Disinformation » Travel

Theme Park From Hell: Singapore’s Haw Par Villa

JacobSloan — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:43:06 +0000

Singapore Paranormal Investigators has everything you need to know about the Haw Par Villa amusement park. Built in 1937, it is dotted with lush gardens and life-size depictions of scenes including the ten levels of hell described in ancient Chinese mythology, torture and dismemberment, humans with the heads of animals, and a women breastfeeding her father-in-law. It has been described as “if Heironymus Bosch built a putt-putt course”. Book your tickets and take your kids for a vacation that will change their lives.

Space Adventures Offers Moon Tourism At $150 Million Per Seat

JacobSloan — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:45:12 +0000

What are you doing this summer? Via io9:

If you’ve got a lust for space travel, a desire to go where only a couple of dozen people have gone before, and $150 million to spare, Space Adventures needs you.

The space tourism company—it’s the one that organizes the ISS trips via the Russian Soyuz—has mapped a potential tour around the moon that could lift off within five years.

The company has already secured a nine-digit commitment from one customer for a potential lunar sightseeing tour. And the logistics are already in place as well: aboard a three-seat Russian Soyuz spacecraft (the third seat is for a Russian mission commander), the tourists would launch into orbit where they would rendezvous with a separately-launched unmanned rocket, which would jet them the rest of the way to the moon.

Round trip: eight or nine days.

Washable RFID Tags Help Catch Hotel Towel Thieves

BananaFamine — Sun, 08 May 2011 20:51:58 +0000

Damn you, Big Travel! Discovery News reports:

Plush terrycloth bathrobes, 800-thread-count sheets and fluffy, freshly laundered towels can tempt even the most law-abiding hotel guest to take up a life of suitcase-stuffing crime.

Irresistible as they may be, petty theft of these luxurious (and free!) linens are gouging the hotel industry to the rude wake-up call of approximately $100 million a year.

Sticky-fingers everywhere, consider this a warning! Some hotels are reinforcing their defences against pilfering patrons like yourself and they’re using radio frequency identification (RFID) to catch you in the act.

Three hotels in Honolulu, Miami and New York City have begun using towels, sheets and bathrobes equipped with washable RFID tags to keep guests from snagging the coveted items. Just to keep you guessing, the hotels have chosen to remain anonymous.

For more information, see original article.

Rent Your Own Country: Liechtenstein Available At $70,000 Per Night

JacobSloan — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:43:31 +0000

At least when people say that our government is for sale, it’s meant metaphorically. Wired UK writes:

For a cool $70,000 a night (for a minimum of two nights), you can hire the tiny country of Liechtenstein, which measures around 61.7 square miles and has just 35,000 inhabitants. According to the profile on Airbnb, Liechtenstein can accommodate between 450 and 900 people, has 500+ bedrooms and 500+ bathrooms. The cancellation policy is classified as “Super Strict”.

[This] follows last year’s attempt by Snoop Dogg to rent Liechtenstein to shoot a music video. He was rebuffed because his management did not give enough prior warning.

Turkey’s Museum Of Hair

JacobSloan — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:04:54 +0000

Oddity Central examines one of the planet’s most disturbing “museums,” The Hair Museum in Avanos, Turkey. Every inch of every surface is covered in human hair, culled from tens of thousands of women and tagged and labeled. Great fun for the whole family!

The Hair Museum of Avanos, in Cappadocia, is definitely a must-see if you’re into bizarre tourist spots.

Ever since 3000 BC, Avanos has been known for its high quality earthenware, made from the mineral-rich mud of the Red River, but in recent years, the town has mostly been mentioned in relation to a unique hair museum created by skilled Turkish potter Chez Galip. The unusual establishment, located under Galip’s pottery shop, is filled with hair samples from over 16,000 women. The walls, ceiling, and all other surfaces, except the floor, are covered with locks of hair from the different women who have visited this place, and pieces of paper with addresses on them.

The story goes that the museum was started over 30 years ago, when one of Galip’s friends had to leave Avanos, and he was very sad. To leave him something to remember her by, the woman cut a piece of her hair and gave it to the potter. Since then, the women who visited his place and heard the story gave him a piece of their hair and their complete address. Throughout the years, he has amassed an impressive collection of over 16,000 differently colored locks of hair, from women all around the world.

Thousands Of Tourists’ Photographs, Combined Into One

JacobSloan — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:29:21 +0000

Framing sites of mass tourism in our viewfinders, we create photographic souvenirs that are integral to the touristic experience. These products, coined “photograph-trophies” by Susan Sontag, separate our leisurely pleasures from the real everyday experiences of work and life.

Artist Corinne Vionnet begins with the most recognizable of images and creates something unearthly and unsettling — from Flickr and personal blogs, she culls thousands of tourists’ snapshots of a well-known landmark (such as the Taj Majal, below) and overlaps them into single composite, revealing the collective “tourists’ gaze” produced by the absurd behavior of millions of people endlessly taking the same photograph over and over. Via My Modern Met:

Mark Frauenfelder: ‘Passport Ownership Prevents Diabetes’

ralph — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 04:52:04 +0000

Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing writes, “It’s conclusive: owning a passport will prevent you from becoming diabetic.”

Exposing Naked Scanners In The EU And Beyond – Again

Charles Farrier — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:57:59 +0000

Image from FlyWithDignity.org

One year on from the fast tracking of digital strip searches and the hysteria over the “pants incident” [1], the push for the use of naked scanners continues. Whilst naked scanners have not been front page news for some time, the issue, like many others the mainstream media choose to ignore, forges ahead unexposed.

The delayed EU Commission green paper

In June 2010, the European Commission finally published a green paper on the use of naked scanners at EU airports [2] — a paper that was originally promised back in 2008! The Commission’s green paper refers to naked scanners as “Security Scanners” in an attempt to play down the intrusive nature of the technology and highlight the supposed security benefits.

The Commission presents the all too common argument at the EU level — that it is inevitable that scanners will be introduced, so what we need is European Regulation to create a uniform system for obedient citizens to have their private parts scanned.

World wide scanning

The green paper states that naked scanners are being used at airports worldwide: that the US (as of June 2010) deploys approximately 200 naked scanners in 41 airports as “secondary means for screening”, and that by 2014 the US plans to have 1800 naked scanners “in order to be able to gradually introduce them as a primary screening method rather than as a secondary screening method”; that Canada deploys 15 naked scanners as of June 2010, with a total of 44 naked scanners planned for deployment in 2011; and that Russia has been using naked scanners at airports since 2008, whilst countries such as Japan, Nigeria, India, South Africa, Kenya, China and South Korea are apparently considering using them.

Over at the FlyerTalk website (a passenger-focused forum for discussion of air travel related issues) they have compiled a handy list of US and major international airports that use naked scanners [3] (or as FlyerTalk calls them “Nude-O-Scopes”). FlyerTalk has also put together a list of airport alternatives in the US without naked scanners [4]. FlyerTalk has been criticised for doing this by the US Transport Security Agency (TSA).

EU legal framework

The EU Commission green paper lays out the current legislative framework for the use of scanners in Europe, whereby EU Member States and/or airports “are given a list of screening and controlling methods and technologies from which they must choose the necessary elements in order to perform effectively and efficiently their aviation security tasks”. The paper further clarifies who is calling the shots:

The current legislation does not permit airports to replace systematically any of the recognised screening methods and technologies by Security Scanners. Only a decision of the Commission supported by Member States and the European Parliament can be the basis for allowing Security Scanners as a further eligible method for aviation security. However Member States are entitled to introduce Security Scanners for airport trials or as a more stringent security measure than those provided for by EU legislation.

