A belated "Go fuck yourself" to Bill Clinton

Damn -- I liked him when he was prez.

I liked some of what he did (COBRA, Compassionate Leave)

Disliked some of what he did (NAFTA, limiting welfare recipients to 5 years max before throwing them to the feral hogs of the business world.

I never thought there was anything wrong with a hard-working man receiving an offered blow job and I never imagined anyone else would (other than those who, like Anita Bryant, believed that eating sperm WAS eating the apple in the Garden of Eden bestowing the knowledge of Good and Evil on the fellatrice or fellator and thereby re-enacting the Fall).

But Bill, you seem to think that after completing two 4-year terms as President, you somehow become KING OF THE WORLD, wagging your finger at reporters and chastising them if they ask a question you don't like, saying, in essence:

("I know you want to focus on THAT, but YOU have no right to decide what interests you or the public ... I'LL TELL YOU what to be interested in.")

You're not.

You're just an old fart who's PAST IT.

I'm not a big fan of Hillary, but I think she could do fine as president-- the only thing that worries me about putting her into the White House is that you get to go along.

(Gawd -- do I actually find a point on which I agree with the Animatronic Vril, Mitt Romney?)

It's like watching reruns of Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith played "Lonesome Rhodes," a country boy (modeled on Arthur Godfrey) who becomes a superstar and once he attains BIG TIME status, turns into a self-serving vicious contemptuous monster.

Watch the movie, Willy, and understand you should recognize it as if looking in a mirror.

So why not -- PLEASE -- shut the fuck up and let the rest of us get along with our world -- we've seen your act and now would like to see some other people get up there on the "LOOK AT ME! HEY MOM, LOOK AT ME! AIN'T I CUTE?" stage and do theirs.


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Insight into WHY it takes a 10-year-old kid to figure out how the new stuff works

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus

By

Clay Shirky

on April 26, 2008 10:48 AM


I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.

And it wasn't until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders--a lot of things we like--didn't happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.

It wasn't until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society.

If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

We did that for decades. We watched I Love Lucy. We watched Gilligan's Island. We watch Malcolm in the Middle. We watch Desperate Housewives. Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat...

... Continues HERE

Oh this is interesting ... why does the idiot press always think scenarios like this are way too Machiavellian to believe?

So why would the CIA-type subterfuge not move from the agency (where it always gets found out) to the political arena where vicious schemers and propagandists like Karl Roverer are actually admired, since success (in the short term) is the only thing they respect.


From the New York Daily News

Hillary supporter organized Wright speech?

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.

Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.

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Or in the words of the late poet Charles Olson, pointing out that social evolution is moved by mythology, and by that he meant to root of the word, i.e., "That which is said ABOUT that which is said."

In other words -- doesn't matter what the Rev Wright said or even what the moronic talking point talking heads all say about it.

What counts is what the public says about what the pundits said.

And that never (or hardly ever) gets reported in mainstream media.

For people who have some confusion about defining IRONY

'Free Tibet' flags made in China

Made in China? Police believe some flags may have already been shipped

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper.

Tibet independence

The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.

Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.

Thousands of flags had already been packed for shipping.

Police believe that some may already have been sent overseas, and could appear in Hong Kong during the Olympic torch relay there this week.

Shakespeare's Stash

Willy the Shake (as named by the late and definitely great Lord Buckley) apparently took a toke or five in his day. This article, edited from the March 5, 2001 issue of the South African Journal of Science, was the result of research done by the Transvaal Museum and posted on the Psychonaut Community's web site just last year.

(The entire article published in the South African Journal of Science 3/5/01, from which this is extracted, is at the Psychonaut Community's site.)

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Did Shakespeare inhale?


"The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, allowed South African research scientists from the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria to analyze twenty-four pipe fragments found on the grounds of William Shakespeare's home. The findings, published in the South African Journal of Science, show that eight of the pipes tested contain traces of cannabis and two of the pipes contain traces of cocaine. Others appear to be laced with tobacco, camphor, and hallucinogenic nutmeg extracts high in myristic acid." 5 Mar 2001

The pipes date to the seventeenth century when hemp was used widely in the production of rope, clothing, and paper, and when marijuana was used to treat certain medical conditions. However, the discovery of the pipes laced with several narcotics lends credibility to the theory that people in Renaissance England used drugs for pleasure.

