Fuck you Swarzenneggar
Fortunately, some bakeries and restaurants in Kaley-Forney-Ya have already made the transition to non-trans fats substitutes, such as palm oil, soy, etc., and claim the product is just as tasty. The others though have until 2010 to comply, and can be fined up to a thousand dollars for every second time and beyond they are not in compliance. The first time the fine is a measly twenty five dollars, which will probably be about the price of one of these cupcakes by about, oh, 2010.
The people that voted for Ahnuld thought they were getting the TERRRMINNAATTOOORRR RAAAUUUGGGHHH who was going to destroy the evil tax and spend nanny state mentality of the California Legislature.
Instead they got a kindergarten cop. What the hell did they expect? Every night when he goes to bed a Kennedy has him by the balls.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
He Was Here But Ye Knew Him Not
Question-was the person in the photo below the long-awaited Jewish Messiah? Could be. Of course, I would understand the reluctance many might have at accepting such an audacious claim. After all, he doesn't exactly have "hair as wool", to paraphrase the words of one of the Old Testament prophets who described the predicted Messiah.
Well, then again-
Come on, Jews, get to work rebuilding the Temple. Sure, the Islamic world would get pissed off, and so would a lot of the rest of the world, but hey, like the Messiah himself might say-
Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
Well, then again-
Come on, Jews, get to work rebuilding the Temple. Sure, the Islamic world would get pissed off, and so would a lot of the rest of the world, but hey, like the Messiah himself might say-
Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
John Edwards Cheats On Cancer-Stricken Wife And Thirty Million Plus Gay Americans
From the National Enquirer-
If true, this is good news for the Democrats, as what it means is John Edwards will probably be denied a chance to fuck up a second Democratic Party presidential campaign.
On the other hand, he is probably now definitely on the short list to run the Justice Department under any future Democratic Administration.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
CitiBank-Life Happened While It Was Busy Making Other (Shady) Plans
CitiBankl has just posted losses of more than two billion dollars, which wasn't as bad as expected, while now expecting a housing slump of about two years duration.
In other words, collectively speaking, we might be lucky, if this is true. So, what happened?
A lot of people are trying to blame it on the feds for forcing lenders to loan money to minorities, which is a lot of crap. News flash-nobody is forcing anybody to loan outrageous sums of money to people that are credit risks based on race. The law is meant to insure nobody is turned down for a loan specifically due to their race. The idea that this is even part of the problem presupposes a lack of qualified loan recipients among the minority community, and is a canard at best to disguise shady business practices.
What happened was orchestrated by greedy lenders to create an artificial housing bubble. It was based on the supposition that they could grant sub-prime mortgages to folks of questionable financial stability at best, and when they failed to make their payments when the rates rose, they could foreclose and sell to somebody else at a profit. Then, they could say, oh well, we tried.
Unfortunately, a lot of problems coalesced to turn this little scheme into a debacle. The most obvious problem that no one stopped to consider was the sudden surge in energy prices-the latest manufactured crisis orchestrated by big business hoodlums and their political dingleberries.
Suddenly, there became an ever shrinking pool of potential middle-class buyers willing to pay for a house at quadruple the price that same house would have fetched twenty years ago. Times suddenly worsened for everybody, and the lenders were left holding their dicks. The rest of us were too busy worrying about how we would make ends meet in the face of rising prices for food and energy during a period of constant layoffs and the myriads of other problems and expenses of day to day living.
Suddenly, a Subaru looks a lot better than a Suburban, while a smaller and cheaper home, or the one you might already have, or the apartment you don't have to insure, looks a hell of a lot better than an over-sized MacMansion or any other home worth four times it's original value.
People never learn from such mistakes of the past like the nineties tech bubble, I guess, but damn, when are people going to stop falling for shit like this? I mean, really, how fucking stupid can you get?
In other words, collectively speaking, we might be lucky, if this is true. So, what happened?
A lot of people are trying to blame it on the feds for forcing lenders to loan money to minorities, which is a lot of crap. News flash-nobody is forcing anybody to loan outrageous sums of money to people that are credit risks based on race. The law is meant to insure nobody is turned down for a loan specifically due to their race. The idea that this is even part of the problem presupposes a lack of qualified loan recipients among the minority community, and is a canard at best to disguise shady business practices.
What happened was orchestrated by greedy lenders to create an artificial housing bubble. It was based on the supposition that they could grant sub-prime mortgages to folks of questionable financial stability at best, and when they failed to make their payments when the rates rose, they could foreclose and sell to somebody else at a profit. Then, they could say, oh well, we tried.
Unfortunately, a lot of problems coalesced to turn this little scheme into a debacle. The most obvious problem that no one stopped to consider was the sudden surge in energy prices-the latest manufactured crisis orchestrated by big business hoodlums and their political dingleberries.
Suddenly, there became an ever shrinking pool of potential middle-class buyers willing to pay for a house at quadruple the price that same house would have fetched twenty years ago. Times suddenly worsened for everybody, and the lenders were left holding their dicks. The rest of us were too busy worrying about how we would make ends meet in the face of rising prices for food and energy during a period of constant layoffs and the myriads of other problems and expenses of day to day living.
Suddenly, a Subaru looks a lot better than a Suburban, while a smaller and cheaper home, or the one you might already have, or the apartment you don't have to insure, looks a hell of a lot better than an over-sized MacMansion or any other home worth four times it's original value.
People never learn from such mistakes of the past like the nineties tech bubble, I guess, but damn, when are people going to stop falling for shit like this? I mean, really, how fucking stupid can you get?
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Welcome To America
I'm betting there aren't very many countries in the world that conduct yearly mass swearings-in of newly naturalized citizens who have immigrated from foreign countries. I would say they are a relative handful, limited to the US, Canada, Australia, and maybe a few places in Europe. Most of the places in Europe probably amount to transported immigrant Muslims who aren't so much attracted by the appeal of Europe so much as a chance to either work and live in peace, or to escape criminal prosecution and in some cases oppression, and maybe in the meantime to carry on with their lives exactly as they would if not forced to leave their homelands for whatever reason, thank you very much. I seriously doubt that very many of them are that taken with European culture and democracy.
Supposedly, most of the people that come to the US see us as a shining beacon of liberty, and hope to become a part of the American dream, while understandably hoping to retain their unique cultural heritage at the same time, not separate from the rest of us, but as a vital and interdependent part of that whole.
Well, the most recent batch of new citizens sworn in by President Bush at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello this last Fourth of July got a taste of the American dream they probably hadn't counted on when protesters from the group Code Pink interrupted the proceedings and heckled Bush throughout his address, repeatedly saying "Fuck you, Bush".
Who was the coordinator of this effort? Read the following, courtesy of Lee from Digital Nicotine-
a bunch of supposed adults kept yelling "Fuck you, Bush! Fuck you Bush!" among a bunch of people expecting to celebrate newly-gained citizenship. One of these supposed adults was the press secretary to Rep. Dennis Kucinich in his latest run for the presidency.
I couldn't believe it myself, so I followed the link provided to here, and sure enough, there it was. Yet, these same people seem amazed they are the only ones that seem to know what a great guy Dennis Kucinich is.
That is actually the good point to this story, the fact that the loony left, typified by the people responsible for this sorry excuse for a "protest", really don't have that much influence with the American people, and not really as much as one might assume they do with the Democratic Party either. If they did, the Little Smurf From Cleveland would have done much better in the primaries, wouldn't he?
They just make a lot of noise, disgust the hell out of decent people, and provide fodder for the enemies of the Democratic Party, who unfortunately don't seem to have the guts to actually tell them to get lost. Instead of doing so, even Obama kisses up to them up to a point.
I would dearly love to see them go over to Egypt and try this with Hosni Mubarek.
Really, what was the point of the protest? We get it, they are against the Iraq War-mainly because it is a "Republican war", in my opinion. Frankly, the Iraq War has turned into just another hot button issue like abortion and gay rights to me. If I do vote, those issues will not inform my decision one way or another, neither for nor against.
That's my own protest against these damn nuts. It's my way of telling them "I don't care enough about (insert controversy of the day here) to vote your way. Leave me alone."
Really, these people have no common decency. I used to not like Bush at all, but I like him and Cheney both just a little bit more every year. In fact, if they could run for re-election this year, and did, I might well vote for them, just because of these people.
Why should newly sworn-in citizens have to be subjected to this crap? It boggles the mind that these fools even think they are influencing anybody. What is the use of protesting if all you do is turn people against you? I have yet to have anybody offer me a sensible explanation for that.
And they are turning people against them. They disgust people and make far more enemies than they make friends. I'm living proof of that.
On the other hand, that might well be the best thing about it.
Supposedly, most of the people that come to the US see us as a shining beacon of liberty, and hope to become a part of the American dream, while understandably hoping to retain their unique cultural heritage at the same time, not separate from the rest of us, but as a vital and interdependent part of that whole.
Well, the most recent batch of new citizens sworn in by President Bush at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello this last Fourth of July got a taste of the American dream they probably hadn't counted on when protesters from the group Code Pink interrupted the proceedings and heckled Bush throughout his address, repeatedly saying "Fuck you, Bush".
Who was the coordinator of this effort? Read the following, courtesy of Lee from Digital Nicotine-
a bunch of supposed adults kept yelling "Fuck you, Bush! Fuck you Bush!" among a bunch of people expecting to celebrate newly-gained citizenship. One of these supposed adults was the press secretary to Rep. Dennis Kucinich in his latest run for the presidency.
I couldn't believe it myself, so I followed the link provided to here, and sure enough, there it was. Yet, these same people seem amazed they are the only ones that seem to know what a great guy Dennis Kucinich is.
That is actually the good point to this story, the fact that the loony left, typified by the people responsible for this sorry excuse for a "protest", really don't have that much influence with the American people, and not really as much as one might assume they do with the Democratic Party either. If they did, the Little Smurf From Cleveland would have done much better in the primaries, wouldn't he?
