies that now threaten the entire food chain and entire ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest (see for instance the discussion in this previous post) is certainly one of those issues. It may well be that this ideological pattern, which I believe began with a mistaken literalistic approach to ancient scriptures, which led to a deliberate rejection of the ancient wisdom as well as a false separation between human beings and nature, is directly related to the adoption of agricultural practices that could turn out to be very harmful to nature and to ourselves.

U-shaped chemtrail photographed over California

Anyone who still believes that the "persistent contrails" which can be seen criss-crossing the sky above populated areas are simply the product of normal jetliners making their way to commercial destinations and leaving harmless lines of vapor should take a look at the above photograph, snapped near the California coast this morning, 04/23/2014.

Previous posts discussing this subject have included screen shots from the Wikipedia entries which continue to insist that "Scientists and engineers around the world have repeatedly needed to confirm that supposed chemtrails are in fact nothing but normal contrails" -- see screenshots in this previous post and this previous post, as well as the condescending and one-sided Wikipedia entry here.  

The denials that these long-lasting lines of cloud could be the result of deliberate spraying have not changed even after the publication in major mainstream California newspapers of stories describing government-funded weather-modification programs involving the spraying of silver iodide and other compounds from aircraft: see for example this article from the Sacramento Bee dated 11/11/2013. 

The contrail / chemtrail in the image above takes a huge U-shaped meander across the sky -- hardly the path that a commercial airliner carrying passengers between destinations would be likely to take.  See the image below which points out the path of the chemtrail using red arrows, in case it is difficult to see:

Below is another image of the same U-shaped chemtrail, taken from a slightly different vantage point just a few minutes earlier:

Again, it is difficult to come up with a hypothesis to explain the strange path of this aircraft and its persistent trail, other than the obvious explanation that this trail is the product of an aircraft deliberately dispersing particulates into the atmosphere over a target area.

Just in case someone wants to argue that there could be some kind of strong "wind shear" or atmospheric disturbance which took an originally straight trail and blew one section of it into the dramatic U-shaped bend seen in the photographs, take a look at the photograph below, taken only a few seconds after the top image and from the same location, of a number of other chemtrails being laid down in the sky just a single camera-lens away from the U-shaped trail:

These trails are perfectly straight, and they are going in the same general direction that the U-shaped trail aircraft took (before and after its dramatic meander).  They show no evidence of being blown by any wind-shear or atmospheric disturbance.  In other words, the U-shaped meander was created by an aircraft taking a big U-shaped detour, and is not the product of some kind of unusual wind-effect.

It may be difficult for some people to accept the possibility that the government of the United States (or other countries where such chemtrails are also seen regularly) would authorize the ongoing, deliberate spraying of unknown chemical particulates in massive quantities over the skies of populated areas and over the skies of croplands where food for human consumption is grown.

After all, doesn't California  law (and the laws of other states in the US) forbid citizens smoking cigarettes inside restaurants and bars and office buildings, in order to protect non-smoking citizens from the potential effects of second-hand smoke?  Doesn't California law (and the laws of other states in the US) mandate that gasoline stations affix labels to the pumps to warn citizens that pumping gasoline could expose them to gasoline vapors, which they might accidentally breathe while fueling up their vehicles?  Doesn't California law (and the laws of other states in the US, as well as federal legislation) mandate ever-more-restrictive limits on vehicle emissions, due to concerns over the health and environmental dangers such emissions might pose?

If so, how could aircraft spraying out trails of chemicals be allowed to ply the skyways over the heads of those exact same citizens for hours on end, day after day (and even through the nighttime on some selected evenings)?  We might ask the same questions about the intrusive and illegal surveillance of innocent free men and women who have not been accused of any crimes (another example of illegal activity which might have once been difficult for people to believe their governments would ever conduct on such a massive scale). 

Did citizens authorize such spraying over their heads?  Was their some legislation passed by elected representatives by which the people said their representative government could dump chemicals out of aircraft over the playgrounds of their childrens' schools?  

Obviously not, since mouthpieces of the conventional status quo such as Wikipedia can confidently declare that these chemtrails are nothing but "normal contrails."  If there had been some legislation  authorizing such spraying passed by some elected officials, chemtrail deniers would have a hard time maintaining that the spraying is not taking place (it is important to point out that, even if legislative bodies had in fact passed legislation authorizing massive spraying of chemicals over the heads of citizens, such legislation would be illegal and hence legally void, as natural-law pioneer and abolitionist Lysander Spooner argued clearly and cogently, in particular in a pamphlet published in Boston in 1850 arguing against the legality of slavery and against the legality of the Fugitive Slave Act, especially in his arguments beginning on page 27 of that pamphlet and continuing to the end of it).

