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Here's the reason I asked why human evolution should be taught in school:
I just came across this fact: Human evolution: Little is known other than basic outline
Contrary to widely heard huffing, there are huge gaps in our understanding of early humans. In Nature's 2020 Visions (7 January 2010) Scroll down to Leslie C. Aiello, and we learn
Most of the recent effort in hominin palaeontology has been focused on Africa and Europe. But the announcement in 2004 of the small hominin Homo floresiensis in Indonesia was a warning that we are naive to assume we know more than the basic outline of human evolutionary history. … Go here for more.
Sorry to be so long judging this one, but there were 143 posts and I had several local issues to deal with at the same time. Now, to business: The winner is Collin at 8. His succinct entry appears below. I would also have awarded a prize to EvilSnack at 48, for this entry, but I only received one copy of David Berlinski's The Deniable Darwin. I will see if I can procure another copy, but if not EvilSnack may contact me anyway. I have other prizes on my shelf.
Winners need to be in touch with me at email@example.com, with a valid postal address. Their names will not be added to a mailing list. There is no mailing list.
Here's Collin:
Human evolution ought to be taught in schools because it is one of the best cases for common descent. This is probably a result of the extra interest among scientists concerning human evolution.
Even creationists and students sympathetic to ID ought to be taught the best argument for Darwinism so that if they want to argue against it they do so against the best scenario the opposition has to offer. Otherwise, those supportive of traditional Darwinism will sense a straw man argument and end up being inoculated against further, more refined and honest arguments.
Some careless creationists in the '80s made this mistake causing further, more compelling arguments to be dismissed before being further evaluated.
Human evolution, being taught, does inform students of a lot of ideas that are not necessarily against ID or even creationism. Presumably even creationists (most of them) will concede that homo erectus did exist as some kind of now-extinct species. Students can be presented with the fact of the bones (or lack thereof) and they can make their own conclusions. My hope is that teachers will present evolution's best arguments but not endeavor to indoctrinate students. Maybe that is a fine line, but it can be done, and is the honest way to go about it.
What swayed me was Collin's emphasis on hearing both sides honestly represented by their own advocates. If schools do not teach students to evaluate on that basis, they are not worth the money we spend on them.
Consider a simple example: Most days, I ride the Toronto Transit System, which features a vast array of busboard ads and subway posters advocating every cell phone offer imaginable. You can be sure that the sales person will not emphasize strongly to the customer, "Our offer is the cheapest – but, of course, we do sign you up for three years, and it costs you $300 to cancel."
The salesperson's competitor does that. The competitor shouts from busboards, subway posters, and billboards, "No contract, no cancellation fee!" That sets the customer thinking about what to ask next time, doesn't it?
Cell phones are a minor matter, of course. But later in life, the student will deal with job offers, marriage proposals, mortgage offers, investment advice, medical plans …. The advocate's offer can only be evaluated by hearing alternatives, clearly spelled out.
One of my major objections to "Darwinism-only" biology education is that – apart from the fact that I don't think it is true – it is not a good way to teach.
Other comments follow:
The whole series is – as usual – worth reading, and I can comment only briefly on a few interesting items.
Leviathan at 1 wonders when we will see positive contributions to understanding design in nature. He or she might wish to check with the Biologic institute. The first step is preventing scientists who want to study design from getting Expelled.
Joseph at 3 thinks that much of what is called "evolution"should be taught in history class. I agree. The subject is old enough now that exploded evolution theories can tell us a lot about the preoccupations of the eras in which they took root.
Painted Turtle at 10: Thanks for recognizing that time, attention, and budget constraints are critical in education. One outcome of the inclusion of propaganda in a school system – pro-Darwin or anti-Darwin – is indeed to lessen the time available for teaching the practical skills all students need.
When working in textbook publishing, I faced this problem all the time. A propaganda fad would roll through the system, and everyone was expected to stand up and salute. Well, I already had to deal with the provincial curriculum guidelines and the teacher reviewers – to say nothing of the great god Market. Even so, that not-so-holy trinity was way easier than propaganda fads.
Joseph at 25 writes, "… if scientists had solid scientific data the public would accept it." I have always found that to be true. Show us a man on the moon, a better cure for cancer, a more fuel-efficient car, a cleaner incinerator, or a job for a son or daughter if they don't drop their science courses. Even show us the creatures of the abyssal depths of the ocean, and we will run over and pay to see them. It's all different when someone tries to explain that human behaviour can best be understood by studying bonobo troupes or wolf packs. It all reminds me of "When we were building Skua Light." Anthropomorphism run mad.
Joseph also makes a very good point at 65: "A dead person has the same chemical makeup as a living person," which shows that life is not reducible to chemistry. Having observed, sorrowfully, the deaths of cats, I can say that it is a stunning transformation from a living creature to an inert mass. The cat, however sick before, was alive, but then literally collapses. Whatever life is, it cannot be mere physics or chemistry. The "information" has left. So the poor creature is a "gone cat."
At 103, Nakashima notes, "I remember vaguely that Oliver Sacks discusses a case in one of his books of a stroke victim, who after his injury could not remember the names of government buildings. "Post office" and "courthouse" had ceased to exist." Ending on a fun note, all I can say is, I should be so lucky. I haven't had dealings with the courthouse, but do wish I could erase the address and all other memory whatever of quite a few bureaucracies.


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Very bright and polite motivational theme. Catchy drums, pop-rock guitars, piano and strings will bring your project to another level If you want to cover your video with this track but the video is pretty longer – don't worry. You'll get a LOOP-version in this purchase and you'll be able to do this without any problems.
Zip-archive contains:
- Full version (WAV/MP3) – 3:05
- Looped-version (WAV/MP3) – 1:17

subset: commoncrawl


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Author: Napoleon Hill
Brand: Audible
Binding: Audible Audiobook
Format: Unabridged
Release Date: 16-10-2007
Details: Think and Grow Rich is the number-one inspirational and motivational classic for individuals who are interested in furthering their lives and reaching their goals by learning from important figures in history. The text read in this audiobook is the original 1937 edition written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by Andrew Carnegie, and while it has often been reproduced, no updated version has ever been able to compete with the original. It has been used as a roadmap to achievement by countless individuals. The 13 Steps to Riches described in this audiobook offer the shortest dependable philosophy of individual achievement ever presented for the benefit of the man or woman who is searching for a definite goal in life. It comes directly from the experiences of hundreds of America's most successful men.Hill interviewed 504 people, including Ford, Wrigley, Wanamaker, Eastman, Rockefeller, Edison, Woolworth, Darrow, Burbank, Morgan, Firestone, and three United States presidents. The process of conducting these interviews required an investment of 20 years of Napoleon Hill's life.This audiobook will guide many to success, and has sold millions of printed copies for nearly three quarters of a century. Yes, one can gather from the title that the starting place for wealth is in a person's thoughts - and this title is the source for most of today's motivational speakers. So why not go back to the original source?
Languages: English


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Sound designer Oliver Schmitt (aka Sounds Of Revolution) has kicked it up a notch with the third title in the Minimal Techno Revolution series of sample packs.
Distributed by Resonance Sound, Minimal Techno Revolution Vol.3 covers special organic sounds (e. g. live drums, live bass loops, field recordings) right next to all-time favorites such as true analog drums, SID samples (C64-style), loads of drum loops with/without kick and a variety of carefully processed vocals.
Missing something? How about kit loops for starters, dark and mystic atmospheres, hypnotic bass and synth loops, semisynthetic field recordings or never-heard fx sounds shaking the ground to its every bit?
The sample pack includes both one-shot sounds and loops, no less than 1,435 samples (24-bit) in total.
The one-shot sample folders features 51 kicks, 34 claps, 39 snares, 43 hi-hats, 25 crash & ride cymbals, 63 percussion, 42 click & grain sounds, 49 SID sounds, 112 vocal samples, 65 processed live recordings, and 122 fx sounds.
There's a good variety in sounds, and although most of these are staple type sounds, they are very solid and you can hear Oliver's attention to detail in the production. The last two (processed recordings & sound fx) have the most character and include some really well designed sounds, in particular some of the designed fx samples are brilliant.
On the loops front we have 63 bass & 35 live bass loops, 219 kick free loops, 281 kit loops, and 152 synth loops.
The bass loops are quite minimal and really well processed. They come with some variations, and a good amount of different bass sounds was used. The live bass recordings by Heiko Steinweg are also crafted into some lovely sounding loops. These have a great funky vibe and the creative processing here makes for some unique sounds.
The kick free loops are great for layering. This section is split up into four sections: hihats, mixed, percussion, and vocals. The kit loops include various parts of beats as individual loops, so many of these are basically also kick free loops. Again, a solid selection with plenty of variety in style and sound.
The synth loops section is probably my favorite of the pack. It includes some beautiful chord stabs, big pads, and other melodic gems. Dry versions are included for quite a few of the loops so you can apply your own fx chains.
All loops are 127 bpm, and key info is included in the file names where relevant.
Besides the synth loops, another favorite is – funnily enough – a bonus folder of atmosphere sounds. Big reverb stabs, filtered gritty sounds, futuristic machine noises, eerie atmos, reversed sounds, lovely strings… Love it!
You can listen to some of the sounds of this pack in the demos below.
So what do I think?
Format: 24-bit Wav samples, REX/Kontakt/ESX24
Price: 47.99 EUR ex. VAT (individual parts also sold separately)
Like: Quality production, creative and well designed sounds
Don't like: —
Verdict: 9/10
Oliver shared with me that he has worked long and hard on this pack, and I think it shows.
Minimal Techno Revolution Vol 3 includes a well-balanced, useful collection of loops and samples, and the overall quality of sounds is simply great.
I would say this pack goes way beyond Minimal Techno, with interesting material for producers in a much wider range of electronic styles.
In short, Oliver's sound design and production skills make for a top notch sound pack that offers a lot of bang for the buck.
Resonance Sound is offering a free demo with 25 samples from the pack, so check it out for yourself.
More information: Resonance Sound / Minimal Techno Revolution Vol 3


