MORDOR INCORPORATED

The article was about a proposed new skyscraper in San Francisco, taller than the Trans America Pyramid, but the illustration jumped out at me so hard I had to steal and post it. A symbolic landscape I know from my nightmares, and, for all of my days, have been doing my damnedest to fight. And yet it still encroaches, like the bumper sticker “Frodo Failed – Dick Cheney Got The Ring”. But my sword is still dully gleams, my staff is not broken although I may lean a little more heavily upon it, and sometimes in the night, I long for the Grey Havens, and some rest and respite, and yet we have to go on. No choice in the matter.

The secret word is Nazgûl

But, neighbor , what better antidote, short of pharmaceuticals, for this pre-dawn desperation than Buddy Holly!

EVEN GETTING OUT WON'T BE EASY

“Troops Out Now” is an easy slogan, but actually to extricate the US military from Iraq and George Bush’s asinine and foully fucked-up war is not that easy in the context of any kind of geopolitical reality. (Not to mention what would appear to be US enthrallment to the Saudi Royal Family.) To get out of Vietnam, once Nixon’s place in history was history, was comparatively easy. Most of us remember, or have at least seen the films, of the choppers taking off from the US Embassy roof in Saigon. Iraq will be a lot more complex. I don’t always agree with John Gray of the Guardian but in this instance, he has a point…

“Forget all the talk about Iraq being as bad as Vietnam. Today's conflict is far worse. The US was able to walk away from Vietnam with relative impunity because Vietnam was essentially a peripheral country. Iraq, by contrast, is a key factor in global oil supplies, so an American withdrawal would be a devastating blow to US power. In Vietnam, US withdrawal was feasible because there was an effective government in the north ready to take over in the south. Nothing like that exists in Iraq where almost a third of the population, according to Oxfam is in need of emergency relief. And whereas the feared domino effect never materialized in Southeast Asia after the US left Vietnam, the consequences of the Iraqi debacle are already apparent. Surrounding states such as Iran and Turkey are being irresistibly drawn into the conflict, threatening to unleash regional war.”

A REALLY BAD IDEA

This story headed “Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing” culled by HCB from the New Scientist strikes me as a really bad idea. So bad in fact, that the H. P. Lovecraft, Yog-Sothoth crowd are waiting for something really nasty to happen should it happen to get loose.

An 8-million-year-old bacterium that was extracted from the oldest known ice on Earth is now growing in a laboratory, claim researchers. If confirmed, this means ancient bacteria and viruses will come back to life as ice melts due to global warming. This is nothing to worry about, say experts, because the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease. Kay Bidle of Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, and his colleagues extracted DNA and bacteria from ice found between 3 and 5 metres beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica. The ice gets older as it flows down the valleys and the researchers took five samples that were between 100,000 and 8 million years old. (For more…)

The secret word is Telluric

But after all this grim shit, here are a whole bunch of optical illusions to mess with when stoned.

REQUIEM FOR BAT BOY

In this week’s LA CityBeat, I mark the passing of the Weekly World News and fifteen years of the inimitable and irreplaceable Bat Boy, and report on the less than happy condition of the other supermarket tabloids.

A BUSY DAY IN HISTORY

“Happy anniversary, folks.”

In 378 at the battle of Adrianople, Gothic horsemen destroyed the attacking Roman forces led by Emperor Valens. The Goths killed an estimated 20,000 of the 30,000 Romans. In 1945 the U.S. bomber Bock's Car dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, destroying a third of the city and killing 40,000 people, according to U.S. estimates. Japan's government surrendered 5 days later. In 1968, the Manson Family conducted their slayfest at the home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, and, in 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing impeachment by Congress for his role in Watergate, resigned.

Of the above, only Charlie Manson has a music blog about him.

The secret words are Helter and Skelter

EVANGELISM IN (VIDEO) ACTION

This is a still from Left Behind: Eternal Forces as devout Christians gun down the unbelievers. The Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game is a real-time strategy game that makes players commanders of a virtual evangelical army in a post-apocalyptic landscape that looks strikingly like New York City after 9/11. The game is inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' ultra-violent novels about a blood-soaked Battle of Armageddon pitting born-again Christians against anybody who does not adhere to their particular theology. In LaHaye and Jenkins' books, the non-believers are ultimately condemned to "everlasting punishment" while the evangelicals are "raptured" up to heaven. With tanks, helicopters and fearsome firepower from automatic weapons, Left Behind players wage a violent war against United Nations-like peacekeepers who, according to LaHaye's interpretation of Revelation, represent the armies of the Antichrist. Each time a Left Behind player kills a UN soldier, their virtual character hollers "Praise the Lord!" To win the game, players must kill or convert all the non-believers left behind after the rapture. They also have the option of reversing roles and commanding the forces of the Antichrist. But that’s not the truly weird part, an evangelical organization called Operation Straight Up is mailing care packages containing the Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game to soldiers serving in Iraq. (Thanks to Ilene Proctor.)

The secret word is Hallelujah

BRIEF AND SILLY

This has to be by far the most foolishly pretentious guitar in the history of rock & roll. (Shared with us by HCB)

Gotta sleep now, and write more later.

The secret word is ZZZZZZZZZZ

Lee Hazlewood -- RIP

THE BADGERS OF BASRA

"Hi, I’m a badger but I’m also a nocturnal bio-weapon.”

This strange tale of the Iraqi War sent by UK Steve, has been somewhat overlooked for a couple of weeks. I don’t know how many of you have heard it, but I wouldn’t put it past the Brits to turn ravening badgers on the natives. The British Empire was run on that kind of thing. Just ask the Irish.
Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic. But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers. The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport. "We have been told these are indigenous nocturnal carnivores that don't attack humans unless cornered." The director of Basra's veterinary hospital, Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, has inspected several of the animals' corpses. He told the AFP news agency: "These appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known locally as Al-Girta. "Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific."Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy dean of Basra's veterinary college, speculated that the badgers were being driven towards the city because of flooding in marshland north of Basra. But the assurances did little to convince some members of the public. One housewife, Suad Hassan, 30, claimed she had been attacked by one of the badgers as she slept. "My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer," she said. "It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey," she told AFP.

The secret word is Set (Puzzled? Look it up.)

FREE SAMPLES

I keep finding all these sites where you can download bits and pieces of The Deviants and like stuff. Human Garbage, is the live recording of the 1984 show at Dingwalls Dancehall in London with Wayne Kramer and Larry Wallis dueling on guitars and a rhythm section of Sandy and George Butler. I, of course, am the one in front sweating and bellowing.
And there’s also a Stiff collection on which you can not only hear The Deviants doing Let’s Loot The Supermarket (Like We Did Last Summer) but also the Pink Fairies “Between The Lines” and Larry Wallis’ original “Police Car.”

NEVER TOO YOUNG

Since The Simpsons Movie seems to be exploited all over, let’s put Bart to our own nefarious use. What did the Jesuits say? “Give us the child until he’s seven and he’s ours for life”? Maybe the same applies to freeform anarchy.

(Graphic from Nuzz)

ALTHOUGH, IN CARTOON LAND, THERE CAN BE CONSEQUENCES

SWINE

I have never had anything specific against Starbucks. I’ve never been in one, I didn’t like the ambiance, and thought they were just part of the corporate profitmass. It was only a day or so ago that I heard – and then had confirmed – the story of how the scum-sucking swine, in the immediately aftermath of 9/11, actually insisted on charging rescue workers at Ground Zero for water. For the full story….

The secret word is Porcine

AND TALKING OF PROFITS...

Here is a piece by Allen Ginsberg from two wars ago, demonstrating that nothing changes. (Thanks Valerie)

These are the names of the companies that have mademoney from this warnineteenhundredsixtyeight Annodominifourthousand eighty Hebraic

These are the Corporations who have profited by merchan-dising skinburning phosphorous or shells fragmentedto thousands of fleshpiercing needlesand here listed money millions gained by each combine formanufacture and here are gains numbered, index'd swelling a decade, setin order, here named the Fathers in office in these industries, tele-phones directing finance,names of directors, makers of fates, and the names of thestockholders of these destined

Aggregates,and here are the names of their ambassadors to the Capital,representatives to legislature, those who sit drinkingin hotel lobbies to persuade,and separate listed, those who drop Amphetamine with

military, gossip, argue, and persuadesuggesting policy naming language proposing strategy, thisdone for fee as ambassadors to Pentagon,consultants to military, paid by their industry:and these are the names of the generals & captains mili-tary, who know thus work for war goods manufacturers;and above these, listed, the names of the banks, combines,

investment trusts that control these industries:and these are the names of the newspapers owned by thesebanks and these are the names of the airstations owned by thesecombines; and these are the numbers of thousands of citizensemployed by these businesses named;and the beginning of this accounting is 1958 and the end1968, that static be contained in orderly mind,coherent and definite,and the first form of this litany begun first day December1967 furthers this poem of these States.

Allen Ginsberg

PLEASE DON'T LET GEORGE BUSH KILL US

The White House – ever a friend of the earth – recently issued a “wolf management proposal” – the 10J rule – that would give states a license to kill grey wolves, possibly leading to the extermination of up to 700 wolves in Wyoming and Idaho combined. This would reverse the welcome gains in recovery of this magnificent species in the Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho regions. To help, click here. (Pic stolen from The People’s Daily Brief.)