Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Beauty of Sewers

When I looked at the Internet this evening I didn't expect to find a story on the theft of manhole covers in Manhattan. Oh, was I wrong. There are roughly 23,000 stories on the theft of manhole covers as of today. Given time there will likely be 23,000 more.
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My primary concern here is not, as must be thought by most readers, that of fascist Islam and Left dhimmi fascism; my concern is for Human decency and peoples' opportunity to live free of unwarranted oppression, which I see as mostly stemming in our time from the two aforementioned ideologies. Unwarranted oppression isn't simply the fascism of the Left and the Muslim hordes they use as proxies: it is also Romantic reaction, eg philobarbarism and povertarianism. So, on occasion, this being one, I put together a post on public health to show just what our beautiful Modernity gives us and what we will lose if we allow our lives to be ruined by the fascists who claim that cities are alienating, that one should "move back to Nature," that we should be "authentic," and the usual string of pagan Blood and Soil ecologist misanthropy. Imagine life without sewers. No? Then go to a city without them, pick your favorite Third World megalopolis. What does Islam have to offer that's better than sewers? What does the Left offer that's better than clean water? These poisoners of the people's minds are a filthy disgrace. Modernity gives us sewers. I love sewers. In fact, I love them so much that I want a doormat of a sewer cover for my front door.

Here's a bit from the first story to pop up, a bit from wikipedia:

Manhole cover theft is the phenomenon of manhole covers being stolen, usually for resale as scrap. Long considered to be a childish prank in the United States, this type of theft is often expensive to municipalities, and dangerous to their residents.

It first became a serious problem in India and China, where missing manhole covers have caused eight deaths so far. Hundreds of manhole covers are stolen in the city of Bangalore, India every month. In Newham, East London, nearly 200 grates and covers were stolen.

In the city of Calcutta, India more than 10,000 manhole covers were taken in two months. These were replaced with concrete covers, but these were also stolen, this time for the iron rods inside them. The thieves were believed to be buying lottery tickets with the money.

Missing covers and grates may cause disappearances, deaths, and damage to vehicles. According to China's Xinhua news agency, about "240,000 manhole and street-drain covers were stolen in Beijing in 2004."

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I risked death one afternoon when I got a bedsheet, a role of tape, and a block of black rubbing wax and went onto the street to get a print of a manhole cover in Yaffo, Israel of a "Palestinian Mandate" manhole cover. The original is a lovely piece of work. for more images of manhole covers, click here to see Ruavista's collection of photos.

Ruavista text below.

Manhole covers are among the urban landscape's most lasting features. They are made of extremely durable materials since their placement exposes them to wear. They have also endured because unlike gas street lamps, manhole covers remain useful and, more than 100 years after their installation, continue to fulfil their function perfectly.

Traditional manholes covers are round and decorated with geometric designs. They often bear inscriptions. The round shape requires less space than a square and makes handling easier. Once removed, the cover can be transported by rolling. Decorations serve as identification. In English-speaking countries, manhole covers were embossed and those covering telephone networks bore hexagonal designs. Designs also provide a non-slip surface on the sidewalk or roadway. Manhole covers offer living testimony to the industrial artistry of the second half of the 19th century as many of the covers still seen today on the sidewalks of European and North American cities date from that period. London, capital of the world's first industrialized country, is undoubtedly the most beautiful open-air museum. The variety and beauty of manhole cover designs are unparalleled. Many covers date from the second half of 19th century, when electric, gas and telephone service became available in the city. Subterranean galleries were necessary to install the infrastructure underground and access for maintenance had to be provided.

Drainage work began in 1847 but manhole covers were not installed for several years. Authorities initially rejected the system for fear that they would allow deadly gases to escape. (Before the manhole cover system was adopted, maintenance could only be performed after making holes in the galleries and sealing them when the work was completed.)
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APPENDIX 2 - THE LETTER OF THE LAW

[....]