They just make a lot of noise, disgust the hell out of decent people, and provide fodder for the enemies of the Democratic Party, who unfortunately don't seem to have the guts to actually tell them to get lost. Instead of doing so, even Obama kisses up to them up to a point.
I would dearly love to see them go over to Egypt and try this with Hosni Mubarek.
Really, what was the point of the protest? We get it, they are against the Iraq War-mainly because it is a "Republican war", in my opinion. Frankly, the Iraq War has turned into just another hot button issue like abortion and gay rights to me. If I do vote, those issues will not inform my decision one way or another, neither for nor against.
That's my own protest against these damn nuts. It's my way of telling them "I don't care enough about (insert controversy of the day here) to vote your way. Leave me alone."
Really, these people have no common decency. I used to not like Bush at all, but I like him and Cheney both just a little bit more every year. In fact, if they could run for re-election this year, and did, I might well vote for them, just because of these people.
Why should newly sworn-in citizens have to be subjected to this crap? It boggles the mind that these fools even think they are influencing anybody. What is the use of protesting if all you do is turn people against you? I have yet to have anybody offer me a sensible explanation for that.
And they are turning people against them. They disgust people and make far more enemies than they make friends. I'm living proof of that.
On the other hand, that might well be the best thing about it.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Wages Of Sin For You Wicked, Wicked Women
So, what is going to happen to all you haughty, wicked women that talk back to your husbands, who mock them and leave the house without your husband's or father's or son's or other decent, responsible male relative's permission?
Well, as we plainly see here in this fifteenth century Persian painting, courtesy of Zombietime, of Mohammad, astride the mythical creature Buraq and in the company of the Archangel Gabriel-
YOU WILL BURN IN HELL FOR ETERNITY WHILE HANGING BY YOUR PIERCED TONGUES, BEEEYATCHES!!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Hey, Where Are Obama's Daughters, Off Studying Das Kapital?
Hell, the only thing missing is the crack pipe and the boom box. I have a relative who actually thinks, or at least so she said, that an Obama White House-or "Whitey House", as I have heard others say-would be a never-ending party.
Of course this cartoon is funny.
What is beyond belief is that many on the far right have lauded the cover as "perceptive", while many of Obama's supporters complain about it. Yet, it is the far right being made fun of here, while the left should appreciate the joke.
In the meantime, the New Yorker publisher has taken on the persona of Johnny Carson, one of my all-time favorite comedians, by taking the time and going to the trouble to "explain" his failed joke. Carson salvaged some real bombs that way and made them funnier in many cases than they actually were.
No one should have to explain this one, it should be self-evident. America has been hijacked by the lunatic fringe, and I don't see it getting better any time soon. When people lose their sense of humor, they have no business being involved in public policy. I would go so far as to say they are dangerous.
I tried to explain to my female relative that, regardless of what you think of Obama, he would be unlikely, to say the least, to conduct himself in the manner she described.
You don't really imagine I changed her mind do you? Do you think I bothered to try after the first time?
Nope. All you can do is laugh. Although I did put The New Yorker back on the Myth-ing links section.
An Unexpected Blast From The Past
Last night, quite by accident, I discovered this website, which contained the above picture of my great-great-grandfather, Ira Wells Sr, whom some of my older readers might well recall me writing about in this post.
I can't really say he looks that much like me, but strangely he does look quite a bit like I always imagined he'd look. He was a unique individual, regardless of the veracity of the witchcraft stories, which might well have been more legend than fact.
I'm really glad I found this. Back in the days this picture would have been taken, people tended not to smile in photographs. They were afraid their descendants would see them and, if they were smiling or laughing, would think they were "foolish". A serious expression and public manner at all times was the order of the day.
Can you imagine what they would think if they could see some of the pictures people pose for today?
Posted by
SecondComingOfBast
at
10:12 PM
An Unexpected Blast From The Past
2008-07-16T22:12:00-04:00
SecondComingOfBast
Comments
When It Rains It Pours
I'm having some computer issues. Hopefully, it's nothing too serious, but there's a chance I might be off-line for some time, though I hope not for too long. Feel free to chat with each other about anything and everything on the comment section of this post, leave any messages, etc. Maybe if I am off for a while I'll check in via public access from time to time. Until then, have a good one, or better yet, have several of them.
Posted by
SecondComingOfBast
at
1:09 PM
When It Rains It Pours
2008-07-16T13:09:00-04:00
SecondComingOfBast
Comments
Monday, July 14, 2008
Lech Walesa-Was He A Communist Informant?
This is actually an old story that was supposedly settled, but it seems to have roared back to life. Two brothers have written a book detailing what they insist is proof that Lech Walesa, in the early to mid seventies, worked as a spy for the Polish communist State Security Services and informed on many of his fellow Solidarity members, resulting in the arrest of as many as twelve or thirteen of them. They go on to insinuate that Walesa might have gone on to lead Solidarity in it's opposition to the Polish government government with the support of many in the same security services who might have had their own reasons for wanting to overthrow the communist regime.
From the article in the timesonline-
In The State Security Service and Lech Walesa, Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk make two central claims. The first is that Mr Walesa was an informer for the secret police between 1970 and 1976 under the codename “Bolek”. The second is that as President from 1990 to 1995 he borrowed his police file from the Interior Ministry archives and returned it with key pages missing.
Walesa still denies the charges, of course, in no uncertain terms, but the writers of the book insist that they have gained access to previously sealed records that point to him as being the mysterious "Bolek", in addition to the aforementioned charges of evidence tampering.
Walesa is threatening to sue the writers, and insists his political opponents today (including the present day head of the Polish conservative party) are behind the charges, much the way he earlier claimed that the incriminating documents were forged by enemies within the Polish State Security Service in order to decimate his standings with the people and within Solidarity.
Coming on the heels of all this is the news that just this last Sunday, another former high ranking Solidarity official, Bronislaw Geremek, himself later a high ranking cabinet minister in post communist democratic Poland, was killed when the car he was driving was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle. No word on the condition of the driver of the other vehicle. Geremek, curiously, served in the administration of the successor to Walesa, who defeated him for re-election.
Geremek was a Nobel nominee and in fact was responsible for moving Poland into the EU, while remaining himself a staunch nationalist at the same time. He also proved instrumental in overturning a law, since held to be unconstitutional, that stated any aspirant for public office in Poland had to swear to never have been involved in any undercover spy capacity for the former communist government's secret police. Any found to have been so involved were denied the right to serve in any official capacity for a period of ten years. Geremek refused to make such a pledge, and challenged the law in court, leading to its eventual repeal.
Of course, Geremek's unfortunate demise might well be coincidental, and the charges against Walesa might turn out to be, at most, the proverbial tempest in a teapot. For now, though, it is certainly a strange brew.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Aztlan Myths
I guess I'll add what should be an obvious disclaimer here-just because I link a site doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the mission of the site in whole or in part. Nevertheless, some sites are just of enough interest to warrant their inclusion. As such, I have added the Aztlan website on the Myth-ing Links section.
They are an open borders advocacy group, and honestly, I have to tell you, they are quite extreme in some regards. They are also anti-semitic according to most standard definitions of the term, while claiming of course to be merely "anti-Zionist". Some of their posts in this regard are disingenuous at worse, unintentionally hilarious at best. Take this, for example.
This is supposedly a picture of religious Jews in the aftermath of an assault perpetrated on them by Israeli "Zionists", whom the Aztlan site claims are all about taking land from the Palestinians.
Now, admittedly I'm no expert, but unless I'm mistaken, these are probably religious Jews in the aftermath of an assault by Israeli Defense Forces who, in fact, were forcibly removing them from Palestinian lands in the Gaza strip (or maybe the West Bank) that they occupied illegitimately.
In another bit of obviously unintentional humor, the site derides the Zionist Jews as the descendants of Eastern Europeans who converted to Judaism one thousand years ago and who now have immigrated to Israel for "opportunist" reasons. I'm glad I wasn't sipping a slurpee when I read that one.
To be fair, this site has a lot of good (if questionable) articles, and in today's current angst over immigration, it pays to keep up with both sides of the issue. For one thing, I learned something about the term Aztlan itself from reading this site, from this post in particular.
Aztlan is not necessarily a place-it's a state of mind. Aztlan is anywhere it's people are, and the old myth that described the Aztec origins as a group of hunter-gatherers and part time agriculturalists, and their subsequent migrations from Aztlan, their mythical homeplace, to their eventual destination in Mexico, need not be taken to infer a claim on anyplace, including in the United States. It is more accurately, at least according to this site, viewed as a reminder for the people to be true to their roots and culture-wherever they might happen to be at any given time.
I also found out that the Aztlan advocates are quite distinct (though you can expect there would be some overlapping, of course) from the people who make up the group LaRaza. Whereas Aztlan are an all-together open borders advocacy group, LaRaza, contrary to popular belief, actually support border security and strong but compassionate (their words) immigration enforcement.
LaRaza also does not mean "The Race" (although that can be a technically correct definition) but "the people" or "the community". More on them later.
Like I always say, if you have to be for or against something, or even anywhere in between, it never hurts to know what they really stand for-or what they say they stand for, anyway.
Another Giant Sucking Sound South Of The Border
Though I tend to doubt this, I guess anything's possible. According to this post from the Aztlan website, American oil company giants Chevron, Shell, and British Petroleum, are engaged in a project to siphon oil from under Mexican territorial waters by way of a floating oil rig platform on American waters near the border. The diagram below tells the story.
Hey, isn't this what the Kuwaitis were supposedly doing to Saddam's Iraq that led to the first Gulf War? Or so Saddam claimed, at least. Like I said, I guess anything's possible. Curious.
Hey, isn't this what the Kuwaitis were supposedly doing to Saddam's Iraq that led to the first Gulf War? Or so Saddam claimed, at least. Like I said, I guess anything's possible. Curious.
