FRIDAY FUNNIES
Some girl forwards the following...
President Bush gets out of his helicopter in front of the White House carrying a baby pig under each arm. The Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."
Bush replies: "These are not pigs, these are Texan Razorback Hogs. I got one for Vice-President Cheney, and I got one for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld."
The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says, "Nice trade, sir.”
Yesterday were touched on the subject of fetishes. Now check this out from MSNBC...
A London man, unemployed and apparently left with nothing better to do, has been harassing hospitals with repeated visits. His ailment: nothing, really, other than a fetish for medical items. He has hit up area hospitals more than 40 times since January, feigning illness in pursuit of hospital garb. He has even claimed to need masks and gowns for a dress rehearsal of a play. Now his fetishistic behavior has landed him in a fine mess. Banned from every hospital in England and Wales. If he ever becomes ill he will be allowed into a hospital only with prior written consent. Playing doctor can simply go too far.
AND A LITTLE MORE SERIOUSLY
Some girl (again, and thanx)...
Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq...
for the rest of the story go to...
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4629.shtml
CRYPTIQUE – Pigs coming home to roost?
Friday, June 04, 2004
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
THE DIVINE MARQUIS OF ABU GHARIB
Mind-altering drugs, bondage, nudity, sodomy, dog leashes, humiliation, sensory deprivation, electric shock, video cameras, women in combat boots – in another context it would all add up to one hell of a party. Not of course one that I would care to attend. (Well, maybe I would, depending very much on who was in attendance and engaging in all of the above. But isn’t that the way of it with most parties?) But this isn’t a fun context. Even aside from the macro-context of oil, interrogation, war, and global domination, the horrors of Abu Gee are what come about when two highly repressive and sexually challenged, patriarchal belief systems become locked in a major league, holy pissing contest.
Ron Garmon has already written an excellent piece on how the Iraqi Freedom Torture Tapes have already begun to circulate on the atrocity-porn underground, (http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=914&IssueNum=50)
and I think that I’ve also speculated in passing how the camouflage dominatrix/interrogatrix might – well before the current scandal – have established her place in the universal s&m dogleash fantasy beside the more conventional whip kittens in sculpted, lace-up leather and whatever.
I have often been accused of having difficulty in differentiating between fantasy and reality, but I have always maintained this is not me problem. I actually have a highly tuned grasp – give or take a semi-tone or two – of what is fanciful and what might be plausible in some strange realm of complicity. I have also long been well aware that the control of fantasy is the key to the Jungian masterlock and fundamentalists, both Islamic and Christian, are well aware of this too. That is why they strive so hard to censor, and contain. They suppress the essential question “what if” and the seductive “just suppose”, and cloak sexuality in the shroud of guilt, hoping to make the subject mind incapable of anything but the angry lockstep of fear-ridden, God-worshiping rage.
Although the cosmic waitress has yet to present the check, a price is going to have to be paid for all this over and above the purely temporal condemnation of a government caught resorting to the torture manual. The well of psycho-sexual misery is deep enough already. This time, Bush’s America may lose its bucket.
The Buggers in Holland have just emailed me Position #6 in which they delve into exactly this abyss...
The sexually dominant women and pseudo-homosexual acts in the Abu Ghraib photographs have been interpreted worldwide as a deliberate cruelty against Muslims. We don't question that. After all, the most widespread and consistent criticism of Islam in the West concerns its inequality of men and women and rejection of homosexuality. There's nothing like a good kick in the groin to teach the Muslim buggers the meaning of freedom, is there? This interpretation, however, concentrates solely on the effect that the photographs have on Muslims, and ignores the effect they have on Western societies. An effect that hasn't been overlooked by military expert Elaine Donnelly* as can be concluded from her cynical remark that Lynndie England's portrait with a Muslim on a leash "is exactly what feminists have dreamed of for years." We are sure that this remark says more about Donnelly's fears and desires than it does about Western feminism, and denounce this attempt to criminate Western feminists in the sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib.
It isn't the first time that conservatives hide behind gay and feminist causes to justify their attacks on Islam. Finding common ground with gays and feminists against Islam has already proved a successful strategy, notably in Western societies with large numbers of Muslim immigrants. As examples of such occasional coalitions we mention the attacks on headscarves and on imams, mosques and Islamic publications that condemn homosexuality. Attacks that endanger all sorts of fundamental rights in democratic societies and go to the heart of Western constitutions. In their attempts to gain control over Islam and over their own societies conservative politicians, parties and administrations shamelessly deploy any social and moral cause, even the causes of known political adversaries.
In many feminist protests against the Abu Ghraib torture practices embarrassment was heard at the fact that women were actively involved in sexual abuse. Embarrassment sometimes to the extent that not Lynndie England was held responsible for her acts but her boyfriend, the macho military system, male-centred pornography, etc. Gay rights organisations have raised protests varying from disgust at the discovery that US intelligence services use forced homosexual acts as an instrument of torture to indignant statements that this kind of torture has nothing to do with homosexuality at all. We feel that these reactions concentrate too much on the rejection of
responsibility and underestimate the message of the photographs. After all, the gross and degrading caricatures of liberated women and gay men starring in the Abu Ghraib photographs reveal the true motives behind conservatives' concern with gay rights and women's liberation. Gay and feminist stereotypes are used as weapons in the war on Islam. As kinky roles in state
pornography.
Although it looks like the Pentagon has miscalculated the effects that the photographs would have in the West, it's hard to say what the effects will be on an unconscious level. Elaine Donnelly unwittingly hints at this with her remarks that Lynndie England's portrait "has a powerful influence on young women" and that "these women may not have been aware of it." Military
experts, we must admit, show little naivety when it comes to the power of pornography. Abu Ghraib as a real place of torture has served its purpose and can be demolished; as the filmset for military pornography, however, it will have longer and wider range of effect. As an example of this
long-lasting power of pornography we mention De Sade's La Nouvelle Justine, written in the Bastille in 1788, in which Monsieur Rodin shouts "By all fucked Gods of Christianity, nothing is better than fucking this way", as he stacks the naked body of his daughter on top of that of the virtuous Justine and sodomises them alternately with his friend while his governess beats the
two men. La Nouvelle Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu** has had a long history of prohibition and censorship in Christian countries. Let's get it out and pitch the Bastille against Abu Ghraib.
MEANWHILE...
Some girl forwards a link to the Great Diebolt Cybervote Swindle...
http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm
CRYPTIQUE – On your feet or on your knees.
Mind-altering drugs, bondage, nudity, sodomy, dog leashes, humiliation, sensory deprivation, electric shock, video cameras, women in combat boots – in another context it would all add up to one hell of a party. Not of course one that I would care to attend. (Well, maybe I would, depending very much on who was in attendance and engaging in all of the above. But isn’t that the way of it with most parties?) But this isn’t a fun context. Even aside from the macro-context of oil, interrogation, war, and global domination, the horrors of Abu Gee are what come about when two highly repressive and sexually challenged, patriarchal belief systems become locked in a major league, holy pissing contest.
Ron Garmon has already written an excellent piece on how the Iraqi Freedom Torture Tapes have already begun to circulate on the atrocity-porn underground, (http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=914&IssueNum=50)
and I think that I’ve also speculated in passing how the camouflage dominatrix/interrogatrix might – well before the current scandal – have established her place in the universal s&m dogleash fantasy beside the more conventional whip kittens in sculpted, lace-up leather and whatever.
I have often been accused of having difficulty in differentiating between fantasy and reality, but I have always maintained this is not me problem. I actually have a highly tuned grasp – give or take a semi-tone or two – of what is fanciful and what might be plausible in some strange realm of complicity. I have also long been well aware that the control of fantasy is the key to the Jungian masterlock and fundamentalists, both Islamic and Christian, are well aware of this too. That is why they strive so hard to censor, and contain. They suppress the essential question “what if” and the seductive “just suppose”, and cloak sexuality in the shroud of guilt, hoping to make the subject mind incapable of anything but the angry lockstep of fear-ridden, God-worshiping rage.
Although the cosmic waitress has yet to present the check, a price is going to have to be paid for all this over and above the purely temporal condemnation of a government caught resorting to the torture manual. The well of psycho-sexual misery is deep enough already. This time, Bush’s America may lose its bucket.
The Buggers in Holland have just emailed me Position #6 in which they delve into exactly this abyss...
The sexually dominant women and pseudo-homosexual acts in the Abu Ghraib photographs have been interpreted worldwide as a deliberate cruelty against Muslims. We don't question that. After all, the most widespread and consistent criticism of Islam in the West concerns its inequality of men and women and rejection of homosexuality. There's nothing like a good kick in the groin to teach the Muslim buggers the meaning of freedom, is there? This interpretation, however, concentrates solely on the effect that the photographs have on Muslims, and ignores the effect they have on Western societies. An effect that hasn't been overlooked by military expert Elaine Donnelly* as can be concluded from her cynical remark that Lynndie England's portrait with a Muslim on a leash "is exactly what feminists have dreamed of for years." We are sure that this remark says more about Donnelly's fears and desires than it does about Western feminism, and denounce this attempt to criminate Western feminists in the sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib.
It isn't the first time that conservatives hide behind gay and feminist causes to justify their attacks on Islam. Finding common ground with gays and feminists against Islam has already proved a successful strategy, notably in Western societies with large numbers of Muslim immigrants. As examples of such occasional coalitions we mention the attacks on headscarves and on imams, mosques and Islamic publications that condemn homosexuality. Attacks that endanger all sorts of fundamental rights in democratic societies and go to the heart of Western constitutions. In their attempts to gain control over Islam and over their own societies conservative politicians, parties and administrations shamelessly deploy any social and moral cause, even the causes of known political adversaries.
In many feminist protests against the Abu Ghraib torture practices embarrassment was heard at the fact that women were actively involved in sexual abuse. Embarrassment sometimes to the extent that not Lynndie England was held responsible for her acts but her boyfriend, the macho military system, male-centred pornography, etc. Gay rights organisations have raised protests varying from disgust at the discovery that US intelligence services use forced homosexual acts as an instrument of torture to indignant statements that this kind of torture has nothing to do with homosexuality at all. We feel that these reactions concentrate too much on the rejection of
responsibility and underestimate the message of the photographs. After all, the gross and degrading caricatures of liberated women and gay men starring in the Abu Ghraib photographs reveal the true motives behind conservatives' concern with gay rights and women's liberation. Gay and feminist stereotypes are used as weapons in the war on Islam. As kinky roles in state
pornography.
Although it looks like the Pentagon has miscalculated the effects that the photographs would have in the West, it's hard to say what the effects will be on an unconscious level. Elaine Donnelly unwittingly hints at this with her remarks that Lynndie England's portrait "has a powerful influence on young women" and that "these women may not have been aware of it." Military
experts, we must admit, show little naivety when it comes to the power of pornography. Abu Ghraib as a real place of torture has served its purpose and can be demolished; as the filmset for military pornography, however, it will have longer and wider range of effect. As an example of this
long-lasting power of pornography we mention De Sade's La Nouvelle Justine, written in the Bastille in 1788, in which Monsieur Rodin shouts "By all fucked Gods of Christianity, nothing is better than fucking this way", as he stacks the naked body of his daughter on top of that of the virtuous Justine and sodomises them alternately with his friend while his governess beats the
two men. La Nouvelle Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu** has had a long history of prohibition and censorship in Christian countries. Let's get it out and pitch the Bastille against Abu Ghraib.
MEANWHILE...
Some girl forwards a link to the Great Diebolt Cybervote Swindle...
http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm
CRYPTIQUE – On your feet or on your knees.
Monday, May 31, 2004
HOLIDAY WEEKEND
Memorial Day in the USA, remembering the fallen, or at least paying lip service, nothing in TV except war movie marathons, and no traditional orgy of eating or drinking to soak up the time, so I actually decided to take a day or so off, and so, before this moment, I had not opened the lid of the laptop for almost thirty-six hours. I kinda felt I was entitled. Recent recall has, to say the least, been hectic, and, except for one or two highly notable pinnacles, it has been that worst of all possible hectics – the relentless pressure of the mundane.
I did, however, finally manage to see The Return of the King, and, as Larry Wallis might put it, was mightily impressed. “Now this”, I muttered, as Aragon cut his deal with the Army of the Dead, “is what you fucking call an epic.” Gollum just gets better and better and in a perfect world would have his own TV show. I was kinda choked up by the fate of the pachyderms of Mordor. I mean, it wasn’t their fault they were on the wrong side.
I’ve also pretty much burned out on CGI battlefields, and grow nostalgic for the days when epics like Waterloo or Lawrence of Arabia made use of the entire Yugoslav or Moroccan Army. They had a real tactical ebb and flow.
I knew up front that the Hobbits’ final encounter with Wormtongue – and what the ever-reactionary Tolkien made sound a whole lot like post-World War II Brit socialism – had been cut, but I still hope it will show up on the extended DVD that will undoubtedly be released in time for Christmas. All in all, however, I was well pleased, and will avidly watch it all again before the disc goes back to Blockbuster.
It’ll probably be months before I get round to seeing the big weekend movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and get to liken it to the way George Pal drowned New York in When Worlds Collide, but I have been catching all the Republican indignation that anyone dare suggest that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is anything but the best possible way to treat the planet. I also discovered that we who are not flocking to Kerry, but are determined to see Bush out of office, have been given a name. We are the Bush-Haters. Hardly slick or original, but it does give a boy a sense of identity.
FROM THE EMAIL
Yukiko sends a climatic note for the other side of the Pacific, indicating I am not alone in my unease over global weather patterns...
We had the second typhoon of this year last week and about 40+ are expected by the end of October. As in L.A., the temperature keeps going up in Tokyo as well. The scientists have discovered recently that, if the buildings in Tokyo have a garden with trees on the roof, it will effectively lower the temperature in the city by 2-3C. Accordingly, some new enterprises have begun to develop the soil that weighs less, new plants that need less water, new watering system, etc. and more buildings have rooftop gardens now. A few years ago in a rural area, some toxic tropical mushrooms grew up in the forest due to the unusually hot weather. Since they looked exactly like the harmless ones that the locals usually eat, a man picked it up, ate it at home, and died. It's amazing how creative the nature can be to take its revenge on the human being.
CRYPTIQUE – Gojiro!
Memorial Day in the USA, remembering the fallen, or at least paying lip service, nothing in TV except war movie marathons, and no traditional orgy of eating or drinking to soak up the time, so I actually decided to take a day or so off, and so, before this moment, I had not opened the lid of the laptop for almost thirty-six hours. I kinda felt I was entitled. Recent recall has, to say the least, been hectic, and, except for one or two highly notable pinnacles, it has been that worst of all possible hectics – the relentless pressure of the mundane.
I did, however, finally manage to see The Return of the King, and, as Larry Wallis might put it, was mightily impressed. “Now this”, I muttered, as Aragon cut his deal with the Army of the Dead, “is what you fucking call an epic.” Gollum just gets better and better and in a perfect world would have his own TV show. I was kinda choked up by the fate of the pachyderms of Mordor. I mean, it wasn’t their fault they were on the wrong side.
I’ve also pretty much burned out on CGI battlefields, and grow nostalgic for the days when epics like Waterloo or Lawrence of Arabia made use of the entire Yugoslav or Moroccan Army. They had a real tactical ebb and flow.
I knew up front that the Hobbits’ final encounter with Wormtongue – and what the ever-reactionary Tolkien made sound a whole lot like post-World War II Brit socialism – had been cut, but I still hope it will show up on the extended DVD that will undoubtedly be released in time for Christmas. All in all, however, I was well pleased, and will avidly watch it all again before the disc goes back to Blockbuster.
It’ll probably be months before I get round to seeing the big weekend movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and get to liken it to the way George Pal drowned New York in When Worlds Collide, but I have been catching all the Republican indignation that anyone dare suggest that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is anything but the best possible way to treat the planet. I also discovered that we who are not flocking to Kerry, but are determined to see Bush out of office, have been given a name. We are the Bush-Haters. Hardly slick or original, but it does give a boy a sense of identity.
FROM THE EMAIL
Yukiko sends a climatic note for the other side of the Pacific, indicating I am not alone in my unease over global weather patterns...
We had the second typhoon of this year last week and about 40+ are expected by the end of October. As in L.A., the temperature keeps going up in Tokyo as well. The scientists have discovered recently that, if the buildings in Tokyo have a garden with trees on the roof, it will effectively lower the temperature in the city by 2-3C. Accordingly, some new enterprises have begun to develop the soil that weighs less, new plants that need less water, new watering system, etc. and more buildings have rooftop gardens now. A few years ago in a rural area, some toxic tropical mushrooms grew up in the forest due to the unusually hot weather. Since they looked exactly like the harmless ones that the locals usually eat, a man picked it up, ate it at home, and died. It's amazing how creative the nature can be to take its revenge on the human being.
CRYPTIQUE – Gojiro!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)
