hail to the king

Most intelligent blog on the planet.

this modern world

fucked up as hell

This story in the NYT about synthetic marijuana demonstrates in two important ways just how ridiculous and fucked up this society is:

First, how fucking ridiculous, ridiculously evil, is it to let people use dangerous chemicals that exist only to mimic the effects of a harmless weed? Pretty ridiculous, and fucked up.

Second, the kid who killed himself "began “freaking out,” saying he was “going to hell.” Isn't it possible that his ridiculous religious beliefs had at least as much to do with his suicide and the fake weed? Fucked up as hell, I say.

Brooklyn sucks

I've been spending a lot of time in the Bronx lately. The south Bronx at that. I've always heard it's like the worst fucking place on earth. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but certainly one of the worst places in New York City. Yet I've found it much more pleasant than Brooklyn. For example today I took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong crowded freeway and then drove streets for about 30 long blocks at rush hour. About two thirds of the way out I was fiddling with my phone and realized that the light had changed four or five seconds ago. Shocked, I looked in the rearview to make sure there were cars behind me. Yes, of course, it was rush hour, there were cars behind me. Yet no one honked. What the fuck was that all about? In Brooklyn they time their honks to go off the split second before the light changes. If you actually hesitate a split second into the green light, it's very possible that two or three people behind you will burst a blood vessel due to their rage. They'll certainly lay on the horn. But the Bronx was different. At least today, and why would today be any different? It never is in Brooklyn.

Picture of the day

Picture of the day

Value priced values

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed the blatant hypocrisy of the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. These paragons of morality boil with hatred for President Obama, who is by all accounts a wonderful family man. Meanwhile they cheer for Bill O'Reilly, a sleaze bag well-known for outrageous lying, bullying and sexually harassing young women one third his age. Watching that circus, reasonable people must conclude, the only values those pigs value are power and money. Unless you count hatred as a value. Then they value three. And murder? Maybe four?

On a related note, I can understand that so many values voters think President Obama is an arch-demon in the process of bringing about Armageddon and the return of an ultra-violent Christ to kill their enemies by the millions. These value voters live in a demon haunted world of primitive myth and superstition. That, plus they are plumb stupid. But what I don't get is how so many of them get away with claiming that Obama is destroying the Constitution. Although I read that people constantly make that claim, I've never seen any details of exactly how they believe he is doing it. Unless his willingness to sign laws passed by Congress is unconstitutional? Or respecting the Constitution is unconstitutional. Oh, who am I kidding. Of course I understand. Since Obama is a demon and the Constitution is whatever God's chosen people (the really chosen--right wing demagogues, not Jews) say it is, then anything the demon says or does is unconstitutional. Of course it's not entirely that simple. There's power and money in riling up the rubes. Any excuse will do. Value added, you know.

Picture of the day

Apocolypse nowadays

Talking Points Memo reports a poll that finds New Jersey Republicans to be mostly ignorant morons of biblical proportions.

To be precise, 18% of self-identified conservatives affirmatively say that Obama is the anti-Christ, with 17% not sure. Among the self-identified Republican label, it's 14% who say Obama has the number 666 hidden underneath his hair, plus 15% who aren't sure.

I mean, it's certifiably insane to believe in the existence of an anti-Christ. But how can anyone smart enough to breath even imagine that Obama is a super powerful demon who will throw the world into catastrophic religious war that will usher the return of Christ, who will kill millions?

Is there a more stupid text than Revelation, outside of the Aztecs, in any religion anywhere in the world? It's laughable primitive superstition of the worst sort. Think I'm exaggerating? I'll show you. I don't have to cherry pick. It's a fucking orchard. Just watch, nothing up my sleeve. I'll do the old "open it anywhere and point to a random paragraph" trick:

This is he who came with water and blood: Jesus Christ. He came, not by water alone, but by water and blood; and there is the Spirit to bear witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are in agreement.

Sounds like a Monty Python sketch, eh? I mean, there are four witnesses, the Spirt, the water, the blood, and the bleeding Watney's Red Barrel, natch.

