Piece Of Art

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue, September 29, 2010. +++ Thursday, September 30th update: Authorities identified the man as David Parker, 24. +++ BREAKING NEWS: On Wednesday, September 29, 2010, in Portland, Maine, at Longfellow Square, according to eyewitness accounts, a lone man, covered in gasoline, set himself on fire beside the statue of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The individual ran screaming out into the intersection of State Street and Congress Street and then fell to the ground. Emergency crews and police rushed to the scene as immolation sourced smoke filled the air. Law enforcement officers are investigating, at this time. Eyewitnesses described to me that the individual was in his early 20s, had a small beard or goatee, and was Caucasian. One person who talked to him said the person repeated over and over, "Just let me die." Several strange things of interest to twilight language students are developing with this event. Longfellow's wife died in a f...

In Israel, where there is one suspected case, the deputy health minister, Yakov Litzman, said the disease will not be known as swine flu, because religious Jews do not eat pork. "We will call it Mexico flu. We won't call it swine flu," he said. ~ Guardian . What are they calling the flu in New Zealand, where the number of cases has skyrocketed to 60 today? The flu virus spreading globally should not be called "swine flu" as it also contains avian and human components and no pig allegedly has been found ill with the disease so far, the French group, the World Animal Health says. A more logical name for it would be "North-American influenza," a name based on its geographic origin just like the Spanish influenza, another human flu pandemic with a non-human animal origin that killed more than 50 million people in 1918-1919, notes the WAH. "The virus has not been isolated in animals to date. Therefore it is not justified to name this disease swine infl...

The sinking of the Maine on February 15, 1898 precipitated the Spanish-American War and also popularized the phrase Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain! It became as well-known as the battle cry Remember the Alamo! The cause of the explosion that sank the Maine remains an unsolved mystery. Christopher Knowles' Secret Sun blog mentions today New York City's Maine Monument. Knowles made me a bit curious about the placement of this highly significant piece of Masonic art, especially as it is connected to the name of my resident state. Since I did a little digging on this, I figured I would share some of this here with you. This monument is clearly Masonic. In the article about the initial construction, in the February 16, 1912 issue of the New York Times , it says, "Just fourteen years after the destruction of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor, and thirteen after the inception of the project to build a monument in commemoration of the 266 sailors who perished i...

I investigate and try to understand the links between the modeling of suicidal behavior in popular culture and media, such as in movies, and self-deaths that come later. History - in fiction and fact - based on contagion theory - appears to repeat itself. The suicide cluster of teenagers in the Camden-Rockport-Rockland, Maine, area, during the 1970s and 2000s, - often due to death by hanging in their closets - has been of great concern to me for several years. The high suicide rate for Camden's Knox County is likewise troubling. Today, I made a disturbing "coincidental" discovery regarding Peyton Place . The method and location of the suicide depicted in the movie is chilling and significant. The most graphic suicide to be included in a modern American movie up to that time occurred in Peyton Place, a film that changed the subject matter parameters of moviemaking forever. In the plot of the film, the character Nellie hangs herself in her "friend" Connie's...