The old myth that primitive people are like children and think in some pre-logical manner is challenged with a two-pronged argument. First, there are features of "primitive thinking" that are demonstrated as being far more "technical" and subtle than our own, and second, there are areas of "cultured thought" that are revealed as being extremely "primitive."
As examples of the latter, consider certain monuments, like Mount Rushmore, our collections of signed baseballs, the small replicas of the Eiffel Tower we bring back as "souvenirs" of our trip to Paris, the plastic flowers we put on graves, the useless objects purchased at auctions because they once belonged to famous people.
As examples of "hi-tech" primitive thought, Levi-Strauss catalogues hundreds of sophisticated systems of classification of natural objects by native peoples. For instance, the Hanunoo of the Philippine Islands have a botanical vocabulary dividing local plants into more than 1800 mutually exclusive categories, while Western botanists divide the same group into fewer than 1300 categories. The Hanunoo also distinguish among 60 kinds of fish,108 kinds of insects, 60 classes of salt water molluscs and 25 molluscs found on land or in sweet water. (33-4)
Like Freud. but for very different reasons, Levi-Strauss finds reverberations of totemism in "civilized" thought. For example, pet birds tend to have names borrowed from the lexicon of human names (Peter, Bill, Suzy). On the contrary, dogs tend to be given names that are in odd ways like human names but ultimately are nonhuman (Fido, Bowser, Fifi). Why can we afford to give human names to birds but are less willing to give them to dogs, even though both are kept around the house? Because birds inhabit their own parallel but quite separate society (and hence are METAPHORICAL HUMANS), while dogs are an extension of the family (hence are METONYMICAL HUMANS). We do not need to distinguish birds from ourselves, so we can afford to grant them human names, but in order to preserve the distinction between ourselves and dogs at some level, we cannot afford to give them in every instance truly human names. (40)
"If therefore birds are metaphorical human beings and dogs, metonymical human beings, cattle may be thought of as metonymical human beings and racehorses as metaphorical inhuman beings. Cattle are contiguous only for want of similarity, racehorses similar only for want of contiguity. Each of these two categories offers the converse image of one of the two other categories, which themselves stand in a relation of inverted symmetry."
Once again, we see the formula: A is to B as C is to D, and the universal human ability to detect similarity in difference. Realizing this, we can study totemism and see that the descriptions of animal events are algebraic transformations of human events. (41)
All configurations of human behavior are codes, which, vhen decoded, reveal themselves as attempted solutions of universal human dilemmas. Using the basic "mythemes" (categories of food, smells, tastes, sounds, silences, seasons, climates), myths express the contradictions of life in a structured pattern and render them intelligible. Myths function "to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction (an impossible achievement if, as it happens, the contradiction is real)." (43)
There are for Barthes no unities, only pluralities. In fact, Barthes claimed to look forward to the dissolution of his own physical being into dust and memories in the minds of his friends. (52)
In his article, "The World of Wrestling," the popularity of wrestling matches is derived from their ability to signify ideas like those of Justice, Good, and Evil as part of the Natural Order. These are obviously mythical ideas in Barthes' sense. Yet, rather than condemning wrestling, Barthes is obviously celebrating it as a spectacle of excess. He praises the "absolute clarity" of its signs, which are the bodies themselves of the wrestlers. He says, "There is no more a problem of truth in wrestling than in the theatre." It is not a sadistic spectacle, as some of its critics claim; it is an intelligible spectacle. It gives the audience what it wants: not passion, but the IMAGE of passion. (60)
Literature for Barthes is not the bearer of meaning but a critique of meaning. Literature, in refusing to assign any final meanings, can be shown to have an anti-theological mission that is truly revolutionary, because the refusal of fixed meanings is the refusal of God. Barthes does not argue that the authors of literary works necessarily intended this critique. In fact, the critique is at the expense of authors. Barthes talks about "the death of the author." (63)
Derrida invents a name for this conglomeration of semiotic features common both to speech and writing and so essential to each that it absorbs their differences. He calls it ARCHE-WRITING (arche-ecriture in French). "Arche-writing" is the system of cultural signs that will always pre-exist—that is, be presupposed by—both speech and writing in their normal "narrow" definitions. Derrida's "grammatology" is a study of this "arche-writing". But Derrida does not claim that he can find a position outside of arch-writing where he can stand on higher, more neutral ground and look objectively back in on it.
To write about writing is always to write from the inside, and there fore, in a sense, no one can ever escape from logocentrism, but we an at least reveal what is in fact obscured and repressed by that metaphysics. (133)
[Toni] Basil's '80s recording career consisted of only two albums. . . . To date, there have been no fewer than five Toni Basil best-of collections released on CD. (Wikipedia)
The other day I saw on TV a close-up of a male cheerleader holding a female cheerleader aloft on the palm of his hand. I never really realized how much I should have been a male cheerleader.
27dec2007 — Property Tax: An eternal rent charged to nominal owners of land
I notice that this year for the first time, mailed notices of Pinal County's ridiculously exhorbitant property tax demand (75% higher than last year's already absurd amount) do not order tribute payers to make out their involuntary payments in the name of Dolores J. "Dodie" Doolittle personally. This year it says:
PLEASE MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO:
PINAL COUNTY TREASURER
I'd love to believe the change had something to do with my pointing out that we used to have to make out our checks to Dodie Doolittle, personally (see the scans).
More likely it's a result of the corruption uncovered in Pinal County that sent Stan Griffis to prison and I would bet money it involves the pirate Dolores Doolittle and her crook of a husband, also a sucker at the public teat, Terry Doolittle (former "right-hand man" of Stan Griffis), who should both be incarcerated just like Griffis. There needs to be a serious third-party investigation (i.e., one not run by Richard Romley) of the den of thieves that is Pinal County.
From AZCentral.com: Ex-Pinal manager admits fraud, to repay $600K A public corruption inquiry that began with an investigation into former Pinal County Manager Stanley Griffis' misuse of $21,000 ballooned into a criminal indictment that left him pleading guilty to six felonies, agreeing to pay over half-a-million dollars in restitution and the possibility of serving up to 51 years in prison.
From the East Valley Tribune: Lee Stein said in a memo this week to the sentencing judge that the 64-year-old Griffis is in such poor health that he wouldn't survive a prison sentence, and had led an exemplary life up to that point as family man, war hero and churchgoer.
That is, until he got mad at his bosses, the Board of Supervisors, for not appreciating him, and in one case supposedly trying to force him out of his job. That person was not identified in the memo, but in hindsight deserves a medal. . . . This is how Griffis, by way of his lawyer, explains embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of developer-donated dollars which will now not be used to relieve congestion around Queen Creek and Apache Junction, and is not likely to be replaced soon by a private sector newly wary of "public-private partnerships."
From the Gold Canyon website: Stan Griffis falsified his paychecks in order to defraud the State Retirement system. Terry Doolittle prepared the payroll and became County Manager as Stan Griffis' handpicked successor. He was dutifully appointed by The Board of Supervisors without challenge, behind closed doors and surreptitiously approved in the consent agenda. Dodie Doolittle, Terry's wife, issued the payroll and signed the checks. She rose to power through the anointment/appointment process whereby Stan's long list of pals and confidants relinquished their elected seat prematurely in order to permit hand-picked successors to run for office masquerading as incumbents. A process used many times and has brought us Laura Dean-Lytle, Carter Olson, Dodie Doolittle and for all intents and purposes, David Snider. I hear more are on the way.
From the Apache Junction / Gold Canyon News: As to the remaining "elected" or "appointed" people in the current administration, Mr. Terry Dolittle, the current county manager, was the right hand man and asst. county manager to Mr. Griffis for years. I leave it to your own judgement as to his credibility. As to his wife, Ms. Doolittle, she was elected to her position (with no opposition) as treasurer after being "appointed" by Jim L. Turnbull as he retired in 2003. It is curious that all the county checks are signed by the treasurer, who happens to be the wife of the current county manager. I could look at the "forward thinking" involved in planning for the future in Pinal County, but it is almost non-existent.
X-mess is a magical time! A magical time when ordinary stupid people are magically transformed into The Magically Uber-Stupid! And radio stations break out (magically!) the worst songs from the catalog of every singer and band!* Fucking magicalness all over the place! Spilling out into the throughways and thoroughfares and way-throughs! Until we just! Can't! Take! Any! More! (Magically!)
