TURN ON YOUR COMPUTER // TUNE IN TO THE FREE SPIRIT OF THE INTERNET // TAKE OVER!

 

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the UP! //:-)  143     jan 14   2003

la - la - la - lap-toppling da system!

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TEXT JOCKEY //  TJ PHRASER (fraser clark) & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION  MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD @ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP *  * Ideas Per Paragraph

 

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IF YOU CANNOT VIEW THIS PROPERLY,  TELL US AND WE’LL PUT YOU ON A SPECIAL UNFORMATTED LIST.        

TO REPLY TO FRASER OR THE UP!, OR TO UNSUBSCRIBE, EMAIL REMOVES@parallel-youniversity.com

TO SUBSCRIBE, WRITE “I wanna get UP!” TO people@parallel-youniversity.com

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contents:

a new year, time to take stock of where we’re at ....

*IRAQ: THE NEXT AMERICAN PRESIDENT!! STARTS NOW!  p.3

 

*ISRAEL:  IT'S THE OCCUPATION, STUPID - Why the Pro-Occupation Right is Running Scared     p.8

*RAVE CULTURE: AND RELIGION - the technocultural rave’s role in the spiritual life of contemporary youth & the planet – academics take Rave Culture seriously at last in a new book.  We preview a chapter about Megatripolis!!!       p.11

 

*AFGHANISTAN: DÉJÀ VU - Details of U.S. victory are a little premature – like with the Russians                p.14

*HEMP:  IT SPELLS CURTAINS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT DESTRUCTION, AND NOW TERRORISM p.17

*MONEY AND YOU - +=£$ GO FROM BROKE! %£$-      p.29


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The UP! (or UP!grademag) is a global edutainment round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,903]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life".  Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 30,000+ direct recipients.  Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a conservatively estimated total weekly ‘readership’ of  275,000+

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* * * * * * * * * ASTRO ENERGY ANALYSIS FOR JAN 15-21 * * * * * *

FULL MOON HIGHLIGHTS SECURITY ISSUES

Full Moon in Cancer this weekend will be emotional.

It also ushers in a very strange week.

A surprise, perhaps an assertive one, changes the U.S. identity.

The King and Queen are at odds this week, and communication may suffer.

By the end of the week we can understand the healing which is now occurring.

Mercury turns direct by January 23.

Get the daily scoop in Maya’s Daily Success Guide at

www.daykeeper.com

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

UP! Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you’ve gained over Xmas.

 

let’s start off with a confession :(

we were spoofed last week! :(

our lead story, SWEDEN OFFERS FREE-SPEECH REFUGE TO U.S. OFFICIALS was not true.

it was written by Dennis Hans, a serious ‘merican writer who also writes spoof stories from time to time, and this was one.

he’s now written to us:

 

Howdy, Fraser.  You better do something about that sense of humor before it infects everyone on the Internet.  Then where would we be?! 

My story was a satirical, fanciful tale, its purpose being to embarrass the Bush administration and the media slugs - and maybe put a thought in the head of foreign officials to propose such a plan, thus placing a much-needed spotlight on White House deceit & intimidation that’s all too real.

I'm glad the story’s spreading, however, as straight news or as satire.  Seems to be striking a chord either way, which suggests a bunch of folk see an urgent need for some sort of Palme Plan.

Keep up the gleefully subversive work!

Dennis./ usa

>>>  we were so desperate for some light in the tunnel that we were easily Palmed off.

other spoof stories by Hans include:

Latest Mega-Merger: CBS and Colombian Government

http://www.commondreams.org/views/052000-102.htm

UP! Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon, usuazlly by smokers.

 

“The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”   John F. Kennedy.

UP! Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

 

who unleashes the furies dies by them

dinosaurs die out because they’re so brutishly thick that they actually believe they can bash their way to victory.

the world, however, is vastly more complex, interconnected, and constantly evolving or adding complexity’n novelty.

 

poor little george from big big texas (wow!) has stirred up furies he increasingly can’t handle.  the new world order was supposed to be afghanistan, and then iraq, and then venezuela, and then north korea and then iran and then the rest of the middle east and then...  they were not supposed to happen all at the same time!  (wozzit something i said?!)

but now venezuela‘s middleclasses have the protest bit between their teeth and he can’t switch them off and there goes george’s oil supply when he needs it most; north korea has seen the game and is rushing for the only ace available to prevent invasion; and who knows what other countries are accelerating their nuclear/bio/terror powers before he comes gunning for them?!

like thatcher, the bush administration could represent the End of the Dinosaurs, their Last Charge, after which they’ll be gone for good.  maybe it had to be this way (with apologies to thousands of innocents who might die for humanity to finally learn the lesson) (what lesson? people who live on glasshouses shouldn’t throw bomms)

so, folks, whether george finishes his term or not, it’s definitely time to start considering a truly radical peace-maker as ...

 

THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE USA!!

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich is the real thing, he’s a former Mayor of Cleveland, a Democratic Representative from Ohio, and the Chair of the Progressive Caucus.  Though very progressive, he represents a solidly working class section of Cleveland which was Republican before he won it.

 

He would run for the Democratic Party nomination, though he has already been endorsed by the Mendocino County Green Party.  People are right now working on getting the national Green Party to endorse him should he run.

He was a good friend of Paul Wellstone's (presumed assassinated) and is on the subcommittee investigating that (predicted) plane crash.  He knows the risks, but is showing no sign of fear as he speaks around the country.
Below is his speech at the Swearing-In Ceremony on January 5, 2003:

 

My fellow Americans, in this ceremony we recognize the power of the people in a democracy to create self-government.  For you have truly lifted me, as a lowly servant, up from your midst to serve our nation.  You have asked me to stand as a sentinel to safeguard our rights.  You have expected me to tell the truth, even if that truth shall disturb established economic, political and social structures.  I accept your trust with humility and I shall proceed in my duties each day with courage, with unshakeable faith and with love of you, my dear constituents, love of our country, love of freedom and love of our brothers and sisters worldwide.

 

For the America I envision seeks world unity, not unilateralism.  It gains its power through being the first to help, not the first to strike.  It extends itself to the peoples of the world to lift their burden.  It is an America, which, when asked for help, dispenses bread instead of bombs, medical assistance instead of missiles, and food instead of fissile materials.

