ANOMALY Magazine Welcome’s Brian Worsham!

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SPECIAL REPORT from Mack White

I defy anyone to watch this video (above) and give me one good reason why Travis County Deputy Chris Bieze was justified in Tasering a 72-year-old grandmother during a traffic stop.

Yes, she was argumentative. Yes, she failed to comply with the officer’s order. But does this justify use of the Taser?

Originally, Tasers were intended to be used by police only in situations where a gun might otherwise be used–that is, in situations where lives might be in danger. Rule of thumb: If a situation doesn’t require a gun, it shouldn’t require a Taser.

And yet, increasingly, police are using the Taser not in dangerous situations, but simply to enforce compliance.

Read more »

Here at Anomaly Magazine, we’re learning to love our “Because it’s Thursday” features. We all hold down full time jobs. This is a labor of love for us. But because it isn’t our job, it’s easy to let it slide when things start getting hairy. The Thursday feature reminds us, at least once a week, that we’ve got this red-headed step child sitting over here waiting for some of our attention.

Plus, Thursdays have held a soft spot for me since college. My alma mater, Shawnee State University, was on the quarter system instead of the semester system. This meant they were always tweaking the scheduling, trying to find the most efficient arrangement. At one point classes were scheduled either on Mondays and Wednesdays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays, with lab and studio times available on Fridays. This essentially meant Thursday became our Friday, and a ritual of Thursday night drinking and debauchery ensued. When my group of small town co-conspirators decided our irregular poetry readings and open mic events needed to happen on a monthly basis, we continued our Thursday tradition, and the Third Thursday Open Mic for poets and musicians was born. As we got “real jobs” and founding performers started moving away, it became more difficult to maintain. But we still found time to dedicate one night a month to the celebration of Thursday, and, at last report, new generations of college students in small town southern Ohio are keeping our Third Thursday event alive and kicking.

It’s apparently not just me and my friends that have a soft spot for Thursday (or Thor’s Day). I have it on good authority that football fans love it because a lot of games are broadcast on Thursday. People start getting geeked for Friday. And in Austin, it’s not the alliterative Third Thursday, but the First Thursday of every month that brings celebrants into the street to experience art, music, and community.
And then there is this guy, 41 year old Peter Bielecke, who liked to rob banks on Thursdays.

To each his or her own I suppose. Me, I’ll stick with poetry and music. I don’t think I’m so keen to know what kind of Thursday rituals they practice in the prison system.

What kind of Thursday traditions do you practice or know about? Share them with us in the comments section or start a thread in the Anomaly Forums!

Dowsing Talks in Texas with Remote Viewer Paul Smith:

Folks–

Here’s a heads-up.  I will be giving a presentation on dowsing in two different locations this coming week.  The talk will be “The Remote Viewing/Dowsing Connection,”  And I will be giving it on the following days at the following locations:

AUSTIN
Austin Metal Detecting Club
Thursday, 14 May 2009, 7 PM.  Address:

Woodlawn Baptist Church
4600 Manchaca Blvd.
Austin, TX  78745

Website:  www.amdconline.com/Meetings.htm
______________________

HOUSTON
Lone Star Dowsers Dowsing Conference
Friday, 15 May 2009, 1:30 PM .  Address:

Days Hotel at 500 N. Sam Houston Parkway, Houston, Tx.  77060
Website:  www.dowsersmayconference.com

If you’re around, come on by!

Best wishes,

Paul
(Paul H. Smith)
www.rviewer.com

I received the below e-mail from a friend. A very talented photographer, and a fine writer in her own right.  She wrote to inform us that her friend, poet Craig Arnold, went missing yesterday while exploring on Kuchino-erabu-shima, a small volcanic island in Japan.  She is asking that we take a minute to write our congressmen and ask them to petition the Japanese government to keep the search active.  Please, if you have a moment, click the link, below, enter you zip code, and paste the form letter into your congressman’s mail program. Or, if you feel so inclined, write one yourself. Craig’s friends and family would appreciate it.

Hello all,

I am writing with a very personal request. My sophomore year in college, I took a creative writing class at UT with Craig Arnold where my love of writing poetry was solidified. He was a mentor to me and his encouragement and feedback was absolutely critical in helping me to find my voice (as cheesy as that might sound). After that class, we became friends and kept in touch over the years. Last year, we reconnected when I took the author photo for his book “Made Flesh.”

