"For youth culture Japan - "cool" and "cute"- Harajuku, just north of Shibuya, is the number one fashionable, fun, faddish, ridiculous, crazy "crib" to "chill out". Come along on a Sunday and you'll see it all!"

"Harajuku is weird central," says a Japanese friend of mine. Youth in Harajuku exhibit anime-style, gravity defying, Technicolor hair and wear elaborate makeup and costume-like clothing. Japanese visual rock bands are probably the greatest influence on this urban sub-cultural style. In these bands, the visual image projected by their clothes style and makeup is as important as the music they produce. Band members create onstage personas that extend far offstage. I present Japanese visual bands as an extreme of using fashion to "fabricate" an identity.

So how do these bands identify themselves? I would argue that the extremist style was developed to distinguish themselves from the mainstream music industry, largely occupied by corporate factory line, "idol school," produced singers. There is definitely shock value is this style of dress. The first thing you probably notice when looking at the photo of the band Glay, are the bands members' Technicolor, gravity-defying hairstyles. Dying hair is an obvious rejection of the Asian confine of basic black. It is symbolic of breaking out of the mold of appearing "Oriental". But more so, I think, the eye-catching hairstyles allude to anime and manga, where hair color and style often becomes a distinguishing feature of the characters."

"We are living full of stress... Natural disasters, economical, political, social problems... My aim is to minimise this stress. Please let us communicate by smiling," he said. "Our slogan is 'laughter, love, peace for all human beings'."

On November 8–9 (depending on your location) a very rare and special global event will occur. Six planets and objects (Moon, Sun, Saturn, Chiron, Jupiter and Mars) will be aligned in a grand sextile or star pattern, a most unusual configuration.

Perfectly aligned for the first time in 2000 years to a Star of David configuration, these planets and objects will form a Grand Sextile of Earth and Water signs which is being called a Harmonic Concordance or the opening of the portal of Concordance (Concordance means Heart).

I believe that this celestial/astrological configuration will open a portal for a morphogenetic region of knowledge that will shift the morphogenetic patterns of all those who are exposed to it.

People will have an opportunity to be in alignment with divine knowledge and to live beyond the distorted perceptions of an evolving self whose instinctual, emotional, and physical perceptions and experiences have been overlaid by many different morphogenetic regions of knowledge on the planet.

For the last four decades, we have been experiencing strong outer planetary influences that have led to a dissolvement of our human self to merge with machines, chemicals, and devices. We have also experienced an ability to remote view and process extraterrestrial information. The complex psychological and ethereal environments that these influences have created are pushing us at speeds that we as humans can’t understand nor do we feel grounded or nurtured within. That’s because we’re having to take in and process data that is outside the realm of our physical and emotional expression. You can see the discrepancy that this creates when you compare certain parts of the globe that are still using human interaction vs. those that are using machines, chemicals, and devices to organize the world around them. By dissolving our human self, we end up removing humanism as the centerpiece of what our lives revolve around.

The Grand Sextile of Earth and Water signs that we are about to experience will awaken and bring a resurgence of female energy and passivity on the planet, balancing the male energy and reduced sense of humanism that has been dominating this time period.

The Earth and Water signs, as conduits for female energy, will allow us to integrate our physical and emotional interactions as we merge and dissolve with the radical, transforming knowledge that is being dispensed. Operating at a much slower speed, the Earth and Water signs bring structure and nurturing, giving us time to absorb and retain what is taking place around us.

"The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word "war," therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and has been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three superstates, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed forever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This -- although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense -- is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE."

"That's a woman sitting next to Jesus, occupying the traditional position of a wife. Under Judaic laws of the time, Jesus could not be a Rabbi unless he were married. But Jesus marriage and his children are the secret Christianity does not want you to know, because the early Christian church leadership was based on the concept of apostolic descent, which only works if Jesus died without heirs. In the 1200s, the Catholic church, in order to consolidate power, undertook to erase from the world the descendants of the historical Jesus, and all public record that they had ever existed. In the process, 1/2 the population of Southern France was murdered."

