Skeptical News for 4 June 2006Skeptical News for 4 June 2006Archive of previous NTS Skeptical News listings
June 5, 2006 By ALAN FEUER
CHICAGO, June 4 — In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the two-day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start.
In Salon Four, there was a presentation under way on the attack in Oklahoma City, while in the room next door, the splintered factions of the movement were asked — for sake of unity — to seek a common goal.
In the foyer, there were stick-pins for sale ("More gin, less Rummy"), and in the lecture halls discussions of the melting point of steel. "It's all documented," people said. Or: "The mass media is mass deception." Or, as strangers from the Internet shook hands: "Great to meet you. Love the work."
Such was the coming-out for the movement known as "9/11 Truth," a society of skeptics and scientists who believe the government was complicit in the terrorist attacks. In colleges and chat rooms on the Internet, this band of disbelievers has been trying for years to prove that 9/11 was an inside job.
Whatever one thinks of the claim that the state would plan, then execute, a scheme to murder thousands of its own, there was something to the fact that more than 500 people — from Italy to Northern California — gathered for the weekend at a major chain hotel near the runways of O'Hare International. It was, in tone, half trade show, half political convention. There were talks on the Reichstag fire and the sinking of the Battleship Maine as precedents for 9/11. There were speeches by the lawyer for James Earl Ray, who claimed that a military conspiracy killed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and by a former operative for the British secret service, MI5.
"We feel at this point we've done a lot of solid research, but the American public still is not informed," said Michael Berger, press director for 911Truth.org, which sponsored the event. "We had to come up with a disciplined approach to get it out."
Mr. Berger, 40, is typical of 9/11 Truthers — a group that, in its rank and file, includes professors, chain-saw operators, mothers, engineers, activists, used-book sellers, pizza deliverymen, college students, a former fringe candidate for United States Senate and a long-haired fellow named hummux (pronounced who-mook) who, on and off, lived in a cave for 15 years.
The former owner of a recycling plant outside St. Louis, Mr. Berger joined the movement when he grew skeptical of why the 9/11 Commission had failed, to his sense of sufficiency, to answer how the building at 7 World Trade Center collapsed like a ton of bricks. It was his "9/11 trigger," the incident that drew him in, he said. For others, it might be the fact that the air-defense network did not prevent the attacks that day, or the appearance of thousands of "puts" — or short-sell bids — on the nation's airline stocks. (The 9/11 Commission found the sales innocuous.)
Such "red flags," as they are sometimes called, were the meat and potatoes of the keynote speech on Friday night by Alex Jones, who is the William Jennings Bryan of the 9/11 band. Mr. Jones, a syndicated radio host, is known for his larynx-tearing screeds against corruption — fiery, almost preacherly, addresses in which he sweats, balls his fists and often swerves from quoting Roman history to using foul language in a single breath.
At the lectern Friday night, beside a digital projection reading "History of Government Sponsored Terrorism," Mr. Jones set forth the central tenets of 9/11 Truth: that the military command that monitors aircraft "stood down" on the day of the attacks; that President Bush addressed children in a Florida classroom instead of being whisked off to the White House; that the hijackers, despite what the authorities say, were trained at American military bases; and that the towers did not collapse because of burning fuel and weakened steel but because of a "controlled demolition" caused by pre-set bombs.
According to the group's Web site, the motive for faking a terrorist attack was to allow the administration "to instantly implement policies its members have long supported, but which were otherwise infeasible."
The controlled-demolition theory is the sine qua non of the 9/11 movement — its basic claim and, in some sense, the one upon which all others rest. It is, of course, directly contradicted by the 10,000-page investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which held that jet-fuel fires distressed the towers' structure, which eventually collapsed.
The movement's answer to that report was written by Steven E. Jones, a professor of physics at Brigham Young University and the movement's expert in the matter of collapse. Dr. Jones, unlike Alex Jones, is a soft-spoken man who lets his writing do the talking. He composed an account of the destruction of the towers (physics.byu.edu/research
/energy/htm7.html) that holds that "pre-positioned cutter-charges" brought the buildings down.
Like a prior generation of skeptics — those who doubted, say, the Warren Commission or the government's account of the Gulf of Tonkin attack — the 9/11 Truthers are dogged, at home and in the office, by friends and family who suspect that they may, in fact, be completely nuts.
"Elvis and Area 51 — we're sort of lumped together," said Harlan Dietrich, a recent college graduate from Austin, Tex. "It's attack the messenger, not the message every time."
To get the message out, the movement has gone beyond bumper stickers and "Kumbaya" into political action.