It has been a long-standing but highly unconventional assumption that Shakespeare alludes to drugs and drug use in his works, particularly in his non-dramatic poetry.

(The article goes on to excerpt from several sonnets, but I've posted the complete sonnets below the article)

They refer to the line in Sonnet 27

"But then begins a journey in my head..."

and then go on to Sonnet 76, which contains Shakespeare's references to a 'noted weed' and 'compounds strange' -- 'compound' known as early as 1530 to mean a substance formed by a chemical union of two or more ingredients and include Sonnet 118 divulges which begins with the lines:

"Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge." (1-2)

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They then sum up the article with a blah blah maybe and a definite possibly and more research needed but somehow they miss Sonnet 38 which was mentioned in the original article and in it the poetis calls something "the tenth muse."

There is some reaching going on here, and it used to be, in the olden days (and I suppose still) every doper pounced on any shred of evidence that they were smoking 'em in history (George Washington's hemp growing, with references to separating male plants from female, not done to make homespun or hemp rope) But either way (Shakespeare toking or not) there are worse ways to use your mind than getting stoned and reading Shakespeare. Like -- and I'm guilty of this one -- paying attention to any or all of the three assholes who want to be king (or queen) of America and -- even worse -- the myriad talking assholes (Gawd there's one floating up into the conscious mind straight out of Naked Lunch) who try to explain what the Three meant by this or that.

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THE SONNETS

SONNET 27

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

But then begins a journey in my head,

To work my mind, when body's work's expired:

For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.

Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee and for myself no quiet find.

***************

SONNET 38

How can my Muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight Muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

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SONNET 76

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth and where they did proceed?

O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

For as the sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told.

***********************

SONNET 118

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,

With eager compounds we our palate urge,

As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

We sicken to shun sickness when we purge,

Even so, being tuff of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,

To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding

And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness

To be diseased ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults assured

And brought to medicine a healthful state

Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured:

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,

Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

Nothing wrong with Hillary Clinton (other than her advisors and her husband)*

I tend to favor Senator Obama, but to be honest -- when Senator Clinton's thoughtful side comes out, she makes me wonder why in hell I ever thought I wouldn't want her to be president or that she couldn't do a truly fine job in that office.

But when former Prez Bill opens his mouth and gives us all a "Hey look at me MY WIFE is running for president so it's still all about me!!!" I begin to understand why so many people despised him when he was in office -- although the rest of us loved him madly any time we thought about or looked at the wreckage of the Reagan/Bush administrations (their admitted agenda was to bankrupt the country and thereby have a damn good excuse for gutting any social welfare programs -- "Starve the Beast" Grover Norquist's strategy.

But now, bringing our happy memory of him THEN up to the harshly-lit NOW, he's lost it. He's still trying to play the same game as when he still had charm and juice, kind of like an NFL quarterback whose legs just aren't there anymore, but still thinks he can scramble away from 22-year-old linebackers.

(Gawrr -- remember when he called a press conference to tell off the press that they were making the election be about him but it was supposed to be about HER -- except by doing so, he made it be about him saying it WASN'T about him)

If only she could have said "Bill -- I'm running for President, so why don't you go spend the year in Thailand screwing teenage hookers and don't come back until after the election is over." Of course she couldn't.

And then, there was the adamant advice of Billy-sanctioned advisers about how tough, how hard, how always in attack mode she had to be, advice that has truly hurt her bid to be known for who SHE is and what SHE can do rather than be known for who HE WAS (so far -- it still ain't over, regardless of what would have best served the TV talking heads)

The other day, she made a case for an economic policy that was do downright impressive and convincing, I thought the way I said above -- "Damn -- that person would be a fine president."

