Umberto Anastasio
September 26, 1902
Tropea, Calabria, Italy
Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, Frank “Dasher” Abbandando, Louis Capone, Martin “Buggsy” Goldstein, Harry “Happy” Maione, Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, Allie Tannenbaum, Seymour “Blue Jaw” Magoon, Emanuel “Mendy” Weiss, Santo “Sonny Boy” Ricchiettore, Albert “The Mad Hatter” Anastasia, John “Dandy Jack” Parisi, and Charles “Charlie the Bug” Workman.
Jah Children. Jah children. Yeah the meek shall inherit the earth. Jah children. Yeah. The meek shall inherit the earth. Why must the Rasta live this way. The creator has shown us a better way. So why must I n’I fight each other. With unity and love for your brother, there’s always a better day. In due season each will pay according to works that they have done on earth today. So I n’I. We shall live in truth. His majesty. His majesty has shown us a better way.
Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla were two very different men whose paths converged first on the battlefield and then in the political arena. Marius was a novus homo from Arpinum whose ancestors were from a moderately distinguished equestrian background. He made a name for himself by not only capturing King Jugurtha of Numidia, but also by doing it his own way. Gaius Marius was responsible for employing the capite censi in his army, who until this point was not allowed to serve because of outdated property qualifications. One might even argue (with justification) that this revolution led to the downfall of the Republic. In this Jugurthan War, Marius had a lieutenant named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It is commonly believed that Marius’ victory was due in large part to this man. Sulla was of the old patrician Cornelian family, but of the lineage that had not established itself in recent Roman politics. Sulla was a harsh and unfeeling man who is said to have made his money by killing both his step-mother and his mistress. He was well known for his blazing red hair and his two canine teeth that he would bare when angry.
At first, the two excellent Roman military geniuses got along well with each other, but when Marius took almost sole credit for the Jugurthan victory and gave almost no attention to Sulla’s efforts, the latter became very bitter with his former general. Sulla then went on to distinguish himself in the Social War and was also given the command in the war against Mithridates of Pontus in 88. This command was then overturned in the Senate by Marius’ ally Publius Sulpicius Rufus, whom had it transferred to Marius. The seeds of conflict were sown.
Sulla immediately rushed back to Rome from Asia and took control of the city by methods that were incredibly harsh by even Roman military standards. Sulla had Sulpicius Rufus murdered along with several other Marian supporters (Marius fled to Africa) and passed several laws a vi before leaving for what he hoped would be a lucrative campaign in Greece.
One of the new consuls immediately had Marius recalled to Rome and the two attacked the allies of Sulla and eventually captured the city. What followed was a slaughter like none other seen at that time. Marius and his army (remember the capite censi??) terrorized Rome while Sulla conquered much of the Aegean and Asia Minor. Marius was named consul for a record seventh time but died soon after.
In 84 BC, Sulla renewed the civil war against the Marians, which he won soundly after his victory at the Colline Gate, and entered Rome as Dictator under the law of interrex. He then proceeded to gain immunity for all of his actions past and present and created a new kind of slaughter by posting proscription lists that itemized every Roman citizen Sulla wanted dead because of suspected Marian loyalties. In all, Sulla killed 10,000 people through the civil war and his proscriptions.
Despite this horrible onslaught, over the next three years, Sulla reformed much of the Roman political system to the benefit of the state and was hailed as Rome’s savior by most of Rome. When Sulla died in 78 amidst retirement in Campania, after finishing his consulship of 79 and holding elections for the next year, a massive state funeral was given to him and his life was celebrated. It can be correctly argued that the Sullan reforms staved off the end of the Republic for another fifty years.
TransCanada Gets Alaska Governor Palin’s Approval for Pipeline
By Eduard Gismatullin
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — TransCanada Corp., the nation’s largest pipeline company, won approval from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to build a $27 billion pipeline to carry natural gas from the Arctic to U.S. markets.
Palin on Aug. 27 signed a bill authorizing the state to award Calgary-based TransCanada a license to build the 1,715- mile (2,744-kilometer) link from Prudhoe Bay to the Alberta Hub in Canada, according to a statement. The license will be granted in 90 days.