There is a plan, Mr. Berger said, to create a fund to support candidates on a 9/11 platform. There is a plan to create a network of college campus groups. There is a plan by the British delegation (such as it is, so far) to get members of Parliament to watch "Loose Change," the seminal movement DVD.
It would even seem the Truthers are not alone in believing the whole truth has not come out. A poll released last month by Zogby International found that 42 percent of all Americans believe the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" in the attacks. This is in addition to the Zogby poll two years ago that found that 49 percent of New York City residents agreed with the idea that some leaders "knew in advance" that the attacks were planned and failed to act.
Beneath the weekend's screenings and symposiums on geopolitics and mass-hypnotic trance lies a tradition of questioning concentrated power, both in public and in private hands, said Mark Fenster, a law professor at the University of Florida and author of "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture."
As for the 9/11 Truthers, they were confident enough that their theories made sense that on Friday, as a kickoff to the conference, they met in Daley Plaza for a rally (though some called it Dealey Plaza). They marched up Kinzle Street to the local affiliate of NBC where, at the plate glass windows, they chanted, "Talking heads tell lies," as the news was being read.
"I hope you don't end up dead somewhere," a companion said to a participant, hours earlier as he dropped him at the Loop. "Don't worry," the participant said. "There's too many of us for that."
IS THE IMPASSE IN SOUTH CAROLINA OVER?
There are signs that the impasse over South Carolina's science standards is nearing its end. As previously reported, the state board of education voted in March 2006 to reject a proposal from the state's Education Oversight Committee that would have significantly expanded the "critical analysis" language already present in the section of the new state science standards that deal with evolution. But although the EOC apparently lacks any power to revise the standards, it still retains the power to approve or reject the standards as a whole, so a deadlock was a possibility. Moreover, a member of the EOC -- state representative Bob Walker (R-District 31) -- subsequently attempted to amend a senate bill, S 114, to direct the state board of education to approve only textbooks that "emphasize critical thinking and analysis in each academic content"; that attempt was rejected by the House Committee on Education and Public Works.
On May 22, 2006, the EOC's Academic Standards and Assessments Subcommittee voted to adopt the curriculum standards originally proposed by the state board of education, and on May 31, the state board of education unanimously reaffirmed its support for those standards. The State reported (May 31, 2006) that the single instance of "critical analysis" present in the originally proposed standards was added to placate state senator (and EOC member) Mike Fair (R-District 6), whose various efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in South Carolina's public schools over the last few years have been so far unsuccessful. He may, however, regard a provision in the 2006-2007 state budget as a token victory: it directs expenditures on and assessments of instructional material to emphasize "higher order thinking skills and critical thinking." Walker told The State that he was satisfied with the outcome. The EOC is scheduled to meet on June 12, when it is expected to vote on the standards.
For the story in The State, visit:
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/14708097.htm
For NCSE's coverage of previous events in South Carolina, visit:
http://www.ncseweb.org/pressroom.asp?state=SC
"RULING OUGHT TO STICK"
Writing for the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (May 31, 2006), Mike King reacted to the recent ruling by a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals which vacated the decision in Selman v. Cobb County and remanded the case to the trial court for further evidential proceedings. Judge Cooper, he wrote, "was correct in his initial ruling last year when he decided that the stickers, which disclaimed evolution as a 'theory, not a fact,' constituted an endorsement of religious belief. Nonetheless, going back to court is the right thing to do. Teachers in America's classrooms need to have this trumped-up, pseudo-scientific 'controversy' settled once and for all, and local school boards need to be told in no uncertain terms that they can't bend the Constitution to pacify vocal religious advocates."
Although the appeals court was concerned about the evidence that the Cobb County school board adopted the stickers as a result of pressure from local parents, King observed that Marjorie Rogers, a local creationist parent, acknowledged that her petition was submitted to the board before the stickers were adopted and that her group advocated stickers warning students about evolution. He added, "the board had numerous options short of the stickers. It could have rejected the textbooks in question, or provided additional instructional material to science teachers about how to handle students who had a differing viewpoint. Instead, it chose to single out evolution with the warning sticker, thereby inviting students to question it more thoroughly than other theories discussed in the texts. That's where the school board crossed the line."