 

There is a role for America in the world.  It is in working with the community of nations to achieve the security of all nations.  It is in restoring the promise of the Non Proliferation Treaty to lead the way to get rid of all nuclear weapons.  It is in helping to assure international order through strengthening and abiding by international treaties.  It is in assuring control and eventual elimination of biological and chemical weapons, and landmines.  It is in protecting our global climate by cooperating with the rest of the world in reducing carbon emissions.

 

America can help protect the world.  America can help save the world.  But America cannot control the world, nor should we want to do so.

 

Yet our Administration would project American power for the purpose of domination.  Their National Security doctrines call for America to strike anywhere it pleases and to be the first to use nuclear weapons.

 

Our nation is now poised to go to all-out war against Iraq.  Iraq has not committed any act of aggression against us.  Iraq was not responsible for 911.  Iraq was not responsible for the anthrax attack on our nation.  The United Nations has yet to establish that Iraq has usable weapons of mass destruction.  There is no intelligence that Iraq has the ability to strike at the United States.   According to the CIA, Iraq has no intention to attack America, but will defend itself if attacked.

 

Why then, is our nation prepared to send three hundred thousand of our young men and women into house to house combat in the streets of Baghdad and Basra?  Why is our nation prepared to spend $200 billion or more of our hard-earned tax dollars for the destruction of Iraq?  Why is our nation preparing to use the most powerful military machine in history to wage an assault against the people of Iraq, to destroy their houses and buildings, to wipe out their water and electric systems and to block their access to food and medical supplies?

 

There is no answer which can separate itself from  oil economics, profit requirements of arms trade, or  distorted notions of empire-building.  If war is prosecuted further in Iraq, we must be prepared to advance the cause of peace, to stand up, to speak out, to organize, to march, to demand an end to the war, or to demand an end to an administration which insists on war.

 

It is urgent we oppose this war.  It will dominate our nation's priorities.  It will threaten Social Security.  It will threaten Medicare.  It will block a prescription drug benefit for the elderly.  It will stop America from providing jobs for all, health care for all, education for all.

 

There are some who believe that it is unpatriotic to challenge the Administration on the war.  They believe it is politically wiser to debate the economy.  But how can one reasonably separate war from the budget, war from the economy, war from America's ability to meet the needs of its people?

 

The Administration's own top economic adviser said the war could cost up to $200 billion.  Our federal budget is already close to a $200 billion deficit due to huge tax cuts for the wealthy.  Remember when we had a budget surplus?

 

Each time the administration talks about war, fear is created and when fear goes up, the market goes down.  War will mean a sharp increase in oil prices, which will hurt jobs in manufacturing and transportation.   One economic study with a worst-case scenario puts the cost of an all-out war, plus long-term occupation of Iraq at $1.6 trillion. 

 

QUESTION:  Why does America have hundreds of billions to ruin the health and take the lives of innocent people in Iraq but no money to provide health care for all Americans?

QUESTION:  Why would America spend hundreds of billions to retire Saddam Hussein, but no money to protect the retirement security of its own people? 

QUESTION:  Why does America have money to blow up bridges over the Euphrates River in Iraq, but no money to build up bridges over the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland?

 

The path America must take is one of peace, one which understands that creating a structure of peace ensures that economic structures can be sound, affirmative of human needs and restorative of human values.

 

This is the dream of a Department of Peace which can help America take the first step towards making nonviolence an organizing principle in our society - making the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a reality - and working to make war itself a thing of the past.  It is this ethic of peace-seeking and peace building which will cause us to take down weapons from the heavens and work to create a heaven on earth full of new possibilities.

 

Peace and prosperity shall be as two pillars in a newly rebuilt America which provides for the economic and social security of its own people as a cause of nationhood and for the economic and social progress of peoples of other lands as a cause of brotherhood.

 

This confirmation of the purpose of nation was the dream of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, and John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier.  This shall continue to be our dream in the days ahead, that no matter the darkness, we shall hold up the light of America's higher purpose, which calls to us across the ages from Washington, Jefferson and Adams through Lincoln to the present day.

 

Our nation has always had a higher calling, despite the darkness of 911 and the official response to it.  It’s a calling to maintain the quest for democracy, for freedom and liberty at times of peril as well as in times of peace.  We can sense that higher calling.  That higher calling is our heritage.  The words of Francis Scott Key still echo: "Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"   In this he celebrated the link between freedom and bravery:  That it takes courage to live in a democracy.  It takes courage to stand up to terrorists and maintain basic liberties.  It takes courage to lead the way toward global disarmament while some are bent on destruction.

 

It takes patience to face dictators around the world and not be tempted to bomb them into submission.  It takes wisdom to have great power and to make gentle its presence in the world.  And it takes compassion to understand the plight of peoples world wide who themselves are trying to survive, to live out their own humble lives despite having conditions which are challenging or governments which are oppressive.

 

My friends. This is still your government.  You have a right to have a say in how its destiny is being charted.  That right derives from our very Declaration of Independence, which claimed self-governance as a basic right.  Government does not just happen in Washington, DC.  It is the result of a process which takes place in thousands of cities, villages and townships.  It is also a process which takes place in our hearts, which is brought to life by  our love of country, and our love of each other.  It is your love which enables me to carry those hopes and dreams forward.  And I shall do so courageously in the days ahead.   Thank you.

 

Go here to find out more about Dennis J. Kucinich

http://www.draftkucinich.com/why.html

Go here to urge Dennis J. Kucinich to run for President.  http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=14249&afccode=WFC008

UP!   Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp

 

I think the best news i've heard is that all original members of DuranDuran have reunited and are planning to release a new album this summer, with a tour to follow in the fall!!

WarholBoy

>>> the planet has taken note.

UP! Negligent (adj.), a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.

 

TIME QUICK VOTE RESULTS

Time Magazine is running an online poll on the biggest threat to world peace at http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html

They were foolish enough to include the US in the list of countries. And guess what: the online polling currently has the United States leading!

Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in  2003?

