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The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." - Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. --Voltaire--

Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of the body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease. [Gurdjieff]

Life is religion. Life experiences reflect how one interacts with God. Those who are asleep are those of little faith in terms of their interaction with the creation. Some people think that the world exists for them to overcome or ignore or shut out. For those individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the "past." People who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "Future." [Cassiopaea 09-28-02]

 

May 7, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions....The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

'If fish can feel pain, then maybe Iraqi children can, too' - The recent report by the Royal Society suggesting that fish can feel pain will come as a severe blow to all those anglers who have hitherto operated on the principle that fish are incapable of feeling anything. It comes as an even bigger shock to those of us who have for so long applied the same principle to human beings. If fish can feel pain, does this mean that a 13-year-old child, picked up in Afghanistan, hooded, flown several thousand miles to Cuba and kept in a chicken coop, may also experience physical sensations bordering on the uncomfortable? Like Tony Blair, I thought the Guantanamo Bay camp was 'an unsatisfactory situation', but it never occurred to me that the human beings in there would be capable of feeling discomfort.

In much the same way, I suppose, George Bush must have assumed that all those prisoners on death row, whose death sentences he signed as Governor, would never undergo distress at the prospect of imminent death. Like him I always firmly believed that human beings were incapable of feeling any unpleasantness. Otherwise, I used to point out, why would civilised people like Donald Rumsfeld even contemplate dropping cluster bombs all over the Middle East where kids will pick them up or tread on them and get blown to pieces or have their legs ripped off? If fish can feel, there must be a strong possibility that small Iraqi children will be unhappy at losing bits of their bodies. If fish can feel, perhaps we should rethink some of our other policies. I mean maybe it's not such a good idea to dump mentally ill people on the streets in the hope that some passers-by will give them 'community care'? Just suppose that - like fish - the mentally ill can feel miserable?

The ex-presidents' club - It is hard to imagine an address closer to the heart of American power. The offices of the Carlyle Group are on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, midway between the White House and the Capitol building, and within a stone's throw of the headquarters of the FBI and numerous government departments. The address reflects Carlyle's position at the very centre of the Washington establishment, but amid the frenetic politicking that has occupied the higher reaches of that world in recent weeks, few have paid it much attention. Elsewhere, few have even heard of it.

The ex-presidents' club Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger Wednesday October 31, 2001 The Guardian It is hard to imagine an address closer to the heart of American power. The offices of the Carlyle Group are on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, midway between the White House and the Capitol building, and within a stone's throw of the headquarters of the FBI and numerous government departments. The address reflects Carlyle's position at the very centre of the Washington establishment, but amid the frenetic politicking that has occupied the higher reaches of that world in recent weeks, few have paid it much attention. Elsewhere, few have even heard of it. This is exactly the way Carlyle likes it. For 14 years now, with almost no publicity, the company has been signing up an impressive list of former politicians - including the first President Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker; John Major; one-time World Bank treasurer Afsaneh Masheyekhi and several south-east Asian powerbrokers - and using their contacts and influence to promote the group. Among the companies Carlyle owns are those which make equipment, vehicles and munitions for the US military, and its celebrity employees have long served an ingenious dual purpose, helping encourage investments from the very wealthy while also smoothing the path for Carlyle's defence firms.

But since the start of the "war on terrorism", the firm - unofficially valued at $3.5bn - has taken on an added significance. Carlyle has become the thread which indirectly links American military policy in Afghanistan to the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the current president's father. And, until earlier this month, Carlyle provided another curious link to the Afghan crisis: among the firm's multi-million-dollar investors were members of the family of Osama bin Laden.

Pilger wins prize for 'uncovering lies' - Australian journalist John Pilger has won the 2003 Sophie Prize for his work in helping the public to examine the real causes of the war in Iraq. In its citation, the jury said that over the past 30 years, Mr Pilger has contributed to uncovering the lies and propaganda of the powerful, especially as they relate to wars, conflict of interests and the economic exploitation of peoples and natural resources. The panel has highlighted Mr Pilger's coverage of the Vietnam War and a recent documentary on the Palestinian situation, which it said shocked and provoked debate. It says he assisted the public in critically assessing the true motives for the war in Iraq and its legitimacy. The Sophie Prize was founded in 1997 by Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder, author of the best-selling philosophical novel, Sophie's World. It is one of the world's biggest environment and development prizes, recognising those 'working to inspire people working towards a sustainable future'.

Ritter Compares Bush & Iraq To Hitler & Poland - Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector, has compared the invasion of Iraq to Hitler's invasion of Poland. He told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that 130 Americans had died "for a lie", adding: "I see no difference between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Poland in 1939." Both invasions were based on what he said was an artificial argument of self defence. President George W Bush had used the September 11 attacks as Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag to repress domestic dissidents. Mr Ritter, who resigned as an inspector in 1998 saying Saddam Hussein's regime was hindering his work, said he did not now believe there were weapons of mass destruction in the country. He called for inspectors to be sent back to obtain confirmation, so that UN sanctions could be lifted. "The inspectors have to finish their work," he said. "This time they must also have the courage to say that the US has not told the truth."

White House refuses to release Sept. 11 info - The Bush administration and the nation's intelligence agencies are blocking the release of sensitive information about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, delaying publication of a 900-page congressional report on how the terrorist assault happened. Intelligence officials insist the information must be kept secret for national security reasons. But some of the information is already broadly available on the Internet or has been revealed in interim reports on the investigation, leading to charges that the administration is simply trying to avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report. Disputed information includes a well publicized warning from an FBI agent that al-Qaida supporters might be training in U.S. flight schools and the names of the president and his national security adviser as people who may have received warnings that a terrorist attack was possible before Sept. 11, one official said.

American Express cancels credit cards for customers with Muslim-sounding names - LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT Say that you are one of those fortunate people who manage to pay off most of their credit cards every month. Then imagine your surprise when one of your cards is cancelled for no apparent reason. You'd be outraged, especially if you found out this was only happening to you and your friends. That's exactly what Farooq Firdous experienced. Last summer, Firdous, a Pakistani who got his green card in 1997 after 11 years of legal residence in the U.S., received a phone call from an American Express representative regarding a credit card he held.The rep requested that he send the company a mountain of paperwork: three years of tax returns, six months of bank statements and a job verification letter. His wife, Yasmin Khan, who is Indian, received a separate phone call that same day for her own AmEx credit card.

In each case, the rep told them they had 15 days to submit the paperwork or their cards would be cancelled. Firdous and Khan called back later--twice--to ask reps if they could send the request in writing. They refused. Firdous and Khan were confused, to say the least, because they always paid off their AmEx cards on time. After conferring with his wife, Firdous called the company back again. "I told them strictly, 'You're probably discriminating against minorities with Muslim names,'" he recalls. He and his wife refused to submit the documentation, which on at least three different occasions company reps said they needed for "security reasons." A few weeks later, each received a letter saying his or her credit card was cancelled: "You did not provide the banking information, financial statements, income tax return, and/or identification documents requested." The letters also stated that the reasons for cancelling the account included "information received from a consumer reporting agency," hinting that credit problems might be to blame.

Rep Waxman: Halliburton Has Links To 'Axis Of Evil' Countries - Halliburton, the oil services giant once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has done business in Iran, Iraq and Libya for years despite US embargoes, according to documents released by a lawmaker. A letter from Representative Henry Waxman, obtained Tuesday, said Halliburton's dealings with countries cited by Washington as state sponsors of terrorism or members of the so-called "axis of evil" dates back to the 1980s. The dealings "appear to have continued during the period between 1995 and 2000, when Vice President Cheney headed the company; and they are apparently ongoing even today," said Waxman, a Democrat and frequent critic of President George W. Bush's administration. Waxman, who has previously expressed concern about Halliburton's multimillion dollar contracts for postwar Iraq, made his latest comments in a letter April 30 to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Halliburton has recently been awarded a leading -- and lucrative --- role in the US war against terrorism," Waxman wrote. "Yet there is also evidence from press accounts and other sources that indicates that Halliburton has profited from numerous business dealings with state sponsors of terrorism, including two of the three members of President Bush's 'axis of evil.'" The "axis of evil" first cited by Bush in early 2002 included Iraq, prior to the US-led war, as well as Iran and North Korea.

