Finchley Central

2010-01-19T02:26:00.000-08:00

2010-01-16T04:47:00.000-08:00

2010-01-16T04:18:00.000-08:00

LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED

2009-09-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

Snazzy website on the way for the new animated film, which is generating nice interest. I think it deserves it, but I don't deserve any credit. When working with source material as truly visionary and amazing as Last Man on Earth, one is working with the pop culture equivalent of an early Shakespeare play. Thus, it is a question of not ruining it too badly in translation rather than taking credit when standing on the shoulders of giants. :)

Anyway, website soon!

Remain in light,

J

460 Message to my brother

2009-09-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

I am in the dark literally, and receiving but not sending at present due to a ridiculously tough 10 HD monster and getting robbed on the treasure type. The guidance offered earlier today was heartening and this weekend will see me exploring my local library. The flags will be flying, albeit at half mast, but next week sees an entirely different configuration of stars. As soon as that new horoscope is fulfilled packed lunches are in order as part of my new health kick!

I can't really recommend 4th edition D&D, too long and boring. The good book is still 2nd edition imo. :)

45 67 81 19 45 108 17 23 27

The lucky numbers that aren't, dib dabbers wishful thinking.

HORROR VAULT

2009-09-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

Departments of Shits and Giggles:

Because it's a cool thing to do, because it's fun and because I can, a short film set in the continuity of LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED will appear in an upcoming volume of HORROR VAULT, an unrated horror series coming out of Denmark.

HORROR VAULT

My addition to the series is called SPLITSVILLE and depicts somewhat graphically a sad episode in the past life of Robert Morgan.

People who grab this as well as the full version of LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED can put them in the same storyline, people into the more psychological and poetic stuff in the feature don't have to, people who like gore etc. may only ever see the featureshort in HORROR VAULT.

But at least now you know. And as we know...

Knowing's half the battle.

The other half being red and blue lasers.

Word.

Why LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED?

2009-09-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well why DO this? Why take a public domain film, whether one likes it or not, and in some respects cannibalise it?

How to answer this question. Simply is best I think.

I personally have always loved LAST MAN ON EARTH, and have resented it being ignored by both critics and consumers in favour of later more colourful performances. This love for LAST MAN has often led me back to it for inspiration, and sometimes I watched my copy of it purely to enjoy the performance of Vincent Price in what I feel is his finest rendition. His acting in LAST MAN is wonderful to watch. Certainly since he shares the screen with no one for long stretches it is a little of the dream of all screen actors, and probably all actors of every stripe, to go solo and let it rip.

My desire to experiment with machinima and related media led me to want to reimagine certain stories, which I thought could be well translated into the 3d graphics world. I was delighted to find small but active machinima communities online and then very disappointed when I saw how much copout was going on- people were doing short and not very good parodies, rather than push the envelope. I guess the approach of the amateur and professional is going to be different in most cases, but that was honestly a disappointent to me. And I began to think in opposite terms. Rather than adding to a growing smear of substandard parodies why not go for melodrama?

There are original scripts on the slate, to be sure, and adaptations of novellas and my own past novels. However I also wanted to see if the disgusting craze for unnecessary remakes that the studios are indulging in could be diverted, even if only in mockbuster terms, to something more valid, more entertaining and fundamentally more satisfying.

Thus: SPACEMEN and particularly- LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED.

FORTUNATE SONS

2009-09-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

FORTUNATE SONS - the award-winning film on 9/11

"Scholars and professionals with various kinds of expertise---including architects, engineers, firefighters, intelligence officers, lawyers, medical professionals, military officers, philosophers, religious leaders, physical scientists, and pilots---have spoken out about radical discrepancies between the official account of the 9/11 attacks and what they, as independent researchers, have learned. They have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the official account of 9/11 is false and that, therefore, the official "investigations" have really been cover-up operations. Thus far, however, there has been no response from political leaders in Washington or, for that matter, in other capitals around the world. Our organization, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, has been formed to help bring about such a response. We believe that the truth about 9/11 needs to be exposed now---not in 50 years as a footnote in the history books---so the policies that have been based on the Bush-Cheney administration’s interpretation of the 9/11 attacks can be changed. We are, therefore, calling for a new, independent investigation of 9/11 that takes account of evidence that has been documented by independent researchers but thus far ignored by governments and the mainstream media."

Rep. Peter H. Allen, PhD

LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED trailer

2009-09-11T03:57:00.001-07:00

Of ambition and giant amoebae: Fear of a literate planet

2009-09-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

So began something I wrote nigh on twenty years ago, borrowing from the title of an issue of one of my favourite comicbooks, The Defenders, by Marvel Comics.

Marvel has come a long way since then, making a lot of money from movies, and cutting the heart and soul out of the engine room, the comics, in the process. However, that is not the point of this essay.

The point of this essay is quite different.

The Left, and the Right, are two sides of the same coin. This has never been clearer than now, at the end of a siecle in western history, and the beginning of a new wave of civil unrest, world war, and defining global movements that will soon clash head to head.

In the Jazz Age so-called, the 1920s through early 1930s, Jazz was associated with its negro and somewhat New Orleans-centric roots. It was a racial and subcultural phenomenon.

It was elevated when it was adopted as a form of social warfare by socialists desiring to revolutionise American and more broadly western culture. It was a means of attacking the fundamental decency of a free society by appealing to its venality and its sexuality. Because the word, "jazz" was originally a synonym for, to put it crudely, as it was meant to be put, "fucking". "Jazz" music was not romance music. It was fucking music. Likewise the "protest" music of the 1960s. This was not music and soft lights and romance. It was sexuality. Adolescence. Overconfidence. Blindness.

Which leads us to the here and now, and giant amoebae. A giant amoeba is an amorphous monster, akin to The Blob, which sucks things in an slowly dissolves them. People, ideas and cultures don't immediately suffer magical annihilation. They slowly dissoluate before our eyes in gory horrifying detail, losing coherence, losing the majestic spark of life and intellectual promise with which we are born and which our groupings, at their highest, represent.

So to rap music. It is a sad indictment on the once-great NAACP that now it is left with its rump constituency of professional victims, protestors and relict activists, loud when unnecessary and yet paradoxically silent over the latest socialist and manipulative export of black culture- rap music.

Rap music does not elevate. Rap music does not make a protest that is valid, heartfelt or particularly effective. It is the latest in a long line of music tropes intended purely to cater to the lowest common denominator. And as is the case all too often, it is also another example of black people being their own worst enemy. Black music such as rap music is not shall we say soul music. Nor does it espouse a valid culture. It is socialist manipulation using capitalist ideation against itself, whilst allowing the total exploitation of black men and the uncaring and relentless subordination and exploitation of black women. By promoting pseudo-rebellion and ghetto radicalism it also promulgates the worst stereotypes imaginable on all the races that exist today in western culture.

It is also, and not accidentally, preparing the ground for the embrace by first black culture and then the wider culture, of Islam.

This must stop. And only the black American culture can stop it.

"Kade Out" by Kent Osborne...

2009-09-09T16:17:00.001-07:00

LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED -=- trailer #1

2009-09-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

451: Ray Barrett

2009-09-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

Australian actor Ray Barrett dies at 82

(AP) – 1 hour ago

BRISBANE, Australia — Veteran Australian actor Ray Barrett, who became a star of British television in the 1960s, has died, his agent said Wednesday. He was 82.

Barrett's last film role was as the character Ramsden in director Baz Luhrmann's movie "Australia," released last year.

His Sydney agent Jane Cameron said Barrett died in hospital Tuesday after a fall at his home at Gold Coast city in Queensland state.

"He was an extraordinarily good actor who loved doing it," Cameron said. "He was such a skilled actor that he was always a very solid presence on the screen."

Raymond Charles Barrett was born in the Queensland capital Brisbane on May 2, 1927. He moved to England in the late 1950s and starred in the long-running British television series "The Troubleshooters" in the 1960s.

Cameron said Barrett did a wide range of acting work in the United Kingdom for almost 20 years, including voices for the iconic puppet television series "Thunderbirds," before he returned to Australia in the mid-1970s.

In Australia, he became a prominent player in a rejuvenated Australian film industry. He received one of Australia's greatest acting accolades, an Australian Film Industry Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in director Fred Schepisi's 1978 film "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith."

Barrett is survived by his third wife, Gaye, a daughter from his first marriage, Suellen, and two sons from his second marriage, Reg and John.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Don't Blame. Achieve.

2009-09-07T20:57:00.001-07:00

Totally Sweet Ninjas.

2009-09-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

Cognitive Dissonance is no accident

2009-09-07T02:09:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between the engineering of consent and some people's innate intellectual laziness is a broad agenda not just to dumb people down- small enough effort required there, on average- but also lower expectations.

In the real estate sales game they call it conditioning the seller. Their client, the seller, wants to sell their house, and get as much for it as possible. Contrary to this, most real estate firms want nothing more than to milk the sucker seller for money until there isn't any more then sell the house for whatever they can get. The commission doesn't vary too much whether the house sells at a premium or not.

But all that is a different story. What matters for the purposes of this little dialectic tract is that the real estate crooks con their own client, in the same way educational outlets and the media con their audience. They move people emotionally, exploit their vulnerability... In short, they condition their audience. Not really controversial news any more. Although the mere fact that all these truths have to run a gauntlet in the media and from the half educated doyens of what is left of the educational system tells you something.

For fifty or more years the catchcry has been, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." And it is very true. As a result the least intellectually fit have prospered in classrooms and universities at the expense of the bright all rounders who used to drag the rest of society along kicking and screaming into an increasingly bright future.

Conditioning is not only turning out a bottomless hellpit of Homer Simpsons of both sexes in the civilised world, it's also lowering expectations for the future. Reducing people's ambitions to base consumerism and animalism is the credo at work here.

It must be stopped. Which means WE all have to try and stop it.

Best of luck, wish me the same.

LAST MAN ON EARTH ANIMATED

2009-09-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Scrabble on Facebook: if you are a retard or an ignoramus, this is the game for you.

2009-09-06T05:29:00.000-07:00

Disgusting, stupid and embarassing Game. If your name is Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, this is the word game for you- a game where being able to speak read and write English counts against you.

It allows countless gibberish words like ud, mun, zo, ae, aa, ai, ab, al, boh, shope, and on and on- whilst disallowing known normal albeit educated words. It is a disgrace.

It doesn't allow challenge of these pathetic non-words, it lags or freezes constantly, and its stupid system of scoring prevents its constant errors and failure to adhere to the English language to be reflected in scoring.

If you are re tarded, lacking in self respect, horribly badly educated or just a typical unintellectual member of the underclass- this is the game for you.

If you play this game, see it for the disgrace it is to our language and culture and play it anyway, you are a pathetic sheep and deserve what the future will most certainly bring you and your class of society. OBEY SLEEP NO IMAGINATIVE THOUGHT.

A word game where wrong words are allowed. If that doesn't sum up modern life, nothing does.

cue the Simpsons theme.

I am forced to give it at least one star- facebook admins - I do so under duress, this game deserves NOTHING and doesn't even work well enough to be playable by the sheeple who like it.

When trying to post this review, I was told some of its content was reported as abusive by facebook users- interesting since it hadn't been posted yet. Fascist much?

Synchromysticism: Stuck in neutral because...

2009-09-05T00:33:00.000-07:00

Synchromysticism is stuck in neutral because it is a process, towards an end. But all too often the process is being used inappropriately, by uneducated, not especially clever and frequently not all there people to make random connections through a combination of seeing what one wants to see and using "near enough is good enough" rather than scrupulous accuracy.

For example.

There are many real and documented "coincidences" in the Charles Manson cases. There is the occurrence of the date October 12. There is the crossover with the Church of Scientology. The presence in the same prison, sometimes the same cell, at the same time as Manson of a variety of other 60s figures. The references made by Manson to the Beatles, who possibly met him and certainly stayed within walking distance of him. The crossover with the Four Pi Movement. The crossover with the underground bases mythos (and its underlying reality). And much more.

This is totally different from the frequent use by uncritical and rather silly people calling themselves synchromystics (a profession not requiring qualification, handily enough*) who pick a given date, then use events that fall ANYWHERE WITHIN A MONTH of that date as "hits" to correlate. That kind of howlingly stupid imprecision discredits the very real significance of certain dates, the genuinely odd repetitions in the lives and deaths of public figures, the fact that there really have been sinister groups linking many an alleged "lone assassin" or "serial killer" and so on.

*and thus on the level of many an Arts and Computing graduate

444: Disney to buy Marvel for $4 billion

2009-08-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

Disney to buy Marvel for $4 billion
Disney is purchasing Marvel for $4 billion. Disney said Monday that it will acquire the superhero factory in a cash and stock transaction that values each share of Marvel at $50, a 29% premium to where the stock closed Friday.

Kleeshae Caverns

2009-08-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

One of the things I really appreciate about the coding that went into LOGD 0.9.7 is the way it provides classic old BBS-style tracking of all your visitors.

Not only is it extremely well written, it is also a great security feature to protect your normal users and visitors from sleazeballs just trying to log on to cause trouble.

The iteration I used to write Kleeshae Caverns is quite old now but it's interesting to think how much more sophisticated the tracking must be for eg Facebook, let alone some of these sites where there is a forum, particularly one where people are encouraged to behave inappropriately, but where their every move is tracked and logged. Just imagine if such a forum was actually run by a criminal enterprise or even a debt collection company! Just think of all the harm that would be being done by the creepy people running it in secret.

Anyway, I just wanted to leave a note saying thank you to all the great writers and designers of Green Dragon, and also of course shout out to Seth Able Robinson, who, a long long time ago, wrote a "door game" called Legend of the Red Dragon aka LoRD or LORD. Back then the Internet still very much had a capital 'I' and BBSes connected users to the wider online world. Graphical user interfaces were very much a thing of the future (albeit having first been conceived of in the 1920s and actually put into practice in the 1960s) and LORD was one of those transitional experiences for a lot of BBS users. The game was simple in approach but sophisticated in effect. Village <-> Forest <-> Training <-> Shops <-> Healing...

Writing modules or addons for LORD became a cottage industry and directly led to the current LOGD community.

My version of LOGD is based on an older version because the newer version is becoming a bit too confining for me. I wanted to turn an essentially textual game into a graphical game, but keep a storybook approach so that the pictures enhance the text rather than replace it as in most MMORPGs.

Hopefully the players are enjoying Kleeshae Caverns although I know the first little area is quite dull. I sort of wanted it to be as I have found in the past that dropping people right in the deep end is alienating. Also not so many people are used to actually reading and understanding especially when playing a game so I wanted to scale up the experience in that sense too.

On! On!

-Jonathan

Kleeshae Caverns has opened for business...

2009-08-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Kleeshae Caverns, our new multiplayer online adventure game, has opened for business. New players have started venturing through the cave system, but none of them have as yet passed the first 25 locations. :) Very early days! First few hours of a new world... very exciting!

Facebook as suffered a crazy and quite massive glitch so one of the main promotional tools is currently down... Once it's back up the player numbers will certainly spike.

2009-08-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

I would like to publicly give thanks to the Creator of All for all the blessings and burdens conferred upon me in my life to this point.

I formally thank the One Above All and ask for my feet to be set on the Blessing Way for the next part of my journey through life.

And I ask for strength, mercy, wealth, health, and vengeance in blood.

Kleeshae Caverns

2009-08-29T23:39:00.001-07:00

Kleeshae Caverns

2009-08-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

Kleeshae Caverns... With a few hours to kill and nothing but semi-sentient bread to eat, I decided to rewrite some earlier game stuff and make a new, somewhat more coherent game out of them, plus put my favourite overarching adventure game trope- the cave system- as the umbrella beneath which the game play shelters.

Kleeshae (as in cliche) Caverns incorporates all the old favourites, chestnuts and horrors of adventure games, although it is NOT possible to become hopelessly stuck. So in that respect at least it varies wildly from a lot of the "classic" adventure games. It's also graphical, although not usually animated. I actually could embed video and flash etc. but I thought nah, not for this. Seemed like too much effort even when killing time.

Anyway, it's live, it's got over a thousand locations and thousands upon thousands more to come, and I will basically put an hour a day into it from now on.

If you want to register, by all means do so, it actually does enhance gameplay. On the other hand, playing for free is certainly a very workable option. :)

Anyhoo- Kleeshae Caverns. :)

Tempus Fugit

2009-08-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours: but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's provd joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.
This music mads me; let it sound no more;
For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.

So is it petrified wood from the Moon, or petrified wood from the USA? Apollo Hoax- FOR REAL!

2009-08-28T14:16:00.001-07:00

'Moon rock' in Dutch museum is just petrified wood

It's not green cheese, but it might as well be.

The Dutch national museum said Thursday that one of its prized possessions, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, is just a piece of petrified wood.

Rijksmuseum spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation that proved the piece was a fake, said the museum will keep it anyway as a curiosity.

"It's a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered," she said. "We can laugh about it."

The museum acquired the rock after the death of former Prime Minister Willem Drees in 1988. Drees received it as a private gift on Oct. 9, 1969 from then-U.S. ambassador J. William Middendorf during a visit by the three Apollo 11 astronauts, part of their "Giant Leap" goodwill tour after the first moon landing.

Middendorf, who lives in Rhode Island, told Dutch broadcaster NOS news that he had gotten it from the U.S. State Department, but couldn't recall the exact details.

"I do remember that (Drees) was very interested in the little piece of stone," the NOS quoted Middendorf as saying. "But that it's not real, I don't know anything about that."

He could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The U.S. Embassy in the Hague said it was investigating the matter.

The museum had vetted the moon rock with a phone call to NASA, Van Gelder said.

She said the space agency told the museum then that it was possible the Netherlands had received a rock: NASA gave moon rocks to more than 100 countries in the early 1970s, but those were from later missions.

"Apparently no one thought to doubt it, since it came from the prime minister's collection," Van Gelder said.

The rock is not usually on display; the museum is primarily known for its paintings and other works of fine art by masters such as Rembrandt.

A jagged fist-size stone with reddish tints, it was mounted and placed above a plaque that said, "With the compliments of the Ambassador of the United States of America ... to commemorate the visit to The Netherlands of the Apollo-11 astronauts." The plaque does not specify that the rock came from the moon's surface

It was given at the opening of an exhibition on space exploration.

It was on show in 2006 and a space expert informed the museum it was unlikely NASA would have given away any moon rocks three months after Apollo returned to Earth.

Researchers from Amsterdam's Free University said they could see at a glance the rock was probably not from the moon. They followed the initial appraisal up with extensive testing.

"It's a nondescript, pretty-much-worthless stone," Geologist Frank Beunk concluded in an article published by the museum.

He said the rock, which the museum at one point insured for more than half a million dollars, was worth no more than euro50 ($70).

Van Gelder said one important unanswered question is why Drees was given the stone. He was 83 years old in 1969 and had been out of office for 11 years. On the other hand, he was the country's elder statesman, the prime minister who helped the Netherlands rebuild after World War II.

Middendorf was treasurer of the Republic National Committee from 1965 until 1969, when President Richard Nixon dispatched him to the Netherlands.

Permalink: PIMPINTURTLE.COM/2009/08/28/moon-rock-in-dutch-museum-is-just-petrified-wood.aspx

Spidey Bible Stories: Marvel Team-Up starring SPIDER-MAN and JEEBUS

2009-08-26T23:45:00.000-07:00

2009-08-22T06:04:00.001-07:00

2009-08-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

First Look at Smallville's Metallo

2009-08-18T22:04:00.001-07:00

Smallville's Metallo">
Jack Rowand/The CW

First Look at Smallville's Metallo

by Rich Sands August 17, 2009 10:02 AM EST

He was killed by a robotic assassin in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last spring, and now Brian Austin Green is coming back to TV as a different kind of cyborg. In a two-episode arc on Smallville (beginning with the September 25 season premiere), Green plays John Corben, a new Daily Planet reporter who becomes the comic-book villain Metallo. In the aftermath of an accident, Corben is mysteriously outfitted with a heart made of kryptonite. Executive producer Kelly Souders won’t reveal the identity of his Frankenstein-esque savoir, but says Corben is turned into “a rough version of Metallo, a first attempt at the technology, and eventually he’ll get sleeker.” So might we see him again? “Well of course—it’s Smallville,” she says with a laugh. “We’re actually throwing some ideas around right now in the hopes that we might be able to bring him back for another episode.”

HCwDB: The Legend of Xenu

2009-08-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

"Whither the Douchebag?"

I was heading into my local Trader Joes to stock up on Peanut Butter Joe-Joe's cookies when he stopped me. A young boy, maybe five or six years old. He was playing with a tennis ball and waiting for his mom by the entrance.

"Whither the douchebag?" he asked me, his eyes confused.

Unsure if he meant "wither" or "whither" in the old English sense of "to what purpose," I asked him to repeat what he'd just said.

"Whither the douchebag?" he asked again.

I realized he meant to inquire as to douchebaggery's origins. It was a surprising question from a kid so young. Perhaps he'd glimpsed the tatted up uberdouche visage of Xenu somewhere. Somehow the land of Armani-Exchanged tools had invaded and overwhelmed his young senses.

A question so complex deserved a proper answer.

"Kid," I replied. "The collar pops not from without, but from within. As you grow older, you must fight it. Do not fear the douche. Confront it. Overwhelm it. And enlightenment will be yours."

He nodded.

"Thanks." he said quietly.

I wasn't sure if he fully understood. But as I went inside I'd hoped I'd set his young mind on the right path of de-douchification and enlightenment. The path of self inscription.

I felt I'd made a difference. At least a little bit.

Later, at the checkout line, I hit on his mom.

# posted by Douchebag1 @ 1:06 PM

Source: Hot Chicks with Douchebags

Conform with Ash.

2009-08-15T19:50:00.001-07:00

There is a sad, strong psychological tendency among Earth humans to conform with whatever group opinion might be expressed at the time, by their peers or by governing authorities. This tendency was measured quantitatively back in 1951 during a famous experiment by Solomon Asch. He placed a small group of individuals who did not know one another into a room, then asked them to say which of three black lines on a sheet of paper---A (short), B (medium) or C (long)---matched the length of another line held by an assistant nearby? All of the individuals except one had been instructed beforehand to give the same “wrong” answer. So the question became: what would the remaining individual do? Report truthfully what he or she could see plainly with his or her own eyes, or conform with group opinion?

slide 1:

The result surprisingly was that 80% of the individuals tested would agree incorrectly with group opinion in at least one case. And one-third of those individuals would agree falsely with group opinion most of the time! When they were interviewed later, to ask why they had conformed so readily to a clearly false answer, most of the test subjects admitted that they did not really believe in their conforming opinions, but had simply gone along with the group: for fear of being ridiculed, or being thought peculiar (see www.age-of-the-sage.org or WATCH or WATCH).

Bit of fun, eh what?

2009-08-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

http://utilitymill.com/utility/Steganography_Encode

http://utilitymill.com/utility/Steganography_Decode

just a television show you know. just puppets. RoGEr Delgad0's Master is still the best, perhaps just for being first, although a more 0bjective assessment would surely say that Derek Jac0bi OWNED the role in his brief tenure. OWNED it.

War of Extermination

2009-08-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

War of Extermination differs from traditional conflicts over resources in that extermination, the complete removal of the enemy, is the war aim that takes precedence over obtaining territory, resources or other commercial benefit. The perceived social good of the total elimination of a class of unwanted, unloved and unneeded people, whilst being costly, politically unpopular with those outside a regime or movement and contrary to the dominant conditioning of Western culture, has arisen spontaneously again and again, whenever a sub-group has attracted attention to its differences with underlying societal norms through its aberrant practices, dissent from a dominant set of behaviours or through persistent criminal behaviour clearly identifiable as having a common origin within the sub-group.

At that point, if not before, the cost to the victim of removing the source of the criminal behaviour becomes incidental to the need to exterminate.

Historically, Wars of Extermination have always succeeded. Those on whom it has waged have rarely survived and when they have somehow survived their sub-group is permanently crippled as a result.

Which is the aim of a War of Extermination.

The Suicide Club

2009-08-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

The Suicide Club was a secret society in San Francisco that was founded by Gary Warne and three friends - Adrienne Burk, David Warren, and Nancy Prussia. It began in Spring 1977 as a course that Warne taught at the Communiversity in San Francisco, part of the Free School Movement, and it lasted until shortly before Warne's death in 1983. Events generally started and ended in Warne's used paperback bookstore, Circus of the Soul.

The name of the Suicide Club was inspired by three stories written by Robert Louis Stevenson, where men who want to die belong to a club, where each evening one of them is randomly selected for death. The name belied the gentle albeit zany nature of its members, who had a predilection towards light-hearted practical jokes.

Membership in the San Francisco Suicide Club was attained by attending an "initiation" ceremony that took place sporadically. Any member could propose any type of event, and it would be listed along with a writeup in the Club's monthly mailer, sardonically named the "Nooseletter." There were five or so general categories that most events fell into:

Street theater, Pranks (30 members riding the San Francisco cable cars naked and making post cards commemorating the event was perhaps the best known)
Elaborate games in odd locales (cemeteries, sewer tunnels, the financial district late at night are a few of the places used)
Explorations—Urban and otherwise (abandoned industrial buildings, sewer and other tunnels, waterways, bridges, etc.)
Infiltrations (the Unification Church and the American Nazi Party were the two most daring and involved)
Sometimes, types of events were conjoined, such as the "infiltration" of the National Speleological Society undertaken in 1979. Club members converged on the NSS monthly confab at the Palo Alto Grotto, wanting to join. NSS members soon determined something was a bit odd about the new recruits. The two groups ended up working together on several extreme expedition caving trips, the most prominent being a two week trip to Sótano de las Golondrinas in Central Mexico, the deepest free pit cave in the world.

The Suicide Club was probably best known at the time for its daring bridge climbing exploits. The Club, though very secretive during its brief five year lifespan, influenced many future cultural and artistic endeavors. The Billboard Liberation Front began as a Suicide Club event hosted by Gary Warne in 1977. Author Don Herron's Dashiell Hammett Walking Tour, the longest lived literary tour in America began in the Suicide Club in 1977. The Chinese New Years Treasure Hunt was created by Gary Warne in 1977 and continues (albeit in a very different form) to this day. John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a Suicide Club member. The Cacophony Society was founded by ex Suicide Clubbers in 1986. There are now Cacophony Societies throughout the world. The Burning Man Festival was influenced by Cacophony and many former Suicide Club members were crucial organizers in the early days of the desert event. The "leave no trace" mantra of Burning Man was borrowed from the Suicide Club and the philosophy of Gary Warne.

Knowing is half the battle. The other half?

2009-08-15T00:08:00.001-07:00

Dr Taitz - Maybe Obamas Policies Stem From His Illegitimacy

2009-08-14T21:50:00.001-07:00

Dr Taitz - Maybe Obamas Policies Stem From His Illegitimacy

Shared via AddThis

Love and Liberty: Inferno (Alternate Universe Mix)

2009-08-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

A really very good in depth look at Doctor 3.

Love and Liberty: <em>Inferno</em> (Alternate Universe Mix)

The Commuter

2009-08-11T05:57:00.001-07:00

422 General Semantics

2009-08-10T22:19:00.001-07:00

General semantics is a non-Aristotelian educational discipline created by Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) during the years 1919 to 1933. General Semantics is distinct from semantics (a sub-field of linguistics), a different subject. The name technically refers to the study of what Korzybski called "semantic reactions", or reactions of the whole human organism within the environment to some event — any event, not just perceiving a human-made symbol — with respect to the meaning of that event. However, people most commonly use the name to mean the particular system of semantic reactions that Korzybski called the most useful for human survival, that is to say delayed reactions as opposed to "signal reactions" (immediate, unthinking ones).