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Alexandria Mardi Gras Weekend Begins Feb. 28th
Alexandria kicks off their Mardi Gras weekend Friday, try February 28, store 2014, with the Hixson Autoplex Classic Cars & College Cheerleaders Parade. The Hixson Autoplex CCCC Parade will roll at 4:30 p.m. The parade route will wind through downtown Alexandria, from Murray Street to St. James Street, and will consist of classic cars paired with college cheerleaders from colleges and universities in Louisiana and Arkansas.
Grand Marshal for the Hixson Autoplex Classic Cars & College Cheerleaders Parade will be Lt. General Russel Honoré (RET). In addition to the Honoré, other parade guests include soldiers from Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk and the Victory Belles from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
The annual Taste of Mardi Gras will commence Friday, February 28 at the Alexandria Riverfront Center in downtown Alexandria. The Taste of Mardi Gras was created in 1997 as a fundraiser for the Cenla Chapter of the Louisiana Restaurant Association (LRA). The first year it was held in conjunction with the grand opening of the Alexandria Riverfront Center and was named "Taste on the Riverfront." There were 14 food booths and approximately 350 people attended the first "Taste." Today, Taste of Mardi Gras has grown to 40 food booths and more than 2,500 attendees annually. The date of the event coincides with the Alexandria Mardi Gras weekend to offer visitors a Friday night event and another reason to come early to central Louisiana for the Mardi Gras weekend celebrations. Tickets are now available at the Alexandria/Pineville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau Office, 707 Second Street in Alexandria, or by calling (318) 442-9546 or (318) 729-6045.
The 17th Annual Children's Parade will roll at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 1. The parade route will wind through downtown Alexandria, from Murray Street to St. James Street. Children are then invited to celebrate Mardi Gras at the Alexandria Zoo for the annual King Cake Party at 2 p.m.! Enjoy king cake, music, costumed characters, and don't miss the up-close encounters with Zoo animals. Special appearance made by Bugs Bunny and entertainment by the Victory Belles. Zoo admission rates apply.
The YMCA of Central Louisiana will be hosting the Mardi Gras Madness 5K beginning at 1 pm on Sunday, March 2, prior to the Krewes Parade. Learn more at http://www.imathlete.com/events/YMCAMardiGrasMadness5K.
The 21st Annual Krewes Parade will roll Sunday, March 2 at 2 p.m. beginning on Texas Avenue and ending on North Mall Boulevard. This parade began with 10 floats and 4 Krewes to now have 24 floats and 23 Krewes currently participating.
Each year the Alexandria Mardi Gras Association chooses persons of distinction, who have had positive impacts on the quality of life in Louisiana, to serve as parade Grand Marshals. This year's Krewes Parade Grand Marshal is Kyle Steven Templin, an actor who hails from Pineville.
The goal of the AMGA is to provide a cultural event, appealing to all cross sections of the community, state, and region, to help stimulate the economy.
For additional information, visit the www.alexmardigras.com or www.AlexandriaPinevilleLA.com or call 800-551-9546.


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Complexity thrives in newsrooms.
As a former newspaper reporter, I should know.
When you're up against a hard deadline fact-checking information from three sources who are all telling you different things while an impatient editor raises an eyebrow at you just as the reporter in the neighboring cubicle starts boasting loudly over his lone accomplishments covering a series of weather-related calamites that you helped him cover, complexity rears its ugly head and gives you a really warm hug.
We all encounter complexity every day everywhere we go. It's the "nonlinear, turbulent, and dynamic" that crops up around us, according to systems thinker Donella H. Meadows. In newsrooms, however, where human nature and human dynamics take centerstage every day, complexity and its entanglements are stronger than the Incredible Hulk on steroids.
Through my studies at Saybrook, I've learned that how newsroom inhabitants view complexity shapes complexity's evolvement. If it's viewed positively or as a challenge to grow, team work becomes stronger. If misperceptions arise, trouble strikes.
As human beings, we're generally "attracted to straight lines and not curves, to whole numbers and not fractions, to uniformity and not diversity, and to certainties and not mystery," according to Meadows. So when we're hit with complexity, we turn inward and limit ourselves to our personal frame of reference. We forget or fail to acknowledge the other people affected by the complex situation before us and default to an us-versus-them perspective. And once that happens, disagreements and bickering surface.
I noticed this in April when I engaged a discussion on workplace complexity with a former editor of mine for a class assignment.
I worked for him during my time freelancing for The Miami Herald in South Florida almost a decade ago when I was still an undergraduate, journalism student. As part of my Saybrook assignment, I asked him a series of questions related to complexity that I had to answer too. The questions asked him to define the nature of complexity in his work life, identify the opposing forces creating it, explain how it feels to live within these forces, describe any strategies he's developed to deal with the tension created by these forces, and explain how dealing with complexity has helped him personally and professionally navigate the broader, complex world.
When my former editor—who is nearing age 70 and has been in the journalism industry for more than 30 years (before I was born)—sent me his responses, I compared his answers to mine and saw just how different we both perceived newsroom complexity, which may have also affected our working relationships in the newsroom.
Where he saw newsroom complexity as a task-oriented function that includes the hiring of freelance writers and editing many articles daily, I saw it as a function of the newsroom pecking-order and the intricate, dynamic network of relationships that exist in the workplace.
To me, the opposing forces that cause tension in the newsroom environment involve dueling egos and unyielding conviction. "Tact and keeping my nose to the grindstone," I wrote in my response, are the only ways to survive. My former editor disagreed. He defined the opposing forces as tight financial conditions and the lack of trained and experienced journalists, which strains the quality of the newspaper's content.
Even though we both agreed that compliance and dealing with it are the ways to cope with the tension of newsroom complexity, we disagreed on how newsroom complexity gets integrated into daily life. As a manager, my former editor said newsroom complexity has helped him develop skills, experience, and competence geared more toward teams and team-building. As a lowly reporter struggling to stand out among other lowly reporters with larger egos than mine, I saw newsroom complexity as a constant challenge to prove my worth in all spheres of my life.
As I compared our responses, I let my mind drift back to my days in the newsroom with him and remembered how he always pointed out my vulnerabilities—and not in the most sensitive manner—so I could see them, toughen up, and correct them. I remembered rising up to the challenge each time because I never liked being perceived as weak or less skilled than other reporters who'd spend the day bragging about themselves. I wanted to be equal and just as good.
The Saybrook assignment helped me see that I didn't understand him or his focus and he didn't understand me or my perceptions, which became misperceptions over time.
Through this assignment, I was able to understand the discrepancies that existed between us—discrepancies that generally exist between all reporters and editors as well as employees and managers.
Looking back, if I had dropped my misperceptions about my former editor's expectations, complexity would have still been as buff as the Incredible Hulk… without the syringe.
Read other posts by Aimee C. Juarez
Keep up with our community: Facebook | Twitter | Saybrook's Organizational Systems Program


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The Secret Beyond Matter
Stories for Thinking Children 2
Asad and the Colorful Butterflies
At the weekend, Asad went to visit his grandfather. The two days passed very quickly, and before Asad knew it his father had arrived to take him home. Asad said goodbye to his grandfather and went to sit in the car. He was looking out of the window as he waited for his father to collect his things. A butterfly sitting on a flower a short distance away fluttered its wings and flew to the car window.
"You're going home, aren't you, Asad?" asked the butterfly in a tiny voice.
Asad was astonished "Do you know me?" he asked.
"Of course I do," smiled the butterfly. "I've heard your grandfather telling the neighbors about you."
"Why didn't you come and talk to me before?" Asad inquired.
"I couldn't, because I was in a cocoon up a tree in the garden," explained the butterfly.
"A cocoon? What's that?" asked Asad, who was always a curious boy.
"Let me explain from the beginning," said the butterfly as it took a deep breath. "We butterflies hatch out of the egg as tiny caterpillars. We feed ourselves by nibbling leaves. Later we use a liquid which comes out of our bodies like thread and wrap ourselves up in it. That little package we weave is called a cocoon. We spend a while inside that package as we wait to grow. When we wake up and come out of the cocoon we have brightly colored wings. We spend the rest of our lives flying and feeding ourselves from flowers."
Asad nodded thoughtfully "You mean all those colorful butterflies were once caterpillars before they grew wings?"
"Can you see the green caterpillar on that branch?" asked the butterfly.
"Yes, I see it. It's nibbling away hungrily at a leaf."
"That's my little brother," smiled the caterpillar "In a while he'll weave a cocoon too, and one day he'll be a butterfly like me."
Asad had lots of questions to ask his new friend. "How do you plan this change? I mean, when do you come out of the egg, how long do you stay as a caterpillar and how do you make the thread to weave your cocoons?"
"I don't plan any of it at all," explained the butterfly patiently. "Allah has taught us what we need to do and when we need to do it. We just act in the way our Lord wills."
Asad was really impressed. "The patterns on your wings are wonderful. And all butterflies have different patterns, don't they? They are really colorful and eye-catching!"
"That's a proof of Allah's incomparable artistry. He created us one by one in the most beautiful way possible," explained his friend.
Asad agreed enthusiastically: "It's impossible not to see the beautiful things Allah has created. There are hundreds of examples all round us!"
The butterfly agreed: "You're right Asad. We need to give thanks to Allah for all these blessings."
Asad looked over his shoulder: "My father's coming. It looks like we're about to set off. It was really great to meet you. Can we talk again when I come next week?"
"Of course," nodded the butterfly. "Have a safe journey home."
Everything in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah... (Surat al-Hadid, 1)
Do you not see that Allah sends down water from the sky and by it We bring forth fruits of varying colors? And in the mountains there are streaks of white and red, of varying shades, and rocks of deep jet black. And mankind and beasts and livestock are likewise of varying colors. Only those of His servants with knowledge have fear of Allah. Allah is Almighty, Ever-Forgiving. (Surah Fatir: 27-28)


