Piece Of Art

Astrology and a murdered astrologer. Synchronicity and a Synchronicity Foundation. An actor who had played a terrorist bomber was in the midst of one of the first waves of Mumbai attacks. One of the first people killed was the chief of the Mumbai police's anti-terror squad. Synchronicity is the coincidental occurrence of events that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality. As we look more closely at the attacks in Mumbai, India, how does one separate the human planning from the synchronicity that apparently underlies these events? The events will reveal many "coincidences" as the attacks are charted and deconstructed. How does an actor who played a terrorist bomber find himself in the midst of a terrorist attack? Daily Mail photo, above. Where, who, why? A gunman enters the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, November 26, 2008, opening AK-47 gunfire and throwing hand genades, killing at least ten ...

Late in November 2008, Showtime TV began screening the recent movie, Chapter 27 . I suppose it is being shown now because its broadcast is tied to the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon on December 8th. Timing is everything. The movie has many intriguing moments. First some background. Chapter 27 is an independent film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman, starring Jared Leto and Lindsay Lohan. It was written and directed by J. P. Schaefer. Although it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007, it did not make it to a release in theaters in the USA until March 2008. It came and went quickly, as they say, because it was a box office failure. It retains its "made for television" docudrama feel, and so, perhaps, it is more fitting I saw it on cable. The film's title refers to Mark David Chapman's alleged obsession with J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye . The title implies that Chapman's killing of...

Will a rash of copycat suicides occur because of graphic wall-to-wall media coverage of future "celebrity suicides" linked to stock market collapses? Reporter Kyle Martin surveyed this blog, The Copycat Effect, and interviewed me for Sunday's article in Hernando Today , a publication of The Tampa Tribune to attempt to answer this question. Link Is Shaky Between Suicide And Economy by Kyle Martin Hernando Today November 23, 2008 It's the kind of water cooler theory that has just enough credibility to sound plausible. As the economy continues to post record losses, it's generally accepted that more people will commit suicide as their 401ks evaporate and unemployment rises. After all, brokers jumped from windows during the market crash of 1929, right? Well, yes and no. Like many rumors, it's necessary to sift through the fiction to find the nuggets of truth that are often the genesis of these stories. First, take a look at the numbers. Records from the medical ...

Reuters is reporting that a Brazilian trader shot himself on Monday, November 17th, in the open outcry pit of Sao Paulo's commodities and futures exchange in an apparent suicide attempt. Trading was halted for a few minutes after the shot was fired on Monday, right before the regularly scheduled closing time. Paulo Sergio Silva, 36, a trader for the brokerage arm of Brazilian banking giant Itau (ITAU4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), shot himself in the chest during the afternoon trading session, the exchange said, and hospital staff said he was in critical condition. Silva was given first aid on the scene before being transported to the hospital, BM&F Bovespa SA (BVMF3.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which operates the exchange, said in a statement without providing further details. Traders said the incident happened in the interest rate futures pit, a raucous circle where on average $21 billion worth of contracts exchange hands every day. Brazil's fin...

Few realize that the massacre at Jonestown is related to the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, and to the murders of others more obviously linked to the People's Temple cult. In the following excerpt from The Copycat Effect , the ripples from this 30 year old tragedy are examined and these dots are connected. George Moscone, Jim Jones, and Walter Mondale (above). Jonestown One of the most discussed modern mass suicides occurred in the unique setting of Jonestown, Guyana. Jonestown in the early 1970s was little more than a nine‑hundred acre island cut out of the thick South American rainforest. It was there that the Reverend James Warren “Jim” Jones relocated his People's Temple from the San Francisco area. Allegations were first published in the Guyana Daily Mirror that Jonestown was a “concentration camp” in which Jones’s flock were given psychotropic drugs, sexually abused, sleep deprived, and forced to work 18 hour days. Former members told of drills, called...

A self-immolation of an elder Chinese man has occurred at Taiwan's Liberty Square, the site of a student sit-in on October 7, 2008. Liu Po-yen, a 79-year-old man, set himself on fire around noon (local time) on November 11, 2008, at the Square and was rushed to NTU, according to the Taipei Police Bureau The 79-year-old ignited inflammable liquid on his body and he was then soon put out by the police and passers-by. The old man was sent to National Taiwan University Hospital by ambulance, with 90% total body surface area burn and in critical condition. According to the inspection chief of Chongcheng First Branch, issuing flyers blasting the government at Liberty Square at noon, the old man suddenly set himself on fire. The elder had poured onto himself some inflammable liquid, possibly gasoline or diesel fuel, said the chief. The fire department received a report at 1:03 pm of an elder citizen self-immolation. While the ambulance arrived, the fire was doused by people nearby and pol...

In the wake of the University of Washington self-immolation, another university-related suicide by fire has occurred on the other side of the country on Halloween. (Also, there is an update on the identity of the UW victim.) Is there some key to understanding these deaths, based on their dates? On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison of Baltimore set himself afire outside the Pentagon office of the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, in direct protest to the Vietnam War. Norman was the executive secretary of a Quaker community in Baltimore, and, according to his wife, appeared to decide on his act after reading an article by a South Vietnamese priest about the bombing of a village there. A week after Norman Morrison's death, on November 9, 1965, another American Roger A. LaPorte, 21, a member of the Catholic Worker movement, died in a self-immolation protest. Norman sat down in front of the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the United Nations in New York, calmly composed himself in the...