British East India... And the conquerors of Afghanistan

2009-08-09T00:30:00.000-07:00

The Pollock Memoir

This book, published in 1875, was written to accompany the presentation of the Pollock Prize, an award given to the best cadet of the season at, first, the Military Academy at Addiscombe, and later the Royal Military College at Woolwich. It contains a brief biography of Field Marshal Sir George Pollock and quite a comprehensive study of his campaign in Afghanistan in 1842.

I have respected the original spelling and grammar, and the only changes I have made in the punctuation is to remove the speech marks at the beginning of each line of the quotations contained within the text.

For those looking for references to specific places and people, the following are mentioned:

Places (modern or alternative versions in brackets when known)

Addiscombe – Afghanistan – Agra - Ali Musjid Fortress - Ava
Balla Hissar – Bamean (Bamian) – Begramee – Bengal – Bhurtpore – Bolan Pass – Bombay – Boodkhak – Budeeabad – Burmah (Burma)
Cabul (Kabul) – Calcutta – Candahar (Kandahar or Qandahar) – Cawnpore (Kanpur) – Charekur (Charikar)
Deig – Dinapore - Dum Dum
East India Military Seminary, Addiscombe
Ferozepore (Firozpur) – France – Futtehabad
Ghorebund Valley – Ghuznee (Ghazni) – Great Bazaar of Kabul – Gundamuck
Hindoo-Koosh (Hindu-Kush) – Hindostan – Huft-Kotul – Hykulzye
Indus – Istaliff
Jellalabad (Jalalabad) – Jugdulluck – Jugdulluck Pass – Jumrood
Khelat-i-Ghilzye (Qalat) – Khyber Pass – Kohistan – Kojuck Pass – Koochle Khail – Koord Cabul Pass
Lahore – Lalpoora – Lucknow
Mammoo Khail or Mamoo Khail – Meerut – Mookoor (Moqor) – Mydan
Nepaul (Nepal)
Pagahm Mew – Peninsula – Peshawur (Peshawar) – Prome (Pyè) – Punjaub (Punjab)
Quetta
Rangoon – Royal Military Academy, Woolwich – Roza
Shinwarree Valley – Simbike – Sindh – Sukkur or Sukhur – Sultanpore - Sutlej River - Sydeabad
Tezeen – Toorkistan (Turkistan) – Tower of London
Urghundeh
Vauxhall – Vittoria
Westminster – Westminster Abbey – Woolwich
Yandaboo (Yandoon?)

People: Those indicate with a (1) are Cadets from Addiscombe or Woolwich who were awarded the Pollock Prize.

Abbott, Captain (Sir Frederick) - Addison, John C. (1) - Akbar Khan - Alexander the Great - Ameen-oollah Khan - Anderson - Anquetil , Brigadier - Auckland, Lord
Backhouse - Basevi, James P. (1) - Beauchamp, Clayton S. (1) - Bhurtpore, Rajah of - Bolton, Colonel - Broadbent, John E. (1) - Broadfoot, Captain - Brydon, Dr. - Burgoyne, Field Marshal Sir John - Burrnes, Sir Alexander - Bygrave, Captain
Cameron, Maurice A. (1) - Campbell, John C. (1) - Campbell, William M. (1) - Campbell,Sir Archibald - Cardew, Phillip (1) - Chambers, Harry M. (1) - Champain, John M. (1) - Chermside, Herbert C. (1) - Christie, Captain - Clarke, George S. (1) - Clerk, George - Cotton, General - Craigie, Captain - Craster, George A. (1) - Cunningham, Allan J. C. (1) - Cunynghame, Henry H. S. (1)
Davis, Lieut. - Day, Francis J. (1) - Delafosse, Major - Dost Mohammed - Durand, Lieutenant (Sir Henry)
Eckford, John (1) - Ellenborough, Lord - Elliot, Arthur W. (1) - Elphinstone, General - England, General
Fraser, General - Fraser, Thomas (1) - G. R. Gleig, Reverend - George III, King - Georges, Henry R. G. (1) - Gholab Singgh, General - Godsal, William C. (1) - Goodwyn, Henry (1) - Gordon, Lewis C. (1) - Grant, Sir Francis
Hadden, Charles F. (1) - Hardinge, Lord - Harman, Henry J. (1) - Hastings, Lord - Herschel, John (1) - Holkar, Chieftainn - Holland, Edward R. (1)
Innes, James J. Mc. L. (1)
Jacob, Sydney L. (1) - Jeffreys, William (1) - Johnson, Captain - Jopp, Keith A. (1)
Kaye, Sir J. W. - Khelati-Ghilzye, Khan of - Knocker, Herbert P. (1) - Kunhardt, Henry G. (1)
Lake, General (Lord) - Lang, Arthur M. (1) - Lawrence, Henry - Lockwood - Love, Henry D. (1) - Lowe, C. R. - Luard, Charles H. (1)
Macdonald, Aeneas R. R. (1) - Macgregor, Major - Mackeson - Macleod, General - Macnaghten, Lady - Macnaghten, Sir William - Maddock, T. H. - Mahomed Akbar - Mascall, Francis (1) - M'Caskill, Brigadier - McCallum, Henry E. (1) - McNeile, John M. (1) - Monteith, Brigadier - Montgomerie, Thomas G. (1)
Nicholson, William G. (1) - Nicolls, Sir Jasper - Nott, General
Outram, Sir James
Palmer, Colonel - Peel, Sir Robert - Pierson, William H. (1) - Pye, Kellow C. (1)
Rawlinson, Major (Sir Henry) - Robertson - Rowe, Valentine F. (1) - Runjeet Singh
Sale, General Sir Robert - Sale, Lady - Sankey, Matthew H. P. R. (1) - Shakespeare, Sir Richmond - Shelton, Brigadier - Shepherd, William (1) - Sinclair, Hugh M. (1) - Soojah, Shah - Stanton, Frederick S. (1) - Stewart, Patrick (1) - Sturt, Lieutenant
Tait - Taylor, Colonel - Trevor, Salisbury T. (1) - Tulloch, Colonel
Villamil, Richard de (1)
Walker, Lieut. - Watson, Charles M. (1) - Wellington, Duke of - Wild, Brigadier - Wilkinson - Williams, Edward C.S. (1) - Williamson, William J. (1) - Wiltshire, General - Wolski, Felician R. de (1) - Woodburn - Wymer, Colonel - Wyon, Mr
Ynett

Memoir
EXTRACTED AND COMPILED FROM Various SOURCES,
TO ILLUSTRATE
THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION
OF THE
POLLOCK MEDAL.
----------------------------------
WOOLWICH :
BODDY AND CO., MILITARY PUBLISHERS.
---------
1875

Memoir,
DEDICATED TO THE MEDALLISTS,
Past and Future,
By one who has the highest veneration
For the Memory of
The First British Artillery Officer,
Who ever commanded an army in the field,
And whose successes,
As briefly sketched herein,
Give promise of what may be expected from those,
who,
Educated at the
ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY,
Follow their profession
With unwearied zeal and attention,
And are thus at all times
Ready to seize any opportunity that may offer
In the path of duty,
For reaping honour in the service of
Their Queen and Country.

Royal Millitary Academy,
21st January, 1875.

MEMOIR,
TO ILLUSTRATE THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION
OF
THE POLLOCK MEDAL.

ON 4th June, 1786, within the precincts of Westminster, was born George; the youngest of the four sons of Mr. David Pollock, saddler to His Majesty George III.

The family was of Scottish extraction. Three of Mr. Pollock's sons rose to distinction. The eldest, Sir David, became a judge of the High Court of Judicature of Bombay. Sir Frederick, the second son, achieved a brilliant reputation as a scholar, lawyer, and statesman; he filled the office of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer for 22 years, and had the dignity of a baronetcy conferred upon him.

The brothers Frederick and George went to a school at Vauxhall, from which the latter, the subject of the present Memoir, proceeded to the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich, which he entered on the 21st January, 1801, and left on the 7th May, 1803. Though he passed an examination which entitled him to elect service either in the Royal Artillery or Royal Engineers, he preferred the Artillery on the Bengal Establishment, at that time consisting of three battalions of seven companies each, as affording a better field for military advancement. The East India Military Seminary at Addisconbe not having been established until 1809 the officers of the Ordnance Services of the Honourable East India Company received their military education previously to that year at Woolwich.

In September, 1803, he embarked for India, and arrived, after a voyage of four months, at Calcutta. His first commission, dated November, 1803, was that of "Lieutenant Fireworker;" on the 19th April, 1804, when at the head quarters of his regiment at Dum Dum, he received his promotion as Lieutenant of Artillery.

The first action in which Lieutenant Pollock took part was the Battle of Deig, fought on the 13th November, 1804, between the British infantry of General Lake's army, under the command of General Fraser, and the famous Mahratta Chieftain Holkar. Pollock took a prominent part with his guns in this battle, described by Lord Lake as "the hardest fought on this side India," and as "a very near business," and was soon after placed in charge of a mortar battery at the siege of Deig, which city fell on Christmas-day of the same year. He was present at the siege of Bhurtpore, which proved unsuccessful after 50 days of open trenches, from the 4th January to the 22nd February, 1805, four assaults, and a loss of 3,100 men and 103 officers in killed and wounded, out of a total force of 10,000 men engaged. The pertinacity of the British force under Lord Lake, however, served to break up the alliance between Holkar and the Rajah of Bhurtpore, who eventually signed a treaty accepting the conditions of peace imposed upon him by the English general. In the following campaign George Pollock, being still a subaltern in his teens, was given the command of a .field battery of six six-pounders, which formed the only European portion of a brigade detached in pursuit of Holkar; while on this duty he was ordered to open fire on the Sepoys, who had broken out into open mutiny, if they continued to disobey orders. Fortunately the affair was arranged without recourse being had to such severity as might possibly have led to the massacre of every European in the force and the desertion of the whole body of natives.

Holkar soon sued for peace, which was signed early in l806, when Pollock was sent with his battery to Meerut, then a frontier station. After a few months Lord Lake, as a reward for his good services, appointed him Quarter-master of one of the battalions of artillery stationed at Dum Dum, from which he was soon removed to Cawnpore, having been selected for the post of Adjutant and Quartermaster to the artillery in the field at that station, which he held until his promotion to full Captain, on the 1st March, 1812. Meanwhile Pollock had received a commission from the Governor-General as Captain-lieutenant, on the 17th September, 1805, although his King's commission of that rank was not given until the 1st December, 1809.

On his promotion to full captain he was ordered again to Dum Dum, where for some time he performed the duties of Brigade-major to the whole of the artillery of the Bengal army.

The next occasion on which he saw active service was during the war in Nepaul, in 1814-16, where he commanded two companies of the Bengal artillery, but was attached to a portion of the army which, through the incompetence of its general, did not take any glorious part in the operations.

After this campaign he was appointed by Lord Hastings to the vacant post of Brigade-major of the Bengal artillery. He received the brevet of Major on the 12th August, 1819, and on the 4th May following was gazetted to the same substantive rank, which, according to the rules of the service then existing, entailed the relinquishment of the post of Brigade-major. He was, however, almost immediately made "Assistant-adjutant-general to the artillery" a new appointment which Lord Hastings appears to have created in order to retain Pollock on the staff, and which he held with credit to himself and advantage to his regiment until he received his commission as Lieutenant-colonel on the 1st May, 1824.

About this time Pollock was ordered to return to England for his health. As with his heavy family expenses he could ill afford to leave India the thought occurred to him that, war having commenced with Burmah, he would try to go there, hoping that the short sea voyage, with the excitement of active service, might effect a cure. He accordingly volunteered, and his services having been accepted, he joined the force at Rangoon soon after its capture, in 1824, as commanding officer of the Bengal artillery attached to the army, of which Sir Archibald Campbell was Commander-in-chief.

He was present, as commanding officer of artillery, with General Cotton's division at the storming of the stockades at Simbike, in front of Prome, and at the defeat of the Shaans on the 1st December, 1825, when the Commander-in-chief, in his despatches, made favourable mention of his service. General Cotton, upon whose division the brunt of the work fell, candidly owned that his success was due to his Commandant of artillery.

Colonel Pollock was again specially mentioned in the despatches of the Commander-in-chief for his conduct at the capture of Mellown on the 19th January, 1826, on which occasion the general wrote that the artillery occupied the most conspicuous place in the events of the day.

He also took part in the important action at Pagahm Mew, on the 9th February, when the Burmans, "departing from their cautious system of defence behind field works and entrenchments, which formed their usual device of war, and relying on their great numerical superiority, combined with singular advantages of ground, ventured on a succession of bold manoeuvres on the flanks and front of the British columns." The storming of Pagahm Mew immediately following the action decided the war, which was finally brought to an end by the treaty of Yandaboo, signed at that place on the 24th February, 1826, the army being then only three days' march from Ava.

This war was remarkable not so much for the complete and almost bloodless character of its chief victories as for the boldness and arduous nature of the marches in a bad climate, over. indifferent roads, into territories far distant from the basis of operations, and in which a severe outbreak of cholera had to be contended with; it tried the energies of all engaged, and not the least so of the subject of this Memoir, who had to organise the means for conveying his guns, employing horses and oxen with native drivers and syces of various nationalities, including even Burmese, and who, notwithstanding the great length of the marches and the almost impassable nature of the roads, had his guns always ready and well to the front whenever required.

Colonel Pollock's meritorious services in this war were specially acknowledged by the Governor-General in council in the general order thanking the troops, and gained for him the Companionship of the Bath.

At the end of the war Colonel Pollock returned to Calcutta, but his health had been so rudely shaken by all the exposure and hardships he had undergone that it soon completely broke down, necessitating sick leave to England for a lengthened period. He accordingly embarked from Calcutta early in the year 1827, nine months of which he passed on the sea on his passage home. While in England he was promoted to a brevet colonelcy in the Company's service on the 1st December, 1829, but did not receive his King's commission of that rank until the 3rd March, 1836.

Thanks to his native air, Pollock's health was soon completely restored. He returned to India in 1830, and was posted to the command of a battalion of artillery at Cawnpore, where he remained until, owing to his standing in the service, he was nominated early in 1838 as Brigadier general to command the division at Dinapore. He was subsequently posted to the command of the Agra district, and on the 28th June, 1838, was promoted to the rank of Major-general.

We are now approaching that portion of Pollock's career on which rests his claim to rank among the greatest of Indian generals. In the year 1838, Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India, desirous of erecting a bulwark against Russian aggression, resolved to dethrone Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Cabul, and to replace him by Shah Soojah, who had formerly occupied that throne. With this object a British army invaded Afghanistan, passing through the Bolan Pass, and after taking Ghuznee with its famous citadel by assault, on the 23rd July, entered Cabul on the 6th August, 1839; Dost Mohammed fled and Shah Soojah was proclaimed king.

The war being considered at an end, the army was broken up, part of the Bengal troops returning by Jellalabad and the Khyber Pass to Peshawur, and thence through Runjeet Singh's dominions to the British provinces, while the Bombay column, under General Wiltshire, returned to India by the Bolan Pass, having first captured by assault, on the 13th November, 1839, Khelati-Ghilzye, the Khan of which was killed, and part of his Khanate confiscated and attached to the dominions of Shah Soojah. A British force, however, remained to assist the Shah's troops, which had been raised and organised and were in great measure commanded by British officers, in maintaining the puppet king who had been placed on the throne. Towards the end of 1841 the British troops in Afghanistan were under the command of General Elphinstone, a brave officer of good repute, gentlemanly manners, and aristocratic connections, but with no Indian experience of any kind. The chief qualification that determined his selection for this distant and trying command was that he was of a ductile nature, with few opinions of his own to clash with those of Sir William Macnaghten, the accredited minister and agent of the Governor-General at the court of the Shah. Under General Elphinstone were Generals Sir Robert Sale, and Nott, and Brigadier Shelton. Brigadier Anquetil was in command of the Shah's forces.

Sir Robert Sale had been detached with his brigade to tranquilize the country in the direction of Jellalabad; General Nott was at Candahar with outlying detachments at Ghuznee under Colonel Palmer and at Khelat-i-Ghilzye under Captain Craigie, while Elphinstone with Shelton and Anquetil was in cantonments close to Cabul, Sir W. Macnaghten and his political staff being with him.

These cantonments were in the plain outside the city, and about two miles from the Balla Hissar, or Citadel of Cabul, a large fortress on a hill completely overlooking the Shah' s palace and the city, and containing accommodation for a considerable garrison. When it was first determined that the British troops were to remain in the country, a council had been held to decide the important question of the positions they were to occupy. Lieutenant (afterwards Sir Henry) Durand of the Bengal Engineers, who had been appointed chief engineer to the Shah's forces, and had been called to the council, insisted that the only fit position for the troops was the Balla Hissar, but Sir W. Macnaghten weakly attended to the political objections of the Shah to its occupation, and the cantonments were therefore built outside the city in a defenceless position. The want of common sense and firmness thus displayed by those upon whom the success of the enterprise depended was such that Durand threw up his appointment and returned to India in disgust.

The faulty position of the army encouraged the disaffection which was rife in the country, and the efforts to maintain the Shah were unsuccessful. A terrible outbreak occurred in the city on the 2nd November, 1841, when Sir Alexander Burnes and several other British officers were murdered. If prompt and vigorous action had then been aroused, and if the Balla Hissar had been seized, as advised by some officers and especially by Lieutenant Sturt of the Engineers, who had succeeded Durand as Engineer to the Shah's forces, and who urged that the position of the force in cantonments was untenable, the insurrection would have been strangled in its birth; the British forces, about 5000 combatants, would have had the city in their power, while they themselves would have been in a secure position, from which the united efforts of the whole Afghan race would not have been able to dislodge them. Instead of assuming this defiant attitude, a series of misunderstandings commenced; and conflicts of opinion, which in the absence of a resolute and master mind to fulfil the responsibilities of command, brought disaster upon disaster. The army was shut up in its cantonments, allowed the enemy to seize a small detached fort containing its commissariat stores, which by some unaccountable mismanagement were not within its lines, and at length submitted to the disgrace of witnessing the foulest indignity one nation can place upon another. The murder of the ambassador, Sir W. Macnaghten, on the 23rd December, in the performance of his ambassadorial duties, in broad day, upon the open plain, within 600 yards of their cantonments, roused not the dormant energies of the military Chiefs, nor awakened them to a sense of the depths of humiliation In which they were plunging their unhappy country; not a trigger was pulled; not a gun fired; not a company moved to rescue or to avenge. This lamentable inaction of a highly trained force, which included one of Her Majesty's regiments of British Infantry, and a number of native troops commanded by officers distinguished for personal courage, was solely attributable to the folly of Government in entrusting the chief command to a general, who, although possessing high personal courage, was borne down by years and physical infirmities.

The result, sad as it was, scarcely exceeds what might have been expected; a treaty was made with the insurrectionary chiefs according to which all the garrisons in Afghanistan were to be evacuated, and the British forces withdrawn from the country;

Dost Mohammed, who was a prisoner in India, was to be released and restored; a large sum was to be paid as ransom; all spare stores and small arms were to be surrendered, and all the gums except six field pieces, which were to accompany the retreating force, were to be given up to the enemy; a crowning indignity than which nothing could be more mortifying, nothing more humiliating to soldiers taught to honour their gums and regard them as trophies to be defended as obstinately and held as dearly as the consecrated colours of their regiments; and as if such moral degradation were not sufficient, the enemy demanded that General Sale, with his wife and daughter, and the other Europeans who were married, with their wives and children, should be left as hostages until the arrival of Dost Mohammed and other Afghan prisoners from Hindostan.

This last demand, however, was rejected, but immediately that this miserable treaty had been signed, the enemy, believing that the Feringhees had sunk into hopeless cowardice, assumed a still more haughty and insolent tone.

During the long weary blockade in their entrenched cantonments, which had lasted sixty-five days from the first outbreak, the troops and camp followers, had become enfeebled by continued watching; by occasional sorties, in which many gallant soldiers had fallen nobly on the field of battle, and by harassing duties on reduced rations, until at length when they commenced their fatal march on the 6th of January, 1842, although many brave men were bracing themselves up in the desperate resolution to sell their lives dearly to the enemy, if treachery were at work for their destruction, the great mass of the force was in sore condition to endure the fatigues of a long weary march in snow and frost, through the mountain fastnesses which separated them from Jellalabad, the nearest point on their road at which they could hope for support.

The English ladies and children accompanied the retiring troops, for the protection of whom, from the furious zeal of the Ghazees, and the uncontrollable cupidity of the Afghan bandits who infested the mountains through which they had to pass, it was humiliatingly agreed that the chiefs should furnish an escort. The arrangements of the march were of the worst; there was no order; already, on the 7th, the effect of the sharp frosts and exposure had told; there was no shelter, no fire-wood, no food, and the sun rose on many stiffened corpses. The enemy were pressing on the rear, seizing baggage, and capturing guns. The soldiers weary, feeble and frost-bitten, could make no stand against the fierce charges of the Afghan horsemen; all thoughts of effectual resistance were at an end, and there was nothing to be hoped for but from the forbearance of the treacherous Afghan chiefs.

On the 8th of January, having only cleared ten miles in the two previous days march, the force entered the stupendous pass of Koord Cabul, which for a distance of five miles runs between precipitous mountain ranges, so narrow and so shut in on either side that the wintry sun rarely penetrates its gloomy recesses. Into the jaws of this terrible defile the disorganised force struggled in fearful confusion. In vain did some of the chiefs endeavour to control the hordes of fanatic Ghilzyes, who poured upon the straggling rabble a deadly fire from their jezails. Pent in between the walls of the narrow pass, now splashing through the mountain torrent, now floundering through the snow which filled the hollows, the wretched fugitives fell an easy prey to the Ghilzye marksmen who shot them down from the hill sides. Baggage, ammunition, public and private property, all were abandoned, and the Sepoys suffered their very firelocks to be taken out of their hands. The massacre was fearful in this Koord Cabul Pass. Three thousand men are believed to have here fallen under the fire of the enemy, or to have dropped down exhausted to be afterwards slaughtered by Afghan knives, and amidst these fearful scenes rode English ladies, whose agonies were enhanced by the sufferings of their children who accompanied them.

Another night in the snow now deepened by a heavy fall, spent by the perishing troops without shelter, firewood, or food, was followed by a day of irresolution. The General ordered a halt while negotiating with Akbar Khan, and at length, as he himself states, "desirous to remove the ladies and children from the further dangers of our camp, and hoping that, as from the very commencement of the negotiations the Sirdar had shown the greatest anxiety to have the married people as hostages, this mark of trust might elicit a corresponding feeling in him," he complied with the request, and so Lady Macnaghten, Lady Sale and the other widows and wives of the British officers, with their children, passed into the hands of the son of Dost Mohammed Khan, the sovereign whom the army had deposed. The married officers accompanied their wives, and on the following morning, 10th of January, the remnant of the doomed force resumed its march, in the same miserable confusion as on the preceding day. Soldiers and camp followers rushed promiscuously to the front. The native regiments were fast melting into nothing; throwing down their arms and crowding in among the camp followers, the Sepoys were rapidly swelling the disorganised rabble in front; their hands were frost-bitten; they could not pull a trigger; they were paralyzed, panic struck; whilst the Afghans watching their cruel opportunity, came down with their long knives among their unresisting victims, and slaughtered them like sheep. A narrow gorge between the precipitous spurs of two hills was the appointed shambles; there the dead and dying soon choked up the defile. There was not now a single Sepoy left.

About 50 horse artillerymen with one howitzer; some 250 men of H.M.'s 44th regiment, and 150 cavalry troopers now constituted the entire force. Of the 16,500 men - soldiers and camp followers - who had left Cabul on the 6th, not one fourth survived, and had it not been for the persevering energy and unflinching fortitude of Brigadier Shelton, who commanded the rear with a few Europeans, it is probable the whole would then have been sacrificed.

After another attempt at negotiation, in which the proposition that the remnant of the British army should lay down their arms had been promptly rejected by Elphinstone, the survivors pressed forward, hoping to reach Jugdulluck by a rapid night march, but day dawned upon them when they were still ten miles distant from it. After a short halt they pushed on, covered by Shelton, who, with a few brave men of the rear guard, faced the overwhelming crowd of Afghans with determined courage, gallantly held them in check, fighting their way to Jugdulluck, behind the ruined walls of which they were soon compelled to seek safety from the hot fire of the enemy's jezails. All night long and throughout the next day, 12th January, the force halted at Jugdulluck, while negotiations were resumed with the Sirdar, who having invited Elphinstone, Shelton, and Captain Johnson to a conference, basely retained them as hostages for the evacuation of Jellalabad. On the evening of the 12th the few remaining men, about 125 in all, resumed their perilous march, and after fighting their way bravely to the summit of the Jugdulluck pass, came upon a barrier which closed the defile. Here the Afghans lay in wait for them, and after a desperate fight, in which twelve officers fell and a greater part of the force was massacred, a few officers and men cleared the barrier, and about daybreak reached Gundamuck, a party of some 65 Europeans, with only two rounds of ammunition in the pouches of the men. The chief of the district made overtures for their surrender, but while the negotiations were pending, the enemy, who swarmed around, fell on the little party and cut them up almost to a man. One officer of the 44th, who had wrapped the regimental colour round his waist, and a few privates were taken prisoners, and a small party of six others reached Futtehabad, sixteen miles from Jellalabad, but were then attacked by the natives and one only escaped.

Very different was the fate of Sale's brigade, which had been detached from Cabul to tranquilize the country between it and Jellalabad, in which the Ghilzyes were in a state of open hostility. It consisted of Sale's own regiment, Her Majesty's 13th Light Infantry, the 35th Native Infantry, Captain Abbott's battery of European Artillery, two guns of European Horse Artillery under Lieut. Walker, with some mountain guns, 3-prs., under Lieut. Davis , a. squadron of the 5th Regiment of Bengal Light Cavalry, and another of Anderson's Irregular Horse, with 400 Sappers and Miners under Captain Broadfoot.

After some hard fighting, Sir Robert Sale had reached Gundamuck on the 30th October, where he received information of the outbreak at Cabul, with orders to retrace his steps. His losses in officers and men, however, by continuous hard fighting, forcing his way through the narrow and difficult passes which now separated him from Cabul, had been very severe; the whole of his camp equipage had been destroyed; he was encumbered with 300 sick and wounded, surrounded by enemies, and embarrassed by treacherous allies, having no secure depôt in which to place his sick, no depôt of provisions on the route, not sufficient transport to carry a single day's provisions, and "without sufficient ammunition two such contests as he would assuredly have had to sustain for six days at least." Under these circumstances he "could not force the passes of either Jugdulluck or Koord Cabul," and therefore he decided, and, on the 11th November marched, to seize Jellalabad, and "hold it, if possible, until the Cabul force should fall back upon him, or succour arrive from Peshawur or India."

On the 13th November, Sale took possession of the town, which, though surrounded by fortifications, was absolutely without any real defences, the troops within its dilapidated walls and filled up ditches being almost as much exposed as in the open country. The extent of the works was great, embracing a circuit of upwards of 2300 yards, and it was quite impossible to man them; but guards were posted at all the gates, and a strong piquet, in a central position, was held In readiness to send support to any point from which the sound of firing might proceed. The remainder of the troops were allowed to lie down to rest by companies, with their officers beside them, while the measures to be taken for the defence of the city of Jellalabad were being considered.

