Archive for May, 2017

yahoos and yahoos

Wednesday, May 31st, 2017

Ugh.

Who Radicalized Jeremy Christian? Alt-Right Extremists Rush to Distance Themselves From MAX Slaying Suspect.

I actually have some intellectual support for their claim — “he’s not one of us — we worked to ditch him from our groups, etc”, all he is is some deeply disturbed troubled guy, there is no ideology at work with him.

Or I would.  If not for two problems.  One: the sheer egregiousness and noxiousness of their, quote-in-quote, “alt right” message.  OF COURSE theirs is the message and movement he’ll be tacking over toward.  And, more importantly… Two: when a Muslim miscreant of the same basic type (or is it a miscreant “who happens to be Muslim”) walks in and, say, blows gun shots in an Orlando night-club — this is the group who more than anyone will not be making any distinction between the nutcase and the broader Muslim community.

new silky new road

Tuesday, May 30th, 2017

I.  We see the Larouche org making hay about the various mechanitions of the “Deep State” against the President Trump.  Hailing recent comments deriding the “coup” from Robert Parry, Dennis Kucinich, and Daniel McCarthy — and here we must note McCarthy’s warning, which is favorably quoted by Team Larouche.

“If [Trump] is impeached and removed on anything but the most ironclad and universally accepted grounds, the country will experience a great paroxysm, not of violence, one hopes, but a much more radical rejection of the political establishment in both parties, and of the beyond-partisan deep state, than anything we have seen before. The crisis of legitimacy that led to Trump’s election in the first place will only get worse. The brutal truth is that an impeachment is already underway—not of the President, but of Washington’s entire political elite.”

Yes.  This from the “Impeach Cheney First” and the group that — right until the last days of the “Existential Threat” that was the Obama Presidency demanded his ouster to Save the Universe.

Elsewhere we see the praising of the ironclad universally mocked Nixonian comments of Trump — parsed with this editorial commentary —

“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately — (laughter) — especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly. [Except Lyndon LaRouche—ed.] You can’t let them get you down. You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams. (Applause.) I guess that’s why I — thank you. I guess that’s why we won.
“Adversity makes you stronger. Don’t give in. Don’t back down. And never stop doing what you know is right. Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy. And the more righteous your right, the more opposition that you will face.”
Nixonian or Larouchian?

Interestingly, the obsession of Larouche is Robert Mueller’s past prosecutorial role with Larouche in the big Trials of the 1980s.  And so Trump and Larouche are now joined at the hip — the “Get Larouche Task Force” up and running to “Get Trump”.

Even though…

Lyndon LaRouche today warned that there is a British-run coup d’état in process against the Trump Administration in the United States, which threatens to parlay the stupid and dangerous April 6 air strike against Syria, into a full-fledged thermonuclear confrontation with Russia and China.
It’s the British bastards who duped President Trump into attacking Syria, with their lies and false intelligence, LaRouche charged.

See.  When Trump does wrong.  It’s the British who did it.  Got that?

So where are the Larouchies?, asks the Chicago Tribune:
Anybody else notice that the Larouchies who were out on street corners for the last eight years braying for Obama to be impeached are suddenly nowhere to be seen? Wonder why that is, certainly not because they’re a gaggle of bigots.
Or it might have something to do with Kinkos costing a bit more after merging with Fed Ex.

II.  The Larouchies are right now moving on full speed trumpeting up the “New Silk Road” project.  Speculators are speculating, and noting increased mention of Lyndon Larouche in past tense terminology, that this suggests a pivot toward Helga Zepp Larouche.
I ponder whatever happened to Glass Steagall, and why the movement hasn’t abandoned Trump due to his abandoning of the Glass Steagall.  And if they don’t care so much about Glass Steagall, how can anyone trust them to stick to a New Silk Road?
Note:  Big enough to get into the house organ for the John Birch Society.

