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On the twelfth day of fascism John Ashcroft gave to me
Twelve digital implants
Eleven years protesting
Ten less amendments
Nine internment camps
Eight surveillance cameras
Seven TIPsters tipping
Six snoops a-sniffing
Five Carnivores
Four airport friskings
Three wiretappings
Two detained Muslims
And a Department of Homeland Security
Who whom? As Lenin said.
Who rules whom?
Who hands out the soup to whom?
Who is a better person than whom?
Who is more democratic than whom?
Who say "Who whom" to whom?
MICHAEL FRAYN, Constructions, 1974
Another execllent interview by Identity Theory's Robert Birnbaum with David Rieff Author of A Bed for the Night
David Rieff from the interview:
"If Fox News really represents this culture than not only are we doomed but we are doomed very quick. John Cleese said he would rather work for the state in Gomulka's Poland than take any employment from Rupert Murdoch (both laugh). And I am inclined to agree. At least you could have some psychic independence working in some communist bureaucracy as many, many generations of dissidents proved in the east. Fox News, you really feel like washing your hands after watching...The problem isn't whether the NY Times covers Palestine correctly. The problem is that most people are getting their news from Fox or from daytime AM radio. "
I certainly hope this guy is wrong and George Bush is the moron that Norm Jenson, Canada, and the rest of the world think he is. It would be truly frightening if this article has it right.
Bush Anything But Moronic, According to Author
Dark Overtones in His Malapropisms
by Murray Whyte
When Mark Crispin Miller first set out to write Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, about the ever- growing catalogue of President George W. Bush's verbal gaffes, he meant it for a laugh. But what he came to realize wasn't entirely amusing.
Since the 2000 presidential campaign, Miller has been compiling his own collection of Bush-isms, which have revealed, he says, a disquieting truth about what lurks behind the cock-eyed leer of the leader of the free world. He's not a moron at all on that point, Miller and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien agree. But according to Miller, he's no friend.
Consciousness may be set down as one of the most mendacious witnesses that ever was questioned. But it is the only witness there is; and all we can do is to put in a sweat-box and torture the truth out of it, with such judgment as we can command.
C. S. PEIRCE,Collected Papers I, late 19th-early 20th century
Tuesday evening I played bridge. The game was held at my cousin Dave's. Dave had invited me Monday evening. "Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.", he said. "Sounds fun," I said, silently recounting our previous game. Dave and I partnered against Larry, the Mandolin Player, and Dave's son, Tommy. Tommy is politically liberal, his Dad more conservative. In my family both my sons, like me, lead with their lefts. But, this is a post about the bridge game. At a quarter of seven on the night of the game, my telephone rang. "Hello", I said. "You're AWOL," he said. "Oh shit, I spaced it" I said, "I'm on my way." I arrived fifteen minutes later having practiced my apology on the way over. Apologies out of the way, they didn't make it easy, the game definitely an amateur affair began. The game is a good natured cacaphony of insults, taunts, and oh shits, all great fun. "Fuck you Dave, don't you ever stop bidding," I said, "at least we weren't vulnerable." Down One, Three, Five hundred, damn! Dave had suggested we each bring our favorite CD to listen to while we played. I had considered Keith Jarret's Koln Concert. or Bach's Golberg Variations performed on the Piano by Glenn Gould. Arriving late, having totally forgotten the engagement, no one expected me to remember a CD. I think it was a good thing, although those two CDs are definitely favorites of mine I don't think they would make very good background music. A little like Here Comes Santa Claus in July. Dave had been playing Stevie Nicks and Jim Morrison both artists I enjoy, but in limited doses. Dave was giving us an overdose. Tommy was threatening to make a trip to the basement and retrieve a copy of Dark Side of The Moon, by Pink Floyd great music; of course, but probably no better as background music than the choices I had contemplated. Larry had brought Stevie Vaughn and someone. I think that's right. Remember I had forgotten the date, a CD, it's quite possible my memory of Larry's CD is not even half right. Whatever it was it was perfect for the occasion, alas it ended and Dave trotted out the Nicks, and Morrison CDs and again we all broke on through to the other side. As I'm writing this I think I hear Dave saying, Fuck you Norm. Yea, well fuck you too Dave. We play again on Sunday. I'll bring a CD to play. Oh yes, Tommy and Larry defeated us by a mere 50 points redeeming themselves after losing by a couple of thousand points in our previous encounter. Dave and Tommy both have my email address. They promise a reminder for the Sunday Game, now what time was it they said?
"The most savage controversies are those about matters to which there is no good evidence either way." [BERTRAND RUSSELL, Unpopular Essays, 1950
"If you're so smart, how come I'm president and you're not?"
--George Bush Senior the First.
"I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
--George Bush Junior the Second
Nicked from This Modern World
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
"We don't have a democracy, we have an auction." - anon
In 1886 the Supreme Court ruling in Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railrods granted personhood to corporations. Fifty years later Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas said of the decision that it "could not be supported by history, logic or reason. This ruling is compromising our democratic system as I alluded to my post One Man One Vote. Jerry Leslie recently commented on that post, pointing to this 1886 decision. He recommended the article by Kalle Lasn published by our friends from ADBUSTERS I have reprinted below in it's entirety which is an excellent summary of the issues involved, as his introduction to the subject. Jerry has also started a discussion on the topic at Michael Moore's site entitled Time To Get Corporations Out Of the Political Process that you'll want to check out. It is surprising to me how little attention the issue gets , given the impact it has on all of us.
Reclaim Democracy Now is an excellent site if you only follow one link makes this the one.
By Kalle Lasn
The history of America is the one story every kid knows. It's a story of fierce individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the service of a dream. A story of early settlers hungry and cold, carving a home out of the wilderness. Of visionary leaders fighting for democracy and justice, and never wavering. Of a populace prepared to defend those ideals to the death. It's the story of a revolution (an American art form as endemic as baseball or jazz) beating back British Imperialism and launching a new colony into the industrial age on its own terms.
It's a story of America triumphant. A story of its rise after World War II to become the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world, "the land of the free and home of the brave," an inspiring model for the whole world to emulate.
That's the official history, the one that is taught in school and the one our media and culture reinforce in myriad ways every day.
The unofficial history of the United States is quite different. It begins the same way -- in the revolutionary cauldron of colonial America -- but then it takes a turn. A bitplayer in the official history becomes critically important to the way the unofficial history unfolds. This player turns out to be not only the provocateur of the revolution, but in the end its saboteur. This player lies at the heart of America's defining theme: the difference between a country that pretends to be free and a country that truly is free.
That player is the corporation.
The United States of America was born of a revolt not just against British monarchs and the British parliament but against British corporations.
We tend to think of corporations as fairly recent phenomena, the legacy of the Rockefellers and Carnegies. In fact, the corporate presence in prerevolutionary America was almost as conspicuous as it is today. There were far fewer corporations then, but they were enormously powerful: the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the British East India Company. Colonials feared these chartered entities. They recognized the way British kings and their cronies used them as robotic arms to control the affairs of the colonies, to pinch staples from remote breadbaskets and bring them home to the motherland.
The colonials resisted. When the British East India Company imposed duties on its incoming tea (telling the locals they could buy the tea or lump it, because the company had a virtual monopoly on tea distribution in the colonies), radical patriots demonstrated. Colonial merchants agreed not to sell East India Company tea. Many East India Company ships were turned back at port. And, on one fateful day in Boston, 342 chests of tea ended up in the salt chuck.
The Boston Tea Party was one of young America's finest hours. It sparked enormous revolutionary excitement. The people were beginning to understand their own strength, and to see their own self-determination not just as possible but inevitable.
The Declaration of Independence, in 1776, freed Americans not only from Britain but also from the tyranny of British corporations, and for a hundred years after the document's signing, Americans remained deeply suspicious of corporate power. They were careful about the way they granted corporate charters, and about the powers granted therein.
Early American charters were created literally by the people, for the people as a legal convenience. Corporations were "artificial, invisible, intangible," mere financial tools. They were chartered by individual states, not the federal government, which meant they could be kept under close local scrutiny. They were automatically dissolved if they engaged in activities that violated their charter. Limits were placed on how big and powerful companies could become. Even railroad magnate J. P. Morgan, the consummate capitalist, understood that corporations must never become so big that they "inhibit freedom to the point where efficiency [is] endangered."
The two hundred or so corporations operating in the US by the year 1800 were each kept on fairly short leashes. They weren't allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn't buy stock in other corporations. And if one of them acted improperly, the consequences were severe. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed a motion to extend the charter of the corrupt and tyrannical Second Bank of the United States, and was widely applauded for doing so. That same year the state of Pennsylvania revoked the charters of ten banks for operating contrary to the public interest. Even the enormous industry trusts, formed to protect member corporations from external competitors and provide barriers to entry, eventually proved no match for the state. By the mid-1800s, antitrust legislation was widely in place.
In the early history of America, the corporation played an important but subordinate role. The people -- not the corporations -- were in control. So what happened? How did corporations gain power and eventually start exercising more control than the individuals who created them?
The shift began in the last third of the nineteenth century -- the start of a great period of struggle between corporations and civil society. The turning point was the Civil War. Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges and even presidents. Corporations became the masters and keepers of business. President Abraham Lincoln foresaw terrible trouble. Shortly before his death, he warned that "corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggregated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed."
President Lincoln's warning went unheeded. Corporations continued to gain power and influence. They had the laws governing their creation amended. State charters could no longer be revoked. Corporate profits could no longer be limited. Corporate economic activity could be restrained only by the courts, and in hundreds of cases judges granted corporations minor legal victories, conceding rights and privileges they did not have before.