The dilapidated works were examined and found in the most wretched condition; 400 yards, continuously, were In such a state that none of the garrison could show themselves upon them except at one spot, but it was decided to defend the place, and Captain Broadfoot, having been appointed garrison engineer, set about the repair of the defences with all the energy and zeal for which he was distinguished. His little corps of sappers had brought their working tools with them from Cabul, in spite of great difficulties and some opposition, and were now ready to ply them with the heartiest goodwill. There was not a soldier in the force, European or native, who was not eager to join In the work, and did not recognise the hitherto despised tools as only second in importance to their arms for assuring their safety.

After dispersing the enemy, who had assembled in large numbers to molest them, by a well-led sortie on the 16th of November, the works proceeded apace; ammunition was prepared by Abbott and his artillerymen; provisions were collected, and although the soldiers were on half rations and deprived of their accustomed drams, there being no ardent liquors in the .town, there was no grumbling, no dissatisfaction, and it was never said that a man was unequal to his accustomed duties; it is recorded on the contrary that "the gallant men who composed the garrison of Jellalabad took their half rations cheerfully, and cheerfully did double work."

Again, on the 1st December, the enemy, who had collected in force under the walls, were routed In a sortie, after which the labours of the garrison, who were in fine health, in good working condition, and in an admirable state of discipline, proceeded without molestation, and the works began to assume an appearance of effective defence, but disastrous rumours were coming in from Cabul, gradually increasing in intensity, until at length, on the 2nd January, authentic information was received that the Cabul force was falling hack on Jellalabad, followed, on the 8th, by an order from General Elphinstone to evacuate the place, and hand it over to an Afghan chief, who was to have brought the order, in which he was designated Governor of Jellalabad, and return forthwith to India.

Happily Sir Robert Sale and Major Macgregor the political agent attached to his force, adopted a worthier' resolution, and declined to deliver up the city and the works raised around it by the garrison for their, defence. It would, moreover, have been useless to have done so; the Cabul force would not have been aided thereby; the only secure point between it and India would have been lost, and the garrison in their retreat upon India, through the fastnesses of the Khyber, then covered with snow, would almost inevitably have been destroyed.

It is recorded that four days later, on the 13th January, when the garrison were still busy on the works, toiling with axe and shovel, with their arms piled and accoutrements laid out close at hand, a sentry looking towards the Cabul road saw a solitary white‑faced horseman struggling towards the fort. The tidings spread, the ramparts were lined with straining eyes. Slowly and painfully the solitary mounted man came reeling, tottering on. They saw he was an Englishman, on a wretched, weary pony, clinging as one sick or wounded to its neck. A shudder ran through the garrison. Their worst forebodings were confirmed. There was the one man who was to tell the story of the massacre of an army. A party of cavalry, sent to succour him, brought him in wounded, exhausted, half dead. The messenger was Dr. Brydon, who reported his belief that he was the sole survivor of a force of 4,500 fighting men and about 12,000 camp followers, who with him had left Cabul only seven short days before.

How it happened that such an army as that commanded by General Elphinstone had been brought to such a condition as to he compelled to evacuate Cabul, and had then been so disastrously beaten and at length destroyed, by an enemy of such calibre as these undisciplined Afghans, was a terrible mystery to the brave men of the garrison of Jellalabad, who had been scattering their opponents like sheep. No difference in the troops can account for it; the mystery is alone to be solved by considering the character of the political and military chiefs, who by the will of God were entrusted with the supreme direction of the two forces. The sad news of these terrible disasters caused the greatest despondency throughout India in all minds, from the Governor‑General and Commander-in-chief downwards. A great crisis had suddenly arisen and the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, who had been created an Earl only two years before, for conquering and tranquilizing Afghanistan, was not equal to it. He began to doubt the justice and expediency of his policy, and in the bewilderment and perplexity which followed the blow that had descended upon him, he seems to have forgotten the paramount necessity of demonstrating to all the nations of the East the invincibility of British arms, upon the prestige of which our Indian Empire so much depends, and with a great army at his call, to have thought only of extrication and retreat. of abandoning instead of regaining our position.

The Commander-in-chief, Sir Jasper Nicolls, who had been consistently opposed to the entire scheme of Afghan invasion, and had with rare prescience and sagacity foretold the disastrous downfall of a policy based upon a foundation of complicated error, was equally averse to sending strong reinforcements to the support of the troops in Afghanistan, forgetting that the restoration of the military supremacy of Great Britain in Central Asia was to be achieved; in such a crisis, whatever might be the scruples of the statesman, the soldier ought not to have hesitated for a moment, supineness being more likely than activity to provoke aggression.

Happily, there were other functionaries nearer to the scene of action at the time, whose judgment dictated a more energetic course of procedure.

Mr. Robertson, the lieutenant governor of the north-west provinces, and. Mr. George Clerk, the Governor-General's agent on the north-western frontier, both recognised the paramount necessity of pushing on troops to Peshawur, and already, on the 26th of November, four regiments of native infantry, the 30th, 53rd. 60th and 64th, with a few artillerymen to reinforce a company in Afghanistan, under Brigadier Wild,. had by their instructions crossed the Sutlej, and preparations were begun for the despatch of another brigade with artillery and cavalry; but these were stopped by the Commander-in-chief, who wrote to Brigadier Wild, to borrow guns, of which he had none of his own, from the Sikhs, and to man them with the few gunner's who accompanied his force. Meanwhile, Mr Clerk continued to get additional reinforcements in readiness, and although the Commander-in-chief was "not prepared," and the Governor-General thought it "undesirable" to send more troops in advance, permission was at length given, and on the 4th of June, 1842, a second brigade, under Brigadier M'Caskill, consisting of H.M.'s 9th regiment, the 26th native infantry and the 10th light (native) cavalry, and half a battery of artillery with three guns, altogether, 3,034 fighting men, crossed the Sutlej, also on its way to Peshawur.

While the preparations were proceeding for the despatch of these troops, a discussion had arisen as to the appointment of an officer to command them. It was necessary to select a man of good military repute and of unquestionable energy and activity, combined with a cool judgement and sound discretion; but here again there was diversity of opinion; the Commander-in-chief wished to appoint a royal officer, while the Governor-General desired to see an experienced officer of the Company's service, at the head of affairs, and at length after much hesitation, the choice fell upon Major General George Pollock, then commanding the garrison at Agra, whose merit was even at that time so thoroughly established that his appointment gave universal satisfaction. His nomination was believed to be free from the corruption of undue influence, and the taint of personal favouritism, and it was felt that the selection had been made on the ground of individual merit. Sir J. W. Kaye, from whose " History of the war in Afghanistan " a great part of this Memoir has been borrowed, writes:

"The merit thus rewarded was of the most modest and unostentatious character. There was not perhaps in the whole Indian army a man of more unassuming there manners and a more retiring disposition ;was not one less likely to have sought notoriety for its own sake, or to have put himself forward in an attempt to obtain it. Pollock's merits did not lie upon the surface. He was not what is called a dashing officer; he shrunk from anything like personal display, and never appealed to the vulgar weaknesses of an unreflecting community. But beneath an unassuming exterior, there lay a fund of good sense, of innate sagacity, of quiet firmness and collectedness. He was equable and temperate. He was thoroughly conscientious. If he was looked upon by the Indian Government as a safe man, it was not merely because he always exercised a calm and dispassionate judgement, but because he was actuated in all that he did by the purest motives, and sustained by the highest principles. He was essentially an honest man. There was a directness of purpose about him which won the confidence of all with whom he associated. They saw that his one paramount desire was to do his duty to his country, by consulting in every way the welfare and honour of the troops under his command, and they knew that they would never be sacrificed, either on the one hand by the rash ambition, or on the other by the feebleness and indecision of their leader. The force to be despatched to Afghanistan required the superintendence and control of all officer equally cool and firm, temperate and decided and perhaps, in the whole range of the Indian army, the Government could not have found one in whom these qualities were more eminently combined than in the character' of General Pollock."

Pollock received orders at Agra on the 1st of January, 1842, to proceed forthwith to Peshawur, where he arrived on the 6th of February, and assumed command of the troops assembling there. While on this journey he received full intelligence of the disasters that had befallen the Cabul army, the extent and details of which became known in India towards the end of January. While these caused many to sigh over the tarnished reputation of the country, and to burn with desire to avenge the murder of their countrymen and the insults that had been heaped upon the nation, the Governor-General and Commander-in-chief seem to have been paralyzed, and to have thought only of the expediency of a retrogade movement on the part of all the remaining troops beyond the Indus, as soon as the safety of Sale's brigade had been secured, leaving the unfortunate captives, Including officers, soldiers, ladies and children, to the tender mercies of the treacherous Afghans, and to the chance of procuring their release by money. Not so, however, Mr. Clerk and some other brave spirits, who insisted that the safety and honour of the British power in India required that the garrison at Jellalabad should hold its own, until, reinforced by fresh troops, it could march in conjunction with the Candahar force upon Cabul, chastise the enemy on the theatre of their recent successes, and then the whole could withdraw altogether from Afghanistan with dignity and undiminished honour. The urgency of Mr. Clerk could not be withstood, and a third brigade, consisting of the 6th and 55th regiments of native infantry, the 1st regiment of native cavalry, two squadrons of European dragoons and a battery of horse artillery, was held in readiness to join the force at Peshawur.

While such was the state of indecision and panic in India, let us consider the position of affairs at Peshawur when Pollock arrived and assumed command. The fortress of Ali Musjid, lying some five miles within the Khyber Pass, of which it had always been regarded as the key, and about twenty-five miles from Peshawur, had been held by a few faithful natives under. the command of an English gentleman, Mr. Mackeson, who had nobly resisted the attacks of the Afreedies but, there being every chance of their being unable to sustain the defence much longer, Brigadier Wild detached one half of his brigade, the 53rd and 64th regiments of native infantry, on the 15th January, to garrison it. They reached their destination in safety, but by some unaccountable mismanagement left the cattle behind which were destined to feed them, and were thus shut up in an isolated fortress without provisions. The only hope of extrication from this dilemma lay in the advance of the two other regiments of the brigade, with their four borrowed Sikh guns, and the Sikh auxiliaries. The latter however mutinied and marched back to Peshawur. Wild, therefore, advanced on the 19th January, without them, but was disgracefully beaten back with the loss of his guns, notwithstanding the efforts of himself and officers, several of whom were wounded and one killed in endeavouring to rally the Sepoys, who had lost all heart, and were huddled together In confusion and dismay. The loss of the Sepoys was severe and the column fell back on Jumrood. This disaster brought about the abandonment of the fortress, the garrison retiring with some loss on the 24th January, when the four regiments were once more together at Jumrood, the officers, in spite of the disasters of the week, congratulating one another, and thankful "it was no worse."

After thhis, the brigade remained inactive in the vicinity of Peshawur, when the usual consequences of inactivity were soon painfully apparent. The Sepoys fell sick, crowded into hospital, and, without the audacity of open mutiny, gave utterance to language but little removed from it. Exposed to the alarming hints and alluring imputations of the mutinous Sikh soldiery, some began to desert their colours, while others openly declared that nothing should induce them again to face the horrors of the Khyber Pass. As Pollock hurried through the Punjaub the worst reports continued to meet him; not only was he informed that the troops of Wild's brigade were enfeebled by disease and paralyzed by terror, but that even the officers of the force were using, in an unguarded and unworthy manner, the language of disheartenment and alarm.

On the 66th February he reached Peshawur, and found that the stories he had heard on the road by no means exaggerated the condition of the troops under Brigadier Wild. There were then 1000 men in hospital, and the number was increasing alarmingly. In a few days it had increased to 1800; the morale of the troops was in the lowest possible state. Disaffection broke out openly among the Sepoys, and a few days after, when M'Caskill's brigade had arrived, four out of the five Sepoy regiments present refused to advance; this disaffection manifested itself by frequent desertions, calculated to cause the greatest uneasiness, and the more so, because this small force was 363 miles from the British frontier, and a Sikh army was encamped close at hand, spreading alarm, encouraging and screening desertions, who, although their ruler, the astute Runjeet Singh, had allowed the British forces to traverse his territory, and their chiefs were courteous and nominally friendly, could only be regarded as very doubtful allies. To quote from one of Pollock's dispatches "The Sikh soldiery, one and all, are Insolent, and do not scruple to express their wish that we may meet with reverses; they are a disorganised rabble, but dangerous as neighbours."

The taint which had affected the Sepoys had also reached some of the officers, who did not hesitate openly to express at the mess table the strongest opinions against a second attempt to force the Khyber, and to declare their belief that, if it were made, very few would return to Peshawur. One officer publicly asserted that it would be better to sacrifice Sale's brigade than to risk the loss of 12,000 men on the march to Jellalabad, and another said that, if an advance were ordered, he would do his best to dissuade every Sepoy of his corps from again entering the pass.

To instil new courage and confidence into the waverers was no easy task ; but coolly and sagaciously, as one who understood the cause of their disheartenment and could make some allowances for their misconduct, Pollock addressed himself to the work of reanimating and reassuring them. He visited the hospitals frequently, and by adding to the comforts of the men, shewed that he felt an interest In them. He saw every officer; he determined not to act with harshness towards the men, not calling them to courts-martial, he depended upon the influence of reason with them, and in the course of a very short time he succeeded in completely re-establishing the confidence which had been so deeply shaken. He made the Sepoys feel that they had been placed under the care of one who was mindful of their welfare and jealous of their honour; one who overlooked nothing that could contribute to the health and comfort of his men, and who would never call upon them to make sacrifices to which he would not cheerfully submit himself. There was in all he did such an union of firmness and kindness; he was so mild, so considerate, and yet so decided, that the Sepoys came in time to regard him with child-like faith, and when the hour of trial came, they were not found wanting.

All through the months of February and March Pollock remained inactive, but, mortifying as the delay was, no other course was open to him. His position was painful, but his duty plain. The safety of the gallant garrison of Jellalabad was to be secured by his advance.

On the 26th of January, in doubt whether. the government of Calcutta had any intention to make a genuine effort on a sufficient scale to relieve the garrison, and concluding from what had been heard of the views and measures of Lord Auckland, that they would be left to their fate, Sale summoned a council of War to consider a demand made to him by the Afghan Government, that he should leave the country. At this council, composed of men who had proved their valour and resource on many a battle field, the terms of a proposed capitulation were carried with but ONE dissentient voice, (that of Captain George Broadfoot, of the Bengal Engineers) who, to his honour it is recorded, took his stand boldly, and withstood every argument adduced in favour of the capitulation, and when, on the 12th of February, a reply came demanding further concessions from the beleaguered garrison, his arguments had such weight that the re-assembled council, after long debate and much opposition, did not renew the negotiation. Sir Robert Sale was thus happily left free to act as he should think fit; on the following day tidings arrived that reinforcements were moving up through the Punjaub; all doubt ceased and there was no more talk of withdrawal, but Sale and Macgregor nevertheless continued to write urgent letters to Pollock to push on without delay; it was still Pollock's hard duty to halt. The Sepoys were gradually recovering their health and spirits; reinforcements with British dragoons and horse artillery were on their way to join him, and He well knew that nothing could do more to reassure those wwho had been discouraged by previous failure than the knowledge that they would be supported in their advance by fresh troops, numbering among them a good proportion of Europeans. Had the advance been precipitated, it is probable that some of the native regiments would have refused to march, and by open mutiny have raised difficulties which it would have been impossible to overcome.

Still it required much firmness to resist the pressing appeals made to Pollock by his comrades at the other end of the Khyber, who having with enormous efforts and by frequent sorties, collected provisions which had enabled them to hold out so long, now found that their supplies would soon come to an end. Their rations, which were not of the best, had been reduced to such an extent that they were barely sufficient to keep the men in health and strength, fit for the exertions they were daily required to make, and which it was necessary to sustain if ever they w ere to be released from their present position.*

* Return of the Garrison of Jellalabad on the 14th of February, 1842.

Cavalry

Effective

241

Sick

21

Artillery

171

51

Sappers

304

45

Infantry

Europeans

719

30

Sepoys

838

48

Total

2273

195 2468

A great calamity w as now again about to befall the garrison of Jellalabad. On the morning of the 19th February the men were toiling with pick and shovel with their wonted cheerfulness and activity, their arms piled within reach, flushed with joy at the thought of the near completion of the defences and the security they afforded against the hordes of Afghans now again assembling in their vicinity, when a fearful visitation of Providence suddenly and astoundingly turned all their labour into nothingness. There was an awful and mysterious sound as of thunder beneath their feet; then the earth shook; the houses of the town trembled and fell; the ramparts seemed to reel and totter, and then came down with a crash. On the first sound the men instinctively rushed to their arms, which were a short distance from the walls, and so the greater number escaped injury.

Although this earthquake* had wrought in a minute more ruin than a bombarding army could have done in a month, the garrison were in no wise disheartened. " No time," says Captain Broadfoot, "was lost. The shocks had scarcely ceased when the whole garrison was told off into working parties, and before night the breaches were scarped, the rubbish below them cleared away, whilst the great one was surrounded by a good gabion parapet."

* Pollock, at Peshawur, narrowly escaped death from the effect of this same earthquake, a heavy beam having fallen and crushed a table from which he and a party of his friends had just risen.

The Afghans, however, dared not to attack; they lost their opportunity, but hoping to subdue the garrison by starvation, drew closer round the fortress, establishing sungahs (screens for riflemen, built up with dry stones), from behind which they fired briskly on the defenders, until at length they were driven away by a sortie on the 11th March.

Scarcity of ammunition prevented the gallant defenders from following up this success , which, however, caused the rest of the month to pass quietly away. Provisions had become very scarce; their camels had long ago been killed; fodder for their horses was not to be obtained; the blockade was strict, and it is therefore easy to understand the eagerness with which Sale and Macgregor continued to urge Pollock to advance to their succour. They knew that if reduced to much greater straits they would cease to have the power to help themselves or to make a move to meet their deliverers. Pollock, however, remained firm. He knew the dangers before him; he had calculated the means at his disposal to overcome them, and he waited until the dragoons and horse artillery reached his camp, on the 30th March; on the following day he began to move forward.

Pollock had difficulties to encounter, besides those arising from his own command, from the Sikh army, who, although nominal allies, cordially detested the British nation, and regarded its disasters with secret delight, but ably seconded by the efforts of Mr. Clark, at the court of Lahore, and by Henry Lawrence, who was with him, Pollock gradually, by the influence of his character, overcame this feeling of aversion, and when the European reinforcements arrived, the Sikhs had resolved to face the dangers of, and to assist in forcing, the pass.

On the 31st March Pollock was at Jumrood, intending to advance on the following morning, but new elements of delay arose; the camel drivers were deserting in such numbers that there was not sufficient carriage for the ammunition. The Sikh General, Gholab Singh, had not moved up his camp, and the rain was descending in floods.

Pollock had already clone his best to reduce the baggage, but now issued a fine soldierly appeal to the army, which made men of all ranks feel that he was not less ready to make sacrifices himself than to call upon others to make them. One regiment of native infantry could not come up for want of cattle; Sepoys were deserting from Wild's brigade: "The pluck of the Sepoys," Pollock wrote, "was doubtful. I still much regret that I have not the 31st Queen's Regiment,* but after Sir Robert Sale's letter, I consider he has put it out of my power to wait longer, although I am quite sure the addition of 900 Europeans would operate very favourably for the prisoners."

* H.M.'s 31st Regiment, with the 6th Native Infantry, some resallah's of Tait's irregular Cavalry, a company of Foot Artillery and Major Delafosse's troop of Horse Artillery, all under the command of Colonel Bolton, of the 31st, had crossed the Sutlej on the 6th March on their way to Peshawur; which they reached on the 21st of April.

The interval of delay was well employed in completing the arrangements for the final advance, which was made on the 5th of April, in three columns, a centre one with the baggage, treasure, ammunition, and guns, and two flanking columns composed entirely of infantry. H.M.'s 9th regiment, the only European infantry with the force, were distributed between the three, to give confidence to the native soldiers, who now, however, behaved nobly; vieing with their European comrades, they carried the precipitous heights on either side, and driving the defenders from ridge to ridge, opened the door of the Khyber Pass, the enemy retreating to the fort of Ali Musjid, which they evacuated on the following morning.

A military writer in a work entitled: "Mountain Warfare," says, that Pollock's arrangements were so perfect in conception, and so complete in detail, "that it would be superfluous to attempt to elaborate or improve upon them;" and it may be added, that no better example can be given to the student of military history in search of knowledge of mountain warfare, than that of the forcing of the Khyber Pass, and of the subsequent operations of Pollock's army in the intricate defiles of Afghanistan.

By this defeat of an enemy, 10,000 strong, in an almost impregnable position, in spite of his barricades, in which he placed the greatest confidence, with the singularly small casualty roll of 135 killed and wounded (41 from H.M.'s 9th regiment), the Sepoys found they were not sacrificed, and, as Pollock wrote on the following day, "they are in the highest spirits and have a thorough contempt for the enemy. This is a great point gained. The Sikhs are encamped near us and are much more respectful since our operations of yesterday."

A small body of native troops took charge of the surrendered fortress, the Sikhs were left to guard the communications, and Pollock pressed on towards Jellalabad.

At the other end of the pass a glorious action was fought, on the following day, the 6th of April; the garrison, under Sale, moved out of the fortress and attacked Akbar Khan, who with 6000 men was drawn up in front of his camp, with his right resting on a fort and his left on the Cabul river, ready to receive them. The impetuosity of the British onslaught was not to be resisted by Afghan soldiers; they fought well and made repeated efforts to check, the advance, but "in a short time were dislodged from every point of their position, their cannon taken and their camp involved in a general conflagration. In short," as Sale wrote: "The defeat of Mahommed Akbar in open field, by the troops whom he had boasted of blockading, was complete and signal."

On the 16th of April Pollock reached Jellalabad, when Sale and his "illustrious" followers were relieved, after having been shut up for five long months in the fortifications, reared for the most part by their own energy.

As Pollock and his troops passed to their encamping ground the walls were manned by the garrison, a salute was fired and returned, and a loud and thrilling cheer burst forth to welcome them, a most exciting scene, in which so many hearts beat happily together in the ranks of the relieving and relieved, and grateful thoughts were lifted up to the Almighty in gratitude for a deliverance which, two months before, had appeared almost hopeless to all except Pollock and a few others inspired with like energy and devotion. Pollock, in the simplicity of his heart, wrote to a friend: "It was a sight worth seeing, all appeared happy."

The following reflection from "Sale's brigade," by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, the Chaplain General to the forces, who in his youth shared in the dangers of many a hard fought battle field in the Peninsula, under the Duke of Wellington, as a combatant officer of a light infantry regiment, and bears, in his old age, the scars of several wounds which attest his share in the dangers of war, is well worthy of consideration. It comes from a man of mature years, of large experience In wars and armies, and whose knowledge of historical events, with their causes and effects, is worthy of the deepest respect.

"And here let me not forget to record to the honour of the illustrious garrison, that regularly as the Lord's Day came round, brigade orders called both officers and men together, that in his own name and in the names of his comrades, one of themselves might present to their Father which is in heaven their common sacrifice of prayer and praise. It was a righteous custom, and produced upon all concerned the happiest effect. It sobered while it encouraged all, from the highest to the lowest, teaching them to feel that the lives of the brave are in the hands of Him who gave them; and that the best preparation which men can make for battle and for death comes out of a humble yet hopeful reliance on the mercy, as well as on the power, of the Most High. Nor do I think that I go beyond the line of sober truth if to the prevalence of this right feeling among them, aided by the happy absence of that bane of a soldier's usefulness, spirituous liquors, and the encouraged use of them, I attribute the patience, the good humour, the unwearied zeal, which from the beginning to the end of the siege characterised the behaviour of all classes, and rendered the garrison of Jellalabad, though few in number, invincible. Had the same tempers prevailed at Cabul, and the same wisdom been exhibited in the encouragement of them, who can doubt that the fate of General Elphinstone' s corps would have been different?"

Throughout the anxious period of Pollock's detention at Peshawur, he had felt deeply the chilling influence of the knowledge that his advocacy of a spirited policy met with hut a lukewarm response from the authorities in India. The avowed purpose for which Pollock's force was mainly formed, was "the withdrawal of the Jellalabad garrison in safety to Peshawur;" but Pollock urged a holder course, pointing out that the timid nature of his instructions which he was ordered "carefully and implicitly to obey," would, if followed, be attended with considerable risk, and have a very bad effect far and near, while by advancing beyond Jellalabad and thus seeking an opportunity of inflicting a signal punishment on the enemy, he might hope to effect the liberation of the prisoners In the enemy's hands and establish his superiority in such a manner as to secure his force from molestation during their subsequent withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, an important change had taken place in the Government of India. Lord Auckland had been relieved as Governor-General by Lord Ellenborough, whose arrival was hailed with satisfaction, great things being expected from his energy and spirit.

On the 15th of March, a few days after his arrival at Calcutta, Lord Ellenborough wrote to the Commander-in-chief:- "Whatever course we may hereafter take must rest solely on military considerations, and have in the first instance regard to the safety of the detached bodies of our troops at Jellalabad, at Ghuznee, at Khelat-i-Ghilzye and Candahar; to the security of our troops in the field from all unnecessary risk, and finally, to the establishment of our military reputation by the infliction of some signal and decisive blow upon the Afghans, which may make it appear to them and to our own subjects and to our allies, that we have the power of inflicting punishment upon those who commit atrocities, and violate their faith."

"The relief of these garrisons," he wrote, "is a point deeply affecting the military character of the army; to effect the release of the prisoners taken at Cabul, is an object likewise deeply interesting In point of feeling and honour ; and with reference to it and the relief of Ghuznee, it may possibly become a question, in the event of Major-General Pollock's effecting a junction with Sir Robert Sale, whether the united force shall return to the country below the Khyber Pass, or take a forward position near Jellalabad, or even advance to Cabul."

This spirited letter struck a responsive chord in Indian society, which, keenly alive to the overwhelming danger incurred by British rule in the East, in consequence of late events, was desirous that the prestige of our military power, which had been so rudely shaken, should be firmly re-established, and with it the government of our Indian possessions. About this time, however, information was received of General England's unfortunate check, on the 28th March, when advancing from Quettah with a brigade conveying money and provisions for the garrison of Candahar. Having made an unsuccessful attack on a small native force at Hykulzye, that General decided, in opposition to the strongly expressed opinion of the political and other officers who accompanied him, to fall back and await further reinforcements at Quettah, before again attempting to open communications with General Nott at Candahar.

This unfortunate disaster, which was less the fault of the troops than of the General, seems to have discouraged the Governor-General, who on the 15th March had written, "In war reputation is strength," and over whom an entire change had come. Alluding to Pollock's and Sale's first successes, of which he had just received information, he wrote on the 22nd April:- "Although these events improve our prospects to some extent, they have in no respect altered my deliberate opinion that it is expedient to withdraw the troops under Major-General Pollock and those under Major-General Nott at the earliest practicable period, into positions wherein they may have certain and easy communication with India. That opinion is founded upon a general view of our military, political, and financial situation, and is not liable to be lightly changed." He looked upon Pollock's position as so hopeless that on the 4th May he wrote to him: "The most recent accounts which have been received of the difficulty experienced by you in obtaining supplies from Jellalabad, and in bringing forward supplies from Peshawur, and the very deficient means of movement, as well as of provisions which you possess, induce the Governor-General to expect that you will have already decided upon withdrawing your troops within the Khyber Pass, if considerations having regard to the health of the army should not have induced you to defer that movement. The first object of the Governor-General's anxiety has ever been to withdraw, with honour, into positions of security the several corps of the army scattered and surrounded in Afghanistan, That object may now be accomplished with respect to the army under your command; and the Governor-General could experience no higher satisfaction than that of hearing that the health of that army, in whose welfare he takes so deep an interest, having been preserved, it was in a secure position, having certain communication with India."

