the defeatists!

Dear god, Lesbos revenge...Or Tiffany has taken over LLBean and Wrangeler!

If Rachel Maddow misses this one, she'll never forgive herself. This demands some cheery, snarky irony. I'm starting to think that having stopped drinking 19 years ago was a terrible mistake...

Back in the day, I used to joke that the Army hired designers who were gay and hated women in order to design their uniforms. They were awful -- not flattering, unattractive, inefficient and ineffective at doing what they were supposed to do. There is a nice irony in that the original women's fatigues had a cute little pocket on the sleeve for pens and pencils and tampax or whatever -- tootsie rolls, tampax, pocket vibrators --where now the Army Combat Uniform has the same thing.

However, I think that men's fashion has been taken over by Lesbians-Who-Hate-Men. The people who were running it before may have been gay, but they liked men. Or, perhaps it's an alliance between LWHM and Androgonous Guys on Bad Drugs...or possibly Good Drugs. However, I don't expect to see anyone that I'd care to have a cup of coffee with, listen to, or consider as a functional human being dressed like one of Britney's dancers on crack with better abs striding along the catwalk. Or street. seriously, if Mick or Steven ever showed up for a gig dressed like this, the Stones or Aerosmith would turn into the Village People. (Or, Keith and Joe would just shoot them. Blam. On Stage...and get off because they're rich, and  because they eliminated a public nuisance.) Even in the Crossroads of Opportunity; this would be outre even for Vegas.

I understand fashion statements. I just don't see the pont of "Hey Ever'bodee...I'm a dickless twit!" as one.

Meanwhile in the neighborhood...

of the crossroads of opportunity, just down the road a piece...

recursive dissonance slays me

"why pay all that rent, when some day you can own your own home?" 

"someday you can own your own place, or at least build equity."

"it's much better to work towads something you'll own one day.  it instills a sense of responsibility."

thanks mom. 

it's almost as if people never paid attention to their elders.

There I am in Spookaloo, city of magic, city of light, ensconced upon my front porch in broad daylight — long about noon, my rising time — drinking something of a potable beverage, playing my guitar, long after everybody else in the neighborhood has packed up their lunchbox and gone off down to Kaiser Aluminum to put in their shift. This enrages my neighbors. One in particular across the road, little retired banker fella, has been known to cannonball his rotundity across the road, and stand there and publicly berate me for my sloth and indolence.

"Why don’t you get a job?" he says. Lot of you heard that, I’ll bet.

Now, me being hip to the Socratic method, fires back a question. "Why?"

"Why?" he says, taken aback. "If you had a job you could make three, four, five dollars an hour."

I said "Why?" I asked, pursuing the same tack.

He said, "Hell, you make three, four, five dollars an hour, you could open a savings account, save up some of that money." I said, "Why?"

He said, "Well, you save up enough of that money, young fella, pretty soon you’ll never have to work another day in your life."

I said, "Hell, that’s what I’m doing right now!"

—Utah Phillips (1984), in the middle of his performance of Hallelujah, I’m a Bum! on We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years

I just learned today that Utah passed.  man, what a bummer.

anyone who ever went to college would understand that yes, you're not likely to get your deposit money back from the bastard running the place.  but you know what?  you could leave that place trashed as can be, because ultimately it's not your own place.  if the owner wants to rent it to the same class of people, or better, he'll need to invest in cleaning it up and improving it.  not me.  that's some fucking responsibility right there.  an ownership society is just as easily enslaved.  who's your master now?

Now, this is the sort of book they should be reading in English Lit 101

Because, after all, isn't this what all great literature is about? 

And everybody needs one of these...don't they?

The dog ate the weapon?

That's what we do when we catch bin Laden, goddamnit. My theory is that the perp was really a CIA operative trying out a new type of psychological warfare. Or, and this is disturbing on many levels, that's what they do for fun in the gay community of Fresno.

Everybody in the world, listen and listen good!

Get lives.  Seriously....If you want to share pet pictures, cococachoo.  But, don't waste electrons in this nonsense.

"I hate Illinois Nazis!" and ersatz Druids...