DoC: When you played here last, you introduced the song "Calling Up Spirits" by talking about the Founding Fathers. I'm curious about your political views.
Thomas Low Nichols wrote of his schooling in New Hampshire in the 1820's:
The education we got was solid enough in some respects, and superficial in others. In arithmetic, geometry, surveying, mechanics, and such solid and practical matters, we were
earnest students; but our geography was chiefly American, and the United States was larger than all the universe beside. In the same way our history was American history, brief but glorious .... We were taught every day and in every way that ours was the freest, the happiest, and soon to be the greatest and most powerful country in the world. This is the religious faith of every American. He learns it in his infancy, and he can never forget it. For all other countries he entertains sentiments varying from pity to hatred; they are the downtrodden despotisms of the old world.
One wonders whether Nichols was exposed in the classroom to a bizarre Historical Reader of the War of 1812 written by Gilbert J. Hunt (1817). Hunt, whose book was designed for use in schools and went into several editions, couched it in biblical style, even breaking the chapters up into numbered verses. Thus, the President figures as "James, whose sir-name was MADISON," and Congress as "the GREAT SANHEDRIM"; Satan abets the wicked British; and, according to this latter-day American version of the holy scriptures, Jackson at New Orleans (chapter liv, verse 13)
... spake, and said unto his captains of fifties, and his captains of hundreds, Fear not; we defend our lives and our liberty, and in that thing the Lord will not forsake us:
14. Therefore, let every man be upon his watch ....
15. And ye cunning back-woodsmen, who have known only to hunt the squirrel, the wolf, and the deer, now pour forth your strength upon the mighty lion, that we may not be overcome.
16. And as the black dust cast upon a burning coal instantly mounteth into a flame, so was the spirit of the husbandmen of the backwoods of Columbia.
"Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation, nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist . . . sir." — Apocalypse Now
"I'm not exposed to bespeak any such information to you, nor would I, even if I had said information at this juncture . . . be able." — Fight Club
"My sources within the department indicate an individual with the name you gave me was involved in activities similar to what you outlined." — Cop attempting to communicate (Aww, cute!)
20dec2007 — For Your Holy-Day Gift-Giving Crapsideration
Commemorate the tragedy of 9/11 as you organize hundreds of your CDs and DVDs in two versatile "Twin Towers." Never forget what the terrorists did to Freedom, and never forget where you put your "Lion King" DVD—it's in the Twin Towers!
YOUR COMMEMORATIVE 9/11 BONG IS IN BAD TASTE AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF DAY!
No one wants to suck smoke out of a miniature plastic replica of the Twin Towers. I know you think it's because they don't know how to hold the bong without banging their noses on
the antenna atop Tower Two, but the real problem is that each time someone takes a hit, everyone has to sit and watch as leftover smoke billows up from Tower One. Consider the mellow harshed.
It was cool at first, true. But that was only because of the inscription at the bong's base: 9/11: WE REMEMBER.
Considering that the "we" in that inscription refers only to you and your pothead friends, it's not likely that all that much is being remembered. More important, everyone's been complaining of bad dreams lately (especially Clyde). Just throw the thing away and break out the R2D2 bong again. Everyone loved that one. Even though you refused to smoke out of it ever again "in protest against the crimes George Lucas has committed against my childhood with the release of episodes one through three," it's safe to say that Lucasfilm Ltd. never got the press release.
19dec2007 — From Daniel G. Moore's Enter Without Knocking, a memoir of life as a guard at Arizona State "Penitentiary"/Prison in the mid-twentieth century:
Previous administrations had allowed some of the old, long-term, inside trusties to build little shacks at various places in the yard. These were still there, made of scrap lumber, tin cans and cardboard. Each was a potential hiding place for dope or contraband, though seldom was anything found in them during a shakedown. One such shack had been built by a stir-crazy old Mexican who was doing a life sentence for a murder committed at Claypool, Arizona. Old Camacho had dug up the hard earth of the yard to make himself a tiny garden beside his shack. There he planted a few hills of corn and a few rows of chili peppers and beans. These he carefully tended, carrying water for them in a bucket.
Compare that treatment of prisoners to the current treatment of those of us said to be free: In the form of "property tax" demands, I am forced to pay the county rent for land for which I have paid in full; and in the form of "permits," I am forced to pay for the privilege of being told how I may use my own land.
Question for Pinal County overlords: How is it that, in a country people persist in calling free, behavior that used to be allowed to convicted criminals on government property is no longer allowed to free citizens on their own property?
Question for Pinal County residents: How is it that we are content to put up with this?
You will notice that in some respects the whole situation is a lot more honest with the veneer of consent stripped away. It's all about unadulterated force, and nobody pretends that it is not. You do what you are told, whether you like it or not, or else you get hurt.
18dec2007 — Blue skies block our view of the universe. Accursed refraction!
The casual racism of Stephen Leacock, Canadian humorist (from Humor and Humanity, 1938):
Primitive races must have begun very early to find incongruities in their first beginnings of speech that would make the first beginnings of verbal humor. The kind of languages that they used, agglutinative, and made of combinations of repeated monosyllables all alike till rearranged or 'resung' in a different way, would lend themselves to it. The Chinese language, still of this form, must be, if I understand it right, one enormous pun. It is as if one struck in English such combinations as "Let's have a ship-shape shop!" (23)
But there are further modes of humor arising out of single words far more subtle and far more legitimate than either puns or bad spelling. One of these is the use of a word that is the wrong word for the sense but the right word for the sound: in other words using the wrong word in the right way. This is seen in the speech of people who try deliberately to use big words, as the Negroes do, or at times sententious Cockneys. (41)
The Negro was and is a believer. For him there was and is no higher criticism, no relativity of history, no distinction of past from present. He took the Bible stories just as he found them, reverently and simply. He couldn't read and write and so he passed them on by word of mouth, and a person with a natural gift of imagery, such as primitive people often have, could tell them in a striking way to an open-mouthed group of auditors. (74)
Now notice how simple, one might say how sweet, this is. A Southern planter walking round in the woods, would of course carry a gun with him. So the darky narrator took for granted that a man as high up as the 'Lawd' would of course carry a gun. (74-5)
Women's fashions, when they first come out, ought to look funny and do look funny to children or Negroes. But for the most of us, the sense of oddity has worn thin by the very expectation of it. 'What next?' is all we ask. (100)
We must have something impossibly long or unexpectedly short; a novel to take in the whole American Civil War, Negroes included, or an utterance so condensed that it can be said in what the Lady Mayoress of New York once called 'a mouthful.' (150)
Now dialect, til it loses its force by custom, has a droll sound to an unaccustomed ear: as witness the everlasting vogue of comic Yiddish-American, comic Negro talk and Pennsylvania Dutch. (152)
Just as Dickens (see Pickwick, Chapter VII) tells us that if Muggleton has its Dumkins and Dingley Dell its Luffey, so we can boast that Ontario has its McIntyre and Michigan its Julia Moore of the late nineteenth century. The latter was probably the greatest super-comic poet who has lived since Milton. Her success was great; her fame extensive; her estimate of herself was in accordance. One poem of hers dealt with the terrible railway accident at Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1878.
Have you heard of the dreadful fate
Of Mr. P. P. Bliss and wife?
Of their death I will relate,
And also others lost their life;
Ashtabula Bridge disaster,
Where so many people died
Without a thought that destruction
Would plunge them 'neath the wheel of tide.
I quoted that passage as an illustration in my larger work on the present subject and often referred to it in public lectures, but I quote it here again for a special purpose. When I was lecturing in Chicago a few years ago, I quoted the fate of 'P. P. Bliss and wife' to what seemed the great hilarity of the audience. After the lecture, at supper, a grave, elderly gentleman said to me, "I was interested in your reference to the Ashtabula Bridge Disaster. I lived in the town as a young man at the time. Poor Bliss! I knew him quite well. He suffered terribly."
With that, for me, all the comicality of the poem was lost in the horror of the reality. I could feel what it was that the crude words and ill-assorted epithets of the Michigan 'poetess' were meant to convey. Again I realized one cannot joke with death. For some time after I couldn't refer even to the death of Rameses of Egypt, except to say, "I see poor Rameses is gone."
This incident is not related here for any personal interest, but in order to enforce again the canon of taste, Let humor keep to its bounds. (183-5)
It's time for the masquerade. Go to court and it's "Hey, Lenny, you've got to wear a blue suit and get a haircut. "
Why wear a blue suit? So that those who try the facts will not be burdened searching for the felon.