The safety of the army thus became the chief object of the Governor-General, for the accomplishment of which he decided to leave to their unhappy fate the English prisoners in the hands of the Afghans, among whom were two of the generals who commanded our army at Cabul, the widow of a murdered British envoy, the brave-hearted wife and the widowed daughter of the commander of the "illustrious garrison" of Jellalabad, with many other brave officers and tender women, captives in the fortresses of the Afghan Sirdars.

All attempt at rescue was abandoned, and any effort to re-establish our military reputation entirely repudiated, although upon that reputation, in his own opinion, only a short time before, the tenure of India depended. On the 29th April, the Commander-in- chief with the entire approval of the Governor-General, sent the following order to General Pollock:

"You will be pleased to conform to the following instructions."

1. Shah Soojah being dead, Ghuznee lost, and Major General Nott directed by his Lordship's command (also of the 19th instant) to withdraw the garrison of Khelat-i-Ghilzye, to evacuate Candahar, and to retire first upon Quettah, and, when the season admits, upon Sukkur; you are required to make a similar movement in Upper Afghanistan, and to withdraw every British soldier from Jellalabad to Peshawur.

2. You are to destroy the fort, and any useless guns; but as there need be no haste in the retreat when commenced, you are requested not to leave any trophies.

3. The only circumstances which can authorise delay in obeying this order are,-

1st. That you have brought a negotiation for the release of the prisoners Iately confined at Budeeabad to such a point that you might risk its happy accomplishment by withdrawing.

2nd. That you have detached a lightly-equipped force to endeavour to rescue them.

3rd. That the enemy at Cabul may be moving a force to attack you. In this improbable case, should any respectable number of troops have descended into the plain below Jugdulluck with that intent, it would be most advisable to inflict, such a blow upon them as to make them long remember your parting effort. If you should have such a glorious opportunity,

I advise you to send your weak and inefficient men previously to Lalpoora.

4. I do not recommend delay in the first case, unless the prisoner's are actually on their way to your camp, as no faith can be placed in Afghan promises or oaths. The second would of course require that you should await the return of your detachment.

5. I allude entirely to the officers and ladies now or lately at Budeeabad, or its vicinity. Those at Cabul cannot, I think, be saved by any treaty or agreement made under existing circumstances at Jellalabad.

6. You will be pleased, on reaching Peshawur, to despatch to Ferozepore without delay the troops of all arms which so gallantly upheld our country's name at Jellalabad; and further instructions will be sent to you regarding the disposal of the other brigades. Sir Robert Sale may be permitted to remain at your head-quarters, should he desire to do so, and you will transfer him accordingly to another command, placing Brigadier Monteith in charge of the returning column."

Similar orders had been sent on the 19th April to Nott to withdraw the garrison of Khelat-i-Ghilzye, evacuate Candahar, and take up a position at Quetta until the season would permit of his retiring altogether from Afghanistan.

It has been necessary to enter into this detail in order properly to appreciate the difficulty of Pollock's position, by a thorough knowledge of which alone a true estimate can be formed of his character.

We find him, then, in command of a small victorious army, but ill-found with means of transport and provisions, encamped near Jellalabad, with the Khyber Pass in his rear; and beyond it the Sikh empire, separating him by 350 miles from the British frontier. In his front a haughty insolent enemy in a mountainous country of the most intricate and difficult nature for military operations, the whole population hostile to him and confident of their strength and of their power to defend their fastnesses, while General Nott was in a very critical position at Candahar, near the other extremity of Afghanistan, in command of a small force with detachments closely invested in Ghuznee and Khelat-i-Ghilzye, there being no direct means of communication between the two generals except by hired natives who carried concealed despatches written in colourless ink.

This was Pollock's position when he received these positive orders to retire, which, as a soldier, he was bound to obey, unless some important event or events known to himself, but unknown to and unforeseen by the Commander-in-chief had occurred in the meanwhile, which had so changed the aspect of affairs as to warrant him in taking the very grave responsibility of acting otherwise than in accordance with the explicit instructions he had received. The only military event of this nature that had occurred was the surrender of Ghuznee, of which Pollock received intelligence on the 22nd April. By this surrender Colonel Palmer, who commanded, and the surviving officers and men of the garrison, were added to the roll of prisoners already in the hands of the Afghans.

Fortunately for Great Britain the command of the army had been confided to a man of enlarged views, capable, of appreciating the mature of the crisis in which he was called upon to play so important a part, possessed of sound judgment and with a large share of moral courage. If Pollock had acted according to the letter and spirit of his instructions and brought his army safe back to India, he would have been relieved of all responsibility as to the abandonment of the captives and as to any other effects, political or otherwise, induced by his retreat, and the Government could not have refused him the honours always granted to a successful general, and which would have been at least equal to those awarded to him after a much more noble career.

Pollock, however, foresaw the danger to the political power of Great Britain in the East, which could inevitably have been incurred, if he had retired without striking a decisive blow and inflicting a signal punishment on the faithless murderers of our army, and his nature abhorred an act which by the cowardly abandonment of helpless women and children, would attach to the Government and name of Great Britain a stigma that could never have been removed.

Pollock simply sat down to his desk and wrote to General Nott, requesting him on no account to retire until he should hear again from him. Nott, meanwhile, had been reinforced, on the 10th May, by General England's division from Quettah. This General, having advanced to the southern entrance of the Kojuck Pass, halted there, not daring to move through it, although pressed to do so by the officers of his force, until the pass had been cleared by a weak brigade, detached under Colonel Wymer, from the Candahar garrison, which escorted him through it.

Nott, upon whom the peremptory order to retire had come like a thunderclap, and who conceived such a measure impossible until Cabul should be retaken, gladly agreed to remain at Candahar until he should hear again from Pollock.

In a letter written many years afterwards to Mr. C. R. Lowe , the author of his life and correspondence, which has been freely used in making this compilation, Sir George Pollock looking back on the past says:

I think you are quite right when you assert my letter to Nott was perhaps one of the most important documents of all my Afghan correspondence. I am sorry to say I have not even a memo. of the letter.

I felt at the time that to retire would be our ruin - the whole country would have risen to endeavour to destroy us. I therefore determined on remaining at Jellalabad until an opportunity offered for our advance, if practicable. I knew that Nott had been ordered to retire, and I knew that if he did go his opponent would pay me a visit, accompanied by the army which eventually did oppose me. W e had some tough work with that army, but if the army opposed to Nott had joined them, the odds against us would have been very great. I had quite enough to do with those who did oppose me at Jugdulluck and Tezeen. Stopping Nott for a few days, after his receipt of orders to retire, was perhaps a very bold step, but I looked upon it as the only safe course to pursue, and it succeeded. If it had not succeeded I knew that I might lose my commission, but I felt pretty certain that if we worked together in earnest the game would be ours. And I accordingly wrote to Nott to halt wherever he might be until he should hear from me again. He had made, I think, two retrogade movements, and replied that he would wait until he heard from me again.

I am sorry that I have no copy of my letter or his reply; but of this I feel certain, that if I had not stopped him, our campaign would have ended much in the same way that occurred to the first party that returned from Cabul - one individual reached Jellalabad."

The pusillanimity of the Government and the importance of the crisis may be judged of by the proceedings of Sir James Outram, then politically employed in Sindh. So dangerous did he consider the orders given to General Pollock that he at once wrote that "our bitterest foe could not have devised a more injurious measure, whether viewed politically or in a military light;" and upon receiving intelligence of Pollock's decision, "I honour the general, and should he be allowed to carry out his views, we shall have mainly to thank him, not only for retrieving our honour in Afghanistan but for saving India to us, the loss of which would ultimately result from disgracefully succumbing to the Afghans now. . . . . . Nothing is easier than to retrieve our honour in Afghanistan, previously to finally withdrawing, should the Government so determine; and I pray God, Lord Ellenborough may at once see the damnable consequences of shirking the undertaking, and order accordingly, otherwise the disaster of Cabul will be but the commencement of our misfortunes."

Pollock was still detained at Jellalabad when he received a despatch, dated the 28th of April, from the Chief Secretary, in which the Governor-General, contemplating the possibility that he may have been led, by the absence of serious opposition and by the natural desire of a true soldier, to advance upon Cabul, reasserted his "opinion that the only safe course is that of withdrawing the army at the earliest practicable period into positions within the Khyber Pass, where it may possess easy and certain communications with India." And within a week another despatch, in which he declared that he expected that Pollock had already decided to withdraw his troops, "if considerations, having regard to the health of the army, should not have induced you to defer that movement."

The idea of the advance seems to have been a temporary apprehension arising out of a not erroneous estimate of the military aspirations of General Pollock; but it very soon passed away. It had, however, one important result. It called forth from the General the following soldierlike letter:

To T. H. MADDOCK, ESQ., Secretary to Government, &c.

Jellalabad, May 13, 1842.

SIR, - I had the honour to forward with my letter, No. 32, dated 12th instant, a copy of a letter from his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief. I have now the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated 28th ultimo, which adverts to the present aspect of affairs in Afghanistan, and the probability of my having advanced towards Cabul; stating also, that in such an event, the views of the Governor-General as to the withdrawal of the troops will not be altered ; and further, that whatever measures I may adopt I must have especial regard to the health of the troops. I trust that I am not wrong in considering this letter as leaving to me discretionary powers, and, coming as it does from the supreme power in India, I venture to delay, for some days, acting up to the instructions communicated in his Excellency the Commander-in-chief's letter, dated 29th ult.

I regret much that a want of carriage-cattle has detained me here; if it had not been so, I should now be several marches in advance, and I am quite certain that such a move would have, been highly beneficial. Affairs at Cabul are, at the present moment, in a very unsettled state; but a few days must decide in favour of one of the parties. Mahomed Akbar is at Cabul, exerting all his influence to overpower the Prince. He is without means; and if he cannot, within a very short period, obtain the ascendancy, he must give up the contest, in which case I have no doubt I shall hear from him again. With regard to our withdrawal at the present moment, I fear it would have the very worst effect - it would be construed into a defeat, and our character as a powerful nation would be entirely lost in this part of the world.

It is true that the garrison of Jellalabad has been saved, which it would not have been had a force not been sent to its relief. But the relief of that garrison is only one object; there still remain others which we cannot disregard - I allude to the release of the prisoners. I expect about nineteen Europeans from Budeeabad in a few days. The letters which have passed about other prisoners have already been forwarded for the information of his Lordship. If, while these communications were in progress, I were to retire, it would be supposed that a panic had siezed us. I therefore think that our remaining in this vicinity (or perhaps a few marches in advance) is essential to uphold the character of the British nation; and in like manner General Nott might hold his post; at all events till a more favourable season.

I have no reason, yet, to complain that the troops are more unhealthy than they were at Agra. If I am to march to Peshawur, the climate is certainly not preferable; and here I can in one or two marches find a better climate, and I should be able to dictate better terms than I could at Peshawur.

I cannot imagine any force being sent from Cabul which I could not succesfully oppose. But the advance on Cabul would require that General Nott should act in concert and advance also. I therefore cannot help regretting that he should be directed to retire, which, without some demonstration of our power, he will find some difficulty in doing. I have less hesitation in thus expressing my opinion, because I could not under any circumstances, move in less than eighteen or twenty days; and your reply might reach me by express in about twenty-two days. The difference in point of time is not very material, but the importance of the subject is sufficient to justify the delay of a few days. In the mean time, I shall endeavour to procure carriage-cattle as fast as I can, to move either forward or backward, as I may be directed; or, if left to my discretion, as I may think judicious. Under any circumstances, I should not advocate the delay of the troops either at Candahar or on this side beyond the month of November; and in this arrangement advertence must be had to the safety of the Khyber, which I consider the Sikhs would gladly hold if they were allowed to take possession of Jellalabad.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

GEORGE POLLOCK, Major-Gen.

Pollock thus grasped eagerly at the faintest indication of willingness on the part of the Governor-General to place any discretionary power in his hands, and expressed his eagerness to traverse the scene of our recent humiliation. If he had had the carriage he would have advanced at once, but the want of it had kept him inactive in the neighbourhood of Jellalabad, and he adroitly turned it to good account to gain time, asserting he had not the means of retiring to Peshawur. Meanwhile, he exerted himself to obtain, by negotiation, the release of the prisoners.

The announcement of the Governor-General's determination to withdraw the troops from their advanced troops having reached Candahar, Nott wrote to the chief secretary, on the 17th of May:

"These measures shall be carried into effect, and the directions of his Lordship accomplished in the best manner circumstances will admit of;"

and again, on the 21st:

"I shall not lose a moment in making all necessary arrangements for carrying into effect the orders I have received, without turning to the right or the left, by the idle propositions and wild speculations daily and hourly heaped upon me from all parts of Afghanistan and Sindh, by persons who are, or fancy themselves to be, representatives of Government west of the Indus. I know that it is my duty and their duty implicitly and zealously to carry into effect every order received, without enquiring into the reasons for the measures adopted, whatever our own opinion or wishes may be, and without troubling government with unnecessary references."

It was plain that he read the orders of the supreme government not without acute mortification, but he yielded a prompt though grudging assent, and on the 19th May, despatched a brigade under Colonel Wymer, to bring off the garrison and destroy the works of Khelat-i-Ghilzye.

A gallant attempt was made by the enemy to anticipate the relief of this fortress by a desperate assault, on the 21st May, which was nobly repulsed by Craigie and his men, who inflicted a loss of near five hundred men upon the enemy.

During Wymer's absence the Afghans determined to make another attempt against Candahar, but were signally beaten, on the 29th May, by Nott, who sallied out with 1500 men of all arms, and attacked a force of 8000 men in position and 2000 in reserve, breaking them up and inflicting heavy losses upon them. Nott now remained undisturbed at Candahar, collecting transport and preparing for his retirement from Afghanistan.

Pollock's letter to the Chief Secretary, of the 13th May, elicited no answer, but a letter written a week afterwards was more successful, in which, after pointing out the evils and difficulties of an immediate withdrawal to Peshawur, he asked for authority to remain till October or November. On the 1st June the Governor General, being in a more chivalrous mood, replied through the Chief Secretary, "It would be more desirable, undoubtedly, that before finally quitting Afghanistan, you should have an opportunity of striking a blow at the enemy, and since circumstances seem to compel you to remain there till October, the Governor-General earnestly hopes that you may be enabled to draw the enemy into a position in which you may strike a blow effectually," and "it will be for your consideration whether your large army, one half of which would beat, in open field, everything that could be brought against it in Afghanistan, should remain entirely inactive during the period which must now apparently elapse before it can finally return. Although you may not have, or soon be able to procure, the means of moving your whole army, you may possibly be able to move a part of it rapidly against some portion of the enemy's force incautiously exposed, and of giving it a severe blow."

This letter was most welcome, and every effort was made to collect carriage-cattle, ostensibly for the purpose of withdrawal, but Pollock looked forward to their employment for a far different purpose, and meanwhile continued his negotiations for the release of the captives, but he carefully avoided making any condition with the Afghan Sirdars which might fetter the advance on Cabul, which he kept steadily in view.

Towards the end of June he had a sufficiency of cattle to enable him to do something, and he reported to government that his means were such as to enable him to make a demonstration in the neighbourhood of Jellalabad. The Governor-General expressed his joy at this intelligence in a letter dated the 4th July, but added that the General must, on no account, think that any change had come over the opinions of the Government, which still inclined resolutely towards the withdrawal of the army at the earliest moment consistent with the health and efficiency of the troops.

On this same 4th July, the Governor-General wrote to General Nott, sending a copy of the instructions he had given to Pollock, impressing upon him (Nott) that all his views were in favour of a prompt withdrawal from Afghanistan, but told him at the same time that the line of withdrawal was to be left to his own choice. He might retire by going backward, by Quettah and Sukhur, or he might retire* by going forward, by Ghuznee, Cabul, and Jellalabad. But whichever line he might take, he was never for a moment to forget that Lord Ellenborough had decreed that he should retire, and that retire he must.

* This idea of Nott's retiring to India from Candahar, via Ghuznee, Cabul and Jellalabad, is about as intelligible as it would be to describe the Duke of Wellington's advance into France, after the battle of Vittoria, as a retreat to England through France.

Fortunately for Lord Ellenborough and for the country, he had to deal with men who though more of the honour of Great Britain than of their own safety. Pollock and Nott cheerfully accepted the responsibility, believing they had a reasonable hope of conferring great and lasting benefits upon the government they served, and upon the nation they represented. They had now obtained all they wanted, and they had no doubt of the ability of their troops to carry everything before them; cattle had been supplied sufficient for all their movements. It was only necessary that they should act in concert, and so combine their operations as to reach the capital at the same time, and strike the last blow together. It was, however, no easy matter to carry on a correspondence between Jellalabad and Candahar, and although five messengers were sent in succession to Nott, it was not until the middle of August that Pollock was assured of Nott's intentions to advance upon Cabul.

Meanwhile Pollock had not been inactive. In the middle of June he sent General Monteith with a brigade into the Shinwarree Valley, to read a lesson to the tribes, who had possessed themselves of the property plundered from our army, and who held in their hands one of our captured guns. So effectually was the lesson read that "at one time the interiors of five-and-thirty forts were in a blaze along the valley;" the brigade returned on the 3rd of August, both men and cattle having been entirely subsisted on the resources of the country during the whole time the expedition had lasted.

At length, in the middle of August, a long-expected and most welcome messenger brought a short letter from Nott to Pollock.

Candahar, July 27th, 1842

My dear General,

You will have received a copy of a letter from the Governor-General under date 4th inst., to my address, giving me the option of retiring a part of my force to India, via Cabul and Jellalabad. I have determined to take this route and will write to you as soon as I have arranged for carriage and supplies.

Yours truly, W. NOTT

This cheering intelligence caused unbounded satisfaction; officers and men were eager to push on. The veteran Sale, wild with excitement, wrote to the General: "Hurrah; this is good news. All here are prepared to meet your wishes to march as light as possible. I take no carriage from the commissariat; and our officers are doubling up four in a small hill tent, and are sending all to the rear that they can dispense with . . . . . I am so excited I can scarce write."

On the 29th of August Pollock began to move; the advanced guard reached Sultanpore on its way to Gundamuck, where he intended to assemble the whole of the troops he had selected to accompany him to the capital - in all about 8,000 men. On the 23>rd, he with the advance, reached Gundamuck, about two miles from which lies the village of Mammoo Khail, where two hostile chiefs, having sent away all their women and children, had mustered a large body of Ooloos and occupied a position of some strength. Pollock at once determined to dislodge them, and on the following morning advanced in two columns, each led by a wing of H.M.'s 9th regiment. The enemy abandoned their positions, but rallying, occupied a range of heights within musket range of another village called Koochle Khail. Colonel Taylor attacked them on one side, Broadfoot, with his sappers, on the other. The heights were carried, the enemy dispersed and the forts and villages taken, the chiefs flying with a few followers to Cabul. Having burnt the villages Pollock returned to Gundamuck, to which now, full of hope and courage, the troops* moved up by brigades, and where, waiting further intelligence from Nott, he completed his arrangements for the march.

* The force consisted of the 3rd Dragoons; the 1st Native Cavalry; a squadron of the 5th and of the 10th Native Cavalry with the headquarters; 600 Sewers of the 3rd Irregular Cavalry; H.M.'s 31st Regiment, the 33rd Native Infantry. - The whole of Sir Robert Sale's and of Colonel Tulloch's Brigades, with 17 guns, a company of Sappers and a Regiment of Pioneers under Mr. Mackeson.

Nott's messengers arrived at midnight of the 6th of September, and on the morning of the 7th Pollock moved from Gundamuck with the first division of his army under General Sir Robert Sale. The second division, under General M'Caskill, marched on the following day, a small force being left for the defence of Gundamuck and because of the insufficiency of the means of transport.

On the 8th of September, as the leading Division approached the hills which commanded the road through the Jugdulluck Pass, it was found that their summits were occupied by the enemy; large bodies of Ghilzyes under different chieftains, each with a distinguishing standard, were clustering on the heights.

“The hills they occupied formed an amphitheatre inclining towards the left of the road, on which the troops were halted whilst the guns opened, and the enemy were thus enabled on this point to fire into the column, a deep ravine preventing any contact with them.” The practice of the guns was excellent; but the Ghilzye warriors stood their ground. The shells from our howitzers burst among them; but they still held their posts and poured in a hot fire from their jezails; Pollock, therefore, sent his infantry to attack; and gallantly they ascended the heights. On one side, Broadfoot, ever in advance, led up his little band of sappers. On the other, Taylor with the 9th Foot, ascended the hills, where the enemy, horse and foot, were posted behind a ruined fort. In the centre, Wilkinson, with the 13th, pushed up the ascent towards the key of the enemy’s position. All went forward with impetuous gallantry; and as they climbed the hill-sides and seized the Ghilzye standards, up went an animated and enthusiastic cheer from the British stormers. It was plain that their heart was in their work, and that nothing could turn them back. The flower of the Ghilzye tribes were there, under many of their most renowned chieftains, and they looked down upon the scene of their recent sanguinary triumphs; but they had now to deal with other men, under other leaders. The loud clear cry of the British infantry struck a panic into their souls. They turned and fled before our bayonets. Then galloped Lockwood with his dragoons after the enemy’s horse; but the nature of the ground was against him, and they escaped the annihilation which otherwise would have been their fate.

The battle was not yet over. A considerable body of the enemy had betaken themselves for safety to an apparently inaccessible height. On the summit of the mountain they planted their standards, and seemed to look down with defiance upon our troops. But Pollock was resolute not to leave, on that day, his work incomplete. He believed that where the enemy could post themselves his infantry could attack them. So, under cover of Abbot’s and Backhouse’s guns, Broadfoot and Wilkinson again led up their men and stormed that precipitous height. “Seldom have soldiers had a more arduous task to perform, and never was an undertaking of the kind surpassed in execution.” The Ghilzyes looked down upon them with astonishment and dismay. They saw at once the temper of our men, and they shrank from the encounter. Our stormers pushed on, and the Ghilzye standards were lowered. The enemy fled in confusion and left the stronghold, form which they had looked down in the insolence of mistaken security, to be occupied by British troops.

The victory was complete. It was mainly achieved, under Pollock’s able directions, by the brave men of the old Jellalabad garrison, Sale himself, who was never far off when there was likely to hard fighting, led up the heights in front of his old regiment, and was wounded in the affray. The loss upon our side was trifling. Nothing could have told more plainly than such a victory as this how little formidable in reality the best Ghilzye fighting men in their most inaccessible strongholds when opposed to British infantry under the eyes of a capable commander. The Ghilzye butchers were now seen flying like sheep before the comrades of the men whom a few months before they had slaughtered in these very shambles at Jugdulluck.

The first division alone of Pollock’s army was engaged with the enemy at Jugdulluck. The second division passed on, much molested by the enemy, and often compelled to fight its way against large bodies of Ghilzye footmen. On the 11th of September they joined the advance in the neighbourhood of Tezeen. The exertions of a forced march had fatigued M’Caskill’s cattle: so Pollock determined to devote the 12th to a halt. Before the day had closed, it was evident that the enemy were close at hand, and that we were on the eve of a great struggle. Akbar Khan had been true to his word. He had dispatched the bulk of the English prisoners to the Hindoo-Koosh, and was now preparing to met our army.

On the 6th of September, he had moved his camp to Begramee, distant some six miles from the Balla Hissar, and on the 11th was encamped at Boodkhak.

On the 13th the two forces met. Great were the advantages of the ground to the Afghan levies. The valley of Tezeen is commanded on all sides by lofty hills; and the chiefs had posted their Jezailchees on every available height. Indeed on that morning of the 13th of September, Pollock’s camp was encircled by the enemy; and it was plain that every effort had been made to turn the natural defences of the country to the best possible account. There was a hard day’s work before Pollock’s army; but never were a finer body of troops in finer condition, o more eager for the work before them. All arms had now a chance of distinguishing themselves – the cavalry on the plain, the infantry on the hills, and the artillery everywhere. Fortunately the enemy’s horse entered the valley, attracted by the hope of plundering our baggage. The opportunity so eagerly desired by the dragoons was now at hand. A British squadron, gallantly led by Ynett, was let loose upon the Afghan horsemen. The Native cavalry followed. There was a brilliant and successful charge. The enemy turned and fled; but the sabres of the dragoons fell heavily upon them; and many were cut up in the flight.

The infantry was not less successful. Gallantly they ascended the heights on either side of the pass, and gallantly the Afghans advanced to meet them. The stormers of the 13th Light Infantry climbed the hills on the right; and the 19th and 31st on the left; and as they went, hotly and thickly upon them poured the iron rain from the Afghan jezails. But never, beneath the terrible fire that greeted them, as they pushed up the hill-side, did these intrepid soldiers waver for a moment. They knew that their muskets were no match for the Afghan jezails. The enemy indeed, seemed to deride them. So having reached the hill-top. Our men fixed their bayonets, and charged with a loud hurrah. The cold steel took no denial. Down went the Afghan marksmen before the English bayonets; the foremost men stood to be pierced, and the rest, awed by the fall of their comrades and the desperate resolution of the British troops, fled down the hill in confusion. The strength of the Afghan force was broken; but the work of our fighting men was not done. All through the day a desultory warfare was kept up along the ridges of the tremendous hills. The Afghans occupying the highest ground, fired down upon our infantry, hiding themselves when they could behind the rocks, and shrinking now from a closer contest- never did British troops display a higher courage in action, or a more resolute perseverance. Nobly did the Native Sepoy vie with the European soldier; and nowhere was there a finer sight than where Broadfoot with his sappers clambering up the steepest ascents under the hottest fire, drove before them the stalwart Afghans – giants beside the little Goorkhas who pressed so bravely upon them. Many gallant feats were done that day; and many an Afghan warrior died the hero’s death on his native hills, cheered by the though that he was winning Paradise by such martyrdom. Desperate was the effort to keep back the invaders from clearing the heights of the Huft-Kotul; but the British troops, on that day, would have borne down even stouter opposition. The Huft-Kotul was mounted; and three cheers burst from the victors as they reached the summit of that stupendous ascent.

A more decisive victory was never gained. The Afghan chiefs had brought out their best fighting men against us. They had done their best to turn the difficulties of the country to good account against the strangers. Their people were at home in the tremendous defiles; whilst few of our troops had ever seen them – few were accustomed to the kind of warfare which now alone could avail. There was everything to stir into intense action all the energies of the Barukzye chief and his followers. They were fighting in defence of their hearths and altars; the very existence of the nation was at stake. It was the last hope of saving the capital from the grasp of an avenging army. But with everything to stimulate and everything to aid him Akbar Khan could offer no effectual resistance to the advance of Pollock’s retributory force. The Afghans were fairly beaten on their own ground, and in their own peculiar style of warfare. It has often been said that our troops were maddened by the sight of the skeletons of their fallen comrades, and that they were carried on by the irrepressible energy of revenge. It is true that, all along the line of country from Gundamuck to Koord-Cabul, there rose up before the eyes of our advancing countrymen hideous evidences of the great January massacre – enough to kindle the fiercest passions in the heart in the hearts of the meekest men. But if no such ghastly spectacles had lain in the path of the advancing army, the forward feeling would have glowed as strongly in the breast of every soldier of Pollock’s force.

The struggle was now at an end. Akbar Khan saw that the game was up, and that it was useless to attempt to bring together the remnants of his routed army. Taking Captain Bygrave, one of the prisoners, with him as the companion of his flight, he fled to the Ghorebund valley. The fighting men who had opposed us at Tezeen were now in dissolved masses, hurrying homeward along their mountain paths, and seeking safety in places remote from the track of the avenging army, whilst Pollock marched onwards with his regiments in orderly array, and on the 15th of September encamped on the Cabul race-course.

