12 FEB 02: WALTER BENJAMIN
ON HASHISH

from some Benjamin bio,
via Adam Mortimer:

There is an interesting gloss
on “politeness” in the essay “Hashish in

Marseilles”, which describes
how Benjamin, after smoking hashish, succumbed to

hunger, which required a
visit to Basso’s restaurant. Here he ordered oysters

from the menu, and a local
dish as a main course. The waiter returned to say

that his choice of main
course was unavailable, and offered him the menu a

second time. Benjamin’s
finger hovers over the previously chosen dish, then

settles on the dish directly
above it, which he orders. Then he orders the dish

above that one, and the
next dish, and the next, all the way to the top of the

menu. “This was not just
from greed, however,” Benjamin comments, “but from an

extreme politeness toward
the dishes, which I did not wish to offend by a

refusal.”

10 FEB 02: INTRIGUING
NEW RECORDS, RECORDS, RECORDS.

from recent editions of
the Forced Exposure ‘new releases’ bulletin:

SOUL JAZZ RECORDS (UK):

VA: In The Beginning, There
Was Rhythm CD (SJR 57 CD). “This record

features the groups that
grew out of Punk and embraced dance music.

These groups reflected the
changing face of a British multi-cultural

society in the aftermath
of Punk, taking on new musical influences

such as Black American dance
music, Reggae and Electronic music. A

Certain Ratio were one of
the first groups to be signed to Factory

Records in Manchester, the
first band to make the connection between

punk and US Black dance
music. It was A Certain Ratio who went to New

York to record their first
album that managed to mix a sparse

Manchester bleakness in
their sound along with US funk/dance

elements. A Certain Ratio’s
early cover of the US group Banbarra’s

‘Shack Up’ features the
amazing funk drumming of new recruit Donald

Johnson. ‘Knife Slits Water’
is a classic extended disco mix that

managed to bring the punk
7″ into the world of the dance 12″.

Sheffield became a focal
point for DIY-electronic groups at the end

of the 70s. The two most
successful were Cabaret Voltaire and The

Human League. Whilst Cabaret
Voltaire stuck to their roots, signing

to, and staying on, a fledgling
new label, Rough Trade Records, The

Human League would go on
to international stardom as their

experimental late-70s electronic
music turned into 80s synth-pop. At

the beginning, both these
groups were interested in electronic music

and how this music could
be created within a punk ethos.

Consequently, the all-electronic
‘Being Boiled’ was created on a

two-track tape recorder
in mono! The Pop Group were the forerunners

of what came to be known
as The Bristol Sound. Other groups that have

come out of this chain include
Rip, Rig and Panic, Maximum Joy,

Massive Attack and Portishead.
The Pop Group mixed Punk, Funk, Disco

and Reggae influences into
a sound that many future bands would

emulate. Out of Leeds came
The Gang of Four. Again mixing Punk with

dance and a large dose of
Marxist philosophy, The Gang of Four were

initially released on the
Edinburgh based independent label, Fast (as

were The Human League).
This Heat. An early inspiration to many of

the groups here, Camberwell’s
finest ’24 Track Loop’ is an incredible

precurser to electronic,
industrial music which sounds like an early

version of Jungle. The concept
of Industrial music would be taken a

stage further by Throbbing
Gristle who released music on their own

Industrial Music label with
the intent of pushing the boundary

between music and noise.
23 Skidoo’s interests stretched as far as

Kung Eu, Gamelan Music,
Language and Semiotics. Apart from this, they

also managed to combine
their musical influences like no-one else. On

their classic album, Seven
Songs, Dance music, Experimental noise and

Gamelan music combine in
equal measures. ‘Vegas El Bandito’ is taken

from this record. ‘Coup’
is one of the definitive dance records from

this period. Finally, The
Slits were possibly the closest of these

groups to The Sex Pistols.
‘In The Beginning, There Was Rhythm’

(produced by Dennis Bovell)
was indeed a prophesy of the music to

follow Punk, where Punk
would meet Funk, Reggae and Disco.”

Tracklisting: 1. A Certain
Ratio – Shack Up 2. 23Skidoo-Coup 3. Gang

Of Four – To Hell With Poverty
4. The Human League – Being Boiled 5.

