...a pointless rock wall as a metaphor for the myopia of the culture-bound...

Israeli West Bank Barrier - Justin McIntosh. CC License.

A wall is defined as "a structure that defines an area, carries a load, or provides shelter or security".  Seems simple enough, but simple definitions are themselves walls that hide complex realities. 

Walls can be made from a large variety of materials and serve a large variety of purposes.  There are many kinds:  Curtain, Mullion, Partition, Party, Infill, Fire, Shear, Knee, Cavity, Pony...and that's just in building lingo.  We won't even go into Facebook walls and firewalls.  They can be works or art or canvases, even the screen for vast and complex animated films.  From Banksy to Blu, the ordinary can be made into something extraordinary, a reclamation of our shared environment.  We don't think about them too much, but we should, for they define us as humans as much as opposable thumbs, binocular vision, and the use of tools.  

"Tear down this wall!" signaled the end of a nearly 100-year geopolitical duopoly whose ramifications are still defining the world in which we live.  The wall in question came crashing down, and the clouds of dust are still settling.  Within this murky atmosphere, the blind and our one-eyed kings are clamoring to put walls back up.  The rich retreat behind them and some western nations are debating them as a way to keep the migrants out.  The collision between globalization and nationalism may well be a story of walls, or a lack thereof.

Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv. Public Domain.

But enough with the stentorian platitudes.  This post came about after seeing a photo of Trump at the Western Wall -- he loves his walls, -- and an EFL class I gave using public art and urbanization as its theme.  We discussed the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and I intended to do a short post about the two walls as places to grieve, where people leave mementos of their grief, whether rolled up pieces of paper with prayers written upon them, or mementos of a war whose combatants are now dying off.  The memories will soon be gone, but the wall will remain.

Some of the most famous walls -- The Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, The Berlin Wall, The West Bank Barrier, Trump's proposed border wall -- were erected to keep people out...or in.  There are score thousands of lesser-known walls all across the world, like their cousins the fence, making manifest the abstract lines on a map that define the boundaries of private and public property, from the homeowner to the state, from anonymous mud-brick dwellings to the only human structure visible from space.  They shelter and protect us from the outside world, from threats real and imagined.  But I wanted to speak of other kinds of walls.

Some of these walls are metaphors, like Pink Floyd's Wall, the emotional barriers to shut out the world, to compartmentalize experience, the kind of walls that allow a preacher to spread the gospel on Sunday and snort methamphetamine with male prostitutes on Saturday.  Or in this case "where traumatic experiences are represented as 'bricks' in the metaphorical wall [the hero] constructs around himself that divides him from society."

 

The Walls of Jericho were blown down a trumpet....the Walls of Jerusalem and countless other cities the scene of great mayhem and carnage.  Alexander the Great scaled walls like a spider, single-handedly jumping into a walled city to inspire his troops along their unstoppable march to India and back to Macedonia.  And when there were no more walls to breach, he died.

"Shaka, when the walls fell"....in an episode of Star Trek, this is a phrase uttered by an alien trying, incidentally, to break down the walls between humans and his race.  In that episode, the language barrier is eventually overcome.  The aliens speak in allegory and though Capt. Picard and crew understand the words, the meaning is lost without knowing the ur-tales to which the allegory refers.  When the walls fall, the language barrier drops.  Dialogue is established and when Riker asks Picard if they'd made friend that day, Picard can answer that at the very least, they didn't make an enemy.

Some walls exist only because they are all that's left of an edifice, like The Western Wall, the last remaining remnant of Solomon's temple.  Jews go there to mourn the destruction of the Temple and pray for its reconstruction, leaving prayers on rolled up papers pushed into the crevasses.  It is the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray -- the holiest site is actually behind it.  Some rabbis teach that the Foundation Stone is located near the El-kas fountain, opposite the exposed section of the wall and where the Holy of Holies once stood.  As a practical reality, the wall symbolizes the great obstacle to the restoration of Judaism, for Islam's second-holiest shrine, the Dome of the Rock, sits atop the Temple Mount.  Its destruction would unleash Armageddon.  As long as the Dome of the Rock stands, the Temple cannot be rebuilt.  It is an impassable wall with apocalyptic ramifications.  As the location of the Foundation Stone, it recalls that our earthly creation was in effect the separation of Man from God; it is a great wall separating Heaven from Earth.

