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June 28, 2015

Too bad that Pixar didn’t also have us meet “Trust”

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jane Stillwater @ 12:34 pm

For Fathers Day, I wanted to take my son to see “Inside Out,” a new animated movie by Pixar, but he ended up seeing “The Wolfpack” instead — a film about a whole different style of fathering altogether. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbqcMfUdlI

But I still wanna go see “Inside Out”. Its main plot revolves around meeting some of the various emotions that live inside of our brains, such as “Anger” and “Sadness”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MC3XuMvsDI

But according to a book I’m currently reading by anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, one of our most important human emotions is trust. I wish that Pixar had introduced us to “Trust” as well.

“If a small baby doesn’t feel that it can trust, specifically that it can trust having some modicum of control over its own situation, then it might even die,” to paraphrase Bateson. Along with the ability to learn to walk and talk and develop teeth, apparently babies also need to learn to develop trust too — and if they don’t, life can become unbearable for them. And we adults also need to learn to meet “Trust” as well.

But how in the world do we actually go about meeting this actual “Trust” person ourselves? We do it by putting ourselves into trusting situations and then taking careful notes on who passes our trust tests — and who fails.

For instance, would you ever trust a mother who, like that bizarre mom in “Game of Thrones,” stood by and watched her own daughter getting burned at the stake — only protesting when it was obviously Too Late?

And would you ever trust a government that continually sells out “We the people” to Wall Street and War Street at every chance that it gets? When it comes to trusting our government’s current warriors and cavaliers in DC, I would much sooner trust Lebron James and Seth Curry. http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/30876-focus-climate-change-is-a-crisis-we-can-only-solve-together

If you were an African-American, who would you trust? Would you trust your local trigger-happy police? Would you trust the haters who demand that the Confederate flag, clearly used by them as a symbol of racism, be flown over your state capitol? http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349  According at a recent civil rights report published in China, “Cops killing African-Americans is practically a norm in the US”. And then also add no jobs, sub-par schools and extensive social ostracization to that toxic mix. Trust results from all this? Highly unlikely.

Will Americans ever again be able trust our mainstream media to tell the truth after WikiLeaks just exposed that Saudi Arabia has been slipping them payola for years now in order to get the MSM to leave the House of Saud’s name out of the news, including but not limited to its major role in such events as 9-11, the war on Iraq and creating ISIS — as well as the celebration of its 100th beheading this year? https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/press

Would you ever be able to trust Congress and Obama again after they worked so hard to shove that horrendous TTP trade agreement down our throats like some porn movie featurette — just to make corporate billionaires get even richer than they are right now? http://www.thenation.com/article/206409/damage

How can we possibly trust Monsanto after it has blatantly chosen profits from GMO-bred Frankenstein plants and animals over us — like we were some orphan step-child they are forced to put up with?

And how can we even think about ever trusting Israel, our government’s major ally in the Middle East, when all that the neo-colonialists who run Israel with an iron hand want to do is to stir up trouble in the region so that we taxpayers can come to their rescue? I was in Sweida, in Syria, last year and, trust me, the Syrians trust President Assad a lot more than they trust ISIS’s BFF Israel. http://www.globalresearch.ca/syrian-druze-fighting-israeli-backed-al-qaeda/5455651

And what about our very own Supreme Court? Anton Scalia? We are supposed to actually trust this man? Hardly. Not after he gleefully sold out American voters in favor of huge corporations with regard to Citizens United. Seth and Lebron have much better judgment than Scalia does. Heck, even Curry’s two-year-old daughter would have better judgment than that.

Trusting that climate change isn’t really real, are we? Good luck with that one. With American war hawks all practically wetting their pants at a chance to attack Russia through Ukraine, and with Turkey, the Saudis, Israel and the US neo-colonialists just dying to do to Syria and Yemen what they did to Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, then there is only one thing we can truly trust in here — that “war” is gonna release so much carbon dioxide that it’s gonna cause climate change on steroids. And that we’re soon gonna meet a whole new kind of “I can’t breathe.” http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2015/06/22/nato-russia-collision-ahead/

And can we even trust the Rule of Law here in America? Or the FBI or the IRS or even the freaking building codes after that balcony in a relatively new building here in Berkeley just fell down?

Modern American government has no transparency these days. No one knows where our money goes. The CIA is a black hole and so is the Pentagon, NSA, NATO, Congress, etc. And who even knows what the White House is up to, let alone the Federal Reserve. Countries that have no transparency are clearly on the road to dictatorship — and who the freak can trust dictators? Talk about your lack of control! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biNGtrIqWRQ

The moral here? That Americans also need to develop trust in their government if we are ever going to grow up and “meet Trust” in ourselves. And our government needs to start acting a hecka lot more trustworthy too.

PS: And speaking of books (Don’t you just love to read!), I’d like to recommend one. Along with all the usual murder mysteries that I love such as “Last of the Independents” and “As the Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust,” my summer reading also includes a book called “Chief Complaint: A Country Doctor’s Tales of Life in Galilee”.

