The Blueprint's Conscious Prologue

Dragons and Owls...

2005-08-08T16:58:05Z

THE DRAGON GHOST-GODS

Dragons were among the ghost-gods of the ancient Hawaiians. These dragons were called mo-o. The New Zealanders used the same names for some of their large reptile gods. They, however, spelled the word with a "k," calling it mo-ko, and it was almost identical in pronunciation as in meaning with the Hawaiian name.

Both the Hawaiians and New Zealanders called all kinds of lizards mo-o or mo-ko; and their use of this word in traditions showed that they often had in mind animals like crocodiles and alligators, and sometimes they referred the name to any monster of great mythical powers belonging to a man-destroying class. Mighty eels, immense sea-turtles, large fish of the ocean, fierce sharks, were all called mo-o.

The most ancient dragons of the Hawaiians are spoken of as living in pools or lakes. These dragons were known also as kupuas, or mysterious characters who could appear as animals or human beings according to their wish. The saying was:

"Kupuas have a strange double body." There were many other kupuas besides those of the dragon family. It was sometimes thought that at birth another natural form was added, such as an egg of a fowl or a bird, or the seed of a plant, or the embryo of some animal, which when fully developed made a form which could be used as readily as the human body. These kupuas were always given some great magic power. They were wonderfully strong and wise and skilful.

Usually the birth of a kupua, like the birth of a high chief, was attended with strange disturbances in the heavens, such as reverberating thunder, flashing lightning, and severe storms which sent the abundant red soil of the islands down the mountain-sides in blood-red torrents known as ka-ua-koko (the blood rain). This name was also given to misty fine rain when shot through by the red waves of the sun. By far the largest class of kupuas was that of the dragons.

These all belonged to one family. Their ancestor was Mo-o inanea (The Self-reliant Dragon), who figured very prominently in the Hawaiian legends of the most ancient times, such as "The Maiden of the Golden Cloud." Mo-o-inanea (The Self-reliant Dragon) brought the dragons, the kupua dragons, from the "Hidden Land of Kane" to the Hawaiian Islands. Mo-o-inanea was apparently a demi-goddess of higher power even than the gods Ku, Kane, or Kanaloa. She was the great dragon-goddess of the Hawaiians, coming to the islands in the migration of the gods from Nuu-mea-lani and Kuai-he-lani to settle. The dragons and other kupuas came as spirit servants of the gods.

For a while this Mo-o-inanea lived with her brothers, the gods, at Waolani, but after a long time there were so many dragons that it was necessary to distribute them over the islands, and Mo-o-inanea decided to leave her brothers and find homes for her numerous family. So she went down to Puunui in the lower part of Nuuanu Valley and there made her home , and it is said received worship from the men of the ancient days. Here she dwelt in her dual nature--sometimes appearing as a dragon, sometimes as a woman. Very rich clayey soil was found in this place, forced out of the earth as if by geyser action. It was greatly sought in later years by the chiefs who worshipped this goddess. They made the place tabu, and used the clay, sometimes eating it, but generally plastering the hair with it. This place was made very tabu by the late Queen Kaahumanu during her lifetime. Mo-o-inanea lived in the pit from which this clay was procured, a place called Lua-palolo, meaning pit-of-sticky-clay.

After she had come to this dwelling-place the dragons were sent out to find homes. Some became chiefs and others servants, and when by themselves were known as the evil ones. She distributed her family over all the islands from Hawaii to Niihau. Two of these dragon-women, according to the legends, lived as guardians of the pali (precipice) at the end of Nuuanu Valley, above Honolulu. After many years it was supposed that they both assumed the permanent forms of large stones which have never lost their associations with mysterious, miraculous power.

Even as late as 1825, Mr. Bloxam, the chaplain of the English man-of-war, recorded in "The Voyage of the Blonde" the following statement: "At the bottom of the Parre (pali) there are two large stones on which even now offerings of fruits and flowers are laid to propitiate the Aku-wahines, or goddesses, who are supposed to have the power of granting a safe passage," Mr. Bloxam says that these were a kind of mo-o, or reptile, goddesses, and adds that it was difficult to explain the meaning of the name given to them, probably because the Hawaiians had nothing in the shape of serpents or large reptiles in their islands.

A native account of these stones says: "There is a large grove of hau-trees in Nuuanu Valley, and above these lie the two forest women, Hau-ola and Ha-puu. These are now two large stones, one being about three feet long with a fine smooth back, the other round with some little rough places. The long stone is on the seaward side, and this is the Mo-o woman, Hau-ola; and the other, Ha-puu. The leaves of ferns cover Hau-ola, being laid on that stone. On the other stone, Ha-puu, are lehua flowers. These are kupuas."

Again the old people said that their ancestors had been accustomed to bring the navel cords of their children and bury them under these stones to insure protection of the little ones from evil, and that these were the stone women of Nuuanu. Ala-muki lived in the deep pools of the Waialua River near the place Ka-mo-o-loa, which received its name from the long journeys that dragon made over the plains of Waialua.

She and her descendants guarded the paths and sometimes destroyed those who travelled that way. One dragon lived in the Ewa lagoon, now known as Pearl Harbor. This was Kane-kua-ana, who was said to have brought the pipi (oysters) to Ewa. She was worshipped by those who gathered the shell-fish. When the oysters began to disappear about 1850, the natives said that the dragon had become angry and was sending the oysters to Kahiki, or some far-away foreign land.

Kilioe, Koe, and Milolii were noted dragons on the island of Kauai. They were the dragons of the precipices of the northern coast of this island, who took the body of the high chief Lohiau and concealed it in a cave far up the steep side of the mountain. There is a very long interesting story of the love between Lohiau and Pele, the goddess of fire. In this story Pele overcame the dragons and won the love of the chief. Hiiaka, the sister of the fire-goddess, won a second victory over them when she rescued a body from the cave and brought it back to life. On Maui, the greatest dragon of the island was Kiha-wahine. The natives had the saying, "Kiha has mana, or miraculous power. like Mo-o-inanea."

She lived in a large deep pool on the edge of the village Lahaina, and was worshipped by the royal family of Maui as their special guardian. There were many dragons of the island of Hawaii, and the most noted of these were the two who lived in the Wailuku River near Hilo. They were called "the moving boards" which made a bridge across the river. Sometimes they accepted offerings and permitted a safe passage, and sometimes they tipped the passengers into the water and drowned them. They were destroyed by Hiiaka. Sacred to these dragons who were scattered over all the islands were the mo-o priests and the sorcerers, who propitiated them with offerings and sacrifices, chanting incantations.