In addition to the mosque on the Temple Mount, Muslims revere the wall because it is believed that the Prophet's miraculous steed was tethered to it by Muhammad during his night flight to Jerusalem.

Stoning the Devil in Mina - Al Jazeera English. CC License.

During the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca incumbent upon all able-bodied Muslims with the means to undertake it, Muslims also perform a ritual called the Stoning of the Devil.  Pilgrims throw seven pebbles at three walls (jamarāt), from east to west, in order to reenact a part of Abraham's pilgrimage, where he threw pebbles at three pillars.  For safety reasons, in 2004 these pillars were replaced by walls.  The walls represents God's temptation of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael to renounce the sacrifice of Ishmael.  They also represent casting away base desires and are a repudiation of the self before God.  This renunciation also serves to bring the pilgrim closer to God; the walls in effect represent not just temptation, but sin itself, and thus represent, much like the Western Wall, the separation of God and Man.

Again, like the Western Wall, walls serve a stand-in for the buildings themselves.  Sacred Walls:  Learning from Temple Symbols, is a book about the symbols found on the walls of a Mormon temple, symbols which communicate to the faithful.

Both books and buildings have voices.... However, even though architectural symbolism existed before the written word, the message of a building is often difficult for most of us to recognize.

For Latter-day Saints, temples are the most important and symbolic buildings in existence. Through temples the unique doctrines of the restored gospel are communicated...

This unique and fascinating book is designed to help you see the House of the Lord with new eyes as you examine the “voices” of temple exteriors along with the “voices” of the Book of Mormon....

Gate of a Hunting Ground - Jean Jacques Lequeu. Public domain.

This is no different from a Catholic cathedral, which is in many ways a Bible in stone, a visual didactic tool for the illiterate.  It is "architecture parlante" -- or speaking architecture.  Architecture parlante may be as simple as an inscription or phrase, a quote perhaps, to instruct and to declare the building's purpose.  Or it may be that a building's form reflects its purpose:  the cooper's atelier is shaped like a barrel, the brothel resembles an erect penis (yes, those were real proposals).  The idea of architecture parlante was originally "voiced" at the time of the French Revolution by architects Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Étienne-Louis Boullée, and Jean-Jacques Lequeu.  "The same concept, in the somewhat more restrained form of allegorical sculpture and inscriptions, became one of the hallmarks of Beaux-Arts structures" and was a recurring feature of American civic architecture.  The severity of Modernist architecture saw a decline in the use of ornament and inscription, but Post-Modernist architects have revived it.

Married (Mario Roverto Durán Ortiz). CC License.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is composed of three parts: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the Three Servicemen Memorial, and the Vietnam Women's Memorial.  These latter were erected to appease early critics of the original memorial -- which consisted of the Wall alone -- who deemed it shameful because of its unconventional design, black color and lack of ornament.  Sad to say, architect Maya Lin's gender and ethnicity were a factor in much of the negative reaction (Ross Perot reportedly called her an "egg roll").   It's since become highly regarded, if not revered.  The Memorial Wall is a wall that doesn't enclose or bear anything at all.  Like the Western Wall, people leave articles, not prayers necessarily, but personal mementos.  As one travels along the wall it gets higher and the names of the dead eventually rise over one's head.  It's a mournful black, and a mirror in which one can see oneself reflected.  It is spare, elegant and deeply moving.  It has the atmosphere of a holy place, like an outdoor temple.  Visitors are hushed and while there is no wailing, there are a lot of tears.  It's perhaps one of the most powerful memorials in Washington, and has been described as a "wound that is closed and healing".  In a sense, it is architecture parlante, and it is a dialogue.

The three soldiers appear to be looking at the wall and there is something archetypal about their number: Three Kings, Freemasonry's Three Ruffians, The Trinity.... 
 

Cliff (cliff1066) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/3041642644/.  CC License.

The Women's Memorial also depicts three uniformed women evoking perhaps the Three Mary's, with a wounded soldier.  It is a Pietà in all but name.

The wall has proven so popular that at one point three half-sized portable versions traveled across the country and to date have attracted tens of millions of visitors.  There are four other traveling versions of differing scale, and four fixed replicas.

