25 April, 2012
23 March, 2012
World Tour 2012
I'm not doing anything except staring at the computer screen, posting on a website, thinking some more, and posting the next step. So screw it.
If you're interested in having me show up somewhere in your neighborhood, post an address here or on Facebook. I have 30 days of vacation, starting Monday, and around 130 copies of my book. Virtually everything and everyone on the list of people I want to see is east of the Rockies. I intend to hit the West Coast in some way shape or form, but most of the remote locations would be driving by, taking a picture, and moving on with no incentive to stop. I could knock those out in a few days of hard driving without a reason to stop.
Here's your chance. Starting Monday, give me an address and a point-of-contact, either here or on Facebook. I'll see how you can be worked in to my itinerary and we'll arrange a meeting. If you're a musician, writer, artist, we can film collaborate, who knows? Maybe I'll say or do something stupid and get thrown out of the Army when I'm done. Soon I'll be one of the hopeless ramblers at one of the Occupy Movements, raping people and spilling feces everywhere. I'll blame George W. Bush for bringing me to such a degraded state. At the very least, I'll sell you a copy of "Life and Polonia."
I didn't spend any time at the original fort walls in Clarksville, Indiana. I might as well try that comic book store across the river that had locally-produced work for sale. There's also a couple of historical sites in the near South that I'll go see. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to work those into the trip home to the Midwest to see my family. Those are the priorities. Further information on this will be released as it unfolds.
Nothing illegal or that interferes with my safe return at the required time. There are limits to the terms of my leave, so obviously those have to be observed. I'm a boring person too. That said, comic books, politics, pop culture, beer, there must be some way to kill a few hours. Give me a point of contact and an address, I'll find some way to sell you a book.
If you're interested in having me show up somewhere in your neighborhood, post an address here or on Facebook. I have 30 days of vacation, starting Monday, and around 130 copies of my book. Virtually everything and everyone on the list of people I want to see is east of the Rockies. I intend to hit the West Coast in some way shape or form, but most of the remote locations would be driving by, taking a picture, and moving on with no incentive to stop. I could knock those out in a few days of hard driving without a reason to stop.
Here's your chance. Starting Monday, give me an address and a point-of-contact, either here or on Facebook. I'll see how you can be worked in to my itinerary and we'll arrange a meeting. If you're a musician, writer, artist, we can film collaborate, who knows? Maybe I'll say or do something stupid and get thrown out of the Army when I'm done. Soon I'll be one of the hopeless ramblers at one of the Occupy Movements, raping people and spilling feces everywhere. I'll blame George W. Bush for bringing me to such a degraded state. At the very least, I'll sell you a copy of "Life and Polonia."
I didn't spend any time at the original fort walls in Clarksville, Indiana. I might as well try that comic book store across the river that had locally-produced work for sale. There's also a couple of historical sites in the near South that I'll go see. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to work those into the trip home to the Midwest to see my family. Those are the priorities. Further information on this will be released as it unfolds.
Nothing illegal or that interferes with my safe return at the required time. There are limits to the terms of my leave, so obviously those have to be observed. I'm a boring person too. That said, comic books, politics, pop culture, beer, there must be some way to kill a few hours. Give me a point of contact and an address, I'll find some way to sell you a book.
12 February, 2012
Valderee, valderaa...
As I write this, I'm just across from Riverside Drive in Historic Clarksville. Indiana, which is just across the Ohio River from the hotel I'm writing this in. I even found myself at Woerner Avenue.I desperately needed time off from work, so events conspired to get me a 4-day pass. It took me almost two days to do anything, but I arrived in Louisville, KY yesterday evening. The traffic is miserable - clearly not a city built for cars - but some of the buildings are lovely. It's actually a town old enough to divide its buildings by eras. How quaint.
My pass is up tomorrow, so we'll see if I get to the Speed Museum or the other 'landmark' I found which made me decide on Louisville as a trip. I'm blanking on it and the itinerary is 20 stories below in the car. It wasn't the Kentucky Derby, it wasn't whatever Bourbon manufacturers are here. The steamboats on the river are docked just below my hotel so it wasn't them. Oh well. I did hit 4th Street Live last night (and possibly tonight) and visited a comic book store. I spent over 300 dollars there, and all I wanted was the latest issue of The Boys.
After 63 issues, we finally found out the name of the guy from Vought-American while the superheroes are beginning a coup of the government. In retaliation, the Boys are going to reveal every nasty secret they've been keeping for the right moment. Very interesting twists and turns as we near the ending. Now Butcher will release every dirty secret they've been hiding. The Deep made sure to take his contract with him, so he might wind up the long-term winner (what did Mallory say about a spy?) Annie will probably wind up hiding at Hughie's again and find the file he stole on Maeve.
Ennis plotted this as a novel-length story, 72 issues plus three six-issue miniseries. The third miniseries - the origin of Butcher - is complete and there's less than ten issues to go.
Speaking of ending, there's just under 9 months left until Obama's at best a lame duck. I think he's losing even the lock on the black vote, and without that he has no chance at all. None, zero, zip, zilch, nada. Four years of 'I had nothing to do with this, vote for me again' isn't going to win no matter how many thugs you employ.
I'd say we had to go through this, as a nation. We needed a full-public show of how the job is more difficult than we think.
[Several days later] I did not make the Speed Museum because I could not figure out where the parking garage was after a couple of passes. It wasn't where the sign pointed and everything else was for student/faculty parking. I hit another comic store (only a hundred bucks this time, but they had Neil Gaiman Miracleman's, old issues of MAD, even a shelf for locally-produced stuff. I was tempted - there are essays about comics in the one book I've finished, and the next one, well...
Louisville certainly had some nice buildings, but strangely Clarksville was the bigger attraction to me. According to Wikipedia, it was where Henry Clay duelled Humphrey Marshall. Clarksville was a popular place for Kentuckians to avoid the state's anti-duelling laws. While across the river, I did drive around a bit, especially on Fort Street.
Clarksville is the oldest town in the Northwest Territory [Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan] founded in 1783. The original outpost across the river was called Fort-on-Shore (1778) but within three years it was inadequate and Fort Nelson was built, against Indians and the British. Afterwards the town grew. I saw what looked like the main gate to Fort Nelson but then headed back across the river.
Strange to think that 220 years ago, Fort Nelson was the FOB of the USA. Very few were willing to leave even the relative safety of Kentucky to journey to a foreign land, much less step outside the fort walls. Of course people in general were tougher then, but the historical parallels continue.
The Cathedral of the Assumption, not too far from where I stayed (in the historical Galt House), served a good chunk of the American frontier by itself for a while. Father Stephen Theodore Badin, the first priest ordained in America worked the circuit in that church among others. The Muhammed Ali Center was right next to my hotel, so I drove by it countless times, and got a good picture of its 'float like a butterfly' mosaic from a window in the Galt House.
I didn't visit the Thomas Edison House because I knew there was something I'd seen when I had the initial idea for a visit and only remember it now that I'm looking up the details. I knew something was missing on the itinerary and didn't see Tom Edison on any of the lists I'd made or referred to. Damn. There's also the Speed House, designed by Thomas Jefferson that I also knew about before I went but forgot. On the way back, I also passed by Abraham Lincoln's birthplace but didn't stop there either.
I made damn sure to get a haircut before showing up to work the next day. I've settled back into a normal routine. War continues to loom. I would love to think we've managed to tie up most of our enemies physically in that location. Israel is the only ally in immediate danger and Syria provides a buffer from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, etc. Who knows what we're at with North Korea these days now that Fearless Leader checked out?
The administration's attack on Catholics basically guarantees a loss this November, as if the economy didn't already do that. I don't think there's a chance of Congress budging to the left. It only remains to see how far it shall go to the right. Until this 'vegetarians restaurants must serve meat because protein is part of a healthy diet' thing, I thought there was still a good chance for Obama's re-election. The grapevine (the winds?) suggests that even blacks are disillusioned. I'm guessing it's through his inept executive ability. Yes, affirmative action can get you into the Oval Office. Now that we know that, what do we know? I doubt attacking religion will help there either, although their recent move was clearly directed at Catholics.
Not for the first time do I marvel at the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in restricting Presidential terms to four years. Long enough to *seem* like a long time, subject to renewal and enough time to catch abusers of the office. Just the list of alarms that should be going off about Solyndra means Obama would spend a second term fighting impeachment anyway, to say nothing of all the other 'green technology' boondoggles he's handed to cronies.
I'd like to speculate further about the religious backlash ("How many divisions does the Pope have?") but I'm not sure where it will go. On the legal arguments, the religious have some weak cards. A Catholic owning a business would abide by the same laws and regulations, a Catholic doctor or nurse must abide the same in their fields, whether or not they tithe or operate under any direct church connection.
In the public field, government triumphs over religion, but it's not where we live. Oliver Stone's son just 'converted' to Islam, but it remains to be seen if that's for anything more than publicity purposes (on the Iranians' part anyway). Religion crosses into public and private spheres, as well as implying/promising/explaining spheres more universal. Furthermore, it's just *there* no matter how much non-believers refuse to accept it, or use it for their own purposes.
Clearly the religious, particularly those who enter or are driven to excel at the medical profession will be 'going Galt', creating a massive shortage of doctors and nurses right when the government becomes the only game in town.
Religions have competitions. Government is organized violence and can't afford any competition in the location. The faithful would, uh, 'minister' to themselves (to pick a word) and avoid the government's radar entirely, except as targets for plunder and punishment, exactly what they are anyway. The King of England seizes the monastaries and declares himself the head of a separate church, just as a separate pope does much the same for the King of France in the Great Schism.
Separating church and state is desirable, but isn't possible. Citizens of the former have the right to participate freely in the latter and vice-versa. People are naturally quarrelsome, which is why government is needed to begin with. That's why the violence is organized as a military and police force for threats and dangers external and internal.
But this is targetting people for what they believe. It won't hold up. The administration is crumbling slowly but surely. They're still sticking with it so far, but it doesn't look like they'll break their record of caving in yet. The left also calls it caving in, but don't recognize that he doesn't need to win any of these battles. He just has to last long enough - one or two terms - to appoint the right people, ignore the right laws, abuse when he feels like it and so on and create lasting damage.
I think it will bounce back on itself but there's no evidence that isn't anecdotal. I notice last week's Doonesbury has had Joanie and Alex (grandmother and granddaughter) campaigning for a politician (like Alex' dad when he met his second wife). For some odd reason, Alex is feeling decisive enough about getting married to text her intended right now, telling Granny that if they talk about it, she might not do it. Nice. Joanie was probably in a similar situation, before she had kids [later retconned to one] and then ditched everything to go off with two college guys on a motorcycle, live in a commune and become a lawyer. To me, this is what's wrong with feminism, and thanks to the magic of the comics medium, one strip by two creators [Trudeau and his longtime assistant] it can be documented to that point.
In Louisville, I found a collection of Jack Cole's newspaper strip, "Betsy and Me". Cole had finally achieved his longtime dream of a daily strip in addition to the acclaimed cartoons he was doing for Playboy. But he shot himself a couple of months after the strip's debut. Comics historian RC Harvey speculates on why in the introduction (reprinted and expanded from something he wrote in The Comics Journal ages ago, I think it was a review of DC Archives' first Plastic Man collection.
Jack Cole was a brilliant artist who achieved distinction in multiple areas of cartooning, any one of which would still bring him esteem. With Plastic Man for Splash Comics, he developed an influential exxagerated cartoony style which (according to Harvey) was the first to be labelled "big foot". Plas became a fondly-remembered character, but nobody except Cole has been able to do anything with him. Kyle Baker's series was brilliant, but didn't find an audience.
While working in other comics, Cole also drew an infamous panel representing 'injury-to-eye' that drew the ire of Frederic Wertham for Seduction of the Innocent. Cole wasn't otherwise affiliated with horror titles, although he did work in crime comics. The introduction credits him with introducing all sorts of elaborate panel designs and camera angles, having finally given up on making a comic book page resemble a newspaper strip. This is strange because otherwise Harvey rarely shuts up about Will Eisner, who was closely acquainted with Cole during his comic book years. Cole had gotten his start in the Eisner shop, been one of the people chosen to continue "The Spirit" while Eisner was drafted and they were close colleagues.
When the comic book business finally died (for his purposes) Cole submitted gags to magazines and attracted the attention of Hugh Hefner. A cartoonist himself, Hefner gave Cole a place of honor and received fully painted watercolor cartoons that defined much of the magazine's early image. Simultaneously, Cole did another series of cartoons, the 'definitions', wherein a woman was drawn with as few lines as possible, in a pose that defined whatever word was given, 'finicky', 'romantic', etc.
Then he got the newspaper strip and his style became a stylized-yet-simplified graphical one. The narrative style is definitely original, a detailed novelistic style, down to the 'she said'/'he said'/'I said's around many of the word balloons. Many of the strips don't have punchlines, but there's a quirkiness that makes them work.
The pacing is utterly novel. The first month or so is spent getting the reader up to speed on the family, starting with Betsy and Chet (the narrator) meeting, falling in love, getting married, early married life, pregnancy, childbirth, the baby's development from the first few days, weeks, months, and eventually quick recaps until Farley is now five. He's a childhood genius. This is all interspersed with scenes involving the landlady or the store where Chet works as an assistant floorwalker.
Eventually they buy a bigger house which they can't afford and jokes extend to the long commute. Their friends had played a minor part also buy bigger houses and the middle-class rat race continues. In promotional artwork, Chet explains that he has enough story ideas to last until 6000 AD and considering the parts of their life that were barely scratched before Cole took his own, that doesn't seem to be hyperbole. They never mentioned Aunt Ann or the town meetings after this solicitation, barely scratched Betsy's hobby club or the town's social titans. Chet's job and the house purchase were subordinate to the couple raising the supergenius son in best cartooning tradition.