Nothing could have been better than the conduct of the troops throughout the whole of these operations. “I think no officer, “ wrote Pollock in a private letter, on the 23rd of September, “could possibly have had finer regiments under his command than I have had, and to them I owe all my success, which as far as I am able to judge, has been so far complete. I hope the Governor-General may think so, and I shall be satisfied.” In this letter, the difficulties with which Pollock had to contend, from the scarcity of cattle, are thus detailed. “I have had,” he wrote, “great difficulties to contend against even to the last, from the great want of carriage cattle. At Gundamuck, after my first engagement with the enemy, I found myself so reduced in cattle, that, to enable me to take on only fourteen days’ supplies, I was obliged to leave at that place two horse-artillery guns, two squadrons of cavalry, and two wings of native Infantry; and yet with all this, all the camp-followers, public and private, were compelled to carry eight days’ supplies. The fighting men carried three. The 1st cavalry carried eight days’ supplies on their horses. The rest of the cavalry carried three or four days’. In this way we were enabled to move. . . . . The night before I left Gundumuck I received an official letter and a survey report, setting forth that the whole of the camels of one regiment were unserviceable, and that they could not get up even without their loads. This was rather provoking, for I have only three Native regiments with me. My answer was short. “Tell the commanding officer that if his regiments can’t march he will relieve the two wings ordered to remain behind, and who are willing to go forward on any terms.” The regiment marched and I heard no more about their camels. After our last engagement with the enemy (it was a severe struggle) we had 160 killed and wounded; and again carriage was in requisition. The spare horses of the cavalry were had recourse to: and I lent my own riding horse to one poor fellow.”

While the force under General Pollock was thus fighting its way from Jellalabad to Cabul, and carrying everything before it, the Candahar division, under General Nott, was making a victorious march upon the same point from the opposite direction. During the first three weeks of July, Nott was preparing for his retirement from Afghanistan; the supply of carriages and provisions had reached their necessary amounts, and everything was in train for withdrawal, when the Governor-General’s letter of the 4th of July reached him. He saw at once the weight of responsibility it threw upon him, but he did not shrink from it. Cheerfully and ironically he wrote to the Governor-General on the 20th ofJuly: “Having well considered the subject of your lordship’s letter of the 4th instant, having looked at the difficulties in every point of view, and reflected on the advantages which would attend a successful accomplishment of such a move, and the moral influence it would have throughout Asia: I have come to a determination to retire a portion of the army under my command, viâ Ghuznee and Cabul."

"On the 7th of August, the British force evacuated Candahar and encamped under the city walls. It divided into two portions; one destined to “retire” by Quettah and Sukhur, under General England, whilst the other under Nott, was to “retire” by Ghuznee, Cabul and Jellalabad. The former was composed of the Bombay Infantry: three regiments of the late Shah’s force, two companies of Bengal Artillery, and some irregular horse, while Nott took with him, the Bengal Sepoy regiments with H.M.’s 40th and 41st regiments.

On the 9th, Nott commenced his march northward, and England prepared to move in the opposite direction. The latter was dissatisfied with the composition of his force and applied to Nott for an European regiment to accompany him, but received an indignant rebuke, and thus these two Generals parted.

On the 27th of August the force arrived at Mookoor. Up to this point – a distance of 160 miles – not a shot had been fired, but as the rear guard moved from their camping ground on the morning of the 28th, they were attacked, when Captain Christie, with his irregular cavalry, cut up some fifty of the enemy’s footmen; and again, on arriving on their new camping ground, the enemy, who had been hanging about all day, attacked the grass cutters who had gone out to obtain forage. This brought on a reconnaissance of cavalry, in which a squadron of the 3rd Bombay cavalry, charging a party of the enemy’s horse, were assailed on their flanks by a party of Jezailchees, and being attacked by cavalry in their front at the same time, were thrown into confusion and, in their flight carried the whole body of British cavalry in panic with them; five officers and fifty-six men were killed and wounded. Nott moved up to the support of the cavalry, when the enemy moved off.

The Afghan chief who commanded sent round the heads of the officers who fell in this unlucky affair on the 28th, and greatly exaggerating his success, raised the people against the infidels, whom he said he had beaten so gloriously in the field, and on the 30th mustered not less than 10,000 men. Nott determined to attack a fort held by him not far from his camping ground. He moved to the attack with H.M.’s 40th, two native infantry regiments with ten guns and all his cavalry, but the enemy had become so confident that he determined not to shrink from a general action, so placing his horsemen on both sides to out-flank the small British force, he moved down with the main body of his infantry and his guns, and planting the latter on the nearest height, opened a rapid and well-directed fire, which, however, did little mischief, as being from a height the shot did not ricochet. Nott drew off his troops from the attack of the fort, and after two changes of front, deployed covered by skirmishers, and then advanced in line supported by his guns.

For some time the Afghans stood, but when our troops came to the charge and pushed on with a loud and cheerful hurrah, they turned and fled.

Nott resumed his march on the 1st September, and on the 5th was before Ghuznee. The day was spent in desultory fighting. The Afghans, who had been reinforced from Cabul, occupied with a strong body of horse and foot some heights to the northeast of the fortress. The gardens, ravines and water-courses were filled with Jezailchees, and the city seemed to be swarming with men.

Before encamping his men, Nott determined to clear the heights, and gallantly the work was done. Our troops ascended in noble style, and drove the enemy before them until every point was gained. Two infantry regiments and two guns were left to occupy the heights and the remainder of the troops were then withdrawn.

Scarcely, however, had the troops entered their camp, when the great Ghuznee gun, the “Zubber-Jung” began to open upon it; this compelled them to strike their tents and move their camp to the vicinity of the village of Roza, about two miles from the fortress.

The engineers then set hastily to work constructing their batteries, but the stillness of the town aroused their suspicions; so, at early dawn, an Engineer officer with some twenty men went down to reconnoitre, and finding the water-gate open and the city apparently abandoned, sent intelligence to the 16th regiment, which was out for the protection of the working-parties, and immediately marched down to occupy the place. They found it almost deserted. A few Hindoos and some Sepoys of the 27th regiment – the remnants of the unfortunate garrison – were the only occupants. Colonel Palmer and the other British officers had been carried off to Cabul.

Now began the work of destruction. When the artillery had burst the enemy’s guns and the engineers blown up the works, the town and the citadel were fired. On the 8th September, the sacred gates of Mahmoud’s tomb at Roza were removed in accordance with Lord Ellenborough’s commands, who had desired Nott, if he “retired” by Ghuznee to despoil this shrine by the removal of the Sultan’s club, which hung over the tomb, and its gates “which are the gates of the Temple of Somnauth.”

On the 12th, Nott was before Sydeabad, where Woodburn and his men had been decoyed and massacred. This fort was at once destroyed. On the 14th, the enemy had determined to make a last stand for the defence of the capital; but having hitherto gained so little advantage by fighting in the open, he resolved to try the effect of opposing us at the gorge of the hills stretching towards Mydan, where some breastworks had been thrown up. Nott attacked and carried the contest to the heights; all arms were engaged; the day was a busy one. It was one of doubtful victory on either side; the heights were carried, but not held, and when night fell it seemed that work was yet to be done. A busy night was looked for as a sequel to a busy day; but suddenly the exertions of the enemy slackened. News of the defeat of Akbar Khan by Pollock, at Tezeen, had reached the camp of the chiefs. They changed their tactics and moved off to Urghundeh, a few miles nearer the capital. The position the chiefs had intended to take up at the gorge of the Mydan Pass was found, when Nott advanced on the following day, to have been abandoned. But the day was a busy one; the tribes were up along the line of march and harassed us severely with their jezails. All arms distinguished themselves; the practice of the guns was excellent; the infantry scaled the heights with their wonted gallantry; and the cavalry did good service. The result was all that could be wished, and to the Afghans the day was a disastrous one. The Sepoys and camp followers fired the forts, and at sunset, six-and-twenty of them might have been counted lighting up the evening sky.

The march was now nearly at an end. Passing Urghundeh on the 16th September – the place where, in 1939, Dost Mahomed had planted his guns and determined to make his last stand – Nott’s division encamped some four or five miles from Cabul, on the opposite side of the city to that on which Pollock’s forces lay.

Pollock, who it will be remembered had encamped on the Cabul race-course on the 15th, entered Cabul on the following day, the 16th; a portion of the town was traversed, but although the hideous sights of the last few days were still fresh in the memory of the troops, discipline prevailed; they resisted all temptation to violence and outrage; not a man was hurt, nor a house injured. In orderly procession they streamed into the citadel and took formal possession of the Balla Hissar. The British flag was hoisted on the highest conspicuous point of this far-famed citadel under a royal salute from the guns and three hearty cheers from the troops, which proclaimed that the vindication of our national honour was complete.

Immediately after the British colours had been planted on the Balla Hissar, so well had their plans been combined, communication was established with Nott by Major (now Sir Henry) Rawlinson, who rode into Pollock’s camp in Afghan dress.

Meanwhile Pollock’s mind was heavy with thoughts of the probable fate of the British prisoners who had been carried off towards the regions of the Hindoo Koosh, and were perhaps on their way to hopeless slavery in Toorkistan. Immediately on his arrival at Cabul, he despatched his military secretary, Sir Richmond Shakespeare, with a party of 600 Kuzzilbash horse to overtake them and their escort, intending to support him by a brigade from the Candahar division; but to this Nott respectfully objected, on account of the losses he was experiencing among his transport animals, the necessity of a few days’ rest for his men after their long and difficult march of upwards of 300 miles, and the risks attending such a detachment, which “will and must be followed by deep disaster.” Nott also considered that the government “had thrown the prisoners overboard.” Why then should he rescue them? He would obey the orders of his superior officer but only under protest. So Pollock delegated to Sir Robert Sale the honourable service which had been emphatically declined by Nott.

This episode in the history of this war exhibits clearly the effect which the opposition he had encountered from the enemy on his march, the condition of the country, the prospects of the march before him, and the instructions he had received from the Governor-General, had on the mind of so gallant and distinguished an officer as Nott. All the more honour to him who, with an army that had overcome greater obstacles, and had had much harder fighting against far superior forces than were opposed to the Candahar division, assumed the responsibility of going beyond the instructions of the Government in the cause of humanity, the neglect of which would have placed an ineffaceable blot on the name and honour of Great Britain.

Sale pushed on his brigade in support of Shakespeare and his Kuzzilbashes. The captives had been removed from Cabul to one of the forts in Bameean, where, by promised rewards to their guards, they raised the standard of revolt, seized the fort, and were preparing for its defence against a probable siege, when on the 15th September they heard of Pollock’s defeat of the Afghans at Tezeen, and that Akbar Khan, for whom they were held captive, was a fugitive. The following day they decide to quit the fort and to push on for Cabul. On the 17th they were greeted by Shakespeare, who on the 20th escorted them into Sale’s camp. In a little time the happy veteran had embraced his wife and daughter, and the men of the 13th had offered their delighted congratulations to the loved ones of their old commander. A royal salute was fired. The prisoners were safe. Their anxieties were at an end. God, who had so long watched over the prisoners and the captives, now crowned His mercies by delivering them into the hands of their friends.

On the 21st September, 1842, the prisoners entered Pollock’s camp. Great was the joy which their recovery diffused throughout the army, the Provinces of India, and the whole of the Queen’s dominions. Pollock judged rightly that if he returned without the brave men and tender women who had endured for so many months the pains and perils of captivity in a barbarous country, and if he abandoned them to hopeless endurance of those ills for life, his countrymen would have regarded his victory as incomplete. Pollock knew his countrymen had not “thrown the prisoners overboard.” He had rescued then; that object of war was obtained, and it only remained for the army, in accordance with the declared wish of the Government, to leave behind it some decisive proof of its power, which, without impeaching its humanity, might be a lasting memorial of the punishment which invariably follows treachery and cruelty.

Pollock’s first duty now was to secure supplies for his troops, and while these were coming in he was informed that one of the most influential chiefs, Ameen-oollah Khan, was uniting the scattered fragments of the enemy’s forces at Istaliff, in the Kohistan, with the intention of attacking the British on their retirement from Cabul. He therefore despatched a force under General M’Caskill, who making a rapid march upon Istaliff, took the enemy by surprise, and, after a hard-fought action, on the 29th September, captured the town, which he burnt, and then, passing on towards the hills, destroyed Charekur, where a Goorkha regiment had been annihilated; after which, returning triumphantly he rejoined the British camp at Cabul on the 7th October. The advanced season now rendered it necessary that no time should be lost in withdrawing the troops to India; so Pollock, on the 9th October, ordered Captain (now Sir Frederick) Abbott, his chief engineer, to destroy the great Bazaar where the mutilated remains of the murdered Envoy had been exhibited to the insolent gaze of the Afghans, sparing the city and the Balla Hissar for the sake of the friendly Government that was now installed there.

So anxious was he not to extend the work of destruction that he strictly enjoined upon the engineer to abstain from applying fire to the buildings, or even using gunpowder, lest other parts of the city might be damaged; and he sent a strong guard to protect the town from injury and inhabitants from plunder and outrage.

The buildings, however, were so massive and well-built that Abbott was compelled to have recourse to powder, but the explosions damaged no other buildings than those authoritatively marked for destruction. The impetuosity of the soldiers and camp followers was so great that the efforts to restrain them were unavailing; they streamed into streets, fired the houses, and pillaged the shops. Guilty and innocent alike fell under the lawless retribution which descended upon the inhabitants in this hour of mad excitement. Such excesses as were committed during the last three days of our occupation of Cabul must ever be deplored; but when the amount of temptation and provocation is considered, when we reflect that the troops had marched through the passes of Afghanistan, where the bodies of their comrades, who had been murdered in cold blood, literally lay in heaps, recalling the treachery and cruelty of the enemy, it is only to be wondered that when the city lay at their feet, they restrained their passions at all, and should have given them so little head.

On the 12th October the army commenced its march, and so well were Pollock’s arrangements made that although there were many desultory attempts by the Afghans to break in upon his line of march and plunder his baggage as he traversed the formidable passes that had proved so Elphinstone, there was little loss. The entire force halted for a few days at Jellalabad, the defences of which were destroyed, and then pushed on for Peshawur.

The Khyber Pass had now to be traversed again. The Afreedies offered to sell a free passage, but the answer they received was that Pollock would take one. The first division under the General himself, who effectively crowned the heights as he advanced, passed through with only the loss of two or three men. The other divisions were not so equally successful; lulled, probably, into a sense of security by the slight resistance offered to the first division, their commanders did not take the same precautions; the Khyberees came down upon the rear-guard under their old enemy, Brigadier Wild, and, favoured by the darkness, threw them into confusion. Two officers were killed and many men, and two guns abandoned, although afterwards recovered. If the same precautions to crown the heights along the line of march, as were systematically taken by Pollock, had been taken, as they ought to have been, by the officers who followed him in command of the other divisions, it may be doubted whether the Afghans would ever have made their appearance. They are famous plunderers, and being habitually armed lost no opportunity of coming down upon the baggage columns; but their power was so broken that there was nothing like organised resistance. The fortress of Ali Musjid was destroyed and the troops pushed on to Peshawur, where their successes inspired great respect among the Sikhs, who had formerly shown much ill-feeling and contempt for them

The army now traversed the Punjaub, and on the 17th December Sale, at the head of the gallant troops who had formed the “illustrious garrison” of Jellalabad, crosses the Sutlej at Ferozepore, followed by Pollock on the 19th and Nott on the 23rd, the latter bringing with him the gates of Somnauth. Great were the rejoicings; the Governor-General was there with the army of reserve to greet them, and as the leading troops defiled across the temporary bridge thrown across the Sutlej for the occasion, and then passed through a street of two hundred and fifty elephants, and lines of regiments, who in succession saluted their long absent comrades, amidst the booming of guns fired in their honour, the heart must have been a dull one that did not acknowledge that there is a bright side to the picture of war.

The year which had opened in panic closed with a grand military display. Some forty thousand men with a hundred guns were manoeuvred on the great plain bordering the Sutlej, in the presence of the Governor-General, the Commander-in-chief, the Heir Apparent of Lahore, and other great personages of our Indian empire, thus proclaiming far and wide that the British rule in India was again firmly established, and British honour vindicated. Proclamations were issued by the supreme government of India recognising the services of the army. The thanks of both Houses of Parliament were voted to the Governor-General “for the ability and judgement with which the resources of the British Empire in India had been applied in the support of the military operations in Afghanistan; to Major-General Sir George Pollock, G.C.B.; to Major-General Sir Wm. Nott, G.C.B.; to Major-General Sir John M’Caskill, K.C.B.; to Major-General Sir Robert Sale, G.C.B.; to Major-General Richard England, and the officers of the army, for the intrepidity, skill, and perseverance displayed by them in the military operations in Afghanistan, and for their indefatigable zeal and exertions; and to the non-commissioned officers and private soldiers for their valour and patient perseverance.”

Lord Ellenborough was raised to an earldom, while Pollock, to whom, Lord Hardinge afterwards wrote, “is die the whole merit of the advance from Jellalabad to Cabul,” the liberation of the captives, the victories which re-established the shaken prestige of British power in India, was simply nominated a Grand Cross of the Bath, without pension or other reward , and was relegated to the command of a division at Dinapore.

Sir Robert Peel, as head of the Government, in moving the vote of thanks, summed up his services in the following words, which were ever a source of gratification to Sir George Pollock in after years:

“With respect to the claims of the gallant officers under whose directions these exploits have been performed, I am perfectly convinced that upon that head there can be no difference of opinion. It is impossible to read these details of service – it is impossible to read the accounts of General Pollock, of General Nott, and of General Sale – without being inspired by all those feelings which are connected with the honour and military glory of our country. I am sure the House will excuse me, if with respect to each of these officers, and their claims upon public gratitude, I make some remarks. I begin with General Pollock:- General Pollock took command of the force intended to rescue General Sale early in the month of February, 1842. He arrived at Peshawur on the 5th February 1842. He had then, of course, heard of the failure of Brigadier Wild. On the day that he arrived at Peshawur he found that in Brigadier Wild’s brigade there were not less than 1,000 sick. The day after he arrived he went to the camp at once. He found that the number of sick in the camp on the 12th February was 1,800 men. What was the course he pursued? On the day after his arrival, postponing every other concern, he visited all hospitals, and saw all the surgeons, with the view of ascertaining from then, if possible, the cause of this sickness. He says – and these things do him honour – this is the way to inspire confidence; this is the way to show you are not merely contemplating the means of obtaining the thanks of Parliament by brilliant exploits, but that you are attending to the comfort of your men; this, I say, is the way to inspire confidence; and I mention these things for the honour of the great man by whom they were performed – I would even rather dwell upon them than upon his military success, because they are, in truth, the elements of future success. This, I repeat, is the way to inspire confidence. General Pollock, writing on the 12th of February, says, “I shall visit their hospitals frequently, and by adding in any way to their comforts, show that I feel an interest in them.” General Pollock adds, “There has been some unpleasant feeling amongst them, which I hope has entirely subsided.” He had heard of the dejection which prevailed amongst some of the Sepoy regiments. What was the course he took? He saw every officer; he visited the regiments; he determined not to act with harshness towards the men. Not calling them to courts-martial, he depended upon the influence of reason with them, and in the course of a very short time he succeeded in completely re-establishing the confidence which had been so deeply shaken. The Sepoy regiments were for a time depressed by the expected difficulties of the Khyber Pass, - when they found some of their countrymen coming from Cabul with dreadful stories of the cruelties to which they had been exposed – when they declared their readiness to meet any enemy in the open field – when they said “We will advance to Jellalabad for the rescue of General Sale, but we tell you fairly that the idea of advancing to Cabul presses upon our spirits.” I hope the House will not think too harshly of these men when it considers the noble manner in which they retrieved their character. If we wanted anything else to add to the interest of these scenes it would be found in their association with the ancient history of the world. I was struck by the recollection that it was in the self-same region, and in the midst of similar scenes, that one of the greatest of ancient conquerors, 2,300 years ago, was displaying his power and encountering the same difficulties that for a time depressed the spirit and damped the courage of our Sepoys. And I was struck by the account given by the Roman historian of the dejection which prevailed even in the ranks of the Macedonian phalanx, when they had to encounter and overcome the difficulties of the same terrible region, to cross the very same rivers, to force the vary same passes.

“Amidst these very rivers of the Punjaub – amidst these very Afghan passes, Alexander pursued a course similar to that which at another period was adopted by another military commander – he attempted, not by severity, not by enforcing the rigid rules of war, but by reasoning with his men, to raise their drooping spirits; and he succeeded. If the Macedonian phalanx needed such an address from the mighty conqueror who led them, let us not judge too harshly of our Sepoys, if, in the midst of similar difficulties, they yielded for a moment to a sense of depression. Now, what were the military services of General Pollock? He forced the Khyber Pass by a series of operations carried on from the 7th to the 16th of April. He reached Jellalabad on the 16th of April, although in the pass 10,000 men had been opposed to him. He remained with General Sale for a time, then advanced towards Cabul, reached Gundamuck in August, and on the 8th September defeated the Ghilzies. On the 12th September he was met at Tezeen by Akbar Khan with a force of 16,000 men, on the very field of action where lay the bodies of those who had been massacred with ferocious cruelty and gross breach of faith. On that very spot, General Pollock, aided by General Sale, was completely successful in vindicating the honour and invincibility of the British arms; and on the 16th September General Pollock entered Cabul, the British flag was hoisted on the Balla Hissar, and the national anthem of “God save the Queen” resounded through the streets of the re-captured city. In whatever point of view his services are regarded – whether as related to his conduct in the field, his judgement, his discretion, or the happy skill with which he revived the drooping spirits of his soldiers – I think the House will unanimously award to General Pollock the highest distinction which a military man can receive, and record their public acknowledgement to him for his gallantry and perseverance in the face of such serious difficulties.”

After this high eulogium, the scantiness of the rewards bestowed upon Pollock is the more glaring. His subordinates were promoted to equal honour with himself, and among them Sir William Nott to a post of higher responsibility and greater emolument; but the noble-hearted soldier, who had stood firmly against the pusillanimity of the Government of India, remained true to his character of retiring modesty. He made no stir, sought no honours, but having nobly done his work when summoned to a position of the greatest difficulty and of the highest trust, resumed his duties in the post of relative retirement at Dinapore to which he was relegated, strong in the consciousness of right and of the well-merited respect he had gained from the army and from the whole European community in India.

A soldier has nothing to do with the political motives from which wars originate. His duty is to carry into effect, to the best of his ability and without question, the operations committed to his charge, happy, if it may be so, in the conviction of their cause. It has been shown that the subject of this Memoir performed his part right nobly, but there can be no doubt that the terrible disasters by which our army, under General Elphinstone was annihilated, owed their origin to the unjust policy which induced the Indian Government in the first instance to impose Shah Soojah upon the Afghans as their sovereign. The reflections with which Sir John Kaye concludes his able and well-written History of the War, points a moral which was never more forcibly impressed upon the statesmen of any country than by the events which have been here briefly sketched. He says, “The calamity of 1842 was retribution sufficient to stamp in indelible characters upon the page of history the great truth that the policy which was pursued in Afghanistan was unjust, and that, therefore, it was signally disastrous. It was, in principle and in act, an unrighteous usurpation, and the curse of God was on it from the first. Our successes at the outset were a part of the curse. They lapped us in false security, and deluded us to our overthrow. This is the great lesson to be learnt from the contemplation of all the circumstances of the Afghan war – “The Lord God of recompences shall surely requite.””

In December, 1943, Pollock became political President at Lucknow, a post a that time of considerable difficulty, and in 1844 was transferred to Calcutta as military member of the Supreme Council of India.

On his arrival in the city of Palaces, the British inhabitants who had lived through the panic that prevailed in the disastrous days of the Cabul massacre, and were therefore well able to appreciate Pollock’s great merits, raised a subscription of 11,000 rupees to perpetuate the memory of his great services by instituting a medal, to be presented twice a year “to the most distinguished cadet at the East India Company’s Military Seminary, at Addiscombe, on passing the biennial examination for a commission,” and sent him an address, in which after recapitulating the achievements of the army he commanded, they say:

“We honour you for the reluctance you evinced to return to the provinces from Jellalabad, a return, with that (the march to Cabul) unattempted, which, by your perseverance, was at last accomplished, would have left a stain upon your country, that not time nor circumstances could ever have effaced. . . .

“Your short but glorious career of service in Afghanistan, now assumed a character of intense and painful interest, requiring the most cautious discretion, combined with an energy and decision that seemed scarcely compatible with its exercise. Too much or too little of either, in however slight a degree, and we still had to mourn – how many of our countrymen, women and children, held in hopeless captivity by an exasperated enemy, who had every motive to insult, and none to spare them . . . . The courage and ability demanded and displayed were in the cause of humanity, a cause which was hallowed and approved by heaven, and those who, abandoned, had pined and sunk to an untimely grave, live to bless the name of him who restored them to freedom and to life.”

Pollock, in replying to this address, on the 2nd of November, 1844, wrote with his accustomed modesty:

“I feel it impossible adequately to express my sense of the obligation you have conferred on me, by the desire you have shown to perpetuate in my native country your too flattering estimation of my military services, by the presentation of medals to students at Addiscombe. Though not educated at Addiscombe I concur most unreservedly in the very high respect and estimation justly bestowed on this institution by public opinion. You have thus conferred on me a lasting distinction, at once delicate and far beyond my deserts.”

Sir George Pollock held the office of military member of the Governor-General’s council until 1846, when he was compelled by illness to return to England. On his arrival a pension of £1000 a year was conferred upon him by the East India Company, at whose request also, his portrait was painted by Sir Francis Grant; this portrait now adorns the walls of the India Office. The Corporation of London presented him the freedom of the city, and several other public bodies conferred like honours upon him.

In 1851 Sir George Pollock was promoted Lieutenant-General and in 1854, without any solicitation on his part, was appointed by the President of the Board of Control, the senior of the three government directors of the East India Company, under the act just then passed “to provide for the government of India.” In offering the appointment to him, the President wrote, “The time has arrived when it becomes my duty to recommend to Her Majesty the persons whom I believe to be most capable of discharging the important duties of directors . . . . Among those duties, on of the most important is the superintendence of the large military force of the Company, and I am anxious to see a tried soldier amongst the directors, well acquainted with the requirements of the military service in India. No one has more triumphantly led that army, and under most trying circumstances, than yourself, and I shall have great pleasure in marking my sense of your services in that army, by recommending you to the Queen, as one of the directors to be named by Her Majesty.”

The appointment, which was for two years only, ended in 1856, when Sir George Pollock finally took leave of office, after fifty years’ service in the field and cabinet, and retired into private life.

Two years after this, the East India Company ceased to rule the vast country they had, by the genius of their soldiers and statesmen, brought into subjection to Great Britain, and the government of India passed into the hands of Her Majesty’s ministers. The old army of the Honourable East India Company became part of the Royal Army, and among other changes consequent thereon, the seminary at Addiscombe was abolished in 1861, and became fused in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, which since then, as at the time of commencement of Sir George Pollock’s career, has been the only establishment for the education of cadets for service as officer of Artillery and Engineers.

Pollock was promoted General in 1859, and in 1861, on the institution of the most exalted Order of the Star of India, was nominated one of the first Knights Grand Cross of that order. In 1870, he was promoted Field Marshal, an in the following year, on the death of his old friend Field Marshal Sir John Burgoyne, of the Royal Engineers, as appointed to succeed him in the honorary office of Constable of the Tower of London.

In March, 1872, he was further honoured by being created a Baronet, his name being enrolled in the Herald’s College as “of the Khyber Pass”.