"Which one is he?"
"Don't you know how to spot them? They wear blue suits."
"How about the real men in blue?"
"They wear their brown suit that day. " (111)
We forgave the Japanese once, the Germans twice, but the White Southerners we've kicked in the ass since Fort Sumter. (111)
Marijuana will be legal some day, though, because there are so many law students that smoke pot, who will some day become Senators and legalize it to protect themselves.
But there are people in jail now for smoking flowers.
And yet you wouldn't believe how many people smoke pot. If anybody reading this would like to become mayor, believe me, there's an untapped vote. Of course, you wouldn't want to be the Marijuana Mayor, so you'd have to make it a trick statute, like "The Crippled Catholic Jewish War Children In Memory Of Ward Bond Who Died For You Bill To Make Marijuana Legal." (112)
If I am incarcerated in Chino, I am going to study. Yes, and learn to play the cello. I will come out an accomplished cellist—and just bore the shit out of everyone. (114)
Anyone who does anything for pleasure to indulge his selfish soul will surely burn in Hell. The only medicine that's good for you is iodine, because it burns; a stone is lodged in your urinary tract because nature meant it to be there. So re-tie that umbilical cord, snap on your foreskin, and drown in the water bag, 'cause we're havin' a party and the people are nice.
The what-should-be never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. All the what-should-be's just don't exist. There is only what is. (114)
Last night I dreamed of a girlfriend from high school. Or rather, of her name. She had two older sisters, Janet and Jane. What colossal failure of imagination prevented her parents from naming her Jan? How could they have fumbled the rare triple daughter literatomy opportunity?
09dec2007 — Good god, we're not even consistent in our busybodyosity
During Phoenix Suns broadcasts the Phoenix Suns Gorilla does anti-tobacco commercials.
During Phoenix Suns broadcasts the Phoenix Suns Gorilla does pro-Budweiser commercials.
In a broader context, tradition is simply what occurs unselfconsciously as part of the natural order of things, an unreflective or unconsidered Weltanschauung (world view). In the words of Martin Marty, 'most people who live in a traditional culture do not know they are traditionalists.' Tradition, in this sense, consists in not being aware that how one believes or behaves is 'traditional,' because alternative ways of thinking or living are simply not taken into consideration. (16)
When Higher Criticism, originating in Germany, began to challenge the received understandings of the Bible, for example by using sophisticated methods of textual analysis to argue that books attributed to Moses or Isaiah show evidence of editorial changes, textual accumulations, and multiple authorship, or that the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ depended on a mistranslation of the original Greek text, unreflective tradition (the 'received knowledge' of generations) was converted into reactive defensiveness. From this perspective fundamentalism may be defined as 'tradition made self-aware and consequently defensive.' (17)
In the realm of scientific thought generally textual inerrancy has been easier to defend in the Koran than in the Bible. (70)
Inerrancy is not the same as literalism, and may even produce opposite conclusions. Where literalist readings may logically lead to the 'deconstruction' of texts, inerrancy when pursued systematically requires textual harmonization. Since the inerrant Bible as understood by fundamentalists is supposed to correspond to the historical actuality of real events in real time (as distinct from mythical events whose significance may be understood symbolically or spiritually) conservative commentators try to edit different versions of the same stories into a coherent narrative structure.
A well-known example concerns the New Testament story of the cleansing of the Temple by Jesus, when he threw out the money-lenders. In the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) the incident occurs at the very end of his ministry, at the beginning of Passion week (the week of the Crucifixion); whereas John has it at the very beginning of his ministry. Liberal theologians may explain the discrepancy by showing how John uses the episode to illustrate the essentially Gnostic theme of the Word made Flesh that resonates throughout the fourth Gospel. The conservative commentator Graham Swift provides a much simpler explanation: Jesus cleansed the Temple twice. The same methodology produces two ascensions of Jesus into heaven, since Luke has this occur on the same day as the resurrection whilst Acts makes it happen forty days later, after Jesus had appeared to the disciples. Multiple ascensions, like dual Temple cleansings, allow both narratives to be taken literally, as real events that happened in real time, 'out there' in the world. To be avoided at all costs is the liberal position that 'there was no certain knowledge of the temporal sequence, or that quite contradictory accounts existed, or that some source represented the events in such and such a way. not because that was the way it happened, but because that was important for the theological message of that particular source'.
For conservative Christians, including fundamentalists, it is important to sustain inerrancy by ironing out narrative inconsistencies, since the Gospels themselves are literary texts that aspire to narrative coherence. Herein lies an important difference between the Bible and the Koran. The holy text of Islam does not take the form of a narrative, nor is its structure chronological. The suras (chapters) are assembled approximately in order of length, with the shortest at the end and the longest (apart from the Opening) at the beginning. The sequence also corresponds, very roughly, to reverse chronological order: as you might find in a collection of letters or legal documents in a box-file, the oldest are at the bottom, the most recent near the top. (77-8)
Higher Critical scholarship of the Koran, using methodologies adapted from biblical criticism, is still in its infancy, and largely confined to scholars working in Western universities. So sensitive is this area for Muslims that 'Ibn Warraq', a Muslim-born writer trained in Arabic who accepts the findings of radical Western scholarship, has felt it necessary to publish his work under a pseudonym. In the post-Rushdie atmosphere of cultural confrontation between Islamic and Western worlds, criticism of the Koran demands considerably more caution than criticism of the Bible. (79-80)
In the Bible the Children of Israel are commanded by God to massacre the Amalekites, an indigenous Caananite tribe, along with their women, children, and flocks. For fundamentalist militants such as Rabbi Yisrael Hess, formerly the campus rabbi of Tel Aviv's Bar-Han University, the Amalekites of scripture are assimilated to contemporary Palestinian Arabs: an article by the rabbi entitled 'The Commandment of Genocide in the Torah', cited in a book by Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former director of Israeli military intelligence, ends with the chilling words: 'The day will yet come when we will all be called to fulfil the commandment of the divinely ordained war to destroy Amalek.' (91)
On 4 October 1987 in the village of Deorala near Jaipur in Rajasthan, Roop Kanwar, a beautiful 18-year-old bride of less than eight months mounted the funeral pyre of Maal Singh, her 24-year-old husband who had died of gastroenteritis (or possibly committed suicide, after repeatedly failing his medical school entrance exams). Taking her dead husband's head in her lap, in the prescribed manner, Roop was burned alive. In her final moments one arm was seen to stretch out from the flames. Opponents of sati (who included the state authorities and some religious leaders) saw this as a gesture of defiance, or perhaps a desperate effort in her final seconds to escape. The crowd saw it as a benediction. . . .