I have no idea why Cole killed himself, but if anything, this strip is a good example of being too good for its medium. It would never have survived the shrinking of the comics page like Peanuts (another graphically simple strip). That can't have made his life any easier.
Someone who did make his life easier was Milt Caniff, who produced "Dickie Dare", "Terry and the Pirates" and "Steve Canyon" in a heavily-inked style that meshed cartoon-like people with realistic backgrounds and details for adventure/soap opera. I like his art, but am not a big fan of those strips. An except to this is "Male Call", the strip starring Miss Lace which he produced during the war and also collected in a book I found in Louisville.
The Lace strips are great. Caniff made sure to keep the rights and produced gratis something that still holds up after 60 years. Lots of cheesecake and jokes about officers, how can you go wrong? When the war was over, she overheard ex-GIs talking about future plans and slipped back in the inkwell from whence she came.
Well, I guess that's enough of a post for the time being. I haven't decided what to do about the blog. It's tempting to use it to organize my Facebook posts for later compilation. At this point, I'm so bogged down in the editing that new material has to be considered with a view towards how much future work I'm subjecting myself to here and now. This is why people start charging. Or in my case, editing and then charging after publication.
Not sure what to post. Here's Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani doing "Knockdown" from some NFL Music compilation. It's mindless and hard, heavy rock'n'roll, but it's Sammy and Satch of Chickenfoot and so much more.
11 January, 2012
Mousewife to momshell in the time it takes to get that new tattoo
is just one of the many bizarre lyrics we are subjected to now that David Lee Roth and Van Halen have released their first new song in many years. "Tattoo" isn't horrible, but the video is just...
It's disturbing. I'm not the world's biggest VH fan, but almost every part of the video felt familiar, like it was brought out of a time capsule, covered in mold and infested with larvae. Let us dissect, shall we?
The first bit of evidence that something is off is with that ghastly "Tattoo, tattoo" which opens the song. It's horrifying and worse, it's the song's chorus and sole hook. This is where Michael Anthony helped as a back-up vocalist. It would work if they held each note longer and maybe sung a little more. You wouldn't sing the words "dance the night away" like that, right?
DLR waving flags on stage was a very clever visual gimmick. However, it amounts to a 'look at me' which doesn't compare to an instrumental solo and doesn't translate to a screen. I think this and most of the other shots involving time reverse came from an early VH video, probably "Jump", but that's where the more knowledgeable fans come in.
The intro is good. DLR looks like he's giving orders to someone during the strobe effect, but it's a very creditable guitar intro and I honestly think they look good, in a weird way. The camera on a dolly works, but feels like it's trying too hard at the same time. Al is almost invisible during the entire video, but Wolfgang makes up for it.
As usual, the lyrics are barely intelligible and not worth the effort. DLR thinks we need to ponder the body of a man pushing 60 in a way that doesn't make us want to hurl. The bass sounds very good and (predictably) internet scuttlebutt says EVH played it himself.
They suddenly switch to Roth in a jacket doing something which makes no sense and isn't in synch with the vocals. While this is common on Youtube, half the fun is in seeing how far off the synch is. After a few seconds, it's clear this isn't that sort of video. But why? The guitar builds nicely though, since the vocals don't.
Shots dropped in of the band playing, and then we suddenly realize we've hit a chorus. Whoever edited the video actually got it right when we see DLR and EVH step together to start singing. Lip-synching in EVH's case, but they're trying really hard to look like they like each other. Like everything turned back and it was just after 1984 again. They're even hip by using words like "mousewife" and "momshell", portmanteaus popularized by a recent popular book. The only concession to age is that these aren't expressly teenage fantasies.
I've developed a theory that Roth lost his heart to EVH in a way he probably hasn't even come to terms with yet. This unique form of manlove ran directly opposite the lifestyle this archtype cock-rocker has otherwise embodied. In 1984, he got too full of himself and demoralized the band to the point that they couldn't work together. He left, expecting to take the world by storm. A few years later, his bubble had popped and he began to make noises about coming back, which wouldn't happen for several years yet.
When the '96 reunion happened, Roth fell too hard, misread things and screwed up as much as he could. He'd waited all this time, but the romance had stumbled. Further failures impeded this glorious moment but now it's here.
It's when the two of them are finishing the first run through "to get that new tattoo" that it looks like Roth's smile is more like desperation. Maybe he's had a ton of plastic surgery that's showing. It wouldn't be out of character, but considering what it must have taken to get EVH to this point, what must be going through his mind. The lyrics were awkward and slowed down the song's pace right when it should have speeded up.
It's also strange to realize that so far, nobody in the video is seen with a tattoo. This is finally remedied when father, son and holee Roth mime the multi-tracked chorus vocals. Someone elsewhere on the screen has something prominent and blurry, so there's that tat.
It's not just that so much of the video feels like a retread, it's that they're clearly no longer as good at it. Roth is no longer a gymnast. And he's wearing bell-bottoms. There was a hint of keyboards, but the song remains firmly in the guitar aspect of the band. Not surprising, it originated from 1978 and caught in multiple bootlegs as a song called "Down in Flames".
It's not that VH uses old unreleased material that causes some to complain (including myself, as we shall see) it's that he has always made the claim to be constantly writing new material. Many people, including Sammy Hagar, vouch for a dozen new albums worth of material sitting on the floor. That's fine for someone like Sammy Hagar, who can come up with something to finish a piece or join another piece to it, coming from roughly the same musical approach as EVH, basic kick-ass rock'n'roll. But otherwise, it's not clear what's there other than him pushing 'record' when he practices, and he practices a lot.
David Lee Roth has to run the show. Reportedly, he edited this video. Hence his return to form, a low-voiced spoken-word gibberish that is thankfully cut to half a verse before it's time to start heading back to the chorus as the guitar gets louder. Visually, the camera twists around for no reason except maybe to change angles. Suddenly things get right again for the strobe effect.
Then they try to stage a clip. The three of them turn around like they aren't ready yet and then start singing. They pass the chick with the tattoo in the background while Wolfy looks really into singing for a second, then turns his eyes to see if he's doing it right. And EVH isn't being serious either.
The transition into the chorus is genuinely effective this time. The music carried the spoken-word portion, which turned into an effective, proper Van Halen chorus, loud and boistrous, "Tat-Too, Tat-Too". You can almost headbang to that. Roth gets off a few shrieks like the old days and they start segueing into the bridge.
If there's a reason for this song to exist, this is it. The guitar solo that metalheads have been denied for so many years is only seconds away. The drums have been strangely muted the entire song, but so has the bass. It's a Van Halen song, people don't listen to VH for that.
This is the sort of material that the boys developed night after night, in between covers until they had enough original material that they could start looking for work in places where cover bands weren't hired. Roth was a great showman and right up through this song, gives it everything he has from the first step. He did the patter and came up with stuff to shout at the right place. Repeat a few times and call it a new song. Maybe Eddie throws in a new guitar solo.
That's what they did here, with the hip transplant guitarist not trying to jump any longer in the footage. And then...
Roth won't shut up. He isn't interested in serving the needs of the song, he has to insert his ugly tuneless voice for way longer than neccesary. Even the Sammy-esque "yeah" doesn't redeem it. Or he could have put his spoken-word bit here.
The guitar solo sounds good. Whoever's behind the camera doesn't have any idea what to do with it. Then we return to the strobe effect where suddenly the vocals are in synch. Roth reads from the teleprompter about his Uncle Danny's union tattoo and he wears the chapter number also. The first time I heard the song, I misunderstood and thought he was also referring to relatives in the Holocaust. Not so, but the relevance of this tattoo (other than to the "union" I think he means) creates a jarring juxtaposition to the tramp stamp the rest of the song is about.
Musically, the song continues. The video becomes strange as they start dropping balloons, presumably as a climax. So why is it still in black and white? Dave and Eddie share a close-up and suddenly Dave's eyes move fractionally off-camera, catch something, and move back as he gets angry. This is where the look of desperation comes from on the next shot, among the streamers.
The album is in the can, DLR has coaxed, nudged and dragged the VH brothers through the album sessions. Maybe there's even songs in there less than 30 years old. But this is as good as it's going to get. Not as good as in 2007, or 2000, or 1996, much less 1985.
The best parts of the video are the clips at the end, piled together in a heady mix of rockin' out and flags, balloons, confetti. There's another shot of Alex in reverse, which gives the drumming a weird effect. Then we're back to the strobe. We have no idea if DLR is discoursing on Western Civilization or attempting a take of a different verse, but he gives up and whirls away, leaving us with a very cool (if morbid) image to fade out on.
Many people spend a lifetime married to the wrong person. Fewer people (presumably) spend their lives waiting for someone. Not like this. It's like a tattoo, once you get one, it doesn't come off.
It's disturbing. I'm not the world's biggest VH fan, but almost every part of the video felt familiar, like it was brought out of a time capsule, covered in mold and infested with larvae. Let us dissect, shall we?
The first bit of evidence that something is off is with that ghastly "Tattoo, tattoo" which opens the song. It's horrifying and worse, it's the song's chorus and sole hook. This is where Michael Anthony helped as a back-up vocalist. It would work if they held each note longer and maybe sung a little more. You wouldn't sing the words "dance the night away" like that, right?
DLR waving flags on stage was a very clever visual gimmick. However, it amounts to a 'look at me' which doesn't compare to an instrumental solo and doesn't translate to a screen. I think this and most of the other shots involving time reverse came from an early VH video, probably "Jump", but that's where the more knowledgeable fans come in.
The intro is good. DLR looks like he's giving orders to someone during the strobe effect, but it's a very creditable guitar intro and I honestly think they look good, in a weird way. The camera on a dolly works, but feels like it's trying too hard at the same time. Al is almost invisible during the entire video, but Wolfgang makes up for it.
As usual, the lyrics are barely intelligible and not worth the effort. DLR thinks we need to ponder the body of a man pushing 60 in a way that doesn't make us want to hurl. The bass sounds very good and (predictably) internet scuttlebutt says EVH played it himself.
They suddenly switch to Roth in a jacket doing something which makes no sense and isn't in synch with the vocals. While this is common on Youtube, half the fun is in seeing how far off the synch is. After a few seconds, it's clear this isn't that sort of video. But why? The guitar builds nicely though, since the vocals don't.
Shots dropped in of the band playing, and then we suddenly realize we've hit a chorus. Whoever edited the video actually got it right when we see DLR and EVH step together to start singing. Lip-synching in EVH's case, but they're trying really hard to look like they like each other. Like everything turned back and it was just after 1984 again. They're even hip by using words like "mousewife" and "momshell", portmanteaus popularized by a recent popular book. The only concession to age is that these aren't expressly teenage fantasies.
I've developed a theory that Roth lost his heart to EVH in a way he probably hasn't even come to terms with yet. This unique form of manlove ran directly opposite the lifestyle this archtype cock-rocker has otherwise embodied. In 1984, he got too full of himself and demoralized the band to the point that they couldn't work together. He left, expecting to take the world by storm. A few years later, his bubble had popped and he began to make noises about coming back, which wouldn't happen for several years yet.
When the '96 reunion happened, Roth fell too hard, misread things and screwed up as much as he could. He'd waited all this time, but the romance had stumbled. Further failures impeded this glorious moment but now it's here.
It's when the two of them are finishing the first run through "to get that new tattoo" that it looks like Roth's smile is more like desperation. Maybe he's had a ton of plastic surgery that's showing. It wouldn't be out of character, but considering what it must have taken to get EVH to this point, what must be going through his mind. The lyrics were awkward and slowed down the song's pace right when it should have speeded up.
It's also strange to realize that so far, nobody in the video is seen with a tattoo. This is finally remedied when father, son and holee Roth mime the multi-tracked chorus vocals. Someone elsewhere on the screen has something prominent and blurry, so there's that tat.
It's not just that so much of the video feels like a retread, it's that they're clearly no longer as good at it. Roth is no longer a gymnast. And he's wearing bell-bottoms. There was a hint of keyboards, but the song remains firmly in the guitar aspect of the band. Not surprising, it originated from 1978 and caught in multiple bootlegs as a song called "Down in Flames".
It's not that VH uses old unreleased material that causes some to complain (including myself, as we shall see) it's that he has always made the claim to be constantly writing new material. Many people, including Sammy Hagar, vouch for a dozen new albums worth of material sitting on the floor. That's fine for someone like Sammy Hagar, who can come up with something to finish a piece or join another piece to it, coming from roughly the same musical approach as EVH, basic kick-ass rock'n'roll. But otherwise, it's not clear what's there other than him pushing 'record' when he practices, and he practices a lot.
David Lee Roth has to run the show. Reportedly, he edited this video. Hence his return to form, a low-voiced spoken-word gibberish that is thankfully cut to half a verse before it's time to start heading back to the chorus as the guitar gets louder. Visually, the camera twists around for no reason except maybe to change angles. Suddenly things get right again for the strobe effect.
Then they try to stage a clip. The three of them turn around like they aren't ready yet and then start singing. They pass the chick with the tattoo in the background while Wolfy looks really into singing for a second, then turns his eyes to see if he's doing it right. And EVH isn't being serious either.
The transition into the chorus is genuinely effective this time. The music carried the spoken-word portion, which turned into an effective, proper Van Halen chorus, loud and boistrous, "Tat-Too, Tat-Too". You can almost headbang to that. Roth gets off a few shrieks like the old days and they start segueing into the bridge.