Following the initial ruling in Selman, the stickers were painstakingly removed, with the aid of putty knives and glue remover, from approximately 34,000 textbooks, during the summer of 2005. "Fortunately," King reports, "there doesn't seem to be much interest within the current board in reviving the stickers in Cobb while the case goes back before a trial court. Nor has any of the 10 or so candidates for the two school board seats up for election this year indicated that would be a good idea." (Incumbents Kathie Johnstone, who voted against appealing the initial Selman ruling, and Curt Johnston, who voted for the appeal, are running for re-election.) "But unless the courts provide a definitive ruling," King concludes his editorial, "a future board may not feel so constrained."
For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's story, visit:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/0531evolution.html
For NCSE's coverage of previous events in Georgia, visit:
http://www.ncseweb.org/pressroom.asp?state=GA
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Sincerely,
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National Center for Science Education, Inc.
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Eugenie C. Scott's Evolution vs. Creationism is now available: http://www.ncseweb.org/evc Alternative cancer treatments growing http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2006/06/04/news/illiana/b967c70401e6774e8625718300003742.txt
ILLINOIS Many patients use regular medicine with alternative practices to get better
BY MIKAELA BUFANO Medill News Service
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Sunday, June 4, 2006 12:07 AM CDT
Two years ago Diane Klenke went to the hospital after she and some coworkers became ill with a virus. She was shocked when doctors told her she had cancerous tumors in her pancreas and liver.
Her doctors were not optimistic and told her there was little that could be done.
"I overheard the doctors saying I wasn't going to make it," said 48-year-old Klenke. "They told me to go home and get my affairs in order."
Despite the bleak prognosis, and though numbed by the news, Klenke said she did not panic. Klenke scoured the Internet into the early morning hours on a mission, navigating the endless pages of online resources advocating vitamins, diets, potions and prayer to treat the most dire cancer diagnoses.
Before long, a family member mentioned Dr. Keith Block and Klenke began investigating.
She discovered that the Evanston-based Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care has cancer treatment plans designed to integrate conventional medicine with complementary therapies, including nutrition, acupuncture, fitness regimens, yoga and meditation.
Klenke opted for the full program. The lifestyle changes, the supplements, the diet and the unique way of administering the very conventional chemotherapy. Called chronotherapy, the chemotherapy treatment operates on the idea that medicine can be more effective based on when it is given to a patient.
Alternative options for cancer patients range from strict macrobiotic diets to acupuncture. Few practitioners offer treatment in the exclusion of conventional therapies such as chemotherapy and radiation. Most, like Block, offer therapy to complement conventional methods.
Research by the National Institutes of Health found about 50 percent of adults have used complementary and alternative medicine, not including prayer. Fifty-five percent believed complementary and alternative medicine combined with conventional medicine would help their condition.
The National Institutes of Health have a center devoted to "exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science" and "training complementary and alternative medicine researchers."
The institute created an Office of Alternative Medicine in 1992 with an annual budget of $2 million. Renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 1998, the center has an annual budget this year of $122.7 million.
June 1, 2006 BY STAN DONALDSON
Officials hope to head off scammers
A few weeks ago, the 37-year-old owner of Enchanted Souls, a psychic reading, quantum healing and hypnosis shop, moved her business from Eastpointe to a small plaza a few blocks north in Roseville. While she didn't know it at the time she moved, Eastpointe was already considering stringent regulations on fortune-tellers and psychics.
"Evidently, we got out at the right time," said MacLeod, a former Ford worker who has been a full-time psychic since 1998 and had a shop in Eastpointe for three years. "I find this all kind of ridiculous."
Eastpointe stands to join metro Detroit communities from Taylor to Milford Township to Macomb Township that either regulate or ban fortune-telling for profit. The primary goal of their ordinances is to keep out con artists who offer to solve clients' problems in exchange for cash or gifts. But so-called mainstream psychics like MacLeod, who say their visions of the future are purely for entertainment, say those laws unfairly punish them.
"If someone comes and tells you they can make a black aura or evil spirits go away if you give them money, it's time to walk away," MacLeod said. "But to pick on fortune-tellers based on stereotypes is wrong."
Eastpointe currently has no psychic establishments and has no complaints about criminal activity by psychics, but Mayor Pro-Tem Veronica Klinefelt said the possibility of someone scamming citizens -- especially seniors -- is too high to ignore.
"It is a preventative measure," Klinefelt said. "The individuals I am concerned about are people who set up shop for a short period of time and take off."
An early draft of the measure, would have required potential fortune- telling shop operators to give information on their clients to the city, but Klinefelt said it will be toned down. However, she does expect the final ordinance to call for background checks, police inspections of shops and annual registration of psychics.
MacLeod and other operators of psychic businesses in metro Detroit say the Eastpointe ordinance would simply be too broad.