4,000 visitors attended the anniversary of Roop Kanwar's sati in 1988. When the authorities stopped public transport from Deorala, the pilgrims arrived on foot, by camel cart or private buses, crowded with people on their roofs or hanging from the windows. More than 800 wayside booths appeared, selling souvenirs, snacks, toys, coconuts and incense—along with the inevitable photo collages of the smiling Roop and her husband enveloped by flames.' (95, 96)
In a notorious episode that made international headlines in 2001 fifteen girls at a boarding school in Jedda were burned to death when their dormitory caught fire. The religious police closed the gates on them because they had not covered themselves according to the requirements of 'strict female modesty' prevailing in the desert kingdom. (112)
Fundamentalist fear of homosexuality has crossed the Atlantic, invading the Church of England, in which a significant proportion of clergy is gay. According to one diocesan bishop homosexuality is caused by 'demons in the anus'. (121)
'The object of every national movement is only the seeking for its god, who must be its own god, and the faith in him as the only true one. God is the synthetic personality of the whole people taken from its beginning to its end' wrote Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Possessed. The same insight informs the religious sociology of Emil Durkheim, who equated the sacred with the spirit of community, a projection of the communal spirit onto a supernatural, transcendental Being. like religious communities, the nations are collectivities that transcend the sum of their individual parts; like religious communities nations bear witness to the idea that human blood must be shed in their defence: the war memorials, cenotaphs, and Tombs to the Unknown Warrior that grace our cities attest to transcendental demands the nation makes of its citizens. Such demands, as Anthony Smith points out, are made on the basis of faith rather than empirical evidence. 'For nationalists, the nation, whatever the acts committed in its name, is essentially and ultimately good, as the future will reveal; the conviction of its virtue is not a matter of empirical evidence, but of faith.' (153-4)
Firefly reassured me that going that extra mile to do your very best really can matter. One of the toughest struggles that a creator has comes when he's pushed himself to the physical and emotional edge and has to come to grips with the dreadful realization that, yes, this might just be as good as it gets. It is a form of facing mortality, but in a creative sense: you might have gone as far as you're going to be able to, and no one's going to care. The only way out, as in so many things in life, is to go through: the creative personality has to accept that even if that's true, the effort is worth it. You have to live with yourself, and know you gave it your best even if it matters to no one else but you. The clouds part and miraculously, while the work is being done, it becomes something infused with the spark of genius; a life is given to it that could never have been there if the artist had settled for doing something merely adequate. Something beautiful can be made, and it counts. But it comes with a price. Firefly was a labor of love in the most sobering sense—a gathering of superb professionals, each giving his and her very best, but in the employ of people who didn't appreciate or understand what they were getting. An artist's greatest external foes may be ignorance and incomprehension, but the fiercest nemeses inside an artist are doubt and despair. Firefly's partnership of creators faced all four and pushed on through to make something inspiringly beautiful. (p. 6)
In ratifying that constitution Virginia and New York particularly affirmed that the people of any State had a right to withdraw from the Union, and there was general assent to that claim, and it was taught in the text book at West Point. (6)
[Slavery] was the very basis of New England's prosperity. At Newport, Bristol, and Providence, some of the most respectable and wealthy merchants were engaged in the trade. Even preachers and philanthropists were advocates. "One elder, whose ventures in slaving had usually turned out well, always returned thanks on the Sunday following the arrival of a slaver that the Africans could enjoy the blessing of a Gospel dispensation." (10)
So it came about that on March 30. 1861, the New York Times, speaking ex cathedra, said: "It is no longer an abstract question, one of a constitutional construction. or reserved or delegated powers of the states to the Federal Government, but of material existence, and moral position both at home and abroad." The North had to have the South even by conquest! And so Mr. Lincoln started the war. He had no purpose to interfere with slavery, but held that under the Constitution, neither he nor Congress could interfere with slavery. After four years of war, he said, in his second inaugural: "The progress of our arms on which all depends. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration it has already attained. Each looked for an easier triumph." Yes, he certainly looked for an easier triumph. We may well believe that had he fully realized what was to come, he would have listened to the pleadings of W. H. Seward, his Secretary of State, and have sought a peaceful restoration of the Union. Instead, he took his own course. And, after declining, in February, 1865, at Hampton Roads, to consider anything but unconditional surrender, in his Inaugural of March 4, he declared : "Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bonds man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." And it was all his own doing—from start to finish. So he conquered the South for economic reasons, as most of the wars have been waged in Europe. And it brought him the fame of unnecessarily causing the deaths of more human beings and of destroying more wealth and property and of causing more sorrow, distress. and sectional hatred than attaches to the name of any other person that ever lived up to that time. And yet there are those who speak of him as a good, kindly man! (24)
In framing the Constitution, as some of the powers which the States delegated to the Congress (similar to those delegated in the Articles of Confederation), were national in their nature, the word "national" was freely used in the first draft of the instrument, but as the States were not forming a nation, but only making a more perfect union of the confederation, the word "national" was entirely eliminated; a nation was not to be created—only a sisterhood of States united in union which had national powers. It was "between the States," not over them—so declared in its last article. By virtue of their sovereignty, eleven States withdrew from the perpetual union. (52)
The great sin of Lincoln and the Northern agitators in general was by constant agitation to identify slavery with the pride of the South, and to prevent any steps being taken toward abolishing it. With independence, the South would have been free of these irritating and disgusting interferences, murders and assassinations.
Society in general has its unity of resemblances in all nations. Civilized people in all climes tend to wear the same kind of hats, and the same kind of clothes, and an independent South would have conformed to the ideas of the world at large, Slavery would have been abolished in a manner less hurtful to the South, naturally and peacefully, and in the meantime the South would have advanced in all the elements of prosperity. (58)
When a member of Congress in 1847, Mr. Lincoln had made a speech in Congress declaring that "the people of any state have a right to withdraw from any Union." But now that the states had withdrawn because he had been elected President, they considering that he was "a dangerous man," it was a personal matter with Lincoln. (59)
The North lost 259,528 men killed in the field and died of wounds and disease, and the South lost 135,000 all told. In this stupendous conflict, therefore, the loss aggregated nearly half a million lives lost and ruined in the armies, and even a greater number of negro lives caused by neglect, disease and starvation, making a total of upwards of a million human lives. Not only this but the women and children on both sides suffered miseries. Then at the South there was desolation and ruin and poverty estimated in the long run at twenty billions of dollars.
The war was unnecessary. Lincoln could have averted it. Emancipation might have been delayed, but would have come in the natural course of events, without the loss of a single man or a single dollar. With the North calling the South all kinds of names the question could not be calmly considered in 1861. (64)
Secession began when South Carolina, in December, 1860, withdrew from the Union. The other Cotton States followed her example.
Congress was in session and made no protest. Members of Congress, on leaving their seats, made farewell speeches, shook hands with the other members, and returned to their States that claimed to be no longer in the Union but foreign States.
As they made these farewell addresses, Congress did not declare those men rebels, nor the inhabitants of these States to be in insurrection.
Months passed, and in March President Lincoln declared that a State could not withdraw from the Union, and that all the inhabitants of the seceding States remained citizens of the United States, and all who obeyed their States were in insurrection.
Congress had not so declared, but Lincoln took steps to inaugurate a war and called on the States to furnish troops. The Northern States furnished troops.
At the December term of 1862 cases involving the legality of the blockade of the Southern ports were heard by the Supreme Court. In one of these cases, U. S. Reports, Volume 67, Justice Grier, on page 668, delivering the opinion of the court, said: "By the Constitution Congress alone has the power to declare a national or foreign war. It cannot declare war against a State or any number of States by virtue of any clause in the Constitution."
"The President has no power to initiate or declare war against a foreign nation, or a domestic State." "But by act of 3rd of March, 1807, he can use the military forces and call out the militia to suppress insurrection." (71)
02dec2007 — GREAT NEWS from the Coca-Cola Corporation Marketing Department!
Who knew sparkling beverages could be hydrating?
It's true. All beverages hydrate, including sparkling beverages. So if you are looking for hydration, but want the delicious and refreshing taste you get from Coca-Cola, don't compromise—go for it! You'll be hydrating your body with each and every sip.
WE OFFER OVER 80 WAYS TO HYDRATE, ENERGIZE, NOURISH, RELAX OR ENJOY EVERY DROP OF LIFE. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE BENEFITS OF HYDRATION, GO TO: [Their bullshit website]
Dear Coca-Cola Corporation Marketing Department,
Um, golly.
So . . . what you want everyone to know is that your product, Coca-Cola, which consists mostly of water, still manages to "hydrate"? That is, that it still consists mostly of water and yet somehow magically retains a certain number of the properties of water?
You're making a special point of letting us know that the other stuff you add to the water you sell us doesn't entirely prevent the water from being water-like?
Great job! (It's also pourable! You should play that up in your next press release.)
Also: "sparkling beverages"? Not "carbonated beverages" (if not "soda" or "pop" or "soda pop")? This is how we're talking now? With question marks after everything? Yes? I guess we are?
The other morning I awoke to find that sometime during the night I'd written the following in my notebook:
Traditionally having no moving parts, the sternum generally observes the celebration of its own existence in silence.
I may know what this is about. Sometimes my sternum makes a cracking sound. It may have happened during the night and annoyed whoever is in charge of my semi-conscious state—in whose view, clearly, there are times when one's strongly worded letter to the Times just can't wait until morning.
I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? — Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (trans. Justin O'Brien, p. 34).
CARELESS JANE
Jane, who shot her Uncle Bill,
Said his death did not affect her,
But, which makes it sadder still,
Broke my "hammerless Ejector." (17)
MR. JONES
"There's been an accident!" they said,
"Your servant's cut in half; he's dead!"
"Indeed!" said Mr. Jones, "and please
Send me the half that's got my keys." (29)
INDIFFERENCE
When Grandmamma fell off the boat,
And couldn't swim (and wouldn't float),
Matilda just stood by and smiled.
I almost could have slapped the child. (41)
TRAGEDY
That morning, when my wife eloped
With James, our chauffeur, how I moped!
What tragedies in life there are!
I'm dashed if I can start the car! (44)
QUIET FUN
My son Augustus, in the street, one day,
Was feeling quite exceptionally merry.