Three years ago the other night, I was with the significant other as opposed to the spouse. We were in her somewhat squalid rental and she announced that we were going to do something special that night. Well, that filled me with dread, actually. She then asked to borrow my buck knife -- why a guy in a suit teaching executive education to Navy types was carrying a 4 inch Buck folding blade at the significant other's home tells you more about me than her. Then, go in and change into my bathrobe. She went in and changed into her robe. Ok, the next step was to light a bunch of candles -- what is it about the Irish and candles? Is it the centuries of brainwashing and "Light a candle for your mother, maybe the good lord will cure the alcoholism and the dementia...Are we just a race of Pyromaniacs? I mean seriously, what the fuck is that all about? --and kneel on the floor in front of the fireplace in which we never had a fire despite the chill while she read what was supposed to be a Solstace prayer she got out of a New Age magazine. As I recall, vaguely, after the blessing of the summer or something, she then had me read some of Harry Potter to her. Ok, did I mention she had gorgeous green eyes, great legs and Irish blonde hair and most of the time was pretty sane? Because this doesn't sound like a her that an I would fall for.

Anyway, the news that the freaks came out on the solstice to the Salisbury plain to play at being Pagans and Druids didn't surprise me. Just annoyed me, in the way that Ryan Seacrest or whatever his name is annoys me. And, fucking Illinois Nazis...wannabes. I dislike wannabes. They're so busy wannabeing that they never are anything worth a shit. We're not suffering as a result of losing the touch of the sacred that the Druids or the old Celtic gods or the Norse or the "Pagans!" had or their wannabe successors profess to have. Now, we don't know what the fucking Druids did at  Stonehenge, we don't know what they really believed. We know, we think, that they worshiped trees. We also know that they were into human sacrifice and ritual torture. I'm not aware of masses of Mestizos showing up on the solstice to sacrifice virgins and rip out their hearts. Despite the fun in Help! the Devotees in Kali aren't mainstream and few folks decide to become part time Thugees  just to recapture their roots. I admire tribal members in this country who do the Sun Dance because that actually requires suffering and endurance and belief to get through. People who buy a big igloo shaped doghouse to pretend that it's a sweat lodge really should just go to the gym and sit in sauna. For some reason a lot of white folks want to harken back in their spiritual life to a reality that was not real. By the way, Pagan means not Judeo-Christian; it wasn't a specific religion. Calling yourself a Pagan could mean you're a Scientologist, a Sunworshipper or you worship your left as opposed to right testicle...

Did I mention it's 115 here in the Crossroads of Opportunity? Fuck a bunch of Druids...   

Now in the Fremont district of Seattle, they don't pretend that this more than an excuse for fun...

"This is serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we're trying to run away from," he said.

Yeah, we're one goddamn world after all....Another place that Michael Jackson needs to stay out of... The story is fraught with a very much what might have happened had Kafka and William Burroughs collaborated. This is the sort of thing that Hunter Thompson dreamed up when he was too fucking stoned, drunk and freaked out to get it down on paper or through the Mojo wire. It reads like Soylent Green, only in sub-Saharan Africa.

Samuel Mluge steps outside his office and scans the sidewalk. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, trying to focus. The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania there is a price for his pinkish skin now.
"I feel like I am being hunted," he said.

There are some really Kafkaesque touches...Let's assume, for a second, that the police are corrupt and venal , as they are in most third world countries, not just Iraq and Florida. How reassuring would this be for the hunted?

As the threats have increased, the Tanzanian government has mobilized to protect its albino population, an already beleaguered group whose members are often shunned as outcasts and die of skin cancer before they reach 30. Police officers are drawing up lists of albinos in every corner of the country to better look after them. Officers are escorting albino children to school. Tanzania's president even sponsored an albino woman for a seat in Parliament to show that "we are with them in this."

Yeah. I'm reassured. And, another place I plan on not visiting. And, the description of the population, pale skin and blue eyes describes something other than Albino Africans...hmm, maybe I need to re-think my position on the open carrying thing.

 

 

Red is for the blood we shed...

Since carrying a pistol in shoulder holster is somewhat difficult in summer heat, the new approach by the good citizens of Utah is to carry it on your hip, a la The Frisco Kid.  My first thought, which indicates that I'm comfortable with guns personally was, well, that could work...my next thought was along the lines of WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING! WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING!