But the spraying is clearly taking place (there are even a few isolated articles which admit to it, and which quote government workers whose entire careers apparently involve the coordination of such spraying campaigns).  

Apparently, then, this spraying is taking place unknown to the people who are being sprayed, and without their consent.  This is a violation of natural universal law.  It is illegal.  It is unethical.  

Such illegal activity can go on only as long as the people remain oblivious to it.  It can go on only as long as the people see it but remain in a hypnotic state in which the wrongness of the situation and the violation of their natural rights does not register in their conscious mind.  

This situation is exactly analogous to the situation in which people saw orcas being kept in captivity for decades, and in which people went to shows watching those orcas performing tricks, and saw the small tanks in which those orcas were confined and the unnatural situation in which those intelligent beings were forced to live, and yet those people remained in a hypnotic state in which the wrongness of the situation never registered in their conscious mind.  That hypnotic trance was suddenly and sharply broken for many people by the movie Blackfish, and suddenly millions of people are demanding that the mistreatment of those magnificent and intelligent whales must stop immediately.

The exact same thing can happen with the unauthorized spraying of chemicals over the heads of human beings, in clear violation of their natural-law rights.   The exact same thing can happen with any of the violations of natural universal law which are perpetrated by those who rely on the masses of people remaining in a hypnotic trance -- they can be stopped when people wake up to the wrongness of the situation and demand that the violation of natural universal law cease immediately.  This includes the illegal use of surveillance by the state over individuals who are accused of no crimes, in violation of natural universal law -- surveillance which (like the spraying of chemtrails) many people originally would never have believed their governments would conduct or permit but which has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be taking place on a massive scale.

At this time, there are only theories as to why so many resources are being used to deliberately spray chemicals high into the atmosphere over populated areas and over agricultural areas, using numerous jet aircraft, tons of chemicals, and probably huge sums of money.  There are only theories (rather than definitive answers) because these spraying campaigns remain largely secret, unauthorized by any public referendums or legislation, and un-debated by elected officials.  

However, some of the theories are quite disturbing, such as the theory discussed by Dane Wigington in the videos embedded and linked in this previous post.  Even more disturbing possibilities are suggested by the evidence discussed in this Red Ice Radio interview with molecular biologist Vincent Freeman.

While members of the general public cannot identify for certain the real reason behind such deliberate and widespread and long-running campaigns of high-altitude spraying, it is almost impossible to continue to deny that it is taking place, or to say that the trails covering the sky are the product of simple vapor trails or condensation trails left by regular commercial airliners taking travelers from one airport to another.  

To continue to maintain that chemtrail spraying is not taking place is irresponsible, and it empowers those who are violating natural law and potentially putting people at risk.  

The profound importance of tea

There are many very ancient Chinese legends purporting to describe the origin of tea, but many of them attribute the discovery of tea to the legendary Shen Nung, who was said to have lived around 2800 BC.  In Shen Nung's Canon of Herbs, thought to have been compiled from texts written during a period beginning in 206 BC, it is specifically said that Shen Nung tested hundreds of herbs on himself, encountering seventy-two poisons each day, and used tea as his antidote.

As Daniel P. Reid relates the story in Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea:

It is said that in the course of his intensive field work, Shen Nung once ingested 72 poisonous plants in an single day, after which he collapsed on the ground, teetering on the brink of death from poison.  As he lay there in agony, a breeze blew a few leaves from a nearby tree onto the ground beside him.  Noticing their distinctive aroma and vibrant green color, curiosity and force of habit prompted him to put a few leaves in his mouth and chew them.  He liked the taste, soon felt better, and quickly recovered his strength, so he chewed some more leaves and found that they completely cleansed his system of all toxins.  This is what he wrote about tea in his pharmacopeia:

Tea's essential flavor is bitter.  After drinking tea, the mind thinks more clearly and quickly, the whole body becomes light and agile, and vision improves.  34.

In her book, Tea: Aromas and Flavors Around the World, Lydia Gautier notes that Shen Nung's Canon of Herbs also states: "if one consumes tea for long enough, the body gains in strength and the mind in keenness" (106).  She goes on to say:

When one reads ancient Chinese texts, the benefits attributed to tea are extremely varied.

