Thursday, July 5, 2012

Dangers on the Road to Foreclosure


The Supreme Court of Rhode Island has stated that the homeowner must pay a deficiency judgment to the bank based on the amount owed on the mortgage minus the cash price for the home at auction.
By Joan d’Arc
Rhode Island has the highest home foreclosure rate in New England. If your home has been foreclosed, or you are considering “walking away,” for instance, to rent or move in with family, there are some legal facts of which you should be aware. Perhaps you’re in the middle of one of those long, drawn out “short sales” or you’re thinking of joining the new wave of voluntary or “strategic defaulters” who have decided to stop investing in your underwater home. 
But how fast can you run from banking schemes like “deficiency judgments” and “recourse” laws? In many states known as "recourse states" maybe not fast enough. 
Homeowner beware: approximately forty states have laws on the books that are blatantly bank-friendly. In a “recourse state” the bank has recourse to file a lawsuit in court to grab your personal assets, such as other properties, land, or bank accounts, and may even garnish wages. These asset grabs and wage garnishments may have not yet begun, but there is reason to believe they will begin as soon as the banks catch up with the foreclosure free-fall. 
The business of banking in many common law countries is not defined by statute, but by common law. World Law Direct explains: “Several states continue to adhere to the common-law rule that when a foreclosure sale does not yield at least the amount of the mortgage obligation, the mortgagee is entitled to a deficiency judgment measured by the difference between the foreclosure price and the mortgage obligation.” Common law allows lenders to sue borrowers directly, as well as file multiple actions on the same mortgage default. 
Following is an example of what occurred in the state of Rhode Island to make sure this dastardly deed remained secure on the law books. In the DEPCO v. Macomber case, which occurred during the infamous Savings and Loan scandal in the early 1990s, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island reiterated that the homeowner must pay a deficiency judgment to the bank based on the amount owed on the mortgage minus the cash price for the home at auction. This law is clearly based on "common law rule" which is our leftover lunch from the British Empire.


In the approximately eleven non-recourse states, the bank can only take the property, and cannot sue in court for any deficiency claimed to be owed to the bank. The states that can be classified as non-recourse for residential mortgages are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington (and recently joining the list, Nevada). Thus, one task ahead is to explore how Rhode Island and other states can go about becoming non-recourse, anti-deficiency states.

If you go with the short sale, current home sales in Rhode Island are taking several years if they sell at all; usually way past the period of time the homeowner can survive financially.  This is true across America now in most states. During this time, the bank will expect payments on time, and will likely reject any reasonable short sale offer.  Why? Because banks are holding the cards and have lots of options; among them, selling the mortgage to a possibly related entity, or suing the homeowner for deficiency judgment in the state courts. 
And there is yet another beast set upon the weary homeowner following foreclosure. Regardless of whether the mortgage is recourse or non-recourse, the deficiency judgment is taxable by the IRS. After your house sells at auction, you will receive a 1099 from the bank on which will be reported your “income” from the sale of the house. That’s right. The IRS considers the bank’s write-off on their books as income on your books. Nothing else quite makes as clear the notion that money is not real.

For the moment, a Congressional bill put forth in 2007 placed a stop to this phantom tax until 2010, and later extended it to December 31, 2012. It is currently unknown whether this date will be extended. Other options might be Chapter 7 bankruptcy, Chapter 13 reorganization, or the simple fact of insolvency; that is, if you don’t own any property, bank accounts, trusts, etc., there’s nothing to take from you. But the IRS always gets its money somehow, usually by garnishing your wages.

Here is the crux: There is no real incentive for banks to spend the billions of dollars they got to help people. The money goes around but does not stop in your hands. I ask anyone interested or knowledgeable in these subjects to please join in this fight. If you have information on this subject, please leave your comments below, including any links to interesting information related to these subjects.


After all, you are the 99 percent!

Copyright, Joan d’Arc






Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Miraculous Adventures of Person Man


By Joan d'Arc

Who came up with Person Man, degraded man, Person Man? - Linnell/Flansburgh, “They Might Be Giants”

In his book The Twelfth Planet, Sitchin posits that the Nefilim (Anunnaki) “did not create the mammals or the primates or the hominids, or the genus Homo,” but rather, created the first Homo sapiens. Sitchin deduces from the Sumerian writings that the Anunnaki arrived about 450,000 years ago, just before the warmer climates of the interglacial period occurring about 435,000 years ago “brought about a proliferation of food and animals,” and “speeded up the appearance and spread of an advanced manlike ape, Homo erectus.” Cylinder seals of the Sumerians depict the “shaggy ape-man among his animal friends,” and complain that it let the animals loose from Anunnaki traps. Another Sumerian text states that “the Mother Goddess gave to her creature, Man, ‘a skin as the skin of a god,’ a smooth, hairless body, quite different from that of the shaggy ape-man.”

Sitchin contends in this book that the space travelers took the species Homo erectus and “implanted on him their own image and likeness.” Importantly, he asserts: “Evolution cannot account for the appearance of Homo sapiens, which happened virtually overnight in terms of the millions of years evolution requires, and with no evidence of earlier stages that would indicate a gradual change from Homo erectus.”

On the other hand, in his book The Gods of Eden, William Bramley has queried whether it was the species Homo sapiens which was the guinea pig for the genetic engineering of the Anunnaki gods, and whether it was the species Homo sapiens sapiens which was the end result of these manipulations. In support of his thesis, he quotes the Encyclopedia Americana’s interpretation of the fossil record of sapiens sapiens as appearing “with seeming suddenness just over 30,000 years ago, probably earlier in eastern than in western Europe.”

Which Shaggy “Ape-Man” Was It?


It is commonly agreed that Homo sapiens sapiens, fully modern humans, arrived on the scene rather abruptly only about 30,000 years ago. Whether or not we agree with the currently accepted evolutionary paradigm, let’s see how it squares with the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, and as well, let’s explore a few alternative explanations.

It is commonly suggested in anthropological literature that “bipedal hominids” appeared in Africa between three and four million years ago. Fossils of the genus Australopithecus are “well represented by many specimens from various places in Africa,” displaying a pelvis which would “accompany bipedal locomotion,” and generally a cranial capacity which is “small by human standards but large for a small ape,” write Lasker and Tyzzer in a college text book entitled Physical Anthropology. Crude stone tools also appeared about 2.2 million years ago but it is generally unknown “whether the earliest stone tools were made by Australopithecus or by a more advanced contemporary hominid.”

It is clear, however, that these populations were very distinct from modern humans. Extreme variation has been noted in this species, which has led some scholars to believe there were at least two species of Australopithecus, while others consider these variations to be the result of differences between local populations, sexes, or variations in the gene pool arising over time. Regardless of these differences of opinion, it is widely agreed, write Lasker and Tyzzer, that “at least the early members of the genus were evidently ancestral to our species.” They clarify, “evidence from East Africa shows that divergence somehow occurred within the lineage, since robust Australopithecus was apparently contemporary with members of the genus Homo about 1.5 million years ago.”

On the other hand, the transition between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens has been a difficult issue for anthropologists to settle. Importantly, although each “species” exhibits its own distinctive traits, “there is a tendency to exaggerate the differences.” Ignoring questionable specimens and limiting consideration to fossils found in Java, Peking and East Africa, write Lasker and Tyzzer (p. 352-354), “the range of variation of many features of Homo erectus falls within that of modern Homo sapiens.” In addition, there is a remarkable similarity between Homo erectus finds from Lake Turkana, East Africa, dated 1.5 million years before present and Homo erectus fossils discovered in Choukoutien, China, dated 400,000 to 500,000 years B.P. (before present), suggesting a “long equilibrium period during which little change occurred.”

We need to remind ourselves that these lineages are, at best, educated guesses; that is, guesses made by people educated in the Darwinian tradition. For instance, in his book Mankind Evolving, Dobhansky suggests that the evolution of Australopithecine to Homo sapiens occurred in a continuous lineage within a single gene pool. Stephen Stanley disagrees. In his book The New Evolutionary Timetable, he outlines his thesis that “a very small number of discrete, long-lived intermediate species may have overlapped each other.” Zuckerman has stated that “attempts to place fossils in an evolutionary sequence depend partly on guesswork, and partly on some preconceived conception of the course of hominid evolution.”

In short, it’s best not to take any of these contrivances very seriously. The species Homo habilis (the “Handy Man”), the Leakey family’s 1964 missing link, consisted of a lower jaw with teeth, a collarbone, a finger bone, and some small fragments of skull. For the first time, writes Richard Milton in Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, “a new human species was to be described on the basis of teeth and fragments alone, and in circumstances where the association of the bones as those of a single individual was conjectural.” It has since been suggested that one of the hand bones is actually a piece of vertebra, two of the other bones may belong to a tree-dwelling monkey, and six other bones came from an unspecified non-hominid.

With regard to Homo habilis, its hands and feet are also very apelike, calling into question the human-like picture of the Leakey’s “Handy Man,” as well as other “supposed human ancestors one usually encounters in Time-Life picture books and National Geographic Society television specials.” According to Cremo and Thompson in Hidden History of the Human Race, some researchers have even concluded that, “there was no justification for ‘creating’ this species in the first place.” It has been suggested that Homo habilis was “mistakenly derived from a mixture of skeletal elements belonging to Australopithecus and Homo erectus.” Others believe Homo habilis bones are completely australopithecine. It is no wonder that Richard Leakey’s assessment of the material in this book, displayed on the back jacket, states: “Your book is pure humbug and does not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone but a fool.” Could somebody be feeling foolish?

I love Lucy


In 1994, two arm bones, an ulna and a humerus, were established as belonging to the mysterious creature, Australopithecus afarensis. It is typical that an entire evolutionary sequence can be extrapolated from a few bones, sometimes even scattered across a few miles. Such illicit extrapolations can eventually come to describe a creature which “climbed in the trees but also walked on two legs when on the ground.” Hmmm. Could these researchers be looking for a “transitional” find?

The best known fossil of A. afarensis is the one called Lucy, which you can see at the Museum of Natural History in New York and London. From her glass case, writes Richard Milton, “Lucy peers with an intelligent gaze at visitors, her posture fully erect and humanlike, her hands and feet also short and humanlike.” Incredibly, Lucy’s apelike appearance was ignored when she was restored to ostensibly lifelike appearance for both of these museum exhibits. In actuality, the hands and feet of this species are long and curved like that of a tree-dwelling ape. The finger and toe bones of this species are “highly curved even when compared to those of a modern ape like a chimpanzee.” Milton quips: “Just why Lucy should have been restored to have humanlike hands and feet, contrary to the known anatomical facts, remains a mystery which only her restorers can explain.”

Specifically, the rib cage of A. afarensis is conical in shape, not barrel-shaped like a human rib cage. Lucy’s shoulders, trunk, and waist have a “strong apelike aspect to them.” At an international conference held in Paris in 1989, anthropologist Peter Schmid stated that A. afarensis “would not have been able to lift its thorax for the kind of deep breathing that we do when we run.” He explained that the abdomen was potbellied and there was no waist, thus restricting the flexibility required to accomplish the feat of running. In addition, Leslie Aiello’s work on body weight and stature of A. afarensis clearly identified it as an ape. The australopithecines were more apelike in their body build; heavily built for their stature, like that of a present day ape. Richard Leakey sums it up: “Australopithecines had been bipeds, but were restricted in their agility; while species of Homo were athletes.” According to Leakey in Origin of Humankind, the inner ear structure of A. afarensis has been shown to exhibit semicircular canals which resemble those of apes. The structure of the pelvis and lower limbs also suggest an apelike gait. Leakey also states that A. afarensis was not a toolmaker.

A Gorilla Picnic without the Basket


With regard to different Australopithecus finds in South Africa called P. robustus, Ian Tattersall—Curator of the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History—describes in detail the dentition, skull size and shape and facial architecture of fossils attributed to this 1.7 million year old species. His illustrated compendium entitled The Last Neanderthal shows an upper skull of this australopithicene, which exhibits, in his words, a “sagittal crest reminiscent of those in some gorillas.” Describing the brain case, Tattersall admits it is “hard to estimate it as a proportion of body size, because not very much of the body skeleton is known.”

However, neither the author nor his publisher, Simon & Schuster, are reticent to reproduce alongside these descriptions an artistic rendition of these supposed “pre-humans,” with arms and legs of modern human proportion. A color illustration shows a rather tall and lanky, fully upright gorilla-human couple carrying a gorilla-human child, walking through an open pasture with a fully upright gait. The pastoral scene is complete with frolicking gorilla-human children and several deer: essentially a gorilla-human picnic without the basket, circa 1.7 million B.P. Alongside this scene, Tattersall suggests: “it is likely, if not entirely certain, that these hominids used bones and horn cores for digging.” As noted earlier, Leakey has stated that this hominid was “not a toolmaker.” Tattersall hasn’t lied; he has merely suggested that the hominids picked something up and used it to dig. Chimpanizees do that. But, as sure as they are standing, there should be no question that fully upright bipeds would be toolmakers. It goes with the territory. Everything is wrong with this picture.