Then came a legal event that would not be understood for decades (and remains baffling even today), an event that would change the course of American history. In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a railbed route, the US Supreme Court deemed that a private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights. Suddenly, corporations enjoyed all the rights and sovereignty previously enjoyed only by the people, including the right to free speech.
This 1886 decision ostensibly gave corporations the same powers as private citizens. But considering their vast financial resources, corporations thereafter actually had far more power than any private citizen. They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more vigorously than any individual and therefore they were more free. In a single legal stroke, the whole intent of the American Constitution -- that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public debates -- had been undermined. Sixty years after it was inked, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara that it "could not be supported by history, logic or reason." One of the great legal blunders of the nineteenth century changed the whole idea of democratic government.
Post-Santa Clara America became a very different place. By 1919, corporations employed more than 80 percent of the workforce and produced most of America's wealth. Corporate trusts had become too powerful to legally challenge. The courts consistently favored their interests. Employees found themselves without recourse if, for example, they were injured on the job (if you worked for a corporation, you voluntarily assumed the risk, was the courts' position). Railroad and mining companies were enabled to annex vast tracts of land at minimal expense.
Gradually, many of the original ideals of the American Revolution were simply quashed. Both during and after the Civil War, America was increasingly being ruled by a coalition of government and business interests. The shift amounted to a kind of coup d'état -- not a sudden military takeover but a gradual subversion and takeover of the institutions of state power. Except for a temporary setback during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal (the 1930s), the US has since been governed as a corporate state.
In the post-World War II era, corporations continued to gain power. They merged, consolidated, restructured and metamorphosed into ever larger and more complex units of resource extraction, production, distribution and marketing, to the point where many of them became economically more powerful than many countries. In 1997, fifty-one of the world's hundred largest economies were corporations, not countries. The top five hundred corporations controlled forty-two percent of the world's wealth. Today corporations freely buy each other's stocks and shares. They lobby legislators and bankroll elections. They manage our broadcast airwaves, set our industrial, economic and cultural agendas, and grow as big and powerful as they damn well please.
Every day, scenes that would have seemed surreal, impossible, undemocratic twenty years ago play out with nary a squeak of dissent from a stunned and inured populace.
At Morain Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois, a student named Jennifer Beatty stages a protest against corporate sponsorship in her school by locking herself to the metal mesh curtains of the multimillion-dollar "McDonald's Student Center" that serves as the physical and nutritional focal point of her college. She is arrested and expelled.
At Greenbrier High School in Evans, Georgia, a student named Mike Cameron wears a Pepsi T-shirt on the day -- dubbed "Coke Day" -- when corporate flacks from Coca-Cola jet in from Atlanta to visit the school their company has sponsored and subsidized. Mike Cameron is suspended for his insolence.
In suburban shopping malls across North America, moms and dads push shopping carts down the aisle of Toys "R" Us. Trailing them and imitating their gestures, their kids push pint-size carts of their own. The carts say, "Toys 'R' Us Shopper in Training."
In St. Louis, Missouri, chemical giant Monsanto sics its legal team on anyone even considering spreading dirty lies -- or dirty truths -- about the company. A Fox TV affiliate that has prepared a major investigative story on the use and misuse of synthetic bovine growth hormone (a Monsanto product) pulls the piece after Monsanto attorneys threaten the network with "dire consequences" if the story airs. Later, a planned book on the dangers of genetic agricultural technologies is temporarily shelved after the publisher, fearing a lawsuit from Monsanto, gets cold feet.
In boardrooms in all the major global capitals, CEOs of the world's biggest corporations imagine a world where they are protected by what is effectively their own global charter of rights and freedoms -- the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI). They are supported in this vision by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other organizations representing twenty-nine of the world's richest economies. The MAI would effectively create a single global economy allowing corporations the unrestricted right to buy, sell and move their businesses, resources and other assets wherever and whenever they want. It's a corporate bill of rights designed to override all "nonconforming" local, state and national laws and regulations and allow them to sue cities, states and national governments for alleged noncompliance. Sold to the world's citizens as inevitable and necessary in an age of free trade, these MAI negotiations met with considerable grassroots opposition and were temporarily suspended in April 1998. Nevertheless, no one believes this initiative will remain suspended for long.
We, the people, have lost control. Corporations, these legal fictions that we ourselves created two centuries ago, now have more rights, freedoms and powers than we do. And we accept this as the normal state of affairs. We go to corporations on our knees. Please do the right thing, we plead. Please don't cut down any more ancient forests. Please don't pollute any more lakes and rivers (but please don't move your factories and jobs offshore either). Please don't use pornographic images to sell fashion to my kids. Please don't play governments off against each other to get a better deal. We've spent so much time bowed down in deference, we've forgotten how to stand up straight.
The unofficial history of America™, which continues to be written, is not a story of rugged individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the pursuit of a dream. It is a story of democracy derailed, of a revolutionary spirit suppressed, and of a once-proud people reduced to servitude.
Jerry also provided this related link:
What would change if corporations lost personhood
"...Ending corporate personhood is no more a magic-bullet than was the
Brown v. Ferguson ruling, or the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment
itself. As long as there is a society there will be struggle over how
resources, including political powers, are allocated. Ending corporate
personhood would result, not in a level playing field, but in a field
where We the People have the advantage again, where in any particular
issue that is fought out in the public arena, the people are more
likely to win than the corporations."
"Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.
[ALBURT CAMUS, Jean-Baptiste Clamance in The Fall, 1956]
The latest installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was decidedly darker and more sinister than the three previous books, as author J.K. Rowling depicted violence and death more graphically. Like any good writer, she wanted her characters to grow. But her subjects are now fifteen year olds, and sexuality is bound to come up in the forthcoming fifth book. Yet the publication date has been repeatedly pushed back. Rumor has it that Rowling's publisher is fighting the inclusion of one particularly racy chapter, which the company fears will traumatize younger readers and thoroughly piss off parents. The following is allegedly one draft of the chapter in question; its authenticity has yet to be confirmed. — Lorelei Sharkey
a taste:
He had conjured spells that had worked even on Lord Voldemort; why could he not make this disappear?
When Harry finally reached the blackboard and turned around to face the entire class, the fatal blow was delivered: Pansy Parkinson, sitting with a gaggle of giggling Slytherin girls, shouted out, "Is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just glad to see us?" Uproarious laughter bounced off the damp stone walls of the dungeon.
You'll find the rest here:
Update the link is now broken. I've copied the original story from the google cache. If any one knows if Lorelei has a new address please let me know.
The latest installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was decidedly darker and more sinister than the three previous books, as author J.K. Rowling depicted violence and death more graphically. Like any good writer, she wanted her characters to grow. But her subjects are now fifteen year olds, and sexuality is bound to come up in the forthcoming fifth book. Yet the publication date has been repeatedly pushed back. Rumor has it that Rowling's publisher is fighting the inclusion of one particularly racy chapter, which the company fears will traumatize younger readers and thoroughly piss off parents. The following is allegedly one draft of the chapter in question; its authenticity has yet to be confirmed. — Lorelei Sharkey
Harry awoke with a start. Gasping for breath and sweating profusely, he tried to listen for any movement in the pitch black dormitory room over the pounding of the heartbeat in his ears. Had another nightmare awoken him? He couldn't remember what he had been dreaming about. "But," Harry thought as he felt his forehead, "at least my scar isn't hurting."
Then he felt that other pain, the one a bit farther south.
"Oh no, not again," Harry whispered to himself. It was as if someone had used the Imperius Curse on him, though on just one part of his body — for that part seemed to have a mind of its own lately.
Harry began to replay the most humiliating incidents of the last few months over in his mind: the "accident" he had riding atop his Firebolt at Quidditch practice, Professor Trelawney's prediction that he'd soon be climbing a snow-covered volcano when it erupted, and that horrible scene in Professor Snape's potions class.
On that fateful day, Harry had sunk into his stool, avoided eye contact with Snape, and he did everything to become invisible short of donning his Invisibility Cloak. But the Professor's beady black eyes focused on him with the precision of a champion Quidditch Seeker. Snape insisted Harry be the first to present his project on the versatility of newt eyes and called him to the front of the class. Harry pretended to accidentally drop his papers in an effort to stall, then fluffed up his robes to obscure any incriminating visual evidence. As he dragged his reluctant feet to the front of the dungeon, Harry wished his misfortune away with all his might. He had conjured spells that had worked even on Lord Voldemort; why could he not make this disappear?
When Harry finally reached the blackboard and turned around to face the entire class, the fatal blow was delivered: Pansy Parkinson, sitting with a gaggle of giggling Slytherin girls, shouted out, "Is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just glad to see us?" Uproarious laughter bounced off the damp stone walls of the dungeon.
Reliving the memory sent a chill throughout Harry's body, but even that had no effect on the persistent throbbing in his pajama pants. Harry tried to push the dungeon scene from his mind as he poked his head outside the crimson curtains of his four-poster bed. Ron, Seamus and Dean all seemed to be sleeping soundly; Neville was snoring loudly, as usual. He could risk getting rid of his problematic protrusion as quickly and quietly as possible. But what if someone woke up before he had finished? He'd be worse off than he was now. That was one of the only drawbacks of living at Hogwarts: no privacy.
Suddenly, Harry thought of a solution. Within seconds, he had put on his slippers, tucked the magic Maurader's Map of Hogwarts under his arm, thrown the Invisibility Cloak over his head and crept down the spiral staircase to the Gryffindor common room, past a sleeping Crookshanks, who was curled up by the fireplace. Out in the hallway, Harry tiptoed up the moonlit stairs to the fifth floor and crept along the quiet corridor past the statue of Boris the Bewildered to the fourth door on the left: the male prefects' private bathroom.