• It stimulates circulation of the blood in all parts of the body.

• It stimulates clear thinking and a lively mind.

• It speeds up the elimination of alcohol in the organs of the body.

• It increases the body's power to resist many illnesses.

• It accelerates the metabolism and oxygenation of the organs of the body.

• It prevents tooth decay.

• It has a purifying and fortifying effect on the skin, helping it to remain younger-looking.

• It prevents or reduces anemia.

• It purifies urine and aids diuresis.

• It improves the eyes and makes them shine.

• It combats the effects of heat in summer (tea is by nature cold, that is, yin).

• It aids digestion.

• It eases pain in the libs and joints.

• It reduces harmful mucus secretions.

• It eases thirst.

• It drives away fatigue and depression, bringing a general sense of well-being.

• Finally, it prolongs life.  106.

Modern studies do indeed show that tea has measurable health benefits.  Tea is rich in flavonoids which medical studies have linked to improvements in cardiovascular health as well as to other beneficial effects for maintaining mental and physical health.

Interestingly, the ancient Chinese sources cited above appear to link tea to the rhythm of the cosmos as well.  Readers of this blog will no doubt have noted that the number of potentially deadly herbs that the legendary Shen Nung ingested, seventy-two, is one of the most notable precessional numbers.  Seventy-two is the approximate number of years it takes for the subtle motion of precession to delay the position of the background of the heavens by a single degree (for a video that explains this phenomenon and some of its tremendous significance in ancient sacred scripture and tradition, see here).  The mention of this significant precessional number in the legend regarding the discovery of tea is almost certainly not accidental.

The evidence of an ancient association of the beneficial properties of tea to the celestial motion of precession becomes even more pronounced when we read, in one of the tea-related articles on Daniel Reid's website, that the Chinese calligraphic symbol for tea contains strokes which add up to the number 108, according to Frederick R. Dannaway in the article entitled "Tea as Soma, pt. 1" (towards the bottom of that webpage).

Of course, along with the number 72, the number 108 is also one of the most-commonly recurring precessional numbers in ancient mythology and sacred tradition.  In the Agnicayana fire ritual of Vedic and Hindu tradition (believed to be the oldest surviving ritual in the world), the traditional altar is supposed to be constructed of 10,800 bricks (a version of the number 108).  Many aspects of the Chinese martial arts incorporate the number 108 as well, including the legendary number of obstacles one had to overcome in the final test for a Shaolin monk, and the number of moves or techniques incorporated into the famous wooden man or wooden dummy.  

The fact that tea is associated by the very design of its Chinese calligraphic character with the number 108 is undoubtedly significant, and links this beverage with the subtle motion of the universe -- a phenomenon that was obviously considered to be of profound importance to ancient civilizations.  Researchers such as Graham Hancock and Jim Alison have also conclusively demonstrated that the ancient designers of the worldwide grid of megalithic monuments (some of them dating to extremely remote antiquity) incorporated the numbers 72 and 108 into the distances between these sites (measured in degrees of longitude).

It is a clear sign of the importance ascribed to tea that the ancients would take pains to incorporate these two numbers into the legend concerning the origin of tea, and into its written symbol.  As Daniel Reid explains in his book on the Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea, tea was seen as having alchemical or transformative powers upon the men and women who drink it.  On page 87, he writes:

In Chinese, the term for "alchemy" is lien jin shu, literally "the art of forging gold."  But the "gold" they're talking about here is not the gold ore mined from the earth and forged by fire into ingots and coins.  They're talking about jin dan, the "golden elixir of life," an elusive energetic essence that resides dormant within particular plants and minerals, and which may be extracted and activated by various means and transferred into the human system, where it acts as a potent tonic to protect health, prolong life, and enhance mental performance.  This precious essence is the "green gold" in the alchemy of Chinese tea.

And, in the "Art of Chinese Tea" article near the top of the page from his website linked previously (here's the link again), he quotes Master Xhongxian Wu as saying that, "one may become enlightened by drinking tea," and notes that "here are many stories of Buddhist monks or Taoist hermits who suddenly "awakened to the Dao" (wu Dao) while savoring a cup of tea."

Given the health benefits, as well as the ancient connection to the profoundly important precessional numbers, and the serious assertion that "one may become enlightened by drinking tea," who would not want to begin each day or finish each meal with a cup of Chinese tea?  

