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escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17897 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 4 Gender: Female |
 Posted: 20-09-2004 07:55 Post subject: |
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Thank you, Stu.
*shudders*
It's the hygiene aspect which bothers me about this DIY bone surgery. Meningitis waiting to happen. |
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| Mal_Adjusted Hardware Fault Joined: 06 Aug 2003 Total posts: 1759 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 05-10-2004 09:13 Post subject: John Mack |
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HI
(yeah i know about the conspiracy thread but this is a straight forward bituary notice)
source:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1319643,00.html
Tuesday October 5, 2004
The Guardian
quote:
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Psychiatrist criticised for giving credence to alien encounters
John James
John Mack, the American psychiatrist whose research gave considerable credence to accounts by people who claimed to have encountered aliens - derisively dismissed by some of his fellow academics - has died in a road accident in London, aged 74.
He had been visiting Britain to speak at a conference in Oxford, on an earlier
and uncontroversial area of interest. In his acclaimed, Pulitzer-prizewinning
biography of TE Lawrence, Prince Of Our Disorder (1977), Mack probed the subject from a psychological and spiritual - as well as a conventional - angle, aiming to relate the individual to the larger picture.
However, it was his study Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens (1994) that became a bestseller. It was based on the testaments of about 100 self-proclaimed abductees, who contacted Mack at his office at Cambridge hospital, one of the
teaching hospitals run by Harvard University, in Massachusetts. The book led to Harvard medical school, where he had been a faculty member since 1964 and a tenured professor of psychiatry since 1972, holding an inquiry into his methods, though he escaped censure.
Mack's interest in the testimonies of people claiming contact with non-human beings had started relatively late in his career. As he explained in an interview: "When I heard about this phenomonen in 1990, I was very doubtful. I thought it must be some kind of mental illness."
Eventually, however, he came to accept that his duty was to help those with
abduction stories, known as "experiencers", to deal with their feelings. Mack said his line with such cases was to be "questioning and sceptical"; and that he considered the abduction phenomenon "an authentic mystery", meriting more research.
While he never solved the mystery, Mack suggested two years ago that alien abductions were occurring in the context "of a planetary ecological crisis that is reaching critical proportions, and that information about this situation is
often powerfully conveyed by the alien beings to the experiencers".
His peers were divided about his work, although there was general agreement that he was never afraid to be a trailblazer, or to give serious attention to what detractors considered a fringe issue or an alternative approach. Such was his academic weight that he was able to pursue his controversial interests from his base at Harvard - though, while his work on alien encounters brought him many media appearances and made him wealthy, there was a price to be paid.
Some of his colleagues hinted that extraterrestrial visitors, and their alleged impact on humans, were not a productive area of research. Matters came to a head when Harvard launched an inquiry lasting 14 months into Mack's methods, following the publication of Abduction.
Mack's work was seen as a slur on serious research by some disdainful
colleagues; he had investigated, among others, the case of a man who recalled a female alien taking a sperm sample from him, and another man who claimed to have given birth to a half-human, half-alien.
In its ruling, the inquiry, conducted by a former editor of the New England
Journal Of Medicine, Arnold Relman, urged Mack "not, in any way, to violate the high standards ... of this faculty", while reaffirming his right, as a
researcher, to academic freedom. Mack felt vindicated. Certainly, he continued
undaunted, as the confident title of one of his subsequent work, Passport To The Cosmos: Human Transformation And Alien Encounters (1999), showed.
Born in New York, Mack graduated from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1951, and from
Harvard, where he obtained his medical degree, in 1955. He was an intern at
Massachusetts general hospital, and did his residency at the Massachusetts
mental health centre in Boston. In 1959, he joined the US air force for a
two-year tour of duty as a psychiatrist in Japan. In the 1960s, he started the
psychiatry unit, which he headed from 1969 to 1977, at the Cambridge hospital.
Early in his career, Mack focused on the psychology of sleep and dreams, and
began building his professional reputation by applying a psychoanalytic approach to such troubled groups as children contemplating suicide and teenagers obsessed by the threat of nuclear war. This led him to become a strong advocate of disarmament; in the 1980s, along with his other roles, he became academic director of the Centre for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age.
In 1983, he set up the Centre for Psychology and Social Change, which sponsors research projects that combine psychology with ecological or ethnic issues, and earlier this year was renamed the John E Mack Institute.
Mack, who was divorced, is survived by three sons.
Steve Geller writes: I knew John from my work as director of the screenwriting programme at Boston University. In our course on sacred drama, which deals with cosmic and personal mythology, his Passport To The Cosmos was studied. John addressed my very large class, and was forthright, charming, intelligent, and disarmingly honest about what he knew and did not know. His humanity, compassion and solid science made themselves felt in that classroom. He was a perfect definition of the best of the methods of science and of academic discipline.