Once locked inside, Harry found himself in one of the most exquisite rooms in Hogwarts — especially considering that it was just a boys' bathroom. He was delighted to find that nothing had changed since the last time he had snuck in here: the floor-to-ceiling white linen curtains still hung over the windows, the bathtub was still the size of a swimming pool and the gold framed picture of the mermaid with the long blonde hair down to her belly button still hung on the wall. She was sound asleep on her rock, just as she had been during his last secret midnight visit.
Harry checked all the stalls and looked behind the curtains for Moaning Myrtle, one of the teenage ghosts who haunted the toilets of Hogwarts. He didn't want her spying on him, as she had done last year. Then again, he was sure a minute's worth of her usual whining would make his problem go away.
Harry turned on a few of the sparkling gold taps lining the lip of the pool, and, within minutes, the oversized tub was full of water and thick white foam. Big transparent bubbles — the size of Professor Trelawney's crystal balls and tinted the various colors of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans — floated above the surface.
Harry took off his pajamas, flipped off his slippers and slid in. The warm water swirling around his every nook and cranny instantly relaxed him. He floated over to the other side of the pool as a sort of trance washed over him. With his ears just beneath the surface of the water, the muted swishing sounds made him feel like he was in his own world.
"Finally," Harry sighed. He rested the back of his head on the edge of the pool so he could enlist the help of both hands underwater. Harry had wanted nothing more than to get rid of this feeling as quickly as possible; now he wanted it to last forever. He closed his eyes and touched himself slowly. He let his imagination wander to a place where there were no herbology exams, no dementors, no Dark Lords — just this one feeling. And right when he thought his mind was empty, when he thought his senses had taken over completely, he was struck with the perfect memory of a face he had come to know so well. The face of . . .
"What's going on, Harry?"
Harry's short scream echoed throughout the bathroom. With much splashing, he recoiled against the side of the pool, accidentally swallowing some foam in the process. There was Moaning Myrtle facing him in the water, not two feet away.
"Myrtle!" coughed Harry. "Don't do that. Haven't you heard of knocking?"
Myrtle shrugged coyly. She looked different: the thick spectacles she usually wore were missing, and her wet hair was slicked back, out of her face for once.
"Anyway," said Harry, and then in a whisper, "I'm naked."
"Oh please, Harry. It's nothing I haven't seen before," Myrtle pouted as she treaded water effortlessly. "When you're confined to bathrooms for all eternity, you're bound to see some skin every now and again, aren't you?"
"Please leave," Harry urged as he began to swim away to the other side of the pool. Suddenly, Myrtle's head emerged from the water in front of him again. He tried to breaststroke past her, but she glided beside him without moving her arms or kicking her legs.
"Why aren't you nice to me, Harry?" Myrtle moaned. "Why don't you ever come visit me?"
"I don't know," said Harry. He was trying to figure out how he could get his clothes back on without giving Myrtle a free show. His pajama pants were just out of reach, and without his wand there was no way of closing that gap. He didn't want to get out of the pool, because he knew Myrtle would refuse to close her eyes until he had spent at least half an hour hanging out with her. He was trapped.
"Harry, you're not answering my questions," said Myrtle, her whine taking on a low pitch Harry had never heard before. "What were you just doing?"
He held onto the side, pressing the front of his body up against the pool wall to keep as much hidden as possible. Unfortunately, several jets were slowly pumping fresh warm water right there — and they weren't exactly helping Harry's flushed state. He looked at Myrtle over his shoulder and said as innocently as possible, "Nothing . . . Nothing. Just taking a bath."
"I think you were doing more than that, Harry." Myrtle inched closer through the white suds. "Tell me, Harry."
Harry turned to keep her at arm's length, but before he could say, "No!" she was upon him. He couldn't feel her body (because she didn't have one, really), just a sort of cool nebulous force pressing up against him, pinning him against the wall, making it extremely hard to move.
"Why are you here, Harry? And why haven't you come to visit me before?" Myrtle moaned softly in his ear. She moved to look him in the eye and repeated in a slow whisper devoid of any whine, "Why haven't you come?"
Thanks Lorelei that was fun.
This has apparently been making the rounds for months. It was new to me and perhaps it will be new to you. Oh yes, It's damn funny.
||| french intellectuals deployed in afghanistan |||
Michael Kelly
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press : For Immediate Release: March, 2002
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French Intellectuals to be Deployed in Afghanistan to Convince Taliban of Non-Existence of God.
Kabul---The clean-up portion of the ground war in Afghanistan heated up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of the remaining Taliban zealots by proving the non-existence of God.
Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris's Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of sidewalk cafes at strategic points near the front lines.
There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation inthe universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will propagate fear, uncertainty and doubt by looking remote and unattainable.
Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke yesterday of his confidence in the success of their mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense and unshaven young man in a black pullover, gesticulated wildly and said, "The Taliban are caught in a logical fallacy of the most ridiculous proportions. There is no God and I can prove it."
Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on man's inescapapable lack of freedom of action, with special reference to the work of Foucault and the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
However, humanitarian agencies have been quick to condemn the operation as inhumane, pointing out that the effects of passive smoke from the Frenchmens' endless Gauloises and Gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the area.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference
This piece seems to have been emailed all over, and is on a few websites without credit. Tracked down to Michael Kelly's Page of Misery. Check it out.
Recently received an email from Amy Larson saying that the piece is originally from SatireWire, which until recently was kept updated by Andrew Marlatt. He's called it a day unfortunately, but the site archives are still worth looking at.
via
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." — Benito Mussolini.
Washington, D.C. -- Watchdog groups say major parties slight new campaign finance law
Days after the McCain-Feingold Bill went into effect Republicans and Democrats are accused of violating the law. Republicans were the first accused when a prominent republican wrote a check for $10,000,000 on a stone he found in his garden. "No way they can call this soft money", he said.
The Democrats newly designed campaign "Send Change for a Change, may be a legal way to avoid the limits, but children of Democrats are pissed, claiming their parents are stealing their piggy banks.
The Libertarians and Greens in a rare show of unity are reported to have said, "we told you so."
Reprinted From Yellow Times
By Imad Khadduri
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)
(YellowTimes.org) - As the war storm against Iraq swirls and gathers momentum, seeded by the efforts of the American and British governments, serious doubts arise as to the credibility of their intelligence sources, particularly the issue of Iraq's nuclear capability. It has been often noted that reliable intelligence on this matter is not immediately forthcoming. Moreover, such intelligence as has been presented is spurious and often contradictory. Perhaps it is not too late to rectify this misinformation campaign.
I worked with the Iraqi nuclear program from 1968 until my departure from Iraq in late 1998. Having been closely involved in most of the major nuclear activities of that program, from the Russian research reactor in the late sixties to the French research reactors in the late seventies, the Russian nuclear power program in the early eighties, the nuclear weapons program during the eighties and finally the confrontations with U.N. inspection teams in the nineties, it behooves me to admit that I find present allegations about Iraq's nuclear capability, as continuously advanced by the Americans and the British, to be ridiculous.
Let us go back to 1991. A week before the cessation of two-month saturation bombings on the target-rich Iraq, the Americans realized that a certain complex of buildings in Tarmiah, that had just been carpet bombed for lack of any other remaining prominent targets, exhibited unusual swarming activity by rescuers the next morning. When they compared the photographs of that complex with other standing structures in Iraq, they were surprised to find an exact replica of that complex in the north of Iraq, near Sharqat, which was nearing completion. They directed their bombers to demolish the northern complex a few days before the end of hostilities. My family, along with the families of most prominent Iraqi nuclear scientists and the top management of the northern complex, were residing in the housing complex. The Tarmiah and Sharqat complexes were designed for housing the Calutron separators, similar to those used by the American Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on Japan.
At the end of 1991, after that infamous U.N. inspector, David Kay, got hold of many of the nuclear weapons program's reports (reports whose maintenance and security I had been in charge of), the Americans realized that their saturation bombing had missed a most important complex of buildings: that complex at Al-Atheer, which was the center for the design and assembly of the nuclear bomb. A lone, single bomb, thermally guided, had hit the electric substation outside the perimeter of the complex, causing little damage.
The glaring and revealing detail about these two events is the utter lack of any intelligence about these building complexes -- information that should have caused the repository of American and British intelligence to overflow. That is to say American and British intelligence had no idea of the programs that those buildings harbored -- programs that had been ongoing at full steam for the previous ten years!
What really happened to Iraq's nuclear weapon program after the 1991 war?
Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, the entire organization that was responsible for the nuclear weapons project turned its attention to the reconstruction of the heavily damaged oil refineries, electric power stations, and telephone exchange buildings. The combined expertise of the several thousand scientific, engineering, and technical cadres manifested itself in the restoration of the oil, electric and communication infrastructure in a matter of months -- an impressive accomplishment, by any measure.
Then the U.N. inspectors were ushered in. The senior scientists and engineers among the nuclear cadre were instructed many times on how to cooperate with the inspectors. We were also asked to hand in to our own officials any reports or incriminating evidence, with heavy penalties (up to the death penalty, in some cases) for failing to do so. In the first few months, the "clean sheets" were hung up for all to see. As the scientific questioning mounted, our scientists began to redirect the questioners to the actual technical documents themselves that had been amassed during the ten years of activity. These documents had been traveling up and down and throughout Iraq in a welded train car. Then the order was issued to return the project's documents to their original location. At that point, David Kay pounced on them in the early morning hours of September 1991. Among the documents were those of Al-Atheer and the bomb specifics.
In the following few years, the nuclear weapons project organization was slowly disbanded. By 1994, its various departments were either elevated to independent civilian industrial enterprises, or absorbed within the Military Industrial Authority under Hussain Kamil, who later escaped to Jordan in 1996 and then returned to Baghdad where he was murdered.