Such artistic license has been the hallmark of the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. As Richard Milton explains in Shattering the Myths, alongside prints of the busts of Piltdown man, Java man and Neanderthal man, “Darwinian restorations based on fragmentary finds of bones and teeth always manage to convey a distinct ‘missing link’ quality to their former owners.” While the Piltdown man was a hoax in which someone actually put a human skull with the jaw of an ape, essentially the same artistic motif blends humans and apes in popular books and even in museum displays, to give the missing link-look to genuine fossils. The missing link look also includes the illicit addition of human proportions to the limbs, and an upright bipedal gait. Milton adds: “this modern confidence and apparent precision in reconstruction is not based on further discoveries of fact, but takes place despite the discoveries of recent decades—that the evidence for humankind’s own evolution is actually nonexistent.”

When I have had occasion to point out such Frankensteinian artistic license, people have looked at me incredulously, and have asked, “you mean somebody makes these up?” Yes, Virginia, they do. It is even more horrendous that museums are guilty of this crime against truth. They should be held accountable for purveying such outright lies to the public under the ostensible purpose of education.

In fact, according to Milton, the status of Australopithecus as an extinct ape was actually established as long ago as 1954 by zoologist Solly Zuckerman, who deduced, by measuring the skulls and teeth of a large number of modern apes, human specimens and Australopithecine fossils, that the head of this species was balanced like that of an ape, its brain was the same size as a modern gorilla, and its jaw and teeth are predominantly apelike. The same conclusion was reached by Charles Oxnard of the University of Western Australia in 1984. In his book, The Order of Man, he deduced that “Australopithecus is an extinct ape and is unconnected with humankind’s ancestry.”

Also, in Hidden History of the Human Race, it is maintained that generations of experts have been “wildly mistaken” about the australopithecines. The authors point out that even Louis B. Leakey had concluded that australopithecines were a side branch and not in the direct lineage of sapiens. Since Homo erectus was thought to be a descendant of Australopithecus, Leakey also removed erectus from the line of human ancestry. Zuckerman has been almost a lone voice in the wilderness, challenging the assumptions about the Australopithecus-Homo sapiens relationship, but apparently this small band of voices has not been enough to challenge the status quo. As he asserts, the voice of higher authority, in due course, has become universally incorporated into all anthropology text books. This voice of authority has managed to keep the human-like view of Australopithecus intact in the mind of the general populace. Incidentally, Cremo and Thompson point to institutions such as the Carnegie Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation as two of the primary sources financing evolution, the Big Bang theory, and the materialistic cosmology in general.

While the current paradigm invites australopithecines to mankind’s family picnic, it is clear that defining Australopithecus as simply a “biped” is not enough to put this creature in the human family, since there are more aspects of humanness than simply exhibiting some form of bipedalism. In The Origin of Humankind, Leakey concludes that the shape of the Homo lineage earlier than two million years ago must be regarded as an unresolved question. This is because it remains heavily disputed whether the size ranges of early fossils indicate variation between males and females or whether the size ranges indicate different species. Under the most ludicrous diagram consisting of two versions of evolutionary boxes with the names: A. afarensis, A. africanus, H. habilis, A. robustus, A. bosei, H. erectus, and so forth, Leakey writes: “Family trees. The existing fossil evidence is interpreted differently by different scholars, although the overall shape of the inferred evolutionary history is similar.”

Yes, the overall shape would be similar, since all of the box designers are working with the same Darwinian, materialist, causal, paradigm! How could we expect the shape of an evolutionary diagram to be anything but a linear, historical and connected movement of the representational animal figures of a powerful Western totem? Interestingly, it’s even called a “family tree”!

Forms of Temporal Tinkering


It is questionable, writes Richard Milton in Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, that “the geological column is a record of processes taking millennia to unfold; and whether the fossils it contains are a living succession.” The various sedimentary rock strata which are piled on top of each other in supposed chronological sequence represent the successive phases of the deposition of sediment. These strata are extensively classified and correlated all over world. Interpretation of this stratigraphy is complicated by the fact that some of the beds have been eroded over and over again, which provides gaps in the sequence. In addition, the Earth’s crust has been distorted by folding and volcanic activity. Nowhere in the world, writes Richard Milton, “is there known to be a complete sequence of sediments from the oldest to the most recent.”

In addition, most dating scientists practice “intellectual phase locking”: the practice of correcting experimental errors on the side of the currently accepted values. When various dating methods produce discordant dates for the same sample, Milton asserts, “the figures are adjusted until they seem right.” The most common way to harmonize discordant dates, he explains, is to label the unexpected or unwanted dates as “anomalous.” This is why many dating results seem to support each other: the dating scientists have discarded the unwanted, anomalous results. Dates must land inside a certain “ballpark” and must corroborate other established dates. A scientist who obtains a date which is way outside the ballpark would not rush to publish such a finding, while a date which coincides with other findings is published immediately.

By assuming the fact of evolution, scientists can date their hominid finds by morphology, and construct from this a sequential contrivance called evolution. On the sole basis of their commitment to evolution, Cremo and Thompson assert in Hidden History of the Human Race, dating scientists decide that a more ape-like specimen should be moved to the early part of its possible date range so that it does not overlap with a more human-like specimen. Likewise, a human-like specimen is moved to a later, or earlier date, within its own possible date range. Thus, the two specimens are separated in time. This orchestration is based on the morphology of the specimens, or “morphological dating.” As Cremo and Thompson maintain, “it would look bad to have two forms, one generally considered ancestral to the other, existing contemporaneously.” This is the way in which a “temporal evolutionary sequence” is born.

By assuming as factual the evolution of the great ape lineage into the human lineage, the search for the ultimate missing link causes scientists to perform what we might call “temporal tinkering.” A tautology is then utilized to enforce this rule: the morphology of fossils is used to select the desirable dates within the possible date ranges of the sites, thus preserving an evolutionary progression in the clay of their minds. This “artificially constructed sequence,” which is designed to fit the desired evolutionary paradigm, is then “cited as proof of the evolutionary hypothesis.”

By formulating a temporal sequence which presupposes that the hominids did not co-exist, this methodoloy assures that no fossil evidence will “fall outside the realm of evolutionary expectations.” This “co-existence” factor is an unhallowed and unacceptable conclusion, and is to be avoided at all costs. Yet, fossil evidence in China, for instance, does indicate that several different types of hominids did co-exist in the middle Middle Pleistocene. In fact, it would appear that humans have been around much longer than we have suspected and, indeed, it is highly suspect that what we are looking at in the fossil record is the co-existence of two separate animals: ape and man.

Dating Homo Erectus?


While supposed evidence of a close relationship between arboreal apes and humans is forced on the public, other evidence for a much more ancient and separate origin of humans remains effectively buried. Cremo and Thompson’s findings in Hidden History of the Human Race indicate that human origins actually have nothing to do with the great ape lineage.

