Trident Times: FSU, Zócalo, Mockingjay, and Bangkok

Watch for rising levels of violence, protests, and related activities on November 20-21, 2014. Here's some early indicators....

There has been a college shooting at Florida State University.

The shooter is dead and, at least, three students are seriously injured after being shot inside the first floor lobby at Strozier Library at Florida State University (FSU), in the heart of the Tallahassee campus. As CNN and other major news outlets are reporting, the shooting began around 12:30 am on Thursday, November 20, 2014.

The library is open 24 hours a day, and was packed with students studying for finals, before the beginning of Thanksgiving break. Police confronted the gunman (some accounts say on the steps of the library), who refused to drop his gun, and he was shot dead.

The male individual who shot several students on Florida State University's campus Thursday night was identified as a graduate who later became a lawyer. Myron May graduated from FSU before earning his law degree at Texas Tech, according to the Associated Press, which cited an unnamed official providing the information. The AP also interviewed a woman, Abigail Taunton, who said she rented a house to May.

May graduated from FSU in 2005.

Myron (Arabic = sweet oil) May was from Dayton, Ohio, and has lived in Lubbock, Texas; Houston, Texas; and most recently, Wewahitchka (Seminole = water eyes), Florida. Source.

Florida State University student Jason Derfuss found this bullet and damaged book in his backpack after leaving the scene of Thursday night's shooting at the campus library.

FSU is one of the top research universities in the nation. It has about 40,000 students spread out in various campuses in the city, and is also considered one of the nation's top-ranked football teams.

The history of the campus is long and detailed. In 1856, the land and buildings in an area formerly known as Gallows Hill, site of public executions in early Tallahassee, where the Florida Institute was built, was accepted as the site of the state seminary for male students. The cadets from the Confederate military school there defeated Union forces at the Battle of Natural Bridge in 1865. The FSU Army ROTC, to this day, is only one of four collegiate military units in the US with permission to display a Confederate battle streamer.

During the 1960s and 1970s the Florida State University became a center for student activism especially in the areas of racial integration, women's rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. The school acquired the nickname "Berkeley of the South." The FSU chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society were especially active there in 1969, leading to the "Night of the Bayonets."

"Seminoles, who lived and fought in swampy everglades, tended not to ride horses." The stereotype of the Plains Indians is used for the FSU mascot.

(The most recent school shooting before the FSU incident involved the Tulalip First Nation of Washington State. Six died in the Marysville-Pilchuck High School event of Friday, October 24, 2014.)

Florida State has been the home of the “Seminoles” since 1947. In recent years, the name and symbols tied to FSU has called "The Champions of Racist Mascots." Dave Zirin has written therein:

Any Florida State fanatic will shout at you, the university has “a formal agreement with Seminole Nation” and that makes everything all right.
...the existence of this “agreement with the Seminole Nation” is a myth.
The agreement is with the Florida Seminole Tribal Council and not the Seminole Nation. The majority of Seminoles don’t even live in Florida. They live in Oklahoma, one of the fruits of the Seminole Wars, the Indian Removal Act and The Trail of Tears. These Oklahoma Seminoles—who, remember, are the majority—oppose the name. On October 26, 2013, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma’s governing body passed a resolution that read in part, “The Seminole Nation condemns the use of all American Indian sports team mascots in the public school system, by college and university level and by professional teams.”

FSU's logo, three burning staffs, contains the motto, vires, artes, mores (in Latin), strength, skill, character (in English).

Meanwhile, in Mexico,

RPJ writes from Mexico City:

Things might get VERY interesting [on Thursday, November 20, 2014] down here. They've announced a triple protest march, starting from different points of the city, and converging at the Zócalo plaza. A literal trident of angry people.

It's synchromystically interesting that [Thursday] is when we celebrate the 104th anniversary of the Mexican revolution, and a day later the first part of Mockingjay will be premiered worldwide.

