We’re in for it now. Rupert Murdock is the Joseph Goebbels of 2012! The Mayans are gonna be right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nV1sk9mSJEY
February 18, 2012
February 17, 2012
Dynasty Resurrection?
Occupy Cal graphics for Valentine’s Day
Occupy Cal Mushroom
“I left my ♥ in San Francisco . . . ♫ . . .”
Is America being set up for the return of the Bush Dynasty? Has the legacy of Murrow’s Boys morphed into a shameless spectacle of his network’s modern on air talent kowtowing to the Republican Party in the form of stories about a political triumph that is being spun as a “compromise”?
In the early morning hours on Thursday, KCBS news radio in San Francisco reported that the payroll tax cut had been extended because the Republicans folded on their insistence that it be balanced by corresponding budget cuts.
Isn’t the “payroll tax cut” code talk for cutting back on workers’ contributions to the Social Security Trust fund? Hasn’t destroying the Social Security program been the top Republican political goal since the day FDR signed it into law?
They get to take another major step towards dismantling the Social Security Program and make their dreams come true and a step to destroy (eliminate funding from) other social programs is postponed and that qualifies as a compromise? GMAFB!
Hasn’t cutting social programs become the Sadistic highlight of the post St. Reagan era for the Republicans? Wouldn’t getting America’s free press to applaud the trend just be icing on the cake? Could the trend to cut social programs funding be compared to being the budgetary equivalent of Sherman’s march to the sea?
Isn’t portraying the lack of cuts as a humiliating compromise the final nail in the coffin for America’s Freedom of the Press?
Do employees at Fox News really start the day by facing a photo of Murdoch, taking an loyalty oath, and then putting their hats over their hearts while singing along to “Memo from Turner”? Or is that just an urban legend?
The World’s Laziest Journalist thinks that he remembers a posting on the Columbia Journalism Review’s website castigating American Journalists for using the dishonest “payroll tax cut” euphemism in place of the more politically charged term “raid on the Social Security Trust Fund.”
In the conservative dominated realm of spin, ascertaining the truth in American Politics has come to resemble the classic chase scene in Orson Wells film “The Lady from Shanghai.” Which image is political reality, which is diabolical spin? Remember if you make a guess and it is incorrect, you will lose more of you rapidly diminishing supply of Constitutional rights. (Good luck!)
Hasn’t the pervasive Conservative noise machine pummeled Americans into surrendering their insistence that the function of the press is to provide citizens with accurate information that will permit them to make well informed decisions when they vote? Isn’t amusing and entertaining what just what Edward R. Murrow and his posse, called Murrow’s Boys, really wanted?
Have you heard the radio ads that tout a method for getting a choice of approximately 500 American radio stations? (Define “a hall of mirrors.”) Should the ever narrowing window of opportunity for access to foreign news sources be compared to Hitler’s edict that proclaimed that listening to foreign radio stations had become a capital offense?
What would be so bad about listening to Sky Rock from Paris, Triple J from Australia, or (if it still exists) Radio Caroline?
Wasn’t there a book a while back in the USA, with the cryptic title: “Ladies and Gentlemen; this way to the showers!”? What was that supposed to mean?
At the World’s Laziest Journalist’s Headquarters we thought we saw a mention on the Internets (and a story in last Sunday’s edition of the New York Times) about some newsmen getting arrested in Great Britain because of a hacking scandal investigation. Did we just imagine that?
Before Dubya sent American troops off to Afghanistan and Iraq, the American Free Press ran “we don’t want another Vietnam” essays on their Op Ed pages. Now as America prepares to use the principles established at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials outlining the necessary condition for permitting a preemptive strike, the lefties in the press realize that such divisive diversions are counter-productive and seem to have given up that lame attempt at circulation building stunt journalism.
If Rupert Murdoch tells the journalists to jump, they must jump and ask “How high?” on the way up.
America established the principle of war for humanitarian reasons before authorizing drone attacks on Libya. This week the need to send drones attacks against Syria as a means of protecting that country’s citizens from a bloodthirsty national leader is becoming abundantly clear thanks to the fair and balance new coverage being provided by America’s Free Press.
Weren’t the trend spotting reporters in American Journalism right on top of the “Linsanity” phenomenon this week? We may have to personally direct the Pulitzer Prize selection committee’s attention to some of the best of the lot.
Not all the work done at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory is devoted to deep dark secret government plots against its own citizens. One of the Factory’s midlevel management team, earlier this week, dug out an old item from long ago when he was only a summer intern there.
According to his theory; if you take the segment of Madonna’s “Truth or Dare” documentary film where she ridiculed actor Kevin Costner and speculate that that incident must have occurred just about the time he (as Executive Producer for the film project called “The Bodyguard”) was making assessment about who should be given the role of the female singing sensation (what is type casting?); you just might come up with some speculation about how Whitney Houston’s big career boost was directly attributable to some rudeness delivered by Madonna. (Didn’t Madonna used to have some aspirations for an acting career to augment her musical achievements?)
This week Tony Bennett was given the key to the city in a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. Some pre-event publicity indicated that part of the program would include the honoree singing “I Left My ♥ in San Francisco.” He didn’t. (OMFG! Somebody has left the ♥ symbol loose on the Internets! Now it will spread like the bubonic plague!)
The Occupy Cal rebel encampment on Sproul Plaza was moved to another area of the campus late this week. (Note: On Friday morning, it was being reported by an Occupy Potester that the encampment on the steps of Doe Library had been removed. A Google News search was inconclusive.)
On Thursday, we saw news reports that stated that a brokered Republican Convention might be offered the choice of JEB Bush or Sarah Palin to function as a “tie-breaker.”
(How many Democrats will be dumb enough to believe that the Republican Party is ready to name a beauty contest winner as commander-in-chief of the American military? {This is what mystery fans call “a red herring.”})
There is a bit of folk wisdom in Hollywood that advises script writers to leave some “wiggle room” at the conclusion of a horror film, so that the monster can return in a sequel.
Wasn’t there a bunch of news reports about the Bush Dynasty being as extinct as the dinosaurs when George W. Bush’s term in office was concluded? Is Karl Rove going to pull an astonishing sequel scenario out of a hat this summer just as if American politics were as predictable as a Wes Craven movie sequel?
Are the liberal pundits in America’s Free Press just going to sit there and not bring up the possibility of the political effort to reincarnate something that was deemed extinct?
If this column isn’t reprinted on the Op Ed page of the New York Times next week, maybe the World’s Laziest Journalist should try to contact the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney (New South Wales) and see if there’s any possibility of being a guest lecturer there before the November election. Don’t people into scholarship value alternative viewpoints . . . especially if in retrospect they were spot-on?