But by afternoon, she was turning my stomach as she twisted Senator Obama's words, calling out "ELITIST ELITIST ELITIST" (the Willie Horton-izing N-word denunciation doesn't work anymore, not in public). It was obvious she knew damn well all he really was saying was that small town people had been lied to so much by Reagan and Bush AND Clinton and Bush they had become bitter and frustrated ABOUT THE POLITICAL PROCESS, so bitter and angry that the only POLITICAL things they were willing to put energy in were the ones they believed in and that we all always believed were protected in the Bill of Rights (guns and religion) and the only thing the politicians had done for them was to whip up fear and dislike of OTHERNESS.

So we were WAAYYYY past the door into Bizarro World when the married couple who took home $109 million over the past 6 years was calling the black kid raised by a single mother -- HE was an elitist -- pure Poppy Bush doo-doo.

Remember that he, the Yalee son of a rich family denounced Mike Dukakis -- the son of an immigrant, that DUKAKIS was elitist. In other words, the Republican approach by those in the GOP who took over and replaced race-baiting for conservatism to say "They THINK they're better than you..." never finishing that sentence to say what I think is what they truly believe: "But WE KNOW we are."

Some of it is, of course, being poorly advised.

Some of it is, of course, not being able to tell your spouse and a former president of the USA -- whose improbable rise to power was now being done by someone else -- not able to tell him to fuck off.

And of course some of it is deciding to accept those people's ideas of who she should be rather than having confidence in being who she is. ("But we elected Bill, and he told us to run YOUR campaign, so how can you argue with us? ATTACK!"

Let's see what happens over the coming months -- NOW her supporters are claiming the "DECIDING" primary will be in Puerto Rico -- not in Pennsylvania or Indiana as they've claimed all along (which makes me think they've seen some polls we haven't).


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* And the fact that she has in her, to SOME EXTENT, exactly what they convinced her she had to show all the time, the nasty attack mode. It was NOT alien to her personality -- just yesterday I read about the Valedictorian address she delivered at her Wellesley graduation, and even then, in addition to seeing ahead and stating excellent objectives, she just couldn't resist savaging the person she disagreed with, Senator Edward Brooke. (To be fair, Senator Brooke really was an irrelevant asshole -- two examples: (1) he was a black man in the Nixonian Republican party, (2) he proposed solving the problem of urban youth gang wars with free tickets to Major League Baseball games)

Someone said that perhaps my affection for Contessa Brewer is her resemblance to porn actress Sydnee Steele

I didn't know who that was, although once I saw her list of credits I realized I had a vague memory of a late night cable movie called Stolen Sex Tapes in which she was a TV news commentator.



But OK, yeah, they're both brunettes, and both faces are strong strong sensual sensual rather than pretty pretty, and now that I know who Ms Steele is I think she's just fine.





But I don't think so.

Still, who knows the workings of the deep mind of a person who falls asleep watching a movie on cable and wakes up when another one is on.

Chinese Olympics -- we go, we win, our athletes accept medals and (if they want to) wear Tibetan Flag T-shirts

Oh, and if it's at all possible, if you see the words "Made in China" on things you're planning to buy -- do without. Of course this makes visits to Target, et al largely a scenic tour, but still...

John McCain -- one step over the line, dear Jesus --

OK, I have a foul mouth and use offensive language most of the time BUT --there are STILL some words that are taboo.
John McCain used one of them -- in public, and at his wife.

This report from Wonkette (one of many sources):

McCain Called His Wife C-Word

According to Cliff Schecter's new book, The Real McCain, this one time in 1992, he went all "Hanoi" on her and called her a cunt. That is what he called her.

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

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That's the word -- still taboo.

It's even a bit of a shock when used nominatively in such feminist performances as The Vagina Monologues.

But in that performance it names a THING, a physical part of a female person.

It may NOT be used to describe that person.

Even I can't accept that.

I once heard a delightfully funny woman shout at a driver -- an elderly woman who quite rudely cut her off in traffic -- and what she shouted at her was:

"Hey lady, you got rats in your cunt."