Posted by
SecondComingOfBast
at
12:20 AM
Another Giant Sucking Sound South Of The Border
2008-07-13T00:20:00-04:00
SecondComingOfBast
Comments
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Baltimore Prostitutes Targets Of Special Attention
This post I did about the murder of the step-daughter of the former Baltimore Police Commissioner seems to be the tip of what might end up being a very big iceberg by the time it's over. Although the Baltimore Police Department is as of now saying it is too early to tell if there is a connection between the murders by strangulation of five women-four of them prostitutes-they have appointed a special squad of four veteran detectives to investigate the crimes.
The implication seems to be that Baltimore might well have a serial killer(s) all its very own. At least there's no discernible link to all the other prostitute/women murders over the last ten years, the cops assure us, but is that really a good thing? Doesn't that mean there's even more killers out there?
As for these recent murders, which have occurred over the span of the last four months and in different parts of Baltimore, if it does turn out to be the work of the same killer(s), then what are we dealing with here? Even Jack The Ripper stuck to the Whitechapel section of London when he committed his infamous so-called canonical murders one hundred twenty years ago. This guy(s) really gets around. The last victim was found in an alley behind a church in West Baltimore, but he seems to be spreading the love all over the city of Poe.
So let's round up the usual suspects-
A delivery person
Cab driver
Cop
City maintenance/sanitation, etc. worker.
Housing inspector
Social worker
Did I leave anybody out?
Prostitutes of course make convenient victims. The perpetrator need not be anti-whore. After all, hookers make their living to a degree by providing a convenient sexual outlet, but also by fulfilling otherwise unattainable fantasies in a great many cases.
Well, nothing says "I loved you, you fucking dirty bitch but now I hate you, you cunt you" quite like two hands around a throat.
Unfortunately, it has been noted that the prostitutes of Baltimore don't seem to be taking the situation seriously enough to modify their behavior or otherwise exercise appropriate caution. Then again, what can they do? Many if not most of them are drug addicts, or otherwise in a desperate situation, and the counseling and charity services that try to help them can only do so much for them.
I have an idea that when they finally catch the person responsible it will turn out to be another example of someone no one would have ever suspected, but probably should have.
The implication seems to be that Baltimore might well have a serial killer(s) all its very own. At least there's no discernible link to all the other prostitute/women murders over the last ten years, the cops assure us, but is that really a good thing? Doesn't that mean there's even more killers out there?
As for these recent murders, which have occurred over the span of the last four months and in different parts of Baltimore, if it does turn out to be the work of the same killer(s), then what are we dealing with here? Even Jack The Ripper stuck to the Whitechapel section of London when he committed his infamous so-called canonical murders one hundred twenty years ago. This guy(s) really gets around. The last victim was found in an alley behind a church in West Baltimore, but he seems to be spreading the love all over the city of Poe.
So let's round up the usual suspects-
A delivery person
Cab driver
Cop
City maintenance/sanitation, etc. worker.
Housing inspector
Social worker
Did I leave anybody out?
Prostitutes of course make convenient victims. The perpetrator need not be anti-whore. After all, hookers make their living to a degree by providing a convenient sexual outlet, but also by fulfilling otherwise unattainable fantasies in a great many cases.
Well, nothing says "I loved you, you fucking dirty bitch but now I hate you, you cunt you" quite like two hands around a throat.
Unfortunately, it has been noted that the prostitutes of Baltimore don't seem to be taking the situation seriously enough to modify their behavior or otherwise exercise appropriate caution. Then again, what can they do? Many if not most of them are drug addicts, or otherwise in a desperate situation, and the counseling and charity services that try to help them can only do so much for them.
I have an idea that when they finally catch the person responsible it will turn out to be another example of someone no one would have ever suspected, but probably should have.
Posted by
SecondComingOfBast
at
11:21 PM
Baltimore Prostitutes Targets Of Special Attention
2008-07-10T23:21:00-04:00
SecondComingOfBast
Comments
Don't Cry
She's not gone, she's just moved down to the bottom of the page. The one in her place is at least as hot anyway, at least in my opinion.
Other changes-
Sidebar rearranged. and two new links, plus an old one I want to draw your attention to.
The old one is Religion Clause, a blog by Milton Friedman, professor of law at Toledo University, that deals with the legal implications of religious matters. So frequently posted I have to wonder if he assigns the blog to his students for extra credit. I don't see how he could possibly find that much time to blog otherwise. However he does it, it's worth a look.
I recently found Scientific Blogging quite by accident when I noted an article listing on Technorati about Kumbachka tea. I probably haven't spelled it right, but it's a fermented tea with purported near miraculous health benefits. I've lost track of that particular article in this also frequently updated blog, but it covers a wide range of different scientific fields.
Finally, our friend Rufus and his associates from Grad Student Madness have started a new website called Another Sky Journal. He had to put it on hold due to a recent trip to France, but he is now in the process of reviving the effort. Check out the articles on Graz Austria in particular from Greg. I put this one on the Myth-Ing Links section. Rufus is trying to make it more like a magazine format, and I wish him luck.
I actually thought of trying to do the same thing once, and still do, but it took me days to just get around to changing the damn sidebar here around. I'm still wanting to add more good websites under more categories-like something dedicated to hedonism, for example, with this cool picture of a fat, drunken Bacchus. I might get around to it in a year or two.
Other changes-
Sidebar rearranged. and two new links, plus an old one I want to draw your attention to.
The old one is Religion Clause, a blog by Milton Friedman, professor of law at Toledo University, that deals with the legal implications of religious matters. So frequently posted I have to wonder if he assigns the blog to his students for extra credit. I don't see how he could possibly find that much time to blog otherwise. However he does it, it's worth a look.
I recently found Scientific Blogging quite by accident when I noted an article listing on Technorati about Kumbachka tea. I probably haven't spelled it right, but it's a fermented tea with purported near miraculous health benefits. I've lost track of that particular article in this also frequently updated blog, but it covers a wide range of different scientific fields.
Finally, our friend Rufus and his associates from Grad Student Madness have started a new website called Another Sky Journal. He had to put it on hold due to a recent trip to France, but he is now in the process of reviving the effort. Check out the articles on Graz Austria in particular from Greg. I put this one on the Myth-Ing Links section. Rufus is trying to make it more like a magazine format, and I wish him luck.
I actually thought of trying to do the same thing once, and still do, but it took me days to just get around to changing the damn sidebar here around. I'm still wanting to add more good websites under more categories-like something dedicated to hedonism, for example, with this cool picture of a fat, drunken Bacchus. I might get around to it in a year or two.
Posted by
SecondComingOfBast
at
9:28 PM
Don't Cry
2008-07-10T21:28:00-04:00
SecondComingOfBast
Comments
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Obama-Jesse Jackson Wants To "Cut His Nuts Off"
Fox News takes a lot of flack from the left, and sometimes from the right, and they are taking it again for simply reporting the truth of what Jesse Jackson said in anger about Barak Obama-something most of us might consider-let's see-oh, yeah, NEWS!
They should be above that, I suppose, and not be so quick to point to the obvious proof of what most of us have known or at least strongly suspected all along-i.e., Jesse Jackson is a piece of trash. What other kind of person would say the following, as reported on the Fox website-
Jackson was speaking at the time about Obama’s speeches in black
churches and his support for faith-based charities. Jackson added to
the reporter, “I want to cut his nuts off.”
Jackson is seemingly enraged that Obama is "talking down to blacks" and seems to think his time would be better spent engaged in the same type of demagoguery that made him such an icon of racial harmony.
Instead, Obama has the gall to suggest that blacks do something to encourage respect for families in the black communities, keeping them together, supporting their children, and becoming overall better role models to them.
In other words, he is not "talking down" to blacks. He is "talking up" to whites.
Jackson knows that, of course, and what is really driving him so nuts that he would love to get his hands on Obama's nuts is that-uh oh, it might be working.
Nor is this the first time Jackson has insinuated himself in Obama's campaign in a negative manner. Here is an account of how Jackson went ballistic over Obama's refusal to become involved in the controversy last year involving the so-called "Jena Six". Evidently, Jesse Jackson thinks it's proper for elected officials and candidates for public office to insinuate their opinions in the middle of court cases that have not yet been decided, or that are being appealed. Most of us would prefer they stay out of it, or at least not take any specific side.
In Jackson's opinion, Obama was "acting like he's white".
That statement on it's own should be enough to show the world what Jesse Jackson is about. Think about that, slowly and carefully. Let it languish in your consciousness for just a few seconds.
"Acting like he's white."
Jackson's son, a current Democratic Representative from Chicago, had at least the good sense to public disavow his father's rhetoric.That's understandable, more than it is admirable. The junior Jackson knows his father, in his rapidly approaching stages of dementia, has revealed the inner workings of the Jackson machine and the persona that is its spiritual foundation.
Jackson said the latest remark off the cuff, at the end of an interview, thinking the microphone was cut off. This is turning into a trend.Sometimes I wonder if it might be intentional, and that Jackson might actually be sending out signals to his more radical, hard-line supporters, telling them in effect, hey-this guy is not really one of us.
Check out how Jackson tries to play it off when confronted over the remark-
"Then I said something I regret was crude. It was very private. And very much a sound bite," he also said.
A sound bite? Isn't that basically the same thing as an overgrown slogan? Something you say that you hope will stick in people's minds, that they will remember in the days and weeks to come? Something that basically amounts to a distillation of the essence of your position on a particular matter?
Well, congratulations, Jackson. We get it. You want to cut a man's nuts off. I think that's pretty much an accurate reflecion of your position over the last forty years.
Keep the black man emasculated as a statististical group, he and his families helpless and dependent on government handouts, with yourself among the most elite beneficiaries of that sad and regressive philosophy-the straw boss on the Democratic Party plantation.
The really scary thing is this guy might be named to an official cabinet position, something like Secretary of Health And Human Services, under an Obama Administration.
Whatever he's put in charge of, let's just hope they keep him away from sharp objects.