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80 years ITJ!
Closed safety circuit
"It's far safer to know too little than too much." Samuel Butler (1835 – 1902), British novelist, composer and painter more
Telex to app – in just 30 years
In Basel the Abacus Shipping agency and Ralf Brink have lived through all industry changes since 1992. more
The pleasure of excesses
"Anyone who isn't into enjoyment is a killjoy." Arno Plack (1930 – 2012), German philosopher and writer. more
A view from the outside
"Be fair. Be objective. Don't just come to conclusions based on one-sided evidence." Mahinda Rajapaksa (*1945), Sri Lankan president (2005–2015) and prime minister (since 2019) more
A lightweight becomes a heavyweight
"The most important person is the one you are with at this moment." Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828 – 1910), Russian writer, farmer and philosopher more
Hitting the perfect note
"What's best in music isn't to be found in the notes." Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911), Austrian composer and conductor more
Those wonderful moments
"The most wonderful thing in the world is to see a new day." Maxim Gorky (1868 – 1936), Russian raconteur, revolutionary and playwright more
"Appetites are returning"
Edouard Mathieu, who has worked for the operator of the Parisian airports since 1999, expects unrequited interest in exotic destinations and a gradual end to travel restrictions in summer to result in passenger volumes returning to around 60% of their pre-pandemic levels. ITJ... more
At the right time
Not many two-legged animals take to the skies these days – but some international jet-setting four-legged creatures, in contrast, stopped over at Qatar Airways hub in Doha recently. Kirsten de Bruijn talked to ITJ editor Andreas Haug about the measures necessary to transport... more
Fluorescent green in the saddle
"Air and exercise provide the best sanitary council." Theodor Fontane (1819–1898), German writer, journalist, storyteller and theatre critic more


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text:
Export 3 results:Author Type [ Year]
Filters: Author is Evgenios N. Kornaropoulos [Clear All Filters]
"Outcome prediction in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury patients using conventional and diffusion MRI via Support Vector Machine: A CENTER-TBI study", ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting. 2021.,
"Outcome prediction of mild traumatic brain injury using support vector machine based on longitudinal MRdiffusion imaging from CENTER-TBI", Magn Reson Mater Phy (ESMRMB), vol. 34. p. S54, 2021.,


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In late March, UConn's Shabazz Napier caused a stir when he said there were some nights he went to bed hungry. People scoffed at the idea of a star player not being able to find an open dining hall or afford food on his own, but a couple weeks later–total coincidence on the timing–the NCAA changed its rules to allow unlimited meals for athletes. And he comes Ole Miss QB Bo Wallace, claiming that yep, it's a common problem.
"A lot of guys go to bed hungry at night. That's real," Wallace told CBSSports.com from Thursday's SEC Media Days session. "We have our breakfast and lunch. Our cafe is open, so you can go and swipe your card, but dinner you have to pay for it...We need more compensation for that just to be able to survive. If I didn't have my parents I don't know what I would do. A lot of these kids don't have the same things that I have. I know that their struggle is something terrible. The cost of attendance, if they could just give us that, I think everybody would be OK."
Wallace even wonders how players with minimal resources pay for the suits and ties they must wear to media days. Schools can tap into a special assistance fund for help cover player expenses for special events. "A lot of guys don't have the money to go pay for it," he said.
A lot of people will disbelieve Wallace here. (Comment sections on these stories are always toxic.) But it's a fact that athletes' scholarships fall well short of the actual cost of attending college—to the tune of an average of $3,500 per student per year, according to a 2012 study.
It is true that for most students, their academic scholarships don't cover the full cost of attendance. To that I would note that those students can take part-time or work-study jobs if they choose, an option that's simply not realistic for athletes during their seasons. Could the athletes take out private loans to cover their shortfalls, like other students do? Sure. Then it becomes a philosophical question of why revenue athletes should have the honor of taking on debt for the right to make money for their schools.
This is promising to become a big issue for the NCAA. Just last week, 14 former and current athletes filed an antitrust suit against the NCAA for conspiring to keep football and basketball scholarships below the cost of attendance.
A proposal that would have provided players with cost-of-attendance stipends was voted down in 2011. Next month, the NCAA will vote on whether to give conferences the option of providing cost-of-attendance benefits to players.


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At HuffPost, we're kicking off an exciting new project and we'd love you to participate! It's called "The Moment I Knew," and is a user-submitted video series where readers tell the stories of life-changing moments they have experienced. Each section of HuffPost has chosen a different theme -- whether it was the moment you knew you were in love, the moment you knew your marriage was over, the moment you knew you wanted to play basketball, or the moment you knew you were broke. You can also tell us about any other life-defining moment you'd like to share. The possibilities are endless!
Here on HuffPost College we've suggested that you tell us about "The Moment I Loved College." This is the moment where you finally felt you had made the right decision in your school, the moment you realized you really belong. It's really easy to contribute! You can create your video using YouTube or Vimeo and send the link/URL of the video to firstname.lastname@example.com. If you create your video using your laptop or mobile phone and have a video file, please attach the file in an email to email@example.com. Your video submission is subject to our User Terms. Please make sure to include your full name with your video submission. Each video should be 30-60 seconds long, and should feature only you, speaking right into the camera telling your story. Please start your story with the words "The moment I knew..."
We can't wait to hear from you! And if you have any questions, please email email@example.com.


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A lot of Christians seem to think that it's wrong to watch horror movies. Others say that it's just another form of entertainment.
I don't know for sure which position is right.
Though whenever I watch the Exorcist it usually makes me pray for days on end. So for me it's good.
Anyway, what are the common objections against it?


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- Publishers
- Last Gasp
- series: Nicola Verlato
Comic book series : Nicola Verlato
From Verona With Rage
Italian born painter Nicola Verlato believes deeply in the power of figurative painting. From Verona with Rage features works created over the past 5 years since moving his studio to the United States. Verlato daringly combines techniques and skills borrowed from the old masters with themes more pop culture than Raphael.
Regardless of the stew of pop-culture sign-posts found in his work, ranging from Disney to rock 'n' roll, to movie stars, comics and pornography, his central argument — that nothing evokes an emotional reaction more than the human form — is borne out by his highly dramatic tableaus. Verlato's engrossing paintings manifest ample technical skill, but more importantly, they draw us in and ask us to consider the meaning of it all.
An entire chapter of the book is devoted to Verlato's extremely involved modeling and sketching process. Nicola Verlato lives and works in Los Angeles.
120 color illustrations


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January 31, 2011, - 2:55 pm
HILARIOUS! Video: Chicago's Ghetto Politicians
Patricia, the reason you didn't know where I was for the last 20 years, because you were strung out on crack. Now you have admitted to that. You also were in a cult. You have admitted to that.
Most people apparently don't remember when Carol Moseley-Braun was a one-term U.S. Senator from Illinois, a walking embarrassment commonly referred to as Carol Moseley-Fraud for her various scams, including Medicaid fraud, campaign finance fraud, and an illegal trip to Nigeria, among other things. Given all that, it's funny to watch Carol Elizabeth Moseley-Braun's chutzpah versus her opponent, Patricia Van Pelt Watkins. (Doesn't anyone have just two names anymore?)
The thing is, Rahm Emanuel isn't even at these events. He's gonna win because he'll let these two Black chicks duke it out and split the Black vote, while he claims victory. He's laughing at this video even harder than I am.
Question: can someone please make the Chicago Mayoral race go on forever (and make all candidates lose)? Please, more Moseley-Braun-Van-Pelt-Watkins videos.
Reader CaliforniaScreaming:
This video says it all about Chicago politics. Carol Moseley-Braun went into full ghetto mode.
Bring out the popcorn. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!!!!!!! (Jerry Springer moment.)
Tags: Carol Moseley-Braun, Carol Mosely Braun, Carol Mosely Fraud, Carole Moseley Fraud, Chicago, Chicago Mayoral Race, crack, crack addict, ghetto politics, HILARIOUS, Patricia Van Pelt Watkins, Rahm Emanuel, video