III

PELE AND THE OWL GHOST-GOD

Many years after Pele's angry sister Na maka o ka hai had driven her from the island Kauai and after the land had many dwellers therein, a quarrel arose between two of the highest chiefs of the island. They were named Koa and Kau. It did not become an open conflict immediately, but Koa was filled with such deep hatred that he was ready to employ any means to destroy his enemy.

There was a mighty Kupua, or dragon of the Pii family, at that time on Kauai. These dragons had come, according to the legends, to the Hawaiian Islands from the far-away lands of Kuai-he-lani, as attendants on the first young chief Kahanai-a-ke-Akua (The-boy-brought-up-by-the-gods). These dragons had the mana, or magic power of appearing as men or as dragons according to their desire.

This dragon was named Pii-ka-lalau, or Pii, the one dwelling at Ka-lalau. He was supposed to be semi-divine. His home was on the crest of an almost inaccessible precipice up which he would rush with incredible speed. Koa, the angry chief, came to this precipice and called Pii to come to him. There they plotted the death of Kau, the enemy. Assuming the appearance of a splendidly formed young man, Pii went down among the natives with Koa to watch for an opportunity to seize Kau.

After a time Kau was lured to go at night to a house far from his own home. As he entered the door he received a heavy blow which smashed the bones of one shoulder and laid him prostrate. A great giant leaped out, thrusting an enormous spear at him. Kau was one of the most skilful of all chiefs in what was known as "spear practice." He avoided the thrusts and leaped to his feet. He had a wooden dagger as his only weapon, but could not get near enough to the giant to use it.

Just as he was becoming too weary to move, his wife, who had followed him, hurled rocks, striking the giant's face, then seizing her husband fled with him homeward.

There followed a great battle in which Pii attacked all the warriors belonging to the wounded chief. The legends say that "this giant was twelve feet high, he had eyes as large as a man's fist, and an immense mouth full of tusks like those of a wild hog. His legs were as large- as trees, and his weight was such that wherever he stepped there were great holes in the ground."

The warriors fled as this mighty giant charged upon them. Suddenly they stopped and rushed back. Their chief's wife had caught an ikoi, a heavy piece of wood fastened to a long, stout cord. This she hurled so that it twisted around him and bound his arms to his sides. Stones and spears beat upon him, but he broke the coco-fibre cords of the ikoi and again drove the warriors before him, trying to gain the house where the wounded chief Kau was lying.

There was an old prophetess who had rushed to the side of her master when he was brought to his home. She was one of the worshippers of Pele, the fire-goddess of the island Hawaii. Powerful were her prayers and incantations.

Soon out of the clear sky above the conflict appeared Pele hurling a fierce bolt of lightning at the giant. It struck the ground at his feet, almost overthrowing him. A second flash of lightning blinded and stunned him.

It was a curious element of old Hawaiian belief, but they did believe that demi-gods and supernatural beings had au-makuas, or ghost-gods, the spirits of their ancestors, to whom they prayed and offered sacrifice as if they were common people and needed ghost-gods to take care of them.

Pii, smitten by this new danger, called for Pueo, his most mighty ghost-god. Pele's fire-darts were falling upon him and he was near death. Then came Pueo flying down from the steep places of the mountain. Pueo was a great owl in which dwelt one of the most powerful of Pii's ancestors.

Pueo hovered over the head of Pii facing Pele. Whenever Pele hurled her fiery darts, the owl swiftly thrust his head from side to side, catching them in his beak, and with a shake of the head tossing them off to the ground.

Then came the warriors in a great body around the giant and his ghost-god. Thickly flew their spears and darts. Great clouds of stones were hurled, and both Pii and his owl-god were grievously wounded. Pele's flashes of lightning were coming with great rapidity.

The giant called to his au-makua to fly to the mountains, and then, suddenly changing himself into his dragon form, he dashed up the precipice toward his home.

The warriors were so surprised at the wonderful change that they forgot to fight, and only realized that this dragon was their enemy when they saw him far out of the reach of their best weapons. They could see that dragon leaping from stone to stone, and swiftly gliding up the steep precipice. He escaped to his home in the mountain recesses and nevermore troubled the chief by the sea. His employer was killed in a later battle.

Pele returned to her home in the volcano Kilauea.

Pele - from the collected and translated from the Hawaiian by W. D. WESTERVELT 1916

2005-08-08T16:16:57Z

AI LAAU, THE FOREST EATER

When Pele came to the island Hawaii, seeking a permanent home, she found another god of fire already in possession of the territory. Ai-laau was known and feared by all the people. Ai means the "one who eats or devours." Laau means "tree" or a "forest." Ai-laau was, therefore, the fire-god devouring forests. Time and again he laid the districts of South Hawaii desolate by the lava he poured out from his fire-pits.

He was the god of the insatiable appetite, the continual eater of trees, whose path through forests was covered with black smoke fragrant with burning wood, and sometimes burdened with the smell of human flesh charred into cinders in the lava flow.

Ai-laau seemed to be destructive and was so named by the people, but his fires were a part of the forces of creation. He built up theislands for future life. The process of creation demanded volcanic activity. The flowing lava made land. The lava disintegrating made earth deposits and soil. Upon this land storms fell and through it multitudes of streams found their way to the sea. Flowing rivers came from the cloud-capped mountains. Fruitful fields and savage homes made this miniature world-building complete.

Ai-laau still poured out his fire. It spread over the fertile fields, and the natives feared him as the destroyer giving no thought to the final good.

He lived, the legends say, for a long time in a very ancient part of Kilauea, on the large island of Hawaii, now separated by a narrow ledge from the great crater and called Kilauea-iki (Little Kilauea). This seems to be the first and greatest of number of craters extending in a line from the great lake of fire in Kilauea to the seacoast many miles away. They are called "The Pit Craters" because they are not hills of lava, but a series of sunken pits going deep down into the earth, some of them still having blowholes of sputtering steam and smoke.

After a time, Ai-laau left these pit craters and went into the great crater and was said to be living there when Pele came to the seashore far below.