While doing so, perhaps it would not be inappropriate to contemplate the turning of the earth through the lines still marked by the ancient megalithic monuments located along carefully-selected meridians, and the slow and subtle but inexorable motion of precession which delays the march of the constellations through the heavens, all of which are somehow linked to the cup of tea in your hands.

Fresh beets and Thomas Jefferson

All of the beets shown above came from a single square foot of garden, and went into tonight's dinner.

They are shown with a nickel (on the far right) for size comparison, because a nickel has a profile of Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson knew that food and freedom go together (see this previous post and this previous post).

Gardening in this life, and the life hereafter

Here's a video of a TED Talk given by Ron Finley, about gardening.

It should inspire many people to get out and grow, even if they previously thought that they couldn't garden, for one reason or another.

Here's a link to Ron's website, which features some beautiful photographs, as well as information about Ron and his interests, and more information about urban "guerrilla gardening."  

It also features some quotations from Ron, including this one: 

Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city.  Plus, you get strawberries.

This quotation, plus Ron's successful stand against agents of the State (in this case, the City of Los Angeles)  who tried to deny him his natural-law right to grow his own food in the premises of his own home, as well as the connection he draws in the video above between the destruction of health and the removal of food options by those who, in conjunction with the power of the State, exert enormous control over and restrictions of the available food choices worldwide, reveal that the issue of growing food is a profoundly moral issue that goes far beyond the thoughts most people have when they hear the word "gardening."

In this previous post, Thomas Jefferson (who had a few things to say about liberty and tyranny) was seen to have written back in 1785: "Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and our diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now."  

These are words to think about carefully, since the government (or, to be more accurate, the State) seems to be moving more and more in the direction of "prescribing to us our medicine and our diet," and has actually been doing so for quite some time.  That post also mentioned "guerrilla gardening" and London's Richard Reynolds (although at the time I was unaware of Ron Finley's work and his successful stand for gardening and against local tyranny).

On an even deeper level, it is also very noteworthy that the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead ascribes a very high level of importance to the individual's ability to garden, a fact which does not seem to get the kind of publicity that it deserves.

In his explication of the significance of the 110th chapter of the Book of the Dead, Gerald Massey (whose analysis was discussed in this previous post) says:

This was the subterrestrial or earthly paradise of the legends.  When the manes comes to these elysian fields he is still in the earth of eternity, and has to prove himself an equal as a worker with the mighty khus (khuti), who are nine cubits high, in cultivating his allotment of arable land.  The arrival at Mount Hetep in this lower paradise or heaven of the solar mythos precedes the entrance to the Judgment Hall which is in the domain of the Osiris below, and the voyage from east to west in the Matit and the Sektit bark of the sun, therefore it is not in the ultimate heaven or the upper paradise of eternity upon Mount Hetep.  Ancient Egypt the Light of the World, 207.

In other words, the departed soul in its travels must be able to garden a plot of land, and apparently must do so in a kind of gardening competition or contest, in which its continued ascent towards the land  of light is at stake! Not only that, but the contest of gardening involves proving the ability to equal the work of beings who are nine cubits in height, and (as I have discussed in my 2011 book) there is evidence to suggest that the Egyptian cubit was 21 inches rather than the standard 18 inches, which means that these underworld gardeners are 15 feet, nine inches tall!

While we can be glad that chapter 110 does not tell us that we will have to prove ourselves equal in a game of basketball with the mighty khus or khuti, this information gives us a clear indication of the importance that skill at cultivating our allotted plot of land will have in the life to come, according to the ancient Egyptian sacred texts.  It also indicates that the Egyptians held a very high regard for the cultivation of the soil, and that they believed it was something that everyone should learn how to do, and that everyone should take the time to learn how to do well, if their physical circumstances permit it.

With all of this in mind, it would seem that we should all devote some time during this life in working the soil, wherever that soil may be, if our health and circumstances permit it.  As Ron Finley says, gardening is transformative: "It's amazing what a sunflower will do."

Who has the right to spray silver iodide on his or her neighbors?

Here is a link to a post on this blog published in July of this year, urging readers to do their own due diligence on the possible existence of "geoengineering," just as this blog urges doing "due diligence" on any subject that might have a serious impact on their lives.

For many years, the suggestion of the possibility that the long-lasting trails of visible clouds etched across the sky by high-flying aircraft might be deliberately sprayed from those aircraft was viciously derided as a "conspiracy theory."