2 Following the second major Cholera outbreak, in 1847, the Government was propelled into the introduction of the 'Public Health Act, 1848'. This Act created a General Board of Health (Edwin Chadwick was one of its three members). During its five years existence, the Board was empowered to provide sewerage systems for the water-borne collection of domestic wates. A Medical Officer of Health could also be appointed. Despite the patent need for public health schemes, the vested interests of landowners and others formed a vociferous lobby against the granting of the necessary powers to any public body. When the Board of Health was abolished, the 'Times' concluded that "the English People would prefer to take the chance of Cholera, rather than be bullied into health". The same newspaper called the 1848 Act "a reckless invasion of property and liberty". Even so, the Act was only mandatory in towns where the death rate was greater than 22 per thousand of population or where 10% of ratepayers petitioned for its adoption. After the demise of the Board of Health, the Privy Council was made responsible for public health (1858) and John Simon was appointed as Medical Officer.

http://www.dsellers.demon.co.uk/sewers/sew_ch12.htm
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A Glimpse Into London's Early Sewers
Reprinted from Cleaner magazine
PART I BY MARY GAYMAN

Sewer means "seaward" in Old English. London's sewers were open ditches sloped
slightly to drain human wastes toward the River Thames, and ultimately into
the sea. Sewer ditches quickly filled with garbage and human wastes, which
overflowed onto streets, into houses and marketplaces throughout London.
By the late 1500s, King Henry VIII wrote an edict which made each
householder responsible for clearing the sewer passing by their dwelling.
The King also created a special Commission of Sewers to enforce these
rules. However, no money was provided to pay its members. Therefore, the
Commission was not installed until 1622, when it was decided that fines for
non-compliance could be used to fund its activities....

By the early 18th Century nearly every residence had a cesspit beneath
the floors. In the best of homes the nauseating stench permeated the most
elegant parlor. Indoor odors were often worse than of the garbage- and manure-
filled streets. While noxious fumes were ignored by most people, it was fear
of "night air" laden with coal smoke and sulfurous industrial fogs which
alarmed the City dweller....

By the early 18th Century nearly every residence had a cesspit beneath
the floors. In the best of homes the nauseating stench permeated the most
elegant parlor. Indoor odors were often worse than of the garbage- and manure-
filled streets....

Doors and windows of homes and factories were sealed shut at sunset to
protect occupants form entry of the feared "night air." Entire families and
crews of workers died of mysterious "asphyxiation" during the night. Doctors
had no explanation for lingering illnesses and these sudden "miasmas"
occurring in the City. Vivid descriptions of horrible deaths were routinely
reported at Commission hearings and in the London tabloids.
Most fatalities and injuries described were consistent with asphyxiation
by hydrogen sulfide or oxygen deficiency or methane explosions.

Draining London's Sewage Swamp

The streets of London lie 30 feet below the surface of the Thames at high tide. The city housed more than two million people in crowded conditions and the situation was deteriorating daily. Epidemics of cholera, typhus, "consumption" and other undefined maladies plagued the City over at least four centuries. Edwin Chadwick, a sanitary reformer of the era, struggled with upper class apathy toward these horrible conditions. Chadwick explored sewers, questioned slum dwellers, and turned out hundreds of reports to the Commission. He experimented with the benefits of obtaining pure water from lakes and reservoirs, rather than the fetid Thames. His Public Health Act ultimately reversed the tide of death. He chastised residents of London for defying the Law of Moses, often pointing out that it "forbade even an open camp be defiled with human ordure, and expressly ordained that it should be deposited at a distance and immediately covered with soil." He attacked the greed of homeowners stating: "Early in the progress of these investigations, the proposed system of cleansing, by removal of the ordure in suspension in waste, was objected to on the grounds of supposed loss of money received for manure." ... Meanwhile, engineers were hard at work devising a system of drainage which would carry the wastes of 2 million people out of the area, in compliance with Mosaic law. Commissioners allowed experimentation with the "soil-pan or watercloset principle" and the "tubular mode of drainage" in cities and hamlets throughout England. Though Sir Thomas Crapper had not perfected his invention, the Commission had received hundreds of less functional designs for its consideration. The "water closet" concept was, as yet, unwieldy. A complete system of "tubular drains" were yet to be constructed to "carry immediately away ass solid or semi-solid matter," as the Commissioned envisioned. In 1858 "The Great Stink," from the backed up Thames, caused thousands to flee the City, while Parliament remained in session. Windows of the parliament building were draped with curtains soaked in chloride of lime, to prevent closing of the Government. Upper class residents fled the city or drenched sheets with perfumes to mask the odor from the outside....
http://www.swopnet.com/engr/londonsewers/londontext1.html
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Sewers are beautiful. There are those who try to waste my time talking about greenhouse gasses and organic food. Spare me. Talk to me about sewers.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Apocalypse of the Molochites


