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The WMail Newsletter Essays
Volume III - Issue #20: February 2002
So where does this common increased anxiety come from? Why such a need to get somewhere at double-quick time, like human sled-dogs staring at the ass of the dog just in front, with no knowledge of where the journey has brought us, much less where we are ultimately headed? Run, run, run don't dare stop hafta, hafta, hafta.
Consider this: In all of human history, back hundreds of thousands of years, electro-magnetic radiation [E.M.R.] did not exist. Nikola Tesla (one of my primary heroes) invented broadcast radio in 1893. Your school no doubt taught you that it was Marconi who invented radio: just another lie from the Culture-Structure. The U.S. Supreme Court vindicated Tesla's priority in the invention of radio in a case that was finally decided in June 1943, five months after Tesla's death at 86. Marconi's work was based on 17 of Tesla's patents!
Tesla also invented polyphase alternating current, the A.C. that powers virtually every device in your home or office, which invention earned him the lifelong enmity of Thomas Alva Edison, whose economic interests lay in D.C. [direct current] power.
Just over 100 years ago. When the telegraph was state-of-the-art.
And look at what the gods have since wrought:
»»»» RADIO: Broadcast in all of its A.M. & F.M. frequencies, plus short-wave in hundreds more frequencies, so that international radio receivers that pick up the B.B.C. worldwide network and Voice of America look like an airplane cockpit. The 'Silent Radio Network' those receivers high on the wall displaying news bulletins moving across red lights is still operating, though long absent from my local post office.
Besides the simple receivers, there are a myriad of two-way radio systems, such as for taxicabs and truckers and police, and C.B. (citizens band) frequencies, and 'ham radio' for emergencies.
Hundreds of frequencies beamed thru buildings and cars and human bodies 24 hours every day, with enough strength to be picked up by a Radio Shack receiver powered by two AA batteries.
»»»» TELEVISION was first restricted to the dozen V.H.F. channels two thru thirteen beamed down from atop local mountains. Then came U.H.F.'s further hundred or so channels. Then satellites, beaming down a thousand channels to your local network stations and cable providers, picked up by those 60-foot dishes lurking behind warehouses here and there. And more satellite channels beamed to the houses of you and your neighbors, whether or not you have a dish on your rooftop.
»»»» TELEPHONES: Cellular phones are obvious, with each cell defined by the ugly antenna-ed towers about every mile or so in urban areas. But don't forget satellite phone access from the boonies, and the microwave towers that phone companies use to transmit locally, and portable phones right in your living room or bedroom.
Most importantly, though, is the fact that all telephones are two-way conversations. So every third automobile or truck or bus within a mile of you is adding one more signal to the cacophony, each signal strong enough to be picked up three levels down in the parking garage or by the relay satellite 50 miles above your head.
Same for pagers and beepers and wireless handhelds.
»»»» RADAR (also invented by Tesla): Airplanes above, highway patrol at ground level, and sonar beneath the sea. And you probably never even heard of the semi-secret H.A.A.R.P. Project up in Alaska, beaming signals down to the Lower 48, possibly attempting to control the weather.
»»»» AIRPLANES: Besides radios and radar and loran, they have all manner of on-board gear, including transponders that send a constant signal to report the aircraft's location. Plus the 'black boxes' that activate upon crash landing.
»»»» MICROWAVE OVENS: At home and office, plus every fast food restaurant, and even 'slow food' restaurants use them. Strong enough several feet away to mess up grandpa's pacemaker. (And don't forget what runs the pacemaker: electro-magnetism!)
»»»» GARAGE-DOOR OPENERS: Your neighbor pushes the clicker button to exit or enter the garage, and the signal passes right thru your bedroom and right thru your children's bodies, too.
»»»» SECURITY: Every time you press the button on your key chain, a little signal passes thru the craniums of anyone in the parking lot that is anywhere between you and your car, and beyond. Plus those little gas company key chain things, like Mobil Pass, and security tag scanners at the exits of stores that YOU walk thru, going in and out.