The idea that architecture can communicate something, a set of ideals or civic virtues, may be a high-falutin' topic to be bandied about by art historians and architects, but something in it resonates in the popular imagination:  "If these walls could talk...." some people say, as if the walls, silent witnesses, retain memories of scenes enacted within them, like video cameras which record but cannot play back.  The artists Blu and Banksy have made them speak, however, often quite eloquently.  The simple wall, however, unadorned, can often speak volumes.  While ostensibly barriers, they can serve to identify where one space meets another and serve as points of communication.  Why have more than one space at all?  Boundary stones, fences, great walls....are these basically human equivalents of pissing on rocks to mark a territory, like most graffiti?  One piss stain upon another?  I dunno, It's too late for more of my grade-school philosophizing.  I just thought it was neat how that photo of Trump at the Western Wall popped into my monitor about the same time I was discussing the Vietnam Memorial Wall, two walls where people feel compelled to leave stuff.  The rest is just riffing.  Breaking on through to the other side.

And with that, I'm Audi 5000.

PS

Looks like I hit "Publish" too soon.  Reading about the Robert Frost poem "Mending Wall" (of "Good fences make good neighbors" fame), I came across the following analysis of the themes, stating more or less what I was trying to say at some point in the post:

The poem explores the contradictions in life and humanity, including the contradictions within each person, as man "makes boundaries and he breaks boundaries".  The poem also explores the role of boundaries in human society as mending the wall serves both to separate and to join the two neighbors, another contradiction....Then, in "Mending Wall", Frost meditates on the role of language as a kind of wall that both joins and separates people.

My Bologne has a first name:

L'obelisque

When I moved to Toulouse in April, 2002, I lived a few hundred yards away from this plaza and for over a year regularly frequented the restaurants and bars nearby.  My best pal Alex's office is just around the corner and the plaza provides a convenient shortcut to the hopping/happening Place St. Pierre.

Which is why it's kind of odd that I must have seen this plaza fewer times than I can count on one hand.

The few times I had been there I must have

dithered about as if in a dream, 
some kind of hapless mote 
floating through on a sunbeam

(from Burning Pizzle by J. Trenchwheat)

because I'd never really quite grokked -- done the spit-take as it were -- the fact that there's an obelisk fountain at the dead center.  And if there's anything I'd grok, it's an obelisk fountain.  This quiet, almost hidden plaza in the midst of one of Toulouse's hubbiest bubs features an obelisk and, as Prof. Freedom Williams once said, "I'd never even gone "hmmm."")

The Place de Bologne is relatively new, so it's jut another indication that the Egyptian Revival is still going strong in Toulouse  (I've written extensively about plethora of contemporary pyramid monuments in the metropolitan area).  Egypt remains a source of inspiration for architects, developers, and builders as it has since the Phoenicians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans -- times when Egyptian civilization was the antiquity of what we consider our own antiquity.

Place de Bologne as seen from the LoS helicopter

Take a S.I.P.

Imagine how geeked out I got when after seeing the obelisk I took a look at the office doors facing it and saw a triangle logo for home builder (an outfit called S.I.P.)  I have explored the links between Freemasonry, the Egyptian Revival(s), the triangle and/or pyramid logo, and the French real estate and construction industries.  In this case I was doubly geeked:  facing this first S.I.P. was another be-triangled business:  Groupe Osiris (!) is a developer and real estate manager.

Osiris has the cool-for-us title of the "Lord of Silence" -- but he was also known as the "Lord of the Dead" and the "King of the Living".  Interesting -- perhaps the Groupe seeks to evoke the importance of urban planning and lodging as a controlling force in our lives.  Haussmann certainly understood the relationship between urban geography and political liberty when he designed wide boulevards favorable to army forces and cannon at the expense of the narrow streets favorable to building blockades and defending the poor quarters with rusty rifles and kitchen knives.

King of the Living Room

When Toulouse performed the same kind of "remodeling" (at about the same as Haussmann), the city's motivations were probably less strategic than practical in terms of everyday traffic.  In any event, if an urban zone is defined by the constant reconstitution of its component parts (to paraphrase T.A. Wilson), a city is in a constant state of degeneration, regeneration, and transformation.
Osiris worship was in essence a cult of regeneration and rebirth, and a city it essentially an entity which is dying and re-birthing itself at every second of every day.  The city is its own mother, father, and child, a family coiled-up into a convoluted relationship which at its mutating center is a kind of cosmic incest.  (If in fact we can speak of a center at all; perhaps it's less inaccurate to speak of something so folded up in upon itself that it's all periphery.