ίππος μέλας (híppos mélas), The Black Horse of Famine

And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say: come and see. And I beheld, and lo, a black horse: and he that sat on him, had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the middes of the [four] beasts say: a measure of wheat for a penny, and [three] measures of barley for a penny: and oil and wine see thou hurt not. And I heard a voice in the midst of the Four Beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny: and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." Rev. 6:5-6. The THIRD SEAL. Tyndale New Testament

Criminals and lunatics; ghettos; low-intensity conflict zones; these words bespeak danger to Man, pain and fear and loss; no-go areas; civil disorder;
war zones; failed states; these words bespeak danger to Security, they bespeak ruin, horror, and death; and we are increasingly surrounded by all such above, even within. We are blessed in our time.

The sticking point of our day is Islam, the point at our breast, the threat we face. Beyond the tip comes the whole of the thrust against us: We face in our time the collapse of the world of the primitives, our present danger, our current blessing. To parry, to sever, to stand in towering triumph over the body of our opponent, to howl.

All about us and within is the failure of the primitive, whose name is Legion. Already we can feel the tremors of the hoofbeats of the Black Horse of Famine approaching from the dark horizon. Already the cries of alarm, the moans of pain, the shrieks of hatred at the Fates whipping the horses of Destiny. Onward, ever closer, they come, comes the Black Horse. Through the thrashing dust and the deliberate haze, the gloom, through the dim vision of the fearful, the hanging clouds of dismay, the curtains of denial, comes Famine at the gallop ever closer. The scale falls, the night skies shine, the balance falters, savage cries penetrate the hearts of Man, and on comes Famine at a run. There is no outrunning fleet Famine; Moloch's primitive children will lay down crushed beneath the flashing hooves of Hunger. The survivors, the primitives, those who live for murder and hate, will wander aimless in the desert, lost eternally in the sand diorama. The Molochite's god will starve. There will be famine in the land. In our time we are blessed. Blessed are we who rise.

Matthew 6: 11 Give us this day our daily bread.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

To Revive the Spirit; To get Back Home

You know how it is, when you're young by heart and fallen in love: you smile to yourself, think a happy memory, hum a favorite tune; and thus it was that: I sat; rocking on the stoop; popping at rats by the dumpster with a pellet gun; thinking of her, and thinking of you. Smilin', happy, golden slumbers fill your eyes. Smiles awake you when you rise.

In the settling dusk on the city bugs freeze in the amber sky as orange smog shanks heavy into the lazy plum smoke that hangs languid around the tannery, a purple haze that fades to black. Cold, melon-green light falls from the street lamps, pooling on the sidewalks, slipping into the dark, jagged cracks, disappearing among the dirt and the stones and the trash. Chill fills the air and night calls out, siren songs, beckoning. Who would believe, who could dream, that life should be so good. Off the stoop, I shook, I took a walk, a walk past St. James Infirmary, a stroll down the road, down to Azusa St. Once there was a way to get back homeward. Once there was a way to get back home. Let us revive.

" Men and women, white and blacks, knelt together or fell across one another; a white woman, perhaps of wealth and culture, could be seen thrown back in the arms of a big 'buck nigger,' and held tightly thus as she shivered and shook in freak imitation of Pentecost. Horrible, awful shame!"

John 14:26

But the Comforter [παράκλητος], which is the Holy Ghost [το πνευμα το 'άγιον], Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.



Azusa Street Revival was a Pentecostal revival meeting that took place in Los Angeles, California and was led by William J. Seymour, an African American preacher. It began with a meeting on April 14, 1906 at the African Methodist Episcopal Church and continued until roughly 1915. The revival was characterized by speaking in tongues, dramatic worship services, and inter-racial mingling. The participants received criticism from secular media and Christian theologians for behaviors considered to be outrageous and unorthodox, especially at the time. Today, the revival is considered by historians to be the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century.

[....]

Services and worship: Worship at 312 Azusa Street was frequent, spontaneous, and ecstatic, with services going almost around the clock. Among those attracted to the revival were not only members of the Holiness Movement, but Baptists, Mennonites, Quakers, and Presbyterians.[14] An observer at one of the services wrote these words:

" No instruments of music are used. None are needed. No choir- the angels have been heard by some in the spirit. No collections are taken. No bills have been posted to advertise the meetings. No church organization is back of it. All who are in touch with God realize as soon as they enter the meetings that the Holy Ghost is the leader.[7] "

The Los Angeles Times was not so kind in its description:

" Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, and the devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal. Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshipers, who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the "gift of tongues" and be able to understand the babel.[4] "

[....]

