World Domination Update
“The Return of Rogue Cheddar”
vol. IV, iss. v



“The voice of one crying in the wilderness”

—Matthew 3:3



Secret Word of the Day:  Ouriki
Site of the Week: create-a-cult generator
Barbecue Sauce of the Week:  Cactus Jack’s Digestion-Dissolvin’ Un-Godly Hot
Now Playing:  Peoples Temple Choir, “He’s Able


In this issue:

·   The Usual Babble
·   Proof of the Peninsular Pizza Conspiracy
·   Food that Sucks at the Speed of Sound
·   Nomenclature Quiz & The Whip Revisited
·   Random Japan Bashing
·   Fun with Jungle Jim
·   The Cactus Patch Kids
·   Ask Evil Matt
·  
Hedgehog Wedding Bells


            Hi, Kids!

            Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah?  Blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah “blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.”  Blah?  Blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,  blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah?  Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah...  Blah blah-blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah: blah, blah, blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah.  Blah!  Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah:

 

Gunfight at the O-Wac Coral

 

The verdict is in on the Davidian trial against their government oppressors: it was all Koresh’s fault and the government did not do any of the nasty things acclaimed, like use excessive force or contributing to the fire.  But everyone already knew that would be the verdict.  No word if there’ll be an appeal, but unless they add on the one undeniable charge of “criminal negligence,” I don’t foresee any progress or justice.  

Other than that, no new developments from Texas, but the same old complaints still remain.  And for those of you who are sick of me bitching about it, remember: it’s your tax dollars at work.  You may say “It Can’t Happen Heeeeere,” but it did, and you paid for it in both finances and freedom.  Fortunately, I’m not the only one burned up over this... 

 

 

                        Reader feedback

Apply Danforth’s justification to a mass murderer. “Hey...they were all going to die eventually anyway.”

It hard for me to stomach that these people remain in authoritative positions.

 

(Defender of Common Sense)


 

                        shade’s peshar

Good call, Cartesius!  I guess you could take it a step further in a lateral direction to rationalize the FBI’s use of CS gas.  CS gas is banned by the Geneva convention—that’s how nasty it is—so the U.S. government can’t “legally” use it in a war against other countries.  Surprisingly, though, there are no laws which ban its use in domestic disputes: against foreign nations in a formal war is forbidden, but against your own people in a civil disturbance isn’t specifically covered.  Since there’s no law that says they can’t, the FBI concludes they can.  And since they spent all that money to buy gas that they can’t otherwise use, they have to find a way to use it to get their money’s worth out of it.

“Hey, all this nerve gas was made to be used anyway, and otherwise it’s just collecting dust, so we might as well use it.”

Just hope these same people with their same rationalizations never get ahold of our nuclear stash...


In other news,

 

            JFK Update

Clarifying our current conspiracy that JFK was killed by Abraham Zapruder, we think we have the motive.  Zapruder was a dressmaker, and was rumored to have put in a bid to design the First Lady’s dresses.  He lost, and was taking out his frustration.  Jackie was wearing that butt-ugly eyesore pink dress with the matching pill box hat.  Zapruder was shooting at her!


            Proof of the Cheese Conspiracy

 

BF vets are well aware that about a year ago, saint discovered empirical evidence that Gumby’s Pizza is an arm of the Brain Police octopus.  Those evil Cheese Nazis got on ol’ boy’s shit list something fierce, resulting in his Crusade for Extra Cheese.

About the same time that Scumby’s came to saint’s attention as a source of pure unadulterated evil from across the 8th dimension, an equally sinister schism was unveiled right at the heart of Desert Palm.  DK and his Michigan minions had formed a rival cult specifically as a riposte to the Branch Floridians.  Calling themselves the Ranch Peninsulars, they deny the Barbecue Sauce\Cigarette\Coffee connection and instead in parody parade an unholy trinity of Ranch Dressing, Menthol Cigs, and Iced Tea.  And they haven’t found Frank.

saint and I have long suspected some type of sinister crossover between the Gumby and Ranch factions.  Until recently, the only hints of this were DK’s dumping of ranch dressing on pizza, and saint’s never having seen any cheese over at the Blue Light.

But now we have proof that these two groups are in cahoots.

Although DK keeps the Ranch Peninsular’s rank and membership a closely guarded secret, we can still make educated guesses as to who’s in.  One of the better bets is Shaggy, who is from Detroit and has been seen eating ranch dressing on many occasions.  Most suspiciously, he goes to a chirhopractor.  Shag’s a lieutenant in the Ranch at least.  Another good candidate for RP membership is Skullski, who is also from Michigan and was frequently seen at the Blue Light with a can of Lipton’s iced tea.

A month ago, I found out both of them were working at Gumby’s as delivery drivers.

Actually, Skullski has since gone back to Michigan—undoubtedly dispatched by DK as an errand-boy on some evil RP mission, but Shaggy still delivers pizza for the Dairy Gestapo.  Shag sees my grief against Scumby’s, but he says he only delivers the pies, he doesn’t make them.  That lame non mea culpa attitude is inexcusable: even though he is but a foot soldier in the war for cheese, a grunt in the Gumby army, if you will, he is still part of the problem, and this “just following orders” cop-out crap reminds me of Eichman’s cry after Auschwitz.  Shaggy and Skullski may not make the pies, but they are still the bearers of the bad news when they deliver a cheeseless pizza to an unhappy lactose-craving customer.

In his defense, though, Shaggy has come somewhat clean about the cheese situation and has made some very interesting admissions.  He confirms the practice of “extra” cheese being rationed out in thimble-sized portion cups.   He also told me that when I called them “cheese nazis” I was closer than known; seems the manager I talked to literally went skinhead shortly thereafter and did the place up in swastikas before walking off the job.  Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Cheeses!  But most importantly, I got Shaggy to ’fess up one tidbit that clinches the Scumby/Ranch Peninsular connection.

Scumby’s now includes a little cup of ranch dressing with its pies.

Jesus, what more proof do we need of the two working in tandem?!?


also on our fast food shit list...



Sonic

or,
“what’s a man gotta do to get some barbecue sauce in this town?!?”


            by


Suzy and I did recent a drive-through at a new Sonic that just opened by Desert Palm. Actually, you park your car, order over an intercom, and they bring it out to you.  I guess it’s a decent theory...   in theory...

First there was nothing there I actually wanted to eat, but that’s actually business as usual.

Suzy’d gotten tanked up earlier and was in no mood for food; I grudgingly settled on the “grilled chicken sandwich.”  It came with lettuce and tomato, plus your choice of sauce: you could get it with either mystery spoo mislabeled as “mayonnaise,” or “honey mustard.”

“Hey,” I ask innocently, “can I get that with barbeque sauce?”

Long pause.  “Um... let me check.”

I hear the p.a. built into the menu crackle then hiss static back at me.  Ugh... bastards had put me on hold.  I was half expecting musak to play while I waited.

The girl finally comes back and defiantly announces, “We don’t have barbecue sauce!

I was stunned.  “What?  No barbecue?!?”

No reply; presumably the question was beneath her.

“Ugh! Denied!”

Of course, I know I’m only ten seconds from DP, where shade and I have gallons of the shit stockpiled and stashed away.  Besides, even if they did have barbecue sauce, who’s to say it wouldn’t be some nasty paprika schwag.  “Fine, I’ll take it plain, with just lettuce, tomato, and onions.”  The onions were not standard, and hoped she caught on to this.  She seemingly did, and repeated my order back.  “Anything else?”

I thought of getting Suzy some water, but she was making weird noises at me and I figured I should just get her over to DP so she can chill out.  “Naw, I’m good.”

While waiting, I watched one of the waiters there bring the next car their food; he had on roller blades.  I think one other person there did, too.  But when my food finally arrives, the waitress wench who brings it is on foot.  Not only that, but she’s some butt-ugly Mexican hag who is barely tall enough to reach the window of my car.

“What, no roller skates?” I ask her.

She looks at me, puzzled, then tells me “Two ninety-nine” in passable English.

I’d been out of paper money for a week at least, but had an enormous amount of coin on me.  I paid her in dimes.  (dimes?!? what does it mean?!?)  She counted ’em, too!  She also had on one of those belt change makers; she offered me my penny but I passed on it: the whole point of the exercise was to get rid of that change.

Needless to say, that sandwich was nasty!  If that chicken was ever grilled, it was back on the farm when it got too close to the electric fence.  Yeah, grilled under a heat lamp, maybe...  But what do you expect for grilling from a place that doesn’t even have barbecue sauce?!?!  Guys wouldn’t know a grill if I hit ’em with the front of my car.  The lettuce was like soggy packing peanuts, and I don’t even think there were any onions on it.  But jesus christ, the thing was so phuqing tiny it fit into the palm of my hand!  It was microscopic.  My cock is bigger than that thing (but you already knew that.)  I had to be careful putting the barbeque on it: more than five drops and I’d need a napkin to clean up the overflow.

That whole thing was just so wrong!

So Sonic is on my Fast Food Shit List, and I declare them Un-Kosher.  If they don’t have barbecue sauce, they must be a Brain Police front.


my bee won’t stop buzz-words


Many of you have noticed an effort in recent Updates to tweak the street-talk vernacular by replacing tired, trampled catchphrases with newer, sleeker ones.  We Branch Floridians want to be on the cutting edge of slang, not wallowing in the played out wasteland of pop culture.  The majority of these hackneyed catch-lines seem to be refugees from hip-hop culture that have found their way into the mainstream through the tributaries of banal stupidity.  Unfortunately, their embrace by the gentiles and other members of the lemming language brigade has by definition signed the death warrants for these once “cool” words; the mode of execution seems to be by massive overdose. Too many nitwits are using them too often too inappropriately.  You know it’s true: we need some new words.

Fortunately for Branch Floridians, shade the scribe is on the job.

So far, our catch phrase crusade has been a surprising success.  We’ve made progress with out anti-smack Beatdown, banned Da Bomb with in its place, and most recently said good riddance to ‘My Bad’ with a snazzy Latin upgrade of ‘mea culpa.’ 

Of course, our work is far from done, as there are entirely too many overused yet underachieving slangshots out there that have just gotta go.  You know the ones I mean...  But since Branch Floridianism is a group process of Think for Yourself, I would like to hear what y’all have to say on the matter.

Send in your suggestion for a replacement phrase for one of the vogue slogans below.  This list is by no means inclusive, but these seem to be of noticeable import, especially since I find myself (gasp horror!) saying them every now and then. 

[ ]

Best suggestion(s) get 5 tons of Flax, payable in Oswald Silver.  Answers to be posted in a future Update.

 

Jesus’s Japanese Brother

 

 

Japan is not mentioned in The Bible.

Likewise, Jerusalem, Jesus, and anything Judaic are not mentioned in any Japanese religious literature, either.

But the two views do share an important thread in common: the idea of a chosen race favored by the Divine.  Japanese insistence that they are that race has the same intensity that Jews make of that same claim.

So basically, Japan is a large island compound isolated from the world, inhabited by a group of xenophobic people who think they’re special over everyone else.  Hmmm, sounds like a cult.

The Japanese as a culture certainly exhibit a cultic nationalism that approaches zealous levels.   This pride and honor in one’s heritage has its hindrance, though, when historical things of great shame arise to blemish the record.  When dealing with unpleasant moments in its own history, Japan’s practices are often myopic at best and at worst more revisionist than Russia under Stalin.  Good examples of the last are their frequent failures to acknowledge things like Unit 731 or the slaughter of Nanking (which many still refer to as “alleged,” despite the film footage of Japanese soldiers tossing babies up and catching them on bayonets.)

With such a mindset, their attitude towards religion is understandably predictable: the Japanese have a unique theology which they guard jealously.  According to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jared Diamond,

“Until 1946, Japanese schools taught a myth of history based on the earliest recorded Japanese chronicles, which were written in the eighth century.  They describe how the sun goddess Amaterasu, born from the left eye of the creator god Izanagi, sent her grandson Ninigi to Earth on the Japanese island of Kyushu to wed an earthly deity.  Ninigi’s great-grandson Jimmu, aided by a dazzling sacred bird that rendered his enemies helpless, became the first emperor of Japan in 660 b.c.  To fill the gap between 660 b.c. and the earliest historically documented Japanese monarchs, the chronicles invented 13 other equally fictitious emperors.  Before the end of World War II, when Emperor Hirohito finally announced that he was not of divine descent, Japanese archeologists and historians had to make their interpretations conform to this chronicle account.”

(Discover Magazine,  June ’98)

You would think the Japanese would stay glued to their unique Shinto system, but outsider religions have claimed a surprising proportion of the population away from their home-focused tradition.  Buddhism, introduced via China in the 6th century, is the big example: it is tied with Shinto as the dominant theology.  However, other indigenous religions have sprung up, such as Perfect Liberty, which purportedly preaches a sub-tenet of salvation through golf.  Aum Shinrikyo is a more radical example, you may remember their gas attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 10 and hospitalized 5,000.  Word around the campfire is they even tried to test an atomic bomb in the Australian desert.

Western missionaries have had a tough time in Nippon; the first 26 martyrs tried & died on February 5th, 1597, and not much progress was made until this last half century, when Emperor Hirohito renounced his Godhood.  Today there are a little over one million “Christians” in Japan, less than 1% of the population.  The Western God hasn’t caught on.

Of course, it should be no surprise that the few Japanese folk who have converted to Western religion have tried to zealously mesh their “new” beliefs into their “old” traditions.  For instance, at least one Japanese believer has argued that Japan is the Lost Tribe of Israel.

Upstaging the ante for the Christian community as a whole, the tiny, remote town of Herai claims to be the true burial place of Jesus Christ.  Local legend—supported by some old scrolls that were rather conveniently destroyed during World War II—has it that Jesus somehow survived the Crucifixion and ultimately made his way to Herai.  Sort of a homecoming, actually: he was there during his “lost years,” too.

Jesus isn’t buried alone, either.  The grave next to his purports to hold some hair of the Virgin Mary, as well as the ear of Jesus’s brother Ouriki.

Wait a minute...

Ouriki?!?

Now there’s a good, traditional Hebrew name....

I guess we need to update the gospels’ (Matthew 13:55/Mark 6:3) lists of the names of Jesus’s brothers to James, Joseph, Simon, Judas,,, and Ouriki.

I’m especially curious about the word.  Almost all names are words that mean something: Joshua means ‘savior,’  Peter means ‘rock,’ etc.  Ouriki must mean something , our man in Japan, posits this pronunciation and etymology for our Secret Word of the Day:

Examining the photos at the “Jesus Christ Died in Japan” website <http://server1.seafolk.co.jp/~enigma/e.christ.htm> I opine that from the way Jesus and Christ are depicted in katakana (syllabary) (they appear to be Kirisuto [that is pronounced kee-ree-sou-toe, which is the Japanese equivalent for Christ] and Jusa), that Ouriki would be depicted in the same manner.  It would be pronounced OO (pronounced as in the word “old” and held for two counts)-ree-key.  However, I cannot find this word in the photo of the explanation sign, thus cannot confirm it.  If I were guessing I would say that the meaning might be “great strength.”  But that is pure supposition. Japanese has a simple sound structure and many homophones.  Thus the meaning cannot always easily be determined from hearing it spoken or seeing it in one of the syllabaries.  The actual meaning of the name, if any, cannot be divined by me (pun intended).

           If anyone has any clues or theories, feel free to submit your own definition of .

           Those wishing to learn more about the secret of Herai can check out the Fortean Times On-Line. [go to ‘article index’; issue 110, “I think I’m turning Japanese”.]

 

 

Kool Aid, Hot Tape

 

Until an otherwise unknown Ugandan sect  beat the bill by at least 11 more back in March,  “Peoples Temple” had the highest casualty count of any self-destructing congregation in recent times.  913 people lined up for grape spiked with cyanide on November 18, 1978 in the sweltering jungle of Guyana.

913 dead.  That’s a scary number by any standard, and not surprisingly, the number of unanswered questions about the incident are proportional to the number of body bags.  They are important questions that were rarely asked and never really answered.  What happened to $26 million of Peoples Temple funds?  Who were the “mercenaries” who attacked Jonestown a year before the mass suicide?  Just what the phuq happened down there, anyway?!?

There are no easy answers, unless you swallow the Brain Police’s placebo explanations.  Many of these explanations are deliberate misinformation or red herrings.  Making matters worse, the only man who could truly answer these was himself the biggest question of this whole bundle of confusion.  And he’s not talking.

[image]

            “Dad,” as his followers called him, is one of the more ambitious “messiah” types to try for the brass ring in recent years.  The son of a Klansman, he founded the first integrated church in Indiana in 1956, and economically lower class blacks made up the majority of his congregation.  But about half way through his ministry he shifted his emphasis from Pentecostal Christianity to politics, and began espousing a doctrine that was largely Marxist.  Indeed, he claimed to be the reincarnation of both Jesus and Lenin.  Jones’s empire was as much political as religious.  He courted prominent politicians, and decisively swayed several San Francisco elections with busloads of Peoples Temple voters in what the jaded would call vote fraud.   Still, he was an important political player back in that day, and his flock was 20,000 strong.  

But by the mid ’70s, difficulties with disgruntled defectors and angry apostates began to spook Jones, making him so edgy that he pulled a Col. Kurtz.  Man bought an abandoned plantation in Guyana, and made plans to move his ministry there.  A little over a thousand followed Jones down to South America.  Weird things started to happen and even weirder rumors began to make their way north, and people back home took note.  Congressman Leo Ryan flew down to investigate with some “concerned relatives” and press.  The visit did not go well.  Ryan left Jonestown, but never made it to the plane home: a hit team from ’Town drove up and opened fire on everyone.  Ryan became the first Congressman to die in the line of duty.

            Back at the camp, Jones knows this is too much for his group.  He will have to answer to people for what just happened; there will be consequences.  Shit, they’ll make him explain things!  As a preemptive move, he orders a “revolutionary suicide” among the People.  Tubs of laced grape cocktail are brought out, and Jones encourages its consumption.  

When the Guyanese army shows up two days later, everyone there is dead, often in neat little rows.  Jones was among them.

The World’s verdict was as swift as it was unanimous: “crazy cult led by lone nut commits suicide.”

Pretty convenient explanation; ties up all lose ends with a “nut” knot.   Simplest form of spin control, too: Anything about Jonestown not make sense?  Just blame Jim: he was nuts and he’s dead anyway. 

Of course, that’s just what They want you to think.

The painting of Jones as a bona fide false prophet (as opposed to just some hustler hiding behind Jesus) is crucial to buying the Brain Police line.  It makes the placebo palatable: if a guy’s nuts enough to think he’s Jesus, he’s nuts enough to kill himself, and anyone who followed such a nut must be loony too.  

But if that’s true, then Jonestown from a Branch Floridian perspective is a goldmine of anthropological information, offering a study of sect with an on-site messiah that is in an ‘end-times’ scenario.  The crossover to Koresh and the Davidian crew should be obvious. 

Obvious, but False.  Remember, that is just the Brain Police portrait of him.  Let’s look at Dad a minute , and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s never been proven, to me at least, if Jones himself actually believed what he was telling his followers.  His reliance on staged (read: fake) miracles and sham faith healings make me think he didn’t, though towards the end he might have bought his own brand.  Maybe that was the problem: Jones stopped being a con artist and became a convert to his own doctrine.  saint seems to buy this as plausible, and points out “His followers certainly thought he was legit.  Besides, con artists don’t martyr themselves, so if Jones were totally bogus he would have disappeared into the jungle with not taken his own life.”

saint makes a good point, so understanding how Jim Jones died is a good clue to unraveling what happened.  Jim Jones chose not to partake of the killer Kool Aid, but instead died from a gunshot wound to the head.  I looked and I looked, even Asked Evil Matt, but I cannot find out for certain if he shot himself or someone else did.  The prime problem is that the gun was found over 60 feet from his body.  If he shot himself, it strongly supports the “lone nut” camp; if someone else killed him, we must immediately wonder why?  You’d think if Jones killed himself it’d be known anti-Jones propaganda.  Likewise, if the whole thing was framed to look like a group suicide, why would “they” be so sloppy about details: just shoot Jones & put the gun in his hand—that’s a no-brainer.  The very absence of such important information makes me wonder—and starts my spidey senses tingling.

The mystery of Jones’s death could potentially be solved—or complicated—by analyzing the end of the infamous tape.  Jones recorded over seven hundred of his sermons and even several White Night on an old TEAC tape deck stashed under his “throne,” and this archive includes his final performance.  I have a copy of it; or 38:43 of it on a burned cd bootleg.  The suicide sermon is essentially a bonus track on a reissue of a gospel album (now playing!) that the People’s Temple Choir originally recorded while still in California.  On my copy, 36:55 into it Jones asks, “Where’s the vat with the Green C on it?  The vat with the Green C in.  Bring it so the adults can begin.”  (Up until then they had mostly been doing children and psyching themselves up for their own turn.) Jones says his and there are 36 seconds of silence before the track ends.  No final gunshot is heard.  I do not know if the tape ran out, Jones turned it off (which he did several times throughout the event) or if that is an edit by the compiler of my cd.  However, I also doubt that 600 adults could drink Kool Aid that quickly.  Less than 200 people were left at midnight, when the last survivor snuck out.  This tape is obviously just the beginning.  I suspect I have the first side of a 90 minute tape.  We’d need to hear the rest to know how it ended.

Although my copy does not solve the mystery of Jones death, it seems an otherwise faithful track of the final Jonestown taping session (when compared to the generally accepted transcript) and it does indeed contain some spidey sense evidence.

That final tape, by the way, is downright creepy.  People come up to the mic and give testimonials before getting in line for the drink.  In the background you can hear babies crying, people coughing and gagging, maybe even a gunshot or four...  But more on the tape in a minute.

Marxism is the alleged lynchpin with which Jones associates the need for the mass “revolutionary” suicide.  He proclaims on the tape that this mass act is his ultimate embodiment of collective responsibility and sticking together in communal unity.  This is not the old “Jesus told me to do it” defense, but something original.   Jones came from a Holy Roller background, but he seemed more focused on Marx than Moses.  If you buy into the ‘Jones as con artist’ scenario, the “Marxist” attitudes were a play for sympathy on the followers’ generally poor economic situation that conveniently tithed vast assets under the guise of ‘communal property.’  If you’re in the ‘Jones as legit minister’ camp, the communist attitudes were a return to primitive Christianity’s communal living style referred to in and even the Dead Sea Scrolls.  

But whatever his motives, this politiconomic extension of his ministry was very public and outspoken about its socialist stance.  It is inconceivable that the FBI would not have taken notice.  Worse, J. Edger himself had a personal mania/vendetta against African American organizations, and would surely have seen Peoples Temple as confirmation of his worst fears.  Jones may have been white, but the mass of followers were mostly black.  Hoover was convinced M. L. King was a communist messiah for blacks that needed dealing with, and here was the same theme only a few years later.  Add to that Jones’s plan of relocating his commune to the Soviet Union in those Cold War days, and the CIA would have been interested in him, too. 

Many researchers have dug into Jones’s past to find a lot of circumstantial evidence linking Jones with the Bad Boys at Langley.  Most of it is just that: circumstantial, and is only as convincing as you want it to be.  Alternately, many others have made good claims of the Agency having a hostile posture against Jim.  Various permutations of “they framed him” themes exist, many of them championed by former members and survivors.  Even if the “Jones = CIA” and “Jones vs. CIA” extremes cancel each other out leaving us with one lone nut, there is still one CIA-inspired anomaly that no one—the conspiracy theorists or detractors—have ever been able to explain.

And it’s a goddamn Fortean Phenomena, too.

CIA presence in Socialist Guyana at the time is a given.  One of the main CIA men in Guyana was Richard Dwyer.  Although Dwyer spent the rest of his life saying “no comment” to questions of him being a Company man, he is listed in the ’68 edition of the infamous “Who’s Who in the CIA,” and is generally accepted by everyone to have been a spook of some import in the South American scheme of things.  Dwyer was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Georgetown, and went with Congressman Ryan’s party when they visited Jonestown.  He was also with the Congressman when Jones’s hit squad ambled up to the Port Kaituma airport runway and opened fire.

Dwyer was wounded in the ensuing turkey-shoot, though not fatally.  Of those not killed, half the survivors managed to get away in one of the planes, the other half hid in the jungle, which was Dwyer’s line of alibi.  Dwyer’s whereabouts between the shooting and his “rescue” the next day (in the nearby jungle, methodically washing his hands,) have always been a bit vague, and he himself was inconsistent and ambiguous about this matter.