If there's a reason for this song to exist, this is it. The guitar solo that metalheads have been denied for so many years is only seconds away. The drums have been strangely muted the entire song, but so has the bass. It's a Van Halen song, people don't listen to VH for that.
This is the sort of material that the boys developed night after night, in between covers until they had enough original material that they could start looking for work in places where cover bands weren't hired. Roth was a great showman and right up through this song, gives it everything he has from the first step. He did the patter and came up with stuff to shout at the right place. Repeat a few times and call it a new song. Maybe Eddie throws in a new guitar solo.
That's what they did here, with the hip transplant guitarist not trying to jump any longer in the footage. And then...
Roth won't shut up. He isn't interested in serving the needs of the song, he has to insert his ugly tuneless voice for way longer than neccesary. Even the Sammy-esque "yeah" doesn't redeem it. Or he could have put his spoken-word bit here.
The guitar solo sounds good. Whoever's behind the camera doesn't have any idea what to do with it. Then we return to the strobe effect where suddenly the vocals are in synch. Roth reads from the teleprompter about his Uncle Danny's union tattoo and he wears the chapter number also. The first time I heard the song, I misunderstood and thought he was also referring to relatives in the Holocaust. Not so, but the relevance of this tattoo (other than to the "union" I think he means) creates a jarring juxtaposition to the tramp stamp the rest of the song is about.
Musically, the song continues. The video becomes strange as they start dropping balloons, presumably as a climax. So why is it still in black and white? Dave and Eddie share a close-up and suddenly Dave's eyes move fractionally off-camera, catch something, and move back as he gets angry. This is where the look of desperation comes from on the next shot, among the streamers.
The album is in the can, DLR has coaxed, nudged and dragged the VH brothers through the album sessions. Maybe there's even songs in there less than 30 years old. But this is as good as it's going to get. Not as good as in 2007, or 2000, or 1996, much less 1985.
The best parts of the video are the clips at the end, piled together in a heady mix of rockin' out and flags, balloons, confetti. There's another shot of Alex in reverse, which gives the drumming a weird effect. Then we're back to the strobe. We have no idea if DLR is discoursing on Western Civilization or attempting a take of a different verse, but he gives up and whirls away, leaving us with a very cool (if morbid) image to fade out on.
Many people spend a lifetime married to the wrong person. Fewer people (presumably) spend their lives waiting for someone. Not like this. It's like a tattoo, once you get one, it doesn't come off.
08 January, 2012
I guess Kay can't tell Michael that Presidents don't have people killed now...
They couldn't give what they were doing any thought. They didn't want to think about what they might be getting into. They forgot about the Constitution, Article 1, Section 5, Clause 4.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
Is the Senate Majority Leader is so derelict in his duties that he assumed the Senate was adjourned without the other House's consent? Was he impeding the President in making appointments? The President's was a Constitutional Professor (we are assured) so he could never make such a gross error. He can still present nominees the proper Constitutional way so his dignity is preserved, but what the heck could Harry Reid be thinking?
Not only that, but he specifically tricked the President into appointing Richard Cordway to direct the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, a post that specifically requires Senatorial approval.
Yet all the people who pretended George W. Bush bent and broke the Constitution will just ignore this like a summer rain. That's doublethink.
This is the desperation of Wile E. Coyote edging further and further out onto a limb that's already sawed off. It cannot be wrong because of Bush/Rush/Fox/Palin/etc...
The OWS movements ran away with their tails between their legs. The last noise they made was some victory nonsense about 'changing the conversation', as though 99% is any different than basic Marxism which they were full of six months ago. That's not change, and all the rapes, assaults, thefts, racism, Jew-hatred and sanitation disasters don't make it so.
The Tea Party has faded away because there's nothing for them to do. And they had jobs, remember? They cleaned up after themselves, went home and anonymously went about their lives. How much money is the Occupy movement costing each municipality to clean up a mess the leeches made? Way to protest there. Good thing the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn't have the same spirit. They actually made it through a winter. So did the Bolsheviks, come to think of it.
I think the extent of the leftist media-fed delusion is rotting and falling away in the face of its own hypocrisies. An internet poll went around asking OWS protestors about Time Magazine naming Protestors the Person of the Year, with a half-hearted nod to Muslim men and women risking their lives across the world. As expected, only one protestor noticed that Time Magazine was a rich corporation, the rest thought it was sorta cool.
A report of OWS analyzes that it was mostly made up of "Communitarians", i.e. people who sought to belong with little intent beyond that, and "Professionals", people who will drop whatever they're doing at the first sign of revolution, because they want in. As the various messes they left in urban areas demonstrates, they can't really plan anything or build anything.
The buzz is now that the Occupy movement doesn't need to "occupy" anything. They're so close to triumphing over reality, it's almost scary.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
Is the Senate Majority Leader is so derelict in his duties that he assumed the Senate was adjourned without the other House's consent? Was he impeding the President in making appointments? The President's was a Constitutional Professor (we are assured) so he could never make such a gross error. He can still present nominees the proper Constitutional way so his dignity is preserved, but what the heck could Harry Reid be thinking?
Not only that, but he specifically tricked the President into appointing Richard Cordway to direct the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, a post that specifically requires Senatorial approval.
Yet all the people who pretended George W. Bush bent and broke the Constitution will just ignore this like a summer rain. That's doublethink.
This is the desperation of Wile E. Coyote edging further and further out onto a limb that's already sawed off. It cannot be wrong because of Bush/Rush/Fox/Palin/etc...
The OWS movements ran away with their tails between their legs. The last noise they made was some victory nonsense about 'changing the conversation', as though 99% is any different than basic Marxism which they were full of six months ago. That's not change, and all the rapes, assaults, thefts, racism, Jew-hatred and sanitation disasters don't make it so.
The Tea Party has faded away because there's nothing for them to do. And they had jobs, remember? They cleaned up after themselves, went home and anonymously went about their lives. How much money is the Occupy movement costing each municipality to clean up a mess the leeches made? Way to protest there. Good thing the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn't have the same spirit. They actually made it through a winter. So did the Bolsheviks, come to think of it.
I think the extent of the leftist media-fed delusion is rotting and falling away in the face of its own hypocrisies. An internet poll went around asking OWS protestors about Time Magazine naming Protestors the Person of the Year, with a half-hearted nod to Muslim men and women risking their lives across the world. As expected, only one protestor noticed that Time Magazine was a rich corporation, the rest thought it was sorta cool.
A report of OWS analyzes that it was mostly made up of "Communitarians", i.e. people who sought to belong with little intent beyond that, and "Professionals", people who will drop whatever they're doing at the first sign of revolution, because they want in. As the various messes they left in urban areas demonstrates, they can't really plan anything or build anything.
The buzz is now that the Occupy movement doesn't need to "occupy" anything. They're so close to triumphing over reality, it's almost scary.
01 January, 2012
Yo yo peeps, what it do?
The new book continues. On a 4-day weekend, my goal was to have 20 pages of editing finished. I was at about 17 and a half finished before I quit last night, with another 5 pages of essays on Popeye that I'd hand-editted when I woke up yesterday morning. So there's not much worry I'll make my goal. I also broke down the structure of Side A roughly into its finished form.
There's so many pages. At least "Polonia" was one story. There was a forward momentum, just in cutting the number of pages until reaching 'the end'. Now, it seems no matter how many pages I mark up and move to the 'finished' side of the binder, there's a ton of them which are marked up and nowhere close to finishing, to say nothing of all the pages which are still sorta clean and fresh-looking.
Then there's Side B, the short short stories where I had assumed I'd let their age excuse the work. I was barely going to polish for grammar. I decided I'd give revision a shot, maybe with the one story written before enlisting (included for completeness) A month or two later, I'd finally re-written all of them and was hoping the spirit of creation was done and now all they needed was the grammar/spelling polish. Nope, it's gonna be @60 corrections a page or more, and that'll just be this draft. This is why I was going to let the age excuse the work.
Of course by the time I get done with all that, who knows how much more I'll have written. One reason I've been glad to spend less time on this blog is for the clear break it will provide. I've also realized that President Obama's term (first term???) can be detached from the other existing material and made into its own 'side', That way the historical essays would end during GWB's term (which seems so distant now) and the majority of political ranting would be confined to its own book. The next book - the historical essays/best of my of other fiction - is already full and I'll have to start cutting stuff out of that in a few months, inshallah.
So after the history book, Book 4 would probably be the Obama book backed with the best of everything I haven't gotten to yet. Book 5 would probably be compiling all the stuff I had to cut out, along with all the new stuff I hadn't included on the way.
Side B of Life and Polonia fits entirely within the seven weeks that it took to write Side A. I could be looking at two or three years worth of editing just to publish everything I have available, and that's without going into messageboards and mailing lists and pulling up stuff I wrote there. That would double the amount of stuff I've written about comics, music, Star Wars and politics. Basically I could spend the next decade of my life editing and publishing.
It's not a bad idea. Certainly it's the quickest way to get me that stack o' books I always wanted, and I could certainly do it. But the editing is getting to me. The prospect of another three books looks daunting, not counting others culled from my internet time (then there's all the notebooks filled with handwriting to daunt even the toughest cryptographers, I know there's salvagable stuff in those).
I doubt it would get me anywhere, but that sounds like a feasible way to spend years. I'm slowly hammering out the plot for the next work of fiction I intend to write. I'm also toying with another short short story to cap off the current book, but I won't write it without a real idea.
I'm also considering doing a comic book real quickly with my existing comics. Between the Seth DeSignor strips and work I made on deployments, I've followed Comixpress' guidelines already. With some help on the cover and the text (excerpts from "Polonia" :D ) I could finally satisfy my dream of making an actual comic book, 48 pages or so. It would actually be readable too, not like the ones I've hand-drawn. As with the prose, it just remains for me to find time to get it finished.
Eric Holder continues to dig himself deeper. For acts, cover-ups and statements that would have gotten any other Attorney General fired long ago in the Fast and Furious matter of giving guns to Mexican gangs without any way of tracking them, leading to many deaths, including a US federal agent. Presumably Holder (and his boss) weren't stupid enough to be any closer to this mess than hearing about after the fact. But then what are they hiding?
Funny how there's no urgency on the part of the media to uncover this. Such a juicy scandal and everything. But then, they spent a lot more effort trying to find out Herman Cain's extramarital affairs than John Edwards. They were flat out given Rielle Hunter's name, and is there any evidence Cain had any affair yet? One woman finally gave her name after it had been dragged out for a long time. Ah well, Rielle Hunter probably didn't come up too often on the JournoList messageboard, the internet service where several hundred liberal journalists got together to discuss, coordinate, brainstorm, etc.
The media (who steadfastly insist that they have no liberal bias whatsoever) never followed up any claims made by John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, the French, Russians, Chinese or anyone else about Iraq's WMD programs, even if those claims were made before 9/11. Did they investigate the oil-for-food scandal, or would that interfere with too many arrangements they've made with despots. CNN ignored covering Saddam's atrocities since 1990 because he had given them access.
Eason Jordan, a CNN executive who admitted Saddam had been favored this way, later accused American soldiers of targetting journalists in Iraq. This accusation, like so many others, was never proven. Just repeated and taken as true by those who call themselves objective. The same thing happened to Jesse Jackson Jr's claim that he and other black congressmen were called "nigger" and other slurs. He even had his phone there to record evidence, but none was ever found. Didn't stop Tea Partiers from being slurred as racist, then or since.
Of course if you go by the media, there's no violence of any kind at any Occupy site, never mind the actual rapes, thefts, assaults, property damage and sense of entitlement that is the only fruit growing at the few locations where people still live up to the word "occupy".
Most have gone home, chased out by low temperatures (which wasn't an option for the Montgomery bus boycott) or police (while the Syrian protestors would be lucky to be treated so gently). They declared victory and went back to what they were doing beforehand with little if any sense of shame. They didn't even clean up after themselves the way we all knew they wouldn't. Or they would have started acting like responsible members of the community and taken initiative to clean up their own feces. Because they aren't leeches and whiners, you know?
Who are they kidding, this way they can comfortably ignore anything they don't like. It's easier to 'unfriend' somebody from a cozy chair than to accept people with uniforms and weapons are needed to "police" the community.
But none of this will be heard from the media. How are Libya and Egypt doing, since OWS claimed such solidarity a few months ago? Oh. Well, there's leftists for you, results are other people's worry. Leftists worldwide gave Iranian Marxists support in overthrowing the Shah and have ignored the place since except to blame the US or Israel. There's probably a lot more Helen Thomas and Nir Rosens than Daniel Pearl's out there.
Obama's given up on any coherent policy, being totally focused on re-election now. It shouldn't surprise anybody, but doesn't it at least disappoint some of his supporters? He could at least push Congress to vote for a budget this year. His polls are supposedly doing better so if he presents one, he might get at least one vote this time. It would show his improvement as a chief executive.
Or maybe he's hoping we'll be at war with Iran and it will save him. They're threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, currently an important sealane. They don't have any standing to do this, they would be militarily foolish to back it up and within a couple of years, pipelines in neighboring countries will be finished to remove any threat they could have over oil transportation. But the mysterious explosions must be driving them nuts whether they know what happened or not. Who would dare to inform the mullahs they have no idea what happened?
So three years into Obama's Presidency, neither Iran nor the Muslim world at large seems any friendlier or more peaceful. In Egypt, they've burned a library that has been a repository of knowledge since, uh, Napoleon and have discussed plans to cover the pyramids with plastic so the pagan idols will be useless. Presumably destruction will follow. At least the administration wasted three years renouncing their predecessor before coming to the same conclusion, that something should be done and quick. That's why HE'S the President.
