Click here for Willie
The secret word is Insane
Friday, June 24, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
WITH OUR FOG, OUR AMPHETAMINE, AND OUR PEARLS…
Click here for The Song That Goes Like This
The secret word is Grail
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
WHO WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED?
While the rest of us scrabble, the super rich are doing just fine if not better…
“We are not all in this together. The UK economy is flat, the US is weak and the Greek debt crisis, according to some commentators, is threatening another Lehman Brothers-style meltdown. But a new report shows the world's wealthiest people are getting more prosperous – and more numerous – by the day. The globe's richest have now recouped the losses they suffered after the 2008 banking crisis. They are richer than ever, and there are more of them – nearly 11 million – than before the recession struck. In the world of the well-heeled, the rich are referred to as "high net worth individuals" (HNWIs) and defined as people who have more than $1m (£620,000) of free cash. According to the annual world wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, the wealth of HNWIs around the world reached $42.7tn (£26.5tn) in 2010, rising nearly 10% in a year and surpassing the peak of $40.7tn reached in 2007, even as austerity budgets were implemented by many governments in the developed world.” (Click here for more)
Click here for The Everly Brothers
The secret word is Plunder
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
THE ACCEPTABLE FACE OF PORNOGRAPHY?
Do you think this post might help remove the content warning that was arbitrarily slapped on Doc40 and has caused more than a little inconvenience? No, of course it won’t. In cyberspace no one can hear you appeal, especially against absurdity. And, when we get down to it, we all know this is not about morality, offense, or even sensitivity. It simply about shutting people up who say things you don’t like. (The image is by von Brandis)
Click here for sin
The secret word is Repressed
THE EDGAR ALLAN POE BLUES BAND
Click here for the song Aztec Calendar from last Friday’s live show.
DON'T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?
…when we were so blissfully ignorant and so easily blinded by a sales pitch.
Monday, June 20, 2011
WORKER’S PRIDE?
I was never a great one for the idea of the Dignity of Labor. It seemed like one of those patronizing Victorian concepts like the Noble Savage and I wanted nothing to do with it. To be absolutely truthful, I was not especially keen on hard, dirty, manual work in any shape or form. In my youth, I had worked in factories, kitchens, and even dug up the roads for the local council. I saw first hand the disdain with which the fat cats treated their employees and their employees’ pride, and quickly realized that any measure of dignity was not a gift handed down from on-high but a prize fought-for and hard-won at the grass roots by organization and the collective power of trade unions official or otherwise. Why am choosing this moment to state the obvious? Just because, now and again, the obvious needs a bit of stating. Especially at a time when a power elite that has already reduced to wealth to an abstraction and devalues labor as a disposable commodity – and dares to call it necessary austerity – but simultaneously a new seismic class-struggle spreads across Europe, the Middle East, and (I hope) Middle America, and the fight for decency, dignity, and pride, plus a socially acceptable income, healthcare, education – and all that should follow with humanity and civilization – is rejoined.
Click here for hardworking Beefheart and Cooder
The secret word is Unity
Sunday, June 19, 2011
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
May I have one of these beside the bed, nurse? So Finn and I can gorge on pancakes while we ruminate on the upcoming adventure in the corporate mists of Avalon and what might lay beyond in creativity, theatre, and mayhem? The band played like aces on Friday night. One witness on Facebook (our poet pal Ben Graham) referred to us as “The Edgar Allan Poe Blues Band”. That made me very happy. And so now it’s on to Glastonbury and whatever that may reveal for possible futures. But how do we resolve that with the news that the biggest industrial action since the 1926 General Strike looms large a few days later? The shit still piles up so fast you need wings to stay above it, comrades. But could you mix me a Bloody Mary while you’re up?
Click here for faux-Bob
The secret word is Solidarity
Clarence Clemons -- RIP
Larry (Wild Man) Fischer -- RIP
THERE’S A RIOT COMING ON
Like I said, the biggest industrial action since the 1926 General Strike looms large. What did the barefaced Cameron expect? I highly doubt, though, he has the unctuous, rip and gouge, tooth and claw, mother alien, union busting chops of his old boss, Attila the Hen. But it does tangentially occur to me that in the quarter century since Scargill v Thatcher, subversive technology has made massive advances.
“Is the big fight on? Union responses to the Tory cuts have so far been fairly muted - the M26 outing (see SchNEWS 765), resembling a cross between a family picnic and a Labour Party rally. However on June 30th the largest public sector strikes since the 80s are planned. With the Daily Mail claiming that ‘Union Barons’ plan to ‘unleash hell’, what’s actually going to happen? Well who’s on board? On J30, up to 750,000 public sector workers, including many members of the UCU, NUT, PCS and ATL unions, including teachers, health workers, air traffic controllers, job centre wallahs, police support staff etc, etc. will go on strike. It remains to be seen whether the strike will unfurl as another generalised ‘day of action’, but marches are planned across the country and activist groups are planning to support picket lines and hold solidarity actions. Ostensibly about public sector pension cuts (unions legally have to ballot to strike over a specific issue), the strikes are the first wave of mass industrial action against the proposed austerity measures. To keep hammering home the point - these austerity measures are only necessary because of the ruling classes determination to ensure that the pain caused by the banking crisis is borne by anyone except the people who caused it. This has immediately led to Tory calls for harsher anti-strike legislation, despite the UK already having the most draconian anti-union laws in Europe. Notwithstanding the already restrictive regime, the government has now said that any trades union action that it deems ‘disruptive’ might cause a further clamp-down. With the ConDems not budging, will the union movement finally see the need to move beyond legalism and put up a real fight? Here’s hoping.” (Click here for more)
Click here for Woody
GIVE THE ANARCHIST ANOTHER CIGARETTE
I used to smoke cigarettes. I used to smoke cigarettes like a bloody chimney. I don’t any more – except the odd guilt-tripped drag – because it totally ruined my health. But, hey, is making butts unaffordable the only way to make folks see the light and lay down the lighter?
“If you're still a smoker, you're probably not smoking while reading this unless you're using a hand-held device and situated safely eight or so miles from the nearest building or public park. Anyway, The Awl has compiled a shocking list of how much a single pack of cigarettes costs in each state, including District of Columbia. Blogger Nate Hopper explains the methodology: "Prices were obtained by calling a gas station in each state's most populous city and asking the clerk for the price of a pack of Marlboro Reds with tax. Memphis, Tenn., was toughest (nine phone calls). The gas station in Milwaukee, Wis., had the only employee who ended the conversation with 'have a good one.' We'll tell you that West Virginia was the cheapest, at $4.74 a pack, and New York, of course, was the most expensive, at $11.90. (Although, last week the New York Post complained that a new tax on cigarettes had raised the price of a pack to $14.50 – or what we used to pay for a carton.) After the jump, see how much you'll pay for a pack o' butts in your state.” (Click here for more)