NORTH KOREA           15.4%

IRAQ                           30.3%

UNITED STATES         54.3%

UP! Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

 

 

COMPUTERS ARE CUTE BUT LET’S FACE IT,

THEY’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO THINK!!

In "Robotto no Kokoro" (Robot's Mind), Prof. Hiroshi Tsukimoto of

Tokyo Denki University says it will be impossible for computers to comprehend languages because the process involves "functional physical movement": understanding of words is associated with images built up through one's physical existence.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=1552&m=5435

UP!

 

washington

SAT JAN 18   NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON DC & SAN FRANCISCO   Join the International Campaign Against US Aggression on Iraq.  Email circulated by: A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)

For more information:

http://www.internationalanswer.org

UP!

 

 

london
SAT FEB 15       BIG NATIONAL DEMO AGAINST WAR ­
A MILLION PEOPLE COULD BE THERE!  there were near haffa million last time.  Jointly organised by the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain, we assemble 12 noon at Embankment, (nearest tube Embankment) to march at 12:30pm.
If the UK goes to war we will call a national demonstration immediately.  Demonstrate at 6pm in your town centre (in London, go to Trafalgar Square).

UP! Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
 

 

israel

IT'S THE OCCUPATION, STUPID

Why the Pro-Occupation Right is Running Scared

by LEAH HARRIS

(Member of the Executive Board of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel in Washington, DC.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/harris1228.html

In November, Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, the Program on Justice and Peace, and the Young Arab Leadership Alliance (YALA) co-sponsored a talk by Norman G. Finkelstein entitled "PROSPECTS FOR JUSTICE IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE."

Finkelstein has come under heavy criticism for his little book The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, in which he argues compellingly that Jewish suffering has been exploited by Israel for political purposes.  He’s also an esteemed historian and political scientist who supports a moderate two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

Anyway, Finkelstein's appearance at Georgetown University sparked a firestorm of outrage among the Georgetown Israel Alliance, who accused Finkelstein of "Holocaust denial."  This accusation got picked up by the Georgetown Hoya, and then by lazy Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, until Finkelstein threatened to sue (a retraction was printed in the Post on December 8).

 

So all the hullabaloo got me thinking about this war of ideas currently raging in this country on the subject of Israel and Palestine.  The way I see it, this is not a war between the pro-Israeli perspective and the pro-Palestinian perspective.  After all, one can easily be pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, and opposed to the Israeli occupation.  Instead, today's war of ideas is being fought amongst those who support and those who oppose Israel's 35-year-old occupation of Palestinian lives and land.

Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, there’s been a noticeable shift in the discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Throughout the Oslo years, the focus was on the "Peace Process"--and with a few exceptions, the only people questioning Oslo and talking seriously about the "occupation" were Palestinian activists and intellectuals.  Now we understand that Oslo was a sham and the so-called "Peace Process" is officially dead.

A growing contingent of American Jews representing such organizations as Not in My Name (Chicago), Jews against the Occupation (New York), Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel (Washington, DC) and A Jewish Voice for Peace (San Francisco), have come to see the conflict through the lens of occupation, and contend that peace and occupation don't exactly mix.  Even President Bush has used the word "occupation" in his speeches.  And this has the pro-occupation right running scared and name-calling.

  • Palestinians speaking against the Israeli occupation can easily be dismissed as Muslim fanatics (even if they’re Christian). 
  • Average Americans or Europeans speaking critically about the occupation can be denounced as garden-variety anti-Semites. 
  • American Jews speaking about the conflict from an anti-occupation perspective can be labelled as self-hating.  Even someone like Norman Finkelstein, the son of two Holocaust survivors, can be maligned as a "Holocaust Denier" and a "Holocaust Revisionist" for speaking from an anti-occupation perspective.
  • Finally, all people who denounce the Israeli occupation are accused of supporting terrorism.  According to this twisted logic, if you oppose Israeli state terrorism, then you of course support other forms of terrorism.

 

Among the pro-occupation right, the focus is not on defending a morally and legally indefensible pro-occupation perspective, but on discrediting and silencing those who oppose it.  It's about whipping up deeply-rooted Jewish fears about anti-Semitism and American fears of Middle Eastern terrorism.  In short, it's about creating a climate of hysteria instead of conducting rational, informed debate.

That explains why an organization like Campus Watch tries to turn professors who criticize Israel's policies into pariahs.  It explains why the pro-occupation group the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) undertakes the disingenuous practice of mistranslating excerpts of anti-occupation articles published in Arabic press which then, taken wholly out of context, are picked up by the sensationalist American media and paraded as proof of the rabid anti-Semitism of the Arabs. 

It’s noble to stand against anti-Jewish bigotry and bigotry of all kinds; however, the pro-occupation right goes much too far.  Organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, fixated on the idea of tolerance toward Jews, are appallingly silent on Israel's intolerance of Palestinians and its refusal to allow them the same rights that the center advocates for Jews.  Instead of taking a critical look at why anti-Israel sentiment is on the rise around the world, the Wiesenthal Center's focus is on banning books and silencing speech.  Anti-Israel or anti-occupation sentiment is conflated with an endless irrational anti-Semitism that always existed and always will.  In short, either you're with the occupation, or you're an anti-Semite and a terrorist sympathizer.

 

Which is why Norman Finkelstein's book The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is so important.  He takes the lesson of tolerance learned from the tragedy of the Holocaust and applies it to the Palestinian people.  This is a dangerous idea, which is why the pro-occupation right is doing everything it can to discredit him and any institution that hosts him as a speaker. 

The same fate is in store for any professor or public figure who dares to suggest that Israel's occupation might be illegal and immoral.  The pro-occupation right is running scared, and those of us struggling to end the Israeli occupation in the hopes of creating a better future for all peoples in the Middle East, should take heart.

Leah Harris, member the Executive Board of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel

leah_ida@hotmail.com.

 

LATE NEWS FLASH:
JAGGI SINGH NABBED IN JERUSALEM  PLEASE HELP!
Jaggi Singh, a major student activist player since the anti-APEC embryonic global resistance protests in Vancouver (long before Seattle), was kidnapped on January 8th in Jerusalem by a group of undercover Israeli police officers.  Jaggi travelled to Israel and the Occupied Territories on the invitation of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led movement which brings together Palestinians and Internationals to fight the Israeli occupation through non-violent direct action.  He was also providing reports to various independent news organizations and activist networks about the situation on the ground.