In one of the Pele stories is the followingliteral translation of the account of her taking Kilauea:

"When Pele came to the island Hawaii, she first stopped at a place called Ke-ahi-a-laka in the district of Puna. From this place she began her inland journey toward the mountains. As she passed on her way there grew within her an intense desire to go at once and see Ai-laau, the god to whom Kilauea belonged, and find a resting-place with him as the end of her journey. She came up, but Ai-laau was not in his house. Of a truth he had made himself thoroughly lost. He had vanished because he knew that this one coming toward him was Pele. He had seen her toiling down by the sea at Ke-ahi-a-laka. Trembling dread and heavy fear overpowered him. He ran away and was entirely lost. When he came to that pit she laid out the plan for her abiding home, beginning at once to dig up the foundations. She dug day and night and found that this place fulfilled all her desires. Therefore, she fastened herself tight to Hawaii for all time."

These are the words in which the legend disposes of this ancient god of volcanic fires. He disappears from Hawaiian thought and Pele from a foreign land finds a satisfactory crater in which her spirit power can always dig up everlastingly overflowing fountains of raging lava.

HOW PELE CAME TO HAWAII

The simplest, most beautiful legend does not mention the land from which Pele started.

In this her father was Moe-moea-au-lii, the chief who dreamed of trouble. Her mother was Haumea, or Papa, who personified mother earth. Moemoea apparently is not mentioned in any other of the legends. Haumea is frequently named as the mother of Pele, as well as the heroine of many legendary experiences.

Pele's story is that of wander-lust. She was living in a happy home in the presence of her parents, and yet for a long time she was "stirred by thoughts of far-away lands." At last she asked her father to send her away. This meant that he must provide a sea-going canoe with mat sails, sufficiently large to carry a number of persons and food for many days.

"What will you do with your little egg sister?" asked her father.

Pele caught the egg, wrapped it in her skirt to keep it warm near her body, and said that it should always be with her. Evidently in a very short time the egg was changed into a beautiful little girt who bore the name Hii-aka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele (Hiiaka-in-the-bosom-of-Pele), the youngest one of the Pele family.

After the care of the helpless one had been provided for, Pele was sent to her oldest brother, Ka-moho-alii, the king of dragons, or, as he was later known in Hawaiian mythology, "the god of sharks." He was a sea-god and would provide the great canoe for the journey. While he was getting all things ready, he asked Pele where she was going. She replied, "I am going to Bola-bola; to Kuai-he-lani; to Kane-huna-moku; then to Moku-mana-mana; then to see a queen, Kaoahi her name and Niihau her island." Apparently her journey would be first to Bola-bola in the Society Islands, then among the mysterious ancestral islands, and then to the northwest until she found Niihau, the most northerly of the Hawaiian group.

The god of sharks prepared his large canoe and put it in the care of some of their relatives, Kane-pu-a-hio-hio (Kane-the-whirlwind), Ke-au-miki (The-strong-current), and Ke-au-ka (Moving-seas).

Pele was carried from land to land by these wise boatmen until at last she landed on the island Niihau. Then she sent back the boat to her brother, the shark-god. It is said that after a time he brought all the brothers and sisters to Hawaii.

Pele was welcomed and entertained. Soon she went over to Kauai, the large, beautiful garden island of the Hawaiian group. There is a story of her appearance as a dream maiden before the king of Kauai, whose name was Lohiau, whom she married, but with whom she could not stay until she had found a place where she could build a permanent home for herself and all who belonged to her.

She had a magic digging tool, Pa-oa. When she struck this down into the earth it made a fire-pit. It was with this Pa-oa that she was to build a home for herself and Lohiau. She dug along the lowlands of Kauai, but water drowned the fires she kindled, so she went from island to island but could only dig along the beach near the sea. All her fire-pits were so near the water that they burst out in great explosions of steam and sand, and quickly died, until at last she found Kilauea on the large island of Hawaii. There she built a mighty enduring palace of fire, but her dream marriage was at an end. The little sister Hiiaka, after many adventures, married Lohiau and lived on Kauai.

Another story says that Pele was the daughter of Kane-hoa-lani and Hina. The oldest and most authoritative legends say that Kane-hoa-lani was her brother and that Hina was the creator of a flood or great tidal wave which drove Pele from place to place over the ocean. This story says that Pele had a husband, Wahioloa, who ran away from her with a sister named Pele-kumu-ka-lani, and that Pele searched the islands of the great ocean as she followed them, but never found them. At last Pele came to Hawaii and escaped the flood by finding a home in Kilauea. In this story she was said to have a son Menehune and a daughter Laka. There is very little foundation for this legend. Wahioloa was a chief, well known in the legends, of a famous family of New Zealand and other South Sea islands. Laka was his son, who cut down trees by day which were set up again at night by the fairies. The Menehunes were the fairy folk of Hawaii. The story of Pele's search for a husband has been widely accepted by foreigners but not by the early Hawaiian writers.

The most authoritative story of the coming of Pele to Hawaii was published in the Hoku-o-ka-Pakipika (Star of the Pacific), in the story of Aukele-nui-aiku, in 1861, and in another Hawaiian paper, Ke Kuokoa, in 1864, and again in 1865.

Again and again the legends give Ku-waha-ilo as the father and Haumea as the mother of the Pele family. Hina, is sometimes said to be Ku-waha-ilo's sister in these legends. She quarrelled with him because he devoured all the people. The Hawaiians as a nation, even in their traditions, have never been cannibals, although their legends give many individual instances of cannibalism. The Pele stories say that "Ku-waha-ilo was a cannibal," and "Haumea was a pali [precipice or a prominent part of the earth]."

The Hawaiians, it is safe to say, had no idea of reading nature-thoughts into these expressions, thus making them "nature-myths." They probably did not understand that Ku-waha-ilo might mean destructive earth forces, and Haumea might mean the earth itself from whom Pele, the goddess of fire, and Na-maka-o-ka-hai, the goddess of the sea, were born. It is, however, interesting to note that this is the fact in the legends, and that it was in a conflict between the two sisters that Na-maka-o-ka-hai drove Pele to the Hawaiian Islands.