They should be above that, I suppose, and not be so quick to point to the obvious proof of what most of us have known or at least strongly suspected all along-i.e., Jesse Jackson is a piece of trash. What other kind of person would say the following, as reported on the Fox website-
Jackson was speaking at the time about Obama’s speeches in black
churches and his support for faith-based charities. Jackson added to
the reporter, “I want to cut his nuts off.”
Jackson is seemingly enraged that Obama is "talking down to blacks" and seems to think his time would be better spent engaged in the same type of demagoguery that made him such an icon of racial harmony.
Instead, Obama has the gall to suggest that blacks do something to encourage respect for families in the black communities, keeping them together, supporting their children, and becoming overall better role models to them.
In other words, he is not "talking down" to blacks. He is "talking up" to whites.
Jackson knows that, of course, and what is really driving him so nuts that he would love to get his hands on Obama's nuts is that-uh oh, it might be working.
Nor is this the first time Jackson has insinuated himself in Obama's campaign in a negative manner. Here is an account of how Jackson went ballistic over Obama's refusal to become involved in the controversy last year involving the so-called "Jena Six". Evidently, Jesse Jackson thinks it's proper for elected officials and candidates for public office to insinuate their opinions in the middle of court cases that have not yet been decided, or that are being appealed. Most of us would prefer they stay out of it, or at least not take any specific side.
In Jackson's opinion, Obama was "acting like he's white".
That statement on it's own should be enough to show the world what Jesse Jackson is about. Think about that, slowly and carefully. Let it languish in your consciousness for just a few seconds.
"Acting like he's white."
Jackson's son, a current Democratic Representative from Chicago, had at least the good sense to public disavow his father's rhetoric.That's understandable, more than it is admirable. The junior Jackson knows his father, in his rapidly approaching stages of dementia, has revealed the inner workings of the Jackson machine and the persona that is its spiritual foundation.
Jackson said the latest remark off the cuff, at the end of an interview, thinking the microphone was cut off. This is turning into a trend.Sometimes I wonder if it might be intentional, and that Jackson might actually be sending out signals to his more radical, hard-line supporters, telling them in effect, hey-this guy is not really one of us.
Check out how Jackson tries to play it off when confronted over the remark-
"Then I said something I regret was crude. It was very private. And very much a sound bite," he also said.
A sound bite? Isn't that basically the same thing as an overgrown slogan? Something you say that you hope will stick in people's minds, that they will remember in the days and weeks to come? Something that basically amounts to a distillation of the essence of your position on a particular matter?
Well, congratulations, Jackson. We get it. You want to cut a man's nuts off. I think that's pretty much an accurate reflecion of your position over the last forty years.
Keep the black man emasculated as a statististical group, he and his families helpless and dependent on government handouts, with yourself among the most elite beneficiaries of that sad and regressive philosophy-the straw boss on the Democratic Party plantation.
The really scary thing is this guy might be named to an official cabinet position, something like Secretary of Health And Human Services, under an Obama Administration.
Whatever he's put in charge of, let's just hope they keep him away from sharp objects.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
The Others-Old Movie Review
The Oxygen Network recently went through a period of showing old Nicole Kidman movies, and I decided, since there wasn’t anything else on worth watching and I didn’t have anything any better to do with my spare time-why not? I caught two of them-Cold Mountain and The Others.
Both of them are worth your time, but this particular post is a review of The Others.
I’ll say from the outset, many people wrote this movie off from the beginning as nothing but a copy of a wildly successful earlier movie with a similar theme, despite the fact that the movie, and in particular its director, won some awards. Perhaps there is something to the criticism. Hollywood has a bad habit of latching on to successful formulas and making you sick of them. On the other hand, how many totally original movies can there be?
I’ll add one more point. I saw the other movie in question quite a while back and, in my opinion, this one is superior. The atmosphere is gloomier, the setting is more macabre, the acting is at least equal, and overall, the movie is scarier-especially the end of the movie, which is actually quite chilling. It will stay with you for a while and, to make sure I make myself clear-this is not a movie for the kiddies. I am very serious. I was disturbed by the end of this movie, and if you are one of the very few that read much of the first draft of the novel I published on this blog, you will know that it goes without saying that it takes a hell of a lot to disturb me.
This one did the trick.
That is not to say the movie is flawless-far from it. It requires quite a few leaps, in fact. What we are dealing with here is the spirit world, which of course always requires some suspension of disbelief and an acceptance of certain precepts in order for everything else to follow along a logical course from there.
The most obvious one is a requirement for belief in ghosts to begin with, of course. Going from there, you must make the equally obvious leap in a belief that the spirit world can interact, however tenuously, with the world of the living. This movie takes it a step further and requires a belief that that same spirit world exists in something very much like our own linear time, with mornings started rising from bed, going through the day-to-day routines, the preparing and eating of meals, the chores, the studying, the conversations, on through to the retiring for bed at night. That is the major problem here, but in this case, it is one not so easily dealt with.
Nicole Kidman plays the role of an apparently widowed mother raising two disabled children on the British island of Jersey immediately following the end of World War II. Her kids suffer from what she describes as a photo-sensitive allergy. They must avoid all kind of light but a mild candlelight, and in order to insure non-exposure to the sun, she must insure that every door of every room is immediately shit when going from one room to the other.
She has had many other profoundly serious problems. Her husband went off to the war, only recently concluded-but he never returned, his whereabouts unknown. While he was there, the Nazis invaded the little island, and she had to constantly guard against the very real possibility of them taking over her house during what brief interval they were on the island.
After the war ended, and it looked like her husband might yet never return, her servants inexplicably abandoned her, and she is in the desperate process of trying to hire replacements when three people arrive, claiming to have worked in the old, remote mansion years in the past. They are an old woman, an old man, and a young mute girl, whose lack of ability to communicate is explained by the old woman as a consequence of an earlier exposure to tuberculosis.
The old woman soon has something else to explain. How is it she and the other two just happened to come looking for work just when the woman and her kids needed it most, despite the fact that the advertisement was never delivered. She produced the undelivered advertisement. Taken aback, the old woman explained that she had always loved working at the residence, as had the other two, the former owners having treated them very well.
The mother agrees to let the three stay on, but over time, other mysterious events involving the unseen presence of a little boy named Victor cause her grave concern. No one seems to communicate with the alleged boy besides the daughter, who swears by his existence, alone with that of an adult man, woman, and an old woman who “smells bad”, the little girl going on to say she thinks the old woman in question is a witch. Yet, the little girl swears the people are not ghosts, explaining to her little brother that ghosts “wear sheets and rattle chains”.
The mother is angered at her daughter’s stories, all the more at her stubbornness at refusing to admit she is lying. She compels her to study the Bible even more than is her regular wont. Finally, the woman finds evidence of the “others” in the house. She hears voices, and once hears the playing of a piano, tracing the sound to an empty room, the piano silent and unattended. She closes the lid over the keyboard, and leaves, only to hear more voices and further playing. Returning to the room, she discovers the keyboard cover once again open.
Apologizing profusely to her daughter, she seeks an explanation from the old woman, who helps her search the house, an endeavor that turns up yet no sign of any other inhabitants, though it does reveal one possibly vital clue. She discovers a series of old pictures of various people, seemingly sleeping. The old woman explains to her that these are pictures taken of people immediately upon their deaths, something done at one point in time in order to keep the memories of the people alive.
Not too long after this, the little girl disappears, and the mother looks over the house for her. When she finally finds her in the room in which she sought out Victor, then dressing in what looks to be something like a white gown with a veil, the little girl appears transformed into an old woman, chanting some strange ditty while dangling something that looks like a puppet on a string. Horrified, the mother demands the creature tell her what she has done to her daughter, only to hear an otherworldly voice exclaim to her that she is her daughter. The woman grabs the little girl by the throat and almost strangles the life out of her, though regaining control of herself just in time.
She determines to take it on herself to travel to the village and bring back the Vicar of the Church in order to bless the house, despite the fact that the Vicar has seemingly ignored her earlier requests to come to the home. She sets off through the woods while telling the old man, who has settled into his position as gardener, to find what graves might have been disturbed that might account for the bizarre occurrences. As she walks on, we see the old woman telling the old man to cover the graves, which he does, with piles of dead leaves, while wondering whether they should try to stop the woman from walking to the town.
“The fog will stop her,” the old woman reminds him.
“Oh, yes, of course,” the old man replies. “The fog.”
As the mother proceeds through the woods as nightfall approaches, she is indeed met by an increasingly dense fog, which soon obscures her vision, its failure to dissipate with her movements leaving her stymied as to how to proceed. Suddenly, at one point, the fog does dissipate upon the approach of a masculine figure dressed in a military uniform, which the woman recognizes, both to her surprise and her delight, as her long missing husband. She falls into his arms in a mixture of joy and unbridled relief.
“I bleed sometimes,” he tells her strangely, which elicits a winsome smile from the woman as she proceeds to walk with him back to the house, passing up the old man and woman along the way, as they remark quietly to themselves, concerning the man, that he doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.
The son and daughter are overjoyed to see their father, and rush to his arms. He speaks to them, has dinner with them, and seems ready to resume the old life, but the little girl tells the father of what her mother had done to her. From that point on, the man stays in his bed, lying on his side, his eyes open and his face a terrible expression of confusion and grief. Assuming that he has trouble with his memories of the front, the mother tells him he must pull himself out of his despair. They go to bed that next night, whereupon he reaches over and embraces his wife.
Later, he tells her he must return to the front, a bit of news that leaves her dumbfounded and outraged.
“The war is over,” she insists.
“The war is not over,” he informs her. He leaves, whereupon the woman falls into a state of despair that is only broken when one day, to her horror, she discovers every single curtain removed from ever window, the entire house now flooded with the light of the sun so poisonous to her two allergy afflicted children. She rushes them from one room to another until she finds something with which to cover them.
She demands an explanation from the three servants, whereupon the old man offers that the light is a good thing. Incensed, she demands all three of them leave the house and never return, at one point even threatening them at gunpoint.