"There are fraudulent people out there regardless of the profession and people come here out of free will," said MacLeod, who trained at Arthur Findlay College, a spiritual school near London. Reyna Long, a Royal Oak psychic who travels across the United States to do readings for long-time clients and people who have heard of her through word of mouth, says she wonders why Eastpointe is considering new regulations.
"Is it from a business, or a moralistic standpoint?" Long said. "I think there is a misunderstanding about what we do and educating people is important, but regulating is not," Long, 57, said. Some psychic business operators don't mind some degree of regulation.
"I am not against the background checks, but I would have a problem with providing a client list because we often don't take down the names of people who come in," said Carole Navarre, who owns the Boston Tea Room in Wyandotte but is not a psychic.
She said the 10 psychics she employs underwent a strenuous interview process before they were hired, largely because she was aware of the potential for frauds in the psychic community. "If you want to run this type of business right it is a tricky balancing act, so you have to make sure you have the right people," she said.
Eastpointe Mayor Dave Austin said the City Council and Klinefelt just want to set some parameters and added he does not have a problem with psychics.
"There have been some scams in this city involving seniors, and I guess she just wants to make sure businesses like that stay on the straight and narrow," Austin said. "I don't have a problem with it."
June 4, 2006
A visitor to the country cottage owned by the famous physicist Niels Bohr was surprised to see a horseshoe nailed over the door, and asked Bohr, "Surely you don't believe in that?"
Bohr replied, "Of course not, but I understand that it brings good luck whether you believe in it or not."
While the impish Bohr was presumably joking, Benson Bobrick takes very seriously the fundamental claim of astrology -- that celestial bodies, like Bohr's horseshoe, have a determining influence on individual human fate.
Mr. Bobrick, who has a PhD from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature and has been described in the New York Times as "perhaps the most interesting historian writing today," provides a sweeping demonstration in The Fated Sky: Astrology in History (Simon & Schuster, $26, 356 pages), his ninth book, of the power astrology has held over the minds of men for thousands of years.
In Mr. Bobrick's words, "This is not a book for or against astrology, but a book about its impact on history and on the history of ideas." Its 300-odd pages are full of accounts of how belief in astrology affected the behavior of major historical figures, and therefore the fate of both individuals and nations, regardless of whether that belief is true or false.
Traditional astrology was used in four different ways: mundane astrology gave predictions about such general phenomena as weather, harvests and politics; natal astrology used the positions of the heavenly bodies at the time of an individual's birth to foretell his character and destiny; hortatory astrology cast a horoscope at a particular time to answer a question asked then; and finally, astrology was used for elections, determining the most propitious time to carry out a particular endeavor.
Mr. Bobrick provides a very brief account of the complicated theoretical structure upon which all of these activities were based. The structure dates back over 3,000 years -- at least as far as the ancient Chaldeans and Babylonians -- and was passed on via the Egyptians and the Greeks.
The 12 signs of the zodiac, familiar to anyone who has ever glanced at a horoscope in a newspaper, are named after different constellations, and are related to different sections of the sky. The 12 signs, in turn, are supposedly controlled by the seven planets, a term which, astrologically speaking, connotes the sun and the moon as well as what modern astronomy classifies as the five planets visible to the unaided eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.)
The planets beyond Saturn, discovered only after the invention of the telescope, play no part in classical astrology, although after their discovery some au courant astrologers began to take them into account in their horoscopes.
The author's account, however, even though it is supplemented by a lengthy glossary defining many of the technical terms involved in, is inadequate to explain to the uninitiated reader exactly how the system works. Mr. Bobrick does not discuss the different versions of astrology practiced in China and other parts of the orient.
Most of the book consists of a series of entertaining accounts of the lives of astrologers and their clients through the ages. We all remember Shakespeare's cautionary account of the fate of Julius Caesar when he failed to beware the ides of March, and Mr. Bobrick fills in many more details of the role astrology played in Caesar's life, as well as those of many other figures of historical note, all the way through George W. Bush.
Mr. Bobrick, who regrets the dumbed-down version of astrology that predominates today, recounts many astonishing successes of predictions made by astrologers. He tells us that seven months before the 2004 presidential election, the traditional astronomer he asked to cast horoscopes for both candidates predicted a Bush victory, whereas most modern astrologers went with Sen. Kerry.
Modern science, and in particular, astronomy, developed when investigators gave up the more ambitious aims of astrology and adopted the more modest aim of using mathematical and experimental tools to examine how the natural world actually behaved.
