Art Bell debuts Coast to Coast AM’s live JPEG webcam via a 133 MHz Windows 95 Pentium, despite potential crashes, while defending Timothy McVeigh’s death penalty conviction for 268 murders. Paul Davids reveals Timothy Leary is Dead (releasing Friday) explores psychedelic icon Leary’s cryonics rumors—his ashes, including Gene Roddenberry’s, launched into space from Vandenberg AFB—but Dr. Barry Taff and Carol Rossen deny head severing, citing cremation wishes. Callers debate capital punishment, with Bell rejecting forgiveness over revenge, comparing it to biblical justice, while teasing future guests like Dr. Louis Frank on microcomets and vague Egypt-related topics, all amid technical glitches and Willie Nelson’s playful satellite call. The episode blends cutting-edge tech, legal morality, and counterculture conspiracy in a provocative mix. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, as the case may be, on a brand new week.
And stretching from an area in the west defined by the Hawaiian and Tahitian Island chains, even to Guam, east all the way to the Caribbean and the U.S. Virgin Islands, south into South America, north to the Pole, and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM.
Good morning.
I'm Art Bell.
And I would like to welcome WING, that's WING AM, in Kettering, Ohio.
Kettering, but serving Dayton and the whole area around there.
So welcome, welcome, welcome to the network.
You're going to find this is a very different kind of program, and I don't even know how to explain it to you until you hear it for a while.
I'll explain in a moment what we are going to be doing.
I have a couple of announcements to make.
So we'll get to those in a second.
Announcement number one.
We are doing something utterly, totally new tonight.
And Keith and I worked on this following your requests the other day.
And it is now up and running.
And it's about to get a gigantic test.
So I make no guarantees about what I'm about to tell you.
We have a live cam in operation.
And I'll tell you how it works.
You go to my website, which is www.artbell.com, the obligatory HTTP: forward slash forward slash www.
I presume everybody knows that then artbell.com.
And the first item in the new items is a live studio cam.
And this is unlike anybody else's live studio cam.
And I will tell you, computer gurus, how it's working to the best of my knowledge.
And you will get an opportunity.
What you can do.
All right, here it is.
I've got a computer program, a software program, running on a Windows 95 133 megahertz Pentium machine next to me.
And there's a capture card and a camera right in front of me.
The camera is directly in front of me.
And it's sitting here every 30 seconds taking a picture of me.
In other words, snapping what amounts to a single JPEG file.
It is then automatically transferring it to the FTP server in Arizona that Keith fathers.
I don't know if that's the right word.
That he operates, a server almost all by itself for this purpose.
And what it amounts to is you can go up on my website and click on a live cam and every, oh, I don't know, 45 seconds or so, and we may have to make adjustments to that after so many people go up there.
We may crash and burn here because I know a lot of you are going to go up there and take a look.
But every, oh, I don't know, 45 seconds or so, it will send a photograph of what's going on in my studio.
At present, I only have one camera for the test, and we're going to get a sequencer and put in another camera to give you another view in time, given time.
We're not going to do that right now.
So there is but the one view, and that is staring right at my face, and you'll be able to see some of the stuff in the background of the room.
The quality of the picture that you're going to see is quite astoundingly good because of the system that we are using.
So, if you want to see me live on the air, this is your chance.
Not one at a time, but just about everybody can go up there and give it a try.
Now, when it loads down, we have no idea.
I mean, it may be that smoke will begin curling up out of the server, and the whole thing will blow its cookies when so many people try to go up there and look at it, but we're going to find out.
So, if you want to see what I look like in the studio live right now, go on up with your browser and take a look, and we'll see what happens.
And I'd like to have comments from you by facts or by whatever method you're able to communicate with me here on the phone, whatever.
Nobody, as far as I know, has ever done this on a radio program before, but we thought it would be fun.
We spent a lot of time in development trying to get it done.
We knew a lot of you wanted it.
So, there it is.
If you've got a computer, go take a look, and you'll see a live picture every 45 seconds.
It should refresh automatically.
And whatever I happen to be doing at that instant, probably picking my teeth or my nose or something, why you're going to get a live shot of that.
Hopefully not, actually.
All right, let me tell you now what is planned for this evening.
We are obviously going to talk about the McVeigh verdict, but everybody is talking about the McVeigh verdict.
Guilty on 11 counts, mass destruction, mass murder, 268 people dead.
And it does wind quite nicely, frankly, into my argument about the death penalty, because the defense is going to probably take the position that 268 people are dead.
What good will there be for number 269?
And my comments on that are simple.
It is precisely because of the 268 people that died at the Morrow Federal Building when that bomb went off that number 269 should have his life taken.
I'm not even sure that you can suggest that full justice is done by the taking of his life.
But in my opinion, it's a no-brainer.
Absolutely a no-brainer.
And I'm a believer in the death penalty, and I can't think of a better use for it than in this particular case.
And I reject completely and thoroughly the argument that one more life in this case is only one more life gone.
It's a completely spurious argument, spacious, specious argument.
There, that's what I was looking for.
A couple of facts, I guess, here.
The Oklahoma verdict is in art.
I suppose the death penalty will be the hot topic again tonight.
Judging, as a matter of fact, only for about an hour.
At midnight, I'm going to turn around.
We're going to do something completely different because everybody else is doing what I'm doing right now.
Perhaps not from the same perspective, but that's what's going to be everywhere, so we are going to be a little different.
In fact, let me stop and tell you right now, I'm going to be interviewing a fascinating man, Paul Davids.
You may or may not know who he is.
He was the executive producer, director of Roswell, the movie, and of a new movie coming out Friday called Timothy Leary's Dead.
And there are some absolutely astounding facts.
He was with Timothy Leary at the end.
And there are some things about Timothy Leary that'll blow your mind.
So Timothy is going to, believe me, blow minds long after his death.
And I'm going to put a question mark after death.
And you'll see why when we talk to Paul Davids in about 41 minutes or so.
So that's what we're going to do then.
Now, we are going to talk a little bit about the death penalty.
Hot topic?
I don't think it's that hot a topic because I suppose it is if we've got a bunch of people who don't believe in it on here.
But as far as I'm concerned, there's no question about it.
I have talked to you in the past about my feelings with regard to revenge.
Now, I believe in it.
I practice it.
Somebody sent me a fax the other day and said, your views on revenge are not Christian.
And you cannot call yourself a Christian if you believe in revenge.
And if that is the case, then so be it.
I referred to the I for an I phrase in the Bible.
And there have been arguments put forth that I'm wrong.
And if I am, then fine.
I accept that.
And if it means that I cannot be called a Christian because I believe in revenge, then I reject the title.
No problem.
I'm not that hung up on names.
I'm comfortable with my own view of the Creator.
And I do believe in a Creator.
And I'm not going to sit here and argue with you about, or anybody, about it.
I'm simply going to tell you the way I feel.
And if you don't like it, well, go fishing.
And my view is that Timothy McVeigh has been convicted of taking the lives of 268 people.
And I can only hope the federal death penalty, in this case, appropriate, is carried out swiftly.
A good, fast appeal, and then good night, goodbye, good luck, face judgment.
It's going to be a rough one.
So those are my feelings on.
I'll call it what it is.
Justice, you want to call it justice?
Fine, call it justice.
You want to call it revenge, as I do?
Call it revenge.
Call it whatever you want, but just get rid of this SOB.