Those who believed that these trails, which many of us have seen on different days, sometimes criss-crossing one another so vigorously that they leave clouds that eventually grow to blanket the entire sky, are the result of the deliberate spraying of chemicals often refer to them as "chemtrails." The word "chemtrails" is a take-off on the word "contrails," which itself is a contraction of the words "condensation trails," and which refers to the simple condensation of water vapor in the exhaust of aircraft engines, leaving brief trails behind a high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions.

True contrails do not stay in the sky for hours after the aircraft goes by -- in fact, they usually remain visible for only a few seconds, and an observer can watch the back of the contrail line disappearing just about as fast as the aircraft is moving at the front end of the line.

However, those who dismiss the notion that trails such as those pictured in the image above could be the result of the deliberate spraying of chemicals refuse to call them "chemtrails."  Instead, they refer to the very idea of "chemtrails" as a "conspiracy theory," and say that this phenomenon simply represents "persistent contrails."  For example, here is a screenshot of the Wikipedia entry which will come up in the US if you search Wikipedia for the word "chemtrails" -- it is not even an entry on "chemtrails" but is instead entitled "Chemtrail conspiracy theory":

Although Wikipedia disingenuously purports to be a neutral source of information, the term "conspiracy theory" is a very loaded phrase, and its use here is clearly an attempt to prejudice the reader against the possibility that these persistent clouds produced by aircraft could be anything nefarious.  The use of this phrase suggests that anyone who entertains such a possibility is simply "paranoid," looking for conspiracies where none exist.  The entry insists in calling these aircraft trails "persistent contrails," and in the first paragraph declares: "This theory is not accepted by the scientific community, which states that they are just normal contrails, as there is no scientific evidence supporting the chemtrail theory."

Well, that settles it -- if the "scientific community" (whoever they are) has not found any "scientific evidence," then anyone who believes that these trails could be the result of chemical spraying must be a "conspiracy theorist" who deliberately ignores Science.  Notice that this sweeping assertion that "no scientific evidence" supports the "chemtrail theory" is completely un-footnoted; the reader may assume from this confident declaration that "the scientific community" has been hard at work examining the evidence, and conducting tests, to find out if there is anything to support this theory, but no such experiments are described and no such evidence is offered.  This statement is completely worthless -- in fact, it is quite possibly dishonest, which makes it worse than worthless, and reflects somewhat poorly on the standards and impartiality of Wikipedia as a source.

Just eleven days before the screenshot of the above Wikipedia entry was taken, the Sacramento Bee published an astonishing article entitled "Cloud seeding, no longer magical thinking, is poised for use this winter."  The article informs us that "cloud seeding," which consists of the spraying of silver iodide from aircraft or from ground-based aerosol sprayers, was "once considered fringe science" but has "now entered the mainstream" and is practiced all the time in California!

In fact, quotations from people whose careers appear to involve the routine practice of such spraying make it sound like cloud seeding has been going on for years, and has gotten so advanced that it is far more efficient than it was back in "the old days" of cloud seeding!  One Jeff Tilley, whose job title is "director of weather modification"(!) for the Lake Tahoe Basin and eastern Sierra Nevada, tells us: "The message is starting to sink in that this is a cost-effective tool.  The technology is better; we understand how to do cloud seeding much better.  And because we understand how to do it more effectively, it's definitely taken more seriously."

Somebody better call Wikipedia -- apparently someone has some "scientific evidence" about spraying chemical compounds from aircraft, and their evidence shows that we're getting "better" at doing it!  There's so much evidence that it is going on, in fact, that people have careers as "directors of weather modification," although you'd never suspect that if you read the Wikipedia article above. 

The quotations from the article do not really give any context to the words "better" and "more effectively" --  presumably these words are comparisons to past versions of cloud seeding, and if so then it means that these programs have been going on for some time, just like all those "chemtrail conspiracy theorists" were alleging.

Another quotation later in the article comes from an individual who is a civil engineer at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and who "manages the utility's cloud-seeding program."  This is astonishing.  For years the suggestion that aircraft are spraying chemicals into the sky has been derided as the province of conspiracy theorists who obstinately ignore the settled opinion of the unanimous "scientific community" (whoever they are), and now we discover that a municipal utility district in the capital of the country's most-populous state has the job of managing a cloud-seeding program?

The article is accompanied by a drawing of an aircraft spraying lines of silver iodide particles into the air (see here).  Apparently, the planes launch this silver iodide using propane (not something I'd want to have on an airplane with me in large quantities).  Below that is a map of California, showing the areas that this practice is going on.  