The Slits – In The Beginning,
There Was Rhythm 6. This Heat -24 Track

Loop 7. Throbbing Gristle
-20 Jazz Funk Greats 8. A Certain Ratio –

Knife Slits Water 9. Cabaret
Voltaire – Sluggin For Jesus 10. The Pop

Group – She Is Beyond Good
And Evil 11. 23 Skidoo – Vegas El Bandito.

$18.00

 

OCORA (FRANCE):

AISSAWA CONFRATERNITY, THE:
Confriérie des Aïssawa: Morocco CD (OCORA

560140). “First formed in
the 16th Century and among the most

celebrated Sufi ensembles
in Morocco, the Aïssawa Confraternity bring

particular spark to their
rituals through a capella psalmody,

religious poetry, trance
dances accompanied on powerful musical

instruments (such as ghayta
oboes, duff framed drums, etc.).”  $15.00

MI (UK):

HAWKWIND: In Search of Space
CD (EMI 30030). New mid-line EMI reissue

from 2001 of the second
Hawkwind album (originally issued by UA in

1972), with deluxe 24-page
booklet of photos & credits, plus a

complete repro of the original
album booklet: The Hawkwind Log (“a

collage of texts and photos
— supposedly a found log-book of a

spaceship, containing the
cryptic last notes and contemplations of

it’s travellers through
space – another seed of Calvert’s concept of

the soon to come Space Opera
– Space Ritual”). With three bonus

tracks: original single
versions of “Seven By Seven”, “Silver

Machine” & “Born To
Go”. “ISOS established Hawkwind’s style of

hypnotic free-flowing improvisations,
accompanied by tribal rhythms –

in contrast with some acoustic
guitar based pieces, remnants of

Brock’s busking days, often
with a melancholic touch.” Line up of:

Nik Turner (saxophone, flute,
audio generator, vocals); Dave Brock

(vocals, electric &
acoustic guitar, audio generator); Dave Anderson

(bass, electric & accoustic
guitar); Del Dettmar (synthesizer); Terry

Ollis (drums, percussion);
Dik Mik (audio generator); Robert Calvert

(vocals).  $13.00

 

HAWKWIND: Hall Of The Mountain
Grill CD (EMI 30035). Reissue of the

classic 5th Hawkwind album,
following Doremi Fasol Latido & Space

Ritual. Originally released
by UA in 1974. This new mid-line reissue

features 4 bonus tracks
(single versions of “You’d Better Believe

It”, “Psychedelic Warlords”,
& “Paradox”, plus “It’s So Easy”). Lemmy

Kilmister is now on bass,
and contributes “Lost Johnny” (co-penned

with Mick Farren), a track
he would also record numerous times with

Motorhead.  $13.00

FOLLOW ME (FRANCE):

GHETTO BLASTER: People LP
(FM 108). “Whether in New York or Lagos,

ghetto blasters/portable
stereo systems are the heart and lungs which

give rhythm to the streets.
The story of Ghetto Blaster started in

1982 when two French musicians
back from New York decided to go to

Lagos to shoot a film telling
the story of a meeting between African

and European artists. Despite
a journey full of setbacks, which

forced them to sell almost
all their possessions including their car,

they reached Lagos where
they formed a group called Ghetto Blaster.

Some of the musicians of
Ghetto Blaster came from the Fela and Sony

Okossun’s bands. Their music
reflected their ambitions: funk with a

Nigerian twist and furious
afro beat saxophone sound. In 84 they

signed with Island for an
EP. They toured with James Brown, Archie

Shepp, Manu Dibango and
Fela. Aftery years of work they released

their LP People in 1986
which gained the group a wider audience. Due

to tragic events the group
separated, but it is now reforming (a new

album is coming up for 2002.)” 
$14.00

WILD PLACES:

HOLY RIVER FAMILY BAND:
Earthquake Country CD (WILD 010). “Stunning

new CD from this amazing
Swedish band with Spacious Mind and Cauldron

members. Running time is
over 76 minutes. Incorporating psych, deep

folk psych and beyond. A
true gem.” From Tom Rapp’s liner notes: “To

me, music is psychedelic
if it has the unmistakable presence of magic

and it helps you to open
up your heart and your mind. The Holy River

Family Band, in this new
CD, is wonderfully psychedelic, and this CD

is a Psychedelicatessen.
Come on in and help yourself.”  $14.00

SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS:

VA: Havana, Cuba, ca. 1957:
Rhythms And Songs For The Orishas CD (SF

40489). “Recorded in Havana
in 1957, the ritual rhythms and songs

collected by Lydia Cabrera
and Josefina Tarafa feature the batá

drums, used by practitioners
of Santería to salute and summon the

gods (orishas). The disc
includes a complete cycle of batá salutes to

the orishas, called the
orú de igbodú, as well as rhythms played

during ceremonies to mark
the presence of an orisha. With origins in

Yoruba religion in West
Africa, this disc serves as a hub of

Afro-Atlantic music, with
ties to related religions in New York,

Miami, the Caribbean, and
Brazil.”  $15.00

VA: Matanzas, Cuba, ca.
1957: Afro-Cuban Sacred Music From The Countr

CD (SF 40490). “Recorded
in Matanzas in 1957, these ritual rhythms

provide a direct link to
the music of 19th-century colonial Cuba, and

provide a window into the
religious life of the first generations of

Africans who worked the
sugar mills. Collected by Lydia Cabrera and

Josefina Tarafa, these recordings
preserve extremely rare bembé

lukumi ritual drumming used
by practitioners of Santería to summon

the gods or salute Cuba’s
African nations. It is remarkably different

from the urban style heard
today in Havana, although some of the same

songs were sung in both
city and countryside. With origins in Yoruba

religion in West Africa,
this music reveals the roots of today’s

Afro-Cuban ceremonial practices.” 
$15.00

09 FEB 02:
IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SIMPLY THE RELIGIOUS WING OF NAMBLA?

From the LATimes:

Reports of Priests’ Abuse
Enrage Boston Catholics

By ELIZABETH MEHREN, TIMES
STAFF WRITER

BOSTON — Among Catholics
here, the floodgates of rage and disappointment poured open this week.

    On radio
talk shows, in chatter at convenience stores and in emergency “listening
sessions” convened hastily by the Archdiocese of Boston, the faithful vented
anger and frustration over daily disclosures that scores of pedophile priests
worked in the region with the full knowledge of church officials.

    As the
number of implicated clergy members soared to 80, the crisis grew so deep
that nearly half the Roman Catholics polled said Cardinal Bernard Law should
resign. The turmoil over what church officials knew, when they knew it
and what they did or did not do to protect themselves and their parishioners
has rocked a region that is more than 50% Catholic.

    “This
is our Sept. 11,” Boston College professor Thomas H. Groome said Friday.

   
By week’s end, the archdiocese had given law enforcement authorities the
names of at least 80 priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors over
the last 20 or more years.

    The archdiocese
also announced Thursday that six more priests had been suspended. Earlier
in the week, the archdiocese relieved two other priests of duties, also
following accusations that they had sexual relations with children.

    Both
actions came days after Law publicly insisted that all priests in his jurisdiction
who were suspected of sexually abusing children had been removed from their
duties…

    The survey
found that 64% said church leaders care more about protecting the accused
priests than helping the victims.

    “I think
for a long time people have known that the church has been aware of these
problems and has not acted expeditiously,” said Lisa Cahill, a professor
of moral theology at Boston College, a Jesuit institution.

    “Part
of what’s appalling,” she continued, “is the extensiveness of the problem,
based just on the number of these priests that keep surfacing in New England.
Every day, you hear about six more cases.”

   

Recently, the archdiocese said it had settled so many child sexual abuse
claims against it that a multimillion-dollar insurance fund was running
dry.

    Scandals
involving pedophile priests have hit parishes across America–and indeed,
around the world–in recent decades. Thousands of adults have come forward
to say they were abused as children and many priests have been sent to
jail.

    At first,
accusations against Father James Geoghan seemed no different. The 66-year-old
defrocked priest was charged in three separate criminal sexual abuse cases
dating from the 1980s and 1990s. More than 130 people have claimed they
were fondled or molested by Geoghan, who also is a defendant in 84 civil
lawsuits.

