US ECONOMY

'The greatest real-world threat to Uncle Sam is that the inflow of dollars dries up. For instance, foreign central banks and private investors could any day decide to place more of their money elsewhere than in the declining dollar and abandon poor ol' Uncle Sam to his destiny. China could double its per capita income very quickly if it made real investments at home instead of financial ones with Uncle Sam. Central banks, European and others, can now put their reserves in (rising!) euros or even soon-to-be-revalued Chinese yuan. Not so far down the road, there may be an East Asian currency...'


Why the emperor has no clothes
By Andre Gunder Frank
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GA06Dj01.html

Top people and child sex

June 29, 1989.

``Homosexual Prostitution Probe Ensnares Official of Bush, Reagan,'' screamed the front-page headline of the Washington Times with the kicker ``Call Boys Took Midnight Tour of White House.''

http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook/bush21.html

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10 Jan 2005

Commodore David White, the commander of British forces on Gibraltar, found dead in his swimming pool, appears to have committed suicide after being recalled pending an investigation into pornography offences, The Sun tabloid daily reported 10 January 2005.

Chief Inspector Eddie Yome of the Royal Gibraltar Police said on Saturday: "We don't suspect any foul play at this stage. Obviously, it was not a natural death but we must wait for results of the post mortem".The Sun reported that detectives had been investigating White for several months "for having hundreds of indecent images of children".

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005012160,00.html

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Conspiracy of Silence was to be aired on the Discovery Channel, on May 3, 1994. This documentary exposed a network of religious leaders and Washington politicians who flew children to Washington D.C. for sex orgies.

At the last minute before airing, unknown congressmen threatened the TV Cable industry with restrictive legislation if this documentary was aired. Almost immediately, the rights to the documentary were purchased by unknown persons who had ordered all copies destroyed.

http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_child_sex_coverup/franklin.htm

http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/gunderson_report.htm

INDONESIAN ARMY MILITIA

'The government of Acheh in exile, the PNA/ASNLF, deplores the arrival in Acheh of members of the thuggish so-called Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the terroristic Indonesia Mujahidin Council (MMI)... The FPI has been involved in sectarian killings in Maluku and Central Sulawesi and illegal attacks against non-Muslims and others in Java and elsewhere. The FPI, which is made up of street thugs and minor criminals, was established as a militia by TNI generals on 17 August 1998 to act as a vanguard against Indonesia’s pro-democracy activists. It has since become infamous for attacking nightclubs and other places it claims contradict the teachings of Islam. However, as is well known, the FPI has used these attacks to extort ‘protection’ money from bar owners. The FPI continues to act with the support of, and on behalf of, TNI generals, and is clearly in Acheh on their behalf.'

http://laksamana.net/vnews.cfm?ncat=48&news_id=7814

9 11 INSIDE JOB

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_government&Number=293255425#Post293255425

ISRAEL TARGETS THE SUDAN?

The Sudanese government has accused Israel of supporting the rebels in the Darfur region of Sudan.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040808-071730-3735r.htm

Mossad is reported to have been active for many years in the Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and other strategically important parts ofAfrica.

http://www.african-geopolitics.org/show.aspx?ArticleId=3097

http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/980629/1998062904.html

MURDER, TORTURE AND RAPE IN ACEH

According to a spokesman for an Aceh non-government forum, an estimated 39,000 or more people disappeared between 1989 and 1998. As early as 1992, international human rights organisations such as Asia Watch and Amnesty reported that mass killings were taking place.

Mass graves were unearthed in August 1998 in the Aceh region, on the northern tip of Sumatra, pointing to the murder of thousands of people by the Indonesian military.

Baharuddin Lopa of the Indonesian government's National Commission on Human Rights recorded hundreds of cases of disappearances, torture and rape in Aceh. Lopa died suddenly, some time after making his report.

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug1998/aceh-a28.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1078087.stm

MAN MADE EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMIS

Earthquakes can be produced by:

1. fluid injection into the Earth

2. fluid extraction from the Earth

3. mining or quarrying

4. nuclear testing

5. the construction of dams and reservoirs.

In the Denver area, Geologists found that injecting waste fluids deep into the earth could trigger earthquakes. A series of earthquakes in the Denver area, between 1962 and 1965, coincided with periods when waste was injected.

In the 11 July, 1935 issue of the New York American there was an article entitled 'Tesla's Controlled Earthquakes'. Nicola Tesla's "experiments in transmitting mechanical vibrations through the earth were roughly described by the scientists as a sort of controlled earthquake."

In 1966, Professor Gordon J. F. MacDonald, a member of the US President's Science Advisory Committee, published papers on the use of environmental-control technologies for military purposes. MacDonald stated: "The key to geophysical warfare is the identification of environmental instabilities to which the addition of a small amount of energy would release vastly greater amounts of energy. "

MacDonald wrote a chapter entitled "How To Wreck The Environment," for the book Unless Peace Comes. He describes the possibility of engineering earthquakes.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/project236.html

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"Exxon-Mobil has a 60-billion-standard-cubic-foot-per-day facility near Aceh. In the span of four years the company extracts more than one cubic mile of natural gas from the formations beneath what has turned out to be the epicenter of the Aceh earthquake. The gas field there has been producing for much longer than four years, and is one of the largest such facilities in the world.Scientists have known for some time that earthquakes in the order of 4.0 on the Richtor scale have been caused by oil drilling and other earth intrusive practices."

http://pesn.com/2005/01/25/6900062_Exxon_Tripped_Indonesian_Tsunami/

U.S. ELECTION FRAUD

Was the US election fixed?