17:11 into the “White Night” tape, Jones stops the audio when talks with an extremely unwilling member get out of control.  It is not known how long it was off, but upon resumption of dialogue with the dissenting disciple, there is a sudden commotion as a loud man in the back suddenly breaks in, “Everybody hold it!  Sit down!”  Something unseen has just occurred, causing quite a disturbance in the crowd.  It goes on for almost half a minute.  Jones desperately struggles to regain order and calm the congregation, but suddenly stops after a man just out of the mic’s range yells something inaudible to him.


Jones: “...Who is it?”

Voices: (inaudible)

Jones: “Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him!”

Unidentified male: (inaudible)

Jones: “Dwyer.”

Unidentified male:

Jones: “I’m not talking about  Ujara, I said Dwyer....”


I have found no indication of any Jonestown residence named Dwyer.  I’m inclined to go Highlander here and say “there can be only one!” and that it’s our same CIA man.  What was Dwyer doing back at Jonestown, and why—in the midst of a mass suicide—was Jones himself looking out for his safety?

Jones stops the tape a few moments later, and “Dwyer” is not brought up when it resumes.  Again it is not known how long the tape was off or what happened during this time, but when he resumes, Jones has just learned of the Congressman’s murder.  We even hear him ask for the airport casualty count.  In any case, it is clear that the hit squad has returned from the airfield with an accounting of their deeds, and Jones’s tone towards the Representative shifts decidedly to the past tense.

If the team just got back, how could Dwyer have already gotten there ahead of them?  They had a tractor trailer, he was ostensibly on foot and wounded.  7 miles, too.  Unless he hitched a ride with “someone,” or was captured by the hit squad and brought in a prisoner.  If the tape-off time gaps are long enough, conceivably Dwyer should have been getting shot at the airfield at the very same time Jones was talking about him at camp.  No one knows, but you must admit that it’s a mystery that a CIA agent could be in two places at the same time.  Maybe Dwyer had one of those “2Places@once” bracelets I heard the CIA developed out at Area 51...  

But putting aside time anomalies, we still must confront the absurdity that Dwyer, having just been shot by Jones’s forces, would run back to Jonestown for refuge.  On the face of it, that makes no sense, but neither does the result: Jones personally looks out for him “before something happens to him.”  

Although there is at least one passable (if not plausible) explanation, let’s consider a creepier alternative: maybe for Dwyer, Jonestown was the safest place to be at that moment.  

Just who killed the Congressional crew has never quite been established, either.  From context on the audio tape, Jones suggests they are known persons within the Temple acting all loose cannon vigilante a lá Ujara, and that they are doing so against his consent.  Read: He did not order it.  This could be self-serving and equivocal play acting, or maybe his vigilynch squad got to the airway and found that someone else had beaten them to it.

Of the four dead at the airport, one was NBC cameraman Bob Brown, who filmed the incident rather than run away—until he got a shotgun to his chest.   To my knowledge, no one has ever taken the obvious step of enlarging the film and asking Jonestown survivors, “do you know any of these people?”  

In fact, the complete, unedited film is surprisingly hard to find.  According to one early synopsis, the 8-man hit squad pulled up in a tractor trailer, a vehicle not found or known to Jonestown.  They seemed to be wearing identical military fatigues, not the random “casual clothes” sported by everyone back at camp.  Their attack formation looked a lot like what is known in basic army training as a ‘squad diamond,’ and they were obviously well armed and coordinated.  Does this sound like a rag tag vigilante team from an agricultural commune?  

THIS JUST IN — I have since acquired a copy of that videotape, and the above paragraph analysis is patently false.  Click here for commentary.

A year before the fatal White Night, Jonestown was assaulted by a small group of unknown soldiers.  Jones himself narrowly missed a headshot in the opening assault.  The initial invasion failed, so the “mercenaries” sat around sniping the town a couple of days, then vanished.  Some have suggested the airport shooters were the same goon platoon that took on the Temple the year before, or at least the same employer with a new crew.  Not sure I buy that, but the siege shows that there were outside factions at odds with Jones.

Obviously, the main faction at odds with Jones was the Brain Police.

When Jones learns that “someone” has murdered the congressman, the boogie man he fears reprisal from is quite specifically the Brain Police.  Jones refers to them by their ancient name, “they.”  As in the universal cry of every paranoid, “They are out to get me!”  Yeah, y’all know who I’m talking about...  Jones predicts that it would only be a matter of hours before “they” parachuted in and slaughtered them all in retaliation.  Jones even goes so far as to once say who “they” are:   the

“GDF” is generally accepted to mean “Guyanese Defense Force.”

In Brain Police parlance, GDF can mean Guardian Dogma Flock, Gross Distortion of Facts, and even Grape Drink Fanatics.

GDF also means Gumby Dairy Fiends.  Gumby’s Pizza went public in 1985, but maybe Jonestown was a warm up run?  No cheese was ever recovered from Jonestown.  Most importantly, if you do enlarge the airport film, the “uniforms” they are wearing are actually Gumby’s Pizza shirts and flour-covered aprons!  Gumby’s Delivery Faggots!