It is worth remembering that in 2008 the EU Commission proposed a draft regulation [5] that would have added naked scanners to the list of screening and controlling methods and technologies from which Member States must choose “in order to perform effectively and efficiently their aviation security tasks”. So in effect what the Commission seems to be saying is: everyone is doing it even though they are not supposed to, but it’s what we want them to do really so we will regulate what they are doing to make it official, then they can just carry on.

People in the European countries that are already introducing naked scanners may be tempted to think that the EU will save them, because their own government looks so bad – surely the EU has to be better? In reality the EU adds a thick layer of de-democratising complexity and allows governments to “policy launder” [6] – a process whereby controversial policies are pushed at the supra-national level to avoid debate in national parliaments, and then hiding behind EU or international obligations “that must be followed” when that controversial policy becomes a “national requirement”.

Trial or error?

The Commission raises its concern about what it calls “Fragmentation in the Member States”, whereby States can introduce naked scanners either “i) by exercising their right to apply security measures that are more stringent than existing EU requirements” or “ii) temporarily, by exercising their right to conduct trials of new technical process or methods for a maximum period of 30 months”. The UK’s roll-out of naked scanners at Manchester, Heathrow and Gatwick airports has been part of such a so-called “equipment trial”.

Apparently this fragmentation could spread to the “fundamental rights of EU citizens”, or so says the “Own-initiative report procedure file” on “Aviation security with a special focus on security scanners”, or to give its snappier name “INI/2010/2154″ [7], which states:

Different standards of scanners currently deployed in Europe bring a serious risk of fragmenting fundamental rights of EU citizens, impeding their rights of free movement and escalating their health concerns related to new security technologies. While security scanners are still exceptional at European airports, there is a growing need to address these concerns and find a common solution. The Communication examines arguments that only the common European standards for aviation security can provide the framework ensuring a harmonised approach to the use of Security Scanners at airports. It looks at how such a harmonised approach should incorporate EU fundamental rights standards and a common level of health protection to allow adding this technology to the existing list of equipment for screening persons at airports.

As usual wading through EU legislation is extremely time consuming as it is couched in impenetrable procedures and legalese. According to INI/2010/2154 the European Parliament will next consider the views of various committees, as well as the views of Member States, with a “report scheduled for adoption in committee” in April and a provisional date for a debate on 9th May.

Hardly surprisingly, the Commission green paper states Member States such as the UK, Finland and the Netherlands who have been “enrolled in trials” have reported that naked scanners “are a valid alternative to existing screening methods in terms of effectiveness of detecting items of different materials, improvement of the level of passenger throughput; general acceptability by passengers and increase of staff convenience”, with “positive outcomes of the trials regarding health, safety and privacy”! The detail of the peer reviewed scientific studies upon which these Member States have undoubtedly based such conclusions would make interesting reading one imagines.

Safety

Both the UK and US authorities have opted for X-ray Backscatter scanners which have raised serious concerns about safety. The use of X-ray equipment is subject to the Euratom radiation protection legislation, and in the case of Backscatter naked scanners, the provisions on the non-medical use of ionising radiation. This legislation states that the maximum exposure to ionising radiation must not be more than 1 millisievert (mSv) or 1000 microsievert (µSv). The Commission paper state:

Typically a single backscatter X-ray scan of an individual will result in the person receiving a radiation dose between 0.02 and 0.1 µSv [microsievert]. Radiation doses are cumulative, so an individual’s total dose will depend on the number of scans. It would take around 40 screenings per day to reach the dose limit, not taking into account further exposure.

The Commission calculates the 40 screenings quota as follows: 1000 µSv = 1mSv, so 40 screenings in one day is 40 x 0.1 µSv = 4 µSv x 250 (presumably the number of days in the year when the theoretical person is naked scanned) = 1000 µSv, or 1mSV (maximum exposure according to the Euratom radiation protection legislation).

Meanwhile the UK’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) “recommends a dose constraint of 300 micro Sv/year to a member of the public from practices involving the deliberate use of ionising radiation sources”. On the HPA’s ‘Spotlight on airport x-ray scanners’ [8] web page it states that the dose from a backscatter x-ray naked scanner “can be about 0.02 – 0.03 microsieverts per scan”.

Whilst in December, in a parliamentary Written Answer Minister of State for Transport Theresa Villiers told MPs that the HPA had concluded that “the effective dose from one scan is 0.02 micro Sv or less”. This, she explained, is about the same as the “effective dose received for 1.4 minutes flying at airline cruising height”. However, what she meant to copy from the February 2010 Department of Transport (DfT) report ‘Assessment of comparative ionising radiation doses from the use of rapiscan secure 1000 x-ray backscatter body scanner’ [9] was that 6 Rapiscan Secure 1000 x-ray backscatter naked scans “(return flight with one set of scans at each embarkation)” has an effective radiation dose = 0.12 micro Sv which is the same as 1.4 minutes flying at airline cruising height according to the HPA.

Whatever the correct figures may be, the numbers involved are clearly small and the DfT report is at great pains to tell us that there are greater risks, such as the “Risk of accidental death in a school pupil while at school” which we are told is 70 times the backscatter scan risk. The “Fatal lifetime cancer risk induced by the scan” we are told is “1 in 166,000,000″. Also listed as carrying “much higher fatality risks than backscatter body scanning” is, interestingly, the “average annual background radiation in the UK” – so presumably adding a further dose of radiation won’t matter then! The DfT does acknowledge that “because of the uncertainties at these low levels of exposure the risks to children, people with any type of illness or people undergoing any type of medical treatment are considered to be comparable to the risks to adults” – which would imply that these figures are no more than guesstimates.

In December the Heads of the European Radiological protection Competent Authorities (HERCA) published a statement on the use of naked scanners for security purposes [10]. HERCA has also published a report entitled ‘Facts and figures concerning the use of Full body scanners using X-Rays for security reason’ [11] which pulls together much of the research on naked scanner safety.

The point to make is that radiation exposure is cumulative – each individual dose increases the exposure level incrementally and each person’s capacity to tolerate any size of dose will be dependant on the amount of exposure they have already experienced together with their own personal tolerance level. There is no safe dose of radiation.

US Pilots revolt

In November Captain Dave Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents 11,000 American Airlines pilots, wrote a letter to his members [12]. Bates wrote:

It is important to note that there are “backscatter” AIT [Advanced Imaging Technology] devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health. Airline pilots in the United States already receive higher doses of radiation in their on-the-job environment than nearly every other category of worker in the United States, including nuclear power plant employees.

Bates went on to call on pilots to refuse backscatter screening and instead request “the enhanced pat-down” alternative to screening, and recommending that all pilots insist that such screening is performed in an out-of-view area to protect their privacy and dignity.

Compulsion

The EU Commission green paper also looks at the thorny issue of compulsion with regards to naked scanners. The UK government has made naked scanning compulsory at those airports that have scanners with passengers who decline not being permitted to fly. The EU Commission paper states:

As regards the question whether or not Security Scanners should be compulsory it has to be taken into account that under the existing rules and regarding the screening methods recognised today (hand search, walk through metal detector, etc.), passengers are not offered any possibility to refuse the screening method or procedure chosen by the airport and/or the screener in charge. In order not to jeopardize high levels of aviation security, unpredictability of security processes at airports is an important consideration. This being so, individuals should only be able to influence these processes for fundamental rights or health reasons where alternative methods would offer equivalent security guarantees.

In addition, under certain circumstances, several airports would not dispose of the needed capacity and staff resources to provide a regular alternative to security scanners.

