HISTORY, BLOODY HISTORY

Dan sends in the following culled from Reuters...

New York's legendary rock club CBGB, which helped launch everybody from Blondie to the Ramones, faces closure if it does not resolve a dispute over unpaid rent with the homeless charity that owns the building. Club owner Hilly Kristal said the dispute dated from 2001, when the landlord presented a $300,000 bill for unpaid rent. Though most of that has now been repaid, the club was handed another bill earlier this year for $76,000 which CBGB has not paid. The club's lease comes to an end in August and talks on renewal are stalled.
"The real thing is they don't want me back," Kristal said, adding that there had been a series of disagreements over renovations and building certificates in recent years.
CBGB, which stands for "country, bluegrass and blues" even though it is most famous for punk music, rents its downtown space from the Bowery Residents' Committee -- a non-profit organization that runs a homeless shelter above the premises.
"I am not going to subsidize CBGB at the expense of homeless people," Muzzy Rosenblatt, executive director for the organization, was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
MTV's Web site quoted him as saying CBGB had not met its obligations on safety.
The Committee wants to double the rent and negotiations over a new lease have ground to a halt amid legal wrangling that will result in a court hearing later this month.
Kristal, who founded the club in 1973, converting what had been a Hell's Angels hangout into one of the most famous venues for live music in the city, said he would fight closure of what he called a New York City institution.
"We've established something here. ... This is a kind of symbol of helping young musicians and new artists," he said, recalling early gigs by the likes of Pearl Jam.
"I think we do a nice thing for a lot of people; maybe it's not quite as wonderful as helping the homeless but it has its benefits," Kristal said.
Rosenblatt could be immediately reached for comment

I don’t really know what I think about all this. I played CB’s a bunch of times, mainly with Tijuana Bible, but entropy inevitably sets in, and everything ages and everything changes, (so do what you think you should do.) Out here in LA, the legendary Barney’s Beanery went the preservation route and now we have something that looks like a theme park concept of a biker bar and has nothing to do with the saloon where everyone from Errol Flynn to Jim Morrison used to behave badly. Hilly does, however, need a joint over which to preside.

SMILE WHEN YOU SAY THAT, DAKOTA KID

Over on the comments board, the Dakota Kid is all of aflutter about the Walking Eagle joke sent in by johnette. To cut a tirade short, I’ve just enumerated a few points which put me at odds with the Kid, and can only echo some girl’s comment “thank god for borg’s brain”. You better read the actual comments first, though, or you won’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.

1: “Just because someone thinks she or he is being funny does not mean it is entirely advisable to say and write anything you want anytime you want.” Well, as a matter of fact, I would strongly advise it. “To say and write (and post and publish) anything you want anytime you want” is my profession. Of course, it can get you beaten, stoned, jailed, burnt at the stake, and denied employment. A number of the above have happened or almost happened to me down the years, but that goes with the territory.

2: The function of Doc40 is never ever to “convince mainstream voters to change horses”. I gave that a half-hearted try last year. Hell, I was even civil to Ann Coulter. But no more, Kid. Fuck ‘em, and the horse they rode in on. The “less discerning minds and innocent victims” have had decades, if not centuries, to figure it out, as have the brutal, the transcendently greedy and willfully ignorant. They still refuse to get it.

3: “If you knew anything about out "red brothers"...”– Which “brothers” are those, Dakota? The guys from AIM I knew back in the day? The mad BC bud runners? My friend Gayle? The Manhattan high steel construction workers who used to hang out in a bar near Bloomingdales in the 1980s?. The windwalkers just over the psychedelic horizon? Shall we dispense with patronizing Victorian missionary-speak?

4: “...you'd know that, although they have a truly superb sense of humor, they would never use an obscenity like 'shit'.” Give me a break. Excremental humor is common to all known cultures. It’s the very first infantile comedy topic. And some of those guys in the bar by Bloomies had no sense of humor at all.

5: “Indigenous people have suffered tremendously for a long, long time.” Fucking A right we have! Take my Anglo-Irish ancestors. (Please.) They spent 700 years oppressing and slaughtering each other. And when weren’t doing that, they enlisted in the bloody British army and were shipped off to oppress Indians in India, Africans in Africa, and sell opium to the Chinese. Was it Brecht who said “war is a bayonet with a worker at each end?”

6: Some of my best friends are the “intelligentsia of Hollywood screenwriters.” So watch it.

7: “Currently Wyoming is attempting to drill on public, sacred land. I trust you have already contacted the Bureau of Mines?” Fuck the Bureau of Mines. We asked the North Koreans for a ten megaton airburst.

8: While being aware that James Stewart was politically to the right of Strom Thurmond, that still does not prevent me from enjoying Harvey. Movies are our modern folklore, goddamn it. Indeed, I even recorded a version of the theme to “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” as a homage to Lee Marvin. It’s on the recently released Japanese version of The Deviants Dr. Crow.
(Two more and we’d have a 10 point program.)

The secret word is Misguided

AND
And I have a bit on censorship in this week’s LA Citybeat...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1783&IssueNum=92

WALKING EAGLE
Send by johnette
Invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation last weekend in Arizona, President Bush spoke for almost an hour of his future plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of living.
Though vague on the details of his plan, he appeared enthusiastic about his ideas for helping his "red brothers."
At the conclusion of his speech, the Tribes presented the President with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name -- 'Walking Eagle'.
As the President departed waving to the crowd in his motorcade, a news reporter asked the group of chiefs how they came to select the new name given to the President.
They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly.

The secret word is Forked

TOMMY VANCE RIP (see comments)

SPONGEBOB, SPONGBIB

I make errors, I freely admit it. I put it down to a racing mind and a tendency to read what I intended to write and not what’s on the page. My slips, however, are nothing compared to those who spring to the defense of that idiot James Dobson of the morality website Focus On Family, and his theory that Spongebob Squarepants is a fifth column for the Homosexual Agenda. These lines are from mail sent to MSNBC after Keith Olbermann had ridiculed the theory...

"I think Jesus said it best when he said, Get behind the Satan."

"Your prejudism is definately showing."

"I am writing to express my opposition to the SPONGE BOB ’TYPE VALUES THAT ARE TRYING TO BE TAUGHT in education today."

"It came up a long time ago that Spongebob was gay. It is a theory not a fact. It is a general belief among society that Spongebob is gay."

"Our family is deeply concerned by your callous remarks about Dr. Dobson. I believe him to be correct in his assumption of homosexual references in the show. We have watched this cartoon for years and recently, it has appeared to us to be more homosexual in nature. There’s several episodes where I just sat there and thought, this is really, really weird. I couldn’t get over the gay undertones."

"I knew when I herd your reports about Spong Bob… I needed to ivestigate further… and sure enough you not only left out the most important part of the story, but that misrepresented Dr. J. Dobson. I feel that we need to protect the inocence of children. And I feel that right as a parent is being taken away by Homosexuals who slip there docterin in on the sly…"

But best of all, the truly presidential... Stupid Intellegenece."

And, while we ask ourselves if the illiterate should be permitted opinions (or would they just keep coal in them?) kaymo sends a link to a neat compendium of really advanced paranoia, kinda like Lyndon LaRouche meets the Rapture or, as the ever-splendid kaymo puts it. "Do you ever find yourself singing "The madman draws circles, up and down the block,....." etc. when you're reading one of these rants?
http://www.redmoonrising.com/AmericanBabylon/ABindex.htm

And, from HCB, is another angle on the fatal inanity that may yet kill us all...
http://thewvsr.com/gargoyle.htm

The secret word is Palsy

A typo on Feb 20th had the wrong email address. The correct one is...byron4d@msn.com

STRINBERG AND HELIUM
Before you read through all the grim data that follows, here’s some fun donated by HCB....
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/

(I also find myself recalling the ice-blonde, beautiful, and sadly deceased Ingrid von Essen with whom I shared a top floor Ladbroke Grove apartment for most of the 1970s, and who was quietly proud that one of her relatives – a great aunt, or something – had an affair with August Strinberg. I would have said a torrid affair, but I don’t think they do torrid, up in those Norse countries.)

The secret word is Fjord

DEADWOOD
There’s also my squib on Deadwood, plus a nice picture of Ian McShane in this week's LACityBeat...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1768&IssueNum=91

SOME WEEKEND FACTS ‘N’ FIGURES
Sent by Nelson 7, compiled by our old pal Michael Ventura for the Austin Chronicle.

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.

Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.

Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005). The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).

"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).

The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).

"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

The secret word is Dire

WHO WANTS CANDY?
Yesterday I posted a link to Gummi Roadkill. On further investigation, I discovered that the Gummi world has gone totally berserk. The links below are Gummi Brains, Gummi Hancuffs, Gummi Jet Fighters, Gummi Penguins, and Gummi Killer Sharks. Go figure. I can’t.

http://www.candywarehouse.com/gumbrain3kgb.html

http://www.candywarehouse.com/handcuffs.html

http://www.candywarehouse.com/jetfighters.html

http://www.candywarehouse.com/gumpeacpen20.html

http://www.candywarehouse.com/killersharks.html

The secret word is Mucilage

SERVICE THAT IS LAUGHINGLY CALLED NORMAL
Well I seem to be working again. After a whole lot of customer service (black kid, american, kinda knew his stuff but not too innovative, but willing to stay on the phone for over two hours -- also MSN at least ain't outsourced). But we got nowhere, and after hanging then I decided to risk the dread past-time restore launch in which you turn back time until the problem never happened. The concept makes me paranoid, but it worked. So whoopee! Now I simply wait for more trouble racked up in the virtual future. (As in, I went back in time and shot Hitler, but am I now in a parallel where Walt Disney starts WWII.) My theory is that invasive popups are now playing rough when the meet the popup blocker. It is a concept of computer technology that is part Darwin and part On The Waterfront. Also local electronics have been well fucked up since the LA rains. "Close the podbay door, HAL. There’s a goddamned draft."

The secret word is Application

BUT GOOD NEWS FOR CLETUS DEL ROY SPUCKLER AND OTHER SLACK JAWED YOKELS
A treat (and probably collectable because PETA and ASPCA want them banned)...
http://www.candywarehouse.com/roadkill.html

DOC'S COMPUTER CRASHED TODAY, DOUBTLESS ATTACKED BY VIRTUAL AGENTS FROM THE MINISTRY OF PUBLIC ORDER.

I APPEAR TO HAVE MADE THINGS RIGHT BY THE OLD SUPERMAN TRICK OF TURNING BACK TIME, BUT I STILL AWAIT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT WITH SOME TREPIDATION.

EMAILS ARE DELAYED.

SUNDAY MORNING...
("Watch out, the world’s behind you...")

WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A MEDIA STAR
Check out...
http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/lyle_24/myhero.swf
And for the whole story...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/26/nyregion/26video.html?incamp=article_popular_1

WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A GODDESS
While avoiding work and even delaying rational thought, I happened across one of those Quizilla quizes and found out what kind of goddess I’d make. Can’t say I’m disappointed with the results.

The Goddess of Stars and Hate. You are an
independent leader. Always reflecting and
pondering, you carry an air of mystery and you
are exceptionally vengeful. You are a dazzling
beauty.


Which gorgeous goddess are you? For girls! (breath taking pics!)
brought to you by Quizilla

DARK QUEEN OF THE SITH
("What costume will the poor girl wear...")
And talking of exceptionally vengeful goddesses, there’s an apt rant by some girl over on the Comments Board with which I totally agree. The Washington Post story on La Rice’s threads sucked bigtime for the worst reasons, and is a perfect example how mega-most of the mainstream media fawn and flounder in the Karl Rove Universe, and even when stumbling across a nugget of insight are too chickenshit to follow the logic to it’s damning conclusion or explore the bizarre possibilities. Find a pearl of wisdom? The mainstream response is immediately to seek an ignorant swine before whom to cast it, because fully to examine the pearl from all angles may cause doubts about one’s sanity in corporate communications. (Let’s not forget that the mainstream media were more than willing to buy Bush’s aicraft carrier, "Mission Accomplished" padded-crotch, flight-suit debacle until the howl of derision swept up from the dissenting bowels of the culture.) Which is why I’ve kept quiet up until now about how, a couple of weeks ago, I swear Rice appeared at some media op after her confirmation hearings wearing a pin that, from a distance, looked just like the old Elvis Presley/Capt. Marvel Jr. TCB lightning flash. And then there’s the lingering concern about how the vid-bites of GIs Iraq look so much like Imperial Stormtroopers in Star Wars.
At which point I fully expect someone to interupt, "You’re fucking crazy, Doc."
"You’re fucking crazy, Doc."
Yeah, maybe, but I start worrying when the fascists add the visual power-trappings to the policies of unfettered war-mongering greed. When they break out the boots and the lightning bolts, it means it’s going to another level, as when Travis Bickell shaves in his Mohawk. Ever since I was a small boy I have kept a very close eye on the Emperor’s clothing.

For more on pop-culture imagery in the creation of tyranny and mass psychosis, I totally recommend Menno Meyjes’ 2002 movie, Max – with John Cusack and Noah Taylor
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290210/

The secret word is Panoply

CRYPTIQUE – Turn off the fucking cell phone, Kenny

JIMMY SMITH RIP (I only just heard.)

DR.THOMPSON
Obviously the death of Hunter Thompson has taken up a lot of my thoughts this week, but I have that feeling its time to stop mourning and get back into the fight. I believe there’s a tribute show happening and I’ll he happy to participate, but Doc40 plays the Last Post and salutes the Doctor with his own words...

Hunter S. Thompson, November 2004:
"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us.
"No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
"They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.
"And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them."

AND TALKING OF WHORES FOR POWER AND OIL...
In the matter of Condoleezza’s dom-Matrix outfit, (see yesterday) the objections of some girl over on the Comments Board do seem to forget Eddie Izzard’s basic rule of 70% impression etc.. We should have learned by that when these bastards speak, they say nothing and reveal less. We have already been subjected to La Rice’s spurious visions of mushroom clouds, and I fear all truth or even warnings are now down with the sub-literate and sub-verbal. On this Euro-junket, Bush used the word strength 21 times in a single speech, declared the idea that he planned to attack Iran "ridiculous", but then gave that loathsome smirk that "all options were on the table." This is the start of totalitarianism, people. We have to read between the party lines, as Bush visits the Castle of Count Putin. In Europe Bush has played the roll of the thug-gormless shitkicker who is smiling now, just as long as y’all are agreeing with him. Then Rice shows up in Germany dressed like Hannah Reitsch*, Hitler’s favorite aviarix, and you gotta know there’s something going on. You think Karl Rove doesn’t vet the wardrobe? The hubris is pilling up so fast, you need wings to stay above it. Bush and Rice and the rest of the gang have gotten away with so much they now believe they’re invincible. Condoleezza’s costume telegraphed "I am the Lizard Queen, I can do anything." Or that’s how I would have written it.

*For more on Hanna Reitsch
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/reitsch.html

The secret word is Messerschmidt

CONDOLEEZZA DOES KEANU

BLACK QUEEN OF THE NEW MILLENIA
MrMR ripped this from the Washington Post, and I couldn’t help but reflect that – over and above all the Bush/Condoleezza urban legends – this was getting all a bit Avengers/Marvel Comics circa 1975, and even starting to resemble one of my own novels. Holy shit, what next?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix." As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots. The boots had a high, slender heel that is not particularly practical. But it is a popular silhouette because it tends to elongate and flatter the leg. In short, the boots are sexy. Rice boldly eschewed the typical fare chosen by powerful American women on the world stage. She was not wearing a bland suit with a loose-fitting skirt and short boxy jacket with a pair of sensible pumps. She did not cloak her power in photogenic hues, a feminine brooch and a non-threatening aesthetic. Rice looked as though she was prepared to talk tough, knock heads and do a freeze-frame "Matrix" jump kick if necessary. Who wouldn't give her ensemble a double take -- all the while hoping not to rub her the wrong way? Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a woman combines them in the real world, stubborn stereotypes have her power devolving into a form that is purely sexual.
Rice challenges expectations and assumptions. There is undeniable authority in her long black jacket with its severe details and menacing silhouette. The darkness lends an air of mystery and foreboding. Black is the color of intellectualism, of abstinence, of penitence. If there is any symbolism to be gleaned from Rice's stark garments, it is that she is tough and focused enough for whatever task is at hand. Countless essays and books have been written about the erotic nature of high heels. There is no need to reiterate in detail the reasons why so many women swear by uncomfortable three-inch heels and why so many men are happy that they do. Heels change the way a woman walks, forcing her hips to sway. They alter her posture in myriad enticing ways, all of which are politically incorrect to discuss. But the sexual frisson in Rice's look also comes from the tension of a woman dressed in vaguely masculine attire -- that is, the long, military-inspired jacket. When the designer Yves Saint Laurent first encouraged women to wear trousers more than 30 years ago, his reasons were not simply because pants are comfortable or practical. He knew that the sight of a woman draped in the accouterments of a man is sexually provocative. A woman was embracing something forbidden.
Rice's appearance at Wiesbaden -- a military base with all of its attendant images of machismo, strength and power -- was striking because she walked out draped in a banner of authority, power and toughness. She was not hiding behind matronliness, androgyny or the stereotype of the steel magnolia. Rice brought her full self to the world stage -- and that included her sexuality. It was not overt or inappropriate. If it was distracting, it is only because it is so rare.