Look, I firmly go along with "Guns don't kill people; evil, vicious, angry or stupid people kill people, with guns." I suspect that the authors of the 2nd Amendment were smoking some of George Washington's hemp when they wrote the thing, which, if taken literally, would allow us all to carry around our own portable M19 grenade launchers and think that it's reasonable to interpret it to provide protections to the non-Johnny Ringos amongst us. We are, collectively, the most violent and the most incarcerated developed nation in the freaking world.  Do we really want  Crips and Bloods and Klan and Minutemen and plain old fashioned dumbasses carrying 10 MM Glocks into Nordstroms to pick up a really nice Gucci Holster?

Obviously they at least consider it ok in Utah. This is one of those seriously deranged ideas that seem to spring up in the desert...the Independent Republic of Texas, the John Birch Society, the Branch Davidians, California is wonderful and on and on and on and on. I think Crusader AXE will be a late adapter of this trend.

The insufferable tendency of mankind to preach

The Council for Secular Humanism has an interesting article on the state of religion in the United States.  Noting that a rather huge number of Americans are in religious flux, switching between Anglican say to Devil Worshipping because they think The Tudors is historically accurate or something, or from Zen Buddhism to Tiffany or whatever. Actually, the trend according to Pew is more more around 8% having left the faith of their childhood for something else. The article points out that

Historically, immigrants who came to America from Europe and other parts of the world brought with them the religions of their forebears. They would congregate in ethnic communities in various cities or rural areas, build a church or temple, and raise their children within their denomination. Apparently, this is now changing. (No fucking kidding, you dweeb! It's called Suburbia...)The biggest losses seem to be occurring in the Roman Catholic Church, mainline Protestant churches, and relatively liberal synagogues.The key to understanding religion in America is that the free market is at work. (OK, the Defeatists have a mission now; find this dildonic neo-con agnostic and pants him at high noon in the Fern Bar where he probably eats some politically sensitve and correct concoction of Tofu and Goats Milk!!!)Religions are being offered—and evaluated—like other consumer products. Americans tend to select religions that satisfy their tastes and needs. No longer living in the neighborhoods in which they were born and freely moving to other parts of the country, they are easily able to change. (AXE emphasis...)

While this is pretty obvious and painfully silly, it gets worse. Much worse...

This new data signals a great opportunity for secular humanists to appeal to those who are in flux and who may not identify with existing religious denominations. Secular humanists need to make it clear that it is possible to provide a rational, scientific interpretation of the universe and the human species instead of relying on the ancient mythologies of the past, none of which are in accord with modern knowledge. It is crucial that we provide a new basis for ethics. (Why? Just wondering...I sort of thought that Aristotle, Kant, Mill and Jefferson kind of got it right...of course, I don't sit around thinking about how I can help other people be perfected...like a Cyberman on Doctor WHO) There is a great difference between dogmatic morality handed down from On High and a new morality of humanism and secularism that speaks to current concerns. (Yeah, the vestments will be from Macy's and Men's Warehouse! AXE Emphasis)

Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism? Or just a fan...

One of the great things about freedom of religion in this country is that it allows those of us who want to be left alone to contemplate the universe in our own way to do so. I find this sort of babble to be Ayn Randian at best. I find Jehovah's Witnesses and other fundamentalist types who come to the door to be kind of sad but admirable. They want to save your soul or at least help you save it yourself. While I think the Mormon faith is delusional, I find the willingness of many of it's young people to head off on a meager allowance to Mozambique or Greenland or someplace to go door to door for their faith admirable. Again, they are trying to save your soul. I politely thank these people, tell them that I am an atheist but thank them for their concern.

Now, here we have something really silly. The next time someone comes to the door, it could be a guy in a hemp suit and a gal who looks like the guy only with tits, passing out copies of Ingersoll and telling me how I've got nothing to worry about because there is no God and we're doing things by consensus now, based totally on science and rational thought. Yeah, that'll work for me.

Is this an American phenomenon or is it bred into us like hemophilia and proclivity for prostate cancer? Can we not allow people to come to their own conclusions and not see it as an opportunity to engage in free market preaching and damning...to heck? Probably not. Vegan, green, rational, driving Priuses and shunning infant vaccination...but logically, rationally and totally at odds with the humanist ideal, I think. This is sort of like the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy getting Letter Sweaters...maybe they should have a joint convention, or a goddamn rugby match -- the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy versus the Secular Humanists! The color commentators could be Chelsea Clinton and Pat Buchanan...