Yesterday I found out that Craig has gone missing. He had been hiking around a volcano in Japan and never returned to the inn he was staying at. The search for Craig is supposed to go through Sunday, but if they don’t find him by then, they might not keep looking. I’m writing to ask you to please write your Congressperson to request that they keep the search going as long as it takes. It might be futile but it is the only thing I have any power to do to help him right now and I figure by getting as many of my friends, family, and colleagues to write as possible, maybe the extra pressure could help even if it’s just a fraction. I feel absolutely sick over this and just hope that there’s still some chance he’ll make it home alive.

If you are open to writing, you can visit this link (https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml) to figure out who your congressperson is, and I’m pasting a form letter into the email below.

Thanks in advance,
Amanda

Links to news reports:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103675357
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/30/japan.missing.professor/
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/books/entries/2009/04/30/craig_arnold_missing.html
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/missing-poet/
http://www.pw.org/content/american_poet_on_fellowship_missing_in_japan

Form letter (You may copy and paste this when writing your congressperson.)

“I am writing to you to express my concern for an exceptionally talented American poet, Craig Arnold, who has gone missing on a small volcanic island in Japan called Kuchino-erabu-shima while on a creative exchange fellowship. Craig, an experienced explorer of volcanoes, never returned to his inn after leaving alone to research the island’s active volcano for the afternoon. The authorities are on the fifth day of searching for Craig, and are scouring the small island (of only 160 inhabitants) with dogs and helicopters. If he is not found by Sunday, the authorities will call off the search. We cannot let there be a lag in this search while finding Craig alive is still a real possibility.

I am writing to ask for your help in pressuring the JAPANESE STATE DEPARTMENT TO CONTINUE THE SEARCH. WE ALSO NEED HELP SPARKING MEDIA ATTENTION FOR THIS STORY, WHICH WE ALSO HOPE MIGHT INCREASE PRESSURE ON JAPANESE AUTHORITIES TO FIND CRAIG.

Craig Arnold is a national treasure of the arts and letters, an inspiring and exciting poet who must be found. Any pressure we can put on the Japanese to continue the search is critical to our efforts. Time is of the essence. The island and areas surrounding the volcano are small enough that an extended search will surely lead to Craig’s discovery.

Thank you so much, Congressperson ___________ , for your interest, support, and help.”

Proposed Police Programs Put Your Privacy at Stake

Austin’s police chief proposes a policy of mandatory blood withdrawals for drunk driving suspects who refuse a breathalyzer test.

Now the chief favors video surveillance across the city, new requirements for DNA samples for detainees, and police checkpoints, making everyone a suspect.

Is this the end of privacy as we know it?

Join a Public Forum, March 30th.

Panelists include: Art Acevedo - Austin Chief of Police, Deborah Russell - American Civil Liberties Union, Karen Housewright - Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Mike Martinez - Austin City Council, John Bush - Texans for Accountable Government.

Austin City Hall

301 W. 2nd Street, Austin, Texas 78701

Forum Begins at 6pm in Council Chambers

Parking available in garage under City Hall.

Sponsored by Texans for Accountable Government

For more information, call (318) 617-8292

www.TagTexas.org / www.StopVampireCops.wordpress.com

Better Austin Today PAC sponsors…

PEOPLE’S

FORUM

with candidates for Mayor and City Council

Sunday, March 22 (1 to 3 p.m.)  

First Unitarian Universalist Church, Howson Hall

4700 Grover, Austin, Texas 

• Wondering why your property taxes rise but your quality of life goes down?
• Concerned about the shrinking economy?
• Bothered about rampant growth and it’s threat on our environment?
• Got questions for the next mayor of Austin and the candidates for City Council?

EVERYONE WELCOME. EVERYONE INVITED.

Austin is at a turning point. Your future is at stake. Hear the candidates

answer YOUR questions. Then… 

VOTE ON MAY 9^TH. 

Visit www.betteraustintoday.org for more information.