Later that night, the little girl informs her brother that she has put up with enough of this, and climbs out her window, and down to the ground below. At her urgings, her little brother follows her. They have not made it far, however, before they see the three servants heading their way. Happy to see them again, the little boy waits as the girl, having now discovered the graves uncovered of their leaves by the wind, warns the little boy to run, that the three are ghosts. At first, he is confused. After all, neither of them wears sheets and rattles chains, but she finally prevails on him to run.
Meanwhile, desperate for some clue, the mother looks inside the room of the former servants where she finds, hidden under a bed, an old picture of the three servants-taken of their corpses, after their deaths. She runs in a horror, all the more so when she discovers the children have left the house, when she sees the three servants standing at the front door. She commands them to stay outside, which they do.
Suddenly, the daughter appears at the top of the stairs, telling her to come to a certain room. She follows her, desperate to save her and her son, and so she goes into the room, and-
That’s when she finally sees them-“The Others”.
Who are they? Are they evil, vengeful spirits? Are they demonic entities? Are they something worse-much, much worse?
I’m not about to give the answer away. I’ll just say it’s worth your time and, on the off chance you haven’t figured out the mystery of the Others-there are clues as to their identity, but you have to watch for them-be warned:
It will FUCK YOU UP!!
Both of them are worth your time, but this particular post is a review of The Others.
I’ll say from the outset, many people wrote this movie off from the beginning as nothing but a copy of a wildly successful earlier movie with a similar theme, despite the fact that the movie, and in particular its director, won some awards. Perhaps there is something to the criticism. Hollywood has a bad habit of latching on to successful formulas and making you sick of them. On the other hand, how many totally original movies can there be?
I’ll add one more point. I saw the other movie in question quite a while back and, in my opinion, this one is superior. The atmosphere is gloomier, the setting is more macabre, the acting is at least equal, and overall, the movie is scarier-especially the end of the movie, which is actually quite chilling. It will stay with you for a while and, to make sure I make myself clear-this is not a movie for the kiddies. I am very serious. I was disturbed by the end of this movie, and if you are one of the very few that read much of the first draft of the novel I published on this blog, you will know that it goes without saying that it takes a hell of a lot to disturb me.
This one did the trick.
That is not to say the movie is flawless-far from it. It requires quite a few leaps, in fact. What we are dealing with here is the spirit world, which of course always requires some suspension of disbelief and an acceptance of certain precepts in order for everything else to follow along a logical course from there.
The most obvious one is a requirement for belief in ghosts to begin with, of course. Going from there, you must make the equally obvious leap in a belief that the spirit world can interact, however tenuously, with the world of the living. This movie takes it a step further and requires a belief that that same spirit world exists in something very much like our own linear time, with mornings started rising from bed, going through the day-to-day routines, the preparing and eating of meals, the chores, the studying, the conversations, on through to the retiring for bed at night. That is the major problem here, but in this case, it is one not so easily dealt with.
Nicole Kidman plays the role of an apparently widowed mother raising two disabled children on the British island of Jersey immediately following the end of World War II. Her kids suffer from what she describes as a photo-sensitive allergy. They must avoid all kind of light but a mild candlelight, and in order to insure non-exposure to the sun, she must insure that every door of every room is immediately shit when going from one room to the other.
She has had many other profoundly serious problems. Her husband went off to the war, only recently concluded-but he never returned, his whereabouts unknown. While he was there, the Nazis invaded the little island, and she had to constantly guard against the very real possibility of them taking over her house during what brief interval they were on the island.
After the war ended, and it looked like her husband might yet never return, her servants inexplicably abandoned her, and she is in the desperate process of trying to hire replacements when three people arrive, claiming to have worked in the old, remote mansion years in the past. They are an old woman, an old man, and a young mute girl, whose lack of ability to communicate is explained by the old woman as a consequence of an earlier exposure to tuberculosis.
The old woman soon has something else to explain. How is it she and the other two just happened to come looking for work just when the woman and her kids needed it most, despite the fact that the advertisement was never delivered. She produced the undelivered advertisement. Taken aback, the old woman explained that she had always loved working at the residence, as had the other two, the former owners having treated them very well.
The mother agrees to let the three stay on, but over time, other mysterious events involving the unseen presence of a little boy named Victor cause her grave concern. No one seems to communicate with the alleged boy besides the daughter, who swears by his existence, alone with that of an adult man, woman, and an old woman who “smells bad”, the little girl going on to say she thinks the old woman in question is a witch. Yet, the little girl swears the people are not ghosts, explaining to her little brother that ghosts “wear sheets and rattle chains”.
The mother is angered at her daughter’s stories, all the more at her stubbornness at refusing to admit she is lying. She compels her to study the Bible even more than is her regular wont. Finally, the woman finds evidence of the “others” in the house. She hears voices, and once hears the playing of a piano, tracing the sound to an empty room, the piano silent and unattended. She closes the lid over the keyboard, and leaves, only to hear more voices and further playing. Returning to the room, she discovers the keyboard cover once again open.
Apologizing profusely to her daughter, she seeks an explanation from the old woman, who helps her search the house, an endeavor that turns up yet no sign of any other inhabitants, though it does reveal one possibly vital clue. She discovers a series of old pictures of various people, seemingly sleeping. The old woman explains to her that these are pictures taken of people immediately upon their deaths, something done at one point in time in order to keep the memories of the people alive.
Not too long after this, the little girl disappears, and the mother looks over the house for her. When she finally finds her in the room in which she sought out Victor, then dressing in what looks to be something like a white gown with a veil, the little girl appears transformed into an old woman, chanting some strange ditty while dangling something that looks like a puppet on a string. Horrified, the mother demands the creature tell her what she has done to her daughter, only to hear an otherworldly voice exclaim to her that she is her daughter. The woman grabs the little girl by the throat and almost strangles the life out of her, though regaining control of herself just in time.
She determines to take it on herself to travel to the village and bring back the Vicar of the Church in order to bless the house, despite the fact that the Vicar has seemingly ignored her earlier requests to come to the home. She sets off through the woods while telling the old man, who has settled into his position as gardener, to find what graves might have been disturbed that might account for the bizarre occurrences. As she walks on, we see the old woman telling the old man to cover the graves, which he does, with piles of dead leaves, while wondering whether they should try to stop the woman from walking to the town.
“The fog will stop her,” the old woman reminds him.
“Oh, yes, of course,” the old man replies. “The fog.”
As the mother proceeds through the woods as nightfall approaches, she is indeed met by an increasingly dense fog, which soon obscures her vision, its failure to dissipate with her movements leaving her stymied as to how to proceed. Suddenly, at one point, the fog does dissipate upon the approach of a masculine figure dressed in a military uniform, which the woman recognizes, both to her surprise and her delight, as her long missing husband. She falls into his arms in a mixture of joy and unbridled relief.
“I bleed sometimes,” he tells her strangely, which elicits a winsome smile from the woman as she proceeds to walk with him back to the house, passing up the old man and woman along the way, as they remark quietly to themselves, concerning the man, that he doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.
The son and daughter are overjoyed to see their father, and rush to his arms. He speaks to them, has dinner with them, and seems ready to resume the old life, but the little girl tells the father of what her mother had done to her. From that point on, the man stays in his bed, lying on his side, his eyes open and his face a terrible expression of confusion and grief. Assuming that he has trouble with his memories of the front, the mother tells him he must pull himself out of his despair. They go to bed that next night, whereupon he reaches over and embraces his wife.
Later, he tells her he must return to the front, a bit of news that leaves her dumbfounded and outraged.
“The war is over,” she insists.
“The war is not over,” he informs her. He leaves, whereupon the woman falls into a state of despair that is only broken when one day, to her horror, she discovers every single curtain removed from ever window, the entire house now flooded with the light of the sun so poisonous to her two allergy afflicted children. She rushes them from one room to another until she finds something with which to cover them.
She demands an explanation from the three servants, whereupon the old man offers that the light is a good thing. Incensed, she demands all three of them leave the house and never return, at one point even threatening them at gunpoint.
Later that night, the little girl informs her brother that she has put up with enough of this, and climbs out her window, and down to the ground below. At her urgings, her little brother follows her. They have not made it far, however, before they see the three servants heading their way. Happy to see them again, the little boy waits as the girl, having now discovered the graves uncovered of their leaves by the wind, warns the little boy to run, that the three are ghosts. At first, he is confused. After all, neither of them wears sheets and rattles chains, but she finally prevails on him to run.
Meanwhile, desperate for some clue, the mother looks inside the room of the former servants where she finds, hidden under a bed, an old picture of the three servants-taken of their corpses, after their deaths. She runs in a horror, all the more so when she discovers the children have left the house, when she sees the three servants standing at the front door. She commands them to stay outside, which they do.
Suddenly, the daughter appears at the top of the stairs, telling her to come to a certain room. She follows her, desperate to save her and her son, and so she goes into the room, and-
That’s when she finally sees them-“The Others”.
Who are they? Are they evil, vengeful spirits? Are they demonic entities? Are they something worse-much, much worse?
I’m not about to give the answer away. I’ll just say it’s worth your time and, on the off chance you haven’t figured out the mystery of the Others-there are clues as to their identity, but you have to watch for them-be warned:
It will FUCK YOU UP!!
The Waxman Dummy
Check out this bit of unintentional hilarity from dipshit Representative Henry Waxman (d-CA), courtesy of The Hill-
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has primary jurisdiction over the executive branch, is considering legislation to eliminate Karl Rove-type advisers in future administrations.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hints broadly that such a bill could ban the use of federal funds to finance such a politically partisan office.
“Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House?” Waxman said in an interview. “Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?”
Waxman says the White House operates under looser political ethics rules than does Congress, where chiefs of staff and other high-ranking officials are prohibited from using government phones, computers and facilities for political purposes.
Of course, what he doesn't mention is that, in fact-that is HIS JOB. That is the job of practically all Congressman, and for that matter, probably most Senators-to run for re-election. Their staff does all the real work, and pretty much tells them what to say or do. They spend the bulk of their time campaigning and raising money.
What time they spend making speeches and appearing on committees and actually voting amounts to a bit of filler in what is otherwise a facade with little meaning and less actual accomplishment.
In fact, most of the time that they do actually vote and otherwise do what passes for work, we're better off if they didn't.
Henry Waxman has to be one pretentious piece of shit.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has primary jurisdiction over the executive branch, is considering legislation to eliminate Karl Rove-type advisers in future administrations.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hints broadly that such a bill could ban the use of federal funds to finance such a politically partisan office.
“Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House?” Waxman said in an interview. “Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?”
Waxman says the White House operates under looser political ethics rules than does Congress, where chiefs of staff and other high-ranking officials are prohibited from using government phones, computers and facilities for political purposes.
Of course, what he doesn't mention is that, in fact-that is HIS JOB. That is the job of practically all Congressman, and for that matter, probably most Senators-to run for re-election. Their staff does all the real work, and pretty much tells them what to say or do. They spend the bulk of their time campaigning and raising money.
What time they spend making speeches and appearing on committees and actually voting amounts to a bit of filler in what is otherwise a facade with little meaning and less actual accomplishment.
In fact, most of the time that they do actually vote and otherwise do what passes for work, we're better off if they didn't.
Henry Waxman has to be one pretentious piece of shit.
Posted by
SecondComingOfBast
at
2:58 PM
The Waxman Dummy
2008-07-08T14:58:00-04:00
SecondComingOfBast
Comments
Monday, July 07, 2008
Dawahares-What Went Wrong?
Dawahares, a family owned clothing store chain, founded in 1907 by a Syrian immigrant, will close all its stores, the last closing as of September 30th. Of all 33 stores, there were only nine initially to close, but it didn't take long for the family to realize the plan they had worked out in the face of mounting bankruptcy was not sufficient to prevent their total loss of funds by October.
Dawahares founder, who left Syria in order to ecape religious persecution, started out as a worker in a sweat shop in Mew York. At the urgings of a brother-in-law, he moved to Kentucky, ostensiby to work in the mines. Instead, he became a clothing and fabric salesman. Eventually, he opened his first store in Eastern Kentucky, long the most economically depressed area of the state.
Over the years, he opened several other stores in the area, but it was one of his sons who opened the crown jewel of the family business in Lexington, in the 1930's. Dawahares over the years gathered the reputation as the place to go for University of Kentucky Wildcats clothing and paraphernalia. The business continued to grow and prosper, until soon there were stores spread out across Kentucky, as well as West Virginia and Tennessee.
Unfortunately, it became somewhat of a dinosaur and may have been doomed to extinction by adherence to a business plan that was no longer economically feasible, while getting away from its roots at the same time.
Many see Dawahares as a Kentucky tradition. Others-quite a few others, it would seem-see it as a place where you go to pay top dollar (at least from a working class perspective) for second rate (at best) merchandise. In a good economy it might work, although even at that the UK contract may have been the only thing that kept the business profitable over the last thirty years.
In today's economy, a business plan that puts you at a disadvantage against places like Goodwill and other such thrift stores needs to be scrapped. The worse the economy gets, after all, the more those kinds of stores draws in an expanded clentelle, from the poor and working class, on up to the middle class.
When that happens, it is businessess like Dawahares, that never appealed to upper class folks to begin with, that suffer. What middle class folks continue to patronize such a business do so less frequently and spend less when they do. The poor and working class shoppers are now all but out of the picture, and what picture they are in involves old black and white stills.
So, why is this story so important I feel the need to blog about it? Well, it's a good barometer by which to measure the current political as well as economic climate. A bad economy tends to favor Democrats to begin with. When the country has been under a Republican Administration for the last eight years, and a Republican majority Congress for the last twelve out of fourteen years, that is all the more true.
There are other closings of other establishements coming, such as Goody's and a jewelry chain. Times are not good on the homefront. That means the GOP is actually fighting a three front war with most people scared to death they're itching to open a fourth.
I guess some might consider it ironic that this involves practically the one hundredth anniversary of a store chain founded by a Syrian immigrant,one you might consider a religous refugee, forced to close due to an economy battered in no small part by the direct and indirect effects of a war in the Islamic world. Well, that is true, but at the same time, remember, this was a business that started out in one of the poorest sections of rural Kentucky, became an American success story, and even managed to stay profitable and grow throughout the years of the Great Depression.
When I hear politicans tell us that our best years are yet in front of us, forgive my skepticism.
Dawahares founder, who left Syria in order to ecape religious persecution, started out as a worker in a sweat shop in Mew York. At the urgings of a brother-in-law, he moved to Kentucky, ostensiby to work in the mines. Instead, he became a clothing and fabric salesman. Eventually, he opened his first store in Eastern Kentucky, long the most economically depressed area of the state.
Over the years, he opened several other stores in the area, but it was one of his sons who opened the crown jewel of the family business in Lexington, in the 1930's. Dawahares over the years gathered the reputation as the place to go for University of Kentucky Wildcats clothing and paraphernalia. The business continued to grow and prosper, until soon there were stores spread out across Kentucky, as well as West Virginia and Tennessee.
Unfortunately, it became somewhat of a dinosaur and may have been doomed to extinction by adherence to a business plan that was no longer economically feasible, while getting away from its roots at the same time.
Many see Dawahares as a Kentucky tradition. Others-quite a few others, it would seem-see it as a place where you go to pay top dollar (at least from a working class perspective) for second rate (at best) merchandise. In a good economy it might work, although even at that the UK contract may have been the only thing that kept the business profitable over the last thirty years.
In today's economy, a business plan that puts you at a disadvantage against places like Goodwill and other such thrift stores needs to be scrapped. The worse the economy gets, after all, the more those kinds of stores draws in an expanded clentelle, from the poor and working class, on up to the middle class.
When that happens, it is businessess like Dawahares, that never appealed to upper class folks to begin with, that suffer. What middle class folks continue to patronize such a business do so less frequently and spend less when they do. The poor and working class shoppers are now all but out of the picture, and what picture they are in involves old black and white stills.
So, why is this story so important I feel the need to blog about it? Well, it's a good barometer by which to measure the current political as well as economic climate. A bad economy tends to favor Democrats to begin with. When the country has been under a Republican Administration for the last eight years, and a Republican majority Congress for the last twelve out of fourteen years, that is all the more true.
There are other closings of other establishements coming, such as Goody's and a jewelry chain. Times are not good on the homefront. That means the GOP is actually fighting a three front war with most people scared to death they're itching to open a fourth.
I guess some might consider it ironic that this involves practically the one hundredth anniversary of a store chain founded by a Syrian immigrant,one you might consider a religous refugee, forced to close due to an economy battered in no small part by the direct and indirect effects of a war in the Islamic world. Well, that is true, but at the same time, remember, this was a business that started out in one of the poorest sections of rural Kentucky, became an American success story, and even managed to stay profitable and grow throughout the years of the Great Depression.
When I hear politicans tell us that our best years are yet in front of us, forgive my skepticism.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Guest Blogger-Baphomet The Demon
I was just about ready to get off my blog last night, after deciding to do a blog post about the recent death of comedian George Carlin. I couldn’t seem to decide exactly what to say, when all of a sudden, the strangest thing happened. I felt eerily light-headed, and dizzy, and I could sense the presence of an infernal entity. I could actually feel him taking over, and the next thing I knew, it was as though I was outside my body, watching as it typed furiously, yet at the same time engaged in demoniac howls of laughter.
When I awoke the following morning, assuming I had merely had an unusually horrific yet realistic waking dream of some sort, I decided to look at some of my writings to decide what to work on next. That was when I made a most unexpected discovery. I had seemingly typed a new post, yet one that I could not remember.
Once I discovered the presence of this post on my Word program, I decided to go ahead and post it, though it is certainly not for the faint of heart.
At any rate, I feel I have no choice but to present to you a post by an uninvited though indisputably compelling guest-blogger. And so, without further ado, I give you-the great demon Baphomet.
I have hijacked this blog temporarily as a means of expressing my immortal wrath at the ultimate fate of the comedian George Carlin. Here was a man who was an expressed atheist, so you might suppose he is now my plaything. I waited and waited, and waited some more, and still no George Carlin here in my infernal abode. God, that trickster, has evidently given Carlin a pass, based on the so-called “joy” he gave to so many worthless humans, and the hours of laughter, and even inspiration, by which he uplifted so many.
I still puke rotten blood when I hear people say things like the following I overheard just yesterday, which I quote here-
“If there is a comedy club in heaven, George Carlin must surely be one of the headliners.”
Does such bilge not make you just sick to your stomach? Thankfully, such an ignorant statement, if made in seriousness, reveals a promising lack of knowledge about that insipid place known as heaven. In fact, so filled with the hideous emotion of “joy” is this horrible place, with it’s sickening condition called “peace”, that it is by its nature polluted by never-ending shrieks of “good-natured” laughter-so much to the point that a comedy club would be superfluous. No, George Carlin is, I am afraid, merely one of many destined to exist in an eternal abode of eternal, never-ending happiness.
Well, that is not going to ruin my day. Believe me, I have plenty of other prospects on whom I might soon vent my outrageous torture for eternity. One whom I trust will make his way to my eternal hell before too long is a man by the name of the Reverend Fred Phelps. He has been my faithful servant, albeit unknowingly, in the furtherance of spreading all the finer things of the universe-intolerance, hatred, and fear.
Just look at this wonderful website here, and the way he self-righteously condemns George Carlin to the eternal pits of hell. I wonder what the Reverend Phelps will say when, upon arriving at my humble abode, I look him straight in the eyes and tell him, “you lied, Phelps. Carlin is not here, as you can see.”
Then, the fun will begin. I have a special sharp rock over which I will bend Phelps, his naked spirit form bent over frontward with his ass sticking straight up into the air. He will hear the thousands upon thousands of the other unfortunates, those sexual perverts and rapists who finally, after many frustrating years of deprivation of their needs, will see that ass.
“Come and get it boys,” I will scream in that intimidating laughter I so love to affect. Phelps will surely scream for mercy, but to no avail, as thousands upon thousands of sexually depraved souls ass-rape him brutally. The worse part of it though, is a part of him will start to enjoy this, and will feel such great, all-encompassing shame, he will cry for mercy and for a deliverance that will never come his way.
When he has reached the absolute limits of human endurance, then it will be time for me to take my turn. My gigantic, thorn barbed, hardened cock shall plunge mercilessly into that already torn and bleeding ass as I unleash torrents of stinking, molten lava hot semen, with such force that it will shoot through his insides and out his impotently pleading mouth.
Then, I will have the pleasure of making him suck his own shit off my dick-shit that will in time be nothing but recently digested semen from various sources, not the least of which will be my own sulfuric emissions.
By the time I am through with him, he will be glad for the opportunity to face an on-going, never-ending gang rape by mere once-human spirits and minor demons. His shame and torment shall be ever lasting.
In the meantime, I must cut short this blog post, for I have other plans that I must see to. For one thing, I am preparing very special accommodations for two certain bloggers who seem to go all over the internet tearing into each other, neither trying to come to any kind of accord with the other. I have a special phone booth sized room just for the two of them where they can enjoy the pleasure of each others company-
FOR ALL ETERNITY
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
When I awoke the following morning, assuming I had merely had an unusually horrific yet realistic waking dream of some sort, I decided to look at some of my writings to decide what to work on next. That was when I made a most unexpected discovery. I had seemingly typed a new post, yet one that I could not remember.
Once I discovered the presence of this post on my Word program, I decided to go ahead and post it, though it is certainly not for the faint of heart.
At any rate, I feel I have no choice but to present to you a post by an uninvited though indisputably compelling guest-blogger. And so, without further ado, I give you-the great demon Baphomet.
I have hijacked this blog temporarily as a means of expressing my immortal wrath at the ultimate fate of the comedian George Carlin. Here was a man who was an expressed atheist, so you might suppose he is now my plaything. I waited and waited, and waited some more, and still no George Carlin here in my infernal abode. God, that trickster, has evidently given Carlin a pass, based on the so-called “joy” he gave to so many worthless humans, and the hours of laughter, and even inspiration, by which he uplifted so many.
I still puke rotten blood when I hear people say things like the following I overheard just yesterday, which I quote here-
“If there is a comedy club in heaven, George Carlin must surely be one of the headliners.”
Does such bilge not make you just sick to your stomach? Thankfully, such an ignorant statement, if made in seriousness, reveals a promising lack of knowledge about that insipid place known as heaven. In fact, so filled with the hideous emotion of “joy” is this horrible place, with it’s sickening condition called “peace”, that it is by its nature polluted by never-ending shrieks of “good-natured” laughter-so much to the point that a comedy club would be superfluous. No, George Carlin is, I am afraid, merely one of many destined to exist in an eternal abode of eternal, never-ending happiness.
Well, that is not going to ruin my day. Believe me, I have plenty of other prospects on whom I might soon vent my outrageous torture for eternity. One whom I trust will make his way to my eternal hell before too long is a man by the name of the Reverend Fred Phelps. He has been my faithful servant, albeit unknowingly, in the furtherance of spreading all the finer things of the universe-intolerance, hatred, and fear.
Just look at this wonderful website here, and the way he self-righteously condemns George Carlin to the eternal pits of hell. I wonder what the Reverend Phelps will say when, upon arriving at my humble abode, I look him straight in the eyes and tell him, “you lied, Phelps. Carlin is not here, as you can see.”
Then, the fun will begin. I have a special sharp rock over which I will bend Phelps, his naked spirit form bent over frontward with his ass sticking straight up into the air. He will hear the thousands upon thousands of the other unfortunates, those sexual perverts and rapists who finally, after many frustrating years of deprivation of their needs, will see that ass.
“Come and get it boys,” I will scream in that intimidating laughter I so love to affect. Phelps will surely scream for mercy, but to no avail, as thousands upon thousands of sexually depraved souls ass-rape him brutally. The worse part of it though, is a part of him will start to enjoy this, and will feel such great, all-encompassing shame, he will cry for mercy and for a deliverance that will never come his way.
When he has reached the absolute limits of human endurance, then it will be time for me to take my turn. My gigantic, thorn barbed, hardened cock shall plunge mercilessly into that already torn and bleeding ass as I unleash torrents of stinking, molten lava hot semen, with such force that it will shoot through his insides and out his impotently pleading mouth.
Then, I will have the pleasure of making him suck his own shit off my dick-shit that will in time be nothing but recently digested semen from various sources, not the least of which will be my own sulfuric emissions.
By the time I am through with him, he will be glad for the opportunity to face an on-going, never-ending gang rape by mere once-human spirits and minor demons. His shame and torment shall be ever lasting.
In the meantime, I must cut short this blog post, for I have other plans that I must see to. For one thing, I am preparing very special accommodations for two certain bloggers who seem to go all over the internet tearing into each other, neither trying to come to any kind of accord with the other. I have a special phone booth sized room just for the two of them where they can enjoy the pleasure of each others company-
FOR ALL ETERNITY
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Back To The Broom Closet
This is probably the silliest example of making a mountain out of a molehill you could ever imagine. On a recent segment of The Today Show, co-host Kathy Lee Gifford took part in some sort of inane question and answer about the reason people wear their wedding rings on the left hand. One of the answers evidently had something to do with some kind of ancient pre-Christian pagan superstition inferring the other hand being used for other purposes. Gifford made some silly, throwaway remark about those “nasty, nasty pagans”-and all hell suddenly threatened to break loose.
You would think she called for a reinstatement of the Inquisition. A number of pagans with evidently no real time on their hands circulated this petition calling on NBC to issue an apology. Some have even demanded Gifford be fired, and have called for a boycott of the Today Show and/or NBC. Well, after all, offending that all-important pagan demographic might conceivably cost them a couple hundred grand over the course of a year’s time, right?
When I first became a pagan, one of my major goals was to become the best person I could be, and to constantly strive for self-improvement. I still hold to that goal. It is not an easy goal to achieve. In fact, you never achieve it, because you can never improve too much. No matter how far you advance, you can always go a little more.
One of the things I always strive for is self-empowerment, in addition to wisdom, knowledge, and independence of thought and action, and the courage to stand on principle. Many times, that precludes the herd mentality that is so prevalent in today's society, as in all past societies (and unfortunately, probably in all future societies).
Pagans should be above that. We should learn to be self-sufficient, independent, able to think on our feet, and for ourselves, while at the same time striving to build a community that values cooperation, yes, but also respect for the individual and his needs and rights.
It makes me sick when I see groups of pagans engaged in identity politics, in trying to get over by playing the victim card. Who gives a rat's ass when some bimbo like Kathy Gifford makes some off-hand remark-especially one probably not even intended to slur actual real modern-day pagans to begin with? Even if she did, so what?
Does anybody know how to laugh any more? Is everything a matter for a public outcry, or a ban, or some kind of boycott or embargo? Where does it end?
Are we so helpless, pathetic, and weak that we have to bitch and cry every time somebody says anything that is not to our liking? Are we supposed to demand some kind of special rights or privileges? What's next, are we going to sue for reparations over the "Burning Times"?
I suppose I should add here that, yes, I understand the so-called “Burning Times” is a myth, but it is every bit as real as the manufactured controversy over Kathy Lee Giffords “nasty, nasty pagans” remark. Of course some people persist in believing in fairy tales, so I guess I should stress that what I am saying is, there is no “there” there in either case.
The people that provided the inspiration for the myth (an awful one) of the Burning Times amounted mainly to old senile women or folks who otherwise displeased someone to the extent someone realized all they had to do to get back at them was accuse them of witchcraft.
The other, and even larger group, were indeed victims of religious persecution due to their faith, but they were in fact Christian heretics, members of one or another Christian sect whose beliefs did not meet the Papal (for the most part) seal of approval.
Even referring to these actual real-life victims as victims of “Burning Times” is a gross distortion. Most of those who died, due to either religious persecution or to witchcraft hysteria, did not die from burning, but from drowning, hanging, or beheading. May times, inquisitors put them to the rack, or subjected them to the heinous torture known as drawing and quartering.
Nevertheless, ask an old nineteen sixties or seventies era witch or pagan, or those who choose to believe them, about the “Burning Times”, and what you hear amounts to an article of faith. It is dogma. These are the exact people, by and large, who promote this petition against NBC and against Kathy Lee Gifford, a person who has raised the ire of the left before over her alleged support of child slave labor. This, I think, is the real story. It’s a situation where a person disliked by a segment of the radical left says something-anything-and they come along with a fine toothed comb and pick it apart. Kathy Lee Gifford probably has a vague at best notion of the existence of modern pagans and their beliefs and practices.
It’s like if George W. Bush one day promoted the elimination of pennies, and a group of people accused him of wanting to eliminate people with the name Penny. Yeah, I know that’s an absurd example, but this is an absurd “issue” that doesn’t deserve a sensible comparison. There are no sensible comparisons-that’s just the point.
Nevertheless, a great many pagans will jump on this bandwagon, because they want to fit in and “accomplish” something or “stand up for their rights”. What they are doing is making a laughing stock of themselves, and by extension the rest of us. I think there is actually a reasonably good chance that Kathy Lee Gifford might have at some point apologized if someone pointed out to her in a reasonable fashion that she might have unintentionally hurt some people’s feelings-or maybe she wouldn’t have. Whatever the case, let’s face it. Pagan practitioners, while they have supported various endeavors that are at best cottage industries-incense and hemp based clothing and accessories comes to mind-they are not exactly an advertiser’s dream, nor are they a potential nightmare. Advertisers barely regard them as a demographic, if they even regard them at all.