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Mile-High Health Concerns Leave Steelers Star On The Bench For Playoff Game
When the Pittsburgh Steelers start the NFL playoffs Sunday with a road game in Denver, they'll do it without free safety Ryan Clark. That's because Clark, who has 100 tackles and the confidence of his coaches, also has sickle cell trait, which can cause severe complications at high altitudes.
The condition can be particularly risky when those who have it exert themselves — something Clark is called upon to do dozens of times in an NFL game. And he's had a close call before, during a previous game against the Broncos. The New York Times' Judy Batista describes the situation:
"Clark knew about the trait, but was unaware of the severity of the risk, when the Steelers played at Denver in 2007. The altitude caused a reaction in Clark's blood that attacked his spleen. Over a few weeks, in separate operations, doctors removed Clark's spleen and gallbladder. At one point, when a doctor told him that they would pray together as Clark lay in a hospital bed, Clark feared that he was going to die. He lost more than 30 pounds and did not play again that season."
And since that ordeal, Clark has not played a game in Denver. But he also told ESPN's Josina Anderson that he had been planning to play in Sunday's AFC wild-card game — until he was overruled by his coach, Mike Tomlin. Clark told ESPN that every athlete wants to see action in the playoffs:
"I talked to my doctors and we actually had a plan in place for me to play. All things pointed to me going until [Tomlin] told me I can't. He said he wouldn't have let his son play, and so I'm not playing either."
Tomlin says the decision to start reserve Ryan Mundy and sit Clark, who leads the team in tackles, was an easy one.
"It's a big game for us. But it is a game. We'll keep it in that perspective," Tomlin said at a news conference videotaped by The Pittsburgh Tribune.
Clark will make the trip with the Steelers, and Tomlin says he expects Clark to help his teammates prepare for Sunday's game.
According to the National Institute of Health, sickle cell trait is a condition in which someone has inherited one copy of the altered hemoglobin gene associated with sickle cell disease (also called anemia). For the disease to manifest itself, it requires two copies.
An estimated 2.5 million people share Clark's condition. The NIH says the majority of them lead normal lives — until situations like those experienced by Clark pop up.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
Vite Brain – A once-daily Nootropic (Brain Nutrient) formula packed with 7 Nootropic nutrients and now with Omega-3's. Vite Brain is designed to nourish the mind with everything it needs to thrive, enhancing Mental Performance to help you feel sharper, think faster & focus longer.
This unit contains 60 capsules (30 Servings). Suitable for Vegans and is fully recyclable in your curbside recycling!
What is Vite Brain?
Vite Brain – Our once-daily Nootropic supplement designed to nourish the mind with Nootropic nutrients and enhance your cognitive function, helping you feel sharper, think faster & focus longer.
This unit contains 60 capsules (30 servings).
What is a Nootropic?
A Nootropic is defined as an ingredient that can improve a cognitive function, namely executive functions, memory, creativity and speed. At Vite, we utilise Nootropic ingredients that have been found in nature and used in ancient medicine for millennia.
Nootropics have the ability to positively impact the brain; enhancing brain energy, circulation, neurotransmitter development & protection, brain communication, regeneration and more.
Short term benefits of Nootropics have been proven to include; energy, processing speed, motivation & the ability to perform under pressure whilst long term benefits include memory retention, word recall & the prevention of age-related cognitive decline.
How to consume
Vite Brain has been formulated to be an all-in-one daily Nootropic and designed to grant immediate benefits in performance, energy & focus whilst boasting cumulative benefits to brain health & function with longer-term daily consumption.
The Vite Brain formula contains a balanced stimulant profile and lends itself best to morning consumption, once daily.
Ingredient profile
200mg Alpha GPC
200mg Rhodiola Rosea
250mg Lions Mane Mushroom
250mg Bacopa Monnieri
500mg Algae Powder (providing 50mg DHA Omega 3)
50mg Caffeine
50mg L Theanine
0.9mg Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5)
Full ingredients list:
Vegan Omega 3 Algae Powder, Bulking Agent, Vegetarian Capsule Shell. Alpha Glycerylphosphorylcholine, L-Theanine, Caffeine Anhydrous, Rhodiola Extract, Organic Lion's Mane Extract, Anti-Caking Agents, Bacopa Leaf Extract, Potassium Iodide.
You will never find artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, or bulking agents in our products. The base of every Vite product (bars, drink mixes, shakes) is 100% natural, real food and the vast majority of our functional ingredients are too.
The Science
Choline is an essential nutrient for supporting and improving cognitive function. Choline is cited mainly for its Neuro-Protective abilities and its effects of Memory & attention. Choline consumers often report cognitive stimulation, improvements in speed of thought, and mental clarity whilst research has shown an AcetylCholine precursor to reduce some cases of Cognitive Decline *1.
Choline-rich foods include eggs and red meat and lack of this nutrient has been linked to mental defects and inabilities to flush toxins and poisons out of the brain.
Rhodiola Rosea
Rhodiola Rosea, a flowering plant found in Asia, Europe & North America is widely used to stimulate the nervous system, extenuate anxiety, enhance work performance, relieve fatigue, and prevent high altitude sickness. Most notably for Vite Brain, Rhodiola consumers have shown a significant reduction in self-reported, anxiety, stress, anger, confusion, and depression *22.
Bacopa Monnieri
Bacopa Monnieri is a traditional herb used for Alzheimer's disease, improving memory, anxiety, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), allergic conditions, irritable bowel syndrome, and as a general tonic to fight stress. Bacopa is predominantly found in the wetlands of India, Africa, and Southern America. Some studies have shown Bacopa to improve word recall & prevent rises of anxiety *7, Improve learning ability *8 and improve memory in both healthy persons and those in cognitive decline *9. Bacopa interacts with dopamine and serotonin systems, but its main mechanism concerns promoting neuron communication. It does this by enhancing the rate at which the nervous system can communicate by increase the growth of nerve endings (dendrites).
Caffeine & L-Theanine
Caffeine is a powerful stimulant and Nootropic, it is the most widely used stimulant on the market and is believed to be consumed daily by up to 90% of Americans. Caffeine sensitizes Neurons and provides mental summation, it is shown to be a reliable and effective method of producing stimulative effects *18.
L-Theanine is an amino acid found primarily in green tea, it is considered slightly relaxing but non-sedative. A combination of L-Theanine and Caffeine is noted to be synergistic in promoting cognition and attention, when consumed together these substances have been shown to reduce susceptibility to distraction *19, promote alertness *20 and improve performance on cognitively demanding tasks 21*.


text:
The Atom Ant Show
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The Atom Ant Show was one of many 30 minute cartoon programs produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, that were comprised of three cartoon shorts. The Atom Ant show featured Atom Ant, Precious Pup and The Hillbilly Bears. It made it's official debut on NBC's Saturday morning line-up in October of 1965 teamed up with another production from Hanna-Barbera, The Secret Squirrel Show and ran through 1968. The program currently finds it's TV home amongst other Hanna-Barbera Productions on the 24-hour Classic Cartoon network, Boomerang. Where it airs on occasion. (Quelle: thetvdb.com)
Genre: Animation | Children
First Aired: 1965-10-02 Status: Ended Length: 25 Min
Genre: Animation | Children
First Aired: 1965-10-02 Status: Ended Length: 25 Min
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|Opening Credits
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Story highlights
Chinese ships briefly enter waters around the group of islands
Tensions between Japan and China are high over the disputed islands
Japan controls the islands, but China claims they are part of its territory
Thousands of Chinese protesters hurled bottles and eggs outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing over the weekend amid growing tensions between the two nations over a group of disputed islands.
Waving Chinese national flags and holding portraits of the late Chairman Mao Zedong, the mostly young protesters chanted "down with Japanese imperialism" and called for war as they made their way down the streets under the watchful eyes of police and guards.
Elsewhere in China, anti-Japanese rallies broke out in dozens of cities and sometimes turned violent. Messages and photos posted on Chinese social media sites showed angry mobs in numerous cities ransacking Japanese stores and restaurants as well as smashing and burning cars of Japanese make.
Japanese media also reported incidents of assault on Japanese nationals in China in the past few days. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman insisted Friday that the public anger was not aimed at the Japanese people, whose safety would be protected in China according to law.
Authorities rarely permit protests in China, prompting suspicion that Saturday's nationwide rallies were government-sanctioned. In Beijing, police walking along the demonstrators were seen to ask spectators to join in instead of blocking the street.
By Saturday night, China's state-run media had started appealing for restraint, running commentaries that condemned violence and lectured the public on the true meaning of patriotism. In a sign of rising concern over the gathering of large crowds, authorities in cities that had seen the most ferocious protests canceled entertainment and sporting events.
Asian islands dispute: Who claims what?
Tensions escalated Friday when Chinese maritime surveillance ships ignored warnings from Japan and briefly entered waters around the group of islands at the center of the heated territorial dispute.
The Chinese ships arrived near the uninhabited islands – which Japan calls Senkaku and China calls Diaoyu – on Friday morning and began patrols and "law enforcement," China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported, citing a government statement.
Economic consequences of island spat
The islands, situated in the East China Sea between Okinawa and Taiwan, are currently under Japanese control, but China claims they have been an "inherent" part of its territory "since ancient times."
The long-running argument over who has sovereignty has triggered protests in both nations.
The United States,a key ally of Japan, has repeatedly urged Tokyo and Beijing to resolve the dispute through dialogue. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will meet with his counterparts in Japan and China this weekend, the Department of Defense said Thursday.
Chinese vessels had all left the waters by Friday afternoon and headed north, the Japanese Coast Guard said.
Japan said it will intensify patrols of the area.
The controversial Chinese move to begin patrols around the islands follows the Japanese government's purchase of several of the islands from a private Japanese owner earlier this week, a deal that China described as "illegal and invalid."
Animosity between the two countries over the islands runs deep.
They have come to represent what many Chinese people see as unfinished business: redressing the impact of the Japanese occupation of large swathes of eastern China during the 1930s and 1940s.
China says its claim goes back hundreds of years. Japan says it saw no trace of Chinese control of the islands in an 1885 survey, so formally recognized them as Japanese sovereign territory in 1895.
Japan then sold the islands in 1932 to descendants of the original settlers. The Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945 only served to cloud the issue further.
The islands were administered by the U.S. occupation force after the war. But in 1972, Washington returned them to Japan as part of its withdrawal from Okinawa.