A greater sorcerer married Na-maka-o-ka-hai. After a time he saw Pele and her beautiful young sister Hiiaka. He took them secretly to be his wives. This sorcerer was Au-kele-nui-a-iku. Au might mean "to swim," and kele "to glide," or "slip smoothly along." The name then might mean "the great smoothly swimming son of Iku." He could fly through the heavens, swim through the seas, or run swiftly over the earth. By magic power he conquered enemies, visited strange lands, found the fountain of the water of life, sprinkled that water over his dead brothers, brought them back to life, and did many marvellous deeds. But he could not deliver Pele and Hiiaka from the wrath of their sister. High tides and floods from the seas destroyed Pele's home and lands. Then the elder brother of Pele--Ka-moho-alii, the shark-god-called for all the family to aid Pele. Na-maka-o-ka-hai fought the whole family and defeated them. She broke down their houses and drove them into the ocean. There Ka-moho-alii provided them with the great boat Honua-i-a-kea (The great spread-out world) and carried them away to distant islands.

Na-maka-o-ka-hai went to the highest of all the mythical lands of the ancestors, Nuu-mea-lani (The raised dais of heaven). There she could look over all the seas from Ka-la-kee-nui-a-Kane to Kauai, i.e., from a legendary land in the south to the most northerly part of the Hawaiian Islands. Pele carried her Pa-oa, a magic spade. Wherever they landed she struck the earth, thus opening a crater in which volcanic fires burned. As the smoke rose to the clouds, the angry watching one rushed from Nuu-mea-lani and tried to slay the family. Again and again they escaped. Farther and farther from the home land were they driven until they struck far out into the ocean.

Na-maka-o-ka-hai went back to her lookout mountain. After a long time she saw the smoke of earth-fires far away on the island Kauai. Pele had struck her Paoa into the earth, dug a deep pit, and thrown up a large hill known to this day as the Puu-o-Pele (The hill of Pele). It seemed as if an abiding-place had been found.

But the sister came and fought Pele. There is no long account of the battle. Pele was broken and smashed and left for dead. She was not dead, but she left Kauai and went to Oahu to a place near Honolulu, to Moanalua, a beautiful suburb. There she dug a fire-pit. The earth, or rather the eruption of lava, was forced up into a hill which later bore the name Ke-alia-manu (The-bird-white-like-a-salt-bed or The-white-bird). The crater which she dug filled up with salt water and was named Ke-alia-paa-kai (The-white-bed-of-salt, or Salt Lake).

Pele was not able to strike her Paoa down into a mountain side and dig deep for the foundations of her home. She could find fire only in the lowlands near the seashore. The best place on Oahu was just back of Leahi, the ancient Hawaiian name for Diamond Head. Here she threw up a great quantity of fire-rock, but at last her fires were drowned by the water she struck below.

Thus she passed along the coast of each island, the family watching and aiding until they came to the great volcano Haleakala.[1] There Pele dug with her Paoa, and a great quantity of lava was thrown out of her fire-pit.

Na-maka-o-ka-hai saw enduring clouds day after day rising with the colors of the dark dense smoke of the underworld, and knew that her sister was still living.

Pele had gained strength and confidence, therefore she entered alone into a conflict unto death.

The battle was fought by the two sisters hand to hand. The conflict lasted for a long time along the western slope of the mountain Hale-a-ka-la. Na-maka-o-ka-hai tore the body of Pele and broke her lava bones into great pieces which lie to this day along the seacoast of the district called Kahiki-nui. The masses of broken lava are called Na-iwi-o-Pele (The bones of Pele).

Pele was thought to be dead and was sorely mourned by the remaining brothers and sisters. Na-maka-o-ka-hai went off toward Nuu-mea-lani rejoicing in the destruction of her hated enemy. By and by she looked back over the wide seas. The high mountains of the island Hawaii, snow covered, lay in the distance. But over the side of the mountain known as Mauna Loa she saw the uhane, the spirit form of Pele in clouds of volcanic smoke tinged red from the flames of raging fire-pits below.

[1. Hale-a-ka-la must be classed as an active volcano from evidences of prehistoric fires although long extinct, but the author gives these stories in another book, "Legends of Maui."]

She passed on to Nuu-mea-lani, knowing that she could never again overcome the spirit of Pele, the goddess of fire.

The Pele family crossed the channel between the islands and went to the mountain side, for they also had seen the spirit form of Pele. They served their goddess sister, caring for her fires and pouring out the destructive rivers of lava at her commands.

As time passed they became a part of the innumerable multitude of au-makuas, or ghost-gods, of the Pit of Pele, worshipped especially by those whose lives were filled with burning anger against their fellow-men.

The acceptable offerings to Pele were fruits, flowers, garlands (or leis), pigs (especially the small black pig of tender flesh and delicate flavor), chickens, fish, and men. When a family sent a part of the dead body of one of the household, it was with the prayer that the spirit might become an au-makua, and especially an unihipili au-makua. This meant a ghost-god, powerful enough to aid the worshipper to pray other people to death.

Pele is said to have become impatient at times with her brothers and sisters. Then she would destroy their pleasure resorts in the valleys. She would send a flood of lava in her anger and burn everything up.

Earthquakes came when Pele stamped the floor of the fire-pit in anger.

Flames thrusting themselves through cracks in a breaking lava crust were the fire spears of Pele's household of au-makuas or ghost-gods.

Pele's voice was explosive when angry. Therefore it was called "pu." When the natives first heard guns fired they said that the voice of the gun was "pu." It was like the explosions of gas in volcanic eruptions, and it seemed as if the foreigners had persuaded Pele to assist them in any trouble with the natives.

Well at least the Envoronmental Protection Agency cares abou-- oh wait

2005-05-13T00:22:49Z

EPA on Threshold of Brave New World of Human Testing
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Monday 09 May 2005

EPA Invites Industry to Mimic Practices of Discontinued CHEERS Study.

Washington, DC - In the wake of the recent cancellation of the CHEERS study in which parents were to be paid to expose their infant children to pesticides, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing a new policy that encourages the same type of human dosing studies by industry. Today EPA closes public comment on its "no safeguards" policy of accepting all human subject experiments submitted by industry, according to a filing today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Under its new policy, EPA would accept all human chemical dosing studies "unless there is clear evidence that the conduct of these studies was fundamentally unethical… or was significantly deficient relative to the ethical standards prevailing at the time the study was conducted." Since industry is not required to disclose the conditions under which experiments were conducted, it is not clear how EPA will ever learn of "fundamentally unethical" practices. Moreover, EPA is unwilling to define what ethical lapses would disqualify an industry submission from being used for regulatory purposes.