Paid Political Advertising by Better Austin Today PAC, Sunny Ogunro, Treasurer

P.O. Box 140944, Austin, TX 78714

Opening Reception for Powell St. John
“Surrealistically Fantastical Art on Display”

www.SAMOPC.org

Date:	Saturday, March 14, 2009
Time:	7:00pm - 11:00pm
Location:	South Austin Museum of Popular Culture
Street:	1516-B S Lamar Blvd
City/Town:	Austin, TX
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Facebook | Opening Reception for Powell St. John

South Austin Museum of Popular Culture

March 2009 Events

March 7
Powell St. John exhibit opens;
artist reception March 14 At the Museum

March 13
Special Display of Vulcan Gas Company Posters & Photos
Psych Fest Radio Room, 508 East 6th Street
Start Time: 8:30 pm

March 14
Powell St. John Exhibit Reception 7:09pm
Music by Powell St. John
8:00 pm Special guest Alex Maas
At the Museum, $5 donation requested

March 18
Austin Chronicle Music Awards
Special Museum display featuring Doug Sahm
Austin Music Hall

March 19 – 22
Flatstock 20- conference of the members of the American Poster Institute
Thurs., March 19 1pm – 6pm
Fri., Sat. Sun. March 20, 21, 22 11am – 6pm
Austin Convention Center

March 21
Uranium Savages 4:20 pm – 7:09 pm
Chicken Strut 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
At the Museum, $5 donation requested

South Austin Museum of Popular Culture
1516-B South Lamar Blvd
Austin, Texas 78704
512.440.8318

www.SAMOPC.org

Every Tuesday over at Anomaly Television is “Science & Technology Tuesday” when I and my friend Floyd Anderson post the latest videos related to those topics. Well last Monday night Brave New Bookstore featured an important speaker (whose radio show I sometimes carry at Anomaly Radio). Dr. Katherine Albrecht is the leading expert in America fighting for your and my freedom from rampant surveillance society, prison planet, techno tracking and taxation. She was just here in Central Texas to fight the new MANDATORY pet-chipping happening just down the road in San Marcos. I went to the bookstore event hoping to catch her lecture, show my support and maybe even finally meet her face to face. However, the event was so successful that I took one look around, saw no place to sit (it was standing room only and there were a LOT of people standing), turned around and left. I’m not phobic of crowds but I just couldn’t deal with standing around for the next two hours after a long day of work. But thankfully, my friend Floyd Anderson was undeterred and managed to get video of the entire event. As Katherine begins her lecture she estimates there were about 200 people crammed into Brave New Bookstore. Wow! Thank each and every one of you that showed up. Anyway, check out the entire lecture available over at Anomaly Television dot com.

- SMiles Lewis

Part One

Katherine Albrecht speaks on microchips at Brave New Books in Austin, Texas along with Randall Mock, Lisa Marie Coppoletta, Judith McGeary, and Sheila Dean.

Watch all the videos here at Anomaly TeleVision » Blog Archive » Dr. Katherine Albrecht Speaks on Microchips at Brave New Books 3/2/2009

Somehow this has flown under my radar for a couple of months, but Dan Akroyd is marketing his own brand of boutique vodka sold in a skull shaped bottle. What does this have to do with anomalous phenomenon you ask?

Everything!

In his online video explaining the liquor, an oddly sweaty Akroyd almost seems to be parodying himself in some Twilight Zone episode of SNL as he talks about everything from ghosts, UFOs, and the “invisible world”,  to ectoplasm (a running gag of his Ghost Busters movies) and the latest Indiana Jones movie. That’s right. The latest Indie movie and this vodka have something in common other than actors who made their best movies two decades ago. The bottle shape was chosen as a tribute to the infamous crystal skulls.

So that the packaging matched the spiritual potential of the contents, naturally.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger, Akroyd reveals the secret filtration process that makes his vodka the purest in the world. I won’t reveal it here. The video just has to be seen for itself.

And in spite of the sheer ridiculousness of it all, I can’t help myself. I really want a bottle of this vodka! Or thirteen. After all, as the website for Crystal Head Vodka notes:

Brought together, the Crystal Heads are said to contain vast knowledge and enlightenment capable of unlocking our most enigmatic ancient mysteries. Alone, each is believed to house radiant psychic energy, which has magical powers and healing properties.

Spirits indeed.

www.CrystalHeadVodka.com