In Chasing Hubble's Shadows: The Search for Galaxies at the Edge of Time (Hill and Wang, $24, 185 pages), the scientific journalist Jeff Kanipe takes us to the frontiers of today's astronomy, where astronomers use an armory of sophisticated tools and techniques to peer at dimly visible galaxies astonishingly far away and far back in time.
Their ability to do so has been magnified greatly since the launch (or, rather, the repair a few years later) of the Hubble Space Telescope, an unparalleled resource appropriately named after Edwin Hubble, the man whose painstaking observations in the 1920s and 1930s of distant galaxies showed that the universe was expanding.
The modern era of research into far galaxies began in 1975, when the Hubble telescope was focused for an extended period on a tiny area of the sky that appeared to be empty and took lengthy photographic exposures covering multiple wavelengths. This previously impossible level of scrutiny revealed several thousand previously unknown galaxies, each an assemblage of millions of stars. The area chosen was so far away that it provided a snapshot of the universe early in its development, relatively soon after the primeval Big Bang.
Mr. Kanipe brings the reader up to date on what astronomers have been doing to learn about these galaxies and the early development of the universe -- a task made even more difficult because during a significant length of time the high temperature meant that no radiation could penetrate it, meaning that it is inaccessible to observation.
The two great scientific mysteries of the age are that most of the universe seems to consist of "dark matter" and "dark energy," the terms used to describe our ignorance of the nature of most of the energy that holds the universe together and the matter of which it is constructed, neither of which corresponds to the forms of energy and matter which we observe around us.
Mr. Kanipe has provided a first-rate account of these mysteries and of how dauntless scientists go about trying to solve them.
Jeffrey Marsh has written widely on scientific topics and public issues ranging from nuclear strategy to social policy.
William Hughes is a Baltimore author, attorney, educator and professional actor. He has been writing political commentaries for over 40 years. His latest book, "Saying 'No' to the War Party," is a collection of his essays and photographs that targeted the "Special Interests," like the Neocons, Big Oil and the Military-Industrial Complex, that dragged the U.S. into the Iraqi war. The book was the author's way of challenging the outrageous conduct of the Bush-Cheney Gang, while making current history come alive for the people. Hughes' hope is that the Anti-War Movement will serve as a catalyst to restore the Republic before it is too late.
June 1, 2006
"Every religion is true...when understood metaphorically." - Joseph Campbell
According to the novel, "The Da Vinci Code," Mary Magdalene wasn't just a devout follower of Jesus. She was also his wife! They even had a child together and their bloodline extends down to present day France. The Vatican, through Opus Dei, portrayed as a pseudo-fascist organization, is killing people off left and right. They are doing this to suppress that story line, which is seen as a threat to the Church's hegemony. The book, authored by Dan Brown has, in turn, become a very popular movie. The screenplay was done by Akiva Goldsman. The flick was directed by Ron Howard, who cut his teeth on Tinsel Town's silly sitcom, "Happy Days." The All-American icon himself, Tom Hanks, plays the lead in this film which many practicing Christians consider a sacrilege and a gross insult to their faith. The "Da Vinci Code" is mostly fiction, but with kernels of truth found here and there, especially regarding the male-dominated Roman Catholic Church's irrational hatred of women and sex.
The success of "The Da Vinci Code, is history repeating itself. In 1957, Cecil B. DeMille, directed a movie with a biblical theme, called the "Ten Commandments." It, too, was a box office hit. It showed the enslaved Jews being led out of captivity in Egypt by Moses, a sort of Theodor Herzl of his time. Playing the Jewish saint was the Tom Hanks of his era - Charleston Heston. In the film, Moses/Heston opened up the turbulent Red Sea by waving his staff at it, which then permitted his desperate refugee people to cross over and return to Palestine. When the pursuing Egyptian Army tried to follow, the sea closed up on them and many of them drowned. The only thing missing from this high drama was having Barbara Walters narrate it. There is, however, one big, serious problem with the "Exodus" story, which is sourced by the Old Testament. There isn't any historical evidence to support it at all. None! According to the book, "The Laughing Jesus," it's a Jewish fable - a fantasy. Period! The Jewish scribes made it all up! (1)
The Ancient Egyptians were fantastic record keepers. "Texts, sculpture and artifacts testify to a sophisticated culture that really did endure for millennia," say the British authors, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. They go on to write: "There is no evidence for the existence of Moses. Although he is portrayed as an influential member of the Egyptian royal household, he is not mentioned in any Egyptian record. Nor is there any evidence to support the idea that the Jews were ever held captive in Egypt or that they made any exodus from the country under Moses' command. The Egyptians chronicled their history in great detail but make no mention of any captive Jews. Amongst the hundreds of thousands of Egyptian monumental inscriptions, tomb inscriptions and papyri, there is complete silence about the '600,000 men on foot, besides women and children,' who 'The Book of Exodus' tells us escaped from Pharaohs' armies. The story of Moses, with its many miracles, has all the hallmarks of a myth." (1)