“Chief Complaint” is a wonderful compilation of what small-town life was like in Palestine both before and after Israeli neo-colonialists killed off thousands of Palestinians, forced a million of them off their land, seized their property and lost their trust. It’s a delightful read, a true anthropology of what village life was and is like for Palestinians in Galilee — with all its warts and merits included. http://justworldbooks.com/chief-complaint/

Ghost 1963 (2)

Photo is of me and Ghost back in 1963, back when I still had a little bit of trust left (as much trust as a Beatnik could have that is — after Hiroshima, HUAC and the beginnings of Vietnam where my neighbor’s son was an “adviser” even back then)

June 26, 2015

Zen and the Art of Microaggressions

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 12:35 pm

 

 

 

crop of close up red tag

[Trigger Warning: The following column may contain words, phrases, and/or topics that readers may find unsettling and upsetting. If not; then the columnist isn’t doing his job correctly and must apologize.]

If the latest example of Berkeley Liberal thinking, which is called “micro aggression” is retroactively applied to Lenny Bruce’s most famous quotes, he wouldn’t be considered just a criminal but he would be regarded as an equal of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial defendants. When the President of the United States recently used the n-bomb, he did not issue a trigger warning and consequently the Republicans became incensed. Their righteous indignation over the use of that word came perilously close to apoplexy.

It seems as if some political commentators do not want a lively discussion about various contentious topics but would rather have a verbal equivalent of the de facto Christmas truce that occurred at Christmas in 1914. Is neutralizing debate a liberal or conservative tactic? Is it an example of microaggression to even ask that question? If so who would approve such behavior other than Lenny Bruce and others from the Golden Age of Sick humor?

If Lenny Bruce were still alive today could he get away with asking this question: “Are the members of the United State Supreme Court acting like drama queens with their coy moves to postpone the announcement of their decisions for the most contentious cases from this year?”

If the conservatively owned mainstream media is satisfied with the Justices shenanigans, who outside the Berkeley city limits will object?

The mainstream media was spared the trouble of taking an in-depth look at the Berkeley Balcony tragedy that occurred early on June 16 because on June 17 a mass shooting occurred and the new media immediately switch the country’s focus of attention to the mass murder story.

The gun manufacturing industry was spared another round of the gun control debate when the news commentators immediately directed the nation’s attention to the Confederate flag issue. The power of political activism was underlined by the fact that several national merchandise chains quickly announced they were suspending the sale of Confederate flags.

Meanwhile, in Berkeley, while the elite of the journalism industry were in town to cover the aftermath of the balcony tragedy, a report by the Berkeley Police Review Commission was released. It immediately was criticized by local citizens for not accurately describing the police conduct on the evening of December 6, 2014 which had sparked the investigation.

It was asserted by some zealous observers to be a “cover-up” or what the kids would call “a white wash job.” Is that a subtle way of saying that only honkies try to lie their way out of a nasty predicament?

KCBS news radio reported on Tuesday of this week that in the aftermath of the six student deaths in the balcony tragedy, no police investigation regarding possible criminal conduct was being conducted. The lawyers and the inevitable lawsuits would be the method for providing justice for the deaths.

On Thursday, the Alameda County District Attorney, Nancy O’Malley, announced that her office would be conducting a criminal investigation, which might produce manslaughter indictments.

Meanwhile, teachers were realizing that they had to provide students with “Trigger warnings,” if their lectures contained any words, phrases, or topic which might cause emotional distress to the students in the audience.

If these criteria for conduct by teachers were retroactively applied to some of the “teach-ins” spawned by the Vietnam War, wouldn’t many of the teachers have lost their jobs?

The item at the center of the microagressions storm was a Washington Post article written by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. It should be available via a quick Google News search.

The mainstream media seems to prefer focusing on soap opera news that prominently features sexual hanky-panky.   The saga of the prison employee whose sex life caused extensive speculation on the cable news networks was getting more media attention in the USA than was any detailed analysis of the events in the Middle East. It even spilled over onto the network morning show interview of her husband. By Wednesday of this week Getty & Armstrong were asserting that the prison guard had been unfaithful to her husband with a number in triple digits needed for accuracy.

The fans of the Oakland Warriors had to wait forty years for their team to win the championship. The team owners can’t wait for a chance to get a better deal from a different city to move and thereby increase the value of their team.

The new Bay Bridge seems to be a textbook example of the old political wisdom: Build in haste, repent at leisure.

The World’s Laziest Journalist has predicted that the Justices would rule that it was unconstitutional and realize that our batting average number will be seriously affected by the inaccurate prediction.

This weekend the response of the paid commentators who work for mass media owned by wealthy conservative moguls should provide a very high level of entertainment because they might provide opinions that should require a strong trigger warning.

Will the media issue calls for patriots to calmly accept the ruling or will they try to stir up rancor and discontent? The weekend TV shows called “gab fests” may be highly charged and contentious and should be very entertaining this weekend.

Note: Next week’s column will be posted on Thursday due to the long holiday weekend.

In his autobiography, “How to talk dirty and influence people,” Lenny Bruce provided (on page 21) the essence of the cable news addict’s philosophy: “I loved this because I wasn’t as afraid of being killed in battle as I was of being bored.”

Now the disk jockey will play the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Did you ever have to make up your mind?,” Waylon Jennings theme from the Dukes of Hazzard,” and AC/DC’s “Jailbreak.” We have to go do a Google map search to find out where Thunder Road is. Have a “good ole boy never meanin’ no harm” type week.

 

June 23, 2015

Leonard & Mumia: If only they’d had iPhones back then!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jane Stillwater @ 11:41 am

“Why can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney King back in 1991, after he had been savagely beaten by four Los Angeles cops. That’s a really good question, Rodney. But an even better question might be, “Why wasn’t Rodney King thrown in jail forever with no hope of parole — like what happened to Mumia Abu-Jamal?”

Quick question, quick answer — someone had a videotape recorder up and running on the day that King was being beaten so badly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb1WywIpUtY No one had a videotape recorder up and running back in Mumia’s day.

So now let’s go forward in our time machine, from 1991 to the present. Now everyone has a video camera on their iPhone, and not just some clunky old video camera that is impossible to haul around in your back pocket or purse. And now a whole big bunch of police malfeasance is being caught on tape — daily. Everyone who witnesses police brutality can now post it on YouTube. Police all across the nation now have nowhere to hide.

But now let’s go backwards in our time machine again — and this time let’s take our iPhones with us. What would we see? What else could we videotape and upload on YouTube from back in the day?

Would we catch the FBI unlawfully attacking innocent Native Americans in their home and then forcing witnesses to give false testimony against Leonard Peltier, J. Edgar Hoover style? http://www.freeleonard.org/case/

Would we see Mumia Abu-Jamal being framed for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer even though evidence points to Kenneth Freeman having done the shooting and that Freeman was later found naked, handcuffed, beaten and dead? What do you want to bet that we would? http://www.freemumia.com/who-is-mumia-abu-jamal/

Or what if bystanders had all gleefully pulled out their iPhones and taped the real killer in the murder of Caroline Olsen? Then Geronimo Pratt, who had been falsely charged by COINTELPRO, wouldn’t have had to spend 27 years of his life in jail before his conviction was overturned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/geronimo-pratt-dead-at-63_n_870910.html

And what if…. “Don’t go there, Jane!” Sorry, guys, I just gotta go there. What if everyone had iPhones on the Grassy Knoll back in 1963 and also took videos of what Abraham Zapruder’s home camera has shown us — only in more detail? Would Lee Harvey Oswald still be the lone patsy? I bet not. My best bet would be that heads in the CIA would have rolled.

But, alas for Wall Street and War Street and Fox News (but lucky for us), there are now over 700 million iPhones loose on the world — and, all over the world, they are telling us what is really happening instead of what corporate propaganda sorely wishes that we would believe.

Police in America can no longer get away with carte blanche brutality.

We now know that Flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine by the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.

ISIS and Al Qaeda are now in possession of over 2,300 American Humvees — especially after American satellites just happened to fail to notice that thousands of ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters were crossing open deserts in Toyota trucks after having been thrown out of Syria by President Assad, who is currently hated by Turkey, the Saudis, Israel and the US for taking his courageous stand against ISIS and Al Qaeda, War Street’s new BFFs. Plus a lot of this American-backed craziness in the Middle East has actually been captured by teams of ISIS bad guys on their iPhones and uploaded to FaceBook — which is completely and totally weird!

You don’t believe that American, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli neo-colonialists are backing, financing and supporting ISIS? Here are just a handful of the many, many links that prove my case — and I’m sure you will find some iPhone snapshots in this mix as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/iraq-isis-humvees_n_7487254.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html?tid=sm_tw

http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/09/logistics-101-where-does-isis-get-its-guns/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/world/middleeast/isis-is-winning-message-war-us-concludes.html?_r=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r68ANObt818&feature=youtu.be

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/10/did-the-war-in-syria-just-become-a-regional-war/

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/06/the-guardian-joins-the-moderate-al-qaeda-public-relation-campaign-.html

Damn those traitorous American bastards to hell who are funding and supplying ISIS with weapons! ISIS just attacked a school in Aleppo. Ambulances were heard carrying suffering children away to hospitals for over four hours. And we can now watch this carnage close up — taken on the iPhones of the families and doctors of these children. Why aren’t Americans stopping this! https://www.facebook.com/ForMotherSyria/posts/662030840564771?notif_t=notify_me

And as for Monsanto, Scalia, Obama, Congress and the Koch brothers, we also know what you did last summer — thanks to Apple and Steve Jobs.

But why stop here now that we’ve got our time machine out? Let’s take this analogy even further. Holy sheep dookie! Just imagine!

What if…. What if there had been iPhones back in the days of Jesus, Moses and Mohammed? And we could all actually listen in on what these three amazing men actually said? Then all of those phony Christians, Jews and Muslims in Washington, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia today would be immediately exposed for what they really are: Just sleazy neo-colonialist hypocrites in disguise. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/yemen-historic-houses-unesco-world-heritage-sana-old-city-reduced-rubble-by-saudi-strikes-1505760

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June 19, 2015

Accusations, finger pointing, and denial in Berkeley

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 12:27 pm

crop of sat truck

Flipping on the radio to catch the start of CBS news radio’s World News Roundup and hearing that the lead story about a fatal accident that happened about a mile away was very disconcerting. The report informed listeners about the deaths of several college students, visiting the USA from Ireland. They had been killed when an apartment house balcony collapsed and spilled them onto the sidewalk five stories down.