Meanwhile, the brinkmanship with the U.N. inspectors continued. At one heated encounter, an American inspector remarked that the nuclear scientists and engineers were still around, and hinted accusingly that those scientists and engineers may be readily used for a rejuvenated nuclear program. The retort was, "What do you want us to do to satisfy you? Ask them to commit suicide?"
In 1994, a report surfaced claiming that Iraq was still manufacturing a nuclear bomb and had been working on it since 1991. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors brought the report to Baghdad, demanding a full explanation. The inspectors requested my opinion on the authenticity of the report, inasmuch as I was the responsible agent for the proper issuance and archiving of all scientific and engineering documents for the nuclear weapons project during the eighties. It was my opinion that the report was well done, and most probably had been written by someone who had detailed knowledge of the established documentation procedures. However, as we pointed out to the IAEA inspectors, certain words used in the report would not normally be used by us but rather by Iranians and we supplied an Arabic-Iranian dictionary to verify our findings. The IAEA inspectors never referred back to that report.
During these years, crushing economic inflation was growing. It would spell the end for most of the Iraqi nuclear scientists' and engineers' careers in the following years.
In 1996, Hussain Kamil, who was in charge of the entire range of chemical, biological and nuclear programs, announced from his self-imposed exile in Amman that there were hidden caches of important documentation on his farm in Iraq. (Apparently, he had had his security entourage stealthily salvage what they thought were the most important pieces of information and documentation in these programs.) The U.N. inspectors pounced on this and a renewed string of confrontations occurred, until the inspectors were asked to leave Iraq in 1998.
In the last few years of the nineties, we did our utmost to produce a satisfying report to the IAEA inspectors concerning the entire gamut of Iraq's nuclear activities. The IAEA finally issued its report in October 1997, mapping these activities in great detail. The inspectors raised vague, "politically correct" queries which seemed obligatory in their intent.
In the meantime, and this is the gist of my discourse, the economic standing of the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers (along with the rest of the civil servants and the professional middle class) has been pathetically reduced to poverty level. Even with occasional salary inducements and some insubstantial benefits, many of those highly-educated persons have been forced to sell their possessions just to keep their families alive. Needless to say, their spirits are very low and their cynicism is high. Relatively few have managed to leave Iraq. The majority are too gripped by poverty, family needs, and fear of the brutal retaliation of the security apparatus to even consider a plan of escape. Their former determination and drive, profoundly evident in the eighties, has been crushed by harsh economic realities; their knowledge and experience grow rusty with the passage of time; their skills atrophy from lack of activity in their fields.
Since my departure from Iraq in late 1998, one cannot help but notice the mien of those former nuclear scientists and engineers as being but a wispy phantom of a once elite cadre representing the zenith of scientific and technical thought in Iraq. Pathetic shadows of their former selves, the overwhelming fear that haunts them is the fear of retirement, with a whopping pension that equates to about $2 a month.
Yet, the American and British intelligence community, obviously influenced by the war agenda, vainly attempts to continue to provide disinformation. For example, a consignment of aluminum pipes (the intelligence experts opine) might conceivably be used in the construction of highly advanced, "kilometers long" centrifugal spinners. The consideration that there are no remaining Iraqi personnel qualified to implement and maintain these supposed spinners seems to have eluded the intelligence agencies' reports.
Last month, a group of journalists was taken on a guided tour of a "possible" uranium extraction plant in Akashat in western Iraq. The Iraqi guide pointed to the obviously demolished buildings and asked tongue-in-cheek, "Who would make any use of these ruins? Maybe your experts would tell us how."
It is true that the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers did not commit suicide. But for all the remaining capability they possess to rebuild a nuclear weapons program, they may as well have.
Bush and Blair are leading their public by the nose, attempting to cloak shoddy and erroneous intelligence data with hollow patriotic urgings and cajolery. But the two parading emperors have no clothes.
[Imad Khadduri has a MSc in Physics from the University of Michigan (United States) and a PhD in Nuclear Reactor Technology from the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He was able to leave Iraq in late 1998 with his family. He now teaches and works as a network administrator in Toronto, Canada.]
A simple story of love, hope and despair, of innocence lost. I love the way MacClaverty describes Ireland. An Ireland that could easily be mistaken for a 19th Century Landscape, but for a can of coke and a modern understanding of epilepsy. It is a perfect setting for the story of Brother Sebastian (Michael Lamb), and twelve-year old Owen Kane. A story that tugs at your heart, from despair to hope. From Ireland to England and back to the place we all find ourselves in at times with no good solutions. I enjoyed McClaverty's writing in his short story collection "Walking the Dog," and he has convinced me he is also adept at longer works. Recommended, and thank you Steve Himmer for suggesting I would enjoy this, I did.
What was silent in the father speaks in the son; and often I found the son the unveiled in the father. [NIETZSCHE Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883-85]
"A man's maturity--consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child" [Nietzsche]
When I wrote this Limerick about Steven Pinkers new book "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" I wasn't saying that we are nothing but a blank slate but rather that Pinker for the sake of a commercially viable book had overstated the case for the biological component. The question never was if there was a biological basis for human nature,but how much it explains and what if fails to explain and why? Pinker slips from side to side as it suits his own prejudices. It seems I was not alone in that view. Louis Menand in a review of Pinker's book makes many of the the same points.
WHAT COMES NATURALLY
by LOUIS MENAND
Does evolution explain who we are?
"The new sciences of human nature." Well, why not? The old sciences of human nature didn't have such a fabulous track record. They gave us segregated drinking fountains, "invented spelling," and the glass ceiling all consequences of scientific theories about the way human beings really are. Possibly, there is a lesson there, which is that the sciences of human nature tend to validate the practices and preferences of whatever regime happens to be sponsoring them. In totalitarian regimes, dissidence is treated as a mental illness. In apartheid regimes, interracial contact is treated as unnatural. In free-market regimes, self-interest is treated as hardwired. Maybe this is unfair to the new sciences of human nature, though. It could be that the problem with the old sciences was simply that they weren't scientific enough that they were mostly wishful thinking projected onto dubious data about skull size and the effects of estrogen on the ability to balance a checkbook. Today's scientists might have the capacity to get right down there among the chromosomes and the neurotransmitters, and to send back reports, undistorted by fear, favor, or the prospect of funding, about what's going on. Maybe the new sciences of human nature are really scientific. It's worth a look.
And a critical look is exactly what he provides, for example:
Many pages of "The Blank Slate" are devoted to bashing away at the Lockean-Rousseauian-Cartesian scarecrow that Pinker has created.
or this:
Having it both ways is an irritating feature of "The Blank Slate." Pinker can write, in refutation of the scarecrow theory of violent behavior, "The sad fact is that despite the repeated assurances that 'we know the conditions that breed violence,' we barely have a clue," and then, a few pages later, "It is not surprising, then, that when African American teenagers are taken out of underclass neighborhoods they are no more violent or delinquent than white teenagers." Well, that should give us one clue. He sums the matter up: "With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution." This is just another way of saying that it is in human nature to socialize and to be socialized, which is, pragmatically, exactly the view of the "intellectuals."
A brief aside Louis Menand is the author of one of the best books I've read in the past few
years. The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America if you are at all interested in American History, and Pragmatism in particular I can't recommend this book highly enough.
There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
[OSCAR WILDE, The Critic as Artist, 1891]
Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame
Paranoia, hubris, and hatred the unraveling of the greatest chess player
Fischer's story doesn't follow the usual celebrity-gone-to-seed arc. He has not been brought low by drugs or alcohol, by sex scandals or profligate spending. Instead he is a victim of his own mind and of the inordinate attention that the world has given it. Fischer's paranoia, rage, and hubris have been enough to transform him into an enemy of the state; they have been enough to sabotage a brilliant career and turn a confident, charismatic figure into a dithering recluse; and, sadly, they have been enough to make us forget that when Bobby Fischer played chess, it was absolutely riveting theater, even for those who didn't play the game.
Of course he hasn't come totally unraveled he referred to George W. Bush during one of his radio interviews as "borderline retarded."
But whatever else you may think about Bobby Fishcer he has left us his games. Here is a link to his "60 Most Memorable Games" for you to play through, or download the pgn file. Pgn is a text file, pgn stands for portable game notation and many chess programs can import files in this format.
We live in interesting times with bin Laden under our bed's and Ashcroft in our closets. Some say that 9-11 brought us together. It didn't it is tearing us apart, after all if "If you're not with us you're against us". The Right describes us as anti this and anti that, as America haters. Are they stupid, mean-spirited, or are they just afraid. The fallacy they are committing is they say that if we hate some aspect of America we hate the whole country and that is absurd. So why do so many buy into that rhetoric? When Rush Limbaugh had that cyst on his ass was he a Limbaugh-hater, and when Cheney goes to the Doctor and the Doctor points out that he's putting on a few pounds and how dangerous that is, how it could prematurely end his life does he accuse the doctor of being a Cheney-hater. Does his wife call the doctor and accuse him of being anti-Cheney? If the Doctor fails to point out Dick's stylish hairdo is the glass half-full or half-empty? The "anti" rhetoric is what divides us it doesn't unite us, and yet we hear a constant stream of it everyday. This is the politics of fear and hate. Not by those of us who point out our lost freedoms, George's hypocrisy and yes hate, but rather by those who issue a new warning whenever they get in political trouble or want to take more of our freedoms away, or simply want to stifle dissent. This crowd is fond of cost benefit analysis, well we need a little more of that when it comes to our freedoms. The government tells us that we are in greater danger than ever before, if that's true whatever they're doing isn't working. Excuse us if We're cynical but these warnings seem to coincide with plans to take even more of our freedoms. Didn't we hear heightened warnings before Congress passed the PATRIOT ACT and we have just heard it again for HOMELAND SECURITY. Where is the benefit from all the freedoms we have already given up this past year and a half. Where is the evidence that the loss of those freedoms has helped? Convince us Mr. President that checking our Grandmothers shoe's for bombs and pulling a passenger out of line for saying you are dumb as a rock has increased our safety. Freedom entails risk. We can deal with the bogeyman bin Laden under our beds, but get that asshole Ashcroft out of our closets, and George either you're with us or you're against us. Of course, it's not that easy is it George. We don't know why you think taking more and more freedoms is necessary, some sort of a power trip, and you know what they say about power George, or perhaps It's just fear. Governing from fear and not reason is a dangerous business, we deserve better. So when we criticize you, it's because we love America. Not a flag on our SUV patriotism, not a you're with us or you're against us patriotism, but one based on reason and caring not only for our fellow citizens, but for the rest of the world as well.