Evidence hidden away from public scrutiny indicates that humans are not related at all to the great apes, but are a separate species of exceptionally ancient origin. The authors outline the evidence discovered over the years which indicates that humans have a much more remote history than the accepted paradigm would convey. Possible human skeletons from the Eocene and Miocene periods have been discovered. However, the authors write, because these finds don’t fit into the accepted scheme of things, they are undocumented, uninvestigated, and conveniently “forgotten.” In contrast, they write, “finds which conform to accepted theories are thoroughly investigated, extensively reported, and safely enshrined in museums.”

Java Man is an example of the problems involved with the search for humanity’s enigmatic “missing link.” Modern researchers have pronounced that the so-called Trinil femurs (leg bones) of “Java Man,” found in Indonesia, are not Homo erectus, but are the bones of fully modern sapiens. According to the authors of Hidden History of the Human Race, it now appears that “we can accept them as evidence for anatomically modern humans existing 800,000 years ago.” Yet, visitors to museums around the world are still treated to casts of these items in the context of Homo erectus, and in the context of fossil evidence for human evolution out of Africa in the established sequence. The twist is, the Trinil femurs are fully modern, but the skullcap attributed to this creature is more archaic. It has been suggested by many that the skull does not belong with the femurs but, rather, with the skull of Pithecanthropus, an extinct ape.

According to Cremo and Thompson, the formation where Java Man was found has a potassium-argon date of 800,000 B.P., but other beds in this formation are dated at over a million years. Flourine content test results on the bones are consistent with the date of 800,000 years for modern humans in Java. The skull and femurs indicate the presence of two kinds of hominids in Java during the early Middle Pleistocene, one with an ape-like head and the other with legs of modern human type. Therefore, “Java Man” is a totally contrived creature touted as mankind’s missing link: Homo erectus.

Although Lasker and Tyzzer write in Physical Anthropology that “the degree of difference between Homo sapiens and Homo erectus is seen to separate them as two species of the same genus rather than as two genera,” it should be noted that any species designation is an arbitrary one. As also noted earlier, the range of variation of many features of Homo erectus falls completely within that of modern Homo sapiens. Additionally, there is a problem with dating these fossils since, they state, “all fossils relating to the transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens are too ancient to be radio-carbon dated but too recent to be dated by the potassium argon method.”

Nonetheless, the mainstream human evolutionary paradigm calls for a swift divergence occurring approximately two million years ago in the hominid line, which, as will soon be illustrated, may represent two entirely different animals. This was ostensibly followed by a long period of relative stability in the genus Homo until about 400,000 years before present, when a new divergence seems to be recorded. Does “something” seem to have happened at about the time frame which Sitchin suggests for the arrival of the Visitors? Let’s explore.

The basic anatomical pattern of Homo erectus exhibits a brain of about 900 cubic centimeters, a long and low cranium, a small forehead, a thick skull, a protruding jaw and prominent eye ridges. This pattern persisted, writes Richard Leakey, until about a half a million years ago, followed by “an expansion of the brain during this time to more than 1100 cubic centimeters.” Also by this time, Leakey states, “Homo erectus populations had spread out from Africa and were occupying large regions of Asia and Europe.” He goes on to qualify that no unequivocally identified Homo erectus fossils have been found in Europe, but it is surmised that they were there because of the technology normally associated with their existence. It should also be noted that the tool technologies which were utilized over a period of thousands of years essentially overlap and are commonly thought to have been borrowed by different types of human variants, including Neanderthals.

Did Homo Erectus Evolve Twice?


“The advancement of knowledge,” asserts Van Flandern in The Anomalist, “should be the only objective of scientific observation and experimentation, rather than the propagation of commonly-held belief systems.” In that regard, the prehistory of Homo erectus is now flying in the face of the mainstream paradigm which states that humans came out of Africa. According to new Homo erectus fossil finds on the Indonesian island of Java, the origin of mankind has been pushed back to 1.8 million years, suggesting that “either erectus migrated to Asia as soon as he appeared in Africa — which is rather unlikely — or that different variants of the genus Homo evolved independently in different places on the globe.”

Archeologist Yuri Mochanov has spent the last decade excavating Diring, a site along the Lena River in Siberia. His discoveries have forced members of the profession to reconsider the commonly-held paradigm that humankind evolved and dispersed in the warmer climate of Africa, where surely the environment would have been more conducive to survival than under the extreme conditions of Arctic Siberia. This Earliest Paleolithic layer has produced more than 4,000 artifacts, with some 500 of them identified as stone tools.

According to this interview entitled “On Human Origins: Out of Siberia?,” published in The Anomalist 2, the finding that Stone Age hominids lived in the far north as long as 3 million years ago upsets the mainstream evolutionary paradigm in several ways. While some archeologists are not convinced that the site is 3 million years old, all are convinced that the site is at least 500,000 years old. Mochanov compares the Diring complex to the stone complexes found in Olduvai Gorge in Africa dating from 1.7 to 2.7 million years ago. Yet, until now, he points out, Siberia has not produced stone tools more than 35,000 years old.

This type of stone tool culture has no comparison in Siberia, Eurasia, America or Australia. Diring is one of the oldest Paleolithic sites in the world, dating from between 1.8 to 3.7 million years B.P. It has been established that permafrost conditions did exist in the area at the time, and experts have determined that the average annual temperature in Yakutsk, Siberia was even lower than the present temperature of ten degrees below zero (Celsius). The extremely frigid climate presents “a major stumbling block for the existence of early man in this area.” Mochanov suggests it was “the extreme environmental stress of the region that actually gave pre-humans the fateful genetic nudge to develop the large brain that defines the genus Homo.” Therefore, he suggests, mankind may have evolved twice!

This thinking suggests that these university-trained apologists for Darwin are not just encouraged but trained to come up with such ridiculous explanations which give evolution a leading role in the grand performance called the “human race.” As Phillip Johnson points out, neo-Darwinists have “evolved an array of subsidiary concepts capable of furnishing a plausible explanation for just about any conceivable eventuality;” and these anthr-apologists do not seem to notice that their knee-jerk reactions are problematical to the accidental nature of Darwinian theory: that evolution is ipso facto a chain of contingent events which easily could have been otherwise. The concept of survival of the fittest is chaos theory at its finest; it’s an absurd dice game.