The exact location of the tragedy “in downtown Berkeley,” was not reported nor was it clear when precisely the event had occurred. We barged into a neighbor’s pad and when we saw the first live coverage it still wasn’t clear where the tragedy had occurred. A tight close up of the dangling shards of balcony didn’t give us a clear idea of exactly where the deaths had actually happened.

We went downtown and saw that the tragedy occurred just west of the Berkeley Public Library’s main branch on Kittredge Street.

We took a few photos of the site and then after doing some photo editing work back at the World’s Laziest Journalist home office, we sent two photos to the BBC. After sending those images we noticed that the BBC website had a tight aerial view of the balcony.

When some workers were lifted on a crane to get a close look at the damage, in the afternoon, we walked to a good vantage point and started taking photos. A meter maid challenged our credentials for covering a news event. (It is likely that one of our photos moved on the AP wire before he mother was born.)

We had to ask a police officer when the Berkeley PD had received the call to get an approximation of when the collapse had occurred. “Early this morning” does describe 12:42 a.m. but just not with complete accuracy.

Tuesday, KCBS was reporting late in the day, that evidence of “dry rot” had been detected in the balcony support. In Berkeley, the allegation was being made that the company that built the offending apartment house complex was proceeding rapidly with a new development in the downtown area. If true that will mean that hearings and lawsuits will prolong the scheduling of the new project and that local journalists will be covering the long term effects of the balcony collapse for years to come. Who doesn’t love the idea of spending the summer fact checking the construction of a ten year old apartment house?

In San Francisco Chronicle for Wednesday June 17, 2015, the lead article was reporting “it appeared rainwater had penetrated the balcony’s wood structure, causing dry rot that weakened it.” The blame game with accusations and denials was on.

By Wednesday afternoon, KCBS was reporting that students who lived in the building were expressing negativity about the building itself.

Isn’t it obvious that if the building is going to symbolize American greed and political corruption and become a destination for pilgrims from Ireland, then it will have to be demolished?

Americans can (if they choose) remain blissfully unaware of anti-American sentiment in foreign publications but red blooded patriotic Americans will not tolerate the existence of a building that critics say exemplifies greed and cold-hearted cost-cutting calculations in a country that personifies the concept of “the good guys who wear the white hats.”

On Thursday, June 18, 2015, the San Francisco Chronicle’s top story, written by Jaxon Van Derbeken, carried the subhead “Firm has paid millions to settle wood-rot cases.”

Will conservatives assert that assessing the quality of material used in completed real estate projects is unnecessary government meddling? However negligence that results in deaths can become a criminal matter.

If the apartment house building becomes a folk symbol of American greed and political corruption, will the conservative talk show hosts keep the topic alive as a way of embarrassing President Obama? Will nostalgia for the days when America was respected and revered become a theme for the Republican Party’s nominee to become President in the 2016 election?

The mainstream media in the USA was switching its focus from Berkeley to gun control as the weekend approached but the media in the Berkeley area remained concentrated on the details of the construction of the balcony and the tragedy. People outside the area will find extensive coverage of the latest developments on both the Berkeleyside (dot com) and Berkeleydailyplanet (dot com) websites.

By the end of next week, journalists and pundits will be trying to make cogent remarks about the latest Supreme Court decisions. Few predictions about how a Supreme Court with a conservative Christian majority will rule on an issue they consider an abomination against nature, so it seems that it might be time to round up the usual clichés about “no one saw this coming” no matter which of the binary choices is the end result.

Is the principle “we report; you decide” a bit disingenuous because a reporter who covers a story for years will have a much better ability to see the most likely course of action rather than would a reader who is new to the topic? “We distort so that you can jump to an erroneous conclusion” sounds more like capitalism in action, eh?

Do reporters who cover Hollywood do better at predicting Oscar winners than do members of the movie going public?

What decision about the abomination against nature do you expect?

Various news stories will compete to become the iconic event that will always symbolize the summer of 2015 in the collective consciousness, but for the country of Ireland and the City of Berkeley CA, it seems that nothing else will eclipse this week’s tragedy.

The world’s laziest journalist would strongly prefer to write snarky columns about futile searches for prison escapees, various Supreme Court decisions, and futile efforts to recruit solders to be trained in Iraq rather than cover a very sad local angle to something that comes close to qualifying as a shameful international incident. Updates will be included in future columns as warranted by developments.

Jean Genet’s play, “The Balcony,” contains this week’s closing quote: “Would it perturb you to see things as they are?”

Now the disk jockey will play Elton John’s “Candle in the wind,” the Cranberries’ “I can’t be there” and U2’s song “Sunday bloody Sunday.” We have to go get our Irish up regarding finding out what political election campaign donations may have been made by a notorious construction company. Have a “may the wind be always at your back” type week.

crop Wednesday inspection

June 12, 2015

Let it all hang out!

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 12:33 pm

crop of Anker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The Mexican Eskimo,” by Anker Frankoni, tells the story of a fellow who goes from Alaska to Mexico on a Carlos Castaneda type quest seeking the meaning of life. The author is traveling about the USA in a vintage motor home in “mint” condition trying to promote the first installment of what is planned to be a trilogy of novels. He immediately caught our eye as the Bay Book Festival began last weekend. He immediately made us pea green with envy. We suggested that while he was in the San Francisco Bay area he should contact the management at the Beat Museum and try to get a speaking gig at the North Beach tourist destination that is receptive to writers with the potential concomitant with a modern beatnik on a Man of La Mancha style mission. We made that suggestion even before we leaned that Anker’s plan is to raise his thee kids, send them to college and then, if all goes according to his plan, he will go and die in the same exact spot where Neil Cassidy’s life ended.

If a reader took four different fresh in the box jigsaw puzzles, opened them up and then dumped the pieces together in one gigantic pile; that would provide an excellent metaphor for the challenge of covering last weekend’s events in the San Francisco Bay Area. On the Friday night before the event began, we went to Oakland to cover the latest installment of the Mayor Libby Schaaf vs. the freedom of speech advocates. We were in the wrong place and missed seeing the standoff and the arrests that occurred. After we called it quits and headed back to Berkeley, while traveling on the AC bus we noticed a large amount of police activity on Telegraph Ave near the UCB campus. The next day an officer involved shooting in Oakland revived the FTP protesters ire and added a baffling fatality to this year’s total number of people killed in the USA by police activity.

Initial attempts to learn the details of what had happened in Berkeley on Friday night were unsuccessful. The explanation detailing why the suspect in Oakland was killed were murky and raised more new questions than were answered by the official account of what had happened and why. Information found on line Saturday evening indicated that a spontaneous “Black Lives Matter” Protest/demonstration earned a high likelihood rating.

Since, in the past, we had known a Husky/German Shepherd mix dog who struggled with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence due to a fondness for daemon rum, we noted that our encounter with Animal Chaplain Rev. Nancy Schuntz would provide us with an item for our column but was way to late to provide us and Baron Siegfried L. von Richthofen with a pragmatic reward for the meeting.

Now that Americans’ faith in the reliability factor for Journalism produced by the News Industry in the USA has fallen to an abysmally low level, the market for books from non traditional authors seems to be increasing exponentially.

During the week, a source in the political activist fraternity informed us that the demonstrators who were arrested last Friday night in Oakland and expected to be charged with “failure to disperse,” were caught unaware when they were charged with resisting arrest and given a bail fee of $10,000.

Meanwhile the narrative for the police involved shooting indicated that the dead suspect had been involved in a robbery in San Francisco and was known to have a gun with a large capacity magazine with him in the car. When officers attempted to communicate with the fellow who had “passed out” and the suspect did not respond, the police officers broke several windows. The fellow came awake and was perceived to be doing something that caused the police to fear for not only their lives but also the lives of citizens in the immediate vicinity.

A “slim Jim” is a long thin piece of metal used by car thieves and locksmiths to gain quick access to the interior of an automobile and should not to be confused with a snack with the same name. We were baffled by the fact that the police resorted to an hour-long effort that involved breaking more than one window to deliver access to the suspect inside the car rather than using the quick and (relatively) silent strategy of using a Slim Jim

The Caitlin Jenner summer may be remembered as the time when Democrats embraced the Bush war philosophy and strategy regarding Iraq, and when the “Bush knew” folks can finally reverted to the “if you can’t beat them; join them” school of philosophy. This time both parties can be enthusiastic about sending “military advisors” to Iraq.

Another story developing this summer will be the fad for crowd-funding for the well-to-do. We heard one report (on KCBS?) that informed the audience that the musical group “Ohio Players” was appealing to fans for money to pay for the necessary expenses for recording their next album. Times are tough and people are being asked to donate money to a musical group that failed to set aside some of their past profits to subsidize future endeavors? Is a retelling the Horatio Alger success of a self made fortune story necessary or has American society embraced the concept that they are meant to play the doormat role for the “haves”?

Was Denny Hastert paying hush money at the same time he was urging no mercy for Bill Clinton’s assertion “I did not have sex with that woman!”? If so, will he be eligible for induction into the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame? What can Liberals learn from the fact that Hastert is being accused of misconduct with male minors and Bill’s indiscretions involved a young lady who was an adult?

Conservatives have reverted to a Seventies M; O. (modus operandi) because they have reverted to the habit of calling Jerry Brown “governor moonbeam.”

How ominous is it to learn that a gag order is in place regarding the contents of the TPP trade bill in Congress? How many voters would endorse the concept of signing a blank check as a way of lending a pal “some” money?

This week comedian Jerry Seinfeld was making waves by ridiculing political correctness as a way to censor political commentary and comedy.

Years from now when books are being written about the historic summer of 2015 if all the raw material available is material from conservative talk show radio, conservative owned print and TV shows, records from the conservative majority United States Supreme Court, the Republican majority House and Senate, and the memoirs of prominent Republicans, does that mean that the Democratic Party will always be portrayed as an amalgamation of pathetic losers? If that is how books in the future will be written, why then should a pundit grind out alternative analysis for altruistic reasons?

Meanwhile book festivals are chock full of chances to read about how the authors coped with the question: “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

If Americans are subjected to a 24/7 bombardment from the conservatively owned media detailing how, on Obama’s watch, things have become an unrelenting series of disasters, the exercise in group-think could backfire. If people are given a constant assertion that the war in Iraq is endless, the Pacific Ocean is being contaminated by radio active material from Fukushima, the ice caps are melting, and never given a chance to be amused and uplifted by some innocuous entertainment on Top 40 radio stations; eventually won’t the citizens have a collective realization that it is time to say “Fuck it!” and start a “the condemned man ate a hearty meal” program of continuous bacchanals and orgies?

This summer Americans will learn if “Jade Helm” is a preposterous conspiracy theory or an accurate prediction of an ominous development in a shift to fascism. Americans will get news of Jade Helm if (and only if) the news media remembers to ask “may I?” before writing any stories (pro-government propaganda?) about whatever happens.

Coincidentally the World’s Laziest Journalist recently stumbled upon the best answer, to the meaning of life question, which is also an invitation to back a “the party never ends” reaction to the avalanche of negativism.. It is in the “deleted scenes” section of the DVD for “Pirate Radio.” There is one labeled “the Meaning of Life.” Click it and watch that scene. It is available on Youtube and is recommended for those who want the answer provided quickly and for free online.

The closing quote is an axiom from the Sixties: “If you haven’t tried it; don’t knock it.”

Now the disk jockey will play Paul Revere and the Raiders’ song “Kicks,” the Hombres “Let it all hang out,” and “Delicious” by Jim Backus and friend. We have to go put some dead flowers on Siggy’s grave. Have a “party at the A-Frame” type week.

June 10, 2015

Only the strong survive: How Big Pharma & war cull the herd

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jane Stillwater @ 5:10 pm

Even as an old man, my father was as strong as an ox and built a log cabin from scratch with his bare hands when he was 70 years old. But then he suffered a heart attack. And his doctor put him on all kinds of medications, at least ten pills a day. And a year later he had shrunk from standing over six feet tall to being only 5′ 7″ — and from weighing 200 pounds to weighing only 125. And a month after that he was dead. Geez Louise! What the freak was in those pills anyway? Couldn’t he have just eaten more bananas instead?

And, yes, I really am aware that modern medicine does save a whole bunch of lives. And, yes, I do watch Gray’s Anatomy and know that modern medicine can and does perform miracles. But still. 106,00 Americans a year die from “adverse drug reactions”. Side effects, side effects, side effects — just like the ads on TV say.

And I used to really resent Big Pharma for that — especially when my own father was one of those statistics.

And I also used to really hate the idea that American children are being overdosed on vaccines too. Our kids will be given 71 different batches of vaccinations before they reach age 17 — and 26 of these vaccines will be given to babies under one and a half years of age. But it’s not the vaccines themselves that I used to resent. Hell, bring them on — in the hundreds if that’s what it takes to save little kids’ lives.

It is the fillers, additives and preservatives such as mercury, formaldehyde, MSG, detergents, aluminum and yellow dye #6 that make up approximately 99.99% of each shot that I used to hate. I used to really hate that Big Pharma would shoot all that junk into the bloodstreams of our very own little darlings — just to save a buck on extending their drugs’ shelf-life. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

Apparently there are now a few drug-company start-ups working on creating DNA-based vaccines that no longer need fillers. Others are working on vaccine-based “tattoos” that don’t need fillers either. Hurray for them. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/tiny-tattoo-vaccines.html

But I still used to shudder with dread for my three-month-old granddaughter at the thought of her callously being used as fodder for Big Pharma profiteering. Because of baby Sofia, I used to study up and read everything I could lay my hands on with regard to the pros and cons of vaccines. With a tiny and vulnerable small baby in my family, I used to worry night and day about the fillers, additives and preservatives in her vaccines. http://www.ora.tv/offthegrid/grid-robert–kennedy-jr-takes-big-pharma–vaccine-industry-0_6ck7ne6j25bv

But not any more.

Now I’ve finally learned to relax and love Big Pharma. I’ve finally become philosophical on the subject. I’ve finally learned to just reflect on the Spartans of ancient Greece and how they put their weaker babies and old folks out to die in the snow — for the good of the tribe. Or was it Sarah Palin who did that?

And then I remembered that the presence of lions in Africa are actually good for the gazelle population there — because they cull the herd. On the plains of the Serengeti, only the strong survive.

And then I learned to cogitate upon the African slaves who survived the dread Middle Passage — only the strongest made it through that ordeal too, right? So that only the most healthy slaves arrived in the New World? Or I’d think about the small-pox-laden blankets that European immigrants used to give Native Americans so that the weaker ones would die off and stop hogging up all the good land.

And now, like some heroic latter-day Spartan or Indian-killer or human trafficker, Big Pharma is also culling our modern American herd of weaker babies and seniors — making sure that only the strong survive. How philosophical of them is that! http://yournewswire.com/mandatory-vaccine-act-2015-spine-chilling-u-s-legislation-proposed/

A recent study has shown that America is ranked way down at Number 34 in the list of countries with regard to infant mortality rates — and is also the highest in the world regarding vaccines given to babies in their first year. So what does that tell us? That we should all immediately move to Singapore as soon as we get preggers? http://www.wanttoknow.info/health/vaccines/vaccines-studies-infant-deaths

No, this tells us that we Americans should stop bitching all the time about how Big Government (under pressure from the Big Pharma lobby of course) is taking away our very right to chose whether or not to have our babies inundated with huge doses of preservatives and fillers before they are even out of diapers, and about how over-selling drugs to our elders has become such a profitable racket — and instead just be grateful that now only our strongest babies and most viable old people survive, and that Big Pharma is culling our herd.

I mean really. Who the freak wants a weak baby or an old person who can no longer produce and will retire or be hospitalized before reaching age 90? “Man up, babies. Old guys, stop being wimps.”

PS: I just went to see Rebecca Solnit give a talk here in Berkeley. “The greatest danger to human beings right now is climate change,” she said. No, the greatest danger to human beings right now is what causes climate change — the use of fossil fuels, especially by the military.

According to Project Censored, “The U.S. military is the biggest polluter on the planet.” So not only is Big Pharma trying to cull the American herd, but War Street is apparently trying to cull this herd too. With all of its various wars and proxy wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine, Haiti, Honduras, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Russia, China, Africa, South America and goodness-knows-where all else? The American military is now endangering the lives of babies and elders here at home as well as killing them outright on the other side of the world. http://www.projectcensored.org/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-polluter-on-the-planet/

Just sayin’. Rebecca Solnit got me to thinking about how War Street is also culling the herd. Perhaps she will get you to thinking too. Nah, not gonna happen. Thinking is obviously too un-American.

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June 5, 2015

“Get the card!”

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 12:25 pm

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“Smoke,” by Hollywood actress Meili Cady, tells the story of a young lady who had some success in Hollywood as an actress and subsequentially got accused of smuggling seven tons of pot into the USA. This new book came to our attention right after we viewed “The Big High” 1968 episode of Dragnet and a colorized version of “Reefer Madness.” On Thursday May 28, we heard one of the Getty and Armstrong (which one is Costello, which one is Laurel?) duo did a segment which urged American military veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to “get the card,” which is to say they should do the paper work that would give them access to medical marijuana rather than seek relief via consuming alcoholic drinks. We knew that it was time to do another column on a topic that permits us to use the old cliché: “we don’t have a dog in that fight.” Th

e World’s Laziest Journalist doss not care if Pot is classified as a capital offense or if it becomes a product available in (irony alert!) drug stores and/or is sold at the corner news stand (do they still exist?).

Doing fact checking to see why the boys at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory voted the rumors surrounding the reason why pot was original classified as a dangerous narcotic as an explanation of why pot was voted into the Conspiracy Theory Hall of Fame (located on the super-secret campus somewhere in the Sierra foothills, near Berkeley) was a myth of Sisyphus assignment.

Back when “Reefer Madness” was a sensationalistic new movie it helped (propaganda alert?) convince the public that one puff for pleasure could lead, inexorably, to a life as a demented dope fiend. The 1968“Big High” episode of Dragnet (it’s available for viewing on Youtube), seconded the motion.

Could it be that capitalists, allegedly from both the booze and paper industries, as a way of diminishing a threat of competition, somehow (bribe alert?) convinced politicians to overreact and blacklisted a product with medicinal effects that would be very therapeutic for G. I.’s with battle fatigue? If so, why then would altruistic minded Republican politicians continue their misguided efforts after the doctors presented them with documentation that strongly endorsed the controversial PTSD treatment?

We considered doing a column detailing how, today, the voters in the USA seem to be as much the victims of lies, distortion, and propaganda as were the citizens of Germany, in the Thirties. Ein Volk got all their news only from officially sanction sources of information such as the Volkisher Brobachter newspaper. Is Fox News following in that tradition?

Denny Hastert did something and made mistakes in withdrawing the hush money from his bank account. Republicans want to go on record as saying the persecution of Hastert is an example of government overreach and not worth the effort and concomitant media circus. When Bill Clinton got a blowjob from a consenting adult woman, it was a basis for a group with lynch mob mentality to urge that impeachment proceedings should begin immediately. What’s not to love about strong, opposing partisanship reactions to the two stories?

Last December, when some of the citizens staged some “Black Lives Matter” protests in Berkeley, a low-flying single engine airplane was pointed out to us and the assertion was made that it was intercepting and monitoring cell phone calls being made below them as a way to do crowd control. During this past week, Newsweek provided confirmation of those rumors. Do a Google News search for “Operation Stingray.”

We were also tipped to the assertion that a rich pair of brothers bankrolled an effort to discredit the “Black Lives Matter” political protests by paying thugs to commit vandalism and to incite violence. Then when it was time for the hooligans to collect the promised cash, they were stiffed. That allegedly precipitated new riots with a more pragmatic rationale. That topic was accessible via a Google News search, but perhaps all traces of that story have been scrubbed off the Internet by now.

If true, this hypothesis has some very disconcerting implications. If hoodlums were paid to add vandalism and violence to a legitimate free speech protest, then one must make one of two conclusions. If the American Homeland Security agency was fully informed and complicit with what was happening, then fascism and Gestapo tactics have become an ingredient in American life. If, on the other hand, the Homeland Security did not know ahead of time about the payments to aggravate the situation, then their reasons for surveillance of all American citizens is a farce. They were either complicit or derelict in their mission if some of the protesters were paid agent provocateurs. With that ominous binary choice, it becomes evident why management of the news might be an integral part of the charade.

These days all the news seems to have a conspiracy theory aspect to it. Have you heard the assertion that B. B. King might have been the victim of foul play?

The latest hacking scandal causes us to ask again: “Why didn’t the system that was hacked use the security program that makes the electronic voting machines immune from all attempts to get hacked?

The hot rumor making the rounds this week on the digital counter-culture websites is that the John Kerry broken leg story was not a bike accident but was a fib designed to draw attention away from an assassination attempt by Isis.

Does the slump in confidence in American Journalism imply a concomitant spike in credibility for various and sundry Conspiracy Theories?

Speaking of de facto censorship, is it true that the website RevolutionbooksNYC dot org is promoting the use of a graphic symbol illustrating the concept that citizens should fear the police assigned to protect and serve them? Will media owned by conservative millionaires permit the staff to give any publicity to that concept?

The World’s Laziest Journalist will skip this week’s transvestite story. (Is that story that most folks, even those in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area, find boring and thus want it banished from the airwaves, an example of managed news?) Are any American pundits asking if the failure of the TSA screenings indicates that the actual purpose of the hassle is to wean Americans on to fascism?

Since Saturday June 6 will be the 71st anniversary of D-Day, we need to ask a question: “If the soldiers who were killed in WWII were fighting for The Four Freedoms, does it show disrespect for their sacrifices if Sen. Lindsey Graham rolls his eyes when the concept of fighting for America’s liberties, is mentioned?”

[Note from the photo editor: Pot, pizza and psychedelic tie-die t-shirts can always be lumped together in the San Francisco Bay Area and hence legitimize this week’s photo illustration.]

Some analysts are baffled by the fact that Republicans, who were very enthusiastic about invading Iraq and Afghanistan, seem willing to renege on their promise to take care of wounded veterans by denying them access to medical marijuana to treat PTSD.

Since many pundits ignore the controversy over the use of pot treatment, any suggestion which attempts to explain why the Republicans continue to endorse the restrictions on the use of cannabis sativa rather than approve its use, we will (speculation alert!) offer our unique explanation.

The fable of the scorpion and the frog was used in two movies. It was told in Orson Welles’ “Mr. Arkadin,” and also in “The Crying Game.”

A scorpion wanted to cross a river. He asked a frog if he could hitch a ride. The frog vehemently objected saying: “When we get in the middle of the river, you will sting me and we will both drown.” The scorpion used his highly developed debating skill to convince the frog to ignore his objections to the proposal. The scorpion hopped on the frog’s back and they began to cross the river. When they got to the middle of the river, sure enough, the scorpion stung the frog. The perplexed frog asked the scorpion why he had broken his promise and thereby signed both of their death warrants. The scorpion’s response possibly explains the Republicans’ attitude and provides us with the column’s closing quote: “Because it’s in my nature!”

Now the disk jockey will play the Platters 1958 hit “Smoke gets in your eyes,” “Puff the magic dragon,” and Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson’s new song “It’s all going to pot.” We have to go see if the film rights to the “Smoke” book have been sold.   Have a “Go Warriors!” type of week.

June 1, 2015

Doing the math: ISIS = US + Saudi + Turkish + Israeli neo-colonialists + $$$

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jane Stillwater @ 2:51 pm

“Where does ISIS come from and how can we stop them?” you might ask. Answering that question is easy if you just do the math. So let’s find out the answer — by simply adding up the columns of numbers listed below:

ISIS = American weapons and training. http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/26/tsarnev-sentenced-to-death-one-to-be-executed-while-others-get-weapons-and-training/

ISIS = Israeli supplies, weapons and medical backup. http://www.asawinstanley.com/2015/05/why-is-the-media-ignoring-israels-alliance-with-al-qaeda/

ISIS = Chechen, Libyan, Malaysian, Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters paid for and armed by the House of Saud. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-islamic-terrorists-are-supported-by-the-us-israel-and-saudi-arabia/5396171

ISIS = Access to Syria from Turkey http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/11/turkey-is-supporting-isis/

ISIS = American neo-colonialists working in tandem with Al Qaeda.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/29/politics/isis-man-trained-in-us/index.html

When we subtract American, Turkish, Israeli and Saudi neo-colonialists’ $$$ and weapons from ISIS, we get peace in the Middle East — or at least a hopeful shot at it.

“But, Jane,” you might ask next, “how can we prove this equation?” We don’t have to be Euclid or Einstein. We just have to do the math.

The Middle East minus Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Palestine = more land + more oil + more power + more $$$ for Turkish, American, Israeli and Saudi neo-colonialists. http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-gun-running-operation-weapons-and-support-for-islamic-terrorists-in-syria-and-iraq-the-objective-was-to-create-constructive-chaos-and-redraw-the-map-of-the-middle-east/5450832

ISIS + Al Qaeda + the spoiled-brat House of Saud’s grand illusion that oil $$$ can buy them anything they want + America’s Wall Street and War Street immoral lust for profit and power + Zionist neo-con lust for “Greater Israel” + Turkish neo-con lust for a return of the old Ottoman Empire = Bad News for the Middle East + Bad News for you and me too.

Our tax $$$ to America’s Wall Street and War Street + ISIS + Al Qaeda + Israeli neo-colonialists also equals less jobs, more class conflict, less education for our children, more paramilitary cops, more Fergusons and Baltimores, more homelessness and tent cities and a lot less democracy here at home.

Bottom line: To stop ISIS, all we have to do is cut off the flow of $$$ + weapons + training to it from American + Saudi + Israeli + Turkish neo-colonialists. Plus start up a flow of $$$ to Americans like you and me instead. Plus hopefully stop the eventual flow of ISIS to Turkey, Arabia, Israel and America as well.

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