Cogs

The dream of being independent masters of our lives ended when we began awakening to the fact that we have all become cogs in the bureaucratic machine, with our thoughts, feelings, and tastes manipulated by government and industry and the mass communications that they control.

(Erich Fromm, To Have Or to Be?)

Messiahs and Virgins

With less than two months to go before Easter, let me post about a curious phenomenon known as the Jerusalem Syndrome. It is a clinical psychiatric disorder in which visitors to the Holy City see themselves as the recipients of divine instructions.

The number of tourists suffering from the syndrome always spikes around Christmas and Easter.

The clinical symptoms usually begin with a vague and extremely intense excitement. The patients often adopt "biblical" or otherwise eccentric clothing, sometimes merging their identity with that of a character from the Bible or having a strong feeling of mission. They typically adopt a lifestyle of religious observance and attach unusual significance to religious relics.

According to Reuters, psychiatrists disagree whether it can affect otherwise healthy people or causes only those predisposed to psychoses to believe they have seen the Messiah.

The syndrome was first diagnosed in the 1930s by Dr Heinz Herman, one of the founders of modern psychiatric research in Israel, and describes a large variety of extreme and excited behaviors and anxiety states exhibited by some visitors to Jerusalem.

Subsequent research was made by Dr Yair Bar El, former director of the Kfar Shaul Psychiatric Hospital in Jerusalem, involving 470 tourists who had been declared temporarily insane.

In an interview with the BBC, Dr Bar El revealed he had treated several Jesus Christs, a Virgin Mary or two, and Samson.

One of the most long-standing case studies is Californian Ernest Moch. He is known as Elijah and is convinced that he is a reincarnation of the original Prophet Elijah from the Bible.

During a walking tour of Jerusalem's Old City in 2003, tour operator Avi Green said a 19-year-old American participant saw the stones of the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites, open up and reveal the Messiah.

"He had a vision that the stones of the wall opened and the Messiah appeared and spoke to him," Green said. "He became delusional and violent."

Between 30 and 40 tourists each year are admitted to hospital for similar behavior, Dr Gregory Katz, head of the emergency unit at Givat Shaul Mental Health Centre, said to Reuters.

Most of the hospitalized visitors were Jews, but many others were Christians. Most patients are middle-aged with strong religious foundations.

Katz described the syndrome's progression in an article published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2000.

1. The afflicted tourist becomes agitated, nervous and tense.


2. The person declares a desire to split away from his or her group and tour Jerusalem alone. Katz warned tour guides to be aware of this symptom because after stage two, the progression is usually irreversible.


3. The individual has the need to be clean and pure and will obsess about bathing and cutting fingernails and toenails.


4. The person prepares a long, white, ankle-length, toga-like gown, often using a hotel sheet.


5. The person feels the need to shout or sing psalms, verses from the Bible or religious hymns.


6. The person marches to one of Jerusalem's holiest places, often along the Via Dolorosa or near the Western Wall.


7. The psychotic traveler delivers a sermon at the holy place.

Katz described a 35-year-old woman from a Christian tour group who, after three or four days without sleep, believed she was the Virgin Mary. The woman walked out of her hotel room dressed in a white sheet and began preaching about not committing sins.

The episode lasts a few days, after which the person usually does not remember what happened.

Wired Journalists

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We are here to help each other learn basic skills and learn how new technology and new societal expectations for media are changing journalism.

At WiredJournalists.com we are all teachers and we are all students. We help each other and learn together. Those who know more should help those who know less. Those with questions should never be afraid to ask them.

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We believe modern journalism is about self-reliance and a "just do it" attitude. We want to see you learn how to get things done quickly without prejudice over quality or worries about what other journalists might think.

The skills you learn at WiredJournalists.com should help you either serve your community better -- whether your publishers and editors recognize the value or not -- or enable you to work independently as a self-contained, fully equipped modern journalist.