When he first arrived in Israel in mid-December, he was refused entry to the country.  He refused to be refused and was immediately detained; he spent two days fighting an illegal deportation from Israel which has, so far, has refused 10,000 internationals over the past 2 years.

After winning a court battle with the assistance of Israeli lawyer Shamai Leibowitz, Jaggi was granted entry into Israel with the condition that he leave the country by December 23rd. The Tel Aviv District Court also barred him from entering the Occupied Territories, an illegal condition according to Canadian and International Law since Israel has absolutely no legal authority over the Palestinian Territories.

Jaggi is currently being held at the Russian Compound in Jerusalem, an Israeli jail notorious for torturing Palestinians.  No details are being released as to the nature of the charges -- if any -- or how long he will be held.

Today's nabbing illustrates the lengths to which the state of Israel will go to silence voices critical of the occupation.
Please call the following numbers and urge the Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs to pressure the Israeli government to ensure that Jaggi is released swiftly and safely.
The Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv:  +011-972-3-636-3300   Fax: (011 9723) 636-3380
taviv@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
The 24/7 Operations Center at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa: Phone: 1-800-267-6788 or 613-944-6788.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham's Office: 613-995-1851
You can also call the Russian Compound at +011-972-2-539-1340 ask for Shimi Marciano.
More info:

christoff@tao.ca
andrea@tao.ca.
UP! Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

 

 

“There are victims, there are executioners, and there are bystanders...
Unless we wrench free from being what we like to call 'objective', we are closer psychologically, whether we like to admit it or not, to the executioner than to the victim.”  Howard Zinn

UP! Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up when you’re run over by a steamroller.

 

RAVE CULTURE AND RELIGION

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE TECHNOCULTURAL RAVE IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CONTEMPORARY YOUTH AND THE PLANET?
Rave Culture and Religion is an edited collection of 16 essays written by academics and experienced cultural commentators who explore the socio-cultural and religious dimensions of the rave, 'raving' and rave-derived phenomena.  Scholars of contemporary religion, dance ethnologists, sociologists and other cultural observers unravel this core cultural practice amongst contemporary youth.  Though various commentators have initiated research on this youth cultural moment, Rave Culture and Religion will be the first venue devoted to such research.

Despite its diasporic fragmentation and hybridisation throughout the ‘90s, the dance party rave - involving masses of youth dancing all-night to a syncopated electronic rhythm mixed by DJs - maintains rapturous popularity in the West.  Commonly accorded effects ranging from personal 'healing' or replenishment, to transformations on social, cultural or political scales, the rave - from clubland, to outdoor doof, to technomadic festival - is a hyper-crucible of contemporary youth spirituality.  The question thus arises: What is the role of the technocultural rave in the spiritual life of contemporary youth?

Emerging in London in 1988 and subsequently exported around the world, the rave has proliferated and mutated alongside associated music (electronic) and body ('ecstasy') technologies.  Throughout the ‘90s, vast numbers of western youth attached primary significance to raving and post-rave experiences.  Regularly regarded by participants as a site of 'self-transcendence', a kind of temporary utopia, the rave grew prevalent in the experience of urban youth.  With the combined stimulus of electronic musics, psychotropic lighting and chemical alterants, young novices and experienced habitues transcended the mundane in converted warehouses, wilderness areas, beaches, deserts and streets.

Participants and observers have variously reported 'communion', 'telepathy', 'trance' states, 'ecstasy' or the 'sacred' along with a transcendence of subject, ethnic or gender categories at rave and post-rave events.  Producers of rave soundscapes and visual components (from video images to décor) reportedly possess 'shamanic' characteristics.  Events are often deemed 'tribal' celebrations  even 'corroborees'.  And, experienced habitues of dance champion psychedelic 'sacraments', sometimes claimed to accelerate the reception of esoteric knowledge.

Yet a torrent of inquiry issues from our initial question.  Is the rave a nascent rite de passage and, if so, what is its telos?  What is its level and quality of efficacy?  Is it a ritual of communion, a mass 'return' to a 'womb' which sees co-inhabitants secure in a nutrient rich and numinous pre-separation stage, or an anomic post-partum 'dead-zone' catering for 'escapist' desires and tragic careers in over-expenditure?  An 'oceanic experience' or a kind of prolonged youth suicide?  Does the rave or post-rave more closely approximate a Church, Disney World™ or a “detention camp for youth” (Reynolds, Energy Flash 424).  Has the cyber-chemical-millenarianism which flourished under the roof of the original acid house been domesticated - the rapture contained and smothered in regulated and commodified leisure sites?  Or has its technospiritual fervour been smuggled away into furtive temporary autonomous zones where it percolates still?
>>> no, it’s percolated out through all the layers of the surrounding society, it’s ‘missionaries’ constitute well over half of every eco-activist group, and peace movement and its music is, of course, the anthem of the rapidly coalescing Peace Movement.

 

the UP! has gotten hold of an excerpt from an early draft of a chapter from the book, written by its editor Graham St John, called 'Techno Millennium: Dance, Ecology and Future Primitives' and it covers Megatripolis:

 

Fraser Clark founded the London dance club Megatripolis. The meaning of the name can be inferred from Clark’s posts on the WELL in February 1995.[i]  Megatripolis was an evolved biographical concept raised from Clark’s unpublished science fiction novel ‘Megatripolis Forever’.

[ii] ‘After centuries leading right across the short hairs on the very cusp of System Disaster’, he wrote, ‘WoMankind finally made the necessary evolutionary leap to collective consciousness long foretold, escaped the illusion of Time itself and camped permanently in the FUTURE PERFECT STATE which they named Megatripolis.’  But only a few ‘escaped the illusion’, evolving ‘beyond time’ and capable of ‘balling’: wandering through the past, often ‘researching’ how things went wrong amongst their ancestors. 