III.  Amusing footnote in the creation of Bull Durham.

For Nuke LaLoosh’s name, Shelton had to travel to Columbia, South Carolina, where he was preparing one evening to dine at the Radisson Hotel. As he sat down for a cocktail, the waiter greeted him.
“Hello, sir, my name is Ebby Calvin LaRouche, and I’ll be your server tonight,” the waiter said, “but you can just call me ‘Nuke.’ ”
Shelton jotted the name down on a napkin, wondering whether “Nuke” was spelled like a nuclear meltdown or like the nickname “Newk,” as in the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe.He went with the former, then altered the last name because he did not want it associated with the radical leftwing LaRouche Movement authored in the 1970s and 1980s by Lyndon LaRouche.
Shelton worried ever after that the waiter would one day demandroyalty fees from the movie for using his name as Robbins’ character. He never got the call.

IV.  Interesting terminology to parse.
Senior American Political Expert Michael Billington.

In a recent interview with the far-right LaRouche PAC, Black also suggests a recent chemical weapons attack in Syria — carried out by Syrian government forces, according to eyewitnesses — was likely a “false flag.”
V.   Historical Legacies Noted.
Recalling the Obama Hitler era posters of yore
 Country Music sings more about Pot than even Rap.  Lyndon LaRouche’s war on drugs wanted to punish anyone playing or selling rock and roll, but country artists have gotten off scot free.
VI.  This is funny.
 Discussing the French national election.  They don’t know that they’re talking about Cheminade, and who Cheminade is…

‘one dark horse even claiming that the Queen of England was involved in drug smuggling. ‘
You’re probably too young to remember, but for many years this was Lyndon Larouche’s signature conspiracy theory.
Ha! I do remember that, and I was talking about Lyndon Larouche a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine (who is a music professor) because I remembered something about Larouche wanting the musical standard to be changed from middle C = 440 Hz to A = 256 Hz. Something to do with 256 being 2^8 and that somehow being in tune with the universe. It almost makes sense if you ignore that Hz is cycles per second, and a second is a unit people agreed on to measure time by the same standard. It doesn’t have any significant value derived from the universe.

I really can’t imagine why you would apply a binary structure to music anyway, it doesn’t make sense on a conceptual level.

 As this suggests, politicians are not merely engaged in prestige games, but have more imperial ambitions at stake. The maverick French presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade has openly expressed a desire to build a settlement on Mars, calling it the “promised land”.

By strictly leveling the playing field, the temps de parole rule certainly boosts the visibility of smaller contenders polling below five percent – including for Jacques Cheminade, who wants to colonise Mars, and Jean Lassalle, a centrist who has campaigned around France on foot.
However, for years broadcasters have blasted the strict equality rule as being incredibly difficult to enforce in practice. They said it actually risked discouraging them from hosting political shows.

Communist firebrand Nathalie Arthaud vowed to protect French workers from being “strangled by the capitalist system”, while anti-EU nationalists such as Francois Asselineau, Nicolas DuPont-Aignan and Jacques Cheminade enjoyed rare airtime.

And then there’s Jacques Cheminade (0.5 per cent), who has been running since 1995 and is planning to colonise Mars.

Three candidates — Philippe Poutou of the New Anticapitalist Party, Jacques Cheminade of Solidarity and Progress, and the unaffiliated centrist representative Jean Lassalle were qualified at the last minute and will join the list of the first eight candidates that have each collected a minimum 500 signatures necessary to run.

Jacques Cheminade, 75: Veteran former civil servant who received 0.25 percent of the vote in the 2012 presidential election.

Any of these candidates could pull ahead in race. It seems Trump’s win as the U.S. President has opened the door of opportunity for chaos and upheaval around the presidential election in France.

Jacques Cheminade and Philippe Poutou both of small far-left parties

 

contemporary adolescent triggers

Sunday, May 28th, 2017

Apparently, there’s a bit of a hub ub over “13 Reasons Why”, which is a book that deals with teenage suicide — and now more importantly a tv (or rather screen, see: Netflix) series adapting said book.  And so goes a great new moral panic.

And a perceived spike in teen suicide is being placed on “13 Reasons Why”.  We’ll just have to see if suicide drops off when the series fades from memory, I suppose.