How could both the desert climate of Africa and the frigid climate of Siberia, two remarkably dissimilar environments, independently and accidentally produce the same rare evolutionary novelty called Homo sapiens? Don’t forget that this is a novelty so rare that the supposed incremental steps leading to its development could not possibly be repeated given the billions and billions of stars in the Universe! When presented with archeological evidence that humankind may have “evolved” simultaneously in vastly different environments on the globe, a development that goes against evolution’s most basic theoretical premise, why is it that the “fact” of evolution itself does not come under scrutiny? Or, why doesn’t the correctness of the sacred geological column come under scrutiny? Instead when the pieces do not fit, they are chiseled and drilled and made to fit in the most ridiculous jury-rigged manner.

Anthr-apologists tell us on one hand that evolutionary man is the winner of a preposterous survival lottery which, given the incredible odds, should not have even occurred once. Then, when the archeological record doesn’t mesh with the theory, the straight-faced suggestion is that the independent evolution of mankind must have occurred twice! There is never the suggestion that the emergence of the human form did not occur without genetic tinkering from the outside, or that it is guided by a currently misunderstood operant force or intelligent factor, or that it is a gift of God, even in the face of evidence that either of these alternatives may be the case. In order to be internally consistent with its current scientific paradigm, the theory must explain a strictly ‘natural’ cause inherent within the operating system: therefore, humankind accidently hit the bull’s eye twice!

The Australian “Home Erectus” Controversy


A 1998 on-line article by Jim Vanhollebeke entitled Kow Swamp: Is It Homo erectus? (“A Refutation of the Supposed Insignificance of Certain Australian Hominid Fossils”) presents arguments countering the assertion that the well-known but conveniently ignored Australian Kow Swamp fossils, discovered as long ago as the 1880’s, are representative of Homo erectus. The author argues convincingly that the KS fossils, including Talgai, Cohuna, Nacurrie, Coobool Creek, Kow Swamp, Willandra Lakes, and others, are not Homo erectus, but are modern in age, dated about 10,000 to 30,000 years before present.

The KS fossils display primitive or “archaic” features, but are of a very recent age. In addition, other much older human fossils discovered in Australia display a much less “archaic” nature. Therefore, as Vanhollebeke notes, the KS fossils remain as “odd footnotes in the world of Paleoanthropology.” They are essentially ignored by most anthropologists. The author writes:

Accepting these fossils for what they are has been a problem for many anthropologists. Part of this problem, possibly, is the fact that the present aboriginal population in this area of the globe, to varying lesser degrees has been known to exhibit some or all of the traits that make the Kow Swamp type so controversial. This would indicate an obvious line (or lines) of descent. This is not really surprising when the age (or lack thereof) of the fossils themselves is taken into consideration. Obviously the specimens now preserved do not represent the very last of their kind.

Vanhollebeke suggests that direct descendants of the Kow Swamp people would have continued in this isolated region for thousands of years. In addition, it is plausible that the KS populations dwindled slowly, and were diluted by gene flow with other types. Yet the important point to keep in mind is that the KS fossils closely resemble certain living groups of native Australians. Comparing KS fossil skulls to aborigines in northern Queensland [see photos], he writes: “The KS-type fossils are so recent that their unique archaic traits continue to show in living descendants.” This can be a “delicate matter,” Vanhollebeke writes, in terms of race. However, he admonishes, this is not really a matter of race, since it has long been held that the only way to describe the physical features of certain of Australia’s aboriginal populations is “archaic Caucasoid.”

If the features of the KS fossils represented Neanderthal characteristics, it wouldn’t be such a problem, writes Vanhollebeke. Problematically, the KS fossils more closely resemble Homo erectus. As he explains, even late Homo erectus has been considered to be extinct for hundreds of thousands of years. But here we have living human beings who resemble these archaic forms. No wonder it is best to ignore this situation.

In addition to this, Vanhollebeke points out, the recent discovery of “Solo Man,” a large brained late Homo erectus population living in Java, may actually have survived as recently as 27,000 years ago. Solo Man was previously thought to have been extinct 200,000 years ago. This suggests two things: (1) This fossil represents Homo sapiens and not Homo erectus, or (2) late Homo erectus co-existed with modern man in Southeast Asia. Vanhollebeke asks: “Where are you National Geographic?”

The fossil record in Australia shows that there were in fact two distinct human populations in Australia during the late Pleistocene (approx. 500,000 B.P.) There was an older yet more modern and gracile type, and there was a much more recent but primitive and robust type. Vanhollebeke writes: “When the media (and world) can marvel at the pile of fragments they call 'Lucy,' there should be a little awe available for this aberrant populace that never quite went extinct.” The story of mankind, he writes, is “sketchy and full of speculation.” We must remain open to new ideas when it comes to reconciling these anomalies.

Problems With “Transitional” Types


In their book, Hidden History of the Human Race, Cremo and Thompson discuss various skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans, as well as various human artifacts, which have been given dates in the range of 2 to 55 million years, or more. Such discoveries are part of the “hidden history of the human race,” and are considered “anomalous” within the context of the currently accepted paradigm of human evolution. As Cremo and Thompson write, in the past, “anomalous” evidence was often “the center of serious, longstanding controversy within the very heart of elite scientific circles.” Furthermore, evidence of this kind, the authors assert, is not always of a “marginal crackpot nature.” Nonetheless, it is now a matter of course to reject anomalous findings outright, and, further, to “forget” they even exist. Consider, for instance, some of the following evidence hidden in humanity’s closet:

·        Simple eolithic implements have been discovered on the American continent in Pliocene strata dated at 2-4 million years.

·        Primitive bone implements, as well as shark teeth with holes for use as jewelry and carving implements, have been found in Suffolk, England, in formations dated at 2-55 million years.

·        A wooden tool which has been sawn and burned on one end was found in England and dated at about a half million years. It appears that only a metal saw could have accomplished this type of clear cutting, and only Homo sapiens could have effected this feat (not Homo erectus!)

·        Simple chopping tools have been discovered in Pakistan in formations dated at 2 million years. Tools of the same age have also been found in Siberia and India. (The authors point out that modern tribal people continue to manufacture very primitive types of stone tools.)

·        A highly anomalous find of a possible Homo erectus fossil skullcap in Brazil challenges the theory that only anatomically modern humans made it to the American continent.

·        A modern-type human jaw thoroughly infiltrated with iron oxide was discovered in a quarry at Foxhall, England, in a 16-foot level dated at 2.5 million years.

·        A fully modern human skull found in Buenos Aires, Argentina has been dated at least a million years old.

·        An anatomically modern human skeleton in natural connection was found on the Italian Riviera in a layer dated 3-4 million years.

·        An “atlas,” the upper bone of the spinal column, was discovered in Monte Hermoso, Argentina in a layer dated 3-5 million years. Flint tools and intentional use of fire in this area, at the same level, indicates the presence of humans in the Americas at least 3 million years ago.