    But in
the course of the Geoghan investigation, Law was forced to tell prosecutors
that the priest’s pattern of pedophilia was no secret in the local Catholic
hierarchy.

    Law abruptly
promised to supply law enforcement agencies with names of priests suspected
of such behavior. He organized a panel including medical experts to look
into sexual abuse within the church. The cardinal also appealed for public
understanding, urging Catholics to pray for him as he faced this difficult
situation.

    On Jan.
25, he vowed, “There is no priest, or former priest, working in this archdiocese
in any assignment whom we know to have been responsible for sexual abuse.”

    Days
later, he removed two more priests for alleged child molestation.

    The archdiocese
did not respond to requests Friday for an interview with the cardinal.
However, after returning from the Vatican, Law told local reporters at
Logan International Airport: “Our intent is to do everything we possibly
can to ensure the protection of children.”

    Around
the archdiocese, the scope of the scandal–and its growing momentum–continued
to shock Catholics, who expressed grief, outrage and, most of all, a sense
of betrayal.

    “You
have an organization that is based on faith, and part of that faith derives
from your confidence in the institution that houses that faith,” said Paul
Nace, a real estate developer in Newton who was raised Catholic.

    “When
events happen that call into question that institution, at a very basic
and moral level it also calls into question your faith,” Nace said.

    As horrific
as the spiraling number of clergy sexual abuse cases might be, “the most
disturbing part is that it appears that decisions were made to protect
the institution at the expense of the victims,” Nace said. “You’ve got
a head-on, loggerhead collision with everything that institution is supposed
to stand for.”

    Groome,
a former priest and author of a new book called “What Makes Us Catholic,”
said that to Catholics, the church represents a vastly more important institution
than in some other denominations.

    “We have
obviously exaggerated the importance of the institution,” he said. “Everybody
has a priesthood, and everybody invests in their priesthood, but nobody
in the Western world has invested in their priesthood the way Catholics
have. This is why all of this is so desperately shattering.”

    Mitchell
Garabedian, an attorney representing 84 plaintiffs in civil suits against
Geoghan, said his clients have had their faith ravaged by their experiences.

    “They
cannot seek spiritual relief anywhere because of what has happened to them,”
Garabedian said. “The very entity they want to
turn to has in a sense helped them to be molested. It is mind-boggling.”

    Some
of the claims he has looked into involving the Boston archdiocese date
back more than 40 years, Garabedian said. Far from surprised that so many
names of alleged predator priests have been put forward by the church,
“I’d be surprised if more names were not revealed,” he said.

    “There
is a serious problem within the Archdiocese of Boston,” Garabedian went
on. “For decades they have been imprisoned by pedophiles and shackled by
their own denial.”

    The troubles
at the archdiocese took a new turn late in the week when a family in which
both a father and son were abused by priests filed a suit against Cardinal
Law. The latest legal action–the first directed at the cardinal himself–claims
Law “intentionally” and “recklessly” inflicted emotional damage on Thomas
and Christopher Fulchino by knowingly assigning a pedophile priest to their
parish.

08 FEB O2: ROCK N ROLL
IS HERE TO STAY! THANK YOU SWEDEN!

INSIDE THE DRESSING ROOM OF THE HIVES!
(NOTE THE RIGHT HAND.)

07 FEB 02: THE DEMOLISHER
OF MCDONALD’S

ABOVE: French farmer
Jose Bove has some French bread, cheese and wine after he was freed from
the Villeneuve les Maguelonne jail in the south of France, Tuesday, September
7, 1999. Bove, leader of a radical farmers’ union, was jailed for nearly
three weeks for vandalizing McDonald’s restaurant property. The small Farmers’
Confederation has made McDonald’s the main target in a wave of sometimes
violent protests, decrying the fast-food chain as a symbol of American
trade “hegemony” and economic globalization.(AP Photo/Christophe Ena).

from New
Left Review 12, November-December 2001

JOSÉ BOVÉ

The demolisher of McDonald‚s
explains his personal background, the history of

the Peasants‚ Confederation
in France, and the international objectives of Via

Campesina. Struggles in
the countryside of the Massif Central or Karnataka as

spear-points in the anti-globalization
movement.