Given the increasingly restrictive circles in which the elite travel, and -- like boolean ovals -- intersect through various boards, clubs, business groups, Lodges -- tighter and tighter as we head towards the tip of the pyramid -- it's no small wonder these increasingly reduced and therefore intimate business bedfellows move with ease within the nomenclature of this incestuous Egyptian genealogy: Horus, Osiris, Cheops....

One of the many challenges facing urban planners is how to move a city forward without totally destroying its past.  One can't forbid any and all new construction in an historic city or we end up stunting a city's dynamism.  We have a static showpiece where we can't even put in a new skylight because it doesn't mesh with the surrounding 19th century character, for instance.

That said, I'm a firm believer in taking the time and spending whatever is necessary to properly investigate new construction sites and thinking long and hard about what we're destroying.  When in the 19th century the city of Toulouse plowed through the medieval warren of the centre ville to create a logically straight pair of central axes, they did indeed facilitate movement through the center of town; they also forever destroyed  its medieval character.  The neighborhoods around these axes remain today among Toulouse's most beautiful streets.  Imagine what has been lost.

In my own time, during the renovation and construction of the new Palais de Justice, the remains of the palace of the Counts of Toulouse were found; minimal archaeological investigation was carried out and what we might have learned from it has probably been lost forever.
  

Not so far from there, the destruction of a building attached to the Church of the Dalbade revealed a medieval cemetery underneath.  This was also investigated, but then, poof, a new building appeared and the cemetery was lost forever.

The Place de Bologne is another such place, which "represents in an edifying manner the problems posed by a certain kind of urbanism" (here).  Some of the buildings were renovated for use in the current plaza, but some very old buildings, in one of the oldest parts of Toulouse, were simply destroyed.  If we were dealing with some run-of-the-mill urban building, we could shrug it off as acceptable change.  "Urban Renewal" has been used to put lipstick on the pig of various corrupt and disruptive schemes dreamed up by developers eager to squeeze every last coin from every last square foot, but if we look past the abuse of this doctrine, we'll find it's a necessary and even positive part of urban evolution.  Without renewal, there is no urban stasis, only decay.

But the ruins here were in fact the last vestiges of the palace of the Visigoth kings of Toulouse, before various depredations obliged them to remove to Toledo (Spain, not Klinger's hometown).

This is an important and relatively under-known period of the city's history:  the Dark Ages, the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages -- the Visigoths being one of the tribes who brought that about -- in the epicenter of Gallo-Roman France.  The Visigoths had sacked Delphi and Rome and legend has it that they made off with the spoils of Solomon's Temple.  They built the first Church of the Daurade in an octagonal, Byzantine style, so-named for its golden mosaics.  Their kingdom extended from Andalusia to the Loire and Toulouse was their capital; Place de Bologne was the epicenter.

The worst part is what they destroyed it all for; the architecture is unremarkable and the entrances to the plaza are gated, giving the impression of a private rather than a public space.  Indeed, all the buildings on the plaza are a tightly controlled development, not really an organic residential zone but operated by one of the powerful developers which have had so much power in determining the ever fluid urban and suburban landscapes of French cities and villages

As one site puts it "the result of these errors makes this place close, cold, without life.  With a century of history destroyed beneath our feet."  Interesting now that I think of it.  Another one of these "dead zones" is Compans Caffarrelli, which, incidentally, is another big plaza surrounded by high-rises, a public space privatized, basically, but with a cold and inert feeling despite the fact that several hundred people probably live there.

One must also consider the chilling effect of all this not only on street life, but free speech.  Consider this anecdote from a few years ago:

Taking pictures of this pyramid and architecture, Daurade was approached by a squat little security guard, a little nervous and scowling, who informed him that taking pictures is forbidden. So there you have it. On the city streets one is free to photograph what one wants. But as all this public space is enclosed and privatized, public inquiry and expression are somewhat less free. In fact, taking a photo is forbidden. Whatever the reason for this, security probably, it still doesn’t eclipse the fact that in this new world order everything will be for sale, and those with money to buy are welcome. As long as the money keeps flowing in the right direction: up towards the pinnacle.

The fountain isn't remarkable:  an obelisk in an octagonal basin, accessed by three steps which form the octagonal base.  The plaza itself is paved in the same form.  I suppose one could read something into the three steps in terms of Freemasonry, but that may be pushing it!  It occurs to me that this is the second thing in this post described as octagonal; it's possible the form of the plaza is a reference to the original Church of the Daurade which sat in roughly the equivalent position at the other end of the Quai Lucien Lombard.