To be continued . . .
Former San Francisco columnist Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary included this entry: “Cynic, n. a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.”
Now, the disk jockey will play The Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” Janis Joplin’s “Down on me,” and Quicksilver Messenger Service’s “Holy Moly.” We have to go to the poster shop and get the one of the flying Mustang from “Bullitt.” Have a “Make Love, not war” type week.
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YOS Presents…
No one can be sure of what is in Sarah Palin’s heart besides Sarah Palin.- Whitney Levon from the author’s Yahoo story, Sarah Palin Forgets She is Not Running for President.
…but we do take for GRANITE that there are rocks in her head.
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February 16, 2012
America & Israel: The past is prologue
I just received one of those chain-letter e-mails that are making the rounds currently and this one cites all the good things that Israelis have done lately. According to this e-mail, Israelis have invented the cell phone, perfected Windows XP, achieved a per-capita income that exceeds the UK’s, developed the Pentium chip, have the highest percentage of college graduates anywhere, discovered how to treat breast cancer without radiation and even invented a cure for pimples. Go them!
After reading this huge laundry-list of Israel’s sparkling achievements, I was immediately reminded of the good old pre-Sputnik glory days of America, back when our education system was the best, our scientists were the best, our economy was the best, our healthcare was the best, our government was the best and everything about America was completely top-drawer.
We were always Number One in everything.
And then along came the corporatists who now own America — taking over our country and shoving their selfish schemes for wealth consolidation, government de-regulation and endless war down our throats. And today, after spending approximately 40 years under corporatist control. America is now 37th in healthcare, 25th in math education, 10th in economic competitiveness, etc. Just look how far we have sunk.
And now even Israel, especially even Israel, clearly outranks us in so many areas and ways. Well, good for them — and bad for us.
However, the corporatists who now own Israel are clearly following the very same policies that originally derailed America: Corporatism, wealth consolidation, government de-regulation and endless war. Now all I can say to Israel is, “Good luck with all that. I hope you do better under corporatism than we did.” But being able to successfully ride the corporatist dragon is probably never gonna happen in Israel either. Why? Because past is prologue and Israel is now blithely heading down the very same road to ruin that America has already traveled. And there’s really nothing to stop Israel from becoming just like us — corporate-owned has-beens.
To quote my friend’s recent chain-letter, “Israel now has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S, Russia and China) and, in addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel’s air force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the USA.”
Looks like Israel has already traveled a goodly distance down that same road that has already incapacitated the U.S.
America has become like Pinocchio, lured off to Pleasure Island by the corporatists. And Israel’s nose has clearly already started to grow also, marking the beginning of the end for their accessible education, fabulous healthcare, scientific excellence and economic achievement — to say nothing of Israel also losing its only chance to develop a conscience and become a Real Boy.
PS: Speaking of the past, my son Joe, my daughter Ashley and I just went on a whirlwind tour of most of the places in Southern California where my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents and various aunts and uncles used to hang out. All of them are gone now, but we really enjoyed seeing where they used to live.
My great-grandfather, Charles Gandy, was a Methodist minister in Trenton, New Jersey, the end-product of seven generations of Methodist ministers before him. But then he got TB and moved his family to Banning, CA, out in the desert, and that’s where my grandmother and mother were raised — and so we toured Banning, soaking up all kinds of ancestor vibes. Here are some of my photos from Banning: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150529357901618.366224.519281617&type=1&l=ae3e2bd3e3
And my father’s father, Eugene Purpus, had been a farmer in the Oklahoma Territory until he too moved his family to Banning, to work in the orchards up on the rural Banning Bench. My father was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1911, on Route 66, on the way out from Tahlequah.
My Uncle Orville and Aunt Helen used to live in Idyllwild, a historic art colony in the mountain pine forests overlooking Palm Springs, where Aunt Helen was a weaver. But, sadly, Uncle Orville got hit by the 1919 flu epidemic and then came down with Parkinson’s Disease.
Joe, Ashley and I all gave Idyllwild a big thumbs-up, and here are some photos of us roughing it, eating wonton soup, being “Based Gods,” and watching Jurassic Park on TV: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150527084371618.365988.519281617&type=1&l=ab9245ee2e
I also spent most of World War II living in Point Loma while my father was off serving in the Pacific and being stationed in Occupied Japan. So we found my old house there and it was all very deja vu. I had loved living in Point Loma, and moving away has always been my Paradise Lost moment — but my family had been forced to move because, after coming back from the war, Pop couldn’t find work in San Diego and so we migrated north.
Here are some photos of our old house in Point Loma: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150513096146618.364558.519281617&type=1&l=8d85116c88
Then Joe, Ashley and I spent a sweet rainy day in Tijuana, where my mom used to take me when I was a kid. And we have the photos to prove it: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150517601961618.365016.519281617&type=1&l=914b37c3af
Next on the tour, we visited Aunt June in Escondido — or at least tried to. It seems that her home had recently burned down and she was now happily ensconced in an assisted-living facility in Maryland. Maryland? Definitely not part of our tour. Sorry, Aunt June.
Here are photos of Aunt June’s old home after the fire: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150527050396618.365981.519281617&type=1&l=333f25e97a
That left only Los Angeles to visit, which we did. Uncle Donald and Aunt Mina had lived in Hollywood (next to Ozzie and Harriet, BTW). I had been born in Los Angeles and my parents both worked their way through UCLA during the tragic 1930s Depression. Then Joe and Ashley went off to see a Bruce Lee documentary in El Segundo and I holed up at the LAX Motel 6 and read murder mysteries.
The next day, I walked over to my friend Tsering’s amazing eclectic used-book store in Inglewood (Vajra Books and Gifts, 100 North Market Street) and exchanged hot gossip and bought books. Tsering is an old-skool Tibetan refugee and artisan extraordinaire as well as a book-seller.
Then it was off to Griffith Park for lunch, where my mom used to take me in a stroller when I was a baby. Then we did the traditional night-time race up the I-5 back to Berkeley. Wanna see photos of that? Here they are: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150529388471618.366231.519281617&type=3&l=420c088fa8
Perhaps we didn’t cover my entire SoCal past, but we did see a great deal of it. And we had fun doing it too.
My own past has been prologue to a very interesting life, trying hard to do as many good deeds as possible before I die, trying to emphasize “Do unto others” and “Repair the World” — that kind of stuff. And let’s hope that America and Israel’s past will also be prologue to a very interesting life along these lines as well.