Because of the nature of his work, he made enemies in his profession, and in
academia. But by his behaviour during the Harvard debacle, he proved himself to be tougher, more rigorous academically, and more the gentleman than political elements of that body of learning had themselves evinced. He won; they did not.
· John Edward Mack, research psychiatrist, academic and author, born October 4 1929; died September 27 2004
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endquote
Mal F |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-10-2004 19:50 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Monday, October 18, 2004
Betty Hill of Portsmouth dies at 85
By BRUNO MATARAZZO Jr.
Democrat Staff Writer
PORTSMOUTH — Betty Hill of Portsmouth, who along with her late husband in 1961, had the first publicized and best-documented UFO experience in the White Mountains, died Sunday in her sleep after a battle with lung cancer. She was 85.
On a return trip from Canada, the Hills said they were abducted for two hours by a UFO on Sept. 19, 1961. After going public with their story, the two gained worldwide notoriety.
Their story became the subject of a book and later, a made-for-TV movie starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons.
They traveled across the country and made numerous television and radio appearances telling their story.
When her husband, Barney, died in 1969, Ms. Hill continued the job alone.
In 1995, she published, "A Common Sense Approach to UFOs,"
Ms. Hill’s life was not all about UFOs.
She was a social worker for the state of New Hampshire where she trained foster parents and worked in the area of adoption.
She was also an activist throughout her life where she was a member of the NAACP and a founding member of the Rockingham County Community Action.
In addition to her husband, she was predeceased by her daughter, Rose Marie Stewart Norton of York, Maine.
Ms. Hill is survived by her daughter, Constance Jean Stewart Zukowski of North Little Rock, Ark., a son, Kenneth James Stewart of San Jose, Calif., and a niece, Kathleen Florence Miller Maden of Stratham.
A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Brewitt Funeral Home, 14 Pine St., Exeter. Burial will be private.
Visiting is from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the funeral home. |
http://www4.fosters.com/October_2004/10.18.04/news/po_1018z.asp
Its nice that they have a time for her 'visitors' to come and pay their respect before the actual funeral. |
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| Mal_Adjusted Hardware Fault Joined: 06 Aug 2003 Total posts: 1759 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-10-2004 09:51 Post subject: Woman Who Claimed Alien Abduction Dies |
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Hi
not sure whther here or R.I.P. thread. ?
(edit: emperor has posted a different obit in the R.I.P. thread.)
anyway
source:
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October 18, 2004
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041018/APA/410180903
The Associated Press
PORTSMOUTH, N.H.
quote:
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Woman Who Claimed Alien Abduction Dies
Betty Hill, whose tale of being abducted by aliens launched her to fame and
became the subject of a best-selling book and television movie, has died. She was 85.
Hill died at her home Sunday after a battle with lung cancer.
Hill claimed that she and her husband, Barney, were abducted by
extraterrestrials in New Hampshire's White Mountains on a trip home from Canada in 1961.
The Hills were puzzled when they arrived home and noticed Betty's torn and stained dress, Barney's scuffed shoes, shiny spots on their car, stopped watches and no memory of two hours of the drive.
Under hypnosis three years later, they recounted being kidnapped and examined by aliens.
The couple gained international notoriety after going public with their story, traveling across the country to give speeches and making numerous television and radio appearances.
Their story also became the focus of John G. Fuller's 1966 best-selling book,
"Interrupted Journey," and a television movie starring James Earl Jones and
Estelle Parsons.
Hill retired from UFO lecturing in her 70s and complained that the quest for
knowledge about extraterrestrials had become tainted with commercialism. Too many people with "flaky ideas, fantasies and imaginations" were making UFO and abduction reports, she told The Associated Press in a 1991 interview.
"If you were to believe the numbers of people who are claiming this, it would
figure out to 3,000 to 5,000 abductions in the United States alone every night,"
she said. "There wouldn't be room for planes to fly."
She also said media had fueled UFO fiction.
"The media presented them as huge craft, all brightly lighted and flashing, but they are not," she said in a 1997 AP interview. "They are small, with dim
lights, and many times they fly with no lights."
Hill had gone a bit commercial herself, trying to fight UFO fantasies with a
1995 self-published book, "A Common Sense Approach to UFOs."
Before devoting her life to UFOs, Hill had been a state social worker
specializing in adoptions and training foster parents. Her husband died in 1969.
--------------------------------
endquote
Mal F
Last edited by Mal_Adjusted on 19-10-2004 10:13; edited 1 time in total |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 21-10-2004 04:09 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | October 20, 2004
Professor Robert Morris
Sceptical researcher and Britian's first professor of parapsychology, who questioned conventional assumptions about the mind
PROFESSOR Robert Morris was one of the leading exponents of parapsychology, the study of interactions between minds, and between minds and the physical world. Since 1985 he held the Koestler Chair in Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh. During this tenure he undertook many exotic experiments whose results gave credence to the verity of telepathy and life after death.