The Galileo Thing

While the northern Italian city of Padua (where Galileo Galilei taught at the University from 1592 to 1610 and made the first astronomical observations of the four moons named for him) has established a literary prize in his honour, The Catholic Herald, Britain's leading Catholic newspaper, published an article yesterday about "the myth of Galileo."

William E Carroll, Thomas Aquinas Fellow in Theology and Science, Blackfriars, Oxford, wrote:

The humbled Galileo, kneeling before the cardinals of the Inquisition, being forced to admit that the Earth did not move – one could not ask for a clearer image of blind faith, biblical literalism and superstition. It occupies a prominent place in mythology of the history of religion and science. Indeed, the modern world is determined to resist any challenge to the view that Galileo was persecuted by the Church as part of an attempt to thwart the rise of science.

But

Galileo did not prove that the Earth moves about the sun.

And

There is no evidence that when Galileo acceded to the demand that he renounce the view that the Earth moves that he muttered under his breath, eppur si muove, "but still it moves." What continues to move, despite evidence to the contrary, is the legend that Galileo represents reason and science in conflict with faith and religion.

Related post:

• Viva Galileo! Viva Benedict XVI!

Blessed Journalists

The Pope of hope has a few words for us journalists too.

Don't Worry, It's Me

NASA's spacecraft Spirit seems to have discovered my lonely, philosophical, meditative walking on Mars.

Ouch!

Circulation Down...

...for Italy's two biggest dailies. Ask you why.

Corriere della Sera, 664,174, down 2.15 percent
La Repubblica, 662,781, down 1.1 percent

(Average weekday circulation for the twelve-month period ended October 31, 2007 as reported yesterday by Italian Circulation Audit Bureau ADS, Accertamenti Diffusione Stampa.)

Blue Monday

Today is officially the gloomiest day of the year, as Christmas debts, bad weather and broken New Year's resolutions weigh heavily on us.

Psychologists used a mathematical formula to pinpoint Blue Monday.

Here is the formula: 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Where T equals time since Christmas, D equals debt, W is weather, d is money due in January pay, Q time since failed quit attempt, M general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action.

Oh, oh... now I understand!

[Telegraph, Daily Mail]

Holy Jerusalem

Jerusalem, the Holy City, is more than just a city of pilgrimage, a focus point of the three great religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), one of the oldest cities on the planet, one of the world's most contested pieces of real estate, a city that had between conquered, reconquered and conquered again over 6000 years.

For college-age travelers, there's a fun, hip side to the place.

[Miami Herald, APEM]

Viva Galileo! Viva Benedict XVI!

Yesterday's WSJ - simply perfect:

Papal Inquisition

American universities aren't the only places where politically incorrect speakers are silenced nowadays. This week in Rome, of all places, Pope Benedict XVI found himself censored by scholars, of all people, at one of Europe's most prestigious universities.

On Tuesday the pontiff canceled a speech scheduled for today at Sapienza University of Rome in the wake of a threat by students and 67 faculty members to disrupt his appearance. The scholars argued that it was inappropriate for a religious figure to speak at their university.

This pope's specific sin was a speech he gave nearly 20 years ago in which, they claimed, he indicated support for the 17th-century heresy trial against Galileo. The censoring scholars apparently failed to appreciate the irony that, in preventing the pope from speaking, they were doing to him what the Church once did to Galileo, stifling free speech and intellectual inquiry.

One of Benedict's favorite themes is that European civilization derives from the rapprochement between Greek philosophy and religious belief, between Athens and Jerusalem. In the speech he wasn't allowed to give, the pope planned to talk about the role of popes and universities.

It is a pope's task, he wrote, to "maintain high the sensibility for the truth, to always invite reason to put itself anew at the service of the search for the true, the good, for God." La Sapienza -- which means "wisdom" -- was founded by one of the pope's predecessors in 1303. Another unappreciated irony.