"The Bush Administration is setting the ethical bar so low that only the most sleazy cannot limbo under it," stated PEER Program Director Rebecca Roose. "The basic problem is this: the safeguards that apply to experiments involving development of drugs to help people are far more stringent than EPA's standards for experiments to determine how much commercial poisons harm people."

EPA's refusal to adopt basic safeguards requiring proof of informed consent, independent review or protections for children is part of a Bush Administration drive to liberalize rules on human testing of pesticides and other chemicals. Without actual human experimental data to justify higher chemical exposures for children, industry must abide by the 1996 amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act setting ten-fold stricter exposure standards for children.

At the same time it is encouraging industry to expose human subjects, EPA itself is conducting similar experiments that serve to provide a template for industry. Last month to avoid a hold on his confirmation, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson reluctantly cancelled a controversial study financed jointly by EPA and industry called CHEERS (Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study) that would have paid Florida parents to apply pesticides and other chemicals in the rooms primarily occupied by their infant children. During his confirmation, Johnson disclosed that EPA is also conducting more than 250 other human experiments, several of which involve chemical testing on children, including

Exposing children (ages 3 to 12) to a powerful agricultural insecticide (chlorpyrifos) to test absorption in their systems through "urinary biomarker measurements";
Paying "young male volunteers" to inhale methanol vapors at levels described as "a worst case scenario"; and
Having asthma sufferers inhale potentially harmful ultrafine carbon particles.

"The need for safeguards is particularly acute because EPA is giving industry an economic incentive to push the edge of the ethical envelope," Roose added. "It is distressing that a federal agency is using tax dollars to write a primer for commercial exploitation of human subjects."

Wrapped Around Your Finger (police)

2005-05-09T19:43:02Z

You consider me the young apprentice
Caught between the Scylla and Charybidis
Hypnotized by you if I should linger
Staring at the ring around your finger

I have only come here seeking knowledge
Things they wouldn't teach me of in college
I can see the destiny you sold
Turned into a shining band of gold

I'll be wrapped around your finger
I'll be wrapped around your finger

Mephistopheles is not your name
But I know what you're up to just the same
I will listen hard to your tuition
And you will see it come to its fruition

I'll be wrapped around your finger
I'll be wrapped around your finger

Devil and the deep blue sea behind me
Vanish in the air you'll never find me
I will turn your flesh to alabaster
Then you will find your servant is your master

And you'll be wrapped around my finger
You'll be wrapped around my finger.
You'll be wrapped around my finger

The Seraphim Shell Game

2005-05-06T23:03:45Z

The Seraphim Shell Game

Back in 2001 I collaborated with my best friend Kei after falling in love with a scrpt that had to made into a movie for the KCC Film Festival. It had everything a story, given perception and desire, could want. God competing with the Devil, deception, teenage angst and the Virgin Mary.

It was never preserved and up until a year or so ago we actually thought all footage had been lost or destroyed by Hawaii humidity. Then I found the only surviving copy in a closet in california. Im in the process of remastering it digitally and adding the lost scenes so that the picture can be shown the way it was meant to be.

But the screenshots alone are entertaining enough, I think for a bunch of 18 year old brats on an island with no film experience we did a pretty kick ass job.

And I return with a lesson on fluoride...

2005-04-26T23:41:54Z

Sodium fluoride, a hazardous-waste by-product from the manufacture of aluminum, is a common ingredient in rat and cockroach poisons, anesthetics, hypnotics, psychiatric drugs, and military nerve gas.

Historically, this substance was quite expensive for the worlds premier chemical companies to dispose of, but in the 50's and 60's Alcoa and the entire aluminium industry (with a vast overabundance of the toxic waste) sold the FDA and our government on the idea of buying this at a 20,000% markup and then injecting it into the water supply as well as into the nation's toothpastes and dental rinse.

First of all, it needs to be stated that the 'substance' referred to as 'Fluoride' is a misnomer (there is no such substance listed in the periodic chart of the elements, nor in the prestigious CRC handbook, nor in the sacred bible of the pharmaceutical industry) the illustrious 'Merck Index'. Instead, we find a GAS called Fluorine.

From the use of this gas in various industries such as aluminium manufacturing and the nuclear industry, certain toxic by-products are created which have 'captured' fluorine molecules. One such toxic, poisonous 'by-product' is called sodium Fluoride, which according to the Merck Index is primarily used as rat and cockroach poison and is also the active ingredient in most toothpastes and as an additive to drinking water. When Major General Racey Jordan was in charge of the massive lend-lease airlift operations from Great Falls, Montana to Russia, via Alaska, he queried the trans-shipment of considerable amounts of sodium fluoride. He was told frankly that it was to put into the drinking water of the prisoner of war camps to take away their will to resist.

Consider also that when sodium fluoride is injected into our drinking water, its level is approximately 1 part-per-million (ppm), but since we only drink ½ of one percent of the total water supply, the hazardous chemical literally 'goes down the drain' and the chemical industry has not only a free hazardous waste disposal system, but we have also paid them handsomely in the process.

Honest scientists who have attempted to blow the whistle on sodium fluoride's mega-bucks propaganda campaign have consistently been given a large dose of professional 'black-listing' and thus their valid points disputing the current vested interests never have received the ink they deserve in the national press. Just follow the money to find the 'control' and you will find prominent American families to be prominent 'players' in the scandal. In 1952 a slick PR campaign rammed the concept of 'fluoridation' through our Public Health departments and various dental organizations. It has continued in the same vein right up to the present day and now sodium fluoride use has now become 'usual and customary'.

The following letter was received by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, Milwaukee Wisconsin, on 2 October 1954, from a research chemist by the name of Charles Perkins. He writes:

"I have your letter of September 29 asking for further documentation regarding a statement made in my book, "The Truth about Water Fluoridation", to the effect that the idea of water fluoridation was brought to England from Russia by the Russian Communist Kreminoff. In the 1930's Hitler and the German Nazis envisioned a world to be dominated and controlled by a Nazi philosophy of pan-Germanism. The German chemists worked out a very ingenious and far-reaching plan of mass-control which was submitted to and adopted by the German General Staff. This plan was to control the population in any given area through mass medication of drinking water supplies. By this method they could control the population in whole areas, reduce population by water medication that would produce sterility in women, and so on. In this scheme of mass-control, sodium fluoride occupied a prominent place.

"Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination, by slowly poisoning and narcotizing a certain area of the brain, thus making him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him."

"The real reason behind water fluoridation is not to benefit children's teeth. If this were the real reason there are many ways in which it could be done that are much easier, cheaper, and far more effective. The real purpose behind water fluoridation is to reduce the resistance of the masses to domination and control and loss of liberty."

"When the Nazis under Hitler decided to go to Poland, both the German General Staff and the Russian General Staff exchanged scientific and military ideas, plans, and personnel, and the scheme of mass control through water medication was seized upon by the Russian Communists because it fitted ideally into their plans to communize the world."

"I was told of this entire scheme by a German chemist who was an official of the great I.G. Farben chemical industries and was also prominent in the Nazi movement at the time. I say this with all the earnestness and sincerity of a scientist who has spent nearly 20 years' research into the chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology of fluorine --- any person who drinks artificially fluorinated water for a period of one year or more will never again be the same person mentally or physically."

Signed: CHARLES E. PERKINS, Chemist, 2 October, 1954.

So then I thought, hmm doesnt orange county have some sort of boasted history of its fluoridated water?

Yep.

Water quality report.

The District’s primary water supplier Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) plans to mix fluoride, a mineral that is known to fight tooth decay, into its water supply within the next three years. This decision will affect SMWD, along with 25 other water agencies in Southern California that purchase water from the regional supplier.

Small amounts of fluoride already exist naturally in our water supplies. But MWD’s fluoridation program would adjust the natural level of fluoride from .7 parts per million (ppm) to 1.2 ppm, increasing the concentration to an amount sufficient to fight tooth decay.

In 1995, Governor Pete Wilson signed a bill that ordered all water agencies with more than 10,000 customers to begin fluoridating their water supplies, providing that funding was available.

According to the American Dental Association, water fluoridation remains the safest and most cost-effective method of reducing tooth decay.

If you have any questions about your water quality, or this report, please call Bob Jordan, Water Quality Manager, at (949) 493-6180.

It's the wish of at least one outspoken council member. Lewis Mathews Monday said it only makes sense for the city to insure the health of its youngsters.

"It's for children's teeth. Anything for children," said Mathews who has five grandchildren.

B A R R I C A D E

2004-01-16T20:22:58Z

He sat gazing into the flames that consumed the last barricade, a divider that had been appoined all of this time to avert the last few detrimental pieces of reason keeping him from seeing this particular segment of the blueprint.

new pattern identified

If past, present and future were truly one bleeding mass -

scanning the trinity equasion

then all participants are still present, adversary and comrade alike.

Does this also imply that sanded down mystic resources are merely veiled under new memories? And how much has the opposition remembered.

A.S.

W I L L F R E E

2003-12-29T19:46:43Z

Who wears your smile on their sleeve tonight?
Was it easy to find your nod made it alright?
You stroke their ego until its burning bright,
Your only hope is to be seen under its light.

-Gabriel Wells

DISGRACE MAY YOUR STRENGTH PROVE

2003-12-08T18:55:31Z

Ask me to define the effect your cloak of sympathy
Layed before me bears
Ask me,
Put my restraints into proper placement assuring your own safety and
Ask me

If within this harmony your oracle
Has helped hallucinate the importance
Of my structured wealth,
Disgrace may your strength prove yet still

Well honey if thats all it ever took...

Disavow our longetivity
"Whats so bad about it anyway?" he said
Cultivating the way by gunpoint

Thrusted straight into the summit of our critter temple
You tricked me again leaving hardship
Like the mongrel who sleeps with his legs curled up

Unhurried, relaxed and effortless
I accept the mission of your tortoise speculation
And well honey if thats all it ever took...

Call this suffering and for the last time I will agree
Reluctant companionship and wavering support led by the blind and weak
Incomplete falling into unjustified and never acknowedged
I ask you
Well honey is that all it ever really took?
Then run as fast as you can
And dont let the door hit you on the way out

A.S.

G E R M

2003-11-10T21:00:51Z

Pondering the motives behind the rover boy
That I have left nuzzling in your vortex
The teething void chews on the veil stimulating the root of my inquiry
And I feel pushed to question why we stopped here

Remember to remind me of what I have forgotten
I shall at the same interval
Trigger the recollection of why
I put this thought in you

Perhaps fuckles can smell what I have left behind
This motive
This intention
This single reason why we have both stopped
This single reason why we have both noticed the metamorphosis of our intention at this very moment

Embrace this unexpected birth
This holy malfunction
This deity of Lucidity
Its destructive force of purity assigned and set forth to abduct the grip of onyx

Remember to remind me of what I have forgotten
I shall at the same interval
Trigger the recollection of why
I put this thought in you

A.S.

Return To The Dreamtime

2003-09-25T07:54:16Z

"Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist. They dont use their brains and they have forgotten the secret knowledge of their bodies, their sences, or their dreams. They dont use the knowledge the dream put into every one of them; they are not even aware of this and so they stumble along blindly on the road to nowhere - a paved highway which they themselves bulldoze and make smooth so that they can get faster to the big empty hole which theyll find at the end, waiting to swallow them up. Its a quick comfortable super highway, but I know where it leads to. Ive seen it. Ive been there in my vision and it makes me shudder to think about it."

-The Lakota Shaman Lame Deer
Lame Deer Seeker Of Visions

MORPHEUS: Beyond, outside my Dreamworld there is infinite dust, infinite dark. And the Dreamworld is infinite although it is bounded on every side. The way to the center is a slow spiral. One passes the houses of mystery and secrets... old way stations on the frontiers of nightmare. From there one charts a course nightward until one reaches the Gates of Horn and Ivory. I carved them myself, when the world was younger, and order was needed. I hasten to the Gates.
The dreams that pass through the gates of Ivory are lies, figments and deceptions. The other admits the truth. No one guards the horned gate anymore. I remember the way of old. Once through it I can see my castle. Through it I will be able to see... my home...

-Imperfect Hosts
Neil Gaiman

Contaminated

2003-05-22T00:13:15Z

I miscalculated and tripped again, just enough for you to corner me, so I played the whore for the 5th time.

How can I falter when I know I could never rise to a name higher in your eyes? I simply cant fail and this alone has a tainted comfort. I dont have to have anything interesting to say, I need no ideal to live up to, hell I dont even have to be three dimentional ... she will do all of that effortlessly and somehow it reflects on both of us.