With respect to the Bible as genuine history, Israel Finklestein, director of archaeology at Tel Aviv U., and his co-writer, Neil Silberman, describe it as "no more historical [than] the Homeric saga of Odysseus or Aeneas's founding of Rome. The birth of biblical narrative is too thoroughly filled with inconsistencies and anachronisms...that it must be considered more of an historical novel than an accurate historical chronicle." (2)
Another noted scholar, Thomas Thompson, Professor of the Old Testament at the U. of Copenhagen, goes even further. He challenged the supposed history of the ancient Israelites. He stated: "There is no evidence of a 'United Monarchy,' no evidence of a capital in Jerusalem or of any coherent, unified political force that dominated western Palestine, let alone an empire of the size the legends describe. We do not have evidence for the existence of kings named Saul, David or Solomon; nor do we have evidence for any temple at Jerusalem in this early period." (3) Piling on, Freke and Gandy underscored how, "In truth, the Ark of the Covenant... was never lost, just deleted from the record by an editorial hand when it became a liability." (1)
Authors Freke and Gandy also said, "The account of Moses' birth is a retelling of the myth of the birth of Sargon the Great, the king of Akkad, which is known in a number of variations from the early sixth century BCE. Like Moses, the child Sargon is 'set in a basket of rushes' and 'cast into the river,' from which he is later rescued by an influential woman. Similar Greek stories tell of the child Dionysus confined in a chest and thrown into the river Nile. These probably all go back to Egyptian stories which tell of Osiris confined in a chest and thrown into the Nile." (1) Somehow Freke and Gandy's book slipped by the Zionist censors. The ADL's Abe Foxman must have been sleeping at the switch on this one.
It actually gets worse! A fearless military type, named Joshua, supposedly led the Jews escaping the Egyptians into the so-called "Promised Land." Freke and Gandy said that kind of feat was "an historical impossibility." They wrote: "From the fourteenth to the twelfth centuries BCE, when the exodus is supposed to have occurred, Canaan was a province of Egypt, so the Jews would not have escaped from Egyptian rule at all, but merely passed from one Egyptian territory to another. The 'Book of Joshua,' which relates the Jews supposed invasion of the Promised Land, makes no mention of Egyptians in Canaan, when the area should have been crawling with them." (1)
The authors Freke and Gandy emphasized: "The Tanakh (or the Old Testament) is a collection of myths and legends. And to be fair to the Tanakh, it actually never claims to be history. In fact, you won't find the word 'history' anywhere in its pages, because the word did not even exist in Hebrew." The Brit duo believe the message of the original Christians of "awakening" to oneness and to love was transformed over the centuries by a literalist loving, power hungry elite into the authoritarian Roman Catholic Church. Many of these early Christians, the authors insist, saw Jesus as a "mythical hero of a symbolic teaching story," which represented a "spiritual journey," that eventually led the individual to the "experience of awakening, they called gnosis or knowing... They imagined a new world that would no longer be divided..."
Hold on! There is more. Professor Ze'ev Herzog of the U. of Tel Aviv's Institute of Archaeology, published, in 1999, an article in the Israeli newspaper, "Ha'aretz. In his controversial commentary, entitled, "Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho," he declared the "exodus from Egypt, the invasion by Joshua and the famous walls of Jericho are all without historical foundation." (1) Herzog lamented: "These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it." (4)
Finally, Freke and Gandy, said, "Although [Herzog's] views are widely shared in the academic community, [his] article caused a furor, with secular Israelis responding the most violently. The reason is simple. They immediately recognized that the modern state of Israel would be seriously compromised if its claim to the land turned out to be based on a myth." Considering all of the above, do you think Ron Howard will ever direct a movie, with a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman, with the theme, "Debunking the Exodus Myth?" If you do, I know a guy, who has a ton of stocks in Ken Lay's Enron that he's looking to unload!
Notes:
1. "The Laughing Jesus: Religious Lies and Gnostic Wisdom."
2. "The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts."
3. "The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past."
4. "It Ain't Necessarily So: Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past," by M. Sturgis.
© William Hughes 2006.
William Hughes is the author of "Saying ''No' to the War Party" (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes@comcast.net.