And I'll tell you something else.
And this is something that I really cannot talk to you about.
I just can't.
But one of these days soon, you have been hearing me comment about revenge.
It's strange that it should be appropriate this evening.
Over the last week or so, and there's a reason for it.
And I have a very, very good friend whose name is Daniel Brinkley.
And Daniel called earlier today while I was asleep, and my wife spoke to Daniel.
And Daniel said to my wife, there's something wrong, isn't there?
He said, and she wouldn't tell him what it was, but she affirmed, yeah, something's wrong and has been for a specific number of days.
And he said, I know it's true.
And he said, if you don't tell me what it is, I'm coming out there to see Art.
And he probably is at the end of the week coming out to see me.
I think he's going to be out west for something or another in L.A.
And he is exactly correct.
I cannot now discuss it with you, but the day will come when I will.
And believe me, believe me, when I tell you, it involves the concept of revenge.
And so having told you that, I will simply tell you that I am absolutely astounded, amazed, shaken that my friend Danion would have been able to understand that something of as serious a nature has occurred as he imagined it to be, and I'm going to leave it at that.
Turning the topic back to Oklahoma, Art, the Oklahoma verdict is in.
So I suppose the death penalty is going to be a hot topic.
Judging from some of your callers last week, it seems a lot of people just don't get it.
The death penalty is not perfect, but it is needed.
I admit there is no evidence that the presence of the death penalty is a deterrent to crime.
However, with felons being released from overcrowded prisons every day, I'm glad the death penalty will indeed deter those executed from committing any further crime.
My only real criticism of the death penalty is it applies to just a few offenders.
I believe that all violent crime, rape, armed robbery, etc., should be punished by the death penalty.
Well, there's somebody who goes far beyond the point I would go.
I don't believe that.
Armed robbery without a death involved is not and should not be punishable by death.
Death, in my opinion, should be a penalty only meted out to those who have taken life.
In my mind, perhaps too simplistically, it is a life for a life.
And that is not a difficult concept for me to understand.
Here's another one.
All right.
Although I believe Timothy McVeigh is truly guilty of this heinous crime, and I'm satisfied that justice was served in his case, I just can't shake the nagging feeling, tugging at the hairs on the back of my neck, that there is some part of this story that has yet to be uncovered or else revealed.
Maybe I've just been conditioned by our government's government's way of revealing half-truths, not to trust that we are ever being told the whole story.
Anyway, the question I have for my fellow strangers in the night is, is anyone else out there feeling these same vibes?
Sure they are.
And I agree with you.
I think that the jury reached the appropriate conclusion based on the evidence, which was circumstantial but massive, absolutely massive.
Do I think somebody else might be involved?
Yes, I do, as a matter of fact.
I'm tempted to believe that more than not.
And then he says, by the way, I love the new studio cam.
Can't wait to check it out live during the show.
And of course, I was thrilled to see a picture of you holding my favorite cat Comet.
You know, the way it works is we're going to have this machine on, unless I want privacy, and I might sometimes, we're going to have it on while I'm doing the show.
However, the last picture that is taken during the night will be on there until we come back and start it up again live the next night.
And so last night, Comet will not come into, you know, Comet is my wildcat.
I mean, really wild, feral.
And he will allow me to hold him.
He will allow my wife now to hold him.
But if another person comes into the house, he will go under the bed like a bolt of lightning.
And so he didn't know he was on camera.
And so as a last photograph last night, after Keith and myself finished all this testing, there was Comet right in front of the camera.
And I would presume if our studio cam is now working, that that photograph is gone and replaced by me sitting here talking, which may not be an attraction for very long because that's all it is.
You know, I mean, this is a talk show.
There are not a great many props that one can have, nor am I going to endeavor to try to have any.
It'll just be me sitting here doing the show live.
So there you have it.
You have my feelings on the McVeigh trial.
You have a suggestion of my feelings on something that I can't really talk about.
And you understand, I think, how it relates to my feeling of revenge, and I don't mind calling it that, for the deaths of 268 innocent people.
Is it worth taking life number 269?
You bet your sweet bippy it is.
And I could only hope that in this particular case, it's slow and agonizing.
That's my feeling.
In the next half hour, we'll open the lines and see what you think.
unidentified
This is Premier Networks.
Back with Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight, featuring Coast to Coast AM from June 2nd, 1997.
We are for the next half hour going to talk about the result of the trial, probably more about the death penalty, because the result of the trial is now a done deal.
It was 168 people, of course, not 268.
I think I said that, or maybe both.
Now, again, I say it, and I won't say it again because this is enough.
168 people, is that enough?
No.
169 in this case, and a loose suspicion that there probably ought to be 170 or more, if you follow me.
I am suggesting that, yes, I believe there may be other people involved in this, but I think that the jury made the absolutely correct decision regarding McVay.
Whether there eventually turns out to be anything else will probably be debated as the Kennedy assassination was for years and years to come, if not generations.
So there you are.
The live cam appears to be working so far, so good.
One of our servers is at what Keith calls DEF CON 5, which means it's getting hit really hard.
But the other is doing rather well.
So once you get on the website, you should be able to get photographed rather well.
It updates, again, about every 45 seconds.
So we're making adjustments as we go.
Bear with us.
Nobody has ever done anything like this before for a radio program.
You know me.
I love doing new stuff, and this definitely comes under the category of new stuff.
So in a moment, we are going to begin taking phone calls for the next half hour.
But then after that, I've got something really, really different and interesting for you.
Well, you know, it was suggested by those who wrote our Constitution that at some point exactly that may need to occur.
It is a last option for those who are dissatisfied or feel that their government no longer represents them constitutionally.
So even our founding fathers suggested that as a final remedy, it may have to be.
Individual statements were made regarding the blood of patriots and so forth and so on.
I won't quote all that stuff for you.
But you do not overthrow a government by killing 168 innocent people, including women and children, and you do not begin a revolution in that way either.
All you do is incur the anger and the horror of the American people.
There are ways, I suppose, if you felt that the end of the line had come, but those ways don't include blowing up a building and randomly killing people.
That's called terrorism.
That's not patriotism.
That's terrorism.
And there's a hell of a difference.
There are those who would suggest one person's patriot is another person's terrorist, but clearly from my perspective, and perhaps it's clouded, but I don't think so, this was a terrorist action and misguided.
And the lady was probably right when she said he's sick.
Well, then you know what I'm alluding to when I say that anybody who did what was done to the Mirab building and the 168 people in Oklahoma City, I believe, should suffer at least as excruciating a death as that.
I have the same emotional feeling about it, but you know, that is actually the one difference between the state and what Mr. McVeigh did, and that is that we should not be into torture.
The penalty is the ultimate penalty, the removal of his life.
And it need not be slow and torturous because then we will do to him precisely what he did to them, and I want there to be a difference.
unidentified
Okay, the reason that I said that was so that you would understand that I am not a bleeding-heart liberal.
Okay, well, I know of, look, I don't know I forget who was the perp in the Lindbergh case, but it that person or persons were executed, I recall that now.
With regard to the case you're talking about, I don't know.
Do you have evidence that somebody has been executed and then later there has been evidence showing conclusively they were innocent?
Well, I suppose, look, if you want to go back long enough, sir, I'm not talking about ancient history, but if you want to go back to the days of Salem, there were witches burned.
My feelings on the McVeigh thing is if you really want to send McVeigh to hell, just think about the prison term that's up.