Welcome to the world OWS would leave us, tribes scrabbling for survival without history or human progress. Like Nir Rosen and Lara Logan, if you are on the wrong side, you deserve what you get. ["What are your qualifications?" "Rape, murder, arson and rape." "You said rape twice." "I like rape."] All you need to do is mouth some nonsense about social justice and it doesn't matter how well you live, these suckers will let you get away with anything.
Recognizing useful idiots for what they are, here's some of OWS' biggest fans. I am surprised though, Joe Biden? He isn't as deserving as the others on the list, is he?
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/31/the-99-official-list-of-ows/
People can freely disagree about economic problems, or social ones for that matter. But appropriating other people's property to promote a gagglefuck of incoherent nonsense and costing other people time, energy and money just to put up with you, much less clean-up and incarceration, it's not a First Amendment issue of any kind.
This idiotic movement will fall apart once they have to start purging all the 99% who don't go along, which is pretty much everybody now that they're safely ensconced in their parents' basement. My primary concern would be for the professional left, the cadre who evolved once it became more than just a cool hang-out.
Once everybody divided into tents, the cadre found it easier to keep accountability and order, but without actual authority - no leaders - they couldn't keep the uncivilized at bay. By the time of the women-only tent and police comments about 'another boy getting raped', anybody with an ounce of sense (and the women too, ba-dump bump) was getting out of there if they hadn't already.
It was actually a decent lesson in the distinction between officers and NCOs, as well as why both are needed. To the extent there was ever going to be any direction in the movement, the cadre were needed to make that happen, and they had to maintain order every day anyway. That would leave them no time for planning the direction, which is the job of officers. Both positions provide experiences that the rank-and-file wouldn't have.
Since money/payment/property/accountability isn't considered, there's no way to set up a chain-of-command (still no leaders) but the mass of occupiers continues to cause problems. Continued, that is, most of them are gone. How are the cadre responding to this? Thing is, if they vote, all of the OWS movement will go with the security of Obama. What else will they do?
If they don't vote or if they primary Obama or vote third party, they guarantee the Republicans win, at least in a can't-afford-to-risk-it sort of way. Even if they all vote for him, he's alienated so many others he couldn't afford to alienate, the leftist base won't make a difference. Even if they're self-destructive, it would make a bigger boom to re-elect Obama and then have him flip out. I'd give a 50-50 chance of his being impeached if he wins, so there's that.
He's just the chance rider though. It could have been Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry or Al Gore steering the leftist ship. Or Joe Lieberman, following a two-term Al Gore?
The Rolling Stones are preparing for something in a month or so for their 50th anniversary. The band's surviving members have showed up to rehearsals although I gather Mick hasn't done much. He's trying yet another solo project called SuperHeavy. Three other singers, one's a chick in her early 20s and another's the grandson of Bob Marley. Yeah, this is a serious project. But I am glad to know the Stones are still on the job for this last hurrah.
I'd love to see them play, play, play and record everything. Engineers can work to do mixes on-the-fly and if they play the same song over, listen to the mixes on a break. This way they can hit every cover, every deep cut, everything. Maybe I'm just projecting. Moving on.
Van Halen has announced the new single should be out in a few days. Some time ago, I noted that they reached their apex with DLR during Reagan's re-election, broke up with Sam during Clinton's re-election and reunited with him during GWB's re-election. An omen?
Eddie Van Halen is still somewhat of a functioning human being. Here's a video for a song he recorded for a porno soundtrack. Don't worry, it's safe for work, directed by the movie's director. For all the bad things I can say about him, it's a pretty awesome piece of music.
Aerosmith is vaguely working. Slash's new album should be out before too long. His live album is full of great versions of old songs, changed from formulaic studio versions. "Rocket Queen", "Civil War", "Mr. Brownstone", this is rock for a new generation.
I'm bored now. But at least I've posted at some point in 2012.
There's so many pages. At least "Polonia" was one story. There was a forward momentum, just in cutting the number of pages until reaching 'the end'. Now, it seems no matter how many pages I mark up and move to the 'finished' side of the binder, there's a ton of them which are marked up and nowhere close to finishing, to say nothing of all the pages which are still sorta clean and fresh-looking.
Then there's Side B, the short short stories where I had assumed I'd let their age excuse the work. I was barely going to polish for grammar. I decided I'd give revision a shot, maybe with the one story written before enlisting (included for completeness) A month or two later, I'd finally re-written all of them and was hoping the spirit of creation was done and now all they needed was the grammar/spelling polish. Nope, it's gonna be @60 corrections a page or more, and that'll just be this draft. This is why I was going to let the age excuse the work.
Of course by the time I get done with all that, who knows how much more I'll have written. One reason I've been glad to spend less time on this blog is for the clear break it will provide. I've also realized that President Obama's term (first term???) can be detached from the other existing material and made into its own 'side', That way the historical essays would end during GWB's term (which seems so distant now) and the majority of political ranting would be confined to its own book. The next book - the historical essays/best of my of other fiction - is already full and I'll have to start cutting stuff out of that in a few months, inshallah.
So after the history book, Book 4 would probably be the Obama book backed with the best of everything I haven't gotten to yet. Book 5 would probably be compiling all the stuff I had to cut out, along with all the new stuff I hadn't included on the way.
Side B of Life and Polonia fits entirely within the seven weeks that it took to write Side A. I could be looking at two or three years worth of editing just to publish everything I have available, and that's without going into messageboards and mailing lists and pulling up stuff I wrote there. That would double the amount of stuff I've written about comics, music, Star Wars and politics. Basically I could spend the next decade of my life editing and publishing.
It's not a bad idea. Certainly it's the quickest way to get me that stack o' books I always wanted, and I could certainly do it. But the editing is getting to me. The prospect of another three books looks daunting, not counting others culled from my internet time (then there's all the notebooks filled with handwriting to daunt even the toughest cryptographers, I know there's salvagable stuff in those).
I doubt it would get me anywhere, but that sounds like a feasible way to spend years. I'm slowly hammering out the plot for the next work of fiction I intend to write. I'm also toying with another short short story to cap off the current book, but I won't write it without a real idea.
I'm also considering doing a comic book real quickly with my existing comics. Between the Seth DeSignor strips and work I made on deployments, I've followed Comixpress' guidelines already. With some help on the cover and the text (excerpts from "Polonia" :D ) I could finally satisfy my dream of making an actual comic book, 48 pages or so. It would actually be readable too, not like the ones I've hand-drawn. As with the prose, it just remains for me to find time to get it finished.
Eric Holder continues to dig himself deeper. For acts, cover-ups and statements that would have gotten any other Attorney General fired long ago in the Fast and Furious matter of giving guns to Mexican gangs without any way of tracking them, leading to many deaths, including a US federal agent. Presumably Holder (and his boss) weren't stupid enough to be any closer to this mess than hearing about after the fact. But then what are they hiding?
Funny how there's no urgency on the part of the media to uncover this. Such a juicy scandal and everything. But then, they spent a lot more effort trying to find out Herman Cain's extramarital affairs than John Edwards. They were flat out given Rielle Hunter's name, and is there any evidence Cain had any affair yet? One woman finally gave her name after it had been dragged out for a long time. Ah well, Rielle Hunter probably didn't come up too often on the JournoList messageboard, the internet service where several hundred liberal journalists got together to discuss, coordinate, brainstorm, etc.
The media (who steadfastly insist that they have no liberal bias whatsoever) never followed up any claims made by John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, the French, Russians, Chinese or anyone else about Iraq's WMD programs, even if those claims were made before 9/11. Did they investigate the oil-for-food scandal, or would that interfere with too many arrangements they've made with despots. CNN ignored covering Saddam's atrocities since 1990 because he had given them access.
Eason Jordan, a CNN executive who admitted Saddam had been favored this way, later accused American soldiers of targetting journalists in Iraq. This accusation, like so many others, was never proven. Just repeated and taken as true by those who call themselves objective. The same thing happened to Jesse Jackson Jr's claim that he and other black congressmen were called "nigger" and other slurs. He even had his phone there to record evidence, but none was ever found. Didn't stop Tea Partiers from being slurred as racist, then or since.
Of course if you go by the media, there's no violence of any kind at any Occupy site, never mind the actual rapes, thefts, assaults, property damage and sense of entitlement that is the only fruit growing at the few locations where people still live up to the word "occupy".
Most have gone home, chased out by low temperatures (which wasn't an option for the Montgomery bus boycott) or police (while the Syrian protestors would be lucky to be treated so gently). They declared victory and went back to what they were doing beforehand with little if any sense of shame. They didn't even clean up after themselves the way we all knew they wouldn't. Or they would have started acting like responsible members of the community and taken initiative to clean up their own feces. Because they aren't leeches and whiners, you know?
Who are they kidding, this way they can comfortably ignore anything they don't like. It's easier to 'unfriend' somebody from a cozy chair than to accept people with uniforms and weapons are needed to "police" the community.
But none of this will be heard from the media. How are Libya and Egypt doing, since OWS claimed such solidarity a few months ago? Oh. Well, there's leftists for you, results are other people's worry. Leftists worldwide gave Iranian Marxists support in overthrowing the Shah and have ignored the place since except to blame the US or Israel. There's probably a lot more Helen Thomas and Nir Rosens than Daniel Pearl's out there.
Obama's given up on any coherent policy, being totally focused on re-election now. It shouldn't surprise anybody, but doesn't it at least disappoint some of his supporters? He could at least push Congress to vote for a budget this year. His polls are supposedly doing better so if he presents one, he might get at least one vote this time. It would show his improvement as a chief executive.
Or maybe he's hoping we'll be at war with Iran and it will save him. They're threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, currently an important sealane. They don't have any standing to do this, they would be militarily foolish to back it up and within a couple of years, pipelines in neighboring countries will be finished to remove any threat they could have over oil transportation. But the mysterious explosions must be driving them nuts whether they know what happened or not. Who would dare to inform the mullahs they have no idea what happened?
So three years into Obama's Presidency, neither Iran nor the Muslim world at large seems any friendlier or more peaceful. In Egypt, they've burned a library that has been a repository of knowledge since, uh, Napoleon and have discussed plans to cover the pyramids with plastic so the pagan idols will be useless. Presumably destruction will follow. At least the administration wasted three years renouncing their predecessor before coming to the same conclusion, that something should be done and quick. That's why HE'S the President.
Welcome to the world OWS would leave us, tribes scrabbling for survival without history or human progress. Like Nir Rosen and Lara Logan, if you are on the wrong side, you deserve what you get. ["What are your qualifications?" "Rape, murder, arson and rape." "You said rape twice." "I like rape."] All you need to do is mouth some nonsense about social justice and it doesn't matter how well you live, these suckers will let you get away with anything.
Recognizing useful idiots for what they are, here's some of OWS' biggest fans. I am surprised though, Joe Biden? He isn't as deserving as the others on the list, is he?
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/31/the-99-official-list-of-ows/
People can freely disagree about economic problems, or social ones for that matter. But appropriating other people's property to promote a gagglefuck of incoherent nonsense and costing other people time, energy and money just to put up with you, much less clean-up and incarceration, it's not a First Amendment issue of any kind.
This idiotic movement will fall apart once they have to start purging all the 99% who don't go along, which is pretty much everybody now that they're safely ensconced in their parents' basement. My primary concern would be for the professional left, the cadre who evolved once it became more than just a cool hang-out.
Once everybody divided into tents, the cadre found it easier to keep accountability and order, but without actual authority - no leaders - they couldn't keep the uncivilized at bay. By the time of the women-only tent and police comments about 'another boy getting raped', anybody with an ounce of sense (and the women too, ba-dump bump) was getting out of there if they hadn't already.
It was actually a decent lesson in the distinction between officers and NCOs, as well as why both are needed. To the extent there was ever going to be any direction in the movement, the cadre were needed to make that happen, and they had to maintain order every day anyway. That would leave them no time for planning the direction, which is the job of officers. Both positions provide experiences that the rank-and-file wouldn't have.
Since money/payment/property/accountability isn't considered, there's no way to set up a chain-of-command (still no leaders) but the mass of occupiers continues to cause problems. Continued, that is, most of them are gone. How are the cadre responding to this? Thing is, if they vote, all of the OWS movement will go with the security of Obama. What else will they do?
If they don't vote or if they primary Obama or vote third party, they guarantee the Republicans win, at least in a can't-afford-to-risk-it sort of way. Even if they all vote for him, he's alienated so many others he couldn't afford to alienate, the leftist base won't make a difference. Even if they're self-destructive, it would make a bigger boom to re-elect Obama and then have him flip out. I'd give a 50-50 chance of his being impeached if he wins, so there's that.
He's just the chance rider though. It could have been Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry or Al Gore steering the leftist ship. Or Joe Lieberman, following a two-term Al Gore?
The Rolling Stones are preparing for something in a month or so for their 50th anniversary. The band's surviving members have showed up to rehearsals although I gather Mick hasn't done much. He's trying yet another solo project called SuperHeavy. Three other singers, one's a chick in her early 20s and another's the grandson of Bob Marley. Yeah, this is a serious project. But I am glad to know the Stones are still on the job for this last hurrah.
I'd love to see them play, play, play and record everything. Engineers can work to do mixes on-the-fly and if they play the same song over, listen to the mixes on a break. This way they can hit every cover, every deep cut, everything. Maybe I'm just projecting. Moving on.
Van Halen has announced the new single should be out in a few days. Some time ago, I noted that they reached their apex with DLR during Reagan's re-election, broke up with Sam during Clinton's re-election and reunited with him during GWB's re-election. An omen?