The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about. The condemned murderer who is allowed to see the account of his trial in the Press is indignant if he finds a newspaper which has reported it inadequately. And the more he finds about himself in other newspapers, the more indignant he will be with the one whose reports are meagre. Politicians and literary men are in the same case.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
BLAKE, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790-3
Seeking Weapons of Mass Distraction
Ashcroft and Bush find real satisfaction
They warn us of doom
They say it'll be soon
Change the color and watch the reaction
Did you hear the one about the philosopher writing a book on humour?
Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex, investigates humour. And tells some pretty good jokes.
Philosophy is a funny business and some philosophers are funny people. The philosopher asks you to look at the world awry, to place in question your usual habits, assumptions, prejudices and expectations. The philosopher asks you to be sceptical about all sorts of things you would ordinarily take for granted, like the reality of things in the world or whether the people around you are actually human or really robots. In this regard, the philosopher has, I think, a family resemblance with the comedian, who also asks us to look at the world askance, to imagine a topsy-turvy universe where horses and dogs talk and where lifeless objects become miraculously animated. Both the philosopher and the comedian ask you to view the world from a Martian perspective, to look at things as if you had just landed from another planet. With this rough resemblance in mind, I became interested in jokes, humour and the comic and I have just finished writing a short book on the topic.[1]
The American Plan is quite clear
We bomb and we buy till they hear
Pipelines and oil
We find on their soil
For Dubya holds these things dear
In a newsweek article about Bob Woodward's new book In the War Room Evan Thomas writes:
In the war in Afghanistan last fall, the United States bought off more enemy fighters than it killed. In one case, the CIA offered $50,000 to a Taliban warlord to defect. When the commander asked for time to think about it, a Special Forces A Team laser-guided a JDAM precision bomb to explode next door to his headquarters. The next day the CIA man called the commander back with a new offer. How about $40,000? This time the commander said yes.
How long can you count on a "friend" you buy? An example of capitalism at its "best"
"The only reason that I am not an evangelical atheist — going around and shaking the God out of people — is that I recognize belief in God is quite a good emotional and personal strategy, it delivers a decent cultural morality if that's what you want." --Jim Crace
Why the hell didn't anyone tell me about this site. Every last one of you who knew this but didn't tell me deserves to rot in hell. Lucky for you no such place exists. A heartfelt thanks to Woods Lot's link to this, A Reader's Progress I found it.
Here is a description of the site from well, the site:
Identity Theory is home to many different voices. From a Vietnam veteran to a male prostitute to a television producer, all kinds of people have found their way to publication on Identity Theory. Some of the authors are first-time writers; others, like Janet Buck, are widely published. And some, like David Sterry, have written books for major publishing houses.
Robert Birnbaum has been providing in-depth interviews with successful authors ever since the site launched -- from people's historian Howard Zinn to L.A. Confidential author James Ellroy to Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens to Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo to actor Ethan Hawke.
I'm like a kid in a candy store, well in my case like a kid in a bookstore. I read Robert Birnbaum's interview with one of my favorite authors, Jim Crace, if you haven't read "Being Dead" you're missing one of the best stories written in the past ten years. Here is the link to the interview Author of Being Dead (Jim Crace) talks with Robert Birnbaum
Of course with Steve Himmers recent recommendations of "Lamb" by Bernard MacLaverty, and "Among the Missing" by Dan Chaon, "The Collected Stories of Richard Yates", and Jeremy's suggestion of "Aphorisms" edited by John Gross my budget for new books is well busted, broken, kaput, yep it's gone. I would include Mat for George Saunders, but good fortune was smiling on me, my son Tim had a copy he had never told me about until he saw Mat's comments and said oh yes, George Saunders, I have "CivilWarLand in bad decline".
Oh yes, you're are all welcome.
Do you have any hunches you would like to share?
Joseph Campbell Saves The World
In which the late, great master of myth reveals just how foolish all our religious impudence is, again
By Mark Morford
Essential items needed right now: internal fortitude, deep belly laughter that defies war, juicy blasphemy, thick socks, nuanced humanism in the face of raging and imminent oily conservatism.
Red wine, gleaming personal vibration, hope for the decimated Democratic Party, sexy small cars, extra vibrator batteries, chocolate, bomb shelters for the soul and carefully wrought, nimble perspective.
And Joseph Campbell. Lots and lots of Joseph Campbell. To fill that last category. This is mandatory.
Such as PBS replaying the dazzling and still potently relevant 1988 "The Power of Myth" interview series with Campbell, the legendary and wonderful scholar and teacher and author, maybe playing it over and over again, drawing more viewers into its deep charm, its spellbinding web of story and belief and religion and what, say, the virgin birth really means. (Hint: It ain't exactly Christian.)
This is one of those series you wish would be immediately replayed across all major networks, every week, for about a year, every year, right during prime time.
Right when Middle America is sitting down to dinner, right when the bulk of the wary and the fear-pummeled are ready to hunker down and mutter those prayers and sit in grumbling silence at the table before the kids scurry off to the PlayStation and the mall.
It should preempt Monday Night Football and preempt "CSI: Overacting" and preempt "Everybody Loves Schlocky Dumb-Guy Sitcoms" so we can truly revel, just for a while, just for a rejuvenating change, in the realm of intelligence and story and mythology and belief and user-friendly intellectual dialogue and true wonder. Can it be sufficiently emphasized how desperately needed this sort of thing is right now? No it cannot.
Campbell is the famous master of myth, the warmly articulate weaver of cultural tapestry, the great professor effortlessly revealing, in these luminous talks with journalist Bill Moyers, how every culture's consecrated tales of gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, angels and demons, Jesus and Buddha and Allah and Yahweh and Yoda et al., simply represent and illuminate various elements of the human psyche, the human heart, the human condition.
And, more important, he illuminates, gently, calmly, effortlessly, without prejudice or bias, without spin or piousness or even heavy resigned sighing, and without actually saying so, the dangerous absurdity of a people taking these tales -- and gods -- way, way too literally.
Of separating the stories and gods from their own lives and insisting on seeing the culture's deities as something other than the mere reflection, the personification, of their own internal lives and spiritual journeys and the need to get off their collective ass and quit being so hollow and mean and piously self-righteous and eager for war.
There is no superior bearded father-figure God. There is no Heaven as physical place. There is no literal reading of holy adventures and Heaven/Hell battles and fluttery cute cherub angels with wings. It is all story, all literary torque, all metaphor and analogy and personification of emotion and spirit, a way for the human animal to elevate toward greater and greater levels of compassion and love and mutual understanding and enough with the pipe bombs and the indignation and the hatred already.
The virgin birth did not actually happen. It is simply a metaphor for the birth of pure compassion and spiritual feeling in the heart of man. Christ's body did not fly out of a cave and rise to the pretty blue sky. It is a symbol for man moving inward, opening to his spiritual self.
Deities and demons do not exist "out there" in some other space where we will eventually travel and hang out and romp giddily and watch porn and eat all the pie and candy we want. They're internal, as facets and aspects of our own spiritual beings. This is what Campbell teaches. So simple. So beautiful. So radically misunderstood.
From the Bible to the Upanishads, the Koran to the teachings of the Buddha, Greek myth to American Indian folklore, the similarities between beliefs, their borrowed deities, their shared iconography, their reinvented tales and common themes, are all revealed to be so astonishingly interconnected, so obviously cut from the same internal psychological cloth, and so beautifully a part of all cultures, that to wage war in the name of one is to wage war on them all.
And to think of any one as superior to the others is to do violence to the very ideas and energies they illumine, and only serves to isolate, and enrage, and induce severe diarrhetic paranoia. Sound familiar?
That this revelation, this lucid insight comes so easily when watching a 14-year-old public-television series is at once amazing and heartwarming and reassuring, while at the same time it induces deep sadness, a bitter sense of just how far away from this elegant approach much of the world has devolved.
PBS has been rerunning the groundbreaking multihour series as part of its recent pledge drive, noting throughout just how radical and innovative the show was for its time, and how the show single-handedly raising a few million dollars for public TV when it first ran, as people were riveted to their screens, desperately hungry for luminous, nonpious spiritual insight and knowledge. And lo, they still are. Probably more than ever.
This is exactly what the culture needs more of. Fewer whiny pundits and fewer talking heads and fewer spin doctors and analysts and sniper-murder experts and child-molester psychologists and COPS and Real World Las Vegas and Touched by a Face-Lift.
And more riveting, humorous, absolutely enthralling interviews with the greatest and (hopefully) most controversial, nimble minds of our time, religious teachers and writers and juicy poets and weavers of cultural tapestry, artists and thinkers and myth makers.
But more than any of them, maybe all we really need now is a worldwide broadcast of "The Power of Myth," with Campbell, who died in 1988 just before the program first aired, reminding us all to get on our knees and seek some serious divinity where it matters most: In ourselves.
© 2002 SF Gate
How comes it that our memories are good enough to retain even the minutest details of what has befallen us, but not to recollect how many times we have recounted them to the same person? -- La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665
"Visions of Sugar Plums" is the latest novel by Janet Evanovich. A scant 149 pages that manage to cover the most essential themes of a Stephanie Plum story. Like a pie in the face one never tires of seeing Stephanie's car get destroyed yet again. It wouldn't be a Plum story if that were missing. Sparky, not the Florida electric chair is Grandmas new Stud Muffin discovered at the usual haunt, Stiva's Funeral Parlor. Valerie locks herself in the bathroom. Lulu teaches Stephanie a bit about Christmas shopping. It is a holiday novel with the approaching Christmas being the thread the storyline hangs on. It begins when Diesel, no not Van Diesel a new male character appears in Stephanie's kitchen through locked doors. Is it magic? It seems that Diesel has skills not even Ranger possesses. Stephanie and Diesel team up for an adventure that includes Sandy Claws, elves and features an electrifying finish. And yes Morelli is still in the picture. If you haven't read an Evanovich novel yet I recommend starting with her first Plum novel, "One For The Money".
When one has once given Evil a lodging, it no longer demands that one believes it. --Kafka 'Aphorisms 1917-19', The Great Wall of China
How many crimes are committed merely because their authors could not endure being wrong! -- Albert Camus, Jean-Baptiste Clamance in The Fall, 1956
A man named bin Laden is heard
To say that I'm dead is absurd
You've forgotten my name
But still play the game
I say you've not heard my last word
I made reference to a letter to the editor written by Camryn Preece here. I think the point she was trying to make is expressed well in this article from Yellowtimes.
By Matthew Riemer
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) – Nothing stirs up Americans' sense of pride more than the classic and highly effective buzzwords that relate to America's founding and its political system. We're all familiar with them as they are continually shoved down our throats and flashed before our eyes on an hourly basis throughout the vast wasteland that is our culture's infotainment onslaught: freedom, equality, liberty, justice, God, independence, struggle, blah, blah, blah.
But perhaps what puffs up Americans' chests more than anything else is a belief in their country's political system, democracy, and its cornerstone, voting.
The very concept of voting is revered; we are accosted by believers in the democratic process not to shun our privilege of voting. We are reminded that many don't enjoy such a boon in their countries and we should consider ourselves lucky.
We read stories about nations holding their first elections in x number of years. Such reports are usually accompanied by a photo of a proud hand dropping a magic ballot into a slotted box top. This typifies the heralded "democratic process."
However, we should ask two questions.
How important is voting really?
Voting is only a part of the democratic process and a very small part at that. We're often told, "If you don't vote then you can't complain," as if all the grievances in the world are solved or addressed by such a process. But, perhaps, we should say, "If you don't complain, you can't vote."
"Complaining" is far more democratic than voting. It is this very process of "complaint" or "dissent" that is the lifeblood of any person making claims to democracy.
I get a kick out of people who don't have a political thought in their heads ever, but go out and vote on Election Day and think they're champions of the system, keeping the principles of the forefathers alive. Yet this same person does not study history (whether it be local, global, past, or present), could not discuss any topic or issue of importance beyond a 7th grade level (the result of reading Newsweek), does not engage in debate or discourse, and has no interest in "rocking the boat."
I have a friend who's an elementary school teacher and is the embodiment of what a citizen living in a theoretical democracy should be. He is a passionate student of history and politics, constantly expanding horizons and engaged in personal research. He challenges people to back up what they say and genuinely asks them, "Why?" He stimulates his students with "fringe" or "controversial" material (challenging mainstream doctrine) and tirelessly attempts to induce original thought in all those he meets.
However, he does not vote.
But the question begs to be asked, who is more vital to the democratic process: someone who robotically reports to polling stations to make uninformed decisions on a punch card and then goes back to life as usual, or someone who demands participation and thought beyond a symbolic gesture?
What are we voting for?
Just because we are presented with choices does not mean we really have a choice. Who chooses the choices we choose from? What can we do if we don't like the choices?
Americans trudge to the polls proudly each election and inevitably vote for the "lesser of two evils." Candidates are weeded out from a gaggle of wealthy, former/current businessmen who are now exchanging the corporate world for the governmental one, a shift that is quite natural considering that the government is a business itself intimately linked with the largest corporations on the planet, who along with various government institutions determine the health of the economy and therefore the mood and well-being of the general population.
The candidates are mere actors who spend most of their time reciting platitudes from history's tired list, insulting one another's character, and making promises that are literally impossible to keep. Behind the scenes, behind the smoke and mirrors, they comprise the unified ruling class. Where they disagree is where the party lines are drawn.
Whether we vote Democrat or Republican, we are voting for those beholden to free market capitalism. Globalization and its bodyguard, the U.S. military, win every election.
[Matthew Riemer has written for years about a myriad of topics, such as: philosophy, religion, psychology, culture, and politics. He studied Russian language and culture for five years and traveled in the former Soviet Union in 1990. In the midst of a larger autobiographical/cultural work, Matthew is the Director of Operations at YellowTimes.org. He lives in the United States.]
Matthew Riemer encourages your comments: mriemer@YellowTimes.org
YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
Everything which could possibly enter into the most disordered of imaginations might well be said of the history of the world.
The Formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.
Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground, 1864
Saddam in a letter made plain
He's willing to play Dubya's game
Inspect if you will
For weapons that kill
You say but can't prove I'm insane
NBC slams universal health care, but was their coverage fair and balanced.
Somebody has to have the last word. Otherwise, every reason can be met with another one and there would never be an end to it. -- Albert Camus
Jean Baptiste Clamance in The Fall, 1956
The U.N. passed a resolution
Many thought a fair solution
George smirked his smirk
Said I'll off that jerk
It'll improve our crude distribution
David Weinberger explains why he finds the computer game Blackhawk Down reprehensible, but not Grand Theft Auto 3. He then goes on to discuss why he likes Pulp Fiction in spite of the fact that it is about hit men and the like. Interesting and I think he's on to something.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies --Nietzsche
Human All to Human, 1878-86
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books - what other men do not say in whole books. --Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols, 1888
The past two evenings I've watched 8 Mile the Eminem movie debut and Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine as well as making good on the promise to myself to read some short stories.
The collection I read was recommended by the host at Journal of Doubt, Mat. Mat was right George Saunders knows how to write a story. I first read one online that represents Saunder's style if you enjoy it you'll enjoy the stories in "CivilWarLand in bad decline" the collection I read. Satire that is to the point and humorous. Mat compares him with Kurt Vonnegut, which I think fair, but he reminded me more of Richard Brautigan. If you haven't read Brautigan's Confederate General From The Big Sur do it soon. My favorite story from Saunders work is the 400 Pound CEO, a story of animal rescue gone awry pointing out the modern amoral business model, make money the hell with anything else. It was delightful. The Eminem movie was well done. I suppose it must be somewhat autobiographical although I know nothing of Eminem. It was interesting standing in line all the rap groupies in what turned out to be a sell out crowd. Most in line for the movie dressed in their baggy pants, hooded sweat shirts and knit caps pulled down just above their eyes, and looked at me with that Yo what ya fuck you doing here look. I liked this movie a good story, and Eminem plays himself extremely well. I wonder how he would do in other roles. He may well turn out to be just as successful acting as he is with his rap. I liked this movie I think you will too. Of course, I'm still trying to decide which I hate most country music or rap. You've heard the joke. What has 28 teeth and an IQ of 200. The answer, the front row at a Willy Nelson Concert. Roger Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" was a treat. I thought he used just the right amount of humor in this otherwise serious piece. His documentary making skills have improved since "Roger and Me" he produced some years ago. The focus is on violence in our society. Unlike many in the debate on gun control, Michael doesn't think the problem is the guns. The movie makes two points, one that a society that really has no effective safety net creates members of that society that feel disenfranchised, and those that feel they have no stake in the system and no hope for a better life are more likely to turn to violence. The second part of the equation is the creation of fear. The press and the government scare the shit out of us regularly. Television reports on crime and violence that are disportionate to reality and hence people are more afraid than warranted, and government with the constant non-specific warnings of imminent peril that we can do nothing about exacerbates the problem. The result of this is more violence. He points out that yearly deaths from firearms in the United States are over 11,000 a year while countries such as Canada, Germany, England, France, Japan are in most cases less than 100 and in all cases less than 200. He further points out that many Canadians have guns. So why do American's kill each other and Canadians don't. A good question. The best part though was his interview with Charlton Heston. The scene of him walking up to the driveway to the door was priceless. With the Mr. Rogers theme music playing in the background, You remember, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..." So he presents the facts mentioned above, and asks whey Charlton thinks we kill each other more often than others. Mr. Heston replies that America has a history as a violent society. Michael asks more violent than Germany, or England. "Moses" really has no response and just repeats himself and then in obvious frustration just stands up and walks out. Mr Moore pushes lots of emotional buttons in this documentary, but also makes some good points. I recommend you see this one too. It's Sunday evening and holy shit someone better call officer Friendly. Tony just whacked Ralphie.
What should the Democratic party do now. Here is a plan from Liberal Oasis where the Left is right and Right is wrong.
In today's letters to the editors Camryn Preece writes in a response, titled "Will Vote for Options", to someone taking the young to task for not voting:
..Let me defend myself as a member of a younger generation. My decision not to vote isn't because the "typical election issues" are just so "boring." as Adams speculates. But why should I waste time to cast a vote that decides the sky's color tomorrow when the options on the ballot are "blue" and well, "blue?" That's why I don't vote.
To Camryn let me suggest you missed a couple of options you could have voted well, green or ...
Mat is "annoyed" with voter turnout at our recently concluded midterm election.