The exit polls showed the Democrats safely ahead in Ohio, Florida and most other swing states.

Where there were paper ballots, the exit results were the same as the official results.

Where there were electronic voting machines, the exit polls were different from the official results by roughly 5%.

The electronic voting machines were interfered with, to give Bush an extra 5%?

Look at the graph at- http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud_1132004.html

Online Journal has details of the 'fraud'. http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/112504Madsen/112504madsen.html

Allegedly the Bush people spent $29 million to rig the election for Bush.

The leak about the money and the rigged election apparently came from technicians who felt they had been cheated over payments.

The money to rig the election reportedly came from Five Star Trust, largely based in Houston but tied to the Saudi Royal Family. "It has been used to support both Bush and Osama bin Laden in the US and around the world."

Other money used to fund the election rigging was allegedly from siphoned Enron money in accounts in the Cook Islands.

Why did Kerry not complain loudly? He is a member of Skull and Bones, the same secret society that has Bush as a member.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/02/60minutes/main576332.shtml

Why has the mainstream media remained silent? From the 1950s onwards the security services moved to take over the media.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html

The BBC and the Guardian may now be heavily influenced by the spooks.

Now, where does Lolita come into this?

Well, things are not always how they seem. Lolita was a boy. If you've read Nabokov's PALE FIRE, you'll know that Nabokov loved butterflies and bamboozling people and boys. In both Lolita and Pale Fire it takes the reader a while to realise what is going on.


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FRAUD-FREE US ELECTION RESULT

Final 4pm Polls

FLORIDA
Kerry 50.0% Bush 49.0%

OHIO
Kerry 52.1% Bush 47.9%

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x56674

Sex traffickers and military brothels

One of the most disturbing allegations is that criminal gangs are befriending children orphaned by the tsunami, and selling them to sex traffickers....

There are unconfirmed reports of up to 20 children being taken from Aceh to Malaysia, and possibly hundreds to Jakarta.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4145591.stm

Indonesia

The ILO reported its researchers finding more than 21,000 prostituted children – some as young as 15 – during a study of Jakarta and all Javanese provinces except Banten. Many brothel complexes are maintained and patronized by military and government officials.

Experts say the Indonesian military generates more than 70% of its budget from external operations, including involvement in protection and extortion rackets, illegal mining, illegal logging, prostitution, gambling, and trafficking in narcotics and endangered species.

http://www.laksamana.net/vnews.cfm?ncat=44&news_id=6918


625 women were raped and tortured between 1990-1997, sometimes by military personnel, in Aceh, Indonesia.

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/indones.htm

CRIME IN SCOTLAND - DRINK, DRUGS, KNIVES & NEGLECTED KIDS

Scotland's Deputy Chief Medical Officer said in 2000, "What is needed is a culture change in Scotland...we need to make violence fueled by alcohol misuse something which is socially unacceptable..."

"Scotland's First Minister Henry McLeish... identified tackling the violent side of Scotland's culture as a top priority," according to Scotland on Sunday 24/12/00.

Official figures released in December 2000 showed violent crime had risen by one third. (Scotland on Sunday 24/12/00)

Henry McLeish said,"There is a violence to the Scottish character that worries me. There's a yob culture- it's bad manners, it's ignorance, it's thuggery, it's violence..." (Scotland on Sunday 24/12/00)

Is a culture of knives, drugs, drunkeness and nasty videos the culture of parts of Britain today?

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Civilised enclaves still exist!

These are found mainly in the NORTH of Scotland (only 1 homicide in 1999)

and in FIFE (only 1 homicide in 1999).

DUNDEE only had 2 homicides.

Dumfries and Galloway 3.

Homicides in Strathclyde 1997 - 59
1999 - 82

Homicides in Lothian & Borders 1996 - 9
1999 - 17

Homicides in Glasgow 1996 - 24
1999 - 35

In Westminster, between 1997 and 1999, there were 29 murders.

Murders committed by 18-25 year-old men in Scotland rank next only to the USA in a survey of the developed world. (Sunday Times 26/3/00).

Cornell University professor James Garbarino commented that Scotland's young men react to perceived slights with unreasonable fury. (Sunday Times 26/3/00).

Joan McAlpine in an article "Saving our sons from taking up a life of crime" suggested that the number of Scottish lads turning to violence was increasing. She wrote, "bullying 8 year-olds grow into aggressive 18 year-olds. But this is not inevitable. We can intervene by being loving parents." The article suggests that too many Scots parents abuse alcohol and drugs.

The Inverclyde Forum About Drugs has issued a league table relating to heroin use. Top of the league come: Greenock, Port Glasgow, Gourock, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and West Dumbartonshire.

At the bottom of the league come places like Dundee.

Heroin addicts are often unemployed and yet spend £22,000 a year on buying heroin. The addicts tend to resort to theft to gain the money to feed their habit.

In Scotland, one in three schoolboys carries a knife. In some areas, almost every kid is armed.

In one Scottish tourist village, X went straight to the police when teenagers with knives demanded money. The police took one knife off a teenager, but took no further action. In the local park the kids continue to carry knives and baseball bats and continue to sell drugs. Needles are a major hazard.

The Dumfries Courier 8/12/00 reported in its editorial: "there is an ever present fear of violence and the 'yob culture' and it is not simply confined to the most deprived council estates in inner cities."

In Stirling a man caught a 10-year-old throwing stones at windows. The man hauled the kid into his girlfriend's house to tell him off. The man was fined £250 (Daily Record 7/12/00)

In Lanarkshire a family passed on information to the police about drug dealing in Bellshill. Their son, 12, was assaulted by older teens. Their daughter, 9, was threatened with rape. A DRUGS LYNCH MOB THEN DROVE THE FAMILY FROM THEIR HOME. (Daily Record 6/12/00)

Recently a Mr C was brutally stabbed to death. The two men responsible for the death walked free from court.The press accused the Crown Office of incompetence or worse.

The Glasgow Herald reported, "The trial of 3 men accused of assault was haulted because a signature was missing from the charge sheet..."

3 trials involving drugs charges collapsed because of search warrant blunders.

According to the Daily Record 7/12/00, "hour by hour, day and night, the emaciated drug addicts file into...239 Bellrock Street, Cranhill." It is there that JM (The record gives his name) sells heroin to children aged 12 and 13. On 7/12/00 alone, the Daily record named and shamed 30 drug deale rs. Each day, more names appeared.

In the year 2000 in Scotland, 340 people died from drugs (and over 1000 from alcohol).

Andrew was aged 13 when he died after taking 2 ecstasy pills. The teenage son of his mum's partner died after taking morphine.

And what is Scotland's second newest MP going to say about all this? John Robertson is the MP for Anniesland! On 6 december 2000, his daughter Laura was "being investigated by the drugs squad after dealing ecstasy" (Daily Record 7/12/00). It is alleged that Laura Robertson sells ecstasy at Bonkers nightclub in Glasgow.

In 1999, a record-breaking 14,183 children were referred to the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration for SERIOUS NEGLECT compared with 9245 in 1998 - a rise of more than 50%.

In 1997 the figure was 4671.

Drugs and alcohol and knives are increasingly involved in the murders of children. Is the culture in parts of Scotland one that would shock many visitors from the Third World?

CRIME IN BRITAIN

Youth crime in places like SINGAPORE, MALTA and BHUTAN used to be extremely rare.

The introduction of nasty films has changed all that.

Crime figures in Singapore, Malta and Bhutan, although still lower than in Britain, tended to rise at the same time as horrid media material was introduced.

"Four years ago, Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan's first crime wave - murder, fraud, drug offences."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,975769,00.html

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In FAMILIES WITHOUT FATHERHOOD, Norman Dennis & George Erdos argue that the decline of the family has led to an increase in crime.

*************************************************************************************

In THE FAILURE OF BRITAIN'S POLICE, Dennis and Erdos report that in December 2002 there were 282 robberies of personal property in Lambeth. This figure, for one borough for one month, exceeded all robberies, personal and business, for the whole of England and Wales in any year between the two world wars, with the exception of 1932 (342) and 1938 (287). In 1971 there were 17 reported crimes for every police officer. There are now 44.

In 1921 there were 57,000 police officers dealing with 103,000 crimes - two to each officer - but in 2002/2003 134,000 police officers had to deal with 5,899,000 crimes.

1921 - 103,000 crimes recorded
1955 - 500,000 crimes recorded
2003 - 5,899,000 crimes recorded

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In family homes, in schools, and on the street, young British yobs are being allowed to get away with it?

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My solution to the problem of crime would start with the reform of the media.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

What is the evidence for life after death?

Dr Ian Stevenson is the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and now is Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia.

For 40 years he has been studying the past life memories of children from all over the world.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation01.html

Http://www.near-death.com/index.html

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

GOD

Does GOD exist?

Anthony Flew, a philosophy professor who has been an atheist for more than 50 years, has decided that God may exist after all. He believes scientific evidence supports the theory that some sort of intelligence created the universe.

Flew argues that the investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1371635,00.html

But, how can a God, who is all powerful, all knowing and all good, allow a tsunami to wipe out thousands of people?

The answer seems to be that if there is a God, that God is not necessarily the sort of God described by most churches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, if God exists, what is God like?

According to Dr Robert Beckford, a committed pentecostal Christian and a reader in theology at Birmingham University, the Bible may not have all the answers.

In a British Channel 4 documentary on 25 December 2004 Beckford said: 'The so-called law of Moses turns out to be the work of many human hands. What I once thought was the word of God was now beginning to sound like something out of Stalin's Russia.'

Beckford produced archaeological evidence to suggest that the kingdoms of David and Solomon did NOT dominate the 10th century BC, as the Bible claims.

He declared the New Testament a 'masterwork of spin written by people who were nowhere near the events they describe, all gathered by powerful editors who kept out ideas they did not like'.

Does anyone have the answers?

To Carl Jung, God may be an evolving being.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) said in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
"If the Creator were conscious of Himself, He would not need conscious creatures; nor is it probable that the extremely indirect methods of creation, which squander millions of years upon the development of countless species and creatures, are the outcome of purposeful intention. Natural history tells us of a haphazard and casual transformation of species over hundreds of millions of years of devouring and being devoured. The biological and political history of man is an elaborate repetition of the same thing. But the history of the mind offers a different picture. Here the miracle of reflecting consciousness intervenes."

French theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) also sees God as an evolving thing. De Chardin argues that all things are evolving and the unity of the universe is grounded not in matter or energy but spirit.

The Buddhists keep a noble silence on the subject of God.

Taoists say that the Tao which can be described in words is not the real Tao.

Even Jesus spoke about God mainly in parables.

THOMAS MANN - DEATH IN VENICE - PAEDOPHILES

Thomas Mann set out to write a short novel about "passion as confusion and degradation".

The result was Death in Venice, a book which raises age old questions about the difference between love and lust, about forbidden love and about what is normal. It is not a book for narrow minded philistines, or is it?

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS NORMAL?

Let us consider a variety of attitudes towards sex.

In 16th Century England, 13 year-old Elisabeth Ramsbotham complained that her 11 year-old husband, John Bridge, had not yet deflowered her.

In my humble opinion, eleven may be a bit too young to understand fully the deeper elements of love and marriage.

Among bonobo apes, which are reputed to be jolly and sociable creatures, sex takes place between males and males, between females and females, between males and females, and between adults and children.

Bonobos, according to recent research, may be closer to us than chimps; bonobos share 98% of our genetic profile.

Among female couples, genito-genital rubbing takes place. Male bonobos stand back to back, one male rubbing his scrotum against the buttocks of another.

Sexual activity among bonobos is casual and relaxed and seems to be the bonobos' way of avoiding conflict. Whereas chimps sometimes kill each other; bonobos kiss and make up after they've had a tiff.

Some final points on bonobos: they engage in sex only occasionaly, and copulation on average lasts only 13 seconds.

What do I think? I'm worried about the fact that bonobos appear not to use condoms; but perhaps there would be fewer wars if humans adopted some of the bonobo ideas (Imagine Ariel Sharon and Yassar Arafat..... kissing and making up.)

Another point is that bonobos may be close to us genetically, but they don't have to worry about all the nastier side of human life from religious fanaticism to child prostitution.

For the Buddhists, all visual attraction is the reaction of the lower self.

Fleshly charm does not last and is in a sense unreal.

In other words, you don't need a girl/boyfriend; and the girl/boyfriend's sexiness is a bit of an illusion.

However, according to the Buddhists, avoiding sex, while continuing to think foul thoughts, is not good. Better to obtain physical outlet, while thinking wholesome thoughts.

You want my opinion? It could take several lifetimes to achieve Nirvana; and not all Buddhist Thais have yet managed to conquer fleshy desires.

On the other hand, I have a strong suspicion Buddha got it right about sexual attraction.

In The Symposium the argument from Plato/Socrates is that beauty of the soul is more important than beauty of the body.

What we should be seeking is beauty that is eternal and absolute. If we can manage to recognise divine beauty, then we will act morally, and become immortal.

My immediate thought is that Socrates may well be correct. We should love the beauty of the soul and we should love all the world's souls, not just one particular one that turns us on temporarily.

But, did not Socrates also say: "as wolves for lambs, so lovers lust for boys," and did he not suggest that beauty of the body is easier to understand than beauty of the soul?

Ideas about sex certainly vary according to time and place.

In 1911, a world-famous 36 year-old author, on holiday in Venice with his wife, fell in love with an aristocratic 10 year-old Polish boy called Wladyslaw Moes. Why did this author's work sell so many millions of copies world-wide?

"Men," wrote this 36 year-old author, "do not know why they award fame to one work rather than another. Without being in the faintest connoiseurs, they think to justify the warmth of their commendations by discovering in it a hundred virtues, whereas the real ground of their applause is inexplicable - it is sympathy." In other words, the author's readers sympathised either with the author's philosophy, or, with his sexual tastes!

In countries from Thailand to Belgium there have been well reported cases of wicked child abuse, and this set me wondering if there could be such a person as a 'good' paedophile. (Child abuse I take to mean things like the rape and torture of children. A paedophile I define as someone who finds that some under sixteen year-olds are sexually attractive.)

A 'good' paedophile would be one who understands the difference between 'love' and 'lust' and who follows the path of love rather than lust. The path of love is one which may involve self-sacrifice; it is the path followed by someone like Mother Theresa.

I thought it was time to write a review about a famous and respected person who was 'very fond' of children. Hans Christian Andersen? Enid Blyton? Mark Twain? Leo Tolstoy? Andre Gide? J M Barrie? Alexander the Great? Benjamin Britten? L S Lowrey? Laurie Lee? Dante? Edgar Allan Poe? Baden Powell? John Ruskin? T H White? Wilfred Owen? General Montgomery?

The most 'respectable' figure I could think of was the German author Thomas Mann, born 1875, author of The Magic Mountain and DEATH IN VENICE. (In any case, I struggled to understand Mann at school, so thought maybe it was time to have another go.)


SOME HISTORY.

Thomas Mann was married, produced many children, and was considered to be ultra-respectable. His novels were best sellers, won him a Nobel Prize, and made him extremely rich and famous. When Mann came to live in America in the 1930's, Time and Life magazines welcomed Mann as "the greatest living author." Mann was the 'good' German who had begun attacking the Nazis as early as 1921 and who was among the first to draw attention to the systematic extermination of the Jews. President Roosevelt considered naming Mann the head of postwar Germany. (The best biography of Mann is "Thomas Mann: Ero s and Literature", by Anthony Heilbut, published by Macmillan. Very witty and entertaining.)

When he was 14, Mann fell in love with a classmate, Armin Martens. In his popular 1903 masterpiece, 'Tonio Kroger', Mann describes one schoolboy's love for another- shy awkward Tonio's platonic love for handsome Hans Hansen. Tonio eventually realises that love causes "sadness and humiliation" and that he must transform his energies into literature. Mann saw himself as Tonio.

Mann was aware that German culture was full of forms of love of a Greco-Roman type. Schiller loved young Goethe; Goethe wrote to von Herder: "Be my Socrates. Let me be your Alcibiades." Schubert, Frederick the Great and even Bismarck were considered by many to be less than thoroughly heterosexual. Nietzsche was fond of Wagner; Wagner spread the word that Nietzsche's problems were due in part to pederasty.

In an 1896 letter, a rather tense and neurotic Mann, aged 20, described a trip to Naples: "Here and there, among a thousand peddlers, are sly hissing dealers who urge you to come along with them to allegedly 'very beautiful' girls, and not only girls....They don't know that you have almost resolved to eat nothing but rice just to escape from sexuality."

It seems that at this point in time Mann was probably resisting Dionysian desires and instead using his urges to inspire great literature. Mann considered that the sexual urge was "the essence of the creative artist." Life could also be easier if one avoided sex? The heroes of Mann's novels were often men who felt an "impotent, sensual hatred" for the beautiful boys or girls who destroyed their peace of mind.

'Buddenbrooks', Mann's first magnum opus, was published when Mann was in his early twenties, and it sold millions throughout the world. This wildly popular 'soap opera' about a middle class Ge rman family, was based partly on Mann's own relatives. One of the Buddenbrooks, a male called Hanno, loves a male called Count Kai; but this homosexual love is somewhat disguised, partly by Mann's 'distinguished' language. In Buddenbrooks there is a brief interest in 'religion' of a Buddhist sort. Thomas Buddenbrooks picks up a volume by Schopenhauer about the 'indestructibility of our essence.' Thomas Buddenbrooks sees death as 'a great joy...a return from an unspeakably painful wandering.' Sometimes Mann found life unspeakably painful.

In 1899 Mann met Paul Ehrenberg, aged 23, fell in love with him, and became seriously depressed. Many years later, while reading Gore Vidal's 'The City and the Pillar', Mann wondered how one could sleep with a man; so Mann's relationship with Ehrenberg was presumably platonic. However, Mann found Vidal's description of teenage sex "glorious."

Mann was full of longing and envy. Mann sometimes wondered if he should try to be as free as a gypsy and enjoy simple warm heartfelt feelings. The problem was that to Mann, "warm heartfelt feeling is often banal and useless; only the irritations and frigid ecstasies of a corrupted nervous system can produce art."

In 1903 Mann met 20 year-old Katia Pringsheim, an intelligent girl of boyish appearance, who happened to have a handsome twin brother called Klaus. Mann referred to Katia as "the twin sister of an almost equally pretty fellow." In 1905 Mann, aged 29, married Katia.

Within a month of his marriage Mann wrote a story about a married Schiller's "love for Goethe". Mann also began plotting a story, never completed, which would include Schopenhauer's (slightly Buddhist) idea that life, with all its sensual desires, is an illusion.

In 1906 Armin Martens, whom Mann had loved at the age of 14, died penniless in Africa, aged 29. Mann, suffering from depression, entered a sanatorium to recover. 1908 saw the trial in Germany of a journalist who had exposed a homosexual clique at the court of the Kaiser. This so-called Eulenburg case ruined many wealthy and powerful Germans. Mann applauded the "outing".

Thomas Mann's wife Katia recalls an actual holiday in Venice and relates that "In the dining-room, on the very first day, we saw the Polish family, which looked exactly the way my husband described them... the very charming, beautiful boy of about 13 was wearing a sailor suit ... He caught my husband's attention immediately. This boy was tremendously attractive, and my husband was always watching him with his companions on the beach."

DEATH IN VENICE: ASCHENBACH AND TADZIO.

In 1910, Mann attended the premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, and in seeing the face of Mahler, saw the face that would inspire Aschenbach, the central character in Death in Venice.

But Death in Venice, one of the great classics of world literature, is about Thomas Mann and Mann's love for a 10 year-old boy. In real life, 36 year-old Mann, on holiday in Venice with his wife, fell in love with an aristocratic 10 year-old Polish boy called Wladyslaw Moes, nicknamed Adzio. In the novella, von Aschenbach, a respectable writer in his fifties, falls for an aristocratic 14 year-old Polish boy called Tadzio.

Mann wrote: "Nothing is invented in Death in Venice...Tadzio...the cholera...the ballad singer...they were all there."

Wladyslaw/Adzio grew up ignorant of the fact that he had inspired Death in Venice. It was not until 1924 that one of Adzio's cousins read the novella and showed it to Adzio. Adzio was amused but "not terribly interested."

In Death in Venice, Mann describes Aschenbach watching a fight between Tadzio (Adzio) and his older friend Jaschiu (in real life, 10 year-old Jasio). After the film of Death in Venice was released, Jasio wrote to Adzio: "I don't remember being as cruel to you as Mann describes in the book." Adzio replied in a letter to Jasio: "I still remember the athletic wrestling which you always won; but the title of winner could only be gained after one's opponent was forced on his back. So no wonder I fought till I was flat out, which obviously struck Thomas Mann as cruelty on your part."

