Dostoevsky – The Idiot - Review

 

It should be known to most students and readers of Dostoevsky that he suffered most of his adult life from a severe condition of epilepsy. The seizures from this disease can vary in intensity from mild to the point where it is so intense that the individual's heart will simply stop from the violent convulsions. Those afflicted with this condition have commented that safeness washes over them, and after an attack, a feeling of deep clarity pervades. A few individuals, including the great Russian writer, have claimed that they experienced something akin to a spiritual awakening, only lasting a few moments and sometimes a few hours. The protagonist in The Idiot, Prince Myshkin, also suffers from epilepsy and therefore has earned the cruel nickname of `Idiot' from his circle of friends and acquaintances.

The novel centers on this man and the profound effects he has on those he comes in contact. The Idiot is a nineteenth-century thriller, an exposé of the Russian aristocracy, intense, unrequited love, and spiritual redemption. A semi-autobiographical piece that is one of Dostoevsky's better novels.

Prince Myshkin's simpleton demeanor, his almost child-like view of the world - naive, terribly honest, and soft good looks - projects to other characters in the novel as someone with saintly qualities, an almost Christ-like aura surrounds him that most perceive when they first meet the man. Having had epilepsy from birth, he has raised under very controlled circumstances to finally move into the world without society's prejudices and biases. The Prince lacks because of his innocence, the decorum of the then Russian aristocracy. However, he has a gift. The Prince has great intuitive insight into the souls of the people he meets. And because he lacks in social graces, he, more often than not, will blurt out what he feels with uncanny accuracy, embarrassing the people present. Although he has great insight, there is a dark side and a price he will eventually have to pay.

The female protagonist is a fascinating woman. Nastasya Filippovna has an incredible strength of will that she uses for her tacit manipulations of the numerous fawning, stumbling men that constantly grovel around her. This woman's mere presence and her stunning beauty all combine to make a very powerful woman. However, below this persona of strength is an extremely insecure little girl who only requires love.

Rogozhin is the novel's psychopath, a rogue, and a scoundrel of the first order. Everything that we could possibly mistrust in a person, Rogozhin personifies as he, without conscience, hurts and manipulates those around him with adept skill.

This is a beautiful novel as it communicates our spiritual concerns, though represents our darker natures in insightful ways. The Idiot is a dramatic tragedy, a satire on Russia's aristocracy, and a reflection on our dual natures, possessing the capacity for so much good but also capable of so much evil.

This novel is written with vividness, and extreme passion, as only this Russian master can give us.

Excellent.

Living in the Mandate Camps (Part 2)

It has been three days since arriving at the camp. First, we are packed into these trailers with a capacity of only 12 occupants. Then, over the last two days, 3 more busloads of the unwashed or the unvaccinated arrived, so our living conditions are much more cramped. There are now 20 people in our tin-molded trailer, and on some nights, it's impossible to breathe.

On the first day, when the indigenous woman was dragged in the back of a trailer and presumably beaten, never to be seen again, most of us are obliged to follow orders.

Our routine is tedious: we rise to the sound of clanging pots and maneuvered single file to the mess hall. It should go without saying, but the food is less than desirable. On Fridays, however, is fried sausage day with fresh beetroot. On all mornings, an oatmeal-type concoction is served that isn't fit for a farm animal. I can't eat it and go through the day on an empty stomach. After breakfast, we are sent to the coal mines.

The usual Covid 19 rules like social distancing, wearing masks, and avoiding crowds change by the day. Like the outside world, the press and the government played the virus by ear, changing the rules, locking down and unlocking, pushing the vaccines, then telling us to register on our cell phones to get a Covid Pass. Before I was sent to the camps, everyone in Australia was bound to write into a digital identity program. Anyone with any sense of civil rights understands this program to be a direct violation on so many levels. Personally, I never got this far and wonder how my family is going and whether they're on this draconian digital system.

How the world has changed.

I was initially correct in believing the camp was somewhere in the deserts of the Northern Territory. From the base, we are a 30-minute bus journey from the coal mines.

Coal mining is dangerous work. We are not paid for this work and are basically slave labor. After each day, I lay in my hammock and cough all night. Most nights, I have to go outside so as not to bother my fellow unwashed. Then the day begins again – eating slop, working underground, and back to the trailer.

I met an Irish gentleman in Australia on a work visa only to be whisked away to this camp. In a broad Irish accent, he told his story.