And another thing that would deter the death penalty issue would be to keep him alive, to have to find out who else is involved and that sort of thing.
It would be nice if between now and his execution, and there will be a considerable amount of time if he is given the death sentence, that he will have an opportunity to shed his conscience of anybody else who might be involved.
If not, then as far as I'm concerned, he can go straight to hell.
Let's see.
Some comments on the live studio cam.
Great.
Awesome.
Edward in Laguna Hills.
Let's see.
From Dan in Nashville.
Yup, just as I suspected, you're ugly.
Art, you cannot teach people that killing is wrong by killing.
Uh-huh.
So I don't know if he really thinks I'm ugly or he thinks my opinion is ugly.
I guess it doesn't matter.
Dear Art, I'm shocked.
A tech hound like you and your computer is only 133 megahertz.
You should have a 200 MMX, Barry in Arizona.
Hey, Barry, there's no way to keep up.
I've got a question for you, Barry.
Why don't you have a 233 or a 266?
Huh, Barry?
They're already out.
I like my 133.
I'm happy.
Thanks for the great camera views, Art.
You look great.
Blah, blah, blah.
San Maria, California.
And from my good friend Dan in Quincy, Illinois, who always tells me I'm going to hell, he says, Dear Art, if McVeigh goes straight to hell, what's the first question you're going to ask him when you die?
The state has already indicated they will pursue murder as well.
Now, when it gets right down to who pulls the switch on McVay and it's contest between the state and the feds, I have no idea what happens at that point.
unidentified
So all it is, it's just going to be a big waiting game until we find out for sure.
I'm sure that just like people, you know, everybody does with me, they would surely have sent him that.
So, yes.
And by the way, while we're at it, I had a long talk with Richard Hoagland today, too.
My God, there's some heavy, heavy stuff going on.
Aren't the camera feed as great?
It's touches like that that keep you in the top five.
Well, I don't know about that.
I do like, though, doing things different and new, and this is definitely one of them.
It was pretty neat when we had one-on-one, but to be able to deliver a live, anyway, every 45 seconds, high-quality photograph to a large segment of the audience is kind of neat.
Really is kind of neat.
And this is a brand new technology with regard to the quality of the information being passed.
And by the way, the 133 megahertz is quite up to the job, sir.
Yeah, or that, you know, or that there's some huge conspiracy theory behind it.
And, you know, I just think it's refreshing to hear a talk show host who is somewhat conservative, but still recognizes that when someone is wrong, they're wrong and won't defend them to the death.
Oh, no, there's nothing wrong with the pun about that.
It's exactly what we're talking about.
And again, I come back to my original, I don't care for what reason, the 168 people who died, whether you want to call it justice, or you want to call it revenge, or whatever word or name you want to put to it, it's a life for a life.
And in this case, I'm not even sure one life can properly, and of course will not properly, repay those 168 that died.
But any other answer, any lesser answer, is a perversion of justice, an absolute perversion.
That's what I feel about it.
Anyway, thank you.
You're quite welcome.
Take care.
Yeah, I didn't realize I was in thin company in agreeing with this verdict and agreeing with the no doubt what is going to be asked for by the federal government.
That is death in this case.
unidentified
The trip back in time continues.
With Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM, more Somewhere in Time coming out.
Tonight, featuring Coach Coache out from the 2nd of June, 1997.
It is the witching hour here on the West Coast, and we're going to do something different than everybody else is doing.
For the last hour, we have discussed the McVeigh case.
And I can sum it up very quickly for you, and then I'll make some announcements.
McVeigh has been convicted on 11 counts involving mass murder.
As far as I'm concerned, the only argument they plan to apparently present in his defense in the penalty phase of this trial is going to be: 168 people are dead.
To what end would it, to what good or end, good end, would we make it 169?
To which I say, as far as I'm concerned, good night, goodbye.
Don't let Earth's door hit you in the butt.
I believe in the death penalty, and whatever form it takes, I actually believe that there is no need to torture those whose life we take for having taken the others' lives.
And so, whether it's a needle or whatever other form they use, good night, Charlie Brown, goodbye.
Yes, I believe in the death penalty.
And that's the only argument there is worth having.
Some will say, well, it was a giant conspiracy.
There's somebody else involved.
Maybe there is.
And maybe McVeigh, to clear his conscience before his time comes, will reveal who that person is.
Maybe he will take their name to the grave or not.
I have no way of knowing.
Either way, goodbye, McVeigh.
If you want to clear your conscience and name whoever else might be involved, fine.
If not, then I'm not interested in waiting around to see if he changes his mind.
And death penalty, let us move forward.
Now, I know that everybody's going to be talking about that tonight.
So we're going to now turn to something utterly different, which will make us an oasis on the dial in talk radio.
Let's see.
Number one, I would like to welcome a new affiliate Wing WING AM 1410 on the dial in actually Kettering, Ohio, serving Dayton, Ohio.
We're glad to have you on board.
As you're about to find out, this is a very different kind of radio program.
So I've got some other announcements.
They're coming up in a moment.
I want to tell you about something really revolutionary.
Now, a lot of you know and listen to this program through the internet.
I've got people who call here, send me email mostly from Germany, England, Australia, just about every country you can name around the world.
And, of course, here in the U.S. I know you listen to real audio, to AudioNet.
Thank you, AudioNet in Dallas.
hello and alice david thank you for sending this to me from the washington post
It turns out, well, Dateline, Miami, over the past two years, forecaster William Gray has watched a record number of tropical storms turn into monster hurricanes over the warm water of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean.
Four of them, Aaron, Opal, Berthen, Fran, slammed into the U.S. with winds whipping above 111 miles an hour, killing 57 and causing 4.3 billion in damage.
Brace yourself, says Gray, for more.
The Colorado State University and Hurricane Prognosticator believes 11 tropical storms will form in 97, which officially begins Sunday this last.
Seven will become hurricanes.
He said, quote, I believe we've entered a new era for hurricanes, a new era for hurricanes, which means they are going to be more violent, more frequent as the weather changes.
Again, I bring you back to my book, The Quickening.
It's what it's all about.
It's one very important part of it.
And I'm beginning now to hear from a lot of people who have read it and said, my God, it is the truth.
Now, one more announcement.
It is simply this.
We now have on my website a live cam, a live cam.
Now, this live cam is unlike any other live cam that anybody's played with.
It's very special software that goes from here, a computer next to me with a camera in front of me, staring me in the face, to the servers in Arizona, where it is processed every 30 seconds.
It takes a high-quality JPEG photograph and somehow sends it to that server, which then deals it out.
So if you go up on my website right now, you will see every 45 seconds a new photograph of me sitting here doing the program.
It is another gigantic leap in technology.
I'm glad we were the first to be able to bring it to you now naturally.
The server is, as Keith says, at DEF CON 5 right now, and we'll have to see how it runs through the night.
And as we go, we are making adjustments, so please bear with us.
But if you would like to see a live photograph of me sitting here doing the program, which may be somewhat less than fully exciting, it is a talk show after all.
We're going to eventually get a second camera in here, and then you'll get alternating shots.
It's on the website right now.
It is an amazing, amazing technology.
I mean, my mind, last night when Keith and I were testing, was absolutely blown by the quality and the reliability of this.
Now, of course, when we get tens of thousands or more up there at one time, everything may blow up.
But you're welcome to go give it a try.
This is the blow-up test.
Go on up there and see if you can blow us up.
Who is Paul Davids?
Well, he is a director.
He co-wrote and executive produced Roswell, the 1994 Golden Globe nominee for Best TV Motion Picture.
He is a graduate of Princeton University and the American Film Institute Center for Advanced Film Studies.
He began his career in film as an assistant and script reader for one of Hollywood's top talent agents, working with directors like John Houston, William Wyler, stars like Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Max von Sadau gave him access to some of the greatest figures in film history and led to his work as a screenwriter.
Timothy Leary's Dead marks Paul's directorial debut.
He also serves as the film's producer and writer along with Todd Easton Mills.
Additionally, he is a published author with over a million copies of his books in print in as many languages and along with his wife Hollis.
He co-wrote six Star Wars novels, including The Glove of Darth Vader, The Lost City of the Jedi, and Mission from Mount Yoda.
Paul and Hollis live in Los Angeles with their two children.
You are about to hear something about Tim Leary that you've never heard before.
What you're about to hear is shocking.
Of course, Tim did a lot of shocking things in his life.
And the movie, Timothy Leary's Dead, and I think he should have probably put a question mark after that, is going to be released, I understand, Friday.
I spent the last year and a half of his life with Timothy Leary after having been fascinated with him, his personality, and his research for a lifetime art.
And coming off of Roswell, which was exploring a mystery involving outer space and the purported crash of a flying saucer in 1947, I decided to turn my attention to some mysteries of inner space.
And who better to lead me on that journey than Timothy Leary during his last months and days?
Simply one of the most extraordinary and charismatic men of the second half of our century.
A forward-thinking man, a visionary, a brilliant man, a sort of Pied Piper of an Irishman who led a generation, more than one generation, on an adventure into psychedelia and beyond, eventually to the world of computers and the Internet.
He had a roller coaster of a life, married many times, put in jail for a 30-year sentence on two roaches of marijuana.
The All-As-One movement began at Harvard University.
So here was a man of intellect, a man of letters, who stepped out of the mold in which he had been trained and led the world into the realm of the magic mushrooms and LSD and peyote and showed that there were ways that modern industrial man could escape his social mindset and have experiences that went beyond those that his society
You know, people have all ranges of opinions, we know.
And some of those who hold the most unpopular opinions die before discovering that their opinions become the mainstream.
But a lot of the opinions that Tim held about the psychedelics are very old opinions.
They're opinions that go back thousands of years to the tribal native cultures, the Native Americans who have had peyote rituals using mescaline to come closer to the deities, to the force, if you will, to use Star Wars terms.
And these traditions go back very, very far in native cultural religions.
Tim had his first exposure to this with psilocybin drug, which comes from the magic mushrooms, as they call them, in Mexico.
And he said that in a few-hour experience or trip on those mushrooms, that he was illumined in the field of psychology more than he had accomplished in 15 years of study and research.
And he was a very accomplished man in the field of psychology at that point.
For these opinions and for calling our attention to these very old beliefs and truths, he paid a very, very severe price.
Actually, he ended up in a cell next to Charles Manson on the drug charges.
Yes, after he was recaptured, after his escape from prison and spending some time in Algeria and Switzerland, he was recaptured in Afghanistan, put in Folsom prison, which he described as the Harvard of the prisons system, next to Charles Manson.
All of these facets of his life are documented in my new film, Timothy Leary's Dead.
unidentified
It is a feature documentary that stars Timothy Leary.
He felt that the human race was at the verge of wiping itself out, that between our atomic weapons and the kind of damage we've been doing to our environment that's causing the hurricanes you've been describing and will cause many other disasters, that we were in a kind of endgame, and that the best answer for this endgame was to start a sort of cultural war.
It was a time before the proliferation of so many of these dangerous and destructive drugs, whether it's the crap you're talking about, cocaine or some of the other drugs that have caused so many problems socially.
He saw the psychedelic drugs, LSD, mescaline, and peyote, as consciousness expanders.
But you are about to hear some things about Timothy Leary that will blow your mind.
So in death, question mark, Timothy continues to do what he did in life.
With regard to the cam that we've got going here, the live cam, it got stalled for a few moments.
That was not because of the amount of traffic.
It was because we're trying to adjust the server.
We're doing a brand new thing here, so bear with us.
Occasionally, the picture may freeze and not update.
But we think we've got it back on track now, so bear with us.
We have a lot of traffic up on the website.
You can actually see me live broadcasting the program at www.artbell.com.
And by the way, my guest has a link up there as well, Paul Davids, which will take you over to an area which will tell you something about this incredible motion picture about to come out about Tim Leary, Timothy Leary.
So we'll get back to all of that in a moment.
A quick McVeigh comment as we go back to Mr. Davids.
Art, it really doesn't seem to matter what your audience thinks with regard to your feelings on the death penalty or revenge, because, quite frankly, you don't care what they think, and their opinion will have no effect on your beliefs.
And you're absolutely correct.
I wouldn't lie to you.
You're absolutely correct.
Whatever would be said to me about the death penalty or about my personal beliefs by anybody in the audience would have no effect whatsoever.
They are that deep and that strong.
And so this factor is correct.
I admit it.
They are that deep.
And we will get back to that topic.
Let's say we're trying another telephone here with Paul.
All right, now look, there are some things here that you have sent me about Tim that are just, when I heard them earlier tonight, I couldn't believe them, and I read all of this.
It seems as though Tim Leary's end may have not been quite what everybody thought it was.
What I heard about Tim was that he was cremated and that his ashes were launched with some other notables into a low Earth orbit and that Tim would re-enter one of these days and sort of burn up, you know, like in the Star Trek movie.
The word is that Timothy Leary had his head cut off and cryogenically frozen.
Now, that's the big rumor.
As a matter of fact, I understand in your movie that's about to come out, you show Timothy Leary's head being severed.
Now, there is great controversy, I suppose, about whether you have really shown that or whether you have done a gruesome reenactment of what you believe has occurred.
The first question I must ask you is: is there anything to the rumor that Timothy Leary's head was severed prior to the cremation of what was left?
Baba Ramdas in our film says, you know, jokingly that he wondered if Tim could have gotten some kind of a special deal for the whole body, but didn't think that he did.
Now, as a psychologist, as someone who was also a philosopher, Timothy Leary was not persuaded that any of the self, of the soul, if you will, which he sort of equated with the brain, was going to survive death unless you let science intervene.
And he foresaw the possibility of cloning, and he felt by saving his biological matter that there would be a chance that this could happen.
He didn't feel necessarily that it was likely that his brain could be brought back to life someday, but he did think that it was possible that a brain could be transplanted from a deceased person into the body of a brain-dead person whose body might otherwise be healthy.
And I don't want to sound facetious when I say this, but would you believe that the Japanese are also cloning Timothy Leary, or would you think it's somebody else that's taking on that project?
Why do you think Congress is so quick to want to pass a law against cloning a human individual?
Look, before you answer, or as much as you can, the question about the head, he also had his blood, which contains the DNA structure of Tim Leary, sent to, what, 2020?
To different countries, you see, because politics enters in here.
Tim was a rebel whose views brought about the ire of the establishment and political authorities in many countries.
And so if you send your blood to certain countries where the politics are not favorable to you and the authorities find out about it, they'll destroy the experiment.
unidentified
So you want to spread it out to many different countries.
So if at 49 countries they've destroyed your biological remains, there might be one country left where your biological material can endure and you could be cloned.
So he thought of it in those terms, the possibility of cloning, or you could clone directly from the brain cells, the brain matter.
And you have to understand, the position I'm in, I can't contradict that official story.
I can't tell you for a fact that anything to the contrary occurred.
And as a matter of fact, and this was done after discussions with Tim before his demise, cooperation with him, in presenting the decapitation following death, the post-mortem state, and the preservation of the head for cryonics.
I follow that scene in the movie with a meticulous showing of the making of a life mask of Timothy Leary before he died.
He did not want anyone to know for sure what was happening.
And he was convinced that if these experiments were going to proceed, although he was a man who liked to do everything in his life publicly without secrets, that this would have to be a secret, or the establishment would come in and destroy this experiment.
Now, I do know, because I have interviewed people, Paul, from cryogenic labs who, for a price, will freeze either your head or your entire body.
And the entire body is quite a bit more expensive to freeze, but one would have to imagine if that's what Timothy had wanted, he would have had the money to have done it.
The body is worn out anyway by the time you reach old age.
But the brain, a healthy brain at the time of death, is still storing the knowledge and the faculties and the abilities that have been developed over a lifetime.
I've had deep discussions about suicide, and my wife has convinced me that it is wrong, not the thing to do, and that you are meant to live out the experience.
However, I'm totally a libertarian, and as far as Paul David's life is concerned or anybody else's, that's your own business.
Well, and there comes a point where there's a great deal of pain, you know, and death can be a relief, a release from pain and suffering that doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything.
Let me ask you theoretically, would it be true, Paul, that an assisted suicide, or that is a planned moment of death versus the final natural breath, would provide the opportunity to have a more realistic chance of being prepared to freeze apart, if you were going to do that, mind you.
You need to get the water out of the cells as much as possible because the water freezing, becoming ice crystals, those crystals are like little knives that can pierce the cell walls.
Well, they couldn't operate on her while she was alive because the moment they opened, it would have burst and she'd have died.
So instead, they pumped out all the blood, put her into absolute clinical death for something like 45 minutes.
She was dead as a doornail.
Heated up the, in other words, then did the operation, you know, and the aneurysm, of course, deflated when they removed her blood and they were able to operate successfully and then, believe it or not, restore her blood, warm it up, and put it back into her body.
The implication is, and clearly the viewer, I guess, is going to be left unsure, but in the movie coming out called Timothy Leary is Dead this Friday, and I have the man who I can never get it straight.
You directed this.
unidentified
I directed it, and I produced the film with a very talented man named Todd Easton Mills.
Thank you, Paul, and we'll get back to you in a moment.
The clear implication is that Tim had his head cryogenically frozen, that he had his blood sent to as many as 50 countries around the world so that he might be, when the opportunity arose, cloned.
It's an incredible story, absolutely incredible.
And we'll get back to it in a moment.
And we'll do another hour with Paul, and then we'll return to the McVeigh decision and discussion of that.
Paul Davids, who also was responsible for Roswell.
We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of Roswell, of course.
And we probably ought to touch on that, but I'll tell you what.
Was I about right?
In other words, you are implying between words that it is possible that Tim Leary had his head cryogenically frozen, that his blood went to as many as 50 different countries, that this could have happened.
I want to say that I don't know if she's related in any way, but Leah Rosen actually reviewed our film in the current issue of People magazine.
And there's a disagreement between People magazine and Entertainment Weekly.
People magazine ends by saying those with weak stomachs should know beforehand that the movie shows Leary's actual beheading immediately following his death.
Whereas Entertainment Weekly says that this image shown at the end of the film would be all the more queasy were it not, in fact, a hoax, they say, a bit of hucksterism to top even Leary's.
One has to admit, though, he says, that what makes it so egregiously clever is the way it completes the myth of Timothy Leary, whose quest for surreal inner truth was really an obsession with his own head.
unidentified
I thought that was cute.
I don't agree that Tim's search for truth was limited to being an obsession with his own head.
Carol, I want to give you an opportunity to speak now.
You were there the moment Tim died.
You were with him?
unidentified
Yes, I was with him and with him for several hours afterwards and prepared him to go into the van that went to the mortuary.
And I even have some of his ashes sitting right here.
In fact, I just had him put on the plane in another little vial of his ashes were put on the plane at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Pegasus rocket and taken to Spain and the Canary Islands.
I tracked it all the way there and was at the Canary Islands when we launched part of his ashes into space.
And I had my fingers on his pulse on his neck at the moment when he deanimated.
In fact, it was a very strong pulse and then finally faded.
So I was right there.
I was also there when the cryogenics machines were there and when a lot of this taping was done, which was months before he died, in the last few weeks.
And by the way, I think the film is probably wonderful and a lot of fun.
But I think it should be known that, in fact, he did not choose to do the cryogenics.
His partner Vicki and I sat outside with him one day just a few weeks before and asked him what he wanted to do with his body because he had thrown the cryogenics people out.
He said that basically he didn't want to wake up in 50 years with a bunch of 50 depressed people with clipboards looking over him, staring at him.
So he decided that on the very day we talked with him, he pointed to me and said, I want you to get my ashes into space.
He wanted to be cremated.
So that was the choice that he made towards the end, and that is what actually happened.
Or please join us when the film opens in Los Angeles and New York this Friday.
In Los Angeles, we're going to be at the Limley's Sunset 5, the Limley's Monica, the Los Felos 3, and Costa Mesa at the Edwards Town Center, and in New York, we'll be at the Quad Theater.
Carol, were you party when Tim was talking about having his head cryogenically preserved?
unidentified
Oh, sure.
He talked about it for years, actually, and not just his head, but his whole body was in the process, was going to be part of the process at one point.
One day he took me into his house, and I think a lot of people actually believed it.
And he had a little refrigerator sitting in the back room, and he would take people in.
It had a helmet in it, and he would tell people with his sense of humor that this is where they were going to preserve his head for the cryogenics process, for the seizing process.
And I think a lot of people actually believed it.
But it was part of Timothy's sense of humor.
There was a part, though, where he was very serious about doing it.
I mean, this was something he was recommending to people.
And even at the end, he said that although it wasn't for him, and he made the statement very clearly to a lot of members of the media and to myself, I spent all night with him.
I was the all-night shift for the last few months of his death.
So he talked about it a lot, but he had absolutely committed to not doing it.
He wanted no part of it at the end.
And there was no question with anyone in the house that that was in fact his choice.
It's very interesting that after 15 to 18 years of conviction that this was the possible path to coming back and immortality, that two weeks before his death, he orders the equipment out of his house and officially finally changes his mind.
unidentified
Actually, it was several weeks before his death, and he did officially change his mind.
And there was no question about it.
But I would underscore the word there to help prepare him for his death.
And that's why he called me in.
He asked my husband if he could borrow me for the last six months because he told us that I was the only friend of his who didn't listen to anything he said.
So that when he made one decision, I was to know what it was, the choices that he would make when he was going to die.
And we were prepared to do a couple of things.
If he did want to commit suicide at the end, I was even willing to help.
And so were several people in the house.
We had meetings about it so that if that occasion occurred, that would be done.
All right, Carol, I want to ask one other question, and that is regarding the blood.
Now, surely during this illness, many times Tim had blood drawn by various people, nurses, doctors, whatever.
And is it possible, Carol, that without your knowledge or with the knowledge of others, that blood could have made its way to a predetermined location?
unidentified
No way.
This was done by legitimate doctors with legitimate hospice nurses there present the entire time.
And either I was there or one of his assistants, who I knew very well, we were all very straight people, and they were very credible, reputable people who were there.
This is very interesting to me because Tim announced that he was dying in the summer of 1995.
And you've left us with the impression that between August of 1995 and May 31st of 96, when he passed away, there is no time that anyone could have drawn his blood or he could have arranged to have his blood drawn in order to be preserved and sent to other countries.
He had a charm that bedeviled a whole generation and more.
He was a jokester, and he had a sense of the cosmic and the sense in which life can be the universe's cosmic joke.
So Variety, in fact, when they reviewed my film, commented in making the question as to whether it was real, said the alternative is that this is Timothy Leary's last laugh upon the world.
unidentified
Well, I think it's kind of sad that if you're actually building this up as a reality, that you would do that for the sake of the course of history and for Timothy.
Because Timothy was quite a distinguished scientist and a philosopher.
He wasn't just a jokester.
He was certainly a man with a lot of different levels and dimensions to his personality.
Festival Footage Revealed00:09:47
unidentified
But there is no way that Timothy had his head cut off and frozen or anything like that at the end.
It did not happen.
And there were people like me there all the time.
And I've spent all the nights with him where we had many, many deep conversations about it.
And the reason that he had me there was so that I think he had that balance of a mature person who was going to see him through into outer space.
Okay, but his attitude about wanting to have his head cryogenically frozen earlier on and, in fact, have his blood sent about, was very real.
unidentified
Oh, absolutely.
It really was real.
And I think that's when that footage was taken.
But I have footage of him on the last day when he was talking about the fact that we are the light.
He got very deep and philosophical towards the end.
And he allowed me as a gift to do his very last interview.
I have it on the video.
And what he tried to explain to people, I'll give you the quotes.
My life work has been to empower individuals to free herself and himself to grow and be more free.
Today we move into the next place.
Use light to enjoy space for individuals.
Do it with your friends.
Ride the light into space.
And then he talked about Celestis, the company in Houston that actually launched the ashes.
And he said, they made us free to use light to move into space.
I asked him what he had told me that we're the light bearers, and that his final message when he saw the Celestis video about the burn-up when the rocket re-enters the Earth's atmosphere, he said, this is why I want to be cremated.
He told me this, and I have it on tape.
He said, he wanted to let people know that when that burn-up took place, when the rocket re-enters and there's a burst of light, he said, I have sought the light to use light to be in space.
Light is the language of the sun and the stars where we will meet again.
We are the light.
We are the light bearers.
Our purpose is to shine the light on others.
And that's why he wanted to be cremated.
He knew when he saw the Celestis video, they have a free little three-minute video that you can see the burn-up stage, the burst of light.
He started jumping up and down in his wheelchair when he saw that and he said, that's what I want to do.
And he said it in front of a crowd of people in the room.
I want everyone to know that I am the light.
That's what his message was.
That's why he wasn't frozen or cremated.
He wanted to go up into space and show everyone that we are the light and the light bearers.
He's the producer and director of the movie Timothy Gleary is Dead, which premieres in select cities, the big ones, this coming Friday, Friday of this week.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from June 2nd, 1997.
Works presents
Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight, featuring Coast to Coast AM from the 2nd of June, 1997.
But I can say this, that though, first, let me say that Carol, who said some wonderful things about Tim, I want to elaborate on, because there's a lot more to this story than the death of the man, and we should get at some of that, too.
But she said that there was no time during the final 12 months of his life that doctors could have withdrawn blood from him for the purpose of preserving his DNA.
You know, it started about a year ago before I took this film to the film went to the Venice, Italy Film Festival and then the Toronto Film Festival.
And a critic for Newsweek saw the film when it was submitted for the New York Film Festival and wrote something about it a little bit out of turn because he only saw it as a judge judging whether this was going to be accepted for a festival.
But he spoke to Timothy's stepson, who told him that the cryonics didn't happen, that there was a change of mind, and he blisteringly attacked me in an article in Newsweek at that time.
And yet, in spite of that, the current issue of People magazine, and I never spoke to the writer for People.
unidentified
There was never any interview.
I didn't influence what they said in any way, shape, or form.
His place in contemporary social history as a leader of the counterculture is there.
The firing from Harvard, the years at Millbrook, where he at an estate donated by members of the Mellon family, as in the Mellon Art Gallery, he set up the LSD Capital of the World, or a Center for Consciousness Expansion.
His influence in the Haight Ashbury movement, the hippies, the Give Peace a Chance movement during the war, then being thrown into jail and called the most dangerous man alive.
Tim describes, and we convey his escape from prison with the help of the Weathermen, the forging of the passport, the Senate's investigation of that forgery, his days in Algeria with Eldritch Cleaver.
unidentified
In other words, there is an extraordinary life here.
And building on one of the points that Carol made that I agree with so thoroughly, and I want to make this point, when I made the point about Tim's extraordinary sense of humor, his charm, his roguishness, his devilishness, that's true.
But he was also a serious man with a serious mind, a great mind, a visionary, and a man who left an extraordinary legacy of writing behind him that is largely unknown and unappreciated.
Art, for most of your listeners, if any of them were able to write a 300-page book in their lifetime and publish it, it would be a source of great pride and achievement.
unidentified
Timothy Leary's writings are so extensive that it takes a 300-page book to list them all.
And recently, Michael Harwitz, Karen Walls, and Billy Smith published a book called The Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary, 300 pages long that lists all of his books and his papers and all their different editions.
The man left a literary legacy as vast as that of Freud, and it's been suppressed.
Suppressed because of who he was as a counterculture figure, as someone who opposed the establishment, as someone who Nixon called the most dangerous man alive.
There was a poll on the Internet, actually, comparing Timothy Leary to Henry Kissinger, who had the greatest influence in our time, and Timothy Leary was the winner.
The reason I say for the better was I think we are still reaping the benefit of the enormous burst of creativity and the freeing ourselves from the Cold War assumptions that we grew up under that led to the building of innumerable atomic bombs and the incredible destruction of an environment.
You see, in order to get away from that and have hope for our race, the mindset had to be broken.
unidentified
And Tim was like a general award where he said, we're going to take the best and the brightest.
We're going to break that mindset in millions of people.
And let's do it with the most talented, the most intelligent, the Ivy Leaguers.
And sometime, if you ever have an interview with Stephen Jobs or some of the other creators of the computers, the Macintoshes, ask them about the days when they were wearing sandals with long hair and taking acid and listening to the Grateful Dead.
I asked Terrence about a rumor that there are perhaps tens of thousands of hits of acid that Tim, the rumor is, hid away someplace, dropping certain clues about the whereabouts.
You know, the story as I know it is that back in those days of the early 60s, the intelligence establishment had a tremendous interest in LSD and had ordered from Sandoz in Switzerland, the company that manufactured the drug, the only company at that time that I know of that legally manufactured the drug, had ordered millions and millions of doses of this, stockpiling it the way they would chemical weapons or nuclear weapons.
But that was something that was going on behind the scenes, the concept that perhaps these drugs could be a chemical warfare or a biological warfare agent.
I don't think Tim had anything to do with spiriting away, hiding supplies.
unidentified
I don't think that was part of his modus operandi.
The 50th anniversary of Roswell is coming up, and the little town of Roswell is probably going to swell to about a half million people or something overnight.
Yes, I was about to ask, are you aware, everybody's been heavily speculating that some will choose this 50th anniversary to reveal what they have not before revealed without specifically telling us what it's going to be because I wouldn't ask you that.
I think that the process of preparing for this 50th anniversary has been going on for well over a year or a year and a half.
And that there are some people involved who played a part in this originally, who kept things to themselves all their lives.
And I think we're suddenly going to look at this in a new way in which the debunkers who sometimes have had the upper hand here, I think, are going to lose the initiative in this matter.
And those who profess it to be, have been an extraterrestrial crash and the discovery, definitive discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life will gain the upper hand.
Part of this will be helped along by a new book to be released by Colonel Corso called The Day After Roswell.
Colonel Corso, who was part of Eisenhower's staff, who had a distinguished and extraordinary military career, absolutely confirms that the Roswell incident was extraterrestrial, that he saw a body, that he was involved with the disposition of the pieces of the wreckage to various companies.
This will break no ground, but I want to say I think we can go much farther than that, much farther than that.
And I'm looking forward to some things that will change the complexion of the way all of this is dealt with by the establishment.
Do you feel that at some point, all of this, is there going to be a critical mass point where all of this is going to break down?
And not only with regard to Roswell, but with all of these years in between, when all of it's going to break down and suddenly the president or some very high-level announcement is going to be made that, yes.
I think that the public has been essentially the victim of well-intentioned falsehoods for a very, very, very long time.
And that now that we have the home video camera, now that there is so much evidence in private hands that could never be there before, I think that there will be some degree in change on this.
But the powers that be are very slow to admit anything, you know, whether it's the Gulf War syndrome, whether it's the mind control experimentation, MK Ultra, whether it's the facts about the Vietnam War, the secret bombing of Laos or Cambodia.
We're very, very slow to unravel these things and to learn the truth about them.
I'm looking forward to a Berlin Wall situation here where one day it's a divided country and the next day the wall has come down.
And I have had lunch with astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury 7, one of the men of the right stuff, who has said this to me, who essentially said to me in so many words that our film Roswell was quite accurate,
that the basic supposition was accurate, and that there has been withholding of information for about 50 years now, and that part of the problem lies in the fact that so many people would have egg on their face if there's a reversal in policy here, that that's embarrassing.
Well, you know, people who feel that they know more feel that they're, you know, looking out for the better interests of people who don't need to know things that are going to disturb them.
Because the whole thing of the slaughter of so many human beings was so it's all true, but there's still a lot of people running around saying Holocaust never did happen.
And as a matter of fact, I hope to hell they do, but that doesn't mean they're going to.
We are testing out a new technology this morning.
And I mean a new technology.
It's called Studio Cam.
Now, there are cams, various live cams that have been put in various places, but none of them deliver the kind of quality picture that we are delivering to you on the web this morning.
It is experimental.
And we would very much like you to get back to us, to either Keith Rowland or myself, and to find out if this is something you think we should continue to do or not.
It is very, very, very experimental.
We like being out on the edge of things, and we certainly are here.
About every 45 seconds, a fresh photograph direct from my studio of rather high quality is delivered in a manner that supersedes any other live cam that I've ever seen.
So we're trying it out, and it is truly an amazing technology.
And this hour I would like to take some comments on one line only from those of you that have seen the cam picture and can comment.
So, would everybody on the first time caller line please stop calling?
It's area code 702-727-1222.
If everybody would please, oh, please cooperate and stop calling on that line and only call on that line if you have seen our live cam picture and you can comment.
It's fun testing out new technology.
Somebody saying, G Art, now you can't, here it is.
Trinity, Texas, Amber and Jared in Trinity.
I guess the days of doing your show in your underwear are over, question mark.
My husband and I enjoy your show, and we're anxious to get home tonight to see you on the World Wide Web.
I never have done my show in my underwear.
Never.
In case you're curious, I would never do that.
I would never, never do that.
I suppose I could have, for that matter, I could have done it naked, huh?
But I've never done that.
I don't, on the other hand, wear a tie.
As those of you who can see, sometimes I'll wear a t-shirt, but I always dress casually.
I mean, why the hell would I wear a tie for doing radio?
Or even for that matter, for those of you who can see me on TV.
So if you expect a tie in a coat, you're not going to get that.
And then here's another one.
Hi, Art.
I saw you smoking right in the studio.
I didn't know you were doing that because we never hear you take a puff.
Also, is that coffee you are drinking out of a straw through a cooler?
Yes.
Yes, it is.
To do this program, unless you've got the photograph of it, you wouldn't know, but I do it with a headset, kind of like the sportscasters use with a microphone that comes out in front of my face.
And because the microphone is directly in front of my face, it enables me never, even though I'm turning around and moving around in the studio, you never hear my voice stray from the microphone.
That's why I love this headset.
I mean, it's just my baby.
I've been using it for years.
And therefore, but the one problem is you cannot drink coffee out of a cup.
So I devised this little system whereby I've got one of these little coolers.
Normally you'd put a cool drink in it, I suppose, and a straw that I put down in it, which kind of curls over, so that I can take a sip of coffee through the straw while I talk into this mic, which is fixed directly in front of my face.
A coffee cup wouldn't work.
You see, I'd have to fiddle with it.
I'd have to go like this and take my coffee and then put it back again.
That wouldn't work.
So I have my coffee in this little cooler-like affair.
Anyway, that's now everybody's getting to see suddenly how I do all of this.
That's kind of cool.
And I would like to reserve away that line this hour for those of you that have seen the web picture and get your impressions.
As I keep saying, it is a brand new technology, and I love new technologies.
I want to read you something here, a portion of something from a Faxer, Jim and Henderson.
Art, it sounds like you are going through something very personal and very serious.
while i sincerely hope it is not health related it sounds like it might be if it is i can imagine that between you and ramona there might be well anyway to go on i'm not going to read uh... the rest of this uh...
To answer your question, it is not health-related.
And maybe that'll answer the question for a lot of people.
No, it is very serious.
Probably one of the most serious things that could occur to a person in their entire life, but it is not health-related.
And that's all I'm going to say because I'll get a million messages about it otherwise.
So to put your mind at rest, it is not that.
Anyway, I'm holding open this line at 1-702-727-1222 for those of you that have seen the cam this hour.
I want to be able to get a little bit of feedback from you.
And that this automatically makes them opposed to the death penalty because the death penalty would be one of the steps in dismantling a victim culture and they don't want to see that happen.
There are a lot of people who believe in the culture of the victim.
And he's exactly right.
And for those who are calling, preparing to say, well, it's not a deterrent, you know what I say to you?
I don't give a damn whether it's a deterrent or not.
It's going to be a deterrent to the person who committed the crime because one thing's for sure, and that is they're not going to be around in seven and a half years or ten years or 15 years to get out and do it again.
Well, the truth is we can't know whether it's a deterrent.
In other words, if somebody is sitting out there carefully plotting or planning a murder, it may be that knowing, for example, in Texas they're dispatching murderers at an unheard of rate, maybe it's a deterrent.
But the fact of the matter is, I don't care.
I want the death penalty whether or not it is a deterrent.
unidentified
Well, I can speak from practical experience.