According to Gilbert Adair's excellent book "The Real Tadzio", published by the Short Book Company, Adzio was exactly 'the pretty, pampered darling' described in Mann's novella. Adzio was singled out for special treatment by his mother and sisters. Adzio had a punctured lung and was therefore slightly frail. Aschenbach noted that Tadzio's teeth were "imperfect, rather jagged and bluish, and without a healthy glaze."

Aschenbach thought, with a hint of rather disturbing gleefulness, that the boy "will most likely not live to grow old."

I can't imagine a bonobo thinking such an unwholesome thought.

According to Gilbert Adair, Mann was not the first writer to be attracted to Adzio.

"At a wedding of one of his aunts- for which, as garcon d'honneur, he was turned out in lace of a fetchingly creamy blanc d'ivoire- the six year-old Adzio caught the eye of Henryk Sienkiewicz, the ...Nobel Prize winning author of....Quo Vadis. Leaving the church in his landau, the doting Sienkiewicz insisted that the infant come perch upon his knees, only hurriedly to offload him when he discovered that his Tiepolesque seraph had peed down the leg of his morning suit."

Adzio seems to have been a bit of a flirt. While in Venice, he would chat up fruit sellers and charm them into giving him free fruit. Local fishermen would take him out on their boats and "he would court ... all the petting and fondling that he came in for."

One evening in the Hotel des Bains he held back until the other guests had taken their seats, and then "with his clustered blond ringlets and watery-blue eyes, he all but goose-stepped down the grand central staircase into the dining room...." 'Did everyone see me? Was everyone watching,' he asked his nurse.

Mann was watching. Adzio remembered one particular man staring at him wherever he went, "hovering always just out of sight as the Moeses ambled through the ci ty's Piranesian labyrinth of tourist-worn streets and dark sunless alleys and stairways..."

Adzio also remembered an especially strong stare from Mann when he and the great author shared the hotel lift.

"It's just another gentleman who likes me," Adzio would say to his nurse. According to Adair, "No one in those innocent, halcyon Edwardian days appears to have thought it worth advising him to steer clear of 'old men'."

And what did Mann's wife think? In her memoirs, Katia, a tolerant woman, remembers well that her husband was 'intrigued by the ten year-old boy.'

And what do I think? It would appear that Mann behaved mildly improperly, but that he did not descend into 'the abyss', and he did not apparently do Adzio any harm. He remained 'respectable'. Was he a 'good' paedophile? He was not wicked, but there was always a risk that his actions could have hurt both Katia and Adzio.

While writing Death in Venice, Mann read the Symposium, the Phaedrus and Plutarch's Erotikos, which concerned the love of boys by Greek men.



DEATH IN VENICE.

In the novella, Aschenbach/Mann is the cerebral, sexually repressed, politically conservative, writer who has achieved fame but whose writing lacks deep insight into the world of love and lust. In Venice he lets sensual beauty into his life and goes astray. He becomes a slave to desire, feels tortured by guilt, and cannot relax and enjoy his passions. And his "dignity is rescued only by ... Death." Mann is warning us to avoid extremes.

We learn at the start of the story that the ultra-respectable Aschenbach, has received a knighthood. In his home town of Munich he exchanges glances with a red haired stranger who symbolises corruption. Aschenbach has a vision of a tropical swamp with phalic looking palm trees "fat, swollen, thick with incredible bloom". Aschenbach, tired out by his work, is tempted to take a holiday in Italy.

"When one wanted to arrive overnight at the incomparable, the fabulous, the like-nothing-else-in-the-world, where was it one went?" On the boat to Venice, Aschenbach sees a crowd of young men. In the middle of the group is an old man, with his face made up in a failed and foolish attempt to make himself look as young as his companions. As Aschenbach is about to disembark, this old drunken man winks at Aschenbach and says to him, "Give her our love, will you, the p-pretty little dear." And later the writer will also try to make himself look younger for his pretty little dear.

Having arrived in the Hotel des Bains on the Venice Lido, Aschenbach surveys his fellow guests and his eyes fix on Tadzio. The boy is "long-haired...pale, with a sweet reserve, with clustering , honey-coloured ringlets... winning mouth, expression of pure and godlike serenity....of such unique personal charm...happy...a spoilt, exquisite air...He walked with extraordinary grace...at once dainty and proud...The head was poised like a flower...It was the head of Eros, with the yellowish bloom of Parian marble... " Mann is the master of this sort of description of the physically beautiful.

Aschenbach assumes "the patronizing air of the connoisseur to hide ... his ravishment over a masterpiece." One suspects that Mann/Aschenbach sees Tadzio not simply as representing 'beauty' but as something erotic. Mann gets away with his description of the 'sexy' boy by using fine language and by filling the novella with classical references. "In almost every artist nature is inborn a wanton and treacherous proneness to side with the beauty that breaks hearts...," writes Mann.

Aschenbach spends some time on the beach where "awnings of rust-coloured canvas spanned before the bathing-huts, under the ether's quivering silver-blue." At one point Aschenbach spies Tadzio glancing at a family from Russia, a country not loved by Poles. Tadzio "distorted his features in a spasm of angry disgust." Aschenbach is delighted at this "childish exhibition of fanaticism" which gives the god a human touch.

Later, Aschenbach watches Tadzio walking arm in arm with his young friend Jaschiu and at one point sees Jaschiu give Tadzio a kiss. Aschenbach crosses the "foul smelling lagoon" in order to explore the city but he finds the streets have a "hateful sultriness." The sirocco is making him feel old and feverish. He decides to leave Venice. Next morning at breakfast in the Hotel des Bains, Tadzio passes Aschenbach's table. Tadzio "modestly cast down his eyes...only to lift them again in that sweet way he had and direct his full soft gaze upon Aschenbach's face."


Aschenbach leaves the hotel and arrives at the railway station, but there is a problem; his luggage has been sent to the wrong destination. This gives Aschenbach the excuse he needs - to return to the Lido and to Tadzio. Aschenbach seems motivated more by lust than love.

Tadzio has "a sweetly idle, trifling life, of play and rest, of strolling, wading, digging, fishing, swimming, lying on the sand....The lad's foreign birth raised his speech to music; a wanton sun showered splendour on him, and the noble distances of the sea formed the background which set off his figure." Aschenbach notes "the fine down along the upper vertebrae...the delicate outlines of the ribs and the symmetry of the breast structure. His armpits were still as smooth as a statue's, smooth the glistening hollows behind the knees." Aschenbach begins to think of Plato, perhaps in order to persuade himself (or the reader) that this is about divine beauty and not sex. "The god, in order to make visible the spirit, avails himself of the forms and colours of human you th," muses Aschenbach.

One day Aschenbach sights Tadzio in front of him on his way to the beach. "Aschenbach felt quite simply a wish to overtake him, to address him and have the pleasure of his reply and answering look....The lovely youth moved at a loitering pace...and Aschenbach hastened his own step....Aschenbach all but put out his hand to lay it on shoulder or head, while his lips parted to utter a friendly salutation...he found his heart throbbing unpleasantly fast...he was suddenly panic-stricken....and abandoned his plan."

Aschenbach's life revolves around watching Tadzio. "It was a world possessed, peopled by Pan, that closed round the spellbound man and his doting heart conceived the most delicate fancies. When the sun was going down behind Venice, he would sometimes sit on a bench in the park and watch Tadzio, white clad, with gay-coloured sash, at play there on the rolled gravel with his ball; and at such times it was not Tadzio he saw, but Hyacinthus, doomed to die because two gods were rivals for his love....he watched the discus, guided by torturing jealousy, strike the beloved head; paled as he received the broken body in his arms..." Mann certainly understood the darker side of human life.

Tadzio and Aschenbach become fully aware of each other. Tadzio deliberately passes in front of Aschenbach's beach tent, "sometimes so unnecessarily close as to graze his table or chair.....Daily Aschenbach would wait for Tadzio. Then sometimes, on his approach, he would pretend to be preoccupied and let the charmer pass unregarded by. But sometimes he looked up, and their glances met; when that happened both were profoundly serious."

They flirt in silence. When by accident they nearly crash into each other, each one involuntarily smiles.

Aschenbach follows Tadzio to a church, where the boy is watching out for him. He pursues the boy in a gondola, not noticing the smirks of the gondolier.

At a musical event in the hotel gardens in the evening, Aschenbach finds Tadzio seeking him out and is struck by a feeling of both triumph and horror. The lead musician is a vulgar redhead, symbolising more corruption.

Next day Aschenbach is warned about the the dangers of cholera approaching Venice.

Aschenbach has a dream or sensual nightmare in which smooth skinned boys and shrieking women fondling snakes bow down to 'the stranger god.' There is an orgy of promiscuous embraces.

Should Aschenbach warn Tadzio's family about the cholera? Is Aschenbach motivated more by lust than love?

CONCLUSION

If you liked the Visconti film, you'll like the book. Mann is subtle, sensitive, intelligent, lyrical, ironical and profound. He understands the complexity of love: its pains , its joys, its deceptions, its beauty and its darker side. He is a literary genius.

Some critics might find the book lacks humour; some might find it too restrained. For example, Tadzio never breaks wind or picks his nose. But remember that in most of the serious literature of the early 1900's, people simply did not break wind or nose pick. And to write in 1911 about a man's love for a young boy was pretty damn daring. (Perhaps if Tadzio had broken wind, the spell would have been broken for Aschenbach, and he would have realised that Tadzio was just an ordinary boy?)

The novella Death in Venice was wildly popular with the public. During Mann's lifetime, it was published in twenty countries and in thirty seven editions. One suspects that its popularity was not based entirely on its classical references. Tadzio, like the cute boys in toothpaste commercials, turned many people on.

But was it, in Mann's words, a 'drunken song' or an 'ethical fable.' A few years after writing Death in venice, Mann confesses that the 'indecency' of some of Verlain 'e poems has shaken him and reminded him of the dangers of the abyss. Mann writes that all his life he has contemplated the nature of morality. (And history has taught him, he writes, that 'great moralists have mostly been great sinners also.' He refers to Dostoyevsky being a paedophile.) However, Mann hoped Death in Venice would not be seen simply as a morality tale. He rather liked the idea of its sexiness. Benjamin Britten's opera Death in Venice was certainly more about the beauty of young boys than it was about philosophy.



Anthony Heilbut writes, "Death in Venice can be read as a muffled plea for emancipation. At the very least, a drunken song offers an alternative to the extremes of chaste sublimation and insane orgy." I couldn't put it any better than that. Mann wanted a balance between sensuality and morality.

Mann, apparently, remained chaste, so far as small boys were concerned. He was unhappily stuck between two worlds: the world of the respectable bourgeois writer and the world of the decadent bohemian artist. Mann turned his lust into literature. But Mann would have liked, ideally, to have lived in a world like that of the sociable bonobo apes, where everything is natural and relaxed.

In Tonio Kroger, Mann quotes Tonio (Mann) as saying, "My deepest and secretest love belongs to the blond and blue-eyed, the fair and the living, the happy, lovely, and commonplace." Mann might have been happy being born with a mediocre brain, in some relaxed southern European town, where he would be one of the fair haired lads, like Armin Martens / Hans Hansen, and he would not have to worry about morality or about producing great art.

Mann remained the 'respected' and relatively 'good'writer/paedophile partly because he was a realist. He was aware that he was not an attractive figure, that homosexuality and pederasty were illegal in Germany, that venereal disea ses could kill, that respectability was usually important to him, that people could often behave like murderous chimps, that sexual love can bring unhappiness....He never made any great effort to try the Buddhist path, which might have rid him of his melancholy? Mann/Aschenbach came to understood all about 'lust', but did he understand 'love'?

Mann's brother, Heinrich, describes him as being incapable of imagining another person's existence. Mann's private diaries from 1918-21 reveal a man obsessed by his own feelings. He writes about his own insomnia, constipation and toothaches; he writes about his infatuations with beautiful youths he has glimpsed; and in 1918 he briefly writes about his incestuous feelings for his twelve year-old son Klaus.

Mann's eldest son Klaus chose a different path to that chosen by his father. Anthony Heilbut writes, "Klaus's youth coincided with the world's discovery of Youth...Bliss it may have been then to be alive, to prowl the world's capitals in pursuit of drugs and pretty boys, to party with Garbo and commune with Gide. He knew the addresses of each of the city's best-populated baths and enjoyed identifying the male prostitutes of Berlin as sons of Russian princes and Prussian generals." Klaus bravely opposed the Nazis and joined the US army to help fight Germany. He wrote "Mephisto"; he turned to drugs. In some senses Klaus opted partly for 'insane orgy' and, for whatever reasons, ended up committing suicide. (The Mann family were prone to melancholy).

Thomas Mann's eightieth year brought him Germany's highest honour, and honours and greetings from around the world, and also his decease.

"It seemed to him (Aschenbach) the pale and lovely Summoner (Tadzio) out there smiled at him and beckoned; as though with the hand he lifted from his hip, he pointed outward as he hovered on before into an immensity of richest expectation."

~~

TSUNAMI CASH AND CORRUPTION

Indonesian parliamentarians are worried that the money donated to the quake victims may fall into corrupt hands.

http://laksamana.net/vnews.cfm?news_id=7769


In Aceh, the activities of the military and rampant corruption have driven more than 40% of the population into extreme poverty.

Indonesia is among the most corrupt countries in the world according to Berlin-based Transparency International but the situation in Aceh is particularly bad.

During the year-long military operation begun in May 2003, the central government allocated $447.7 million – roughly three times larger than the provincial government’s budget – to military operations intended to crush the separatists. Of the total, $291 million was reported missing by a government-appointed auditor team

TERROR IN INDONESIA : THE CIA CONNECTION

"It’s the ninjas," I explained.

"Ninjas?"

"Mysterious deaths in East Java. Have you seen the Jakarta Post stories about the murders of over a hundred people? Murders by black-clad figures dressed as Ninjas. Villagers have set up vigilante patrols to protect themselves."

"I remember reading about that. Someone was killing village witch doctors. It’s what happens when there’s political turbulence. You get this kind of paranoia. Some villager imagines seeing Ninjas. Vigilante patrols are set up and they end up killing innocent people."

"It isn’t just dukuns getting killed. It’s Moslem preachers and mentally backward youths. Mental patients have been dumped in villages. Along come the village vigilantes. They think the mentally backward youths are Ninjas. The youths get their heads chopped off. The heads are paraded on poles. It’s a psychological warfare operation."

"Run by Ninjas?"

"The Kopassus regiment, the army’s special forces, have used Ninjas in East Timor. They dress their people up in black costumes. They try to terrify people in order to control them. Some of the Ninjas are said to have arrived in villages in trucks. Bodies have been chopped up and bits of bodies have been chucked into mosques. Sounds like a black-op."

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Peter Dale Scott has written about the Ninjas at -

http://www.fair.org/extra/9901/java.html

"The U.S.-trained Kopassus Special Forces were the preferred assets of the CIA and Pentagon."

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During the Reagan administration, Dr. Paul Wolfowitz served for three years as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia

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In Indonesia, in 1998, students who were opposed to the military were 'disappeared'.

According to journalist Allan Nairn, "General Prabowo's units that participated in the disappearances - particularly KOPASSUS Group 4, which U.S. officials singled out for blame in the Post - were, from the start of the abductions, in close and friendly liaison with U.S. intelligence. Reached at his Jakarta home the night after Prabowowas replaced, Colonel Chaiwaran, the Group 4 commander, confirmed to me that he deals with Col. Charles McFetridge, the DefenseIntelligence Agency (D.I.A.) attache at the U.S. Embassy, with whom, he said, he speaks in Indonesian... ABRI people say he has said that Group 4's men have been trained by U.S.intelligence, a claim that U.S. officials privately confirm."

http://www.ainfos.ca/98/may/ainfos00344.html