Unfortunately, however, if things don’t change rapidly and they don’t ditch their corporatist owners’ greedy and war-mongering attitudes ASAP, Israel’s and America’s “interesting life” is going to become far more interesting — and in an entirely different direction — than its citizens had ever intended.
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February 14, 2012
Ye Olde Scribe Presents: Valentines
Courtesy buzzfeed.com
Washington, D.C., February 14th, 2012- Early this morning a White House intern claimed he heard John the big BOENER crying at the bottom of a tree, below the Tree House of Little Else but Compromise built by the Obama administration over the past 3 years.
“But he PROMISED he’d compromise with ME first, compromise himself right out of the White House! Now he’s up there compromising with Mitch the B%$#CH! Maybe they’re interested in a threesome?”
And with a huff, and a puff and a little baby whine he climbed up.
NEWSFLASH! Early this morning Mitch and John were found, up in a tree, KISSING, a tar baby, ironically made by the all the racist folks in the Republican Party. Or should Scribe have rephrased that as just, “The racist Republican Party?”
Below the tree was Glen Beck doing his fake crying routine, saying, “But he promised me! He promised me! I HAVE SENSELESS, MEANINGLESS, CHARTS TO PROVE HE PROMISED ME!” But no one saw him there. No one cared. Because no one with an ounce of intelligence pays attention to Glen Beck anymore.
Meanwhile, Ricky InSanitorium was reported to have said, “Oh, sickening, how perverted. You two together on a tar baby? Come over to my house: we’ll cure your gayness and have you kicking our dead fetus over the goal post in no time.”
Ah, except that last part, twere somewhat of a pleasant dream for Scribe to wake up from on VD day, tweren’t it? Now it’s time to go back to compromise almost every damn time while going out of your way to insult your base reality.
SIGH.
Courtesy laurenpettigrew.files.wordpress.com
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February 13, 2012
YOS Presents…
Stephanie Miller commenting on Sarah Palin’s voice…
“It’s like a band saw going through a bike frame.”
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February 5, 2012
Cleaning out: Wall Street, wolves, Masai warriors & raw milk
Every time I see all those huge phalanxes of highly-weaponized and militarized police brigades viciously attacking protesting American citizens in cities across our country, all I can think of is this: “The cost of even one of those cops’ salaries, overtime pay and elaborate gear represents at least a hundred of our children who will go without textbooks, or a fire department that will miss out on purchasing lifesaving equipment or some shoddy infrastructure in my town that will never get fixed or….”
You get the picture. That’s billions of American taxpayers’ dollars being spent to protect the One Percent’s right to safely gouge and enslave us. What a waste. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_YZtKXXCvg
And as we continue to watch thousands of every-day Americans being savagely beaten and arrested in our very own country, these last few months have become a very confusing time for most of us — but also a time that has been hopeful and rewarding.
For so many decades that it’s embarrassing to think about, the needs and preferences of us average Americans have been deliberately ignored and undermined by the wealthy corporatists who own us. And apparently these oligarchs have, until now, always firmly believed that most of us Americans will continue to think and do whatever we have been told to think and do — forever.
But now most of us lowly worms have finally started to turn.
After spending all too many years of our lives standing submissively by while everything meaningful — from religion to lingerie — has gotten happily vacuumed up by corporatist Blue Meanies, we Americans are finally beginning to stand up for ourselves and vote with our feet instead of with Diebold.
Human beings were never meant to have their sole purpose to be to make oligarchs rich. Doesn’t even the Bible say that? Yes, I think that it does. And so does the Torah and the Qur’an for that matter. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” That kind of stuff.
Or, as Rudyard Kipling so succinctly put it in my Franklin Daily Planner recently, “The strength of the Pack is the Wolf — and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack”. And Americans are also only as strong as our weakest links. And when too many of us become homeless, jobless, illiterate and sick, then America becomes more and more fragile — allowing us to get picked off one by one by the very One Percent vultures who have made us this weak in the first place.
It’s time to start cleaning these rapacious vultures out of our lives now, right now — while we still can.
And speaking of cleaning out, my Chinese New Year’s resolution is to eat really healthy — and what could be more healthy than mother’s milk? A mother cow’s milk, that is.
And so for the next 24 hours, I’m going to follow the example of strong Masai warriors and live mostly on raw milk.
Yummers!
Plus, no one ever died of cancer as a result of drinking raw milk — unlike the many people who have died of cancer after drinking uber-processed milk taken from hormone-treated, antibiotic-drugged, feed-lot-crazed cows http://axiomatica.org/myvideos/video/130.
But before you start to guffaw and knock raw milk as being too weird or too old-fashioned or unsanitary, please do try it first. Delicious.
Here’s a warning, however. A friend of mine just told me that if you are having trouble getting pregnant, raw milk will help. Hmmm. Does that mean that I’ll be getting pregnant soon too? Good grief, I hope not! But drinking raw milk is also supposed to provide immuno-globulins, vitamins, enzymes, beneficial probiotic bacteria and cancer-fighting CLA, as well as helping to prevent bone-density loss, strengthen the immune system, encourage iron assimilation and help ease constipation http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_health_benefits.html.
But will it also turn me into a Masai warrior? Or even perhaps into a wolf? How cool would that be!
And will drinking raw milk also make me strong and invincible enough to stand up to the One Percent’s slick new mercenary stormtroopers — now playing all across America, in a city near you? Probably not, unfortunately. Sigh.
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February 3, 2012
Ye Olde Scribe’s Question of the Year
“Will the current Republican front runner’s campaign prove to be just a hideously expensive reincarnation of the doomed Kerry campaign?”
-A-Non-E-Moose
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January 29, 2012
Threats & Bribes: Why U.S. troops will never leave Afghanistan
I read somewhere that if you want your children to do what you tell them to do, there are only two things that actually work: Threats and bribes. Well, the same thing should be true with regard to international relations — but it’s not.
Internationally speaking, threats and bribes have obviously gotten American corporatist leaders absolutely nowhere.
After decades and decades of administering extremely serious threats and fantastically huge bribes (involving both Cold Wars and hot), American corporatists still aren’t even close to being obeyed — or even respected — by most other countries on this planet. American corporatists nowadays are just simply being hated.
Instead of having other countries instantly obey Washington and Wall Street like they were a bunch of obedient and/or traumatized children, all these so-called “kids” obviously have become passive-aggressive haters instead — and sometimes not all that passive as well.
Take Pakistan for instance. In 1947, shortly after it had become a nation, Pakistan willingly and happily signed on to become one of America’s most important allies in the Great Game. And now, as of May 2011, diplomatic ties between Pakistan and the U.S. have completely disintegrated — but only after a very long time (60 years-plus) spent with Pakistan being the recipient of a whole laundry list of heavy-duty threats and almost-obscene bribes from American corporatists.
I just got back from a friend’s birthday party — where I received the entire 411 on Pakistan from a Middle East expert standing over by the hors d’oeuvre table. “When American troops entered Pakistan in [alleged] pursuit of bin Ladin, then Pakistanis considered that as an invasion.” Okay. Invasion seems like a rather large threat.
“So now Pakistan has finally stopped being our close ally and, thanks to Washington’s bad timing, has become a rogue state with a nuclear bomb — a loose cannon — instead.”
In the matter of US-Pakistan relations, threats and bribes clearly haven’t worked. Oops. Sorry about that.
And then there’s Iran. Currently, our corporatist-controlled mainstream media is busy spreading erroneous rumors that Iran has a nuclear weapons program — and should be stopped at any cost. Even Elizabeth Warren, who surely should know better, is swallowing up this falsehood hook, line and sinker. What nuclear weapons program? Iranians don’t have one. But even if they did, who could blame them for wanting one after having spent the past 45 years at the business-end of corporatist America’s threats and bribes.
But we all know that the corporatists’ latest flurry of war-drum-beating is, once again, not about nuclear weapons or other WMDs– it’s all about oil. But even so, threats and bribes clearly haven’t worked with regard to stealing Iran’s oil either.
Losers.
And then there’s good old Macedonia. “Huh?” you might shrug. “What’s Macedonia got to do with all this?” Well, American corporatists, at considerable expense to us ever-gullible American taxpayers, has just built a HUGE new military complex in Macedonia — because it is within bombing range of the Middle East. So. Did you know that American corporatists now have an exciting new vacation home in good old Macedonia? I thought not.
Now let’s take a look at the total mess and disaster that corporatists have created by bribing Israelis and threatening Palestinians. Ugh. What ever happened to “Repair the World”?
Plus don’t forget Afghanistan. According to that expert I met at the birthday party over guacamole and cheese sticks, American corporatists’ interests (as compared to the interests of just poor slobs like you and me, mere voters and taxpayers) will NEVER let U.S. troops leave Afghanistan. “Why is that?” I asked, while reaching for the Gouda and rye.
“Because of its strategic location, right next door to both Pakistan and Iran — and, of course, to Russia and China.” Four countries who have the chutzpah to withstand American corporatist takeovers.
So American corporatists now have huge bases in Afghanistan and Macedonia (and don’t forget Israel, Iraq and Kuwait) — whose main purpose seems to be to surround Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China with huge threats.
And there’s one more country that I forgot to mention where corporatist threats and bribes may not be working either — America itself. Even despite all the recent tear gas in Oakland and New York City and all the happy promises offered by Fox News, Americans are also starting to wise up and act like rebellious children — Hansel and Gretel to be specific.
Carrots and sticks. Threats and bribes.
However, American corporatists are NOT dealing with little kids here — but rather with adult human beings and sovereign nations. And so their authoritarian theory of threats and bribes — a theory that appears to work well on easily-cowed kindergarteners — is not doing so good when forced down the throats of grown-up countries like Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and even the U.S.
As evidenced by the failure of Washington’s and Wall Street’s multi-trillion-dollar post-WWII foreign policies that have forced the rest of the world’s 99 percent into today’s sorry state of disequilibrium between uber-rich and downtrodden, threats and bribes just don’t work all that well in the sphere of international relations. Cooperation between nations and peoples works better.
And, come to think of it, encouraging cooperation also works better on real children too! http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Self-Development/Parenting/Children-Are-from-Heaven/20469.
PS: The birthday party turned out to be a great success. A birthday was celebrated, deep ideas were discussed — and there was plenty of food. And speaking of food, I also talked to an expert on America’s failing food production system. Apparently our lack of food supply sustainability is gonna screw up America’s future bigtime, happily giving us cancer, among other things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1pKlnhvg0 [Monsanto & Cancer Milk: Fox News Kills Story and Fires Reporters]
And I also talked to someone who stated that the future of America ultimately depends on the success or failure of its small businesses — not on placating huge greedy corporations who will do anything for money. “Did you know that WalMart opens approximately 30 big-box stores per month? And that each one of these monsters causes at least ten small local business to fail because they can’t compete with WalMart’s artificially-lowered prices, sweat-shop imports and tax breaks received for outsourcing?”
He also lamented the fact that, over in Afghanistan, authorities openly ask for baksheesh because baksheesh is an accepted custom, understood for what it is: A bribe. “But over here in America, these same bribes are disguised and made legal by being called various fog-enshrouding names such as building permit fees, business licenses, liquor licenses, tax codes requirements, parking charges, payments to for-profit health insurance companies, etc. that nickel-and-dime American small businesses to death. But baksheesh is baksheesh, no matter what you call it.”
Threats and bribes. Not working! Let’s try cooperation instead.
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Ye Olde Scribe Presents: Inventions We’re Unlikely to See
Political Brand Duct Tape
Tired of all the gunk pouring out of candidates mouths? Like actual duct tape, political duct tape doesn’t work on ducts… or actual ducks. (Feathers get in the way, though classic movies like Horse Feathers or Duck Soup can be heard through it. Hail Freedonia!) But political duct tape is engineered to hold in all the foolish bile pouring out of the candidates, pundits and pols mouths. Can only be spoken through if the words are respectful and make an ounce of sense.
Guaranteed to make it a more peaceful, quieter, world.
The Dyson Sack-less Penis
The arrests started early at Move In Day
The first arrest
Marcher prepares to step off at Ogawa Plaza
Protesters at Ogawa Plaza watch events live-streamed from elsewhere
Those, who have made the prediction that Oakland will be the place that will provide a plausible reason for conservatives to assert that martial law is needed in the United States to maintain order, just got a specific newsworthy example of how things could hypothetically get so out of control that the only possible remedy would be a brief experiment with martial law.
Stories have been emerging in the regional news media that predict that the budgetary crisis in the city of Oakland will soon require a need to bring some national control over the Oakland Police Department.
Since the topic of what happened in Oakland starting at noon on Saturday, January 28, 2012 will be a popular subject for use on the Internets during the coming week, and since a columnist/photographer, who contributes regularly to this website, was a witness with a Nikon Coolpix for the first four hours of the Move In Day Protest, we will provide readers with a subjective report on Oakland’s latest contribution to the evolving history of the Occupy Movement.
