Atheist Meditations

That last post does not sit well with me. I believe I was trying to get at something real, but taboos 'gainst criticizing soldiers be strident. This theme will not be abandoned. Please do not judge her on this single posting.

(shit is in the title)


This link, be some quality shit. I don't know who 'Human Events' is supposed to be, and I'm as inclined to believe they've 'been leading the conservative movement since 1944' is big joke upon anyone who might take them seriously. That's a pretty stupid statement.

Anyhoo, this site is still important. I'd like to pretend that most of my fellow American's possess a mental regime of skepticism and robust critical thinking that would tear a fish ass website like that right into the emergency room; yet I know I'm wrong. 30 to 40 % of our population has no critical thinking skills. They can't tell the difference between a journalism and propaganda - any society that approaches such a number is fucked. What has been done to this next generation has fucked us.

Look at that fucking website. The only two attacks on Mr. Obama are vague insinuations presented in the passive voice. Subscribe to their email (and further narrow your media intake) and then they will give you 'the ammunition' to blow away your ideological opponents.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that had a christian cross and a handgun as symbols on the same decal. That's some heavy shit. If you are too stupid to understand how horrific it is to see those two symbols combined by a right wing group anywhere in America; you've just sold off all your shares in America. It is only fucking obvious that fascists in this country would like to see the vast wealth and military power of America diverted to their own petty goals. That's what fucking fascists do, and it is retarded to think that a country with population exceeding 300 million would not have enough of a selfish subculture that idolizes Adolf to be a problem.

Candy asses pretend that problems are going to go away. Fucking American's deal with their problems.

I'm irritated with any American who hasn't spent six months of their adult life studying Hitler's fascist rise to power. Any ten year old must be able to deduce that if bad shit where going to happen in America, it would almost certainly be something more like Hitler than Red Dawn. If one has any duty as a citizen, you'd think it would be understanding how Germany went wrong or how many American corporations thought fascism was totally profitable and groovy.

There is a story from the recent local press that gives some life to this point. A recently returned Iraqi Crusader crashed a party recently, drunk off his ass. A proud Minnesotan stood up to him, asked him to leave a party his was not invited too, and this poor messed up vet pulled a handgun our Governor is so proud to have 'concealed carried' into legality; a struggle ensued and our Minnesotan victim of the Iraqi Occupation ended up on the wrong side of his own gun.

Now the guy who killed someone who brought a gun to a fist fight is looking at serious criminal time.

Fuck all, and I think this is an important message for all my liberal brothers and sisters to catch on too. Conservatives have changed the world from the happy liberal fantasy of the early nineties.

I still hang out in local bars and I still drink. If you are an asshole at my bar I'm going to tell you so. Get physical with me and I even see a hint of a concealed weapon - I'm going to kill you. Fuck you, anyone with an IQ over seventy must realize that the human body is a massive combination of vulnerable targets combined into consciousness; fists can subdue, guns kill.

Bush and his holding company have worked hard to make this country a more dangerous place. 'Liberals' need to wise the fuck up. The strategies we utilized in the past were noble, but not so useful in the current paradigm. You need to 'man up', and enforce your own territory.

Up until Rupert Murdoch started blowing shit bubbles out of his mouth, most liberals understood that their gains were paid for in blood. Corporations don't give you shit, you have to take it.

This next generation, we'll see.

Labels: Generation Next

Dear Young Lady,

I know that the industrious young employee's at Booze-Mart pride yourselves on efficiency, so I didn't interfere with the seamless transactions of alcohol for currency upon which your establishment has built it's obviously solid foundations. Yet somehow I find myself compelled to write this. Now that I have added it to the AM blog, I expect the world to take notice.

First off, let me say that you seem to me to be a nice young thing. I particularly appreciate the tight green T-shirt and the low riding jeans that displayed some curves about your hips and lower stomach that engaged my imagination in some truly novel ways. You're always polite with a smilet when I make some witty observation on the advertising strategies of various breweries and such. These traits, combined with the fact that you work in a liquor store must make you a fairly prized object of competition amongst the young men of your social group.

I'd like to confront you upon choice of music. Every time I pop in to grab a box of Summit Extra Pale Ale for 10.99 a twelve pack, you seem to have the shop radio tuned to pop country.

