The Agenda

The Story of Malachi Ritscher

by Kristen Chauvin

Just three years ago, Malachi Ritscher was a well-known member of Chicago’s avant-garde jazz scene. He made live recordings of bands at local clubs like The Empty Bottle, at little or no cost. He was also a passionate participant in Chicago’s anti-war and free speech movement and had been arrested several times for protesting peacefully. On November 3, 2006 he doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire beside the Kennedy Expressway next to a sculpture called “Flame of the Millennium”. People in cars going into and out of the Windy City saw this. They read the handmade sign he had staked into the ground near him, protest style: “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” His corpse was so badly charred that coroners could not even identify its gender. It took several days and a dental record to put a name to the body.

by Saruman the White, Chief Scientific Policy Advisor to President Bush

[This article first appeared in The Agenda #14, January 2006]

Honestly, you people with your ridiculous “science.” Bah! When I bring agony and ruin upon your villages with the power of the One Ring, will the pathetic explanations of those blasphemous witch doctors you call “scientists” ease the pain of your destruction? I ask you, will their “logical conclusions” based on “data” and “experiments” drown out your screams? Only so foolhardy a race as men could build a society based on “scientific methods” and “empirical evidence.” Such nonsense! Istari magic and the visions of my palantir—those are the foundations of a functioning society.