While he rebutted claims that he was “anti-science” — he was fastidiously rigorous in his empirical methods and approached his experiments in a healthy spirit of scepticism — his studies appealed to those interested in the bizarre and paranormal.
Morris was renowned mostly for his studies that suggested that people can “transmit” images to each other — what the layman would understand as telepathy. With his colleagues at Edinburgh, he devised in 1994 an experiment using the Ganzfeld technique, a mild form of sensory deprivation. A subject was seated with headphones that played relaxing music and had half table tennis balls taped over his eyes. When subjected to various coloured lights, the subject was asked to identify, from a choice of four, which image a fellow human guinea-pig in an adjoining room was visualising. While the subject had a 25 per cent chance of correctly identifying his co-subject’s image, the experiments among the 32 volunteers yielded 40 per cent correct identifications.
“There appears to be an effect occurring that is not just due to chance fluctuations or to a handful of clever cheats,” Morris reported. “I don’t call it telepathy.” Instead he described it as “anomalous cognition”.
Last year, in a lecture, Morris hinted that the mind might exist independently of the brain, thus lending support to the notion that there could be life after death. He related the fact that between 10 and 15 per cent of people have experienced an “out of body” sensation, in which they perceive themselves “floating” above their corporeal selves. Many survivors of accidents or operations have accurately recounted events that happened when they were unconscious, and have observed, from above, doctors operating on their bodies or reviving them after an accident.
Morris thus suggested that our sense of self could continue to exist without the support of the body, that we can still think when we are clinically heart- or brain-dead. But this, he conceded, remained conjecture.
“To say that our consciousness can exist outside our brain is an extraordinary claim, and it needs extraordinary research and evidence to back it up,” Morris said. “We have some evidence, but that evidence alone is not the same thing as absolute proof.”
Robert Lyle Morris was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1942, and studied psychology at Pittsburgh University, before specialising in comparative psychology for his doctorate at Duke University, which he completed in 1969. He also studied at the Centre for the Study of Ageing and Human Development and at the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man in Durham, North Carolina. He taught parapsychology, learning theory and animal social behaviour at the University of California.
After teaching at Syracuse University from 1980 to 1985, he was offered the position as the first professor of parapsychology in Britain, at Edinburgh University.
It was an unorthodox appointment at the time. Today, however, there are ten departments in British universities where parapsychology is studied. This growth owes much to Morris himself: he supervised 32 PhD students, of whom a dozen now teach in other university departments.
Although his subject elicited derision from those who considered it little more than pseudo-science, Morris believed himself merely a free-thinker in the Enlightenment tradition of maintaining an open mind and investigating phenomena through continued re-evaluation and scrutiny of data.
“I see what we’re doing as within the spirit of science, not even slightly anti-science,” he recently remarked. “Scientists do themselves a great deal of disservice if they say a particular area has a lot of problems and we are going to ignore it. If it has a lot of problems, you shine a spotlight on it. Why should we hide from it?” Morris co-edited the European Journal of Parapsychology and co-wrote, with Richard Wiseman, Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants (1995). He co-edited the Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association and served on the council of the Society for Psychical Research. It is a mark of his success in achieving respect for his discipline that he was elected to the council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served as president of the psychology section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Known for his humour, his willingness to aid colleagues and students, and his patience, Robert Morris is survived by his wife, Joanna, and two daughters.
Robert Morris, professor of parapsychology, was born on July 9, 1942, and died of a heart attack on August 12, 2004, aged 62. |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1318085,00.html |
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| Mal_Adjusted Hardware Fault Joined: 06 Aug 2003 Total posts: 1759 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 14-12-2004 11:23 Post subject: Reporter Gary Webb Who Linked CIA to Crack Sales found dead |
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Hi
suspect this may belong in the conspiracy thread
| Quote: | Investigative Reporter Gary Webb Who Linked CIA to Crack Sales Found Dead of Apparent Suicide *
Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, is dead at age 49. We hear an 1998 interview with Gary Webb on Democracy Now! and we speak with his colleague, veteran investigative journalist Robert Parry.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/13/1457240 |
also:
| Quote: | Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
Monday, December 13, 2004
Reporter Who Examined CIA-Contra-Cocaine Link Dies
AP reported this weekend that "Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking
the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age
49...of an apparent suicide."
AP wrote: "Webb's 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that
Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles
and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan
Contras during the 1980s." The Mercury News backed away from the series and Webb resigned from the paper. Webb went on to write the book "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion" which laid out his case in more detail. |
(damned fine book Dark Alliance is too - well worth reading.)