I thought that was funny.


I did not think McCain calling out his new wife with that word (1992) was funny. In public? On the podium? In front of journalists?

Well (as my wife said, when I told her) "I guess it IS 'straight talk."

But still ... not acceptable.

And if foul-mouthed me can't find it acceptable, what about those middle America folk?

I was in Texas in 1976 and met a sweet Republican little old lady -- well, sweet to a point -- she was a widow and lived alone and slept with a .38 under her pillow -- and she said this to me:

"We didn't send Richard Nixon to the White House to use that kind of language."

And my guess -- a whole bunch of the traditional actual conservative people still in the Republican Party won't send McCain to the White House either.

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Self-serving nauseating bullshit #347 -- CNN

"This report from -------, part of the BEST POLITICAL NEWS TEAM in AMERICA."

If that comment ("the best") even approached reality, it would STILL be pissant self-serving look-at-me-how-great-I-am annoying.

But that's not even in question since, as long as that Political news Team is anchored by Wolf Blitzer, it doesn't even approach BEING an actual News Team. (And "anchor" is an apt term, as in what ties you down to the bottom of the sea.)

Blitzer is a bad joke as a journalist.

This is a man who asks the questions he's supposed to -- or, being generous, the question HE thinks he's supposed to -- AND NEVER NEVER EVER responds to an answer with a following question that indicates he EVER EVEN LISTENS to the answers to his questions. The questions are obviously there to satisfy some sort of attempt to be relevant. Relevant is one of the many things Mr. Blitzer isn't.

He's as bad as Dan Abrams (VERDICT -- MSNBC) who tells us over and over that he intends to be some catchphrase or other (an honest broker) that would mean he's fair and objective, and then goes on to say he'll call them like he sees them, as if the two were the same thing.

And he gets a lot of good people on his show and asks them questions whose answers he doesn't care about, since he's obviously made up his mind before the show began, and cuts them off before they make THEIR points (points that usually seem to be getting to a much more balanced and intelligent point than that of Mr. Abrams), usually abruptly and rudely when he looks at the ticking clock and wants to get all his "I'm such a smart boy, look at me" points in.

Hey Dan -- I've watched Keith Olbermann and you're no Keith Olbermann.

So here's to two of the lowest lowlife journalist-wannabe's on cable news, the kind of people who were begging to be beat up in that proverbial playground of their Elementary School days -- and who still stimulate thoughts of strangling or tarring-and-feathering in their viewers. Those of us who realize that laughed the loudest when Barack Obama answered Chris Matthews' question about whether or not he ever gets a good laugh from what happened during the day ("Yes") and if he still does? "No. Because I stopped watching cable news.")


(Other than Keith Olbermann, who do I think does the job?)

Contessa Brewer does the job, also on MSNBC, in the mornings.

I was channel-surfing one day and saw this typically attractive cable news anchor interviewing Ann Coulter. The questions were sharp and many were specifically in response to Mr. Coulter's answers. And right near the end, Coulter made some characteristically venomous and insane remark...

... and I turned to my wife and said "Yeah, but the one question they never ask is 'why the fuck should we care what you say or waste any of our time listening to you."

At which moment Ms Brewer proceeded to ask the polite version of that same question, to whit: why do her opinions have value? And Mr. Coulter was nonplussed.

And with that, Ms Brewer's on-screen persona won my heart.


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At a certain point, a man has to admit if someone else has a better idea ...

I have long thought that the George W Bush monument should be a simple hole in the ground where people could come from all over and look down into the creepy darkness.

But this civic-minded proposition is much better ... change the name of the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility (adjacent to the San Francisco Zoo) to the "George W Bush Sewage Plant."

Perfect poetry -- a hole in the ground through which actual human waste passes, so harmoniously resonating with the administration of that vertical column of human waste smiling and dancing less than a year longer in the White House.

