READ: Albuquerque Protest Turns Ugly

The Albuquerque Police Department are being investigated by the FBI after a YouTube video went up last week, showing APD shooting a homeless man who was camping, after what was reported as a standoff that lasted for hours.
This is the 22nd police shooting since 2010, and outrage has poured out over the incident, sparking the interest of the national media and even Anonymous, which led to protests against police violence all over the city Sunday night.
APD has said that the deadly use of force was warranted in this instance, because the suspect, James Boyd, had a history of mental illness and was armed with multiple knives.

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READ: Mazes, Monsters, Charlatans, Satan and Suicide: A Short History of the Satanic Panic

One of my favorite pieces of Satanic Panic-era propaganda has to be Jack  Chick’s “Dark Dungeons” religious tract. One of hundreds of such tracts created by evangelist Chick, “Dark Dungeons” is the story of two young women led astray by the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. One of them, Marcie, commits suicide after her thief character “Black Leaf” dies and the other, Debbie, is initiated into witchcraft after her cleric character Elfstar advances to eighth level. As the diabolical Dungeon Master “Ms. Frost” leads Debbie further from the loving arms of Jesus, her mysterious friend “Mike” pops up to tell her that she’s in grave danger. Following a visit to a mustachioed minister, Debbie repents and burns all of her D&D materials instead of saving them to sell on eBay in twenty years when she needs beer money.

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READ: Skeleton Key to the Conspiracy: The Eriksson Twins

There’s a gang of YouTube videos out there “proving” that So-and-So is a shape-changing lizard alien, based solely on minor video distortions.  And (if you didn’t know) Paul’s bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road is proof that MI5 replaced him with a double when he died in 1966. Sometimes, the most innocuous event can be touted as evidence of a conspiracy.
And sometimes, the evidence supporting a theory will be so damning that it will push that theory into the realm of “fact.”  Like Snowden’s revelations, which proved what the Alex Jones crowd had been saying for years.
But somewhere in the middle, are those events which refuse to be either proof or conjecture.  Events that merely dull Occam’s razor, leaving you with only a slightly scarred hunk of rock-solid “what if..”

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READ: Robomancy: Technoccultist Joshua Madara on Arduino and the Future of Magick

Four hours of trudging through circuit diagrams and forum posts that read like Chinese toaster manuals, trying desperately to figure out what “Arduino” is.  I finally have a breakthrough realization: I may have reached the far end of my brain’s capacity to learn new things.

I am an idiot.  What a downer.

Luckily, I find a TED Talk by Massimo Banzi, an instructor at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy and co-creator of Arduino, an “open-source electronics prototyping platform,” which breaks it all down for me.  Through a haze of tears, I learn how a couple of nerds have managed to turn the world of interactive technology on its head while fooling around with toys and LED displays in their bedrooms.

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BEAUTIFY: Ain't Nobody Got TIME to Post!

Just in case anyone was wondering what I have been up to, the above photos just about sum up the most interesting parts of the last nine months I haven't written anything here!  Really though, it's been quite eventful lately and I wish I'd make more time to write, more often.  Maybe that can be a belated New Year's Resolution?

So I turned 30 this past year...  My mom wigged out that I was actually looking forward to it, haha!  It feels good to be out of my 20s, honestly- at times they seemed more annoying than my teenage years.  You think you've figured things out, everyone around you acts like you're a capable adult, but really you're still pretty naive about things.  Maybe it's just me.  

I'd like to think that I take every chance I get to grow and learn and play and love.  Lots of self-evaluation and listening to others helps me on this journey.  That's really been my focus lately, to be more self-perceptive and to listen better, to everything, everyone.  Seems simple, but really it's easy to miss a lot when you stop actively trying to do these things.  Love, friendship, health, family, creativity...  all these things need constant nurture.  Well duh!  But it's the "obviousness" of these things that makes us forget, makes us lazy.

I guess making time to write more would contribute to these aspirations.

Maybe tomorrow.

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READ: Dead Chickens and Santeria at the Romero Cemetery

The Albuquerque warehouse district is cold as hell at midnight.  And dark.  This little spot goes dead around 6 p.m. and refuses to drag its scraggly ass up until 5.  I’ve been sitting in the cold for two hours, cursing Matt Staggs and chain smoking.

A single tweet from Matt two week ago piqued my interest, beginning a chain reaction that ends with me on a wild chicken chase to find out who’s been leaving the corpses of black hens in a dusty family cemetery for two years.

A story that has been copypastaed ad nauseum around the internet for some reason, the last two weeks:

“KRQE-TV reports (http://goo.gl/XR9FZ8) that Michael Gabaldon, co-owner of Romero Cemetery, says for two years, dead chickens and chicken parts have been dropped off overnight.
He says the chickens have been left periodically from every day to every two weeks.  There also are bones or feathers scattered throughout the cemetery.
Gabaldon says he doesn’t know if the chickens are part of a religious ceremony, but he called the bizarre practice disgusting and creepy.
He says he hopes to put up a gate to keep cars out at night.”

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READ: Kill All Muggles

My wife had to explain to me that “muggle” is from Harry Potter. She claims she was reading it for the benefit of a friend. I’m not convinced. But don’t worry. The divorce papers have been filed.

It came up because my Facebook feed was filled with this video, last month. “Muggle” was being thrown around like whatever they throw around in that Harry Potter game. I know it as internet slang for those nerds who don’t know about magic. Christians and accountants, mostly.

The video is a short report from Colorado’s 9 NEWS, concerning the finding of an “occult altar” in a deceased man’s backyard shed. Amongst the paraphernalia was found human bones. Most likely, it was connected to Palo, a Cuban magical tradition.

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