Mal |
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| lopaka3 Great Old One Joined: 17 Sep 2001 Total posts: 2154 Location: Near the corner of a Big Continent Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-03-2005 13:47 Post subject: |
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Just found out about this one, from a few weeks ago. The Rev. Gene Scott. If you missed his gig, well, you missed out big time. In a country full of TV preachers with their own, ahem, unique take on the GOD, THE TRUTH and MY ETERNAL SALVATION, Rev. Gene was a man among boys. Gone at the age of 75.
Some excerpts from the the rotten.com page on him:
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It's "not a lot of hooey - just straight talk" from a man everybody's encountered at one time or another while flipping from channel to channel. His face looms large against the Ultimatte blue background, and he radiates forth a righteous indignation. He's the richest television star in world history, and he could easily hold a Guinness record for spending the most time live on the air in front of millions of people.
"You ever meet Christians? You wish you could shove a pipe in their mouth. Anything to shut them up."
He's unpredictable, entertaining, ridiculous and brilliantly inspired. There he is again: puffing a cigar, harassing a visibly shaken staff, delivering hateful missives against the FCC. He's the Bill Hicks of adult preachers, cracking jokes with impeccable timing and delivery. Everything about him is immaculately watchable, and there's no denying he's smart and ******* funny. His tight, thin-lipped sneer and shocking blue eyes make you wonder if you personally aren't his next target. Few can turn themselves away from this man's power. The Dr. Gene Scott suite of programs is broadcast in eight languages, in 180 countries, over radio and television stations twenty four hours a day throughout the world. There's even a live Internet video stream.
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"In every way possible within the boundaries of God's word," Dr. Scott says, "I have tried to separate from the television evangelists' image. Television evangelism has become a phrase that can only become analogized to nigger, kike, beaner and other epithets designed to demean and create a perceptual set of a lesser-quality being."
Dr. Scott enjoys chauffeured limousines, Lear jet travel, a mansion in Pasadena, a fleet of racing-horse ranches, and round-the-clock bodyguard protection. Dr. Scott is - without question - the greatest living minister and religious instructor on television, but nothing infuriates him more than to be lumped alongside the likes of Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart. In fact, he sued Time magazine for referring to him as a televangelist.
In 1980, celebrated German director Werner Herzog was so taken with Dr. Scott that he made him the subject of a TV documentary. God's Angry Man showcases Scott's ability to collect several hundred thousand dollars in less than half an hour. It was a film slanted toward monomania and American malaise, and largely a piece about greed and currency. Talking quietly about his personal and professional life, Scott seems a genuine and even vulnerable person. But on television, Dr. Scott becomes Mr. Hyde - coaxing, cajoling, exhorting, pleading and even whining. When he reads off the dollar amounts phoned into the Festival of Faith, not one contribution is less than three figures. During a particularly slow night, Scott will become so angry he chooses to punish his audience by refusing to say another word. The tension among the pledge-break phone volunteers in the blue-hued broadcast studio is palpable.
"A skinflint may get to Heaven, but what awaits him are a rusty old halo, a skinny old cloud, and a robe so worn it scratches. First-class salvation costs money."
Herzog sketches an intelligent, exhausting, intense man who harangues his listeners to send in their money. Off camera, Dr. Scott seems convincingly lonely and vulnerable, but ever driven toward the Lord's work. One minute he's quoting scriptures, the next he's blasting the Russians. "Nuke 'em in the name of Jesus!" he bellowed at viewers during the Gulf War.
Dr. Scott spends weeks and months at a time on marvelously conspiratorial topics: the Pyramids, Atlantis, Roswell UFO's, Stonehenge, the Amityville poltergeists - even the Philadelphia Experiment. During Sunday sermons, Scott admonishes his congregation not to seek God's blessing from a priest, the Pope or a place of worship. "And you're sure not going to get it from a motel with Jimmy Swaggart," he cracks.
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When the curtain begins to rise, congregation members leap to their feet and cheer wildly. Before them appears their master. After several seconds of enthusiastic applause, a rock band belts out praise to Jesus as Scott sits impassively on a blue-cushioned stool until the singing ends. Among the tunes Scott occasionally orders up is "Kill a Pissant for Jesus."
He writes in red, blue, green and black felt pens, using the different colors to strike previous markings instead of using an eraser. Within an hour, his whiteboard is streaked with arrows, circles, lines and indecipherable words that become nearly impossible to follow. The lecture suddenly is reduced to a mind-numbing blur which virtually forces the audience to accept his ecclesiastical monopoly.
The donation plates come out. Dr. Scott doesn't have to remind them what to do. They'll tithe, or they can all look forward to "sliding down the slimy chute straight to Hell."