"What did the people of the Languedoc do to deserve such a crusade? The Languedoc practiced a civilized, easy-going religious tolerance, much like Byzantium. In contrast to the fanatical zeal that characterized other parts of Europe, the Languedoc was a place where learning and philosophy flourished, poetry and courtly love were extolled, and Greek, Arabic and Hebrew were enthusiastically studied. Schools devoted to the Kaballah -- aka, Ha Qabala, the ancient exoteric tradition of Judaism -- thrived.

The key problem, from Rome's point of view, was that the Cathars in 1200 constituted a heresy which could conceivably displace Roman Catholicism as the dominant form of Christianity. In general the Cathars subscribed to a doctrine of reincarnation and to a recognition of the feminine principle in religion. Indeed, the preachers and teachers of Cathar congregations were of both sexes. At the same time the Cathars rejected the orthodox Catholic Church and denied the validity of all clerical hierarchies, all official and ordained intercessors between man and God.

At the core of this position lay an important Cathar tenet -- what the Church called the repudiation of "faith". In the place of "faith accepted at second hand", the Cathars insisted on direct and personal knowledge, a religious or mystical experience apprehended at the individual in a firsthand fashion. This experience has been called gnosis, from the Greek word for "knowledge", and for the Cathars it took precedence over all creeds and dogma. Given such emphasis on direct personal contact with God -- priests, bishops, and other clerical authorities became superfluous. Also, Popes. Oops."

"American-made Harpoon missiles, armed with nuclear warheads, are now aimed by Israel’s fleet of Dolphin-class submarines against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Following September’s exclusive report in American Free Press about Israel’s submarine nuclear attack capability, over 100 Harpoon cruise missiles have been secretly airlifted to the remote island of Diego Garcia, a joint UK-U.S. base in the Indian Ocean.

The three Israeli submarines that arrived at the base early this month were each loaded with 24 Harpoon missiles.

They then set sail for the Gulf of Oman—bringing Iran’s nuclear facilities all within range of the submarines’ payloads.

The decision to launch them is entirely in the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Just as Sharon gave Washington only a short warning before he gave the order to attack an alleged terrorist camp deep inside Syria, he has made it clear to Washington that the same rule of engagement will apply if it comes to launching the Harpoons."

"Touch a pencil with all five fingertips of one hand, close your eyes, and ponder: If each fingertip forms a distinct tactile "image" of the pencil, why do you perceive a single pencil instead of five unconnected pencil fragments? The answer is that your brain has special circuits that help you build complete pictures from fragmented sensory information. In effect, these gap-filling circuits induce your brain to perceive what it expects to see, instead of what it actually sees. When these expectations accurately reflect the objective world around you, your perceptions will be on target. Sometimes, however, what your brain expects to see is far from an accurate representation of reality."

The way that expectations shape perceptions has important implications for education. The developing brain processes complex perceptions, such as how difficult an academic subject is, in much the same way it handles simpler sensory information. If a student is led to expect that mathematics is difficult, even simple numerical problems may be perceived as unsolvable. Plain as the nose on your face, what you believe determines what you achieve.

"What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline", Kwiatkowski wrote. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam (Hussein) occupation (in Iraq) has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defence" (OSD)...

"Groupthink. Defined as 'reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view', groupthink was, and probably remains, the predominant characteristic of Pentagon Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of opinion into a kind of accepted 'fact', and uncritical acceptance of extremely narrow and isolated points of view.

The result of groupthink has been extensively studied in the history of American foreign policy, and it will have a prominent role when the history of the Bush administration is written. Groupthink, in this most recent case leading to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, will be found, I believe, to have caused a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress."