I've already mentioned in a few posts how the Count of Montalambert called Toulouse the "home of vandalism".  Part that vandalism isn't just the destruction of history, but replacing what has been destroyed by shite architecture.  Toulouse has recently been obliging people on the outskirts to sell their homes so they can be razed and big dumpy apartment blocks put in their place.  The whole quasi-rural character of vast tracts close to the dead center of Toulouse have been sucked into a cold and sterile, inorganic mess of character-less, undifferentiated buildings.

So, I was attracted by the Egyptian obelisk and, sniffing around for anything vaguely Masonic, came across the two developers using triangles -- a subject to which I've already dedicated both a post and a Picasa album -- one of these developers specifically evokes Osiris.  A curious choice, given the theme of death and rebirth.  They certainly killed something off here -- a piece of history which could furnish much-needed detail about the Visigoth period of Toulouse -- but whether something worthwhile has been born from this remains to be seen.

America--Fuck yeah!!

The saga of the American Police Force story began to unravel last week but the unraveling appears to be on hold for the weekend. We expect things to accelerate tomorrow. Maybe all won't be revealed but certainly more details will emerge, theories will be proven untrue and stupid rumors will be laid to rest.

So far the speculation-o-sphere seems to be divided into a few camps. What we call the knee-jerk conspiracy theorists, or the reactionaries, are convinced that this is a nefarious scheme by Xe (formerly Blackwater). We here at LoS believe that the privatization of the police and penal system are indeed grave threats to civil liberties. That is why the rampant and unfounded linking of this affair to Blackwater is so offensive. Cry wolf enough and sensible people will begin to write you off.

Dig this bit from Prison Planet by Paul Joseph Watson on 1/10: "APF web page admits it runs Blackwater-controlled U.S. Training Center, proving that the two organizations are one and the same."

The article then goes on to "prove" that Blackwater (actually Xe) runs the U.S. Training Center. The problem is, there is nothing to prove. Xe openly admits that the USTC is their operation.

But more importantly, how does claiming to run anything make it true? If you were going to hire a guy to be your security director and on his résumé he listed experience with the CIA as a qualification, you'd probably be inclined to check it out. And if the CIA said there was no record of this guy ever working for them, what would you think?

a) Wow this guy was in so deep the CIA won't acknowledge his employment! or
b) This guy is full of shit

A second camp proposes that the APF may in fact be a real company with links to the private security establishment, but has simply bitten off more than it can chew. We tend to think even this gives the APF too much credit. Their argument has the benefit of restraint and not jumping to conclusions before all the facts are in. Versions of this theory have APF linked to Allied Defense Systems or other less well-known groups, such as Vance Security USA. ADS has in fact admitted meeting with ADF but says their background check persuaded them to avoid working with them.

A third camp thinks that the APF is an elaborate scam. They cite the founder's extensive criminal background and the fact that the APF claims to have years of experience despite being founded in February 2009, just after it became known that the facility they are to take over was up for grabs. They note that the APF website steals images from other private security firms' websites. This You Tube collection of news reports is pretty convincing that this is a boondoggle of large proportions.

To Prison Planet's credit, they've put up an article by Felix Barbour on 02/10 supporting the scam theory. Mr. Barbour has actually done some basic journalism and found that the APF is unlicensed to act in the capacities they advertise. They cannot act as private investigators or security operators.

And then there's the logo. A bit over-the-top, to say the least. Odd too that the APF's website seems to have changed it's name since yesterday from the American Police Force to the American Private Police Force. Perhaps hoping to avoid being charged with impersonating a police officer when the charges are filed....

Last we've heard, APF honcho Michael Hilton, or should we say Miodrag Dokovich, has left town, probably before being run out of it on a rail covered in tar and feathers.

We at LoS think this a scam. Perhaps it will come to light that APF is working in concert with another, more established company but we'll reserve judgment until more facts come out. There has been talk of a parent company but who knows?

We're actually interested in the possibility that the APF is more than just a clever con. Could they be a front for some kind of nationalist Serbian group? Dokovich claims to be from Montenegro, which only a few years ago was linked with Serbia as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (2003-2006). In 2006 Montenegro went independent and the bond was dissolved.

Is Dokovish a bitter nationalist who'd like to see that union renewed? Why would a Montegrin use the Serbian coat of arms for his corporate logo?