Most of the regions being sprayed are indeed lined up west of the Sierra Nevadas, which jives with the assertion in the article (and the drawing insert) that the spraying is intended to produce snowfall, increasing the snowpack in the mountains, the runoff from which feeds the water reservoirs and rivers that water the entire state.  

However, there are two large conspicuous regions shown on the map along the Central Coast beginning in Monterey and stretching all the way down to the area north of Los Angeles which are also being sprayed.  I happen to live, raise my family, and grow my garden right underneath one of these ominous grey blobs designated as "cloud-seeding projects" on that map, and I can assure the reader that there is no snowfall being "seeded" by the spraying over the sunny coastlines of Monterey, Santa Barbara, or San Luis Obispo!  

This in and of itself casts serious doubt on the possibility that this article is being completely candid and truthful in its statements.  That, and the fact that the article treats the spraying of silver iodide as (yawn) something that's been going on for a long time and not as a revelation that completely contradicts the dominant storyline that anyone who suggests that airplanes spray chemicals into the sky is a quack and a conspiracy theorist, show that this article is not being completely forthcoming.

Of course, the article does not directly state that this "cloud-seeding" program has anything to do with the chemtrails that one sees in the sky.  Its diagram shows a little turbo-prop plane dispensing the silver iodide, not a big jet like the ones that appear to be responsible for the chemtrailing, but that diagram is just a drawing, not a photograph -- we don't really know what kind of aircraft they are using because the article never says.  Furthermore, if these "cloud-seeding" programs that are now admitting to spraying silver iodide are not the same programs that are leaving the chemtrails shown in the photograph above, then this only leads to the question, what else is being sprayed from those other aircraft and leaving those other trails?

But what kind of airplane or airplanes are being used is not the point -- the point is that this article declares that silver iodide is being sprayed from planes, and that it has been going on for some time (long enough for people to have careers with titles such as "manager of the cloud-seeding program" and "director of weather modification").  In fact, it has been going on long enough for some of those career weather modifiers and cloud-seeding program managers to be able to declare that the technology has gotten "much better," and that they are now modifying the weather "more effectively" than ever before. 

This admission brings us, at last, to the real point: who on earth believes that they have the right to spray silver iodide in massive quantities over the people (and animals, and food crops) of California?

Who cares how "effective" or beneficial the outcome of this spraying is supposed to be -- does anyone think they have the right to spray chemicals over their neighbor?  Do I have the right to spray chemicals over my neighbor's house if I believe that doing so is "good for him" (or good for the collective)?  Do I have the right to sneak into his house and put chemicals in his food if I think that they are good for him?  If so, is it OK to lie about it if my neighbor asks me if I am sneaking around putting chemicals into his air or onto his food, and call him a kook and a conspiracy theorist for even suggesting the idea (even though I am, in fact, sending such chemicals his way)?

To ask the question is to answer it -- an individual does not have the right to spray his neighbors with chemicals, or to put chemicals into his neighbor's food.  Saying that those chemicals are "good for him" or "good for all of us" does not change that.  It is a violation of my neighbor's innate rights as a man or a woman -- and as such it is a form of violence.  It is a deliberate disregard for natural law (those certain unalienable Rights with which all Men and Women are endowed by their Creator -- see below).

The question then arises, does a government (whether it is a municipality or a state or any other government) somehow get the right to spray chemicals on people, even if we admit that individuals may not spray chemicals on one another?  The answer is a resounding no.  One does not get the right to violate the natural law and do violence to another man or woman (let alone a large number of men and women) just because one says he is now part of a "government."  

he authors of the Declaration of Independence were very clear on this point in 1776.  The second paragraph of that declaration begin with these magnificent and famous words:

We hold these Truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed [. . .] 

These lines assert that governments are never rightly instituted to trample upon the Creator-endowed rights of Men and Women -- they are only instituted to secure those Rights.  The Declaration of Independence unequivocally rejects the idea that the just Powers of any instituted government can include the violation of the unalienable Rights.  

The idea, then, that a government can be in any way justified by spraying chemicals on its citizens (and their livestock, and their food crops) is completely false.  There is also the little phrase at the end of the quoted passage above about the "Consent of the Governed," which is a bit difficult to argue in the case of the spraying that apparently has been going on for years over California, since this program has been a big fat secret and anyone who suggests that it is taking place is marginalized and labeled a conspiracy theorist who doesn't care about the settled opinion of the "scientific community."