"I arrived in Australia and was immediately quarantined in a shitty hotel in Sydney. After a week, we were released into the wild, and by the time I arrived in Melbourne, I felt sick and tested positive for Covid. By sheer luck and the fact I'm a young man, the symptoms were mild, and within a week, the virus was gone. I knew that by getting the virus, my body had developed antibodies and was protected. My work visa was for one year. But they wouldn't let me work until I received the vaccine. Of course, I was insistent that the chances of getting it again and spreading it was doubtful because I already had the virus. This was no argument as far as the authorities were concerned: "Get the jab, or we'll send you back to Ireland." I said fine that I'd rather go home than put up with this shite. They put me on a bus which I thought was going to the airport, and I ended up here."

Sean the Irishman and I became fast friends and partners in the coal mines, watching each other's backs. We discussed on most evenings why an untested vaccine took precedent over natural antibodies. Our conclusions were the same. There's an overall money element to this whole vaccine mandate rubbish, and 80% of the population has fallen for it.

On the 6^th week, Sean and I developed a plan to escape the camp. Somehow we need to steal the cell phones of two guards, using their Digital Identities to move freely through society once we run.

Obtaining two cell phones from the guards would not be easy. Finally, after a long day in the coal mines, we showed up at the mess hall and sat down, and Sean, with a cheeky grin, revealed he had a working cell phone. 

Now it was my turn.

Living in the Mandate Camps. (Part 1)

 

It has been over three years since the first outbreak of Covid 19.

I'm currently sitting in a structure surrounded by others who decided to not conform to the governmental mandates regarding receiving the vaccine designed to combat the virus. Like many others, at first, around 100% of the population went along, of course, to the draconian lock-downs. Later, only 20% would not conform. In Melbourne, Australia, particularly, the government at first helped small businesses and workers. Still, when the second Delta variant hit, the government money dried out, and many lost their jobs and family businesses.

The mainstream media, like the government, has been flying by the seat of their respective pants. Every day is new orders and mandates, while economically and socially, the entire system goes to shit. My job with the local teacher's college seemed rock solid. Once the number of infections flat-lined, I was assured my position was there waiting for me. Until the vaccine mandates became law.

As a semi-educated man, I knew the vaccines were untested. Later, it was revealed that the number of infections significantly rose in countries with over 80% of the population vaccinated. This happened in Melbourne as well. The closer we got to 80% vaccination, the more people were getting sick. The vaccine would not prevent you from receiving the virus or from spreading it. We were told that our chances of getting mortally ill were less likely when taking the vaccine. There was no scientific peer-reviewed study to back up this claim. Yet we were mandated to take the jab, or we would be banished from any meaningful public life.

Based on the vaccine side effects studies, and considering my heart was not in the best shape, I refused to take the shot. This started an avalanche of problems for my family and my life.

When I told the school that I would not be receiving the jab, they fired me on the spot and called me selfish and a coward. However, because my wife and family were healthy, they all received the double dose of the vaccine.

At the beginning of 2022, I was picked by the police from my home as a 'public menace' and put in the local police lock-up. My usual Rights as a citizen of Australia, a liberal democracy, were taken away. I wasn't permitted to call my family or a solicitor. For the next 6 months, I was bullied by the guards, called a freak, and treated less like a human being and more so, a stray animal.

I believe it was around July, I was later taken to a train station. A young woman asked, "Where are we going?" The soldier smirked, "The camp for the unvaccinated." "And where is this camp?" I asked. I was struck by the butt of his rifle... blackness, pain...

I awoke in darkness. The soldiers were ordering us off the train. "Where are we?" I asked. A young soldier whose uniform looked too big for him replied, "This is what you get for not following orders. You all deserve to rot." It was then directly ahead, I saw the fence and the bob wire above it.

The young guard in the oversized uniform told us to line up. They handed out masks. The sun was coming up in the east, and the humidity was unbearable, telling me we were somewhere up north...Queensland, Northern territory?

The morning sun began to sting on my skin. Looking ahead were small hut-like structures as far as the eye could see. This looked like a camp, but no summer camp, no vacation, or no holiday retreat.

A scuffle began at the end of the line. A young indigenous woman began arguing with the guard that she didn't want to wear a mask, that it was too hot. Three guards came out of nowhere, grabbing her, kicking and screaming behind one of the small buildings. I heard a piercing, blood-curdling scream, and it was the last time I ever saw this young woman again.

Jeffery Archer – Twelve Red-Herrings - Review

 

This collection of 12 short tales are all different, exciting, and entertaining. Archer is renowned for his many novels, almost all of which have reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. Though these stories can practically be viewed as miniature novels as the settings, characters and content are in-depth enough to seduce the reader, ensuring a pleasurable reading experience. For this reader, this is undoubtedly true, as the time spent engrossed in these stories took less than a day.

One of the more paced tales in the twelve with an unexpected twist would have to be “Never Stop on the Motorway.” An accomplished businesswoman, divorced with two children, leaves work late on a Friday evening. Her young children are with her ex-husband, as it is his weekend to see them, so she is free to visit friends for the weekend who live on a farm outside London. Darkness descends, the motorway is flooded with traffic, as it's peak hour and a Friday night. The traffic begins to thin out the farther out of the city she travels. From the side of the motorway, an animal darts in front of her vehicle, she hears a “bump” and pulls over to find nothing, and she is quite relieved. Once back on the road, a four-wheel-drive vehicle races up behind her, tail-gating and beeping their horn. She refuses to turn over to the side of the freeway because there has been news of a psychopath murdering several victims, known as the “motorways killer.” She doesn’t panic but begins a cat and mouse game in an attempt to lose this unrelenting auto-stalker, who simply does not stop, following her up to dangerously high speeds. What happens to the woman and the stalker behind in high-speed pursuit?

Admittedly, all twelve of these tales are excellent; however, the last one, “One Man’s Meat…” has to be the cleverest of the collection. It is because Archer gives the reader four alternative endings to the story. He writes:

“At this point in the story, the reader is offered the choice of four different endings.

You might decide to read all four of them or simply select one and consider your own particular ending. If you choose to read all four, they should be taken in the order in which they have been written.”

This reviewer decided to read all four alternative endings in the order that they were written. The third ending, titled “Overdone,” appealed to the “realist-cynical” side of my nature, although without question, the fourth and last ending, titled “A’ Point,” would have to be my hands-down favorite.

One British critic compared Jeffery Archer to the English novelist and short story writer Somerset Maugham. I have read most Maugham’s novels and short stories, and nothing could be further from the truth. These writers’ are different in style, sensibility, and content. There is no comparison other than both are masters’ at the written word. This critic, I believe, has never read Somerset Maugham; otherwise, he wouldn’t have made the comparison.

Archer is a great storyteller, and Twelve Red Herrings more than proves it.

Thomas Cleary – Code of the Samurai - Review

 

In a time of peace, at the end of the Tokugawa regime (1603-1867), the Samurai extended their duties into the administrative class, developing from mere 'attendants' to philosophers, scholars, physicians, and teachers, creating concise systems of mental and moral training. This class influenced the country's culture in profound ways, which continues to be felt and seen in modern day Japan.

Fearing that the Samurai would lose their basic purpose and essential character, author Taira Shigesuke, (1639-1730) a Confucian scholar, wrote this handbook for the novice knight. For the beginning knight, this book would have been indispensable, in terms of conducting oneself in the true spirit of the Samurai.

The book is structured in three parts, including subjects ranging from education, familial duty, frugality, courtesy and respect, laziness, discretion to military service, vassalage and loyalty to dealing with one's superiors. What is so valuable about this book for the modern western reader is that it provides age-old ethical guidelines that are exceedingly practical and relevant to the present day.

Central to the Samurai philosophy is the notion of concerning oneself daily with death. Shigesuke emphasises from the outset, that, "As long as you keep death in mind at all times, you will also fulfil the ways of loyalty and familial duty." In other words, everything else follows from this basic attitude - a long life, and a character that will improve and virtue that will grow. This makes sense, of course, because as the author points out, when you think your time here will last, you're inclined to take it for granted, thereby saying things you shouldn't say and letting important matters slide because "...it can always be done tomorrow."

This powerful little book is as compelling and relevant as it was over 400 hundred years ago. It will not take more than an hour to read, but its contents hold treasures that should be referred back to in order to remind one that life is short and should never be taken for granted. This book is also recommended to students of Asian studies as it provides a fundamental understanding of Japanese culture.

Assange/Donziger: Similar Corruption

 

The report concerning Steven Donziger, the humanitarian lawyer, who sued Chevron for over $ 9.5 billion and won, has been under house arrest for two years on a class b misdemeanor. Earlier last week, he was given a 6 months jail sentence for contempt of court which, when you get in the weeds of the charge, is a highly dubious ruling. The Federal Judge Preska, a Federalist member that takes donations from Chevron, said of Donzinger, "Mr. Donziger spent the last seven-plus years thumbing his nose at the U.S. system," she said. "It's now time to pay the piper." The judge and prosecutor, in this case, are apparent tools of the oil industry; there is an evident conflict of interest, and they should be investigated themselves for corruption.

The United States of Corporations, by definition a fascist State, has infiltrated our judicial system and represents the power of the corporate state. Donziger, because he won the case against the oil giant for the indigenous people's of Ecuador for flagrant economic and environmental maleficence, the oil giant came back hard on this humanitarian lawyer, and through, in my opinion, judicial malpractice put Mr. Donzinger under house arrest over the last two years on a misdemeanor. The Rule of Law has been trumped by the corruption of the oil giant and their judge-appointed cronies.