There is great symbolism behind Zócalo:

The main plaza of Mexico City is commonly known as the Zócalo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsokalo], plinth), meaning plinth. It was the main ceremonial center in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and from the colonial period on, the main plaza or square in the heart of the historic center of Mexico City. The site is just one block southwest of the Templo Mayor which, according to Aztec legend and mythology, was considered the center of the universe....A European-style plaza was not part of the conquered Aztec Tenochtitlan; the old city had a sacred precinct or "teocalli" which was the absolute center of the city (and the universe, according to Aztec belief), but it was located to the immediate north and northeast of the modern-day Zócalo. Source.

"Mexico is facing an escalating political crisis amid growing fury over a mansion built for the presidential family and the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 student teachers," notes the Guardian article, "Mexico at breaking point as anti-government anger escalates."

Mockingjay and Bangkok

The movie, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I, has the release dates in Indonesia and the Philippines of November 20th, and in the United States of November 21th. It is a movie about revolution.

"Tridents" are to be found in The Hunger Games via the "three-finger salute."

NBC News has broken the news, November 20, 2014, that protest leader Nachacha Kongudom was arrested by undercover cops outside a Bangkok cinema after using the Hunger Games three-finger salute to defy Thailand's military rulers. The new The Hunger Games movie has been pulled from the Apex chain of Thai theaters.

The Hunger Games salute has actually been banned by the Thai military.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is a 2014 American science fiction adventure film directed by Francis Lawrence with a screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong. It is the first of two cinematic parts based on the novel Mockingjay, the final book in The Hunger Games trilogy, written by Suzanne Collins, and the third installment in The Hunger Games film series, produced by Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik and distributed by Lionsgate. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, [the now deceased] Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland. Source.

Other areas of concern...

The car rammings, protests, and now open attacks against Jews and Arabs related to the Temple Mount situation are increasing. (See here.) This is not going to go away. The fear after the recent massacre is high.

The Ferguson grand jury finding comes in soon too.

Also...

Michael Nichols, 83, director of Carnal Knowledge, The Odd Couple and The Graduate, has died of a heart attack, Wednesday evening.

U. S. Marines Shot in Mexico

U.S. Marines were injured in a shooting south of Mexico City on Friday morning, August 24, 2012, a Marine official told CNN Mexico. With the news of the shooting at the Empire State Building on this same morning, the U.S. media is not following this story closely.

Military personal stand guard around an armored U.S. Embassy vehicle after it was attacked by unknown assailants dressed as Mexican police, on the highway leading to the city of Cuernavaca, near Tres Marias, Mexico, Friday, Aug. 24, 2012. Two U.S. government employees (Jess Hoods Garner & Stan Dove Boss) were shot and wounded in an attack on their armored SUV, south of Mexico City on Friday, a law enforcement official said. (Credit: Alexandre Meneghini)

Red Pill Junkie, our Mexican correspondent, points out that this location, "near Huitzilac, seems to be the same place where a Mexican general was murdered in 1927 on October 3rd (which is RPJ's birthday). The name of the general was Francisco R. Serrano. He wanted to run for president, but formerly the Revolutionary warlords dealt with their enemies in a traditional and customary fashion."

A book La Sombra del Caudillo by Martín Luis Guzmán is based on the incident, as well as an old movie too.

The motive behind the attack on the American servicemen, who were on a diplomatic mission, was not immediately known.

Unknown gunmen inside what was described as a Mexican federal police vehicle fired upon a U.S. Embassy vehicle that carried the U.S. servicemen, said the official, who declined to be named for security reasons.

The injured Marines were transported to a hospital in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

The story is changing. The AP out of Mexico is spreading the following, after 5 PM Friday:

The Mexican Navy says federal police shot at a vehicle carrying two U.S. government employees after the vehicle came under attack from unidentified gunmen.
The shooting appears to have been a case of a confused gunbattle that broke out on a rural road just south of Mexico City.
The Navy said Friday the embassy personnel were heading down a dirt road to a military installation when a carload of gunmen opened fire on them and chased them, along with a Navy officer accompanying them.
Alerted to the gunfire, a federal police patrol vehicle came to the scene and apparently opened fire. The statement does not make clear whose bullets injured the U.S. workers.