WHY CAN’T I MEET CHRISTIANS LIKE THIS?
It turns out that the Mennonites (see last Wednesday’s post) are not only running coke out of Mexico, up through Oklahoma – okay – clear up to the Canadian Border, but they also grow some fine marijuana and are working in tandem with the Hell’s Angels.

And don’t miss my piece in LA CityBeat. It’s a good one.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1710&IssueNum=90

The secret word is Stiletto

PLANET OF DOOM 2
A few days ago mention was made of a how prehistoric man burned down Australia. Now, in a flash of possible synchronicity kaymo brings us a whole bunch of stuff about that event from the London Independent. His comments that follow the link are probably best read after looking through the story
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=613707

pretty good workout of the material.
fits a general pattern of human development-- which seems to obtain at every tech level of our history– that we promote drier habitats. We drain swamps, destroy wetlands, empty aquifers, turn rivers into concrete channels that rush the water to the sea.
Possibly... fitting in with things like the human preference for open parkland, and paintings that are slightly blue overall, with trees in the distance-- we just have this very deep need to turn everywhere into the East Africa of 70,000 years ago-- around the time Mt. Toba went off, pushed our species to the very brink of extinction and brought on the cultural revolution-- virtually a new kind of human, though still wearing the old body-- that changed the stone toolkit and set up the migrations all over the world that followed soon afterwards.
That's a stretch or too, but you can see this pattern, yeah? And 70,000 years is but a few blinks of the eye in evolutionary terms.

The secret word is Cobber

MEANWHILE
John P wonders about Dr Thompson...
i dunno if you saw this (or whether its common knowledge i missed). One obit mentioned HST had been in a wheelchair for 2 or 3 years following an op to remedy trapped nerves in the back. Provides a bit more context, innit. (if true of course...)

Anyone know anything?

THE FUNCTION OF FANTASY
This week, in LA CityBeat, I some deft musings on the universal Jungian implications of fantasy entertainment and the Cylon menace....
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1710&IssueNum=90

The secret word is Mekon

THEY FIGHT CRIME
Okay, so last year we had Amish punks dealing crystal meth and now, it would appear -- if the media can be believed -- Mennonites are running coke. Lawdy lord, but what a smooth segue into this piece of instant fun that was sent over by some girl...
http://www.black-ink.org/fightcrime.htm

The secret word is Turpitude

NOTES FROM THE PSYCHO-CIVILIZED SOCIETY
Obviously my thoughts have constantly rolling back to the late Dr. Thompson during an execrable Monday of unshaven labor. What they fuck was he thinking? Writer’s block? Too much Hemingway? How long did it take him to chose the gun and the whiskey? Where’s the note and will it be made public? Or did Hunter blow his brains out simply because he suddenly saw the future with too-acute clarity?

As in....
In addition to waging a "war on drugs," the federal government is now working to eradicate the "disease" of drug use. These metaphors, notes the CCLE report, play an important role in driving federal drug control policy because they frame the remedies available to the government. For example, the 2003 National Drug Control Strategy casts users of illegal drugs as "vectors of contagion" who are "in denial" about their "disease" and who need treatment before "transmitting the disease to others." Such language, says the CCLE report, lends itself to coercive treatment wherein the government feels justified in "medicating" drug users through policies of ‘compassionate coercion.’ "Coercion, whether ‘compassionate’ or otherwise, is still coercion," cautions the CCLE report.
Full story (via MrMR) http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/

Or...
L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Parents Television Council, criticized "The Simpsons" for addressing the issue of gay marriage, though he cautioned that he had not seen the episode. A parental advisory preceded the broadcast. "At a time when the public mood is overwhelmingly against gay marriage, any show that promotes gay marriage is deliberately bucking the public mood," he said. "I'd rather them not do it at all," he added. "You've got a show watched by millions of children. Do children need to have gay marriage thrust in their faces as an issue? Why can't we just entertain them?"

I USED TO WRITE VAMPIRE STORIES...
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/295/2673/640/IMG_3134a.jpg

CRYPTIQUE – Throwing stuff off the roof is fine entertainment.

AND FINALLY SOME CLASSIC THOMPSON...
http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html

The secret word has to be Gonzo

Squares will claim it was the life that killed him, but we in the life know all too well that Doctor Thompson made a career out of cheating death. Maybe he just lost the inclination to cheat.
Sometimes a man must be taken at his word...

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." – Hunter Thompson 1937-2005

DR HUNTER S. THOMPSON -- RIP





http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7005168/

SIXSHOOTER SCOUT OF THE PARANOID FRONTIER
HELD ACES AND EIGHTS
WITH HIS BACK TO THE DOOR
LAMENTATIONS IN BAT COUNTRY

(Kill the trolls! -- Gandalf)

but the beat goes on
STERN WARS
STERN GUEST SUBPOENAED IN PROBE OF SIRIUS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- A regular guest on Howard Stern's syndicated radio show said he will testify Wednesday in a probe of trading of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. shares, which surged last fall when Stern announced he was moving his program to the company.
Chaunce Hayden, who writes gossip and other celebrity news for Steppin' Out magazine, received a subpoena Thursday ordering him to appear before SEC investigators in New York to discuss "trading in securities of Sirius Satellite Radio."
Hayden said Sunday that an SEC attorney who phoned him before the subpoena was issued asked about the reactions of Stern and his staff when Stern's move to Sirius was announced in October.
Hayden told the New York Post that the SEC attorney described the probe as an investigation of insider trading. Hayden told The Associated Press on Sunday that he did not remember the conversation with the attorney clearly and could not say whether that description of it was accurate. Sirius shares soared almost 30 percent early on Oct. 6 when Stern announced the five-year, $500 million deal to move his program to Sirius beginning in 2006 when his contract with Infinity Broadcasting Corp. ends. The shares finished trading that day nearly 16 percent higher, closing at $3.87, on volume that was nearly five times the stock's normal.
Hayden said he never owned Sirius stock but had publicly predicted about two weeks before Stern's announcement that the shock jock would take his show to Sirius. He said he based that prediction on his own reporting rather than inside information.
"We've all been wracking our brains to figure out why I've been subpoenaed," Hayden said.
Spokesmen for New York-based Sirius did not return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. An SEC spokesman declined to comment.
The satellite programming is not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, which has increasingly battled Stern over the show's racy content.

So?
So Hayden, one of Stern’s regular Whack Pack, predicted Sirius stock would go up? And the Feds gotta be watching the Stern show and entourage closer than they ever watched the Soprano McMansion in NJ. Conspiracy theory? Right here in the making friends and neighbors. Remember you read it here first. As Congress visibly upped indecency fines on broadcasters last week, other Fed agencies seem to have been cruising the Stern world like sharks round tourists. The message boards were pulled from the vast Stern website as too over-the-top. Another Whack Packer, Crazy Cabby, was busted by the IRS. Sure he probably had it coming – with only a couple of exceptions, Stern’s crew are not smart guys. Now the SEC goes for Hayden. The government must have them on 24-7 fuck-up watch. Why?
Two reasons...

1) Stern is the Big-Ticket Satan of the Family Values racket. Whole fund raising operations depend on the Horror or Howard to drum up donations. Get him and you score enough Divine Brownie Points to get your sorry ass raptured out of here – or promoted, or re-elected. Only the sacrifice of Stern to the Lord Thy God will expunge the horror of Janet’s malfunctioing tit.

2) Non-broadcast information delivery systems are currently beyond Government control. And no one in Washington likes that except the lawyers who will get rich fighting the fight for control. If a climate can be created in which satellite/cable/internet (plus any medium still not invented) is perceived to be so rife with depravity and corruption, the Feds can use it as a rationale to step in move in to restore Freedom. AND THAT MEANS THEY’VE SEIZED OUR COMMUNICATIONS AND WE’RE FUCKING DEAD!