You founded the Confédération
Paysanne in 1987. What is its project?

JOSE BOVE: Firstly, it‚s
a defence of the interests of peasants as workers. We‚re

exploited, too˜by the banks,
by the companies who buy our produce, by the firms

who sell us equipment, fertilizers,
seeds and animal feed. Secondly, it‚s a

struggle against the whole
intensive-farming system. The goals of the

multinationals who run it
are minimum employment and maximum, export-oriented

production˜with no regard
for the environment or food quality. Take the

calf-rearing system. First
the young calf is separated from its mother. Then

it‚s fed on milk that‚s
been machine-extracted, transported to a factory,

pasteurized, de-creamed,
dried, reconstituted, packaged and then, finally,

re-transported to the farms˜with
huge subsidies from the EU to ensure that the

processed milk actually
works out cheaper than the stuff the calves could have

suckled for themselves.
It‚s this sort of economic and ecological madness,

together with the health
risks that intensive farming involves, that have given

the impetus to an alternative
approach.

    …We‚re
committed

to developing forms of sustainable
agriculture, which respect the need for

environmental protection,
for healthy food, for labour rights. Any farmer can

join the Confédération
Paysanne. It‚s not limited to those using organic methods

or working a certain acreage.
You just have to adhere to the basic project.

There are around 40,000
members now. In the Chambres d‚Agriculture elections

this year we won 28 per
cent of the vote overall˜and much more in some

départements. It
was 44 per cent in Aveyron, and 46 per cent in La Manche.

How did this come to pit
you against the junk-food industry˜most famously,

dismantling the McDonald‚s
in Millau?

During the eighties we built
up a big campaign in France against the pressures

on veal farmers to feed
growth hormones to their calves. There was a strong

boycott movement, and a
lot of publicity about the health risks. Successive

Ministers of Agriculture
were forced to impose restrictions, despite heavy

lobbying from the pharmaceutical
industry. At the end of the eighties the EU

banned their use in livestock-rearing,
but it has been wriggling about on the

question ever since. In
1996, the US submitted a complaint to the WTO about

Europe‚s refusal to import
American hormone-treated beef˜exploiting the results

of a scientific conference,
organized by EU Commissioner Franz Fischler, that

had concluded, scandalously,
that five of the hormones were perfectly safe. But

there was so much popular
opposition, linked to people‚s growing anxieties about

what was happening in the
food chain˜mad cow disease, Belgian chickens poisoned

with benzodioxin, salmonella
scares, GMOs˜that the European Parliament actually

held firm. When the WTO
deadline expired in the summer of 1999, the US slapped a

retaliatory 100 per cent
surcharge on a long list of European products˜Roquefort

cheese among them. This
was a huge question locally˜not just for the sheep‚s

milk producers, but for
the whole Larzac region.

    When
we said we would protest by dismantling the half-built McDonald‚s in our

town, everyone understood
why˜the symbolism was so strong. It was for proper

food against malbouffe,
agricultural workers against multinationals. The actual

structure was incredibly
flimsy. We piled the door-frames and partitions on to

our tractor trailers and
drove them through the town. The extreme Right and

other nationalists tried
to make out it was anti-Americanism, but the vast

majority understood it was
no such thing. It was a protest against a form of

food production that wants
to dominate the world. I saw the international

support for us building
up, after my arrest, watching TV in prison. Lots of

American farmers and environmentalists
sent in cheques.

…What were your demands
at Seattle?

Firstly, all countries should
have the right to impose their own tariffs, to

protect their own farming
and food resources and maintain a balance between town

and countryside. People
have a fundamental right to produce the food they need

in the area where they
live. That means opposing the current relocation of

American and European agribusiness˜chicken
and pig farms, and greenhouse

vegetables˜to countries
with cheap labour and no environmental regulation. These

firms don‚t feed the local
people: on the contrary, they destroy the local

agriculture, forcing small
peasant-farming families off the land, as in Brazil.