If you want to know what television studios, executives, and by extension, probably their sponsors, really think of actual modern pagans, an episode from four or five years ago of the Fox Sunday evening cartoon series King of the Hill will tell you all you need to know. We are nerds, geeks, and NUTS. A petition like this does not solve any problems or raise the public consciousness. It only provides more comic fodder.
To all you people wanting to play the victim-how do you expect to be regarded as possibly valuable members of society, as a part of mainstream American culture, as a viable force in the nation or the world, if you are going to go around claiming you need special consideration and protection. What is the whole point of magic and our expressed belief in our deities? Should we not strive to live as independent, self-empowered individuals with a valuable contribution to make?
If you really want to be important, and contribute as a pagan, both as a member of that group and/or as an individual, then you can do that, but this is something else again. Is this the sum and substance of your goals-to be a victim, to portray yourself as a victim of society?
There comes a time when you have to stand up and fight for your rights, I concede that much. Nevertheless, this play the victim identity politics is just another example of why most people look at pagans in general as just a bunch of loons engaged in a role-playing game, one not much more advanced than when their little girls play dress up.
Well, boys and girls, it is time to grow up.
If you really want to play the victim, and yet think you have the ability to be a bona-fide witch or practitioner of the magical arts, I can only think of one way in which those two stances can work together in ways that are complimentary as opposed to being contradictory, as they certainly are.
You might want to consider getting together for the purpose of conducting one massive, giant group ritual. Form a circle and cast a spell geared toward magically transforming yourselves into part African-American, part Hispanic/Latino/, part Indian, gay/lesbian/transgender, feminists, physical as well as mentally disabled individuals.
Then, after the spell is over, do all the rest of us a big favor-convert to Islam. You will, I am sure, find it more to your liking.
Then you can play the victim all you want. You can go around saying
OOOHHHH WOOEEEE IS MEEEEE IIIMM A VICTIM PLLEEEEASSSWE EVERYBBOOODDYY HEEEELPP MEEEEEE.
Naturally, there will be those still that will object, and even deride your efforts. That’s when you really assert yourselves. Simply print placards with cool slogans like-
DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF PAGANISM
Then get together in large groups and go on a rampage. Well, after all, if paganism is going to be the next religion of perpetual outrage, why not go all out?
As newest members of every special interest group known to man, you can have the most all-inclusive group pity party on the face of the earth. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of supporters, sympathizers, donors, and never-ending reservoirs of pablum puking patronizers ready to promise you the world in return for your votes or support.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will just go about the process of living our lives, raising our families, and actually going about trying to improve the world by making a real difference and contributing to actual positive change or, in a great many cases, trying to keep things just as they are, thank you very much. That of course is as opposed to just trying to shout/kick/scream/beat/rip/stab/shoot/burn/hijack/blow everything to shreds, etc., and wondering why so many people hate us, or at the very least, want as little to do with us as possible.
Personally, I have better things to do with my time. How 'bout you?
You would think she called for a reinstatement of the Inquisition. A number of pagans with evidently no real time on their hands circulated this petition calling on NBC to issue an apology. Some have even demanded Gifford be fired, and have called for a boycott of the Today Show and/or NBC. Well, after all, offending that all-important pagan demographic might conceivably cost them a couple hundred grand over the course of a year’s time, right?
When I first became a pagan, one of my major goals was to become the best person I could be, and to constantly strive for self-improvement. I still hold to that goal. It is not an easy goal to achieve. In fact, you never achieve it, because you can never improve too much. No matter how far you advance, you can always go a little more.
One of the things I always strive for is self-empowerment, in addition to wisdom, knowledge, and independence of thought and action, and the courage to stand on principle. Many times, that precludes the herd mentality that is so prevalent in today's society, as in all past societies (and unfortunately, probably in all future societies).
Pagans should be above that. We should learn to be self-sufficient, independent, able to think on our feet, and for ourselves, while at the same time striving to build a community that values cooperation, yes, but also respect for the individual and his needs and rights.
It makes me sick when I see groups of pagans engaged in identity politics, in trying to get over by playing the victim card. Who gives a rat's ass when some bimbo like Kathy Gifford makes some off-hand remark-especially one probably not even intended to slur actual real modern-day pagans to begin with? Even if she did, so what?
Does anybody know how to laugh any more? Is everything a matter for a public outcry, or a ban, or some kind of boycott or embargo? Where does it end?
Are we so helpless, pathetic, and weak that we have to bitch and cry every time somebody says anything that is not to our liking? Are we supposed to demand some kind of special rights or privileges? What's next, are we going to sue for reparations over the "Burning Times"?
I suppose I should add here that, yes, I understand the so-called “Burning Times” is a myth, but it is every bit as real as the manufactured controversy over Kathy Lee Giffords “nasty, nasty pagans” remark. Of course some people persist in believing in fairy tales, so I guess I should stress that what I am saying is, there is no “there” there in either case.
The people that provided the inspiration for the myth (an awful one) of the Burning Times amounted mainly to old senile women or folks who otherwise displeased someone to the extent someone realized all they had to do to get back at them was accuse them of witchcraft.
The other, and even larger group, were indeed victims of religious persecution due to their faith, but they were in fact Christian heretics, members of one or another Christian sect whose beliefs did not meet the Papal (for the most part) seal of approval.
Even referring to these actual real-life victims as victims of “Burning Times” is a gross distortion. Most of those who died, due to either religious persecution or to witchcraft hysteria, did not die from burning, but from drowning, hanging, or beheading. May times, inquisitors put them to the rack, or subjected them to the heinous torture known as drawing and quartering.
Nevertheless, ask an old nineteen sixties or seventies era witch or pagan, or those who choose to believe them, about the “Burning Times”, and what you hear amounts to an article of faith. It is dogma. These are the exact people, by and large, who promote this petition against NBC and against Kathy Lee Gifford, a person who has raised the ire of the left before over her alleged support of child slave labor. This, I think, is the real story. It’s a situation where a person disliked by a segment of the radical left says something-anything-and they come along with a fine toothed comb and pick it apart. Kathy Lee Gifford probably has a vague at best notion of the existence of modern pagans and their beliefs and practices.
It’s like if George W. Bush one day promoted the elimination of pennies, and a group of people accused him of wanting to eliminate people with the name Penny. Yeah, I know that’s an absurd example, but this is an absurd “issue” that doesn’t deserve a sensible comparison. There are no sensible comparisons-that’s just the point.
Nevertheless, a great many pagans will jump on this bandwagon, because they want to fit in and “accomplish” something or “stand up for their rights”. What they are doing is making a laughing stock of themselves, and by extension the rest of us. I think there is actually a reasonably good chance that Kathy Lee Gifford might have at some point apologized if someone pointed out to her in a reasonable fashion that she might have unintentionally hurt some people’s feelings-or maybe she wouldn’t have. Whatever the case, let’s face it. Pagan practitioners, while they have supported various endeavors that are at best cottage industries-incense and hemp based clothing and accessories comes to mind-they are not exactly an advertiser’s dream, nor are they a potential nightmare. Advertisers barely regard them as a demographic, if they even regard them at all.
If you want to know what television studios, executives, and by extension, probably their sponsors, really think of actual modern pagans, an episode from four or five years ago of the Fox Sunday evening cartoon series King of the Hill will tell you all you need to know. We are nerds, geeks, and NUTS. A petition like this does not solve any problems or raise the public consciousness. It only provides more comic fodder.
To all you people wanting to play the victim-how do you expect to be regarded as possibly valuable members of society, as a part of mainstream American culture, as a viable force in the nation or the world, if you are going to go around claiming you need special consideration and protection. What is the whole point of magic and our expressed belief in our deities? Should we not strive to live as independent, self-empowered individuals with a valuable contribution to make?
If you really want to be important, and contribute as a pagan, both as a member of that group and/or as an individual, then you can do that, but this is something else again. Is this the sum and substance of your goals-to be a victim, to portray yourself as a victim of society?
There comes a time when you have to stand up and fight for your rights, I concede that much. Nevertheless, this play the victim identity politics is just another example of why most people look at pagans in general as just a bunch of loons engaged in a role-playing game, one not much more advanced than when their little girls play dress up.
Well, boys and girls, it is time to grow up.
If you really want to play the victim, and yet think you have the ability to be a bona-fide witch or practitioner of the magical arts, I can only think of one way in which those two stances can work together in ways that are complimentary as opposed to being contradictory, as they certainly are.
You might want to consider getting together for the purpose of conducting one massive, giant group ritual. Form a circle and cast a spell geared toward magically transforming yourselves into part African-American, part Hispanic/Latino/, part Indian, gay/lesbian/transgender, feminists, physical as well as mentally disabled individuals.
Then, after the spell is over, do all the rest of us a big favor-convert to Islam. You will, I am sure, find it more to your liking.
Then you can play the victim all you want. You can go around saying
OOOHHHH WOOEEEE IS MEEEEE IIIMM A VICTIM PLLEEEEASSSWE EVERYBBOOODDYY HEEEELPP MEEEEEE.
Naturally, there will be those still that will object, and even deride your efforts. That’s when you really assert yourselves. Simply print placards with cool slogans like-
DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF PAGANISM
Then get together in large groups and go on a rampage. Well, after all, if paganism is going to be the next religion of perpetual outrage, why not go all out?
As newest members of every special interest group known to man, you can have the most all-inclusive group pity party on the face of the earth. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of supporters, sympathizers, donors, and never-ending reservoirs of pablum puking patronizers ready to promise you the world in return for your votes or support.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will just go about the process of living our lives, raising our families, and actually going about trying to improve the world by making a real difference and contributing to actual positive change or, in a great many cases, trying to keep things just as they are, thank you very much. That of course is as opposed to just trying to shout/kick/scream/beat/rip/stab/shoot/burn/hijack/blow everything to shreds, etc., and wondering why so many people hate us, or at the very least, want as little to do with us as possible.
Personally, I have better things to do with my time. How 'bout you?
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