Serene Falcon

Pit of Despair

April 12th, 2007

at 3:26 am (Other Writ, Self Writ, Animals)

Harry Harlow’s Pit of Despair

The pit of despair, or vertical chamber, was a device used in experiments conducted on rhesus macaque monkeys during the 1970s by American comparative psychologist Harry Harlow and his students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The aim of the research was to produce an animal model of human clinical depression.

The vertical chamber was little more than a stainless-steel trough with sides that sloped to a rounded bottom. A 3/8 in. wire mesh floor 1 in. above the bottom of the chamber allowed waste material to drop through the drain and out of holes drilled in the stainless-steel. The chamber was equipped with a food box and a water-bottle holder, and was covered with a pyramid top — … — designed to discourage incarcerated subjects from hanging from the upper part of the chamber.

Harlow placed baby monkeys in the chamber alone for up to six weeks. Within a few days, they stopped moving about and remained huddled in a corner. The monkeys were found to be psychotic when removed from the chamber, and most did not recover.

It gets worse…

After 30 days, the “total isolates,” as they were called, were found to be “enormously disturbed”: two of them refused to eat and starved themselves to death. After being isolated for a year, the monkeys were found initially to barely move, didn’t explore or play, and were incapable of having sexual relations. When put with other monkeys for a daily play session, they were badly bullied by the other monkeys.

In order to find out how the isolates would parent, Harlow devised what he called a “rape rack,” to which the female isolates were tied in the position taken by a normal female monkey in order to be impregnated. Artificial insemination had not been developed at that time. He found that, just as they were incapable of having sexual relations, they were also unable to parent their offspring, either abusing or neglecting them. “Not even in our most devious dreams could we have designed a surrogate as evil as these real monkey mothers were,” he wrote. Having no social experience themselves, they were incapable of appropriate social interaction. One mother held her baby’s face to the floor and chewed off his feet and fingers. Another crushed her baby’s head. Most of them simply ignored their offspring.

Etc….

Wikipedia Pit of Despair

A rhesus monkey infant in one of Harlow’s isolation chambers. The photograph was taken when the chamber door was raised for the first time after six months of total isolation.

‘…In action how like an angel !…’

Maiden Dilemma

April 8th, 2007profile at 8:07 pm (Self Writ, Animals, Art, Generalia, Literature)

Or as the Metaphysicals would say, ‘Go for it: we haven’t got much time…’

Click to magnify

J. J. Grandville : The Temptation of Minette

A Thousand Reich Years Ago

March 29th, 2007 at 9:52 pm (Self Writ, Generalia, High Germany, Videos)

From btard deleted nostatus – Crazy Mufti, a worrying look at the connections betwixt Nationalsozialismus and Islam.

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No doubt someone in Washington can work out the connections leading from The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to Saddam Hussein to Iran.

Wiki: Adolf Eichmann’s deputy Dieter Wisliceny testified during his war crimes trial in 1946 that … “The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan… He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz.”

I bet.

2 Comments

Johnston Island

March 29th, 2007

at 7:33 pm (Self Writ, Generalia, Places)

For auction from the U. S. General Services Administration,

Johnson Atoll
Property Address:
717 nautical miles Southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii
Johnston Island, HI 96558
Type of the Property: LAND
Potential Usage: ecotourism, wildlife refuge

Johnston Atoll consists of four small man-made islands enclosed in an egg-shaped reef approximately 21 miles in circumference. The wildlife refuge on the Atoll is a habitat for 32 species of coral, 300 species of fish, the endangered sea turtle and Hawaiian monk seal, and 20 species of migratory birds. Johnston, the main island, is 1000 yards long and 200 yards wide.

I can’t quite work out how these will come to Acres: 625.81, but I’ll take their word rather than measuring it myself.

The deed will contain use restrictions because the atoll was used by the Defense Department for storage of chemical munitions and as a missile test site in the 1950′s and 60′s.

Hmmm.

The island can be used as a residence or vacation getaway but it does not have utilities or a water supply. The airstrip and the golf course are closed.

Check: Generator; Desalination plant; Concrete Mixer.

A case of whisky and one’s own golf-clubs.

The Gousters — Only Eighteen

Summer of Love

March 25th, 2007profile at 3:09 pm (Self Writ, Music, War)

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Anniversary in Alph

March 25th, 2007 at 2:44 pm (Self Writ, Art, Generalia, War)

736 years ago this month, Kublai Khan founded the Yuan Dynasty in China. This is how he looked:

Click to magnify

1 Comment

In September The Terrorists Came

March 24th, 2007

at 9:57 pm (Self Writ, Generalia)

They struck New York as incendiaries,with a vicious purpose for a bad cause, and the flames leapt in three targets. The shadowy leaders who had directed them to this barbarous act of hate against civilisation had no concern for the possibility of suffering; merely interested in achieving a blow against the constituted authorities of America and resulting chaos amidst the grief and fear ensuing. The terrible atrocity was welcomed by sympathisers both inside the country and abroad.

Soldiers and sailors mobilised instantly to save lives, rescue goods and fight the fires: terrorists caught in the act were killed speedily by the soldiers and their lifeless bodies consumed by the very fires they had started. A quarter of the city was burned. The morally subhuman enemies of order had begun their victory march to imposing the most debased, evil and tyrannical regime known to mankind.

After the 20th of September, nothing would be the same ever again.

1776

CND — Male Understanding

March 24th, 2007profile at 3:38 am (Self Writ, Art, Music, Videos)

From Glastonbury 2005, the iconic video of Chas ‘n Dave’s finale in the Acoustic Tent, celebrating a thousand years of embittered London youth raucously shouting outside their beloved’s windows whilst smashed.

