Saintperle

1/31/10

OK -- what REALLY momentous event occured on 9-11? (2005)



http://pics.livejournal.com/eyeteeth/pic/00056035

It was the first National Bilby Day in Australia.

Bilbies -- right out there in front of all contenders for "Cutest Wild Animal in the World" 

They were almost extinct until Frank Manthey and Peter McRae decided the word needed every bit of cute-itude it had.

September 11, 2005.

Of course, the Aussies -- like us, their fellow Americans -- value a holiday weekend over true homage.

As with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -- both birthdays concatenated into a holiday for a three-day weekend, National Bilby Day is now -- and for the future --  the second Sunday of September.

 But, wottehell, boss -- beats the hell out of having no National Bilby Day at all, but still, it would be most fine to have something, once the memory of the horror in New York has faded,  have something so positive and magical linked to that date --- 

9-11 - National (International?) Bilby Day

 It's got my vote.


National Parks and Wildlife Service - Save the Bilby Fund-for the endangered Bilby , a member of the Bandicoot family.  In Charleville, SW QLD, a 25 square km area of the Currawinya NP is being fenced to help save the Bilby for re-introduction to the wild.  Some 40 Bilbies will be set into the wild.  Image shows twin 3 month old male Bilbys who will be set free into the fenced area.

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1/24/10

Andrew O'Hehir's Review of Sundance screening of Amir Bar-Lev's Eye-opening movie: "The Tillman Story"

The Tillman Story

Just before Sundance, director Amir Bar-Lev changed the title of his documentary from I'm Pat Fucking Tillman, reportedly the last words that the NFL star-turned-Army Ranger said while being gunned down by his own comrades in Afghanistan. But this seemingly nondescript new title has a resonance that becomes clear when you watch Bar-Lev's fascinating account, made with the consent and cooperation of Tillman's family. You see, The Tillman Story isn't just about the fact that Tillman was killed by friendly fire and the military brass lied about it, and essentially have never stopped lying. It's also about the fact that from the moment of his death, and even before, the former Arizona State and Arizona Cardinals star became a mythic, über-patriotic hero, the centerpiece of a right-wing, pro-military propaganda fable. He was never allowed to be who he was, a surprising, curious, and even eccentric individual who didn't fit the mold of either football player or gung-ho soldier.
Tillman returned from a tour of duty in Iraq convinced that the war there was both ill-advised and illegal; he reportedly had read essays about American foreign policy by Noam Chomsky and expressed an interest in meeting him. But as Bar-Lev's film makes clear, it isn't fair for the left to try to steal Tillman back and make him into its own hero figure. He joined the military in the first place, it appears, out of a genuine belief in patriotic self-sacrifice (although he never discussed the decision in public), and reading Chomsky was part of Tillman's wide-ranging self-education, which also included Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Book of Mormon. (He was personally an atheist, but had an almost academic interest in religion.) In this funny, profane and profoundly sad film, Bar-Lev depicts Tillman and his similarly unconventional parents and brothers as belonging to a vanishing species: Americans who hew to no ideological standard, and who actually think for themselves.

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OK, I admit it -- I bought the government-created story of Pat Tillman, but not the way they intended. They wanted us to think of him as a gung-ho superstar. To me, all that beret-headed photo made me think was that he was an officious Pain-in-the-Ass self-aggrandizing Superstar Wannabe, the kind of insufferable asshole we used to call a "Bozo Lifer" back in the day.  But apparently, in reality, he was an extraordinary man in the most positive sense --  the kind of guy I would have liked to know, and would have felt privileged to be accepted as his friend -- the kind of man Mr O'Hehir defines in the last sentence of his review. 

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1/22/10

The question in Haiti, is "What do you call that thing?"

-- The always fascinating (and voracious reader and generous sharer of information), Jane Walsh informed me of this:

The Haitians do NOT have 
a word for EARTHQUAKE



I guess they'll either adopt one from the French or neologistically come up with one of their own pretty soon, if they haven't already done so.