We also learn that the utopian dreams and visions universal to human societies are actually ‘future memories’ of the Megatripolitan Utopia, of ‘how things already are beyond this absurdly thin veil of time’.[iii]

Thus, as was announced in his speech on November 4th 1993, at Megatripolis, zippies were starting to pick up the pieces of the future: by remembering it (because ‘we’ve lived there so long in the future’), and since the citizens of the future perfect state are dropping hints in our time.[iv] 

In Clark’s techno science-futurism, Megatripolis (which in 1995 opened for a while in San Francisco as Megatripolis West) was a this-worldly accelerant for the long awaited mutation to the Future Perfect State.  The ethno-trance club offered ambient lectures (‘edutainment’) in the early evening, with ‘Parallel University’[v] talks delivered by the likes of Terence McKenna, Ram Dass, Alexander Shulgin, Rev Ian Stang (Church of the Subgenius) and Robert Anton Wilson. [[Musicians and DJs present included Deee-Lite, and Irresistible Force (Mixmaster Morris].  Inside, Clark claimed, you would meet time travelling Megatripolitans amongst the residents and patrons.  Were these zippy residents the immediate ancestors of Megatripolitans themselves?  Perhaps, though in Clark’s Gurdjieffian logic, as humans are all potentially zippies, we are indeed all Megatripolitans – we just aren’t conscious of it yet:

 

at my highest I have sometimes seemed to glimpse that we are actually all Megatripolitans, in some sense, already. Whether we realise it or not. Take another look. Doesn’t this present ‘unfinished state’ feel more like the dream, the teaser, the pale shadow of what we’re meant to be?[vi]

 

Following this narrative, at Megatripolis, patrons could get closer to their destiny, perhaps even merging with the landscape of their becoming - if only for the night.  The role of future memories, remembrance of the future perfect state, are as crucial to Fraser’s vision as they are to McKenna’s theory.  Timewave Zero is the Future Perfect State is the Archaic Revival.  Preparation appears to be the key.  And in terms of the novelty wave chart, with Megatripolis being ‘the beach head of a benign mutation in the present’,[vii] the tide was apparently in.

http://grahamstjohn.author-site.com/ProductShop/

UP! Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

 

FYOUTURE MEMORIES?

"Bush is Sauron.... Save The Shire!!"
"Dubya Is Just A Victim Of Social Promotion"
"Which is Worse: Screwing The Intern Or Screwing The Country?"
Visualise A Special Prosecutor
etc..............................
http://www.gwbush.com/store/

UP! Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

 

 

THE POWER OF PRAYER:  OFFICIAL!!!

AND EVEN MORE MIRACULOUS THAN EXPECTED!!

The December 2001 British Medical Journal contains an interesting article about prayer.  In July 2000, the names of 3400 patients who had been admitted to the Rabin Medical Centre, Israel, between 1990 and 1996 with bloodstream infections were randomly divided into two groups by a computer. 

One group of names was given to a person who said a short prayer for the well being and full recovery of that group as a whole.  This person knew neither the people he was praying for nor the outcome of their respective stays in hospital some 4-10 years before.

            RESULT?  The group who received prayer had, on the whole, enjoyed a shorter duration of fever and a much shorter stay in hospital than the control group! 

The BMJ was forced to conclude that 'remote, retroactive intercessory prayer can improve outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection and should be considered for clinical practice.'

In other words, there is peer-reviewed scientific evidence to show that not only is prayer effective, but it works backwards in time!  Try getting your head around that one! :)

[gaia’s cafe]

UP! Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of  boxer shorts.

 

 

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance."  James Madison

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london

RICIN THE NEWS

Who is most likely to have the best weaponised ricin in town?  Britain's MI-6 through Porton Down, who incidentally created both Mad Cow and spread the Foot & Mouth hysteria to corral the British people.  And British agents have traditionally used ricin to assassinate targets. So its just like the US government is one of the only producers of weaponised

anthrax.  They staged the anthrax attack to keep up the hysteria here after 9/11.

 

Remember too that Churchill was fond of chemical weapons and had no squeamishness about using them to irradicate whole groups of people.

And recall that the UN depopulation program will eradicate most of us to save Gaia.  Oh and then there’s the Nazi eugenics program of Thulist Bonesmen like the Bush mob and the Rockefeller syndicate.

 

Is this sinking in?

 

Bin Ladin worked for MI-6, had an office in London and is due for Knighthood and retirement to an English country manor.

 

The truth hurts don't it?

PW / aftermath news

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afghanistan

DÉJÀ VU IN AFGHANISTAN
Details of U.S. victory are a little premature
By ERIC MARGOLIS / Toronto Sun, Dec 22.

It took Soviet forces only a few days to occupy Afghanistan in 1979.  Soviet airborne forces seized Kabul airport.  Elite Alpha Group commandos sped to the presidential palace, burst into the bedroom of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and gunned him down.  Columns of Soviet armour crossed the border and raced south toward Kabul.  They installed a puppet ruler, Babrak Karmal, and Moscow proclaimed it had invaded Afghanistan to "liberate" it from "feudalism and Islamic extremism" and "nests of terrorists and bandits."

Soviet propaganda churned out films of Red Army soldiers playing with children, building schools, dispensing medical care.  Afghan women were to be liberated from the veil and other backward Islamic customs.  The Soviet Union and its local communist allies would bring Afghanistan into the 20th century.

BUT TWO YEARS LATER Afghans had risen against their Soviet "liberators" and were waging a low-intensity guerrilla war.  Unable to control the countryside, Moscow poured in more troops.  The Soviet-run Afghan Army had poor morale and less fighting zeal.  The KGB-run Afghan secret police, Khad, jailed and savagely tortured tens of thousands of "Islamic terrorists," then called "freedom fighters" in the West.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Fast forward to December, 2002, and a disturbing sense of dejà vu.  A new foreign army has easily occupied Afghanistan, overthrown the "feudal" Taliban government and installed a puppet regime in Kabul.  Western media churn out the same rosy, agitprop stories the Soviets did about liberating Afghanistan, freeing women, educating children.  The invaders have changed; the propaganda remains the same.

America's invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001, was billed as an epic military victory and the model of future imperial expeditions to pacify Third World malefactors.  Since then, news about this war-ravaged land has grown scarce.  America's limited attention has turned elsewhere.

AFGHANISTAN IN CHAOS
In fact, America's Afghan adventure has gotten off to as poor a start as that of the Soviet Union.  The U.S.-installed ruler of Kabul, veteran CIA asset Hamid Karzai, must be protected from his own people by up to 200 U.S. bodyguards.  Much of Afghanistan is in chaos, fought over by feuding warlords and drug barons.

There are almost daily attacks on U.S. occupation forces.  My old mujahedin sources say U.S. casualties and equipment losses are far higher than Washington is reporting - and are rising.

American troops are operating from the old Soviet bases at Bagram and Shindand, retaliating, like the Soviets, against mujahedin attacks on U.S. forces by heavily bombing nearby villages.  The CIA is trying to assassinate Afghan nationalist leaders opposed to the Karzai regime in Kabul, in particular my old acquaintance Gulbadin Hekmatyar.

North of the Hindu Kush mountains, America's Afghan ally, the Tajik-Uzbek Northern Alliance, has long been a proxy of the Russians.  The chief of the Russian general staff and head of intelligence directed the Alliance in its final attack on the Taliban last fall.  Russia then supplied Alliance forces with $100 million in arms, and is providing $85 million worth of helicopters, tanks, artillery and spare parts, as well as military advisors and technicians.  Russia now dominates much of northern Afghanistan.

The Taliban, according to the United Nations drug agency, had almost shut down opium-morphine-heroin production.  America's ally, the Northern Alliance, has revived the illicit trade.  Opium cultivation has soared from 185 tons a year to 2,700.  The Northern Alliance, which dominates the Kabul regime, finances its arms-buying and field operations with drug money.  President George Bush's war on drugs collided with his war on terrorism - and lost.  The U.S. is now, in effect, colluding in the heroin trade.

Anti-American Afghan forces - the Taliban, al-Qaida, and others - have regrouped and are mounting ever larger attacks on U.S. troops and, reports the UN, even reopening training camps.  Taliban mujahedin are using the same sophisticated early alert system they developed to monitor Soviet forces in the 1980s to warn of American search-and-destroy missions before they leave base.  As a result, U.S. troops keep chasing shadows.

In the sole major battle since the Taliban's overthrow, Operation Anaconda, U.S. forces were bested by veteran Afghan mujahedin, losing two helicopters.

 

AND THE COST KEEPS RISING

The ongoing cost of Afghan operations is a closely guarded secret.  Earlier this year, the cost of stationing 8,000 American troops, backed by warplanes and naval units, was estimated at $5 BILLION PER MONTH!!  On top of that the CIA spends millions every month to bribe Pushtun warlords.

Costs will rise as the U.S. expands bases in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan - all placed along the planned U.S.-owned pipeline that will bring Central Asian oil south through Afghanistan.

The UN reports the Taliban and al-Qaida on the offensive, Afghan women remain veiled and the country is in a dangerous mess.  Declaring victory in Afghanistan may have been premature.
http://www.foreigncorrespondent.com/publication.html

UP! Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.

 

PATIENTS FIND 'GUT CAM' TECHNOLOGY EASY TO SWALLOW

The M2A disposable diagnostic capsule, also called the "gut cam," is the first of its kind: a self-contained, miniature, disposable colour video system designed to travel painlessly through the digestive system, continuously capturing images along the way to spot tumours, internal bleeding etc...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=1555&m=5435

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CLONING? YES, BUT NOT HUMAN CLONING!!

Cloning is an extremely important technology - not for cloning humans but for life extension: therapeutic cloning of one's own organs, creating new tissues to replace defective tissues or organs, or replacing one's organs and tissues with their "young" telomere-extended replacements without surgery.  Cloning even offers a possible solution for world hunger: creating meat without animals.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirect.html?artID=535&m=5435

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//YOU FEEDBACK    SANTA GRANNIE

I fled to her  that day because I knew Granny would be straight with me.  I knew she always told the truth,

 

Dear Fraser,

You'll be chagrined perhaps to learn that I shun the Santa trip with kids, consider it "lying" to them.  It's all because of my teaching profession.  You see, here we are ever striving to encourage kids to open up to the world of curiosity and learning, and more pointedly to be able to learn to cut through the crap (advertising and so on).  As you see, kids aged five are both huge media targets and oddly world savvy.  And they (regularly) come to us teachers and earnestly ask, knowing they'll get the straight goods from us - "Mrs. Rightmire, is there really a Santa Clause?"

 

And as with sex, God and psychedelics, we are supposed to offer mealy-mouthed dissembling like, "you'll have to ask your parents."  A colleague of mine once caught unofficial hell from parents for presenting Santa as part of the rich traditions from many cultures of Christmas stories. [Actually, I say whatever I feel like regarding "God".]

 

Some adults say to me, "oh you just want to take all the magic out of Christmas."  No, I just think you could do all the same hype, the same tricks daddies play making elaborate footprints and other "signs", and make it into a great game of storymaking between parents and kids.

 

Everyone from Piaget to traditional Chinese culture recognizes the 5-7 age range as an important stage for sorting out "real reality", distinguishing what is fantasy and so on.  The adult insistence on the Big Santa Hype is too much like the frenzied need to buy to keep up appearances and so on - an addiction to an unreality.

 

Step back, and reconsider.

linda haironfire / canada

>>> hmm.  i can’t really argue with anything you say. linda. 

i’m first, tho, reminded of when don juan ‘fooled’ carlos by holding something close to his eyes but talking as if it was on a faraway mountain.  when carlos suddenly saw through the bluff don juan remarked that the teacher had to “lie once to the student.”  (perhaps to teach hir NEVER to totally believe anyone but to always test for oneself?) 

 

then i wonder if the Santa Myth in Western Culture isn’t perhaps the only example most of us will come across of someone lying to you for your good :)  sorta like pronoia?

 

and, besides, isn’t the Santa Granny story a moral tale where Santa is the Embodiment of the spirit of Helping, Caring, taking Responsibility.  WE MUST EACH AND ALL BE SANTA that’s how i took the story. 

UP! Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

[winners in the Washington Post’s annual alternate meanings competition]

 

 

Purported transcript of an exchange of radio messages between Americans and Canadians in North Atlantic , 1995:

AMERICANS:    Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
CANADIANS:    Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees south..
AMERICANS:    This is the Captain of  a US Navy ship, I say again divert your course.
CANADIANS:     No.  I say again strongly you divert your course.
AMERICANS:    This is the Aircraft Carrier USS Lincoln, the largest ship in the United States' Atlantic Fleet.  We are accompanied by three Destroyers, three Cruisers, and numerous support vessels.  I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, or counter measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
CANADIANS:     This is a LIGHTHOUSE. Your calll.

[from ex MP Martin Bell's book 'An Accidental MP']

UP!

 

 

HEMP SPELLS CURTAINS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT DESTRUCTION, AND NOW TERRORISM

Since the 1920’s the petrochemical-military-industrial complex, consisting of many of the world’s most powerful political ‘leaders’ and corporations, has sought to undermine and destroy any direct competition to petroleum.  This strategy has resulted in one of society’s most counter-productive and dangerous wars: the ‘War on Drugs’. 
The most suitable replacement feedstock for oil derived fuel and energy is Cannabis Sativa L, otherwise known as Hemp.  While the ‘War on Drugs’ went official with the Reagan/Bush administration of the 1980’s, it started long before and resulted in the legal hemp industry being taxed out of existence in 1937  much to the jubilation of William Randolph Hearst (then owner of vast tracts of natural forest intended for ‘news’ paper pulp) and companies like Dupont, whose oil-based chemical patents were essential to paper and synthetic fibre production.
        This conspiracy has resulted in a dangerous and forced global dependency on petrochemicals, the destruction of our collective environment, and climate change, perhaps the single greatest threat to future development. 
If one examines the global (non) distribution of resources, oil is a key variable.  The wealth generated from this resource is concentrated in only a few hands, while the majority of the world’s population lives in poverty.  And that means a perpetual state of conflict between rich and poor, and worse  - a perpetual state of conflict over a resource that will eventually destroy the very foundations of life on Earth: our air, water and soil. 
Think about it.  Now we have a ‘War on Terrorism’.  The Taliban disagreed with the terms US ‘diplomats’ and oil corporations gave to build an oil pipeline across Afghanistan and were threatened with military action well before 11th September 2001  [see salon.com, June 5th 2002].  Apparently we needed a ‘better excuse’ to bomb them.
As nonsensical as this may seem  the idiot’s path to perpetual conflict is entrenched in global economic policy via the World Bank, IMF and supported by political-military imperialism and [of course] greed [the US Treasury] in the World’s largest energy-consuming nation.  Let us pray for the people of Venezuela and their democratically elected leader.

THE WAR GOES ON... AND ON...
Sadly, the conspiracy to prevent Cannabis competing with oil is still alive.  The United States government, in addition to branding recreational cannabis users ‘terrorists’ and dishing out life sentences for third time ‘offenders’, also continues to try and destroy the North American Hemp industry, particularly in Canada  a sovereign state  where the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is respected.  This international legislation makes industrial Cannabis cultivation explicitly legal. 
United States anti-cannabis policy prevented the creation of an industrial hemp industry in Nicaragua as recently as 1997/8, which resulted in 50 families losing their income, and the illegal  - year long  - incarceration of a Canadian hemp farmer, Paul Wylie.  His book ‘Hemp Conspiracy: A True Story of State Corruption and Individual Consequence’ will be published this year and will change the world.  It is incredible, “excellent” and 100% libel proof - buy it!  
Why would one nation go to such lengths to prevent us using a resource that could almost completely replace petrochemicals, would preserve the environment, supply millions of additional jobs and (re) distribute resources/wealth globally?  Is it just greed: or does David Icke have a point?  I really do wonder sometimes.

 

A PLANET GOING TO POT?!
If Cannabis was cultivated on an industrial scale globally, say as part of a coherent United Nations agricultural strategy to produce fuel, humanity could actually reverse climate change in the very long term.  Seriously, we could completely surpass even the Kyoto Treaty by using this methodology to tackle climate change but it must begin within the next 5-7 years, no matter how incrementally.   
Cannabis is a fast growing, high cellulose [green] plant.  In fact, it has a chemical composition and cellulose content similar to tropical hardwood - only it grows slightly quicker!  It’s easy to cultivate and presents a host of other environmental benefits, especially when grown in systems of rotation with cereal crops.  These include substantial yield increases in the crops planted after it - 40% increases in wheat crops are possible. 
And we ‘need’ genetically modified food crops to ‘feed the world’?!  NOT!  That’s a myth steeped in the same cynicism and profiteering that got us into the current mess.   
Other benefits of Cannabis cultivation include the removal of heavy metals (inorganic chemicals present in most fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides) from the soil, improved soil structure, while preventing loss of topsoil or degradation/desertification.  It grows in abundance at all latitudes short of permafrost, and displays a resistance to both frost and drought conditions.  This - Cannabis - is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would describe as an ideal ‘energy crop’ if there was not a US led conspiracy to undermine it.
We could also use ALL our available agricultural ‘waste’ i.e. the parts of food crops we don’t eat as part of a global ‘agri-energy’ strategy.  The most exciting aspect of this industrial restructuring is that the liquid fuel produced from our agricultural ‘waste’ and ‘energy crops’ is a direct substitute for oil.   Cellulose also equals ethanol - a considerably cleaner (by 90%) yet complementary substance to petroleum.   To implement such a project is straightforward and involves the construction of cellulose to ethanol conversion facilities, particularly in the poor agricultural regions of the World.  The technology exists at a commercial level - now - and we also have the international legislative framework (Kyoto Treaty) to make it possible.  The agricultural sectors of the so-called developed World would be reinvigorated by a new, urgently required non-food industry.  Developing economies would actually be allowed to develop by producing, via proven sustainable agricultural methods, the lifeblood of industrial society - fuel. Afghanistan, for example, would have an economically viable alternative to opium production.     

On the basis of research (http://www.hempreport.com/issues/17/research17.html) we have around 1097 million hectares of land suitable for a global clean-energy project, without displacing people, activities or other crops - unlike oil pipelines.  710 million hectares of this available land is already categorised as ‘lightly degraded’ (mostly via chemically dependent agriculture) but is suitable for ‘energy’ applications.  Using only the (high cellulose) stem of the Cannabis crops - meaning that we could also derive seed oil from this species that can be used in either (10,000 plus) industrial processes or as a uniquely nutritious, tasty source of FOOD! - on this amount of land could create 346EJ (exo-joules) of energy, representing a 76EJ or 28% increase over the mean global consumption of energy in 1990, equivalent to our total global energy consumption in 2002. Good shit huh? 

While perhaps politically unrealistic, this feasible example would sequestrate - that is, it would remove via photosynthesis - around 10.51Gt (thousand million tons) of carbon from the atmosphere.  At this rate of annual sequestration alone  i.e. not including the direct replacement of oil - it would take around 20 years to reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations to those of year 1750 (or 270ppmv). Ethanol can be used in transportation - directly in cars without any modification in blends with gasoline up to 85% - and does not contain the polluting, health destroying particulate matter released when oil is burnt. Ethanol could also be used in existing oil and gas fired power stations, preventing millions of premature deaths from respiratory diseases.  Adios ‘Asian Brown Cloud’! Another implication arising from this scenario is that we could continue to burn oil. OPEC countries would not lose income, instead they could tax exported oil accordingly to improve their populations living conditions (viva Chavez!) and the global environment. Everyone benefits and this would create a level playing field for ethanol in the global fuel market.

Paul Wylie is suing the Nicaraguan government over his illegal, US sponsored, imprisonment and the destruction of Hemp-Agro De Nicaragua SA.  We are also demanding justice for the people of Nicaragua and the implementation of a cellulose-to-ethanol project as settlement to this case in 2003. And that is just the beginning. Hemp 4 fuel presents us with a golden opportunity to tackle several related environmental problems and establish an equitable distribution of global resources. This is conflict resolution at its most pragmatic. Please show your support and visit www.hempconspiracy.com, drop us an email, you can place an advance order for the book with no obligation, and we’ll keep you posted on developments over the coming months.  
This is the green revolution and we can all be part of it.
much peace, and more love in 2003.
mark deeley / nicaragua

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A BUSINESS FORUM hosted by Phil Inje Chang

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QUESTION:  I am a 55 Y/O male with very little savings, sporadic income and no retirement funds. What would be reasonable to seek to attain in the coming years other than as much as I can, which following the events of my life have come to next to naught save a few hundred thousand equity in my house.
dp
$£$£$£$££$£$


ANSWER;  Sounds like you need some help in setting goals.  The term “reasonable to attain” is a dead giveaway that you are not sure what you want.  If you’re looking for some standards, they could range from your annual expenses times the number of years you want to be retired (add a few years to account for inflation), to multiple millions if you want to retire on the interest from safe interest-only investments.  Then again, maybe you don’t specifically want to retire.  There are certain kinds of businesses that could continue to provide an income till a ripe old age.  But the fact that you mention retirement funds makes me think you are thinking about retirement, or at least playing it safe in your older years.

What’s interesting about your situation is that you have sizable real estate equity.  You must have bought the place a while ago and watched it shoot up in the US or UK.  Congratulations!  A lot of folks are struggling to save up for a down payment on their first place, which gets more unattainable as prices inflate.  So the equity in your house is a sort of baseline hedge, if you were willing to sell it and rent a place at a lower standard of living (or in a different part of the world).

While it’s a great achievement to build up net worth via real estate, the problem with real estate is that it can be a form of trapped wealth, as I’m sure you realize.  If you view your house purely as an investment vehicle, you might consider selling it at the top of the market, renting for a while till prices drop, then getting in again.  Obviously there’s timing risk in that approach, and prices may not drop significantly.  Another approach is to take an equity loan and buy a second property to rent out.  The problem there is you probably need some stable income to get the equity loan or the new loan.  I would not recommend taking an equity loan for spending money.  Maybe it’s cheaper interest than a credit card, and in the US you could get a tax write-off, but you are eating away at the only wealth you have, and paying for the privilege.  It would make more sense to reduce your expenses.  You could rent the place out in whole or in part, but that affects your style of life, and it can be difficult getting rid of tenants if that becomes necessary.

If you’re like a lot of people, you like living in your house and the investment angle is secondary.  So that means the house represents phantom wealth, and possibly a drain on wealth.  If you have a low or no mortgage, that’s great, but houses always cost money.  If your roof needs fixing, better get it done before the walls need fixing and your phantom wealth really does evaporate when you try to sell the place.  So, real estate is a mixed blessing.  But it’s a great vehicle for saving money, and that’s the name of the game, right?  It’s a practical way to sock away money that appreciates in a leveraged way, since the entire value of the property appreciates at a market rate while you may have invested a small proportion of cash, and you can live in it.  The only problem is, the savings are not terribly accessible.

So we’re back to finding other ways to save money (and saving money is the “profit” of your personal life business, remember).  In a certain way, having a low mortgage is false security, as it can encourage you to rest on your laurels.  At 55, you might look closely at home-based businesses that could carry on into your older years, since the corporate ladder will be hard to climb at this point.  Think about what you want to do in life, then get the skills required to do it.  That may or may not involve skills you have acquired in the past.  My guess is that the workaday world hasn’t held much appeal for you, so better start thinking of doing something that you feel good about, or in some way inspired to do.  Come up with multiple ideas, then weed them out as practical reality sets in and momentum builds around a particular one.

Most importantly, as money starts to come in, set aside money to save.  Get a different bank account to put money into, and use your current or checking account strictly for living expenses.  Set up a retirement fund and religiously put money into it.  Dividing your income into different locations works.  Get some discipline about not touching money in some locations, and after a while you’ll feel satisfaction in watching it grow.  That’s step one.

Send your questions to pic@humanbe-in.com.

© Phil Inje Chang, 2003.

Disclaimer: The commentary offered in this forum is not intended to take the place of professional advice. Your situation is specific to you, and the author is simply presenting his own opinions. You may need the counsel of several different types of professionals before embarking on major financial decisions.
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