Secondly, we have to take
measures to end the multinationals‚ dumping practice.

It‚s a well-established
tactic used to sweep a local agriculture out of the way.

They flood a country with
very cheap, poor-quality produce, subsidized by

massive handouts in export
aid and other help from big financial interests. Then

they raise prices again,
once the small farmers have been destroyed. In

sub-Saharan Africa, livestock
herds have been halved as a result of the big

European meat companies
flooding in heavily subsidized frozen carcasses. The

abolition of all export
aid would be a first step towards fair trading. The

world market would then
reflect the real cost of production for the exporting

countries.

    Thirdly,
we absolutely refuse the right of the multinationals to impose patents

on living things. It‚s bio-piracy,
the grossest form of expropriation on the

planet. Patents are supposed
to protect a new invention or a new technique, not

a natural resource. Here,
it‚s not even the technique but the products, the

genetically modified seeds
themselves, that are Œpatented‚ by half-a-dozen

chemical companies, violating
farmers‚ universally recognized right to gather

seed for the next year‚s
harvest. The multinationals‚ GM programme has also been

a ferocious attack on biodiversity.
For instance, something like 140,000 types

of rice have been cultivated
in Asia, over the centuries. They‚ve been adapted

to particular local tastes
and growing conditions˜long-grain, short-grain,

variations in height, taste,
texture, tolerance of humidity and temperatures,

and so on. The food companies
are working on five or six strains, genetically

modified for intensive,
low-labour cultivation, and imposing them in areas of

traditional subsistence
farming. In some Asian countries˜the Philippines and

China are the worst cases˜these
half-dozen varieties now cover two-thirds of

rice-growing land.

    …The
Marrakesh accords were supposed to be subject to a balance sheet at

Seattle˜of course, this
never came. Not that we need an official report to know

that the countries of the
South have been the biggest losers: opening their

borders has invited a direct
attack on the subsistence agriculture there. For

example, South Korea and
the Philippines used to be self-sufficient in rice

production. Now they‚re
compelled to import lower-grade rice at a cheaper price

than the local crops, decimating
their own paddy production. India and Pakistan

are being forced to import
textile fibres, which is having a devastating effect

on small cotton farmers.
In Brazil˜a major agricultural exporter˜a growing

percentage of the population
is suffering from actual malnutrition. The

multinationals are taking
over, denying large numbers of farming families access

to the land and the possibility
of feeding themselves.

06 FEB 02:

from Der
Spiegel, by way of the always-interesting Babelfish Translator Device:

 Daniel and Manuela Ruda: Kiss after
the judgement

 

JUDGEMENT DURING THE SATANISTEN
PROCESS

Grinsen in the face

Grinsend and smirking received
the two Satanisten Manuela and Daniel Ruda the judgement, which will bring
them for long time into a closed psychiatric hospital. Before the Bochumer
regional court they were condemned for the murder at a 33-jaehrigen acquaintance
to detentions by 13 or 15 years.

Bochum – after the message
of the judges the Rudas must spend indefinite time in a closed psychiatric
institute. A chance, from the measure execution in such a way specified
dismisses to become, exists only, if consultants classified the patients
as harmless. The defender said after in relation to the judgement the ARD:
” the two are bekloppt, if you permit me the printout. ” Also Manuela and
Daniel Ruda are still felsenfest convinced a half year after the murder
at the 33-Jaehrigen of the fact that the devil would have given them personally
the job to the blood act.

    During
the process several consultants had come to the judgement that the married
couple could due to their personality disturbances and the act insight
lacking at any time again murders. Experts had explained that a handling
could take clearly more than ten years up. It is not to be excluded however
that a therapy fails completely. The married people are momentary not even
able to develop debt feelings.