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http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/dr-gene-scott/
see also: http://www.drgenescott.com/home.htm[/quote] |
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| CygnusRex Incubus Joined: 04 Jan 2002 Total posts: 1771 Location: NOT on a ladder, just outside your bedroom window Age: 83 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-05-2005 08:41 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Nessie Seeker Frank Searle Dies
by Loren Coleman
Depending on your point of view, one of the Loch Ness Monsters' greatest searchers, promoters, or hoaxsters, Frank Searle, 83, passed away earlier this spring, according to Nessie researcher Andrew Tullis, who along with me, had actively been trying to relocate Searle for an interview, since the beginning of the year. Searle apparently was quietly and strongly independent to his final moments.
In June 1969, Frank Searle, an ex-soldier, showed up at Loch Ness to conduct his own search for Nessie, and lived out of a tent with his cats at lochside near Dores, for three years. He then moved to the field behind Boleskine House (the former home of occultist Aleister Crowley, 1899-1913, and purchased in 1970 by Crowley admirer, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page). Searle finally established himself, for most of his remaining lochside years, at Lower Foyers, in a trailer (or caravan in the UK). He reported minor sightings, and tirelessly promoted the worth of straightforward observations of the loch, continuously.
In the early days, Searle seemed to be a typical monster-hunter, talking of the search and speculating on what the Monster might be. He was mildly cryptozoologically-educated, such as using the coelacanth to support the example that prehistoric animals might be found alive today. But Searle would also state incorrectly that since 1938, "many [coelacanths] have been caught or found in the South Atlantic," instead of the reality that coelacanths were being captured in the Indian Ocean, off the east coast of southern Africa. Still, Searle was a sincere and likable young man in the
early 1970s.
Perhaps frustrated in his looking for the ultimate proof, after scanning the loch for a reportedly 20,000 hours, Frank Searle snapped his first alleged image of Nessie on July 27, 1972, near Balachladoich Farm. The supposedly two-humped monster shown was published to international acclaim in the September 1, 1972, issue of London's Daily Mail. Searle became an instant celebrity, and immediately sought out by fans, tourists, and the media, for the "facts" on Nessie. He popularized the Loch Ness Monster pursuit, and was generally wholeheartedly accepted by the monster-hunter community. Soon he erected signs to his location that read "The Frank Searle Loch Ness Investigation," at Lower Foyers, Scotland. Without an admission fee, Searle's caravan exhibition existed solely on donations. Visitors were soon to discover, however, that the exhibit was mostly of displays of newspaper clippings about Searle and copies of Searle's photographs.
Despite the fact the July 1972 photograph appeared to only show a tree trunk, Searle got many media people to come visit, and for a time was the Loch Ness spokesperson most often seen on television. But then, with increasing regularity, Searle produced more and more photographs of the "Monster." It soon became clear his images were crude hoaxes. Searle was only taken seriously for about a year, and then his celebrity status declined rapidly.
Nevertheless, between October 21, 1972, and February 26, 1976, Searle took many photographs of what he alleged were Loch Ness Monsters. He produced one book, Nessie: Seven Years in Search of the Monster (1976). In February 1977, sincere admirer, Belgian Lieve Peten joined Searle at Loch Ness as his "assistant monster huntress," helping him greatly organize and publish his materials. Peten left the Loch in 1979, but remained supportive of Searle through 1983. It appears mainly due to Peten's efforts that from April 1977 to December 1983, Searle was able to produce a regular quarterly newsletter.The publication contained Searle authored passages, which were often critical of Tim Dinsdale, Robert Rines, and the other well-known monster-hunters in Loch Ness research. In 1985, Searle abruptly left Loch Ness. He seemed to vanish from the face of earth, and he reportedly had gone treasure hunting, or by other rumors, to have died.
Searle's move from fame to infamy began perhaps most in earnest with the attack on Searle's pictures by Nicholas Witchell (The Loch Ness Story, 1975). Witchell identified Searle as one of the fakers in the history of Nessie searchers. Roy Mackal (The Monsters of Loch Ness, 1976) identified the 1972 first Searle photo as a "log," and likewise found Searle's additional photographs as having "no connection with large animals in the loch." Roland Binns (The Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 1983) remarked that Searle's 1973 photos of "Nessie" are "unmistakably parts of floating tree trunks." Michael Newton (Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology, 2005) speculated that some of the Searle photographs were cut-and-paste creations of dinosaurs from postcards. The favorable opinion of Searle as an "honest searcher" had shifted.
Henry Bauer (The Enigma of Loch Ness, 1986), under "Hoaxes and Frauds," is the only author to critically review and publish nineteen of Searle's photographs. Bauer calls them "fraudulent," and for the tourists seeking info on Nessie, "misleading."