Since the World’s Laziest Journalist is particularly fond of the coffee sold at De Lauer’s Newsstand (you read that right it’s an old fashioned store that specializes in newspapers and magazines) we went to Oakland and arrived about a half hour before the noon event was scheduled to begin.
There was about a hundred protesters gathered on the North side of Frank Ogawa plaza when we arrived. We took the opportunity to take some photos of the signs and artwork because, even if the event turned out to be a total non-story, pictures of the signs would be the kind of feature photos that one website could use later.
Just before noon a fellow came up to the World’s Laziest Journalist and requested that we not take photos that showed protesters’ faces.
At morning coffee earlier in Berkeley, a fellow in Berkeley predicted that there would be no arrests would be made at the day’s event.
The OPD (Oakland Police Department) got the first arrest on the scoreboard before the event was five minutes old thus giving writers the opportunity to use a sports metaphor such as a kick-off return that produces a touchdown.
The protesters took a winding march route that led them to the campus of Laney College where it looked like, to this columnist, they were cordoned off. Then protesters who were passing by reported that local news media was reporting that the protesters had moved to a new location to the north of the College.
At the college one police officer advised citizens to stay as far away from the event as they could. Recently in similar news events in the greater San Francisco Bay area, reporters with press credentials have been detained along with protesters and so the advice seemed, to a fellow who no longer carries a current press pass, like sound advice.
If nothing else, the police and protesters seem unanimous on the idea that photographers should get lost.
When this photographer covered an event known as the Venice Canal Riot in the Seventies it didn’t seem like fatigue was a factor in the day’s events.
Why then could that same photographer now claim that after only four hours of walking around Oakland, going back to Frank Ogawa Plaza to catch a bus going back to Berkeley, might cause some negative comments on his next job performance report?
In the old days when carrying a Nikon F and needing the skill of loading 35 mm film onto a Nikor reel was part of the job qualifications, it was necessary to be aware of deadline limitations. The photographer had to be aware of the time not only in Los Angeles, but in other cities in the USA.
A sports photo that moved at 9 p.m. PST, would arrive in sports departments on the East Coast at midnight, which was deadline time for getting material into the next morning street edition.
It was a commonly accepted rule of thumb that if a photographer didn’t see his work move on the wire before 6 p.m. Pacific Time, it didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of being used by the Los Angeles Times.
There are, we understand, some state of the art digital cameras that can download onto the Internets directly and instantaneously from the scene where news has occurred. We understand that live steam video “live from the scene” is being provided to some people with the right computer equipment.
We got a feature style photo of a hand held device showing a teargas attack somewhere in Oakland to the protesters at back Frank Ogawa Plaza. No deadline lag there.
Santa Claus has not yet delivered any computer hardware that would drastically shorten the amount of time that the World’s Laziest Journalist requires to post any material online. We have to go back to the laptop, download the files from the Coolpix, edit the images and select the best ones, then go to a place where a wifi connection can be accessed, and then post photos and a story on the Internets.
A quick check of the Internets on the way back to the laptop in Berkeley provide a glimpse of some excellent images on the Contra Costa Times website and that had the effect of slightly diminishing the World’s Laziest Journalist’s level of enthusiasm for the process of posting.
On Saturday night, we noted that KCBS’s hourly CBS radio network news was very focused on the fact that Herman Kane had endorsed Newt Gingrich. While we were listening and editing the digital images, KCBS reported that the Protesters had entered a WMCA and interacted with some people there who were exercising.
Obviously the explanation of just what going into that place had to do with the day’s announced goal of entering an abandoned building and establishing a claim that such a move was a humanitarian effort to provide shelter for the homeless will have to be elaborated by the nebulous Occupy Movement protesters, who take pride in featuring no management hierarchy that can provide authoritative replies to any reporter’s inquiries.
Initially, the unexplained visit to the YMCA, which KCBS reported added another one hundred arrests to the scoreboard, might seem inappropriate as part of the argument that action has to be taken to prove that empty office building might be a viable alternative to the Occupy Campsites which drew extensive criticism attributed to local business men.
By 6 a.m. Sunday morning, KCBS was reporting that the total number of arrests had risen to the 300 level.
The Sunday 7 a.m. PST CBS radio network newscast made a brief mention of the Move In Day arrests in Oakland.
Some protesters entered the Oakland City Hall on Saturday evening. Initially KCBS was relaying the information that photographers at the City Hall had noticed that the protesters did not have to force entry to the facility. By Sunday morning, reports stated that Occupy protesters had broken into the City Hall and then trashed the place.
On a quiet Sunday morning in Berkeley, the columnist/photographer wrote up his subjective report on the newsworthy Saturday protest and then planned to travel to a place where he could post it.
What makes it worthwhile for a fellow to spend all that time and effort to produce something which conservatives will ridicule as glorifying thugs and liberals, other than the ones who stumble across it where it is posted, will ignore? . . .
Can we get back to your later with the answer to that question?
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January 27, 2012
Joey Biden, Alexey Brodovitch, and Bon Scott together again (for the first time) in this weekend wrap-up column
Statue in Fremantle
Flower power!
Snapshot collecting is a trend in Berkeley CA
[Note: In an effort to enhance the reading on the humor scale, this column will be found to contain trace elements of braggadocio and fabricated verisimilitude.]
Due to the fact that a member of the Fortyniners did his imitation of Bill Bruckner style clutch performance twice in one game last Sunday, we are obliged [It’s never fun to lose a bet] to start this week’s weekend wrap up by plugging a blog (www.franknicodemus.org
{did she say it was the Cadillac of blogs or a blog about Cadillacs?}) for a Giants fan and then proceeding on to our regularly scheduled ration of amazingly perceptive and insightful political punditry interwoven with unique observations about pop culture.
Are the mainstream media pundits pointing out the absurd spectacle presented by the fact that a year long cavalcade of clichés proclaiming that the most important Presidential election ever? It is starting with a concerted effort by top Republican personalities to discredit the two leading candidates. How dare the Republican rank ’n’ file voters think that they can select the nominee! Isn’t the core principle of a Republic that only qualified persons (such as men who own land) can vote? Well then only folks like Bob Dole and Karl Rove should be consulted when it comes time to write a news story that will refer to “the Republican frontrunner.”
If it ain’t gonna be Romney or Gingrich, then who will it be? If the experts on the weekend shouting matches can’t tell you that, do you really expect the World’s Laziest Journalist to make an accurate prediction which will spoil the surprise? Here’s a hint: what totally qualified Republican has the initials: J. E. B.?
