Deconstructing this Brave New World

Is it really a big deal that the North Korean’s possess nuclear weapons and are exploring ways of making more and bigger bombs? How concerned should the U.S. and other Western nations be about Iran’s nuclear program and stated intention of wiping Israel off the map? What about A.Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation ring; what if terrorists are able to abscond blueprints for a nuke?

What would it be like if a nuclear weapon were dropped on the United States?

HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI In December 1945, approximately 140,000 Japanese died when the atomic bomb “Fat Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima and 80,000 more perished in Nagasaki when an H-bomb was detonated over the crowded city. Thousands more died in subsequent years due to exposure to radiation.

Over 90% of the 76,000 buildings in Hiroshima were destroyed by the blast and subsequent fires. Fifteen square miles in Hiroshima were almost instantly turned into a barren wasteland.

THE BRAVO TEST March 1, 1954 -- The test of a thermonuclear device--better known as an H-Bomb--dropped on the uninhabited island of Bikini Atoll packed 1,000 times the destructive force of the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

It remains the most powerful weapon ever tested. The Bravo bomb carried radiation so high, it spread an imperceptible cloud of radioactive toxins over hundreds of miles and thus brought about the term nuclear fallout.

If such a bomb were dropped on Washington D.C. on a day with a NE wind, it would effectively wipe out the inhabitants of The District, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City. Over time, nuclear isotopes covering a radius of hundreds of miles would render most of the Eastern Seaboard uninhabitable—as well as making soil unsuitable for agriculture.

• Today, the world's combined nuclear arsenal could theoretically eliminate all of the world’s 6.6 billion human inhabitants.
• 58,000 U.S. soldiers died in the Vietnam War. 11,000 total died in the three-day Battle of Gettysburg. 50,000 soldiers and civilians died in the Battle of the Bulge. 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died in the current conflict in Iraq. At least 220,000 people died in the final days of WWII when nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

• The Bravo blast at Bikini left a crater more than 1/2 mile wide and several hundred feet deep. Within seconds the fireball was nearly 3 miles in diameter.

"Susan Denise Atkins (born May 7, 1948) is a convicted American murderer who was a former member of the so-called "Manson family", led by Charles Manson. Manson and his followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California, over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Atkins, known within the Manson family as "Sadie Mae Glutz," was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the "Sharon Tate/LaBianca" murders. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life in prison. Atkins has been incarcerated in California since October 1, 1969, having been denied parole eleven times." (Wikipedia) 

BACKGROUND Susan Atkins endured a tumultuous childhood in northern California. Before striking out on her own, Atkins was moved from town to town by her alcoholic parents. Her mother, Jeanatte, died of cancer two weeks after 14-year old Susan arranged for the church choir to sing Christmas Carols outside her dying mother’s hospital window. Her father subsequently sank further into alcoholism and went virtually broke. Atkins then became employed to help support herself and younger brother, Steven.

At 18, Susan Atkins dropped out of high school and moved to the infamous Haight-Ashbury district of San Fransisco. Surrounded by drugs, hippies, and a plethora of cultist/pseudo-spiritual movements, Atkins tried a variety of jobs. While working as a topless dancer, Susan met the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton Lavey.

Later Atkins met a struggling musician and lifetime criminal, Charles Manson. Homeless, she promptly joined his “Family” and eventually had a son by Manson, named Zezozece Zadfrack.

Atkins was known to the Manson Family as Sadie Mae Glutz, and went by “Sexy Sadie”--after the Beatles song.

THE MURDERS As an orange glow settled across the dessert at dusk of August 8, 1969, Manson recruited Family members Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to depart their hideaway Spahn Ranch (an abandoned movie studio for Western films) with Tex Watson, telling them to follow his instruction. Watson, a career criminal who spoke broken English in a southern drawl, later testified he had been ordered by Manson to commit murders at 10050 Cielo Drive. Manson allegedly said, "[go to] that house where Melcher used to live" and "totally destroy everyone in it, as gruesome as you can." (The Melcher that Manson referred to was Terry Melcher, music producer and former friend of both Charlie Manson and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson.)

Atkins, Kasabian, and Watson hopped the fence (Krenwinkel was recruited becauseh she was the only members at Spahn ranch with a valid driver's license; and stayed in the car) and lurched in all black clothing across the lawn. As they entered the home through a window, Wojciech Frykowski awoke from a nap on the living-room couch. Watson kicked him in the head. When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied, "I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business."