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that the effectiveness of naked scanners is questionable, what the Commission seems to be driving at when they talk of alternative methods that would “offer equivalent security guarantees” is something akin to the extreme physical searches that the US Transport Security Administration (TSA) has introduced for passengers who opt-out of naked scans [13]. These “pat-downs” have horrified many travellers in the US and sparked sites such as ‘Fly With Dignity’ [14] and ‘The TSA Abuse Blog’ [15]. In November, author Graham Hancock was a guest on the Disinfo podcast [16], when he described his experience of opting out of a naked scan at a US airport:

As soon as I said that I was going to opt-out, security guards started shouting at the tops of their voices “Opt-out! Opt out!”, and I was taken over to a place on full public view and other security guards gathered round me and then one of them subjected me to the most aggressive, rape-like, violent physical search, it was really extremely abusive, and alarming in fact. Really very unpleasant, a deeply unpleasant experience which went on for about 15 minutes. It was a full scale physical humiliation.

And now that I’ve learnt that many others have [been] subjected to the same experience it’s obvious that what’s going on here is that that opt-out element is really just window dressing and that what they’re trying to do is to make the experience of opting-out so unpleasant for us that all of us will just automatically opt-in to the naked body scanner, and what I find really disturbing about that – it’s not so much the issue of nakedness, I really don’t care that much about it – it is the issue of obedience – that we are being taught a habit of automatic obedience to authority here, and I believe that automatic obedience to authority is a really bad thing.

What sort of society?

Here Hancock starts to address the deeper issues of why naked scanners are so bad, issues beyond nudity and radiation exposure (important though those issues are). In an euobserver.com YouTube channel programme ‘Let’s talk about EU, Body Scanners’ [17] Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini took part in a debate with other MEPs about naked scanners in which she pointed out that the issues of safety and privacy can quite possibly be overcome, so the core issue becomes whether this is the sort of world in which we want to live. Sargentini said:

There’s demand that we have, and I’ve heard you phrase it – it’s privacy, the body integrity, making sure that data are not collected, and health issues, very important. But I think that these can be overcome and that shouldn’t be the end of our debate, because that’s what worries me. We can spend another three weeks waiting, or three months waiting – I visited myself, I wanted to see I didn’t want to wait until the commission comes up with information, and I see that all the technical demands that I had can be met. Which leads me to the bigger question – if it is all so perfect and if its actually client friendly because it goes quicker than frisking, [...] – it saves you time on your flight to the US – so if there’s all kinds of benefits then it leaves us with the very dangerous question – what happens if they put this in front of the local library and if they put this here at the national parliament? Is that the society that we want? And that’s the point I think we should focus on and not lose ourselves in a technical debate because before we know it someone has put them in front of the library.

Is it worth it?

Much of the discussion at the EU level is about the so-called balance between privacy and security, or health risks and security – but this metaphor of balance is false.

In January the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) held a conference ‘The Stripping of Freedom: A Careful Scan of TSA Security Procedures’ [18] in Washington DC. Security Expert Bruce Schneier spoke at the conference about naked scanners and the wider issues of airline safety and security (a video of his speech is available on line [19]). It is worth quoting Schneier’s speech here at length, he said:

In the past decade we’ve had 469 passengers, this includes crew and terrorists, that are killed as a result of violent passenger incidents – this is on planes. 265 of them, that’s more than half, were 9/11. There have been no fatal incidents on the planet since those two russian aircraft in 2004. This is actually the longest streak without fatal incidents since World War II.

2000’s death toll was about the same as 1960’s, substantially less than 1970’s, 1980’s. 2001 was the fourth most violent year for violent passenger incidents, that’s after 1985, 1988, 1989 – the ’80s were ugly. Of course a lot more people are travelling in the past decade than they were in the ’80s, so we’ve seen – again I pulled the numbers – 22 passengers killed per one billion enplanements and that’s in the 2000s and the 1990s, which is about six times safer than previous decades. The 1960s was 191 deaths per billion enplanements. In the United States past decade, we’ve had incidents on six airplanes, four on September 11th [2001], the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. That’s one incident per sixteen and a half million departures. Our odds right now of being on a terrorist plane is about 1 in 10.5 million [in the US], and that’s about twenty times greater than being struck by lightning. That’s the mathematics.

And I’d like to see more of us accept the mathematics of terrorism – the risk is rare, it’s very rare. But the risk isn’t zero. I don’t think, basic screening aside, we can ever stop a crazed loner like the Fort Hood shooter. All more airport security would do is make him start shooting outside the security gates. And sometimes you can do everything right and still have it come out wrong. The thing about rare events is when they occur it’s not always evidence of systemic failure. [...] So there’s a counter story that I think we should all adopt and the counter story is one of indomitability. We should simply refuse to be terrorised. We should not over-react, we should not become defensive. There is an inherent risk of living in a free society and that is a risk our country’s founders embraced and that’s a risk I think we should. I think we should roll back the fear-based 9/11 security measures. I mean it’s simple things – stop telling people to report suspicious activity – they already do that when it’s truly suspicious, they don’t need to be told. When you’re told to watch your neighbour you report things like “they dress funny” and “their food doesn’t smell good” and “they talk in a funny language”. When you prime people to report ’suspicious’ they end up reporting ‘different’. Different is not inherently suspicious. Living in a society where we’re suspicious of each other doesn’t make us safer – by increasing our feelings of fear, of helplessness, that the government will solve all our problems if we just kept quiet and did what they told us to do.

[...]

The most dangerous part of your airplane flight is still the taxi ride to the airport. That hasn’t changed and it probably will never change. Automobiles kill more people every month in the US than 9/11 did. Last January’s earthquake in Haiti killed more people than terrorism did since the beginning of time. You watch enough movies and TV and you start thinking that terrorism is easy. Turns out it’s not. I get asked all the time – where are all the terrorist attacks? It’s hard, this is hard to do. It seems easy but it’s hard. Terrorism is hard and it’s easy to make mistakes.

[...]

Terrorism is not a transcendent threat, it cannot destroy our country, it cannot destroy our way of life, it’s only our reaction to terrorism that can do that. If we reduce the freedoms inherent in our society, we’re doing the terrorists’ work for them. If we engage in fearmongering we’re doing the terrorists’ work for them. The more scared we are the more effective the terrorist attacks are. In fact if we get scared the terrorists succeed even if their plot fails. If we’re indomitable then the terrorists fail even if/when their attacks succeed.

(Other interesting videos from the EPIC conference are available on the C-SPAN website [20]).

Where will it end?

Jacques Ellul warned in his 1964 book ‘The Technological Society’ of the dangers inherent in a society driven by technology and the security-industrial complex, he wrote:

The techniques of the police, which are developing at an extremely rapid tempo, have as their necessary end the transformation of the entire nation into a concentration camp. This is no perverse decision on the part of some party or government. To be sure of apprehending criminals, it is necessary that everyone be supervised. It is necessary to know exactly what every citizen is up to, to know his relations, his amusements, etc. And the state is increasingly in a position to know these things.

This is the world that is being built around us. Is this really what we want to leave as our legacy to the next generation?