    The pair
had brutally murdered the acquaintance with 66 meter passes and hammer
blows after own confession in July 2001. However had the accused abgestritten
that it concerned murder – finally they would have received the job from
Satan. A voice from the underworld instructed it: ” kill! Bring victims!
Bring souls! ” Also Daniel Ruda, which had wanted original to state during
the process, explained: ” if one someone with the auto over-driven, is
accused also not the auto. “

    ” it
did not concern Satanismus, but around a crime of two disturbed humans
“, the chairman Richter of the court of assizes chamber, explained Arnjo
Kerstingtombroke in his in-hour grounds. ” the Satanismus was a Popanz,
it before itself moved over. ” The criminally liableness was so substantially
reduced that a lifelong detention was out of the question. To the accused
he said. ” with the production is now conclusion. Now the grey Einerlei
of the psychiatry comes for long time. “

    For Daniel
Ruda did not detect the judges milderungsgruende on. Because of murder
in the status of reduced criminally liableness he got the maximum penalty
of 15 years. Since its wife did not take the original initiative to the
act, so the grounds, were reduced their imprisonment by two years. The
pair killed, continued to tighten the completely badless victim insidiously
and from low motives the court.

    With
the message the judges still go beyond the demands of the public prosecutor’s
office, which had required 14 years for the accused and for its wife detention
of twelve years. Both public prosecutor’s office and the defenders had
expressed themselves in their final speech on Monday to accommodate the
married people in a closed psychiatric institute. Both pages had pleaded
for reduced criminally liableness.

    The lawyers
still announced in the court room revision against the judgement. ” the
judgement is too hard, and the Satanismus played very probably a role “,
said attorney Reinhard Benneken.

05 FEB 02: THE LEOPARD
MAN OF SKYE AND THE GERMAN SATANISTS

FROM http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_435810.html?menu=news.quirkies

Leopard man shuns society for hut on
Isle of Skye

A tattooed hermit known as
the Leopard Man of Skye lives in a hut made of sticks and stones and bathes
in a river.

    Tom Leppard
dropped out of society years ago after spending £5,500 to have his
body covered in spots. Once a week, the ex-soldier goes by canoe to buy
supplies and pick up his pension.

    Mr Leppard
told Grampian Television: “I spent too long in the forces, 28 years. I
couldn’t mix with ordinary people. I decided I wanted to be the biggest
of something, the only one of something. It had to be a tattoo, one tattoo.
This is one tattoo.”

    Mr Leppard,
who also has a set of fangs, is recognised by the Guinness Book of Records
as the most tattooed man on earth.

    He says
he would be plagued by “interfering busybodies” and children throwing stones
at his window if he went back to civilisation.

Blood-drinking devil worshippers face
life for ritual Satanic killing

Murder trial reveals sinister link
to British vampire groups

John Hooper in Berlin

Friday February 1, 2002

The Guardian

A young married couple who
admitted to a ritual Satanic killing were yesterday told they could spend
the rest of their lives in a secure psychiatric unit after a trial which
has raised the spectre of bizarre underground occult groups in Britain.

    Manuela
Ruda, aged 23, who told a German court she had become a vampire in London,
and her husband, Daniel, aged 26, were given prison sentences of 13 and
15 years respectively after admitting to the hacking to death of a friend
in their flat in Witten, in the Ruhr valley.

    The victim,
a 33-year-old colleague of Daniel’s, Frank Hackert, was targeted as suitable
prey for his mild temperament and love of The Beatles, and was lured to
their apartment where he was attacked repeatedly with a hammer.

    Manuela
Ruda told the court: “Then my knife started to glow and I heard the command
to stab him in the heart.”

    The couple
stabbed Hackert 66 times, carving an occult pentagram on his chest and
collecting his blood in a bowl and then drinking it.

    When
police broke into the flat they found a scalpel still embedded in his stomach
with his body lying beneath a banner saying “When Satan Lives”.

    They
also found imitation human skulls and a coffin in which Manuela slept during
the day.

    The judge
in the case, which has led to disturbing scenes in court, coupled their
jail terms with an order that they be held indefinitely for psychiatric
treatment.

    Neither
of the two self-styled devil worshippers showed the slightest emotion as
the sentences were read out to a courtroom dotted with supporters and admirers
of the bizarre couple, many dressed in black and holding roses.

    Throughout
the trial in the western town of Bochum, the couple had remained defiant,
making rude gestures, rolling their eyes maniacally, sticking their tongues
out and flashing smiles at journalists.