Frank Searle, born 1921, 83 or 84 years old, passed away, on March 26, 2005, in his furnished sitting room/bedroom, his bedsit, Searle lived alone there in Fleetwood, Lancashire, United Kingdom, perhaps with some cats, since 1986. He suffered a stroke seven years earlier that left his right side paralyzed. He required the aid of a prosthetic left foot. Despite being confined to a wheelchair for his last years, Searle had refused the option of an assisted care facility or a nursing home, and instead chose to look after himself. As researcher Roland Watson notes: "That sounds very much like Frank Searle to me."
Searle never married and leaves no known heir or relative. What he has left, instead, is a confused commentary on his search.
We have to concur with both Paul Harrison and Henry Bauer on their concluding observations in their separate books on Frank Searle.
Harrison wrote of the legacy of hoaxes, but then goes on to observe: "Searle did make a contribution to Loch Ness investigation, though, because the publicity his photographs and stories attracted drew the world's media to the Loch."
Bauer pondered Searle's lasting contribution: "One can only wonder how much harm has been done to the quest by the likes of Frank Searle."
Frank Searle, a good monster-hunter, made a statement about the worth of on-site investigations, but then, pushed the envelope a bit too far after he became a misguided true-believer.
He will be remembered, favorably as a man, unfavorably as a phenomenon. |
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| KeyserXSoze King of Otters
Great Old One Joined: 02 Jun 2002 Total posts: 1040 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-06-2005 19:53 Post subject: |
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Source | Quote: | South Africa's 'rain queen' dies at 27
Position gained fame in 'King Solomon's Mines'JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- Makobo Modjadji, the famed rain queen of South Africa's Balobedu people, has died of unspecified causes after just two years in power, the Modjadji Royal Council said Monday. She was 27.
The queen was admitted to the Medi-Clinic in Polokwane on Friday with symptoms that included vomiting and died two days later, council spokesman Clement Modjadji told the South African Press Association. He did not disclose the cause of death.
The Balobedu of the northern Limpopo province believe magical powers are passed down from queen to queen allowing her to transform clouds and create rain at a special ceremony held in November each year.
Makobo Modjadji, who was crowned in 2003 at the age of 25, was the tribe's sixth and youngest queen and the only one to be formally educated. The tribe is one of the few in Africa to have a leader who comes from a female line of succession.
H. Rider Haggard's classic novels "King Solomon's Mines" and "She" first drew the world's attention to the legendary rain queen in the 1880s.
Her power was so feared that the Balobedu were left in relative peace for centuries despite the wars that raged around the region.
In times of drought, caravans of gifts were sent to their community, more than 150 rural villages set near thick forests full of rare cycads.
While the rain queen is monarch, she governs through a council of men. Custom forbids the queen from marrying, but the royal council chooses consorts for her for the sake of procreation.
The queen is served by a number of "wives" -- women sent by the tribe's many villages and whose children are considered hers.
Modjadji was chosen to succeed her grandmother, Mokope, who died in 2001 at the age of 64. She was crowned in a light drizzle, seen as a sign of her power.
While modern meteorology has robbed the rain queen of much of the awe she once commanded, her cultural influence is acknowledged even by secular politicians. Modjadji's predecessor received visits from former presidents Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk.
Mandela grew friendly with Mokope Modjadji and once gave the queen a four-wheel-drive vehicle and a sedan -- donated by Nissan and Toyota -- to help her reach her home up a steep and winding road.
A funeral for Makobo Modjadji is tentatively planned Friday, but the royal council said details were still being finalized. Burial rituals must be completed before the council turns to the issue of who will be the next rain queen. |
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| FelixAntonius Outsider.
Great Old One Joined: 08 Aug 2001 Total posts: 1097 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 15-06-2005 20:14 Post subject: |
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| Keyser Soze wrote: | Source | Quote: | | [b]South Africa's 'rain queen' dies at 27 |
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More on the rain queen, from the Daily Telegraph:-
Queen Modjadji VI, who has died aged 27, was the youngest of South Africa's rain queens, one in a line of matriarchal monarchs stretching back at least 200 years and probably beyond in the mists and myths of African legends.
The rain queens, believed to have been bestowed with the powers to control the rains and rivers, were immortalised by the 19th-century adventure writer Rider Haggard in She, the classic novel about a beautiful, immortal queen ruling a hidden kingdom with supernatural powers. The story gave rise to the phrase still used today: "She who must be obeyed".
Queen Makobo Modjadji was the first of that line to receive a formal education although she admitted in a rare interview that she had never read Rider Haggard. She was enthroned two years ago after the death of her grandmother Modjadji V, in an elaborate formal ceremony conducted in the royal kraal deep in the forested mountains and valleys of the north-eastern province, now named Limpopo.
The traditional drums beat far and wide for the ceremony which was attended by royal families and dignitaries from all corners of southern Africa though, for the Balobedu people of the 140 villages that make up the tiny kingdom, the celebrations were clouded not by rain but by controversy and scandal.
The new queen, being a thoroughly modern young miss who preferred to visit discos in the nearby towns wearing tee-shirts and jeans, had a child - a boy - by her long-standing boyfriend, a respectable young man with a good job in local government. But he was a commoner of whom the Royal Council disapproved.
By strict custom, the rain queen must remain unmarried, living a mostly reclusive life in the royal kraal attended by a number of "wives" - ladies-in-waiting who fulfil the household chores and functions on her behalf. Should she wish for male companionship, a suitor of royal blood must be chosen and thoroughly vetted and approved by the Royal Council. The tribe then prays for a girl-child as the hereditary succession is matriarchal.
The origins of the Modjadji royal line stretch back to the 16th-century Karanga kingdom of Monomatapa in what is now south-eastern Zimbabwe. Centred on what are now the renowned Zimbabwe Ruins, the Monomatapa empire was known to have traded gold and ivory with India and China and to have reached an astonishing level of civil order and development in the heart of Africa.
Oral tradition holds that the son of a Monomatapa ruler had a relationship with his sister, Dzugundini, and produced an heir. His half-brothers plotted to kill the heir to prevent him succeeding to the throne. The old king, anxious to avoid a civil war, gave Dzugundini a magic horn for making rain and defending herself against enemies, advising her to take her child and followers southwards to establish their own kingdom.
The resulting tribe, known as the Balobedu, settled in the fertile Molotsi Valley in the north-eastern corner of what became South Africa where the northernmost slopes of the Drakensberg mountains drop down towards the low veld. In the early 19th century, the tribe was ruled by Mugudo, a descendant of Dzugundini.
Warned by his ancestors of family rivalries, he killed his sons and married his daughter, founding a dynasty of women. If the queen gave birth to a son, that child was strangled. Her first daughter, Modjadji, started the matrilineal tradition.
She remained in complete seclusion deep in the misty forests of an area that normally has an above-average rainfall; but in periods of drought, ambassadors and supplicants came from afar to consult and to beg her to use her powers to summon the rains. So respected were the rain queen's powers that warring tribes never troubled the Lobedu tribe or even Shaka, the Zulu warrior king, but sent emissiaries to seek her blessings.
Christian missionaries sought to debunk the myths and reduce the powers of the rain queen but South Africa's ruling National Party promoted the role of traditional leaders, seeing their powers as a way of promoting apartheid. The rain queen was visited by several Afrikaner leaders, and was given a government salary. Her son was made a member of the Lebowa homeland parliament specifically to represent her interests.
Queen Modjadji V, Mokobo's grandmother, was deeply suspicious of the African National Congress (ANC) as it moved towards power. She viewed it as a force that would mobilise the youth against traditional leaders and undermine their authority. She even rebuffed the persuasive powers of Nelson Mandela (who, being of Xhosa royal blood himself, was sympathetic to her views), turning her back on him when he visited the royal kraal to seek her endorsement for the 1994 elections which saw him become South Africa's first black president.
When the ANC-controlled provincial government came to power, it was sympathetic and supportive of the Modjadji royal household, not least because it was keen to promote tourism to the scenically spectacular region based around the myths and legends of the Rain Queen. The Balobedu area is rich in cycads, the ancient tree ferns almost as mystic as the Queen herself. To preserve the giant of the species, encephelartos transvenosus, the Modjadji Nature Reserve was established with her blessing.
Mokobo Constance Modjadji was born in the royal village in 1978, the daughter of Princess Makheala, who had been the heir to the throne until she died two days before the old Queen in 2001.
Makobo, who had achieved matriculation level at the local high school and enjoyed the life of a modern teenager, found herself the new reluctant heir to the rain queen's throne, even though she secretly shared the scorn and scepticism of her contemporaries in the supernatural powers that supposedly came with the throne.
On ascending the throne, Queen Modjadji had to obey the demands of the Royal Council to continue the line, and she attempted to do her best, attending the many meetings of local tribal council and traditional leaders and contributing what she could to promote their interests and those of the Balobedu people. Her duties precluded her from taking up Nelson Mandela's offer to fund her further education; and she was soon dogged with ill health.
Queen Modjadji VI died in the Polokwane Medi-Clinic on June 12. Medical staff declined to discuss her illness, but local rumours abound that her symptoms were those of the complications caused by the HIV/Aids virus which is ravaging much of South Africa.
She is survived by her son, who is thought to be eight years old; since he is the offspring of her commoner lover, the boy is not recognised by the deeply-traditional Modjadji Royal Council.