·        A modern human skull was discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains, under volcanic ash in a gold-bearing gravel bed ranging in age from 9 to 55 million years old. Additional human skeletal remains, and a large number of stone implements have  also been discovered in the same beds, so this is not an isolated discovery.

·        The California gold country has been a hot bed of human skeletal remains and implements having date ranges of 9 to 55 million years. Stone artifacts and a modern type human jaw were discovered beneath the lava caps in these gold-bearing gravels. In addition, a human leg bone found in these gravels is dated at 8.7 million years.

In addition, there is strong evidence for the presence of rounded bola (sling stone) makers in Argentina approximately 3 million years ago. The bolas of Miramar point to the existence of human beings of a high level culture during the Pliocene, or even earlier, in South America. Because of their technological sophistication, sling stones and bola stones represent the presence of Homo sapiens. Sling stones have been discovered in various places around the globe, including England, East Africa (Tanzania), and Argentina. Stone bolas were used for hunting by wrapping them in leather bags attached to a long cord, and swinging them overhead and letting go. The use of stone bolas necessitates the presence of a leather working culture. The dates of 1.7 to 2 million years are considered “anomalous,” since, it is believed, the australopithecines of this age were not toolmakers, and furthermore, they were still confined to Africa.

According to the currently prevailing paradigm of human evolution, the creature called Homo habilis, who was not even a toolmaker, should have been confined to Africa during this time period. The “standard view,” Cremo and Thompson point out in Hidden History, is that Homo erectus was the first representative of the Homo line to emigrate from Africa no more than a million years ago. Anything earlier than this date is considered “anomalous,” (i.e. doesn’t fit). An indication of the emotional import of such finds in scientific circles is the typical demand for “higher levels of proof for anomalous finds than for evidence that fits within the established ideas about human evolution.” Yet, there is no difference in the workmanship of eolithic implements found in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa and those found in England. If the stone tools of England are rejected as being nature-made, Cremo and Thompson assert, then those of Africa need to be thrown out as well!

The authors of Hidden History suggest the incomprehensible: perhaps there were creatures of fully modern type already at Olduvai Gorge in Africa during the earliest Pleistocene era. The reason we can’t get around this is because no human fossils are accepted to be that old. But, the authors point out, several human-like femurs discovered in East Africa which were attributed to Homo habilis may have actually belonged to anatomically modern humans.

The creature touted as Homo habilis has since been shown to have a more ape-like anatomy. Further, Louis Leakey found a bone tool in the same level as the stone bolas discovered in East Africa, which, he stated in 1960, was some sort of “lissoir for working leather.” Leakey believed this find suggested a more evolved way of life for the Oldowan culture. Leakey reportedly discovered a fully human jaw at Kanam, East Africa, dated approximately 2 million years.

As we have seen, distinctly anomalous discoveries are not confined to 19th century “nutcases.” They have continued, Cremo and Thompson insist, “with astonishing regularity” to the present, but are not recognized for what they are. This is due to the fact that the idea of the progressive evolution of humans from the great ape family guides the acceptance and rejection of the evidence for evolution, and contradictory evidence is pushed to the “lunatic fringe.” In fact, evidence suggests that fully modern Homo sapiens appears to have existed in Africa alone from very early times, at least two million years before present. Taking into account only the more conventionally accepted evidence, Cremo and Thompson have concluded that “the total evidence, including fossil bones and artifacts, is most consistent with the view that anatomically modern humans have co-existed with other primates for tens of millions of years.”

The Out of Africa Hypothesis


In Origin of Humankind, Richard Leakey maintains that “the evolutionary activity giving rise to modern humans took place in the interval between half a million years ago and 34,000 years ago.” He writes that “ripples of evolution” were going on in many different populations throughout the Old World during this period, culminating in a varying anatomy labeled “archaic sapiens.” The concept of “ripples of evolution” might perhaps be better described as gene flow from a “revolutionary event.” Let’s see if Leakey’s theories coincide with this suggestion.

Leakey describes the evolutionary model called the Multiregional hypothesis. This view posits that the origin of modern humans was a phenomenon which encompassed the entire Old World wherever populations of Homo erectus had become established. Leakey cautions against this approach, specifically in light of the emergence of new dating methods called electron spin resonance and thermoluminescence. Using these new methods, researchers have overturned the neat sequence of events which had earlier described the evolution of Neanderthal to modern sapiens in caves in Israel. These new methods suggested that the human fossils from Skhul and Qafzeh were actually older than most of the Neanderthal fossils by as much as 40,000 years, suggesting that Neanderthals were not ancestors of modern humans. How can this curious enigma be explained?

An alternative hypothesis asserts that modern humans arose in a single geographical location—most likely sub-Saharan Africa—and replaced the existing pre-modern populations after extensive and rather sudden migration into the Old World. Interestingly, this model has been variously called “Noah’s Ark” and the “Garden of Eden” hypothesis, but most recently has been termed the “Out of Africa” hypothesis. Leakey points out that in this model “these populations would have shallow genetic roots, all having derived from the single, recently evolved population in Africa.”

If it were true, the Out of Africa model would predict that the fossil record would not exhibit maintenance of regional continuity over time, but would show a displacement of regional characteristics with modern African characteristics. This is mainly true with regard to physical stature; indeed, the stocky, short-limbed Neanderthals seem to have been entirely displaced by the tall, slightly built, long-limbed people. Furthermore, if modern humans had emerged more or less simultaneously throughout the Old World, this would be evidenced by the fossil record. Clearly, it is not.

The oldest modern sapiens fossils—dated approximately 100,000 years before present—are limited to northern Africa, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Israel. Leakey writes: “no fossils of modern humans of this age have been found anywhere else in the rest of Asia or Europe.” Keep in mind Leakey’s other statements that “no unequivocally identified Homo erectus fossils have been found in Europe” and that human fossils from Israel are older than most of the Neanderthal fossils by as much as 40,000 years.

The majority of population geneticists believe the Out of Africa hypothesis to be biologically plausible, and are skeptical toward the Multiregional model, which requires extensive gene flow across large populations, over a large geographical area, and over a very long period of time. These populations would have to be genetically linked while at the same time allowing for evolutionary change toward modern human characteristics over the entire, dispersed population. This is unrealistic given that such a scenario would, in all probability, produce more geographical variation than is actually seen.

In terms of tools and art objects, how are modern humans recognized in the archaeological record? The fossil record shows an increased complexity in simple stone tools about 1.4 million years ago; a gradual change from what is called the Oldowan to the Acheulian stone tool culture. Anthropologists use the Acheulian implements to identify the so-called Homo erectus populations. While this increase in complexity is notable, it changed very little over a very long period of time. Leakey writes that stasis, not innovation, characterized this era.