Endnotes:

For more information on naked scanners see the following additional links:

No CCTV’s naked scanner articles:
‘Naked scanners, naked CCTV and barefaced lies’ (Jan ‘10)
http://www.disinfo.com/2010/01/naked-scanners-naked-cctv-and-barefaced-lies/
‘Naked scanners update – EU parliament debate this week’ (Feb ‘10)
http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/blog/naked_scanners_update_-_eu_parliament_debate_this_week.htm
‘Have your say on naked scanners – consultation ends 21st June (Jun ‘10)
http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/blog/have_your_say_on_naked_scanners_-_consultation_ends_21st_june.htm

Big Brother Watch’s Body Scanner pages:
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/body-scanners/

Privacy International’s ’statement on proposed deployments of body scanners in airports’
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-565802

The Privacy Coalition’s ‘Stop Whole Body Imaging’ campaign
http://www.stopdigitalstripsearches.org/

The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) ‘Whole Body Imaging Technology and Body Scanners’ page
http://epic.org/privacy/airtravel/backscatter/

‘Stop Airport Strip Searches’ facebook group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=179598280013

‘All Facebook Against Airport Full Body Scanners’
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=239458517874

‘Airport Body Scanner Truth’
http://bodyscannertruth.com

‘Please Don’t Touch My Junk Song’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71XIiP8v95Y&feature=watch_response_rev

Growing Your Own Security: Professor Breeding Bomb-Detecting Plants (Video)

ralph — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:55:40 +0000

Spencer Ackerman writes on WIRED’s Danger Room:

The next hydrangea you grow could literally save your life. With the help of the Department of Defense, a biologist at Colorado State University has taught plant proteins how to detect explosives. Never let it be said that horticulture can’t fight terrorism.

Picture this at an airport, perhaps in as soon as four years: A terrorist rolls through the sliding doors of a terminal with a bomb packed into his luggage (or his underwear). All of a sudden, the leafy, verdant gardenscape ringing the gates goes white as a sheet. That’s the proteins inside the plants telling authorities that they’ve picked up the chemical trace of the guy’s arsenal.

Garbage Hotel Opens In Madrid

Pelliciari — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:50:52 +0000

Photo: TresSugar

Looking for a place to stay in Madrid? Make an ec0-friendly reservation at the Beach Garbage Hotel! The Leader Post reports:

A new hotel has opened in the heart of Madrid proudly declaring that it’s complete rubbish.

More of a wooden shack than a five-star establishment, the walls of the Beach Garbage Hotel are strewn with detritus dragged up by the tide, recovered from landfills or snapped up at flea markets.

Among the wall decorations: Plastic drums, wooden frames, musical instruments, striped socks, tyres, and children’s books.

In the five rooms there are street lights, wobbly sideboards, and torn Persian rugs, ready to welcome the lucky winners of a Facebook competition whose prize was a free stay.

Out front, there is a small patch of sand and palm trees.

[Continues at Leader Post]

Against Tourism: The Art Of Traveling

Christian Greer — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:26:28 +0000

Dante’s Inferno provides us with what is perhaps the most apt picture of tourism to date. More specifically, it is in the first layer of Hell, Limbo, that Dante depicts the circumstances that contextualize tourism and the individual who undertakes it, i.e. the tourist.

Like the unbaptized and virtuous Pagans whose torture is the inability to imagine something greater than their rational minds can conceive, the tourist never ventures beyond the predetermined image of the places they visit. The tourist deals only in images, whether it is the image of the Grand Canyon that was promised to him by the travel agent, or the image he must make of it (by snapping a picture) in order for it to become real. The tourist cannot know the mystery or grandeur of the Grand Canyon as it stretches across the horizon, she can only seen it in comparison to the image she was promised. If what she sees before does not match the image, then she is disappointed. The terrain labeled the “Grand Canyon” simply does not exist for her. Likewise, we are lead to see the function of photography for the tourist. Far from a trafficker of experiences or adventures, the tourist deals only in images, her experiences only becomes real when they are reproduced. It is here that we may see the tourist’s world as a shadow world….

You co-create the space in which you travel. Time works similarity. That is to say time and space are both negotiations. Existential morphology, then, is at the heart of travel, or, at least it is “at the heart” of that which we are attempting to conceptualize when we use the term “travel”.

Leaving aside that people, like cities, can be heartless we shall turn our gaze to this morphology, or, more particularly, the modes that can be undertaken by “travelers”. The term “traveler” is in scare marks so as to indicate how the word itself is caught up in assumptions, implications, directionalities that form a momentum which carries us to a place that we may not necessarily have chosen or even want to be at. Stated plainly, a traveler is a someone. Being, or playing rather, that someone, that character, may in fact prevent us from being something more pleasing, erotic, satisfying….

The space between traveler and self is a site for negotiation, evasion, and creation. Like all good negotiations we have something that is wanted and provided we know what we want we should not be afraid to bribe, strong-arm, or coerce our way to it. The battleground for this negotiation is our mentality, the currency is our imagination. So, refuse the label “traveler”, construct a no-name name. While it is tempting to use the word “traveler” it is far too impoverished a concept to help us move through time and space. (Plus, it may helpful to keep in mind that part of the term’s bankruptcy can be witnessed in the unseemly connotations that are attached to the people who use that term uncritically.) Clearly, we are not even interested in “tourist” either. But that is not to say we are not interested in “tourism”, or “traveling”. We are. We want it all. We are psychic mercenaries, and as such we are free to ransack any sociological category for tools to help us move through time and space.

Holy Pilgrims, Anthropologists, Monkeywrenchers, Graffiti artists, Thieves, Hashish Connoisseurs, Sex fiends, Science fiction writers… We assume these roles through time and space. Their ends are our ends, but ours ends is not theirs.

Christian Greer is the author of the free book Endroit: The Art Of Traveling. Download it here.

Exploring The Secrets Of Underground New York

JacobSloan — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:01:49 +0000

All above-ground metropolises harbor shadow cities beneath. A New York Times reporter spent five days on a subterranean urban hiking expedition, spelunking through NYC’s labyrinthine sewer system. His colorful travel journal details encounters with wildlife and “mole people.” Here’s how to go on an invigorating adventure into the unknown, without leaving city limits:

Tuesday, 12:36 a.m.
Exterior Street, the Bronx

We inspect our exit point — a manhole in the middle of the road. Will Hunt, a bespectacled 26-year-old who is writing a book about the underground (“The last frontier,” he says, “in an over-mapped, Google-Earthed world.”) will serve as our spotter. Will’s job is to watch for traffic: ascending from the hole, we do not wish to be hit by a car. We are to communicate by walkie-talkie. Will ties a long pink ribbon to the inside of the manhole cover. Dangling downward, this will be our signal we have reached the end.

1:20 a.m.
Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx

Down we go by way of sewer pipe, joined now by Andrew Wonder, a shaggy former film student making a documentary about Steve. The change is stark, immediate: darkness, shin-high water, a dull ammoniac funk. My eyes adjust, and I see an endless tunnel, rounded, eight feet high and made of faded brick. The floor is scummy and perilous to walk on. Within seconds, Steve, Erling and Andrew rip their waders: they’re taking on water. We nonetheless progress and, after 50 feet, the entrance disappears. Forgot how much I hate enclosed spaces.

1:48 a.m.
Bronx sewers

Amazing. The sounds down here are even more impressive than the sights and smells: the Niagara-like crash of water spilling in from side drains; the rumble of the subway; the guh-DUNK! of cars hitting manhole covers overhead, like two jabs on a heavy bag. Steve says we’re only 12 feet beneath the surface, but it feels far deeper. The familiar world is gone: only sewage now, the press of surrounding earth, the anxious dance of headlamps on the water. Every 100 feet or so, an archway appears and we can see a parallel channel gurgling beside us with a coffee-colored murk. I shine my headlamp down and watch a condom and gooey scraps of toilet paper float by. I check the air meter constantly: no trace of gas, and the oxygen level is a healthy 20.9 percent. I ask Steve how he navigates down here; he laughs. “Hey, Erling,” he calls out, “you’re taking care of the navigation, right?” Funny.

Damanhur: My Sci-Fi Theophany Under the Mountain

cybercasualty — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:05:45 +0000

Joseph Allen writes about his visit to Damanhur, a sizeable New Age commune nestled in the Italian Alps. The community is best known for the stunning Temples of Humankind. From Confessions of a CyberCasualty:

December, 2007. The distant Alps are covered in snow. Small flakes swirl in the wind, dancing around red clay statues of muscular giants and voluptuous goddesses, reminiscent of Egypt. Most prominent is the falcon-headed god, Horus, facing the Fire Altar where the looming statues converge.