Five Holistic Approaches Offer Alternatives to High-Tech Treatments
BOULDER, Colo., May 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Alternative Medicine magazine, a leading newsstand publication on natural living and healthcare, announced today that its June 2006 issue includes a special section focusing on infertility. The section, titled "Opening the Door to Fertility," covers five all-natural ways to enhance fertility: Maya abdominal massage, Traditional Chinese Medicine, nutrition and supplements, retreats, and yoga.
Approximately 6.1 million women and their partners struggle with fertility in America, and many people find themselves navigating conventional fertility treatments including invasive tests, harsh drugs with countless side effects, and in vitro procedures. "Opening the Door to Fertility" offers readers alternative therapies to infertility that are often safer, less stressful, and cheaper.
"Alternative Medicine magazine is committed to helping readers find safe and effective ways to obtain optimal health," says the magazine's editor-in-chief, Linda Sparrowe. "We want couples to explore all their options and find their own path to parenthood. That's why we felt it was so important to find out what's out there in terms of natural fertility treatments and present the most promising, healthy options for mind, body, and spirit."
For more than 14 years, Alternative Medicine magazine has been the trusted voice of the complementary and alternative medicine field. Alternative Medicine guides and inspires its readers to make informed decisions about their health and well-being in every facet of their lives.
For Information
For information about Alternative Medicine magazine, contact Joe Spanarella at 303-565-2030 or joe.spanarella@innerdoorway.com;
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By Jebediah Reed Popular Science
Friday, June 2, 2006; Posted: 12:36 p.m. EDT (16:36 GMT)
Scientists have yet to identify these unusual red particles. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.
Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .)
So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India.
If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.
Last winter, Louis sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales, who are now attempting to replicate his experiments; Wickramasinghe expects to publish his initial findings later this year.
Meanwhile, more down-to-earth theories abound. One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the "blood rains" on algae.
Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats.
Louis and his colleagues dismiss all these theories, pointing to the fact that both algae and fungus possess DNA and that blood cells have thin walls and die quickly when exposed to water and air.
More important, they argue, blood cells don't replicate. "We've already got some stunning pictures -- transmission electron micrographs -- of these cells sliced in the middle," Wickramasinghe says. "We see them budding, with little daughter cells inside the big cells."
Louis's theory holds special appeal for Wickramasinghe. A quarter of a century ago, he co-authored the modern theory of panspermia, which posits that bacteria-riddled space rocks seeded life on Earth.
"If it's true that life was introduced by comets four billion years ago," the astronomer says, "one would expect that microorganisms are still injected into our environment from time to time. This could be one of those events."
The next significant step, explains University of Sheffield microbiologist Milton Wainwright, who is part of another British team now studying Louis's samples, is to confirm whether the cells truly lack DNA. So far, one preliminary DNA test has come back positive.
"Life as we know it must contain DNA, or it's not life," he says. "But even if this organism proves to be an anomaly, the absence of DNA wouldn't necessarily mean it's extraterrestrial."
Louis and Wickramasinghe are planning further experiments to test the cells for specific carbon isotopes. If the results fall outside the norms for life on Earth, it would be powerful new evidence for Louis's idea, of which even Louis himself remains skeptical.
'We are absolutely, mind-blown angry,' says psychic
Friday, June 2, 2006; Posted: 9:39 p.m. EDT (01:39 GMT)
CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- Uri Geller's dream of turning the first home Elvis Presley owned into a museum dedicated to the paranormal has been dealt a setback nearly as bizarre as the spoon-bending trick that made the Israeli-born psychic famous.
Geller, who thought he had purchased the Memphis property in an eBay auction last month for $905,100, learned Friday the sellers had turned around and sold the 3,000-square-foot house to a foundation set up by Mike Curb, the longtime music producer.
The King of rock 'n' roll lived in the house at 1034 Audubon Dr. for 13 months before moving to Graceland, the now-famous Memphis estate where he died in 1977.
It was not immediately clear what Curb, elected lieutenant governor of California in the late 1970s, paid for the four-bedroom, two-bath home Elvis bought in 1956 with royalties from "Heartbreak Hotel."
What was clear late Friday was that Geller was preparing for a protracted legal fight to get the house back. "We are absolutely, mind-blown angry," Geller told Reuters by telephone from his home in London. "Of course we're going to sue."
Geller and his two partners, New York lawyer Pete Gleason and Lisbeth Silvandersson, a Swedish-born jewelry maker who lives in England, may not be able to pursue a breach of contract claim against the sellers.