The proper response to this blatant, callous, massive, deceptive, and long-running policy of violating the rights of the men and women of California should be outrage.  Outrage similar to the outrage that many people demonstrated during the Vietnam War.  Outrage similar to the outrage that many people in various parts of the US demonstrated when legislators recently threatened to pass laws taking away their right to bear arms (which would also be an illegal violation of natural law and the unalienable Right to protect one's own Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness).  

Has anyone been demonstrating any such outrage over the revelation that they are being deliberately and routinely sprayed with silver iodide (and who knows what other chemicals)?  There does not seem to be much evidence of it, for some reason.

Many people in California spend a lot of time and extra expense shopping for and purchasing organic foods, because they are suspicious of chemicals being routinely sprayed on their foods.  They may even spend a lot of time and effort and some extra expense growing their own foods in their own gardens.  Many of them would be outraged if they were told they could not eat organic food any more, or if the government insisted on spraying chemicals over their organic food before they took it home to consume it.  But they don't seem to be upset about having silver iodide (and who knows what else) sprayed over themselves and their food on a routine basis.  

Many people in California also avoid tobacco products such as cigarettes, because they fear the chemicals with which the tobacco is usually treated, and the idea of inhaling substances which may be harmful to their bodies and their health.  They pass laws against smoking in places that young children might be forced to breath in the chemicals and smoke that might be harmful to their young bodies.  Many of them would be outraged if they were told that someone was going to come into their homes and their cars and their children's schools and preschools and daycares, and smoke big cigars and cheap cigarettes and fling the ashes all over their gardens.  But they don't seem to be upset about having silver iodide (and who knows what else) sprayed over their homes and their gardens and their places of business (and their surf spots).

Many people in California spend a lot of time worrying about global warming, or climate change, or how much carbon their cars are emitting, or how much environmental impact their lightbulbs are having, and they seek to limit the impact they and their "carbon footprint" are having on our incredibly beautiful planet, the planet that will have to sustain the lives of their children and their children's children and all of the amazingly diverse life forms with which we share our planet earth.

They would be outraged if they were told that, while they were spending extra money to buy hybrid vehicles and low-impact lightbulbs and going out of their way in a thousand different ways every day in order to stop global warming or climate change or the pollution of the air and the forests and the rivers and the oceans, airplanes were being flown over huge portions of the state and dumping silver iodide (and who knows what else) over the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Nevada and the foothills and the forests and the valleys, and which certainly has an impact on the climate, because it is deliberately designed to have an impact on the climate.  But there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming number of people worrying about the airplanes spraying at this time (Wikipedia doesn't even seem to be aware that it is going on).

The photograph at the top of this page was taken in one of the coastal regions south of Monterey which are shown to be areas with "cloud-seeding programs."  So were the other photographs below.  The fact that aircraft spraying substances that leave these kinds of chemtrails in an area prominently identified in the Sacramento Bee as having a "cloud-seeding program" suggests that the spraying described in the article and the chemtrails shown in the photographs might be related.  But so far, we do not have any official admission that chemtrails are the product of these deliberate weather modification programs.

We do, however, now have official admission that silver iodide spraying from airborne aircraft for the purpose of weather modification (geoengineering) is taking place.  This activity is unconscionable.  It is even more unconscionable that this activity has been going on in secret for so long, and that anyone who suggested the possibility that such spraying was taking place was branded a conspiracy theorist.  

All people everywhere should be outraged, even though the article only says it is happening in California, and the map only shows some parts of California as being part of the spraying program (the population centers of San Francisco and Los Angeles are notable free of such programs, according to the map).  Those who have been writing about and documenting chemtrails and geoengineering for many years have shown evidence that this deliberate clandestine spraying is taking place in many other parts of the US, and in many other parts of the world.  

The truths articulated in the Declaration of Independence are timeless truths.  They do not go in and out of style -- they outline rights that are inherent to all men and women, in all times and in all places.  The massive, deliberate, secret, program of spraying (and the accompanying campaign to marginalize anyone who points it out and to label them as an unscientific quack) is a clear demonstration that governments which are supposed to be instituted to secure those rights and to derive their just powers from the consent of the people are not doing so: that in fact they are trampling on those rights instead of protecting those rights.  

If they think they have the right to spray chemicals on people, in secret, while denying it and slandering those who point it out, what else do they think they have the right to get away with?

