Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Sweet mother of Tesla....

Just got electricity back last night.  Currently watching Entergy crawfishing:

http://cityofno.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&event_id=128

7 comments:

Mantan Calaveras said...

Glad to see you're okay.

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear you are alright and the lights are on.

This is a bit off topic. I'm asking because of your headline, which includes the name "Tesla."

The United States of America is a special country, And I mean special in the sense of a rare, beautiful place with a rich history and, I believe, awesome potential, signs to the contrary notwithstanding.

I'm not talking "special" in the short bus kind of way.

But in addition to producing polemics in favor of liberty and some genuine and inspiring examples of diverse peoples living out their understanding of the promise of liberty at the core of the American idea...

... American soil has also proved a rich ground for whole ecosystems of diverse and complicated paranoias and a myriad of conspiratorial narratives.

Some of these involve the figure of Tesla. The people who get all weird about incandescent lightbulbs as a symbol of personal liberty seem to be referencing this, and I've seen some weird shit about Tesla, including things about his relationship to the Bush family and suggestions that he came up with a way of making power generation totally free (um, yeah, whatever) floating around on the internet, and showing up in the conversations of bar room ranters.

I have some co-workers who make sly Tesla comments I don't quite catch.

Do you have any insight into this odd "Tesla" meme and what it is signifying for the people who evoke it?

I don't get it. What's up with the Tesla crushes some people seem to have?

Like I said, this comment is totally, 100% off any topic this blog has ever covered, except maybe the posts where you put up video that talked about the British MP and the Federal Reserve.

Anonymous said...

Geez. I thought you may have floated away in the rising tide. Glad you are back online.

Jason Brad Berry said...

I have a Tesla crush and I while I don't think there is such a thing as "free energy" I think there have been technological developments that have been suppressed by our government and very powerful forces in order to keep the status quo.

Tesla was funded by J.P. Morgan and when Morgan found out he was working on a "free electricity" model his funding was immediately pulled and his life was subsequently destroyed. His name was essentially deleted from history books while most of his accomplishments were credited to other people. Upon his death, government officials raided his apartment and confiscated his documents, work, etc.

Yeah...there's a lot of fact to fuel conspiracy in regards to this man who gave us probably the most important invention of the modern age...alternating current.

I, like many others, think there was much more to the man's research than we will ever know and that mystery allots him a special place in the imagination of people who don't trust their government. I'm one of those people.

Anonymous said...

So, genuine genius, a compelling immigration story in which the USA initially did give Tesla opportunities he would never have had in his Eastern European country of origin, followed by a corporate smack down and potentially governmental interference by shadowy forces... you're right. His story has everything.

So who is writing the screenplay?

Jason Brad Berry said...

He is the stuff of legend for sure. He was a plot point in the film The Prestige:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/

He was played by none other than David Bowie.

There are numerous conspiracy documentaries online about him....some of them are worth the watch just to see how the Tesla/Westinghouse battle against Edison played out.

Anonymous said...

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ef668caf14/drunk-history-vol-6-w-john-c-reilly-crispin-glover