Politically-Correct Censorship Rampant In US Schools - Mickey Mouse is a scary rodent. Harry Potter is anti-family. Christmas should be avoided. Dinosaurs are banned. In the wacky world of US education, the language police are out of control. After 25 years of creeping censorship of school textbooks, the full scale of political correctness has been exposed in a startling new survey of official meddling in education. In a book acclaimed as the first comprehensive expose of a national scandal, former US government official Diane Ravitch argues that a laudable attempt to rid US schools of racial bias and sexual discrimination has been taken to ridiculous extremes. "Some of this censorship is trivial, some is ludicrous and some is breathtaking in its power to dumb down what children learn in school," said Ravitch, an educational historian who has worked with both Republican and Democrat administrations. Comment : The deliberate dumbing down of America for the last 50 years seems to have achieved the desired result - a large percentage of the population who are deaf and blind to reality - just the way they like you before they haul you off to the camps

Spain: Draft Law to Criminalise Public Opposition to War - A draft law to change the Spanish military criminal code proposes that participation in public acts opposing military intervention in a situation of armed conflict could lead to prison sentences of between one and six years for the people involved, if convicted of "defeatism". Civilians could find themselves before military courts. The proposals would mean a severe limitation of freedom of expression and political activity. Article 49 of the draft, produced by the Defence ministry and quoted in Spanish daily El País on 22 April 2002, reads as follows: "A person who, in a situation of armed conflict of an international nature in which Spain is involved, with the aim of discrediting Spain´s participation in (the conflict), publicly carries out acts against it ... will be punished with a sentence of between one and six years in prison. The same penalty will apply to a person who ... divulges false news or information with the aim of weakening the morale of the population or to provoke disloyalty or a lack of spirit among members of the Spanish military". According to the Spanish newspaper, the sanction would not apply only to actions against direct Spanish military involvement, but also to actions carried out "against an Allied power". If approved, these proposed norms could result in the people who turned out repeatedly in Spain to protest against the government´s backing of the war in Iraq being sanctioned for "defeatism" by a military court.

US Librarians Amazing Fight To Preserve Freedom - Let's hear it for America's librarians! The old stereotype of librarians as meek maidens whose only passion is for the Dewey decimal system never was true, but now that image is being shattered for good, replaced by a new image of librarians as fiesty fighters for freedom. Who is it that rushes to the barricades of our nation's democracy, daring to confont John "Mad Dog" Ashcroft as he rips into our Bill of Rights and tries to strip We the People of our hard-won personal liberties? Not the Congress – it's meekly going along, providing the authority and funding for Ashcroft's maniacal assault. Not the puffheads of the media – they're too busy shouting "patriotism" and cheering the Bushites to see, hear, or speak any evil by the emperor. Instead, our gutsy defenders of liberty are librarians in cities and towns throughout the country. They are distributing information and joining public discussion groups to tell us about the freedom-busting legislation that Ashcroft cynically titled the "USA Patriot Act." This thing is a Little Shop of Totalitarian Horrors, including provisions that compel librarians to turn over to the FBI the reading, reseach, and internet records of any and all library users, prohibiting librarians from even telling you that your records have been seized by government agents. This is no theoretical threat, for librarians report that Ashcroft's agents are making hundreds of these demands.

 

May 6, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions....The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

Dead cameraman 'carried white flag' - Israeli soldiers who killed a British television cameraman, James Miller, in southern Gaza could have been in no doubt about his identity as a journalist, according to witnesses. They said yesterday that he was shot at close range while in a group carrying a large white flag and shouting repeatedly that they were journalists. Mr Miller, who lived in Devon with his wife and son, was working with the producer Saira Shah, with whom he made two acclaimed documentaries about Afghanistan. They were working on a film about the lives of Palestinian children in Rafah. His death comes just three days after two Britons carried out a suicide bombing that killed three people in Tel Aviv. The cameraman was killed in the area where the streets of Rafah run close to the Egyptian border. The houses are riddled with bullet-holes, and the area is overlooked by Israeli army watchtowers. Local Palestinians keep to the back alleys, saying that if you can be seen from a watchtower you can be shot.