Violence of this kind has occurred before, recently. Gunmen killed three federal police officers on June 24, 2012 outside the arrivals area of Mexico City's international airport. Witnesses told Mexican media that the killers also were dressed in federal police uniforms and ran from the airport’s Terminal 2 following the shootings. After the shooting, the entire security staff at the airport was replaced.

In 2011, one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed and one wounded in a drug gang shooting in northern Mexico.

A drug-gang shooting In 2010 in the border city of Ciudad Juarez killed a U.S. consulate employee, her husband and another man.

Recent attacks against U.S. military in Afghanistan have involved shootings by individuals dressed or disguised as law enforcement officers for Afghanistan, supposedly allies.

A NATO soldier was killed on Sunday, August 19, 2012, by an Afghan police officer, raised the coalition death toll from so-called "green on blue" or "insider" shootings during the last 11 days, as the United States urged Kabul to step up screening of recruits.

The BBC News noted:

On Sunday [August 19, 2012]...an Afghan in a police uniform shot dead a Nato soldier.
The victim was the 10th US soldier to die in such an attack in two weeks.'
Two American soldiers were killed in another incident on Friday, a week after six were killed in a single day on 10 August.
Currently, approximately 130,000 ("blue") Nato troops are fighting insurgents in Afghanistan alongside 350,000 ("green") Afghans.
Sunday's shooting brought the total number of International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) personnel killed by members of the Afghan security forces this year to 40, with most of the victims Americans.
There were 35 such deaths in all of 2011.

Death on the Obama Campaign Trail ~ Again

Four generations of Ann Harris' family (from left) Andrea Hubbard, Deanna Hubbard, Ann Harris, (owner of Ann's Place) Wilma Parsons and Kamari Durant pose for a photo after being visited by President Barack Obama when he stopped at Ann's Place 24 Hour Restaurant, 1604 S. Hawkins Ave, Akron, Ohio, on Friday, July 6, 2012. The restaurant owner Ann Harris, 70 (see here), was taken by ambulance to Akron General Medical Center after complaining of fatigue and a tingling feeling following Obama's visit. By 11:18 a.m., she was pronounced dead from an apparent heart attack. (Paul Tople/Akron Beacon Journal)

Photo by Taylor NaShay.

Harris met -- and hugged -- Obama just after 8:00 a.m., when he stopped in unannounced for breakfast.

Obama enjoyed a breakfast of eggs, bacon and whole wheat toast - plus grits at the suggestion of Toni Watkins, a waitress for 23 years at Ann’s Place. The White House said the president ate with three long-time Goodyear workers -- Rick Nixon, Jim DiFalco and Keith Ross, according to ABC News.

For more on the Watts/Watkins name game, click and read here.

Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, died, Obama announced one day before the 2008 election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86 and died late Sunday, November 2, 2008.
Aferrismoon writes in noting, "It has happened before."


Indeed, it has and was covered here at the Twilight Language blog.

Felipe Solis Olguin, the director for the 

Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City, 

stands before a large Aztec sculpture. Photo: Robert van der Hilst.

On April 16, 2009, Felipe Solis, a distinguished archaeologist, was with President Barack Obama at a gala dinner at the museum and showed Obama around the Mexico City's anthropology museum. Then, Solis died the next day from "flu-like symptoms." Officially, it was called "pneumonia," but unofficially, Solis died of swine flu.

Solis, of course, means "sun, solar."

See "Obama & Flu Death," to be found at TL on April 26, 2009.

Zachary Taylor became a war hero when he defended Fort Harrison during the War of 1812, and in other engagements. The 12th President of the United States, Zachary Taylor died on July 9, 1850, of cholera after eating tainted cherries and milk in the middle of the summer.

On January 8, 1992, President Bush became ill during a state dinner in Japan and vomited on Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi. Due to that incident, Saturday Night Live then did a skit of the event.

  

Dining comes into play here, it seems. Another famous diner owned by a Harris, Caroline, is the Harris Steakhouse on Main Street, Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The location was first associated with death when the Silver Bridge collapsed, and the diner's then-husband died in that tragedy in December 1967. This diner was used as the model for the diner in The Mothman Prophecies (2002), and today is sometimes called the "Mothman Diner."