That's because eBay maintains real estate auctions on its site are marketing events, and not actual sales.
"The platform we provide in real estate really serves to generate interest," eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told Reuters. "... It isn't a legally binding contract."
And yet another odd twist may yet give Geller a chance.
The sellers, a husband and wife, recently had their debts discharged in bankruptcy court, Doug Alrutz, Geller's Memphis lawyer, told Reuters.
While the couple had included the home in their list of assets, the court did not appreciate its value. As a result, the bankruptcy trustee is now thinking about reopening the case, a move that could lead the court to reverse all the sellers' actions, Alrutz said.
Copyright 2006 Reuters.
CAVERSHAM, England, May 30 (UPI) -- A woman in England due to give birth on June 6 is fighting with her hospital to induce her sooner to avoid delivering on the demonic date of 6/6/6.
Melissa Parker, 30, said as a fan of "The Omen," a movie about a demonic child, she's genuinely concerned about the numerology involved, The Sun reported Tuesday.
"I'm terrified the birth will go wrong or the child will have evil in him or her," Parker said. "Even worse my beautiful baby could be the devil himself -- the anti-Christ."
The figure 666 is mentioned in the Bible and various cultures believe it represents the date the anti-Christ will appear on Earth, but that doesn't hold any water at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
A hospital spokesman said Parker's request for an induction was refused because due dates are not 100 percent certain.
"There is little we can do to change them without a Caesarean or inducing the child, which we try to avoid," the spokesman said. "We must let nature take its course. The baby will be born when ready, no matter what day it is."
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc.
June 2, 2006
Southerners disagree whether Darwin's theory must be taught in Nunavik's schools
The Kativik School Board, the education committee of Salluit, and even a top provincial education department official don't see eye-to-eye with Quebec's education minister over whether students should be taught about evolution.
This lack of agreement over evolution's place in the educational program is a troubling "internal problem," said the minister's spokesperson, Marie-Claude Lavigne.
Elasuk Pauyungie, a long-time member of Salluit's education committee, municipal counselor and host with Taqramiut Nipingat Inc. radio, said she would personally prefer children not be taught about evolution in school.
During an interview from Salluit, with TNI's Joanassie Koperqualuk as interpreter, Pauyungie said the school committee felt justified in its reprimand to Alexandre April for teaching evolution to his Ikusik School classes because "evolution wasn't part of the curriculum."
But Minister of Education Jean-Marc Fournier says evolution is part of the curriculum in Quebec — and in Nunavik, as well.
Last week in a Quebec City scrum, Fournier told journalists "it's important for the school board and the school to deliver the services they are supposed to deliver."
"It's important to have the child knowing what is happening — and different versions — so they cannot have just one. That's the responsibility of our department."
However, a key education department official in Quebec City told Nunatsiaq News that evolution isn't part of the required school curriculum in Nunavik.
Jacqueline Dorman, who is responsible for northern Quebec within the education department's aboriginal section, dismissed the uproar over the teaching of evolution as "a tempest in a teapot."
Dorman said evolution is a detail in the larger curriculum and just one of many theories.
Dorman said local school boards determine the details of what is taught, while Quebec's education minister makes sure the overall curriculum is respected in all Quebec schools.
"It's up to the KSB to handle this," she said.
In a news release last week, the KSB said the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement confirms the school board's "right and the responsibility to develop programs and teaching materials in Inuktitut, English and French" as long as these meet the objectives prescribed by Quebec's education department.
The release said teaching evolution is not an objective of the regular Quebec high school science program, and evolution is only one paragraph in a Secondary 3 (Grade 9) textbook.
"That's it," noted the news release. "If a teacher adds to the program, it is not with the sanction of our pedagogical counsellors, or that of the school board."
The KSB's release said its students are free to learn more about "evolutionary theory" from school library materials and on the Internet.
Posted on Fri, Jun. 02, 2006 BY STEVE PAINTER Eagle Topeka bureau
TOPEKA - Kansas voters are sending mixed signals on two key issues that could determine the outcome of State Board of Education races this year, according to a new poll.
They also have a wide range of priorities as they decide who will be governor for the next four years and serve in the Kansas Legislature and Congress the next two years.
Survey USA conducted the poll of 501 registered voters Tuesday and Wednesday for The Wichita Eagle and KWCH 12 Eyewitness News.
Likely voters appear to agree with a majority of current state board members that the theory of evolution should hold a less prominent place in science instruction.
Seventy-two percent of those polled said they favor candidates who support teaching alternative theories to evolution. The board's move la