Israelis fire on parents of injured British peace activist - The parents of a British peace activist who was shot in the head by Israeli troops came under fire themselves as they travelled to the spot where their son was critically injured. Anthony and Jocelyn Hurndall were in a British diplomatic convoy entering the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip when Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint fired a shot, which passed narrowly over the top of their vehicles. The incident on Saturday afternoon took place despite the Israeli Army being given notice of the journey on at least three occasions – the last minutes before the convoy arrived. The Foreign Office said last night that an explanation had been requested from the Israeli authorities for the warning shot, which was fired as the two armoured Range Rovers entered the Abu Khouli checkpoint on the edge of Rafah at about 1pm. Concerns were being raised yesterday over the conduct of Israeli soldiers in the south of the Gaza Strip. The incident in which the Hurndalls were fired at comes not only after their son was shot in Rafah, but after two other Westerners were killed in the city.

Associated Press Puts Violent Words in Iraqi Protesters' Mouths - On 30 April 2003, the Associated Press newswire carried the photo above and a related article headlined, "U.S. Troops Fire on Iraq Protesters Again." The story concerned the second time US forces had shot Iraqis engaged in anti-US protests, this time killing two of them and wounding 18. Funny thing is, this article misreported the banner pictured above. As you can see, AP's own photograph shows the sentence: "Sooner or later US killers we'll kick you out." But this is how AP reported it: "Sooner or later US killers we'll kill you," read an angry banner in English unfurled in the faces of GIs on guard in the central city. Below is the portion as it ran on ABC News' Website. Let's just say that there's more than a shade of difference between "we'll kick you out" and "we'll kill you."

Britain recruiting spies at Cold War levels: report - IBritain's foreign intelligence service has stepped up its staff recruitment in response to terrorist threats and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, bringing spying back to levels not seen since the Cold War, the Financial Times reported Monday. The Secret Intelligence Service, widely known as MI6, is recruiting 40 staff members annually and training them to be "front line" officers posted abroad with the task of recruiting spies and informers. The service, which was scaled down after the cold war, will soon return to its former size, the paper said.

The real 'Saving Pte. Lynch' - Iraqi medical staff tell a different story than U.S. military 'We all became friends with her, we liked her so much'
The fog of war comes sometimes with a certain odour, and cutting through its layers, like cutting through an onion, can bring tears to the eyes. Such is the case with what is far and away the most oft-told story of the Persian Gulf War II — the saga of Saving Private Lynch. Branded on to our consciousness by media frenzy, the flawless midnight rescue of 19-year-old Private First Class Jessica Lynch hardly bears repeating even a month after the fact. Precision teams of U.S. Army Rangers and Navy Seals, acting on intelligence information and supported by four helicopter gunships, ended Lynch's nine-day Iraqi imprisonment in true Rambo style, raising America's spirits when it needed it most.

All Hollywood could ever hope to have in a movie was there in this extraordinary feat of rescue — except, perhaps, the truth. So say three Nasiriya doctors, two nurses, one hospital administrator and local residents interviewed separately last week in a Toronto Star investigation. The medical team that cared for Lynch at the hospital formerly known as Saddam Hospital is only now beginning to appreciate how grand a myth was built around the four hours the U.S. raiding party spent with them early on April Fool's Day. And they are disappointed. For Dr. Harith Houssona, 24, who came to consider Lynch a friend after nurturing her through the worst of her injuries, the ironies are almost beyond tabulation. "The most important thing to know is that the Iraqi soldiers and commanders had left the hospital almost two days earlier," Houssona said. "The night they left, a few of the senior medical staff tried to give Jessica back.

We carefully moved her out of intensive care and into an ambulance and began to drive to the Americans, who were just one kilometre away. But when the ambulance got within 300 metres, they began to shoot. There wasn't even a chance to tell them `We have Jessica. Take her.'" One night later, the raid unfolded. Hassam Hamoud, 35, a waiter at Nasiriya's al-Diwan Restaurant, describes the preamble, when he was approached outside his home near the hospital by U.S. Special Forces troops accompanied by an Arabic translator from Qatar.

"They asked me if any troops were still in the hospital and I said `No, they're all gone.' Then they asked about Uday Hussein, and again, I said `No,'" Hamoud said. "The translator seemed satisfied with my answers, but the soldiers were very nervous." At midnight, the sound of helicopters circling the hospital's upper floors sent staff scurrying for the x-ray department — the only part of the hospital with no outside windows. The power was cut, followed by small explosions as the raiding teams blasted through locked doors. A few minutes later, they heard a man's voice shout, "Go! Go! Go!" in English. Seconds later, the door burst open and a red laser light cut through the darkness, trained on the forehead of the chief resident. "We were pretty frightened. There were about 40 medical staff together in the x-ray department," said Dr. Anmar Uday, 24. "Everyone expected the Americans to come that day because the city had fallen. But we didn't expect them to blast through the doors like a Hollywood movie."

Dr. Mudhafer Raazk, 27, observed dryly that two cameramen and a still photographer, also in uniform, accompanied the U.S. teams into the hospital. Maybe this was a movie after all. Separately, the Iraqi doctors describe how the tension fell away rapidly once the Americans realized no threat existed on the premises. A U.S. medic was led to Lynch's room as others secured the rest of the three-wing hospital. Several staff and patients were placed in plastic handcuffs, including, according to Houssona, one Iraqi civilian who was already immobilized with abdominal wounds from an earlier explosion. One group of soldiers returned to the x-ray room to ask about the bodies of missing U.S. soldiers and was led to a graveyard opposite the hospital's south wall. All were dead on arrival, the doctors say. "The whole thing lasted about four hours," Raazk said. "When they left, they turned to us and said `Thank you.' That was it." The Iraqi medical staff fanned out to assess the damage. In all, 12 doors were broken, a sterilized operating theatre contaminated, and the specialized traction bed in which Lynch had been placed was trashed. "That was a special bed, the only one like it in the hospital, but we gave it to Jessica because she was developing a bed sore," Houssona said. What bothers Raazk most is not what was said about Lynch's rescue, so much as what wasn't said about her time in hospital. "We all became friends with her, we liked her so much," Houssona said. "Especially because we all speak a little English, we were able to assure her the whole time that there was no danger, that she would go home soon." Initial reports indicated Lynch had been shot and stabbed after emptying her weapon in a pitched battle when her unit, the U.S. Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, was ambushed after its convoy became lost near Nasiriya. A few days after her release, Lynch's father told reporters none of the wounds were battle-related. The Iraqi doctors are more specific. Houssona said the injuries were blunt in nature, possible stemming from a fall from her vehicle. "She was in pretty bad shape. There was blunt trauma, resulting in compound fractures of the left femur (upper leg) and the right humerus (upper arm). And also a deep laceration on her head," Houssona said. "She took two pints of blood and we stabilized her. The cut required stitches to close. But the leg and arm injuries were more serious." Nasiriya's medical team was going all out at this point, due to the enormous influx of casualties from throughout the region. The hospital lists 400 dead and 2,000 wounded in the span of two weeks before and during Lynch's eight-day stay. "Almost all were civilians, but I don't just blame the Americans," Raazk said. "Many of those casualties were the fault of the fedayeen, who had been using people as shields and in some cases just shooting people who wouldn't fight alongside them. It was horrible." But they all made a point of giving Lynch the best of everything, he added. Despite a scarcity of food, extra juice and cookie were scavenged for their American guest. They also assigned to Lynch the hospital's most nurturing nurse, Khalida Shinah. At 43, Shinah has three daughters close to Lynch's age. She immediately embraced her foreign patient as one of her own. "It was so scary for her," Shinah said through a translator. "Not only was she badly hurt, but she was in a strange country. I felt more like a mother than a nurse. I told her again and again, Allah would watch over her. And many nights I sang her to sleep." In the first few days, Houssona said the doctors were somewhat nervous as to whether Iraqi intelligence agents would show any interest in Lynch. But when the road between Nasiriya and Baghdad fell to the U.S.-led coalition, they knew the danger had passed. "At first, Jessica was very frightened. Everybody was poking their head in the room to see her and she said `Do they want to hurt me?' I told her, `Of course not. They're just curious. They've never seen anyone like you before.' "But after a few days, she began to relax. And she really bonded with Khalida. She told me, `I'm going to take her back to America with me." Three days before the U.S. raid, Lynch had regained enough strength that the team was ready to proceed with orthopaedic surgery on her left leg. The procedure involved cutting through muscle to install a platinum plate to both ends of the compound fracture. "We only had three platinum plates left in our supply and at least 100 Iraqis were in need," Raazk said. "But we gave one to Jessica." A second surgery, and a second platinum plate, was scheduled for Lynch's fractured arm. But U.S. forces removed her before it took place, Raazk said. Three days after the raid, the doctors had a visit from one of their U.S. military counterparts. He came, they say, to thank them for the superb surgery. "He was an older doctor with gray hair and he wore a military uniform," Raazk said. "I told him he was very welcome, that it was our pleasure. And then I told him: `You do realize you could have just knocked on the door and we would have wheeled Jessica down to you, don't you?' "He was shocked when I told him the real story. That's when I realized this rescue probably didn't happen for propaganda reasons. I think this American army is just such a huge machine, the left hand never knows what the right hand is doing." What troubles the staff in Nasiriya most are reports that Lynch was abused while in their care. All vehemently deny it. Told of the allegation through an interpreter, nurse Shinah wells up with tears. Gathering herself, she responds quietly: "This is a lie. But why ask me? Why don't you ask Jessica what kind of treatment she received?" But that is easier said than done. At the Pentagon last week, U.S. Army spokesman Lt.-Col. Ryan Yantis said the door to Lynch remains closed as she continues her recovery at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. "Until such time as she wants to talk — and that's going to be no time soon, and it may be never at all — the press is simply going to have to wait."