So why do my terms with you feel immaculate?

Maybe because I never did any of the dirty work, maybe because watching is less invasive then having the war wounds to show off. Perhaps if the extent of my utilization towards you was nothing other then using you for all that you have to offer my stocks would sky rocket and my phone would ring off the hook.

Unfortunately for all of us my intentions are conditioned to remain unraped by your appointed sands of time.

And I in no way want you to be disapointed by this track, it has perfectly designed grooves for your feet so you can run effortlessly in circles.

A.S.

alikaslater @ 2003-05-06T20:00:00

2003-05-07T03:02:22Z

Right on time
you get closer and closer
call my name
theres no way here
use that fame

Rent your wife and kids today and maybe she will

T. A.

alikaslater @ 2003-03-17T10:32:00

2003-03-17T18:55:29Z

Ive convinced myself that you meant nothing. A carnal agreement of sin and demoralized performances. I will admit I bought the tickets every week, not because I needed another mindless fix of our infamously crooked performance, this is what will be recorded in the records. I in turn, have gone back to make sure these facts have been solidified and cannot in any way be misinterpreted.

That was after all, exactly what you wanted.

Accidental Morality

2003-03-01T10:49:58Z

Malignant memories of malevolent pleasures
An obligation branded
No longer a necessitation
But a disappointment

Retracting from the obscuration below
A memory splashed for survival
The monstrosity metamorphosis can be reversed

From the soil her serpentine hand tore for light
Not this time
Not this life

Scintillation
Burns her surfaced face
Abolishing any memory

'She will never be one of them'

'This may be but she has also forgotten'

Efflorescent from the earth she stood
Complete consciousness system crash
Data irretrievable
She smiles

'She will destroy them all, blind and stupid with light!'

'SHE has not the power to remember, why must we care?'

Warmed by the sun
A memory splashed for survival
The monstrosity metamorphosis can be reversed

'She will never forgive herself when she remembers!'

'She will LAUGH when she remembers!'

A.S.

U N F A T H E R

2003-01-28T20:52:52Z

Stench
Of the archaism that coexists
With your presumption that convictions spewed from
The role that is your assigned pomposity is
Requested, crucial, or even imperative leaves room to fill
A landfill with the space needed to complete the megalomaniac
You think you are

In sleep
You seek truth in ostentation,
Awake
The inability to attain and incorporate the established Ingredients
Leaves your core with a mortification

That sends you back to smell, hammer and chisel
The new avenue of archaism that is you
Today

A.S.

Adam

2003-01-27T19:29:10Z

Remaining the auto extention of my deviant half, I inquire where you fit in this whole, not the bad influence, this has been mastered. You remain the idolized specimen of archetype I seek and yet my apprehension to entrust you with my heart lies in the manuscript of 'dual existance monstrosities' that is my fate.

This emotional metamorphosis leaves me questioning my own intentions in this. Am I equipped? Capable? Prepared?

My guides says no but my heart says yes. I now begin to reconstruct the destiny of this year and map you into it with more refinement. Distortion, confusion, why fear? I fear not you nor what you can destroy in me, yet fear. Why fear?

This has not been identified.

I say no to my guides, yes to my heart and begin to upload my new intentions and love ambition. I trust you. To say that alone leaves the smell of optimism. Security can grow upon this, a greater foundation then the first one built. A foundation that will not waver because of anything that you or I do. A foundation that exists indefinately for you and me to play on.

Lets begin now.

A.S.

AMBUSH

2003-01-16T20:38:56Z

Every ten years objective time
I'm aging only a month
If you're alive - returning according to schedule
I'm twenty-eight when you arrive
Hurry! I don't care if you're 30
Hurry! I don't care if you're old
I never ever wanted another
If I can't be your lover - I wanna be your nurse

I cannot recall
The reason that I came here for
I don't know when it started
I don't know when it ends
I don't see any sense in this
My mind has been erased
So I can get along with this

Lost in time and space - what am I fighting for?
Seriously damaged but I don't let it show
Still there is capacity as long as there is faith
Pump-gun trigger pushed - we're being ambushed

No possible defense in the midst of the crossfire
As long as I am conscious there'll be no way to stop me
Got no ammo left but the power of my fists
A pain inside my chest just leaves me defenseless

I cannot recall
The reason that I came here for
I don't know when it started
I don't know when it ends
I don't see any sense in this
My mind has been erased
So I can get along with this

I feel disintegrated but still I am alive
Don't ask me - 'cause I don't know - the way that I survived
I feel the medic's fingers tickling my guts
The burning in my stomach is trying to drive me nuts

Can't see no reason in the things that I have done
It happens to be war - it's a war that can't be won
It's time to quit but they won't let you go
You're far too important for things that you already know

I cannot recall
The reason that I came here for
I don't know when it started
I don't know when it ends
I don't see any sense in this
My mind has been erased
So I can get along with this

S. Tillmann (B. Beton)

alikaslater @ 2002-12-10T20:13:00

2002-12-11T04:27:09Z

"Everyone should keep someone else's diary."

-Oscar Wilde-

Delirium I : The Virgin

2002-12-04T05:41:44Z

I have read A Season In Hell every year around this time since I was about 15. On the long ride home tonight it popped back in my head as it always does when Christmas is looming over the horizon.

by A. Rimbaud

Let us hear the confession of an old friend in Hell :
"O Lord, O Celestial Bridegroom, do not turn thy face from the confession of the most pitiful of thy handmaidens. I am lost. I'm drunk. I'm impure. What a life !

"Pardon, Lord in Heaven, pardon ! Ah ! pardon ! All these tears ! And all the tears to come later on, I hope !

"Later on, I will meet the Celestial Bridegroom ! I was born to be His slave. - That other one can beat me now !

"Right now, it's the end of the world ! Oh, girls... my friends !... no, not my friends... I've never gone through anything like this, delirium, torments, anything... It's so silly !

"Oh ! I cry, I'm suffering. I really am suffering. And still I've got a right to do whatever I want, now that I am covered with contempt by the most contemptible hearts.

"Well, let me make my confession anyway, though I may have to repeat it twenty times again, - so dull, and so insignificant !