“Our company has started field work on the project in order to meet our target date for completing the initial open season within two years,” TransCanada Vice President Tony Palmer said in the statement.
Alaskan authorities plan to develop gas deposits on Alaska’s North Slope that were discovered decades ago and left untouched by the inability to get the fuel to users. Palin solicited pipeline proposals last year and chose TransCanada’s proposal after rival plans by BP Plc and ConocoPhillips didn’t meet the state’s requirements.
Tapping the North Slope fields, which Alaska estimates to hold 35 trillion cubic feet of gas, would help make up for lower state revenue arising from declining oil production. Alaskan crude output has dropped by more than half since 1998.
Alaska owns the gas; BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp. hold most of the leases to develop it. The two partners have invited Exxon to join their pipeline venture known as Denali to compete with TransCanada.
State Subsidy
Under its license agreement with the state, TransCanada will get a $500 million subsidy in return for seeking federal regulatory approval for the project and finding customers for the pipeline. The license doesn’t guarantee construction of the project.
The link will ship 4.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day through Canada to U.S. markets. TransCanada expects to hold an auction for capacity to help determine the size of the line in July 2010, the company said Aug. 1. The project could be operating by September 2018.
London-based BP is Europe’s second-largest oil company behind Royal Dutch Shell Plc. ConocoPhillips, based in Houston, is the third-largest U.S. oil company, ranking behind Exxon and Chevron Corp.
Esteja alerta para as regras dos três
O que você dá, retornará para você
Essa lição, você tem que aprender
Você só ganha o que você merece
Tempted in our minds
Tormented inside lie
Wounded and afraid
Inside my head
Falling through changes
Did you know when you lost?
Did you know when I wanted?
Did you know what I lost?
Do you know what I wanted?
Empty in our hearts
Crying out in silence
Wandered out of reach
Too far to speak
Drifting unable
Did you know when you lost?
Did you know when I wanted?
Did you know what I lost?
Do you know what I wanted?
Crack is powder cocaine cooked in baking soda and water, sometimes ammonia is used to form a chunk, and then broken in tooth size pieces; it is an off white color. The name crack comes from the sound it makes when lit. Crack came about in the early 1970 by American dealers. They found it by chance. They placed cocaine on tin foil then burned it to test its purity. They then discovered sniffing the vapors is an intense high thus the birth of freebasing cocaine. Being cooked in baking soda allows easy transportation, packing and selling of the drug, and of course leads to extreme use and making dealers lots of money. When a person smokes rocks made from cocaine you can smell a disgusting stench. You’ll know the smell when you smell it.
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: “I am looking for God! I am looking for God!”
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
“Where has God gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.”
Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves.”
It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: “what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?”
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Fine Art of Seppuku
Seppuku (only gaijin refer to it as “hari-kari”) is a highly ritualized performance, as complicated as chado (tea ceremony). The principle difference is that at the end of chado, one is merely nauseated from too much green tea, whilst at the end of seppuku, one is dead.
The first thing to do is to recruit an assistant, a kaishkunin. Contrary to what is thought, almost all forms of seppuku do not technically involve suicide, but merely inflicting fatal injury upon oneself. The kaishakunin does the actual killing. If one is ordered to commit seppuku by the bafuku (shogunal government), it will generally appoint its own kaishakunin. Otherwise, one should ask a great iaijutsuka (practitioner of the technique of killing with a single sword stroke) or a close personal friend to be one’s kaishakunin. If asked out of friendship, one may refuse on the grounds that one’s waza (sword technique) is inadequate; if the request is repeated, however, one should consent gracefully, as flaws in technique will be forgiven (by the living).
Seppuku is ideally committed by in a garden or a Buddhist temple (Shinto temples should not be defiled by death). The participant dresses in white, to express purity of intention and sits in the seiza position (legs drawn up under the body so that one is actually sitting on one’s heels). A servant places the sanbo (an unlacquered wooden table) before one. It will contain a sake cup, a sheaf of washi (paper handmade from mulberry bark) and writing accoutrements, and the kozuka (disemboweling blade). This can be a tanto (dagger) blade without hilt, wrapped in several sheets of paper to provide a better grip. Real samurai, however, use their own wakizashi. If one is of tender years, or judged too dangerous to be trusted with steel, a fan may be substituted for an actual blade.