Sources Say Jessica Lynch Has Amnesia - ... and THAT'S why her recollection of what happened doesn't match ours. Yes, indeedy!

Experts See Mind's Voices in New Light - It was just one voice at first, loud and male, coming from the ceiling, saying, "Hi, John," calling him by name as if they were buddies. But after a while, the voice, which he came to know as the "evil genius," urged him to steal other people's brain cells and told him that he had a cancerous tumor in his head.

Eventually, other voices joined in, maybe 50 of them, male and female, yelling "as loud as humans with megaphones," John recalled, from the moment he awoke in the morning until he fell asleep at night, cursing or ordering him to kill himself or, once, when he picked up a ringing telephone, screaming in chorus, "You're guilty! You're guilty!"

"It was utter despair," John said. "I felt scared. They were always around." Auditory hallucinations are a hallmark of schizophrenia: 50 percent to 75 percent of the 2.8 million Americans who suffer from the illness hear voices that are not there. Like John, whose schizophrenia was diagnosed in 1981 and who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, many people with schizophrenia spend years pursued by verbal tormentors as relentless as the furies of Greek mythology. Suicide is sometimes the result, death seeming the only escape from unending harassment.

Yet psychiatrists who study schizophrenia have traditionally shown little interest in the voices their patients hear, often dismissing them as simply a byproduct of the illness, "crazy talk" not worthy of study. Recently, however, a small group of scientists has begun studying auditory hallucinations more intensively. Aided by new brain imaging techniques, they have begun tracking such hallucinations back to abnormalities in the brain, finding that certain brain regions "light up" on brain scans when patients are actively hallucinating. And the experts are listening far more carefully to what patients say about their hallucinatory experiences.