The classic historical example of this was when in the Eisenhower era tried to kill rock & roll with payola and the hounding of Alan Freed. Didn’t work but it sure was fucking messy.

Observations and comments to...
bryon4d@msn.com

SANDRA DEE -- RIP

The secret world is Gidget

PLANET OF DOOM
I guess this qualifies as weekend readin’...

Kaymo has sent one of his regular bulletins on how just messed up Planet Earth is. Herein, if I read it right, is a succinct if still complicated account of how humanity has been involved in amateur planet-forming since prehistory without a fucking clue as to what the longterm effects might be. (Don’t I recall a theory that primitive hunter gatherers -- who used grass fires to drive their prey where they wanted them -- managed to set fire to half of prehistoric Australia? Anyone help me out here?) The riff also brings to mind the whole concept of the Earth as a complex living entity for which humanity is nothing more than slow-breeding, but highly pernicious viral infection. And how the only cure is for the planet to make itself uninhabitable to man.

This month Scientific American has an article by William Ruddiman that gives a good account of the bigger picture regarding global warming. Using ice core data and computer modelling Ruddiman lays out the current majority view of the situation. In a nutshell, Yes we're warming the earth and we may well bring on changes we will regret, but we have also staved off the return to an Ice Age, which would have got going several thousand years ago if our ancestors hadn't started farming and clearing the forests.

Perspective: Earth's poles are currently much cooler than they usually are-- thinking long term here. For example during the 500 Million year existence of Gondwanaland in the southern hemisphere, there was very little glaciation on Earth. However, the movement of Antarctica onto the southern pole in the Cretaceous era has been followed by the break between Antarctica and South America in the past 30 million years. Ten million years ago the break was wide enough to allow the Westerly Drift current to simply flow around Antarctica, permanently keeping out warmer water from the tropics. That brought on a cooling trend for the whole planet. More recently (about 3 million ya) North and South America joined together at Panama, thus changing the global circulation of warm water again and intensifying the cooling trend. The current round of Ice Ages began soon afterwards.

Milankovitch cycle: the temperature of the Earth is influenced by three cycles involving variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, plus shifts and wobbles in the tilt of the Earth's axis caused by gravitational interactions between Sun-Moon and Earth. These cycles are 100,000, 41,000 and 22,000 years long respectively, and the way they operate, combined with the lay out of the continents on the surface of the Earth determines global temperatures and glaciation outbreaks.

Beginning 9,000 years ago or so our ancestors started farming. Populations grew and with them came clearing of forests, burning of wood and the production of C02 and Methane. Increased levels of these greenhouse gases stopped the Earth slipping back into the next round of glaciation around 5,000 years ago. Instead, at that time farmers in south China and SE Asia began flooding lowlands near rivers to grow rice. Without human farming and forest burning we would now have small ice caps in Labrador and northern Quebec as well as in the northern Canadian rockies. Another incipient ice cap would be forming in Norway.

With the burning of fossil fuels the human component in climate change increased, and continues to do so. On the long term graph Ruddiman extrapolates a brief, sharp spike in temperatures, taking them back to a level not seen since the Paleocene, when forests grew up to the poles. Then, once we have exhausted the earth's fossil fuels the input of CO2 and Methane will fall dramatically and the Earth will slip back to the Ice Age rhythm. Within a few hundred years of that warm spike, the ice sheets will be moving south from Labrador and Norway again.
Unless, of course, human civilization gets off its duff and learns how to keep the planet reasonably warm, possibly by positioning orbital mirrors above the poles to warm them a degree or two. In the meantime, though, the fossil fuel warming spike means that coastal real estate is not a good long term buy, the Dutch are going to have to build much higher dikes, or else emigrate, and the vast, impoverished populations of places like Bangladesh are going to have to move.

The secret word is Slush

The email is byron4d@msn.com

The Killer Kitten is back.
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/79/3629/640/kitty%20killer.1.jpg

YESTERDAY.
Yesterday I posted a link from MrMR that I thought was to a highly amusing techno-gag about teddy bears, but in fact, the URL takes you too a big fun menu of gags, cartoons, and mini-games. I would recommend checking bear, antcity, shootanddrink, and spearbritney. But for the truly sick and infantile, you gotta go to penguin and poke-penguin. The link is right there. Under Friday. (Damn it. Here it is again... http://www.e7.pl/~casha/swf/bear.swf )

CRYPTIQUE – I also started playing Shanghai. I never used to do stuff like this, but I learned video solitaire on a crowded plane-ride back from Tokyo. This tile game seemed like the Fu Manchu version so I went for it. Played the kiddie version until I figured I’d figured it, and then went to the grown-up complexity and haven’t so far come close to resolving one. Maybe I’m missing a crucial piece of the rules.

A HEART MARKS THE SPOT
Dumb, but brilliant...
http://www.e7.pl/~casha/swf/bear.swf
(Courtesy MrMR)

X MARKS THE SPOT
HCB pulled this from Der Spiegel online. It’s always disturbing when the Feds start messing with psychedelics, but at least this purports to be therapeutic, unlike the old, 1960s, MKULTRA days when soldiers were dosed with acid to assess the weapon-potential of LSD-25, and the CIA had San Francisco hookers spike their Johns while agents under the command of the barking crazy Charlie White filmed the results from behind one way mirrors.

The United States government has found a new way of recruiting soldiers for the Iraq war: It's offering them ecstasy. The trick is, the soldiers only get the free drugs after they have seen enough fighting to be experiencing flashbacks, recurring nightmares and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The usually tough-to-please US Food and Drug Administration has given the experimental treatments an initial go ahead and scientists in South Carolina have quickly gotten to work. The idea is to take advantage of the touchy-feely effect ecstasy (the "happiness drug") has on people to get soldiers to open up about the trauma they have faced. In other news, the US government spends $20 billion a year on the drug war. Chemically, ecstasy is known as MDMA and in the trials soldiers are given either the drug or a placebo and then undergo eight-hour therapy sessions during which music is played and they are encouraged to talk about their horrifying experiences. Although still in its early phase, scientists insist the results are quite positive. The team's leader is Dr. Michael Mithoefer, a South Carolina psychiatrist and longtime campaigner for the use of ecstasy in science. Mithoefer has already given ecstasy to patients who were the victims of violent crimes, including rape, and insists on the drug's positive effects in helping them to talk about and come to terms with what happened to them. There is, he says, even some evidence that ecstasy can reduce tremors in Parkinson's patients. Possibly a whole new take on the 1972 David Peel song "The Pope Smokes Dope."

The secret word is Bummer

DPRK
Over the last week or so, Doc40 has been paying some attention to what’s been going on in North Korea. These jumbled thoughts and observations have now been sorted into a more coherent riff in this week’s LA CityBeat.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1683&IssueNum=89

And while your there, check the letters page. The fundamentalists are on the attack.

The secret word is Pyre

TRUE CONFESSION
I don’t know how many of you have noticed, but I’m acutely aware that, for the past couple of weeks, Doc40 has been doing very little but post and link stuff grabbed out of cyberspace that intrigued and irritated, and I’ve been putting down precious few original words. The reason is not that I have nothing to say. Far from it. Right now I am heads down, desperate to finish my novel Conflagration (the sequel to Kindling) plus I seem to have re-upped with LA CityBeat. (Heads up Thursday for a nuclear rant on North Korea.) This and other exercises in keeping the ever present pack of wolves from the door, plus all the private shocks that flessssh (precious) is heir to have all cut into blogging time. But what the hell? If you got a problem with the way things are, there’s always the massively implausible comments board.

And anyway, the stuff from cyberspace is so much fun, as in this from MSNBC...
A German zoo has scrapped plans to break up homosexual penguin couples following protests from gay rights groups. The Bremerhaven Zoo had flown in four female Humboldt penguins in an attempt to encourage three couples discovered to be all male to reproduce... but following protests from gay rights groups, director Heike Kueck has said that the zoo is abandoning the plan. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1284769.html
Aren’t you glad that we have Red State moral guardians to stop this kind of thing happening here?