That night five people were murdered at the Beverly Hills home belonging to film director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate:  Tate (who was eight and a half months pregnant), Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

Polanski, fortuitously, in London filming at the time was later phoned by LAPD who informed him of the fate of his wife and friends.

LAPD were shocked at the brutality of the murders when they arrived at the scene. The world was furthermore stunned when it was revealed that the primary culprits were girls in their late teens to early twenties. Forensic evidence showed the unabated brutality of the murders. There were a total of 95 stab wounds in the murders at 10050 Cielo Drive. Because Parent and Sebring were shot—although a groaning Sebring was also later stabbed seven times as well—that leaves three victims to which 88 stabs wounds were inflicted.

According to Atkins own testimony, Sharon Tate begged for her life and that of her baby. Atkins replied, “I have no mercy for you, bitch.” As she left the murder scene, Atkins wrote "PIG" on the front door in Sharon Tate's blood. However, there later arose controversy as to whether Atkins actually committed the murder of Tate. In his 1977 autobiography Tex Watson admitted he killed Tate, but a maniacal Atkins was so eager to claim she did it to prosecutors in 1969, he had simply denied his role.

The following night, August 9, Manson commented that the murders at the Tate residence had been sloppy, and announced he’d have to take his followers out and "show them how it’s done." Together Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Watson, Kasabian, Leslie Van Houten, and Steve "Clem" Grogan, departed Spahn Ranch. After hours of driving, Manson wheeled up to the home of grocery store owner Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in LA (Loz Feliz). Manson and Watson tied up the older couple. Manson then returned to the car and ordered Krenwinkel and Van Houten inside to do as Tex said, once again.

The murders of the defenseless elderly couple netted over 60 more stab wounds.

THE TRIAL During the 9-month long trial, which drew attention worldwide and at the time was the most famous murder trial in American history, Atkins often smiled during testimony regarding the grisly nature of the murders. When describing to a fellow inmate what it felt like to stab someone she likened it to a sexual experience saying “It’s even better than a climax.”

Throughout the trial, Manson followers haunted the courtroom and also huddled outside on the sidewalk to conduct vigils. When Manson carved, first a swastika, then an ‘x’, into his forehead, his followers each time did the same.

Prior to the trial, in December, Atkins appeared before a Los Angeles Grand Jury, telling all. Initially, Atkins was set to be the prosecution’s “star witness.” But before the trial started, Atkins took back everything she told the Grand Jury and renewed her loyalty to Manson.

During the trial, Atkins taunted the courtroom saying, “You’d best hide your children, and lock your doors.”

Susan Atkins was convicted of seven counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. In March of 1971, she and her co-defendants were sentenced to death. Atkins' death sentence was automatically commuted to a life term after the state Supreme Court overturned capital punishment in 1972.

INCARCERATION Susan was sent to the California Institute for Women (at Frontera) , where both Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel shunned her for snitching on the family. A doctor adopted Susan's son, whose name was changed to Paul.

In the 1974, Susan Atkins became a “born again” Christian. In 1977, the year before her first parole hearing, Susan wrote an autobiography called Child Of Satan, Child Of God. Since her incarceration in 1971, Susan has only received four minor write-ups.

In 1981, she married a Texan named Donald Lee Laisure. She had corresponded with Laisure for years, but he had lied to her the whole time. Laisure, who had previously been married 35 times, claimed to be a millionaire, but was not. Susan found out three months after their marriage and filed for divorce.

She married again in 1987 to James Whitehouse—a law student fifteen years younger. Her husband maintains a website dedicated to her legal defense.

Throughout the years, Susan has kept herself busy with her own prison ministry as well as completing an Associates degree through correspondence courses.

ILLNESS Today, a matronly figure, Atkins has been incarcerated for 37 years—longer than any other female inmate in the state of California. She has been a model prisoner for three decades. She was recently diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given six-months to live by doctors.

A petition was filed at that time for the “compassionate release” of Susan Atkins.

Debra Tate, sister of Sharon, continues to speak out against the release of Atkins, often passionatately citing that Atkins allegedly “slit Sharon’s throat” despite Tex Watson’s latent admission to killing Tate.

