Pestilence Takes a Ride

DURING my years in Bloomington, Indiana, studying molecular biology, I recall several of my professors mentioning the coming age of ‘emerging diseases’, especially new viral infections. One seasoned genetics professor explained to us that extended exploration to exotic locations coupled with ease of global travel (and enclosed airline air systems) added up to assured exposure of vulnerable populations. In other words, you and I are more likely to catch diseases to which we are not immune. 

This isn’t anything new, of course. We’ve all read the story of European soldiers bringing smallpox to “the New World” native population. In 1520, Hernando Cortez and his men introduced smallpox to the natives Mexico during their assault on the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan. In the years that followed, almost 90% of the population of the New World was killed by smallpox.A well-known example of an ‘emerging disease’ is hantavirus, a negative-sensed, single-stranded RNA viron first discovered in the 1950s in Korea. In 1993, a new species of hantavirus emerged in the four-corners area of New Mexico. Exposure to this nasty, rodent-vectored bug resulting in cardiovascular and pulmonary dysfunction.

Behold I Show You an Open Door

To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.” Revelation 3:7

TODAY is Palm Sunday, and all over the world, church congregations are celebrating with uplifted voices and uplifted palm leaves. They celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as Messiah — an event that quickly turned sour, as Christ’s ‘followers’ sobered to the truth that Jesus would not immediately seize control and roust Rome, but that He intended to die.

That auspicious day began with a visit to a resurrected Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha. No doubt, the people in the area knew the story well — this Nazarene raised Lazarus from the dead! Surely, he will use his powers against the Romans! — and so the news apread to Jerusalem that the ‘miracle worker’ was coming to town for Passover.

300 — Dazzling Storytelling; Blatant Propaganda

“Freedom isn’t free.”

Thus spake Queen Gorgo to the Spartan Council. “I represent mothers — those without a voice.” And so she stands, embodiment of Liberty — a lone voice crying against the roar of political wolves.Derek and I rarely see films in their initial theatrical releases, preferring to view them at our leisure at home, where we can rewind and take notes. However, we did venture out to our local 14-Plex, where we swam upstream through college student waves in search of the perfect spot down front. (I like to immerse myself in a film — Derek is very indulgent).

Why would we subject ourselves to sticky floors, stale air, and distasteful previews? I could give you ‘300′ reasons.

Dissecting the New World Order Leviathan’s Backbone

EVER SINCE George H. W. Bush’s September 11, 1990 speech, the phrase New World Order has become an intergral part of our household lexicon.

But who and what are the entities that comprise this global union? While the list is long (and growing longer by the week, especially when one includes NGOs — Non-Governmental Organizations — in the mix), there are a few basic bones that form the insidious and intrusive body of this worldwide leviathan.

The term leviathan occurs four times in the Old Testament — Job 41:1, Psalm 74:14, Psalm 104:26, and Isaiah 27:1. While some translators and scholars claim ‘leviathan’ is an ancient crocodile or even dinosaur, others (incuding this writer) see the term in both physical and spiritual terms. Physical in the sense of a sea or river ‘dragon’ (Job 41:1 — “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord [which] thou lettest down?”), but spiritual in reference to Isaiah 27:1 that tells how the Lord will one day “punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.”A ’sea’ in the Biblical sense refers not only to Earthly bodies of water but also to the ’sea’ of the heavens — space. In this sense, leviathan can be understood as an undulating dragon that surrounds our world — the ourouboros or snake/dragon eating its own tail that encircles our world (also known as the ecliptic of the milky way galaxy).

Transhumanism, Trek, and Trotsky

Part III of Hollywood and the Coming Apocalypse: How the various peoples of the Star Trek worlds reflect a growing trend toward genetic ‘enhancement’ and how the ‘collective hive mind’ of a corporate meta-human organism is the natural outgrowth of the politics of Neo-Conversativism.

I am he as you are he,as you are me and we are all together– John Lennon, I Am the Walrus

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. That’s what we’re told.

If you’re not familiar with The Borg or The Dominion, both of Star Trek fame, I recommend spending a few weekends immersed in Star Trek Next Generation films and episodes.

In short, the Borg are a group — a collective — that assimilates civilzations. This hive mind consists of millions of humanoid beings from different planets — each one enhanced after birth with mechanized appliances that connect to a centralized queen. Borg do not think or reason as individuals. Assimilated races receive nanoprobes that erase all sense of self.

The Borg Queen acts as a central control for the ‘many’. In Star Trek: First Contact, she has the unique ability to act as an individual, even going so far as to travel alone — through time — to interact with and tempt Data. The temptation undergirds the queen’s identity with Satan, especially since she pretends to be God. (She declares that she is “the beginning and the end”, and that she alone can bring “order to chaos”. She might be compared to the Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Masonic opera, The Magic Flute. Her claim to be “the one who is many” reminds one of Mark 5:9, where a group of demons calling themselves Legion — for we are many is forced to depart from a human and go into pigs.