This is an affliction I hate to see such a delightful nymph languishing under.

More than once I have yearned in my soul to reach over and switch that radio from that painful, monoculture schlock to KFAI - 106.7 in St. Paul, 90.3 in Minneapolis - where I almost guarantee that the very first song you hear will be awesome. Perhaps it will be some dirty Mississippi Delta Blues or some energetic, new Hip Hop from East Africa that helps you and your deliciously exposed caramel mid-riff get your groove on . . .

But I digress. You see, pop country is not culture. It is crap that be mass produced, the most important aspect of pop country is the highly developed infrastructure that allows them to blast the same stale music into suburbs all over the country. I has only the stalest of connections to the forms of country music that were popular in previous generations, and none of the honesty or ideological variety that defined a genre of such artists as Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. Pop country is intended to sound like every pop country song that came out before it (or worse like a twangified version of '80's hair metal) and with just about the entire distribution network owned by a few rich, old, white men who are proud of their slave own'n, Hispanic hate'n family histories. No artist who writes a song that offends them or their take on how America should be will ever get radio play again.

Try KFAI. A lot of what you will here on this station are local artists, or musician well respected by other musicians in their communities. Not a good looking guy who has managed to turn his vocal talents into something that makes him a millionaire (and lets those bastards who own those radio stations and record studios remain multi-millionaires) ; women and men with so much music in them it forces them to live in poverty just to keep making music.

There is a huge fucking difference. Once you start listening to KFAI, music can become so much more to you. Once you begin to take in all of the different styles and comprehend how they have changed and grown as new artists from the next generation fill the places of the old masters. History becomes more alive, and evolution in Ideas, life, art becomes spiritually compelling.

It's as simple as this. The more true culture you are exposed to, the more your potential as a human being develops. Plants need sunlight to grow, humans need legitimate social interaction. The more culture you absorb the more you will demand it. The more you demand it, the more starving artists will find audiences, rather than the great deals at Booze-Mart.

Attractive young women shape their communities by the choices they make. I wouldn't be the man I am if it were not for dozens of great, cultured women. Don't throw away your power.

Sincerely,
Mr. Summit & Sideburns


P.S.
I hope this don't make things awkward when I stop in tomorrow to buy another case of Summit.

Labels: Open Letters, pseudo-inspirational

A few things that have happened to me in the last twenty-four have been difficult to file logically in my head.

If a man, dressed up in somber greys with a black tie, comes into Walgreens to purchase a single sympathy card; why would the woman behind the counter tell him to, 'have a great day' ?

Also, I sort of participated in the strangest conversation with some cousins last night. After defining a sanctuary city from Las Vegas as, 'where they look down on Vegas, a place where they actually have some taste, some culture,' he supported his position by describing a great house there in terms of square footage?!?

No. This is not my humble opinion, wealth does not equal culture. Taste is not defined by square footage. Sheer volume can impress (like when you walk into a cathedral) but what delineates taste lies in the how one uses that space. "Four hundred and sixty square feet, with a piano," fails to convey the sense of awe I'm sure you felt.

In my former life I was forced to work in the homes of many of Minnesota's richest families. Nothing can invoke the irksome sense of ironic tragedy like the combination of surplus wealth with zero taste. I liked to look at it with a Dante'sque Eye, they created their own Hell of Disharmony that they are too ignorant to suffer from. Nothing like a bored hausfrau using a credit card to fill an emotional void, then trying to explain to you what she 'created' in this room.

Of course, some know that they have no taste, or just want to have it without understanding it, so they hire an interior designer. An interesting little niche of the New Bourgeoisie, usually artistic trophy wives who make a 'business' out of designing rooms for her husband's friends. Chatting up other women and showing a healthy amount of tits to the Man of the House.

Oh well, the world is a huge place and every human being has a whole world of contextual opinions about how that world does and should operate. The distance between my own treasured consciousness and that of others makes the nothingness between galaxies seem but a skip.

Everything that is you be within your mind. From the depths of your emotions to the thrilling peaks of your passions. You can create nothing (except a child) that is not defined by the limits of your imagination and fineness of your understanding. Seek to understand many things. Experience deeply. If you open yourself to the lives of others and the works of artists, both contemporary and those speech even death has not stilled, something great will begin to grow within you. Culture will become more than square feet and damn piano.