When change came, however, it was, in Leakey’s words, “dazzling.” The Upper Paleolithic Revolution, he writes, was “so dazzling that we should be aware that we might be blind to the reality behind it.” Beginning about 35,000 years ago in Europe, fine tools were made from bone and antler, and tool kits comprised more than 100 different implements, including tools for engraving, sculpting, and making clothing. This inexplicable revolution exhibited life-like animal carvings, beads and pendants, and cave paintings as part of an innovative culture which appeared rather abruptly across the Old World. Leakey writes: “unlike previous eras, when stasis dominated, innovation is now the essence of culture, with change being measured in millenia rather than hundreds of millenia.”

The Mitochondrial Eve Hypothesis


According to Sumerian records, the operation carried out by the Elohim on the female Primitive Workers resulted in Adam and Eve discovering their sexuality, or “knowing”—the biblical term for sexual procreation—and became “as one of us:” able to give birth or, perhaps more specifically, genetically compatible. The timing of the genetic manipulations are of particular interest. Sitchin asserts that the Sumerian record places the first genetic manipulation at about 300,000 years ago, and the second at about 250,000 years ago. Biologists now subscribe to the theory that there was an “Eve” in southeast Africa about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. The New York Times reported in November of 1995 that scientists have concluded there was an “Adam” about 270,000 years ago, which, Sitchin suggested in an interview, is “exactly, give or take a day or two, the date I propose based on Sumerian writings.”

The Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis is supported by research which traces the mitochondrial DNA inherited solely through the maternal line. The reason that the organelle mitochondria is traceable through the maternal line is that the only mitochondria which becomes part of the cells of a newly formed embryo are from the egg and not the sperm. Thus, scientists have traced the genetic ancestry of humans to a female who lived in Africa about 150,000 years ago, who was “part of a population of as many as 10,000 individuals.” Leakey writes in Origin of Humankind that earlier dates have since been established; presumably dates closer to those given in the New York Times article mentioned above.

The Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis essentially supports the Out of Africa model, with one exception. The Africa model presumes that the expansion of modern African populations included some interbreeding with Old World pre-modern populations. The Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis, however, does not allow for any genetic interbreeding with Old World populations. It asserts that the modern African populations which spread over the Old World completely replaced existing populations, with interbreeding being almost a non-occurrence.

Analysis of present day human mitochondrial DNA reveals no evidence of interbreeding with other pre-modern populations. Of four thousand samples of mitochondrial DNA taken from people all over the world for this project, no “ancient” mitochondrial DNA has been found. All samples are remarkably similar and indicate the fairly recent and common origin of human beings. If genetic mixing had occurred between ancient populations, some people would have different mitochondrial DNA. Therefore, Leakey charges, the “modern newcomers” appear to have completely replaced the ancient populations between 150,000 to 50,000 years ago (give or take). The most disconcerting element of this theory seems to be the fact of the exclusion of genetic input from other populations which apparently co-existed. How did such a total replacement occur? Was it a violent genocide?

The disappearance of the Neanderthal population from the Earth is a mystery. In his book, The Last Neanderthal, Ian Tattersall suggests the violent demise of their dwindled population at the hands of other sapiens groups. Richard Leakey claims that there is no evidence for a violent replacement of species, and he allows for the occurrence of some interbreeding, even though it may not be reflected in the archeological record. Tattersall indeed allows for this conjecture as well. But strangely, there is an explanation which mainstream conjectures do not take into account. Did the Neanderthals die in a planet-wide catastrophic incident which the uniformitarian-based geological column utterly denies?

Who Are the Neanderthals?


The species Homo neanderthalensis was more than simply a variation of ourselves, writes Tattersall in The Last Neanderthal. On the contrary, the “big-brained Neanderthals,” with larger brain cases (1500 ml.) than the current worldwide average (1400 ml.), were highly successful during a period of extremely tough climatic conditions in Europe and Western Asia for 150,000 years, and perhaps longer. Tattersall adds “as far as we can tell, that’s a good deal longer than our own species has been around.” It should be noted that Neanderthals are not necessarily believed to be a different species, but a variation of sapiens.

It is generally agreed that different varieties of humans were widespread in the Old World during the time of the dispersal of the Neanderthals over Europe. Classic Neanderthal-type fossils are a more or less local phenomenon spread sparsely over Europe, with a higher percentage of finds in western France. To date, however, there is no biological evidence that the Classic Neanderthal type ever occupied Africa, Arabia or Asia. However, according to Hidden History, Louis B. Leakey once suggested Neanderthals and other variants were the result of crossbreeding between sapiens and erectus. He indicated no problem with the ability of these two forms to interbreed, which suggests he considered them to be the same species.

The theory is widely peddled that the Western European Neanderthal population “had a range of vocalization too limited for the development of proper language.” Some believe Homo neanderthalensis to be a separate species from Homo sapiens, while others believe it is a subgroup which could interbreed with modern humans and, it is suspected, “would have done so if both were present in the same place at the same time.” However, the Physical Anthropology text book presents the erroneous statement that Neanderthal populations of Europe probably did not have a modern vocal tract, even though the brain case was large and modern in respect to parts important for speech. This information has since been contradicted.

According to Jack Cuozzo, in Buried Alive, a Neanderthal skeleton found on Mt. Carmel in 1983 was discovered alongside modern stone tools. The Kebara II fossil had the only hyoid bone ever found in a Neanderthal. The hyoid bone, a floating bone in the neck, is essential for speech. The Kebara II Neanderthal proved that Neanderthals did indeed speak. It is probable that the Neanderthals are much more modern than the current theory allows.

The Sapiens Sapiens Signal


Although a “dramatic event” is recorded in Western Europe about 35,000 years ago, Leakey and others believe that this does not necessarily indicate that the “final emergence” of modern humans occurred in Western Europe, as earlier believed. Paleontologists now generally recognize Western Europe as “something of a backwater” on the foreground of an advance that swept from East to West across Europe. In this view, the Neanderthal populations “disappeared and were replaced by modern humans.” Importantly, Leakey believes the Upper Paleolithic Revolution in Europe was a “demographic signal and not an evolutionary signal.”

From where did this demographic signal emanate? Leakey believes, on the basis of fossil evidence, “Africa, in all probability—or perhaps the Middle East.” Leakey qualifies that, despite the scarcity of technological evidence, since a narrow blade technology does appear in Africa about 100,000 years ago, we have to go with the African origin of modern humans. Supported by an abundance of fossil evidence in the Middle East region along with new dating methods, it is also probable that Neanderthals and modern humans essentially co-existed in the Middle East for as along as 60,000 years. Some Neanderthals of Europe have been dated at 100,000 years, making them contemporaries of modern humans in the Middle East.