I start to walk into the grove of the Earth Altar, but my guide Shama tells me I should go no further.

“It is dangerous for anyone who is not spiritually prepared,” she warns me. “Very dangerous.”

I would be willing to chance it, but I suppose rules are rules.

In the distance is Monti Pelati, the sacred mountain of the Damanhurians. It is said that more Synchronic Lines converge there than any place in the world. These lines are like the Earth’s magnetic field — only magic. They were discovered psychically by the founder and leader of the Damanhurians, Falco.

This is a place of power. A place of mystery. The perfect place for a secret Temple. A nice spot to start a cult.

So what am I doing here?

I have a sweet tooth for communal cults. Cult is just short for culture, right? A brief visit to a welcoming sect is like Disneyland and a voodoo possession wrapped into the same vacation package. It’s invigorating, it’s mind-warping, and at times, absolutely terrifying.

The Damanhurian Federation

Damanhur is home to The Temples of Humankind, a massive work-in-progress overseen by the Italian visionary, Oberto Airaudi (aka. Falco). Started in 1978, the Temples were constructed within man-made caves beneath Monti Pelati. The work went on in secret for thirteen years — until the Italian authorities were alerted in 1991. This subterranean masterpiece is a startling testament to the possibilities of communal art, to the evolution of occultism in the modern age, and to the bizarre beliefs that isolated communities generally cling to.

Located in the Alpine foothills, about 30 mi. north of Turin, Italy, this spiritual commune is dubbed “The Largest Intentional Eco-Community in the World”, a vast complex of homes, shops, art studios, small manufacturing centers, and farms in the Valchiusella Valley.

Damanhur grew out of the occult fervor that swept through Turin and its surrounding rural areas during the 1960s and 70s. This period is comparable to the volatile atmosphere of New York’s Burned Over District in the 1800s, which spawned the Mormons, the Shakers, the Oneidas, and the Fox Sister séances.

After thirty years, Damanhur is a relatively successful attempt at communal self-sufficiency. The community sustains its own marketplace, the Crea. It has its own fire and police departments, schools, medical facilities, construction, insurance, and real estate companies, private banking system, and its own currency: the Damanhurian Credito (with a constant exchange rate equal to one Euro).

Although contracts with non-Damanhurians are negotiated in common currency, all wages within the community are paid in Creditos. All products sold at the Crea or services provided by Damanhurian companies are purchased with Creditos. And of course, all Damanhurians are expected to donate a sizeable portion of their Creditos for the good of the commune.

This sprawling network, covering nearly 500 acres, is home to over four hundred Damanhurians, from children to old-timers. Hundreds of other people in the area are affiliated with the group, and hundreds more participate in the many Damanhurian satellite centers around the world.

At the time of my visit, the Damanhurians were making serious moves. New centers were springing up in Italy, Austria, Germany, Croatia, Japan, and Miami, Fl., where one could be healed, have cosmic visions, or hear the songs of houseplants through bio-machines. Sounds like Paradise, right?

A Day in the Life

I take the train from Naples to Turin — train #1666. I interpret this as an important omen. From there I get another train to Ivrea, where I catch the bus to Damanhur.

I check my Italian phrasebook and stammer, “Scusi, c’è un autobus per Damanhur?”

“Si.”

“Grazie.”

This seems to be a common question for the driver. He points to a scruffy guy with a ponytail sitting in back and tells me to get off with him.

Patrick is a doe-eyed Austrian in his thirties. He is a world traveler, a patron of various spiritual centers, and an aspiring artist. When he learns that I’m an American, he expresses disdain. He says he has a girlfriend in the US, but will never go back.

“America is too much military for me. If I go there, I end up fingerprinting and retina-scanning. I get interrogations and strip searches.”

“What about your girl?”

“She is having too many mans, anyway.”

Patrick is visiting Damanhur to receive “Selfic” energy treatments to repair his soul, which is accomplished by laying under a spiraling coil of copper wire known as a “Self.”

The first Selfs were designed and developed by Falco, and are said to be animated by conscious entities. These devices harness the energy of the Synchronic Lines to harmonize personality, balance sensitivity, and clear negativity. Anyone can receive these services for a modest fee.

Patrick tells me he would never live at Damanhur because there is no privacy. The activities of citizens are constantly monitored by the others.

“People talk in small towns,” I remark.

“It is like intentional communities that I stay in Hawaii. There are too many eyes,” he says ominously. “Too many eyes.” He looks around as if they might be peering over the next seat.

We get off the bus into the snow flurry and I prepare my approach. I don’t want to come off like a tourist, a smug skeptic, or a nosy journalist. Cults don’t like that shifty business. So I try to play the curious truth-seeker. The American mendicant.

I am greeted by Gazza Solidago (Italian for Magpie Goldenrod) at the Welcome Center. Gazza is one of the public faces of Damanhur, very pretty, with curly dark hair. She expresses sympathy for my travel fatigue and sets up my visit with gracious hospitality.

I pay for a bed in their hostel (€20/night, for four nights) and arrange for tomorrow’s tour of Damanhur and the Temples of Humankind (for €55). They hand me a release form that waives Damanhur’s responsibility if their underground Temple happens to collapse on my head.

Gazza informs me of the “Contact with the Cosmos” workshop (€160) and the option of a 3-day or a 7-day visit (€350 and €650, respectively).

“Perhaps another time,” I say.

Gazza gives me a warm hug, hands me some introductory literature, and then I’m turned over to Shama Viola (as in the Hawaiian White-Rumped Shama and a Violet flower), who takes me on an informal walk around the grounds.

Shama is a longtime Damanhurian resident, about sixty or so, with silver-gray hair and a youthful face. She came here decades ago, after spending the Psychedelic Sixties in San Francisco and Hawaii.

She guides me through the Altars of the Elements, past a concrete Stonehenge that would fit well in a putt putt course, finally arriving at a wide field covered in painted stones which “follow the Earth’s energy fields.”

Shama indicates a special spiral path and encourages me to walk it. One wanders these complex mazes to harness cosmic energies and focus the will. Kind of like hopscotch — only magic.

“But you must wear this.” She takes a crude amulet off of a wooden post at the entrance and hands it to me. “To protect you from the powerful energies.”

I hold my poker face and politely decline.

Back at the hostel—probably the cleanest in all of Europe — I search my room thoroughly for spy cameras before going to bed. From bathroom to bedroom, I feel their eyes on me.

The next morning I meet Shama and a Dutch woman named Zoe for the big tour. Zoe is a first time Temple visitor, but quick to show her hard-earned New Age credentials. She just arrived from Hawaii, where she was communicating with dolphins.

“All the dolphins here speak Italian,” I tell her.

Like most enthusiastic newcomers to a cult, Zoe is reasonably intelligent and very competitive. This is passive-aggressive in nature. She never comes out and says, “I’m more enlightened than this guy. Pick me, pick me!” But she’s quick to talk up her psychic abilities, extensive ritual experience, and acute sensitivity to subtle energies. I’ve seen it a hundred times. With every highfalutin comment, she’s gunning for acceptance and a top spot in the hierarchy, reeking of an unconditional positivity that only profoundly disturbed individuals can maintain.

This makes Zoe more fun than a cup of Kool-Aid in Jonestown. I get out my cynic stick to poke at her for the rest of the day.

Shama has bad news for us. The “Reawakening the Senses” workshop has been cancelled due to a lack of participants. Zoe is devastated. She asks:

“Will I still be able to do ‘Contact with the Cosmos’ if I don’t do ‘Reawakening the Senses?’”

