The Georgia Guidestones: Underwhelming.

I've been to some pretty interesting sites in my day. My brother once blasted a lungful of mucus all over Elvis' TV room in Graceland. I once vomited in Barcelona's Olympic Nadatorium. I have felt not only an El Greco, but also a Dali. I made a point of touching the Rosetta Stone and have even peed on the Very Large Array radio telescope. But of all the monuments to human achievement I have or hope to defile, I desire to defile none more than the Georgia Guidestones.

It's cute, I guess, in a creepy little way. I won't summarize the history of the Guidestones, only point you to Brian Dunning's thorough-enough treatment from a few months back.

As we drove into the area, which is not two hours outside of Atlanta, just past Athens, you could tell that the town of Elberton, Georgia had a theme. How do I put it?

"Granite Capitol of the World." Where else would you build a huge-ass monument out of granite? Where it's comparatively cheap to do it, perhaps?

The Guidestones are granite, as is every sign in the damned little town. Indeed, they put up signs just as an excuse to use more granite. If you don't have a granite sign in Elberton, well, I guess you don't have much local spirit. Let's put it this way. If you were going to find a monument made of slabs of granite, you would find it in Elberton.

The origins of the stones are shrouded in only a little bit of mystery. Nobody (or very,very few people who think it is nifty to not speak about them) knows who commissioned them, but every single person involved in erecting them is well documented. In triplicate.

Oh, do you want to see what the stones look like? Here:

So, they are there. And they look heavy. And a little like Stonehenge or some other megalith. I'm tempted to refer you to the structure at my alma mater, which we all called Stonehenge:

For some reason, however, despite the awesomeness of the Notre Dame Stonehenge (which really kicks the butt out of the Elberton Stones) and their clear connection to the Vatican, nobody claims that the ND stones are part of a global Illuminist conspiracy. And yet, for some reason, this dinky granite monument, the only thing like a tourist attraction in a granite producing town, has spun conspiracy theories, or, perhaps more accurately has become yet another proof of any one of number of preexisting conspiracy theories.

What is it about this megalith then? It's the message inscribed on them in 8 languages, a sort of creepy updated ten commandments:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

So, 10 ideas, some of which are bad (the first ones amount to eugenics). A demonstrable flakiness pervades the list. The idea that half a billion is the right number and can live in "balance" with nature is a little goofy and the whole "I want to buy the world a Coke" vibe of the era in which they were erected (1979-80) is very much present. In all honesty, I found the graffiti more interesting than anything carved in the stones:

(Leave room for nature. LOL!)

This ________ (probably shit) is coming doing!

Infowars.com and NWO (new world order)

Also there was a fairly large diagram of fellatio on one side.

Now, some of the population control stuff is roughly consistent with many folks' beliefs in a coming cabal that may have to cull the flock, so to speak. Some use the presence of Hebrew to suggest that the Jews are responsible. Some use the pseudonym of the guy who financed it to be evidence that he was a Rosicrucian. Some people believe that the fact many of the workers who erected it were Masons is proof of that conspiracy, though, to be sure, I don't think that one could reasonably expect anyone in that town NOT to be a Mason.

What I find most intriguing is the notion that this global worldwide conspiracy, one so perfect and ubiquitous and powerful would have created a monument that bore such an illiterate typo as:

A pseudonyn? Cripes. Nice conspiracy. Jeez.

Now, Elberton was a nice little stop with, like, nothing in it. And I finally got out of the city for a few hours after being here in the city for almost a year. So that was nice. I have a hankering to try and get to the ocean sometime, but we'll see. That could take some doing.

Another fellow pulled up (he's in the first image) to walk his dog. I asked him, "What do you think of these?" And he said the most sensible thing: "I don't."

HJ