2005 Fall

Volume 1 Issue 1

Editor's Note

Thank you for reading Trade-Jacker, the electronic zine designed to cross disciplines and inform both subscribers and editors. This publication was inspired by our 2005 calendar, which we put together for members of our family and friends.

Our thought was, why not send out a publication that not only incorporated our own knowledge and interests, but those of our friends and family as well. So we'll write and edit this issue, but we hope that you guys will want to tell us something pertaining to your interests, expertise, or whatever else. As we like to say at Trade-Jacker, we treat your hobbies like your job.

It has come to our attention that there may be misconceptions, misinformation, and simple lack of understanding regarding the how's and why's of vegan/vegetarian lifestyles. So here are the basics, as we have decided they are.

There are several different types of vegetarians. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, and raw-food vegans eat plants that are uncooked. As you can imagine, raw foodies are hard-core! Lacto-vegetarians include milk and cheese products in their food, ovo-vegetarians eat eggs, and lacto-ovo vegetarians eat (all together now) milk, cheese, and eggs. Pesco- or pesce-vegetarians eat fish and sea creatures. People choose a vegetarian diet for various reasons, a primary one being health. Animal products are high in cholesterol (the bad kind), and are more difficult for the body to break down. In these days of high demand and mass production, farm animals are kept pumped full of chemicals and hormones, and are raised on unhealthy diets themselves. You eat what your food eats.

Many more vegans object to the conditions in which farm animals are kept. Even eggs from "free-range" chickens are misleading: free-range only requires farmers to let their animals have access to outdoor areas for an unspecified amount of time each day. And that applies only to chickens used for meat, not eggs. Dairy cows are kept permanently pregnant so that they continuously produce milk. Their calves are usually taken away immediately so that they don't consume a sellable resource, and/or to be raised as veal. That's what happens in the best of conditions. The average process of providing meat and dairy to the masses should turn even the strongest of stomachs, and we'll save that for a later issue.

Vegans do not eat any meat, dairy or eggs; they do not use gelatin or glue made from horse hooves; they do not wear leather,wool, down, or fur of any kind; they do not use lotions with lanolin; they do not use cosmetics or household products that have been tested on animals; most vegans do not eat honey or use products made from beeswax.

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After three years and tens of thousands of dollars (of debt) of school, I realized that Architecture's base is rooted in conspiracy, deception and corruption. I don't mind, I'm sure that architecture as a profession has advanced to a point where its origin doesn't matter. However, it is my belief that in order for that origin to not matter, we have to at least address and note those deeds mentioned above that are so rooted in the culture of architecture today.

While the role of architect has been around longer than history is recorded, we can actually pinpoint a time when the term "architect" thrust itself into vocabulary. It was Vitruvius, who was so mystified with the Parthenon on the Arcopolis in Greece, who invented the word from the Greek arkhitekton (arkhi: chief; tekton: builder). In school, professors, lecturers and visiting architects claimed that arkhi meant "first", in essence downplaying the obvious hierarchical leanings of the profession. But we know that architects were not the first builders, since humans had been "building" their own homes for thousands of years before civilization was ever thought of. Arkhi meant chief, or master, and we can see that concept at play in the very building that the profession is rooted in: the Parthenon.

Once again, this isn't a critique of the building, or the architecture, or the culture surrounding the Parthenon. But just as to understand Greek democracy by realizing that very few people were allowed to participate (at best, only white men who had land), to understand the Parthenon, we have to realize why it was built, and it's safe to say that it wasn't about religion.

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For some reason I had a bottle of soda out on the counter right next to a box of baking soda. That's all it took for me to wonder just exactly what the "soda" in "soda-pop" meant. To make a short story extremely long?

Today, carbonated water, soda water and mineral water all pretty much refer to the same thing. However, their literal definitions are completely different and unique. People had been drinking mineral water for years believing that the bubbly effervescence caused by free carbon dioxide led to good health. Until 1767, people could only get this water from natural springs. But in that year, Joseph Priestly left a bowl of water sitting a vat of fermenting beer in Leeds, England. The carbonation released form the fermentation process became trapped in the water above, which Priestly noticed, then drank. This led him to write the 1772 paper entitled "Impregnating Water with Fixed Air". His discovery would properly be called carbonated water and not soda water just yet. While his discovery utilized the release of carbon dioxide through fermentation, Priestly later used chalk to create his carbonation. By dripping sulphuric acid onto chalk (calcium carbonate), CO2 was released which then "impregnated" the water.

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I have been researching religious cults and the Jonestown tragedy since high school. There are a few basic undisputable facts, with which even the most casual interested party is likely to be familiar. Before we venture into stranger territory, let's review the fundamentals of Jim Jones and the Peoples' Temple.

Jim Jones founded the Peoples' Temple in 1963. He was working to begin a Christian church that was focused on social justice and racial equality. Jones attracted hundreds of followers through his preaching, and in 1971, settled the headquarters in San Francisco. At this time, Jones sought to increase the numbers of his fold, and began staging miraculous healings as part of his services. In 1977, Jones moved his church to a site in the mountains of Guyana, where several hundreds of his church members soon joined him. During an infamous demonstration of his divine powers, Jones once stood in front of his congregation, and had a trusted sidekick shoot him in the chest. The good reverend was dragged behind a curtain, and emerged moments later completely healed. Congressman Leo Ryan visited Jonestown to investigate reports of suspicious activity in November 1978. Ryan and his posse were charmed and sent away, only to be murdered at the airport as they attempted to fly out. A week later, 914 people, including 274 children, were found dead at Jonestown. The official reports to the public tell of a mass suicide via cyanide-laced Kool-aid.

A curious event? I should say so. A straightforward tale of religiosity gone amok? Definitely not. To begin, it is well-known that members of the Peoples' Temple who attempted to leave and return to their normal lives were systematically harassed, and reporters trying to tell the story of Jonestown were threatened. Such doings were behind Leo Ryan's investigation. Incidentally, many friends and relatives of Temple members flew to Guyana with Ryan, presumably to talk some sense into their loved ones. They, however, were denied access to Jonestown.

Jones' followers were blacks, the poor and elderly, former prisoners and psychiatric patients, and young people. The common denominator? They were all target populations of one MK-ULTRA, a CIA mind-control experiment which duplicated Soviet and Chinese brain-washing techniques of forcing spies to reveal their secrets. You might find this a bit difficult to believe. I did, until I read that a post-mortem search of Jonestown uncovered stashes of thorazine (a tranquilizer), sodium pentathol (otherwise known as truth serum), chloral hydrate (a hypnotic), and other pharmaceuticals along those lines.

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Here's just a small, tiny fraction of the information that goes into putting out this ezine. Probably most everyone knows this except me, but I thought I would include this just in case I'm wrong about something, or in case this is new to anyone else.

There're two distinct parts to Trade-Jacker: the e-zine and the website. The e-zine is written in plain text, the website is written in HTML. I originally spent a month trying to figure out how to send out an HTML email newsletter, like the kind MoveOn or the Family Research Council send out. I wanted some color, and some pictures to illustrate concepts. I finally found an e-zine format that I liked from a free e-zine template website, then just altered it a little using FrontPage Express (also a free download).

In order to send and receive the HTML email newsletter, I had to configure and understand my email server, and enable it to write in and send HTML, as opposed to plain text. Then, after I "perfected" the newsletter, I came across a website claiming to list all the reasons why HTML emails are evil. I then decided to scrap the whole HTML e-zine and write a simple plain text newsletter, which we would archive on our website in HTML. So, if you're receiving the e-zine, you're reading boring old plain text, which is actually not so bad. But, if you're browsing the internet and you're on our website, everything you're seeing is written using HTML, and possibly some Java Scripting (I know many people hate Java Script, but I'm just learning all this stuff, so cut us a little slack, or write to us to educate us).

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. While the "L" stands for "language", HTML is not a computer language: just the plain old language of English. You can write HTML documents using simple text writers such as the notepad for PCs. If you've only used MSWord, or WordPerfect, these are just fancy programs for writing your life story or whatever. If you want to write out script for a computer program, or if you want to write text that will be read by an internet browser to reveal a webpage, its easiest to just pull up the simpler Notepad, Wordpad, or, if you're using a MAC, Simple Text. If you're using a PC, your notepad is located in Start>Programs>Accessories>Notepad.

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