"I am a slave of the Infernal Bridegroom, the one who seduced the foolish virgins. That's exactly the devil he is. He's no phantom, he's no ghost. But I, who have lost my wits, damned and dead to the world, - no one will be able to kill me ! - How can I describe him to you ! I can't even talk anymore. I'm all dressed in mourning, I'm crying, I'm afraid. Please, dear Lord, a little fresh air, if you don't mind, please !

"I am a widow... - I used to be a widow... - oh, yes, I used to be very serious in those days, I wasn't born to become a skeleton !... He was a child or almost... His delicate, mysterious ways enchanted me. I forgot all my duties in order to follow him. What a life we lead ! True life is lacking. We are exiles from this world, really - I go where he goes, I have to. And lots of times he gets mad at me, at me, poor sinner. That Devil ! He really is a Devil, you know, and not a man.

"He says : "I don't love women. Love has to be reinvented, we know that. The only thing women can ultimately imagine is security. Once they get that, love, beauty, everything else goes out the window : all they have left is cold disdain, that's what marriages live on nowadays. Sometimes I see women who ought to be happy, with whom I could have found companionship, already swallowed up by brutes with as much feeling as an old log..."

"I listen to him turn infamy into glory, cruelty into charm. "I belong to an ancient race : my ancestors were Norsemen : they slashed their own bodies, drank their own blood. - I'll slash my body all over, I'll tattoo myself, I want to be as ugly as a Mongol : you'll see, I'll scream in the streets. I want to get really mad with anger. Don't show me jewels ; I'll get down on all fours and writhe on the carpet. I want my wealth stained all over with blood. I will never do any work... "Several times, at night, his demon seized me, and we rolled about wrestling ! - Sometimes at night when he's drunk he hangs around street corners or behind doors, to scare me to death. - I'll get my throat cut for sure ; won't that be disgusting." And, oh ! those days when he wants to go around pretending he's a criminal !

"Sometimes he talks, in his backcountry words, full of emotion, about death, and how it makes us repent, and how surely there are miserable people in the world, about exhausting work, and about saying goodbye and how it tears your heart. In the dives where we used to get drunk, he would cry when he looked at the people around us - cattle of the slums. He used to pick up drunks in the dark streets. He had the pity of a brutal mother for little children. - He went around with all the sweetness of a little girl on her way to Sunday school. He pretended to know all about everything, business, art, medicine. - And I always went along with him, I had to !

"I used to see clearly all the trappings that he hung up in his imagination ; costumes, fabric, furniture... It was I who lent him weapons, and a change of face. I could visualize everything that affected him, exactly as he would have imagined it for himself. Whenever he seemed depressed, I would follow him into strange, complicated adventures, on and on, into good and evil : but I always knew I could never be a part of his world. Beside his dear body, as he slept, I lay awake hour after hour, night after night, trying to imagine why he wanted so much to escape from reality. No man before ever had such a desire. I was aware - without being afraid for him - that he could become a serious menace to society. Did he, perhaps, have secrets that would remake life ? No, I told myself, he was only looking for them. But of course, his charity is under a spell, and I am its prisoner. No one else could have the strength - the strength of despair ! - to stand it, to stand being cared for and loved by him. Besides, I could never imagine him with anybody else : we all have eyes for our own Dark Angel, never other people's Angels, - at least I think so. I lived in his soul as if it were a palace that had been cleared out so that the most unworthy person in it would be you : that's all. Ah ! really I used to depend on him terribly. But what did he want with my dull, my cowardly existence ? He couldn't improve me, though he never managed to kill me ! I get so sad and disappointed ; sometimes I say to him : "I understand you." He just shrugs his shoulders.

"And so my heartaches kept growing and growing, and I saw myself going more and more to pieces - and everyone else would have seen it, too, if I hadn't been so miserable that no one even looked at me anymore ! and still more and more I craved his affection... His kisses and his friendly arms around me were just like heaven-- a dark heaven, that I could go into, and where I wanted only to be left - poor, deaf, dumb, and blind. Already, I was getting to depend on it. And I used to imagine that we were two happy children free to wander in a Paradise of sadness. We were in absolute harmony. Deeply moved, we labored side by side. But then, after a piercing embrace, he would say : "How funny it will all seem, all you've gone through, when I'm not here anymore. When you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes. Because I will have to go away someday, far away. Besides, I've got to help out others too : that's what I'm here for. Although I won't really like it... dear heart..." And in that instant I could feel myself, with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness : into death. I made him promise that he would never leave me. And he promised, twenty times ; promised like a lover. It was as meaningless as my saying to him : "I understand you."

"Oh, I've never been jealous of him. He'll never leave me, I'm sure of it. What will he do ? He doesn't know a soul ; he'll never work. He wants to live like a sleepwalker. Can his kindness and his charity by themselves give him his place in the real world ? There are moments when I forget the wretched mess I've fallen into : he will give me strength, we'll travel, we'll go hunting in the desert, we'll sleep on the sidewalks of unknown cities, carefree and happy. Or else some day I'll wake up and - his magic power will have changed all laws and morals, - but the world will still be the same and leave me my desires and my joys and my lack of concern. Oh ! that wonderful world of adventures that we found in children's books, - won't you give me that world ? I've suffered so much, I deserve a reward. He can't. I don't know what he really wants. He says he has hopes and regrets : but they have nothing to do with me. Does he talk to God ? Maybe I should talk to God myself. I am in the depths of an abyss, and I have forgotten how to pray.

"Suppose he did explain his sadness to me, would I understand it any better than his jokes and insults ? He attacks me, he spends hours making me ashamed of everything in the world that has ever meant anything to me, and then he gets mad if I cry. "- Do you see that lovely young man going into that beautiful, peaceful house ? His name is Duval, Dufour, Armand, Maurice, whatever you please. There is a woman who has spent her life loving that evil creature : she died. I'm sure she's a saint in heaven right now. You are going to kill me the way he killed that woman. That's what's in store for all of us who have unselfish hearts..." Oh, dear ! There were days when all men of action seemed to him like the toys of some grotesque raving : he would laugh, horribly, on and on. - Then he would go back to acting like a young mother, or an older sister. If he were not such a wild thing, we would be saved ! But even his sweetness is mortal. I am his slave. - Oh, I've lost my mind !

"Some day maybe he'll just disappear miraculously, but I absolutely must be told about it, I mean if he's going to go back up into heaven or someplace, so that I can go and watch for just a minute the Assumption of my darling boy !"

One hell of a household !