A stranger asked him: "Can you show me, pray,
The quickest way to Brompton Cemetery?"
"The quickest way? You bet I can!" said Gus,
And pushed the fellow underneath a bus.
Whatever people say about my son,
He does enjoy his little bit of fun. (57)
BULL'S-EYE
At rifle-practice on the sands at Deal,
I fired at what I took to be a seal.
When later on I learnt 'twas sister Florrie
And that I'd shot her, I was very sorry.
But still it gratified me just a trifle
To find myself so expert with a rifle,
For, with so large a target as my sister,
I should have been a duffer if I'd missed her. (60)
PHOENIX, Nov. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- A Pinal County, Ariz., regional lifestyle destination today celebrates the debut of the long-awaited first phase. The Promenade at Casa Grande, at build out, will offer more than a million square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment to [a] previously underserved region.
"Regional lifestyle destination" — Is that really what we're calling shopping malls now?
"Regional lifestyle destination"? "Super-regional lifestyle center?" God, it's so sad when unemployed social scientists take jobs as press agents.
The open-air, phased Promenade at Casa Grande meets the need for retail in Pinal County and brings many first-to-market merchants to the region.
"This project is part of a long-term strategic plan to bring market-driven retail developments to Arizona," said Art Coppola, president and chief executive officer, Macerich(R) . "The integrated center will serve as a catalyst for economic vitality in Pinal County. It is perfect for the market and serves the needs of the community now and into the future."
The Promenade at Casa Grande is a part of the deep Arizona development pipeline delivered to the state by Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich.
Macerich's Phoenix-based Westcor division, which has a 40-year heritage. . .
"Heritage." We're going to call a history of building shopping malls a "heritage."
. . . built on ground-up shopping centers
They're grinding up shopping centers? How did I miss that grand news?
Todd Chester, principal, WDP Partners: "The vast majority of the center's retailers are first-to-market -- making this truly a regional destination."
Under no circumstances should anyone ever trust someone named "Todd."
Dillard's opened in late October with much community fanfare.
I.e., people bought stuff.
Dillard's Chief Executive Officer, William Dillard, II, commented, "The Promenade at Casa Grande is allowing Dillard's to bring exciting and fashionable choices to the area's growing population. This location is perfectly positioned. We believe the store's tone focused on upscale and modern fashions is an excellent fit for the center."
Macerich now owns approximately 77 million square feet of gross leaseable area consisting primarily of interests in 73 regional malls.
Can someone do math? Is that bigger than Texas?
Man. I guess I'm behind the times; in 2005 CNN, always first on the scene of new retarded phenomena, reported on this: "Not a mall, it's a lifestyle center":
"Upscale stores have been challenged to find new places outside of malls to set up shop," said Anita Kramer, director of retail development at the Urban Land Institute in Washington D.C. "This format creates a sort of shopping/leisure destination that's an extension of (a consumer's) personal lifestyle."
If that description sounds appealing to you, please kill yourself.
And yes, of course it's a scam:
McEwen estimates lifestyle center sales to be about $400-$500 per square foot versus $330 a square foot at a traditional mall.
I don't care how acceptable CNN makes it sound, I can't imagine anyone saying, "Where are my keys? I need to go to the lifestyle center!"
Yesterday around the dinner table I mentioned Deadbolt's "GFY" business card to my sister (it was topical, okay?). Then I had to explain to my Baptist ma what GFY stands for. Today I'm wearing a WFMU wool cap that made ma very nervous until I explained that WFMU is a radio station.
So you're feeling unlucky because you've got nothing to do over the high holy day(s)? But isn't two, or four, or maybe three days of ponderous time sitting heavy upon your hands pretty lucky? Damn right it is. And don't you feel like celebrating the two hundredth book featured in the Deuce of Clubs Book Club? Well, do ya? I sure do, and to prove it, instead of just one 200th book, there are thirteen 200th books! Not only that, there are two more besides! That's two books luckier than thirteen! How lucky is that?
(Two luckier. I totally gave you that one.)
So, cuddle up with a nice warm CRT and enjoy. I wish you bon-something or other—whatever's French for reading . . . lect- something, maybe. Ask Babelfish. All I know is, none of these 13+2 books of Arizona lore is written in Foo-kwah. That, too, is lucky!
Given that telling lies on behalf of the White House pretty much the job description of a White House Press Secretary, either (a) he had no idea of the dirty job he signed up to do or (b) his book is a CYA move intended to audition for future prosecutors his value as state's witness in the unlikely event of executive branch bureaucrats ever actually having to answer for their crimes.
"Do you think he did it?" "Did it?" Yately looked startled. "Mr. Normanby? He's an MP." There, Carmichael thought, in that attitude, lay the reason why the country needed Scotland Yard and could not rely on the local forces. They were good enough with ordinary criminals—with the criminal class if you like—but their ingrained and perfectly natural respect for those above them made them completely unimaginative in cases like this. "Why would he do it? It's obvious some anarchist did it." (48-9)
"Do you know what books?" Carmichael asked. The landlord looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. "What books?" he echoed. "Just books . . . small ones, mostly," he added, as if that might help. It amazed Carmichael that there could be men in the world for whom the distinguishing characteristic of a book was in its size, or possibly its color. The landlord was by no means stupid. Indeed, he was far more observant than most; he'd have made a good policeman. He had probably left school at eleven or twelve and sunk his talents into managing this little business for a big brewery, his intellectual horizons ending at the far side of the bar. (237)
"They're going to introduce new ID cards with pictures on them, like passports I suppose. That'll make this sort of thing easier, and a lot of other things too. If Brown had one of those, we'd know who he was for sure." "Any paper we can put out, some villain will find a way around it," Carmichael said, pessimistically. "And you know what they say about making things foolproof—do that, and God will come up with a better fool." (252-3)
Tennessee gave us the blues, via W. C. Handy, country via the Grand Ole Opry, and that strange, swiveling fusion of the two that was programmed into the android that replaced the infant Elvis Presley. But let me answer the question that is really on your mind. To clarify: while similar, and also made from sour mash, "Tennessee Whiskey" is not bourbon at all, but a barroom euphemism for the semen of an intoxicated person after it has been filtered through ten feet of maple charcoal. This naturally will not be confused with the "true whiskeys" of Jack Daniel's and other fine Tennessee distillers, for it is obvious at first taste that these are DELICIOUS WHISKEYS and NOT SEMEN.
— John Hodgman, The Areas Of My Expertise
In other whiskey news:
Historic Whiskey Could Go Down Drain
Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel's whiskey, some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license. . . .
Tennessee law requires officials to destroy whiskey that cannot be sold legally in the state, such as bottles designed for sale overseas and those with broken seals.
"We'd pour it out," said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
The estimated value of the liquor is $1 million, possibly driven up by the value of the antique bottles, which range from 3-liter bottles to half-pints. . . .
Christopher Carlsson, a spirits connoisseur and collector in Rochester, N.Y., said old vintages of whiskey in their original containers are highly prized.
"A lot of these bottles are priceless," he said. "It's like having a rare painting. It's heavily collected."
(via Bureaucrash)
17nov2007 — Irony-free government marches on: Liberty Dollars impounded; a tax on your view is not a view tax
(Someday, under "enhanced interrogation," I'll be forced to claim that by "bastards" I meant the Liberty Dollar people. I'd like to apologize to them in advance. You know how it is, under torture a person will say anything to stop the pain. That's why it's such a reliable and necessary information gathering tool for our Central Intelligence Agency and its outsourced torture chamber operators.)
The one-room cabin David Bischoff built in a cow pasture three years ago has no electricity, no running water, no phone service and no driveway. What it does have is a wide-open view of nearby hills and distant mountains—which makes it seven times more valuable than if it had no view, according to the latest townwide property assessment. He expects his property taxes to shoot up accordingly.
Bischoff and other Orford residents bitterly call that a "view tax," and they are leading a revolt against it that has gained support in many rural towns in New Hampshire (search).
State officials say there is no such thing as a "view tax"—it is a "view factor," and it has always been a part of property assessments. The only change is that views have become so valuable in some towns that assessors are giving them a separate line on appraisal records.
The change has stirred passions in Orford, a town of 1,040 that overlooks the Connecticut River and has views of neighboring Vermont and the White Mountains (search).
One big reason the reassessment has alarmed townspeople in Orford and beyond is that housing prices—and consequently property taxes—are shooting up in New England because of an influx of vacation-home buyers and retirees willing to pay top dollar for beautiful views. . . .