The secret word is Ice

MY BLOODY VALENTINE
The Mick’s Media column in LA CityBeat is only at number two and already the Christian SS are on the attack. You’ll have to wait until Thursday for the LACB letters page, but I am very proud to be classed among what the CSS call the Cultural Huns. Here’s what offended them...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1658&IssueNum=88

MEANWHILE
I forget where I found this...
Abstinence-only sex education programs have had "little impact" on Texas teenagers' behavior, according to an ongoing study funded by the Texas Department of Health and presented to state officials last week, the Dallas Morning News reports. Buzz Pruitt, professor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University, and colleagues examined five abstinence-only sex education programs at more than 24 schools across Texas. For the study, junior high and high school students filled out an anonymous 10-page questionnaire on their sexual behavior. The study found that 23% of ninth-grade girls reported having had sexual intercourse before they received abstinence education, a percentage below the national average. However, the study found that 28% of the same girls reported having had sexual intercourse after receiving abstinence education, a percentage that is "closer to that of their peers across the state," according to the Morning News. In addition, the study found that the percentage of ninthgrade boys reporting having had sexual intercourse remained unchanged before and after abstinence education; however, the percentage of 10th grade boys reporting sexual activity "jumped" from 24% to 39% after participating in abstinence education, according to the Morning News. "We didn't find strong evidence of program effect," Pruitt said, adding, "We didn't find what many would like for us to find."So here we have a federal program that is clearly ineffective (and we don't need a study to know that teens will have sex whether we like it or not). So according to Bush's criteria, it should be slated for elimination. You can see the punchline coming a mile away: If the budget is approved, abstinence education would get $206 million, an increase of $39 million.

MEANWHILE
While worry, if not panic sets in regarding the super-fast, drug resistant, 3DCR HIV, a fascinating story in Wired suggests that adapted HIV could be the hunter-killer cure for cancer.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66579,00.html

CRYPTIQUE – Crouch we here a while and lurk.

The secret word is Luv

SUNDAY-GO-TO-MEETING

I ripped this out of the NY Times before it went away because it would seem to explain so damned much...

GOD AND EVOLUTION
By Nicholas D. Kristof
An "analysis" of Democrats and Republicans from the Ladies' Home Journal in 1962 concluded: "Republicans sleep in twin beds - some even in separate rooms. That is why there are more Democrats." That biological analysis turns out - surprise! - to have been superficial. Instead, modern science is turning up a possible reason why the religious right is flourishing and secular liberals aren't: instinct. It turns out that our DNA may predispose humans toward religious faith. Granted, that's not very encouraging news for the secular left. Imagine if many of us are hard-wired to be religious. Imagine if, as a cosmic joke, humans have gradually evolved to leave many of us doubting evolution. The notion of a genetic inclination toward religion is not new. Edward Wilson, the founder of the field of sociobiology, argued in the 1970's that a predisposition to religion may have had evolutionary advantages. In recent years evidence has mounted that there may be something to this, and the evidence is explored in "The God Gene," a fascinating book published recently by Dean Hamer, a prominent American geneticist. Dr. Hamer even identifies a particular gene, VMAT2, that he says may be involved. People with one variant of that gene tend to be more spiritual, he found, and those with another variant to be less so. There's still plenty of reason to be skeptical because Dr. Hamer's work hasn't been replicated, and much of his analysis is speculative. Moreover, any genetic predisposition isn't for becoming an evangelical, but for an openness to spirituality at a much broader level. In Alabama, it may express itself in Pentecostalism; in California, in astrology or pyramids. Still, it's striking how faith is almost irrepressible. While I was living in China in the early 1990's, after religion had been suppressed for decades, drivers suddenly began dangling pictures of Chairman Mao from their rear-view mirrors. The word had spread that Mao's spirit could protect them from car crashes or even bring them sons and wealth. It was a miracle: ordinary Chinese had transformed the great atheist into a god. One bit of evidence supporting a genetic basis for spirituality is that twins separated at birth tend to have similar levels of spirituality, despite their different upbringings. And identical twins, who have the same DNA, are about twice as likely to share similar levels of spirituality as fraternal twins. It's not surprising that nature would favor genes that promote an inclination to faith. Many recent studies suggest that religious people may live longer than the less religious. A study of nearly 4,000 people in North Carolina, for example, found that frequent churchgoers had a 46 percent lower risk of dying in a six-year period than those who attended less often. Another study involving nearly 126,000 participants suggested that a 20-year-old churchgoer might live seven years longer than a similar person who does not attend religious services. Partly that's because the religious seem to adopt healthier lifestyles - they are less likely to smoke, for example. And faith may give people strength to overcome illness - after all, if faith in placebo sugar pills works, why not faith in God? Another possibility involves brain chemistry. Genes that promote spirituality may do so in part by stimulating chemical messengers in the brain like dopamine, which can make people optimistic and sociable - and perhaps more likely to have children. (Dopamine is very complex, but it appears linked to both spirituality and promiscuity, possibly explaining some church scandals.) Evolutionary biologists have also suggested that an inclination to spirituality may have made ancient humans more willing to follow witch doctors or other leaders who claimed divine support. The result would have been more cohesive bands of cave men, better able to survive - and to kill off rival cave men. Of course, none of that answers the question of whether God exists. The faithful can believe that God wired us to appreciate divinity. And atheists can argue that God may simply be a figment of our VMAT2 gene.
But what the research does suggest is that postindustrial society will not easily leave religion behind. Faith may be quiescent in many circles these days, or directed toward meditation or yoga, but it is not something that humans can easily cast off. A propensity to faith in some form appears to be embedded within us as a profound part of human existence, as inextricable and perhaps inexplicable as the way we love and laugh.

The secret word is Elvis
The secret word might also be Jedi

some girl informs us that the quote below is from Carl Zwanzig. (Which I must confess prompts the question -- "Who the hell is Carl Zwanzig?")

"Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...."
Anonymous comment discovered while aimslessly wandering around the web.

MICK’S MEDIA
...is the title of my brand new column in LA CityBeat. The first one was out two weeks ago and now we have number 2, which, being the week of Valentine’s day, is about sex. (Who could resist?)
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1658&IssueNum=88

OH FUCK, HERE WE GO...
From MSNBC...
North Korea acknowledges it has nuclear weapons – North Korea's government publicly acknowledged for the first time Thursday that it has nuclear arms, and said it is suspending participation in six-country talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Now we know where Uranium Willy has been.

CRYPTIQUE – Put your head between your legs and kiss your Seoul goodbye.

The secret word is Fissile

MAYBE THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE SONS OF BITCHES IS TO DRIVE A LONG IRON STAKE THROUGH THEIR HEARTS
"I'm sorry, but John Lennon was not that important a figure in our times. Why is his death getting more attention than Elvis Presley's? Because Lennon is perceived as a left-wing figure politically, anti-establishment, a man of social conscience with concern for the poor. And, therefore, he is being made into a great figure. Too much has been made of his life. It does not deserve a full day's television and radio coverage. I'm sick of it." – Elliott Abrams, December 1980, Current Bush Administration Middle East Policy Shtarker & Convicted Iran/Contra Liar, on John Lennon's murder
(from Munz)

CRYPTIQUE – Uranium Willy phone home

MORE ABOUT NORTH KOREA, THE DEAR LEADER AND THE NOVA HEAT
From today’s NY Times on the Kim Jong-il horrorshow –
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/opinion/09kristof.html?th
"The Dear Leader had the woman brought to him, then denounced her before a crowd and ordered her shot. At that point, her husband begged to be allowed to kill her. Graciously acceding, Mr. Kim handed him a gun to kill his own wife." This snippet is quoted by Nicholas Kristof from a book: Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader by Bradley Martin

But by a damned odd coincidence Bradley and Martin are two of Nova Heat created by Uncle Bill Burroughs. Here’s some background from aethersanctum...
...a junkie narcotics agent whose addiction is so powerful that he actually assimilates other junkies to get a contact high (Bradley the Buyer). Next off the fork Burroughs provides us with a darkly comical tale of biological experimentation presided over by Dr. Schafer the Lobotomy Kid, who parades a human / black centipede hybrid before a vulgar medical board conference (Meeting Of International Conference Of Technological Psychiatry). Then it's on to burning down the croakers in a search for black smoke yen with the Sailor (The Fish Poison Con). Further on, the Nova Heat reach across wounded galaxies (Thing Police Keep All Board Room Reports), a summons is given from the rings of Saturn by the Nova Mob (Mr. Bradley Mr. Martin Hear Us Through The Hole In Thin Air) and there are long slimy looks from the District Supervisor along with details of the Mayan caper with the Subliminal Kid (Where You Belong). The District Supervisor then reveals to us the genocidal purposes of the Nova Conspiracy and the Death Dwarf gets an image fix (Inflexible Authority) before the disk finally closes with the Heavy Metal Kid wising up the marks (Uranium Willy).
http://www.aethersanctum.net/milestones/36.php

The secret word is Jung

CRYPTIQUE -- And where is Uranium Willy now that we need him?

MAYBE NORTH KOREA WON’T BE SAVED BY MANDATORY HAIRCUTS
Stress causes me to forget things. I can’t remember exactly where I found this – Australian, I think – but I do recall it was reliable source, and I have a fascination with Stalinism gone totally bananas...
In interviews for this article over many months, western policymakers, Chinese experts, North Korean exiles and human rights activists built up a picture of a tightly knit clan leadership in Pyongyang that is on the verge of collapse. Some of those interviewed believe the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il, has already lost his personal authority to a clique of generals and party cadres. Without any public announcement, governments from Tokyo to Washington are preparing for a change of regime. The death of Kim’s favourite mistress last summer, a security clampdown on foreign aid workers and a reported assassination attempt in Austria last November against the leader’s eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, have all heightened the sense of disintegration.

THE PLANET MAY ALSO NOT SURVIVE HUMANITY
I also just came across this. A little old, but still a scarey eye-opener.
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/mcherald/news/nation/6449098.htm

FOR TOTAL PARANOIA
http://www.weatherwars.info/index.html

HE YAM WHAT HE YAM
And on a siller note from Funtopia Rich
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/21206/

CRYPTIQUE – Okay, are you all hip to the Zogg now?

The world, the flesh and the devil – not to mention the sundry horned minions of all three – are currently running me ragged, straight for the Nietzschean abyss (whine, complain) probably a day late and a dollar short, (heaven be praised I have fiction to write) but, while I barely cope and only answer a third of each day's email, good stuff keeps rolling in like the following from HCBeck...

ROBOT LUST
From The Guardian_
Scientists have made them walk and talk. There are even robots that can run. But a South Korean professor is poised to take their development several steps further, and give cybersex new meaning. Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to them reproducing. He says the software, which will be installed in a robot within the next three months, will give the machines the ability to feel, reason and desire. Kim, a leading authority on technology and ethics of robotics, said: "Christians may not like it, but we must consider this the origin of an artificial species. Until now, most researchers in this field have focused only on the functionality of the machines, but we think in terms of the essence of the creatures." That "essence" is a computer code, which determines a robot's propensity to "feel" happy, sad, angry, sleepy, hungry or afraid. Kim says this software is modelled on human DNA, though equivalent to a single strand of genetic code rather than the complex double helix of a real chromosome. Kim said: "Robots will have their own personalities and emotion and - as films like I Robot warn - that could be very dangerous for humanity. If we can provide a robot with good - soft - chromosomes, they may not be such a threat." Although he admits his ideas sound fantastic, Kim is no crank. In the mid-1990s, the professor launched the robot football world cup, which has since become one of the most popular means for robotics researchers to measure their progress against competitors from around the world.

The secret word is Wrench

BUT MAYBE EVEN MORE IMPORTANT AND MAYBE THE KEY TO EVERYTHING...
Please check out...
http://www.bitfurnace.com/TheCuddlyMenace/

I repeat, please check out...
http://www.bitfurnace.com/TheCuddlyMenace/

I repeat, please check out...
http://www.bitfurnace.com/TheCuddlyMenace/

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

CRYPTIQUE -- Danger, Will Robinson!

SEEN IT, DONE IT
Sent by Mr MR
"United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballotsyesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam." – Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled, 'U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,' September 4, 1967.

QUOTE
"Personally, I've decided to stop evolving. No point, really. Evolution is so 20th century." – Maureen Dowd

The secret word is Enough.

(Total reverse order.) OH, THE CROW IS BACK.

AND IF THAT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH THE CROW HAS BECOME NOTHING MORE THAN A PLUG!

FUCK THIS SHIT (in a dull, weary, and defeated tone)
I have been advised on the comments board to be more in touch with my feminine side. Well hell. How many sides are required on this rolling penny of damnation? Mark the to-do list and the task agenda. My feminine side, my feline side, my avian side, my canine side, my paranoia, extreme narcissism, megalomania, masochism, and sundry phobias, and then at least ninety minutes in the lizard brain, unless that’s covered by watching TV. Damn it all, the entire drift of my fiction for at least the last decade should have clearly demonstrated my growing disgust at my human side. Or maybe it’s time to just shut the fuck up. Or retreat into my study with a bottle of whiskey and a pistol.

(If you don’t hear a gunshot in the first hour, though, don’t come a knocking. After more than a half a century, I may actually be happy, or quiet. Also I’m fairly sure an antique .38 cap and ball, double load, Navy Colt can pump a ball through the kind of glue and sawdust doors they have round here. And if that doesn’t work I’ll go for the .45 1911 standard auto.)

The secret word is Death

NOW SHALL WE CONSIDER HEDY LAMARR?
From HCBeck...
"Any girl can be glamorous," Hedy Lamarr once said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid." The film star belied her own apothegm by hiding a brilliant, inventive mind beneath her photogenic exterior. In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, she patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two decades ahead of its time. Read more...
http://www.inventions.org/culture/female/lamarr.html

CRYPTIQUE -- The crow is slow. Where is the end of this tether?

Iraq’s had their election, the Shi-ites are apparently in power, so our boys can come now, right?
Yeah but...
ALL EYES TURN TO GOBBLER’S KNOB
Just three shopping days to Groundhog Day. (So where are all my gifts and cards?)

The secret word is Rodent

CRYPTIQUE – Raving Monster Looney Party of Islam

MONDAY READIN'
I have been a Gore Vidal fan as long as I can remember, and his latest take on George Bush indicates that he’s far from flagging...
"So here we are, in the middle of the unfinished Iraq tragedy, and the President, in his inaugural address, is serenely declaring war on the rest of the world. Instead of talking about how the hell we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we are talking about going into Iran."
And here’s the rest...
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=39&contentid=1843

While Maureen Dowd in the NY Times has been discussing sex and torture, if you have a mind for it...
"A female military interrogator who wanted to turn up the heat on a 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before 9/11 removed her uniform top to expose a snug T-shirt. She began belittling the prisoner - who was praying with his eyes closed - as she touched her breasts, rubbed them against the Saudi's back and commented on his apparent erection."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/opinion/30dowd.html?oref=login&th

Plus a bunch of stuff on the sign of Satan and what is laughably called the first family...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2005/210105devilhand.htm

AND FINALLY THE QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The death camps were created by men with a high opinion of themselves-some of them well-educated and possessed of refined manners-but without conscience. And, where there is no conscience, there is no tolerance towards others...no defense against evil...and no limit to the crimes that follow." – Dick fuckin’ Cheney at Auschwitz in his parka and wooly hat, I suppose proving that in addition to no conscience, he has no manners.

The secret word is Weimar

(now we know where Jessica and Ashlee came from -- see below)

DOC MOREAU ROCKS AND RULES
From BCBeck
Here come the manimals, closely followed by that species which is directly below them on the evolutionary ladder, the lawyers. Maybe it's the birth of those creatures whose coming was foretold by animated shorts of the 20th century--Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Mickey Mouse, among others. From National Geographic News...
January 25, 2005
Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains. Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans.
Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments. But creating human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail—has raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have? There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.
Ethical Guidelines
The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government, has been studying the issue. In March it plans to present voluntary ethical guidelines for researchers. A chimera is a mixture of two or more species in one body. Not all are considered troubling, though. For example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones taken from cows and pigs. The surgery—which makes the recipient a human-animal chimera—is widely accepted. And for years scientists have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.
What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with embryonic animals to create new species. Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species. He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done. "There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides going out into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals," Rifkin said, adding that sophisticated computer models can substitute for experimentation on live animals. "One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do this. They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain." David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University, believes the real worry is whether or not chimeras will be put to uses that are problematic, risky, or dangerous.
Human Born to Mice Parents?
For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice. "Most people would find that problematic," Magnus said, "but those uses are bizarre and not, to the best of my knowledge, anything that anybody is remotely contemplating. Most uses of chimeras are actually much more relevant to practical concerns."
Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo. Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance with the new guidelines. She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S. Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity. "It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen, who is also the senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington, D.C. But, she noted, the wording on such a ban needs to be developed carefully. It shouldn't outlaw ethical and legitimate experiments—such as transferring a limited number of adult human stem cells into animal embryos in order to learn how they proliferate and grow during the prenatal period. Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban in the United States. "Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this biomedical science, where they want to impose their will—not just be part of an argument—if that leads to a ban or moratorium. … they are stopping research that would save human lives," he said. Mice With Human Brains Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one percent human. Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting human neurons into the brains of embryonic mice. Before being born, the mice would be killed and dissected to see if the architecture of a human brain had formed. If it did, he'd look for traces of human cognitive behavior. Weissman said he's not a mad scientist trying to create a human in an animal body. He hopes the experiment leads to a better understanding of how the brain works, which would be useful in treating diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. The test has not yet begun. Weissman is waiting to read the National Academy's report, due out in March. William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic's Jacksonville, Florida, branch, feels that combining human and animal neurons is problematic. "This is unexplored biologic territory," he said. "Whatever moral threshold of human neural development we might choose to set as the limit for such an experiment, there would be a considerable risk of exceeding that limit before it could be recognized." Cheshire supports research that combines human and animal cells to study cellular function. As an undergraduate he participated in research that fused human and mouse cells. But where he draws the ethical line is on research that would destroy a human embryo to obtain cells, or research that would create an organism that is partly human and partly animal. "We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of animal life over which we have a stewardship responsibility," said Cheshire, a member of Christian Medical and Dental Associations. "Research projects that create human-animal chimeras risk disturbing fragile ecosystems, endanger health, and affront species integrity."

