BartBlog

Did you know that there is a Confederate cemetery in Raleigh that is rumored to be haunted? And right down the road from that, in Durham, is an institute that scientifically studies paranormal activity? I’ve been to both places recently — and still have almost no idea what to think about ghosts. Do they really exist or not?

I do know that the ghost of Jimi Hendrix used to haunt my former home in Berkeley, CA, but then, hey, we all know that Jimi is capable of anything — so being haunted by his ghost doesn’t really count.

At the Rhine Research Center in Durham, I went on a tour to see what is what in the world of parapsychology. “No X-Files type of stuff here. We’re scientists,” said the Center’s tour guide. “It’s the scientific study of interaction between living organisms and their external environment that seems to transcend the known physical laws of nature.” Then I was shown various psi-measuring machines and started to take notes. http://www.rhine.org/what-we-do/current-research.html

“We study telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, psychokinesis, precognition and ESP. These are all perceptive abilities. Psychokinesis is when mind and matter interact.” True or not? All I know is that during the tour, three of my pens stopped writing even though they were not out of ink — and on the drive back to Raleigh, our GPS failed, our cell phones all stopped working and we ended up back in Durham. Freaky. And just in time for Halloween.

Next I toured the Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, originally established when all of the dead Confederate solders buried in the local national cemetery were dug up and thrown out into the street. “The decaying bodies were stacked up like cordwood outside the cemetery gates and the women of Raleigh came and re-buried them all here, in some land that they purchased from a local farmer.” But of course the newly-created cemetery was segregated. http://historicoakwoodcemetery.org/about-us.asp

Several graves at Oakwood stood out. One of them was the really ugly monument erected over Elizabeth Edwards’ grave. “It cost $86,000,” I was told. Ms. Edwards’ ghost should demand her money back.

Another grave belonged to a Cherokee woman whose husband had to fight like crazy to have her body buried here. I guess that saying, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” doesn’t apply to Southern cemeteries — where even the dead ones are prejudiced against. My great-grandmother was a Cherokee — but this woman wasn’t her. But she could have been. My great-grandmother had been stuck out in Oklahoma as a result of the infamous Trail of Tears, which started in North Carolina. Cherokees rightfully shoulda been Tar Heels. Now there’s a haunting thought.

Then I walked back to my motel room in the warm twilight air, past lovely old Raleigh homes flying American flags and also past one of the original Krispy Kreme donut shops, where I purchased a cream-filled chocolate-covered donut — whose ghost came back to haunt my stomach later that night.

But are there really such things as paranormal activity and ghosts? I really don’t know — except for the one thing that I do know. Even though I am just a normal American person, living a typical American life, with nothing unusual about myself, over two thousand times I have woken up in the morning with an idea in my head for yet another political article that is so clear, so accurate and so correctly predictive that it’s almost like it had been typed into my brain by ghosts overnight. Now that’s spooky!

And, like the ancient Greek legend of what happened to Cassandra, no one ever really believes what I predict either — until it’s too late. Just like almost no one believed me when I wrote, back in 2006, that Madame Jane was predicting the great economic crash of 2008. http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2006/11/madame-jane-predicts-how-to-survive.html

Or else when almost no one believed me after I predicted, back in early 2003, that any war on Iraq would end as badly for us American taxpayers as it had for the USSR in Afghanistan — even though Time Magazine published my statement. “Is it possible that Iraq will be to America what Afghanistan was to the U.S.S.R.? The similarities are chilling.” And just look at us now, with all our money for schools and infrastructure having been poured down that rat hole connecting us to the pockets of war profiteers.

And how many times have I both whispered and screamed about the dangers of corporate greed and corporate planetary pollution? And of course about the number-one polluter of all — endless war. My voice gets hoarse just thinking about that. And yet no one has heeded that warning either. We all will probably be dead by 2028 if we don’t eliminate “war” and fossil fuel consumption by then. Don’t say that you’ve never been warned. http://robertscribbler.com/2015/10/26/a-crime-against-humanity-hothouse-wildfire-smoke-sickens-500000-as-indonesian-officials-plan-for-mass-evacuations/

And most Americans still don’t believe me, even after I have constantly warned them for years that their very own military-industrial complex is training, aiding, abetting and financing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, as well as supplying weapons to al Qaeda in Libya and financing the brutal lynchings of Palestinians in apartheid Israel. http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/07/syria-where-america-drops-barrel-bombs.html Just like Cassandra. Humph.