Watch, I'll do it again:

Then another angel came out of the heavenly temple, and he also had a sharp sickle. Then from the alter came yet another, the angel who has authority over fire, and he shouted to the one wit the sharp sickle: 'Stretch out your sickle a, and gather in earth's grape-harvest, for its clusters are ripe.' So the angel put his sickle to the earth and gathered in its grapes, and threw them into the great wine press of God's wrath. The wine press was trodden outside the city, and for two hundred miles around blood flowed from the press to the height of the horses' bridles.

The great wine press of God's wrath? Morons.

Unfortunately, however, the poll goes on to find that New Jersey Democrats are only marginally less stupid:

32% of Jersey Democrats who say that George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. In addition, another 19% of Jersey Dems are Truther-Curious, in the undecided column.

Could there be a bit of misunderstanding there. Are those 32 percent "Truthers" or did the mean that George W. Bush had advanced warning that Al Quaeda was planning to attack targets inside the United States, which is true.

Perhaps, but I'm willing to concede that 32 percent of Democrats will believe pretty much any kind of nonsense. We, as a society, are rapidly reverting to ignorance and superstition reminiscent of the dark ages. Just because someone supports Obama doesn't mean they are enlightened. They may just believe in a different type of voodoo. More and more, whoever best manipulates primitive fear and superstition will win.

Shape of things

Regarding an alleged terror plot reported at Talking Points Memo:

...according to the Times, a law enforcement official said they had "only a hazy view of the group, its operations and goals, but decided to act fearing that undercover surveillance had failed to detect plans that might be developing."

If I read that correctly, they're saying that they arrested a bunch of people because they didn't know anything about them and couldn't prove that they were doing anything illegal. Yep. That makes sense. Perfect sense, unfortunately. In a Latin American right wing dictatorship circa 1980, pués. And ya'all wonder why I'm somewhat less than optimistic?

People who died

I just heard that Jim Carroll died. That's sad. He is one of my literary gods.

The above was an interesting little project that integrated an interview with JC about Columbine and one of his masterworks, the poem "Borges Death Mask." It's incredibly rare to see this kind of thing on TV. Amateurish production, no doubt (it was a first effort on a primitive Mac), but JC comes through as so much better than the other peoples' shows he stars in.

Alternate link here: Borges Death Mask

Yada yada, pués

As you probably know, Joe Wilson, lunatic racist bumpkin, South Carolina, screamed that Obama was a liar during the President's address to congress. Wilson, whose breach of protocol was so offensive that even fellow Republicans were embarrassed, was then forced to deliver an obviously insincere apology which Obama, of course accepted.

As I've said, I very much admire Obama and think he is a fantastic individual and the best that we can realistically hope for as president. I respect his belief in the importance of forgiving his enemies, but I'm not so sure I admire his accepting such a blatantly insincere apology for such an egregious insult. In fact, I think it was a mistake, not just strategically, but morally as well.

This was what the president likes to call a teachable moment. A racist yahoo hate nutzi who lies pretty much every time he opens his moth wrongly calls the president a liar? Obama should have made Wilson the poster boy for Republican hate, lunacy and deception. But no, he let it slide. That's not an example of superior morality. That's an example of pathetic weakness. Again, Obama demonstrates that there's nothing you can't do to him, no matter how wrong or outrageous, that will cause you any pain.

Photo essay of the day

Slideshow here.

The essay is derived from two parades from Brooklyn's West Indian Days celebration. Each year people from the Caribbean publicly celebrate their culture through a series of events in and around their community. These events present outsiders with small windows into those cultures. Many more than can be presented in a 30 picture photo essay.

Doomed, doomed I tells ya

I like Obama. I think he's a fine man. I'll go much farther than that and say I think he is the best we can possibly hope for. No other man or woman possessing his intelligence decency and wisdom could possibly become president. Thoroughly understanding the issues, being open minded, respecting people and their different views, forgiving one's enemies; these are the attributes of an exceptional person. Add to all that the fact that someone with those admirable characteristics was able to get elected and it's hard to see how a better hope than Obama could come along.