text: In a move to fortify a newly created division devoted to security systems, IBM is acquiring Q1 Labs, the company announced Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Q1 Labs vends security intelligence and event monitoring software. The company's software will provide a platform for the new IBM Security Systems division. Brendan Hannigan, now CEO of Q1, will head this division. IBM currently monitors 12 billion security events worldwide per day for its clients, according to the company. It estimates that the market for enterprise grade security services could generates more than US$94 million annually. Organizations face a bewildering array of tasks to secure their own systems, including protecting against network attacks, insider fraud and phishing attacks as well as meeting regulatory mandates.Q1 Labs' security information and event management (SIEM) software detects and flag actions on the network and within user-facing systems that fall outside of prescribed policies and typical behavior. Such behavior indicates possible malicious activity, such as an employee purloining unauthorized information.Q1 Labs serves more than 1,800 clients globally across a wide swath of industries, including health care, energy, retail, finance and government. Q1 Labs has partnered with a number of network infrastructure companies and security software companies, such as Juniper Networks, Enterasys, McAfee and Foundry.In addition to the Q1 Labs software, IBM's new Security Systems division will also manage IBM's Tivoli, Rational and Information Management security software products, as well as the company's security appliances, lab offerings, services, and research efforts. IBM has acquired more than 10 security focused companies in the past decade. Most recently, IBM acquired security analysis firm I2, in August.Pending a successful regulatory review and satisfaction of closing conditions, IBM expects to complete the purchase of Q1 Labs by the end of 2011, and fold the company into the IBM Software Group.