Eddie Van Halen is still somewhat of a functioning human being. Here's a video for a song he recorded for a porno soundtrack. Don't worry, it's safe for work, directed by the movie's director. For all the bad things I can say about him, it's a pretty awesome piece of music.
Aerosmith is vaguely working. Slash's new album should be out before too long. His live album is full of great versions of old songs, changed from formulaic studio versions. "Rocket Queen", "Civil War", "Mr. Brownstone", this is rock for a new generation.
I'm bored now. But at least I've posted at some point in 2012.
17 November, 2011
Books for sale.
The book is finished. People have paid me for copies of it, asked for autographs and everything. Naturally typos are leaping out at me. Almost directly across from each other, I spelled it both "capitol city" and "capital city" on pages 4 and 5. Then I found a few typos which weren't in the proof copy. They only appeared after the most recent draft I saw. Not sure how that happened, but whatever.
While I try to resolve difficulties with PayPal, anyone so inclined can send a check (or just staple 10$+ shipping bill to an envelope) to:
Christopher Woerner
BSC 2/5 SFG (A)
Fort Campbell, KY 42223
The price may increase depending on shipping costs. The book has an ISBN number [ISBN-10: 1466228601 ISBN-13: 9781466228603] but I have no idea what would happen if someone used those, or even how one tries. I wanted the printed books. I'm funny that way. Maybe it's available on Kindle or something. If people start getting copies, someone will start wanting money for it, and the rights are all mine.
The OWS movement is hemorrhaging (or at least converting to a different form. Having been chased out by people who'd had enough with violent assault-committing freeloaders who won't permit the police or health department to do their duties. Attempts at riots all across the country led the most violent and unstable to jail, almost like they were set-up. Not that they really were, but I'm assuming the 'leaders' will reach that conclusion next in their proto-Bolshevik state.
OWS has backed themselves into a corner. They can either stay individuals and whine that they don't have any sense of community or they stay together and devolve into things like this. It won't win them any friends and they don't have the organizational capacities to entrench themselves. They're still pretending that trashing someone else's property is a First Amendement Right.
They should count themselves lucky the police threw them out, sparing them the national embarassment of quitting without even picking up after themselves. How many totalitarians would do that? Occupiers in a California bank today didn't trouble themselves to find the toilets.
Still, at least those inclined towards violence and destruction were inspired to call a Day of Action, getting many of them arrested. Wonder what the others will do without their leaders?
I would like to write more, but I have a very long day ahead. Definitely one of those 'more done by 9AM' days.
“Everything all right back there, Vic?” Stut ushered him to another booth. “Gentlemen, may I present Victor, my esteemed predecessor.”
“A pleasure,” grunted Commander Grinch. He was here to oversee the Tall Tribes, prized runball team of the 11th and 12th Hordes. The two shook hands and turned back to the game. “Tell me,” he asked Victor, “how does this large court work? Why is it in this sport? In my native Svetlandia, what you call runball we call a game with a small number of players. Five players for three teams is considered a very big game for us. Here you have no fewer than three teams with no less than ten players and that is, how do you say, stupidly ridiculous.” Grinch’s aide whispered something into his ear and he continued without missing a beat, “I see I have chosen words badly. May we agree it is overly complicated?”
Victor couldn’t help but smile at someone who cared so little whether he gave offense. Grinch was jocular and articulate in his crudeness so the effect almost negated itself to geniality. “It’s complicated, but don’t give too much importance to the individual players’ abilities. Yes, they’re excellent, but if the overall playing strategy is bad…” He pointed at a player who had just scored for the Pigeons. Over on the wall, large signs were moved across a cloth screen by a mechanism which displayed the name, “Oluf Kluto” who had the ball right now and “7”, his place in the line-up this play.
“See that?” he asked Grinch. “It took seven players to run the ball across the court this far, but they made it. That’s strategy.”
“Hmmm,” the Commander’s expression said ‘I must look like someone who’s thinking seriously.’ His lips pursed under the tiny mustache and his cheeks puffed out, making his face look fat. “But that is, how do you say, wasteful. Look at how many players just stood there doing nothing because they were forbidden to move outside the nyukniks. What do you call those lines on the floor that make little squares that the players have to stand up in when another team is up?”
He went on. “Up north in my country, the players are few and the courts are small. Every player is crucial to obliterating the enemy. But here, with your many pretty men standing in lines, it looks like a bizarre parade or ritual performed for the crowd. Who is the first with the ball? When the ball leaves the player’s hands, is he in control of it or is it a free ball? What constitutes, what do you call, inappropriate touching of another player’s ball? Who cares?”
“That’s fair, I can see that.” Victor and Grinch drank beer and shifted position to see better. They had no audience, only the competition. “Yeah, some of those players get all worked up about their place in the pecking order. On most teams, there’s a player or two who’s no good, but he had the pull to get himself onto the team anyway. It’s a status thing more than anything. That’s the sort of guy who’s likeliest to cause problems, on the court or off.”
“Yes, you see, you understand,” Grinch bit into a gigantic sandwich that dripped with vegetables and grease. “In Svetlandia where I am from, we have no more players than we need. Everybody must fight for the team. Sometimes we kill the losers and burn down their father’s house. Is good sport, you know?”
A Tall Tribesman had just scored and was forming up for their turn. Team captains called out the next play while players stepped to different gridsquares. A Tribesman patted a Pigeon on the ass.
“The fans like it too,” Victor said. “They root for teams, but I wonder if their favorite players are what they really care about. I met half these kids one time or another, usually when they were starting out and dragged to some official function. They’re the ones I follow.”
“Say Victor,” Grinch hadn’t finished swallowing yet, “in my home country up north, when a free ball is picked up, it is called a found ball. What do you call it?”
“Mine ball,” said a woman wearing a distinguished golden dress that matched her hair. “Victor, it’s been too long.”
“Wonderful to see you, Lana,” they embraced.
“SVET-lana, you crass oaf. You always forget. Are you two getting along?”
“Yes,” said Grinch. “Thank you for telling me what to call mine ball.” He set the remains of his sandwich down and grabbed a fresh one. After one more enormous bite, he threw it out the window where it hit the people 15 feet below in the poor seats.
The game halted when the enforcement players argued whether a Pigeon had illegally moved too many gridsquares. “You see?” Grinch asked nobody in particular. “Such a waste of time and people. They could be poking each other in the eyeballs with sticks to kill time the way they do in my home country of Svetlandia.”
“So you’re into sports these days?” Victor asked.
“You could say that,” Lana smiled pleasantly. “I’m the chief diplomat for Svetlandia and being here qualifies as a diplomatic operation between two countries that are not currently at war.”
“That’s reassuring,” said Victor. “How did you get that job?”
“In my country, anything is possible,” she radiated with pride. “Would you like to get together some time during the games?”
Outside, there was applause. Someone had scored and the first quarter was over with a score of 1,0-0,1.
“I’d like that. I’ll bring Wenda. Have you met anybody?”
“My only true husband is Tok Rocksplitter, thundering sky god of the Great Mountain Range. I’m also seeing someone on and off, but we’re in one of our off periods right now. How did you two meet?”
After a few more pleasantries, Victor went back to his booth. As he left, he heard Commander Grinch ask “How do they call this runball when there are no naked women beheading the ugliest one and using her head for a ball? These are all feeble old men!”
09 November, 2011
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
The Attorney General, Eric Holder, holds on. At the beginning of the Fast and Furious scandal, the idea was floated that this was intended to be an excuse for gun control laws in the US. How ludicrous, federal agents giving guns to Mexican criminals with no tracking as an argument for Texans and Arizonans to surrender their self-defense?
[Not to mention Occupy Oakland and all the other OWS sites which have attracted far more violence and vermin than the Tea Parties did. But the Tea Partiers had to go to work the next day.]
But Holder's testimony to Congress followed the script. Do they really think this will work?
Not so fortunate is Obama's Chief of Staff Bill Daley. After the President's ill-fated address to both Houses of Congress coincided with a Republican primary, Obama reportedly thundered at his staff for not seeing that coming, because it made him look like egomaniacal tyrant.
If this is true, then Obama (and Daley) don't seem to realize that two or three levels below them, anyone who noticed the events falling at the same time would assume that the President was out to attack his Republican enemies. Wasn't that the point all along?
[I don't know what Obama expected would happen. Perhaps his 'jobs bill' would be passed by immediate acclaim after his awesome speech and he would be the most adored President ever. The jobs bill was a rehash of what the Democrats couldn't pass at the beginning of his term and a long-delayed plan that was supposed to be a response to all the bills passed by the House and the Senate's inability to pass a budget in what must be pushing 1000 days as well as the reason for refuting the President's own commission's recommendations, after he promised a hard pivot to jobs roughly a quarter of his term ago. But he addressed Congress as he demanded and that was a while ago. Is he even saying 'pass this bill now' anymore? Maybe he does and it's just background noise.]
Meanwhile Occupy Oaklanders riot. A continent away, the Leninist state evolves. There is a strange preponderance of man-on-man rape. Salacious detail, or suggesting women are victims because they are easier targets but men are the prey. By now the community has divided into several dozen tents, for each 'group' representing itself. Those who choose to be homeless are reverting to type.
I wonder if this is the source of legal antipathy towards homosexuals in the first place. The male on male sexual predator can find a target in children, in the 'glam' style of romanticizing the subhuman. Women stop being targets because they are women, hence the 'women only' tent. Women are women, so they can find sympathy or sex with a willing partner for better or worse, and it doesn't matter. Especially since there's no risk of children and very little risk of vd.
Stable male homosexual couples either have independent incomes or dependent lifestyles and can do what they want. It's the unstable male homosexuals who are the problem. At this point, there's no distinction between them and the remaining Occupiers. They spout nonsense causes and are easy enough to mooch from. I doubt gender matters much, but male is probably preferred.
Women are excluded from the club because they have the 'wife and mother' option. A community at that level consists of women who desire/need a bond with a man, and/or another woman of compatible nature. They can't become predators the way men can, though they find compensation elsewhere. Men do stupid things with their dicks, that's a given.
The male predators however, are on the opposite line of civilization, and it's through homosexuality that the predators find their targets. They can't exist in civilized society. I would guess they hook up with nomads, gypsies, carnivals as some manner of entrance to society. Especially in show-biz, where they start so young. Gigolos appear, as does whatever homosexual community gathers in towns, bars, dance clubs, places where civilized homosexuals can congregate. Men and women who can earn their own living, either individually or in their own private arrangements, independent of 'husband, wife and kids' which is what a family is. It has been thus for millions of years through quantity and reproduction of human beings.
It's not homosexuality, it's the license permitted by a large enough group for enough men to do enough stupid things with their dicks. Mooch off the rich, pretend to be straight, I can only guess what problems it's caused for militaries. By choice or by nature, it's these unstable people who are the problem and taint whatever homosexual community gathers.
It's attractive to straight women because they can relax with a man who poses no sexual challenge. They can also vicariously enjoy the soap operas, especially when they find men who 'go both ways'. If stable homosexual men are interested in these shenanigans, they participate. If not, not.
If Marxism works, they'll find some appeal there. Sexuality leaves the picture but retains that unreal understanding of relationships which makes socialism so fundamentally attractive to a small but vocal minority. Many of whom are also violent.
Who were the victims of Hitler's purge of the SA? The leadership of his first SS were the ones who were there first. They recognized each other at his speeches perhaps. Recruited others. They saw Hitler for what he was at the start, someone who could organize a crowd. They took advantage, but had to go once too many guys who preferred women were around.
Eliminate the homosexual intrigue and include as much or little violence as required, you have the basis for female stories which males can tolerate (chick flicks, theater). Shakespeare lasts because women are perpetually intruiged by this mysterious language. Men wrote it down at the time and English evolved into present form which still mystifies people but keeps them performing it over and over. Costume changes and sets are helpful. A predator who finds an opportunity for regular food has the chance to get far.
Religion is undoubtedly a good place for such people to hide, and scandal is ever-present. Minister' wives are always good sources of gossip. Homosexuals are quickly excluded but good sources for clothes and food and dance clubs. [The clubs will eventually be appropriated through homosexual migration, first as the rich people who show up will be wearing the same outfits as a rebellion against their rich upbringing, then as the rich straights looking to meet the hottest chicks, the ones hanging out with the coolest gay guys...
These are the least-civilized minority, not yet animals, but not worthy of being human. Women are targets for being weaker and a heterosexual bond is best for both parties. As always, once the women are excluded for that reason, human coexistance becomes male-on-male predation. Once women are included, the vast heterosexual majority reasserts itself. Fashion goes down the social ladder and recycles itself, soap operas go into reruns between seasons.
Men who are inclined to cohabitate with a woman are the vast majority. Stable gay men and women can make comfortable homes with their loved ones and be equal citizens. However, to prosper they need to avoid alienating the vast majority. I think women are inherently bisexual, but some (many? most?) clearly are against the notion. They'll go along with what their man wants. But even the most unappealing women retain the wife/mother option. Gay couples break up because someone decides they want to be straight.
This also becomes humor and humiliation for the straights. The guys can talk a chick into anything (and vice-versa) but then have to look at each other later on when you aren't drunk and she's not so eager. This sort of humor plays well (dare I say it?) with the lower classes.
It also defines celebrity. Athletes don't get far if they make who they have sex with a priority, so they're only available as examples of physical perfection. Actors have stage personas and disconnection from that which they represent, as well as an ambiguous sexuality that threatens as much as provides inspiration for knock-offs.
Preachers recite scriptures and practice rituals which have served those who follow them noticeably well and they are often the majority. They attract the sheep and tend the flocks, who nonetheless retreat to their own vices. But more communities form.