Zoe speaks of these psychic tutorials like they are baking classes. Why do New Agers always talk about meeting strangers or eating food with the solemn reverence of divine revelation, but then discuss sacred visions and magical powers as if they were as commonplace as a fart?

Shama assures Zoe that “Contact with the Cosmos” is still on, and I ask how much she will save.

“€200″

Our first stop is the Crea, a large, pink building situated on the slope of the valley. It houses the Damanhurian construction and real estate offices, an organic food market and cafeteria, art studios, a day care center, and the medical facilities. Imagine a health food store reincarnated as a shopping mall.

One of the shops specializes in Selfic technology. They have portable Selfs for sale, which resemble the copper wire jewelry peddled by hippies at music festivals and Rainbow Gatherings, except these little guys have souls and can heal anything from moodiness to colon cancer. You can get an Insomnia Self for €35, a cell-regenerating Beauty Disc for €145, or a Multi-Functional Self for €60.

They also offer Falco’s Selfic paintings. These feature crude, child-like patterns infused with animate spirits (like amateur abstracts—only magic), which go for €1,600 or so.

Walking by the medical facility, I notice a sickly old Damanhurian in the waiting room with a portable Self clasped in his hands. Perhaps it’s a Terminal Self. He rubs it anxiously, desperately, hopefully, and for a moment this absurd display isn’t so funny.

As we wait outside for our ride to the Temples, I ask Shama what’s up with their names.

“Damanhurians are given an animal name first,” she explains, “and then a plant name, as they are gradually initiated into the mysteries.”

That’s how you end up with names like Furetto Oliva, Iguana Magrovia, and one that translates as Shrimp Wild Fennel.

“I’ll bet all the badass names like Jaguar Thornbush and Viper Petunia got snatched up pretty quick, huh?” I ask.

“Yes, yes,” Shama says, “the big cats are all taken.”

I say, “If I were a Damanhurian, I’d be Paramecium Chloroplast. You know, to show my spiritual humility.”

Shama laughs at this, but Zoe scowls in disapproval. I would dub her Weasel Chili Pepper.

Our van arrives, and we head up the mountain on a slushy one-lane road. George Michael’s I Want Your Sex plays on the tapedeck and our fur-clad driver honks her horn around every tight corner to alert oncoming drivers. I hope that the little Self coiled on the dashboard is to ward off head-on collisions.

The Eighth Wonder is Underground

There are detailed photos of the Temples available on the Internet or in their official book, Damanhur: The Temples of Humankind, published by Alex Grey’s CoSM Press. But I refused to look at them before my visit. There is nothing worse than seeing some lame picture in a hiking guide before reaching a mountain’s summit, or reading a detailed review before watching a movie. It ruins the element of surprise, and I like to go in cold.

I imagine how mysterious the Temples must have been before the Italian police raided the compound in 1991 and 1992 on allegations of tax evasion, weapons hording, and satanic child abuse. Before their subsequent acquittal made the press. Before ads hit the papers and the tickets went on sale. Before any schmuck with €55 could take the carnival ride under the mountain.

I imagine Damanhur at the height of its secrecy, as if I were some wandering mendicant following the winds, suddenly blown into the arms of these charming Italians.

I would be shown warmth and hospitality. I would be hypnotized in moonlight rituals, by harmonic chants echoing through the forest and beautiful women in flowing robes. I would be baffled by strange coincidences and Falco’s lofty talk of a new consciousness. I would envy the knowing smiles between these eccentric initiates.

Two fellow Americans, Mark and Lisa, come out from their morning Temple visit. It’s just another stop on their New Age world tour. They’ve done the Israeli kibbutzim and the Indian ashrams, Gypsy Tarot readings and Peruvian shamanism. Like tourists—only magic.

Mark’s business card identifies him as: Massage Therapist – Intuitive Counselor – Spiritual Healer – Venture Capitalist. Lisa is an “etheric surgeon,” with an HTML website, a podcast, and a PayPal account. She identifies spiritual ailments in her clients through mystical visions provided by extraterrestrials. Then she heals them by waving her hands around to provide 12th dimensional shields. She explains this with a straight face.

These guys know the game. How else could they afford such exotic jaunts?

Not me.

I imagine the clandestine Damanhur of old. I enter the Temples before Damanhur had PayPal, when spiritual ideas traded at bargain prices in the back alleys of Turin. When Aleister Crowley and Madam Blavatsky were underground sex symbols. When hippies flocked to the hills to do magic and find God. When the ubiquitous Machine of the modern world could still be escaped—and perhaps defeated. When the End was still nigh.

We would share meals at blessed tables and make love in communal beds, consume quantities of wine and strange drugs, dance with the gods and become gods ourselves—our own Will be done—and follow the falcon-god Horus into the dawning Age of the Child.

We would call each other Platypus and Ostrich. We would hug trees until they spoke to us. We would take our fill of love.

Then one night they would take me into the Temple and tell me the Secret. And it would change my life forever.

I ignore the rumbling dehumidifiers and the awkward elevator ride. I look at my shoes as we go down. Somebody smells. Is it me? Nah, I think it’s Zoe.

Imagine, you have been taken deep into the cold belly of the Earth. They take off your blindfold and you are led through winding corridors by pale lantern light. You are about to take the journey of a thousand lifetimes.

You pass murals of cells forming into fish, into lush vegetation, into great dinosaurs and flying lizards, as you enter a vast circular chamber. The verdant jungles of Eden are painted in exquisite detail across the walls.

This is the Hall of Earth.

Zoe wouldn’t be standing next to you, clasping her hands to her chest as she gasps:

“Wow… There is such a profound energy here…” She closes her eyes. “Yessss. I can feel it vibrating all around me…” She opens her eyes and asks me, “Can you feel the energy here?”

I roll my eyes, trying to ignore her. There is a man painting a child onto the mural from a photograph.

Every piece of the Temple tells a story. Every face is a Damanhurian. They frolick through this tropical garden with all of the endangered species of the world. In the center of the dim chamber is a single pillar carved with a man and woman, twisting around each other, reaching up to the twinkling LED stars dotting the ceiling.

On the floor are detailed mosaics of boys playing with blocks, a young woman traveling in a spaceship with a cellphone to her ear, two middle-aged men jamming out on drums and a saxophone, and an old woman playing chess against a younger version of herself.

“She masters herself over time,” our guide Platypus explains, “and it is through playing that we connect with others.”

You see your life reflected in these images.

There are stairs leading up to a wide portal. You pass through. You walk slowly toward the golden Androgyne who towers on the far wall. An ephemeral gray Demiurge separates from this hairless Godhead and blows out the spiraling galaxies of our Universe from a pile of dust in his hand. This Universe evolves into the Earth, into prehistoric humans, into the Golden Age of Atlantis with their laser guns and wizardry, devolving into the great antediluvian religions: the Egyptian god-kings, the Semitic law-givers, and the Asian mystics.

You follow these traditions up to the crucial development in modern history: the Damanhurians, who are gathered together and led by Falco into a great battle with oncoming hordes of faceless grey automatons. As these soulless monsters approach the battlelines, they are given faces—reflections of the Damanhurians that fight them.

You want to be a part of this battle. There are still some faces yet to be painted, and you want to get your picture on the wall.

The stained-glass on the ceiling is a kaleidoscopic dome that fills your field of vision. The geometry is impeccable, creating dazzling illusions as your eyes pass across it. But even more striking are the two backlit stained-glass panes fitted into niches on opposite sides of this room.

You see a face of solar fire with a drooping phallus for a nose. Across from him is an aqua-hued female with a gaping vagina between her eyes. You feel the overt symbolism between your legs.