The core membership of the Azusa Street Mission was never much more than 50-60 individuals, with hundreds and thousands of people visiting or staying temporarily over the years.[4]

[....]

" ...disgraceful intermingling of the races…they cry and make howling noises all day and into the night. They run, jump, shake all over, shout to the top of their voice, spin around in circles, fall out on the sawdust blanketed floor jerking, kicking and rolling all over it. Some of them pass out and do not move for hours as though they were dead. These people appear to be mad, mentally deranged or under a spell. They claim to be filled with the spirit. They have a one eyed, illiterate Negro as their preacher who stays on his knees much of the time with his head hidden between the wooden milk crates. He doesn't talk very much but at times he can be heard shouting, 'Repent,' and he's supposed to be running the thing... They repeatedly sing the same song, 'The Comforter Has Come.'[2] "

[....]

Christians from many traditions were critical....


"Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them.
Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them."

The pink magnolia blossoms in the jade leaves overhang stone wall and the scent fills the trolley as we roll down St. Mary's st. Today
all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey. I've been for a walk on a winter's day. I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. I could unroll my sleeping bag and lay on a pew, if I were on Azusa st. and someone would say, "Sleep pretty darling, do not cry and I will sing a lullaby."

She smiled kind of shy and said, "He ain't much to look at but I likes him OK."

"As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them"

Red Ken teems with White supremacists; Greens howl with rabble anarchists waving black flags flanked by jihadis. The Red, White, and Blue goes up in flames. America looks increasingly gray. Maybe I gotta board a bus and leave this place. Once there was a way to get back homeward. Once there was a way to get back home. Let us revive.

"Golden Slumbers" by Thomas Dekker/Paul McCartney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azusa_Street_Revival
Koran: 4: 89.
"California Dreaming" by John and Michelle Phillips
Koran: 4:34

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

OSHA Blues

I needed some work done around the house, and since I'm new to the area I figured I'd ingratiate myself by asking the neighbors who they hire, figuring to hire a kid from around the block, perhaps a student, or maybe a fellow with a family who found himself between jobs. Now I realize I live in a heavily Democratic area.

And to top it off? He doesn't do windows.

Helter Skelter, circa 1914

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Surely some revelation is at hand. Or is it only mad visionaries who think they see the future so plain and pure in scope and depth? It seems certain some revelation is at hand. Maybe it's not even the end of the world. Maybe there's a vision true: of the world in flames and Man, scorched, wading forward hip-deep in blood to the the future, just like always and ever.


"What about you, daddy? Did you exchange a walk-on role in the war for a leading role in a cage?"


"That was long ago, darling, when boiling blood burst thorough split skin of the bound, burning."

Surely some revelation is at hand. There is nothing new under the Sun.

"Helter Skelter?"

"Hush little baby, don't you cry. One of these mornings you're going to rise up singing; then you'll spread your wings, and you'll take to the sky."

There are those who say, "It ain't gonna happen." We can talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it peace, and wreck 'n' silliation. Floods and fires, volcanoes and earthquakes; disease and famine, mayhem and invasion. We can talk about it talk about talk about it. Everything ... shrugs. There is nothing new under the Sun. Surely it is revealed that there is nothing new under the Sun.

Everybody knows, everyone says. That oily men disco dancing on flowery floats, men in sequined g-string gyrate to the lusting cheers of men; that hard-packed women, lip-waxed ladies, scowl; babies like rabies ashot; that everyone smiles at the shit on their shoes and looks at the sky, blue and empty. You can hear them say: "Wish You Were Here."

Everyone knows everyone blows.

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

It's a mixed up, mumbled up, jumbled up world 'cept for Lola. One World. We are the Children.


Who you gonna turn to where you gonna run.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Surely some vision has run Helter Skelter. Surely there is nothing new under the Sun. Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Monday, November 05, 2007

On Hate Speech

Right wing fundamentalist Christian preacher James Hagee got the kibosh for upsetting Muslims in Canada. I was curious about this James Hagee. I solicited some insight, some background. When you read the lunatic antics he performed on a Canadian television show it'll all make sense to you why so many in the West hate with such intense passion anything to do with these Right wing religious types.