The animosity most of us have towards the notion of guys doing *that* to each other follows from the male-on-male predation that is the lowest end of the food chain. Male-on-female is the next-lowest because it implies the perpetrator makes some distinction. After that, the next-lowest is general male-female violence, the masculine 'never hit a woman' rule which applies even when the woman initiates violence, never mind two women fighting each other and how sexy it can be.
Morally we can distinguish these things no matter what class we were born into. We prosper, men, women, children and non-sexual partnerships alike, by eliminating these 'perversions of human nature'. At least, that would be the viewpoint of women who pick wife/mother. Marxism becomes an intellectual distinction of studious types who share the ideology of the '99% Occupiers' rampaging in their sites. Pampered, spoiled brats left in their own playpens, where men-on-men crime is rampant. A couple of cops were quoted and referred to 'another boy being raped' as a regular feature.
It's not that homosexuality is wrong or homosexuals themselves are bad, but it's the area where the worst aspects of humanity will gather and influence where they see the opportunity. It's not a moral condemnation, just a fact as saying that the place where the gasoline is stored is more flammable than the place where the metal is stored.
As with any gossip/tabloid figure, the story becomes more appealing in the retelling by removing the gay stuff. I assume it's an inborn trait. Young women can be trailer trash or appeal to church or something. Preacher's wife and kids are always popular. Youth is undoubtedly as attractive to older gays as to straights. Demi Moore [age 48]'s boytoy Ashton Kutcher [age 33] cheated on her with a 22 year-old model. Kutcher screams 'ambiguous sexuality' in all the wrong ways and is as prone to chasing the easy life as others of his ilk.
At best the influence is intellectual and verbal. Oscar Wilde abandoned his wife and children and through lavish feasts for starving London thugs for his sexual acts. Wilde described it as 'dining with panthers.' This is wrong for several reasons having nothing to do with homosexuality itself. His literary success is deserved however. Who can judge such things?
The socialist inclinations which have led to the OWS movement become ever more foolish as winter nears and they can't clean up after themselves. Only ideology and determination will sustain them now, or a desire to prey on other human beings. Beyond them there is only the savage.
[Not to mention Occupy Oakland and all the other OWS sites which have attracted far more violence and vermin than the Tea Parties did. But the Tea Partiers had to go to work the next day.]
But Holder's testimony to Congress followed the script. Do they really think this will work?
Not so fortunate is Obama's Chief of Staff Bill Daley. After the President's ill-fated address to both Houses of Congress coincided with a Republican primary, Obama reportedly thundered at his staff for not seeing that coming, because it made him look like egomaniacal tyrant.
If this is true, then Obama (and Daley) don't seem to realize that two or three levels below them, anyone who noticed the events falling at the same time would assume that the President was out to attack his Republican enemies. Wasn't that the point all along?
[I don't know what Obama expected would happen. Perhaps his 'jobs bill' would be passed by immediate acclaim after his awesome speech and he would be the most adored President ever. The jobs bill was a rehash of what the Democrats couldn't pass at the beginning of his term and a long-delayed plan that was supposed to be a response to all the bills passed by the House and the Senate's inability to pass a budget in what must be pushing 1000 days as well as the reason for refuting the President's own commission's recommendations, after he promised a hard pivot to jobs roughly a quarter of his term ago. But he addressed Congress as he demanded and that was a while ago. Is he even saying 'pass this bill now' anymore? Maybe he does and it's just background noise.]
Meanwhile Occupy Oaklanders riot. A continent away, the Leninist state evolves. There is a strange preponderance of man-on-man rape. Salacious detail, or suggesting women are victims because they are easier targets but men are the prey. By now the community has divided into several dozen tents, for each 'group' representing itself. Those who choose to be homeless are reverting to type.
I wonder if this is the source of legal antipathy towards homosexuals in the first place. The male on male sexual predator can find a target in children, in the 'glam' style of romanticizing the subhuman. Women stop being targets because they are women, hence the 'women only' tent. Women are women, so they can find sympathy or sex with a willing partner for better or worse, and it doesn't matter. Especially since there's no risk of children and very little risk of vd.
Stable male homosexual couples either have independent incomes or dependent lifestyles and can do what they want. It's the unstable male homosexuals who are the problem. At this point, there's no distinction between them and the remaining Occupiers. They spout nonsense causes and are easy enough to mooch from. I doubt gender matters much, but male is probably preferred.
Women are excluded from the club because they have the 'wife and mother' option. A community at that level consists of women who desire/need a bond with a man, and/or another woman of compatible nature. They can't become predators the way men can, though they find compensation elsewhere. Men do stupid things with their dicks, that's a given.
The male predators however, are on the opposite line of civilization, and it's through homosexuality that the predators find their targets. They can't exist in civilized society. I would guess they hook up with nomads, gypsies, carnivals as some manner of entrance to society. Especially in show-biz, where they start so young. Gigolos appear, as does whatever homosexual community gathers in towns, bars, dance clubs, places where civilized homosexuals can congregate. Men and women who can earn their own living, either individually or in their own private arrangements, independent of 'husband, wife and kids' which is what a family is. It has been thus for millions of years through quantity and reproduction of human beings.
It's not homosexuality, it's the license permitted by a large enough group for enough men to do enough stupid things with their dicks. Mooch off the rich, pretend to be straight, I can only guess what problems it's caused for militaries. By choice or by nature, it's these unstable people who are the problem and taint whatever homosexual community gathers.
It's attractive to straight women because they can relax with a man who poses no sexual challenge. They can also vicariously enjoy the soap operas, especially when they find men who 'go both ways'. If stable homosexual men are interested in these shenanigans, they participate. If not, not.
If Marxism works, they'll find some appeal there. Sexuality leaves the picture but retains that unreal understanding of relationships which makes socialism so fundamentally attractive to a small but vocal minority. Many of whom are also violent.
Who were the victims of Hitler's purge of the SA? The leadership of his first SS were the ones who were there first. They recognized each other at his speeches perhaps. Recruited others. They saw Hitler for what he was at the start, someone who could organize a crowd. They took advantage, but had to go once too many guys who preferred women were around.
Eliminate the homosexual intrigue and include as much or little violence as required, you have the basis for female stories which males can tolerate (chick flicks, theater). Shakespeare lasts because women are perpetually intruiged by this mysterious language. Men wrote it down at the time and English evolved into present form which still mystifies people but keeps them performing it over and over. Costume changes and sets are helpful. A predator who finds an opportunity for regular food has the chance to get far.
Religion is undoubtedly a good place for such people to hide, and scandal is ever-present. Minister' wives are always good sources of gossip. Homosexuals are quickly excluded but good sources for clothes and food and dance clubs. [The clubs will eventually be appropriated through homosexual migration, first as the rich people who show up will be wearing the same outfits as a rebellion against their rich upbringing, then as the rich straights looking to meet the hottest chicks, the ones hanging out with the coolest gay guys...
These are the least-civilized minority, not yet animals, but not worthy of being human. Women are targets for being weaker and a heterosexual bond is best for both parties. As always, once the women are excluded for that reason, human coexistance becomes male-on-male predation. Once women are included, the vast heterosexual majority reasserts itself. Fashion goes down the social ladder and recycles itself, soap operas go into reruns between seasons.
Men who are inclined to cohabitate with a woman are the vast majority. Stable gay men and women can make comfortable homes with their loved ones and be equal citizens. However, to prosper they need to avoid alienating the vast majority. I think women are inherently bisexual, but some (many? most?) clearly are against the notion. They'll go along with what their man wants. But even the most unappealing women retain the wife/mother option. Gay couples break up because someone decides they want to be straight.
This also becomes humor and humiliation for the straights. The guys can talk a chick into anything (and vice-versa) but then have to look at each other later on when you aren't drunk and she's not so eager. This sort of humor plays well (dare I say it?) with the lower classes.
It also defines celebrity. Athletes don't get far if they make who they have sex with a priority, so they're only available as examples of physical perfection. Actors have stage personas and disconnection from that which they represent, as well as an ambiguous sexuality that threatens as much as provides inspiration for knock-offs.
Preachers recite scriptures and practice rituals which have served those who follow them noticeably well and they are often the majority. They attract the sheep and tend the flocks, who nonetheless retreat to their own vices. But more communities form.
The animosity most of us have towards the notion of guys doing *that* to each other follows from the male-on-male predation that is the lowest end of the food chain. Male-on-female is the next-lowest because it implies the perpetrator makes some distinction. After that, the next-lowest is general male-female violence, the masculine 'never hit a woman' rule which applies even when the woman initiates violence, never mind two women fighting each other and how sexy it can be.
Morally we can distinguish these things no matter what class we were born into. We prosper, men, women, children and non-sexual partnerships alike, by eliminating these 'perversions of human nature'. At least, that would be the viewpoint of women who pick wife/mother. Marxism becomes an intellectual distinction of studious types who share the ideology of the '99% Occupiers' rampaging in their sites. Pampered, spoiled brats left in their own playpens, where men-on-men crime is rampant. A couple of cops were quoted and referred to 'another boy being raped' as a regular feature.
It's not that homosexuality is wrong or homosexuals themselves are bad, but it's the area where the worst aspects of humanity will gather and influence where they see the opportunity. It's not a moral condemnation, just a fact as saying that the place where the gasoline is stored is more flammable than the place where the metal is stored.
As with any gossip/tabloid figure, the story becomes more appealing in the retelling by removing the gay stuff. I assume it's an inborn trait. Young women can be trailer trash or appeal to church or something. Preacher's wife and kids are always popular. Youth is undoubtedly as attractive to older gays as to straights. Demi Moore [age 48]'s boytoy Ashton Kutcher [age 33] cheated on her with a 22 year-old model. Kutcher screams 'ambiguous sexuality' in all the wrong ways and is as prone to chasing the easy life as others of his ilk.
At best the influence is intellectual and verbal. Oscar Wilde abandoned his wife and children and through lavish feasts for starving London thugs for his sexual acts. Wilde described it as 'dining with panthers.' This is wrong for several reasons having nothing to do with homosexuality itself. His literary success is deserved however. Who can judge such things?
The socialist inclinations which have led to the OWS movement become ever more foolish as winter nears and they can't clean up after themselves. Only ideology and determination will sustain them now, or a desire to prey on other human beings. Beyond them there is only the savage.
06 November, 2011
Because fisking is a dying art
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27479
A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street; "The Leaders of the allegedly Leaderless Movement"
by Fritz Tucker
On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions.
Six unelected people who have imposed their will upon others to the extent that they can look for monies owed have pointed out that there has been no small committee like them in charge during the entire movement.
The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization.
Shocked! I'm shocked to find gambling in this establishment!
No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
But we were told OWS had no leaders. What's changed?
Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council throughout the week of October 22-28. I attended the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd.
They aren't going to come up with theater or exercising or anything productive, all they have are empty gatherings.
According to Marisa Holmes, one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS,
According to whom is Marisa Holmes one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS?
the NYC-GA started receiving donations from around the world when OWS began on September 17. Because the NYC-GA was not an official organization, and therefore could not legally receive thousands of dollars in donations,
On what planet is it illegal for someone to give you money if they want to?
the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice helped OWS create Friends of Liberty Plaza, which receives tax-free donations for OWS. Since then, Friends of Liberty Plaza has received over $500,000.
How much of a cut do they take for themselves? What role do they play in sustaining OWS? How many of them are Occupiers themselves? What role did people like them play in making it illegal to give money to people just because you want to?
Until October 28, anybody who wanted to receive more than $100 from Friends of Liberty Plaza had to go through the often arduous modified consensus process
Why is this even a fact? Patti Smith sang it long ago, "Free money!"
(90% majority)
Marxism's flaw, you simply cannot determine what the people will do or think. The quantity will overpower everything else and the only ones to thrive will be those who depend on mob rule, as we see in Oakland.
of the NYC-GA—
Even in very small communities, direct democracy quickly becomes an impossibility.
which, despite its well-documented
Really? Who has been keeping those documents? This is the first we're hearing of the money, remember?
inefficiencies,
It's tough to make things work the way they should, isn't it?
granted $25,740 to the Media WG for live-stream equipment on October 12,
Such cheap high-quality communications. Ain't capitalism grand?
and $1,400 to the Food and Medical WGs for herbal tonics on October 18.
I gather these herbal tonics weren't grown in the greenhouse out back.
At the teach-in, Ms. Holmes maintained that while the NYC-GA is the “de facto” mechanism for distributing funds, it has no right to do so,
A "right" is sort of like a "demand", which is the OWS leaders were refusing to articulate a few weeks ago for some bullshit reason. OWS has no mission statement. At this point, "Destroy Israel" would probably get quite a few votes.
even though she acknowledged that most donors were likely under the impression that the NYC-GA was the only organization with access to these funds.
That's another thing that goes along with organization and responsibility, people are more inclined to provide money.
Two other leaders of the teach-in, Daniel and Adash, concurred with Holmes.
I know they're guys, but is anybody else getting a Cirinist vibe?
Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes,
The secretary.
asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG.
Last I heard, there were about 69 different organized clusters of people with their own little causes. A women-only tent has just been erected [HAH! Get it?] so changes should happen more quickly now. Alliances of personality and influence and ideology have been formed on this camping trip. There's also the challenge that few of them want to quit in front of the others and they'll entertain themselves attempting to dominate or intruigue.
Shifting departments and department heads would be hard for any of them to keep track of.
Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.
Heh, this could be childish refusal, or people who weren't successful through intelligence.
The leaders of the Structure WG eventually regained control of the teach-in. They said that they too were unhappy with the Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’s funds, which is why they wanted to create the Spokes Council.
