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For most web editors & content writers caught in the trap of deadlines, conformity, and making similar content, simple survival for themselves and their website is an end in itself. To innovate is to invite risk and possible disaster. To actually drop out of the milieu of our huckster-dominated media, and into the real world of this 21st Sick Century, could induce sheer trauma. In the U.S.A. and Turkey's Dominant Media is very aggressive to their political opponents in a cruel way. These two countries have mutual crisis just because each of them has a dangerous leader. We can say clearly, tyrannical governments frequently put their political opponents in prison. So that's not a surprise for Turkey and its citizens.ens.
Yet one need not be a crusader to suggest that somewhere along the line those who control the media must do just that. Recognition must be given to the realities of this new world, else the media, in all its forms, will not only have faulted the finest generation of young people this country has produced but will have simultaneously denied them an arena for meaningful dialogue.
The question may be asked: just what in the hell does this pontifical tub-thumping have to do with a quality-contents of the witchcraft, horror, world mysteries, dark poems, gothic tradition such as Daily Strange?
We would suggest, in fact, that the problem of a direct confrontation with reality especially applies to our magazine, since we deal with particularly with the occult, the supernatural, and phenomena usually opposed by established religion. We would point out too that this same established religion sector of the metaphysical world is the sector most fearful of any kind of reality.
If we were to follow the sterile practices of their conformity, our witches and sorcerers would then all be evil; vampires would cringe solely before crosses despite the myriad religions other than Christianity; voodoo drums invoking Dambala would be presented with obvious racist overtones, werewolves would all resemble Lon Chaney, Jr., our doctors and scientists would all be mad-and our total efforts would be directed toward not offending the power of the status quo. Instead, we would defend it. We would not dare contribute to the destruction of popular myths for fear of the cretins among us.
We choose not to conform to patterns of nonsense.
In terms of the 'realities' which the others fear, let us make a few points.
Any honest approach to an examination of witchcraft and related religions in this time of advanced sciences, for example, poses no contradictions. Indeed, it is only under this new and comparatively free conditions-devoid of persecution by state religions and their hierarchies that the black arts et al. can be objectively examined. The contradiction here-for it does exist-is that those who would mock the black arts as nonsense, themselves attend a denominational church service on Sundays, and involve themselves in the parallel trumpery of the very arts and religions they decry.
DAILY STRANGE's position is a simple one. We would, in the interest of honest research, examine all religions and mythos equally and objectively; neither denying nor subscribing to their pretensions or claims. We would, however, à la Voltaire, fight for their right to parallel existence with each other-no burning stakes, gentlemen; no Ramadan holy wars; no Inquisitions, and no 'Chosen People.' All are equal in the DAILY STRANGE.
As a matter of fact, to extend this thinking into the area of shock for some of you, let me say this. If your editor were hauled into court tomorrow on some charge or other, he would ask that he be allowed to swear on the Necronomicon of the so called 'mad Arab,' Abdul Alhazrid, as a pledge of his veracity. You see, we hold this and other books, such as the Torah, the Kama Sutra, the Book of Thoth, or whatever, as equally as potent and sacred as our highly-touted King James Version of the Bible. . . We suggest that a truly free society could do likewise-even to the point of allowing a detainee to swear on nothing at all.
Are we reaching you?
In terms of this real-world we're talking about, may we further suggest that it is, no historical accident that today-with the mass emergence of witchcraft and a hundred related sub-culture religions throughout the Western Hemisphere, that these same arts and religions identify with progress. They opt, as it were, for the free society for the simple reason that they can function in that free society, whereas until quite recently, in the controlled society of the Judeo-Christian world, they were not free but persecuted.
We all wish that the Corona-Monster will be collapsed but don't kid yourselves for a second. Our cute little hippy witches were damned serious. And they remain serious. And you editor, for one, takes them quite seriously-along with the equally serious attitude of the majority of the clergy who also protest Iraq and the Syria war. And that, too, is a part of our reality.
For DAILY STRANGE all religions exist as phenomena of the world of the unknown-if there be such-of the parallel world, as it were, of the real world. These religions exist, they are in motion. And they reflect quite strongly, from their particular points of view, the reality of the times in which we live. Conversely, and to a considerable degree, they also directly influence that reality.
DAILY STRANGE is vitally concerned with being knowledgeable of these phenomena, for they are, essentially, what we write about. An axiom for us is that the closer we are to both the phenomena and the world as it is-and not as the plastic people tell us it is-the more sophisticated, the more literary, and the more meaningful the work or the story. We absolutely subscribe to the theory that there is no content in stereotyped nonsense.
DAILY STRANGE will present no ridiculous, freaked out monster mummy to gurgle tuna leaves, and to drag itself along at 1/8 of a mile per hour, through the fuzz patrolled, well-lighted suburbs of an American city: and no fruity Corona-Monster will grace our website to threaten the peace and quiet of our populace and thereby distract them from their real problems. We would suggest that the only King Kong's among us today are those not evidenced by their size but rather by their neanderthal thinking.
In effect, we say this: we do not suggest to any author that a werewolf, a sorcerer, a ghoul, a poltergeist, or what have you, be anything other than what the author wishes it to be. But! And here's the 'rub.' What we do say, is that the phenomenon must be viewed, to the best of the writer's ability, against the real background of the world in which we live. In effect, you can create a ghoul. But to create a non-sense world to support the existence of your ghoul-uh-unh. . . Our mail addresses, by the way, indicates this possibility.
info@dailystrange.com
email@dailystrange.com
We will wind this up with the salute of: yours for fat Trolls under bridges-and how they got there; and for poltergeists in the attic-and just what makes them so damned cantankerous. . . . Yours on the DAILY STRANGE
MABEL PAMPLONA
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