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Last night I watched a part of a nature documentary (The Trials Of Life) that featured leaf-cutter ants. Their behavior is, to me, pretty bizarre. They carry the huge leaf bits that they have gnawed off for considerable distances, then clean them and take them into their nest, where smaller ants take the bits into the larder. The leaf bits are inoculated with a specific mold, allowed to ferment. And the spore balls are what is eaten. The leaves themselves are inedible.
Anyway, the ant specialization was the impressive part. The littlest ants, members of the same colony, are the size of grains of sand — they never ever leave the underground area tunnels. Neither, of course, does the queen, who in this case is as big as a mouse! Other ants’ sole job is to keep her clean. Others’ sole job is to catch the eggs when they ooze out of her backside and to gently take them to the nursery:
Soldier ants with huge jaws protect the colony, biting any intruder on the surface, locking their jaws and hanging on even if their bodies are separated from their heads. As with all ants, each one’s function and body and will in life is determined by what they are fed as grubs — their makeup and job is then fixed, and cannot ever be changed.
Then after watching the documentary I had the following dream:
I’m in a place with some business people. Sort of a furnished apartment, seventies style carpet and sofa. Big picture window. Unknown to my host, or at least unknown to him during our previous encounter, some of his visitors — a group who mysteriously keep to themselves and seem very single-minded — have invented a kind of “dry water”.
This is apparently a sensitive subject and a big secret, and though I can’t describe what it is, it is obviously something very special. I somehow get wind of its existence, or suss it out somehow. I tell my host of my discovery, though he doesn’t believe me. Ah, but he believes me now, now that the true nature of the visitors is becoming apparent.
These visitors also have with them some docile humanoids. Also businesslike in appearance. Given a command, these “zombies” attempt to commit suicide in sometimes preposterous ways. Awkwardly sawing at their own arms near the shoulder with a huge saw, their bodies awkwardly contorted, trying to both hold the saw and reach high up the arm. There is no blood and these serious though bizarre attempts never seem to amount to anything. But they are taken at face value and seem very serious. We are all very impressed.
For some reason this makes these compliant humanoids (they don’t speak or act on their own) feel sort of dangerous, even though we have only witnessed them attempting to harm themselves — but the message is clear.
Later, I try to sabotage the visitors by surreptitiously pulling on some sort of levers that are in the partially curtained-off bar nook of the residence(?) where we all are. The levers are near the ceiling and at first they don’t see me pulling them, one by one, as I foil their latest demonstration, but eventually they can tell that something is amiss, they look around, and they catch me — the game is up. Bad.
I woke up, heart racing, in fear of a little virtual man I had created. He was like a green translucent Gumby, but shaped more like a generic men’s room figure. Thin, maybe an inch think, somewhat floppy, like a giant almost flat gummy worm person. It had no features or expression.
It was terrifying the way things are for inexplicable reasons in dreams. There was no clear threat or danger. Puzzling, too, that a virtual figure could have somehow taken on a life of its own, and equally terrifying was the knowledge that if I chopped or sliced it the pieces then, hydra-like, might multiply into more of the green men. It also seemed somehow a precursor to more virtual events and creatures “leaking” into the real world. Silently entering the world beyond the confines of the monitor. These leaks would be material, but not 100%. Like ghosts, it seems that — if this were indeed happening — the creatures would exist in some in-between world — a world partly of the makers’ imaginations and resulting computer iterations, and partly in a form in which those immaterial forms then take on lives of their own, independent of their creators — sort of as ideas do. If the forms visible on monitors are the result of the meeting of the operators’ imaginations and the algorithms that render them into visible shapes and forms then they are like representations of ideas. They are the physical manifestation of imaginings. And like all imaginings they have a life of their own. Yow.
Guardian U.K. — In a U.S. senate report it seems most of the illegal food for Oil money was actually being handled by the U.S., with government approval and sometimes even backing. So, criticisms of Kofi Anan and the Europeans will now seem awfully hypocritical, with 52 percent of the illegal arrangements being with the U.S. (This is virtually unreported in the U.S. press.)
U.S. military ask the people yet again to fund a star wars plan — lasers and rockets in space. In trial after trial since Reagan it has proved both unworkable, expensive, and impractical. But that’s in a “reality based” world, I forget. Looks like Baudrillard was right — a fictional reality trumps the evidence every time.
And then there’s the fact that it would completely upset any perceived balance of power — it’s about American Empire — complete and total hegemony. The world won’t be very happy about that.
Of maybe they know it will never work, and it’s all about pork barrel voter stuff — creating massive contracts for GE, GM, Westinghouse, Martin Marietta, etc.
And now there’s the Newsweek Koran flushing article that sparked riots and angry demonstrations across 10 cities in Afghanistan and others in Pakistan last week. (A former Guantanamo detainee described in Newsweek how U.S. military flushed the holy book down the toilet in an effort to humiliate prisoners.)