He died on the 6th of October, 1872, in his 87th year, and lies buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey.

It will thus be seen that by surviving his Afghan victories for thirty years, and living to the good old age of 86, the government of the day had an opportunity of removing in some measure the reproach which rested upon the country; that up to that time the General, who restored the tarnished glory of the British arms in Afghanistan, had received no hereditary honour, although such honours, accompanied even with a seat in the House of Lords, had been meanwhile freely granted to soldiers and civilians for exploits of far less historical or national interest, and for political services, the importance of which will vainly be sought in history, when the generation in which they were awarded shall have passed away.

The calm and well-regulated mind of this great and good soldier, the only British artillery officer, who previous to the Indian mutiny in 1859, had ever commanded an army in the field, and who had added vastly to the honour of his own branch of the service, as well as to the lustre of the British army, was not disturbed by the long neglect he experienced; he was sustained by the consciousness of arduous duties well performed; by the knowledge that, but for his sturdy resistance to Lord Ellenborough’s withdrawal orders, the disgrace of our ignominious expulsion from Afghanistan, would not have been wiped away and our English prisoners, men, women and children, would have remained in the hands of a victorious and insolent enemy, to pine away their days in hopeless misery; he looked for higher than human rewards, and so no murmur of discontent was ever heard to pass his lips, although those who knew him well, could not fail occasionally to perceive that he was aware that justice had not been done him.

The origin of the Pollock Medal has been stated, but it may be useful to place on record a few facts connected with it.

The Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company, at the earnest solicitation of the founders, consented to become trustees to the “Pollock Prize Fund” and to add to its importance by affording it pecuniary aid and by presenting the Prize at Addiscombe. It was explained to the government in a letter from the committee, that “the Pollock testimonial, though doubtless exceedingly complimentary to Sir George Pollock, did not alone originate in that object; but arose out of an earnest desire on the part of the community, to perpetuate, by this means, in their own country an annually recurring cause for recollecting the very important and numerous victories, which in succession to the memorable forcing of the Khyber Pass, were successively and uninterruptedly obtained by the Bengal army, under Sir George Pollock’s command, until he again planted the British flag on the Balla Hissar, and re-occupied Cabul; thus restoring the long established prestige of the invincibility of our military strength, and visiting with signal retributive punishment the flagrant conduct of the Afghans. Another object the community had in view in voting this testimonial, was a desire to hold out to future young soldiers in the East India Company’s Military College, an inducement to acquire this reward, and by their future career, to emulate the deeds of their predecessors.”

The original medal designed by General Macleod, and executed by Mr. Wyon, bore the following inscription:

To commemorate eminent services

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR GEORGE POLLOCK, K.C.B.

Bengal Artillery, Cabul 1842

Treachery avenged – British honour vindicated – Disasters retrieved – British captives delivered – Khyber Pass forced – Jellalabad relieved – Victories of Mamoo Khail, Jugdulluck, Tezeen, Istaliff

And on the reverse:

MILITARY SEMINAR, ADDISCOMBE

POLLOCK PRIZE

Presented by the British Inhabitants of Calcutta, and Awarded by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, to the most distinguished Cadet of the Season.

The medal thus struck was first presented in December, 1847. Its value was sixteen guineas, but in 1861, the Secretary of State for India in council, who succeeded to the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company in the management of Indian affairs, declined to continue the very small annual grant necessary to supplement the interest derived from the prize fund, of which he had become the trustee, and to keep up the medal to its original value, and decided without any reference to Sir George Pollock to have a new die prepared by Mr. Wyon for a medal of a smaller size. The medal since presented has been accordingly reduced in value to twelve guineas, and part of the inscription recording the services of Sir George Pollock and his army omitted; a source of deep regret to the gallant old soldier each time he came to the Royal Military Academy, which he invariably did so long as his health permitted, to present the medal in person to the most distinguished cadet of the season. The recipient of the medal on that occasion, 26th June, 1872, was Gentleman cadet John Copsey Addison.

The present medal bears on its front the portrait of this great and good soldier with the words:

POLLOCK, CABUL, 1842;

And on its reverse:

POLLOCK PRIZE, ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY

Founded by the British inhabitants of Calcutta

to commemorate the eminent services of Major-General Sir George Pollock, G.C.B., and awarded to the most distinguished Cadet of the season

The following is the roll of Pollock Medallists, whose names now stand recorded on tablets fixed on the walls of the great dining hall of the Royal Military Academy:

AWARDED AT ADDISCOMBE

NAME

AWARDED

GAZETTED TO

Edward C.S. Williams

June, 1848

Bengal Engineers

James J. Mc. L. Innes

December, 1848

Ditto.

Thomas G. Montgomerie

June, 1849

Ditto.

George A. Craster

December, 1849

Ditto.

Patrick Stewart

June, 1850

Ditto.

Frederick S. Stanton

December, 1850

Ditto.

Henry Goodwyn

June, 1851

Ditto

James P. Basevi

December, 1851

Ditto.

Arthur M. Lang

June, 1852

Ditto.

Salisbury M. Trevor

December, 1852

Ditto.

John M. Champain

June, 1853

Ditto.

Edward R. Holland

December, 1853

Bombay Engineers

William Jeffreys

June, 1854

Bengal Engineers

Aeneas R. R. Macdonald

December, 1854

Tempry. Comisión
H.E.I.Co’s Engrs.

Not posted permanently to either Presidency, having been drowned with three others in the Medway, when holding temporary rank at the Royal Engineer Establishment at Chatham.

Charles H. Luard

June, 1855

Bengal Engineers

John Eckford

December, 1855

Ditto.

John M. McNeile

June, 1856

Ditto

John Herschel

December, 1856

Ditto.

Keith A. Jopp

June, 1857

Bombay Engineers

Lewis C. Gordon

December, 1857

Bengal Engineers

William M. Campbell

June, 1858

Bombay Engineers

William H. Pierson

December, 1858

Bengal Engineers

Arthur W. Elliot

June, 1859

Not appointed – resigned the service

William Shepherd

December, 1859

Bengal Engineers

Allan J. C. Cunningham

June, 1860

Ditto.

Kellow C. Pye

December, 1860

Royal Engineers

William J. Williamson

June, 1861

General List, Royal Infantry

AWARDED AT WOOLWICH

Clayton S. Beauchamp

December, 1861

Royal Engineers

Thomas Fraser

June, 1862

Ditto.

Valentine F. Rowe

December, 1862

Ditto.

Herbert P. Knocker

June, 1863

Ditto.

Francis Mascall

December, 1863

Ditto.

Henry R. G. Georges

June, 1864

Ditto.

William G. Nicholson

December, 1864

Ditto.

Sydney L. Jacob

June, 1865

Ditto

Charles M. Watson

December, 1865

Ditto.

John E. Broadbent

June, 1866

Ditto.

Harry M. Chambers

December, 1866

Ditto.

Felician R. de Wolski

June, 1867

Ditto.

Francis J. Day

December, 1867

Ditto.

George S. Clarke

June, 1868

Ditto.

Henry H. S. Cunynghame

December, 1868

Ditto.

Henry J. Harman

June, 1869

Ditto.

Richard de Villamil

December, 1869

Ditto.

Herbert C. Chermside

June, 1870

Ditto.

Phillip Cardew

December, 1870

Ditto.

Henry G. Kunhardt

June, 1871

Ditto.

Henry E. McCallum

February, 1872

Ditto.

John C. Addison

June, 1872

Ditto.

William C. Godsal

October, 1872

Ditto.

Henry D. Love

February, 1873

Ditto.

John C. Campbell

June, 1973

Ditto.

Matthew H. P. R. Sankey

October, 1873

Ditto.

Charles F. Hadden

February, 1874

Royal Artillery

Hugh M. Sinclair

July, 1874

Royal Engineers

Maurice A. Cameron

February, 1875

Ditto.

SPACEMEN webcomic!

2009-08-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

SPACEMEN page 1

SPACEMEN the movie for sale on DVD

2009-08-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

SPACEMEN the movie for sale on DVD

2009-08-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

SPACEMEN is complete, and the website for the SILVER UNIVERSE of which it is a part is nearly complete too. :)

1800-SUICIDE

2009-07-31T21:49:00.001-07:00

It has to do with the first sovereign emperor of China and an ancient army of the dead.

2009-07-31T17:31:00.000-07:00

Raiders of the lost dimension

03 Jun

Posted by Jason as Science

terracotta.jpgThe good folks at the National high magnetic field lab have been up to some interesting stuff. See these guys?

They are covered in a pigment called Han purple that was painted on them when they were created over 2000 years ago. For whatever reason the researchers were studying this substance, and well, let’s see a quote from the article.

“They observed that at high magnetic fields (above 23 tesla) and temperatures between 1 and 3 degrees Kelvin (approximately -460 degrees Fahrenheit), the magnetic waves in three-dimensional crystals of Han purple “exist” in a three-dimensional world as per conventional wisdom. However, below those temperatures, near the quantum limit, one of the dimensions is no longer accessible, with the unexpected consequence that magnetic ripples propagate in only two dimensions. (Kelvin is the temperature scale used by scientists; zero degrees Kelvin is absolute zero, a temperature so low it is experimentally unreachable.)

The magnetic waves in the pigment exist in a unique state of matter called a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC), so named for its theoretical postulation by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein. In the BEC state, the individual waves (associated with magnetism from pairs of copper atoms in BaCuSi2O6) lose their identities and condense into one giant wave of undulating magnetism. As the temperature is lowered, this magnetic wave becomes sensitive to vertical arrangement of individual copper layers, which are shifted relative to each other – a phenomenon known as “geometrical frustration.” This makes it difficult for the magnetic wave to exist in the third up-down dimension any longer, and leads to a change to a two-dimensional wave, in very much the same way as ripples are confined to the surface of a pond. The theoretical framework that leads to this interpretation was provided by Cristian Batista at LANL.”

What are the practicle implications for this? I have no idea, those warriors are awesome looking though.

SPACEMEN rough cut first 40 minutes. Enjoy!

2009-07-30T02:24:00.000-07:00

414 MOnolith on the MOon of MArs

2009-07-27T07:09:00.001-07:00

413 You Are Not A Free Man, You Are A Number

2009-07-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

Dachau Prisoner Badges

Work cited: Berben, Paul, Dachau: The Official History, 1933-1945, (Munich: Lipp GmbH, 1968), pp. 226-227.

412 SPACEMEN Scene 8 rough cut

2009-07-23T09:37:00.001-07:00

SPACEMEN trailer 2: The Fab Four

2009-07-19T23:12:00.001-07:00

My OzSoapBox comment... posted here just in case it gets lost over there...

2009-07-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Nolan Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

I am not going to post here again, since it doesn’t really add anything to my day…

But at least TRY and get your facts straight before rushing in to post an article. For starters, why not be clear on who owns or works for what business? Two minutes’ work. Or is it such a good topic it’s a shame to spoil it with any facts?

As for the reposted forum posts from Pisces, whether or not they still exist in a cache or wherever else, they were defamatory, and fake- posted by people committing the crime of identity theft in fact.

Reposting them here or allowing them to be posted in the comments section is itself potentially defamatory.

Perhaps a few more hours studying law and a few less playing video games or surfing the web for pornography would stand some of the arcmchair experts in better stead.

As for claims about takedown notices being acted on- zgeek is still posting potentially defamatory material, still telling lies in public, and still playing the victim card… Despite being responsible for everything that happened. But then personal responsibility is obviously a lot less sexy to some people than dropping the c-word at every opportunity.

Chim Chim Cheree

2009-07-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!
A sweep is as lucky
As lucky can be

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-oo!
Good luck will rub off when
I shake 'ands with you
Or blow me a kiss
And that's lucky too

Now as the ladder of life
'As been strung
You may think a sweep's
On the bottommost rung

Though I spends me time
In the ashes and soot
In this 'ole wide world
There's no 'appier bloke

Up where the smoke is
All billered and curled
'Tween pavement and stars
Is the chimney sweep world

When the's 'ardly no day
Nor 'ardly no night
There's things 'alf in shadow
And 'alf way in light
On the roof tops of London
Coo, what a sight!

I choose me bristles with pride
Yes, I do
A broom for the shaft
And a broom for the flume

Though I'm covered with soot
From me 'ead to me toes
A sweep knows 'e's welcome
Wherever 'e goes

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!
When you're with a sweep
You're in glad company

No where is there
A more 'appier crew
Than them wot sings
"Chim chim cher-ee
Chim cher-oo!"
On the chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee
Chim cher-oo!

....


Performed by: Bert (Dick Van Dyke)

Written by: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman


...

Blast From The Future

2009-07-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days there has been a 'right hoo haa' about the Fox TV special that dredged up that old conspiracy that NASA never went to the moon and the entire thing was a fake. I honestly thought we'd passed all that nonsense, but from the amount of email that I've received debating the issue, obviously not! Richard Hoagland has just posted a wonderful report which rebutts the Fox Special - it's well worth a read so I am repeating it here for you all to read. It takes awhile to load as there are a large number of images accompanying the report.

Karen

CONTACT INFORMATION:

MICHAEL BARA lunaranomalies@uswest.net
STEVE TROY malibu57350@yahoo.com

Note - we are not able to respond to all e-mails, but we will read them

Who Mourns For Apollo?
-- Or --
Was It Really Only a Paper Moon?
by
Mike Bara
With
Steve Troy and Richard C. Hoagland

In the last few years, we have become increasingly alarmed as a particularly silly and damaging "urban myth" has begun to take hold. Promoted by a few well known authors such as David Percy and the late James Collier, this latest twist on the current "conspiracy nation" fad is based on a simple, if unbelievably naive and absurd notion -- that the Apollo Missions and subsequent Moon landings were faked. Admittedly, we thought this whole issue was put quite nicely to rest in August 1997, when Enterprise Mission principal investigator Richard C. Hoagland "debated" Collier on Art Bell's "Coast to Coast AM" radio program. The results of that debate can only be described as an unmitigated humiliation for Collier, who turned out to be totally out of his element and misinformed on the general subjects of space travel, physics, engineering, NASA, and Apollo itself.

Yet still, it rears its ugly head today. Even after Percy's Fortean Times article was pretty much taken apart by readers, references to the "fake" landings began to creep into popular culture, springing up in such diverse places as Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" monologue and commercials featuring ESPN's Chris Berman. Usually, the references were tongue in cheek, but when we heard that the Fox network was planning a full scale special on the issue, we decided the time had come to say something.

Let us be clear; we are all uniformly, unabashedly, "conspiracy theorists" here. We are 100 percent convinced that there has been a cover up by NASA of some extraordinary discoveries made in the course of the agency's 40 year history. That said, one thing they did not do, unquestionably, was fake the Moon landings. In fact, most of the charges made, not just by Collier and Percy, but by others who have picked up the mantle of their assertions, are so absurd, so easily discredited, so lacking in any kind of scientific analysis and just plain common sense that they give legitimate conspiracy theories, like ours, a bad name. Which may ultimately be the point after all.

Almost from the moment that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot upon the Moon at Tranquility Base, the rumors began that the whole thing was faked. We have always felt that there was something a little more to this than simple stupidity or naïveté'. Something a bit insidious about the whole thing. We assumed that as time went by, the notion would weaken and falter, rather then gain momentum as it has recently. We have come to wonder, given our own stance on the whole question of what the Moon program was really about and what the astronauts really found, if there wasn't perhaps something a bit "conspiratorial" about the promotion of this patently absurd and demonstrably false conspiracy theory.

As you will see, some of these charges can actually be more easily explained not just by a complete rejection of the Moon Hoax theory, but a combination of conventional explanations and our own "glass ruins" model of the Moon. The way light scatters on the Lunar surface; the size of solar reflections in the visors of the astronauts (which are way out of proportion to their counterparts on modern day Space Shuttle missions); the sometimes secretive stance taken by the astronauts and the Agency; the very peculiar qualities of the film in the cameras taken to the Moon by the astronauts, all point to something bigger and more interesting then we have been led to believe by NASA itself. But, we suspect that the promotion of this particular idea -- that the Apollo astronauts never went there at all! -- so easily discredited (as we will do below), is designed to lessen the blow when revelations regarding what NASA has really found across the Solar System begin to happen ! ... later this very year.

If NASA is eventually forced to admit that there was more to the Face on Mars than meets the Eye, that maybe they missed something "the first three times around," or that there is truly something "ancient and extraordinary on the Moon" ... then it will be crucial to have thoroughly discredited the "conspiracy theorists" out there (read: us). Remember, it is our position (and has been for some time), that this millennium cycle, the 2000-2001 period, is the beginning of an ongoing pattern of disclosure. Up to now, we had assumed that this would some in a series of significant revelations, of outright announcements that things are not quite what we had been led to believe. But now, we suspect that there will simply be a series of much smaller releases -- like simply taking a new image of the Face on Mars and releasing it without comment -- and pretending that the "Eye" isn't there staring back at them. If enough people can be convinced by this deliberate disinformation campaign that "there are no NASA conspiracies" -- by the deliberate promotion and then effective debunking of obviously bad conspiracy theories like "We Never Went To The Moon" -- then it will be much easier to sell the idea that NASA "just missed a couple of things" on those Mars pics all those years ago. And certain people, deeply implicated in the cover-up, will neatly escape the consequences for their theft over more than forty years of our entire space program!

So this then appears to be the political agenda. We plan to "scotch this thing once and for all" -- as a JPL spokesman was heard to say about the "Catbox" image of the Face on Mars -- in order that we might make clear the differences between what we have alleged, and the way the powers that be would like you think about all things conspiratorial.

In this article, we will try to sort out the most common claims being made, highlight the rebuttal evidence, and show that the Moon landings were something quite extraordinary after all. Some of the details concerning these issues are beyond the scope of this article, however, and we plan to follow up with more specifics at a later date.

There are three major thrusts used by the fake landing advocates to bolster their claim: first, that the radiation exposure suffered by the astronauts was not survivable; second, that the photographic evidence "proves" that the landings were staged in a Disney movie studio somewhere; and third, that the mechanical aspects of the mission -- the pure mechanics and physics of the journey -- are not as claimed and therefore must be faked. As you will see, each of these is based on misinterpretations, misrepresentations, or just plain ignorance of the realities of space travel. It is not a coincidence that many of the "believers" in this myth are too young to literally remember the Moon landings. If they had been old enough to watch the actual missions, especially on live TV, they would have known that most of these claims are poppycock. For this article, we will deal with each of these claims in separate sections, and try to directly address the key sub-claims being made.

SECTION ONE - THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

Percy is one of the primary drivers of this particular set of claims, but Collier and others have added to it. Let's list a few of the claims one by one and address them.

ISSUE 1 - The shadows don't fall right in images taken on the Lunar surface, proving that there are are multiple light sources, like professional stage lighting using high-powered lamps. Since the Moon has only one light source, the Sun, these images (these people claim) "have to have been shot on a sound stage somewhere."

This one is usually based on images like the one above (taken from an Apollo 17 TV transmission), that seems to show the shadows of the astronauts coming from different lighting sources. However, a logical approach to this problem reveals that there is nothing at all mysterious about either the shadows or the light sources. If, in fact, the shadows were cast by different light sources, wouldn't each astronaut have two shadows, instead of just the one each we see here? Of course they would. Yet, in the images the "Moon Hoaxers" cite, there is consistently only one shadow being cast, indicating that the Sun is (as it should be) the dominant light source.

So, how to explain the seemingly divergent shadows in this image? If you look closely, you will see that the astronaut on the right is on a slight rise above the astronaut on the left. This has not only the effect of lengthening his shadow, but also if the slope is greater in one direction, say to the left of the astronaut on the right, it will tend to flow and elongate in that direction.

It's important to keep in mind that the Moon has a very rough and uneven surface, with lots of slopes, rises and potholes. As a result, many of the shadows will appear to be non parallel. Invariably, the Moon Hoax advocates will compare these lunar images to flat, smooth terrestrial landscapes, like this one below from David Percy.

In a sense, the Moon Hoax advocates are correct here; there is no comparison to be made from Lunar landscapes and terrestrial ones. But it is because the surface of the Moon is so uneven, not because there are multiple light sources, i.e. lamps, casting the "wrong" shadows.

Also at issue is the photographic equipment used by the astronauts on the lunar surface. Shortened wide-angle lenses, like the ones on the hand-held Hasseblad 70mm cameras used by the astronauts, will distort otherwise parallel shadows. Simply pull some outdoor photos from you own personal collection and see for yourself.

Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean with Hasselblad camera on the surface of the Moon.

ISSUE 2 - The foreground of many images of the astronauts on the Moon are filled in with light, while the shadows remain absolutely black, again proving that there are multiple light sources.

In this one, the argument is that with his back to the sun, the astronaut's suit should be as dark as his own shadow stretching out in front of him (see Apollo 16 image, above). Since there is no light diffusion in an absolute vacuum, NASA "must" have used reflectors or "fill-in lamps" to illuminate the astronaut for this photograph. The truth is, there is evidence of a "reflector" in this image -- but it is the lunar surface itself! Obviously, the lunar surface is a fairly bright gray color. It is known, from the Apollo samples brought back and analyzed in Houston, to contain a LOT of glass beads, with a lot of reflective and refractive minerals in it. All of these materials tend to be kick light directly back toward the source of illumination with very high efficiency, in this case the sun. This is one reason why the Full Moon is so much brighter (than other phases) in the night sky; the sun's "behind" the Earth. The effect of the sunlight hitting the lunar surface and being reflected back toward the sun itself creates a "backscatter" that fills in the astronauts bright white shadowed suit with excellent "fill-light." And the fact that the shadow is so dark on the ground in front of him is proof of exactly the opposite of the claim being made by the "Moon Hoaxer" crowd. It shows that indeed, the astronaut is standing upright in a harsh vacuum, where his suit can "see" the illumination from the surrounding lunar landscape. By stark contrast (pun intended ...), almost no light at all has seeped into the shadow ... because it's lying flat on the ground and cannot "see" anything but black space overhead! It is, as it should be, extremely dark and sharp.

Interestingly, as to the question of multiple light sources, some of the leading debunkers of the Moon Hoax theory have also made a very significant mistake. It is flat wrong, ,as many of them have stated, that the Earth is a "very significant" light source on the Moon. When full, the Earth is on the order of 68.4 times brighter than a full Moon as seen from Earth. It also takes up something like 13.5 times as much sky. But that's not the whole story.

The Earth is -- maximum -- 100 times the brightness of a Full Moon (we're going to overestimate a bit to prove the point). The apparent magnitude (brightness) of a Full Moon is about -13. The equivalent magnitude of the Sun is about -27. Subtracting, that's a difference of 14 magnitudes. Since each 5 magnitudes corresponds to a factor of 100 in brightness, a difference of 14 magnitudes corresponds to almost 100 X 100 X 100, or a factor of a million! Allowing for the ~100 times greater reflected brightness of the Earth (at "Full Earth"), the direct lunar sunlight is still ~100,000 times brighter than the Earth's illumination.

There is NO WAY that the slide films used by the crews (even the "super film" developed by EG&G, see below) could have detected that feeble "Earthlight" on the lunar surface, even in the shadows, with exposures set for the sunlit view.

Of course, we have our own thoughts on this. Some of the debunkers must be realizing that backscatter is insufficient to account for some of what we are seeing on the lunar surface photography. To come up with an explanation, they have resorted to the (obviously incorrect) "Earth light" angle. But it is of course, more interesting than that. Read on.

ISSUE 3 - There are no stars in the background from pictures taken on the Moon.

This one keeps coming up, but the answer, while obvious, is somewhat complicated by our own lunar conspiracy theory. Usually, Moon Hoax advocates cite any number of pictures of the lunar surface showing an absolute black background, but this one above of John Young saluting the flag in front of the LM "Orion" is quite prevalent. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of photography can easily put this one to rest. Any brightly lit foreground object must be photographed with a very short exposure time. Otherwise, the image will be badly overexposed. Any background pinpoint light sources -- like, say, stars that are a literally trillions of miles further away -- will not show up at all. Likewise, if the photographer wants to capture the background stars, he is going to have to use a very long exposure time, which means that the foreground will be totally washed out in one blob of overexposed light. Obviously, there would be no real benefit to taking such an image, since the point of the lunar surface photography was to document the activities of the EVA's on the lunar surface -- not to stargaze.

This whole process is complicated by the fact that in a vacuum, the problem is made even worse, the light far more intense, and the exposure must be even shorter. The Moon Hoax advocates also seem to have forgotten that they are basing most of their "analysis" on press release photos, which are invariably cleaned up before release to the press. So of course, these sanitized press kit images would reflect what we all would expect to see, an absolute black background.

Which brings us to our own thoughts on the Moon and lunar photography.

Contrary to what the Moon Hoax advocates have been saying, the sky above the astronauts should be absolutely black. And in fact, on most of the prints they have been looking at, web based images, press release photos, and even new prints from the archives, it is. The problem is that while the sky should be absolute black, and does appear that way in images presented by by the Moon Hoax advocates, it most demonstrably is not absolute black in the images examined by Enterprise Mission investigators.

As you know, a few years ago Enterprise principal investigator Richard C. Hoagland was approached by former NASA flight instructor Ken Johnston, Jr., and supplied with a set of extraordinary first generation prints of Apollo lunar photography which had remained untouched for nearly thirty years since he obtained them from inside NASA. What these prints showed was quite another story -- that the sky above the astronauts was far from blank -- it was in fact filled with a strange, bluish, geometric set of ruins.

So the problem is exactly the opposite of how it is stated by the Moon Hoax advocates. The sky should be black, but it isn't.

One amusing sidelight of this Aopollo 16 photograph is that it is used on several web sites as "proof" that many of the pictures taken on the Moon are fake, since John Young "... is casting no shadow at all!" on the lunar surface. In fact, all it really shows is how dumb most of the Moon Hoax advocates really are. If you actually look at the picture, you will see that Young is casting a shadow ... to the right side of the picture a few feet away. How can this be? Why is the shadow not "attached" to young's feet?! Well, because in this famous sequence, John Young is leaping into the air as he is saluting, while Charley Duke snaps the photo. Many Moon Hoax advocates, too young to have actually watched this all on live television, look at this picture and mistakenly believe that Young is standing on the slight dome shaped rise in the background, when in fact he is in midair (well, OK, mid-vacuum). This famous sequence is also a good way to show that the astronauts are indeed in ! the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, since in order to get this kind of elevation on Earth (especially with the bulky, several hundred pound spacesuit and backpack on), Young would have to have the leaping ability of Michael Jordan! For those interested, I can highly recommend the excellent NASA video series "Apollo - Mission to the Moon" which sshows film of this famous live TV sequence.

ISSUE 4 - In some images, a huge light source can be seen reflected in the astronauts visors. This has to be a very bright, nearby source.

Apollo 17

Apollo 14

This argument is essentially a variation of the first argument. Occasional images, like the ones above (taken from the Apollo 17 EVA TV transmissions and Apollo 14), seem to show a very bright, huge light source taking up almost 25% of the astronauts visor. Moon Hoax advocates argue that this is proof of a large light source (a stage flood or a spot, again) positioned very close to the astronauts. What they are missing here is essentially the same geometric problem they missed with the "bent shadows" argument. As you can see from the previous image of Alan Bean (above), the gold-covered helmet visors that the astronauts wore were very convex shapes -- similar to automotive wide-angle side mirrors included on many current models (" Warning: objects may be closer than they appear ..."). Like the surface shadows in the earlier images above, this curved helmet has the effect of severely distorting the reflections, making them appear much smaller (and thus farther away) than they actually are.