The Republicans lately have been rather insistent about starting a tiny, quick war with Iran. The Republicans always harshly criticize everything Obama does. If President Obama starts a war with Iran; will that force the Republicans into making a tough fielder’s choice decision? They can either cheer him on in the conduct of a blitzkrieg in the Gulf or they can denounce him for doing what they wanted to do.
Even if President Obama starts a new war they really want, and even if he personally goes into battle and wins a Medal of Honor and the war is won in thirty minutes, the Republicans would sincerely ridicule that as being a despicable inept spectacle that has brought shame and dishonor to the country.
Where can we get a photo that contrasts flower power with a soldier’s weapon to illustrate the dilemma facing the USA this week? There was an iconic Sixties image that showed a hippie guy placing the stem of a flower into the barrel of an M-1. That image is rather common on the Internets, but we won’t use it because we don’t know who owns the rights to the famous shot, so that makes getting permission to use that shot a moot question.
Berkeley CA is rather synonymous with both flower power and anti-war demonstrations and, as luck would have it, to promote the current production at the Ashby Stage (home of the Shotgun Players) a relevant new mural is being used to tout it. It is a graphic design featuring an M-16 with a flower dangling from the gun barrel. Click. Voila! We now have in our possession, a digital file of an image that makes getting permission to use it seem like a schizophrenic’s soliloquy .
Who knew that being an online columnist would eventually require a fellow to acquire a stockpile of stock photos and a handbook full of information about the art director’s job?
(Most columnists online or in print journalism have probably never heard of Alexey Brodovitch, let alone aspire to his level of art direction achievements in page layout and photo illustrations to supplement the text on the page.)
Did other political pundits report that on a fundraising visit to San Francisco, the columnist’s old grade school classmate Joey Biden suffered a verbal malfunction that revealed his lack of sports expertise show? The gaff landed Biden on page one of the San Francisco Examiner the next day for saying that the Giants were going to the Superbowl. Wouldn’t a photo of the security detail assigned to the Vice President be an example of an anemic illustration for a weekend wrap up that runs more than a week later?
It’s tough enough to get up early, pound out a column that the writer hopes is entertaining and informative augmented by (occasionally) topics that are subsequently used in the main stream media, and then go to a public library to get access to the Internets to post it; but when you add on the duties of a photographer and an amateur art director to the “to do” list, that makes it all the more time consuming. Herb Caen, who wrote a daily column in San Francisco for sixty years never had to spend time finding a photo that was relevant to his column, did he?
What if the columnist’s stock photo files have some nifty photos of Bon Scott’s statue in Fremantle Western Australia, but he didn’t get any images of the Occupy the Cal Library news story during the week? Will UCB students be upset that the library story wasn’t covered by the photographer? Do kids these days even know who Bon Scott was? Well, such a shot would be sure to draw about one Google searching person somewhere in the world to the site every day for years to come. Unfortunately no American website would be willing to reimburse the photographer for the expenses that would be incurred in the effort to get such images.
What if the journalist’s trend-spotting radar picks up a regional anomaly? If snapshot collecting is not becoming popular anywhere else but in Berkeley and if the columnist gets caught up in the “hobby,” does it deserve to be a trend-spotting column topic? Is a decades old photo print considered to be in the public domain? Would the topic of snapshot collecting be a valid excuse for running an intriguing old snapshot with no caption material?
The columnist seems to find images featuring old automobiles irresistible even on a tight budget. Someday, if we ever write a trend-spotting column about snapshot collecting, we will probably have several eye-catching images to go with it.
A homeless writer in Berkeley CA caused a bit of a small sensation online this week by challenging Mitt Romney to do a Prince and the Pauper routine and trade places. The Berkeley fellow, James Richard Armstrong II, is on Facebook and looking to expand his fan base by adding more readers to his list of friends, so folks who want to follow his progress can go to that site and send him an invitation to be an e-friend. A good portrait of him would have been a good photo illustration for this column.
If Corporations are going to have the same rights and privileges as people, then when will they be permitted to compete in the Olympic Games? Wouldn’t the New York Yankees kick ass in the baseball competition? Life magazine has collected the 100 best sports pictures for a gallery on their website.
We were introduced to a fellow in Berkeley this week whose claim to fame was being “Louie the Turkey” on some Frank Zappa recordings. Unfortunately we didn’t get a photo of the fellow.
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland is planning an event which, if the World’s Laziest Journalist goes, might provide some acceptable accompanying news photos for a weekend warp-up column that will get posted next Friday.
The quest for good photos will continue . . .
Alexey Brodovitch has been quoted as saying:
A. “This disease of our age is boredom… The way to combat this is by invention – by surprise. When I say a good picture has surprise value, I mean that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me.”
B. “A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think.”
C. “If [an artist] is to maintain his integrity, he must be responsible to himself; he must seek a public which will accept his vision, rather than pervert his vision to fit that public.”
D. “If you see something you have seen before, don’t click the shutter.”
E. All of the above.
Now the disk jockey will play “Kodachrome,” Ferde Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite,” and Ferrantey and Teicher’s “Canadian Sunset.” We have to go find a movie theater showing “Hugo” in 2-D. Have a “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!” type week.
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January 24, 2012
Elizabeth George: Murder mysteries are more than just crime novels
Before this month, I had never even heard of Elizabeth George. But then I read where she will be the featured guest of honor at next year’s BoucherCon mystery writers’ and fans’ convention in Cleveland http://bouchercon2012.com/guests.php — so I sorta felt obligated to read some of her stuff. And boy am I glad that I did. George is not only a master of the crime novel genre, but she’s also clearly the master of almost any fiction genre you can name.
So when Books, Inc. in Alameda announced that George was giving a talk the other day, I just had to go. And after George had talked for about two minutes, it became instantly clear that she was saying important stuff and so I started taking notes as she expounded on what it means to be a writer — and how to do it too. Here are my notes:
“When writing, the most important thing involved is not what the author thinks — but what the characters are thinking. Some novels are plot-driven but most are character-driven, and so paying attention to your characters is paramount.
“I prefer to write crime novels because the crime itself serves as a vehicle to get through a book’s need for a plot. I trick people into thinking that it’s a crime novel — but actually I’m writing social commentary and so can explore issues broader than just the crime.” Aha.
“The reason that I write about the British is because of the challenge involved. When you use that old formula ‘Write what you know,’ you run the risk of writing the same book over and over, and I never want to write the same book twice.” Plus we all know that learning new things is good for one’s brain cells — and mine could use all the help they can get.
“And writing about a place where you don’t live is also easier because it’s easier to see the nuances of a place that you’re not familiar with. And since the setting should always be considered a main character too, you can also be more objective. Plus I’m lucky that my editor encourages me to make every book different instead of demanding the same cookie-cutter approach to all my characters and locations.”