Reuter News- Fears of War Cast Shadow Over Ramadan
"There is no longer happiness for Ramadan or for worshippers due to the danger surrounding us"
Ummm... Hmmm.. How can I put this gently
Tough Shit?
When I can stop looking over my shoulder at public events
When i can stop wondering where Al Qaeda will hit us next...
When I can get on a plane and not think about the guy sitting next to me ...
When I can walk through Times Square on New Years Eve and not fear a nuke...
Maybe then I'll feel sorry for you.
Until then, my sympathy switch is in the "off" position.
Posted by Vincent M. Ferrari at November 07, 2002 09:21 AM
Getting in the spirit I might post:
Fear of American Citizens, cast Shadow Over America.
"There is no longer happiness for Americans due to the danger surrounding us"
Ummm... Hmmm.. How can I put this gently
Tough Shit?
When I can stop looking over my shoulder at public events
When I can stop wondering where The next Timothy McVeigh or John Muhammed both American Citizens will hit us next.
When I can go to a government building or get gas for my car without thinking about the guy hiding in the bushes his finger on the trigger of a rifle or a detonator.
When I can walk through Times Square on New Years Eve and not fear a fundamentalist or other Kook...
Maybe then I'll feel sorry for you.
Until then, my sympathy switch is in the "off" position.
The argument Vinny makes is we are suffering and those who have caused us to suffer don't deserve our sympathy. The problem is he attributes those actions to the many, all muslims, not the individuals who committed those terrible acts. He could just as easily have chosen Ireland and named Catholics or Protestants as the group he blamed and therefore lacked sympathy for or as I have done attributing the actions of Timothy McVeigh and John Allen Muhammad, American Citizens, to all Americans and therefore not showing sympathy for Americans.
The argument of course is flawed, several logical fallacies are committed. I believe the fallacy is either that of composition or hasty generalization. That is that what is true of individual members of a group is also true of the group or generalizing to a group from too small a sample. Should Americans be responsible as a group for the actions of a few Americans the McVeighs and Muhammads. Should all Catholics and Protestants be responsible for those who are violent. Of course not, nor should Muslims be responsible for the actions of the few Muslims, namely Al Qaeda, that terrify the world. I don't know about Vinny but my sympathy switch is definitely on both for Muslims afraid to worship at Ramadan and for Americans who are afraid of Public Gatherings because there are terrorist both foreign and home grown in our midst. My sympathy switch is turned on for any innocents caught up anywhere in the violence and hatred of a few. Perhaps Vinny will reconsider. I certainly hope so.
Anyone who doubts that Rush Limbaugh is an idiot hasn't been paying attention.
Rush constantly harps on the subject of the "Liberal Media" and recently provided evidence on his radio show. The claim was that the New York Times was hiding a story favorable to Republicans, he wrote on his website:
Clymer Election Exam Doesn't Make Times
November 4, 2002
The New York Times has an interesting story dated November 3rd, citing
a generic poll that comes out in favor of the GOP, by 51% - 49%. Our old
pal Adam Clymer wrote the piece, which is full of good news for
Republicans.
Clymer's examination of the election shows that Republicans are going to
gain in the House, with the Senate still up for grabs. Here's a quote:
"Republicans are poised to buck history and make slim gains in the House
of Representatives on Tuesday, according to analyses by campaign
officials of both parties, the latest polls, and reports from political experts
around the country."
The thing that's really interesting is that you can't find this story in
the Times. I found it in the Montpelier Times-Argus in Vermont. It's an
Adam Clymer story, but it's not in the Times. It's so good for the
Republicans, they must have left it out of the paper, but it went out on
the New York Times wire service.
Of course Rush may no longer be going deaf, but there are some serious questions about his eye sight. Here is the link (membership required) to the New York Times Story that he claims doesn't exist. Not only was the article on the front page but the top right hand column the spot where the stories the paper considers most important go.
Are we using the worst voting procedure?
Nearly all political elections in the United States are plurality votes, in which each voter selects a single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Yet voting theorists argue that plurality voting is one of the worst of all possible choices. "It's a terrible system," says Alexander Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and director of research for the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. "Almost anything looks good compared to it."
My choice is approval voting as I discussed here
Thanks to Provenance Unknown for the Science News Link
The midterm elections complete
Found most of the country asleep
They voted for pubs
All friends of the Shrub
And now the country's in deep
shit
THE PRICE OF OIL
Voices on the radio
Tell us that we're going to war
Those brave men and women in uniform
They want to know what they're fighting for
The generals want to hear the end game
The allies won't approve the plan
But the oil men in the White House
They just don't give a damn
'Cause it's all about the price of oil
It's all about the price of oil
Don't give me no shit about blood, sweat, tears and toil
It's all about the price of oil
Now, I ain't no fan of Saddam Hussein
No, please don't get me wrong
If it's freeing the Iraqi people you're after
Then why have we waited so long ?
Why didn't we sort this out last time ?
Was he less evil then than he is now ?
The stock market holds the answer
To "Why him? Why here? Why now?"
Saddam killed his own people
Just like General Pinochet
And once upon a time both these evil men
Were supported by the USA
To whisper it, even Bin Laden
Once drank from America's cup
Just like that election down in Florida
This shit doesn't all add up
Words & Music : Billy Bragg
"You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty." [Tim O'Brien, "How to Tell a True War Story," from The Things They Carried
with thanks to Reading and Writing
What the hell is wrong with me? I just realized I haven't read any short stories for awhile, a long while. Last I remember I was devouring Chekhov's stories. I view them as the birth of the modern short story. I've read most of them as I recall and then, oh yes, I did read some other short stories after that a collection by Bernard MacLaverty, he was born in Belfast in 1942 and lived there until 1975 when he moved to Scotland. My favorite from the collection is "Walking The Dog" which is also the title of the book.
A man is taking his dog for a walk and has left him off the leash when a car approaches and stops.
'Get in,' the guy said.
'What?'
Get in the fuckin car.' He was beckoning with one hand and the other pointing. Not pointing but aiming a gun at him. Was this a joke? Maybe a starting pistol.
'Move or I'll blow your fuckin head off.' The dog saw the open door and leapt up into the back seat of the car.
You want to know what happened don't you?
I was perusing the web today and someone mentioned "Best Short Stories of the Century" A book I own, and a nice collection of stories edited by John Updike. I've read several of the stories but, how can I let a book like that sit on the shelf for so long unread. I was on a short story tear for years, I was just checking out my library, the one in the living room. I have books all over the house, thousands of book's, which reminds me of something the Zen Dude recently wrote, and he thinks he's the only one hah!
When I think about it I really have been negligent, there is a copy of Nabakov Short Stories, and another volume by Bernard Malmund, and even one by that rascal t. c. Boyle. I'm a lucky man plenty of reading material and I don't even have to go the bookstore. I purchased most of these a couple of years ago when my watchword was that man doesn't live by bread alone he lives by short stories. That reminds me of one of my all time favorite stories. Perhaps it's the political nature of it or just how cleverly it's written. I'm talking about Calvino in the collection entitled Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories the story entitled "Solidarity"
I am an odd bird when it comes to reading books. Half the books I own I have not read. More often than not, I buy a book and it hits the read pile where it sits for any number of months. Eventually it works it way onto the bookshelf where it will sit until I either am struck by a strong desire to read it or I am struck dead.I am currently reading "A Natural History of Love" by Dianne Ackerman. Looking for something different to read not long ago, I pulled it down off the shelf. I bought this book maybe five years ago, but for some reason I am compelled by it now. I stopped trying to figure out my proclivities with books some time ago, but I have learned to listen to the little voice that prompts me to pull some forgotten volume and start reading it.
I stopped to watch them.
They were working, at night in a secluded street, doing something with the shutter of a shop.
It was a heavy shutter: they were using an iron bar for a lever, but the shutter wouldn’t budge.
I was walking around, going nowhere in particular, on my own. I got hold of the bar to give them a hand. They made room for me.
We weren’t pulling together. I said, “Hey up!” The one on my right dug his elbow into me and said low: “Shut up” Are you crazy! Do you want them to hear us?”
I shook my head as if to say it had just slipped out.
It took us a while and we were sweating but in the end we levered the shutter up high enough for someone to get under. We looked at each other, pleased. Then we went in. I was given a sack to hold. The others brought stuff over and put it in.
“As long as those skunky police don’t turn up!” they were saying.
“Right, “ I said. “They really are skunks!” “Shut up. Can’t your hear footsteps?” they said every few minutes. I listened hard, a bit frightened. “No, no it’s not them” I said.
Those guys always turn up when you least expect it!” one of them said.
I shook my head. “Kill ‘em all, that’s what,” I answered.
Then they told me to go out for a bit, as far as the corner, to see if anyone was coming. I went.
Outside, at the corner, there were others hugging the wall, hidden in the doorways, coming towards me.
I joined in.
“Noises from down there, near those shops,” said the one next to me.
I took a look
“Get your head down, idiot, they’ll see us and get away again,” he hissed.
“I was looking,” I explained, and crouched down by the wall.
“If we can circle round without them realizing,” another said, “We’ll have them trapped. There aren’t that many.”
We moved in bursts, on tiptoe, holding our breaths: every few seconds we exchanged glances with bright eyes.
“They won’t get away now,” I said.
“At last we’re going to catch them red-handed,” someone said.
“About time,” I said.
“fifthly bastards, breaking into shops like that!” the other said.
“Bastards, bastards!” I repeated angrily.
They sent me a little way ahead, to take a look. I was back inside the shop.
“They won’t get us now,” one was saying as he slung a sack over his shoulder.
“Quick,” some else said. “ Let’s go out through the back! That way we’ll escape from right under their noses.”
We all had triumphant smiles on our lips.
“They’re going to feel really sore,” I said. And we sneaked into the back of the shop.