This bit of genius (and it is NOT a hoax, but a real movement) came from the pseudonymous genius of whatever mind lives behind "T. Wayne Pickering" passing along the aether through writer Michael Kurland, a man who can recognize magic and brilliance when it appears, and who has upheld his civic duty by disseminating this proposal, which, by virtue of my good fortune to be one of his acquaintances has come to me and now to you.

******************************************
******************************************

March 31, 2008

Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco Formed to Honor George W. Bush

Looking to honor the forty-third President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, the recently formed Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is looking to change the name of the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility. It seems the group would like to rename the SF Zoo adjacent facility to the "George W Bush Sewage Plant."

Genius.

The local grassroots movement, helmed by "Wayne Pickering," is proposing an ordinance initiative for the November 2008 San Francisco ballot in order to get the poop/pee/vomit plant's title changed. Why? To honor our current leader of the free world with an "appropriate and enduring legacy, for no other president in modern American history has accomplished so much in such a short time.

We think this is an excellent idea.

Would you like to help out with this effort? Help collect signatures? Host meetings or social gatherings? Then, join the effort by visiting Presidentialmemorial.org. So far, there are only six members, which we find inexcusable. Together we can make a difference and setup a constant reminder of what was, arguably, the worst administration in the history of our glorious country. God bless America and God bless the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco.

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The proposal is here


The article quoted above is here:

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April 3, 2008

SFist Interview: Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco's "T Wayne Pickering"

Ever since SFist first reported on the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco's plan to re-name the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility in honor of our current POTUS, George W. Bush, it has spread--in the words of T. Wayne Pickering, chairman of the unofficial "Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco--like an "intestinal bug on a Carnival cruise ship." So far Wonkette and the Washington Post caught wind of it. A FOX interview is in the works, which is set to air tomorrow.

Before the commission's baptism by FOX, we asked Pickering (not his real name, we should mention) a few questions about his plans for getting the initiative on the November ballot. Here's what he said about his efforts at changing the name of the San Francisco poop plant, Bush's greatest moment over the last eight years, and more.

Aside from the obvious, what sparked the decision change the name of the sewage plant?
It all started at a bar. We were discussing how to pay tribute to George W Bush. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, you have to agree that the magnitude of his accomplishments must be remembered. We picked the sewage plant because Bush's greatest legacy, apart from the Global War on Terror, is his attention to the nation's infrastructure, such as the levee system that protected New Orleans so well during Hurricane Katrina.

And how do you plan on doing this?
We are submitting an ordinance initiative for the November ballot. If it passes by a simple majority, the facility will be renamed on Inauguration Day.

Have you talked to any local SF politicians about this yet? If so, what were their reactions?
Yes, we've talked to a several members of the board of supervisors and other officials. We can't speak on their behalf, but we can say there is not much institutional opposition to the idea.

Have you received any hate mail yet since it was first reported?
Not yet, Fox News should take care of that for us. We'll be on the John Gibson talk radio show Friday afternoon (details TBA)

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And the rest of the interview with T. Wayne Pickering is here

The press is against Senator Clinton? Then why do they edit her statements so they make better sense?

In other words -- bullshit.

Not only are the Clintons -- two people who were presumed to OWN the Democratic Party just a year ago -- falsely playing underdog because the voting public doesn't really like them as much as they think we're supposed to -- the press is acting like their flack or a kindly version of Pravda.

Latest example:

"Clinton ... compared herself to Philadelphia's famed cine-pugilist. "Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common," Clinton said yesterday. "I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people."



Actually, what she said was:

"...I never quit. I never get up."


We may assume she MEANT "never GIVE up," unless of course, she's presenting herself as one of the Les Grandes Horizontales,* as a basis for her "experience," but it's not the job of the press to edit ANY politician's statements to make that politician appear more coherent in reporting than in actuality.

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*Literally: "The Great Lays." And to quote from a review by Jane Stevenson in The Observer,of Virginia Rounding's book of the same title (Les Grandes Horizontales):

"...Their profligacy is easily understood by their own consuming need, which was not for sex or even for love, but for living up to their own reputations, without which they would disappear back into the obscurity from which they emerged. They ended up, consequently, with a lifestyle rather than a life."