Anyway, all this is fascinating, no matter which of the theories turns out to be true. We're merely getting our speculations in before more of this tale unfolds....

For more on the situation as it stands as of 03/10, see this good synopsis from The Missoulian.

Also, this guy certainly got on the bus rather early with his site http://www.americanpoliceforce.net which takes the APF story as its centerpiece but also deals with the privatization of the military and the police. And hey, he'll sell you three APF domain names for $100,000!

Monarchists and Mercenaries: Say hello to the American Police Force

Remember them militarized police explorers? If that worried you than this'll surely get your (pet) goat: "residents of Hardin, MT, were alarmed last week when executives from the firm, American Police Force, showed up in the town, which does not have its own police department, with Mercedes SUVs bearing "City Of Hardin Police Department" decals." The company is close to closing a deal which would give it control of a jail in the small Montana town in order to build a police training facility. APF's own website links itself to the U.S. Training Center operated by Xe--the private military security firm formerly known as Blackwater--but the link has been denied by Xe spokespeople. Ditto APF's claims to have worked with the U.S. government. Founder Michael Hilton, a U.S. citizen apparently originally from Montenegro, has a long criminal record which includes real estate scams, misdirection of funds and writing bad checks. A shady character indeed. Xe is almost certainly being truthful on this one. The Raw Story blog studied Burke's Peerage and came across the fact that the APF coat of arms seems to be very similar to Serbian Prince Aleksandar Karageorgevich. (Born in White Lodge, England!) In fact, save the yellow border on the shield, replaced in the APF coat with two yellow fleurs-de-lis, and some variations in the crown, they are identical. The coat of arms also figures on the national flag of Serbia. Although the coat of arms of Montenegro is very different, its flag and coat also feature a crowned double-headed eagle. 

Blackwater itself has been linked to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a link strenuously dismissed as conspiracy theory by both Blackwater (Xe) and the Knights of Malta. An official European Parliament report claims that Blackwater used Malta as a base of operations in support of CIA-rdered rendition of suspected terrorists. The SMOM coat of arms also bears a resemblance to the APF/Alexander K. coats--ermine cape, crown, white cross, but then again, many other share these elements as well. It appears as there is a rather tangled history between the Yugoslav royal family and various Orders of St. John, and the SMOM, as a descendant of the Knights Hospitaller are also called the Order of St. John. The patron of Freemasonry is St. John and the double-headed eagle is used as the symbol of the Scottish Rite. It is suggested that this is an alchemical symbol of the union of male and female elements in the personality. In Orthodox countries it symbolizes the dual sovereignty of the Emperor--religious and political--or his dominance over East and West. Which would lead chilling resonance to its use by APF...if it were indeed a Xe front. Blackwater is accused of having a secret crusader doctrine and a goal of establishing Christian supremacy in the Middle East. Former Blackwater exec Joseph Schmitz is an honorary member of the SMOM. Blackwater was named by a wealthy scion by the name of Eric Prince. Evocatively named, reclusive, ultra-conservative, convert to Roman Catholicism, Prince has donated generously to Republican and conservative Christan organizations. It has been said that Prince "“views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe...To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades”." Xe strikes us as an unusual name. We can only find one other use--it the abbreviation for Xenon--a noble (haha) gas. It is colorless, odorless and heavy. Not a bad symbol for a covert police force! The name is Greek and means "foreign(er)", "strang(er)" or "guest." But the claims made by APF which link themselves to the U.S. Training Center and Xe appear to be perfidious. Their use of Yugoslav royal heraldry remains a mystery. Not knowing where to go with this info, we emailed both Xe about their name and APF for some clarification about the coat of arms.

While we're waiting also though we'd post this nifty image from the APF of an earth tessellated for use as a giant chessboard because it meshes nicely with recent posts. While we are eagerly awaiting a response to our inquiries, we hope it's not a jack-booted mercenary parachuting through the skylight. A simple email will suffice! We're not so worried though, APF appears to be a clever scam rather than some far scarier Xe shenanigan. But with Mr. "Hilton's" Montenegrin background, there may be some other weird Byzantine politics at play. But long after the wool comes up and the APF exposed, Xe will still be lurking out there, odorless, transparent, heavy. Even scarier still, people like those in Montana will find nothing wrong in welcoming them with open arms, as long as some jobs are involved.