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Interview:2001/01/10 Marilyn: A Re-Examination
|Marilyn: A Re-Examination
|Interview with Marilyn Manson
|January 10, 2001
|LA Weekly
Marilyn: A Re-Examination
LA Weekly piece By Greg Burk on January 10, 2001
IT'S ALL MARILYN MANSON'S FAULT. Violence. Drug abuse. Disrespect for authority. Rejection of religion. Lack of values. All the bleeding sores on the soul of youth except acne and orthodonture. And maybe those, too. He's responsible. Kill him, and the wounds will heal.
A lot of people want you to believe that. And they aren't limited to the kind who smite their progeny for misquoting Corinthians. Marilyn Manson wants you to believe it, too. Being the devil is his job.
Or one of his jobs. Many know Manson as Antichrist Superstar, God of Fuck: the self-mutilations, the burning crosses, the buttless pants, yeah, yeah, yeah. Few realize that he may be the most complete rock performer ever, the one who does the most the best. And even fewer understand him as something more complicated than a god.
But we'll get to that. Right now, let's blame him for something else.
MARILYN MANSON GOT GEORGE W. Bush elected. The real ballot-box Satan isn't Ralph Nader, an idealist trying to influence politics from within. It isn't the variety of Floridian GOP vote benders, who were just carrying on their old-time traditions. And it isn't the U.S. Supreme Court, which no historian expects to be objective. No, the force that established this very special scion in the Oval Office penetrated from outside the system, when Marilyn Manson declared that he would vote for Bush. Would a crucial few hundred fans in Florida, launch site of Manson's music career, switch votes on his example alone? No question. Manson offered his endorsement to say something upsetting, which is part of his job. But he also did it out of spite. The Gore ticket's Senator Joe Lieberman publicly blamed Manson for the 1999 Columbine High School killings, and has described Manson's rock band -- also called Marilyn Manson -- as "perhaps the sickest group ever promoted by a mainstream record company." And let's not forget that Al Gore's wife is the righteous Tipper, whose Parents' Music Resource Center led the mid-'80s anti-obscenity witch-hunt that tried to censor Manson precursors-in-outrage like WASP and 2 Live Crew. (Maybe Manson didn't know that Dick Cheney's wife was after his hide, too.)
World political influence speaks for the power of the Dark Side, sure enough. But backstage after his show at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida, two days after Election Day, Manson is modest.
"I wish that I was in a position where I could actually encourage people to make a logical choice," he says -- thoughtful, likable, only the white contact lens in his left eye remaining from his 16 tons of concert regalia. "I don't think there was a logical choice, that's the problem. It's two piles of shit, and you're trying to pick which one stinks the least." Manson does manage to get his own twist of amusement from the political show, though. "The best thing about the election is that their names are very similar to sex and violence. Bush and Gore, the two things that make the world go 'round."
When you're having a little talk with Marilyn Manson, everything's cordial, relaxed. But out in the restaurants and shuttle buses of Florida, the post-election atmosphere is nervous. The waitresses and passengers smile but don't volunteer their vote selections. "Some coffee?" "Hope it don't rain." Okay.
Drive along its freeways, glance over miles of flat scrub forest: Florida is the lowest state in the nation, highest point 345 feet above sea level. This is where bottom-feeding supermarket tabloids the National Enquirer, the Star and the Globe maintain U.S. headquarters. This is where the Elian Gonzalez farce played out, and where most of the drugs come in. This is where Marilyn Manson first picked up a microphone.
In addition to sunshine and oranges, Florida has much in common with California. There's a Hollywood, Florida. Orlando is home to Disney World and the municipality's own Universal CityWalk. So it's natural that when Manson changed residences, he would pick Hollywood, California, where he's lived for the past three years.
Did the amusement-park aspects of his stage show draw inspiration from Uncle Walt?
"About eight years ago, I used to like to take LSD and go to Disney World, because it kind of transported you back into time, and you're like a child again. The one thing that scared me the most was, I was going through Frontier World, and they were selling these big, I guess they were, like, chicken legs. They looked like something from the Flintstones, and these people were gnawing on 'em, and they just had grease all over their faces, and meat was coming out of their mouths. And there were all these sea gulls flocked around, and it looked like the people were eating the sea gulls, and the sea gulls were eating the scraps, and it was this big cannibalistic freak-out."
The Hard Rock show a couple of hours earlier has gone down a scream with the Orlando flock, a mixed bunch. One rock kid to another rock kid in the john, discussing a mutual acquaintance: "She wants somebody to kiss her fuckin' heinie. You go home with her. She likes you. I'll go party." A gay restaurateur around 30 tries to cadge backstage passes. A muscleman with skin grafts all over his legs shows off his scars in spandex short-shorts.
Tonight, they unite. But in 1998, Manson's core fan base, many on the green side of 20, waved knives over his Mechanical Animals CD, griping that it was too melodic -- not everyone would agree, but you have to consider the source. To some extent, the artist has accommodated the malcontents. After being scapegoated in the media as a motivator of the Littleton massacre, even though he wasn't on the Top 66 playlist of suicide killers Klebold and Harris, Manson required little urging to show his teeth in the face of the hostility. So hardcore fans will be happy to discover that his new Holy Wood album and Guns, God & Government World Tour bring more of the snarl.
Showtime. The band signal their intentions by opening with "Irresponsible Hate Anthem," from 1996's Antichrist Superstar, the collection that solidified Manson's rock-god status. The song is thrashy, furious, hooked with a grinding, tortured guitar riff and Manson's famous "I wasn't born with enough middle fingers" slogan, which he yells with throat-scarring recklessness as he spreads devil-bat costume wings. This vibe will be revived in Holy Wood chunks such as "The Fight Song" and "Burning Flag," but Manson shows that rage isn't all he's got in his bag. He learned in 1995 that he could deliver a more than passable torch ballad with his cover of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"; tonight, the song's huge dynamics provoke the expected emotional response from the assembled misfits, who're especially aware that "Some of them want to abuse you." And when, on "Tourniquet," Manson pleads, "Take your hatred out on me," recent history loads the words with an extra layer of meaning. The Bowie-esque gasp of "Great Big White World" and the stupefied blues of "The Dope Show," both from Mechanical Animals, vibrate with powerful despair. And hallucinatory stagings of Holy Wood selections (we're charged not to reveal details) not only bring the lurching "Cruci-Fiction in Space" to full realization, they push the groan of "Valentine's Day" over the top into a thrill-filled hell.
Though the current tour's visuals are stripped down some, and Manson is playing mostly in smaller venues than he did on his 1999 excursion, the resulting sharper focus on the music and the musicians brings its own rewards. The band is made up, coifed and threaded out in this year's corpse-jester couture. John Lowery, called John 5 because he's the group's fifth guitarist, looks like a dazed child, but after two years he's been fully absorbed into the band, his tactile command of simple riffs demonstrating why he's been a choice of musicians ranging from K.D. Lang to Rob Halford. The drummer, Ginger Fish, injects a sense of rhythmic tension without which pounders such as the galloping "The Beautiful People" might have come off flat. Madonna Wayne Gacy, called Pogo (John Wayne Gacy's clown name) by everybody, teeters on his spring-mounted keyboard like he's stuck to a live power line, scattering fistfuls of horror-movie squeedles, carnival countermelodies and just plain noises. Twiggy Ramirez, Manson's main songwriting conspirator, flops around like a broken doll while banging out big, doomy bass lines.
Neither press coverage nor Manson PR concentrates on these guys' considerable chops; that would be too, like, musicianish, and this is a show. Manson himself is always ready to hype the group's image with personal caricatures. Since the guitarist and drummer aren't drunks or dopers, he finds other ways to staple their pictures to the post-office wall: "John's a sex addict -- but not in a fun way. Everyone has a way to hide from reality. And Ginger, Ginger should have a psychiatrist look at him. He's the most dangerous person in the band." That must be because he's quiet. In a backstage buffet room after the show, Fish's sweet young girlfriend of the moment, asked what kind of music he listens to, says, "I think he'd say that what he really prefers is silence." When the drummer, small and shrew-faced, arrives, he sits next to her and collapses facedown on the table.
Pogo rushes in wearing a clownlike smile that backflips his depressive image, his eyes jerking randomly around. He talks fast. Really fast. Back-patted for his musical contribution, he's conflicted. He always liked guitars better than keyboards.
"In a strange way, I almost hate what I do," he says. "I don't even know if they can hear me sometimes." But Pogo does like being a rock star. "What other job can you spit on people and berate them, and they pay you for it? Plus, somebody actually hands you a beer and encourages you to drink it, and then lets you, like, smash things."
Who's Pogo spitting on? The fans? Manson always makes a point of respecting his legions. Most likely Pogo's just doing his best to say something obnoxious. It's his job to be a substance-abusing contrarian, too; he's been known to sniff Liquid Paper on camera. On one Web posting, a music forum on Napster-type free Internet downloading, Pogo complains that pirates are "taking drugs out of my mouth every time they do that."
Twiggy Ramirez hunches his long bones into the room. It almost hurts to look at him. Lipstick is smeared around his mouth, black gunk around his eyes, as usual. His speech is chattery and grating. His movements, spastic but somehow rhythmic, cause his long, omnidirectional dreadlocks to fly around his head. He radiates crazed, diffuse energy.
Cut to Marilyn Manson, in a room set aside for the formal interview. Fingertips touching, he sits on a couch in tea-ceremony quiet. Unlike Twiggy, he moves slowly and rarely. Their pairing recalls other rock polarities: Jagger-Richards, Lennon-McCartney. Two candles on a coffee table slightly offset the dusky dimness. Every feeble ray of light is drawn to his pale skin, so he emits a slight glow.
Manson has dragged a gauzy black T-shirt and black pants over his delicate, lanky frame. He looks younger than 32. His nose is large and witchy, dominating a gently pointed chin on an elongated-egg head. His thin black hair, parted in the middle, hangs straight down to his Adam's apple. He has no eyebrows, but you don't notice the absence at first, just the wide-open effect it produces. The white contact lens in his left eye looks almost natural in this light; the right eye is indeterminately colored. His whiteface makeup has been washed off, and his skin is clear considering the routine pore-clog.
Most of Manson's facial communication comes from the subtle movements of his slightly off-center mouth, which is full-lipped but not large. When he smiles, it's just a flicker in a corner, like a geisha, showing no teeth. His voice is low, his enunciation very soft. He speaks slowly, but gets a lot in. Tonight he's got a froggy throat and a sporadic light cough. Caught a touch of something?
"A little touch of the rock & roll lifestyle." It's unclear whether Manson means the nightly shredding of his vocal cords or something else, but he says he's had his throat examined, and the docs have given him the thumbs-up. "You make your body a place where germs and diseases don't want to live by filling it full of alcohol and drugs," he chuckles. "Then you'll be fine."
Manson is the last to downplay his drug consumption, and when the subject of journalism comes up, he says he admires gonzo inventor Hunter S. Thompson -- met him a year or so ago and keeps in touch. He says Thompson is still drawing vigorous professional and physical breath despite a reputation for excessive substance intake. "I think there's some sort of preservative in the lifestyle. It kind of keeps you in suspended animation. When you stop, then that's when it all comes winding down for you."
Manson was even a journalist (rock) himself for a short time; he simply redirected that energy into his music. "I feel that there's still a strong amount of journalism in what I do, because I'm really just looking at the world and giving people my opinion."
In his opinion, the world sucks. Manson sees a lot of people oppressed: for being young, being different, having sex, liking violent entertainment, liking drugs. Manson enjoys sticking the oppression back up the oppressors' asses, pointing out that the godly folk who want to ban sexual and violent images are always quoting a book that's filled with sex and violence; that they kneel before a symbol as brutal as any; that religion and television, as John Lennon once sang, are dope, too; that repressing outsiders has always been the way powerful people have reinforced their own power.
These aren't original messages. You might even say they're obvious enough to be hardly worth sending. But the fact is, almost nobody, especially (no surprise) in mainstream media, is sending them. So it's interesting to observe not just the knee-jerk anti-Manson vitriol you'd expect from right-wingers, but the sniffy dismissals he's been getting recently from such sources as Spin ("a seventh James Bond movie without any new gadgets") and The New York Times ("stuck, writhing in the amber of his mass-marketed ghastliness"). Quite apart from failing to appreciate the artful balance Manson has struck between his own growth and his audience's expectations, critics often don't look beyond the top layer of shock and blood. If they did, they'd find him harder to dismiss.
For one thing, the shock and blood are damn good; Manson has thought out his image far beyond the level of all previous rock splattermongers, many of whom have sunk to cartoonhood by drawing themselves as one-dimensional ghouls. As Manson told Robert Hilburn in 1998, "Everything I express comes from the same place . . . taking the opposites and putting them together." So he's tagged himself Charles Manson and Marilyn Monroe, and given his band similar names that match mass murderers with female entertainers, while also recognizing murderers' entertainment value and goddess worship's subtextual morbidity. He brings the same approach to critiques of religion, politics, history, marketing, media, parenting, sexuality, love and morality. Frozen in amber though he may be, Manson will not soon run out of material.
HE USED TO CALL HIMSELF THE REVEREND MANSON in his earlier days, when he was more interested than now in emphasizing his honorary ordination by Anton LaVey into the Church of Satan. But he's no soapbox preacher or sloganeer. Or Satanist, really. He's more of a poet.
They slit out throats Like we were flowers And our milk has been Devoured.
Your world is an ashtray We burn and coil, like cigarettes The more you cry your ashes turn to mud. It's the nature of the leeches, the virgin's feeling cheated, you've only spent a second of your life.
If you die when there's no one watching Then your ratings drop and you're forgotten But if they kill you on their TV You're a martyr and a lamb of God
--"Lamb of God"
Manson's lyrics personalize his concepts and his emotions, make them resonate. And his music strikes mind, heart and body: Most people who've pegged him solely as a heavy-metal moshmaster have never heard any of it, or were distracted enough by his weird images that it didn't sink in. That's too bad, because Manson's most impressive growth has been as a musician.
And his music has never been bad. Manson first reached a mass audience in 1994 with his major-label debut, Portrait of an American Family, which, though uneven, features great rock songs such as the hooky "Lunchbox" (about one kid's choice of schoolyard weapon) and the horrific "Get Your Gunn" (themed after Dr. David Gunn, the abortionist murdered by a pro-life activist), both of which the band still plays in concert. The next full-length offering, Smells Like Children -- a cut-up of covers ("Sweet Dreams," "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger"), remixes, sound experiments, prank phone calls and other oddities -- is worth hearing at least once while stoned.
Then he broke through. Somehow, after heroic drug abuse, bitter infighting and epic time-wasting in decadent New Orleans, Marilyn Manson barfed up Antichrist Superstar in 1996, and it turned out to be just what grunge-weary American youth had been waiting for. It's harsh. It's hateful. It's energetic. It's loaded with anthems. It's the one fans can't get over, the one they want to hear again and again.
Manson himself, though, when the time came to put the next album together, wanted something new. He was pushing 30. He was growing up, and he felt ready, for the first time since he was a child, to feel. He endured prolonged stretches without drugs. He thought about what it means to be a human being, about the dreadful risk of love, and about the role of a rock star. Changing co-producers from the industrial-minded Trent Reznor to the more laissez-faire pop craftsman Michael Beinhorn, Manson and band made Mechanical Animals, which switched back and forth between full-bore rock ("Rock Is Dead") and exquisite beauty ("The Last Day on Earth"), devoting the maximum of songwriting skills, studio polish and pure passion to both. Released in 1998, Mechanical is one of the greatest albums of its decade. Naturally, fans were puzzled by it and critics weren't ready for it. But Manson had attained full command of his art.
After beginning as a yeller, he's even become an extremely expressive singer. "I absolutely did not deserve to have a record deal, the way that I sounded," he says. But he never sought professional guidance. "It's just practice over the years. I was always afraid to take lessons, because I thought that they would unlearn the rawness, the characteristics that made it likable. I think that I've kind of come into my own."