Those who are aware of this ongoing conspiracy must give them notice that they are in violation, and that they must stop it.  

Plutarch on why priests of Isis wear linen garments

In his very important discussion of Isis and Osiris in his collection of essays Moralia, Plutarch discusses the reason that the priests of Isis wear linen garments.  He writes:

It is true that most people are unaware of this very ordinary and minor matter: the reason why the priests remove their hair and wear linen garments.  Some persons do not care at all to have any knowledge about such things, while others say that the priests, because they revere the sheep, abstain from using its wool, as well as its flesh; and that they shave their heads as a sign of mourning, and that they wear their linen garments because of the colour which the flax displays when in bloom, and which is like to the heavenly azure which enfolds the universe.  But for all this there is only one true reason, which is to be found in the words of Plato: "for the Impure to touch the Pure is contrary to divine ordinance."  No surplus left over from food and no excrementitious matter is pure and clean; and it is from forms of surplus that wool, fur, hair, and nails originate and grow.  So it would be ridiculous that these persons in their holy living should remove their own hair by shaving and making their bodies smooth all over, and then should put on and wear the hair of domestic animals.  We should believe that when Hesiod said,

Cut not the sere from the green when you honour the gods with full feasting,
Paring with glittering steel the member that hath the five branches,

he was teaching that men should be clean of such things when they keep high festival, and they should not amid the actual ceremonies engage in clearing away and removing any sort of surplus matter.  But the flax springs from the earth which is immortal; it yields edible seeds, and supplies a plain and cleanly clothing, which does not oppress by the weight required for warmth.  It is suitable for every season and, as they say, is the least apt to breed lice; but this topic is treated elsewhere.

From the Frank Cole Babbitt translation published in 1936 in the Loeb Classical Library, available online here.

Note that among the possible reasons that Plutarch says people give (but which he says are incorrect) for the priests' refusal to wear wool is "because they revere the sheep," which may be referring to terrestrial sheep but may also be referring to the heavenly sheep found in the zodiac, which we know as the constellation Aries.  In the passage above, however, Plutarch refutes those other reasons (at least he seems to refute them), and argues that the real reason that the priests of Isis do not wear fabrics made from the hair or wool of other creatures has to do with a belief about the nature of matter and the body, no doubt having to do with a particular doctrine about the sojourn of the soul and spirit within the fleshly material of this world, and from their desire to avoid routine contact with and contamination from "excrementitious matter" (either by wearing it or by eating it).

Interestingly enough, in a recent interview on "Radio 3Fourteen" (a production of Red Ice Creations), Lana Lokteff interviews Brian and Anna Marie Clement, of the Hippocrates Institute, and during the interview they give their opinion that among natural fibers to wear as clothing, linen is one of the best!

In that interview, Brian and Anna Marie Clement present evidence that synthetic clothing, often made from petrochemicals and treated with other powerful chemicals and dyed and coloured with still more chemicals, are very damaging to the environment during manufacturing, can have detrimental health effects on the body and brain, and can potentially "off-gas" chemicals for years and years after being first worn.

Reading up on the processes used to produce synthetic fibers does confirm the routine use of some pretty powerful chemicals.  For instance, one of the steps in the production of acrylic fibers may include dissolving polymers in a solution of N,N-dimethylformamide, which some believe can be linked to cancer in humans.  The production of spandex generally requires the mixing of a macroglycol with a di-isocyanate monomer -- and isocyanates are made by treating amines with phosgene, a poisonous gas which was infamously used as a chemical weapon during the First World War.

Brian and Anna Marie Clement instead recommend seeking out clothing made from organic materials (such as silk or linen) and manufactured using natural processes.  For more information on their views and research on this topic, see their 2011 book, Killer Clothes.

In a different essay, "On the eating of flesh," Plutarch argued that eating meat was a form of "slandering the earth" by implying that "she cannot support you" with the grains, fruits and vegetables that grow for food, asking:

Why slander the earth by implying that she cannot support you?  Why impiously offend law-giving Demeter and bring shame upon Dionysus, lord of the cultivated vine, the gracious one, as if you did not receive enough from their hands?

Perhaps he would use the same arguments for the creation of synthetic fabrics, had he known of such things, asking the same questions and arguing that nylon and rayon and polyester indicate a lack of faith in the earth to provide natural fibers for our clothing.

In any event, it is interesting to consider Plutarch's arguments for the wearing of linen, which "supplies a plain and cleanly clothing."