We’ve fooled the idiots again!” they said. But then a voice said: “Stop, who’s there,” and the lights went on. We crouched down behind something, pale, grasping each other’s hands. The others came into the backroom, didn’t see us, turned round. We shot out and ran like crazy. “We’ve done it!” we shouted. I tripped a couple of time and got left behind. I found myself with the others running after them.
Come on, “they said, “we’re catching up.”
And everybody raced through the narrow streets, chasing them. “ Run this way, cut through there,” we said and the others weren’t far ahead now, so that we were shouting: “Come on, they won’t get away.”
I managed to catch up with one of them. He said: “Well done, you got away. Come on, this way, we’ll lose them.” And I went along with him. After a while I found myself alone, in an alley. Someone came running round a corner and said: “Come on, this way, I saw them. They can’t have got far.” I ran after him a while
Then I stopped, in a sweat. There was no one left, I couldn’t hear any more shouting. I stood with my hands in my pockets and started to walk, on my own, going nowhere in particular.
English Translation copyright © 1995 by Tim Parks
Did you like it? And if anyone is still reading and was enticed by the MacLaverty book I happen to have an extra copy in paperback. First person to send me an email with their address it's yours. A gift from one short story reader to another, and while your at it please tell me about your favorite short stories or collection of short stories. Write a post about it. Short stories are too special to keep hidden.
Dubya's having trouble coming up with a plan for handling the Harvey Pitt problem. His friends are trying to help and MadKane captured their best ideas in this conversation at the White House. Don't miss it.
Irina from the Sopranos
Her English as a Second Language Teacher
Teacher: You say here in your essay on What the American Dream means to you that you’ve only been in this country for 9 months. So tell me, Irina, how is it a poor girl from Ukraine is able to bed both Tony Soprano and Boone from Animal House in such a short time?
Irina: Huh? Animal House?
This is great writing and it works on a couple of different levels. Thanks to Mike Golby for pointing it out.
You've got to love Halloween. The little panhandler's in training coming to your door. This year we decided to go to a movie and avoid the brats. Good thing too since I couldn't find my horror tape, the one we normally play to scare the crap out of the little candy asses. They need toughening up, who knows they may get a president like Dubya who'll send them to off some evil somewhere in the world to fight a war for the next generation of chickenhawks. It would have worked out okay if we'd stayed home though I had an alternative for the horror recording compliments of the Leftbanker, he suggested just putting on a good porn movie and turning up the volume. Just think all that groaning and moaning and shrieking would scare the shit out of youngsters and puzzle their parents.
There was not much to see at the theater, the coming blockbusters, Two Towers and James Bond not yet released and a recent favorite of mine Bartleby, the 2002 version no longer playing, I'd dearly love to watch that one again. A recent practice when we go to a movie is to use Fandango online ticket sales. I like to guarantee that we'll get a seat but even more important I like not having to wait in line at the ticket window. You print out a ticket at home that can be scanned at the theater right at the podium where you enter for your movie. This has worked out well in the past, but whether it was because of Halloween and all the folk at the theatre Century 16 in Salt Lake City had been hexed or had joined some new axis of evil this visit was anything but satisfying. We arrived at the theatre went straight to the podium presented the ticket to scan and to my surprise the polite young man, the only employee I ran across that was polite, informed me that I would have to go to the ticket booth for my ticket. I protested, but he has no power, so off to the ticket booth I went, steaming. Members one and two of the axis, a couple of young people at the ticket booth didn't want to hear my protest. I thought it only fair that they refund the extra $4.00 I'd spent for the conveniece of avoiding their smiling faces. They got to the bottom line rather quickly and not very sympathetically, Informing me that they the theater had nothing to do with Fandango and that if I had any complaint I would have to take it up with Fandango. I'll have more on that later. I pointed out the absurdity of that. Obviously, they had contracted with Fandango to provide tickets, and that was a little more than "we have nothing at all to do with them," I thought. They were not persuaded. They had their broken record response down pat. I ranted some more, they asked whether I wanted a manager, "damn straight ," I said. The manager arrived. I know you won't believe this, well maybe you will, but this member of the axis was even less sympathetic than the mindless bots I'd just been talking too. Bottom line we have nothing to do with them tough luck fuck off. Not his exact words, but that was certainly the message. I pointed to the sign above the ticket booth advertising the benefits of buying tickets at Fandango which explained how you could avoid the ticket booth, he pretended I was speaking a foreign language. I mumbled something about that being bullshit. Well to be fair I didn't mumble at all I said in a voice a little louder than conversational "this is a bunch of bullshit." He pretended not to hear me. The movie, Transporter, filmed in the south of France oh I want to go there right now featured a Jackie Chan wanna be British dude demonstrating some excellent driving skills and how to kick the crap out of ten or twenty dudes trying to take his head off. Nothing special but it passed the time and when we got home it was even colder than when we left, the low 20's and the tricker treaters were nowhere to be seen, probably someone was spreading a rumor about the porn movies at the Jenson's (my wife doesn't think the bit about the porno movie is funny but in poor taste, I think it's funny. This is the my wife doesn't approve disclaimer. I certainly wouldn't want to get in the same sort of trouble Mike Golby has recently related). I just received an email from Fandango in response to my rant about the lousy service I received. They are apologizing for the "less than perfect experience I had with their partner" Century 16 Salt Lake. " This is not the experience moviegoers who use Fandango should have." They have referred my case to the appropriate department concerning my request for a refund of the service fee. They say they will contact the Century 16 and also suggest I make my feelings known to the management there. I suppose the manager has a manager. I'll let you all know how it turns out.
Update: No word from the punks at Century 16, but the kind folks at fandango have apoligized for the problems I encountered and have graciously refunded the $4.00 I requested. I'll use their service again but not at Century 16.
"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few."
--Hume (Essays, 1742)
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of them; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first." --Robert Louis Stevenson (Kidnapped, 1886)
both submitted by the mysterious dende blogger
"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger"
Abbie Hoffman
from the one and only Burningbird, Shelley Powers
John, Viscount Morley (1838-1923)
"Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other. "
attributed to Rousseau.
from Vinny at Insignificant Thoughts
Thanks to all who participated it was fun. To the winners please contact me via email and let me know if you want the certificates from Amazon or the delightful Tim Tams - Autralia's most irresistible chocolate biscuits. Original, Double Coat, Chewy Caramel, Classic Dark, Mocha coffee
If you choose the Tim Tams (three packages) I'll need a delivery address and your choice of flavors or I'd be happy to choose for you. My favorites are Mocha coffee, Chewy Carmel, and more Mocha coffee. If you choose the the certificates a simple email address will suffice.
Rolly and Wells host one of the more interesting columns in the Salt Lake Tribune, covering the absurd and amusing in Utah. Today's column brought the Salt Lake County Republican Chairman to our attention. It seems he has urged the party faithful, in an email, to cancel their Tribune Subscriptions. The sin, the Tribune supported four Democrats and only two Republicans in recent editorials. Certainly, a legitimate form of protest, but then he goes on to suggest that those with Internet access can have it both ways. They can continue to read the Tribune online, it's free after all, but cancel their subscription. Hit em where it hurts, so much for making a principled decision. I wonder if Republican Vegetarians eat meat if they can get it for free.
Perhaps even more remarkable was an article on the same page. A story of crime in Zion. I often make the point that religion is the problem not the solution. This time it was both. It seems a 26 year old Brigham Young University (the mormon "university") Student was enjoying his porn habit a little too much. Having a prissy wife gazing over his shoulder was not in the cards.
The solution get a divorce to pursue his minor in pornography. His major was in electrical engineering a point that will become more pertinent later. Mormons discourage divorce, and this mormon apparently felt it was not an option, a serious problem. What's a horny young man to do. Well this young man unable to find a solution within his faith decided to off his wife. He tried three times. In his first attempt he made his wife some cookies, cookies laced with rat poison, but rat poison spoiled the taste. His wife thought they tasted funny and didn't eat them. Two weeks later he spots some toxic looking mushrooms in his back yard. Voila, a few hours later he has some delightful spaghetti sauce. Alas the mushrooms were harmless. The story doesn't tell us, but I wonder if she complimented him on his improvement in cooking after the nasty cookies. Mormons are big on protecting the life of the unborn. I mentioned that his wife was pregnant didn't I. We'll it seems the desire for the evil porn overcomes even that consideration. If he succeeds, it will be two lives he takes. So shortly after his failure (success) with the spaghetti sauce he makes a final attempt. He replaces her blood clot medicine, which she injected daily, with hydrocloric acid in some fish tank cleaner. This is one tough woman, although the injection hurt a little more than usual and she did feel slightly ill she suffered no serious adverse effects. I suppose she's lucky her hubby didn't major in Chemistry. The young man then goes to his Bishop and during the conversation confesses that he's been trying to off his wife. Now I'm not sure, and the story doesn't make it clear whether he was confessing about viewing the pornography, and the part about the wife was just an aside or not. It wouldn't surprise me a lot if it was the pornography. Some of the zealots in this Church, and yes I do speak from personal experience, view smoking, drinking and pornography on a par with burglary, assault, and murder. At least they give that impression. Of course, the fundamentalist's will point to this story as evidence of the evils of pornography and avoid the obvious explanation that viewing naked women when you're a male is quite natural, and that his understanding of his religious beliefs is what led him to such desperate measures. The Bishop suggested he turn himself in, and he did. Oh and by the way the court has ordered him to stay away from her until permitted by the court if he makes the $250,000 cash bail. It's always the cook, isn't it?
The contest for quotations and aphorism's that reflect the content of this site is over. I'll have the winners up soon. In the meantime another favorite quotation of mine.
"Many people would sooner die than think, In fact they do." --Bertrand Russell
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