    Manuela
had told the court how, after working in the Scottish Highlands, she had
headed for north London where she se cured a job in a gothic club. It is
here she made her first forays into the world of bloodsucking. In the words
of her lugubriously bizarre testimony, it was frequented “by both vampires
and human beings”.

    Returning
to Germany she began to give substance to her sinister fantasies. She started
to mix with people who went to graveyards at night where they would “have
a perfectly normal chat and drink some blood”. The blood came from donors
contacted on the internet.

    She also
learned how to suck blood from another person’s neck without penetrating
the artery. And she had two of her teeth removed and replaced with long
animal fangs.

    A psychologist
said she appeared to have been unable to develop any feeling of self-worth.
Born into a working-class family, she was selected to attend a gymnasium,
the German equivalent of a grammar school, intended to groom its pupils
for university. But she dropped out at the age of 14, at about the same
time as she tried to kill herself with an overdose.

    When
she was on the stand, Manuela’s lawyer asked her if she had actually signed
over her soul to the devil. “That was two-and-a-half years ago, on the
night before Halloween,” she replied, adding in quasi-Biblical language:
“That was when I placed myself in, and swore myself, to, the service of
our Lord, his will to perform.”

    Her Lord,
though, was Satan, and he had come to play a big role too in the life of
Daniel, the car parts salesman she met through an advert he placed in a
heavy metal magazine in August 2000. “Pitch-black vampire seeks princess
of darkness who hates everything and everyone,” he wrote.

    She and
her husband were arrested after being spotted at a petrol station after
a nationwide manhunt. Police found a list in their flat of their intended
future victims. There were 16 names on it.

    Manuela,
in verbal testimony, and Daniel, in a statement read to the court, both
denied murder on the grounds that they were acting on a command from a
higher authority. “I got the order to sacrifice a human for Satan,” Daniel
insisted.

Tour of Britain’s bizarre underworld

Vikram Dodd

Friday February 1, 2002

The Guardian

Manuela Ruda’s obsession
with Satanism brought her to Britain where her tour of this nation’s bizarre
underbelly took her to the Isle of Skye.There
she met Tom Leppard, in his 60s, who lives in a cave and with whom she
corresponded while awaiting her trial.

    Mr Leppard
said she had told him what she had done, but not the reason why.

    He told
Sky News: “I said you can’t just hate, you’ve got to have something to
hate. You can’t hate this, or hate that without a reason. And she never
answered the question.”

    Ruda
told German police they had visited the UK twice, touring Scotland for
five months in 1996 and in February 1997 visiting London.

    Manuela
said: “I was in England and Scotland, met people and vampires in London.
We went out at night, to cemeteries, in ruins and in the woods.

    The so-called
Leopard Man of Skye has told in the past how Ruda visited him four times
in August 2000 as he worked in a Kyleakin hotel bar and said she seemed
fascinated by his way of life. A colourful eccentric, Mr Leppard is in
the Guinness Book of Records for having his body covered in a leopard tattoo.

    Satanism
in this country is secretive and underground, and there is no hard evidence
pointing to the number of Satanists.

    Iain
Taylor, of the Evangelical Alliance, puts it in the thousands, although
critics accuse evangelists of hyping up the threat as it suits their own
agenda.

    One estimate
puts the number of committed Satanists in Britain at just 100.

    Mr Taylor
said: “There is increasing anecdotal evidence of people becoming involved
in satanism, especially children.”

    Two years
ago a UK branch of the American Church of Satan was set up, merging groups
trying to recruit Satanists here, such as the Church of the Nine Angels
and the UK Temple of Set.

 

03 FEB 02: MAPPALUJO

MAPPALUJO:
A writing game devised by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard

“Night falls softly on the Theatre of Creatures…

“Welcome. Lujo is a world a short distance
from your own, and a few days adrift. It is a land filled with restless
ghosts, and haunted stories. Travellers are invited to pass through the
gateway. Here they will encounter the various domains and cultures of this
realm; its rituals, maps, technicians, modified organisms, and media archetypes.
These singular entities reveal themselves through a collection of narratives,
songs, programmes, reports, poems and other documents, all taken from the
spell book of Mama Lujo, the operational deity of the world.”

[CONTINUED]