Source:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&targetRule=10&xml=/news/2005/06/15/db1501.xml |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 15-06-2005 21:33 Post subject: |
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| David wrote: | | The origins of the Modjadji royal line stretch back to the 16th-century Karanga kingdom of Monomatapa in what is now south-eastern Zimbabwe. Centred on what are now the renowned Zimbabwe Ruins, the Monomatapa empire was known to have traded gold and ivory with India and China and to have reached an astonishing level of civil order and development in the heart of Africa. |
More on Great Zimbabwe here:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21467
and (much to my surprise, a one-post wonder by me even earlier!)
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9159 |
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| pizzed_off with the luggage Joined: 06 Nov 2002 Total posts: 9664 |
| Posted: 25-07-2005 04:00 Post subject: |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4711947.stm
Hong Kong's honour for Bruce Lee
Kung-fu film star Bruce Lee is to be remembered in Hong Kong with a statue to mark his 65th birthday.
The bronze statue, to be unveiled in November, will honour Lee as "Chinese film's bright star of the century".
Lee fans are being invited to choose their favourite design out of a shortlist of three on the internet.
Lee, who died in 1973 at the age of 32 after suffering swelling of the brain, was born in the US but moved to Hong Kong as a child.
The city's Bruce Lee club, who are funding the statue, originally wanted to set up a museum, but did not have enough money or an appropriate venue.
Classic poses
The three shortlisted designs all feature Lee in his classic poses - all with a bare torso and his signature weapon the nunchaku.
The organisers are hoping the two-metre high statue will become the first statue of Lee on public display in the world.
But there are plans to unveil a statue of Lee in the Bosnian city of Mostar, which could also take place in November.
Lee's wife Linda Lee has been invited to attend the ceremony.
The four martial arts films Lee made - Fists of Fury (1972), Enter the Dragon, The Chinese Connection and Return of the Dragon (all 1973) - ensured his place in film history.
(c) bbc 05
(this thread will do. as we havent a in memorium thread) |
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| Anome_ Faceless Man
Great Old One Joined: 23 May 2002 Total posts: 5380 Location: Left, and to the back. Age: 45 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 25-07-2005 10:02 Post subject: |
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He made a few more than 4. They left out The Big Boss and Game of Death.
And I think the classic pose would be bare to the waist, flexing, with a fist full of Chuck Norris's chest hair. |
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| Dennis_De_Bacle Joined: 25 Nov 2002 Total posts: 4608 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 26-07-2005 10:45 Post subject: |
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Charles Chibitty (November 20, 1921 – July 20, 2005) was a Comanche code talker who used his native language to relay messages for the Allies during World War II. Chibitty, and 16 other Comanches had been recruited by the U.S. military for this purpose since Comanche was a language that was entirely unkown to the Germans, who were unable to ever decipher it. (The Navajos performed a similar duty in the Pacific War.)
Chibitty was born on November 20, 1921, in a tent 16 miles west of Lawton, Oklahoma. He attended high school at the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas and enlisted in the Army in 1941. He served in the Army's Fourth Signal Company in the Fourth Infantry Division.
Chibitty's work—and that of the other Comanches who served in Europe—was not recognized by the U.S. government until 1999, when he received the Knowlton Award from the Pentagon, which recognizes outstanding intelligence work. Unfortunately, by the time this recognition came around, Chibitty was the only surviving Comanche code talker.
In interviews with the media, he liked to name all of his Comanche colleagues so that they wouldn't be forgotten. They are: Larry Saupitty, Willie Yackeschi, Morris Sunrise, Perry Noyobad, Haddon Codynah, Robert Holder, Clifford Ototivo, Forrest Kassanavoid, Roderick Red Elk, Simmons Parker, Melvin Permansu, Wellington Mihecoby and Elgin Red Elk.
He died in July 2005 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. |
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| ignatiusII Gigantopithicus b.
Great Old One Joined: 30 Mar 2004 Total posts: 378 Location: Third Stone From the Sun Gender: Male |
| Posted: 09-08-2005 03:16 Post subject: |
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| This may have slipped through the cracks since the MB was down, but I was saddened and shocked to learn of the untimely death of STRANGE magazine founder/editor Mark Chorvinsky, of cancer, on July 16. I had many dealings with Mr. Chorvinsky over the years, and his Strange Bookshop was an indispensible resource for the armchair cryptozoologist back in the days before eBay. I can't say that we always agreed (his claim, for instance, that not only was the Patterson footage an obvious fake, but that the very concept of apemen roaming the wilds of northern california was all an elaborate scam), but he was one of the very nicest individuals I have ever met, and he left this world much too soon. Mark - thanks for everything. And goodbye. |
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