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Ain’t No Pleasin’ You

Called Back From The Grave

March 18th, 2007 at 12:09 am (Self Writ, Art, High Germany, The King of Terrors)

gaterock

Whilst regarding the career of the great Schinkel on the web vide the post previous, I came across a Google Book the remarkable beginning of whose synopsis only emphasises how extraordinary his talents were, and the totality of his Prussian dedication to duty.

R. A. Lafferty : Devotional Page

Retief Redux

March 7th, 2007

at 12:43 am (Self Writ, Other Writ, Generalia, Literature)

Keith Laumer was one of those rare SF writers who was both witty and light; something that in SF terms happens as often as the Transit of Venus. I was interested to see a site devoted to him; and when I read this I thought it extremely funny:

‘I finally got to meet Keith in 1990, at his home in Brooksville, Florida, a couple years before he died. I was in awe of the man, his talent, his persona. He was paralyzed on one side but could get around on a motorized scooter, which he drove us around on a tour of his property during the 1990 visit. I had taken my nine year old daughter with me, all the way from Oregon, to finally meet Keith after all those years. We had a wonderful visit, that is, until the last few minutes when Keith pulled a German Lugar, aimed it at my chest, and told me to leave.’

Keith Laumer

Reading more in the forum there, it was more tragic than amusing; but it’s still pretty funny.

Here too is a site devoted to another cynical SF author, R. A. Lafferty

The Drowning Rats

February 28th, 2007profile at 12:36 am (Self Writ, Animals, Generalia, War)

Two incendiary devices planted by animal rights extremists were found at an Oxford college yesterday.
More than 100 staff and students at Templeton College were evacuated as Army bomb disposal experts dealt with the firebombs.
They were found under a Portakabin following claims on an animal rights website that activists had planted them more than a week ago. They had not detonated.
BiteBack, an American-based group which details the activities of protesters, stated: “On the night of Sunday February 18 the ALF [Animal Liberation Front] carried out an arson attack on the Portakabin offices of Templeton College at Kennington, on the outskirts of Oxford.
“This latest action is part of an ongoing fight against the University of Oxford and its continued reign of terror over the unseen victims inside its animal labs.”BiteBack, an American-based group which details the activities of protesters, stated: “On the night of Sunday February 18 the ALF [Animal Liberation Front] carried out an arson attack on the Portakabin offices of Templeton College at Kennington, on the outskirts of Oxford.
…
The bombs were described as small, but police would not speculate on whether they would have caused loss of life or substantial damage, had they detonated.

Daily Telegraph Online

Whilst it’s a great pity the devices did not detonate, at least some fun was had with these scum. Tony — For I am become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds * — Blair will undoubtedly label the actors as terrorists, and probably urge the British Security Forces to devote more and more resources to countering Animal Liberationists, as so often before…

Yet who so fond of real terrorists as this vain immoral poseur, who, having a history as an incontinent warmonger, surpassed his previous efforts by abetting Amerika in creating the most futile war of modern times in order to follow the precedent of the worst Prime Minister Great Britain ever had, and make money by touring the USA during his retirement lecturing and building up a Foundation ?

( Lady Thatcher herself is apparently now devoting herself to her hobbies of sitting in a chair and dribbling, and forgetting what anyone said ten minutes earlier. No matter, for recalling her years in office, if reinstalled in power, there would be little difference perceptible between her handling of issues then or now. )

As part of his desire to go into history as The Man Who Ended the Northern Ireland Problem, not only has he cozied up to the sickly depraved scum whose weak-minded desire for a united Ireland led them to such heroic acts as the murder of Jean McConville, and given them a free hand in the areas those ganglords control ( in conjunction with their ex-opposites on the protestant gangs in their areas ), but…

Prosecutions of IRA fugitives and members of the security forces accused of collusion are to be dropped in the ‘public interest’, it was claimed last night.

The UK’s Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General are to be asked to shelve cases against on-the-run republicans as part of a final deal between Sinn Fein and Downing Street.

Guardian

Kind of wraps up the loose ends, doesn’t it ?

The only decent action of the Thatch’s entire, otherwise futile, premiership was not to give in to the demands of a piece of human waste ( ie: an member of the PIRA ) Bobby Sands, through the blackmail of hunger-strike: unfortunately she blew even that by later signing the Act which gave joint sovereignty over Northern Ireland to the poor old Irish Republic, which rules it’s own country with the same ineptitude as do the British their own, only with extra-added depression…

As to the misfortunate lack of positive action directe at Oxford, with it’s centuries old history of animal torture now with the addition of the New Primate Laboratory, unless some strong action is taken, vital research for saving human life such as this will continue…

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, POM made a commitment through June 2007 to an experiment that involves forcing elderly rats to balance on a spinning rod and find a hidden platform in a water maze in order to try not to drown.

Blog Peta Archives

POM makes pomegranate juice. And other ‘experiments’ were still worse ( unless, of course, you were one of the drowning rats… )

* Vide the latest

Private Eve

They think I’m going mad. Mad ! Mad ! Do you hear me ? Me, the Vicar !

Can you imagine anything less likely than that I, of all people, should go off his rocker !

Me, the most successful vicar in the history of Christendom, the Saviour of the World, the man who abolished slavery, who discovered America and invented the internet ?

Me, the first British Time Lord ever to rule over the Galaxy !

Me, the seventh Avatar of the great God Zurg, in whom all things are made new !

Me, brighter than a thousand suns, from whom Kali cringes. I who have become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds !