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Activist Times Inc. Issue 040
On location from the coca fields of Colombia, it's.....
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Issue #40 August-something, 1989
Special I-got-the-blues Issue!
Write to us: Activist Times, Inc.
P.O. Box 2501
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Ok, ok.... So it took more than 2 days since ATI39. Sorry! I got caught up in
final papers and exams for summer courses, and other projects..
But anyway, on with ATI40. First up is Prime Anarchist, with his new feature
called P.A.W.N., Prime Anarchist World News. Here we go!
P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*
Prime Anarchist World News
Greetings Fellow Humanoids:
Did you know that one of the newest Cyberpunks was one of the oldest Pop
artists? Yeah, Willian Burroughs longtime friend of peoploids like Andy
Warhol, Jack Kerouak and Allen Ginsberg is featured all the time in RE:SEARCH
magazine.
So look out Tim Leary -- you're not the oldest hipster anymore.
If you use a cellular phone where I'm at *98 and *97 are toll phree
numbahs. Is this a global, national or regional phenomenon? If anyone's done
any work with this numerical number assignment pattern, I'd appreciate hearing
about it through either ATI or some other open meduim. What I'd like to know
most is what stops payfones and home fones from responding to these star
codes. A tone? A code? A cable pair?
Everyone is by now aware of my feelings up to today about the People
magaze article about Abbie Hoffman's death. Heck, I published that opinion
EVERYWHERE. I thougt it was by far, the BEST handled Abbie article this side
of the century, this side of the world.
That's until I picked up the July issue of High Times magazine. Steven
Bloom made an awesome compilation of discussions with a bunch of people who
knew Abbie, and it was filled with good schtuff. David Peel, Paul Katner,
Aaron Kay and Willian Kunstler made for the most interesting of the speels.
Also reprinted was an interview John Holstrom did with Abbie around February
last year.
I'll bring forth some of the parts that really tugged at my heart.
"Born on the Fourth of July" will star Tom Cruise as a Vietman vet who
comes back to America and becomes a peacenik. John Tower is a lip service fag
of the Ayatollah's "Satan America".
The current 60's revival will only last 2 years. Now, because of
Woodstock, next year because of Kent State, and NOT the following years
because, "No one wants to remember 1971, I guarantee you. It was a mess".
The Rutgers attempt (at a national student left conference last year) was
too broad. Too wide open. Every faction of the world was at each others'
throat. A great opportunity was lost. Better comprehension of electronic
bulltin boards and computerizing is needed.
Abbie Hoffman was a great mind. Many of us often picked for thoughts when
we knew something was up but just couldn't prove it. Abbie could always get
you proof.
Abbie was a manic depressive -- for that we can be thankful. For it was
from his mood upswings that we got entire novels or painfully truthful poems,
lectures, movie roles, comedy acts or great events.
Abbie was the only man alive in the early 80's capable of exposing the
CIA's efforts in Iran, Nicaragua, Angola, and Guatemala. I'm not suggesting
that Abbie's death was a fascist plot.
I'm insisting it.
I also noticed in this issue of High Times that marijuana is going for
$120 an ounce these days. I can't believe my eyes! That's an outrage. I know
we'll never go back to the days of 30-40 bucks for a 4-ounce, but c'mon. Stop
paying the big piper. Grow your own.
Well, that's all for this afternoon. More later promise. P.A.W.N.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
scienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALK
Now, we have an article from The Unbeliever (201) (formerly The Mad Pirate):
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
******Light Speed... And why it's not possible.********
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok. I know what you're thinking. You have this big question. "Why isn't
faster than light travel (For the sake of space, I'll call FTL, which stands
for [F]aster [T]han [L]ight.) possible? What is so magic about the speed of
light? If you keep accelerating an object, won't you eventually reach the
'speed of light'? Un huh. No way. That's what I'm going to explain right here.
Most people believe that if force is applied to an object, it accelerates in
the direction opposite of which the force is applied. As long as the force is
applied, the object will continue to move faster and faster. Under ordinary
conditions, there is no sign that this will change; no mysterious speed limit
at which this object will stop accelerating, no matter what the force.
Physicists are quite sure that as a force is applied to an object, the
momentum of the object will increase indefinitely, and come ever closer to
infinite. The same can be said of an object's kinetic energy.
Since the common sense notion is that the mass of a body (easily defined as
"the quantity of matter it contains") does not change with motion, it follows
that momentum and kinetic energy must increase only because velocity increases.
And if momentum and kinetic energy increase indefinitely as a force continues
to be applied, that can only mean that velocity must increse indefinitely.
There seems no way out of that syllogism, so what is all this junk about the
speed-of-light limit.
This "junk" started with Albert Einstein in 1905. It seemed to Einstein that
the speed of light in a vacuum must always be measured at the same speed (just
under 300,000 kilometers per second) no matter what the motion of the light
source might be relative to the observer who was making the measurement.
This consistancy of the speed of light did not seem to make sense. Ordinary
objects, like a thrown rock, had speed that depended in part on the motion of
the person or object throwing the ball, and it definitely seemed this rule
should apply to everything, including light. Why should light have a special
status?
Einstein developed his 'Special theory of Relativity' to describe a universe
in which light behaved in this unusual fasion. For light o behave as it does,
Einstein showed that mass ought to increase in quantity for a moving object. It
should increase, as a matter of fact, according to a set relationship:
M = m/(sqr(1-v^2/c^2))
(The above is written in commodore style formulas, because the C64
doesn't support exponents and square root formulas.)
Where v is the speed of the object, c is the speed of light in a vacuum, m is
the mass of the object when it's not moving and M is the mass of the boject
when it IS moving at velocity v.
Until the begining of the 20th century, nothing had ever attained the speed
of even 0.1 kilometers per second, or 1/3,000,000 the speed of light. Even if
you add interplanetary rockets to the list, 15 kilometers pre second, or
1/20,000 the speed of light is all we have obtained.
If we use Einstein's formula and imagine a 1 kilogram object moving at 15
kilometers per second, it's mass at that speed would be 1.0000000013 kilograms.
It would have gained 1 1/3 micrograms, or a little over a billionth of it's
rest mass.
Imagine an object moving at the enormous speed of 30,000 kilometers per
second. Such a speed is 1/10 that of light and by Einsteins equation, I 1
kilogram object moving at that speed would have a mass of 1.005 kilograms. It
would have increased in mass by only approximately 0.5 percent.
A 1 kilogram object with the velocity of 60,000 kilometers per second would
have a mass of 1.021 kilograms. At 90,000 kilometers per second, it's mass
would be 1.048 kilograms; at 120,000 kps it would be 1.091 kilograms; at
150,000 kps it would be 1.155 kilograms.
150,000 kilometers per second is half the speed of light. Even then, the gain
in mass is only 15.5 persent. This doesn't seem very serious, but please note
that the mass has been increasing at a faster and faster rate as the speed
increases.
By the time we reach a speed of 290,000 kps (97 percent the speed of light),
the mass of the moving body is 3.892, almost four times the original mass. At
295,000 kps (98.3% speed of light) the mass equals 5.52 kilograms; at 299,000
kps (99.7% speed of light), 12.22 kilograms, at 299,999 kps (99.9997% speed of
light) 383.5 kilograms.
At the speed of light itself, if that could be reached, the mass would be
infinite- as would be momentum and kinetic energy.
A faster spped is impossible because neither mass, momentum or kinetic energy
can be more than infinite. Besides, at infinite mass, no force, however great,
can produce any acceleration, however small, so the speed cannot increase. So
the speed of light is the limit which cannot be passed.
And yet all this depends upon the validity of Einsteins equation, which in turn
depends upon a correct deduction from Einstein's basic assumption. What if the
equation is wrong, has been incorrectly deduced, or is based on faulty
reasoning?
Perhaps we would still be wondering about that, were it not that a decade
before Einstein advanced his theory, subatomic particles had been discovered.
These tiny objects move at large fractions of the speed of light. Their mass
could be measures with considerable precision, and it was found not only does
their mass increase with speed,but PRECISELY to the amount predicted by
Einstein's equation.
Whew! That was a long file! Well, that's all for now... Until next issue!
(Most of the information for this I obtained from an essay about the
speed of light written by Issac Asimov.)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And now, a few words on the flag and democracy by MAC??? (213)
The USA member of The NATO Association
gives his thoughts on burning the flag.
by MAC???
The American flag, it can show you at a glance whether you are
standing in a part of the world where saying you don't agree with
something won't get you taken away in the middle of the night.
A configuration of symbols that represent the freedom to say you
don't agree with the government or the church.
I am very glad I am an American and even though I would never
burn our flag I realize that making a law that states that you can't
burn it takes us a little closer to that middle of the night.
It is true that much blood has been shed to make sure it can
be safely put outside your house to wave in the breeze, but it does
not just represent this, it represents your right to do with it as
you wish.
So when you see the flag know that you have a responsbility
as well a a great burden upon you. The responsbility, making sure
the flag is where it should be (whereever you think that place is).
The burden, showing the world that the blood we shed to keep chaos
back was worth it!
NOTE: If you have any comments to the
above I can be reached on The
Red Phone.
u!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Notes from Ground Zero.....
Crack/AIDS connection: New York city public health officials have spoken about
the new link between crack use and transmission of AIDS. It happens because
crack users often resort to prostitution to get money for the drug. This has
led to huge upswing in venereal disease cases. When intercourse takes place
with open sores cause by venereal diseases, this allows for the blood-to-blood
or semen-to-blood contact necessary for transmission of the AIDS virus.
Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers with Bobby Seale back in the
60's was shot to death in Oakland, Ca. this week. He was 47. Uncertain as to
who killed him and why.
Racism in the Garden State: The NJ Turnpike is seen as a key link in the
transportation of drugs to New York and other points north. So NJ State
troopers have taken to searching cars for drugs after stopping them for
traffic violations. The problem is that the majority of those stopped are
Blacks and Hispanics, stopped for very minor traffic infringments, (like an
improper lane change) and treated in an extremely rude and abusive manner in
many cases. This statistic speaks for itself: Blacks/minotities make up for
only 30% of drug arrests nationwide, but the percentage of Black/minority drug
arrests from car searches in the NJ Turnpike in the southernmost section near
Philadelphia is 86%. In the section of the tunpike near New York, 89% of drug
arrests from car searches are Black/minority. A clear case of race selection.
(Source: WOR-TV News, Secaucus, NJ)
Movie: "Rude Awakening" was an interesting movie, full of very funny moments.
It's about 2 hippies who go to live in exile in the Central American jungle in
1969. But today, in 1989 they come across a killed CIA agent with papers that
detail US plans to invade Central America. They decide to go back to New York
to expose the papers to the media. They look up their old friends, who
abandoned their radical 60's ways and became successful. I thought the movie
was great, but the get-active-and-save-the-planet message in the end of the
movie should have been more spread out. The movie should have integrated the
hippies' awareness of the extreme new problems of the late 80's throughout the
movie. I think the extreme swing to the right in the Reagan-Bush era should
have been addressed also. But the movie did admirably demonstrate the apathy
of today's college students.
All in all, I recommend the movie. It's very entertaining!
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That's all for ATI40. Look for ATI41 in about a week. Barring accidents! :)