Interesting that this act, an act that wasn’t about physical or overt mental cruelty, should be the one that triggers the latent anger. I suspect this act — I have no doubt that it happened — is viewed as confirmation that the infidel Americans have no respect for Islamic thought, religion or peoples. That fairness, freedom, democracy and human rights are all lip service – and this proves it. More so than physical torture — which is expected and almost natural in wartime — this is like spitting on the deepest and most cherished beliefs of a whole segment of humanity. It proves, to them, that the Americans in their midst really are devils.
The fact that the Bush administration's reaction is to deny it, then to pressure Newsweek for a retraction, rather than to instantly apologize, shows how much they think it is possible to control the media and twist public perception away from “reality based” to pure fiction. That by saying something didn’t happen will make it go away. Didn’t Stalin used to try this? Will the images of U.S. politicians and businessmen embracing Saddam taken years ago be erased, as Stalin did?
I suspect the genie is out of the bottle. That as prisoners are released they will all confirm tales like this one, and that the rioting and anti-American fever will spread and increase in Indonesia, Syria, Turkey, Algeria, Malaysia… no one will believe the U.S. denials, the behavior is too consistent with other American stuff. Yikes.
Cassette copy dream — jotted down in April?:
A vision of a precious audio cassette that has to be listened to VERY carefully, with dedicated ears — and is very rewarding as a result. A second cassette tape, a copy of the first one, is slightly less delicate, though still somewhat fragile, but not quite as rich or deep and experience, and doesn’t require exclusive attention.
Our hotel, Paris, seems to be about romance and weddings. My daughter and I think that’s their theme. Or at least that’s one guess, as every hotel here has to have some gimmick — dancing waters, a shopping mall’s worth of shops, shark tanks, an erupting volcano, huge elaborate shows, major stars in residence — and other than the Queen musical (We Will Rock You) and a Filipino variety act (Lani Misalucha), this hotel seems mainly to be about simulating Paris.
The in-house cable channel that tells you what’s going on at the hotel is narrated by actors faking French accents. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what country they think they’re from. Lots of couples get married here — and have their photos taken with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. Women in wedding dresses float though the lobby and into the drive-up area. A romantic Parisian wedding without the hassle of dealing with foreigners, passports and possible gray skies — as here they’re almost always blue. There are brides trailed by photographers and family members everywhere.
The U.S. Army envisions a techie Star-Wars-Empire-style future for itself, including its own proprietary internet. All the easier for malicious hackers, “insurgents”, discontents, rebels and nuts to wreak havoc. Someone is making a lot of money and getting a lot in contracts from these boy toys. Here are the illustrations form the Times. Does George Lucas get a percentage?
A new government report places the “blame” for faulty intelligence about Iraq on the CIA. Blaming the messenger is an old trick — especially when the Bush administration didn’t want to even HEAR information that didn’t justify an invasion, and there was actually plenty of it. Data mining it is called — selecting information from whatever source justifies your position, and ignoring anything that might differ from it — that’s what the Bush crew did in the run-up to their invasion and now they are hoping to once again make the CIA their fall guy… but somehow manage to still avoid the issue of whether the U.S. should then, if there was actually no reason for invasion, actually apologize and pull out. Unbelievable. Especially if the U.S. media and public fall for it. And to think that the CIA is now appearing to be sort of the good guys here — not for giving faulty information, but for saying that they had their doubts about its authenticity and reliability.
Tom DeLay, the super visible Republican advocate for leaving the (sadly late) Florida Vegetable plugged in, unplugged his own dad years ago after he was seriously injured. Hypocrite? Sudden change of heart? Opportunist?
Dream:
Paul Simon and I are walking outdoors. In a city — New York, maybe. He has a weird bandage around his head, covering one side of his jaw, like those old cartoons of people with a toothache. When we near groups of people approaching he pulls up his shirt and covers his entire head — only one eye peeking out.
I ask him to “come up with something” and he somehow strikes up a percussive groove (on what? Not on guitar. Somehow the sound I hear is like congas, but there are none visible.) I catch the groove and begin to dance a weird step (surprise!) bouncing on alternating feet from side to side. Eventually I get the hang of it and we proceed down the sidewalk, me slightly in front, doing my boppy dance.
Paul compliments me on my dancing and I return the compliment: “well, that was a great groove.” Whereupon Paul relaxes and removes some of his head wrap to reveal a horrible elephant-man-like growth around his lower jaw and neck. It’s huge and fleshy, pendulous, pink. He tells me “it’s a goiter” — which may be true but I’ve never seen one like this. His voice is surprisingly normal sounding, which is incredible too, given all that stuff hanging off his jaw and throat.
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