Unfortunately, the very attributes that make Obama such a fine human being make him a weak president. Once he established beyond any reasonable doubt that one could oppose him with impunity, the game was lost. The politician's greatest desire is to avoid pain and anything they do is going to hurt some way, some how. So their calculation is always what will hurt least. Supporting Obama will get a shitload of calls and emails from a bunch of ignorant fucking lunatics. They'll probably come scream at you at public events. Opposing Obama costs you nothing. You may even get rewarded. No strings attached. What's a poor apparatchik to do? No, to succeed as president, Obama needs make those who oppose him, particularly those in his own party, feel pain. He has to be a ruthless asshole that doesn't give a fuck about someone else's point of view beyond figuring out how to bend it to his own. Can he do that? Can he do it without becoming somebody else? One of them? I'm guessing no.

But ultimately, I don't think it really matters what Obama does. In the "tides of history" vs "great leader" debate, I'm 90 percent or so on the side of "tides of history" theory of predicting the future. Right now it looks like the tide is washing in an era of stupidity and violence. We are a thoroughly corrupt oligarchy drifting rapidly totalitarian. The media ranges from stupidly irresponsible to consciously ultra-partisan. More and more people are effectively brainwashed. Not only are they ignorant of the facts, they are angrily averse to knowing them. They'll believe what they're told by their leaders, no matter how outrageous and their leaders are telling them democracy and rule of law are not legitimate, Those, and other socialist ideas (such as education, to name just one) are, in fact, dire threats to national security, to Amercan's children, all things good and God Almighty.

Were Obama to consult poor chuckling, I'd advise him to give a big speech on the Mall detailing just exactly how and why our political system is irreparably broken, then resign and emigrate to France in order to devote all his energy to writing. He'd probably accomplish much more that way than by turning into a ruthless asshole. But you never know. I can see how one might argue that he give being a ruthless asshole a chance, then if that doesn't work out go with the expat option.

Hindsight

In retrospect, it became obvious that Obama would fail miserably as president when he pushed the Senate democrats to let Joe Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship. That act sent the message loud and clear that not only could people oppose him on this or that issue; they could kick him in the nuts, stab him in the back, bitch slap his wife--whatever-- and he wouldn't do a damn thing about it (except maybe try to suck up to them even more).

Pictures of the day

Picture of the day

Picture of the day

A forest

I need some text here to separate the photo above from the one below. So I'll just type something here. Anything. It doesn't matter. Just to take up space. It would simply ooze. Like toxic sludge through the neural pathways. No. No politics. Best not to write about it. Sure, it would take up some space, but it would also take up space in my head, and possibly yours. No. No, We don't want that. Best not to think about it, eh? Think about something else. Look at the pretty forest. Sure is pretty. I like pretty forests.

See, this post looks better already. That space sure helps. A second paragraph is nice as well. One line should be enough, though it probably would look better with two. No, now that I'm looking at it, I think three lines are definitely called for. You say I have four? Damn.

Picture of the day

Before we get to the daily neighborhood report, we have an important personnel announcement. chuckling on-line magazine's photo editor has taken a leave of absence and will be replaced by a new guy that likes pictures of flowers. After the incredibly tranquil trip to Quebec, we feel it's best to look at pretty shapes and colors in an undisturbing kind of way. Enough of that black and white shit. Eh?

I finally downloaded the Offender Locator app. I'd been putting it off because I was so afraid of what I'd see. Living in a densely populated urban area which is, one must assume from what one sees, home to a ridiculously high number of malfunctioning individuals, I figured there's be at least a hundred sex offenders within a three block radius and that I'd recognize more than a few of them. Several guys I see regularly hang out on the sidewalk and make rude sexual suggestions to female passersbye. I just saw the worst of the two a few minutes ago when I went to the fruit market to get a red onion. He was sitting on a crate between the lemons and the limes, shirt off, sacked half pint going back and forth between his crotch and his lips. The guy always has a half pint. He makes his living, such as it is, sitting in front of businesses harassing females until the owner buys him a half pint to go sit in front of someone else's business. I expected to see that guy in the offender list at the very least. But it turned out to be not that bad and I didn't recognize anybody. No one near our block and only a few in a pretty wide area.

What a world, eh?