The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis can provide an explanation for “anomalous” data exhibited by the fossil record. According to the Out of Africa model, mankind seems to have emerged from both Africa and the Middle East, the cultural nests of the Anunnaki during their incumbency on Earth. The Out of Africa model can be seen in the context of the mining operations which began there approximately 300,000 years ago, culminating in the cloning of a human work force. This is the “sapiens sapiens signal,” the “dazzling” cultural achievements of a certain core group of humans which were moved from Africa to Western Europe, virtually overnight.

According to Richard Leakey, the known sapiens sapiens signal in Western Europe is far richer than in Africa. For every archeological site of this era in Africa, there are about two hundred such sites in Western Europe. Leakey maintains that this disparity reflects “a difference in the intensity of scientific exploration in the two continents, not on the reality of human prehistory.” The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis suggests that this disparity may actually reflect the “reality of human prehistory.” We must follow the sapiens sapiens signal.

The Sumerians have written that, after a time, some of the hybrid miners remained working the mines in South Africa and others were transferred back to Mesopotamia, the location of the biblical Eden. It is here that the Anunnaki had first landed and began their irrigation and building projects, and where they subsequently set up cultural centers for the propagation of human knowledge. Thus, although Africa is the “birthplace of humankind,” the Sumer region is the “cradle of civilization,” which began with transplants from the core Africa group.

The story is relayed in the Sumerian texts. According to Sitchin in Wars of Gods and Men, as the population of the Primitive Worker increased, gold production in Africa increased as well. This in turn caused stress on the Eastern front, in the refining and smelting centers of Mesopotamia. In addition, the waters in this region were constantly overflowing, and dikes and canals were constantly in need of being dug. The Anunnaki workers in Mesopotamia soon began asking for their own Primitive Workers. They made a request for “the Black-headed people to give the pickax to hold.” A text called The Myth of the Pickax chronicles the denial of transfer of some of the Black-headed people to the Mesopotamian region, and the subsequent heavy artillery attack on the walls of the central compound in Africa where they were being protected. As Enlil’s weapons broke through the fortification, the Primitive Workers spilled out of their compound. It is written that Enlil “eyed the Black-headed Ones in fascination.”

Ancient drawings thereafter depict the Primitive Worker toiling for the gods in Mesopotamia, building their houses, digging canals, growing food, rowing in boats, and waiting on the gods. During this “animal like stage in human development,” archaic Homo sapiens performed their work as “naked as the animals of the field.” It is written that, when mankind was first created, they “ate plants with their mouth like sheep, drank water from the ditch.” Were these people our “Neanderthals”?

The various layers of cultural indoctrinations taking place in or near cultural centers over a long span of time, which are part and parcel of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, would explain the apparent cultural disparities noted over geographical areas once some of these people left cultural centers in the Middle East. The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis would explain the apparent co-existence of primitive stone tool sites in some areas of the globe and high cultures in other areas of the globe between 10,000-30,000 years B.P. What else but the existence of an “anomalous” cultural factor, introduced from the outside, could adequately explain this incredible discrepancy in cultural “evolution”? OMNI Magazine published a story in January, 1995 about Samsat, a city with a population of 50,000 along the Euphrates River Valley during the Roman Empire. The history of Samsat dates as far back as the Neolithic Period. Tablets found in the area written in cuneiform, a system of writing developed by the Sumerians, is proof of the spread of the Sumerian culture into Turkey.

Four such sites which record the history of the Sumerians in the area “may contain artifacts that overturn conventional notions of how and where civilization began.” Another city called Kazane Hoyuk, had a population “unheard of before the development of agriculture and civilization.” This prehistoric city was one of the “independent seeds of civilization” which “nurtured cultural advances at about the same point in history.” Thus, while some humans on the globe were working with basic stone tools, others were in the midst of a “dazzling” cultural revolution. In addition, strange similarities have been noted between distant cultures which are not known to have been in contact. These anomalies remain unexplained in archaeology, and are explainable only by a “revolutionary event.”

Excerpted from Space Travelers and the Genesis of the Human Form, Chapter 7, by Joan d'Arc, Available from The Book Tree (thebooktree.com)

Ode to Jack Kerouac



By Joan d’Arc

I can’t look out your ghost,
   pulling your long hot burden nowhere
wedding your tears to the stream
long dream
    of an impossible task
too much to ask
      to dharma your soft so hard
      to meaning your Gerard
One fast move or you’re gone,
  pulling your long hot burden nowhere

I can’t look out your ghost,
 to see the skid row sod you tried to become
   Bum!
He was a bum, the Lowell bookshopkeep said,
    “man’s man, momma’s boy”
One fast move or you’re gone,
  never again to belong
      Gone—the way of the railroad earth
a phantasm from the cookie dough factory,
  pulling your long hot burden nowhere

I can’t look out your ghost,
  to find one sap belongs
    in the chain gang of god-given wrongs
Oh—godman atop an Underwood,
     Go—the way of the railroad earth
  add your tears to the stream
By its burbling it shall speak
    a phantasm clear:
    Go—
  pull your long hot burden nowhere

I can’t look out your ghost,
  couch hobo hitchhiker
    fish out of water fishing
the Pisces sees
  the cause of suffering is birth, Maw
—the first law
of deadbeat Buddha despair
    Go—Your way or the Highway,
 Rise—your Virgo Moonward,
  trailing your bebop starship skywhere


Mandragore




By Joan d’Arc

"Wake up…
the world is about you…"

the mating call of the messenger probe
cracked the silent blue
in all directions

"wake up… the world is about you…"

the machine eye of a 5b sector sentinel
scanned its quadrant
as through the crusty soil poked
the ecstatic crown of a mandrake

"wake up… the world is about you…"

the sentinel rang the mother ship
for birthing instructions:

"orange-red berries like small tomatoes"
went the description

"earth pregnant again with native automata"
went the word on the wind

"god seed and animal earth"
went the legend

above the din of antediluvian plastics
thrashing in the solar squall
the shrieks of mandrakes
torn from sustenance

"by order of the gods, do not
touch the white-green flowers
of the Mandragore"

A great rain fell for days and nights
and into weeks
the formless senseless things
resembled turnips

"boy or girl?"
said one bot to the Finder
"If you touch it you will die"

by day its limbs
jerked with father voltage
by night its forehead
beamed with mother knowledge

inside grew a virtual memory bank
the size of a planet

more mandrakes came
they came at night
they came in the wee hours of the morning
they came demanding their freedom
and the messengers went away

Mandragore, wake up the world!