• When you rent a car in a European country from a big car rental company, you might not actually be dealing with that company at all, but with a small local franchise. I realized later that I was dealing with one company in the south of France and another in northern Germany, and not at all with Budget Rent A Car System, Inc, despite that it has big signs and business cards and everything saying BUDGET. Only when you get the final bill do you realize who you've been doing business with.
• A car rental franchise in one place has very little interest in covering expenses that are incurred with another franchise in another place, even if it is their fault. Even if it has the same BUDGET sign in the same big letters over each of their booths.
• Europe is not the U.S. You can't count on the existence of a general rule that "the customer is always right". Asking to talk to somebody's supervisor might not get you anywhere.
• It is common in several European countries that even though you opt for the full insurance, there's a large deductible, which they might well forget to mention to you. The approach of some companies is that if anything at all happens to the car, you pay that deductible. It is often 800 or 1000 euros.
• A car rental franchise is likely to have the view that if anything breaks down on the car, the warranty of the manufacturer will cover it. And if they don't, it is YOUR fault. Doesn't matter how many other people have driven the car before, or what state it was in when you got it.
• If your rental car breaks down, there's an emergency number to call. But don't expect that they'll actually deal with anything other than having the car towed away. They might leave you in the night in the rain in a foreign country until their offices will open on the next business day.
• If you get a replacement car in a different office or a different franchise than the original car, and they make you sign a new contract, it is NOT "just a formality". You're likely to become liable for paying exactly what it says on it. You've better get a written and signed statement from them that says it is a replacement car, and it will be covered by the original contact. Verbal statements mean nothing later on.
• A car rental company is free to bill you extra charges, damages, etc., without asking you. It is probably hidden in the small print you didn't read, but it doesn't even have to be. Your bank is likely to pay the charges, even if the money isn't in your account.
• If you don't agree with the charges, your credit card company can not just cancel the charges. They might be nice to temporarily reverse them while they're looking into it. But they've already paid the company, and unless they agree with the wrongness of the charge, and they can persuade them to give the money back, there's nothing much you can do about it. Particularly when the charges happened in a different country than your bank is in, and all the paperwork is in French and German.
• Neither the car rental franchises nor the bank are going to care much about whether it is fair to have to pay $4600 for renting a small faulty car for three weeks, which broke down and didn't get your where you were going. What matters is what the papers say and what you can prove. Or, what they can get away with.

"Well, let's pretend... that you're a therapist who works with people. The most important thing... when you're pretending this... is to understand... that you are really not... You are just pretending... And if you pretend really well, the people that you work with will pretend to make changes. And they will forget that they are pretending... for the rest of their lives. But don't you be fooled by it."

"Practices can be used not only to expand the mind but to shrink the ego and bringing into a proper proportion in influencing our behavior or curing it of its pathology. There seems to be an inverse relation between mind expansion and ego diminishment. There is also an intimate relationship between left brain activity and ego in their attempts to insure our survival. They are both very involved in the pre-perceptual and perceptual process. Unfortunately, in order to stabilize a world (even a universe) that is in constant process, so we can operate more effeciently in it, in a material and practical way, the right brain alliance has formed a whole barrel of HABITS (not very good).

Habit formation is what prevents from being here now. You can of a habit as a behavioral packet in which the Past (behavior or meaning or understanding or catagorizing) is repeated in the Present when confronted with a "similiar" situation, in order to insure your Future as you planned it to be in the Past. Notice the emphasis on similiar that matching is done both before and after perception in the process of organizing are world. So what we experience most of the time is what we have become conditioned to as important for our survival, maintainance, and growth."

"Here are some exercises that I've found can help left-brainers to 'really see':

• Move in close, so you divert attention from individual objects and start to see instead colour, texture, shape, shadow, reflection, pattern
• Find an unusual perspective from which to look -- get down on the ground and look up, look at something through trees, through a microscope, or by candlelight, anything that will let you see things differently from usual
• Look at things under unusual conditions -- in the fog, at night, right after a heavy rain, just at dawn or dusk
• Stimulate your other right-brain senses -- get your nose up close to things, listen to birds, or insects, or train whistles, or music, walk in your bare feet
• Walk or bicycle without a pre-determined destination, direction or time limit
• Study something -- birds at your bird-feeder, time-lapse of a flower over the course of a day or a week, a spider-web, how moving or dimming the lights in a room changes its character, how a bottle looks different when viewed from different angles

In the book Easy Travel to Other Planets, Ted Mooney describes a future world where people are so bombarded with meaningless information, abstract facts that don't really matter, that they become psychologically paralyzed, unable to focus on anything, and succumb to what Mooney calls 'information sickness'. In some ways we are already there. The trappings of our society and culture have already separated us from, and deadened us to, most of what is real in this world, and surrounded us instead with artifice -- bland, manipulative, numbing 'entertainment', office and home lighting (and air conditioning, and jobs) that are artificial, news that shows wars as light-shows instead of people dead and dying, cars that insulate us from any exposure to real people or real weather."