PS: Speaking of weird stuff, there is also the legend of the 36 righteous men — who wander the world doing good deeds. But guess what? You don’t even have to be dead to be one of them. All you have to do is be moral. Of course that eliminates ISIS, the NRA, Bibi Netanyahu’s entire government, Bush, Obama, banksters, weapons manufacturers, child molesters, most of the Republican party and half of the Dems in Congress today. But you and I might still qualify. Hopefully. http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/general-news/20120519/the-legend-of-the-36-righteous-men

PPS: I did play the role of a really scary ghost on the Reelz TV show “Behind the Screams” recently. I was so scary and ghostly that I even scared myself! Does that count? https://www.facebook.com/ReelzChannel/videos/10153769558264379/?fref=nf

I’m not even supposed to be posting stuff like this on my blog. I’m supposed to be writing about my wonderful North Carolina experience. But oh well. This is just too bizarre to pass up. The American Greed Machine is so completely determined to overthrow Assad in Syria and take over Syria’s pipelines and oilfields that it’s now going to totally insane extremes. Will these creeps stop at nothing? Apparently not.

Just received this e-mail from my eye-witness friend in Aleppo: “The US coalition is actually the air force of the terrorists.” America is acting as the air force for ISIS? Wow. Just wow.

“It seems that American planes prevented the Syrian air force from targeting ISIS in many areas, therefore the Russians thought to do the job themselves and to see who would dare to down their air force. But now the US is helping its terrorists by supplying them with TOW missiles. And the US is also ‘helping the Syrian people’ in Aleppo by targeting the infrastructure as well: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43195.htm So I’m ‘thankful’ to the US government and for its ‘good deeds’…….indeed!”

A little humor through tears from my friend.

But you do gotta admit that those freaks in the American military complex are determined little bastards. Exactly how far will they go to depose Assad and take over Syria’s oil? Obviously all the way to the gates of Hell, to sign a deal with the devil. Or else to take over the devil’s own job for themselves.

And we lucky American taxpayers get the foot the bill for all this chicanery, greed and evil obsession. Lucky us.

PS: Apparently the American Greed Machine has also had some help from its allies as well. This just in:

“Iraqi security and popular forces held captive an Israeli colonel from the Golani Brigade along with a number of ISIL terrorists. ‘The security and popular forces have held captive an Israeli colonel,’ a commander of Iraq’s popular mobilization forces said on Thursday. ‘The Zionist officer is ranked colonel and had participated in the Takfiri ISIL group’s terrorist operations,’ he added.

“Noting that he was arrested along with a number of ISIL terrorists, the commander said, ‘The Israeli colonel’s name is Yusi Oulen Shahak and is ranked colonel in Golani Brigade of the Zionist regime’s army with the security and military code of Re34356578765az231434.’”
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940730000210

You’d never even guess it after watching today’s news, but there really is a huge difference between the monsters who run ISIS and the heroes who defend Palestine.

For one thing, ISIS is being armed, trained and financed by none other than the brutal neo-colonialists who currently own and control America, Turkey, Israel and Arabia. And if you still don’t believe that these four slimy neo-colonialist powers are solely responsible for ISIS, well, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention. Please keep up. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-archbishop-pleads-for-uk-to-stop-backing-anti-assad-islamist-groups-a6697226.html

The next really big difference between Palestinians and ISIS is that ISIS is composed of jihadi “foreign fighters” and mercenaries who are in it for the bucks — and, yes, for the raping and pillaging aspect too. On the other hand, Palestinians have spent the last 65 years protesting against their own enslavement and genocide by a neo-colonialist power with no heart. “If force doesn’t work, use more force,” is the current policy of Israeli neo-colonialists.

For the past 65 years, Palestinians have been brutalized, robbed and enslaved by Zionist neo-colonialists armed to the teeth with panzer divisions, gestapos, concentration camps, blitzkriegs, chemical weapons and storm troopers. And now Palestinians are fighting back with stones, knives and their bare hands — just like back when the slave Spartacus finally told the Romans, “Enough!”