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(Nor do they have a word for snow, as PA gov Ed Rendell pointed out after welcoming 50 Haitian orphans -- prearranged before the quake to have new homes in PA -- and having to explain what it was, that cold white stuff falling from the sky.)

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1/21/10

Un-f**cking-believable

So the right-wing Bush-Cheney court that set the precedent of "You don't have to win the election if you can stack the Supreme Court," have now gone further and done the legal equivalent of telling the corporate establishment of the USA:

"Hey guys, we're bent over and greased up, cuz we're your bitches* and you have a green light to do the same to the American Public, only now you can do it without lubrication."

That green light?

Removing ANY limits to corporations pumping as much money as they want into a political campaign (remember -- those contributions are tax-deductible, i.e., WE get to pay for the royal screwing) And, oh, yeah, they can use DBA and need not reveal which corporation and which human beings are behind the putsch.

So Blackwater and Halliburton and AIG and Goldman-Sachs can make  TV movies that tell us how Senator Dipshit actually walked on water as a child to save three nuns and a puppy from drowning, and even today, he farts unicorns.

Or go even farther into such a bizarre sci-fi surreal fantasy, it would make the late Williams Burroughs seem like Bill Moyers, telling us that the particular bought-and-paid for sleazoid running for office is  REALLY SINCERELY HONESTLY concerned with the welfare of the American public.  (Uhh, I should clarify that -- doing GOOD things for the people's welfare, not paying close attention to it just to figure out what's left to steal.)

And as the TV shows the black-robed Star Chamber criminals sitting for a photo with the monster-in-chief John Roberts laughing and schmoozing, I think once again of my father's IWW and black-listed pals' overly simple (but probably effective) solution: "Hang 'em from the lampposts."

(Interesting how the  traditional ways still make lots and lots of sense.)

Does this mean I'm guilty of contempt of court? You'd better goddamn believe it.

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*Remember - I NEVER -- nor should you,  insult whores by using that word for Supreme Court justices, because  - I know, I say this over and over, but it still needs to be said -- real whores do NOT sell anything that doesn't belong to them.
Now we notice (if we haven't before) that the Supremes have joined the ranks of politicians, bankers, businessmen, and other thieves and protection-racket mobsters in the great Free-Market Flea-Market of marked down-virtues. Except THEIR goons carry guns and badges.

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January 22, 2010


ADDENDUM: someone pointed out the bizarre concept that, in a constitutionally legal definition, a corporation IS a person, but someone accused of terrorism or being an enemy combatant, is NOT a person. Curiouser and curiouser.



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1/13/10

Pat Robertson is vicious, petty, soulless creep...

Here he comes again with his same old creepy vindictive story:


"The people of Haiti DESERVE to suffer -- they are cursed by God because they made a pact with the Devil in order to be free of France..."

Maybe some missionary could take the time and abuse, and convert him to Christianity, a religion that features compassion in its mission statement.

He's pretty fucking self-righteous for a man who, as a Marine, called his daddy the senator, from Japan, to PUHLEEESE get him out of going to Korea...

He got what he wanted.

The Deal?

Spend his enlistment providing booze and whores for officers...


Which makes it a lot more likely, given those duties, that HE made a pact with the devil to stay out of combat while the rest of his battalion went into that swirling frozen toilet of death...

You think?

Because every time I hear that whining craven voice I think of some obsequious minor demon whispering and tempting, working shit jobs for Satan, aggrandizing and amusing himself when off-duty by spitting venom ...

What comes to mind is the name Tolkien gave to his creepy craven whisperer --  "Wormtongue"

Hmm .. maybe we could ask him if it's true that the devil fucks his minions in the ass for HIS amusement.

He would know.

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1/4/10

Difference between disappointment with Bill Clinton and same with Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton has said that the hostility against Bill when he was president was so irrational, biased, partisan, predisposed and not connected to any actuality that:


"If he walked on water, they'd attack him for not being able to swim."

Conversely, when Obama was elected, people (liberals, et al) EXPECTED him to be able to walk on water and now they're furious, acting as if they've been cruelly cheated since they found out that he's just a swimmer -- a really strong swimmer -- but isn't THAT guy, the one they chatted with in their minds.

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