The research has led to new theories of what may cause such bizarre alterations in perception and has spawned at least one promising new treatment: the delivery of low-frequency magnetic pulses to areas identified by the brain scans seems to quiet, at least temporarily, the voices of patients who have not found relief through standard treatment with antipsychotic medications. Ultimately, the researchers say, knowing more about what causes auditory hallucinations may help them understand more broadly the mechanisms that underlie schizophrenia and other psychotic illness. "These are critical, core experiences that really constitute what having schizophrenia is all about," said Dr. Ralph Hoffman, a psychiatrist at Yale who is studying the magnetic stimulation treatment, called transcranial magnetic stimulation or T.M.S.

In research described in a recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Hoffman and his colleagues found that schizophrenic patients who received 132 minutes of the magnetic stimulation over 9 days showed a significant reduction in auditory hallucinations compared with control subjects given a dummy treatment. Half of the subjects in the study experienced a return of their symptoms within 12 weeks, though in some cases, the hallucinations remained at bay for up to a year. All the patients were also taking antipsychotic medication. Schizophrenic patients describe voices that not only talk to them but talk about them, haranguing, insulting and sometimes provoking them to hurt themselves or to perform other actions. In many cases, the hallucinations become more intense when the patient is under stress.

In a study of 200 patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses, Dr. David L. Copolov, director of the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and his colleagues found that 74 percent said they heard voices more than once a day. More than 80 percent described the voices as "very real," rather than "dreamlike" or "imaginary," and 34 percent experienced the voices as coming from outside their heads (38 percent said they came from both inside and outside their heads and 28 percent from inside only). A small minority of the patients said the voices they heard were always or almost always supportive and positive in tone. But more than 70 percent described them as always or almost always negative.

This was sent in by one of our readers who is an ESL teacher :
ESL teachers needed in Iraq .....$23,000 for 3 months... - "Titan Corporation, a leading provider of information and communications services for National Security and the Security of our Homeland, has an urgent need for ESL teachers willing to travel to Iraq. Beginning in May, 2003, successful candidates will serve as proctors in Iraq for 2-3 months. Salary for this 3-month tenure is $23,000.00. Candidates must be in good physical condition and must pass a medical examination prior to receiving an offer of employment. For further information, please contact: Ms. Chiman ZebariProgram Support Manager Titan Systems Corporation Technical and Operational Support Services Division 3877 Fairfax Ridge RoadFairfax, VA 22030-7448Office: (800) 899-6200 ext. 4322 czebari@titan.com OR Ms. Vicki Jo PollinaTitan Systems Corporation Staff Linguist Specialist Titan Systems CorporationTechnical and Operational Support Services Division 3877 Fairfax Ridge RoadFairfax, VA 22030-7448Office: (800) 899-6200 ext. 4218vicki.pollina@titan.com " Comment : This has GOT to be a CIA front. $23,000 for 3 months.....RIGHT!

Scottish academics find proof of mediums' ability to use extrasensory perception - Research proves the existence of a 'sixth sense'-Scottish academics find proof of mediums' ability to use extrasensory perception By Karin Goodwin Scottish academics claim to have found scientific proof of a 'sixth sense' after completing radical experiments which seek to establish how spiritual mediums obtain information supposedly transmitted from beyond the grave. The controversial research, led by a University of Glasgow professor, appears to discount the common assumption that mediums are merely picking up signals from body language, or relying on guesswork and prior knowledge. The findings come as a res urgence of interest in seances has been noted nationally by experts, with an increase in spiritualist church attendances and meetings and a spate of television programmes involving alleged psychics. Head researcher, Professor Archie Roy, said: 'There is no doubt from the work we have done that mediums can obtain information using more than the five normal senses.

Police investigating gnome reports in Ecuador - Police in a town in Ecuador are investigating reports of a little, green man seen walking down the street. A number of Quininde residents called police after seeing what they described as a "gnome" in the town centre. They all described the creature as being very small, green and ugly. Marco Preciado told Diario Extra online: "It was less than three feet tall and I saw it three times. I tried to follow him but he disappeared." Cecilia Cedeno who owns a liquor shop, said: "He appeared in front of the shop to a group of people. He gave a loud laugh and run away." A police spokesperson said: "People are scared and fascinated by the story. We are investigating and we believe it is someone trying to make fun of the whole town."