November 5, 2003
Dhimmitude in Canada: watch your tone of voice there, buddy

"An American evangelist's television series on Islam in America was canceled by a Canadian station after the first program because Muslims complained his tone and demeanor was an incitement of hatred," according to World Net Daily.

Program Manager Rob Sheppard wrote "a letter of apology" to the Canadian branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations, even though there wasn't any incitement in anything pastor John Hagee actually said. "It was a tonal thing," Sheppard explained. "You could see what he was trying to do by his tone and body language. . . . I listened to the people who contacted us, and they perceived his tone to be demeaning. It is subjective, but there were a lot of people who contacted us who were upset."

Hagee has evidently had this kind of trouble before: "A program in which Hagee played video of Muslim imams in both the United States and overseas preaching hatred and violence against Jews and Israel upset Muslims and resulted in complaints filed with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, or FCC."

Now let me get this straight. It is incitement to speak about Islam with a tone of voice that Muslims don't like? It is incitement to play a video of Muslim imams preaching hatred and violence? But does CAIR have anything to say about the imams themselves? CAIR's website features plenty of mechanisms for reporting discrimination and hate crimes, as well as for protesting against FBI investigations, but I never have found there any way for a moderate Muslim to report terrorist activity that he may witness at his mosque or Islamic center.

Also: so the imams preaching hate aren't shown, and Canadians aren't incited to rise up and form gangs of Canadian bullies to terrorize peaceful Muslims. But that wasn't going to happen anyway. The other effect is that Canadians who don't see these videos are that much less aware that there are Muslim imams preaching hatred and violence, and that some of them are quite close at hand. So they're that much less aware of the need to take legitimate steps to defend themselves against terrorism. But CAIR doesn't seem to be concerned about that.

Even worse: sailing by on Canadian television without any concerns about "incitement" was a "documentary series comparing the U.S. to the Hitler regime. [Canadian network] Vision's six-part series charged the U.S., in collaboration with its 'CIA-trained partner' Osama bin Laden, planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a pretext for attempts to gain world dominance. The U.S. is going about this, Vision said, in much the same way Nazi brownshirts torched the Reichstag, or parliament, in Berlin in 1933 and blamed it on Adolf Hitler's enemies to provide a pretext for a crackdown propelling Hitler into power."

This is not just Canadians modeling cringing, subservient dhimmitude, pulling shows because of their tone. This is Canadians acting as a mouthpiece for full-blown radical Muslim hate and paranoia.

Posted by Robert at November 5, 2003 12:16 PM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/000056.php
Now let's be reasonable here. Hagee likely did use a tone of voice that alienated Muslim viewers.Canada is only a nation that accepts the concept of free speech up to a point. For example, the demonstration favoring Hizb'alla in Montreal is OK. Maybe some other things. but not hateful tones from Right wing Evangelical preachers who offend Muslims.

I get it.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

National Anthems


If you click here you should be able to get the link to listen to Kate Smith singing "God Bless America."

Go for it. There is hardly anything more beautiful than Kate Smith singing that song.

I can't recall a day gone by in all my twelve years of school back home when we didn't stand up and pledge allegiance to the nation. Every day in school we sang the Star Spangled Banner. I can't vouch for the version there because I don't have speakers connected to this here machine. I had to sing it myself, which you won't want to hear. Ever.

And now I want to turn to a song I think you can feel good enough about if ever you do hear me sing it. I'd like to hear you sing it too. In fact, I think every kid in school in the land and beyond, wherever we might be, everyone of us should be able to rise in the morning and all of us in unison should sing:

I've paid my dues
Time after time.
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime.
And bad mistakes,
I've made a few.
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face,
But I've come through.

We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end -
We are the champions -
We are the champions
No time for losers
cause we are the champions - of the world -

I've taken my bows
And my curtain calls;
You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it -
I thank you all -

But it's been no bed of roses,
No pleasure cruise;
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race -
And I ain't gonna lose -

We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end -
We are the champions -
We are the champions
No time for losers
'cause we are the champions - of the world. *


I do believe singing that song every morning in school should be mandatory for every American. Why?

'Cause: WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS-- OF THE WORLD!

And we should sing it out every day so we all know it for sure, and know that we're not afraid to let the whole world know it too. WE are the champions. It's US. Champions of the world!

*QUEEN: WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS
from the album NEWS OF THE WORLD
written by Freddie Mercury
1977