At a packed legislative hearing, Orford timberland owner Tom Thomson warned that unless the state acts, rising property taxes will force family farmers to sell to developers, permanently altering New Hampshire's rural character. . . .
Guy Petell, director of property appraisals for the state, is sympathetic. But real estate ads and sales prove that properties with views fetch a premium, and it would be unfair to homeowners without views to ignore that, Petell said. . . .
In Bischoff's case, the view added $140,000 to his property's underlying value of $22,900. As a result, he expects his property taxes to jump from less than $500 last year to more than $3,000 this year. . . .
Retired engineer John Chandler objected when a revaluation doubled the value of his property in Hill because of its view of the White Mountains in the distance. Chandler noted that he does not own the view and cannot control it, and said it is increasingly obscured by air pollution.
Besides, he is legally blind.
"I'm not enjoying that view, at least not as much as Avitar thinks I should be," he said.
In an interview, New Hampshire tax collector Guy Petell (603.224.3437) expresses the classic double-think and amorality of the order follower:
Dave Ridley:Mr. Petell, what is the "View Tax?" Guy Petell:"View Tax?" There is no "View Tax." Dave Ridley:Thought you would say that. . . .
Dave Ridley:Just on a moral basis, do you feel it's right to force homeowners to pay for a tax that funds things they may not agree with? Guy Petell:Uh . . . I . . . uh . . . I'm not sure I wanna answer that. . . . We're here . . . to enforce the laws that are passed by the legislature, not to pass judgment on what is passed, on what they want us to do.
Yeah, yeah. Heard it before. Just following orders, you didn't kill anyone, you just typed up the death notices, or drove the trains, or ordered the supplies, or manufactured the gas, blah blah blah &c.
The way I see it, there's a basic problem of approach, here. There's a piece of hardware that would be worth sticking in the faces of people like Guy Petell, but it's not a camera. Petell is one of multitudes who commit crimes on behalf of an abstraction—the state—and doubtless considers himself blameless. Petell is only a thief, but you'll hear the exact same justifications from those who commit murder for the state (Godwin's Law Alert):
"These misdeeds were committed against my will. I did not will the murder." "I didn't kill them, did I? I didn't hang them and I didn't shoot them. This was done by the government."
To Adolf Eichmann's mind it wasn't he who was to blame for any deaths, but an abstract noun—it was "the government" who killed millions of people. When his interrogators pointed out that it had been Eichmann's job to set the quota of Jews to be deported, he readily agreed but still denied personal responsibility: "Well, yes, but. . .it wasn't me," he said. "These were not personal decisions. They were not personal decisions." This is what becomes of order-followers. "If they had told me that my own father was a traitor and I had to kill him, I'd have done it. At that time I obeyed my orders without thinking, I just did as I was told. That's where I found my—how shall I say?—my fulfillment."
So Godwin's Law me all you want—yes, today's order followers tend to steal more than murder, but the principle's the same. I don't agree that any level of government crime is acceptable as long as it falls short of the fucking Third Reich.
"You don't punish a child for the crime of the parent." — Presidential candidate and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee
"The LORD is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." — King James Bible (Num. 14:18)
The fundamental difference between government and private entities which perform comparable functions is that government, based upon the supposed notion of a “social contract”, reserves to itself the use of force to achieve its ends. Such coercion at the hands of other, non-governmental, players (for example, price-fixing, abuse of a monopoly position, intimidation of competitors or labour unions, etc.) is rightly deemed criminal and often aggressively prosecuted by the state (with perhaps some of its zeal due to aversion to competition). Yet the very same acts, performed by authorities elected with 51% of the votes or appointed to act on their behalf, is presented to the public and in the legacy media as entirely benign: in "the public interest."
At the peak of the coercive pyramid is the bare fact that the government can kill you and get away with it. . . .
[T]he real power of the state is embodied in government agents who carry weapons and wield arrest authority within its own territory for use against its own citizens and residents. Let's take a glance at the United States, a country of about 300 million people, and see how many agents of its federal government are entitled to pack lethal force and arrest people within its borders. . . . [F]or about every 3000 residents of the U.S., there is one Federal agent entitled to carry a firearm to murder them on behalf of their consensual government. Now this may not seem like very many, but note that in the United States regular law enforcement—the cops—is entirely the responsibility of state and local government; the gunguys and gungals listed above are a layer on top of that, beholden only to the central power in Washington. . . .
[L]ook at what ultimately happens if you don't pay your taxes: there are 2,777 employees of the Internal Revenue Service authorised to carry weapons to shoot you down. Further down the list, we find that the Department of Health and Human Services has need of 374 pistol-packing Inspectors General to maintain its own departmental health by threatening human life. . . .
The Library of Congress keeps 116 terminators on staff—better return that book on time when you borrow it from them! The Department of Education manages with 97 armed enforcers (do your homework, kiddies), and the National Institutes of Health employs 75 minions authorised to impact the health of those who cross them with the most invasive of therapies. Even the National Institute of Standards and Technology has 28 precision gunsels on its roster, presumably to liquidate those who might try to slip in a spurious leap second in order to slack off after a wild New Year's party.
What's striking about this is that comparable organisations in the private sector seem to get along just fine without all the hired killers.
"This is a Fox News alert, and one you need to pay attention to!"
I truly do not understand why Fox News bothers paying salaries to humans to simulate journalists when it's obvious they could produce highly rated Fox News programs by building a miniature news set, placing a series of live chickens behind the desk, and shocking them in the anus for an hour at a time.
News Chicken: BWA BWA BWA BAWWWWWWWWK! Fox News Viewer: OMG TERRORISM! (Turns TV volume higher)
10nov2007 — Lou Minatti says: "PLEASE REMIND YOUR READERS . . . that November 16 is HUMAN NATURE DAY"
Oops, I seem to have left my human nature at the office.
Lou Minatti adds: "This very important holiday comes up on one like a cold needling feeling down the back of the neck, as the morning light pours in..........."
God, do I remember that feeling. Strangely, it went away about the same time I stopped forcing myself to go to offices.
09nov2007 — Among the qualifications we sought were a happy indifference to one's personal well-being and a demonstrated aptitude for reasonable mayhem. — Don Kropp, leader of the Stanford Axe Recovery Team
For those tuning in late, some accounts of the exploit(s) of the Stanford Axe Recovery Team, which inspired this website's slogan-in-chief:
1997 (Wikipedia): Heaven's Gate was the name of an American religious group led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. The group's end coincided with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. Applewhite convinced thirty-eight followers to commit suicide so that their souls could take a ride on a spaceship that they believed was hiding behind the comet carrying Jesus.
2007 (Sky & Telescope): The strangest comet to burst onto the celestial scene in our lifetime is easy to see with your bare eyes—even if your sky is fairly light-polluted. . . . Amateur astronomers the world over have been stunned and amazed by the weirdest new object to appear in the sky in memory. And it's one of the brightest, too—it's easy to spot with your eyes alone if you know where to look. On October 24th, periodic Comet Holmes (17P) brightened dramatically—by nearly a million times—virtually overnight. For no apparent reason, the comet erupted from a very dim magnitude 17 to about magnitude 2½. Within a day its starlike nucleus had expanded into a perfectly round, bright little disk visible in binoculars and telescopes. It looked like no comet ever seen.
"No apparent reason"?—or could it be that Marshall Applewhite's calculations were simply off by ten years?
The following message, intercepted in October 2007, originated from behind Comet Holmes (period: 7 years), addressed to the surviving members of Heaven's Gate:
(Update: At about half past midnight, just after posting that, I was lying on a diving board looking through binoculars at Comet Holmes when a fiery meteor streaked right across the center of the binoculars' field of vision. "Speak, Mother Ship, for thy servant heareth.")
Discussing Gonzalez and Penns mutual passion for working on cars, Gaffney offers, "They're both greasers. They'll spot some ol' pile of shit in the middle of a field and act like they've seen a girl for the first time."
My mother who has been out of work is hanging out with my Aunt Mary. My Aunt Mary is a Funeral Crasher... She looks in the obituaries find the best funerals . Auntie Mary goes to a funeral up to four times a week. The young ones have the most people...and the most food.
Aunt Mary helps in the kitchen at the church with her to go containers fix her a plate to go, and eats another plate there.She nver has to cook or buy food! She has been doing this for over 20 years. Most people think that they are related to her because they see her at the funeral. She doesn't even know the people.
