LOCAL GLOAT
A smug happiness descends on Doc40 with today’s news that the voters in California have seemingly proved they’ve finally come to their fucking senses by rejecting a shopping basket of Arnold-Uber-Alles, education-cutting, union-busting ballot initiatives by which Schwarzenegger hoped to extend his power as State Terminator. At time of writing, Proposition 73, which would bar abortions for minors without parental notification was also going down in defeat. The state Republicans had hoped this would be the hook to bring the religious right to the polls in droves, but apparently not so. We can now only hope that this condition of regained reality will toss the Austrian oaf out of office in next year’s Gubernatorial elections.
The secret word is Merriment
CRYPTIQUE – You extra-large political dwarf, you will be dealt a thousandfold retaliatory blow!
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
PARANOIA, PORNOGRAPHY AND TORTURE
First Paranoia...
The last couple of weeks have been something of private nightmare, which may explain why a lot of Doc40 has been devoted to fun links rather than my own deathless musings. For a moment there it seemed as though maybe my life was a lot less deathless than I thought it was – but, like Uncle Sweetie once told Jack Fate, "I don’t talk about my troubles when I’m having them, I talk about them when they’re over." And although – touching all talismans – I seem to have dodged the grinder, I still feel marginally shell shocked, which may account for a yesterday-flash of paranoia – a epiphany of maybe (or maybe not) irrational gut-dread.
It went like this. I was potatoed on the couch watching Chris Matthews on Hardball with the usual roadkill fascination as various heads talked about the Bush/Cheney Legalize Torture* Campaign. Suddenly the cable froze out. At the same synchronous moment multiple helicopters chattered overhead in a sky growing dark before possible rain from the ocean. I suddenly wondered if – should things turn any nastier worse for George W. – the White House would stage a kind of reverse coupe, taking over the entire function of government and declaring a smirking dictatorship. Fearing if I was too horribly right, I randomly switched channels and found myself in the middle of Masked And Anonymous, and Bob Dylan was singing "Dixie". Usually I dream such stuff, but...
Related Question
Q – Is there a context in which torture is acceptable.
A – Maybe foreplay?
Which Brings Us Neatly To The Porn...
The novel by Lewis "Scooter" Libby – mentioned in Doc40 on November 1st – has become a hot item now that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff is under indictment. An inscribed copy of the out-of-print "The Apprentice: A Novel," which Libby wrote in 1996 was on sale on Amazon on Monday for $2,400. Unsigned hardcover copies were going for $700. The only consolation is that the author gets none of this; a reality I learned to my dire ire when some of my old books started assuming crazy collector prices.
But all of the rabid right are not closet pornographers. Check out this wonderful 1960s anti-pornography film produced by financier Charles Keating, linking smut to the Communist conspiracy and the decline of Western civilization. As some will recall, Keating was also the arch-foe of Larry Flynt, and went to jail for fraud after the Reagan era savings and loan scandal
http://www.archive.org/details/Perversi1965
AND IN OTHER NEWS...
I will be on TV in the UK, on a show from the rock & roll hall of fame (I’m unclear as to the title) that airs on Wednesday 9th November at 11pm on Channel 4 after Lost.
And for those who care, there’s a long piece on the New Times imminent destruction of the Village Voice in the current New York magazine.
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14987/index.html
* For more torture fun-comments (sent by HCB) see...
http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2005/11/even-corrupt-soulless-evil-lying.html
The secret word is Anxiety
CRYPTIQUE – A flock of crows that have smelt human blood.
First Paranoia...
The last couple of weeks have been something of private nightmare, which may explain why a lot of Doc40 has been devoted to fun links rather than my own deathless musings. For a moment there it seemed as though maybe my life was a lot less deathless than I thought it was – but, like Uncle Sweetie once told Jack Fate, "I don’t talk about my troubles when I’m having them, I talk about them when they’re over." And although – touching all talismans – I seem to have dodged the grinder, I still feel marginally shell shocked, which may account for a yesterday-flash of paranoia – a epiphany of maybe (or maybe not) irrational gut-dread.
It went like this. I was potatoed on the couch watching Chris Matthews on Hardball with the usual roadkill fascination as various heads talked about the Bush/Cheney Legalize Torture* Campaign. Suddenly the cable froze out. At the same synchronous moment multiple helicopters chattered overhead in a sky growing dark before possible rain from the ocean. I suddenly wondered if – should things turn any nastier worse for George W. – the White House would stage a kind of reverse coupe, taking over the entire function of government and declaring a smirking dictatorship. Fearing if I was too horribly right, I randomly switched channels and found myself in the middle of Masked And Anonymous, and Bob Dylan was singing "Dixie". Usually I dream such stuff, but...
Related Question
Q – Is there a context in which torture is acceptable.
A – Maybe foreplay?
Which Brings Us Neatly To The Porn...
The novel by Lewis "Scooter" Libby – mentioned in Doc40 on November 1st – has become a hot item now that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff is under indictment. An inscribed copy of the out-of-print "The Apprentice: A Novel," which Libby wrote in 1996 was on sale on Amazon on Monday for $2,400. Unsigned hardcover copies were going for $700. The only consolation is that the author gets none of this; a reality I learned to my dire ire when some of my old books started assuming crazy collector prices.
But all of the rabid right are not closet pornographers. Check out this wonderful 1960s anti-pornography film produced by financier Charles Keating, linking smut to the Communist conspiracy and the decline of Western civilization. As some will recall, Keating was also the arch-foe of Larry Flynt, and went to jail for fraud after the Reagan era savings and loan scandal
http://www.archive.org/details/Perversi1965
AND IN OTHER NEWS...
I will be on TV in the UK, on a show from the rock & roll hall of fame (I’m unclear as to the title) that airs on Wednesday 9th November at 11pm on Channel 4 after Lost.
And for those who care, there’s a long piece on the New Times imminent destruction of the Village Voice in the current New York magazine.
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14987/index.html
* For more torture fun-comments (sent by HCB) see...
http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2005/11/even-corrupt-soulless-evil-lying.html
The secret word is Anxiety
CRYPTIQUE – A flock of crows that have smelt human blood.
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