“What did you think, the Palestinians would sit still indefinitely?” says Gideon Levy’s latest article in Haaretz. “Did you really think Israel would continue on its course and they’d just bow their heads in submission? Jerusalem has become the capital of apartheid. No other city so discriminates and dispossesses or is so violent. Gun-toting Mayor Nir Barkat, who’s largely responsible for the discrimination and dispossession in his city, incites against a third of its population — an unbelievable phenomenon in its own right. And you thought 300,000 people would acquiesce?” http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.680443

“But aren’t Palestinians being anti-Semitic?” you might ask me at this point. Yes and no. Yes, there is a Spartacus-like slave rebellion taking place in Jerusalem right now, against a supposedly Jewish state. So on the face of things, this rebellion does actually look kind of anti-Semitic.

But, no, the current Palestinian rebellion isn’t anti-Semitic at all — because the self-styled “Chosen People” master-race wannabees who currently control Israel have poisoned what used to be the shining ideal of a Jewish State and now, under these oligarchs’ thumb, Israel has degenerated into just one more dying slave-state carcass whose ideals have been compromised. Israel today is no more a Jewish state than the greedy oligarchs who viciously put down Spartacus’s rebellion were supporters of the ideal of a shining Roman democracy.

Don’t believe me? Go rent Spartacus the Movie! Let Kirk Douglas set you straight. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi8716569/

“But aren’t the Palestinians all just a bunch of terrorists who go around knifing Israeli soldiers?” you might finally ask me in desperation. Knifing soldiers? Really? You are complaining that Palestinians are now using kitchen knives to defend their families against fully-armored storm troopers and panzer divisions who kill their children, enslave their adults and steal their land? Really?

Hell, Spartacus used a knife to rebel against slavery too. I rest my case.

By Belle Starr, Outlawyer, as told to Bob Patterson

The Prankster Pundits
As the former official counsel (attorney) for OccupySF and as a few years have now passed it seemed time to expand our repertoire into the field of punditry.

Disclaimer: The Outlawyer has committed the most grievous crime of being contra stereotypical and refusing fame for being one of the first transsexuals in the world since 1974 (even being on television with the iconic Christine Jorgensen) but not capitalizing on it.

This has flummoxed the San Francisco counter-culture into the continuing hate crime of prior censorship and denial of Belle’s write-in candidacy this year for Mayor of SF and her pivotal role in the formation and continuation of Occupy San Francisco. This is a hate crime under today’s standards since we are all supposed to be equal, loving and accepting…but aren’t.

The Dark Age of Fear
Presenting Nightside-After Dark America and the lurkers in the shadows. Is it true that vampires are now real? Only an in depth search for America can answer this and other burning questions. Only a modest nighttime ghost can successfully penetrate the shadows and answer the questions of paranormal, alienage or what makes humans so dumb as to be fooled into war after war. Bring garlic and cannabis as you follow the antics of a hippie trying to sell out or sell something since there is no pension for under the table cafes and speakeasies.

Decade of Fear – what is most important and where to start? That is the fear expressed by a nice young man in his twenties which rather shocked me. Fear in a twenty something? Frozen by too many things needing to be done that he doesn’t know where to start? or what to actually do-panic, protest or get a job or stoned?

Ponderosa Pine ( hippie who laid down his life for the redwoods and won by stopping the lumber trucks…try that now and “roadkill” probably) said I was coming of age in a time of peak confidence. Now I am oldish and being told of fear in the youth. Have to reverse this trend. Remember the Fearless Seventies after the Psychedelic Sixties? Fear no more.

Blazing Saddles: Has political correctness crossed back into the dreaded category of ultra hipness? When the jewish indian (Mel Brooks) won’t kill the settlor it is quite racist but we all laughed. The sheriff was racist and made fun of himself and Gov. Pettibone was a horney rascal. What happened to humor? We can’t even make fun of our foibles any longer. Watch it and you will know what I mean- even to Lily von Schtuck’s comments about the sheriff. Dj cue up De camp town ladies and I get no kick from champagne….

Carlos Hathcock (White Feather) took down a Vietnamese General at two miles. Politically incorrect awesomeness.

Co-operate with your own Karma
PTSD from Bed Bugs? I have real fear of being attacked at any time by bedbugs. A new diagnosis of hyper alert for PTSD Cilex mania. They attack at night when this sentry slumps into fitful sleep awakening to the terror of days of periodic intense itches and mountainous bite bumps. Horrible to contemplate. Add to that legislation passed but not yet working or affective so that these enemy bug troops (starship troopers report) keep infesting as mattresses are left for people to take home rather than burned.

If you are in subsidized housing (Slang:SRO for single room occupancy) you get to pay for disposal or, as with all the poverty challenged, simply put outdoors when no one is looking. Public health is losing, legislation is like hitting a tar baby and implementation is according to the tortoise not the hare.

