Thursday, August 23, 2012

IT’S ONLY CAPITALIST WASTELAND (Part 2)













When I was a young lad I read an essay by Oscar Wilde, The Soul Of Man Under Socialism. It was very Wildean and somewhat naïve. Wilde’s vision was a socialist utopia where, if a machine was invented to sweep the streets, the street sweepers – instead of being tossed out to starve on the scrap heap of unemployment – would be free to write romantic poetry and perform interpretive dance in the manner if Isadora Duncan. Okay so this was gay 1890s over-the-top but utopian aspirations do tend to be forgotten in the struggle for survival in the sinking mess that is 21st century capitalism is Thus I was happily surprised to come across this comment on the Common Dreams newsletter from someone using the name Durrofix.

“Why do our leaders not embrace the policies they know to work?  Because they're not interested in solving the problem.   They're interested in getting rich, militarizing police, selling weapons, locking up the poor and so forth. The liberal dream of "work for everyone" is not a laudable goal.  The goal should be to eliminate work entirely.  Many "primitive" tribes studied by proto-anthropologists did not even have a word for "work".  The concept was completely foreign to them.  Indeed, if you study the origins of capitalism you find that no one, anywhere, voluntarily decided that working all day for a boss was a desirable way to spend the rest of their lives.  The process invariably involved expropriation of communal lands and severe punishments for those who resisted.  In England, the first "vagrants" (ie people who refused to toil all day in the new industrial factories) were subjected to extreme tortures, including branding. 
So much for the "free contract". 

Click here for “Cease To Exist”

The secret word is Idyll

THE FROZDICK FAMILY



















After the meltdown, Aurora Frozdick took no chances. 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

NO SLEEP ‘TIL…


















As a former speedfreak I found this excerpt from our pals at Delancey Place quite fascinating. (Although the rats probably didn’t.)

"In the 1980s, researchers at the University of Chicago decided to find out what happens when an animal is deprived of sleep for a long period of time. In but one of the many odd tests you will find in the history of sleep research, these scientists forced rats to stay awake by placing them on a tiny platform suspended over cold water. The plat­form was balanced so that it would remain level only if a rat kept moving. If a rat fell asleep, it would tumble into the water and be forced to swim back to safety (or drown, an option that the researchers seemed strangely blase about). Fast-forward to two weeks later. All of the rats were dead. This confused the researchers, though they had a few hints that something bad was going to happen. As the rats went longer and longer without sleep, their bodies began to self-destruct. They developed strange spots and festering sores that didn't heal, their fur started to fall out in large clumps, and they lost weight no matter how much food they ate. So the researchers decided to perform autopsies, and lo and behold they found nothing wrong with the animals' organs that would lead them to fail­ing so suddenly. This mystery gnawed at scientists so much that twenty years later, another team decided to do the exact same experiment, but with better instruments. This time, they thought, they will find out what happens inside of a rat's body during sleep deprivation that ultimately leads to its death. Again the rats stayed awake for more than two weeks, and again they died after developing gnarly sores. But just like their peers in Chicago years earlier, the research team could find no clear reason why the rats were keeling over. The lack of sleep itself looked to be the killer. The best guess was that staying awake for so long drained the animal's system and made it lose the ability to regulate its body temperature. Humans who are kept awake for too long start to show some of the same signs as those hapless rats. Within the first twenty-four hours of sleep deprivation, the blood pressure starts to increase. Not long afterward, the metabolism levels go haywire, giving a person an uncontrollable craving for carbo­hydrates. The body temperature drops and the immune system gets weaker. If this goes on for too long, there is a good chance that the mind will turn against itself, making a person experi­ence visions and hear phantom sounds akin to a bad acid trip. At the same time, the ability to make simple decisions or recall obvious facts drops off severely. It is a bizarre downward spi­ral that is all the more peculiar because it can be stopped com­pletely, and all of its effects will vanish, simply by sleeping for a couple of hours." -- David K. Randall -- Dreamland Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep (Norton)

Click here for Imelda May

The secret letter is Z

A WHOLE LOTTA BOB


I lifted this 20 minute Dylan TV show from Dangerous Minds. Click here and enjoy.

Monday, August 20, 2012

TODAY IS H.P. (HOWARD PHILLIPS) LOVECRAFT’S 122ND BIRTHDAY
















"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".

IT’S ONLY CAPITALIST WASTELAND













Pussy Riot go to jail. Julian Assange makes a weird speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Bankers continue to play three-card monte with the assets of the world while economies implode and populations grow desperate. Operators in air-conditioned bunkers, directing robot weapons, fight the wars of the rich. Suicide bombers, with Semtex strapped to their bodies, fight the wars of the poor. If I can’t save the wolves, how can I save myself? Recreational mass murder is back in vogue. Weep or fight? Fight, I guess. Summer draws to a close. Food production on a global scale is threatened by climate change but still the idiot propaganda is still disseminated. Will it change? Will it change in time? Will it ever change? 

Click here for Patti

The secret word is Ire 

AYN RAND PORN


Our pal Doug the Bass emailed me the following gem "Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan" anagrams to "My ultimate Ayn Rand porn"