It is your life. It is your consciousness! Revel in consciousness!

Labels: personal, pseudo-inspirational

This article on totally jived with me, so here's a link.

Now I'm off to the middle of no where North Dakota to fulfill familial obligations. Grr.

A letter to NPR regarding Danial Shorr's recent commentary on the Libby Pardon.


To whom it may concern:

Hearing daily how NPR is a 'bullhorn' for the liberal left - with references to Mr. Shore's commentary as a major point of proof - I'm forced to submit this comment.

To summarize his 'analysis': don't analyze a President's pardons.

Any commentary that does not include a reference to how our current President's father used his pardon of Mr. Weinberger to effectively kill an investigation into Iran Contra; or lays out the current talking point about Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich without mentioning that Scooter Libby was that felon's lawyer are not fulfilling a journalists duty to inform his/her public.

If one is just going to be a glorified blogger, at least have a site where others can comment publicly.

No Liberal has ever wasted public airtime with the message : 'you are powerless to do anything, so just stop thinking about it.'

Labels: NPR, Open Letters

First of all, I fucking know that Bush didn't pardon his motherfucking ass. He commuted the prison time associated with his conviction because the Imperial President can do whatever the fuck he wants. He decides what parts of laws He will recognize, and He decides which parts of a sentence His lackey's will serve.

One observation the amuses me: how different this is from most other pardons. Except for a few of the more high profile pardons, most presidential pardons are granted as favors to individuals who have long ago paid the price for their transgressions. Individuals who seek a pardon as a way of wiping a past mistake off of their record - they paid their fines and did their time decades ago - they seek a cleansing of their personal and family honor.

Not a high point in our political culture, but not necessarily an evil that has to be immediately confronted.

Libby didn't get that. His conviction for lying and obstructing justice remains a stain on his cute little name. Maybe Bush just felt he could not pull it off with nixonian approval ratings. More likely he just don't fucking care. Neo cons are like evags in that they just have no sense of public shame. "Who fucking cares how many allegations of corruption and convictions follow my name?!? That don't mean fucking shit to the clique of wealthy men that I run with. I'll still command all the respect a man called 'scooter' by his betters is ever going to fucking command. I've learned to like it."

He's a bitch, a lap dog. Always has been one. . . 'Scooter'.

Still, it is interesting how weak he must be. His bitch, Judith Miller, who published all that junior high level propaganda - rah rah rah , WMD, rah, rah, rah, anonymous source says - did some time refusing to give him up. Became a martyr for the Forth Estate to those whose goldfishesque public memories went back neigh four days.

Scooter can't do any time. He can't even endure processing.

He's got the shit to roll uphill on his masters, but not the balls. Yet Cheney has commanded Bush lay out the pardon, so this guy can't be trusted to have the sac to hold out for even a few hours.

What a condemnation of George W Bush. A man who saw himself as the enforcer of his family, who granted favors and purged underlings based solely on loyalty to the Bush Family. The number two to his number two can't be trusted. No mafia, or even a fucking drug peddling street gang would permit such a limp dick to rise so high; to ever let serious shit pass before a man who can't be absolutely trusted to do a stretch for the organization.

It is ironic in the darkest fucking way that a group of men who are willing to devote five years, with teams of psychologists and treatment that mocks the Geneva Conventions , for the breaking of one of their Al-Qeida enemies - they cannot count on one of their own lieutenants doing a week in a minimum security country club. Oh, he just can't survive being away from his children. . .

I'm re-reading this posting and I think the logical analysis stands 100%. Scooter is already a sympathetic figure to the 30% of my retarded fellow Americans who consume one of Mr. Murdoch's products. Not retarded because they were born that way, retarded because his products are marketed as predictably damaging to the 'ignorant rabble' who consume them. I don't think any human being is 'ignorant rabble', but after a few years of choking on Rupert's Big Media Dick - you might be damaged beyond salvation.

Public Relations 101, particularly after the losses in '06 and the current trends, be to let Scooter do eighteen months and spend every minute lionizing his suffering at the hands of vicious partisans. The fact that they can't do that with him shows how weak he is.