So was Jones a Brain Police puppet, or perhaps even a rogue BP operation?   There’s little denial that he was using Brain Police tricks. 

Aside from a huge stockpile of cyanide, Jonestown also had a vast stash of and on hand, as well as a no-chump chunk of   One estimate places the quantity of these as a year’s supply for about 200,000 people.  Yes, you read correctly: two hundred thousand.  Aside from being blatantly Brain Police, all of this also brings to mind the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program.  MK-ULTRA “officially” ended in 1973, a year before Jones began his exodus beyond U.S. borders to set up shop in the middle of nowhere, away from prying eyes.  Given the CIA’s known interest in mind control, I cannot believe they weren’t at least covertly monitoring and studying Jonestown.  Hell, they’d be curious.  Given the tantalizing taste of a Jones/Dwyer corroboration, maybe they did more than just watch.  To me it seems more credible and in character to see a power-hungry political player like Jones trying to work a Langley relationship with the intention of him using them or at least keeping them at bay.

The CIA was involved somehow: the first word that something bad had happened at Jonestown came from the ’Town itself over a

According to the “official” investigation into Congressman Ryan’s death, Jones had no strings pulling him; he was just a commie lone nut.  Gee, where have we heard that before??? Although a massive amount of relevant documents have been retrieved under the Freedom Of Information Act, several thousand pages continue to this day to be classified because of “national security.”

Jonestown was a snowjob of JFK proportions.  It was not, however, a “Waco beta test,” which was what I thought when I first looked into it.  Jones and Koresh are leagues apart.  But it is ironic indeed that the very Brain Police propaganda designed to answer inquiries is what got me asking so many questions in the first place.

 

saint’s peshar

 

Something bad happened in Guyana, and we will probably not find out exactly what it was.  Clearly this is more complicated that the “lone nut-led mass suicide” story that they want us to think. But too few of us are trying to figure out the answers.  And too many are just forgetting.


 

Cultic Chorus


            Y’know, Jonestown had a half-decent house choir, if this cd is any indication.

This is not without precedent, of course.

  • Koresh had a band at Mount Carmel, and publicly released several singles, including the infamously ironic “Mad Man in Waco.”  Their last performance was during the stand-off, when Koresh got sick of the FBI blaring dentist drills, Tibetan chants, and (gasp!) Nancy Sinatra at him; he turned his amp and p.a. up to 11 and drowned out the FBI with an extended jam.

  • The Manson Family also had a musical façade to them, with Charles singing/guitar and none other than Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson on drums.  They even recorded an album to pitch to Terry Melcher.  Grimace Reaper does a schlappafied cover of Garbage Dump off it.

  • Masada unquestionably had a band: archaeologists discovered a cache of musical instruments in the amphitheatre.  Indeed, one of the scrolls found in the chapel was a listing of psalm titles (Psalm 23, Psalm 88, etc) interspersed with cryptic terms like “drum circle intro,” “harp solo,” “dueling shofars,” and “selection 29: Jewish Dance Tune” strongly suggesting this scroll is essentially a ‘set list.’

  • Among strange, deranged cults that have a house band but haven’t self destructed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir shines out as the most obvious example. 

 

As you can see, it is not uncommon for sects to embrace music and their members to form bands.  For a while I’ve been kicking around the idea of having a house band here at the cyber-compound.  Evil Matt plays a mean guitar, DynaCharcoal has a fantastic voice (and does a kick-ass Grace Slick impression,) and Burning Bush is a one-man drum circle.  I’d actually approached several members and kindred spirits about this project some time ago, with encouraging responses from Shane, GigiVida, and Sparky.

Realizing the need and seeing the precedent for cults having house bands, I’ve gone through with my resolution to form an ‘in-compound cyber-band.’

The Cactus Patch Kids.

FireSkunk (our ) was nice enough to loan us a soundproof reading room in the Athenæum, which we’ve been using for rehearsals. Sounds pretty kick.  Mostly Zappa and B.Ö.C. covers for fun, plus a full set’s worth of originals.

Best part, though, is the idea of some emcee introducing us to an unsuspecting audience: “Please welcome, from BadAss, Arizona, the Cactus Patch Kids!” and just crashing into a balls-out head-banging distorted jam.


Ask Evil Matt

 

     [as channeled by shade via a bag of Scrabble tiles]

 

Q:  what does “Ouriki” mean (if anything) in japanese?  treat it tender, btw, it’s the secret word of the day.  ouriki, hehehe

A:  Hmmm,,, don’t know the lingo m’self; I’ll subcontract this one out to T.H.  Hell, he’s probably been to Herai...

Q:  Trust No One ~ we need to think for our selfs right?, but with this should we even trust our self? scary thought.

A:  Man, I trust myself least of all.  Hey—I know my own limitations...