The problem: the sun, in the lunar helmet reflection pictured here, appears much larger (and therefore closer!) than it possibly could. Our explanation for this remarkable observation is firmly grounded in our investigation of the REAL conspiracy that NASA has worked so hard, for over 40 years, to cover-up: the presence of ancient, glass-like ruins on the Moon. It is these ruins, sticking up above the lunar horizon and physically intervening between the low-angle sun and the Apollo astronauts roaming across the surface, which create the magnified halo of scattered light seen in the gold visors. Since this area of "forward scattering" is much larger than the optical size of the sun itself, it makes the "reflection" appear disproportionately larger -- even in the curved gold visors -- than the view of a similar reflection of the sun from Ed White's helmet, photographed in Earth orbit on the Gemnini 4 mission in 1965 (photographic comparison, below).

ISSUE 5 - There are no views of the Earth in pictures taken from the Moon.

This one also is just plain wrong. Collier was among the most enthusiastic promoters of this mistaken notion, based on studying only a few press release photographs from NASA. Below is an Apollo 17 picture (on the left) of a large boulder, with the Earth in the background, taken by an astronaut with a hand held Hassleblad 70mm camera (the same camera which took the photograph of Gene Cernan, with the flag and Earth, above). Below right is a hand-held 70mm Hasselblad picture taken by Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, as the Eagle approached the CSM for the return trip home. Since all the non hand-held pictures taken on or at the Moon were using something other than 70mm transparency film, these photos had to have been taken by a human being -- an Apollo astronaut -- physically present either on the Lunar surface or in space around the Moon.

ISSUE 6 - How could NASA take TV images of the LM ascending on Apollo 15, 16, and 17 if there was no one on the Lunar surface to man the camera?

Now, most of these charges are pretty dumb, but this one really has to take the cake. As you can see from the collection of images above (from two different missions) on the later Apollo missions (15-17) the astronauts left the TV camera pointed at the LM so that viewers on Earth could watch the liftoff. Initially, the camera was unable to track the ascent stage as it rose into space, but by Apollo 17, NASA had figured a way to get the camera to track upward and follow the spacecraft. So the answer to this one is also simple and obvious -- the camera was remotely controlled from Earth.

SECTION TWO - THE MECHANICAL ARGUMENTS

Most of these claims come from James Collier's "Was it only a paper Moon?"

ISSUE 1 - The astronauts could not have egressed and ingressed the LM because they could not fit through the hatch and there was no room to even open the hatch in the LM.

It's hard to know just how to respond to this one beyond simply stating that it is wrong. As you can see from the artists concept below, the astronauts were positioned on either side of the central cockpit panel, with the main EVA door between them. There was in fact plenty of room to open the hatch. On Apollo 11, Armstrong would have been manning the left position in this view and Aldrin the right. The door was latched to Aldrin's side, necessitating that the door be swung open inward, and effectively "trapping" Aldrin momentarily on his side of the LM. In fact, this is the main reason that Armstrong egressed first. Once he was out, Aldrin was able to close the hatch, move over to Armstrong's position, and exit himself.

As to the issue of whether the astronauts could fit through the hatch, as you can see below, they must have. This is an image taken from a film shot by Armstrong of Aldrin egressing the Lunar Module. The entire sequence is available from the NASA archives, and shows the whole procedure from start to finish, including Aldrin opening the hatch and crawling through it.

Furthermore, if it turns out that the astronauts could not fit through the hatch, this will come as quite a shock to our friend and contributor Ken Johnston, Jr. He spent many hours in the vacuum chamber at Houston, fully suited up including the backpack, crawling in and out of the full scale mockup of the LM, to test exactly that. He'll be very upset to learn that he wasted all that sweat for nothing.

ISSUE 2 - The Lunar Rover was too big to fit in the LM.

Well, this is strictly true if you take the measurements of the Rover when it was fully deployed and assembled. However, the Rover came packed into a very tight little package which fit neatly into the space provided in the LM.

When the astronauts got the Rover out, all they had to do was pull on two nylon cords and the Rover popped right out of its berth and down to the lunar surface. As it did so, the wheels, which were folded over (as you can see in the photograph above) deployed outward and were then locked into position. The main purveyor of this claim that the Rover was too big to fit into the LM is Collier, who took his measurements by going to the Johnson Space Center (where there is a full scale mockup of the Rover in it's deployed configuration) and then compared those numbers to the containment bay on the LM. Anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of engineering could have figured this one out -- simply by looking at the hinges which allowed the wheels to fold out when deployed (there are no "tires" -- they are very cool wire mesh construction). This whole aspect of the controversy could have been avoided by a trip to the film archives or viewing the video series mentioned before, Apollo - Mission to the Moon. Both have footage from the Apollo missions showing the astronauts actually deploying the unfolding Rover on the Moon.

ISSUE 3 - The astronauts could not get from the Command module to the Lunar module with their space suits and pack on.

Again, strictly true. They never did go from the CSM to the LM and back with their packs on for one very good reason -- they didn't have to. The packs were stored in the LM the whole time. Beyond that, they did not wear their packs at all until they actually went out on their EVA's. As you can see from the LM cockpit interior concept above, this was always the intention. In fact, and image taken by Armstrong of Aldrin right after touchdown shows this was indeed the case.

ISSUE 4 - There can't be any pictures taken on the Moon because the film would melt in the 250° temperatures.

Any normal film exposed to 250° would indeed melt at that temperature. There are only two problems with this Moon Hoax claim -- this was no ordinary "Ektachromme" film, and it was never exposed to those kind of temperatures in the cameras.

The 70mm film used in the Hasselblad cameras the astronauts carried was a very special transparency film designed specifically (under a NASA contract) for hostile environments like the Moon. According to Peter Vimislik at Kodak, the film would at worst begin to soften at 200° F, and would not melt until it reached at least 500° F. So, a worst case scenario of 250-280° F for a totally uninsulated, non-reflective camera, would still be well within the films operational parameters. The film itself, in terms of its light-gathering abilities, was also quite amazing (in striking contrast to the uninformed claims of the debunkers). It was a special "extended range color slide film" called "XRC, that allowed the astronauts to take perfect "National Geographic" quality pictures on the lunar surface, even though they were hardly experienced photographers. This has truly opened up whole web pages of controversy -- with the Moon Hoaxers claiming that such a film simply doesn't exist! In fact, Enterprise Principal investigator Richard C. Hoagland actually used many rolls of this "super lunar film," back when he was advising Walter Cronkite at CBS. His personal story of the film's development, its inventor, and how NASA cleverely hid its very development from everyone, will be detailed in a future segment of this series. Suffice it to say, more than thirty years after the first manned lunar mission, many of the features of this amazing film are only now finding their way into the commercially-available color emulsions used in today's modern day 35mm and 70mm non-digital cameras

As you can see from the image of Alan Bean above, the cameras were also protected inside a special case designed to keep them cool. Although it is true that in the direct, airless sunlight the temperature can reach upwards of 250° - 280° Fahrenheit, precisely because there is no air, it's fairly easy to keep cool. The situation is a lot different than in your oven, for instance. With no convection or conduction, the only type of heat that is of concern is radiative. The best way to reflect radiative heat is to wrap the object (like a camera of person) in layers designed to reflect as much heat as possible, usually by simply being white. As you can see from the images above, most all of the astronauts clothing and the camera casing were indeed white, which very efficiently directed heat away from the both the astronauts and camera film.

ISSUE 5 - The LM engine was very powerful. How come it did not leave a crater below the spacecraft? Why didn't it kick up any dust when it landed?

The truth here is once again very straightforward. At all of the landing sites, the astronauts found that the Lunar surface had about a two inch layer of dust. Below that was pretty much hard pan. As you can see from the image below from Apollo 11, not only is the upper layer of dust blown away in a radial pattern (as if from a thruster?) there is also a small depression below the nozzle. Since the LM descent engine only made about 3,000 pounds of thrust (compared to a modern jet fighter which makes between 18,000 and 22,000 pounds of thrust), this is pretty much as any engineer or geologist would expect things to look.

And, as this picture from Apollo 12 shows (below), the LM did leave a strikingly clear, "discolored" ground track (when photographed at right angles to the sun) as it descended to it's final resting place across the Lunar surface.

And what of the charge that no dust was kicked up by the LM as it descended? Again, we'd recommend any of the fine NASA video's on the Apollo program. They show that in each and every case, the LM did indeed create a literally blinding swirl of dust blown radially outward from under the descending LM, as it groped its way down, balanced on its 3000-lb thrust engine, to it's final lunar resting place. You simply have to be willing to find the films and watch them.

SECTION THREE - THE RADIATION ARGUMENTS

ISSUE 1 - The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen belts and other sources.

Actually, of all the issues put forth by the Moon Hoax advocates, this is the one that requires the most digging into. The Van Allen radiation belts are a pair of torroidal shaped belts of high-energy electrons and ions trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. The inner region is centered at about 3000 km above Earth and has a thickness of about 5000 km. The outer region is centered at about 15,000 -- 20,000 km above the surface of the Earth and has a thickness of 6,000 -- 10,000 km. As you can see from the extract below, the radiation in the belts was of some concern to the scientists working on the problem. However, they actually considered a rogue solar flare to be a much bigger problem.

In fact, as stated in this official government report, the scientists working on the problem of Van Allen radiation considered it to be minor compared to other design hurdles to be conquered. Their solution was simple -- avoid exposure by keeping the spacecraft at low Earth orbit altitudes while in parking orbits and then send it through the belts at high speed. The eventual escape speed, some 25,000 miles per hour, would have passed them through the belts in less than an hour, keeping their dose well below 1 rad. There was a modicum of shielding from the equipment, but in the end this was not necessary as the extraordinary transition speed kept the dose below harmful limits -- both going to and returning from the Moon.

As to the issue of solar flares and the danger they presented, there simply weren't any major ones during any of the Apollo missions. So the biggest reason that none of the astronauts died from their radiation exposure was that they simply did not get a bad dose to speak of. Readers wanting more information on this issue should read NASA Technical Notes - NASA TN D-7080, Apollo Experience Report - Protection Against Radiation by Robt. English, Richard E. Benson, J. Bailey, and C. Brown, --Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, March, 1973.

Ultimately, all of the claims made by the Moon Hoax advocates are easily explainable with a little research, common sense or just a plain good memory of what happened back during the Apollo program. While we remain fiercely critical of the NASA hierarchy in general and certain members of the Apollo team in particular, we should not let that get in the way of our undying admiration for the rank and file men and women, scientists and engineers, who pulled off the most amazing feat in human history -- the Apollo program. To give these silly claims attention, as Fox is now doing, is an insult to those who sacrificed, some with their lives, to get man to the Moon.

And what's worse is that regardless of the stance that Fox takes on this issue, by focusing attention on a silly and unsupportable series of claims like these, they are painting all "conspiracy theories" with the same brush. We find the timing of this, just as NASA is beginning to lift the veil of secrecy around the Face and other artifacts on Mars, a bit "convenient." What better way to put forth the "honest but dumb" model ("gee, it does look like a Face after all!") than to convince everyone that there are no conspiracies, or at least no serious and sober conspiracy theorists. For this reason, we will continue to focus on the worst of the conspiracy theories when we are forced to do so. We plan to follow up this report with a bit more detail at later date, and hopefully, that will be the last time we will have to address this entire silly issue.

Sweet is the harbour, but Death is the ferryman, Part One

2009-07-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Charon and Hades.

Ferryman across the River Styx, and Lord of the Underworld.

Charon, as with so many ancient figures of deepest importance, has a name that is shrouded in mystery. Ever eager to explain their borrowings as native invention, the Hellenes (ancient "Greeks" although since they could sport natural red or blonde hair they weren't quite the same race as today's Greek) played word games to make a Hellenic meaning for Charon, such as "keen eyed", "grey-eyed" or even through puns "swift to anger" or "relentless".

In point of fact it is most likely a word or proper noun at least based on one of the two great sources of "inspiration" for Greek culture, Egypt or Mesopotamia.

Why does that matter? It matters for the same reason that the obscuring of Akhenaten as Oedipus matters- it hides not just a distant origin but also the true mythic meanings invested in the story.

If Charon is from Egypt or Mesopotamia, it means the River Styx is also from Egypt or Mesopotamia, mutandem mutandis. In the same way that everything that confuses about Thebes in the Oedipus "myth" (history) falls into place when EGYPTIAN Thebes is understood as what is meant.

Charon is universally treated as a disgusting older male being with a long unkempt beard and a dirty ragged attire bound with a belt. Greasy, filthy, almost a vagabond figure, but with glowing or burning eyes. Not, one would imagine, the most pleasant of entities.

If Charon really does come from, let's say, Egypt, then logically he will be associated with other "borrowings" from Egypt... And such is the case. Charon is linked not just to the Styx and to Hades but importantly also to Hermes, the "messenger of the gods" who, just like Apollo the "sun god" is rarely if ever associated particularly with his supposed primary attribute. Hermes is most often associated with thieves, magic, crossroads and secrecy. He is also linked to Charon and Hades. Thus we might see a trinity-

Hermes (closest to the outer world of the living)

Charon (lurker on the threshold)

Hades (ruler of the underworld)

If the name Charon is too obscure, Hermes at least might be better identified amongst the Egyptian "gods". I put the word "gods" in quotes because what is most often translated as "god" in ancient Egyptian (as for the race, see my comments about the Greeks- Rameses II had natural red hair) would be better translated as the much less loaded term "wonder worker". Hermes has already been traced into Egypt and almost into the Bible for that matter.

Hermes as Thoth?

And Charon- as the mouth of hell or the mouth of the otherworld? Is that why charon has an unkempt beard / pubic hair patch? Is that why he is greasy or food-stained? Is Charon an opening, or "Chao?"

And then there is Hades.

Hades

by Micha F. Lindemans

Hades is the lord of the dead and ruler of the nether world, which is referred to as the domain of Hades or, by transference, as Hades alone. He is the son of Cronus and Rhea. When the three sons of Cronus divided the world among each other, Hades was given the underworld, while his brothers Zeus and Poseidon took the upperworld and the sea respectively. For a while Hades ruled the underworld together with Persephone, whom he had abducted from the upperworld, but Zeus ordered him to release Persephone back into the care of her mother Demeter. However, before she left he gave her a pomegranate and when she ate of it, it bound her to the underworld forever.

Hades sits on a throne made of ebony, and carries a scepter. He also has a helmet, given to him by the Cyclopes, which can make him invisible. Hades rules the dead, assisted by various (demonic) helpers, such as Thanatos and Hypnos, the ferryman Charon, and the hound Cerberus. Many heroes from Greek mythology have descended into the underworld, either to question the shades or trying to free them. Although Hades does not allow his subjects to leave his domain, on several occasions he has granted permission, such as when Orpheus requested the return of his beloved Eurydice.
Hades possesses the riches of the earth, and is thus referred to as 'the Rich One'. Possibly also because -- as Sophocles writes -- 'the gloomy Hades enriches himself with our sighs and our tears'. Of all the gods, Hades is the one who is liked the least and even the gods themselves have an aversion of him. People avoided speaking his name lest they attracted his unwanted attention. With their faces averted they sacrificed black sheep, whose blood they let drip into pits, and when they prayed to him, they would bang their hands on the ground. The narcissus and the cypress are sacred to him.
Other names include Clymenus ('notorious'), Eubuleus ('well-guessing') and Polydegmon ('who receives many').

The name "Hades" apparently means the unseen, based on nothing stronger than that the context of the name infers this meaning to it. In other words, the name is supposed to be in a perpetual state of tautology, in the same way that the proper name Caesar came to be itself a word meaning king. Hail King Caesar indeed.

If we drop the H in Hades as an aspirant and leave it standing as Ades, and keep in mind that the -es ending is a local linguistic flourish, we have the name Ad for the ruler of the dead, which is not a light year away from various Celtic names beginning with the all important A letter and all referring to the Lord of the Underworld. Might it be one of the earliest of all human words for anything? Might this truly be a syllable in the primaeval mother language, based on the onomatopoeia of someone's terminal cry of fright or agony? "AAaaahhhh" ??

As a footnote to this first part, if you want to see a textbook (literally) example of not only idea theft but also pointless obfuscatory persiflage to disguise a lack of deeper understanding, look up the word MYTHEME on wikipedia.

SPACEMEN comicbook

2009-07-17T03:37:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the rendering to end... :)

Thinking about the comicbook, it turns out it's going to be cheap enough to do so that a floppy as well as a graphic novel is conceivable. I think... Both. In keeping with the Silver Age vibe, although there were a tiny handful of graphic novels in all but name through the Silver Age the concept hadn't actually caught on at that point, so we'll do a regular movie adaptation issue and an Annual, with the Annual being the graphic novel.

I think the storyboards etc. of some of the expanded universe stuff that builds on the original film should be done in a variety of styles in the Annual and the floppy should just be a true Silver Age comic, racing through the story with art bursting from every panel. Just have to find the right guy or lady for the project as artist. :)

Star Trek In The Park.

2009-07-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

The Solar Satellite: Grim.

Things To Do Whilst Waiting For Objects To Render

2009-07-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

1. Rename vampire movies by replacing the word Dracula with the words Michael Jackson.

Examples:

Brides of Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson Has Risen From The Grave
Blichael Blackson
Michael Jackson versus Frankenstein

and then there are the ones that don't feature Dracula in the title so you can leave the titles alone.

Example:

The Lost Boys

SPACEMEN pictures (from the rough cut)

2009-07-16T19:14:00.001-07:00

SPACEMEN pictures (from the rough cut)

2009-07-16T19:07:00.001-07:00

SPACEMEN takes place in an alternate (but pretty similar) 1967 AD, where public space technology is a little more advanced. Doctor Curtis Temple, his assistant and lover Lee Mason and his offsider Alan Mollay are called in to investigate a strange coordinated landing of "meteors" in Cornwall, UK.

It soon proves to be nothing less than the vanguard of an alien invasion!

The aliens unleash horrors on the local population whilst Dr. Temple does his best to fight them as a one-man scientific army, until he finally enlists the aid of some allies and tries to turn the tide of battle against the alien invaders...

881188

2009-07-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

Freaky number- it was the Alexa page ranking for the blog... The symmetry is obviously conspiracy kryptonite for the synchromystically addicted, although to me it just seemed lucky- 88 and 88 duplicate the good luck 8 / infinity of course and if 11 is unlucky then the double 88 brackets and contains it. Also one set of 88 would cancel out the 11 leaving a "spare" 88 to give good luck! :)

This sort of thing is why I usually stay clear of numerology. It seems to have a powerful effect on the weak minded, and for me I just see it as a big distraction. It clearly reveals some of the inner workings of the universe, but not in a way which is particularly useful, and as another form of potentially addictive behaviour- number watching- I just think most people should give it a wide berth. If they can't read without their mouths moving, they shouldn't be toying with fundamental forces.

SPACEMEN trailer (rough cut of opening credits)

2009-07-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

delenda Carthago est

2009-07-15T18:48:00.001-07:00

See post title. :)

Ultimate 9/11 Movies - The List - #3: The Usual Suspects

2009-07-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Usual Suspects: Great Film.

Runemal

2009-07-15T07:28:00.001-07:00

The Diamond spread reveals the dynamic forces at work in a situation. It is the spread of choice for understanding a hidden conflict. Spirit Runes are most commonly used for questions about mysticism, spirituality, and religion.

The bottom rune represents the foundation that forms the basis of the issue. Raido means to ride. In this rune, the image is not so much the riding of a horse as in riding in a cart or as cargo. As such Raido may suggest a journey, but is much more indicative of communication. Alternate interpretations based on the use of Raido as a cognate in other words give it the meaning of council, judgment, and moral correctness. Therefore, this rune is the rune of wise advice and good leadership.

The left rune represents one of the forces acting on the issue at hand. Perth, the rune of chance and gambling has been drawn reversed. This can have many possible meanings. It could represent secrets revealed or mysteries uncovered. It could be a warning against gambling - now might not be the time to take a chance.

The right rune represents another of the forces acting on the issue at hand. Thurisaz represents a thorn, the most basic of barriers to our boon or our bane. In the case of hedges, thorns protect our encampments from that which skulks towards us from the outlands. In the case of rosebushes, thorns keep us from beauty. Though thorns are passive and have no thoughts, they puncture, tear, and may even be poisonous. Hence, this rune may also represent irrational violence and anger.

The top rune represents the conclusion to which your strivings can carry you. Sowelu is a strong symbol, for it represents the sun. Unlike equatorial cultures who may see the sun as a harsh and imperial force capable of causing droughts, in the cold north the sun is a purely feminine force that gives life and allows crops to grow. In dark times, this rune represents clarity of sight and the victory of good over evil. Sowelu is irreversible, as the cycles of the sun and seasons are perpetual.

Today's I Ching

2009-07-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

	The present is embodied in Hexagram 16 - Yu (Enthusiasm): In this state, feudal princes and other delegates may be set up, and the hosts put in motion, with advantage.
	The second line, divided, shows one who is firm as a rock. He sees a thing without waiting until it has come to pass. With his firm correctness there will be good fortune.
	The fourth line, undivided, shows him from whom the harmony and satisfaction come. Great is the success which he obtains. Let him not allow suspicions to enter his mind, and thus friends will gather around him.
	The topmost line, divided, shows it subject with darkened mind devoted to the pleasure and satisfaction of the time. If he change his course even when it may be considered completed, there will be no error.
	The situation is shifting, and Yang (the active masculine force) is gaining ground.
	The future is embodied in Hexagram 4 - Meng (Youthful Folly): There will be progress and success. I do not go and seek the youthful and inexperienced, but he comes and seeks me. When he shows the sincerity that marks the first recourse to divination, I instruct him. If he apply a second and third time, that is troublesome, and I do not instruct the troublesome. There will be advantage in being firm and correct.
	The things most apparent, those above and in front, are embodied by the upper trigram *Chen (Thunder), which is tansforming into Ken (Mountain)*. As part of this process, movement, initiative, and action are giving way to stillness and obstruction.
	The things least apparent, those below and behind, are embodied by the lower trigram *K'un (Earth), which is transforming into K'an (Water)*. As part of this process, docility and receptivity are giving way to danger and the unknown.

Hitler Youth: Now we have the internet to do it for the slavers

2009-07-15T03:30:00.000-07:00

How Did Hitler Control His Youth?

Do you see this picture of children so strongly cheering their leader, Adolph Hitler? How did Hitler control these young people? Could this happen again today? If we learn how Hitler was able to control his youth, then perhaps we can help to prevent a repeat of such Nazi-style mind-control brainwashing in the future.

Germany, of course, rose from the ashes of World War I, ("The War to End All Wars"), as both a democracy and a country that was heavily in debt. Inflation was rampant. Social problems were also rampant. Hitler promised to fix his Germany and restore the "respect" that many Germans thought was so unjustly taken from them by the Armistice marking the end of World War I.

Hitler also wanted to build a "master race". The children of Germany were viewed by Hitler as his future hope for such a success. Children were also more naturally teachable and would therefore be more easily molded by Hitler than older adults. Many of these adults also remembered living under democracy, and therefore might not be so easily fooled by Hitler's lies against democracy. Children could also be a future asset in his war efforts, since Germany was still a small country going up against the combined military forces of most of the world. These children could become his future soldiers and leaders of his "Third Reich", an empire which was to last for a thousand years.

How Did Hitler Control His Youth

(1) Hitler used his image as a father figure

In the traditional German home, the father was the one in control. The rest of the family was expected to always obey the father -- to obey their father "without question". By projecting such a "father" image before the children of Germany, Hitler was able to transfer power from the institution of the home to his own social and political institutions. Hitler also persuaded "his" children into thinking that, since Hitler was their "father", this also meant that he also cared about them, and about their future. Of course, Hitler actually only cared about one man -- himself. Hitler's Youth were just his "pawns" in his great political and military scheme to take over the world.

(2) Hitler extinguished dissent

Children were only allowed to hear one view of Hitler - the positive view. This was especially true after 1933, when Hitler became the undisputed leader of Germany. After 1933, Hitler was able to silence all public opposition against him and thereby gain even more influence, (including more influence over the children). Anyone who disagreed with any of Hitler's ideas was immediately considered to be "suspect" and might therefore get a knock on the door late at night and be "shown the door" to his or her own house, (or even worse, I might add).

(3) Hitler used an organized program to keep his kids occupied

Hitler used his now famous "Hitler Youth" program as a kind of "Boy Scouts" for the training of children to obediently follow him, and to prepare them to become his future soldiers. He learned that "youth's loneliness" could be used as a powerful tool to influence (and then gain control) over these young, impressionable kids. Hitler therefore tried to keep these children busy, keeping them organized so that they would not be "lonely". (By the way, the current Pope of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger, was also kept busy as a boy as a part of this same "Hitler Youth".)

(4) Hitler made certain that children were kept as ignorant as possible

Generally, the more ignorant children are, (or adults for that matter), the less apt they are to question the validity of their leader's claims of authority. Therefore, Hitler made sure that these children did not learn any information that was not "needed" by them. These kids were also instructed never to "think for themselves". No, such thinking for one's self was considered to be very "dangerous thinking" and therefore "suspect".

Such children were also not to read any books or listen to any radio programs that might "confuse them", (i.e. anything other than Hitler's propaganda programs.) Nevertheless, Hitler made sure that these children always had the "proper information" that they needed, (i.e. as little as possible, in order to always keep his children as ignorant as possible.)

(5) Hitler gathered the children into frequent rallies

Large groups of children congregating together in youth rallies can have a strong peer pressure effect in strengthening the grip of an authority figure. This is especially true when loud music and many standing ovations are made a central part of this control effort, (as in the picture above). In such rallies there would be strong peer pressure for children to conform to the "Hitler worship" which their peers exhibited. Winston Churchill once passed through one such Hitler rally while visiting Germany. Churchill was both shocked and quite dismayed by what he saw in this rally filled with loud music, and many standing-ovations.

(6) Hitler used uniforms

By enforcing a dress code, (as can clearly be seen in the uniform shirts and ties of those in the above photograph), Hitler's youth were taught to act and think the same, namely to "believe without thinking". They were taught to have "blind faith" in whatever Hitler told them to believe. The mandating of the wearing of ties and other such dress codes was therefore used to help reinforce such "uniform thinking" among his youth.

(7) Hitler used the Jews as a focus of blame

Children are often simplistic. Hitler was able to use this simplicity in his blaming of the Jews for many of Germany's social problems. Jewish families were often "shown the door" in his society, (or worse still, shot or herded into "camps" like Auschwitz). Jews and their families were made to take the blame for any problems that Germany faced, and therefore they suffered under great persecutions by Hitler. These frequent public persecutions of "troublemakers", therefore helped Hitler to control his youth. (In the book "1984", children were given certain people to blame for their problems, often Jewish people, so that they would not rightly blame "Big Brother" for those same problems.)

(8) Hitler believed that having too much money was a real problem for children

Hitler thought that money was a problem for children for many reasons. One of these reasons was that children might buy things with money that might get them into "trouble". For example, such money might be used to purchase foreign books or other items which might tend to erode Hitler's base of authority in his country. Hitler also wanted as much money as possible to support his war efforts to destroy Churchill, (and anyone else Hitler disagreed with) -- as he sought world domination.

Therefore, for these and other reasons, Hitler made sure that his children were kept as impoverished and disadvantaged as practically possible. Such poverty also helped to keep such children more dependent on him, more docile, and more pliable as well.

(9) Hitler used a propaganda program

Hitler built up a effective propaganda program in order to make sure that Hitler's (and only Hitler's) ideas were advanced. Through the effective use of organized propagandizing and lying efforts, a false view of Hitler and his war efforts was always doled out to his kids. What "really went on", (such as Hitler's constant lies and deceptions and Hitler's persecution of Jewish families or anyone else who might have dared to disagree with Hitler about anything), was always kept carefully hidden from view.