I've worked in the criminal justice system and these people, oh, well, we can rehab these people, or they're just, no, that's a bunch of baloney.
We don't have time for that.
Our society doesn't dictate that.
Like you're saying, we're moving too fast.
And when they start saying, well, we'll give them life in prison to let them think about it.
Do you realize it costs about $35,000 a year to house, feed, and clothe, and Medicaid upon the market?
There is actually a counter-argument that is fairly compelling.
And I don't regard it as an economic issue.
I mean, let me tell you this.
It costs presently, though they may have that cost down in Texas a little bit now, but it costs about a million dollars or over to execute somebody.
It's very expensive.
It's actually more expensive than keeping them in jail for life.
But that is a problem with the system, not the method.
In other words, if we gave them appeals and they were fairly short, long enough to determine if there was new evidence that might exonerate them, and then dispatch them quickly without a bunch of brouhaha, it would be a lot cheaper than a million bucks and could be a lot cheaper than a million bucks.
unidentified
Well, this is true.
I think that some of the people that are opposed to this that say, you know, it's not our power and everything, should sit down and read some of these cases of what's happened to some of the victims.
Matter of fact, we have a young girl here that was just identified.
You might have read about it in the paper that had been abducted and murdered.
Yes.
And, you know, you sit here, and here she is, what, seven years old?
When they go to trial, the defense attorney will usually say, oh, we move that you not be allowed to show the pictures of the victim all bloodied on the floor because it's going to prejudice the jury.
But why wouldn't the jury and shouldn't the jury have an obligation to consider what really occurred, prejudice the jury?
See all that blood and gory.
My God, they're going to think he's guilty.
That's going to prejudice the jury.
I remember that during the OJ trial.
Of course, they did get to see the photographs public, didn't I?
That's a different argument.
But I remember the argument made by the defense that they shouldn't be able to see these gory photographs because, my gosh, it might prejudice them in some way.
I myself, I think if I were faced with a situation where a crime was happening in front of me, I would certainly take action in that situation.
But what I'm against is the state-sanctioned it kind of masks our involvement in killing these people.
We leave it up to someone else to do the killing.
And I think that in many cases, these people are in several cases, I won't say many, in several cases, people have been found to be innocent after they have been executed.
Well, look, I'll even back away a little bit and I'll suggest that certainly it's possible that it has happened.
But I'd be willing to bet you, in modern times, I say now, modern times, and I don't know what the dates are on these, with our justice system, which is not perfect, that about 99 point-something percent of the people that are executed in modern day are guilty of the crime.
Karmic Debt Debate00:05:32
unidentified
Well, I think that's probably true, but I'm not sure if it's worth the revenge aspect.
I'm not sure if it's worth that one life even that might be lost.
Well, I asked a fellow earlier a question that you're probably prepared for now, and that is, if your wife was raped and then killed in front of you, and there stood the guy who did it, and you had a gun in your hand, and you had a choice to either hold him for the police or to shoot him on the spot, what would you do?
It takes about eight seconds to download the entire image.
You look far too comfortable.
You know, despite what's going on in my life right now, that's why I'm here, because I am comfortable, you know, because I love doing this, that kind of thing.
Number two, he says, paradox of your callers.
Why do they feel they have the power of forgiveness of karmic debt and not the power of execution of karmic debt?
If you feel that it is playing God to give someone the karmic debt due, it has to be just as true that it is playing God not to forgive someone of that karmic debt.
Most of these bleeding hearts feel they can forgive anything, but to punish is beyond them.
It is up to God.
This is absolutely amazing.
This logic has got to conclude that only God can forgive also.
You can't have one without the other.
Art, you are right not to take action that creates karma of its own, and that is why crime has gone up.
We've become a nation of sheep led by wolves.
We are living in the karma we create by our lack of action.
I've missed quite a bit of your show tonight, but the facts you just read, apparently some people's been saying that their Christian belief teaches them to forgive, and therefore they can't go for the death penalty.
Oh, well, I think that if some of them think that their Christian belief teaches them that the death penalty is wrong, they ought to open that book again and start reading from Genesis and read it all the way.
You know, the Mosaic law prescribes what we now call what is justifiable homicide and what is murder.
And I haven't heard this one yet this morning, but inevitably it's presented, that we are one of the only remaining industrialized nations that will take a life.
Well, what I try to do, Jim, is to consistently make the program different and unexpected, not only for the sake of the audience, but for my own sanity.
unidentified
Exactly.
So I'm kind of wondering what your friend might have to say to you.
I think it's pretty brave of you too to bring it out and want to share a little bit about that.
Having the audio coming from the computer and the photograph on the computer at the same time.
Wow.
unidentified
Yeah, well, like I say, I lose the radio signal about halfway home, so I got to boogie home and boot up the old internet so I can check you out there before you go to bed at night.
I think it's frightening how this nation is becoming a society where we are fast becoming too savage to obey our laws, yet too civilized to enforce them.
For all those people out there who think that the death penalty brutalizes us and makes us like the murderer, that's sort of like saying that a jailer and a kidnapper are both the same thing.
But maybe at the end of the week, like Friday night, Saturday, I may have Dr. Frank on.
All I can tell you is I'm working on it.
unidentified
Oh, there's one book that you may want to pick up.
I think there's something called the Starflight Handbook.
And I forget what pages it's on, but there's a star that's going to be coming within one-third of a light year of our solar system and about 800,000 years.
However, you know, that really amounts to torture.
And I'm not in favor of torture.
You know, the punishment is a removal of life.
And I don't want society to do the horrible things that many of these people sentenced to death have done.
You don't get sentenced to death easily.
unidentified
No.
No.
I'd heard on the, I don't have the numbers on it, but I heard on the TV earlier today someone was talking about, everybody's talking about this subject, and someone was saying that there were 60 cases, I think it went in the last 10 or 15 years, of people who were wrongly accused were on death row and released because of the system.
And the more technology we get, the more DNA IDing we get, the more chance we have of not just convicting people, convicting the bad guys, but of releasing the innocent guys.
So, look, the system is not perfect.
I'll say it again and again and again.
We can only come back down to one word, which is reasonable.
Reasonable.
Reasonable conclusion of guilt or a reasonable conclusion of innocence.
So there's a lot of people here that feel that he ought to be put to death.
And on top of that, to compound things, now I believe the situation has been rectified, but for years he was sending the families mail describing in great detail how he murdered their children and literally laughing at them.
Well known in the media that he's done this.
He's got all kinds of perks and privileges in prison and it's outrageous.
You might want like a majority of the people who are not.
Let me tell you this clearly without any ambiguity.
If I were one of those families and I got a letter like that, I would do everything within my power to get into that prison and get close enough to him to kill him.
unidentified
You know what might be a solution?
If you're going to keep someone alive in prison, if you put them in a situation where they got no TV, they got no books, they're in a bare room, and they have to deal with the regular prison population.
Yeah, but, you know, that saying, let the bad guys take care of the bad guys, thank you.
I hear what you're saying.
I'm telling you that if I were one of those families, and I say this without hesitation, without question, without remorse, without a second thought, I would devote my life to trying to get near enough to that guy to put a hole in his head or to crush his skull.
I sat here, you know, Keith Roland, my webmaster and myself, put all this together yesterday, and I sat here looking at another computer that was sitting on the web, and I looked at the picture that came through that was continually coming through, and I just sat there going, oh, my God.