02nov2007 — Nothing That Couldn't Be Remedied By The 2nd Amendment Department
Pumpkins a taxing problem in Iowa — The Iowa Department of Revenue is taxing jack-o'-lanterns this Halloween. The new department policy was implemented after officials decided that pumpkins are used primarily for Halloween decorations, not food, and should be taxed, said Renee Mulvey, the department's spokeswoman. (via Bureaucrash)
Anything done under the guise of consent can be done by consent. Men and women pretending to be "government" only have to do one thing different . . . provide their services on a voluntary basis like everybody else. — The Government Hoax (via End the War on Freedom)
Julia Smith:I asked him why our assessment was more than last year, for we laid up no money and did not intend to. He replied, the assessor had a right to add to our tax as much as he pleased, and he had assessed our house and homestead a hundred dollars more. To be sure it increased our tax but a little, but what is unjust in least is unjust in much.
Abbey Smith:We are wholly in the power of those we have come to address. You have the power over our property to take it from us whenever you choose, and we can have no voice in the matter whatever, not even to say what shall be done with it, and no power to appeal to; we are perfectly defenseless. Can you wonder, then, we should wish to speak with you? People do not generally hold power without exercising it, and those who exercise it do not appear to have the least idea of its injustice. The Southern slaveholder only possessed the same power that you have to rule over us. "Happy dog," he would say of his slave, "I have given him everything; I am the slave, and he the master; does he complain? give him ten lashes." The slaveholder really thought they had done so much for their slaves they would not leave them, when the great consideration was, the slave wanted control of his own earnings; and so does every human being of what rightfully belongs to him. . . . We had two hundred dollars taken from us in this way the past year, by the same power the robber takes his money, because we are defenceless and cannot resist. But the robber would have the whole community against him, and he would not be apt to come but once; but from the men of our town we are never safe — they can come in and take our money from us just when they choose. . . . We have paid the town of Glastonbury during the last six years more than $1000, and for what? to be ruled over and be put under, what all the citizens know to be the lowest and worthless of any in the place. We ask only for ourselves and our property. Why should we be cast out? Why should we be outlawed? We should be glad to stay in our homestead where we were born and have always lived, the little time we have to stay, and to be buried with our family and ancestors, but its pleasantness is gone, for we know we do not hold it in security as our neighbors hold theirs; that it is liable to be taken from us whenever the town sees fit.
In the 21st century things haven't changed in the Land o' Duh Fwee. This year Pinal County is doing me in the eye even worse than they did last year. Check it out:
Last year: $ 959.56
This year: $1,672.12
Last year I considered it robbery enough to hand over $959.56 at gunpoint. Pinal County disagreed, and smacked me with a single-year increase of nearly 75%.
Now, my land receives exactly zero county services—it's remote desert land, where the county doesn't even grade the dirt trails. Not that I want any county services—I don't. But I don't get any, is what I'm saying. Furthermore, most of the money seized from me will be handed over gratis to school districts that are growing only because of rampant new development, which benefits no one but greedy county politicians and local turdhead developers such as Don Diamond—a lump of shit who has destroyed vast tracts of pristine Sonoran desert in exchange for a personal worth of about half a BILLION dollars and who nevertheless tried to steal my little patch of desert from under me by fucking with my deal while it was in escrow. One day I'll piss on his grave, but it'll be lousy satisfaction in comparison to the pissings that scumbags such as Don Diamond rain on the rest of us by using government's monopoly of legal violence to force us to pay to increase their already massive personal wealth—even those of us who have been careful never to spawn any schoolchildren. It's a great thing, this imaginary "social contract"—if you know how to work it (and no conscience prevents you from doing so).
Personally, (A) I don't want the desert bladed under for any more 4,000-home "master-planned communities"; (B) as mentioned, I have no children, and (C) I despise government schools in the first place. (As a kid, I was forced to endure Pinal County's idea of schooling—believe me, they should be paying me.) Yet, if I don't want my land siezed or to be sent to prison, I have to pay for institutions that I would gladly pay the same amount to destroy.
It's an odd situation. If I were accused of having fathered a child by some stranger and could prove beyond a biological doubt that I had in fact not fathered the child, I could not legally be forced to contribute to the support of the stranger's child. But under this official money-making scheme, even though I can prove I have no children—even if I were to offer proof of a vasectomy—I can never free myself of being forced to contribute to the support of an endless parade of the children of strangers.
Challenge: See whether you can explain (without resorting to the imaginary construct known as the "social contract") how this is consistent with human freedom.
01nov2007 — Somewhere in the top five of the weirdest things I've ever overheard (at least at In-N-Out Burger)
A four-member nuclear family sits down to lunch. Pa, Ma, Boy Toddler and Girl Toddler. They begin eating. Suddenly:
Father(in a leading tone of voice, as if for the thousandth time): And what's lycopene good for? Boy Toddler: Prostate! Father: Yes. Good.
What an incredible household that must be to grow up in.
Father: Hey, little man, guess what you're getting for your birthday? That's right—it's the My First Proctological Exam Playset! Boy Toddler: WEEEEEEEE! YAAAAAAAAY! Girl Toddler:ONOESmyasshurtsalready! Mother:(Overwhelming pride prevents speech)
If the mother hadn't been there, I'd have asked the father WTF?!??, or at least questioned Boy Toddler.
Me: And what's patricide good for?
But you don't question family shit in front of mothers, unless dealing with irrational apeshit behavior turns you on (in which case, you're already married and up to here with it). Guys don't care so much when you question their parenting strategies (except in front of the wife), but mothers themselves? They would gladly crush your skull and tear the flesh from your bones in wide strips. Ask a bear.
Once I heard a fast-food family story about a Buttinski (told by the Buttinski himself, who really had no idea how much of a Buttinski he was) who was eating on the patio of a fast-food place and spied a pregnant woman smoking a cigarette. Being a Buttinski, he couldn't help but approach her in his kindest, most condescending manner.
Buttinski: Excuse me, ma'am? Did you know that smoking is unhealthy for your unborn child? Mother:(calmly and deliberately exhaling two lungs full of smoke and fixing Buttinski with a withering glare) If I had a gun right now, I would shoot you.
Of course, this was before the nation's Buttinskis somehow managed to take over and get government to do their work for them—nowadays it's pretty much legally classed as child abuse to take your kid to a fast-food joint in the first place.
Come on. Seriously? A guy named DORKO managed to reach the rank of Brigadier General?
This is cause for alarm. Such a man could be unstoppable. If he survives his injuries, such a man could be elected the next president of Warmongeria. Dorko's wounds are in fact reported to be "non-life-threatening," so White House flunkies may soon be saying:
"Welcome to the Oval Office, President Dickwad! I mean, Dorko!"
It takes a certain type of person to thrive in a situation where he knows for certain that every single one of his subordinates goes "Dorko <snicker>" every time he walks past.
(Type of person it takes: An oblivious asshole. See? Perfect for the Oval Office!)
29oct2007 — "Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase, and so is John Dean."
Their speech also sounds similar, except that John Dean can be humorous at times.
And furthermore:"But the book opens with one of the funniest moments, the author trying to contact Bill Murray. When finally reaching Murray on the phone and telling him that she is writing a book on Chevy, he states “What a stupid thing to do! Why on earth would you want to write a biography on Chevy?” He eventually says “F*** you” and hangs up on her."
28oct2007 — We had ties that could not be broken, except by the passing of time. Like a rock. A broken time rock. And you're very special to me, my broken time rock people. — Nathan Fillion
27oct2007 — "Never go with a hippie to a second location." — Jack Donaghy
In future, states should perhaps be tested for flammability before being admitted to the union.
Update: Carrie points out how the State of California is once again trying to draft me as a prophet, based on my comments of 05oct. (Sorry, California; I can't afford the tax hit.)
Pamela Adlon, who voices Bobby Hill on King of the Hill, has a role in the ludicrously named Duchovny Showtime series Californication. There are scenes where I think we're suppposed to find her sexy. But that voice. Ummmmm . . . damn. I wonder how her husband handles that. ("She's NOT Bobby Hill [shiver] . . . she's NOT Bobby Hill [shiver] . . . she's NOT Bobby Hill. . . she's NOT. . . .")
