The Sacrifice of the Female Tree Huggers

 Very powerful, and very tragic. 

Female Indian tree huggers:

“Soil is ours. Water is ours. Ours are these forests. Our forefathers raised them. It’s we who must protect them.” A song from the Chipko Movement in India

The Chipko Movement is a great example of a Gandhian movement that was based on nonviolent principles of satyagraha. Chipko means to hug, and this movement is synonymous with the enduring images of rural women hugging their community trees to stop rampant deforestation.In the Garhwal Himalayan region of Uttarakhand in the 70s, there was rapid environmental degradation due to commercial logging. It became clear, especially to women, that logging was destroying their forests and threatening their access to key forest resources needed for their daily sustenance.

The article also relates the story of women who stood, defiant, and hugged the trees even as they were being slaughtered by the loggers.  

Tina Sena: Esotericana

Our contributor Tina Sena's current column over at Binnall of America:How To Make The Perfect Paranormal TV Show
In An Imperfect Normal World. Tina discusses paranormal programming, and has a proposal:

Which is why I propose that Syfy, National Geographic and the History Channel (and others like BRAVO, etc.,.) seriously consider doing a paranormal show with a mostly, if not all, female cast. And I'm not talking about your average formulaic paranormal show. It has to be something that's never been done before: A show for women, with women and about women from different professional backgrounds, investigating the oldest, weirdest, most paranormally significant places on Earth.

I'm for that! One of my dreams is to start my own paranormal UFO network. Hmmm...

A few years ago, I think on the Lifetime channel, there was a show about female abductees. Had a cheesy title, something like "I was abducted by aliens!" but it wasn't bad, despite the shaky camera stuff.

Must Be a Slow News Day for Mad Makow

James Rich, Beside Herself, acrylic on canvas

This is so old school Women's Studies 101; Henry Makow ("Mad" Makow I call him) has reposted his paranoid rant from 2001: savethemales.ca - "Vagina Monologues" - Porn Play Debased Women. Makow is, as always, hyperbolic in his infinite campaign against feminism, gays, the Illuminati/Satanists, and Jews. They're all in it together, don't you know.

One of Makow's many surrealistic opinions on what women are really about is that once feminists discover the truth about the evil agenda that lives within, these women are doomed. Doomed! Because all that's left for these women is to become gay:

"The Vagina Monologues" presents a sad picture of life at the dead-end of feminism. It is an anguished cry for male love by a generation of women deceived by feminism, who now have no choice but to become lesbians.

Something about the play has Makow worked up, for he uses the word "steamy" twice in his denouncement:

the play provides a steamy experience of sexual intimacy.

"The Vagina Monologues" quickly becomes a steamy chronicle of lesbian sex 

Parsing the twilight language in Makow's writing is always fun; I'm sure his use of the word "flavor" in the following is inadvertent but it made me laugh:

Forgive me for what follows but I am trying to convey the pornographic flavor of this so-called play.

Makow writes that "fixation" on one's genitals is "pure homosexuality." I'm serious here, is anyone out there listening to this fool?  Sadly, and more to the point, frighteningly, the answer is yes. Of course Makow's a clown, but what's scary is that there are plenty of both men and women who follow his misogynistic philosophies and those people are very serious. Furthermore, his biggest fan seems to be Jeff Rense, who happily posts links to Makow's current articles on a regular basis.

I wondered how long it would take Makow to get into the world domination by evil feminist-Jew-lesbians via their Illuminati ways shtick. No matter what the topic of his rants are -- it could be recipes for jello salad or whatever -- he brings it all around to the insidious plots to rule teh wolrd by lesbian-jew-feminists.
Even though the subject of Makow's current piece is The Vagina Monologues, he goes from theater critic to paranoid goof ball. Well, he was a paranoid goof ball to begin with, but anyway. He segues into a brief section titled Illuminati Brainwashing, where he once again equates self-empowerment and being educated about one's body to having a "hatred of hetrosexuality." Next section: Agitprop, where Makow discusses the "tactics" used by Communists, which, don't ya know, are also used by the evil pinko-jew-lesbian-feminist cabal:

We must face the fact that feminism is a homosexual movement in deadly competition with heterosexuality. It is part of a wider covert war aimed at subverting Western civilization and enslaving society.  

Mrs. June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) in her kitchen

As I mentioned earlier, the comments left on Makow's site are disturbing. Makow may be a fruitcake: old, stale, and moldy, left far too long on a crusty
contact-papered shelf in June Cleaver's kitchen, but I can't ignore the fact that there are those that take Makow seriously. One comment left by "Phil" puts the The Vagina Monologues in the same category as torture and war:

Dr. Makow – thanks for your expose of this popular pornographic play. It is a sign of a very sick culture that things like this are so easily accepted by society these days, along with torture as official policy, pre-emptive wars, and the slaughter of innocents.

I can't speak to the play itself as a play, since I've never seen the play, only having seen various scenes throughout the years. Something about the play always struck me as, while empowering and all that good stuff, as also kind of do-gooder upper middle class bourgeoisie tripe.  But regardless of if I've seen the play or not, it's clear Makow's issues with the play are with women taking control of their own bodies and educating themselves. Finding offense at basic sexuality is such a sad yet ridiculous response to have in these times, (any times) and then equating that with the downfall of society while ignoring the real stuff -- you know, like the world literally cracking open --  is truly bizarro. So, in that context, one question among many questions, is why does Jeff Rense insist on promoting Henry Makow?

Animal Forteana: Here Be Dragons! Itty Baby Ones, on Game of Thrones

Of the season finale of Game of Thrones, dragons, and (possible) Queens:

True, the women have power, but the King trumps the Queen. Ah, but not so fast, for Khaleesi/Daenerys Targaryen has come into her own. Surrounded by her dragons, she will indeed rule, I suspect. And I bet the red winged dragon will be her special one; the leader of the pack (all three of them), the one who leads the way

Animal Forteana: Here Be Dragons! Itty Baby Ones, on Game of Thrones

Found Poem: 'It's OK to be a woman'

“It’s OK to be a woman!”

found poem, by Regan Lee, April 2011

inspired by the ravings of Henry Makow’s It’s OK to be a woman: April 1st, 2008

It's OK to be a woman!

pretty daffodils poking their heads

above matted leaves,

alone

strike me as confused.

You have been betrayed by society.

poison for women.

the things you most need

courtship and marriage.

No more dates.

No more flowers, dinners, dances

and movies.

behavior modification

Watch this video.

dynamiting the four legs of our human identity

You are in the Springtime of your life.

you are

at the height

of your fertility

we can't get a raincheck from nature.

Consecrate yourself

Don't waste your time

on boys

or

nomads.

Let the sluts

have the sex.

sacrifice

for the right man. (This will make him love you.)

the dynamics of heterosexuality

SEX IS THE SECRET RELIGION OF SECULAR SOCIETY

hunger for food or love.

Our neo-pagan society

a mystical religious experience

achieving

salvation.

society is secretly run

by a sex cult,

obelisks

illustrated sex

our religion.

goddesses. 

as ordinary as men.

Hollywood nonsense

flawed

you have been betrayed by society.

social engineering.

participate.

From Speculative Realms: The Girl Who Saved Her Own Life

Gary Haden at Speculative Realms is one of the few out there who are diligently exposing David Jacobs. (Others include Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzman, who have received a lot of bewildering flack for bringing this story to the UFO "community" in the first place.) It continues to astound me that UFO culture remains, at turns, either silent on Jacob's methods and character, or, continue to vilify Emma Woods as [paraphrasing various pundits] a "crazy, troubled, mentally ill bitch."

Haden is an excellent writer, on top of being an excellent researcher -- his painstaking articles contain reams of analysis -- and I certainly don't want to want to take anything he's written in his current article out of context, or "high jack" his words and intent. But here's just one little something: Jacobs' outrageous, crazy, fucking straight out wrong action, in suggesting to Woods that she has Multiple Personality Disorder. This alone should be enough for others to roundly call Jacobs out, but, there's been very little of that, and a whole lot of cricket chirping.

Here's just one excerpt from Haden's article, relating to Jacobs planting the suggestion in Emma Wood's subconscious under hypnosis without permission. Again: without permission:

At no point in the four-hour tract I listened to did David Jacobs ask Emma Woods's permission to administer to her a posthypnotic suggestion she had multiple personality disorder. [bolding mine]

“I'm going to count from five to one, and just remember now, my diagnosis is that this is Multiple Personality Disorder and you should take medication for it. (nervous chuckle from Emma Woods) I have seen lots of cases of MPD, and this absolutely fits the MPD profile. And, my professional diagnosis therefore is Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“I am studying it. I am writing a book about it,” Jacobs continues. “That is my next book. I feel that the whole sort of alien business is all a matter of multiple personality disorder. It’s a much more widespread phenomenon than people think. Lots of people are walking around with it. It’s a public health problem. And that, you are unfortunately suffering from it. And, my opinion is that yours is a classic case, and that – that the only thing that will help you will be medication. And um, I am not interested in--in--your stories, I am only interested in the fact that you tell those stories, because multiple personalities are all different.”

Speculative Realms: The Girl Who Saved Her Own Life

There are so many side shoots of this nasty, weird, episode in UFOlogy, so many, and one of the many tangled, twisted, darkly gnarled and poisonous roots of Jacobs' actions is the question of the aliens themselves. Why is Jacobs now suggesting aliens are nothing other than manifestations of MPD? A big, bellowing HELLO on that one. (And do I have to note that David Jacobs is not a psychologist, a therapist, or a psychiatrist, and that his doctorate is in history?)

But, I do not want to deflect from the main issue, which is Jacobs' actions, his words, his behavior, his denials, his excuses, his justifications, his treatment of Emma Woods and others like her. Theories are one thing, as to what the aliens are, -- not one of us knows that. Well, some of us do, there are those in power we never see or hear that know damn well, but that's another issue and I digress.  What I, or you, "believe" about aliens, UFOs, ET, and the myriad of theories addressing those things doesn't change, nor negate, a damn thing just because David Jacobs has turned a very ugly corner.  No, the only issue here is Jacobs' approach to the witnesses he's interviewed. And, I'd add, the continued silence from others about that.

Women in Ufology - A Resource Site

Regan already mentioned this in October, but I wanted to write up a bit more about it:

Women in Ufology:

The Women featured on this site bring both intellectual and practical skills. They are available as conference speakers, as media guests, as artists, designers and filmmakers, to serve on boards of UFO organizations, as case investigators, consultants, regression therapists, writers, and in a variety of other capacities.


The purpose of Women in Ufology is to inform those members of the UFO community who may not be aware of the many accomplished Women working in ufology today. Conference promoters, media hosts, leaders in the UFO community—this site will help YOU! We believe you will be amazed at the wealth of talent and experience you will find among the Women described here.

Women in Ufology is still in it's fledgling state, so keep checking over the next few weeks as the site fills out and more women added to the resource list.

If you are interested in being listed on this site, shoot and email to: womeninufology@gmail.com


~Deirdre O'Lavery