One of George’s most well-known books is, “What Came Before He Shot Her,” which tells us how Inspector Thomas Lynley’s pregnant wife Helen came to be gunned down on her own front doorstep. “My challenge was to make Joel Campbell, the boy charged with the crime, to be as sympathetic as Helen Lynley.”
Several of George’s books have been used as the basis for a Masterpiece Theater series on the BBC. How does she feel about that? “I am a novelist. That is my art form. So I don’t get caught up in the motion picture aspects. I’m not involved, so it’s no big deal what the BBC does or doesn’t do with my characters — although I was disappointed that they turned my novels into straight mystery stores and left out so much of the social-commentary nuances.” She also mentioned that she’s not interested in doing another BBC series again.
And why did George choose to write books? “I wrote my first novels simply to entertain myself, but I had known that I was a writer since I was age seven. When I began to write this series, I didn’t know much about my characters but, as I wrote, the information slowly appeared. For instance I originally didn’t know that Inspector Lynley even had a brother — let alone that he was an addict. Or that there was a gulf between him and his mother. And I found all that out only as I was writing the books. It’s all about creating a character in fiction.”
How did George master the Caribbean-flavored dialects she used in “What Came Before He Shot Her”? Lots of research. “I wanted to write about characters doing the best that they can under very difficult circumstances. That was my first goal. Then I went to the Black housing estates themselves in order to learn the dialect spoken there, that Joel Campbell would have used. Writing dialect is tricky. If you write everything in dialect, it is quite hard to read — so you look for and use only key words that only illustrate that a dialect is being used. For instance, Joel uses the slang version of ‘Isn’t it’ a lot here.”
Readers were apparently incensed when George killed off Helen Lynley, comparing it to when Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes. “But I knew several books before she finally got shot that Helen Lynley would have to die because I couldn’t deal with her pregnancy. A baby would have closed the story down. There ain’t much more boring to write about than a baby. At first I thought that a serial killer would bump her off, but that’s just too convenient. Plus in Britain today it’s more common that someone just shoots you for no known reason at all. So that’s what happened to Helen. And although the reader is finally able to see what caused the shooting, the police never do find out either who really did it or why.”
Writing and babies? George may be on to something here. Just look what happened to poor Sylvia Plath. Have you ever tried to write something deep and earnest while a four-year-old is bugging you to watch “The Backyardagans”? No easy task. Moral here? That if Helen Lynley had lived, she would have had a really hard time becoming a novelist?
“How do you go about writing and what would your typical writing day be like?” someone then asked George (that would be me).
“I grew up Catholic and am thus incapable of enjoying life because I feel so guilty if I’m not doing something. So I get up at 4:30 am, go running, and then put in six hours of writing in my office. I try to write at least five pages a day, and am currently working on two novels at the same time — one that takes place in DeLuca, Italy, and one that’s a young-adult novel which takes place on Whidbey Island, where I live. And then I eat lunch and work in the garden or learn Italian in order to clear my head.”
George also swears by Alfred Hitchcock’s famous refrigerator test. “That’s when people are still talking about his film even after they’ve gotten home — and are looking in the refrigerator for a snack and still saying to themselves, ‘Ah, come on. Nobody’s going to do that…’ Will a plot of mine pass the Refrigerator Test?”
What about setting a murder mystery in America, based conflicts here between the One Percent and the 99 percent — similar to the class conflicts in Britain that Inspector Lyndley often deals with?
“No — because the barriers between classes here are permeable, but in the UK it’s virtually impossible to pass through class barriers. For instance, the UK tabloid press absolutely hates that Kate Middleton, whose grandfather was a coal miner, may become queen. It would be harder for me to make class differences in America as believable.”
No problem there. All she would have to write about is how hard it is to penetrate American corporatist dynasties like the Rockefellers, Bushes, Morgans, Rothschilds, Gettys and Waltons (of Wal-Mart fame). I rest my case!
And what about research? “Never let it get in the way of your story. I always write about what I want to learn about — not what I already know. I like to have a challenge when I write.”
So how about this for the ultimate crime-novel-writing challenge: To write about who killed democracy in America and how the corporatist bad guys almost got away with the murder — until Inspector Lynley solves the crime, gets the evil-doers convicted and then puts all these slimy corporatist bastards in jail where they belong.
And then George could definitely have fun combining this murder mystery plot with a LOT of social commentary.
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January 20, 2012
E Cannabis Unum: Has medical marijuana helped my sore knees?
I’ve just about tried everything there is to make my sore knees and right ankle feel better — physical therapy, acupuncture, SynVisc (nasty stuff), chiropractic, Advil, hydrotherapy, Tiger Balm, xi gong, steam baths, reiki, Filipino psychic surgery, hypnotherapy, Zam-Zam water, deep-tissue massage, yoga,.. You name it and I’ve tried it. But nothing has worked — until now.
Now I’ve discovered “DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream,” which is made from shea butter, palm oil, vegetable wax and cannabis. That’s right, you read that right. I am currently rubbing marijuana onto my knees.
And, yes, it’s legal. And, yes, it works.
“But where did you get this stuff?” you might ask. “While standing on a corner in West Oakland? After skipping across the border to Tijuana? By following hippies around up on Telegraph? In the evidence room at the DEA? Where?”
I got it at my friendly local marijuana dispensary http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/. And what a trip that was too, with all kinds of types — from arthritic old ladies and dying cancer patients to young men and women who looked like they’ve never been sick a day in their life — standing in a really long line and waiting their turn in front of a huge display counter featuring everything from manufactured doobies and sativa buds to infused chocolates and ointments like the kind that I got.
But, hey, DocGreen’s soothing therapeutic ointment worked.
Plus it also made me sort of happy — a big surprise there. Not that I was stoned or zonked or nothing, and there was definitely no slow-motion-type incapacitation or uncontrollable munchies like I’ve heard that you get from eating dope brownies or smoking a spliff. And there was none of that sudden Bob Marley “one-love” positive-vib stuff either. I still have all the same worries and troubles that I used to have before — that corporatists are still destroying our country and my tooth still hurts and I’m still overdrawn at the bank — but now I’m just a little bit less on edge about all that and a little bit more able to cope.
PS: I figured that since just a little bit of DocGreen’s healing therapeutic moisturizer helped my soreness and also my frame of mind, then perhaps I should try a bit more. So I rubbed some of the ointment onto my sore neck as well. Wrong thing to do. An immediate headache resulted, and then I started worrying again all over — but this time more fiercely. Oh rats. I just knew it was too good to be true. Looks like I’d better go back to trying holy water and saunas.