16oct2007 — "Just as every cop is a criminal" . . . don't forget prosecutors
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies have recently been playing some new games—on-duty enforcement competitions that have police watchers across the country crying foul. One recent competition, described in an internal Sheriff's Department e-mail obtained by The Times, was called "Operation Any Booking." The object was to arrest as many people as possible within a specific 24-hour period. Other one-day competitions have included "Operation Vehicle Impound," a contest aimed at seizing as many cars as possible. And another challenged deputies to see how many gang members and other suspected criminals could be stopped and questioned. . . . "It's just a friendly competition to have a little fun out here." ("Deputies compete in arrest contests")
It doesn't get any better the next step up the chain:
At the federal prosecutor's office in the Southern District of New York, the staff, over beer and pretzels, used to play a darkly humorous game. Junior and senior prosecutors would sit around, and someone would name a random celebrity—say, Mother Theresa or John Lennon.
It would then be up to the junior prosecutors to figure out a plausible crime for which to indict him or her. The crimes were not usually rape, murder, or other crimes you'd see on Law & Order but rather the incredibly broad yet obscure crimes that populate the U.S. Code like a kind of jurisprudential minefield: Crimes like "false statements" (a felony, up to five years), "obstructing the mails" (five years), or "false pretenses on the high seas" (also five years). The trick and the skill lay in finding the more obscure offenses that fit the character of the celebrity and carried the toughest sentences. The, result, however, was inevitable: "prison time." (Tim Wu, "American Lawbreaking"; via Boing Boing)
Walls, the walls of her family, of her feminist campaigns, of her entire privileged, upper-class existence—that's what Edna Brush Perkins wanted to break through. She wanted to let her hair down, exult in the freedom of wild nature waiting for her in the Mojave Desert of Southern California.
Traveling west in 1920 on this tense edge of hope, she anticipated "that sudden sense of romance" indicating "something big" that would take her by storm, and when it came, as many a romantic learns, she almost had more than she'd bargained for. When it came, the kitten had turned into a tiger. The desert ravished her in a way she'd never forget. (Intro, 3-4)
What unique fun! With their new closeness to the earth, as the great, godlike fun soared up once again, they almost, right there in camp, stripped off their clothes and danced naked with joy. (5-6)
I wondered if we might not go to the Imperial Valley and see that strange thing, the new Salton Sea, a lake in the desert. (17)
We persevered until we found a real old-timer. He was known as Shady Myrick. We never discovered his Christian name though he was a famous desert character. Wherever we went afterward everyone knew Shady. Evidently his name was not descriptive for all agreed on his honesty and goodness. . . . The desert held him for her own as she does all old-timers. He was under the "terrible fascination." (36)
[From the Conclusion, by Peter Wild:] Nearing the end of his life, Francis Marion "Shady" Myrick was exactly as presented and more, if only Mrs. Perkins had known. He was an old-timer par excellence, the Mojave's foremost prospector for precious gems, a rescuer of greenhorns who foolishly wandered off ill-equipped for gold, and a befriender of newcomers. (258)
Perhaps some day a supreme singer will come around that point and adequately interpret that thrilling repose, that patience, that terror and beauty as part of the impassive, splendid life that always compasses our turbulent littleness around. (95)
"You find fellers dead down there," he said. "And they don't die of thirst, either. Sometimes there's water in the canteens. They just go crazy. She gets 'em."
He leaned closer across the table and his voice became lower.
"And you hear 'em in the night," he whispered.
"Hear who?"
"Them. I call it the Lonesome Bell."
"What is the Lonesome Bell?" We found ourselves whispering too.
"You hear it. It's a bell. It rings regular, far off. Sometimes you hear it all night. It sounds like the bell on a burro. But it ain't nothing. Once I had a young feller for a partner, and when he heard it he got up and made coffee for the outfit that was coming. He wouldn't believe me when I told him it wasn't nothing but the Lonesome Bell. He waited and waited and nobody came. And the next morning he packed up and beat it." (107-8)
[From the Conclusion, by Peter Wild:] Old Johnnie's ghost story about the Lonesome Bell fortifies Perkins' major premise, that the Mojave is a land of mysteries. The miner's story may be nothing more than the whim-whams of an old man addled by loneliness and delighted to have an audience of tenderfeet visibly spooked by his tale. On the other hand, the desert is a strange place that takes men to strange places in their minds. Either way, the story of the ghost bell is both entertaining and perfectly believable as in character for Old Johnnie. (261)
"He ought to have known better. But they never learn. They always think they will make it this time."
Everywhere that attitude toward accidents on the desert was typical. "Old Johnnie" told his most gruesome tales as though the victims were to blame. The valley was an enemy to be out-generaled; if you were a fool, of course she would get you. It was a pity when she did, inevitable and not very important. They were not callous, for they included themselves in the "inevitable and not very important." (138-9)
What are eight miles or fifteen miles to the modern man accustomed to leap over distance? To the primitive traveler with horses and mules, and until now all travelers throughout the ages have been thus primitive, a mile is a formidable reality. Mojave teaches the truth about it. (150)
We . . . found large white stones laid in the form of a cross pointing toward the east. Another traveler, then, had stopped here. Perhaps he had looked at the red promontory and the spiral cliff and lost hope; perhaps he had prayed for water; or perhaps he had made it as a thank-offering for the blessed coming of cool night. (154)
We now know what becomes of all the old shoes in the world; they are spirited away to the desert. (157)
There are books I cannot finish. I'm not talking about 800-page Dostoevsky novels. Those are cake. I'm talking about a book such as Jordan Fisher Smith's Nature Noir, whose author's personality comes through so clearly and odiously in the first couple dozen pages that it's not worth one's time to continue.
By the time Smith mentions the Beach Ball Baby, it's already obvious who the real ball baby of the story is. A more accurate title for Nature Noir would be The Crybaby Bully Who Thought Himself a Hero.
Jordan Fisher Smith typifies the personality type that covets a uniform and a citation book, a personality type I can't help but despise (and not merely because one person of this type, Mary Martin, wantonly and unilaterally destroyed the Mojave Phone Booth):
I remember I wanted, more than anything, a ranger uniform and a citation book. (3)
Unarmed and entirely untrained for police work, one day I happened to walk into a campsite full of people who didn't think much of my uniform or the government I represented. When the yelling and shoving were over I was physically intact, but the idea that people could always be dissuaded from breaking the law by a lecture or a small piece of pink paper with no immediate consequences was slowly dying in me. (3)
In the case of the rangers who appear in these stories. . . . In their own way each of them did a good job under the toughest conditions imaginable, yet they never wanted to be known as heroes, and now they deserve their peace and quiet. (5)
You hit the lights and siren and drive better than you normally do, think sharper than you normally do. The people in other cars look at you as you pass them on a mountain road and at intersections the cars part for you like the Red Sea for Moses. It is an acceptable substitute for reality; it's fleeting, but it keeps you believing in what you do. (11)
The way it worked with us, as soon as the adrenal part was over, someone would have to pay for all the fun. You paid by having to write the whole thing up, a process that could take an hour of note taking in the field and several hours to a couple of days back at the Ranger station. (13)
Perhaps there was some purpose served by that man's survival, some good he would do later to redeem himself. By the time of the Beach Ball Baby I was beginning to tell myself things like that. In any case, a park ranger is a protector. You protect the land from the people, the people from the land, the people from each other, and the people from themselves. It's what you are trained to do without even thinking, a reflexive and unconditional act. If you're lucky, you get assigned to people who seem worth saving and land and waters whose situation is not hopeless. If not, you save them anyway. And maybe in time, saving them will make them worth it. (19-20)
Once a year, the department's armorer would show up at our ranger station to inspect our guns. One by one, he'd disassemble them, and you could see him shaking his head and lifting his elbows as he applied himself to cleaning out the brown gunk. After a couple of days of this, still shaking his head, he would depart. And in the aftermath of his visits none of us ever received one of those congratulatory memos from headquarters for exemplary care of our equipment, as rangers did in those tidy little nature parks with neat little campgrounds on paved roads and no bullet holes in the signs. (22)
A good many of the men I met in the American River canyons carried guns (in case of rattle snakes, they always told me), so I wore my bulletproof vest every day. (23)
As I'm reading a book, I'm taking notes and writing down page numbers of passages I'll later upload to Deuce of Clubs. Here's as far as I got with Nature Noir:
3 shithead
6 cunt
13 prick
19-20 "without thinking," is right
22 boo-hoo
23 coward
The good side: I got this crappy book secondhand. I already have to cough up money at gunpoint to adr