"They are serial killers and they were convicted to die and they need to stay incarcerated," she said. "People don't just become cured from being sociopaths. There's no deprogramming, no pills, no drugs that make that go away."

Margaret DiMaria, the sister of Jay Sebring, a hairdresser who was killed at the Cielo Drive home, concurs. "It is most unfortunate that Ms. Atkins now suffers a terminal illness. However, in the eyes of the law and in memory of her victims, I fail to see how one thing correlates to the other," DiMaria and her son Anthony said in a statement Friday. "She repeatedly committed crimes requiring evil premeditation… The sentence Ms. Atkins now serves should not be mitigated because fate has struck this blow.”

But Atkins' petition does have some support, most notably from Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of the Manson Family murder trial, and who successfully sought the death penalty for Atkins.
"Under these unique circumstances, told she has only about six months to live . . . . I don't have any objection to her being released," he said, noting that Atkins has already had a leg amputated.

According to the LA Times, “Her request for a compassionate release has already been approved by the California Institution for Women in Corona. But it must also be approved by the state parole board, which will take up the case in coming months.”

If the board approves her release , finally a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge would have to sign off on it. Also according to the LA Times, “Since 1991, about a third of compassionate release requests have been granted.”

Note: Charles Manson, 73, was most recently denied parole last year. The board said in its statement, “Despite his age, Manson still poses a danger to society.” His next parole hearing is scheduled 2012.

Most times I sleep. And sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night to such horrors I have to flip open my laptop and read about the world just to believe it. We are the age of "increased learning" and "advanced knowledge." We habituate in the climes of international terror and under the constant threat of nuclear holocaust. America is the impassioned center of ideological warfare; the face of the world’s hope for freedom; and the symbol of power’s curse.

As we bask in the lume of our PCs a child cries out in Darfur under a tranquil black sky, back lit by weeping stars—the transitory silence torn away by the reverberation of AK-47's ripping through canvas tents; the screams of mothers watching their children taken from them before their eyes. While a celubutante femme-fatale flips her bleached locks under a cloud of hairspray the ozone rips wide open—and a faulty satellite hurtles toward earth unabated by the technology which created it. We are all Frankensteins, shuffling around in lock-step…struck dumb by mass media, blinded by silver screens, eyes gauged with sexual imagery at the checkout aisle, ears pierced with synthetic beats laid down by technocrats rather than artists—we swallow Xanex, Ambien, and Oxycontin by the handful, with shunts in our heart, stints in our brain, anthropomorphic limbs clinched around plastic cash cards; robots probing our bodies under the spell of anesthesia; we plug in our brains via USB port to absorb the latest trends in the stock market and jet off to our work stations in automobiles finely tuned and controlled by microchip processors.

To wear the mark of the beast under the guise of an Identity Chip in one's wrist does not sound as far fetched as it once did. Nor does the Orwellian nightmare of a worldwide net of security cameras. The Telescreens.

I am Harrison Bergeron, weaving through sidewalk crowds with the mechanized growl of downtown traffic crushing my every thought into a million shards of unresolved thought; with earbuds jammed into my head blocking out the still small voice reaching out to me; an endless stream of titillating impulses and sensory distractions sweeping me away into some hazy dystopic phantasm.

Most people seem to think that a proper perspective consists of balance. –balancing one’s thoughts, desires, impulses, and opinions between positive and negative; optimistic and pessimistic.

The proudest of people in the spectrum of political thought call themselves moderates with bravado. No people are more intellectually full of themselves than existentialists; and none are more religously haughty than agnostics.

“ In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him. ” It sounds like something—but it is meaningless.

An accurate perspective does not mean equal parts positive and negative thoughts and viewpoints. To most it seems preferrable to be an avowed optimist. I’ve heard many people take great pride in saying, “I am an optimist.”

I say be a realist. Be realistic. Face the truth. Square with the facts. Make up your mind and shape your perspective according to reality as best you can know it.

The proverbial question of a half-full or half-empty glass is a hollow notion. Most of the time, it is one or the other—in most of life’s circumstances. It does no good and, in fact, can be destructive to call a mostly empty glass half-full. That is senseless.

Deliberate optimism (a la Joel Osteen); or its counterpart, a growing scene amongst today’s youth especially (i.e., “emo”), celebrating a depressive, dysthymic and willfully negative outlook on life (e.g., “I’ll be just fine pretending I’m not/I’m far from lonely but it’s all that I got”) are both foolish. Neither is commendable or wise.

Most people would say it is still better to be optimistic. But why pruposely choose to be skewed away from the truth; to be negligent toward reality!? It is a self-destructive method.  Just ask the survivors of Jonestown about false hope.

These vague notions that come to us from all over popular culture and are also driven by natural neurochemicals coursing through our neural synapses; it all comes crashing together to shape implausible perspectives so diverse it would make the ACLU glad.

How otherwise, after all, could several hundred residents of one Vermont town sign a proclamation that they will attempt to arrest President Bush if he visit’s, and others are great admirers of George W. Bush. The same man and two vastly different opinions. Where people get their information and their predisposition’s make most of the difference in these cases. Though--it doesn't have to.  Last week Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman crossed party lines to endorse John McCain (R-AZ) for President. He and some other Democrats have made salient points in favor of the succesful troop surge; while some Republicans who originally supported freeing Iraqis have lost their wits because of (amongst other reasons) fear of political reprisals.  Many factors threaten to crush a person's better judgement. It takes a strong will to seek and see the light.

Don't be fooled by this contemporary adage: “Perspective is reality.” Nothing could be more misleading, or more tragically existential.

There is a deep and distant gulf between perspective and reality for even the wisest among us.

Nietsche said, “ You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” While Jesus Christ is known to have said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father but through me.” These statements are apparently opposed. You have to decide which is true. Both cannot be.

The Apostle Paul said the road is narrow. Christ said it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. But the Pope’s sold indulgences…for money….to get people into heaven (though, actually, to raise money for buildings, wars, and other ill-fated campaigns). Some believe everyone is going up regardless of religious creed or faith. Other think the notion of a personal God and after-life are merely "western inventions." A variety of perspectives exist about spirituality, economics, capital punishment, how to lose weight in 90 days….you name it….everything….

Actually, I think Bible characters tend to be good examples of how to seek and live out an honest perspective. David, for example, was “a man after God’s own heart.” –not a bad description of someone seeking truthfulness in his own ways. Job and the aforementioned King David cried out from the depths of their souls in pain and confusion. And they, like others of the Bible, experienced great joy; one was even recorded as saying, “My cup runneth over.” And David said, “You make me lie down in green pastures…”--denoting peace of mind.  But the wise characters of the Bible were not apt to feign peace of mind when they suffered great travails; and yet they were not one's to dwell too heavily on their sorrows. “Do not worry about tomorrow,” Jesus said, “for tomorrow has enough worries of its own.” I think there is a lot to learn about perspective and outlook in these examples.

Being informed doesn’t hurt either. But there is something better than information; something more efficient in finding the truth than reading the right books or thinking the right thoughts.

We’ll get to it....

The media doesn’t always help. For example, last week Democratic presidential candidates received nearly twice as much coverage as Republics (Dems-56% of media/news stories in major tv networks and periodicals compared to Rep-30%);--not exactly even. Consider too that Bill Clinton received far more coverage than any Republican candidate even though he is not running. Figures show that former President Clinton stories were largely favorable—while the only Republican figure to factor in heavily in coverage was Rudy Giuliani who received overwhelmingly negative coverage as he faded from contention, and ultimately announced his withdrawal from the race.

Here it is: As far as I know, honesty—a genuine effort to know the truth; to stare reality squarely in the eyeball—is the key, and the only way, to a healthy perspective. You aren’t always going to get honesty from others.

…So it is absolutely imperative to be as honest as humanely possible with yourself. A little “tough love” toward yourself or in communicating with others does less damage in the long run than a bunch of fluff and positive self-talk or psychobabble and optimism.

Disclaimer: I intended this to a be a laymen’s blog about perspective, not a philosophical or an all-inclusive essay thoroughly covering all academic, social, political, or philosophical perspectives, et cetera.

A lot of people more knowledgable and more experienced have written and talked about this myth/idea. But I really want to hear your thoughts.

What is it?  According to some it's waving big red flags with swatstikas, slapping your Aryan Brother on his buzzed head; for other it's white bed sheets on head, burning crosses and shouting Bible verses as self-justification; for some it's decrying racial injustice till blue in face, meanwhile wasting the fruits of MLK's and Abe Lincoln's labor on gangster rap and bling.

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