The year of Columbine saw the release of a live album, The Last Tour on Earth -- a powerful document of a band that walked through fire, as well as an ideal summation of what Manson is about; the curious listener should start here. And into the middle of November's presidential election fell Holy Wood, with Manson himself co-producing along with engineer Dave Sardy, and a new sound-manipulating partner entering the picture in the form of Nitzer Ebb's Bon Harris. While its spiritual theme and its layering of violent musical and political images from around the time of his birth attain the highest level of conceptual complexity yet, it simultaneously reaffirms all Manson's other virtues and completes a trilogy of studio albums that ranks with anybody's best. He's been rewarded by a condemnation from the Catholic League.
Meanwhile, Manson has subjected a bagful of other arts to his full treatment. His stage props, makeup, clothes and lighting are extravagant and artistic. His promo videos, directed with a surrealist fashion-show sense of composition and color by the likes of E. Elias Merhige (Shadow of the Vampire), R&B video director Paul Hunter and veteran D.P. Samuel Bayer, don't look like anything else on MTV; in fact, they're the only thing on the network worth watching. Two tour-documentary videos, Dead to the World and God Is in the TV (the latter also featuring all the Manson promo clips), are twisted, tightly edited and fascinating. Manson has always taken painstaking care with his photo images; Holy Wood, in particular, is an art book as well as a CD, and its photographer, P.R. Brown, will be exhibiting his collaborations with Manson in Hollywood this month. Before we leave the visual realm, it should be noted that Manson draws well and is also a remarkably distinctive painter.
Now to the verbal side. Manson's 1998 autobiography with Neil Strauss, The Long Hard Road out of Hell, is the most self-abasing and funny piece of rock mythology ever written. A Manson-penned novel based on Holy Wood will be published soon. His interviews, which he considers as important as his songs, flesh out his ideas with wit and concision. And his Web site, www.marilynmanson.com, is swollen with regularly updated info, as well as a sampling of choice Manson propaganda: "IS ADULT ENTERTAINMENT KILLING OUR CHILDREN OR IS KILLING OUR CHILDREN ENTERTAINING ADULTS?|Is adult entertainment killing our children, or is killing our children entertaining adults?"
This litany of Manson's accomplishments, bludgeoning though it may be, is necessary to put him in historical perspective. And a look through the rock pantheon quickly narrows the field of comparable artists. In terms of their music and their godly stature, Elvis, Lennon, Hendrix and Morrison are in their own categories, largely because they're dead. James Brown is James Brown. Dylan is Dylan. But in terms of scope (the images, the books, the talk, etc.), only two pop stars compare to Manson: Bowie and Madonna; excluding the inconclusive evidence as to whether any of them can act (Manson's working on his own screen career), Manson at least matches up to both, art for art, and often excels. In terms of impact, Bowie's and Madonna's longer runs have established them as can't-fuck-with-'em entertainers. Manson is already that and more.
THE CANTON, OHIO, YOUTH OF MARILYN MANSON -- Brian Warner to his parents -- is often described as normal. It wasn't, unless it's normal to be exposed to your grandfather's bestial pornography, molested by a neighbor kid, smothered by a burglar, devastated by the poisoning of your pet dog and tormented by the potential genetic consequences of your father's Agent Orange contamination. Young Brian's mother doted on the sickly child; his salesman father was chronically absent.
A breeding ground of pop misfits, Ohio is the home of Devo, the Dead Boys, Pere Ubu, Chrissie Hynde, payola DJ Alan Freed and, more recently, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Brian was a misfit, too, especially at Heritage Christian School, an institution he attended through 10th grade, where he swallowed frequent doses of hell and the Antichrist. He began having nightmares at an early age, and continues to have them today.
Brian made an early exit from Heritage -- where, his autobiography says, he sold albums by forbidden artists such as Judas Priest at inflated prices; according to a Manson interview in Q magazine, he also stole money from girls' purses during prayer sessions. Finishing his formal education at the public GlenOaks High School, he wasn't popular.
When his father moved the family in 1988 after finding new work in southern Florida, Brian's social situation didn't improve much. He wrote reviews and conducted interviews, including one with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, for a couple of local arts papers. He managed a record store, from which he stole. He hung out in the region's extreme-music scene, wrote poems and turned them into songs. He formed bands, developed his ideas, and started performing as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, whose shows featured chicken entrails thrown into the audience and women crucified onstage. In 1990, the group opened for Nine Inch Nails -- an association that would become crucial later, after numerous changes of M.M. personnel, when Reznor signed Manson to his Nothing Records, a subsidiary of Interscope. But long before they were signed, they were magnetic, twice winning awards at south Florida's musical Slammies, for which Manson was also tapped as a presenter. Video footage from the 1993 ceremony shows him casual and polite. When an honoree fails to show up, Manson simply chucks the heavy trophy off the stage. "Excuse me," he inquires of an audience member, "did I hit you?"
Manson's career has always been successful, i.e., turbulent. Retail chains have refused to carry his recordings. Riots have attended tour dates. Church and parent groups have lobbied to prevent his band's concerts in their cities, spreading vast numbers of imaginative lies about child abuse, drug distribution and such in his shows.
As the '90s closed, the heat reached a high boil. A 1999 tour co-billing the Jesus and Mary of rock depravity -- Marilyn Manson and Courtney Love -- was spiced by sniping between the two deities, and ended with Love's band, Hole, huffing off before its slated dates had been completed.
"I knew it was doomed. That's why I scheduled it to begin with, because I just wanted to see her fall apart," Manson chortles evilly. "It was part of my amusement." Manson says Hole wasn't holding up its end in terms of audience response and T-shirt and poster sales. Love claimed Manson's massive staging was sucking up the overhead; according to a Manson press release, she even sued her management for the mental stress she suffered because of the pairing.
In scenes reminiscent of the Stations of the Cross, the tour staggered to hiatus thanks to events near the Ides of March in Southern California. Manson twisted his ankle in Anaheim and was advised by doctors not to perform the next date, at L.A.'s Forum. He went ahead anyway, and it turned out to be Hole's last show, with Love improvising a cover of the Beatles' "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" by way of farewell. With the curse of Courtney still hanging over the stage, Manson came on strong, but fell on his own Golgotha, the ankle forcing him to stop the show after only a few songs.
"I've played with a broken nose before, with broken bones, bleeding out of all sorts of places on my body," says Manson, explaining that he just can't perform if he can't walk.
The tour was suspended briefly, then resumed. And on April 20 came Columbine. Manson dared to continue wearing a trench coat onstage after the shooting, then canceled the rest of his engagements, fearing that somebody might be hurt amid the media frenzy, and that one somebody might be Marilyn Manson. He says he didn't leave his house for three months.
"I expected to be glared at if I were in the Midwest or something," says Manson, "but I generally felt hated even in Hollywood, where I thought there would be some sort of camaraderie, because everyone was part of the entertainment industry. I don't think people genuinely disliked me as much as they were afraid to be associated with me, because it would jeopardize their jobs. So I had a lot of doors closed in my face, as far as movies and music and things like that. A lot of people were afraid. And now I can have my list of people who didn't stand behind me.
"You know," he says quietly, "I'll remember that."
Never sorry to spend time thinking alone, Manson meditated at the home he'd just bought in Hollywood. "I live in the same house where the Stones wrote Let It Bleed," he says. "It's . . . I don't know if I should say exactly where, but it's in the hills near the big cross that lights up. I almost moved into a house that had that in the back yard, but I thought that would really be a dead giveaway.
"I've never lived in a house before. I grew up in a duplex. I lived in apartments all my life with my parents -- we couldn't afford a house. So I feel fortunate that I've gotten to the point in my life where I can actually have a house, and I don't leave it very much."
During the last half of 1999 and the first half of 2000, while writing and recording Holy Wood, Manson thought a lot about his parents and his upbringing. A Capricorn like David Bowie -- and, according to tradition, at least, like Jesus -- in 1999 he had turned 30, the age when Jesus began his ministry, which would end when the Nazarene was crucified at 33. The year of Manson's birth, 1969, had been the year of Woodstock, of the (Charles) Manson murders, of the Rolling Stones' concert debacle at Altamont and of Let It Bleed's release.
As a devotee of mystical pursuits such as numerology and tarot, on the latter of which the surrealist filmmaker [[Alejandro Jodorowsky[[ has given him some tips, Manson finds such coincidences interesting. He's always looking for patterns in his life.
"I started reading more about symbolism -- Jung and people like that -- and how symbols are all around us, and if you recognize them, you see the path."
To a large extent, Manson's parents have provided a reverse compass: Remaking himself from coddled nerd to self-mutilating superstar, from devil-fearing schoolboy to visionary Antichrist, has been a single-minded project. It must be gratifying to Manson that for several years his financial status has enabled him to support Mom and Dad, the symbols of his youthful bondage. Still, any obsessive opposition implies a strong relationship, even an attraction. Manson's choice of a cover song for the 2000/2001 New Year's Eve broadcast on MTV -- Cheap Trick's "Surrender" -- is interesting. "Mama's all right, Daddy's all right," goes the chorus, "they just seem a little weird."
Two of young Brian Warner's classmates at Heritage Christian School, Jeff Slingluff and Cathi Slingluff (formerly Miller) -- currently residents of Thousand Oaks, where Jeff designs guitar amps -- remember the parents as non-demonic. "They were extremely cool," says Jeff, relating how they drove Brian, another friend and himself to a concert by Rush (then a fave of Brian's) when they were about 13, and even waited for them in an adjacent bar till the show was over.
Manson's last two long-term relationships, with his Florida girlfriend Missi and with actress Rose McGowan, have been with women whose round, pretty faces look a good deal like old photos of his mother. And considering how little time young Brian spent with his father, the influence of Hugh Warner is substantial.
Dad is a retired salesman -- of furniture, among other things. "He could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in a white dress," says Manson. "I think I got a lot from him. I think I inherited his drive, his motivation, and his . . . I won't say dishonesty, but the nature to try and pull one over on someone all the time." Entertainment, he says, has a lot to do with persuasion. And maybe there's some competition there, as well.
In the unauthorized Marilyn Manson biovideo Demystifying the Devil, ex-girlfriend Missi describes Hugh, who enjoys his reputation as the father of the God of Fuck (a term Marilyn borrowed from Charles Manson), as "always trying to be weirder than his son." There's a nice scene in Manson's own docu-video God Is in the TV in which Hugh seizes a pet dog and begins manipulating its penis. From off-camera, you can hear Manson's ostensibly embarrassed voice pleading, "Hey, stop playing with his pecker." But Demystifying features older footage of Manson himself engaging in very similar doggie porn. So which came first?
Manson's art has always shown a special connection with youth -- consider song titles like "The Hands of Small Children," "Kiddie Grinder" and "Sweet Tooth." David Lynch, whom Manson has called his favorite filmmaker and to whose hallucinatory Lost Highway the Antichrist contributed music and a bit part, says Manson and Twiggy, invited to his workplace, got along great with his kids.
"And that says something about them right there," says Lynch. "An excellent houseguest, Marilyn is. And completely professional, just fantastic, to work with. Y'know, he's an artist, and he's, I think, a very gifted modern musician." Lynch also describes Manson as "a regular guy."
"That," cracks Mary Sweeney, Lynch's film producer and editor and the mother of one of his sons, "is the pot calling the kettle black." She kiddingly refers to Manson as "Uncle Marilyn."
Manson even writes songs like a child. "If you operate under controlled chaos, it puts you back in a very primitive, childish state of mind," he says. "Because when you're a kid, you don't really think about the rules. And that's how I play as a musician. 'Cause I'm not schooled, and I couldn't even name the notes on a piano, but I can play melodies and I can write things. But I do it like a kid, and I find that that is something that keeps me going, and it's also artistically something that just keeps your imagination open. You're not limited. You just do it, and sometimes you come up with your best things."
One nakedly emotional passage in The Long Hard Road out of Hell describes the day, well into the second trimester, when the abortionist's forceps terminated the gestation of a child Manson and Missi might have had. Would the Antichrist ever want offspring?
"I always feel like I have a whole room full of 'em every night." That's Manson's stock answer, and partly true. Then he amplifies. "But a part of me really does. I'd like to think I'd merged with someone and kind of passed on immortality in a way. But I think that could be greedy, and I think it could be selfish."
MANSON IS OFTEN CANDID. AND HE OFTEN MAKES things up, because one of his most important jobs is that of mythmaker. It's hard to tell what's "true." Classmates Jeff and Cathi Slingluff, for instance, don't remember anything about his stealing or selling contraband records. When confronted with facts contradicting his statements, he's been known to say, "I like the way I remember it better."
"He was very sweet and real quiet," says Cathi. "But I think everybody thought he was kinda weird."
"He was a very, very, very smart guy," says Jeff. "Very funny. He's the kind of guy that could be standing right beside somebody and be making faces at what they're saying, without them realizing it. Not really a troublemaker, pretty much a good kid."
Jeff does remember Brian trying to get reactions out of people -- by saying he'd stuck a Q-Tip up his cat's butt, for example. And he was obsessed with MTV. But Jeff thinks Brian got a lot from Heritage Christian School, and not at all what was intended.
"The school was a little bit nuts about music," says Jeff. "Brian and I were in wood shop together, and they wouldn't let me make a guitar, because they thought I might play rock music on it. Every week we had a chapel class, and it was, 'Burn your records. If you don't get away from your evil rock music, you're gonna burn in hell.' We'd take a month and study all the different types of rock beats and how they relate to African drumbeats that bring up rages and desires of killing and stuff like that. And sometimes I wonder if he just sat there and went, 'Whoa, that was a hot button, remember that one.' Because it would be the perfect learning ground to create the character that he is."
True/false, creator/product, genius/idiot. Flip a coin. Much of what's been reported about Manson here and elsewhere is . . . negotiable. His persona and music have a cut-and-paste quality to them. He's said that nothing new can be done in rock music. But the art form remains stocked with an arsenal of effective tools, from which Manson draws at will. He's copped to the visual and musical influence of Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses and others -- and he might as well; there'd be no point in denying it. From song to song, you can also hear snips of melodies directly pillaged from Black Sabbath, or the Beatles, or KMFDM, or Radiohead, or even War and the Eagles.
Not a problem. Marilyn Manson isn't one to flinch at being called a liar and a thief. Again, it's part of his job: agitator, trickster, destabilizer. No mythic figure should ever be too specifically defined, too clearly original. Some critics question whether Jesus ever existed, much less whether he was born of a virgin, and the confusion only makes the myth more durable. Manson's ambitions are on that scale.
And it's not just a power trip. Manson wants to change things for the better. "Everything that I say and I do is sincere as I can possibly be, and comes from whatever cold, hard rock of a heart that I have in my chest," he's told Metal Edge, and if you look at his work, this statement rings true.
But how much time does he have left to change the world? Will he be another Lennon? Sometimes it seems he hopes so. Will his body hold out? He has talked about being repeatedly hospitalized for the erratic, rapid heartbeat associated with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. He has also said he's no longer afraid to die.
Meanwhile, he has plans.
"I'm just trying to keep my mind open," says Manson. "I don't ever try and paint myself in a corner. I feel like if you're open to new ideas, that puts you in a position for rebirth, resurrecting. That's what keeps you moving."
Onward, to Calvary.
Marilyn Manson plays a sold-out show at the Universal Amphitheater Saturday, January 13. The photo exhibit "Holy Wood: Artwork From the Shadow of the Valley of Death," by Marilyn Manson and P.R. Brown, runs from January 18 to February 15 at The . . . Gallery, 1628 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood.