And maybe or maybe not.  I know Cheryl Strayed “Wild” and the Reese Witherspoon adaption aggravated the curators of the Pacific Crest Trail, viewing it as encouraging inexperienced hikers to come on out and discover themselves.  And they have a point.  So I can’t dismiss art — life connections out of hand.  But it does strike me as blaming Ozzy Osbourne’s “Suicide Solution” for implanting such ideas.

Notwithstanding the criticism in the MacLeans article about the precise nature of the book and series, the artistic direction that posits the true problem with the series lies in the details.  Suggests to impressionable kids they can narrate their stories. Yeah, well.  Can’t write the book otherwise.

horrors of the day

Wednesday, May 24th, 2017

So...

An explosion that appeared to be a suicide bombing killed at least 22 people on Monday night and wounded 59 others at an Ariana Grande concert filled with adoring adolescent fans, in what the police were treating as a terrorist attack.

Ariana Grande.  The previous terrorist attack from an al Qaeda affiliation of Islamic Extremism in Europe… now being interviewed and having twitter feed quoteth.

Eagles of Death Metal.

No musical genre is safe.
Actually, I recall 1996, at the time of the Olympic bombings in Atlanta.  (By some American right wing terrorist).  A concert was being performed by… whom?  No one big, but it was in a way the most media attention they’d receive.

The other thing I’ve always pondered… the Orlando gay night club shootings of a year ago… the “Left”‘s focus was on the “gay” part, the “Right”‘s focus was on the “Muslim perpetrator” part.  (Even as only in that retro-active manner of how ISIS or al Qaeda groups claim everything do they have anything in effect here).  Who was more “right”?  I guess the one about him having military weapons on him…
Interesting news tidbits abound.  Just kind of curious, as I skip from one connector to another.
Ngo, 30, a lifelong Portlander and grad student in political science, says his crime was political incorrectness, not just what he tweeted. “Some of my past writing has been controversial on campus because of the subjects I’ve covered,” he says.
Those topics included profiles of ex-Muslims and pro-Trump students of color on campus.

“Pro Trump Students of Color on Campus”?  All 5 of them?  Is that “rare species of exotic floral” school of news coverage worthwhile?

the conundrum of celebrity deaths

Monday, May 22nd, 2017

The last time I heard someone discussing Chris Cornell, it was someone clearly not a fan — or at least apt to mock the post- Soundgarden career and thinking Audioslave sucks eggs.

What’d be interesting is if I caught up with the man and found him… eulogizing in whatever manner a man he clearly cared enough to have strong opinions regarding.

big commencement address

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

Inspiring words from the Commander in Chief.

“No politician in history . . . has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can’t let them get you down, can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams.”

“Over the course of your life, you’ll find things are not always fair.  Things happen to you that you do not deserve and are not always warranted, but you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. Never, ever give up. Things will work out just fine.”

Did you catch his evocation of Winston Churchill in that repetitive mantra?

“Never, ever ever ever ever give up.”

Did you catch his evocation of Richard Nixon?

Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

Did you catch the evocation of Bill Clinto…

odd effect if you do this…

Friday, May 12th, 2017

Kind of a yin and yang…

marvelcomicsstorybookfantagraphicscomicsstory  Yes.  One’s a history of Marvel Comics, the other’s an oral history of Fantagraphics. Two different conceptions of just what is it “Comic Books”, companies in juts and starts making their way…

It’s worthwhile putting these two books next to each other, and just flipping back.  But there mostly at a couple of intersection points. How’s Jim Shooter’s going at Marvel at the time he’s testifying on behalf of Michael Fleisher?

Study the Hero’s World purchase, and the consolidation of Diamond as a comic book industry distribution monopoly.

The question that hovers over the Marvel book is — erm? — When did Marvel Comics lose it, if they ever really had it anyway?  So goes the story of Marvel — a long series of short term business decisions booming and busting before being bought by Disney.  The story of Fantagraphics:  a line of unprofitable comics they believe in subsidized by a number of sell-outs, most notably porn, and the rights to a 26 volume epic on the adventures of a boy and his dog.