But then I listened to Layna Berman on KPFA and she said that many people end up getting addicted to various substances by trying to “take the edge off” their lives. Hey, I wanna take the edge off! But according to Berman, no, that’s not a good idea, Apparently having worries is a good thing — because they force you to act, to try out different things that might end all those worries. Perhaps like joining OWS in order to end the corporatists’ sleazy reign of terror in Washington? Oh, okay.
Berman also stated that by using outside means of cheering oneself up, then our body loses its own ability to cheer itself up.
PPS: Then I listened to a video on “Full Disclosure” that talked about how California is being taken over by Mexican drug lords — even including taking over the legal medical marijuana trade. Yikes!
According to a recent “Full Disclosure” report, “Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers. Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.” http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php
Double yikes! Now I’m in danger of becoming a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel! Just because I’ve got bad knees.
PPPS: If marijuana is illegal, shouldn’t they make all those other artificial feel-good substances illegal too? Like cigarettes and booze? Wouldn’t it be nice if you had to have a doctor’s prescription before you could set foot into a liquor store?
PPPPS: Someone else just recommended that I just simply stick to eating mushrooms. According to a recent TED video on the subject, mushrooms are the last best hope for this planet and we can even use them instead of fossil fuel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY Yeah, but can mushrooms make my ankle and knees (and brain) feel any better?
PPPPS: Then I went up to that dispensary on Telegraph Avenue at http://berkeleypatientscare.com/ and got a chocolate infusion to eat. Forget that! One small bite almost the size of a baby’s fingernail and I was absolutely frozen in place for the next TWELVE WHOLE HOURS. I couldn’t even get to my computer to call for help on FaceBook!
****
This article is Part One of an ongoing series regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using medical marijuana. And if anyone wants to try DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream, please let me know and I’ll give you the 411.
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January 14, 2012
Bizarre News: What American corporatists are getting away with now
Bizarre News: What American corporatists are getting away with now
After I got my long hair caught in a vacuum cleaner the other day, my first thought was pure terror — like I had just been attacked by werewolves or vampires with claws! But then my second thought was, “Gee, at least I HAVE a vacuum cleaner”.
Despite the recent huge economic downturn, most Americans are still relatively well-off right now, even me. Sure, our infrastructure sucks eggs and we mostly have run-down schools and hospitals, but at least we still have them. Old and run down. But still functioning at least.
But wait! Perhaps help for our hospitals is finally on the way! Is it really true that American corporatists have recently decided to spend over nine billion dollars to build at least 20 brand new state-of-the-art hospitals in Georgia? According to RT News, yes indeed this is true.
The only problem here, however, is that the corporatists who currently own our country are now in the process of building these 20 wonderful new hospitals in the former Soviet-bloc state of Georgia — not in the American state with the same name that’s famous for peaches and Braves. http://rt.com/politics/us-georgia-iran-war-441/
How bizarre is that news?
And now I’ve just read where American corporatists have recently sent in the U.S. Coast Guard to break up a strike by American longshoremen. That’s even more bizarre than getting one’s hair sucked into a vacuum cleaner — and even more painful. One can always just cut one’s hair off, but forcing America’s military to act like low-life strike-breaking scabs? That’s a cut to our democracy that may never heal.
ILWU members had been promised jobs in Longview as a priority condition for allowing corporatists to receive massive federal subsidies to build a new terminal at the Washington state port. But after the terminal was safely built, greedy corporatist slugs then fired the longshoremen’s union members point-blank — and not only got away with it but used the U.S. military as their own personal enforcers and thugs. http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/10/san-francisco-unions-support-ilwu-local-21-at-egt/.
Am I the only one that finds this news a bit bizarre?
American coproratists seem to be getting away with EVERYTHING these days. Cheating on elections, throwing people out of their homes, never paying taxes, robbing our treasury blind, fighting undeclared wars for fun and profit on our dime, beating protesting citizens with clubs, buying off Congress, etc. But almost nobody in America seems to want to stop them.
Here’s more bizarre news — Stephen Cobert’s video explaining how corporatist superPACs steal our elections: http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/
Had enough yet? Or do you want to read some even more bizarre news about what corporatists are getting away with now? Yes? Then take a long look at this: The unassailable New York Times, the esteemed Gray Lady herself, recently reported that the IAEA had accused Iran of using its nuclear program to develop military weapons. But guess what? The IAEA had said no such thing. Now the esteemed Gray Lady has lied to us (again) in order to get us into a useless and unnecessary war (again) that would only benefit corporatists. http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/times-errors-irans-nukes-sfs-voting/
Very deja vu. Very bizarre.
But — to me (but apparently to nobody else) — this is the absolute most bizarre news of all: Perry, Santorum, Obama, Romney and even Newt Gingrich and JEB Bush are all running on a platform of being good Christians. Huh? What?
NO ONE who either calls for the bombing women and children in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and America — or is actually out doing it — can EVER call himself or herself a good Christian. Ever. These people are no more good Christians than was Attila the Hun.
Send drones to kill babies? Where in the Bible does it say that Jesus did that?
Leaving the meek of the earth to starve to death and the peacemakers of the world to be jailed? Jesus is down with that too? Not!
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” said Jesus. Beating down non-violent OWS protesters with pepper spray, tear gas and truncheons? NOT CHRISTIAN. Not Christian at all.
Yet no one seems to be calling these monsters out on their uber-hypocracy. No one calls them out at all. That’s bizarre.
And it’s also rather bizarre that all these corporatist presidential candidates are happily telling us that they are in favor of “Democracy”. There is NOTHING less democratic than a corporation. Face it, CEOs are tyrants. Corporatists worship the dictatorship model. To tell us that they want America to remain a democracy is absurd.
Corporatists by definition are top-down kinds of guys, “Do what I say or else you will lose all.” Corporatists by definition are bullying-type authoritarians who spit on America’s treasured democratic principles — and don’t you ever forget it!
Now let’s turn to the comic-page section of the news.
The average American today seems to more and more resemble that Peanuts cartoon character Charlie Brown — always trusting that somehow Lucy will let him finally kick the football. But guess what? No matter how many times you vote for the party of Bush-Obama-Romney-Santorum-Clinton-Paul or believe mainstream media reports or trust corporatists to finally hold the ball upright, you are still gonna get tricked every time. And you’re still gonna land flat on your face while corporatist secretly laugh at you as you lie there in the mud. And it’s still gonna hurt.
How’s that for bizarre news?
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