The secret word is Cheese

ICEBERG SLIM
This fucking week has really hit the iceberg. And right now I’m floating on the tattooed harpooner's coffin, to mix shipwreck metaphors.

BUT
I do have a reasonably perceptive if highly biased diatribe in LA Citybeat. Read it up there, brothers and sisters.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1591&IssueNum=86

The secret word is Avast

CRYPTIQUE – Who gives a rats ass if you’re waving or drowning, and who are you waving to anyway?

CROW CONCERN
I like crows. A lot. Indeed, in the pathological cartoon anthropomorphism of the late Edward Barker, I am one. (See logo top right.) I am also well aware that crows may well be more intelligent than many in the current President’s cabinet, but, at risk of going Alfred Hitchcock on you, they do seem to be massing. Yesterday’s Cryptique came to me before I heard the report that Auburn, NY had a population of 23,000 humans and 68,000 crows. I know that crows now rule on my street. I saw they held considerable sway over the rooftops of Tokyo, and would be interested to heard crow counts from Manhattan and London. But now I find they have established a veritable beachhead in Auburn, I have to wonder, especially as Auburn doesn’t seem to like it.

"The city tells NEWS 10NBC the crow problem is getting worse and now a federal agency is involved. Members of the U.S Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services are using handheld lasers, pyrotechnics and loud noise all aimed to disrupt the crows' sleeping habits. The U.S.D.A. hopes that these efforts will eventually drive the crows to the countryside. We want them not to be harmed, but to just push themselves out into the county where they belong."
Full story...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6818818/
I am not so sure that angry, sleep deprived crows are a terribly good idea.

CRYPTIQUE – Is it a bird, is it a plane?

SO WHAT’S THE SPEED OF DARK?
Watching some of the eulogies for Johnny Carson last night, my mind wandered (never a big Carson fan) to wondering why I hadn’t seen comedian Stephen Wright in long time. So I ran a search and came up with all manner of good stuff, as in...

"I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once in a while I turn it on and off. One day I got a call from a guy in France who said, "Cut it out!"

"Hermits have no peer pressure."

"I spilled Spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone."

"Why in a country of free speech, are there phone bills?"
Many more at...
http://www.notso.com/wright.htm
And Wright’s website...
http://www.stevenwright.com/a_word/index.shtml

AND
Check new stuff at http://hipspinster.blogspot.com

The secret word is Black

I NEED A DAY OFF
Having just completed a massive mess of work on assassinations and conspiracy theory, I’m taking the day off. Just as well, as I hear that statistically January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. I’m unsure how they arrived at that conclusion, but it feels right.

Meanwhile here’s a gender game...
http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

The secret work is Inert.

CRYPTIQUE – Count crows.

Today the flight from reality is all mine as I avoid the Bush coronation, (or, as Dr Susan Block calls him Thanatos, Lord of Death, Destruction & Fake Texas Accents). I figure when I can no longer lose myself in prose, I’ll watch the DVD of Fight Club four or five times.

CRYPTIQUE – Gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate.

A TALE OF EVIL NUNS
Seems there some nuns out in the Indian tsunami mess who won’t feed the starving Hindus unless they first embrace Jesus. Read all about it...
http://in.news.yahoo.com/050116/139/2j1rp.html

The secret word is Gimmee

DINOSAURS FROM THE EMAIL
Regarding last week’s post about dinosaur-eating mammals, kaymo has comments.
(And if anyone wonders what this is all about, be reminded that Doc40 as run dinosaur stuff, from Godzilla to palenotology, ever since the getgo. Partly because we like it, and partly because humanity might benefit from a contemplation of extinction.)

kaymo writes...
Oh, sure, exciting find. And evidence that mammals were really waiting in the wings for the chance to expand into any new niches that might open up...but must keep in perspective... cat and small dog sized mammals preying on psittacosaurs and lurking around the breeding sites makes good sense. But those same mammals would have drawn attention from all sorts of two legged dino/bird critters, some feathered, some not, all hungry. Life was earnest, life was hard and probably, life was brief. Maybe we're seeing tip of iceberg and a lot more of these mammal fossils will appear, or more likely, not, for simple reason they weren't that numerous.
Note: the herd animals of the time, the ones with the big biomass within the faunal assemblage, are all dinosaurs, like the various ceratopsi (horned jobs), the hadrosaurs, and the huge old apatosaur/diplocid/brachiosaur things...which, incredibly, seem to have had an unbroken run, species succeeding species, from early mid-Jurassic to the very end of the Cretaceous, virtually unchanged, the same body plan, long necks, tails, huge bodies with fermenting guts and gastroliths to grind up their chow. That's around 80 million years. That is an amazing run when you think about it.

and later adds...
The dinos lost their grip after the KT catastrophe and since then Mammals have provided the big biomass species-- the herds, basically, and the whales. But the dinos are not out of the race. There are something like 6,800 known species of Birds (and Birds are dinos) in the world and something like 4,600 species of Mammal. So the dino clade diversified into a huge variety of niches, culminating in the rise of the Passerine Birds-- who alone make up about 3,500 species (I think that's about right, but whatever, it's a big number.) All those little "sparrow" sized (Passer, right) birds from robins to finches to ad infinitum that exploit insects and seeds all over the world. Ruling the bird world are the Crows/Ravens, who are smart. Should we do ourselves in-- as we may well be doing already with the bath of chemicals produced by industrial civilization (30,000 chems in broad use, probably 1/3 carcinogens, another 1/4 teratogens) -- the birds will be only too happy to abandon energy demanding flying and take our place. Check back in say, 10 m years.

EARTH FROM EMAIL
boarg writes...
NASA Science News published an article on 10/01/2005 entitled 'How theEarthquake Affected Earth'. This article details how the 26/12/2004 'megathrust' earthquake has made the Earth more round, quickened the Earth's rotation, and shifted the Earth's axis, according to calculations done byNASA scientists. These effects are small, but one wonders ...
The full story is at...
http://science.nasa.gov/
...at which you can also access an article on the strange green Comet Machholtz that was prominent through December and makes its closest approach to Earth this week. Not only is it large and green, but it has also got two tails.

The secret word is Geophysical

CRYPTIQUE – Do you bowl?

I SEE YOUR HAIR IS BURNING
85F in LA today. I’ve not only seen the science fiction movie in which we seem to be living, but I think I’ve remembered how it ends. A few hundred randomly selected elite escape in a big fat rocketship with fins and the rest of us are left to fry to a crisp.

The secret word is Liftoff

(I have a whole rant I have to finish writing plus crucial stiff from boarg and dinosaur commentary from kaymo to post but it’s been another hard day and it’s all going to have to wait until morning again.)

Are we living in a science fiction movie or what? A probe just landed on Titan and there's a ship on it way to blow the guts out of a comet.

The secret word is Valium

Are we living in a science fiction movie or what? Last week 20 inches of rain fell here in Southern California. This week we have a Santa Anna heatwave with temps in the mid-80s(F). The cat sniffed the air and looked at me with an expression of "Say what? It's goddamned January" I have much more to say about this, but I gotta sleep.

Where the fuck are the silver spaceships? I want off this monkey planet.

THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE (Jungian Mix)
When I called the current power structure fascist, some of my nearest and dearest accused me of a certain drama queen hyperbole, but, of late, I find that commentators, bloggers, and columnists are now going to some length to explain why the current power structure really is essentially classic fascism only with less flags and eagles, and no jackboots. I’d feel vindicated except I’ve kinda moved on to thinking in terms of Bush-rule as nothing more than deeply fucking insane. A few have again felt that maybe I was again proclaiming for effect, and cited my well known detachments from reality, but now I again find myself more that born out, at least in the Old School of Uncle Carl Jung, where the President is now identified as not only clinically barking crazy, but also dangerously infectious.
Read all about it...
http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

The secret word is Thorazine

IT’S BEEN REAL
Remember how, earlier in the week, I was concerned that I was becoming increasing detached from reality? (See Tuesday) Well, although it still kinda ebbs and flows, I am reminded by no less than Arianna Huffington that I am not alone and it is in fact quite the happening thing in modern politics...
A top Bush aide actually told the New York Times' Ron Suskind that administration officials disparagingly dismiss what they call "the reality-based community"– specifically, people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality" as irrelevant. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he declared. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality– judiciously, as you will– we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors. . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

CRYPTIQUE – Go Speed Racer!

Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money can not be eaten
– Cree prophecy for North America (courtesy PDB)

or to put it another way...
America currently spends $13 million per hour on foreign oil

The secret world is Glutton

PREHISTORIC WEIRDNESS (Alley oop-oop etc.)
The story at the end of the link below showed up in Wired, and, as a dinosaur enthusiast from infancy, it struck me as weird. Seems as though the Chinese have dug up a prehistoric mammal that ate little tiny dinosaurs, and this could be crucial, especially for those of us who are still processing the asteroid impact, and a brontosaurus with feathers and a sticking out tail that is nothing like the plastic model we bought in the Natural History Museum. The big danger is the that the demented creation Christians will get a hold of this and claim it’s proof that the world is only six thousand years old and Adam and Eve hobnobbed with dinosaurs like in that Raquel Welch movie, along with Lilith and all the others that lived outside the Gates of Eden in the land of Nod about which Christians will never give me a straight answer.
But anyway, there’s the story...
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66254,00.html

The secret word is Gorgo

And hipspinster is blogging some good stuff at...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com

AND FROM THE EMAIL
HCBecks succinct response to the concept of Joey Gallo seeing Don Rickles before he was shot was "from insult to injury".

But the fair some girl is miffed that I didn't mention who told me of the plan to have Keith Richards playing Capt. Jack Sparrows father, for it was she.

The secret world is still Gorgo

Did you ever have one of those days when the entire planet and a couple of extra dimensions of nastiness seemed to be making a study of busting your balls, to the point that you want to scream except that would mean getting out of the fetal position you have assumed in the corner of the couch because you are burned out from humping a desperate fucking keyboard? Sure you have. But did you then take a break from it all and turn on the inevitable television to find our enunciation-challenged state governor Arnold the Barbarian wearing a flight jacket to which I know he’s not entitled (what about daddy’s death’s head, Conan?) telling a malignant and collapsing mud mountain that "we’ll be back"? This lunacy is no longer even morbidly funny. It’s just plain disgusting. When’s the fucking uprising, mes enfants? Could we please make it soon? I have a lot of unanswered email.

The secret word is Contemptible.

CALL THIS A REALITY? (I’m not ready for reality.)
I don’t know if it’s the California rain, or black dogs, or too much bad holiday TV, or something that I ate, or the miasma of endless work in which I currently find myself, or simple being surrounded by a nation that should probably be institutionalized if not actually eased into straightjacket and the straps pulled very tight, but, in the last few days I have found myself tempted to retreat more and more from reality. It’s too early to know what direction this may take but, be assured, I will keep you up to speed.

MOVIE NEWS
Doc40 does not as a rule post movie news, but (see above) I was quite delighted when I was informed that Keith Richards may play Capt Jack Sparrow’s (Johnny Depp’s) father in Pirates of the Caribbean II. And then HC Beck sent over the following...
There is going to be a two-part TV miniseries on Elvis, come May, that takes him from the beginning through the 68 comeback special, which I suppose makes it official, that, like Spade Cooley (who is also the subject of a biopic launched by and starring Dennis Quaid, who is maybe a foot and a half taller than the very short, very vicious Cooley), Elvis went out at an opportune moment. In the future, historians will write that Elvis died in 1968. Don't know if you ever read Bradbury's story about the guy in the time machine pickup truck who fixes wrong deaths, taking Hemingway back to his near-death early-50's plane crash and sparing him the subsequent years of pain and depression. And of course there's the Johnny Cash biopic, which is rolling round the bend. The Elvis TV thing looks to be fashioned by total hacks, but the one bright light, to my eyes, is that they've cast Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Elvis, who is pretty and menacing, as anybody who saw him in Ride With The Devil may remember. He played the evil Confederate killer with the long hair.

CALL THIS A REALITY? (Part 2)
The Christian SS are attempting to destroy away with science yet again and are re-assaulting Darwin because they can’t bear to believe they are descended from simians. (A sentiment, incidently, shared by many monkeys of my acquaintance.) They are now pushing some piece of crap called Intelligent Design, which is Biblical Creationism in scientific drag – which kinda makes it look like the dopey prof in a 1950s Big Ant movie who intones, "this could be the end of civilization as we know it."
Read the full horror...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011105L.shtml

The secret word is Bubbles

CRYPTIQUE – On the night he was shot in Umberto’s Clam Bar, Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo had been to see Don Rickles perform. (And if anyone can explain why this interests me, I will be very happy.)

ELVIS ABIDES
Today would be Elvis Presley’s 70th birthday, if he wasn’t, of course, dead. The tributes are hardly being paid in the way the were back in the Great Elvis-Sighting Era of the 1990s (which also largely coincides with the Presidency of Bill Clinton, who’s Secret Service codename was reportedly Elvis – as in "Elvis had left the building". Work with that one, paranoids.) A few movies are scattered round the cable menu, including the truly bizarre Wild In The Country, with a script by Clifford Odets, but TBS no longer runs marathons of Elvis – The TV Show. Elvis fades? I dunno. The image still looms and the voice still resonates, and, for the moment, I will still write "Elvis worshiper" on any document that demands record of my religion. (And I feel we may have a some of those in our future.) Such declarations are not merely acts of inanity. They are also a measures of self protection since the Christian SS are superstitiously loath the mess with The People of the King. (I expound on this theme in my novel The Armageddon Crazy, which is sooo out-of-print, and even out of date like 1984, since it is sci fi set in the year 2000, but none the less apt. There’s even a war with the godless Canadians.)

AND TALKING OF FUNDAMENTALISTS...
The next time you’re bothered by a Stormtrooper for Jesus, try this on them – "There is no God and his mother is Mary." It just drives them batshit. It's like asking "why" of a computer on Star Trek. But be warned, they may kill you.

There’s also a whole very long, very dense, very learned bit on this theme on Counterpunch...
http://www.counterpunch.org/davis01082005.html

Or if you want it close up and nasty try...
www.godhatesfags.com
but it’s hard to link. I think some pinko-commie, maybe Howard Stern-related crash‘n’burn plug-pulling has been applied to this holy site.

BEAUTIFY NORTH KOREA – GET A HAIRCUT
The following came from Mr MR...
BBC NEWS Asia-Pacific N Korea wages war on long hair
N Korea wages war on long hair North Korea has launched an intensive media assault on its latest arch enemy - the wrong haircut. A campaign exhorting men to get a proper short-back-and-sides has been aired by state-run Pyongyang television. The series is entitled "Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle."

So it’s official. The Glorious Flower of Revolution has reached the cultural equivalency of about 1954, and the mind-set of my old Eddie Cochran-hating headmaster "Taff" Evans who did so much to instill basic sado-masochism into our preteen psyches in the days when Elvis supposedly wore the Haircut of Satan, and Jimi Hendrix as only a future horror. Which brings us very neatly back to Elvis. (But watch out, Kim Il Jong will could invent rock & roll sometime around June.)

The secret word is Megaton.

And the email is byron4d@msn.com

CRYPTIQUE – "Somebody save my back catalogue." he shrieked in desperation.

COMMERCIAL -- mp3 downloads and a highly lauditory analysis by Dave Thompson on...
http://www.mp3.com/mick-farren/artists/13747/summary.html