“Okay, okay,” Platypus snaps, “Let’s move it along.”

Our next stop is the Labyrinth. We wander through a series of interconnected halls with arched ceilings. On the walls are evolving murals depicting humanity’s progress from caves to cathedrals to chaos. We breeze past World Wars, industrial pollution, and vat-grown GMO babies, all the way to rocketships headed for the stars.

Along the halls are a series of sixteen stained-glass panels that depict dieties from each world religion. There is the Semitic Jehovah, the Indian Brahma, the Celtic Brigit, the African Sky Father, and so on.

In this subterranean pantheon, you are initiated into a new teaching: the rites of the Triad.

The Triad brought harmony to the “divine ecosystem.” Powerful Damanhurian sorcerers gathered the Divinities of the world together, asking for their cooperation in the salvation of humankind. This forged a “theurgic magical alliance.” Though a few belligerent gods declined, most accepted the invitation. These Triad rituals were performed around the clock, until every god was purified of negative aspects and fused into a divine conglomerate.

All of this is revealed to you with a straight face. You are now ready to move on to the Hall of Metals.

First, you follow the stained-glass progression from childhood to adolescence to adulthood to old age. Then you contemplate the cartoons of vices personified on the floor: Pride, Egotism, Pessimism, Falsity, Lack of Awareness, and Self-Destruction. Above are the warriors who will conquer them, armed with books, battle-axes, bows and arrows.

You are taken to an antechamber with more portraits and stained-glass. You are told that there is a secret passage. You are given a riddle.

“We are of the Way of Action…”

I nearly destroy one of the stained-glass panels in my search for this damn secret passage. Platypus runs across the room to stop me. In my defense, Zoe can’t find it either. Platypus taps his foot impatiently, playing “warmer/colder” for ten minutes until he finally gives up and pushes on the painted face of a little girl to reveal…

The Hall of Spheres. The gateway to deeper mysteries. There are a dozen plastic globes full of food coloring along the hall stretching before you, glowing by unseen bulbs. You see all sorts of magic stuff in them before being whisked away to the Selfic treatment laboratory.

The lab writhes in a schizophrenic frenzy of copper wires. Perplexing gadgets clutter the room. A gigantic, coiled super-Self is suspended from the ceiling, tapering to a point aimed at an examination table. It looks like a homemade linear accelerator, ready to harness the Synchronic energies and zap the living shit out of you.

You lay down on the table, and God only knows what happens when they fire this thing up.

In time, the Damanhurians invite you to live with them. Their esoteric doctrines are gradually revealed to you. Your personality is harmonized, your sensitivity is balanced, your negativity is cleared. You farm the valley and help build the eco-friendly house you now share with your brothers and sisters. You struggle daily through the enigmas of the Temples. Eventually, the cosmos is illuminated before you.

It is time to enter the Hall of Water. The walls are covered with the lunatic patterns of Falco’s brainstorms. You are told that these diagrams are a mystical language. Circles, spirals, triangles, polygons, and random lines are interwoven in gold paint, like you are standing inside a massive circuit board.

Long glass tubes of glowing, bubbling fluid hang down to the floor in the center of the dim blue room, like a circle of fluorescent bulbs—only magic. You are still naked from your session with the super-Self. You are purified and primed for the cause. Perhaps you are on psychedelic drugs.

You step inside the circle of bulbs. There is a sense of apprehension, because this apparatus isn’t just some nightmare of New Age interior design—

I stare into Platypus’ eyes. He doesn’t budge. I say:

“It’s a what?”

“It’s a time machine.”

“A time machine,” I repeat flatly.

“Yes. A time machine.”

“As in, you step in and get beamed back to the dinosaurs, time machine?”

“Yes. This has already happened!” His eyes get wide and his hands go Italian. “The Synchronic Lines converge here.” He points into the circle. “Here! Falco harnessed this energy to travel back to Atlantis. For three days he was initiated into the Ancient Mysteries which have been lost for millennia.”

Zoe says, “Of course, of course. These mysteries could not have been revealed in 3rd dimensional reality. This is the work of ancient masters…”

She starts to walk toward the circle, hesitates at the edge, then steps back cautiously to admire the spiraling designs and bubbling tubes from a safe distance.

I look from her to Platypus. That’s when the floodgates finally break, and I laugh until tears stream down my cheeks.

Life on the Outside

I spend the next few days nosing around the compound, asking a lot of questions, getting the story straight. Zoe is ready to move in here. Mark is ready to invest. I chat with people at the café, and glean information from live-in laborers hanging out in the common room. These people are so kind, so happy, I am baffled that such a thriving community would be built upon utter nonsense.

Damanhurians speak of Falco with a hushed reverence. They claim that his work will change the world, sometimes with a tear in their eye.

When Falco’s public Q&A day finally comes, seekers from all over the land crowd into the Crea’s auditorium, paying €10 a head to ask their question, but I opt out. Zoe can’t understand it.

“But you have so many questions!” she implores me.

I only have one question to ask Falco at this point, and I already know what his answer would be. Of course, I would have liked to see the look on Zoe’s face as I stood in the auditorium with the little microphone in my hand, everyone holding their breath as I ask:

“Are you fucking serious, dude?”

But these folks have been too hospitable for a stab like that.

Time machines, theurgic alliances, magic Selfs, eye of newt and wing of bat. Whatever. If millions of people believe that chanting the Vedas makes the sun rise, or that Jesus is coming to put the world to rights, or that life evolved from protein boiling on lava, then a few hundred people buying into Falco’s pitch should not surprise me.

With all these wolves on the fringe, every lamb needs a good shepherd.

Imagine for a moment that you bought the whole bit, and were convinced that all of history culminates in this budding New Age utopia. You decide to stay forever.

The decades pass and you end up worn out like all the droopy-eyed Damanhurians that I see everywhere. You bust your hump to keep this thing moving, to save the world from ignorance and suffering. You gain experience points and advance in levels to become a wizard supreme. You pass from spouse to spouse, according to their custom of annual marriage. You watch your children grow up in a magic fairyland, and wonder if they will be fulfilled here, or if they could even adapt to the outside world. You hope the best for them, and you live your life the best you can.

Then you die. You are buried peacefully in the Valchiusella Valley, and a painting of your face smiles forever in the Hall of Earth. People even pay to come look at it.

Folks who would call this crazy, they work 9 to 5 jobs and go home to TV sets. When I visit alternative communities, I am reminded that society at large can be just as fake and shabby. Food and drink, family and friends, shelter and security, allies and lies. Culture-makers wrap it all up in pretty pictures, sell you on salvation, and pump you for all that you’re worth.

You laugh and you cry. You eat, shit, and die.

Cult is just short for culture.

So I hitchhike out with a smile on my face. Luckily, a young Italian woman named Taraka picks me up. But she’s not going directly to Ivrea.

“You can come up the mountain with me if you like. To meet my friend. Then we take you to the train station. Yes?”

“Sure. I’m just happy to be out of that loony bin.”

“Damanhur has a dark reputation in this Valley.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods and fumbles for a new cd as we swerve all over the tight mountain road.

“They are believing in crazy things and controlling too much,” she says.

“Well, it sure is nice to be with a ‘normal’ person for a change. All that mumbo jumbo was beginning to wear on my nerves. Here, let me get that cd for you.”

That’s when I notice the beaded feathers hanging from her rearview mirror, the amulet wrapped around her wrist, the books emblazoned with arcane symbols in the floorboard.

“So where are you going, anyway?” I ask nervously.

“I am going to a Lakota Sweat Lodge in the Alps. We do chants and call to the Grandfather spirits of the American tribes. You can come, if you like. Only €200. You have heard of this?”

I nod my head wearily, and say, “Of course. It’s like a sauna — only magic.”

Amtrak To Allow Guns On Most Trains

Pelliciari — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:55:13 +0000

Want to travel through the country with your firearms, but can’t get through airport security? No worries, take the train! Amtrak will soon allow passengers to transport their firearms, unloaded and stored away. The Sacramento Bee reports:

Reversing a near decadelong ban, Amtrak will allow passengers to bring guns on most trains starting next month, including several that stop in Sacramento.

The change, pushed by gun rights advocates and ordered by Congress, aligns Amtrak’s firearms policy with air travel rules that allow unloaded guns to be stored in locked baggage holds.

Federal Homeland Security officials on Monday said they are OK with guns being on trains as long as security protocols are enforced.

“It’s deemed safe and appropriate,” federal Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nico Melendez said. “If people follow the rules, it’s pretty simple.”

[Continues at The Sacramento Bee]

No Holiday At Chernobyl

majestic — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:02:54 +0000

A few years ago disinformation published an alternative travel book by Martin Cohen, No Holiday: 80 Places You Don’t Want To Visit. Somewhat tongue in cheek, Martin created a grueling world tour of political and cultural excursions to the likes of North Korea’s DMZ, Tora Bora in Afghanistan, and, first in line, radiation-blitzed Chernobyl in Russia.

It turns out that Martin was ahead of the curve; AFP reports that Chernobyl is now a top tourist destination! Only 79 more to go Martin…

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine — Yellow Geiger counter in hand, the guide announces that radiation levels are 35 times higher than normal. Welcome to Chernobyl, the site in 1986 of the worst nuclear disaster in history and now an attraction visited by thousands of tourists every year.

Nearly 25 years after a reactor at the Soviet-era plant exploded, the irradiated zone around Chernobyl is attracting curious visitors from around the world, from nuclear specialists to ordinary tourists, willing to pay 160 dollars (122 euros) a day to visit the zone.

Described by US magazine Forbes as among the “world’s unique places to visit,” Chernobyl last year hosted about 7,500 visitors, according to official figures.

On one recent trip, a small bus ferried tourists to the edge of the zone, forbidden to those without special permission. At the entrance, each signed a form promising to respect rules aimed at preventing contamination, including not eating or smoking outside, not touching anything and not sitting on the ground or even putting down personal belongings.

The tourists signed the form with nervous laughs. A young Belgian psychologist, Davinia Schoutteten, admitted to being “a little bit scared” of the radiation and said she planned to throw away her shoes after the visit.

She moved forward with the other tourists nonetheless, heading toward the infamous reactor, now covered in a cracked concrete shell. The Geiger counter registered radiation levels of 3.9 microsieverts, against a normal level of 0.12 microsieverts…

[continues at AFP]

My Black Eyed Apocalypse

cybercasualty — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:12:48 +0000

The JoeBot writes on Confessions of a CyberCasualty:

Last year, I toured with the Black Eyed Peas on their Japan/Australia run. It was dubbed The E.N.D. — World Tour, which was appropriate. The production is a dazzling metaphor for the end of civilization.

As I get older, I frequently find myself forced to compromise my principles — whether ethical or aesthetic — for a higher standard of living. My job is to fly lights, sound, and video — not to judge the artists. My crew chief said this a dozen times. After all, I was paid well, enjoyed fine meals and plush hotel rooms, had fantastic adventures on the streets of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Melbourne, and Auckland, and I only had to wear a BEP t-shirt one time — when my laundry was dirty. Still, the damage is evident.

I began to absorb the insidious beats and lobotomizing lyrics through constant exposure. To make matters worse, I was born with a hyperactive cerebral sequencer that will sample and loop any catchy tune within a 100′ radius. You hear about nuclear lab technicians who glow green when the lights go out. Well, for months after I came home you could hear “Boom Boom Pow” playing from my head in a quiet room. Just another occupational hazard.

The other roadies exhibited similar symptoms of BEP Syndrome. We made a psychological game of it. (Example: A laser tech walks by, and I croon: “I gotta feeling…” For the next hour, he will be plagued by the song. The only known cure is cranial bludgeoning.)

Of course, the crew had mixed reactions to The E.N.D. of civilization … (Read More)

Try to Find New Island on a Map: You Can’t, Even Though People Have Lived There for 43,500 Years…

ralph — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:52:24 +0000

Sounds to me like where Lost takes place. Fascinating story from Annalee Newitz on io9.com:

You can’t find New Island on most maps of the Indian Ocean because its location was a secret for most of the twentieth century. But now one man has chronicled the long, strange history of its ancient inhabitants.

The ruins you see here come from a group known locally as the “Old People,” who probably started living on the island 43,500 years ago. In the modern age, the island was discovered in the late eighteenth century by two convict ships that crashed there on the way to Australia. One of those ships was filled with hundreds of female convicts, who eventually founded their own civilization on the island, based on sexual equality and paganism. Today the island is a bustling place, full of trains and welcoming visitors.

Unfortunately, you can only visit via a website created from the imagination of Lee (Rusty) Mothes, a worldbuilder who loves to draw maps and island landscapes. New Island is a place he’s been imagining for over a decade, and he finally put all his pictures and ideas about it into one place, which reads like a work of fantasy travelogue.

Read More of Annalee Newitz’s article “The Lost Culture Of New Island Is 43,500 Years Old” on io9.com

The 7 Somewhat United States of Facebook

ralph — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:02:54 +0000

Interesting post from Mathew Ingram on GigaOM. He focuses more on the social mobility patterns of various parts of the U.S., but if you look at the source blog Ingram refers to (PeteSearch), you’ll see a quick discussion of some social and cultural patterns he observed with Facebook data. He noted what regions of the country where God tops a Facebooker’s Fan Page, his conclusions are interesting, but no surprise…

So I learned that God actually has a Facebook Fan Page. But only 3.2 millions fans?

There’s another Facebook page calling for 100 Million Christians Who Worship God that’s reached 1 percent of its goal. In all fairness, I’m sure if I poked around more and took the aggregate number of fans from all the “God Fan” Pages that exist, there would be plenty … however, would be interesting to see how much religious diversity exists on Facebook.

Mathew Ingram writes on GigaOM:

Peter Warden, a former Apple engineer, likes to analyze data — so much so that he started scraping public profiles and photos from hundreds of millions of Facebook accounts about a year ago, and now has data collected from more than 200 million around the world. He wrote a fascinating post recently on his personal blog about what that data shows about how interconnected (or disconnected) users in the various American states are.

Read More: GigaOM referencing PeteSearch

For $65, Tourists Get Peek at Los Angeles Gangland

demineus — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:54:18 +0000

SFGate reports:

Only miles from the scenic vistas and celebrity mansions that draw sightseers from around the globe — but a world away from the glitz and glamour — a bus tour is rolling through the dark side of the city’s gang turf.

Passengers paying $65 a head Saturday signed waivers acknowledging they could be crime victims and put their fate in the hands of tattooed ex-gang members who say they have negotiated a cease-fire among rivals in the most violent gangland in America.

Mexico’s Crystal Cave: The Deadliest Place On Earth?

JacobSloan — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:22:00 +0000

Wondering where the deadliest place on Earth is? It could be Mexico’s Cueva de los Cristales. It’s an underground palace of glittering crystal where the temperature hovers in the 120s and the humidity is 100% — a combination “so deadly that even with respirators and suits of ice you can only survive for 20 minutes before your body starts to fail.”

Originally discovered by accident by miners tunneling deep into the earth, the Cave looks like something out of a Jules Verne story. Explorer Paul Williams went there to shoot footage for a BBC special and posted the resulting photos on his blog.