Q:  who shot jim jones?  let me know asap; it’s for the update   please cc a response to saint; he’s curious too.  thx

A:  Jim Jones died from a 9 mm round to the head.  Who pulled the trigger has never been conclusively settled, nor is it likely to be.  Jonestown as a “crime scene” was hopelessly compromised evidence-wise almost as soon as the Guyanese army showed up two days later.  Jones’s body was given an hasty autopsy by Guyanese pathologist Dr. C. Leslie Mootoo.  I have been unable to locate a copy of the autopsy report, but am told it found the wound “...consistent with suicide.”  The main mystery in all of this is that the gun used was found over sixty feet away from Jones’s body.  I have not found any forensic evidence on this gun, such as were Jones’s fingerprints the only, or at least top-dominant, set on it?  Likewise, what position was his body found in?  Without knowing these answers, we have three possibilities: 

    1) Jones shot himself and the gun was subsequently moved.

    2) Someone shot Jones for him (consensual suicide by proxy.)  David Koresh died this way.

    3) Someone shot Jones for motives unknown (to foil an escape plan, revenge for death of a loved one, to keep him from talking, etc.)

Jones’s second in charge, Terri Buford, survived the White Night.  She is currently in hiding, fearing for her life.  She claimed Jones had planned to escape on a special helicopter when everyone was dead, but was shot by bodyguard Michael Prokes for reasons unclear.  I do not know if that is true.  Prokes himself died a few months after Jonestown from a gunshot wound to the head.  It was ruled as a “suicide.”  Since his death occurred live during a news conference, there’s a good chance that it was.

Q:  With all the Waco jokes you make, how come you never joke about Jonestown?

A:  I’ve tried, but the punchline was too long.

Q: What's the difference between hay and straw?

A:  “Hay” is a generic term for a dried plant, such as grass, clover, alfalfa, etc.  “Straw” specifically is the (dried) stalk of a plant, usually a grain such as wheat, rye, oats, or barley.  “Hay” can be seen as a subset of “Straw” though technically it depends on the plant used: grass, for instance, does not have a stalk.  For all intents and purposes, though, the two terms are interchangeable. Roget’s lists them as synonyms.

Q:  How could Jesus have been in 4 B.C.?  B.C. is "Before Christ" so how could he have been born before that, huh?

A:  Up until what we currently call the 7th century, the calendar system in use was that of the Roman Empire, which had as its “year 1” the (ridiculously mythical) founding of Rome by the legendary figure Romulus.  Finally, though, the Catholic Church realized the old Rome was dead but their new continuation was entrenched, and opted to recalibrate their calendars.  It was decided to use the year of Christ’s birth as the new starting point.  The task of determining that date fell upon a monk named Dionysius Exiguus.  However, we now know he was off by several years, as your question astutely points out.   According to the Bible (Matthew 2:1 and Luke 1:5) Jesus was born during the reign of “Herod the King.”  Unfortunately, Herod the King (aka Herod the Great) died in 4BC.  Accommodating for this accounts results in the “negative dating” you were wondering about.  I have even seen historical texts hedge their bets by citing Jesus’s Birth at 6BC to account for Matthew 2:16, where Herod orders the death of all male children up to two years old.  By the way, Luke 2:1-2 throws a big monkey wrench into the whole thing,  because the census referred to occurred in 7AD.  Modern scholars, realizing this conundrum, have opted simply to drop the “B.C” (“Before Christ”) nomenclature in favor of “B.C.E.” (“Before Common Era”.)  Of course, saint is opting for a completely revised system, and even has an ongoing contest to come up with a replacement. 

Q: what do beavers eat?  also, what do beavers do with trees besides make dams with them.  let me know asap. i think i’m on to something re: tiera del fuego beaver colony.  thanks

A:  Beavers mostly eat bark—they seem to especially like the taste of poplar and willow, and have a unique digestive system especially designed for bark.  During the summer seasons they have been known to snack on things like water lily tubers and cloves.  Beavers put a tree to total use: they strip it for food, and then build a communal lodge from the kindling.  Around this lodge they build dams, which effectively makes a protective moat for their home.  Beavers often use large scraps of wood they have cut as barges: they float materials on top from the shore to wherever on the dam or lodge it is needed.   Most notably, though, beavers use twigs and chips as bark tattooing (sort of scrimshaw with wood) artfully carved with their teeth.  It’s good stuff, too; I’ve seen pieces on the beaver art black market go for five grams of flax.  And there may be other things beavers do with trees, things the beavers don’t want us to know about... 


            Got a question?  Ask .


And from the beaver theme we finally sneak into...

 

 


The Hedgehog Corner

by shade



            Harriet tied the knot last month with her longtime boyfriend Hoover the Hedgehog.  Hoover, named for his skill at sucking up mealie worms, is a sergeant in the Army of Hedgehogs, and has been seeing Harriet for 2 ½ years.  Services were held at Octopus Garden, hosted by Sisooomba and officiated by saint.

“You may now chuff the bride.”


            The two are still on their honeymoon (shoebox in Sisbooomba’s closet) and by all accounts Harriet hasn’t been this happy since she shredded her first burrow in shade’s copy of Gravity’s Rainbow.

            Well-wishers can send congratulations .


 

            Anyway, that’s it for now, so you know the drill:

                Trust No One

                Deny Everything

                And Always Keep Your lighter Handy!



© 2000 (IV,iv)