The person who actually knew something about money was the one who took charge of it and became Finance Workgroup for his series of tents. The Structure (someone concerned with the tents themselves rather than the occupants, I'm guessing) WG doesn't like how the money's being handled and wants to form a committee and wrest it away from Finance.
What upset them more, however, was the inefficient and fickle General Assembly.
If Lenin and Trotsky had been recorded during their revolution, this is what they'd have said. In Russian, the language of bad people. Democracy sucks. The people should have no say in what happens to them.
A major point of the discussion was whether the Spokes Council and the NYC-GA should have access to the funds, or just the Spokes Council.
Do we even pretend to give a damn about democracy or just go straight to bunker mode?
Daniel, a tall, red-bearded, white twenty-something—one of the six leaders of the teach-in—said that the NYC-GA needed to be completely defunded because those with “no stake” in the Occupy Wall Street movement shouldn’t have a say in how the money was spent. When I asked him whether everybody in the 99% had a stake in the movement, he said that only those occupying or working in Zuccotti Park did. I pointed out that since the General Assembly took place in Zuccotti Park, everybody who participated was an occupier. He responded with a long rant about how Zuccotti Park is filled with “tourists,” “free-loaders” and “crackheads” and suggested a solution that the even NYPD has not yet attempted: Daniel said that he’d like to take a fire-hose and clear out the entire encampment, adding hopefully that only the “real” activists would come back.
We met Daniel earlier when the reporter arrived, remember? I quite agree, disposing of the human vermin who interfere with your revolution would make sure only real activists return to the Occupation site.
The main obstacle to the creation of the Spokes Council was that the NYC-GA had already voted against it four times.
Fortunately, true revolutionaries never take "no" for an answer. Just like so many others in the Park.
One audience member observed that no organization would vote to relinquish its power. Some of the strongest proponents of the Spokes Council responded that they had taken this into account, and were planning on creating the Spokes Council regardless of whether the NYC-GA accepted the proposal. They claimed that, in the interests of non-hierarchy, neither the Spokes Council nor the General Assembly should have power over the other.
The leech cannot overpower its host immediately.
Working Groups could still technically get funding through the NYC-GA, but the “GA may stop making those kinds of decisions because people [will] stop going… To officially take power away isn’t necessary,” especially because the NYC-GA works on the consensus model. A small group of people aiming to delegitimize the NYC-GA could easily attend each session merely to block every proposal. According to a member of the Demands WG, this is already occurring in several Working Groups.
I like that they're trying to apply civilized democratic principles. Before Daniel purges everybody anyway.
The newly formed Spokes Council claims to adhere to the “statement of principles” adopted by the New York City General Assembly, including “direct-democracy, non-hierarchy, participation, and inclusion.” The Spokes Council differs from the NYC-GA, however, in three main respects: the Spokes Council has the power to exclude new groups that don’t receive a 90% majority vote for admission; in the NYC-GA, everybody technically has the right to speak, whereas in the Spokes Council each Working Group has a spokesperson, who can be recalled only by a 90% majority; and the NYC-GA allows one vote per person, whereas the Spokes Council operates more indirectly, granting each Working Group one vote
A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street; "The Leaders of the allegedly Leaderless Movement"
by Fritz Tucker
On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions.
Six unelected people who have imposed their will upon others to the extent that they can look for monies owed have pointed out that there has been no small committee like them in charge during the entire movement.
The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization.
Shocked! I'm shocked to find gambling in this establishment!
No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
But we were told OWS had no leaders. What's changed?
Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council throughout the week of October 22-28. I attended the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd.
They aren't going to come up with theater or exercising or anything productive, all they have are empty gatherings.
According to Marisa Holmes, one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS,
According to whom is Marisa Holmes one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS?
the NYC-GA started receiving donations from around the world when OWS began on September 17. Because the NYC-GA was not an official organization, and therefore could not legally receive thousands of dollars in donations,
On what planet is it illegal for someone to give you money if they want to?
the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice helped OWS create Friends of Liberty Plaza, which receives tax-free donations for OWS. Since then, Friends of Liberty Plaza has received over $500,000.
How much of a cut do they take for themselves? What role do they play in sustaining OWS? How many of them are Occupiers themselves? What role did people like them play in making it illegal to give money to people just because you want to?
Until October 28, anybody who wanted to receive more than $100 from Friends of Liberty Plaza had to go through the often arduous modified consensus process
Why is this even a fact? Patti Smith sang it long ago, "Free money!"
(90% majority)
Marxism's flaw, you simply cannot determine what the people will do or think. The quantity will overpower everything else and the only ones to thrive will be those who depend on mob rule, as we see in Oakland.
of the NYC-GA—
Even in very small communities, direct democracy quickly becomes an impossibility.
which, despite its well-documented
Really? Who has been keeping those documents? This is the first we're hearing of the money, remember?
inefficiencies,
It's tough to make things work the way they should, isn't it?
granted $25,740 to the Media WG for live-stream equipment on October 12,
Such cheap high-quality communications. Ain't capitalism grand?
and $1,400 to the Food and Medical WGs for herbal tonics on October 18.
I gather these herbal tonics weren't grown in the greenhouse out back.
At the teach-in, Ms. Holmes maintained that while the NYC-GA is the “de facto” mechanism for distributing funds, it has no right to do so,
A "right" is sort of like a "demand", which is the OWS leaders were refusing to articulate a few weeks ago for some bullshit reason. OWS has no mission statement. At this point, "Destroy Israel" would probably get quite a few votes.
even though she acknowledged that most donors were likely under the impression that the NYC-GA was the only organization with access to these funds.
That's another thing that goes along with organization and responsibility, people are more inclined to provide money.
Two other leaders of the teach-in, Daniel and Adash, concurred with Holmes.
I know they're guys, but is anybody else getting a Cirinist vibe?
Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes,
The secretary.
asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG.
Last I heard, there were about 69 different organized clusters of people with their own little causes. A women-only tent has just been erected [HAH! Get it?] so changes should happen more quickly now. Alliances of personality and influence and ideology have been formed on this camping trip. There's also the challenge that few of them want to quit in front of the others and they'll entertain themselves attempting to dominate or intruigue.
Shifting departments and department heads would be hard for any of them to keep track of.
Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.
Heh, this could be childish refusal, or people who weren't successful through intelligence.
The leaders of the Structure WG eventually regained control of the teach-in. They said that they too were unhappy with the Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’s funds, which is why they wanted to create the Spokes Council.
The person who actually knew something about money was the one who took charge of it and became Finance Workgroup for his series of tents. The Structure (someone concerned with the tents themselves rather than the occupants, I'm guessing) WG doesn't like how the money's being handled and wants to form a committee and wrest it away from Finance.
What upset them more, however, was the inefficient and fickle General Assembly.
If Lenin and Trotsky had been recorded during their revolution, this is what they'd have said. In Russian, the language of bad people. Democracy sucks. The people should have no say in what happens to them.
A major point of the discussion was whether the Spokes Council and the NYC-GA should have access to the funds, or just the Spokes Council.
Do we even pretend to give a damn about democracy or just go straight to bunker mode?
Daniel, a tall, red-bearded, white twenty-something—one of the six leaders of the teach-in—said that the NYC-GA needed to be completely defunded because those with “no stake” in the Occupy Wall Street movement shouldn’t have a say in how the money was spent. When I asked him whether everybody in the 99% had a stake in the movement, he said that only those occupying or working in Zuccotti Park did. I pointed out that since the General Assembly took place in Zuccotti Park, everybody who participated was an occupier. He responded with a long rant about how Zuccotti Park is filled with “tourists,” “free-loaders” and “crackheads” and suggested a solution that the even NYPD has not yet attempted: Daniel said that he’d like to take a fire-hose and clear out the entire encampment, adding hopefully that only the “real” activists would come back.
We met Daniel earlier when the reporter arrived, remember? I quite agree, disposing of the human vermin who interfere with your revolution would make sure only real activists return to the Occupation site.
The main obstacle to the creation of the Spokes Council was that the NYC-GA had already voted against it four times.
Fortunately, true revolutionaries never take "no" for an answer. Just like so many others in the Park.
One audience member observed that no organization would vote to relinquish its power. Some of the strongest proponents of the Spokes Council responded that they had taken this into account, and were planning on creating the Spokes Council regardless of whether the NYC-GA accepted the proposal. They claimed that, in the interests of non-hierarchy, neither the Spokes Council nor the General Assembly should have power over the other.
Having declared their independence from the GA, they immediately set to undermining it because the Park wasn't big enough for the two leadership organizations. Who's in charge of the Security WG?
In the minutes of the teach-in on Saturday the 22nd, the leaders recognize that usurping power from the NYC-GA might make people uncomfortable. The Structure WG’s eventual proposal was to keep the General Assembly alive and functioning while the Spokes Council “gets on its feet.”The leech cannot overpower its host immediately.
Working Groups could still technically get funding through the NYC-GA, but the “GA may stop making those kinds of decisions because people [will] stop going… To officially take power away isn’t necessary,” especially because the NYC-GA works on the consensus model. A small group of people aiming to delegitimize the NYC-GA could easily attend each session merely to block every proposal. According to a member of the Demands WG, this is already occurring in several Working Groups.
The drummers and the drummers-at-heart.
To placate the rest of OWS, the Structure WG amended their original proposal and gave the NYC-GA power to dissolve the Spokes Council. This amendment is irrelevant, however, given the 90% majority requirement in the NYC-GA, and the ability of members of the Spokes Council to vote in the NYC-GA.I like that they're trying to apply civilized democratic principles. Before Daniel purges everybody anyway.
The newly formed Spokes Council claims to adhere to the “statement of principles” adopted by the New York City General Assembly, including “direct-democracy, non-hierarchy, participation, and inclusion.” The Spokes Council differs from the NYC-GA, however, in three main respects: the Spokes Council has the power to exclude new groups that don’t receive a 90% majority vote for admission; in the NYC-GA, everybody technically has the right to speak, whereas in the Spokes Council each Working Group has a spokesperson, who can be recalled only by a 90% majority; and the NYC-GA allows one vote per person, whereas the Spokes Council operates more indirectly, granting each Working Group one vote
By George, it's almost like a bicameral congress!
When I pointed out the contradictions these differences present to the Council’s stated principles, the leaders of Sunday’s teach-in insisted that the Spokes Council was the most participatory, democratic organization possible—the same slogan they repeated last month about the General Assembly. I felt like I was watching a local production of Animal Farm.The Bolsheviks profess fealty to the previously-established socialist order, until it is time to overthrow it. You don't need a fable about pigs to see that every time it happens.
I’ve attended two mock Spokes Councils in the past month. At the Spokes Council in Washington Square Park on October 15, the unelected facilitators set the agenda:
You don't have leaders or organized missions. Who the f*ck do you think will set the agenda?
Occupy Washington Square Park. Then they set the terms of debate, breaking the group into three circles: those who wanted to occupy and possibly get arrested, those who wanted there to be an occupation and would assist those being arrested,
The Luca Brasis and the Sonny Corleones?
and those who wanted to build the movement in other ways. I went with the third group.
How large were the first two groups, the ones who wanted to be arrested? How many people did they represent?
The facilitators told each group to elect a facilitator, a note-taker, and a spokesperson who would read the notes from each group’s meeting. Almost immediately, one of the members of the OWS inner-circle asked my group if anybody had a problem if she facilitated. Nobody objected, so she was “elected.”
People are sheep. Treat them as sheep and you will go far.
Although she was in the one group that opposed occupying Washington Square Park, she lectured us about the need to occupy public parks.
Perhaps a Trotskyite 'internationalist' but that's entirely speculation on my part.
I was vocal in my group, arguing that the fundamental problem in our hierarchical, bureaucratic society is the lack of a truly democratic, dialogic way of relating to one another—not that public parks close at midnight. I repeated the arguments I had raised in previous General Assemblies,
Heh, I'm reading about atrocities in Nigeria being performed by Muslims against Christians and others and wondering where that *other* General Assembly is these days?
concluding that OWS’ main goal should be to develop dialogic, democratic methods
That's the second time the reporter used those words in consecutive order.
in the occupied areas, and to extend this way of life into every home, workplace and school, and in local, regional, national and international bodies.
No. Keep your revolution off of my body.
My advocacy for radical democracy wasn’t particularly popular.
Then what's the point of 90% majority votes in the GA?
Ironically, the predominantly middle-class, white men leading the movement claim that their hostility to democracy is in the interest of “protecting minorities,” referring to oppressed genders, races, classes, ages, and nations. Far from being “minorities,” these people make up the majority of the world’s population; the worldwide outcry for democracy vitiates the paternalistic notion that the oppressed need “protection.”
But this is the natural result of leftist outcomes. If the majority of the world's population was capable of fairly distributing its wealth, they would be capitalist and wouldn't need well-fed well-dressed white people Occupying on their behalf.
The discussion turned to which locations the movement should occupy, ignoring the question of whether occupation for the sake of occupation was a good idea. I suggested teaming with evicted tenants and former homeowners to occupy foreclosed homes, abandoned apartments and unsold condos—an act that would strike at the heart of the economic crisis, and endear the movement to the oppressed. This idea generated a lot of support, but was not repeated by my “spokesperson” when the groups reconvened.
There won't be anything in the way of movement to another Occupation site, not for a while. The Stalinist 'one nation first' approach will dominate. The rest of this is Trotskyist delusion.
At the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd, one of the leaders’ main gripes—rightfully so—was that the NYC-GA was inefficient
It's like we can't just do whatever we want whenever we want without consequences. WTF?
and dominated by society’s vocal minorities,
Frankly, people who are silent are very much the minority, unfortunately.
particularly middle-class white men.
Because this "99%" bullshit was only a front anyway.
The underlying cause is not eliminated by the Spokes Council, but is in fact exacerbated by it. The major flaw of the General Assembly is the need for a 90% majority to pass proposals. This “modified consensus” ensures the continuation of the dominant culture through the passage of only the most conservative measures. In the Spokes Council, proposals can be blocked by 11% of the members of 11% of the Working Groups, meaning that a minority of 1.2% can stymie the will of 98.8% majority.
Percentages such as that are the least of your worries in the future.
Instead of cutting to the structural and psychological core of oppression, the proponents of the Spokes Council merely apply a topical cream by demanding that no WG have the same spokesperson more than once a week.
There's always these attempts to mandate people change places, just for the sake of ordering them to do so. It fails and the cadre have to strike harder to stop the movement altogether when they clamp down.
The leaders of OWS seem to understand that a genuinely revolutionary movement would lead to deepening involvement by oppressed communities. The leaders then try to reverse-engineer a revolution by consistently choosing among the few people of color and women involved in OWS to be its spokespeople and facilitators,
No, they're trying to avoid all the obnoxious accusations of racism and sexism by putting the minorities up front. It doesn't help, naturally, because without such accusations, where would this reporter be?
as if this token involvement will guarantee a genuine revolutionary movement. In fact, tokenism obscures the need for systematic change by misrepresenting the demographics of OWS.
Then produce qualified accurate representation. Otherwise, you're inventing a problem ("tokenism") misidentifying the problem ("need for systematic change"), refusing to recognize the symptoms ("demographics of OWS") and prescribing the wrong treatment ("obscures the need").
Tokenism also gives the leaders of OWS an argument to fall back upon when confronted with the fact that they have thus far been unable to mobilize and involve most of the 99%.
Never mind those facts, you fail at everything.
The Spokes Council, in fact, doesn’t have enough regard for working people,
Thing is about working people, mostly, they don't want to be working people. What the OWS choose not to do, for principled stances or not, everybody else *has* to do.
students
Whose teachers are giving them credit to be there.
and people with dependents to have one of their three weekly meetings on a weekend afternoon. Instead of ensuring broad participation of traditionally marginalized and oppressed communities, OWS limits participation to individuals from these communities who are privileged enough to be able to spend three workdays a week at Zuccotti Park.
"Privileged enough" to spend three workdays at the park. Yes, you read that right. Not enough that it takes food out of their kids mouth and time away from the job, what if this is the half-week someone flips out and the cops bust everybody?
The participation of oppressed people in oppressive organizations is not a step towards liberation, but is the deepening of their complicity in their own domination.
According to someone who has never accomplished anything in his/her/its life before. People who find something else to do with their own lives, even passively watching favorite tv shows or getting drunk, are more liberated by that freedom than anything these OWS protestors could understand.
The unabated war on women and people of color in America, during Obama’s presidency, with Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, is a testament to the structural and psychological nature of oppression, and the inability for spokespeople to represent the oppressed.
Really puts Darfur in its place, doesn't it?
After the Structure WG’s teach-in ended, I put together a short summary of what I’d heard. I waited for two hours while the General Assembly slowly got to the announcements--the only part of the NYC-GA open for anyone to participate.
So who decided that rule? Who enforces it? I understand there are internal security forces - victims of sexual assault are not encouraged to go to the police - but I don't recall seeing any names attached to that.
Incidentally, there should be something like Speaker's Corner where people can complain endlessly. OWS never considers things like that.
When my turn came to speak, I brought up the plans of “the leaders of the allegedly leaderless movement” to commandeer the half-million dollars sent to the General Assembly for their new, exclusive, undemocratic, representational organization. Before I could finish,
Hey, I just want to say Beyonce should have won that award.
the facilitators and other members of the OWS inner circle started shouting over me. Amidst the confusion, the human mic stopped projecting what I, or anybody was saying. Because silence was what they were after, the leaders won.
They also see their leaders, the "inner circle" ganging up on somebody who dared to breach the inner circle. That's fascinating in and of itself. Besides, the human mic thing doesn't work very well. There's a reason people use electronic mics.
Eventually one of the facilitators regained control of the crowd and explained that I was speaking “opinions, not facts,” which is why I would not be allowed to continue. He also asserted untruthfully that I had gone over my allotted minute. Notably, the facilitators and members of the OWS inner circle regularly ignore time restrictions.
This reaction shouldn’t surprise anyone.
I'm not surprised. I bet very few people there have a working watch any longer.
It is reasonable to expect any undemocratic organization to be co-opted eventually by a vocal minority or charismatic individual. On Friday, October 29, the proposal to create the Spokes Council was put to the NYC-GA for a fifth time, and finally received a 90% majority. The facilitators assisted the process by denying two vocal critics of the Spokes Council their allotted time to speak against it.
There was the initial purge required to attain respectability...
Sometimes it snows before the leaves have fallen. The ineffective and increasingly symbolic NYC-GA will most likely continue to hang around as long as the people who congregate in Zuccotti Park hold out hope for a more participatory, democratic society. The Spokes Council will only be more effective in its exclusiveness.. Let’s hope the inclusive spirit driving the Occupy movement is not frozen out.
Well of course it'll be frozen out. I'm honestly surprised people have made it through the weekend.
A revolution is not a tea party
Why is child support paid by men to women and not the other way around? If women are so capable of procuring riches the old fashioned way, they can pay for their food, clothing, homes, medical care anand children through their own time and effort and stop whining about how hard it is all the time. Duh, men have known that through civilized history. It's hard. It sucks. At one point it was worth providing all that for a woman. And kids if she had any.
Paula Jones came forward with complaints about sexual harrassment and the President of the United States had indeed done what she said he did. Anthony Weiner tweeted his wang to women he had not met and who had not asked for wang tweets from him.
In both cases women who knew nothing whatsoever about what happened behind closed doors were prominent in saying that nothing happened. Women at OWS are being encouraged to not come forward about rape and things like that.
But unspecified women make unspecified accusations in private about Herman Cain and that's good enough for some folks. Kobe Bryant was accused of rape. So were the Duke Lacrosse players.
The OWS movement continues to devolve into proto-leninism, as seen here
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/my_in_tents_night_amid_anarchy_of_ush5s5NscUZincUN0tF0yO
“We cannot take him in by ourselves, the cops have to come!” reiterates the OWS security force member.
They call the NYPD -- and it becomes abundantly clear that the cops down there are sick of the antics.
“Every single night it’s the same thing. I mean, some guy was a victim of rape!” an officer snarls. “There comes a time when it’s over. This is a disaster. It’s all we’re doing, every two seconds, is locking somebody up every time. It’s done.
“It’s done,” he repeats. “Occupy Wall Street is no longer a protest.”
Scenes like this -- and far worse -- have been playing out since the Zuccotti Park “occupation” began on Sept. 17.
The parcel is now a sliver of madness, rife with sex attacks, robberies and vigilante justice.
It’s a leaderless bazaar that’s been divided into state-like camps -- with tents packed together so densely that the only way to add more would be to stack them.
and here
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/131094/
“On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization.”
Frankly, I'm impressed by their spirit. If they can find people to mooch from and survive the winter, some interesting things might come from the experience. One thing I notice is a bizarre lack of skills at anything. You'd think they'd be trying to put together a few people with guitars and harmony singers and really come up with a "We are the World" anthem for the movement. Arts and crafts displays traded between Occupied land in each city. I understand the Occupy Lincoln, Nebraska movement wisely agreed not to interfere with football Saturdays. Bright kids. They'll go far.
For that matter, I'm flabbergasted that Bono and Roger Waters and all the other prominent leftists aren't flocking to set up a concert there. Isn't this what their songs are all about? Or is it tough to wear an outfit that costs more than a million dollars and stand next to someone ranting that no one should be allowed to have a million dollars at all.
Inability to cope with reality or other people marks the occupiers. I'm definitely curious if they'll be permitted to leave, and couldn't honestly blame the city for penning the crybabies up with each other for six months after they start trying to leave.
The revolutionary leaders are reacting in classic fashion, forming cadre. The General Assembly has long been bogged down by over-democracy. A smaller Congress has been formed, and the most recent developments (over money) reveal a distinct mindset in those leaders. The Lenins, Trotskys and Stalins reveal themselves to each other.
There must be a class of officers who make decisions that even the ablest subordinates don't need to be bothered with knowing about. Being leftists who oppose all sense of class, they need to delude themselves into achieving these results, usually in the sense of loyalty or duty that officers of the gentry, the land, the schools usually have towards their men.
I'm more curious about the source and oversight of the food, but I guess the OWS leaders would ask questions about the money first. That's what they're used to, the serious protestors anyway. The security force is empowered to take away the blankets from sex offenders they can catch. Lovely. They've long since realized, even if they won't admit it, the need for a real police force.
Yesterday I heard a member of the secondary government forming to co-exist with the General Assembly accused another of oppression for announcing that whites were overrepresented in the population according to all the info he could get from the Occupiers themselves. He was forced to submit to awareness classes available in one of the tents being set up.
The drummers are a breed apart. That might be literal, it seems there is a sub-species of humanity designed to beat on things as much as possible, eat and sleep and recreate when they can, and everything else is a distraction.
Forgetting how federalism works, the Occupiers of Oakland revert to destruction and mob rule and assume the revolution will follow them. Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.
If they can survive the winter, there will be experienced cadre to support revolution across the country. But not if they can't get that far.
Tomorrow is the due date for the printed books to arrive. We'll see how the mail works. I'm floundering somewhere in the editing of drafting the next one. I'm sure I've said that before. The blog is obviously being neglected.
Paula Jones came forward with complaints about sexual harrassment and the President of the United States had indeed done what she said he did. Anthony Weiner tweeted his wang to women he had not met and who had not asked for wang tweets from him.
In both cases women who knew nothing whatsoever about what happened behind closed doors were prominent in saying that nothing happened. Women at OWS are being encouraged to not come forward about rape and things like that.
But unspecified women make unspecified accusations in private about Herman Cain and that's good enough for some folks. Kobe Bryant was accused of rape. So were the Duke Lacrosse players.
The OWS movement continues to devolve into proto-leninism, as seen here
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/my_in_tents_night_amid_anarchy_of_ush5s5NscUZincUN0tF0yO
“We cannot take him in by ourselves, the cops have to come!” reiterates the OWS security force member.
They call the NYPD -- and it becomes abundantly clear that the cops down there are sick of the antics.
“Every single night it’s the same thing. I mean, some guy was a victim of rape!” an officer snarls. “There comes a time when it’s over. This is a disaster. It’s all we’re doing, every two seconds, is locking somebody up every time. It’s done.
“It’s done,” he repeats. “Occupy Wall Street is no longer a protest.”
Scenes like this -- and far worse -- have been playing out since the Zuccotti Park “occupation” began on Sept. 17.
The parcel is now a sliver of madness, rife with sex attacks, robberies and vigilante justice.
It’s a leaderless bazaar that’s been divided into state-like camps -- with tents packed together so densely that the only way to add more would be to stack them.
and here
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/131094/
“On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization.”
Frankly, I'm impressed by their spirit. If they can find people to mooch from and survive the winter, some interesting things might come from the experience. One thing I notice is a bizarre lack of skills at anything. You'd think they'd be trying to put together a few people with guitars and harmony singers and really come up with a "We are the World" anthem for the movement. Arts and crafts displays traded between Occupied land in each city. I understand the Occupy Lincoln, Nebraska movement wisely agreed not to interfere with football Saturdays. Bright kids. They'll go far.
For that matter, I'm flabbergasted that Bono and Roger Waters and all the other prominent leftists aren't flocking to set up a concert there. Isn't this what their songs are all about? Or is it tough to wear an outfit that costs more than a million dollars and stand next to someone ranting that no one should be allowed to have a million dollars at all.
Inability to cope with reality or other people marks the occupiers. I'm definitely curious if they'll be permitted to leave, and couldn't honestly blame the city for penning the crybabies up with each other for six months after they start trying to leave.
The revolutionary leaders are reacting in classic fashion, forming cadre. The General Assembly has long been bogged down by over-democracy. A smaller Congress has been formed, and the most recent developments (over money) reveal a distinct mindset in those leaders. The Lenins, Trotskys and Stalins reveal themselves to each other.
There must be a class of officers who make decisions that even the ablest subordinates don't need to be bothered with knowing about. Being leftists who oppose all sense of class, they need to delude themselves into achieving these results, usually in the sense of loyalty or duty that officers of the gentry, the land, the schools usually have towards their men.
I'm more curious about the source and oversight of the food, but I guess the OWS leaders would ask questions about the money first. That's what they're used to, the serious protestors anyway. The security force is empowered to take away the blankets from sex offenders they can catch. Lovely. They've long since realized, even if they won't admit it, the need for a real police force.
Yesterday I heard a member of the secondary government forming to co-exist with the General Assembly accused another of oppression for announcing that whites were overrepresented in the population according to all the info he could get from the Occupiers themselves. He was forced to submit to awareness classes available in one of the tents being set up.
The drummers are a breed apart. That might be literal, it seems there is a sub-species of humanity designed to beat on things as much as possible, eat and sleep and recreate when they can, and everything else is a distraction.
Forgetting how federalism works, the Occupiers of Oakland revert to destruction and mob rule and assume the revolution will follow them. Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.
If they can survive the winter, there will be experienced cadre to support revolution across the country. But not if they can't get that far.
Tomorrow is the due date for the printed books to arrive. We'll see how the mail works. I'm floundering somewhere in the editing of drafting the next one. I'm sure I've said that before. The blog is obviously being neglected.
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