The false image of smiling and happy Germans dutifully following and cheering their leader, helped to fool many gullible "visitors" to Hitler's rallies. (This did not fool Churchill, however.) Through the use of such deceit, Hitler's propaganda efforts were quite effective in enabling him to "spin" the truth into a lie. (Hitler was a very effective and proficient "spin doctor".)

(10) Hitler installed "spies" within these ranks of children

Hitler's children were taught to distrust each other and to only trust Hitler. Any person deemed "suspect" was to be immediately reported to Hitler or one of his assistants by letter, phone call, or through other means, so that such "rebels" could be effectively "dealt with". (This was another theme of the "1984" book as well.)

No one was to ever actually trust anyone other than Hitler. A child would therefore turn in his or her best friend to be "disciplined", if such a friend was at all suspected of committing the "thought crime" of disagreeing with any of Hitler's personal opinions or ideas.

(11) Hitler wrote books and other propaganda materials to promote his views

The book "Mein Kampf" was one of Hitler's most famous works. Through use of this and other books and writings of his, Hitler was able to present his views to the children under his authority. Such children were expected to read these books, and therefore to absorb his lies into their young and impressionable minds. Such writings therefore greatly helped Hitler in his goal of brainwashing and controlling these children.

Conclusion

There were many other methods Hitler used to effectively gain and hold control over his youth. Hitler always liked the ideas of political control and mind control. (Hitler was what we now call a "control freak").

Hitler took away those kids' rights, so that he could gain yet more power, control, and money in his quest for world domination. Nevertheless, despite his many lies, deceptions, and claims to the contrary, Hitler was really only concerned about Hitler.

If millions of children never grew up and got married, always lived lives of poverty, or died in obscurity, serving Hitler week after week on the battlefield, that was all fine, as long as Hitler himself benefited personally from such deprivations suffered by these youths. Such is the great evil that can come from one deranged man lacking self control, love for others, and the fear of either God or man.

Android PKD

2009-07-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

A Day In The Afterlife

2009-07-14T03:12:00.001-07:00

Disregard the "friend" fellow sci fi author- the guy is full of it. FULL OF IT.

PKD redux en Francais

2009-07-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

Kant's "Noumenal Self" and Doppelganger in P.K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly

2009-07-14T03:08:00.000-07:00

Kant's "Noumenal Self" and Doppelganger in P.K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly

By Frank C. Bertrand

The two-in-one character Arctor/Fred in P.K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly (1977), in conjunction with several of the ancillary characters therein, pose explicit and implicit notions about Character, personality, and self (Being) that are both informative and problematic for reaching an understanding of the novel as a whole. Three of these are Arctor/Fred as Doppelganger, schizophrenic, and symbolic personification of Kant's idea that there are two wills or selves in Man, the phenomenal and noumenal self. Individually and in combination these reflect Dick's long standing concern with the nature of Reality and the interaction between Man and Reality.

Most obvious of the aforementioned is that of Arctor/Fred as doppelganger, double, or composite character, a literary motif that generally represents the faces of good and evil within a single individual as objectified in two characters at war with each other. Arctor/Fred, however, is not the stereotypical doppelganger as originally conceived by Jean Paul Richter in the late eighteenth century for his novel Siebenkas (1796-97). Unlike Golyadkin Sr. and Golyadkin Jr. in Dostoevsky's The Double (1864), or Schwendy and Habeland in E.T.A. Hoffman's "The Doubles" (1821), Arctor/Fred is a psychological rather than physical double; he is a split-personality, a second-self reminiscent of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Of his book Stevenson wrote, in his essay "A Chapter on Dreams" (1888), that he "had long been trying to write a story…to find a body, a vehicle, for that strong sense of man's double being which must at times come in upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking creature." Thus it is that the dignified Dr. Jekyll, impeccable in respectability, immaculate of reputation, seeks relief for his repressed instincts in the guise of another identity. His transformation into Mr. Hyde is deliberate and depends, initially at least, on the drugs which he has concocted. As Dr. Jekyll states in the written note he leaves before he kills himself, "man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point…I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man."

Arctor/Fred's situation in A Scanner Darkly is similar to the extent that his "transformation" is also accomplished by drugs, specifically use of the drug Substance D. But, use of the drug is not deliberate to effect transformation. The nature and extent of his split-personality, his neurosis, stems from use of Substance D as Arctor, the undercover persona of Fred, while investigating drug users and pushers in general and the source(s) of Substance D in particular. In fact it is intimated near the end of A Scanner Darkly that Arctor was deliberately addicted to Substance D as a part of a larger scheme to discover those responsible for manufacturing and distributing the drug. At one point Donna says to Mike Westaway, "now he hasn't any ideas. You know that as well as I do. And he will never again in his life, as long as he lives, have any ideas. Only reflexes. And this didn't happen accidentally; it was supposed to happen." (p. 203) It is also suggested that Arctor/Fred is being used to trap Jim Barris. Hank, Fred's superior, says, "We really are interested in Barris, not you; the scanning of the house was primarily to keep on Barris." (p. 182) Whether this is part of Arctor/Fred's being deliberately addicted to Substance D is not clear. What is evident is that it contributes to and symbolizes his split-personality, that is, Fred as Arctor spying on Arctor and, in turn, unknowingly setting up Barris.

Arctor/Fred's awareness and assessment of his situation, however, is not nearly as acute as that by Dr. Jekyll of his. Fred notes that "When you get down to it, I'm Arctor…I'm the man on the scanners…I'm slushed, my brain is slushed. This is not real. I'm not believing this, watching what is me, is Fred — that was Fred down there without his scramble suit; that's how Fred appears without the suit!" (p. 132) Earlier in the novel Arctor wonders "how many Bob Arctors are there? A weird and XXXXed-up thought. Two that I can think of…The one called Fred, who will be watching the other one, called Bob. The same person. Or is it? Is Fred actually the same as Bob? Does anybody know? I would know, if anyone did, because I'm the only person in the world that knows that Fred is Bob Arctor. But…who am I? Which one of them is me?" (pp. 74-75) And then there is what Barris says about Arctor, "There's a great deal about Bob Arctor you're not aware of…That none of us are. Your view is simplistic and naïve, and you believe about him what he wants you to…I have come…to distinguish in him certain contradictions. Both in terms of personality structure and behavior. In his total relatedness to life. In, so to speak, his innate style." (Pp. 32-33)

Simplistic our view would appear to be, indeed, and contradictions there are. As early in the novel as page seventeen one finds "In his scramble suit, Fred, who was also Robert Arctor, whatever" (p. 18), which phrase is repeated on the next page. Then, Fred thinks "he always had a strange feeling as to who he was…What is identity?…Where does the act end? Nobody knows." (Pp. 20-21) Also on page twenty is the phrase "Arctor-Fred-Whatever-Godknew." The Arctor/Fred character in Dick's A Scanner Darkly, therefore, is aware of his two personas, but as Arctor says "which of them is me?" (emphasis mine) That is, which persona is the real one? Which is original and which is the split personality?

Note that there is a progression, of sorts, from "Fred, who was also Robert Arctor" to "Fred, Robert Arctor" to "Fred, Robert Arctor, whatever" to "Arctor-Fred-Whatever-Godknew." Further, the Arctor/Fred character first appears in A Scanner Darkly in reaction to being introduced as "the vague blur" by the host at a Anaheim Lions Club: "In his scramble suit, Fred, who was also Robert Arctor, groaned and thought: This is terrible." (p. 17, emphasis added) But this is the narrator speaking, not Arctor or Fred. Four paragraphs later one finds this exchange:

"But to be serious for just a moment," the host

said, "this man here…" He paused, trying to

remember.

"Fred," Bob Arctor said. "S.A. Fred." (p. 17)

Again, this is narrative identification, as are those in the progression mentioned, all of which intimates that the narrator is an unsure as Arctor/Fred. The implication, though, is that the original persona is Bob Arctor. But, Arctor doesn't know this. Or does he? "…Fred in his scramble suit naturally reported on himself. If he did not, his superior — and through him the whole law-enforcement apparatus — would become aware of who Fred was, suit or not. The agency plants would report back, and very soon he as Bob Arctor…" (p. 44, emphasis added) One could infer from this that Fred is the original persona and is well aware of his undercover role as "Bob Arctor." Yet, this is at best a simplistic conclusion not conclusively supported by facts. True, we are told a lot more about Bob Arctor than S.A. (Special Agent) Fred and Arctor is "on stage" in the novel a majority of the time. We learn that Arctor "in former days" (p. 48) had a wife, two small daughters and worked as an insurance investigator until he "hit his head in the kitchen while getting out the corn popper and…found a better solution." (p. 72) He realizes that his "life had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected." (p. 49) In the "dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wonderous thing spilled out of him constantly; he could count on nothing." (p. 49) Does the bump and cut in his scalp from the corner of a kitchen cabinet have anything to do with Arctor/Fred's split personality? Indirectly, apparently. It is almost too easy to postulate that Bob Arctor, in whose life "nothing new could ever be expected," opts for a job as an undercover narcotics agent with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, S.A. Fred being his cover, and becomes the Bob Arctor who "could count on nothing." Note too, that Fred, while talking with two fellow agents, says, "I've got two kids…two little girls." (p. 159) Bob Arctor and Fred are obviously the same person, yet, it is still not conclusive that Arctor is the original persona. It is equally plausible that Fred, a narcotics agent, has assumed an undercover role named "Bob Arctor" complete with background life and then due to use of the drug Substance D, while undercover, finds it more and more difficult to keep his two identities separate.

What is certain is that neither Bob Arctor nor Fred knows for sure. As Alice says, in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), when the caterpillar challenges her to explain herself, "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir…because I'm not myself, you see." And neither is Arctor/Fred himself after using Substance D. Arctor/Fred is, in this respect, similar to Pellig, a character in Dick's first novel, Solar Lottery (1955). Though an artificial android, Pellig acquires "some kind of multiple mind" when human personalities/minds are electronically transferred into him for the purposes of control. But the results are chaos and Pellig becomes "a fractured personality artificially segmented into unattached complexes, each with its own drives, characteristics and strategy." (p. 132) Arctor/Fred's experience, as is Pellig's, is a chilling enactment, in part, of what Harry Haller, in Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf (1927), learns from the "Treatise on the Steppenwolf." This treatise informs Harry that men have an inborn need to regard the self as a unit:

And if ever the suspicion of their manifold being

dawns upon men of unusual powers and of

unusually delicate perceptions, so that, as all

genius must, they break through the illusion

of the unity of the personality and perceive

that the self is made up of a bundle of selves,

they have only to say so and at once the

majority puts them under lock and key, calls

science to aid, establishes schizomania and

protects humanity from the necessity of

hearing the cry of truth from the lips of these

unfortunate persons.

Arctor/Fred is not a man of unusual powers nor of unusually delicate perceptions, but due to the drug Substance D he is "forced," as it were, to break through the illusion of the unity of personality and in doing so experiences "schizomania." And it is his schizomania that best indicates the nature of Arctor/Fred as doppelganger in A Scanner Darkly.

The schizophrenia (a term coined in 1911 by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler) literally means split personality; in Greek, schizein means, "to split." And, as one medical deputy in A Scanner Darkly explains to Fred, "In many of those taking Substance D, a split between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere of the brain occurs. There is a loss of proper gestalting, which is a defect within both the percept and cognitive systems, although apparently the cognitive system continues to function normally." (p. 86) One can experience "thoughts not your own, as if another person or mind were thinking. But different from the way you would think." (p. 87) Thus, at one point, "the other side of his head opened up and spoke to him more calmly, like another self with a simpler message…" (p. 135) This is reminiscent of the way R.D. Laing describes schizophrenia in his book The Divided Self (1969): "the term schizoid refers to an individual the totality of whose experience is split in two main ways: in the first place, there is a rent in his relation with his world and, in the second, there is a disruption of his relation with himself…he does not experience himself as a complete person but rather as "split" in various ways, perhaps as a mind more or less tenuously linked to a body, as two or more selves, and so on."

It is not unexpected then, that Arctor/Fred develops schizophrenia, that he becomes a split personality. He exhibits, in fact, behavior characteristic of hebephrenic and paranoid schizophrenia. The former involves loosing touch with reality as all major functions become increasingly disorganized and distorted while the latter is comprised of poorly organized, internally illogical, changeable delusions often accompanied by vivid hallucinations. Two incidents in particular exemplify Arctor/Fred's paranoia. The first is an auditory hallucinations as Arctor "felt, in his head, loud voices singing: terrible music, as if the reality around him had gone sour…it all had a rancid quality, as if, throughout, his world had putrefied…as if rotting away, stinking in sight and sound and odor." (p. 63) This is echoed, several paragraphs later, by "A thousand little voices crying out their strangeness…" (p. 64) The second, and more intriguing, incident is a visual hallucination that Arctor experiences initially. During a night with a "cute little needle freak" named Connie, he "turned towards the girl beside him and saw Donna Hawthorne…He could make out her face clearly…He still stared at her, and then by degrees he saw Connie again…Connie and not Donna; one girl, not the other." (p. 125) This first-hand encounter is repeated later, second-hand, by Fred as he sits watching playbacks on holo scanner monitor five — "…then he noticed something he had not noticed. That doesn't look like anybody else but Donna Hawthorne!…It does compute…He ran the tape back, then forward again. Bob Arctor and a chick, but not Donna!…And then…Connie's hard features melted and faded into softness, and into Donna Hawthorne's face." (Pp. 135-36) This thoroughly puzzles Fred. He replays the tape, freezes one frame in an enlarger, walks into the three-dimensional holo projection to scrutinize the girl's face, and decides he's either been fed fake tape or cross-printing (cross-talk) has occurred. But then, when he runs it once again, he notices Arctor "staring on and on at the sleeping girl" and realizes that "Arctor saw it too." (p. 137) In connection with Fred's thought about crosstalk it should be noted that on two different occasions the medical deputies mention almost the same thing. "Are you getting any cross-chatter?" (p. 87) "Cross-cuing, we call it. Related to split-brain phenomena." (p. 168) These repeated images and cross-references forcefully depict by their very nature (they are themselves of a schizo quality) the extent of Arctor/Fred's disintegration, his schizophrenia. There is a significant subject-object split here, a polarization between one's self (first Arctor, then Fred) and one's image on the holo scanner (the scanner darkly on the novel's title), a splitting and merging or isolation and merging, which, according to R.D. Laing, is the final stage of schizophrenia. The holo scanner, in effect, makes the subject (Arctor) into the object of someone else's observation (Fred's), whether that someone else is actually another person, or, in this instance, a schizophrenic other-self. As Arctor prophetically wonders at one point in A Scanner Darkly, "What does a scanner see?…Does a passive infrared scanner…see into me — into us — clearly or darkly?" (p. 146)

Auditory hallucinations are also common to hebephrenia. The "thousand little voices" Arctor hears, therefore, serve a dual function. More important, however, is that in hebephrenia the ultimate disintegration of the personality is greater than in other types of schizophrenia. And Arctor/Fred's personality clearly evidences near complete disintegration, climaxing starkly (darkly!), in chapter thirteen of A Scanner Darkly. His sexual fantasizing about the girl in the tight blue sweater, "If I did bang her and she got pregnant…the babies — not faces. Just blurs" (p. 173), his bewildering last meeting with Hank, "I'm Bob Arctor? He could not believe it. It made no sense to him. It did not fit anything he had done or thought; it was grotesque," (p. 181) and the drive to New-Path with Donna, "I can't make love. My thing's disappeared," (p. 187) are all indicative of Arctor/Fred's hebephrenic disintegration — a disintegration graphically illustrated when two New-Path staff members stand "surveying the thing on their floor that lay puking and shivering and fouling itself…" (p. 188)

Now, it should be remembered that Arctor/Fred's schizophrenia is caused, or at least strongly accelerated (enhanced), by the use of the drug Substance D. There are, though, two instances in A Scanner Darkly which imply that his schizophrenia is perhaps induced, or aggravated, by his surroundings, his environment. "Roaming aimlessly along like this on the public street with all kinds of people, he always has a strange feeling as to who he was." (p. 20) And, "But then later Fred evolved into Bob Arctor, somewhere along the sidewalk between the Pizza Hut and the Arco gas station…and the terrible colors seeped back into him whether he liked it or not." (p. 44) Being that the settings of A Scanner Darkly include two distinct cultural groups, the "Dopers" and "Straights," each with their own life styles and value systems, it is worthwhile to ask whether the setting is meant to symbolically mirror Arctor/Fred's schizophrenia, or does Arctor/Fred mirror the setting? That is, did Arctor/Fred have schizophrenia before first using Substance D? In this regard, it is useful to recount one of the major points in Michel Foucault's book, Madness and Civilization (tr., 1965). In discussing use of the words "reality" and "sanity" as terms of approbation, reserved for culturally approved modes of being, Foucault states that a culture which makes such an absolute dichotomy in its experience of the world — approving a major chunk of it, disapproving and consequently repressing another chunk of it — is itself mad, is schizophrenic, in that it chooses to fragment its experience and seal certain areas off from each other. This is an apt description of Arctor/Fred's world in A Scanner Darkly, southern California circa 1994, a place and time that chooses to fragment its experience and seal certain areas off from each other, i.e., the "straights" fortified shopping centers and compartment complexes that seal them off from the "dopers." That literature can and frequently does emulate Foucault's notion of schizophrenic culture is confirmed by John Vernon's fascinating book, The Garden and the Map (1973), wherein he states that the "division of the world into reified movement and sealed-off areas is an important structural element of the naturalistic novel." (p. 17) Further, the "realistic and naturalistic novel, partakes of a virtual subject-object schizophrenia, and expresses this schizophrenia through the framework of objective space." (p. 43)

Supportive of both Faucault and Vernon's thesis is an erudite treatise titled The Social Construction of Reality (1966), by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman. (Just so happens there is a character named Luckman in A Scanner Darkly.) In their book, Berger and Luckman posit that:

…every institution has a body of transmitted

recipe knowledge, that is, knowledge that supplies

the institutionally appropriate rules of conduct…

Since this knowledge is socially objectivated as

knowledge, that is, as a body of generally valid

truths about reality, any radical deviance from

the institutional order appears as a departure

from reality.

Their "institutional order" is analogous to Foucault's "culturally approved modes of being," both of which can be equated with the "straights" in A Scanner Darkly. Arctor/Fred's drug addiction is, therefore, for the "straights" a "radical deviance," a departure from their reality. Yet they, "straight" society, are responsible for his addiction to Substance D, using him to try and find those manufacturing the drug. In a sense, then, yes, Arctor/Fred's schizoid condition is aggravated, if not initially generated, by his environment, one part of which is Fred's "Straight" society and the other Arctor's "doper" society, and subsequently accelerated by Substance D. An analogous explication occurs in Dick's Martian Time-Slip (1964). Therein, while Jack Bohlen is fixing an android teaching machine, he conjectures that:

…schizophrenia was a major illness which touched

sooner or later almost every family. It meant,

simply, a person who could not live out the drives

implanted in him by his society. The reality

which the schizophrenic fell away from — or never

incorporates in the first place — was the reality

of interpersonal living, of life in a given culture

with given values…(p. 64)

This notion and Arctor/Fred's situation are reminiscent of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's fundamental antithesis between Society and Man, where Man is alienated from his original nature and prevented from being his real self by the artificial uniformity of behavior Society imposes causing appearance and reality to be constantly at variance. And, as "Bruce," Arctor/Fred is the opposite of Rousseau's "noble-savage," one who is largely self-sufficient, who knows how to live in accordance with is own innate needs.

Instead, not only is Arctor/Fred a doppelganger and schizophrenic but a metaphoric personification of Kant's phenomenal and noumenal self. This concept, which Kant posited in part to help explicate self-consciousness and is also an important element in his ethical works, states that as there are phenomena (objects of actual and possible sense-experience) there is also a sensible or "phenomenal self," in effect, people as they appear. And, as there are noumena (objects of intelligence and not human experience) there is an intelligible or "noumenal self," in effect, people in themselves. The former is an empirical persistent self, the latter a real non-temporal self. It is the empirical, phenomenal self that can be said to hope, fear, love, approve, take a walk, perform an experiment, make an observation, i.e., the idiosyncrasies that make one the person they are, are all dispositions and characteristics of the empirical self. But, according to Kant, this phenomenal self is merely the appearance of one's real, noumenal self, the noumenal self being the seat of one's rational faculty, i.e., engaged in certain activities which generate empirical consciousness, objective unity, and the experience of a world of objects. Or, in terms of self-consciousness, as P.F. Strawson notes in his seminal study The Bounds of Sense (1966), the phenomenal/empirical self "yields the only knowledge of myself available to me; I am conscious of myself only as I appear to myself, not as I am in myself." On the other hand, the noumenal/non-temporal self gives consciousness of "myself not as I appear to myself nor as I am in myself but only that I am." That is, one's noumenal self is oneself as it really is and one's empirical self is oneself as it appears to one under the form of time.

With this in mind it is possible to categorize the Fred half of Arctor/Fred as its noumenal/non-temporal self and the Arctor half as its phenomenal/empirical self in that Robert Arctor is conscious of himself only as he appears to himself, whereas Fred is conscious only that he is. True, this should not be considered a clear-cut distinction; there is some of each self in both Arctor and Fred. Nonetheless, the fact that Arctor can think or say things, like, "How many Bob Arctors are there?…Two that I can think of…The one called Fred, who will be watching the other one, called Bob" (p. 74), or, Fred say, "I'm Bob Arctor? He could not believe it. It made no sense to him. It did not fit anything he had done or thought; it was grotesque," (p. 181) suggests an affinity with Kant's phenomenal and noumenal selves. That is affinity is at all implicit in A Scanner Darkly is made plausible when we note that Philip K. Dick alludes to Kant in at least six of his other novels, from "the Ding an sich, as Kant said," in Time Out Of Joint (1959), to "Nobody sees reality as it actually is…as Kant proved," in A Maze Of Death (1970). Also, in a letter by P.K. Dick published in SF Commentary 9, February 1970, Dick writes that "Kant's concept of the Ding-an-sich has influenced me, too," as well as, "I'm merely repeating Kant when he says that we, i.e., our brains, organize incoming data in order to structure it in a way that we can control." Kan'ts theory of the Ding-an-sich (the thing in itself) is, therefore, an apparently important part of the philosophical foundation of Dick's novels, to the extent that in A Scanner Darkly it implicitly generates the quandary experienced by the main character, Arctor/Fred. Which is the thing in itself, Arctor or Fred?

An explicit answer to this, however, is not to be found in A Scanner Darkly. Arctor/Fred as doppelganger, schizophrenic, and phenomenal/noumenal self, while significantly depicting the confrontation between internal and external reality, the dissolution of personality, and search for self-identity, does not fully resolve any of these. P.K. Dick's notions about personality and self in this novel are, in the end, problematic and pessimistic.

Publishing History:

* "Digressioni su uno studio su "A Scanner Darkly" di Philip K. Dick no. 4,"
tr. Rino Schiavone. Australia Speculative Fiction, no. 13/14, October 1980,Pp. 38-44.
* "Kant's "Noumenal Self" and Doppelganger in P.K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly."
Philosophical Speculations in Science Fiction & Fantasy, no. 2, Summer 1981, Pp. 69-80.
* "Substance Mort de P.K. Dick: une approche kantienne," trs. Didier Gras &
Benoit Domis. Demons & Merveilles, no. 7, September/October, 1986,
Pp. 15-20.

Source: ALIEN BODIES wiki.

TTFN from the Groovy Superhero- reposted so that the shame of what has happened to this fellow may be known far and wide.

2009-07-14T03:00:00.001-07:00

TTFN

Well, Groovy Superfriends, I’ve had a lot of fun sharing myself with you these past couple of years. And I hope to do so again one day. Sadly, I have had my content stolen by dozens of WordPress blogs using a popular WP build-a-splog plugin, to the point that I may as well be a syndicated columnist. Except for the fact that this same plugin redirects all of my links to affiliate sites - affiliates who, for the most part, are aware of and grateful for this phenomenon, because their 3rd rate belt-buckle and beer stein e-tailers would have died out long ago if not for the illegal internet.

Thanks also go to GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar - and every other domain registrar, and web host, on the planet, all of whom happily ignore international copyright law. And DMCA apparently stands for “Don’t Mean Crap At’all”.

I hope to be back one day when working for myself doesn’t mean working for gangsters and criminals and thugs and the excrement of the earth - and if you have any suggestions feel free to e-mail me at matt@groovysuperhero.com - but let me leave you with one word of advice, lest your own bloggerty be stolen one day: don’t go to the “experts”!

They all share the same manifesto: Blogger blogs steal, WordPress blogs are all wonderful sources of delicious love.

Personally, I’m not a partisan. I find things to love about every single blog platform. But I will say this: Blogger is owned by Google. Google don’t take no shit to their reputation. If anything, they are way too trigger-happy, like HUAC hearing a gust of wind that sounded vaguely like the word “communist”. If they suspect you borrowed a semicolon for one of your pieces, they will shut your ass down, and take the time to investigate 7 months later - 99% of the time, restoring your blog with an apology.

WordPress, on the other hand - well, they have that handy little content theft plugin that is used by thousands upon thousands of WP blogs around the world - they’re self-hosted, open-source, unpoliced no mans land. So, when you ask an “expert” for advice about your Blogger blog getting poached by WordPress splogs - don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer, or even for your question to be printed.

The problem with 99% of experts is that they are sad, impotent little nobodies desperate to be taken seriously - if you point out anything that suggests that they may be in error, it freaks them out, because usually they have no clue at all what they are talking about, which is why they just parrot one another. (See: Limbaugh, Rush).

I hope we meet again pardners, and I suspect we will - could be tomorrow, could be next week, could be when we all have jetpacks or when we’re all in hell from the Bird Flu.

Excelsior!

Today's I Ching

2009-07-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

	The present is embodied in Hexagram 55 - Feng (Abundance): Progress and development is intimated. When a king has reached the point of abundance, there is no occasion to be anxious through fear of a change. Let him be as the sun at noon.
	The third line, undivided, shows its subject with an additional screen of a large and thick banner, through which at midday he can see the small Mei star. In the darkness he breaks his right arm, but there will be no error.
	The situation is evolving slowly, and Yin (the passive feminine force) is gaining ground.
	The future is embodied in Hexagram 51 - Chen (Shock): There is an intimation of ease and development. When the time of movement comes, the subject will be found looking out with apprehension, yet smiling and talking cheerfully. When the movement, like a crash of thunder, terrifies all within a hundred li, he will be like the sincere worshipper, who is not startled into letting go his ladle and cup of sacrificial spirits.
	The things most apparent, those above and in front, are embodied by the upper trigram *Chen (Thunder)*, which represents movement, initiative, and action.
	The things least apparent, those below and behind, are embodied by the lower trigram *Li (Fire), which is transforming into Chen (Thunder)*. As part of this process, brightness and warmth are giving way to movement, initiative, and action.

2009-07-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

2009-07-13T21:24:00.001-07:00

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.

Today's I Ching

2009-07-13T21:22:00.002-07:00

	The present is embodied in Hexagram 21 - Shih Ho (Biting Through): There will be successful progress, and it will be advantageous to use legal constraints.
	There are no changing lines, and hence the situation is expected to remain the same in the immediate future.
	The things most apparent, those above and in front, are embodied by the upper trigram *Li (Fire)*, which represents brightness and warmth.
	The things least apparent, those below and behind, are embodied by the lower trigram *Chen (Thunder)*, which represents movement, initiative, and action.

2009-07-13T21:22:00.001-07:00

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.