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Antoine Dodson -- I've Got My Own Reality Show!
Antoine Dodson I've Got My Own Reality Show!
Antoine Dodson is starring in a new reality show ... run and TELL THAT, HOMEBOY.
TMZ has learned ... the guy who famously battled a bedroom intruder is shooting a pilot for a reality show produced by Entertainment One. Actress Kali Hawk will serve as executive producer.
We're told the show doesn't have an official name yet -- but producers have already shot a bunch of footage centered around Antoine moving out of Alabama and over to West Hollywood.
So far, we're told the show is still looking for a deal with a network.


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A short but important footnote to the NYT's story about Assad using scud missiles against the rebels. Remember, this is supposed to be the new pro-western face of the Syrian opposition that'll make deeper U.S. involvement more politically palatable.
But the leader of the coalition took issue with a decision by the Obama administration to classify Al Nusra Front — one of several armed groups fighting Mr. Assad — as a foreign terrorist organization and urged the United States to review that decision.
The coalition leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, said, "The logic under which we consider one of the parts that fights against the Assad regime is a terrorist organization is a logic one must reconsider."
He also said: "We love our country. We can differ with parties that adopt political ideas and visions different from ours. But we ensure that the goal of all rebels is the fall of the regime."
Why is an alleged "moderate" sticking up for Jabhat al-Nusra, allegedly an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq? Because: The only thing Syrians care about right now is bringing down Assad, and if the Nusra Front is willing to pitch in on that then, as far as they're concerned, three cheers for them. Read Aaron Zelin's piece at Foreign Policy for a more thorough exposition of that, or just click here and check out the photo that was circulating on Syrian Facebook after the State Department declared Al Nusra officially a terrorist group. Writes Zelin:
Syrians are also planning to take to the streets to express their solidarity with Jabhat al-Nusra this week. A coalition of coordinating committees and rebel battalions has called for demonstrations this Friday under the slogan "No to the Interference of America — We Are All Jabhat al-Nusra." The statement originally had 29 signatories, but now contains more than 100.
Even more worrisome from the perspective of the United States, there are tentative signs that Jabhat al-Nusra has also been providing local services. While the designation signals that the U.S. government is committed to isolating the group, its heroics on the battlefield and its work to provide for the basic needs of the Syrian people could signal that it is becoming embedded within the social fabric of the population.
Some of the Al Nusra fans are undoubtedly good old-fashioned jihadi sympathizers but even the more secular types are in no mood to be picky when it comes to fighters willing to risk their lives to finish off Assad. And so Obama's attempt to earn some goodwill with the population by endorsing the Syrian Opposition Council last night is instantly off to a bad start. It's a perfect example of why intervention there is doomed to be messy and thankless: Politically, Obama had no choice but to denounce Al Nusra and al-Khatib had no choice but to defend them. And meanwhile, the group is hard at work expanding its own influence over the rebellion even as the White House strains to limit it. New from Long War Journal:
Jihadist groups in Syria are "beginning to coalesce under a single command, and are following the lead of the Al Nusrah Front," a US intelligence official familiar with the situation in Syria told The Long War Journal.
"Al Nusrah isn't the only jihadist group operating in Syria, but as part of al Qaeda's franchise it has access to its resources and expertise," the intelligence official continued. "Al Nusrah has the cachet to organize the local jihadists and integrate them."
"The influence of the jihadist groups in Syria, and their prowess on the battlefield, is being vastly underestimated," the official said. "Al Qaeda, through the Nusrah Front, is working to unite these disparate jihadist groups, just as it did in Iraq."
That's from a post about the founding of the new Mujahedeen Shura Council incorporating 10 jihadi groups that are currently doing much of the heavy lifting on the battlefield. Which do you suppose will have more influence in Syria after Assad, the MSC or Obama's weapons-less Syrian Opposition Council? To see what the medium-term, or even near-term, future holds, click here — but only if you have a strong stomach.
Al Nusrah even benefits from Assad's dumb scud offensive. The weapons aren't very accurate and therefore are unlikely to set the rebels back much, but as an ostentatious form of escalation (they're capable of carrying chemical warheads) they're bound to infuriate the Syrian population even more. And the angrier Syrians get, the less discriminating they'll be about who's doing the fighting on their behalf and what sort of government might follow the butcher of Damascus. The White House knows all of that, which is why it's now scrambling to boost the profile of the Syrian Opposition Council and, eventually, to intervene somehow in the rebels' defense. Exit question: Too little, too late?