Soho, Obviously

Four years passed and little changed:

Soho clip joints to be forced out of business by police

Clean-up campaign promises to rid West End of rip-off 'sex' clubs

Tony Thompson, crime correspondent
Sunday February 29, 2004
The Observer

They are as much of a draw to London's West End as the theatres, restaurants and historic pubs. Now Soho's 'clip joints', the illegal sex dens that lure men with the promise of 'adult entertainment' before extorting hundreds of pounds with the threat of violence, are set to be closed for good by a new police initiative.
Existing police powers are to be combined with those of the fire brigade, council inspectors, immigration officers and an investigative unit of the Inland Revenue known as the Joint Shadow Economy Team to help close the clubs. Inspector Tim Ruprecht of the Soho sector team told The Observer: 'The plan is to frustrate their operations by finding every possible flaw in their business practices which allows us to shut them down. We will harass them at every stage so that they are forced to close down once and for all.'

Earlier this month the Illusions clip joint in Great Windmill Street was closed after the fire brigade discovered it had no emergency exits. While this was seen as a success, at least six other clip joints continue to operate in Soho.
Punters pay a fee of around £5 at the door in the expectation of seeing a striptease or meeting prostitutes. Once inside they find themselves in a small room furnished with a few tables and little else. A hostess appears, encourages the customer to buy her a drink and sits talking for a few minutes. Soon afterwards the customer is presented with a bill for several hundred pounds and threatened with violence if he does not pay.

Staff are regularly arrested on suspicion of blackmail but victims rarely pursue the allegations, so the charges are dropped. 'There is a problem getting witnesses to come forward,' said a spokesman for Westminster Council. 'They are either returning abroad or do not want their family to know the type of place they have been visiting.'

Earlier this month the Soho Cabaret, a clip joint next to Soho Parish School on Great Windmill Street, had its application for a public entertainment licence rejected. The venue wanted to stage shows featuring female dancers but objections were raised by the police, teachers from the school and trading standards officials.

Officers from the Soho police team have recorded at least 20 incidents of alleged extortion and blackmail involving the club in the past two months. In one case, a victim was handed a bill of £625. Another was told he would be 'turned into hamburger' unless he paid £380.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the owner of one Soho clip joint offered an insight into the workings of the business: 'In the old days there would be hardcore films or some kind of sex show but because the council clamped down on that we had no choice but to go down the extortion route,' he said.

'These places started out as legitimate businesses and the average bill was £30. We were the first people to charge £100 and more because we knew we could get away with it. We have five hostesses, one waitress and one person on the door. Once men are inside all the hostess has to do is sit with him and make him think he's going to get sex. The hostesses earn 27 per cent of the man's bill. The waitress takes 13 per cent off each of the hostesses.

'Then the council insisted we put a price list on each table, so we did. It's printed in gothic script in red ink on red card. We keep the lights low so you can't actually read it. If the cops come we turn the lights up and there it is.

'The drinks have exotic names but none have alcohol in - we don't have a licence for that. When the bill arrives it includes the hostess fee, the waitress fee and a service charge. Depending on how much we reckon we can take the punter for, it goes from a few hundred to £600.

'The girls walk out with £300-400 for a shift, and the club can make two grand on a good day. When punters refuse to pay we threaten to call the police. Then the girls will start shouting at them, humiliating them and calling them every name under the sun. It almost never gets violent - that would bring too much trouble - we just intimidate people into paying up.'

Years of operating on the fringes of legality mean the operators have learnt to use every trick to help them avoid prosecution. Customers who are taken to cashpoints are presented with receipts which state: 'Due to being unfamiliar with the Soho area I have requested that someone show me where I can obtain funds.'

A Soho Cabaret menu shows the cheapest drink is the Blue Lagoon, price £95. The dearest is Le Cabaret Special which costs £225. There is a hostess fee of £95 and a service charge of 25 per cent.

Proving Yourself

"Journalism," Freedman writes, "is a business of proving yourself anew every single story, every single day."

[Chip]

Everything About Ms Spears

Memo from Associated Press' Los Angeles assistant bureau chief:

From: Baker, Frank S.
Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 11:58 AM
To: News - Southern California Editorial Staff
Subject: Britney

All:

Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal. That doesn't mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we'll write something, we must expedite it.

Thanks.

Frank

[Via Romenesko. A piece by Brian Stelter in today's NY Times]

London

To London he always returned with the tremulous eagerness of a lover who has been separated a long time from his mistress.

(Lawrence Durrell, Mountolive)

Sceptics and Revolutionaries

The priest and the chemist's son went off on their own. They left the park, jumped a brook and took a path flanked by tall whitethorn hedges.

"We belong to different generations, but to the same species of young man, recognizable by the fact that we take seriously the principles proclaimed by our fathers or schoolmasters or priests. Those principles are proclaimed as the foundations of society, but it is easy to see that the actual functioning of that society conflicts with or ignores them. The majority, the sceptics, adapt themselves, the others become revolutionaries."

"The sceptics," Pompeo said, "maintain that the discrepancy between doctrine and reality is an ineluctable fact of life. What is the answer?"

"It may be. But revolutions are also facts of life," Don Paolo said. "Everyone must make his choice."

"You're right," Pompeo said. "What matters is the use one makes of one's life."

(Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine)

Beautiful Kenya

Hier encore, je disais à une amie que j'allais peut-être me rendre au Kenya. Dans sa réponse effarée, j'entendais: mais tu vas en enfer! Non, je vais sur un très beau continent où des peuples misérables, pillés pendant des siècles, peu éduqués, parfois violents et ignobles, souvent poètes et philosophes, tentent de relever dignement la tête et de tracer leur histoire.

Yesterday, I was still telling a friend that I would be able to go to Kenya. In his stunned response I understood: But you're going to a hellhole! No, I'm going to a very beautiful continent, where miserable peoples, looted for centuries, with little education, sometimes violent and brutal, often poets and philosophers, try to lift their heads with dignity and to write their history.

(Jean-Pierre Campagne in the French daily Libération, Jan 7. English translation by MISNA, Missionary International Service News Agency)

Tooooom!

Great news: Tom Wolfe is working on a new novel, "Back to Blood."

One of the original "New Journalists" of the 1960s, the 76-year-old Wolfe is known for such best-selling novels as "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man in Full," and for such nonfiction classics as "The Right Stuff" and "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

"Back to Blood" will be a Bonfire-like tour of Miami, taking on "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption, and ambition." Among the characters: a Cuban nurse married to a French sex doctor, a Haitian woman "who passes for Anglo" and "a freshman journalist on the trail of a Russian-mob-comes-to-Miami story."

Publication is scheduled for 2009, according to AP news agency.

The man in the white suit will release the new novel through a new publisher, ending a 40-year run with Farrar, Straus & Giroux and signing with Little, Brown and Co.

Art

It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist.

(Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory)

A Vision

Prophets! Clairvoyants!
I see I saw I've seen
threads rods genes
the difference between
dove and pigeon

cells, embryos as a sacrifice
test-tubes gloves sheaths ice
smoke from the
altar of science
the fire of Eve...

chromosomes
genetic code - genetic god
beginning, end
big bang by a quick
bang

a garden, the gardener
Adam or Homo sapiens
the fire of Eve...

vanity, nudity
love crawling

virginal beauty, volcanic
eruptions, labour pains
tears smiles kisses bites
girls in white, girls in black

flower
drinking the origin
of life
hairy flowers sucking up
vital fluid
from pipes

and angels oh angels
with swords and petticoats.

(Léon Bertoletti, A Vision)

New Year's Prayer

Nine minutes from Andrei Tarkovsky's movie Offret (The Sacrifice, 1986).