»»»» COMPUTERS: When I was in the Air Force, programming IBM 1401 equipment, one of the cute demonstrations of the Magic of Computers was to load a particular card deck and then place a standard transistor radio atop the mainframe cabinet. We had two versions: one played "The Star-Spangled Banner", and the other (courtesy of a nearby Navy storage facility) of "Anchors Aweigh". And the really scary part of the demo was when we realized that the transistor radio delivered the music just as well with the power of the radio OFF the EMR was strong enough to power the speaker all by itself!
Included in this category are A.T.M. machines, automated gas pumps, cash registers, video games, and lots of hardware in the workplace.
»»»» VIDEO SCREENS: Put a sheet of paper about an inch in front of any modern PC video screen, and then push the power button ON. The static generated will suck the paper flat up against the glass right where you put your face eight or more hours every day.
»»»» POWER LINES: The folks who believe that living underneath high-tension electric power transmission lines causes cancer have not been able to prove their case without a doubt. But I will never buy or rent any place within a mile of such lines. Nor of cell phone towers. Nor of radio or TV towers.
»»»» G.P.S.: Global positioning satellites, so your car knows where it is, and people in a different time zone know where your car or cell phone is at all times.
There is a British legal term of 'not proven', where guilt is probable but the evidence is not strong enough to convict. The same is true for high-tension power lines being a cause of cancer, or EMR being the cause of anxious citizens: not proven.
We cannot yet prove that Mankind's wasteful habits are the cause of global warming, but global warming is now known to exist: Acid rain is no longer news, though forests across America are stunted and dying. The oceans are rising, the glaciers in Africa disappearing, the Arctic tundra melting, icebergs the size of Manhattan are breaking off the Antarctic continent, the tree line for various species is moving higher and higher each year.
We cannot prove that EMR is the cause of cancer or societal malaise or road rage or other ills.
But what Reason gives us is this: For millions of years the planet was in balance, and though Mankind struggled to put food on the table and to live in peace with the neighbors and other predators, the struggle was not for survival as a species, but only to develop skills enough to live a long life, to be healthy, perhaps to express a little of oneself thru art or craft, to give a better life to one's children.
So why is the entire biosphere now struggling to survive, to maintain ecological balance? What activities of Mankind hinder the survival of the biosphere?
No cause is proven. But the rapacious consumption of fossil fuels to generate the electricity to power your dozens of electrical appliances cannot improve air quality. How many of you sit there in a household with half a dozen TV sets, with family members often spending hours with a cell phone in one hand and game stick or wireless mouse in the other?
This cannot be necessary to your biological well-being. Your body has no protection against EMR, nor is there anywhere to hide. Maybe a lead-lined pyramid hat? Naw, I don't think so.
You cannot protect yourself or your loved ones from EMR, but the action that you can take is to stop producing EMR.
Sell the TV sets, the cell phones, the Walkman devices, all the high-tech doodads. Keep the computer, do email, but read books & newspapers and slow yourself down.
Take a walk to relax: do just the one thing: walk. Or run, or work out at the gym. Do so without headphones pumping EMR into your brain.
Meet your neighbors. (How many do you actually know?) Meet your spouse and children, for godsakes.
Keep the use of electricity down, and reduce it further as an ongoing commitment, and you will help save the planet (and save a few bucks, too, as icing on the proverbial cake).
If enough people learn to kick the habit of over-use of EMR, perhaps the EMR jim-jams will go away, and Mankind can live a simpler, de-stressed life.
And then we can begin to give thought to the matter of who has been leading Mankind on this path to biological destruction, and away from the possibility of inner peace, of biological integrity a state not available inside an environment bombarded by thousands of EMR frequencies from every direction in three dimensions, all day, every day.
Or turn on your TV and bask in all those EMR signals and watch Mankind self-destruct.
Silence is better. You have the power to turn the humming machinery of the Culture-Structure to the OFF position. Click! Click, click, click, clickety.
The Silence will reward you.
The preceding is an excerpt from Chapter 17 of my forthcoming book, "Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment".
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