The Donziger case is unlawful on its face, so why hasn't the DOJ intervened? I believe government and the corporate are so intertwined that justice comes last compared to pure profits. We know who really drives the ship in the U.S., and it ain't the elected government or their politically slanted judge picks on the federal level.

This is similar to the Julian Assange extradition case in the U.K. Based on the Rule of Law, Assange should have been released from prison over a year ago. Instead, the charge was jumping bail, which comes with a maximum sentence of 1 year. So why is Assange still in prison?

When you look at the recent revelations of violation of attorney-client privileged (Assange and lawyers were bugged in the embassy), the fact that the prosecution's key witness lied to the FBI, this case should have been thrown out long ago. Yet Assange remains in prison without charge. This is another example of corporate, permanent government influence in the judicial system. The actual rule of law has been violated by those who should be practicing it.

By definition, fascism is a corporate/government, running society based only on self-interest. Consequently, our governments are compromised by corporate interests. This has currently seeped down into the judicial, where the Rule of Law does not exist and only the dictates of our corporate overlords.

The Donziger and Assange cases are similar because the permanent corporate state compromises those in the judicial.

By definition, this is not democracy but unmitigated fascism.

Frances Yates – The Occult Philosophy in Elizabethan Age – Review

Frances Yates was a scholar of world renown most famous for her text, The Art of Memory, and the biographical study, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. In The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, what has been known as `occult philosophy' in the Renaissance, was revived by Marsilio Ficino; she explores the "Christianized" version of the Jewish Cabala and its manifestation and influential effects on religious and philosophical ideas, including the arts, during the Elizabethan Age.

Yates begins with her proposed theses that, in past analyses of occult philosophy, it has focused primarily on the Hermetic tradition. She claims that this occult tradition should be called the "Hermetic-Cabalist", as the ideas are not solely Hermetic in nature, but have a strong Jewish Cabalistic influence, albeit in a Christianized form, as formulated by Marsilio Ficino.

This text is a rich analysis on the history of ideas. Yates adeptly sketches the influences of the hermetic-cabala in the Renaissance, moving forward to one of the more influential texts that affected this tradition more than any other treatise, Henry Cornelius Agrippa's, Three Books of Occult Philosophy. She also focuses her study on three other influential personages, the Cabalist Friar, Francesco Giorgi, and his work, "De harmonia mundi", and the works of Johannes Reuchlin. Yates also looks at the mysterious Elizabethan magus, Dr. John Dee, known as the "Queen's Conjurer" citing the doctor's primary sources of his own work directly to Agrippa. Her claim is that John Dee, was in fact, along with Agrippa, Giorgi and Reuchlin, Christian Cabalists.

The theme of this work is that there was a philosophy of the occult from the Italian Renaissance that operated and was renewed in the Elizabethan Renaissance. To back this thesis, she cites examples from great works of Elizabethan literature that have strikingly blatant examples of this occult philosophy, such as Spenser's The Faerie Queene; Christopher Marlowe's famous play, Doctor Faustus; and Shakespeare's A Mid Summer Night's Dream, Hamlet, King Lear and, of course, The Tempest. What these works of literature have in common are expressed tenets of the Christian Cabalist occult tradition, alluding to the works and lives of Agrippa and John Dee. Yates' arguments are compelling and deserve, as she herself notes, further study by scholars.

This was Yates' last work. She has become one of the most read and respected scholars on the history of the esoteric tradition. This work brings to light an intellectual movement that has been suppressed or dismissed by "serious" scholars as superstitious or irrelevant at best. It is because of her research that these once suppressed intellectual movements have regained legitimacy in the history of ideas and their relevance to the development of Western thought.

The text's style is not only written for the scholar or academic but fortunately can also be read by the laymen interested in the history of the Western occult tradition.

War with China is a Stupid Idea

 

Since 9/11, at least, the war on terror has been an utter catastrophe. Perhaps a bit of oil, but overall we left Afghanistan in demoralizing defeat. The majority of Iraq wants the US and their allies out of their own sovereign land. Libya is in total shambles, a failed state with actual human slave markets on the streets. To use a well-known phrase, Syria has been 'bombed back to the stone age' with zero results. Except, of course, occupying northern Syria that contains the country's oil and food. Our military support of Saudi Arabia in the pulverization of Yemen has created the worst humanitarian crises since WWII. Looking back even further, Vietnam again was a disaster, leaving close to 60,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotian deaths.

This southeast Asia fruitless exercise has been called by many historians a genocide. What was achieved? Except for corporations manufacturing war machines and keen bankers, nothing was gained by these deaths. And now the warmongers are turning their sites on China, which is really a stupid idea. Particularly looking back at 50 years of regime-change failure.

Remember, war is never about "freedom," "democracy," or "human rights; it's about the acquisition of wealth from other countries. War is about global political and economic hegemony. Over the last 20 years, the West has made more enemies than friends. So after great profit for the few and the massive carnage of millions in the middle east, the sociopaths turn their sites on the sleeping dragon. After 50 years of utter failure in our regime change wars, what makes these assholes think they can win a war with China? They can't; unless it all goes nuclear, then we're all screwed.

The new AUKUS coalition between Australia, UK, and the US to build 9 nuclear submarines to cruise the South China Sea is not merely sword rattling but sticking the blade directly at China's throat. This is not good for business or a peaceful move to maintain international relations. In fact, this new alliance can almost be called an 'act of war.'

Australia is the US's lapdog and has been since WWII.

Creating these WMDs also paves the way for Australia to become a nuclear state. Australia with nuclear capability takes the world even closer to nuclear destruction. AUKUS is not a defensive move but an economic one, which doesn't make sense considering China is our main trading power. But this makes sense when you think the planet is run by oligarchic sociopaths.

It is a fact that China, over the last 50 years, has never been the aggressor. Indeed, there have been proxy wars like in Vietnam, but the West started that conflict and lost miserably.

A ground war with China would be a slaughter on both sides. And Australia would be in the middle of this planetary cluster bomb. Anyone with any intelligent foresight can see nothing but full-scale death and a real possibility of nuclear war.

I listened to a mainstream Canadian broadcast interviewing the infamous chicken hawk, John Bolton. These morons come up with the same rhetoric as they have since 9/11. All lies. Why hasn't Bolton moved on to a lower plane of existence where he belongs? I guess the powers are still deciding on which level of Hell to place him. He's no help for humanity in this dimension.

This latest move by Australia, UK, and the US can lead us nowhere but mutual destruction.

We live in an oligarchic corporate world, where the wealthy call all the shots, and our so-called leaders simply follow orders. If nuclear war does occur, these oligarchs will scurry to their protected underground bunkers while the planet burns and humanity, as we know it, disappears.

Bob Woodward- The Secret Man...Review

Undoubtedly, the most enduring mystery in American political history has been the identity of Deep Throat. Bob Woodward's book is also an inspiring story of investigative journalism intent on discovering and exposing that truth during a tumultuous period in American history.

This text is also about constitutional rights and the necessary right of a journalist to protect their sources. However, Woodward defended the identity of Deep Throat for over thirty years, setting a professional precedent for him personally, gaining the trust of sources in Washington's political arena that otherwise would have remained silent.

For the most part, though, Woodward explores the multifaceted relationship with W. Mark Felt (Deep Throat), the former number two man in the FBI. What was Felt's motivation to lead Woodward and Bernstein in the direction of criminal activities in the highest echelons of government, eventually leading to the disgraced downfall of a president? What did Felt have to gain? Woodward attempts in this highly readable text to examine these motivations and his conscience regarding exposing Deep Throat to the world.

Despite the passing of half a century, the Watergate scandal remains fresh in the minds of many people worldwide. Why? Watergate was a striking example for the ordinary citizen that even those in the highest realms of power could not escape the hands of justice. Yet, it also showed how a free democracy with a free press could question authority, expose power abuses, seek the truth, and serve justice.

(So much has changed).

The resignation of President Nixon in 1974 was instigated, the final death blow, the so-called smoking gun, by the infamous Nixon tapes, when Nixon ordered the CIA to ask the FBI to stop their investigation on false national security grounds. This blew the lid sky high, and the message was clear: the tapes recorded Nixon ordering the cover-up revealing the president and his cronies were lying and their attempt to bury the scandal.

Woodward paints an exciting picture of Deep Throat: a solid FBI man who greatly admired J. Edgar Hoover and was passed over for the number one spot at the agency not once but twice. After Hoover died, Nixon, politicizing the agency, appointed Patrick Gray as number one, and Felt was left doing all the work with none of the perks. Later in the text, it becomes clear that Felt was not acting on a personal vendetta but saw his beloved FBI being tainted with political skulduggery and wanted to do something about it. I believe this was his initial motivation for developing his relationship with Woodward as Deep Throat.

This is an entertaining read, as Woodward can combine journalism with a novelist's flair. The Secret Man fills that gap in American history, which has remained a mystery for over fifty years.