The sake cup is filled from the left, by an attendant using his left hand (this is indescribably rude under other circumstances). The person committing seppuku then empties it in two drinks of two sips each (one sip would show greed, whilst three or more would show hesitation). This makes a total of four sips; shi, “four”, also means “death” (Nihonjin just love these kinds of puns, especially when they’re about to kill themselves).
One then writes a death poem in the waka style (five lines of five, seven, seven, five, and seven syllables). The poem should be graceful, natural, and about transient emotions. Under no means should it mention that the fact you are about to die. Asano, whose seppuku precipitated the famous “Forty-seven ronin” incident, is said to have written a particularly poor death poem, showing the immaturity and lack of character that led to his being ordered to commit seppuku in the first place.
At this point, the person slips out of his outer garment (kamishimo) and tucks the sleeves under his knees to prevent him from doing something undignified like slumping to one side. He picks up the kozuka, and with his other hand picks up the sanbo and places it under his buttocks, to cause him to lean forward slightly in the proper attitude.
If the person committing is so young or so evil that a fan has been substituted for a blade, the kaishakunin executes a kirioroshi strike (a vertical cut) as soon as the person committing seppuku touches the fan to his stomach. Otherwise, he will typically wait until the person plunges the blade deep into the left side of his belly, and draws it across to the right, with a sharp upward cut at the end. A samurai who feels himself capable may then plunge the blade into his groin and cut upwards to the sternum, followed by a horizontal cut at the base of the rib cage. However, the kaishakunin is supposed to keep a sharp (heh, heh) eye out, and strike at the first sign of pain or hesitation in his principle.
The kirioroshi, incidentally, was not intended to actually sever the head, but to leave it attached by a strip of skin at the throat. It was considered infra dig for one’s principal’s head to go spinning across the room, spraying blood as it went; only low-class criminals were treated thus. Especially one should not whack one’s principal in the jaw with the katana, as Yukio Mishima’s kaishakunin did in 1970. As noted above, minor imperfections in one’s waza would be forgiven if one was acting as kaishakunin out of friendship, but acting in such a piss-poor manner gets one talked about, and not in a good way.
After the person committing seppuku is finally, the sanbo, the kozuka, and the katana are all discarded as being defiled by death.
Incidentally, real badasses did kill themselves, in the ritual known as jumonji giri. This is just like seppuku, except that there is no kaishakunin. After disemboweling yourself, you sat quietly and bled to death over the next half-hour or so. The last person to do this historically was General Nogi, who did it as junshi (following one’s lord in death) on the death of the Meiji emperor in 1912. He not only committed jumonji giri, he buttoned up his white naval blouse afterwards.
Reasons to commit seppuku were junshi (although was strictly discouraged by the bafuku and daimyo, as it used up too many perfectly good retainers), funshi (to express one’s indignation at a situation), kanshi (as an admonishment or rebuke to one’s lord for his behavior), to atone for dishonorable actions of one’s own, and to avoid capture and disgrace (and probable torture and execution) in battle. In such circumstances, of course, there usually wasn’t time for the whole ritual, so expedients as cutting one’s own throat, throwing oneself from a running horse with a sword in one’s mouth, or flinging oneself off high walls, towers, or cliffs were winked at. In 1516, Muira Yoshimoto committed suicide by cutting off his own head, something that got him a gazillion style points (he was still dead, however).
My name it means nothing
My fortune is less
My future is shrouded in dark wilderness
Sunshine is far away, clouds linger on
Everything I possessed - now they are gone
O, where can I go to and what can I do?
Nothing can please me only thoughts are of you
You just laughed when I begged you to stay
I’ve not stopped crying since you went away
The world is a lonely place - you’re on your own
Guess I will go home - sit down and moan
Crying and thinking is all that I do
Memories I have remind me of you