This is a picture of the Xtracycle. The Suburban Mom’s mini-van. It was cool to talk to a young mother who said she could take it on the bus and put the children in when riding on the bike and no parking problems. It was her min-van she said.

I have it on good authority that this Outlawyer is Too different (beyond the border). I dispute that. I am just avant guard and point out that in California one can demand to die but cannot get experimental drugs if they are terminal. Where is MY right to life legislation? I want the best medicine not just The Gong Show. (WLJ—Belle is the point-person in a heroic effort to revive automatic writing as l’nouveau perre UBU roi – Goggle It).

How to tell the truth or which lie should I tell- guided by voices: Am I the new Unrealist? (Hi Mr. Krassner, nice to meet you, can I use this spoof on the realist? hahah i just did). The voices in rock and roll songs, I was told by a coma returnee, have all the secrets but I have trouble deciphering lyrics. If they have a beat and I can finger pop to them, that’s all I need.

After rescuing the laziest pundit (no old folks home for me…catch me if you can) isn’t it Time for elder breakout rescue teams to liberate those trapped in bored and careless homes? (WLJ— Belle during the Summer of the great NY prison break wonders if there is a market for selling the services of an extraction team to inmates of the old folks home of the bored and careless kind. Some of the wretched trapped elderly would probably sign over all their worldly goods for hope of escape. If a supper of peanut butter and jelly sandwich with rice soup sounds acceptable to the reader we are willing to wager you couldn’t maintain that existence for a week and keep your sanity(“dear God, I’ll do anything you want if you only get me out of here)).

We, at least, could periodically invade with smiles and happiness to cheer up those stuck there. Do we always need to be paid for kindness? NO, and we are going to prove this point with The Last Love-in.

How many members f the Dave Clark 5 can you name?

Cue up a more politically incorrect “Hair” (Listen to the whole album ), Break on Through (to the other side ) by the doors and out with The Who “Magic Bus” and “My Gen Gen Generation”.

Have a revelation and write in your votes. Jobs for counters and legitimize your ballots.
Power to the People!
If elected a lava lamp in every window.
Aloha!

Contact: you can’t get there from here but I can write directions that will get you to the ragged edge. Inquiries invited – do not expect a reply. OccupySF@unseen.is

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” And, sadly, so do I. Practically everything there is to write about these days somehow involves absolutely cosmic Dumpsters full of evil and injustice lurking in the hearts of the various bad men currently in control of our lives.

Since George W. Bush stole the presidential election in 2000, I’ve written approximately 2,146 articles on the subject of greed, hypocrisy, injustice, malice and evil, both at home and abroad. Unfortunately, it looks like all these ugly human flaws will always be with us — but good BBQ, on the other hand, could slip through our fingers at any moment.

And so here I am in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of what has been rumored to be the world’s very best BBQ. Let’s go and find out.

“Clyde Cooper’s makes the best BBQ in the city,” I was told by one resident of Raleigh after another. “You simply must try it!” So I did. And was shocked. Frankly, Cooper’s chopped meat was horrible. Dry and sort of gray-looking even.

“Where’s the sauce?” I desperately asked my waitress. She then brought me something in a paper cup that tasted pretty much like vinegar. Dry chopped meat, spiked with vinegar, on a dry bun? It looked and tasted like something they might have served Yankee prisoners at Andersonville.

I live in Berkeley, California, home of really great BBQ. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled. “But how did great BBQ end up in Berkeley?” you might ask. That’s easy. During World War II, many African-American women from the Deep South migrated to northern California to work in the local shipyards as Black Rosies. In the Richmond, CA, shipyards, these heroic women turned out a whole new battleship every four days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc490zRLWMA

But on the exact day that World War II ended, Henry J. Kaiser fired all of his Black Rosies — letting them all go with no severance pay and kicking them out of their homes.

With no money to get back to the Deep South where they originally came from, many of the Black Rosies settled in Berkeley instead — and started selling and buying BBQ. Delicious! Juicy, covered with a deep red sauce. That’s what I had been expecting to find in Raleigh. BBQ like Everett & Jones.

“But have you tried The Pit over on Davies Street?” another fan of East North Carolina BBQ asked me. No. But while The Pit’s “sides” were amazing — biscuits, mashed potatoes, green beans and hush puppies — their meat was also really dry and lacked that deep rust-colored tomato-based BBQ sauce that I love. Rats.

Finally some local Raleigh BBQ connoisseur took me aside and said, “Jane, get over it. East North Carolina BBQ just isn’t the same as Louisiana, St. Louis or Texas BBQ. We have our own style here. Forget about Everett & Jones.” It seems that East North Carolina BBQ was developed over 400 years ago, back when tomatoes were considered to be poisonous and vinegar was used to preserve meat that had been slow-cooked in a pit. “Hey, our chopped meat BBQ style is historic!”

And that’s how I learned to like (or at least tolerate) dry chopped meat here in Raleigh. My apologies to Clyde Cooper’s and The Pit. I just didn’t know. Plus I just found out that you can get East North Carolina BBQ in Berkeley too — at Smokey J’s, just four blocks from my home. http://smokeyjbbq.com/menu/

However, I don’t think that I will ever learn to tolerate (let alone like) injustice, hypocrisy, mendacity, greed or just plain evil. At least I hope that I never will.

PS: It looks like I’m being forced to go back on-topic here after all. Still can’t resist writing about injustice — especially since yet another whole Dumpster full of it has just turned up and has been practically shoved in my face by the cable television news in my cheap motel here in Raleigh. Who the freak would ever pay actual money to get cable TV at home?

On cable TV, I am constantly being told that our wonderful American armed forces are doing everything that they possibly can to fight al Qaeda and ISIS over in the Middle East these days. Not true at all.

Every single day, even more information keeps coming to light that the American war machine is actually supporting ISIS and al Qaeda in the Middle East. And why not? The goal of the American war machine is to sell weapons — and what better way to sell them than to start wars and keep them going?

And who is better at keeping wars going than al Qaeda and ISIS? It’s a match made in heaven. I can just see their internet dating-site advertisement now. “Evil men seek like-minded evil men, must be fond of killing women and babies for fun and profit.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/western-aid-to-terrorists-iraqi-forces-seize-us-supplied-anti-armor-missiles-from-isis-in-fallujah/5481753

Dissension at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory
Gonzo Vagabondoing

Bob Patterson as told to Belle Starr, Merry Prankster, Esquire

Animosity, rancor and professional hubris has reared it’s ugly head at The Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory. The columnist summer intern is expressing a desire to skip over the long and arduous process of writing a column every week and wants to proceed to doing a weekly cable TV program chronicling the adventures of a charter member of the Flower Childe generation seeking everything that is commendable and honorable in America today (i.e. truth, justice and the American way).

The honorable outlawyer has noted with displeasure that many conservative media stars augment their paycheck with a vast assortment of money making auxiliary schemes. (Count us in!)

If Edward R. Murrow were alive and broadcasting on CBS Evening News he would have an online store where various items would be available for purchase. Especially since the intern found out how pundits write for free and websites take money to stay up not even dribbling coffee money to the pundit.

In the spirit of On the Road the intern is proposing to travel by van and chronicle the adventure via weekly postings on Youtube (Unless Lonely Planet has a better offer).

Earlier in life, Belle has worked for the Peace Corps in Ethiopia , hitchhiked coast to coast at age fifteen, lived in London and Amsterdam where Belle hosted a weekly radio show on DFM radio televisie (DFMrtv) and produced free concerts (PeaceQuake and radio transmitted from Peoples park, the greek theater and just about anywhere). Live from Berkeley Eshelman Hall with KALX (FM).

That was a good start but now at retirement approaching, this outlawyer is the world’s laziest vagabond and has it down. The proposed TV series would be in the spirit of Neal Cassidy mentoring a beatnik wanna-be who wants to go on the road after graduating from college.

Theoretically, the program will include such auxiliary field trips (perhaps an episode or 2 filmed live in Havana (did you know Jack Paar took the Tonight Show to Havana after the revolution there and interviewed Fidel?  How many people wonder if it is safe to drive through Mexico? (Stay Tuned))).

I dare you, Outlawyer to cross post this as your first post on Daily Kos.

Earlier in Life, the world’s laziest journalist has helped friends achieve their goal in life. So when the summer intern proposed the effort to land a gig somewhere on cable TV (Lonely Planet?) we agreed immediately and threw ourselves into the project with full force.

Cable TV is still evolving and may still be ripe for innovative programming (Netflix specials?)

Literature has a long history of books concerning a quest in America. Jack London wrote several installments for this category. Ernie Pyle was paid to travel around the United States to uncover interesting feature stories. Jack Kerouac kept extensive notes about his vagabonding experiences and produced at least one American classic in the genre. Hunter Thompson burst on the literary scene already a legend with his book about the Hell’s Angels. A columnist could do a scholarly book about the topic of roaming writers. (Many of those writers seem to have had ties to the San Francisco Bay Area)

Why is the genre limited to books? Why can’t a writer do a cable TV series chronicling his nomadic experiences?

We heard a report on CBS news radio this week that Playboy magazine will revamp their format. We can only hope this signals a return  to the days when Playboy cultivated and nurtured untried writers.  they helped the careers of many talented young inexperienced writers. Let’s hope the new and revitalized Playboy will again do this.

A year from now many of the countries best paid pundits will be trying to observe analyze and comment on the presidential election. Unfortunately, a year of intelligent insights about a triple dead heat race (Hillary, Trump, Jeb) is going to get very boring. (Oh well) So we expect to have some time to devote to helping summer intern pitch the idea of an ‘On the Road’ type show for cable TV.

Belle has speculated that show topics would be a visit to the site where the Altamont concert was held (the outlawyer was there for the Stones concert) and  a profile of Slab City. Since America never seems to tire of the saga of Venice Beach, a program set there seems to be a given for at least an episode (or opening).

The world’s laziest journalist would love to be the Ed McMahon for such a TV series. If, however, Belle finds that a younger person riding shotgun would help attract the younger demographic audience we will understand. (Playful summer pundit votes for Bob to come along!)

Closing quote: Andy Goudy to Chef Teddy Owen on his birthday “Let’s take you up to Las Vegas and get you some new scars”.

Now the Disc Jockey will play Phil Harris’ “Get out of here with that bumpdabump”, “I’m sticking to the Union” (Are Getty and Armstrong dues paying union members or scab labor?) and Marty Robbins “El Paso” sequel song (probably on youtube).

And now, we wish you Happy Trails!  Have a stick a thumb out and see what happens type week.

Aloha!

“As for your question, mostly everyone I met over here and everyone one I know online, in other Syrian provinces or in the diaspora, support the Russians and their coalition with Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanese Resistance against the terrorists.

“I wish to see the end of that nightmare before the end of the year. The dream is closer now, thanks to the Russians, who are targeting the real bases of terrorists, not claiming doing so like the U.S. Coalition. Only now, terrorists in Idleb are fleeing to Turkey, and the ones in Reqqa are fleeing to Iraq.

“Some comments are afraid that it could be a new trap for the Russians, as what happened to them in Afghanistan back in the 1970s and 1980s. However I guess they learned their lessons and won’t make the mistake again.

“I’m waiting for the Russian interfering in Aleppo. So far nothing happened over here. But they are preparing the arena for it.”

Journalism does the Cheshire Cat Schtik
By Bob Patterson as told to Belle Starr, Flower Child.

Rehearsal for D-Day
more allied soldiers were killed when a dress rehearsal went awry than were killed in action on D-day itself. Very few books about WWII mention this tragedy. Some details are available if you Google “Operation Tiger”.

Hitler’s personality and social skills
There seems to be an unwritten law that an author writes about Hitler’s personality he must be described in extreme terms such as lunatic and madman. However, in a book about women war correspondents one of the writers said Hitler was a very good reconteur and could do a spot-on imitation of Goering. Unfortunately, sources for fact checking this allegation are disappearing rapidly.

Berkeley Balcony tragedy
Six students died.  Will any serve Jail time?

Who sold airlines short on 9/11?
Has any of our readers ever come across a news report stating who profited by short selling airline stock when 9/11 occurred.

Sources tell us in country music that the next big thing is  Mo Pitney ( check on youtube and watch out for his sister too).

Trends: Baby Boomers in pharmaceutical  handcuffs and false imprisonment in old folks home. (A Bump, blown away, high five to Jane!)

Red Star … is  cannabis allowed in the old folks homes in legal states ?
With marijuana becoming more legally available we wonder what the policy will be in board and care and/or old age retirement homes.

A fringe benefit of journalism is that you have the freedom to publicize friends enterprises, such as Castle Cadillac Restorations, Michael Parenti’s books and The Last Love-in Store on Cafe Press.

What is a Love-in and who are those people trying to make a world record cuddle puddle?
The last Love-In organization committee is calling for an example of mental telepathy and harmonic resonance which will levitate Levi Stadium during the football game (Further details will follow in subsequent columns).

Lucid music camp will be held in Santa Barbara and Treasure Island is having a music fest this month. Hat Tip: Brian Dixon (is folk music resurging?).

Alex Jones recently posted unflattering photos of Hillary Clinton and made the assertion she was in poor health (and you think the worlds’s laziest journalist has slipshod journalistic standards?).

No end to being bugged….bed bugs are a problem in Berkeley and disposal of infested mattresses is a tar baby problem. We have it on good authority that a scion of the Todd Family Country Singers is working on a ditty titled, “Bed Bug Blues”.

We scooped the BBC with the story of Pasqualama and the Gold Mining scheme being conducted in that South American location. Google Hint : Pasqualama (Has the New York Times caught up to us or the BBC stunt?).

The Wasteland of being offended…
Has Lenny Bruce’s legacy transmogrified into the current pop culture meme “That offends me”?

DJ will spin BJ the DJ, The Eve of Destruction and Randy Newman’s “Political Science”.

Have a stop the *******  presses sort of week. Aloha!

Disclaimer: We try not to be an echo chamber. We do try to come up with material that is new to our readers.

“What the freak is a Hajj?” you might be asking yourself at this point. If you really want the definitive answer to that question, just click over to Amazon and buy my book on the subject. http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product

But in the meantime, here is a quick-and-dirty Cliff-Notes definition of Hajj. It is a religious pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is required to take at least once in his or her life. The Hajj itself consists of performing a series of rituals that must be completed within a certain period of time each year — not just whenever you can find a vacancy at the fabulous Mecca Hilton.

The Hajj is sacred to Muslims — or at least it used to be. Now, like so much of the rest of the Middle East, Afghanistan, Libya, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc., the Hajj has turned into a deadly and chaotic free-for-all.

Since the pretext of 9-11, American, European, Turkish, Saudi and Israeli neo-colonialists have been greedily salivating over their Dreams of Empire and, ludicrous as it may sound, these neo-colonialists’ weapon-manufacturers, banksters and oil barons have thus declared war on the entire Muslim religion. And this deadly attack on the world’s largest religion, having already created over a decade of chaos in Islamic countries all over the world, appears to have finally generated a trickle-down effect by turning the world’s largest pilgrimage deadly and chaotic as well.

So. What exactly went wrong during the Hajj this year that caused the deaths of approximately one thousand pilgrims? Mismanagement, stress, the effect of over a decade of “war” on Muslims, dictatorships, instability and chaos.

Am I making myself clear here? No? Let’s try it again from a different perspective.

The Hajj rituals take place in Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud controls the Hajj. The Saudis run one of the most ruthless and cruel dictatorships in the world today (just witness their current brutal assault on the democracy of Yemen, solely for its oil and its beaches) — but Wall Street and War Street love the House of Saud anyway and totally have its back.

Saudis are supposed to protect Hajjis and Hajjas — but they don’t. Saudis don’t spend the time and energy it takes to organize five million pilgrims. They don’t even allow Syrian and Yemeni Muslims to even go on Hajj, for instance. That’s dictatorial right there. And another dictatorial feature is that Saudis allow their privileged-class princes to just cut in line to have first pick at the holiest places, violently pushing the hoi poloi aside — until the little guys who have saved up all their lives in order to be able to go on Hajj get trampled to death. Again.

You needed to have been there, to see the bodies, the horror, the weeping survivors, the lost shoes — while some jerk of a Saudi prince drives away in his limo after his bodyguards had heartlessly shoved pilgrims out of the way and caused a panic so that the prince could get to the shrine first.

The whole Muslim world has fallen apart because of American, European, Turkish, Zionist and Saudi neo-colonialism. And this “war on Islam” is now mirrored in how the sacred Hajj has turned deadly again this year.

And this year’s deadly Hajj in Arabia has also become a mirror of what is happening elsewhere all over the world, even in non-Muslim countries — even including our own world right here at home as well, where a few haughty, disgustingly-wealthy and dictatorial “princes” are clearly running the show here while the rest of us are about to get trampled to death too.

PS: On October 6, I myself plan to go on a pilgrimage — my annual pilgrimage to BoucherCon, an annual convention for murder-mystery readers and writers. http://bouchercon2015.org/

This year BoucherCon is being held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Anyone have any suggestions on what else to see in Raleigh? Besides its historic ribs joints and its beautiful Moral Mondays of course? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnpeOTLgyKs