(re)collections ov a lost coyote ...

2009-05-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

Book Buzz: New Murakami Novel Causes Stir
by Claudine Zap
41 hours ago

The plot is a tightly held secret. The title gives no clue. And that, just like "Harry Potter" buzz, is the nifty marketing formula to make the newest Haruki Murakami tome a hit in Japan—before it's even hit the shelves.
Except unlike the boy-wizard series, this author writes esoteric epics like "The Wind-up Bird Chronicles" and "Kafka on the Shore." Not exactly the stuff of summer blockbusters. According to the AP, the popular Japanese writer is a ringer for the Pulitzer Prize in literature. Just to be clear, this is also the country that brought us "Godzilla" and "Hello, Kitty."
Although a marketing campaign to sell a literary novel seems contrived, it's actually in response to the last time the author released a book, five years ago. Fans complained that the impact of the novel was diminished by too much press coverage, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
This time around, it's very hush-hush—and the secrecy has only fueled pre-order book sales. The publisher had to rush another 100,000 copies into print to keep up with the reading frenzy. Theories abound on the title, the not very helpful "1Q84." An homage to George Orwell's "1984?" One thing's for sure: The writer's not talking.
Maybe the bookworms will celebrate the novel's arrival by dressing up as their favorite characters and showing up at bookstores at midnight. While there's no telling when the book will be translated into English, who knows—a movie based on the book could already be in the works. Take that, wizard boy.

back, motherfucker

2009-04-29T20:03:00.001-07:00

I'm fucking back.

Anonymous, your fuckin' ass is mine.

coyote

Shit To Review For August ... Sorry, been busy as fuck ...

2006-08-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

Time to cover alot of shit in such a short amount of time ...

Hactivist John Georgelas waived his rights to plead the 5th and went with [what's behind door number two, Johnny? ] GUILTY and sentenced for close to 3 years for using his webservice AT WORK to try to deface the website for the American Isreal Public Affairs Committee. The FBI arrested him in April BEFORE the defacing occure. He also had to pay back 44k to his former employer to recover any liablity due to this stunt. Note : He was 22. Also, it is interesting that although the FBI brought up " chat logs " to show he had DIRECT ties of Al-Qaeda, AUTHORITIES PRESENTED NO EVIDENCE THAT DIRECTLY LINKED HIM (Mr. Georgelas)TO ANY TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. And to top off this story, his mother didn't have a clue this was going on.
Wow. Next time kid, go TP a neighbor's house, k?
Shinzo Abe is the new HARDLINER LOOKING TO LEAD JAPAN. Good. No frills, no extra.
Just meat & potatoes politics. Finally. Note : He is unapologetic about Japan's World War II past ... why shouldn't he be? It's like every time I turn, someone tries to rewrite history ... leave it alone! And let him visit the shrine of the soldiers of Japan, for Haikamata's sake!! They say that by visiting the warriors of World War II, the Japanese leaders shame not only Japan, but spit in the face of their neighbors .. . And? Like what has North Korea not done lately that has caused more concern??
Evacuees urged to work in Houston ... Why not? What, they expect the Federal Government to provide them liquor and cigarette money forever?
Highland Park, Texas bigwigs expected to conserve water. They can't even save the
rest of Dallas ... now they want them to cut watering their lawns?
So let me get this understood ... Democrats who DO NOT AGREE WITH BUSH are aiding and abetting the enemy? Since WHEN??
The Texas Rangers have a fight? Wow. You'd think MILLIONAIRES would act adult. Who knew? (note : It was with the California Angels ... I knew as hot as it was around here, we are the REAL Devils, not New Jersey )
Other things : A hotelier is shortchanging legal aliens and it's illegal now to promote the DEAD in this WAR ON TERROR, in just showing their images and names.

We live in fucked up times. I mean, it's like common fucking sense has gone out the fuckin' window and we are left with ... this bullllshit above....

Oh. And BEBOP great Duke Jordan passed away August 8th.

till next time ....

use your fuckin' noodle

dr phibes

A quite Sunday thought ...

2006-08-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

Dependability. What a great, deep word that is. Like corndogs at the state fair, hotdogs with the extras at a baseball and the rotating world tours of the Rolling Stones. What we lack these days is consistent dependability. Even me. I am the most inconsistent blogger ever. I blog when I want to blog, not when people actually want to read. What do I think about? I remember listening to Bay City Rollers Money Honey and England Dan and John Ford Coley, when I was a kid. Along with John Denver & Elvis Presley.

Mercury News

They say that your childhood times are the " good ol' days ". To a point. There was sort of a notion that all was well with the world and things could not get worse. Well, these days, it's hard to feel the same. Things seem to go from bad to worse, but then again, why ahould I give up ... should anyone?

Okay. That's it for now.

Till next time : You can be a bastard or you can fight the bastard.

dr phibes

What Men (Really) Mean - JOKES

2006-08-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

WHAT MEN MEAN

Have you ever asked what men are really thinking when they say the things they do? Well now is your opportunity to answer that very question...

"I'm going fishing." Really means... "I'm going to drink myself dangerously stupid, and stand by a stream with a stick in my hand, while the fish swim by in complete safety."

"Let's take your car." Really means... "Mine is full of beer cans, burger wrappers and completely out of gas."

"Woman driver." Really means... "Someone who doesn't speed, tailgate, swear, make obscene gestures and has a better driving record than me."

"I don't care what color you paint the kitchen." Really means... "As long as it's not blue, green, pink, red, yellow, lavender, gray, mauve, black, turquoise or any other color besides white."

"It's a guy thing." Really means... "There is no rational thought pattern connected with it, and you have no chance at all of making it logical."

"Can I help with dinner?" Really means... "Why isn't it already on the table?"

"Uh huh," "Sure, honey," or "Yes, dear." Really means... Absolutely nothing. It's a conditioned response like Pavlov's dog drooling

"Good idea." Really means... "It'll never work. And I'll spend the rest of the day gloating."

"Have you lost weight?" Really means... "I've just spent our last $30 on a cordless drill."

"My wife doesn't understand me." Really means... "She's heard all my stories before, and is tired of them."

"It would take too long to explain." Really means... "I have no idea how it works."

"I'm getting more exercise lately." Really means... "The batteries in the remote are dead."

"I got a lot done." Really means... "I found 'Waldo' in almost every picture."

"We're going to be late." Really means... "Now I have a legitimate excuse to drive like a maniac."

"Hey, I've read all the classics." Really means... "I've been subscribing to Playboy since 1972."

"You cook just like my mother used to." Really means... "She used the smoke detector as a meal timer, too."

"I was listening to you. It's just that I have things on my mind." Really means... "I was wondering if that red-head over there is wearing a bra."

"Take a break, honey, you're working too hard." Really means... "I can't hear the game over the vacuum cleaner."

"That's interesting, dear." Really means... "Are you still talking?"

"Honey, we don't need material things to prove our love." Really means... "I forgot our anniversary again."

"You expect too much of me." Really means... "You want me to stay awake."

"It's a really good movie." Really means... "It's got guns, knives, fast cars, and Heather Locklear."

"That's women's work." Really means... "It's difficult, dirty, and thankless."

"Will you marry me?" Really means... "Both my roommates have moved out, I can't find the washer, and there is no more peanut butter."

"Go ask your mother." Really means... "I am incapable of making a decision."

"You know how bad my memory is." Really means... "I remember the theme song to 'F Troop', the address of the first girl I ever kissed and the Vehicle Identification Numbers of every car I've ever owned, but I forgot your birthday."

"I was just thinking about you, and got you these roses." Really means... "The girl selling them on the corner was a real babe."

"Football is a man's game." Really means... "Women are generally too smart to play it."

"Oh, don't fuss. I just cut myself, it's no big deal." Really means... "I have actually severed a limb, but will bleed to death before I admit I'm hurt."

"I do help around the house." Really means... "I once put a dirty towel in the laundry basket."

"Hey, I've got my reasons for what I'm doing." Really means... "And I sure hope I think of some pretty soon."

"I can't find it." Really means... "It didn't fall into my outstretched hands, so I'm completely clueless."

"What did I do this time?" Really means... "What did you catch me at?"

"What do you mean, you need new clothes?" Really means... "You just bought new clothes 3 years ago."

"She's one of those rabid feminists." Really means... "She refused to make my coffee."

"But I hate to go shopping." Really means... "Because I always wind up outside the dressing room holding your purse."

"No, I left plenty of gas in the car." Really means... "You may actually get it to start."

"I'm going to stop off for a quick one with the guys." Really means... "I am planning on drinking myself into a vegetative stupor with my chest pounding, mouth breathing, with pre-evolutionary companions."

"I heard you." Really means... "I haven't the foggiest clue what you just said, and am hoping desperately that I can fake it well enough so that you don't spend the next 3 days yelling at me."

"You know I could never love anyone else." Really means... "I am used to the way you yell at me, and realize it could be worse."

"You look terrific." Really means... "Oh, God, please don't try on one more outfit. I'm starving."

"I brought you a present." Really means... "It was free ice scraper night at the ball game."

"I missed you." Really means... "I can't find my sock drawer, the kids are hungry and we are out of toilet paper."

"I'm not lost. I know exactly where we are." Really means... "No one will ever see us alive again."

"We share the housework." Really means... "I make the messes, she cleans them up."

"This relationship is getting too serious." Really means... "I like you more than my truck."

"I recycle." Really means... "We could pay the rent with the money from my empties."

"Of course I like it, honey, you look beautiful." Really means... "Oh, man, what have you done to yourself?"

"It sure snowed last night." Really means... "I suppose you're going to nag me about shovelling the walk now."

"It's good beer." Really means... "It was on sale."

"I don't need to read the instructions." Really means... "I am perfectly capable of screwing it up without printed help."

"I'll fix the garbage disposal later." Really means... "If I wait long enough you'll get frustrated and buy a new one."

"I broke up with her." Really means... "She dumped me."

"I'll take you to a fancy restaurant." Really means... "Someplace that doesn't have a drive-thru window."

Anyone that needs a good joke, there ya go.

It's been one of THOSE weeks, so I'll be back later.

dr phibes

MAD MAX'S A BOOZER AND DR. PHIBE'S MENTAL BUFFET ... NO DOG'S COOKED HERE (YET) !!!!

2006-07-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

MAD MAX IS A BOOOZA!!!

Mel Gibson "Out of Control"

By Joal RyanSat Jul 29, 7:54 PM ET

Mel Gibson "acted like a person completely out of control."

This, according to Mel Gibson, who apologized Saturday for his behavior during a drunken-driving arrest in Malibu. The Oscar-winning star did not elaborate on how he "disgraced" himself; TMZ.com did.

The entertainment news Website, citing, in part, a report filed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy who took Gibson into custody, charges the actor-director, only two years past criticism that his film The Passion of the Christ set back Christian-Jewish relations, spouted anti-Semitic remarks, addressed a female deputy as "sugar t-ts," tried to evade arrest, got rough with a telephone and threatened to urinate in his jailhouse holding cell.

"My life is f--ked," the Mad Max star said, more than once, per TMZ.com, after being pulled over by a sheriff's deputy early Friday morning on Pacific Coast Highway.

According to the sheriff's department, Gibson was flagged for speeding in 2006 Lexus sedan--allegedly going about 80 mph in a 45-mph zone. A sobriety test revealed Gibson's blood-alcohol level to be 0.12, exceeding California's 0.08 legal limit, the department said.

Gibson was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, booked at the sheriff's Malibu/Lost Hills Station, and, after posting $5,000 bail, released from custody at about 10 a.m. Friday, online records show.

When asked Friday afternoon if Gibson gave deputies any trouble, sheriff's department spokesman Steve Whitmore said no. Gibson's own apology--not to mention the TMZ.com report--says otherwise.

"I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things I do not believe to be true and which are despicable," Gibson said in a statement.

According to TMZ.com, Gibson called the arresting deputy a "motherf---ker," whom he was going to "f--k" on account of "he [Gibson] 'owns Malibu' and will spend all of his money to 'get even' with me [the deputy]."

Later, the Website reported, Gibson ranted about the "f--king Jews," who "are responsible for all the wars in the world," and asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?" (Gibson, who helped build a Catholic church in Malibu, is not.)

A request by the deputy for Gibson to get inside the patrol car was met with a dash by the actor back to his Lexus. Or, as the report posted on TMZ.com put it: "Gibson attempted to escape arrest."

At the Malibu/Lost Hills Station, the Website reported, Gibson remained ornery, demanding a trip to the bathroom, and banging a telephone when he had trouble making a call.

"I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry," Gibson said Saturday. "I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse."

Gibson, 50, previously was arrested for drunken driving in 1984 in Toronto. By 1991, he later told ABC News, he was so steeped in addiction that he considered jumping out a window.

During the promotion for his self-financed Biblical epic, 2004's The Passion of the Christ, Gibson often recounted how religion had helped him beat his demons.

The Passion of the Christ, which Gibson wrote and directed, was the biggest box-office hit of the star's career, a favorite of evangelical audiences, and a target of Jewish leaders who feared its portrayal of Jesus' final hours would incite anti-Semitic violence. Gibson maintained that neither he, nor his film, was anti-Semitic.

A two-time Oscar-winner for Braveheart, Gibson's latest film, Apocalypto, described as a Mayan action-adventure, is scheduled to be released in December.

Gibson arrest sparks new accusations of anti-Semitism

Sun Jul 30, 1:59 PM ET

The arrest of Mel Gibson for drunk driving prompted renewed accusations on Sunday that the Oscar-winning director and actor harbored anti-Semitic feelings.

Gibson, whose controversial 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ" was a major hit, was arrested in the early hours of Friday morning for allegedly driving his 2006 Lexus at 87 mph (140 kph) along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the beach town north of Los Angeles.

Celebrity Web site TMZ.com posted portions of what it called the arresting deputy's original report, which said Gibson was abusive, shouted anti-Jewish slurs and boasted that he "owned Malibu."

The TMZ report quoted Gibson as saying, "F..... Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." He then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"

Gibson issued a statement on Saturday in which he apologized for driving while drunk and for his "belligerent behavior" toward the Los Angeles County deputy sheriffs who arrested him.

In his statement the 50-year-old actor said he has "battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse."

He added: "I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable."

The Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on Sunday that Gibson's response was "unremorseful and insufficient" and that his tirade "finally reveals his true self."

Many Jews and others were upset that "The Passion of the Christ" revived ancient Christian accusations that Jews bore responsibility for Jesus' death.

"It's not a proper apology because it does not go to the essence of his bigotry and his anti-Semitism," said ADL national director Abraham Foxman.

"We would hope that Hollywood now would realize the bigot in their midst and that they will distance themselves from this anti-Semite," he said.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that a civilian committee overseeing the sheriff's department would investigate whether officers tried to cover up Gibson's behavior and statements to save the star from embarrassment.

Gibson rocketed to fame in the late 1970s in the movie "Mad Max" and scored huge box office hits playing a cop in the "Lethal Weapon" movies.

In 1995, he acted in and directed "Braveheart," about 13th century Scottish rebel William Wallace. The movie earned 10 Oscar nominations and won five of the top film awards, including directing for Gibson and best picture of the year.

So. Let me wrap my tiny, pea sized peon brain around this ... Gibson is a raunchy, sexist, alcholic, holier than thou anti-Semitite who says he OWNS the company that made his vehicle, a gas guzzling monstrosity, all the while known for making millions of dollars on movies about carnage and criminal activity and having known to have been hanging around fellow machoistic, masochistic motherfuckas who smoke Havanas and pimp off their lives like their shit don't sting ... Hmmm. Road Warriors' a whiner after all!! Who knew?

Okay. Here's a few bits and pieces for y'all. Nothing heavy, since today is the end of the weekend and we ALL have to go back to our nine to fiver's tommorow * sigh * and sittin' back today, enjoyin' the HUMID, SUNNY TEXAS SUMMER. Enjoy.

Composer Dika Newlin dies at 82

By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

Dika Newlin, a composer and musicologist who was deeply influenced by the avant-garde master Arnold Schoenberg and brought his style into the punk rock era, has died. She was 82.

Newlin, a child prodigy who was still on the musical cutting edge 70 years later, died July 22 at a Richmond nursing home, according to Sabine Feisst, a professor of musicology at Arizona State University.

"I don't know any other artist who had such a unique career and who was so diverse," Feisst said in a telephone interview.

Newlin taught at several universities, finishing her academic career at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she worked from 1978 to 2004.

At age 11, Newlin composed a symphonic work, "Cradle Song," which was performed by the Cincinnati Symphony. A few years later, in 1941, the work was performed in New York with another prodigy, 11-year-old Lorin Maazel, at the NBC Summer Symphony podium.

But Newlin was best known for her writings and correspondence with Schoenberg, the Austrian composer who moved beyond the traditional musical scales with his 12-tone composition method. He came to the United States in the 1930s and died in 1951, and Newlin was one of her few surviving students.

She had studied with Schoenberg at UCLA after graduating from Michigan State University at age 16.

Newlin translated several of Schoenberg's writings from German to English. Her journals about her experiences with him were published in 1980 as "Schoenberg Remembered: Diaries and Recollections (1938-76)."

"She was a very gifted student, very much appreciated by Schoenberg," Feisst said. "When he talked about gifted American composers, he always mentioned her name."

A composer of several operas and chamber works, Newlin began exploring popular music in the mid-1980s. Inspired by her college students, she sang and played keyboards in a band called Apocowlypso. More recently she performed as a flame-haired punk rocker and performance artist, singing works such as "Murder Kitty," composed solely of meows.

"Even in her punk-rock period, she refers to Schoenberg in that she uses the motifs in his works, or quotes from text in his works," Feisst said.

Her career also included appearances in alternative films, including a 1995 horror film called "Creep" and a short documentary titled "Dika: Murder City."

A memorial service will be held in the upcoming months, she said.

_______________

How to Write a Deep and Thoughtful Blog Post People Will Want to Read

Have you tried writing on your blog, but all that comes out is how many pieces of pizza you ate today? Are you tired of meaningless pieces of information filling your blog? Well, you've found the right place!
Steps

1. Find a song that is sad, slow, deep, dreamy, floaty, thoughtful, and/or makes you want to cry, sob, remember, and/or sleep.
2. Play it at a reasonable volume on repeat and close your eyes for a while as you listen.
3. Open up your eyes once you feel floaty and dreamy enough.
4. Choose a deep topic you feel close to (e.g., nostalgia and rememberance, life and death, war and peace, racism and prejudice, etc.).
5. Start with a sentence that captures people's attention, no matter how confusing. Use sentences like "At times, I'm trying to be a person who I want to be, but I find that trying to be that person makes me be who I am not.", not "I don't know who I am."
6. Continue on about the subject, as much as you can.
7. Once you feel like you've written as much you want (or can), end the post with a dramatic statement.
8. Title your post. You can name it the title of the song you listened to, the title of a book or movie that coincides with your topic, a saying or idiom that relates to your post, or something that you make up yourself.

Tips

* Use your heart and mind at the same time. Say things that you believe in and are true to yourself.
* Make references to movies, books, songs, or anything. This only adds depth to your writing.
* Don't worry if you end up talking about some topic completely different from what you started with. You can always end with something like this: "And now I've slowly drifted completely off topic from what I started talking about. Funny how that happens. It's like life."
* At the end of your post, add a quote. They really spice up and dramatize your post. A line from the song you were listening to is great.
* One word titles are great and easy to think up.
* If you've used a word in your blog that emphasizes your topic/post, look up a synonym or the definition of that word, and use it as your title.

Warnings

* Don't call people's points of view bullshit, or other derogatory terms.
* Don't call them dumbasses, even if they are.
* Don't tell them their thoughts are only worth laughing at.
* Don't criticize silly things like someone's use of font. They may have visual problems or simply want to break up the sterility of the written word.

Related wikiHows

* How to Exercise an Open Mind
* How to Become a Philosopher
* How to Perform Self Hypnosis

__________________________________

Doctor, your sponge is beeping

38 minutes ago

Technology that helps airlines keep track of baggage and sounds an alarm when a shoplifter tries to leave the store may be able to stop surgeons from losing a sponge inside a patient, a study said on Monday.

Doctors at Stanford University School of Medicine who tested sponges embedded with radio frequency identification tags said the system accurately alerted surgeons when they deliberately left a sponge inside a temporarily closed surgical site and waved a detector wand over it.

But they said the size of the chips used -- 20 millimeters or about 0.8 of an inch -- was too large and would need to be reduced to be practical on sponges and surgical instruments.

Alex Macario, a physician and professor of anesthesia who led the study, said the future probably will see a combination of tags and other techniques such as counting instruments and sponges before and after an operation.

"We need a system that is really fail-safe; where, regardless, of how people use this technology, the patient doesn't leave the operating room with a retained foreign body," he said.

The Stanford study, published in this week's Archives of Surgery, involved eight patients. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health and by a grant from the Small Business Innovation Research Program, using sponges developed by ClearCount Medical Solutions Inc. in Pittsburgh.

Macario has no financial interests in that company but two of the study's co-authors own several patents related to tagged sponges and work for the Pittsburgh company.

The tags use a circuit that emits an identifying a signal when prompted by a radio signal. Such tags are widespread commercially for uses ranging from luggage tracking and preventing currency from being counterfeited to shoplift loss protection and automated highway toll collection.

One earlier study found that medical personnel left foreign objects, most often sponges, inside a patient's body in one out of every 10,000 surgeries causing complications and even death.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright 2006 © Yahoo! Inc. Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Send Feedback | Help

______________________________

Owen Wilson's Steely Response

By Natalie FinnSat Jul 29, 5:38 PM ET

Owen Wilson doesn't know who this Steely Dan guy thinks he is, but the actor doesn't agree with what "he" has to say.

The funk-rock duo that is Steely Dan took Wilson to task last week over his character in the recently released You, Me and Dupree, posting a letter on the band Website (randomly addressed to Luke Wilson) claiming that the title character played by Wilson was a rip-off of their 2000 Grammy-winning tune "Cousin Dupree."

According to Wilson, there's no relation whatsoever.

"I have never heard the song 'Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is," the Wedding Crashers star snickered in a statement. "I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, HEY 19."

"Hey Nineteen" being a hit single from the 1980 Steely Dan album Gaucho, of course.

"Cousin Dupree" is about a guy named Dupree who has been sleeping on his aunt Faye's couch while he plans his next move in life, only to start salivating over his "little cousin," Janine. "What's so strange about a down-home family romance?" Dupree lasciviously wonders. Meanwhile, the film, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, is about a guy named Dupree who's figuring out his next move in life while sleeping on his newly married best friend's couch. The buddy, played by Matt Dillon, then starts wondering if his best man is putting the moves on his bride.

Bandmates Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had been aiming for an in-person mea culpa, however.

"Hey, Luke, man," the duo wrote July 17 from their hotel room in Corpus Christi, Texas, while they were between gigs, "there is one petite solid you could do for us at this time--do you think you could persuade your bro to do the right thing and come on down to our concert at Irvine and apologize to our fans for this travesty?"

Oh yeah, and Becker and Fagen also said that the movie kinda sucked. And that Wilson was losing major points as an actor in their eyes, despite the fact that they really liked Bottle Rocket. From 1996.

Wilson obviously didn't show up last week to placate the Everything Must Go rockers, but perhaps he has suffered enough. You, Me and Dupree attracted few nice words from critics upon its release July 14, and even less nice money from moviegoers. With $52 million in box office receipts to date, the film hasn't quite recouped its production costs yet, per BoxOfficeMojo.com.

So if you're going to compare Duprees, "Cousin Dupree" is ahead by a mile, having scored Steely Dan a Grammy in 2001 for best pop performance by a duo or group.

So far Wilson hasn't had to defend his animated turn as a hotshot racecar in need of a comeuppance in Cars, which is one of the year's biggest movies. The 37-year-old has also teamed up with Ben Stiller and Robin Williams for the comedy Night at the Museum, due out Dec. 22.

There's no word yet on when HEY 19 hits multiplexes.

__________________________________________

Directors tell Gen X'ers to grow up

By Bob Tourtellotte 19 minutes ago

They broke out of the independent movie pack at the Sundance Film Festival in the mid-1990s as voices of Generation X, and a decade later writer/directors Kevin Smith and Edward Burns have something new to tell their peers: Grow up.

Smith's new movie, "Clerks II," hits theaters on Friday, and Burns' "The Groomsmen" is now playing in New York and Los Angeles with plans to roll out more widely in the coming weeks.

Smith's film is a sequel to his 1994 comedy "Clerks" about two slackers working in a convenience store, and while Burns' "Groomsmen" is not a follow up, it will remind audiences of "The Brothers McMullen," his 1995 hit about three brothers dealing with love and family ties.

While far different in story and style, the films share key themes. New Jersey-native Smith, 35, and New Yorker Burns, 38, look at guys in their mid-30s who refuse to face adulthood.

Moreover, the movies join a growing list of works in pop culture, such as Christopher Noxon's book "Rejuvenile," that reflect a generation which, as it matured, took its childhood with it.

"It feels like our generation was given this bizarre, 10-year stay of execution of, like, you don't have to become adults, necessarily. My father's generation, there were no bones about it. You got a job. You had a family, and supported the family," Smith said.

Burns' take is a slightly different: "Our lives revolved around fun...and I think when you've been doing that for 10 or 15 years, the idea of giving it up is difficult," he said. "If you don't have kids, you probably don't recognize the upside."

Whatever the psychology, both said that after recent years of making less personal films, it was time to reach back into their own lives for stories about getting married, having kids and moving on.

"Clerks II" mini-mart co-workers Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) return to the spotlight. They now have weathered faces, bigger waistlines and jobs flipping burgers at Mooby's fast-food restaurant. The movie takes place on Dante's last day at work before he moves to Florida to get married and work for his father-in-law.

He is leaving Randal behind, but before he can go, life has a few surprises for the pair of childhood friends, including a performance by a sex worker specializing in bestiality.

"Clerks II" is filled with hallmarks of Smith's past work: Rapid fire dialogue that offers insight into his generation's thinking and rude jokes about farts, feces and having sex.

PASSION PROJECTS

For years, Smith vowed not to make a sequel to the first film, and he denies "Clerks II" is merely an attempt to cash in on the notoriety of its predecessor. "Clerks" was a hit on video and spawned a comic book and an animated TV series.

"If I was going to try to make money, I would have made (big-budget movie) 'The Green Hornet.' I would have made, like, $5 million just to direct," Smith said. "'Clerks" (II) whole budget was 5 million bucks," Smith said.

Similarly for Burns, "Groomsmen" was a labor of love. It was derived from an old script he wrote after his 2001 "Sidewalks of New York" and 2002 "Ash Wednesday" bombed at box offices. The original script aspired to be a mainstream Hollywood comedy, but Burns said he could not finish it because he was not good at broad Hollywood-style comedy.

He credits his wife, model Christy Turlington with whom he has two kids, for telling him to take the old script out, dust it off and "write the story you want to write."

"Groomsmen" centers on one guy, Paulie (played by Burns), in a group of five high school buddies on New York's Long Island who reunite for some male bonding before Paulie gets married to his pregnant girlfriend, Sue (Brittany Murphy).

Paulie is having second thoughts and, in fact, over the course of the week, his buddies all confess to being burdened with issues of adulthood they would rather not face. His cousin Mike (Jay Mohr), for instance, still lives with his dad and mows lawns for a living like he did in high school.

If "Groomsmen" sounds like it might be a typical beer-soaked comedy with guys visiting strip bars, it's not. These five 30-somethings play softball and go out for quiet dinners. Instead of focusing on raunchy partying, Burns turns his attention to their personal issues, and what emerges is a human drama about men passing from boyhood to adult life.

"These are the movies I love as a moviegoer. Even though, they are few and far between these days, I still aspire to be that same kind of filmmaker I was," he said. "I've matured, and I think the writing has gotten more mature."

NOTE : Isn't it ironic that he wants US to grow up when he gets a B*fit over Joel F*kin' Siegel. Just seemed ... oh ... HYPOCRITICAL, dont'cha think?

__________________________

The Game is blessed with a strange strain of multiple personality disorder. Though most rappers are prone to swapping allegiances while searching for a comfortable balance between credibility and mass appeal, this man takes such dualities to an artful extreme. On this hot-tempered street cut-- an Ice Cubed take on Gollum's two-faced soliloquy-- the Game begins and ends several bouts and floats ambiguities into the ether. It sounds like a send-up of a man divided; a fascinating study of the Game's internal switchboard.

Dr. Dre is referenced five times in the first 30 seconds of the song-- but he didn't have anything to do with it. Are the two on good terms? Does the Game even know? Regarding his most infamous foe, the verbal Yosemite Sam taunts, "Everybody know that I'm the heir to the Aftermath dynasty," only to claim "I ain't got beef with 50" in the next verse. Jay gets the same bait and drop when "You 38 and you still rappin'? Ugh," is followed quickly by "No beef with Jay." Still, there's a knowing cartoonishness-- as in the laugh-with-him delivery of "ugh"-- that indicates a playfulness hidden behind his token grimace. So it doesn't really matter whether the guy with a butterfly on one side and a teardrop on the other is threatening to trigger-up Lil Jon or lick a shot when "Snap Yo Fingers" comes on. For this nimble provocateur, every heartbeat brings change.

The Game
“One Blood”
[2006]

__________________________

Office drone by day, stripper by night
Diablo Cody reveals all in 'Candy Girl'

Wednesday, July 26, 2006; Posted: 3:17 p.m. EDT (19:17 GMT)

Cody
Diablo Cody, now a writer for a Minneapolis newspaper, spent a year as a stripper.
Get a Free Audio Book from Audible.com
Stop reading and start listening - Download digital audio books, radio programs,...
www.audible.com
Cheap Books at BookCloseouts.com
BookCloseouts is the retail book dealer with big bargains and lots of choices....
www.bookcloseouts.com
Compare Book Prices at 75 Bookstores
80 million new, used, and rare books, textbooks. Find cheap book prices in a...
www.bookfinder4u.com
Find Books Online
• Used Books
• Out of Print Books
• Audio Books

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) -- Catholic girl. Office drone. Self-described dork.

Nothing in Diablo Cody's background seems to explain why she decided to take her clothes off in front of paying strangers.

She had never so much as entered a bikini or a wet T-shirt contest when she saw a downtown topless bar advertising amateur night, as she trudged home one evening from her copy typist job.

Cody soon returned and, ignoring the bouncer's laughter, gave it a try.

"I just thought I have to do it. I really don't know what got into me. I just thought it sounded like fun. And I'd really hit the wall of boredom," she recalls.

She quickly found out she was the only amateur competing, but despite losing -- "I was definitely the worst stripper there" -- Cody kept stripping for the next year and turned her adventures into a sharp and funny memoir, "Candy Girl," subtitled "A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper."

After a rollicking appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman" -- where he named "Candy Girl" the first pick of "Dave's Book Club" -- Cody awaits the start of production this fall on her movie script, "Juno." Brad Silberling ("Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events," "Moonlight Mile") is slated to direct.

Cody, who just turned 28, also is planning another memoir -- this time, about everything that's happened to her in the past year.

"It was like being shot out of a cannon," she says, looking punk with her tongue stud, black fingernails, skull-and-crossbones head scarf and upper-arm tattoo of a bikini-clad miss emblazoned with the words "JONNY'S GIRL" -- Jonny being her husband.

Talking about sex has never been a problem for Cody, a longtime blogger who grew up the younger of two children in a boisterous Italian family in Lemont, Illinois, near Chicago, and attended Catholic school for 12 years. (Brook Busey-Hunt is her real name. She chose Diablo Cody for its cool, androgynous sound while visiting Cody, Wyoming. As a stripper, though, she used names such as "Bonbon" and "Roxanne.")

"For some reason, I've always just had total verbal diarrhea when it comes to sexual issues. I've been making people's jaws drop with frank sexual talk since I was about 10 years old," she says.

Her "textbook parents" -- dad works for the state of Illinois, mom's an office manager -- are "cool" with her new fame, Cody says.

"My dad always told me that his main objective in life was ensuring that I was not ordinary. So he's happy to see me stand out," she says.

In high school, Cody was "lead screamer" for Yak Spackle, a punk band she and her friends started. "It was such a horrible band, it almost qualified as performance art," she recalls. But the exhibitionism was a precursor to her stripping.

She got her first tattoo the day she turned 18. Besides the arm tattoo featured on the cover of "Candy Girl," Cody has another tattoo of a pinup girl on her left leg and the word "yes" -- her reply to her husband's marriage proposal -- on her left wrist.

She wears a simple dark dress with a crucifix at her neck to an interview. Her hair, which has been "every color on the visible spectrum," is at the moment its natural reddish-brown, and her slate-blue eyes are rimmed in black. While she wears dresses every day, Cody says, "I always say it's drag for me. I always say I'm a big drag queen."

"I don't think I'm a very sexy person," she says. "I am just loaded with testosterone. I'm just like a hairy, trash-talking woman, and I have no grace." (During her month as a phone-sex worker after she quit stripping, her low voice served her well when she would pretend to be a transsexual.)
Attracted by 'her voice'
cover.cody.jpg

Highly intelligent (her IQ exceeds 140, she says), Cody aspired to be a writer and attended the University of Iowa, famous for its Writers' Workshop, but hated academic life. "I could not get out of college soon enough," says Cody, who graduated in 2000. She eventually she met her 35-year-old musician and graphic designer husband, Jon Busey-Hunt, on the Internet and moved to his hometown of Minneapolis in 2003.

A blogger since 2000 (her blog's name is not family friendly), Cody spent her year as a stripper writing by day in coffeehouses, then lugging her laptop to write more at night at strip clubs, where people assumed she was doing her homework.

"People aren't used to seeing a stripper writing her memoirs in real time," she says.

"Candy Girl" hit bookstores just after last Christmas and sold out its initial shipment, said Lauren Marino, executive editor at Gotham Books. She says the hardcover is enjoying "a nice long, steady sale" and got a bounce in sales at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Borders after Cody's appearance on Letterman in March.

Marino said she wasn't looking for a book about stripping and strippers.

"It wasn't so much the subject matter that attracted me as it was her voice. She can write about anything and make me want to read it. She's so intelligent and witty. She's funny, she's edgy and she's got a great sensibility," Marino said.

Cody always had seen strip clubs as dangerous, creepy places -- "I would actually shiver a little" walking past them, she says -- but she soon got over her fear of stripping.

"It occurred to me very quickly that it is not that scary to be on stage naked," Cody says. "Because, that's what you're supposed to be doing. If you're a waitress, you carry sandwiches. If you're a stripper, you take your top off."

Cody had a job typing up radio ad copy when she entered amateur night at the Skyway Lounge. She remembers being shocked when some guy tipped her five bucks the first time she stripped.

"That's when I started to think to myself, 'This could be a nice way to make money.' And it'd be a lot more fun than typing copy."

But she soon discovered that clubs would expect the strippers to sell a quota of lap dances or T-shirts. At the end of a long shift, dancers could end up with the club taking a big cut, says Cody, who was a low-earner.

"To be a stripper, it's not just about your body or your face or how erotic you can be on stage. It has to do with being able to create a fantasy for men and maintain that illusion for them, so that they actually believe that you are their girlfriend or companion, and that you are interested in what they have to say.

"And I cannot feign interest in anything to save my soul."

Cody was living with her husband -- her fiance at the time -- while working as a stripper. His reaction?

"He loved it," Cody says. "He's never been the type of guy to hang out with women of ill repute. Now he was engaged to one, and it was very exciting for him." They still exchange smiles when a song from her stripping days comes on the radio, she says.

After getting married, Cody wrote "Juno," about a geeky pregnant teenage girl who develops a sexually charged rapport with the adoptive father of her unborn baby. Her screenplay, which she says is based on her best friend, was among the top of the 2005 Black List of "most-liked" scripts in Hollywood and was hailed by Entertainment Weekly, which graded it A-minus.

Until her appearance on Letterman, Cody says her neighbors didn't know about her stripper past. She says they thought she only wrote for the alternative weekly City Pages, where she's the TV critic.

But the response has been positive, says Cody, who is now a suburban stepmom to her husband's 7-year-old daughter, from his second marriage -- this is Cody's first marriage.

And she bristles at suggestions that anyone who strips could write a book.

"If that were the case, the legions of women that I worked with, who were desperate to get out of it, would have done the same. There's a reason that I did it and they didn't. And the reason is, that I'm a storyteller."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/07/26/books.diablo.cody.ap/index.html?section=cnn_showbiz

________________________________

Stress can cause all sorts of problems for us in our daily lives. Not the least of which is a decreased ability to think productively and creatively. Progressive muscle relaxation is a widely used method of relaxation. It can be used to reduce stress whenever you have a few moments of free time.

This method works in two steps. The first step is to deliberately tense a certain muscle group for about 8 seconds. Notice how it feels for the muscle to be tense. Now, fully relax the muscle and pay attention to the difference in feeling. Keep this muscle relaxed for about 15 seconds before moving on to the next muscle group. With the knowledge of what the two states feel like, you can learn to relax muscles at the first signs of tension. Once you can achieve physical relaxation, mental calmness will follow.

Choose a quite place to practice and wear comfortable clothing. Sit comfortably or lie down. Keep in mind that if you lie down, you may fall asleep. You should tense and relax one muscle group at a time. The most popular sequence is listed below. If you are left-handed you may want to reverse the sides.

1. Right foot
2. Right lower leg and foot
3. Entire right leg
4. Left foot
5. Left lower leg and foot
6. Entire left leg
7. Right hand
8. Right forearm and hand
9. Entire right arm
10. Left hand
11. Left forearm and hand
12. Entire left arm
13. Abdomen
14. Chest
15. Neck and shoulders
16. Face

___________________

One of the first steps for preparing to have lucid dreams is to start keeping a dream journal. Any time that you remember a dream, write it down in your journal. Even if it's just a fragment of a dream or a lingering feeling, write it down. The journal will help you notice what your dreams are like. You will probably find that certain things reoccur in your dreams on a regular basis. These things are called "dreamsigns" and with practice you can learn to recognize dreamsigns while in a dream and then become lucid.

Most people remember very few dreams. In fact, it's quite possible that you have already had a lucid dream and not remembered it! Keeping a dream journal next to your bed will improve your ability to remember dreams. Get into the habit of lying in bed for a few minutes after you wake up and try to remember any dreams that you might have had.

Once you are able to recall at least one dream per night, you will have a good chance at having a lucid dream.

_____________________________________

From : Dj GREEN LANTERN

Date: Jul 29, 2006 12:38 AM

Check it, I know you and me enjoy myspace. Now Me, my home girl Mel and boy Swift have made the hiphop version of myspace. www.thestreetspace.com

It has EXCLUSIVE MUSIC, INTERVIEWS, FORUMS, VIDEO GAMEZ, PICTUREZ
AND OF COURSE A FRIENDZ NETWORK like myspace.

Check it out. You can comment on all the music, pics and everything on the site. unsighned artists, this is a great networking oppertunity FOR HIPHOP, also every week we feature unsighned artists on our site. if you have a a profile with lots of friends well feature you on thestreetspace.com feel me. This is A Invasion Log on, make a page.

____________________

Eric Monte
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eric Monte is a television writer who has written for some of the most successful shows in TV.

Monte's first big break was a script written for and accepted by All in the Family. From there, he went on to produce work responsible for two '70s sitcoms: Good Times (which he co-created with The Jeffersons star Mike Evans) and What's Happening!! (which was based on his motion picture Cooley High).

After becoming involved in legal disputes against television networks and producers over writing credits and compensation, Monte fell out of favor in the television industry. He received a $1 million USD settlement but lost the bulk of that money when he financed a play he had written. The play failed financially.

Monte eventually fell on hard times and developed an addiction to crack cocaine. As of April, 2006, Monte was living in a homeless shelter in Southern California. He appeared to be maintaining sobriety, as the shelter required regular drug tests. He was actively pursuing further attempts to sell television and film scripts.

________________________________________

Kitten Natividad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birthdate: February 14, 1948
Birth location: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Birth name: Francesca Isabel Natividad

Kitten Natividad (born Francesca Isabel Natividad on February 14, 1948, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico) is a Mexican American film actress and exotic dancer. Famous for her enormous 44-inch chest and bubbly personality, the Miss Nude Universe winner of 1970 and 1971 could not help but catch the eye of cult filmmaker and big-bust enthusiast Russ Meyer. Meyer not only featured Natividad in his films Up! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, but picked up the tab for her 1979 breast enhancement. As a couple, Meyer and Natividad lived together on-again/off-again for 15 years.

During the 1980s, Natividad began appearing in hardcore productions, her performances usually limited to appearing topless. She also began the private photo and video Kitten Klub. In October, 1999, Natividad underwent double-mastectomy surgery for treatment of breast cancer. She currently lives with a pit bull and three cats, all featured in the 2005 documentary movie Pornstar Pets.

Natividad is sometimes credited as Francesca 'Kitten' Natividad, Francesca Natividad or Frances Natividad.

Filmography

Kitten Natividad has appeared in more than sixty-five films and video productions. Career highlights and major studio features include:

* The Double-D Avenger (2001)
* Die 120 Tage von Bottrop (1997)
* Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
* Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) (uncredited)
* Airplane! (1980) (uncredited)
* Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)
* Up! (1976)
* Deep Jaws (1976)
* The New Centurions (1972)
* The Wild Life (1984)

[edit]

Trivia

* Appeared in a 1980s music video for Mitch Ryder's version of the song, "When You Were Mine", which was written by Prince.
* Natividad had a noteworthy brief topless scene in the movie My Tutor, with Caren Kaye, where a young man passes out at the sight of her bosom.

______________________________

Metaphysics (Greek words μετα [meta] = after/beyond and Φυσις [physis] = nature or physical) is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the world. Namely, it is the study of being or reality.[1] It answers questions such as: What is real (see realism)? Is it natural (see naturalism) or supernatural (see miracles). A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what categories of things are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

History of metaphysics

One theory of the origin of the word "metaphysics" (in Greek, μεταφυσικά) is based on the organization of some of Aristotle's books in the Library of Alexandria. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle produced a number of works, which together were called the "Physics." In the Library of Alexandria, the works of Aristotle were organized in such a way that another set of Aristotle's works were placed right after the "Physics." These books seemed to concern a basic, fundamental area of philosophical inquiry, which Aristotle himself called "first philosophy." So early Aristotelian scholars called those books τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσι κά βιβλια, ta meta ta physika biblia, which means "the books that come after the (books about) physics."

The term "Metaphysics" covers the subjects addressed in those books by Aristotle, which have come to be called, collectively, the Metaphysics.

The Metaphysics was divided into three parts, now regarded as the traditional branches of Western metaphysics, called (1) ontology, (2) theology and (3) universal science. There were also some smaller, perhaps tangential matters: a philosophical lexicon, an attempt to define philosophy in general and several extracts from the Physics repeated verbatim.

* Ontology is the study of existence; it has been traditionally defined as 'the science of being qua being', where the Latin word qua is usually translated "as." Hence, in English, "being as being." Although, as Heraclitus's example shows, it can be characterized by the nature of becoming as well.

* Theology means, here, the study of God (or the gods) and of questions about the divine.

* Universal science is supposed to be the study of so-called first principles, which underlie all other inquiries; an example of such a principle is the law of non-contradiction: A = A, A ≠ B, Not both A and B. In other words, the elementary laws of logic as Aristotle knew them.

Universal science or first philosophy treats of "being qua being" — that is, what is basic to all science before one adds the particular details of any one science. This includes topics like causality, substance, species and elements. It also includes topics like relationship, interaction, finitude and a theoretically boundless infinity.

Metaphysics as a discipline was a central part of academic inquiry and scholarly education even before the age in which Aristotle coined the word. Long considered "the Queen of Sciences," its issues were considered no less important than the other main formal subjects of physical science, medicine, mathematics, poetics and music. Since the Age of Reason, problems that were not originally considered metaphysical have been added to metaphysics. Other problems that were considered metaphysical problems for centuries are now typically relegated to their own separate subheadings in philosophy, such as philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. In some cases subjects of metaphysical research have been found to be entirely physical and natural, thus making them part of physics.

In more recent times, an alternate and erroneous usage of the term "metaphysics" has arisen out of ignorance of the term's meaning. People often use the term to refer esotericism and occultism. These other uses are, for the most part, entirely unrelated to the academic philosophical discipline.
[edit]

Central questions of metaphysics

Most positions that can be taken with regards to any of the following questions are endorsed by one or another notable philosopher. It is often difficult to frame the questions in a non-controversial manner.
[edit]

Particulars and universals

The world seems to contain many individual things, both physical, like apples, and abstract such as the British constitution, Greek democracy, and the number "3." Such objects are called particulars. Now, consider two apples. There seem to be many ways in which those two apples are similar, they may be approximately the same size, or shape, or color. They are both fruit, etc. One might also say that the two apples seem to have some thing or things in common. Universals or Properties are said to be those things.

Metaphysicians working on questions about universals or particulars are interested in the nature of objects and their properties, and the relationship between the two. For instance, one might hold that properties are abstract objects, existing outside of space and time, to which particular objects bear special relations. Others maintain that what particulars are is a bundle or collection of properties (specifically, a bundle of properties they have).
[edit]

Change and identity

Identity, sometimes called Numerical Identity, is the relation that everything bears to itself, and which nothing bears to anything other than itself. According to Leibniz, if some object x is identical to some object 'y, then any property that x has, y will have also. However, it seems to us that objects can change over time. If you were to look at a tree one day, and the tree later lost a leaf, it would seem that you could still go look at that same tree. Metaphysicians work to explain what it means for the same object to have different properties at different times, as well as the question of how objects persist through time. (See Also: identity and change)
[edit]

Space and time

This apple exists in space (it sits on a table in a room) and in time (it was not on the table a week ago and it will not be on the table a week from now). But what does this talk of space and time mean? Can we say, for example, that space is like an invisible three-dimensional grid in which the apple is located? Suppose the apple and every other physical object in the universe were to be entirely removed from existence: then would space, that "invisible grid," still exist? Some people say not— they say that without physical objects, space would not exist, because space is the framework in which we understand how physical objects are related to each other. There are many other metaphysical questions to ask about space and time.
[edit]

Necessity and possibility

Metaphysicians investigate questions about the ways the world could have been. David Lewis, in "On the Plurality of Worlds," endorsed a view called Concrete Modal Realism, according to which facts about how things could have been are made true by other concrete worlds, just like ours, in which things are different. Other philosophers, such as Gottfried Leibniz have dealt with the idea of possible worlds as well. The idea of necessity is that any necessary fact is true across all possible worlds; that is, we could not imagine it to be otherwise. A possible fact is one that is true in some possible world, even if not in the actual world. For example, it is possible that cats could have had two tails, or that any particular apple could have not existed. By contrast, certain truths seem necessary, such as analytic truths, e.g. "All bachelors are unmarried." The particular example of analytic truth being necessary is not universally held among philosophers. A less controversial view might be that self-identity is necessary, as it seems fundamentally incoherent to claim that for any x, it is not identical to itself; this is known as the principle of contradiction. Aristotle describes the principle of contradiction, "It is impossible that the same quality should both belong and not belong to the same thing . . . This is the most certain of all principles . . . Wherefore they who demonstrate refer to this as an ultimate opinion. For it is by nature the source of all the other axioms." However, in his monumental work, "An Investigation of the Laws of Thought" George Boole shows that the principle of contradiction follows from a fundamental law of thought introduced in Chapter 2 "signs and their laws." In the logic he introduces, 1 denotes the universe of discourse, x denotes a class of objects, and 0 denotes nothing (which is equivalent to the negation of the universe of discourse). However, since this is not arithmetic, special rules apply:

+ Denotes "and" (basically conjunction from propositional calculus.) (Thus, if a refers to the class of naysayers and b refers to the class of tallywackers, a+b is the class of naysayers and tallywackers). 1 + x = 1, since nothing can exceed the universe of discourse (it contains all classes of objects under consideration).

Juxtaposition, which typically denotes multiplication, just further defines the class. (Let a denote the class of pink things and b denote the class of elephants. Then, ab denotes the class of pink elephants.)

Subtraction denotes, (as in a-b) the class of objects with property a with the class of property b removed. (Let a denote the class of infants, let b denote the class of diapers. Then a − b would be the class of infants without diapers.) Suppose a=c. Then a-b=c-b. (Much Boolean Logic resembles algebra and arithmetic, but it is not the same thing.)

x^2=x. This follows from the fact that x^2=xx. (Through examples, it is quite easy to convince oneself of this. For example, if x denotes the class of all apples, then obviously x^2=xx=x still refers to the class of all apples (remember, this is Boolean logic, not arithmetic)).

The Principle of Contradiction follows from x^2=x.

x^2=x

Hence, x^2-x=0

and x(1-x)=0.

Thus nothing can be in both the class x and the class that excludes x at the same time. Equivalently, nothing can have property x and property 1-x (which excludes property x). This gives structure to Aristotle's "principal of contradiction."
[edit]

Abstract objects and Materialism

Apart from Universals, some philosophers endorse views according to which there are abstract particulars. Mathematical objects and objects in fictions are often given as examples of abstract objects. The view that there really are no abstract objects is called materialism.
This section is a stub. You can help by adding to it.
[edit]

Criticism

Metaphysics has been attacked, at different times in history, as being futile and overly vague. David Hume and Immanuel Kant both prescribed a limited role to the subject and argued against knowledge progressing beyond the world of our representations (except, in the case of Kant, to knowledge that the noumena exist).[citation needed] A.J. Ayer is famous for leading a "revolt against metaphysics," where he claimed that its propositions were meaningless.[citation needed] Martin Heidegger often criticised metaphysics, yet his early work dealt with questions that many would consider metaphysical.[citation needed] British universities became less concerned with the area for much of the 20th century; the later work of Wittgenstein discredited metaphysical questions as nonsense on purely linguistic grounds.[citation needed] However, metaphysics has seen a reemergence in recent times amongst philosophy departments.

A more nuanced view is that metaphysical statements are not meaningless statements, but rather that they are generally not fallible, testable or provable statements.[citation needed] That is to say, there is no valid set of empirical observations nor a valid set of logical arguments, which could definitively prove metaphysical statements to be true or false. Hence, a metaphysical statement usually implies a belief about the world or about the universe, which may seem reasonable but is ultimately not empirically verifiable. That belief could be changed in a non-arbitrary way, based on experience or argument, yet there exists no evidence or argument so compelling that it could rationally force a change in that belief, in the sense of definitely proving it false.
[edit]

Metaphysical subdisciplines

* Natural philosophy
* Ontology
* Philosophy of religion
* Philosophy of mind
* Philosophy of perception

[edit]

Metaphysical topics and problems

* Identity and change
* Problem of free will
* The nature of time
* The nature of the mind

[edit]

Metaphysicians

* Metaphysics writers
* Aristotle
* Thomas Aquinas
* Louis-Victor de Broglie
* William Kingdon Clifford
* Donald Davidson
* Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
* Gilles Deleuze
* René Descartes

* Mary Baker Eddy
* Charles Fillmore
* Neville Goddard
* Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
* Martin Heidegger
* Werner Heisenberg
* Ernest Holmes
* Emma Curtis Hopkins
* Aldous Huxley
* Immanuel Kant
* Saul Kripke

* Gottfried Leibniz
* David Lewis
* George Edward Moore
* Charles Peirce
* Robert M. Pirsig
* Plato
* Max Planck
* Karl Popper
* Willard Van Orman Quine

* Ayn Rand
* Carl Reichenbach
* Richard Rorty
* Bertrand Russell
* Jean-Paul Sartre
* Erwin Schrödinger
* John F Wippel
* Conny Méndez

[edit]

See also

* Aesthetics
* Buddhist philosophy
* Christian Science
* Cosmology (metaphysics)
* Dualism
* Eastern philosophy
* Epistemology

* Ethics
* Fractal metaphysics
* Ken Wilber
* List of spirituality-related topics
* Logical positivism
* Metaphysics of Quality
* Monism

* Mysticism
* New Thought Movement
* Ontology
* Philosophy
* Pluralism
* Pratitya-samutpada
* Reason

* Religious Science
* Quantum metaphysics
* Spiritism
* Taoism
* Theology
* Transcendental

[edit]

References

1. ^ Geisler, Norman L. "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" page 446. Baker Books, 1999

* Lowe, E. J. (2002). A survey of metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Loux, M. J. (2002). Metaphysics: A contemporary introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
* Kim, J. and Ernest Sosa Ed. (1999). Metaphysics:An Anthology. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies.
* Kim, J. and Ernest Sosa, Ed. (2000). A Companion to Metaphysics. Malden Massachusetts, Blackwell, Publishers.
* Fillmore, Charles (1931, 17th printing July 2000). Metaphysical Bible Dictionary. Unity Village, Missouri: Unity House. ISBN 0-871-59067-0
* Hans Wehrli: Metaphysik - Chiralität als Grundprinzip der Physik, 2006, ISBN 3-033-00791-0

[edit]

External links

* trans. by W. D. Ross
* trans. by Hugh Tredennick (HTML at Perseus)
* Aristotle's Metaphysics at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry under OBJECT, by Henry Laycock
* Ways of Seeing: A common sense exploration of modern metaphysics

__________________

There ya go ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages!!! A schmorgazboard of mental food to grind on, eat in large mouthfuls or tidbit bites and digest and contemplate on ... Why? Cause this weekend, I felt OVERLY creative and wanted to get some shit out to the masses to enjoy, learn and develop.

Remember. We only get ONE CHANCE. DO WHATCHA GOTTA DO.

dr phibes

Saturday Night's Main Event II - The FallOut

2006-07-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

Headline Posted by Feras Ballout on 2:03:46 PM Jul/29/2006

The following news comes re-written from the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter. Subscription information can be obtained at PWTorch.com.

Both WWE and NBC executives are reevaluating their plans for Saturday Night’s Main Event. The second return show that aired earlier this month bombed in ratings, lower than the return show back in March. WWE feels that if they can secure a later timeslot on Saturday night, it will help boost the rating. Some people within WWE remain very optimistic because of the exposure of being on broadcast television.

This past Monday Hulk Hogan arrived at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio at 4PM ET to go over his promo with the WWE creative team. His daughter Brooke was not with him, but he did have the camera crew from VH1’s “Hogan Knows Best” filming for the show.

Randy Orton Turning Face & Joining DX?! + Huge WWE Superstar DONE In The Ring For Good

NO COMMENT. WON'T SAY I TOLD YA SO.

A Weekend Roundup ... YeeHaw!

2006-07-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

My weekend started off pretty damn strong ... early with Thursday night, as I went to the Lizard Lounge

The_WORLD_FAMOUS_Lizard_Lounge

for Church night, a thrash-style, Gothic missive to the days back when Bauhaus, Type O Negative, Nine Inch Nails and My Life With Thrill Kill Kult were at the peak of their heyday [to be fair, they still are tightly intricate and move you in ways that are deemed bizzare and taboo] ... noticing how they changed the place a little, but it was still dark, diverse and deeply daring ... a trio of couples that came in to do disco moves noted that the music DIDN'T quite match, but I wanted so much to tell them " It doesn't really matter. Not many people here are professional dancers. God knows I'm not! "

The_Church

... It started about 10ish, though the doors were open at least by 9 pm that night [and I thought, My God, I'm late!] ... the music was pumping as various videos of horror slid across the screen along with elaborate cutout effects of women stripping and touching each other [various hallucigenic colorish styles] and strobing patterns. Very cool and extremely gothic. Dj Angry John was at the helm of the room [I believe the large room rather than the smaller, Egyptian themed room]. The smoke was lining the air and the dancing was hot, intense and like a community of vampiristic oneness. Very much like an Anne Rice novel based at a rave sponsored by HP Lovecraft with music from Marilyn Manson. I pumped to full speed and felt my heart wanting to explode, then I found myself outside, walking among the goth kids sitting, smoking and shooting shit with other fellow goth kids, comparing leather pumps with stitched on white vinyls skulls and 5 inch heels to others, who said that the pumps were actually borrowed and " how do you like my fishnets? " ... But for a guy who was 36 and no longer 23, the three hours of fast, pumped thrash/goth/stylized german sidestepping/mosh, without the most pit/even twist dancing [see what I mean when I say I can't dance worth a shit?]... I was sweating off 15 pounds of sweat under a FUCKYOU Dragonfly hoodie and ready to die. So I went home. To five hours of sleep, then 5 hours of work. Then a quick nap and I just decided to go to Final Friday at Gypsy Tea Room

The_Original_Gypsy_Tea_Room_:_Accept_No_Substitutes

and saw the lineup : Dow Jones, Boondox, Thesis & Music Theory [they had a substitute, but it still was hotter than a Texas Sunday fire-burning stove!], ATP with Mista Long, A-1, Hi-Jocker and Main Thang [all tied in with DJ B Smoove working the Technics and also Scion sponsorship and some really awesome artwork from the two guys who painted that night and also designed the tight tees for it! It was a supertight night and rocked the hip hop off the floor and into the air! Speakin' of Ms. Thesis, check out this broadcast. You won't be disappointed :

Texas Gig's Interview With Thesis

and, hopefully with her blessing, this bulletin :
A Little good press never hurt anyone...
Body: Hey Everybody,

Just wanted to tell u to check out the interview at Texasgigs.com. Its my first interview in a few years. The first since completing Heaven's Lemonade. The other one was Cousin Lenny on 89.3 in '04. I'm kinda a rookie at this, but hey gotta start somewhere.

http://www.texasgigs.com/podcasts/texas-gigs/2006/jul/24/interview-thesis/

Also if you're thirsty get your Heaven's Lemonade at CDbaby.com in the New Soul Releases or click

http://cdbaby.com/cd/thesismusic

And...This month I am one of the artists featured on the website for the clothing line Daunda which launched on April 15th (my birthday!)) of this year. Daunda is an up and coming hip hop and urban inspired clothing line. Hot tees ya'll. Will, the designer and co-owner of the line also designed the Heaven's Lemonade logo (the lemon... with the wings... and halo..yep that was him.) What up Trina (co-owner and sis). So check it if u get the time...

http://www.daunda.com/artist.html

Woohooo!!! Hip Hip....Hooray!!!! Yesss!!!!!

Thesis
The night was intensely Hip Hop and Neo Soul, which was what it was supposed to be! The whole experience proved that most times, the smaller venues are worth more than big arena concerts and Paloozas out the ass!
All this and David Johansen from the New York Dolls on Fresh Air [KERA 90.1] being interviewed ... he is off the map when it comes to cool! There is not enough cool to equal how cool he is!!! He makes Fonzie more like Steve Urkel!
Well, I am back to the novel. But I am expecting everyone to have a super weekend!

Remember : You are the one that counts. Period.

dr phibes

P.S. Also caught The Triggermen !! Eminem has nothin' on them !!

Cheezy Poems, Getcha Cheezy Poems Here !!

2006-07-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

I sit here, understanding I'm not always right/ but I've been so tired lately, losing my visions going blind like Daredevil from the sight/ of thousands of regrets, trailing behind my like West Texas dirt/ I've given up so much, I get up from the ground, dust off my jeans and wipe off my shirt/ Running so hard, I oughta be Hines or Crystal/ I plan to escape from this sadness with a pen and pad, not the Way Of The Pistol/ I have nothing to lose, keeping my eyes on the horizon/ I know which way to trek, like Cyclops, I have blinders on, one unique vision...

and so I keep on.

Keep believing and achieving, my friends
Don't let them tell you otherwise.

dr phibes

What The Fuck Is It All About?

2006-07-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

It's a quiet week here in Lake ...
Up to page eleven on my novel, chapter five. I've bought the new Strange Fruit Project album

SFP ~ Waco's Best Kept Secret Weapon To Expand Hip Hop's Ability To Reach The Masses

, THE HEALING, which has guest spots by Erykah Badu and Thesis, with guest producing from 9th Wonder of LBP

So Nice I Put Them In Twice!

~ some people don't understand my connection with hip hop. I've been chillin in the apartment, watching CSI : NY and getting ready to call it an early night [[my back has been seriously FUCKED as of late, and I'm pretty concerned. Even though I have insurance, what INSURANCE to me will it be if I have to chunk out some serious change to get my Sacro Illiac restraightened?]] This blog is about dreams? Particularly,
THE AMERICAN DREAM
Is it worth it? Why not just accept what you get dealt with in life and settle for average? I can seriously think of debating pros and cons of that question, but rather than go into in IN DEPTH, I will turn my examples of it over to this simple thought : THERE IS NO TRUE IMMORTALITY> When your gone, your thoughts, idea, possible creative vision and imagination are put back into the cosmos to be part of the great tapestry and that's it [[WHAT'S DONE IS DONE]]. But to quote some guy 10,000 years from now, don't necessarily make that fucker IMMORTAL. I would rather be ILLMORTAL, infectious with deep thought and rebellious attitude that inflicts positive questioning of dated and old rules, questioning if they are still relevant as the times change. If they are, cool. If not, change them.
Then again, I could have as equal an amount of fallacy as the next human. I don't know. I'm not Obi Won, Yoda or the Dali Lama. I just am a man of deep thoughts that isn't afraid to dip more than a toe in the pool and dive headfirst. I figure that risktakers are the newbies, till they get so used to the normal micromanaging of suspending and circumventing the whole reason they got there in the first place, that they forgot the reason they got there in the first place. It's okay to keep your mind focused. Discipline is more than just nothing. It is needed.
My mind turns to the dark recesses of cool oasis that is the WRITTEN WORD> Burroughs, Fight Club and the magazine MEAN and Synthesis [who have a kickass website for listening on new bands] I am retouching back to luckstones that have given me rebirth, a phoenix made from dinosaur bones and aligned, covered in steel, bulletproof Kevlar and wicked sense of satire. My latest thoughts turn to the turds of industry that make me want to remove ENTERTAINMENT from my Yahoo! website page : I DON'T GIVE A LITERAL FUCK THAT LANCE BASS CAME OUT OF THE CLOSET, THAT LINDSEY LOHAN EXPOSED HER ASS OR THAT PAM ANDERSON PROMOTES PATE. When the fuck are we going to move past getting so caught up in the trivial that we can't move on and get to the 9th level. The third eye ain't blind, Bill, it's fucking asleep. We have allowed the shit to become the source and sipping from the stained river is making us deaf, dumb and blind. The revolution doesn't even fucking exist anymore, because without proper PRODUCT PLACEMENT SPONSORSHIP, noone really givea a fuck. Lollapalooza only playin' in ChiTown? Who the fuck cares? Not like you can grow trees from weeds, with the burning sun blaring ultraviolet rays through chemical breakdown and acid rain coming infrequently because the oceans are depreciating in human value. Fuck. I am just so pissed at why the humanity in human is slowly turning sour. It's like a fucking disease or more correctly, like a poison that can never be cured, manmade like AIDS (supposedly) but made over tens of thousands of years and reverting us back to grunting, posturing and ripping souls from flesh. Fuck.

Fuck this shit.

Remember. Immorality is an illusion derived by Corporate and Socialogical bullshit.

dr phibes

Monday Evening Madness

2006-07-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

It's still 10:24 cst 7.24.06 ... exactly one month, 30 days, 1800 minutes, 108,000 seconds till I turn the horrible 37, the cusp of hitting the (sic) 40s ... God, I can't even begin to imagine it. I got a cell phone number from the elusive promoter, but am too chickshit to call it [a potential to review and expand my myth beyond the small parameters I set? Too much for me to even speculate or imagine, I'm afraid] ... I have my novella building steam and plan on working more. Not much happened this weekend, other than a KIDNAPPING AND A LOW SPEED CHASE OF A SEMI ACROSS DALLAS AND TARRANT COUNTIES, obviously now something you can add to your " Now I've seen everything " list if you live in this area of LOONEYLAND [apologies to Warner Bros for possible copywright infringement] I am listening to a National Public Radio station pod-cast from Detroit, Michigan, which is dispencing smooth jazz to medicate my aching thoughts; these days, too many bands don't think about the lyrics behind their music or even try to expand beyond preset, bubblegum, corporate parameters. No more Bruce Springsteens, Neil Youngs or Elvis Costellos these days seem to get the recognition they get. STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT, PPT, BAYSIDE, SHADOW REICHSTEIN, THESIS, LUPE FIASCO, JOAN OF ARC, SPOON, NEW YORK DOLLS, BEASTIE BOYS and even the LATE JOHNNY CASH took risks. Risks are the things of what special, once in a lifetime, events happen, which prove that perhaps we are more than a limited species seeking our own self elimination. NANCY WILSON's smooth vocals remind me of BILLIE HOLIDAY, ARETHA FRANKLIN or DINAH WASHINGTON; lost voices that are never forgotten, just diamonds in the sea waiting for the tide to leave them on the melodic shore. Pearls are too common, so the analogy needed a stepping up. Too many people put out " shit ". Shit gets very old, just ask Fred Durst, the backwards cap singer of Shit On A Stink. Use your brain. If you have to scrap a project, scrap it. It's like bad movies. If THEY HAVE TO GO STRAIGHT TO VIDEO, what's the point? That you will get to more people? Or that the script was so bad [FOR AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I MEAN, READ THE MICKEY ROURKE INTERVIEW IN MEAN MAGAZINE]that the sequel was made for under or AT six figures with C List actors and actresses just so they can pay off a few car payments and the last of the yacht payment?? Is this DARYL HANNAH AS A STRIPPER catagory? I know she researched the role, but the movie was still low grade piece of shit, especially when you know her calibre of previous work. This is COREY HAIM/FREEMAN territory. And you know that. The day went as uneventful as most days go in my life, but hey, that's not what Blogs are for! They are for " yeah, the Hawaii trip was great!! Let me show you pictures of my surfing for the very first time!!! " <~the exclamation points used to show how fuckin' excited I am and how I want so desperately for you to read, check out the pictures and comment how cool they were or if the lighting was bad ... well, never went and have no pictures. So there.
Well, time to call it a night.

Before I go, more stupidity abounds. I cannot catch it fast enough.

Enjoy :

It' s A Bird! It's A Plane! It's BongoMan!!

Also, be careful if FOX NEWS wishes you well. Just ask MSNBC host Keith Olbermann

WHAT EXACTLY CRAWLED UP FOX NEWS'ASS AND DIED??

Remember : Trust Only The Person You See In The Mirror. Unless They Are Government Issued.

dr phibes

"FELIX AND OSCAR IN CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH !!!! "... kidding [he,he]

2006-07-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

More on Mickey ... it was writers like him, Louis Lamour, Elmore Leonard, Jack Keroauc, Charles Burkowski, William S Burroughs, Henry Rollins, Henry Miller, T Coraghessan Boyle and Chuck Palahniuk keep me going. They developed a sense that you didn't have to go for the deep, over-romanticized versions of books that either wind up with Anne Rice, Terry McMillian or L Ron Hubbard, the Tolskoy of post millineum religious fervor ... Jesus, Travolta had balls not producing Battlefield Earth, but in condensing that thickass book!
This is the blog that the previous one was supposed to be : a quiet reflection of the weekend, why we exist, why cigarettes and sodas seem to replace sex as a major jonesing in my life now and why WalMart for me is the new mall, the new meatmarket, at which I windowshop gorgeous MILFs cruising down the aisles and wonder how sex with them would be, allowing my once powerful, insightful imagination to grab and go with it. My libido never catches up, so I don't mind so much anymore. Kind of the nebbish Mike Hammer with a fetish for fake tits and cigarette smoke. It is kinda ironic that Hammer was anti-literacy, when Mickey wrote him. Mickey said that Hammer ate at diners because he wasn't sure how to spell restaurant.
There are never enough quick to the point people anymore. We are too afraid to step on toes, figuratively speaking. It's like getting in an elevator and not pointing out the elephant who farts. Not just farts, but does a wet, sloppy, verrry smelly fart. The kind of fart that makes women pass out and men gag and vomit. Like week old curry drained through a sweaty pair of stockings and burned on a stove, under a pile of steaming cow manure. THAT kind of fart.
Music is at a lull. Noone these days can drive our hearts to overdrive and leave us panting and fainted on the floor, sweating a lake of pure adrendaline underneath us. There are bits and pieces, but no consistent wholes. As much as I hate to admit, Pearl Jam, for example, had a large number of top ten hits rotated off their first TWO albums. That's what I mean. I have seen smaller groups that encourage me and give me hope, but the larger, more well known groups sort of rotate and cause a pendulum swing that slows a bit lately. E am trying to find out how stupid and lame E truly am, not enjoying going out, but not feeling comfortable unless its in a record store or book store, because to me that is like a release, A Fortress Of Solitude [even though there are people there] and familiarity, which for me is very important right now. I read books that feed me challenging material, even if I take it in small bits. I realize that not only am I an American bastard [born to a genetic mother I will never know, even if we met] but E am also an ASSHOLE. E don't have all of the answers, even any or some. E sit at a job that is making me miserable and all I can do is envy those people who chose to travel, live life and do things that stop the loneliness and boredom. Life can get so boring, irritating and aggravating to those of us that need to understand that in order to make friends and be socialable, we must give up the hermit syndrome. To get out and do things, like walk. Just walking. One foot in front of the other. Small steps that lead to bigger steps.
Here is an article I saw on the web :
Top-secret blogger fired over postings
CIA contractor voiced her views about torture

By Dana Priest, Washington Post | July 22, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, considered her blog a success within the select circle of people who could access it.

Only people with top-secret security clearances could read her musings, which were posted on Intelink, the intelligence community's classified intranet. Writing as Covert Communications, CC for short, she opined in her online journal on such national security conundrums as stagflation, the war of ideas in the Middle East, and -- in her most popular post -- bad food in the CIA cafeteria.

But the hundreds of blog readers who responded to her irreverent entries with titles such as ``Morale Equals Food" won't be joining her ever again.

On July 13, after she posted her views on torture and the Geneva Conventions, her blog was taken down and her security badge was revoked. On Monday, Axsmith was terminated by her employer, BAE Systems, which was helping the CIA test software.

As a traveler in the classified blogosphere, Axsmith was not alone. Hundreds of blog posts appear on Intelink. The CIA says blogs and other electronic tools are used by people working on the same issue to exchange information and ideas.

Paul Gimigliano, CIA spokesman, declined to comment on Axsmith's case, but said the policy on blogs is that ``postings should relate directly to the official business of the author and readers of the site and that managers should be informed of online projects that use government resources. CIA expects contractors to do the work they are paid to do."

A BAE Systems spokesman declined to comment.

Axsmith, 42, said in an interview this week that she thinks of herself as the Erma Bombeck of the intel world, a ``generalist" writing about luncheon meat one day, the war on terrorism the next. She said she first posted her classified blog in May, and no one said a thing. When she asked, managers even agreed to give her the statistics on how many people were entering the site. Her column on food pulled in 890 readers, and people sent her reviews from other intelligence agency canteens.

The day of the last post, Axsmith said, after reading a newspaper report that the CIA would join the rest of the US government in according Geneva Conventions rights to prisoners, she posted her views on the subject.

It started, she said, with something like this: ``Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong."

And it continued, she added, with something like this: ``CC had the sad occasion to read interrogation transcripts in an assignment that should not be made public. And, let's just say, European lives were not saved." (That was a jab at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Europe late last year when she defended US policy on secret detentions and interrogations.) A self-described ``opinionated loudmouth with a knack for writing a catchy headline," Axsmith also wrote how it was important to ``empower grunts and paper pushers" because, she explained in the interview, ``I'm a big believer in educating people at the bottom, and that's how you strengthen an infrastructure."

In her job as a contractor at the CIA's software-development shop, Axsmith said that she conducted ``performance and stress testing" on computer programs and that as a computer engineer, she had nothing to do with interrogations. She said she did read some reports she thought were interrogation-related while performing her job as a trainer in one counterterrorism office.

Her opinion, Axsmith added, was based on newspaper reports of torture and waterboarding as an interrogation method .

``I thought it would be OK" to write about the Geneva Conventions, she said, ``because it's the policy."

In recounting the events of her last day as an Intelink blogger, Axsmith said she didn't hold up well when the corporate security officers grilled her, seized her badge, and put her in a frigid conference room. ``I'm shaking. I'm cold, staring at the wall," she recalled. ``And worse, people are using the room as a shortcut, so I have no dignity in this crisis."

She said BAE officials told her that the blog implied a specific knowledge of interrogations and that it worried ``the seventh floor" at CIA, where the offices of the director and his management team are.

She said she apologized right away and figured she would get reprimanded and her blog would be eliminated. She never dreamed she would be fired. Now, Axsmith said, ``I'm scared, terrified really" of being criminally prosecuted for unauthorized use of a government computer system, something one of the security officers mentioned to her.

Axsmith said she's proud of having taken her views public -- well, sort of. ``I know I hit the radar and it was amplified," she said. ``I think I've had an impact."

In the meantime, she's been thinking about Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer who successfully challenged the constitutionality of military tribunals at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Passed over for promotion, he told the Los Angeles Times , ``One thing that has been a great revelation for me is that you may love the military, but it doesn't necessarily love you."

``That's how I feel," Axsmith said . ``I love the CIA. I love the mission. I love the people. It's such a great place to work."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/07/22/top_secret_blogger_fired_over_postings/
This is not a link. You have to do it yourself. You have to actually travel a bit. So I am listening to David Sedaris on This American Life and beginning to work on page nine of a seven chaper novel I've been writing. I will finish it and hope it will sell. Who knows? If not, it's done. I have accomplished a work that was bigger than all the pent up procrastination that has blocked my creativity and imagination, like a dam. I hate watching life just stand there, the heat sufferable to all of us down here during this unbearable summer. It reminded me of the late 70s down here in Texas, when as a kid I ran into humid summers and high gas prices for service stations that actually were able to serve it [deja vu in 2006?] Onto another obituary, Jack Warden, an actor that endeared my heart in " The Verdict " , " ... And Justice For All " and " Twelve Angry Men " died in his 80s. Those actors I had hoped to write for someday are passing away, much like my youth and nostalgia. He was unappreciated, but his way of touching a tough guy with his wit and charm was nourishing in the years of Flavors Of The Year ... Emmy-winning actor Jack Warden dead at 85

By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press WriterSat Jul 22, 3:57 AM ET

Jack Warden, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated actor who played gruff cops, coaches and soldiers in a career that spanned five decades, has died. He was 85.

Warden, who lived in Manhattan, died Wednesday at a hospital in New York, Sidney Pazoff, his longtime business manager, said in Los Angeles Friday.

"Everything gave out. Old age," Pazoff said. "He really had turned downhill in the past month; heart and then kidney and then all kinds of stuff."

Warden was nominated twice for supporting-actor Oscars in two Warren Beatty movies. He was nominated for his role as a businessman in 1975's "Shampoo" and the good-hearted football trainer in 1978's "Heaven Can Wait."

He won a supporting actor Emmy for his role as Chicago Bears coach George Halas in the 1971 made-for-TV movie "Brian's Song" and was twice nominated in the 1980s as leading actor in a comedy for his show "Crazy Like a Fox."

Warden, with his white hair, weathered face and gravelly voice, was in demand for character parts for decades.

In real life, the former boxer, deckhand and paratrooper was anything but a tough guy.

"Very gentle. Very dapper," Pazoff said. "Most of them (actors) are pretty true to the characters that they play. He was one who was not."

Warden was born John H. Lebzelter in 1920 in Newark, N.J. He was still in high school during the Depression when he tried his hand at professional boxing under his mother's maiden name of Costello.

He had 13 welterweight bouts in the Louisville area before joining the Navy, where he was sent to China and patrolled the Yangtze River.

He also had jobs as a nightclub bouncer, a lifeguard and a deckhand on an East River tugboat.

In 1941, he joined the Merchant Marine. He served in the engine room as his ship made convoy runs to Europe.

"The constant bombings were nerve-racking below decks," he recalled.

He quit in 1942 and enlisted in the Army. He was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division but shortly before D-Day he broke his leg during a nighttime practice jump in Britain.

"They sent me back to the States," he recalled in a 1988 Associated Press interview. "I was in a hospital for nearly a year."

A fellow soldier who had been an actor gave him a play to read and he was hooked. He recovered enough to take part in the Battle of the Bulge and, after the war, went to New York to pursue an acting career.

He attended acting classes and did Tennessee Williams plays in repertory companies and moved on to appear in live TV shows such as the famed "Studio One."

During the 1950s his career flourished. Besides TV work, he appeared on Broadway in shows such as Clifford Odets' "Golden Boy" and Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge."

He had small roles in 1953's Oscar-winning "From Here to Eternity" and the submarine thriller "Run Silent, Run Deep" but his breakthrough role was Juror No. 7, a salesman who wants a quick decision in a murder case, in 1957's "Twelve Angry Men."

Over the years he had a number of recurring or starring TV roles. He was a major in "The Wackiest Ship in the Army"; the coach on "Mr. Peepers"; a coach again on the small-screen version of "The Bad News Bears,"; detectives in "Asphalt Jungle," "N.Y.P.D." and "Jigsaw John"; and a private investigator in "Crazy Like a Fox."

His numerous big-screen roles included a news editor in 1976's "All the President's Men," Paul Newman's law partner in 1982's "The Verdict' and the president in the 1979 Peter Sellers movie "Being There."

His later roles came in Woody Allen's 1994 "Bullets Over Broadway"; Beatty's 1998 political satire "Bulworth" and the 2000 football movie "The Replacements."

Pazoff said Warden is survived by his longtime girlfriend, Marucha Hinds; estranged wife, Vanda; a son, Christopher; and two grandchildren.

_______________

Hollywood Vet Jack Warden Dies

By Joal RyanFri Jul 21, 8:02 PM ET

Football and Warren Beatty were very good to Jack Warden.

The character actor, who became a familiar face in the 1970s and 1980s on the strength of the gridiron tearjerker Brian's Song and the Beatty films Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait, died Wednesday at a New York hospital, his manager said Friday.

Warden was 85--"almost 86," business manager Sidney Pazoff noted, adding that the actor died of "old age, basically."

Something of a star, though not really a celebrity, Warden leaves behind a wealth of A-list credits: among them, All the President's Men, The Verdict and ...And Justice for All. As best the Internet Movie Database can tell, the stage-trained actor appeared in 153 movies and television shows from 1951 to 2000.

"He loved working," said Pazoff, who was associated with Warden for 27 years. "He read a lot of films that he didn't take. He really just liked to work."

Three times, Warden was nominated for an Emmy, winning once for keeping sentiments in check as Chicago Bears head coach George Halas in 1971's Brian's Song, the biopic about doomed running back Brian Piccolo.

Twice, Warden was nominated for an Oscar, earning Best Supporting Actor nods for 1975's Shampoo and 1978's Heaven Can Wait, in which football again figured prominently. (Warden played coach Max Corkle to Beatty's back-from-the-dead star player.)

From Halas to Max Corkle, Warden perfected the art of gruff. Other roles in which he growled (but didn't bite) were as Watergate-era Washington Post editor Harry Rosenfeld in All the President's Men, as washed-up attorney Paul Newman's last friend in The Verdict, and as a sanity-challenged judge in ...And Justice for All.

For those raised on 1980s TV, Warden likely is best known as hothead P.I. Harry Fox, who, in prime prime-time tradition, solved mysteries with his temperamental opposite and son (John Rubinstein) in Crazy Like a Fox. The show lasted two seasons on CBS, running from 1984-86, and prompting the 1987 made-for-TV movie Still Crazy Like a Fox.

In 1979, Warden was the baseball manager stand-in for the likewise gruff Walter Matthau in the short-lived TV sitcom version of The Bad News Bears, costarring the 7-year-old Corey Feldman.

Early film credits included 1953's From Here to Eternity, 1957's 12 Angry Men and 1959's The Sound and the Fury. Latter-day film credits included the Problem Child trilogy, 1998's Bulworth and 2000's The Replacements. Bulworth was another Beatty film; The Replacements, his last big-screen appearance, was another football film.

Born John Lebzelter on Sept. 18, 1920, Warden served in the U.S. Navy and Army, pulling a stint in the latter during World War II. He began his acting career in New York in the 1940s.

When Warden finally stopped acting in Hollywood in 2000, it was by "his choice," Pazoff said. ... Mickey Spillane
1918-
pseudonym of Frank Morrison Spillane
search biblion

American thriller writer, master of the "hard boiled" style peppered with sex and sadism. Spillane is best known for his private detective Mike Hammer, who appeared in his first published book I, THE JURY in 1947. The hardback edition did not sell well, but the paperback became a worldwide bestseller. With the character of Hammer, the most chauvinist avenger among classical private eyes, Spillane created a dark counterpart to the knightly Philip Marlowe.

"The biggest part of the joke is the punch line, so the biggest part of a book should be the punch line, the ending. People don't read a book to get to the middle; they read a book to get to the end and hope that the ending justifies all the time they spent reading it. So what I do is, I get my ending and, knowing what my ending is going to be, then I write to the end and have the fun of knowing where I'm going but not how I'm going to get there."
(Spillane in Speaking of Murder, ed. by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, 1998)

Mickey Spillane was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a bartender. In his youth he read such writers as Alexandre Dumas and Anthony Hope, and was fascinated by comic books. He briefly attended Fort Hays State College in Kansas, but dropped out, moved back to New York, and began his writing career in the mid-1930s. Spillane's first stories were published mostly in comic books and pulp magazines. He developed the character Mike Danger, a private detective, and wrote for Captain America, Captain Marvel, and The Human Torch. During WW II Spillane worked as a flying instructor for the U.S. Army Air Force. He met and married his first wife, Mary Ann Pearce, in 1945; they had four children. He achieved the rank of captain by the time he left the service, and returned with his young wife to New York in 1946.

"Spillane writes with speed, and the rough-hewn poetry of his narrator creates a fantasy city, a New York of myth and dream, populated by the same character types as those found in the work of Daly, Hammett, and Chandler - good girls, black widows, thugs, frustrated cops, gang lords, corrupt society leaders - but delivered with a unique fever-dream fervour."
(Max Allan Collins in Mystery & Suspence Writers, vol. 2, ed. by Robin W. Winks, 1998)

I, the Jury was written in only nine days, but it became such success that Spillane quickly produced six more Hammer novels, five of them published between 1950 and 1952. "Crime novels are a good way to make money," Spillane once stated. The sixth, THE TWISTED THING, did not appear until 1966. The world of Mike Hammer includes his secretary Velda, a dark-haired beauty, who is the tough soul mate of Mike, and Captain Pat Chambers of the New York Police Department. In the first novel Hammer investigates the brutal murder of his best friend. In the end the beautiful but bad Charlotte Manning performs a strip tease in order to dissuade Hammer from killing her. When he shoots her, Manning asks, "How c-could you?" and he replies, "It was easy" - one of the most famous last lines in popular fiction.

In VENGEANCE IS MINE! (1950) Hammer is tormented by the memory of Charlotte and vows never to kill another woman, until a murderous doppelganger of her is revealed to be a transvestite. The theme of crime and punishment - Hammer acting as the tool of some primitive God - continues in the following novels. Spillane himself posed for the dust wrapper photographs of Hammer novels and starred in the film version of THE GIRL HUNTERS (1963). In KISS ME DEADLY (1952) a beautiful woman, Berga Torn, clad only in a trench coat, stops Hammer's sports car on a lonely road. She has escaped from a sanatorium, where a Dr. Soberin referred her. However, her chasers beat Hammer, and torture and kill her. Hammer starts to investigate the case, Velda is kidnapped by the Mob but Hammer rescues her. He finds out that Lily Carver is Soberin's mistress and has used him to get a metal box containing $2 million in heroin. Hammer gets his revenge - he kills her - but is left in a burning house, trying to get away from the flames. The novel started Spillane's nine-year silence as a novelist. The hiatus ended with THE DEEP, a story of a tough guy, who returns to his old neighbourhood - revealing in the novels denouement that he has become a cop.

"Why should one of the most popular authors of the twentieth century need defending? Easy, as Mike Hammer might say: his subject matter and his approach were so hard-hitting, so individual, that Spillane repelled the more proper and staid among the Literary Establishment (and the Establishment in general, including Dr. Frederic Wertham and Parents Magazine and other unpointed arbiters of public morality.). And it has taken time, and changing mores - plus the natural PR knack of Spillane himself, with such disarming tactics as funny self-parody beer commercials and the writing of award-winning children's books - to give him his rightful place as the living giant among mystery writers."
('Mecca Spillane' by Max Allan Collins, in The Big Book of Noir, 1998)

Spillane has revealed that he finishes his texts in two weeks and does not revise anything he has written. Although critics have tried to belittle the author's achievements, Spillane has defenders such as Ayn Rand, who has said, "Spillane gives me the feeling of hearing a military band in a public park." To his critics Spillane has answered, "but it's good garbage." On a list complied in 1967 of all the best-selling books published in America between 1895 and 1965, seven of the top twenty-nine were written by Spillane. Especially during the height of anti-Communist paranoia, Hammer's unyielding, patriotic character comforted many American readers.

Between 1953 and 1961 Spillane stopped writing full-length novels after conversion to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and between 1973 and 1989 for sixteen years, when he advertised Miller Lite beer. In 1962 Spillane brought Hammer back with THE GIRL HUNTERS, in which the hero is still haunted by the memory of Charlotte. The book was followed by four more titles. He returned again in 1970 with KILLING MAN. Spillane's only other series character, Tiger Mann, was inspired by the James Bond boom. The character is first introduced in the novel DAY OF THE GUN (1964). In his longest and most ambitious piece, THE ERECTION SET, Spillane follows in the footsteps of Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace.

In 1983 Spillane married Jane Rodgers Johnson, a former Miss South Carolina twenty-eight years his junior. In 1995 the Mystery Writers of America finally presented him with the Grand Master award. In the mid-1990s Spillane returned to comic books by co-creating a futuristic Mike Danger. Although he did not do the comic-book script writing, Spillane completed a draft of a Mike Danger science fiction novel. Spillane has also written two books for children. Most of Spillane's short fiction was produced in the 1950s and published in Manhunt and such men's magazines as Cavalier and Male.

The unbeatable Hammer has survived right up to the 1990s, outliving William Crane, Philip Marlowe, Mike Shayne, and Lew Archer. In BLACK ALLEY (1996) he wakes up from a coma and tracks down a missing $89 billion. Times have changed, and Spillane reveals his tough-guy's fondness for Wagner (1813-1883), the anti-semitic German opera composer, whose music contains unnecessary Nazi connotations. Today, however, Wagner's music is almost unreservedly accepted without political overtones. In an interview at the age of 83, Spillane mentioned that he still writes and has finished a couple of adventure stories. The last novel about Hammer in under work.

See also: "Hard-boiled" mystery writers: Horace McCoy, Raymond Chandler, Jonathan Latimer, Dashiell Hammett. - As a romantic hero who has taken the law in his own hand, Mike Hammer comes from the same literary tradition as Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar alias The Saint. Spillane's role model was Carroll John Daly, whose hard-hitting detective was Race Williams. Daly was innovative writer and his use of the first-person style influenced Spillane.

For further reading: One Lonely Knight: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer by Max Allan Collins (1984); Murder in the Millions by J. Keneth Van Dover (1984); The American Private Eye by David Geherin (1985); Speaking of Murder, ed. by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg (1998) - In 1962 Spillane portrayed his own detective character Hammer in the film The Girl Hunters. Other films: Ring of Fear (1953), Colombo series (1973), Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1956-58, starring Darren McGavin, scriptwriter was Bill S. Ballinger among others); Mickey Spillane's Margin for Murder (1981, starring Kevin Dobson), Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: Murder Me, Murder You (1983, starring Stacy Keach), The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1987), The New Mike Hammer (1987). - The writer himself was not satisfied with the actors playing Hammer, except his own performance. According to Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly "stank", and Stacey Keach is a good actor, but "he doesn't know how to wear a hat.

Selected works:

* I, THE JURY, 1947 - film 1953, dir. by Harry Essex, starring Biff Elliot; film 1982, dir. by Richard T. Heffron, starring Armand Assante
* MY GUN IS QUICK, 1950 - film 1957, dir. by Phil Victor, starring Robert Bray
* VENGEANCE IS MINE, 1950
* THE BIG KILL, 1951
* THE LONG WAIT, 1951
* ONE LONELY NIGHT, 1952
* KISS ME, DEADLY, 1952 - film 1955, dir. by Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker. In the film version, Hammer is "just a punk, motivated only by a narcissistic opportunism. When his assistance is sought by the police, he can only reply, "What's in it for me?" He assaults everyone, caring little for age, gender, and nationality, and its significant that his abuse of the faithful Velda (Maxine Cooper), a caring, sensitive woman, parallels the abuse of Lily (Gaby Rogers) by Dr. Soberin (Allen Dekker)." (from Novels into Film by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, 1999)
* THE DEEP, 1961
* THE GIRL HUNTERS, 1962 - film 1963, dir. by Ray Rowland
* ME, HOOD! 1963
* RETURN OF THE HOOD, 1964
* THE FLIER, 1964
* DAY OF THE GUNS, 1964
* BLOODY SUNRISE, 1965
* THE SNAKE, 1965
* KILLER MINE, 1965 (novelettes)
* THE TWISTED THING, 1966, Mike Hammer
* THE DEATH DEALERS, 1966
* THE DELTA FACTOR, 1967
* THE BY-PASS CONTROL, 1967, Tiger Mann
* THE BODY LOVERS, 1967
* THE TOUGH GUYS, 1969
* SURVIVAL... ZERO, 1970
* DELTA FACTOR, 1970
* THE ERECTION SET, 1972
* THE MICKEY SPILLANE OMNIBUS, 1973
* THE LAST COP OUT, 1973
* VINTAGE SPILLANE, 1974
* THE DAY THE SEA ROLLED BACK, 1980 (juvenile)
* THE SHIP THAT NEVER WAS, 1982 (juvenile)
* MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE HAMMER: THE COMIC STRIP, 1982-84
* TOMORROW I DIE, 1984
* THE KILLING MAN, 1989
* BLACK ALLEY, 1996
* ed.: VENGEANCE IN HERS, 1997 (with Max Allan Collins)
* ed.: GOLDEN AGE OF MARVEL COMICS, 1998
* ed.: PRIVATE EYES, 1998 (with Max Allan Collins)

search biblion

This biography was written by Petri Liukkonen.

http://www.biblion.com/litweb/biogs/spillane_mickey.html
... Now, to respond to

Hey! A Fellow Critic!! And from Tejas, no less!!

top list of videos he has seen :

30. Dire Straits
Money For Nothing
What better place to start than with the chant, "I want my MTV"? Additionally, this video captures the essence of 80s music videos -- you got the band playing in the worst of the decade's fashion, you got crappy, skittish animation, you got the one (just one) hot chick, and you even got some computer generated animation, a la Tron. Even with all those handicaps, we still get a great video.

29. Busta Rhymes
Woo Hah! I Got You All in Check
The classic Busta Rhymes video: Busta, with his crazy flow over an other-wordly beat, in costumes and sets representing every color in the rainbow...all shot through the fish-eye lens. This video happens to be my favorite of that set of videos. Busta returns on the list later just once more, but I think he is best rapper in videos, hands down.

28. Wu-Tang Clan
Triumph
The ultimate posse cut. A few things you have to love about the video: the profile photo of the late Ol' Dirty Bastard; the sound clip of bees censoring cure words; Raekwon's sweater vest; and that little dance that Method Man does. Just goes to show humor can be found anywhere.

27. Kanye West
Through the Wire
Simply a very clever video, particularly for a debut. This is also the last recorded instance of 'Ye being grounded at all.

26. Missy Elliott
The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)
I'm not sure what it is exactly about this video that is so appealing...it's just a little off on everything. Dancing in a garbage bag while wearing a diamond-studded bicycle helmet? Only Missy. The studder, spasm dancing? Only Missy. She's up there with Busta in the Rap Video All-Stars.

25. Rage Against the Machine
Guerilla Radio
I love Rage videos. It's anti-propaganda propaganda greatness. Go communism.

24. The Roots
What They Do
If you are unfamiliar with the rap video genre, this video is the most comprehensive introduction to it -- albeit with heavy sarcasm and parody. Being condescending has never looked and sounded so smooth.

After you watch this, I suggest you list your favorite cliches. My top three were (1) the token white model, (2) running from what?, and (3) "no logos in the shot" shot.

23. Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg
Dre Day
Out of all the dis-record/video combos, this one is my favorite. Seriously, you have to love the "Sleazy-E" performance. By the way, "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" also deserves honorable mention among my favorite videos...hell, all those Snoop-Dre combos do.

22. Fiona Apple
Criminal
Fiona's delivery for the video is incredibly on point and capturing. Just a great (and certainly memorable) performance...nothing more necessary to say than that.

(Yes, she was underage at the time she shot the video, and yes that makes the video more appealing. And yes, I'm probably wrong for that. But you are too.)

21. D-12
Purple Hills
If you are going to make an anthem for drug abuse, the video better be as silly as this one. Eminem dancing around in a catcus costume certainly qualifies as silly. Of course by the time you get to Bizzare dressed in a tank top and smiley face boxer shorts while flirting with a pair of midgets, you're doing that little covering-your-face-from-the-sun dance too. Lost in the wierdness of the video is its convincing ability -- watching it definately makes me feel like wanting to get fucked up.

20. Van Halen
Right Now
No one would think a video set to a synth-driven 80s-styled power rock song would have staying power, but this video does. Why? Who doesn't love random facts and ideas presented consectutively without cohesion? That's the way of the Internet generation. Right now -- for the impatient.

19. Gorillaz
Clint Eastwood
All of the Gorillaz' music videos are visually appealing, but none of the other ones have Del the Funky Homosapien animated as an overgrown smurf. I also prefer the Gorillaz with a darker presentation than I do the uptempo, higher feel of "Feel Good Inc." and "Dare" (though those are good as well).

18. Nas
One Mic
Nas at his finest -- a clever concept for a song with fantastic delivery. The video does the song justice, and by the strength of that alone, this video is one of my favorites.

17. Radiohead
No Surprises
Radiohead videos are as bare bones and modest as videos come, and that approach works best for their easier listens, such as "No Surprises." Or maybe Thom Yorke's face is so awkward looking that you can't look away from it. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with his eye? It was noticable before, but the video gives it a stage and a spotlight.

16. Pharcyde
Passing Me By
I'm never able to explain who the Pharcyde are whenever I recommend them to someone; "Passing Me By" certainly does a better job of doing so. They are a witty group, with a great sense of humor which is usually self-depreciating. Who else would be able to claim that they "used to sport a shag" with a straight face? Awesome, understated video. Great song.

15. Eminem
My Name Is
Speaking of self-depreciating...the base-head with hairy palms and a failing grade in English. Any number of Eminem videos could have made the list, from the funny ("Without Me," "Guilty Conscience") to the serious, darker ones ("Stan," "The Way I Am"). Of course, neither of those videos can boast the fact that they have Gheroghe Muresan playing as a puppet master. These sort of little things really separate the good from the memorable.

14. Beck
The New Pollution
Like many of the others on the list, you can pick any one Beck's videos and deem it worthy of making your favorite video list. I don't know...I just really love the idea of making an ode to several decades worth of pop culture. The dances, the fashion, even the advertising -- all get their due in this video. I really ought to take up listening to him again.

13. 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman
California Love
This song and video is the reason why I can throw up the "West Side" sign after I drink half a liter of vodka and pass out. Chris Tucker, George Clinton, Dre, Pac...it's Mad Max with an all-black cast. You also have to understand this video was the first production of the 2Pac-Death Row alliance. Dre producing for Pac was a bombshell at the time. Understandably too...who doesn't love this song?

12. The Smashing Pumpkins
Tonight, Tonight
If I were to attempt to describe this video in one phrase, I'd...quit. If I were to try again, I'd say to think of The Wizard of Oz crossed with Titanic set in space and the depths of the ocean. It's really just a wonderful video...one needs to know no more than that.

11. Public Enemy
Fight the Power
P.E.'s most memorable and powerful song/video anthem. Only a group like P.E. could generate an impromptu political march like the one captured in this clip. The best part of the video: the crowd's reaction to the unforgettable line, "Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me / he's a straight-up racist, the sucka was simple and plain / motherfuck him and John Wayne" with Mr. F's (Flavor Flav) stare into the camera. I remember when I played this song for my sophomore English class...same stare, same reaction.

(By the way, there was in fact a time when Flavor Flav's antics meant something more than embarassment and personal gain. After watching this video, you will understand why so many people object to that bullshit on VH1.)

10. Queen
Bohemian Rhapsody
Really, no top 10 is complete without this song, seemingly no matter the subject. Best karakoe songs? It's a top 10. Best song incorporated in a movie? Wayne's World revived this song. Best leotard worn by a male vocalist? Freddie Mercury's got you there too. Music video? Put it on there.

9. Outkast
B.O.B.
Kids running with Andre 3000 through purple grass and green streets. Big Boi jumping Caddies to get to the top of an 18-wheeler. And a strippers pole. Yes, this video does in fact have it all. Go ahead...try not to dance.

8. Jamiroquai
Virtural Insanity
The best video ever to incorporate conveyor belts, no contest. If that's not enough to get you to follow the link, forget it.

(The pose-striking part is pretty fun too.)

7. Chris Rock
No Sex in the Champagne Room
Things you can't help but laugh at: Chris Rock's face at the strip club; Chris Rock's impersonation of Coolio; a picture of cornbread; Gerald Levert just killing the chorus; the horoscope pictures. Where is Chris Rock nowadays?

6. Busta Rhymes
Dangerous
This video always makes me wonder (1) how would I look through a fish-eye lens, (2) how would I look in a shiny suit, and (3) how would I look if I were white? I'm guessing the answers are, respectively, (1) not good, (2) not good, and (3) not good.

Anyway, the video is funny as hell.

5. Peter Gabriel
Sledgehammer
Arguably the best music video of all time, and I couldn't even begin to explain why. It's really just Peter Gabriel subjected to a bunch of random backgrounds and morphs to stop-go camera work and clay animation. And it's pretty fucking awesome.

Quick aside: there are so many parts of the video that can be your favorite moment, but I'm going to go with the dancing turkeys. Again, not sure why.

4. Beastie Boys
Sabotage
Is there anything this video lacks? It's Reno 911 without the gayness. It's got fake mustaches that only Anchorman can rival. Aviator glasses of the size that rivals those of coke dealers and poker players.

(You had to know the Beasties were going to be mentioned sooner or later.)

3. Pink Floyd
Another Brick in the Wall
The video is actually part of a bigger production by the Floyd -- a full length motion picture based on their album, The Wall. I don't think there is any other video that captures my visualization of high school...all education before college really, with the exception of G/T in elementry school. "No dark sarcasm in the classroom," indeed.

Seriously, a very good video for its time, and I can say that without any Floyd-bias at all.

2. Pearl Jam
Do The Evolution
I was caught trying to decide between which of two Pearl Jam videos to post -- "Do the Evoluton" or "Jeremy." Both are powerful depictions to great songs, the former having gained major critical acclaim at its release. "Do the Evolution" is just a little more disturbing, a little more intellectual, a little more powerful for me. Take the time to watch both.

1. The Notorious B.I.G. featuring Puff Daddy and Mase
Mo Money Mo Problems
I'm not going to apologize for this pick. In fact, I'm sorry I didn't put more videos from the mid 90's Bad Boy era. "Hypotize," "Been Around the World," "Feel So Good," "Flava In Ya Ear." All of those -- love them. Yes, it's the bubble lens, the shiny suits, Hype Williams direction, and Fuzzy Badfeet. ... Okay now here is my 30 favorite videos :

1. Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
2. (The)Pleasure Principle - Janet Jackson
3. Kick, Push - Lupe Fiasco
4. BOB - OutKast
5. Land Of Confustion - Genesis
6. All three versions of Jesus Walks - Kanye West
7. Without Me - Eminem
8. California Love - Tupac Shakur, feat. Dr Dre
9. Lovely - Bubba Sparxxx
10. When Doves Cry - Prince
11. Dare - Gorrilaz, feat. Shaun Rhyder
12. Clint Eastwood - Gorrilaz, feat. Del The Homosaphien
13. Girls, Girls, Girls - Jay Z
14. Changes - Tupac Shakur
15. AC/DC - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
16. What We Do - The Roots
17. Hurt - Johnny Cash
18. Closer - Nine Inch Nails
19. Devil's Haircut - Beck
20. Sabotage - Beastie Boys
21. Ch-Ch-Check It Out - Beastie Boys
22. I'm Your Boogeyman - White Zombie
23. Dragula - Rob Zombie
24. Never Gonna Stop [Red, Red Groovy] - Rob Zombie
25. Army Of Me - Bjork
26. Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai
27. Do The Evolution - Pearl Jam
28. Crosstown Traffic - Jimi Hendrix
29. Legs - ZZ Top OR Breathe - Fabolous
and 30. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Now since that is in the can, its time to wrap this blog up. Be sure to check out THE DEVIL'S MISCHIEF, ZAC CRAIN'S WEBSITE, PIKHASSO, PICNIC & TAHITI and all the other things I recommend, to keep ya challenged. Till next time, trust only in your mind.

dr phibes

Hot Women & Cold Pizza !!!!

2006-07-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

Onto page nine of the novel I've been writing. My very first. Hopefully, with my friend's help, it will be an underground hit. A cult classic. We'll see. Well off to bed and dreaming of hot babes and cold pizza [ I would say beer, but I swore off that ] ...

Now, for the pizza ... New York style or Chicago style ....

have a wonderful weekend, everyone

dr phibes

A moment of clarity ... with BELUSHI ...

2006-07-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Oh. And Red Buttons is dead ...

I think it's because he had sex with this woman :

TRIPPPLE PLATINUM ~ A Hottie From My_Space With Miraculous Abs!!!

Joking. He died from old age, folks! C'mon! Get a fuckin' sense of humour!

Seriously, Tripple Platinum is a very sexy woman. If you subscribe to My_Space, please check out her My_Space. She is SUPERHOT!!!!!!!!

Oh, and one more Belushi moment ... for you hardworkin' Blog readers :

Next week : SAMURAI DEBT COLLECTOR , FOLLOWED BY SAMURAI MY_SPACE BLOGGER ....

Bluto: Grab a brew. Don't cost nothin'.

[after chugging a whole bottle of Jack without a pause for air] Thanks. I needed that. [chucks the bottle behind him, which shatters on the hood of the car behind him]

Memorable Quotes from Animal House (1978)

A fan of the " shooting stars of immortality "

dr phibes

Told ya so, ya wankers ...

2006-07-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm not British. Never said E was. Anyhow, ya zippernuts, E'm callin' in my markers and shooting at ya straight tonight as I cover a couple of topics I've been revolving around in my new blog and some new shit you might be interested in SO GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR RUSTY STARS AND READ FOR ONCE. IT MIGHT DO YA SOME GOOD.

FUCK LITA FORD. THIS WAS THE REAL RUNAWAY.

Okay. You have the link. Go see one, if not, THE, hottest woman in Rock N' Fuckin' Roll.

Rock N Roll. Not emo. Not screamo. Not prog. Not speedmetal. Not heavy metal. Not death metal. Not black metal. Not pop rock. Not hair rock. Not post emo. Not grunge. Not even 70s laid back rock.

ROCK N FUCKIN ROLL. PERIOD.

Okay. Now onto topic number one in this fucker :

Based on Nielsen's fast national numbers, NBC's Saturday Night's Main Event bombed in the ratings yet again, only scoring a 2.65 rating. Not the final rating of course, but a total disaster for WWE. It's not hard to figure, in my opinion. The show felt like just another episode of Raw, with a slight taste of Smackdown and ECW. Its amazing, WWE has three separate brands and the SNME show came off like another edition of Monday night entertainment.

Nuff said about that piece of shit.

Topic two : Those who don't read. Now, I've been trying to make this fucker mighty interesting because of the shit E've been reading lately. My job burned my brain cells out today [at least those that haven't been burned out by my weekly Camel smoke [[talk about cutting down!]] and the occasional COCA COLA BLAK, the JOLT! Cola of a new generation ... fuck, why not just say COFFEE COKE? .... Well, ya might want to check this out

Shiver Me Timbers, Maitie!!! First It Was The Black Pearl and Davy Jones' Chest, Now On To The Copy Machine And The Office Fax!!!

& I am going insane with EDGUY fever lately, loving the artwork on the latest little green promo that came with the free CD from CD Warehouse ...

Battle Of The Year!!! Fuck Tyson ... this is the REAL Macho Camacho fight!!

Okay, so back to this blog. I took this day off to do nothing, absolutely, totally nothing ... nothing at all ... Picked up some Pet Shop Boys and Janet Jackson at Half Price Books, even though I wore a Christian Death tour shirt from 1994 ... okay, a bit of history : Christian Death was headed by a guy named Valor, at the time, who was too heavy for my taste. His bassist/vocalist Maitri, made out with a friend of mine. And Electric Hellfire Club opened up for them [all of this was at the former (I can't see myself saying that) Dallas club, Trees ].
__________________________________________________ From Wikipedia :
Around 1992, Valor recruited bassist/vocalist Maitri (eventually his new wife), and re-established his Christian Death as a rock outfit with the album Sexy Death God.

During the late 1980s to mid 1990s, Rozz Williams and Rikk Agnew played some reunion shows with the name Christian Death. Rozz also put out a couple new albums on Cleopatra Records under the Christian Death name with his wife Eva O supplying guitar and back up vocals during the 1990s. One of those albums, The Iron Mask, is interestingly a reference to the Alexandre Dumas novel about an usurper who imprisons the rightful heir to the throne. Valor became enraged at the use of his now trademarked name 'Christian Death'.

On 1 April 1998, Rozz Williams committed suicide by hanging. He did not leave a suicide note and it is not known why Rozz would have wanted to take his own life, though it is known that he was struggling with a heroin addiction. Valor immediately seized control over all Christian Death material made by Rozz Williams on Cleopatra records.

In 1998 & 1999 two European and one American tour was done for the "Pornographic Messiah" album. In both European tours the line up was: Valor(vocals, guitar), Maitri(vocals, bass), Fernando Medina (drums) & Wim Leydes (guitar). Fernando Medina as well as Wim Leydes both left after these tours. Also members of the crew on these tours had enough tension for a while and moved on. Wim Leydes (Cryscendo)started together with Sonja Kraushofer what became Persephone and have co-written material and recorded on three albums which were released via Trisol Records. Fernando Medina is currently a freelance drummer in Boston. Although both members were also in the song "Cavity" on the first track of "The Bible" live album, both members were not mentioned in the credits.

Valor continues to put out new material under the name Christian Death, though his current incarnation of the group is a lot heavier and has lost a lot of the gothic style for a more metal sound, this is shown on their last album Born Again Anti-Christian (2000) which features members of black metallers Cradle Of Filth, including vocalist Dani Filth. With this album they saw their fanbase decrease to an even lower level.

The new millennium saw Valor's bassist Maitri establish a side project called Lover of Sin. Though Valor does not perform in this project, he did produce and co-write their self titled debut album released in late 2002. Since the album was released as Christian Death Presents Lover of Sin, the promoters for Lover of Sin's 2003 world tour wrongly billed them as Christian Death. This put fans under the impression that this was yet a new incarnation of the group that not only lacked Rozz and the other original members, but even lacked Valor.
_______________________________________________________
The Cramps tour was better. But then again, I suspected that Lux Interior was coked out and he screamed, jumped on the big 7 foot Fender amps and stuck the microphone down the front of his pants and screamed, jamming it into his mouth, while his wife, Poison Ivy, and the rest of the band rocked the roof off.... Hell, I know this blog is going nowhere, but so what? Why should EVERYTHING have a point to it? Why can't we just chill and relax? ... More stuff I saw today while browsing the World Wide Web :
Nude bloggers upset China beauty contest

Chinese blog company refuses to remove 'immoral' photos
Simon Burns in Taipei, vnunet.com 25 May 2006

A recent 'beauty contest' for female bloggers has attracted huge attention and aroused fierce controversy in China.

The contest has been criticised as "sexist" and "immoral" after some contestants posted nude photographs on their blogs.

In the first stage of BlogChina's Beautiful Blogger contest, which was held earlier this month, several million Chinese web users voted for female bloggers whose online diaries are hosted on the BlogChina site.

The 20 highest scoring finalists were brought to Beijing to compete in a more traditional beauty contest, for which BlogChina provided free hair styling, make up and beauty treatments.

As well as physical appearance, the contestants were ranked on a variety of other criteria, including the quality of their blog postings and the popularity of their blogs.

The winner, who blogs under the name Yi Lan, is a business student from Beijing. She received a $2,500 prize.

Additional prizes of $1,250 each were awarded in four runner-up categories including 'most talented blogger' and 'sexiest blogger'.

BlogChina announced that more than two million people voted to choose the finalists. However, the contest attracted harsh criticism in some quarters, with accusations of sexism and sensationalism from the media and other bloggers.

One finalist, blogging under the unlikely name 'Hedgehog Mumu', posted several semi-nude photographs of herself on her blog. She received the most votes in the public voting, but won none of the prizes in the finals.

Opinion columnists attacked her for "offending the dignity of women", but Bo kee refused to remove the photographs because they "do not break state laws", according to Chinese news portal AnHui Hotline.

Others claimed that the woman in some of the photos was not in fact the blogger, although 'Hedgehog Mumu' denied these accusations, the news portal reported.

The publicity seeking nature of the contestants and organisers was also criticised. BlogChina has been accused of cooking up a "news stir fry", a Chinese phrase which implies frantic attempts to hype a small news story into a big event.

"I like beautiful women and I like BlogChina. But to combine the two together, I don't see the reason for it," wrote one male blogger, who uses the name 'Idai'.

"To use the beautiful women as a kind of bait, how meaningful is that? Basically it's just a 'news stir fry'. This is the essential character of China: nobody really cares about the result, they only care about the process."

BlogChina, which is better known inside China as Bokee.com, was accused earlier this year of attempting to artificially boost its standings in the website traffic rankings measured by Alexa.com.

Alexa's data is often used by advertisers and investors in China to judge the popularity of websites. Bokee.com suffered an abrupt fall in the rankings after Alexa apparently wiped dubious visitor data from its records.

BlogChina executives have said that the company's short-term goal is to list its stock on the US Nasdaq market later this year.

There were more than 33 million bloggers in China by the end of the third quarter of 2005, according to local research firm Analysys.

Hedgehog MuMu ~ Sexy Blogger

The HedgeHog MuMu Saga!

And more of ... ya got it, HedgeHog Mumu!

Mumu the nude hedgehog
Miss World, Miss USA, Miss Hong Kong, and now here comes Miss Blogger PRC! Earlier this month, BlogChina, a poupular -- you guessed it -- Chinese blog site held a nationwide beauty contest for female bloggers. Both the public and a panel of celebrity judges took part in deciding the outcome. In addition to the usual “hotness” factor, contestants’ writing/blogging talent also played a significant role, supposedly. One look at the final awards had us convinced that was indeed the case: Cash prizes between 10,000 and 20,000 RMB were given to the “Most Beautiful”, the “Sexiest”, the “Most Popular”, the “Most Fashionable”, and last which may or may not be the least, the “Most Talented”. Where Shanghaiist just had a few chuckles, some of the more self-righteous web crawlers felt compelled to opine. One male blogger, “Idai” had this to say:

“I like beautiful women and I like BlogChina, but to combine the two together, I don’t see the reason for it.”

A collective gasp of incredulity was heard in BlogChina’s marketing department immediately after.

Hedgehog MumuThe contest ran into trouble and all kinds of bad press when one finalist who blogs under the name "刺猬穆穆/Hedgehog Mumu" posted a number of semi-nude photos of herself (NVSFW) to attract visitors and votes : Traffic exploded, votes soared and, of course, critics poured in. Though Mumu’s ploy seems to have worked (she received the most votes in the public voting phase of the contest), she was awarded none of the prizes in the finals.

Opinion columnists attacked her for “offending the dignity of women”, but Bo kee refused to remove the photographs because they “do not break state laws”, according to Chinese news portal AnHui Hotline.

… She received the most votes in the public voting, but won none of the prizes in the finals.

Thanks for playing!
posted by Kei @ 2.6.06 0 comments
_________________________________________

6.2.06

Mumu the Nude Hedgehog

Chinese blog site BlogChina recently held a “Beautiful Blogger” contest in which Chinese web users cast votes for female bloggers who are hosted on BlogChina.

The 20 highest scoring finalists were brought to Beijing to compete in a more traditional beauty contest, for which BlogChina provided free hair styling, make up and beauty treatments.

As well as physical appearance, the contestants were ranked on a variety of other criteria, including the quality of their blog postings and the popularity of their blogs.

Hedgehog MumuThe contest ran into trouble and all kinds of bad press when one finalist who blogs under the name “Hedgehog Mumu” posted a number of semi-nude photos of herself (NVSFW) to attract visitors and votes. Though Mumu’s ploy seems to have worked (she received the most votes in the public voting phase of the contest), she was awarded none of the prizes in the finals.

Opinion columnists attacked her for “offending the dignity of women”, but Bo kee refused to remove the photographs because they “do not break state laws”, according to Chinese news portal AnHui Hotline.

Others claimed that the woman in some of the photos was not in fact the blogger, although ‘Hedgehog Mumu’ denied these accusations, the news portal reported.
_________________________________

French blogger fired for online journal

An English woman writing about her life in France has been fired for entries on her blog.

The woman blogged anonymously under the name Petite Anglaise, meaning 'Little English', a term French people use to refer to English females. Her site attracted between 40,000 and 60,000 visitors a month.

Writing in her blog, she described how she was "Dooced", a reference to Heather Armstrong, who used the online pseudonym Dooce and was fired from her job in 2002 for comments posted on her blog.

The woman was originally accused of gross misconduct and suspended without pay for bringing her company into disrepute, despite never mentioning her name or the company's name on her blog.

This was later revised to "dismissal for real and serious cause - breakdown of trust" for which she will receive paid notice.

Writing about the experience, she said: "I am handed a letter to read and sign, which invites me to attend a dismissal interview the following week.

"There is a phrase I do not understand, 'mise à pied conservatoire', the horrible significance of which only becomes clear once I get hold of a dictionary at home.

"I have been suspended without pay, pending my dismissal interview for gross misconduct, the kind of grizzly fate usually reserved for people who endanger the lives of other employees, turn up to work under the influence or embezzle funds."

Permalink for this story | View trackbacks to this story
Trackback URL: http://www.infomaticsonline.co.uk/actions/trackback/2160866

Viva La Blogger!! Viva La Employee Blogger!!

__________________________________

Novelist Mickey Spillane dies at 88

Mon Jul 17, 8:01 PM ET

Mystery writer Mickey Spillane, who created the tough-guy private eye Mike Hammer, died on Monday at his South Carolina home at age 88, a funeral home official said.

The cause of death was not immediately announced.

"Mr. Spillane died this morning at his home here. His family was with him," said Brian Edgerton, funeral director at the Goldfinch Funeral Home in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.

Born Frank Morrison Spillane on March 9, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, Spillane grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and began his career as a magazine and comic writer. The first incarnation of his Mike Hammer was a comic book character named Mike Danger.

Spillane wrote more than two dozen books, including 13 in the Hammer series. His books sold more than 140 million copies around the world, according to a fiction writers Web site.

The first book, introducing Hammer, was "I, the Jury," which he reportedly wrote in nine days and was published in 1947. Spillane's Hammer books also included "My Gun Is Quick," "Vengeance Is Mine," "Kiss Me Deadly" and "The Big Kill."

"There's a kind of power about Mickey Spillane that no other writer can imitate," The New York Times once said of his work.

Spillane, a Jehovah's Witness who taught Bible class, occasionally acted in movies and played Hammer in the 1963 film of "The Girl Hunters," as well as parodying his gritty image in television commercials for Miller Lite beer.

Spillane had no pretensions about his writing, going about it with the philosophy that "If the public likes you, you're good."

He was known for blunt writing and blunt talk and had no trouble admitting that money was a prime motivator for his writing.

DISTINGUISHED CRAFTSMAN

In 1995, when he was named a grandmaster of his craft by the Mystery Writers of America, he recalled the days when he didn't write mysteries.

"I used to write true confessions stories like 'I was a pregnant teen-ager' and 'My boyfriend said we stopped in time,"' he said. "I write when I feel the urgent need for money."

Spillane was immune to critics who thought his style was uncivil, and once said, "Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar."

Spillane's fans did not always include fellow authors. Raymond Chandler, creator of another rugged detective, Philip Marlowe, described Spillane's work as "nothing but a mixture of violence and outright pornography." Ernest Hemingway boycotted a Florida restaurant after the owner put up a picture of Spillane.

"He thought I was a lousy writer and didn't like the idea that I outsold him," Spillane said in the December 2003 issue of Vanity Fair when he was promoting a new Mike Hammer book, "Something's Down There."

Spillane had lived in Murrells Inlet, which he discovered when he was an Army flight instructor during World War Two, since the 1950s.

Spillane was married to his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson. His first wife was Mary Ann Pierce, with whom he remained on speaking terms. His second was Sherri Malinou, a Los Angeles publicist from whom he split bitterly in 1983.

He had four children from his marriages.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright 2006 © Yahoo! Inc.

Fresh Air Take On Mickey Spillane

Why do I take on Mickey Spillane on my blog? Because he is a Man's Man Writer. The kind of guy that shoots straight from the gut (no pun intended) and had the juevos to back it up. He and Elmore Leonard make the character just not only jump off the page, but stomp off and kick ya in the ass. Action without a lot of verbal extras.

The Interview

... This and
Exhibit to Honor Country's Ray Price

Country singer Ray Price, a close friend and protege of Hank Williams, was known for hits such as "Talk to Your Heart," "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," "I'll be There" and "Crazy Arms." In 1996, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Next month, the hall will feature an exhibit devoted to PRICE's life and music. This interview originally aired on Jan. 19, 1999.
I heard this afternoon while fueling up and heading back up towards home. This afternoon I was reminencing about things in my life that gave me delight. So this blog seems to go South, but I just keep going, my mind slipping in and out ...

Okay. So this didn't go anywhere. Well, I am decompressing in my antisensory chamber, so cut me some slack, k? I'm goin' to watch an American classic, Married ... With Children and get a hardon from Kelly and Peg ... yummy!

Okay, kiddos ... grab a free helium balloon and a Marlboro from Obnoxio The Clown

And get your kids photos with The Easter Bunny [Jeffrey Jones in Costume] and Santa Clause [Michael Jackson, Also In Costume]

That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

dr phibes

An EVERYMAN'S [or EVERYFAN'S] take on the Saturday Night's Main Event July 15, 2006 ... Don't read if you reallllly like WWE!

2006-07-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

LIVE OFF AIR REPORTS FROM WWE'S SNME IN DALLAS
by Dave Scherer @ 10:08:00 AM on 7/16/2006

Mike G. sent this report.

I just got back from SNME and these are my thoughts on the show.

The show was supposed to start at 5:30PM local time but they didn't even open the doors until 4:30PM which lead to a sold out crowd of 17,000 all trying to get in at once. The dark match didn't even start till about 6:00PM or so. I'm assuming since they opened the doors an hour before that's why they didn't start at the advertised time because there still would have been a half empty crowd and they don't want that on primetime TV. Who knows why they didn't just open the doors earlier though.

Dark Match: Paul London vs. Rene Dupree
I'm a big London fan so it was nice to see him wrestle. Surprisingly since Dupree hasn't been on TV in forever he actually got a lot of heat, even prompting USA chants in the middle of the match. Maybe it was because the show didn't start at the advertised time, we had been in the 100 degree heat forever, and he was the first heel that we saw, but who knows. Sorry I don't remember much about the actual match, but it was a decent, short match with London getting the pin.

The Kevin Von Erich segment was actually done before the show started.

I don't know how much of this got on TV but when Mark Henry went down the ref almost immediately threw up the X sign. After Henry crawled over for the tag he rolled outside in front of the ECW table where he stayed, obviously writhing in pain, until after the match. I think most of the crowd realized he was actually hurt as they gave him a respectful clap when he hopped to the back on one leg (with help from officials) where they finally put him on a stretcher.

After the Hogan/Orton parking lot segment they announced a handicap match for after the show with Umaga and The Great Khali taking on The Undertaker.

It seemed like the crowd was split 70/30 maybe 60/40 for Cena. I couldn't get a real good grasp on it since I was surrounded by kids screaming their hearts out for Cena. He is waaaaay over with the kids. The FU onto the table from the steps was pretty cool, which everyone popped for, even the Cena haters.

After the show went off the air they announced Edge as still being the champ which got a pretty decent pop as his music played and he and Lita went to the back.

Post Show Match: Umaga and The Great Khali vs. The Undertaker
Umaga came out without Armando Alejandro Estrada. A groan made its way throughout the crowd as we realized we would have no Estrrrrrrrrrrrrrrada on the mic. Khali and Umaga argued over who would start the match until Taker jumped both of them sending Khali over the top rope eventually leaving Umaga to start the match. Taker takes the advantage for a little while and goes for Old School but Umaga pulls him off the turnbuckle. Khali is tagged in and he takes the advantage which lead to many boring chants. Taker hits Old School on Khali and Umaga is tagged back in. They go back and forth until Taker goes for a Tombstone but he can't hold up Umaga and it ends up looking like a body slam. Taker then just runs off the ropes and drops an elbow on him for the pin. I figured he would at least pick him back up and go for a chokeslam, but I guess that's what you get in a non televised match. It was nice to see Taker wrestle since I had never seen him live, but considering his opponents and the botched finish it was a pretty boring match.

Overall it was a fun show to see live and the crowd was definitely hot all night long except for the bull riding contest. At least we only had to sit through a couple minutes of that.

Biggest Pops:
1. DX/Hogan (too close for me to call)
2. Kevin Von Erich
3. Batista

Biggest Heat:
1. Vince McMahon
2. The Great Khali
3. Todd Grisham (when he said that the Mavericks choked in the NBA Finals, I don't know why a face would say that)

Tyler Foster sent this report.

I was at the American Airlines Center for tonight's Saturday Night's Main Event and thought I would send you some of the happenings. Paul London defeated Rene Dupree in a dark match before the show. I'm not sure if this was the only dark match as it was ending right as I was getting to my seat. The diva bullriding contest could have happened before that, but I can't say for sure. After the dark match, Kevin Von Erich came out on the stage, which you saw on NBC later. Taping started at about five after six central time, so it was about a 55 minute delay. Hulk Hogan's pyro did not go off when he made his entrance, they shot the pyro going off a little later and it was edited into the show on NBC. If you notice, it just goes to a shot of the pyro and then quickly back down to Hogan posing with the flag in the background.

Six Man tag was kind of a blur to me, as I was watching Mark Henry. I did not see what caused his injury, I just know he was clutching onto the side of the ring trying to stand, and then just collapsed down by the ECW announce table and was telling the ring announcer, Justin Roberts something. After the match, when it cut back to the DX/Squad/Vince skit, Henry was helped to the back by Booker, Finlay, Regal, and a bunch of referee's and agents. It didn't look good, and I've heard now it's pretty severe.

The Batista promo video and Sabu promo video were not shown to the live crowd.

Something was messed up when DX were putting Vince into the cage with the Spirit Squad, as at the live show Michaels had to superkick Vince two times, but on NBC, it only showed one. I think they were having trouble with the lock.

Cena was pretty over in Dallas. However as you probably heard, there were a fair share of Cena haters as well. About 60/40 in Cena's favor I would say.

The post show dark match saw The Undertaker defeat The Great Khali and Umaga in a handicap match. I know the match has been featuring Mark Henry, but obviously he was in no shape to compete. It was obvious it was a quick change as Armando Alejandro Estrada wasn't even with Umaga. Taker won by getting Khali tied in the ropes after chokeslaming Umaga and then pinning Umaga after a legdrop.

Outside the arena post-show. A few wrestlers could be seen leaving. Kenny of the Spirit Squad, along with Mickie James talked with the fans around the exit as they stopped at a stop sign at the exit of the arena. The rest of the Spirit Squad were in a limo. Maria was walked out to the parking lot by several security guards. Also, the HHH Express was believed to have been spotted, although I cant confirm that was indeed it.

Privacy Policy
©Copyright 2004-06 PWinsider.com All Rights Reserved.

Okay. I am a day late on response to this compared to www.PWinsider.com ... so let me give you my thoughts. First, I was there for a friend. He enjoyed it much better than I did, even though I do like wrestling. The lines were around the American Airlines Center and the heat was awful. The humidity and lack of cool wind made it seem unbearable [the FREE FM guys mentioned they were glad to have the medium sized red tarp to shade themselves under. I didn't know any RUSS MARTIN SHOW trivia, so no free shirt.
I saw Booker T. He wore a black SECURITY shirt and I know, as much as he liked the fans, he hated the heat more. He walked pretty briskly to the Center's doors, but did act cordial to us.
Once we got in, there was a delay of the show. People occassionally shouted out the Ric Flair signature " Whoooo! ", but no Ric Flair appearance that night. I had a bit of vertigo in the third upper balcony of the Center, the seats allowed me to watch the ring from a distance, but also check out the video monitors simultaneously for details in the action [which helped out since my recording on my VHS failed].
The Paul London/ Rene Dupree match and the subsequent Umala/Undertaker/Great Khali matches were dark matches, happening not during the broadcast. The matches were short and kinda disappointing in a few bits, since all the signature moves got light pops, but the ENTERTAINMENT aspect seemed to fill in the gaps. BETWEEN MATCHES IT WAS PRETTY QUIET. They used WWE sponsored adds to generate crowd reaction, along with the Maria " Kiss Cam " bit [very lame], the Kevin Von Erich cameo, the Todd Grisham tshirt giveaway and the Bronco Riding Match between Victoria & Michelle McCool [note: an earlier match of riding SUPPOSEDLY happened, but I missed it, as did most of us in the Center]. The DX match and the Rey Mysterio bit running under the legs of King Booker and Finlay reminded me of stage entertainment from musicals or Six Flags. So I loved them.

Let's just say this. After the Undertaker dark match, the reaction of Mark to the crowds apathy and his attempts of creating "pop" summarized the night.

NBC is NOT going to be happy, ratings wise.

XFL anyone?

dr phibes

BlogNote > Simulation And Simulacra ; Ch 62 Nihilism. Page 101

2006-07-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

21.38cst pm 7.14.06
The day had gone pretty fast. I did not work on my preblog notes at work, since I only work a short day today. I am a machinist watching my body waste away as my mind slowly drips darkly into the descent of the closets of the back subconscious ... it seemed like the daily grind just busted knuckle against concrete, bone exposed as my hands get tougher ... the dirt covering up the blisters and tan from a humid, unforgiving Texas sun ... blood wrapping around my hand like gauze and boiling into a permanent scar, a scar of honor. Straightedge psychology... do it yourself, do it hard, fast and consistent. I was raised on the notion that hard work and self isolation made you self made into a source of intense devestation ... right now I am listening to Shadow Reichenstein's Werewolf Order ... a very good and intense album locally made ... before that was Liquid Velvet's Mosh Your Coif, a very short, but Hawaiian Punch [ "Hey, how about a nice Hawaiian Punch!" - Punchy ] YOW! style of punk rock. I did the Plugger ATM cashout today at Half Priced Books And Records, but its okay. I realize that life is meant to be a struggle, so that when you do make it, you do enjoy the rewards and appreciate what it took to sacrafice to get there. I plan to make a lot of drastic sacrifices to get my life jumpstarted to where I can travel and learn history firsthand, not through travel programs, no matter how good they actually are [i.e. Rick Steve's] ... my body has given me some Tom Waits fly in the face of misery aches and pains, demanding me relentlessly to lose my gut and to workout again and do some calisthenics [hey, I admit, I had to look that one up] ...

Examples of calisthenic exercises include:

* Sit-ups/crunches: Start with your back on the floor, knees bent, bottoms of feet against the floor. Lift shoulders off the floor by tightening abdominal muscles bringing your chest closer to your knees. Lower back to the floor with a smooth movement.

* Push-ups: Start face down on floor, palms against floor under shoulders, toes curled up against floor. Push up with arms keeping a straight line from head through toes. Lower to within a few inches of floor and repeat. You should keep your head tilted upward, your back straight. Do not rest on your shoulder blades, even when you feel fatigue.

* Squats: Stand with feet shoulder width apart. Squat as far as possible bringing your arms forward parallel to the floor. Return to standing position. Repeat. Again, if you feel like this is not a challenge, there are other forms of squats. One method is lifting one leg off the floor in front of you, putting both arms in front of you for balance, and squatting. This is a one-legged squat or pistol.

This time of year makes me antsy. Like a one legged panther suffering in the heat. I was watching the day suffer on in its rusty, nerve grinding way. And the alarm for the green door, which never is to be opened, went off because it was. It was like a persistent, aggrevating buzz from a West Nile's Virus carrying mosquito. They trace that stuff even down here in Dallas, parts where the water runs stagnant, but never downhill, or else you get ticketed, much like my next door neighbors in the suburb of Frisco. I put on Diamanda Galas because I will attempt to dredge through a commentary in the Metro section of the Dallas Morning News dated 7.14.06 by Jacquielynn Floyd [looking eerily reminescent of Resse Witherspoon's character in Election], only because I'm bored and I know the News, these days, is better than tranquilizers or warm milk in putting me to sleep. She talks about the cynicism concerning Dallas politicos and the picadillo it puts us preturbally when Miller retires in 2007 [no doubt caused by perusing Jim Shultz's editorial article in the Observer published a day before ... the span of calls, wrong number and whatnot ... the day of work finally ends, then I go about the task of beginning my " less is more " mindset for my apartment and life ... I then stop by

DO YOUR PART! SAVE A DALLAS INSTITUTION!!VIVA LA BILLS

Bill's Records and Tapes and Fiesta, getting some minor chores done ... then its to the apartment, where I do minor cleanup to keep the crypt tidy.... that's it. Exciting, eh? Like an Aqua Velva moment combined with the Nestea plunge, followed up by the Toyota " Oh, what a feeling " jump. We live in a time when infinite possiblities are bounded by brick and mortar or stone and mud, topped by polyurathane and plexiglass, stiffling the middle and lower, while the upper seems to soar above, coughing a sick, diseased laugh at us and wondering why we hadn't thought of it earlier and retaliated. We sat back and let them tread on us like we were floormats in the runningboards of a Ford 72 LTD, which is big, mind you. We allowed Organized Chaos to become undone and all the attempts at forming a hand of revolution, politically or philisophically or socially speaking, is for naught. We are fodder and moot to the point. Until we realize that only in loud, persistent and deliberate advances, can we win.
On a side note, there is a deliberate movement to silence common sense and the attempts to end political correctness, fear and average stupidity seem to be small, but frequent. We are waking up from the slumbering zombies were were for the last six years to realize we have been rollercoasting our lives down a ride of hate, terror and madness, with a psychotic looney helming the electronic controls.
A nice bedtime vision to dream about [only its possible] :

"Rebuilding America's Defenses" and the Project for the New American Century
by Bette Stockbauer

"Rebuilding America's Defenses (RAD)" is a policy document published by a neoconservative Washington think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Its pages have been compared to Hitler's Mein Kampf in that they outline an aggressive military plan for U.S. world domination during the coming century. And just as Hitler's book was not taken seriously until after his catastrophic rise to power, so it seems that relatively few Americans are expressing alarm at this published document that is a blueprint for many of the present actions of the Bush administration, actions which have begun to destabilize the balance of power between the nations of the world.

The Radical Mind of Dick Cheney: An In-Depth Look at the Vice President
DEMOCRACY NOW! December, 2003

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined by Spencer Ackerman, assistant editor of the "New Republic." Welcome to Democracy Now!.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, it's good to have you. Why don't we start from where you begin tracing the odyssey of Dick Cheney going back to the first Bush.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Well, what we wanted to figure out, when we undertook this project, was why someone who many people thought in 2000, when he became the Republican vice presidential nominee, would be a voice of advocacy for stability and, in general, real politic like the first Bush administration generally was, became someone who was so eager to reverse what many consider in retrospect sort of the central aspect of the Bush administration-- the first Bush administration's foreign policy, which was essentially ending the Gulf War with Saddam Hussein in power. And, the more we looked at Cheney's record in the Pentagon, the more we saw that he wasn't within the mainstream in that first Bush administration. He was more of its ideological outlier.
When it came time to formulate policy towards the Soviet Union during the waning days of the Cold War, Cheney wasn't interested, like his colleagues James Baker or Brent Scocroft or even the first President Bush, in arms control or supporting Mikhail Gorbachev and sort of bringing the Soviet Union to what some would call a soft landing. He wanted to really press a very radical approach and sort of shock the system by supporting uprisings in the rebellious Ukraine to create something of an outpost in the region that he would hope would become something of a linchpin for a democratic transformation. Similarly, support Boris Yeltsin, who would then challenge the regime at its core. And you can hear some of the overtones in the-- when you-- in the Iraq War today, looking at that. There would be the end of that 40 years worth of ideological confrontation that would be solved on the United States' terms if we first found someone we could support, who would have our interests at heart in this figure, that they would convince themselves is a world historical figure, like Yeltsin, and similarly creating an outpost in the region would then provide a foothold through which the ideological problems of the region, communism, in so many words, as it was falling down in the end of the 1980's, would then provide this sort of regional positioning towards which the region would then sort of look more like the United States and sort of an open liberal democratic region.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Spencer Ackerman, who is assistant editor at the "New Republic." His piece is called "The Radical Mind of Dick Cheney." So, you look at the last ten years. Talk about Wolfowitz and Cheney.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: They had a very interesting relationship. Both men have-- it's somewhat overlooked-- both men have, in fact, rather similar backgrounds. They're both academics. They both spent their lives thinking very seriously about defense policy. They both-- even something of a meritocratic idea-- sort of finding bright, young intellectuals who are willing to challenge the received wisdom and then placing them in important policymaking places. And that came to its germination in the first Bush administration. Cheney was secretary of defense. Paul Wolfowitz was Cheney's policy director, the undersecretary of defense for policy.
And over that time, Cheney saw his policy shop run by Wolfowitz as less of a 400-man unit that would think a about basing rights and weapons procurement, and formulating military to military ties with other countries, and more of an incubator for really strategic ideas. This was something that Wolfowitz was very keen on. There was a document that comes out of Wolfowitz's policy shop in 1992 called the "Defense Planning Guidance," that was very controversial. It eventually becomes the 1993 "Regional Defense Strategy." That was the first time a document for American policymakers spelled out circumstances under which it would be justified to undertake preventive military action, in this case to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. What does that sound like right now?
Similarly, Wolfowitz saw that, with this "Defense Planning Guidance," that with the end of the Soviet Union and the birth of what we now call the Unipolar Moment, would be a unique opportunity for America to exercise its ability to intervene in other moments of foreign policy crises with a lot greater freedom than it would during this period of ideological confrontation. Similarly, Wolfowitz advocated that if America shrinks from its rather dominant role on the world stage, then the ideological gains of the Cold War would be perhaps momentary and fleeting, and so America needed to stay with its presence on the world stage, is what it was, in order to encourage that these games-- particularly, he was thinking more in Eastern Europe at this point. It would sort of be locked in. And, finally, America had to retain its very robust military capabilities to make sure that no rival emerged to challenge the United States over this period.
And this was just simply not something that was really on the radar in 1992. It was not something that anyone was really thinking about at that time. People were expecting a peace dividend in the Cold War, the 1992 election was all about domestic politics, domestic problems, solving longstanding domestic issues. And, so, it caused a great deal of controversy in the first Bush administration. When the White House heard about it, they repudiated it. But, an interesting thing happened, which is that Cheney, while he did accede to White House pressure and sand down the edges and make sure it got leaked to the same people the original draft got leaked to so that people could see it was no longer quite so aggressive.
Nevertheless, he retained most of its key ideas, most importantly about the necessity, at times, for preventive action and a forward-leaning military presence and most importantly, this idea that American security was really-- was really dependent on what he called zones of democracy. Different areas around the world, which were former security threats, which through American intervention could be transformed into sort of democratic outposts. That's all retained in a January, 1993 document called the defense plan-- I'm sorry, called the "Regional Defense Strategy." And, so, it really shows that the-- the alliance between Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney wasn't sort of a marriage of convenience. It was really more of a meeting of two minds, people who really did see the world in a very similar way, and were very eager to see that their vision was implemented.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Spencer Ackerman. You talk about Dick Cheney leaving his position as Defense Secretary to become head of Halliburton and how he circumvent-- how his disgust with the CIA led him to hire retired intelligence people, a policy he has carried on through this day. Can you talk about the kind of brain trust he set up at Halliburton to deal with the world, to deal with countries?
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Well, basically, he comes out of the-- out of the first gulf war with a really acute sense-- and so does Paul Wolfowitz and so do others who work in the Pentagon-- with a really acute sense that in many very important respects the American intelligence establishment has failed. It's failed to -- it's failed to see that the Soviet Union had a bioweapons program, that we only found out about that in September of 1992, because Boris Yeltsin just flat-out told us. And, you know, that's the whole-- the Soviet Union was the whole reason, more or less, that the CIA existed. So, how could they have missed something so important. Very, very few analysts in the intelligence community accurately predicted the invasion of Kuwait, and so on. There were several failures that proved to be somewhat seminal.
And by the time Cheney gets to Halliburton, like-- like any businessman, he wants to have the most accurate information he can, and so as he hires people who have been former intelligence professionals and others to sort of help him with his forecasting as he ran the company-- we talked to one of them-- and this person told us that, in very florid and not perhaps broadcastable language, how angry Cheney was at the CIA, and how little faith he had in it. And, by the time that Cheney becomes vice president, that's a deeply held belief that he carries over with him. And it's what leads Cheney and his bureaucratic allies to set up channels within the government to sort of second-guess, challenge, outsource and almost replace the judgments of the established intelligence community.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about his relationship with Ahmed Chalabi.
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Chalabi, in the 1990's, as he's-- as he goes through his period where he falls out of favor with the Clinton administration, and with the Clinton administration CIA, cultivates more and more contact in Washington among conservatives. Importantly, Richard Perle and other scholars and former defense officials and other government officials who end up at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. And that's where Cheney goes after his stay as Secretary of Defense and before he becomes head of Halliburton, and through annual conferences that-- that AEI would set up in Beaver Creek and elsewhere, Cheney comes to meet Chalabi. And it's at these conferences where Chalabi would be making his case if only the U.S. would support the Iraqi National Congress and its insurgents, a democratic Iraq could very easily flow out of a very brief period of uprising and instability and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
So, at that point, it becomes more and more enticing to more and more people, the idea that you can be rid of this hideous dictator who seems to be addicted to weapons of mass destruction, who seems to have regional designs on the Middle East even after the Gulf War, and who seems to be sort of a relentless enemy of the United States, replaced with a democratic and free Iraq, which is sort of the bargain of all bargains. And by the time that Cheney becomes vice president, not only does he sort of keep an open line to Chalabi, but many of the people on his staff, including his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, one of his foreign policy advisers, John Hannah, another of his foreign policy advisers who goes over to work in the Pentagon later on, Bill Rooney. A lot of these people have established ties to Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles. And they keep an open line within the vice president to listen to Chalabi and solicit his advice on some cases, to sort of get Chalabi's perspective on intelligence or get alternative intelligence analyses.
AMY GOODMAN: And the whole issue of Joe Wilson and the information-- that the information was false about the yellowcake uranium being sold to Iraq. Can you talk about Alan Foley, the director of the CIA's nonproliferation center and what Cheney and Scooter Libby and the others were doing with him?
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Foley was perhaps one of the most impor-- he's retiring now-- he ran one of the most important directorates at the CIA in this day and age, which is about weapons proliferation. And, over the course of 2002, there were several visits undertaken both by Cheney personally, by Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and then there were simply reams of other-- questioning of documents that would come out of the directorate to sort of, as people who work for Foley have made clear, had the effect of something of a chill factor, that they got the impression that Cheney and his office wanted intelligence reports to conform to what they considered to be the proper conception of the threat, which is Saddam Hussein having reconstituted his nuclear weapons program. And with the Niger issue, a lot of that remains murky.
Basically, the CIA felt-- in early 2002, there's a report that makes its way to Dick Cheney that appears to have originated with Italian intelligence about Saddam seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger, and Cheney asks the CIA in early 2002, do you have anything to corroborate this, do you have any further information, how accurate is it? The CIA said they didn't know. They wanted someone to find out, because they considered it of sufficient importance on its own merits and such importance to the vice president that it deserved a fuller answer. They asked Joe Wilson, who had been ambassador to several countries in Africa and had been an African specialist on the Clinton National Security Council to go to Niger and check it out.
Wilson went in March-- I'm sorry, in February of 2002, concluded that, because of various bureaucratic strictures, because of the structure of Niger, the uranium industry-- it's run by two French-led consortiums in particular-- and because of the difficulties in spiriting away uranium or making deals out in the open on uranium without attracting oversight, most importantly by the International Atomic Energy Agency, such a deal almost certainly did not occur. Wilson returns to the United States. He briefs his CIA contact, and that sort of, is as far as he hears. Cheney's office is adamant that they did not know about Wilson's trip, that they did not know until they read about it in the papers just this summer that this trip had occurred, and they thought that the CIA had answered its ques-- had answered the questions from the vice president's office in its entirety in 2002.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you talk about Cheney citing a Zogby poll, opposing those who said there was not support on the ground in Iraq, by citing this poll to say that the Iraqi people were with the U.S. military. Can you talk about that?
SPENCER ACKERMAN: This was one of the most bizarre statements Cheney made, both before the war, during the war, and in the post-war. In August, the Zogby organization tried to conduct the first scientific, as they call it, understanding of Iraqi public opinion. And what they found was decidedly not good for the United States. Sure enough, they found overwhelmingly that the Iraqi people, as any oppressed people would be, were overjoyed to be rid of Saddam Hussein, that did not translate into an overwhelming endorsement of the coalition's occupation. Cheney took the findings on television and spun it in a way that suggested that that was exactly what Zogby had found, and it was used by Cheney as way to vindicate the coalition action. Yet, Zogby, when you analyze the poll, just paints such an overwhelmingly different picture, it's very strange. Cheney had said that the American model of government was the most popular among the Iraqis.
In fact, a breakaway plurality of 49% wanted a democratic state that was guided by Islamic law. The closest choice to the United States model, which was a secular and democratic Iraq, garnered, by contrast, only 21% support. Cheney had said that about two-thirds of Iraq-I'm sorry, about 60% of Iraqis wanted to stay for at least another year. In fact, what they had said was they wanted the United States to leave in a year. And when you look at just the Sunni population of Iraq, that figure is at 70%. About half of Iraqis said that they expected the United States over the next five years to be harmful to their country. So, only-- only-- I think a fair reading of the poll would probably say that the Iraqis have somewhat mixed to negative feelings at the point at which Zogby conducted the poll about the American occupation. It was quite far from the enthusiastic reception that Cheney told the public that Iraqis had on "Meet the Press."
AMY GOODMAN: Spencer Ackerman, I want to thank you for being with us. Spencer Ackerman is co-author of the piece, "What Dick Cheney Really Believes, The Radical." You're listening to Democracy Now! Stay with us.
To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, call 1 (800) 881-2359.

"That's the spirit, George. If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through."
- General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, 'Blackadder Goes Forth'

BUSH'S WAR
Remarks by Bill Williams Fayetteville Peace Rally October 26, 2002
Too often the Congress of the United States seems to subscribe to the notion that 100,000 lemmings can't be wrong. They seem to be less a deliberative body and more of a herd. Yet all too rarely there is that individual who is willing to step out of the crowd to say “No. That is the wrong way. I will not go there”. Yesterday one such man was taken from us when Senator Paul Wellstone died in an aircraft accident. Although we send our condolences to his family and friends and neighbors in Minnesota, the loss is really borne by every man and woman and child who longs for peace on this tired old planet. His courage will light our path through the dark days ahead. Thinking about Senator Wellstone today leads us to think about patriotism not the blind obedience to whatever power resides in the White House, but adherence to the higher principles which have led Americans to devote their lives, their fortunes and their “sacred honor” to the dreams of freedom embodied in this great Republic. Let us agree today that a patriot is willing to take great risk perhaps any risk to preserve and defend these ideals. A bumper sticker that says “These colors don't run” does not make the driver a patriot. 36 years ago America was engaged in a war in Vietnam. Young men and women from all over this land stepped forward to do their patriotic duty. One of them was known to the United States Marine Corps as 1946319. That young patriot was a kid who believed in the goodness of this country. He believed that the President of the United States always held the best interest of the people as his highest priority. He believed in his country right or wrong. He was sometimes afraid afraid that he might fail his fellow Marines, afraid he might stop a bullet. 1946319 is the number on my dog tags in Vietnam. I was there because I volunteered for the Marines and for combat duty. I'm a lot older now, but I still believe in the fundamental goodness and wisdom of the people of this great country. That is why I am so very glad to be with you patriots today. 1946319 is a number I shall always remember; it described every aspect of my life for four years, two months, 22 days 18 hours and 45 minutes. There is another number every American must always remember 58229. 58,229 names of American men and women, engraved on the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. the Wall. I expect that just like me, the men and women who are remembered there believed in their country and wanted to do their part to protect it. 58,229 in a song or a poem we might call them forever young. The truth is they are simply forever gone. Gone from their homes and their mothers and their fathers and their sweethearts and their children and their friends. Forever gone and with them their hopes and dreams. For us there is only the loss. 58,229 young Americans were at least spared one pain. They never knew how their leaders had abandoned them or what little value the politicians in their homeland placed on their service. But for nearly 3 million American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines coming home was, in some ways, the hardest part. These people were patriots who had done their duty as they were given the light to see it. They came home to be reviled or perhaps worse, to be ignored. There were other patriots in that time citizens who came forward to oppose the war. They too were often reviled. Yet even though they must have been afraid, they possessed a courage rooted in heartfelt belief. Because they raised their voices in an endless chorus the United States of America finally stepped back from that abyss. Decades have passed since that time veterans are no longer “baby-killers” and protesters are no longer “hippie cowards”. Today each of us should have a better appreciation for the patriotism of the other. Veterans can offer thanks to marchers for helping us see foreign adventures in a new light any of us can offer thanks to veterans with the simple phrase, “Welcome home”. Another kind of patriot is the person willing to step forward and run for public office on a platform founded in strong personal belief. I am proud to stand before you today with such a person Sarah Marsh. Ms. Marsh and I might disagree as to which political party offers the best avenue for change in this country, but surely we agree on the need for that change. For war is not the only thing which threatens us indeed this proposed adventure in Iraq is inexorably linked to problems with energy and the environment. And as I salute Ms. Marsh for her willingness to step up and run for office, I beseech her to avoid running against Democrats, especially me, if she can. Consider this - if someone you loved were stricken with a disease which could be fatal if not treated, would you continue to report happily, “Gee, you're looking swell today”; or would you gently take that person by the arm and say “It's time we get you to a doctor”? Well ladies and gentlemen, this great country which we all love has a terrible malady called war. It is time to cure that sickness while she is still strong and vital. But the doctor's name is assuredly NOT George W. Bush. To try to comprehend the ascent of George W. Bush to the Presidency is to make a trip through Alice's looking glass seem as normal as a ride on the cross-town bus. To set the tone for his administration, Mr. Bush appointed the nation's leading xenophobe, John Ashcroft, as Attorney General. To this moment the country's top law enforcement officer is busily engaged in bending the Constitution to fit his own bigoted view of the world. Mr. Ashcroft rules by fiat, often finding the law a nuisance to be dealt with or even disregarded. To fulfill his campaign promise to make the government of this country run like a business, Mr. Bush has mostly just LET business run the country. Enron drafted the Energy Plan, Condoleeza Rice, a member of the Chevron Oil Company Board of Directors, is now the National Security Adviser and the White House Chief of Staff was General Motors' chief lobbyist. Don't forget that the Vice President is so deeply immersed in the oil business that if you lit a match near him, he could serve as an eternal flame on the altar of corporate greed. To be completely truthful, there were times when even this group seemed almost able to rise to mediocrity. The high point of the early days of the Bush administration came when the President ordered a baseball diamond built on the White House lawn. Indeed for a few hopeful moments it seemed he might become so enthralled with the great American pastime that Mr. Bush might forsake politics for a career as a Little League umpire, but alas, it was not to be. In early September of 2001, just as Mr. Ashcroft was cutting anti-terrorism expenditures in the Justice Department, a group of Saudis attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In those first few hours, as Mayor Giulliani trekked through the wreckage of Lower Manhattan, as men of all services fought to save what lives they could in Washington and New York, President Bush cut short his campaign engagements in Florida and dashed off to ... Nebraska. While the country teetered on the edge of panic and anchormen were asking “Where is the President?”, Mr. Bush was winging his way about the Great Plains. Why? Because the Secret Service told him to. Do you suppose they could have kept Ronald Reagan away? Do you think Jimmy Carter or George Herbert Walker Bush would have been content to watch things unfold on CNN? And you can bet your last dollar that if they had told Bill Clinton to stay away he would have been on the next bus to D.C. before the Secret Service could have said “Where's the boss?”. It only took a few hours before the political advantages became apparent to the White House team. And so a man incapable of leading a troop of Boy Scouts on an outing to McDonald's became our “war president”. In a burst of international irrationality unrivaled in my memory, the United States of America invaded the sovereign nation of Afghanistan because we had been attacked by a group of Saudi Arabians. If you comprehend the logic of this behavior, then surely you need professional medical attention. But the fact is that Afghanistan, controlled by a repressive, fundamentalist, totalitarian government seemed an easy, feel-good place to lash out to feed our national appetite for revenge. Indeed the primary problem our military faced in this God-forsaken place was finding bombing targets which would make good video for the news clips. After a brief period during which we bombed the Red Cross into complete capitulation and put the pesky Canadians on the run, Afghanistan, that jewel of the east, was ours. Of course Ossama bin Laden is still “wanted dead or alive”, but if your heritage lies in “Read my lips, no new taxes” that really doesn't seem to matter much. About the time we bombed an innocent wedding party into oblivion it became clear that the media value of Afghanistan was diminishing. That's when the President came up with the “Axis of Evil” - Korea, because they are exporting arms technologies, Iran because they have sponsored terrorism in the past and Iraq because we REALLY dislike Saddam Hussein a lot. Never mind that the word “axis” implies a level of cooperation which doesn't exist among these governments. But the “Axis of Evil” thing really didn't sell that well, so the President took off the summer to relax in Texas and campaign a bit around the country. Then it was September the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks was looming, Congress was back in session just before an off-year election and Ossama bin Laden, a six-foot seven inch Arab was still “wanted dead or alive”. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. Clearly it was time to get that bad guy Saddam Hussein and wrap up his oil fields in the process. So the new plan became to make Iraq an American colony for the next hundred years or until the oil runs out, whichever comes first. Matters suddenly became urgent. We needed to act in haste. Neither the Congress nor the United Nations nor rational thought could be allowed to get in our way. Friends and neighbors, as slowly as a sleepless night crawls toward the dawn yet as surely as that daybreak must come, the truth about this administration is being revealed. We have learned that a man might wrap himself in the flag so that we cannot see who he is. We have learned that these people will capitalize on the honest patriotism of decent Americans for their own political interest why else would the President say it is “unpatriotic” to vote against Enron's Energy Plan? Why else would the Attorney General say it is unpatriotic to give accused terrorists the right to legal counsel? Why else is anyone who dares oppose the Administration labeled as “unpatriotic”? We have learned that this war is not about patriotism, its about petroleum. Its not about patriotism its about profits. Its not about patriotism, its about poll numbers. Its not about patriotism, its about politics. So today, my friends, let us lift our voices so they hear us in the board rooms of the corporations and the secret places of the White House. Let every patriot join with us to say “Peace is Patriotic”.

http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeacecollection/bush.htm

Scary, hunh? These aren't my words. But I can tell you more than just a handful of people in America know this is true. Know that things smell worse than the administration wants us to believe.

Okay, enough of that. Well, I promised to work tommorow, so I hope everyone out there has a wonderful weekend, if I don't get back to y'all.

Remember, the only thing we have to turn to is our gut, our mind and our heart.

dr phibes

" WHAT red headed girl ? "

2006-07-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

Gee Chuck .... that application to the Bachelor seemed to pay off BIG time!

lol

dr phibes

" Charlie Brown ... you BLOCKHEAD ... "

2006-07-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

Singapore Muzzles Blogger " Mr. Brown "

... some nations ... no sense of humor, hunh ?

No need to ask where their funny bone is.

dr phibes

Who Ya Gonna Call ? Hey, hey hey ...

2006-07-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

~ The GhostBusters get a call from educators who are afraid that Cosby will teach young African Americans somethin' other than thug life, bling bling, ebonics, bitches, sticky icky icky, grills and spinners.

Guys, your better off with Stay Puff Marshmallow Man and Slimer.

dr phibes

" We're on a mission from God ... "

2006-07-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

Sit back. Enjoy a nice, ice-cold lemonade and a hotdog with the works.
Its summer.
It's time to go ... baby, where ya wanta go?
Back home. Sweet home, Chicago.

dr phibes

ECW! ECW! EC...HUNH? WTF?? WTF???

2006-07-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

WELCOME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, CHILDREN OF ALL AGES TO

WWECW! WWECW! WWECW! WWECW! WWECW! WWECW! WWECW!

NoDQ.com > WWE > Cena teaming with DX, Storm bashes new ECW
Posted by Aaron Rift on 07/11/2006 at 11:45 AM

In his latest commentary on his site, Lance Storm talks about the state of ECW: "What can I say about ECW, other than I’m really glad I turned down the contract they offered me. I considered it very seriously when Dreamer contacted me early this year. I loved my old ECW days and working with Tommy and Paul again had a lot of appeal. In hindsight though this isn’t ECW one more time, it’s WWECW a completely new entity and more than anything else just a third WWE brand. This isn’t to say it will be a bad brand just not ECW like it once was. For those of you out there who like the new product I propose you start the chant We-C-Dub so as not to destroy the legacy of the original E-C-DUB, because this really has little to do with the Original product."

NoDQ.com > WWE > Joey Styles once again in the WWE "dog house"
Posted by Aaron Rift on 07/12/2006 at 08:19 PM

Joey Styles is back in Vince's "dog house." After the show last night, Vince had a long talk with Joey, telling him that he's once again not happy with how he's calling the shows. After the meeting, Joey was in a very down mood and one person described it as, "he looked like his dog died," and that's how down he was. Vince just doesn't like Joey's style of calling matches, in that Joey tries to call it like an athletic contest. Vince, as we all know, wants him to call the match by "telling stories."

NoDQ.com > WWE > The reason why Paul Heyman did not wear his hat
Posted by Aaron Rift on 07/12/2006 at 03:41 PM

Paul Heyman did not wear his trademark baseball cap on last night's ECW TV show. The reason was because that hat is supposedly part of his babyface persona, while last night's look is how he works as the top heel authority figure. He did the same thing in the past working as General Manager on SmackDown.

NoDQ.com > WWE > Major ECW t-shirt to no longer be sold
Posted by Aaron Rift on 07/12/2006 at 03:41 PM

It is being said that WWE merchandising is discontinuing the "EC F'N W" t-shirt sometime in the near future. The shirt, which is the all-time best selling t-shirt in ECW company history, is said to be considered to crass. Vince McMahon himself supposedly has concerns that the slogan will turn off potential advertisers.

WWE Chairman Vince McMahon HAS gone extreeeeemmmmmeee ... Extremely Boring ...

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZ! ZZZ! ZZZ! ZZZ! ZZZ!

dr phibes

Something You Need To Read If You Live In Dallas

2006-07-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

TEXT

Check out this guy. For the sake of a city insane from the old Al Jolson, horsewhippin', moral decay like, money spending like Senators at The Crazy Horse Salloon, mad Nero-only-wish-he-could-afford-a-council-seat city of Big D, which for some of its voters is more like Diarrhea or Diphtheria than Dallas... okay. I am not well. But then, I am a Dallasite.

" He not hear. How many times I tell you? He not here! Listen! " Manuel "Fawlty Towers" (1975) [TV-Series 1975-1979]

Mrs. Richards: I've booked a room with a bath and a sea view for three nights. I specifically asked for a sea view in my written confirmation, so please make sure I have it.
Manuel: Qué?
Mrs. Richards: What?
Manuel: Qué?
Mrs. Richards: K?
Manuel: Sí.
Mrs. Richards: KC? KC? What are you trying to say?
Manuel: No, no no no. Qué, "what."
Mrs. Richards: K. Watt?
Manuel: Sí: qué, "what."
Mrs. Richards: C.K. Watt?
Manuel: Yes.
Mrs. Richards: Who is this C.K. Watt?
Manuel: Qué?
Mrs. Richards: Is he the manager?
Manuel: Oh, Manajer.
Mrs. Richards: He is.
Manuel: Ah, Mr. Fawlty.
Mrs. Richards: Oh, what are you talking about, you silly little man?
[to Polly]
Mrs. Richards: Girl, I start to ask this man about my room, and he tells me the manager is a Mr. Watt, aged forty.
Manuel: No, no no. "Fawwl-ty."
Mrs. Richards: Faulty? What's wrong with him?
"Fawlty Towers" (1975)

Seriously, check this guy out.

And leave the light on for him.

dr phibes

* borrowing the title from The Electric Company

Heeeeeyyyy, yoouuuu guyyyysss........

2006-07-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

BlogNote 79

2006-07-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

Okay. It ia another sweltering night in the city of daemons ... Big D ... and here is a blog I wrote this morning, but am going to submit right now ...
Am getting into the latest issue of the Dallas Observer, the only tearsheet NOT controlled by BELO Corporation [I think], but just skimming the surface, as I am also attempting to throw my spirit lightly back into the Coliseum pit otherwise known as THE JOB. The last couple of days, my aural pallete has been subjugated to Rob Zombie's Educated Horses, T.I.'s King, Nappy Roots' Wooden Leather, Mark Ronson's Here Comes The Fuzz, Astronautalis' The Mighty Ocean & Nine Dark Theaters, News Travels Fast!'s Push Up Daisies, any Angelique Kidjo and Kanye West's doubleheaders, The College Dropout and Late Registration, along with the banter of office noise, chatter, minor gossip/ rumours and idle chitchat. The air conditioner is humming efficiently along in a low register and the sunlight beams forcefully through badly tinted windows, competing for heat against the illumination of flourescent lighting tubes overhead. I often sit in my corner cubicle with the fucked up grey and stained [with more than coke or java, I can assume] carpet and the exposed electrical outlet and wonder, do the ants and flies have any deep, philisophical or psychoanalytical thought? Do insects dream? If so, what do they dream of? Probably not. And probably nothing.
For the last couple of humid days, I have been playing a copy of Antiques Roadshow, filmed from Tampa, I think, on a generic, .79 cent Wal Mart tape. Only because the rest of the summer lineup on the four major networks are piss poor pap. Less than pap. YouTube.com has better entertainment in Ask A Ninja episodes than the whole reality crap combined. And if you don't have Com (Con) Cast or Dish Direct (To Your Wallet), then the Net seems to be the only entertainment currently worth burning a few non alcoholic, wasted brain cells.

This part is in honor of 2007 Dallas city running contender, Zac Crain :

There are alot of reasons to dislike Dallas. It is a figurative smile on an ugly chick that tells you " your a bad sexual partner, " when you know for a fact the last time she got laid, Reagan was above ground. Dallas promotes pomposity, racism, caste system-like gaul and fake southern hospitality that would make Minnie Pearl spin and puke in her coffin. How fake? The old adage is that it will " smile at you while stabbing you in the back ". It rewards substandard behaviour, secondguessing and stupidity. Backstabbing/biting, gossip and greed are the norms of the day, standards and norms [ha! thought I would say pours, eh?] of this quagmire, this abyssmal slagheap of a Faustian nightmare of gargantuan porportions. It's like watching a very bad Greek tragedy, worse than local access sports entertainment "wrasslin'" shows. McMansions, Hummers, Ozone Hazard Days and Trophy Wives aside, its like Hollywood, if it whored itself [more than usual] completely to Neo Nazis and was screened through the used nylons of countless Nielsen Ratings systemized by Klan members, Al Qaeda leaders and guerrila militia from Guyana ... Hollywood Land, as visualized briefly on the 90s movie, Rocketeer.

At work I am dealing with exceptionally manipulative spouses, asking why we call and who we represent. I explain what I am forced to relay, but I can tell by that sarcastic, smirking response on the other side of the telephone call, they think I am full of it. The day seems to be dragging out, much to the chagrin of those who work with me. They go on about guys and gals I only know from one sided hearsay, my hands typing, dialing my 'park' on individual calls and going on to the next call on an automated, cold dialer, multitasking my life into compartamental units of wasted, eternally grueling timespans, like timesharing Purgatory [Or Key West, Florida], if only the Catholics still believed in the parking lot for the spiritually delayed, like long lines of Wal Mart shoppers with more than ten items. To my left is the latest Pod Cast of The Devil's Mischief, a comedy hour of " carnal comedy clips and netherworld novelty numbers " carefully crafted by Bill M in a cohesive gadgetry, as it were, of side to side gut laughing, adding the occasional honorarium to a lost, forgotten or immortal comic/commedienne of times past. On this Office Depot CD-R 52x700 MB, Episode 148 is a tribute to Doodles Weaver, a former member of Spike Jones' band [the band that influenced Peter Sellers and Monty Python] ... I am setting my mind to concentration mode, to start up again on Chapter of this novella of the damned [lol] I have been crafting [Note : My blogging tonight and installation of better antivirus softward delayed the fuck out of that]. I realize that it's no longer a case of writer's block, just simple procrastination. My night may just be silent and walled in white, cheap stucco, but I am determined to explore life more. To get out and about. To fly beyond the self imposed boundaries I set myself. The last twenty four hours, I have given my mind over to Demon Days by the Gorrilaz. Finding out songs I prefer and don't. I need to get back to art and singing and poetry, I realize. And finish my book.

Verrrry belated Monday joke, part one ...

2006-07-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

At the end of a long crime fighting day, Superman decides he needs to relax for a few hours, so he rings Spiderman to see if he'd like to go out for a drink.

Spiderman replies "No, I have to repair my web spinner."

So, Superman rings a few more of his super hero friends and they're all busy. He decides in the end to go for a quick super-fly around the world to clear his mind before bed time.

As he passes over Wonder-Woman's mansion he sees her lying naked and spread eagle next to her pool.

Hmmm he thinks, with my super powers I'll fly down for a quickie and before she realizes I'll be gone.

So he swoops down and "WHAM BAM thank you maam" and he's gone.

Wonder- Woman shreiks "What was that?"

And the Invisible Man cries "I don't know, but I've sure got a sore ass!!!"

Submitted by gtrmark
Edited by Tds181

This is the joke for the week. I know it's lame. But I will work harder to get better. I wanted to make sure to include this in case my mind starts turning into Liquid Glue and drips out my ears. lol.

Stay strong.

dr phibes

There are so many people who look for encouragement. I think courage is the best encouragement that can be thrust upon them, like honor. Be like the knights of old or samurais, in the best sense of who they were. Take the positive virtues and stick to your guns, regardless of what society judges.

Just something to mental chew on like a rabid dog and his favorite bone.

2006-07-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

i am recovering from an unlimited amount of months that have completely, utterly tied my mind up in a web of malaise and apathetic gluttony, so much to the point that I [emphasizing that the id is still strong, even though the ego and superego need a boost of psychokentic energy]am wondering what the purpose to the purpose is. are we to be controlled by otherworldly, invisible but solid forces that conclude that we are nothing more than susceptible sheep in a flock, awaiting butchering ...

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof. - WALT WHITMAN

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/susceptible.html

In epidemiology a susceptible individual (sometimes known simply as a susceptible) is a member of a population who is at risk of becoming infected by a disease, if they are exposed to the infectious agent.

Susceptibles have been exposed to neither the wild strain of the disease nor a vaccination against it, and thus have not developed immunity. Those individuals who have antibodies against an antigen associated with a particular infectious disease will not be susceptible, even if they did not produce the antibody themselves (for example, infants younger than six months who still have maternal antibodies passed through the placenta and from the colostrum, and adults who have had a recent injection of antibodies). However, these individuals soon return to the susceptible state as the antibodies are broken down. [ Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susceptible ]

We have be subjugated to lies that poison us, first in our minds, then our souls. Like that adage " win their minds, win their souls, win them. " I truly believe that we are smarter than that. Criticize and scrutinize everything you read, watch and hear. Go deeper into the meanings and research it, if you have to, like we did back in high school. Find out what is really being said and twisted, and you might feel the gut kick in the stomach and the little voice in the head that says ... yep, your right.

till the next blog ...

Question everything. Everything.

dr phibes

Belated Monday Humour ... Happy 4th Everyone !!!

2006-07-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

Difference Between Penis and Bread

Dad: Son what is the difference a penis and a loaf of bread?

Son: I don't know.

Dad: Then remind me to never send you to the store for a loaf of bread.

http://jokes.comedycentral.com/joke_of_day.aspx

HAVE A SUPER FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE !!!

And remember ...

"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Frederick Douglass, 1857

Stand strong, America ...

dr phibes

another " lazy sunday " ... nah, too predictable...

2006-07-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

21:45 PM CST 07.02.06

Hey, everyone.

Well, enjoying a salvation to the hot days of Texas : air conditioning. The Wailin' Jennys, Meryl Streep [ an excellent actress and not a bad singer herself ] and Jearlyn Steele all were on the latest episode of A Prairie Home Companion with this week's show, Tanglewood Tales. It is pretty good and remind me of the days I caught Oklahoma !, the Musical and Shepherd Of The Hills, both fine outdoor performances.

The Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama

At The Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre, Harold Bell Wright's epic story of love, loss, power, hardship, and the true meaning of life is immortalized every night on our star-lit stage. It takes over 80 actors and actresses, 40 horses, a flock of sheep, several guns and rifles, an actual burning log cabin, and a vintage 1908 DeWitt automobile to make the live action performance what it is - a legend.
Since our first season in 1959-60, the outdoor drama has entertained millions of Branson visitors. People who came to see the show as children come back to bring their own families. The cast members exhibit the loyalty and affection they have for the story itself. Several of them have been in the drama since its inception. The Shepherd of the Hills is not just another Ozarks show - it is the story of the Ozarks. Your adventure begins with a pre-show at 8 p.m., followed by the performance at 8:30 p.m. During intermission, the entire audience is welcome to join the cast for a square dance hoedown. Once you take your seat, you're in for a thrill-ride of entertainment, and you'll be on the edge of your chair by the end!

Harold Bell Wright, an ailing minister-author who traveled to the Ozarks for his health discovered much more than he sought in the hill country. As he regained his strength in the healthful, peaceful atmosphere, he began writing a manuscript which would become the fourth most widely-read book in publishing history. It would also spark a nationwide interest and bring the first wave of tourism into the Missouri Ozarks.Wright was born in 1872 in Rome, NY. He traveled extensively in his early career as a minister and a writer. At one point, he pastored a church in Pittsburg, KS. He lived there when he discovered that he had tuberculosis.Concern for his health was complicated by despondency over a flagging career as a minister and writer. A cure for both problems seemed to be offered in the milder climate of the Ozark Mountains.In the spring of 1896, he traveled as far into the Ozark hills as the rails took him. The end of the line was Marionville, MO where he set off on horseback into the rugged hills. Turning back from a flood swollen White River, he sheltered at the homestead of John and Anna Ross on a ridge near Mutton Hollow.He intended only to spend the night, but Wright stayed for the summer. He returned to the Ross homestead each summer for eight years as he slowly regained his health.He was a witness of a drought in 1902, as the homesteaders were pushed to the edge of starvation when their crops were scorched, the streams dried and the game disappeared. The settlers' desperation led to a series of events which would form the nucleus of Wright's most famous book, The Shepherd of the Hills.In 1904, Wright began recording his impressions of the settlers and the events which shaped their lives at his campsite in a corn field on the Ross homestead. The completed novel lay unpublished until 1907, when one of Wright's friends insisted on backing its publication in 1907.The Shepherd of the Hills marked a spectacular turning point in Wright's literary career. The book's success was almost immediate. Millions of copies were sold in several languages, and four movies versions were filmed. Wright's 40-year career as a writer resulted in 19 books, many scripts for stage plays, and a number of magazine articles before his death in 1944.The legend Harold Bell Wright began in a novel continues to live in a nationally popular attraction, the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead and Outdoor Theatre.Several events altered the Roark Valley area in the few years between the penning of The Shepherd of the Hills and its publication.The area became more accessible to travelers and the models for its characters continued their lives. In 1905, J.K. and Anna Ross (Old Matt and Aunt Mollie in Wright's novel) moved from their homestead to another place on Roark Creek.The Missouri-Pacific Railroad completed the track of the White River Line through the Roark Valley in 1906, opening the area to tourism.The published novel came to the Branson area in 1908 and was distributed from the Garber post office, where J.K.Ross had become postmaster.By 1909, most travelers disembarking from trains at Branson or Reeds Spring asked to see "Old Matt's Cabin", as the Ross homestead was called in the book. The cabin had been vacated a couple of years earlier, and tourists began taking bits of it until Ross found renters to occupy it. However, the old mill in Mutton Hollow was soon stripped of its siding and most of its equipment.Tourism grew rapidly with the popularity of The Shepherd of the Hills and other business drew on its popularity to further expand the tourism trade. The Sammy Lane Resort, named after the young heroine in Wright's book, was built on the Branson lakefront. Lake Taneycomo had become a traveler's route through the area when the Sammy Lane Boat Line was launched. The line's boats bore the names of characters from the novel.By about 1920 the book's influence in bringing travelers into the region had slowed however, Pearl "Sparky" Spurlock is credited with keeping the legend alive for a numbers of years with her taxi service from Branson over the rugged Dewey Bald Road to the former Ross homestead.Lizzie McDaniel, the daughter of a Springfield banker, bought the homestead after the deaths of J.K. and Anna in about l 923. She hunted for furnishings and memorabilia connected to the Ross family and Wright. She lived in the restored cabin, keeping the living room open as a museum. Later she moved to another house and the entire cabin was opened to the public. The corn field which served as Wright's campsite on his visits was named Inspiration Point and was leased to the state as a park.Dr. Bruce and Mary Trimble, with their son Mark, acquired the homestead alter Lizzie McDaniel's death. They purchased all but Inspiration Point, the cabin and barn in 1946, and leased the cabin and barn. The two leased buildings were purchased by them in the 1970's.An intended retirement project grew into one of the nation's most important historical attractions, under the ownership of the Trimble family. The Shepherd of the Hills Farm and Old Mill Theatre became a multi-faceted operation.Dr. Bruce Trimble was a professor at the University of Kansas when the family purchased the homestead from Lizzie McDaniel's estate. Developing and promoting the homestead soon became a new career for him and his wife Mary. The McDaniel home was converted into a second museum and a gift shop was opened in the barn. A new structure was built as a restaurant called "Aunt Mollie's Cupboard".After Dr. Trimble's death in l 957, Mary continued developing the attraction with the help of their son, Mark. He is credited with creating an outdoor amphitheatre on the homestead. A stage version of The Shepherd of the Hills was being performed by college students in the Branson area, but the amphitheatre gave the drama a permanent home on the site where much of the action actually occurred.Performances began at the Old Mill Theatre in the summer of 1960. The novelty of the outdoor performances and the authentic flavor of the production made it a major attraction in the Ozarks, the state and the country over the years. Its original handful of cast members has grown to nearly 100 players, most of them native Ozarkians.The country atmosphere is enhanced by natural effects of the summer season. Heat lightning flashes over Roark Valley in the distance, and tree frogs and crickets hum all around the outdoor theatre.Between Mother Nature and the Trimbles, the outdoor historical drama became the leading such production in the nation.Mary Trimble died in 1981 and Mark and his wife Lea continued the tradition until 1985 when they sold the attraction to Branson businessman Gary Snadon.Snadon's interest in "The Shepherd of the Hills" stemmed from the theatre's earliest years when he was cast as a leading player in the drama. He performed as the character Wash Gibbs, leader of the notorious Bald Knobber gang.
The attraction is renamed the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead and Outdoor Theatre to emphasize its historical significance as the site of a legend created by Harold Bell Wright.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034182/

Young Matt Masters, an Ozark Mountains moonshiner, hates the father he has never seen, who apparently deserted Matt's mother and left her to die. His obsession contributes to the hatred rampant in the mountains. However, the arrival of a stranger, Daniel Howitt, begins to positively affect the mountain people, who learn to shed their hatred under his gentle influence. Still, Matt does not quite trust Howitt.....

Plot Summary for The Shepherd of the Hills (1941)

There are no revealing guidence sages anymore. We sit here and wait, impatiently waiting for the days of youth, where there were no time delays, migraines or complicated answers to even more complicated questions or arguments. We suffer so that those after us do not have to. We hope that the next generation is smarter, wiser, more caring than we. We seem to sigh in defeated disappointment and slouch in our Lazy Boy comforter when we realize they to must sound defeat before the quiet winds preceeding the hurricanes of failure and sadness. We slouch, with a forlorn look on our faces and realize, Mother was right. All you really need is a hot meal, an aspirin and a good night's sleep.

Can you sleep ? Do you suffer the nights just staring up in the darkness and wonder if we truly are alone, as confirmed by ex President William Jefferson Clinton, who confirmed in Skeptic magazine that the mysterious conspiracies of alien aircraft captured and kept by the government was a hoax. We sigh and stare, hoping that as kids we were wanting to meet ET ourselves, offering him Reese's Pieces, much like Elliott; covering him in a sheet and allowing him to experience Halloween; to learn from him the secrets of the universe. Alas, we are laying on the bed, staring up at nothingness, experiencing Jean-Paul Sartre's world for a bit.During the 1940s and 1950s Sartre's ideas remained ambiguous, and existentialism became a favoured philosophy of the beatnik generation. Sartre's views were counterposed to those of Albert Camus in the popular imagination. In 1948, the Catholic Church placed his complete works on the Index of prohibited books. Most of his plays are richly symbolic and serve as a means of conveying his philosophy. The best-known, Huis-clos (No Exit), contains the famous line: "L'enfer, c'est les autres", usually translated as "Hell is other people". We work day in and day out for a neverending sense of accomplishment, when in actuality it is the never compleated accumulation of material gain, which is never compleat... The simplicity of a campfire, a couple of medium sized sticks and a bag of extra large marshmellows ... under the clear nights sky with a full moon, bright constellations and galaxies and willowy clouds ... the simplicity of youth.
Was at the bookstore today. The sanctuary for the intellectually hungry, it is a warm home for my mind. I rummage through and am tempted, but I know that the same literature will still be available when my mind is ready to accept it.

Till next blog

Keep your sacred memories and discard your scared memories

dr phibes

A review of the astronautalis, ppt & news travels fast ... june 30th

2006-07-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

something wrong, Astro ? ... he he he ... had to ask, right ?

21 : 00 CST PM JUNE 30TH, 2006

I was waiting outside with two other people, noticing that we were delayed, and it also seemed karmic when the train was slowly running south on the track besides Rubber Gloves and parked right in front of the street, blocking it! I was lucky to get their early and not have to wait, till it eventually moved ... eventually, the road crew for the gig showed up, along with other people, including a guy who looked a bit like Rick Steves, if he was still going to college, instead of doing a traveling show, and was a backpacking hitchhiker with a fondness for World Cup soccer. I had made the mistake of entering during sound check, but it was cool. People started filing into Rubber Gloves. I noticed that they moved out the jukebox, that was facing the entrance last time. People started drinking, chatting and smoking. Sound check continued as a small crowd soon formed, the whisp of Camel smoke filling the waiting room, as some people sat at the bar in the far back, shooting the shit with the bartenders, some sitting at the booths up front and some sitting at the small tables in between. Astronautalis and the guy who was his acoustic guitar backup [and the opening act, News Travels Fast ] arrived ... finally they opened the double doors of the dark, concert room. They sold three, fairly priced CDs and various t shirts in the back.
23:00 PM CST News Travels Fast started first. He had a very light, yet deep style on the electric guitar that reminded me of Devo meeting Sara Hickman ... very awesome. He did " one cover " by a group called the Shits ... He mentioned in intermitten banter that we were much better than audiences in the East coast, that he was glad for Rolaids, after having taquerias, that he wondered why they called it Charm City where he was from, when they had a high consistency of sexually transmitted diseases and drug abuse there ... very good preparation for what was in store ... oh, and he did kick ass on his one acoustical number ...
Next, came PPT. Well, at least P & T [Pikhasso & Tahiti] (I found out later that they have started since February !). They definitely rocked the crowd with old school waving hands in the air commands as they said to keep those " damn hands in the air!" They rap & sang, poplocked and apologized for (a) not having Picnic, since he had a conflict of schedule and (b) being late ... noone cared as it started off with a parody of the A Team intro ... they kept the blood pumping and the fists swaying back and forth, as they slapped palms and rapped a solid show. They reminded me of old school rap, era : mid Russell Simmons; they came down into the audience sporadically, identifying with us and making us definitely feel the love, even though they told us to say " F* PPT ". Really, after busting up the night with a solid performance, how could you? I LOVE 'EM !!!!
Finally, Astronautalis ... he did about three songs off the new album, some singing and some rapping ... some of his old hits from " You And Yer Good Ideas " ... not one, but two freestyles !! ... and pumping his soul evidently into his performance, as you could just feel the beats and drum and the guitar just push his vibratto into the audience ... his neck muscles and veins straining to stay under the skin ... he opened with " Meet Me Here Later " ... did " My Dinner With Andy ", " A Love Song For Gary Numan " , " Astigmatism ", " Somethin' For The Kids ", " Gaston Avenue " and " Oceanwalk " ... He was building up to a fever pitch so much so, that he had to take a sit break before the second freestyle ! The first freestyle was rock themed , as he covered a plug for the Riverboat Gamblers [ a Warped Tour band , originally from Austin , that was playing Rubber in a couple of days ] and the second was more reggae themed. He mentioned that he had played there for 5 years and that this was his favorite place! He also mentioned that he is checking out China, so that was super-cool! He joked about the cheapness it would to get a kid from there! And he wrapped up the night with a rap and a story about Rerog's 30th birthday that involved a pinata full of McDonalds and Taco Bell [ value meal indeed! ], a surreal freestyle , skateboarders doing backyard wrestling, inside the house and contest puking done by next door neighbors ....

All in all, a very solid and heart reanewing show !!!

Sorry if it's not more detailed. My brain is slowly disolving.

So, if you like Ghost Dog : The Way Of The Samurai, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Being John Malcovich or The Crow [ i.e. cult movies ] ... bottom line, these artists will rock your ass and keep your blood pumping and your mind continually pushed in a positive way !!! Believe the hype !!!

Fri Jun 30 (Doors open at 9pm; $6)
Astronautalis - CD Release Party!
PPT - (picnictyme, pikahsso, tahiti)
News Travels Fast

p s : met all the artists that performed. Very cool people, period!

Till next blog

Jules: Nobody's gonna hurt anybody. We're gonna be like three little Fonzies here. And what's Fonzie like? Come on Yolanda what's Fonzie like?
Yolanda: Cool?
Jules: What?
Yolanda: He's cool.
Jules: Correctamundo.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

dr phibes

A Second Trailer For Superman ...

2006-06-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

dr phibes

Okay. Gotta give it up to the man with the S ...

2006-06-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

I hear good things and I hear bad ...

If you've seen it, please comment

I want to see what y'all thought.

dr phibes

" Look, up in the sky! "

" You gotta know how to get hit in the balls, know how to catch a bat in your teeth ... " Kenny Roger's The Gambler, Part Deux ....

2006-06-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

Now if they can do Willie Nelson hostin' Punk'd!

dr phibes

How many scented candles DOES a ninja need, anyway ???

2006-06-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

Lee Van Cleef would turn over in his grave ...

Okay. For those of you who don't know, he was " The Master ".

dr phibes

" My name is Friday. And I carry a badge ... "

2006-06-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hip Hop in " Little D " ... " to the beat, y'all " ...

2006-06-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

FROM

http://www.230publicity.com/astronautalis.html

When he stepped off the stage of the world famous Scribble Jam Battle (proving grounds for such rappers as: eminem, slug, and sage francis), Astronautalis knew it was time for a change. After spending the last 8 years as a well-respected battle rapper, and rising from lunchrooms to concert halls, the thrill was gone. His famous freestyle skill was all there, but the creative void was no longer filled by the braggadocio and machismo of the battle circuit, he needed something more.

On the long ride home from Cincinnati to Dallas, his headphones full of outlaw country and ’shoegazer’ rock, he began to shape his new path, and pen the words of the new Astronautalis. Blending styles of indie rock, electro, and talkin’ blues into hip-hop, this rapper has developed a sound like no other. He traded in his verbal weapons of mass destruction for songs about the railroad, lost love, and surreal dreams of sharing doughnuts with tupac and grapes with fat joe. His music has become an amalgam of synthesizers, old funk drum samples, and what can only be classified as ‘an unnatural obsession’ with slide guitar. Making the audience question, ‘is this rap?’

His live show is a theatrical mix of music and performance art, a lecture and stand up comedy, audience guided freestyles and well crafted songs. A show that has shared the stage with everyone from A Tribe Called Quest to The Polyphonic Spree, and taken Astronautalis all the way from the back porch at a 30 year-old texas Bar-B-Que to the Van’s Warped Tour, and all points in between. It makes you wonder how a bow-legged, colorblind suburbanite with a mohawk could ever learn to rap like this.

230 Publicity Website's review of " You and Yer Good Ideas "

Tommorow night, I cannot wait for! I will give y'all a review of it. I am takin' a good bud with me, so I can hardly wait to see if he likes it too. And I will be soakin' up the atmosphere [no pun intended] and tellin' ya how off the chain it will be, i believe

Till next blog

Isn't it ironic that BLOG and GLOB use the same letters from the alphabet?

dr phibes

p.s. I will also review Pikhasso, Picnic & Tahiti ... I'm sure they are off the
chain also !!!

Must See Thursday !!!

2006-06-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

For anyone who falls into this blog, welcome. The previous entries have had a very hardcore political slant or were to get you off with lightweight humour. If you read it and liked it, or not, please feel free to comment and add your intelligent reaction to the mix. I am thankful for the Blogger (tm) for its allowable ability for me to write like the days back when I used to write to a bud of mine about my life, things I observe and some things that people might enjoy ...

1. check out THE DEVIL'S MISCHIEF, on Radio Free Satan ... Bill M is not only a kickass host, but also it has " carnal comedy clips and netherworld novelty numbers " that make you laugh for hours [ ex : the Patton Oswalt special ]

http://www.radiofreesatan.com

2. DJ Lady Tribe. A hot babe who models, dj's and tags. She is a homeboys wet dream,meant in the most respectful taste.

http://www.djladytribe.com

3. Disinformation :: The gateway to the underground has as the item of the day ....Disinformation - The Complete Series Two-Disc, 6+ hour DVD set in discerning stores everywhere and HERE now! How far do you have to go to go too far for television? Disinformation found out! Featuring Illuminatus! author Robert Anton Wilson, Lucifer Principle author Howard Bloom, X-Men scribe and comics-genius Grant Morrison, underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger – the people you rarely see on TV. ... the kind of website Noam would be proud of.

http://www.disinfo.com/site

4. Mashups ...the greatest music for a bastard, like me ... Bastard pop is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. Typically, the music and vocals belong to completely different genres. At their best, bastard pop songs strive for musical epiphanies that add up to considerably more than the sum of their parts. ... the best known site that promotes actual events with it is Bootie, the first bootleg mashup club in the United States [also known as mashups in the UK] ... Though the term "bastard pop" first became popular in 2001, the practice of assembling new songs from purloined elements of other tracks stretches back at least to the 1950s, and, if one extends the definition beyond the realm of pop, precursors can be found in Musique concrète, as well as the classical practice of (re-)arranging traditional folk material and the jazz tradition of reinterpreting standards. In addition, many elements of bastard pop culture have antecedents in hip hop and the DIY ethic of punk.

http://www.mashculture.nl/mash.html

If I may :

Notable bootleg albums include:

* The Kleptones: A Night At The Hip-Hopera (Queen)
* Lushlife: West Sounds(Kanye West vs Pet Sounds)
* Various Artists: Always Outsiders, Never Outdone (Prodigy)
* Various Artists: Flip The Switch (The Chemical Brothers)
* Dean Gray: American Edit (Green Day)
* DJ Z-Trip: Uneasy Listening
* The Who Boys: Tales of Townshend & Wilson and For Mash Get Smashed (The Who vs The Beach Boys (TTW) and various bands (FMGS))

This stuff is most of the time pretty damn good. There are a few that need tweaking and some that appear like they were thrown together at the last minute. And a few, you can't even get to. But for the most part, most of them kick major @$$ ...

So if you see this blog, check out these things [or even other things I've added earlier ]

My baby is in Los Angeles. I drove her to the airport, so I was kinda interested, since I've never been to DFW International before. It was pretty cool. But why no ATMs? They had automatic urinals and faucets, soda machines and even phones, but no ATMs? Jeez. I have been listening to All In Family album snippets and George Carlin tonight. I bought Jedi Mind Tricks and Atmosphere, so I can hardly wait to listen to all of those albums. And tonight, I am catching up on a few things.

Till next blog,

Tommy Chong should get an honorary degree in medicinal marijuana

dr phibes

darkness is my only confidant it seems ...

2006-06-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

22:22 PM CST

Just got to this. This blog is dedicated to my need to understand that in the scheme of things, impatience is not needed in the speck of the fraction of the universe. I feel refreshed with my Mountain Dew by my side, my mind sorting out the information that has been fed to it as up to this point. I note that life is hard when you are threatened of your life by others, when they fail to realize that all living beings eventually die, due to the evolution of time. Time eventually gets to all men and women, be they deep pocketed industrialists and owners of power or be they street sweepers or street soldiers, mindlessly watching the days pass with an endless persistence and persecution ... I read an article on Beautiful People. What defines beauty? Visual context most of the time. One man's idea of beauty may be inside the Sistine Chapel, which I hope to visit someday in my life; then others think of beauty as Carmen Electra or Jessica Alba; then some see beauty as excellently developed music, like Jimi Hendrix's complex version of the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock or Miles creating Kind Of Blue or even Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun ... I honestly don't know my definition of it yet. I have been asked " Do you love me? " I don't know the entirety of love yet. I am trying to learn and accept and set limits and to learn. I know that in order to experience and savour life, I need to set up a sense of order and neatness, to allow me to catch up on put-off, procrastinated projects and open my world.
I am listening to The World Today on NPR radio; the only radio I can even stand now. Commercial radio has turned into the prostitute found in the old Moulin Rouge days, awaiting to be cut at the jugular by independent music that is rich in flavour and style, but not yet commercial or sold out, yet willing to spread its legs for the easy pop of A&R reps who work for the Major League of radio and music, soliciting cheap pop, easy hook songs that are as disposable as the very albums/cds they are burned on, like Mephistopheles decided that the easy way to corrupt the youth would be thru this drivel. Any archtypical god help us if she has a " herpe " sore or worse ...
My job is a very interesting thing. I work in one of the worst type of jobs that a person can do : debt collection. I don't prefer it and to a point, I wish I could go back to art creation and development of imagination and creativity ... I love to design and fiddle with drawing constantly, daily ... but like everyone in the United States that fall in my caste and lower ... bills are the nature of the beast. I feel the push of the economy and the thirst of the needy to seek relief and can only watch and weep spiritually with tired, overworked, underpaid eyes. Like those hopeless souls leaning quietly under the hum of the transit bus in the city, I am crammed into a sardine can-like lifestyle that allows for only a few creature comforts sporadically strewn throughout life, that to the wealthy seem normal : food, gas and clothing, if available. We drown in a scene of helpless dispair, waiting for the crunch of the end of the day to hit us ... its those days where cigarette smoking and drinking seem like the American Dream ... to us, our lives are the American Nightmare ...

The enthusiam of the sports that have been displayed lately ... mainly the Mavs and the Heat playoffs for the Finals ... well, I think that the Mavs lost simply because they ran out of gas ... their " A game " just lost and for Cuban to blame officials is justified if the officials did make mistakes that were later admitted and were rectified, but under the way the structure of the game is made, it may all be spilled milk at this time, without the justified corrections they now express in football with instant replay relayed immediately to the officials ... but some people, who have opinions, may interpret it as " sour grapes " ... I make no translation or interpretation, I'm just responding to an overly emotional response, rather than a businesslike, thoughtful and well versed response ...

Then again, he does own the team.

Well, no offense given ...

Till next blog

Rodney King may have been the pre-millineal American Socrates after all ...

dr phibes

going from hump day to astronautalis' cd release party ... nice !

2006-06-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

I love hump day. It's a change of pace.
This Friday Astronautalis has a CD release party , accompanied by Pikhasso, Picnic & Tahiti @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio, in Denton, Texas. The show starts at 21:00 PM CST [ 9:00 PM ] and is $ 6.00/person.
I've been to Rubber Gloves before. It is a pretty cool venue for music. Not too big and not cramped. It reminds me of a more subdued Trees or ever moreso, like Blind Lemon on Friday nights, during slam night.
It's been a very lightweight week so far, not too much going on, which I like. I am trying so hard to get my priorities set and staying, without just forgetting to allow flexability into the picture.

Till next blog
[Yeah, I realize its light. But that's okay.]

Listen to what you feel is true.

dr phibes

Sir Christopher John Frayling ... and bits of Once Upon A Time In The West

2006-06-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

Sir Christopher John Frayling (born 25 December 1946) is a British educationalist and writer, known for his study of popular culture.

He read history at Churchill College, Cambridge and gained a PhD in the study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

He taught history at Bath University and in 1979 was appointed Professor of Cultural History at London's post-graduate art and design school, the Royal College of Art. Since 1996 he has been Rector in charge of the College.

His is the Chairman of Arts Council England, Chairman of the Design Council, Chairman of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee, and a Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Christopher Frayling was awarded a knighthood in 2001 for "Services to Art and Design Education".

He has had a wide output as a writer and critic on subjects ranging from vampires to westerns. He has written and presented television series such as The Art of Persuasion on advertising and Strange Landscape on the Middle Ages.

He has conducted a series of radio and television interviews with figures from the world of film, including Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, Ken Adam, Francis Ford Coppola and Clint Eastwood. He has also written and presented several television series, including The Face of Tutankhamun and Nightmare: Birth of Horror.

He is especially known for his study of spaghetti westerns and specifically director Sergio Leone. He has written a very popular biography of Leone, Something To Do With Death (2000); helped run the Los Angeles-based Gene Autry Museum's exhibit on Leone in the summer of 2005; and has appeared in numerous documentaries about Leone and his films, particularly the DVD documentaries of Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Literature

* Napoleon Wrote Fiction (1972)
* Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula (1978, revised 1992)
* Nightmare: Birth of Horror (1996)

History

* The Face of Tutankhamun (1992)
* Strange Landscape: Journey Through the Middle Ages (1995)

Film

* Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone (1981)
* American Westerners (1984)
* Clint Eastwood (1992)
* Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death (2000)
* Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema (2005)
* Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in Italy (2005)
* Ken Adam: The Art of Production Design (2005)

Education

* The Royal College of Art: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Art and Design (1987)
* Design of the Times: One Hundred Years of the Royal College of Art (1996)
* The Art Pack (1998)

External links

* Guardian profile
* Frayling on BBC Desert Island Discs

Christopher Frayling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Frayling

Once Upon a Time in the West (originally released in Italy under the title C'era una volta il West) is a 1968 Western film directed by Sergio Leone, considered by many to be his "greatest film". Its critical acclaim has led some to declare it the greatest "Western ever made". The epic film stars Henry Fonda unusually cast as the villain Frank, Charles Bronson as his nemesis Harmonica, Jason Robards, as the generally benign bandit Cheyenne, and Claudia Cardinale, as a newly-widowed homesteader with a past.

Leone said that his last three films, Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon A Time In America, were a trilogy based on "the three periods that touched America".

After making The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Leone had intended to retire from making Westerns. He had come across the novel The Hoods by "Harry Grey" (a pseudonym), an autobiographical book based on the author's own experiences as a Jewish hood during Prohibition, and planned to adapt it into a film (this would eventually, seventeen years later, become his final film, Once Upon A Time In America). However, Leone was offered only Westerns by the studios. MGM/UA (who had produced the Dollars Trilogy) offered him the opportunity to make a film starring Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas, and Gregory Peck, but Leone refused. However, when Paramount offered Leone a generous budget along with access to Henry Fonda, his favorite actor whom he had wanted to work with for virtually all of his career, Leone accepted this offer.

Leone commissioned then-film critics (and future directors) Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento to help him develop the film in late 1966. The men spent much of the following year watching and discussing numerous classic Westerns at Leone's house, and constructed a story made up almost entirely of "quotations" from American Westerns (see below). (see Frayling)

Leone later commissioned Sergio Donati, who had worked on several of Leone's other films, to help him refine the screenplay, largely to curb the length of the film towards the end of production. Many of the film's most memorable lines of dialogue came from Donati, or from the film's English dialogue director, expatriate American actor Mickey Knox.

Why can't we have movies like these anymore? Movies with depth and wit and intelligence. Movies that have been thought over, not only in the screenplay, but also in the direction. We still do have spots of brillance appear off in the distance sporadically, but mostly we are subjugated to all frills, no freethinking fluff pieces of cotton-candy for us, to dumb us down in the cinema and insult us, as an audience and as a ticket-payer.

The lesson : Be selective. Always.

Till the next blog,

dr phibes

I reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life. - Alec Leamas
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

another blanket-like surreal day in purgatory ...

2006-06-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

I figure if you can't have one day that you can laugh at and sit back and enjoy, why have a week?

dr phibes

monday morning humour ...

2006-06-26T05:08:00.001-07:00

THE WEDDING NIGHT

There was a young woman, it seems, that was getting married. So she went and asked her mother for some advice about the Honeymoon night. "Mummy, what should I do on that night?" "What ever do you mean, dear?" her mother asked. "Well, I mean ... I'm imbarrased to ... you know ... undress infront of Charles." "Oh," her mother said, "That's not a problem. Men just "know" what to do when it comes to that sort of thing. I mean, your father knew and I suppose your grandfather knew ... When they have you in the room they'll say, ' Oh, I seem to have run out of cigarettes ...' and then they'll leave and you can get yourself all prettied up."

So, when the girl and her husband arrived in the hotel room she was waiting when suddendly the man said, "Hmmm. I seem to have run out of cigarettes. I'll go down and get some." No sooner had the door shut than she jumped and grabbed her suitcase, ripped off her clothes, put on her nightgown, fixed her make-up and hopped into bed, puffing up the pillows and spreading out the covers, all nice-like. Soon as she'd finished in walked the groom. He looked at her and said, "What are you doing there? We haven't even had lunch yet?"

- David Tynan O'Mahoney (July 6, 1936 – March 10, 2005), better known as Dave Allen, was an Irish comedian, popular in Britain and Australia in the 1960s and 1970s. His act was typified by a very relaxed, intimate style — he would sit on a chair, smoking and holding a glass of whiskey — and would often make jokes about the Catholic church. Along with his seated stand-up routines, his television shows were interspersed with sketch comedy.

http://members.tripod.com/~DaveAllenFan/Stories3.html

Till next blog,

Reader's Digest is right. Laughter is the best medicene.

dr phibes

A Fistful Of Penalties ... a late-Leone remake? pt . 1 ....

2006-06-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

Per un pugno di dollari (1964)

Joe: I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it.

The film's US release was delayed when Yojimbo (1961) screenwriters Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima sued the filmmakers for breach of copyright. Kurosawa and Kikushima won and as a result received 15
percent of the film's worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Kurosawa said later he made more money off of this project than "Yojimbo".

INFLUENCE -

Although the film was advertised in trailers as "the first film of its kind", the plot and even the cinematography was based almost entirely on Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo (written by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima). Yojimbo itself is believed to have been based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest, although Kurosawa never credited the author, despite acknowledging the source. Kurosawa himself reportedly liked Leone's film, but remained insistent that he receive compensation. He wrote Leone: "It is a very fine film, but it is my film." The producers of Yojimbo successfully sued the production of A Fistful of Dollars for copyright infringement, and gained an apology, $100,000 dollars and 15% of the box office totals in Asia to the movie in compensation. Kurosawa later admitted he quite liked A Fistful of Dollars and considered it a worthy remake.

from A Fistful of Dollars

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fistful_of_Dollars

_______________________________________

Watchdog protests blogger conviction

By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press WriterFri Jun 23, 3:00 PM ET

A media watchdog group protested the conviction of an Italian blogger for defamation, warning Friday that such a verdict could lead to censorship of blogs in Italy.

Blogger Roberto Mancini, 59, was convicted of defamation last month in Aosta, northern Italy, and sentenced to pay $16,900 in fines and damages.

Four people, including two journalists, had filed a complaint against him over the content of his blog, which reports on local news in sarcastic and sometimes crude terms.

"It looks like the blogger is being punished for his bad language and not because he posted false information, which is unacceptable," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Friday.

The group also said Mancini wrongly was held responsible for comments posted by readers.

Mancini denies writing the incriminating comments, according to his defense lawyer, Caterina Malavenda. She said he would appeal the verdict.

In Italy, explanations of rulings generally are made public weeks after the ruling is issued, and the grounds for the verdict against Mancini have not yet been released.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are Web sites that allow one or more people to mix opinion, reporting, gossip and even musings about daily life, usually with links to news stories and other items on the Web.

They have become popular in recent years because they are easy to use and give bloggers, many of whom remain anonymous, a relatively wide freedom of expression and a potentially wide audience.

According to court documents, messages posted on the blog made clear, unflattering references to the four who filed the complaint, in one case mentioning that one of them had taken part in a bank robbery.

Malavenda, Mancini's lawyer, argued that the author of the defaming pieces could not be identified with certainty. She said authorities had seized in a raid photographs that appear on the blog, books on blogging and passwords.

"All the material shows he can be someone who used the blog, but there's no evidence that he is the author of those defaming pieces," she said.

Reporters Without Borders added "the complainants were not able to show (the reports) were untrue" and warned that the verdict might induce people who manage blogs to censor messages posted by visitors.

________________________

TECHNEWS

Media watchdog protests defamation ruling vs blogger
Sat Jun 24, 2006

ROME (AP) -- A media watchdog protested the conviction of an Italian blogger for defamation, warning Friday that such a verdict could lead to censorship of blogs in Italy.

Blogger Roberto Mancini, 59, was convicted of defamation last month in Aosta, northern Italy, and sentenced to pay euro13,500 (US$ 16,900) in fines and damages.

Four people, including two journalists, had filed a complaint against him over the content of his blog, which reports on local news in sarcastic and sometimes crude terms.

``It looks like the blogger is being punished for his bad language and not because he posted false information, which is unacceptable,'' Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Friday.

The group also said Mancini wrongly was held responsible for comments posted by readers.

Mancini denies writing the incriminating comments, according to his defense lawyer, Caterina Malavenda. She said he would appeal the verdict.

In Italy, explanations of rulings generally are made public weeks after the ruling is issued, and the grounds for the verdict against Mancini have not yet been released.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are Web sites that allow one or more people to mix opinion, reporting, gossip and even musings about daily life, usually with links to news stories and other items on the Web.

They have become popular in recent years because they are easy to use and give bloggers, many of whom remain anonymous, a relatively wide freedom of expression and a potentially wide audience.

``This is the first time I hear of a case of a blogger who's been found responsible for what is posted on his blog,'' said Julien Pain, the head of the Internet Freedom desk for the watchdog, speaking from Paris.

According to court documents, messages posted on the blog made clear, unflattering references to the four who filed the complaint, in one case mentioning that one of them had taken part in a bank robbery.

Reporters Without Borders warned that the verdict might induce people who manage blogs to censor messages posted by visitors.

____________________________

Press freedom group criticizes Singapore over blogger

Fri Jun 23, 3:30 AM ET

Singapore's police investigation of an Internet blogger who posted cartoons mocking Jesus Christ shows the city-state has scant regard for media independence, a press freedom group says.

"It is not the job of the police to intervene in this kind of case. By targeting this blogger, the authorities have once again shown they attribute scant importance to media diversity and independence," the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement.

"In their view, the role of press is simply to educate and orientate the public, a position not very dissimilar to the one taken by the Chinese and Vietnamese regimes."

The Straits Times has reported that the 21-year-old blogger, who described himself as a "free thinker", first posted a cartoon in January depicting Jesus Christ as a zombie biting a boy's head.

He ignored an online message asking for the cartoon's removal and went on to post more caricatures of Christ to spite the sender.

"I never thought anyone would complain to the police because the pictures were not insidious," he told the newspaper, adding that the cartoons had already been removed from his site.

Police told AFP Friday they are continuing to investigate the blogger after first questioning him in March.

The blogger could be jailed for up to three years or fined 5,000 Singapore (3,148 US) dollars or both if convicted under the Sedition Act.

"It is a serious offence for any person to distribute or reproduce any seditious publication which may cause feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes," an earlier police statement said.

RSF said it understood that sections of the community might find cartoons relating to religious symbols shocking, "but they should be tolerated for the sake of free expression."

Singapore, a multi-racial island nation, clamps down hard on anyone inciting communal tensions. Two ethnic Chinese men were jailed last year for anti-Muslim blogs.

Ethnic Chinese make up 76 percent of Singapore's resident population of 3.4 million. Malay Muslims account for 13.7 percent followed by ethnic Indians and other racial groups.

In April, RSF condemned Singapore's restrictions on political discussions in blogs and websites ahead of general elections held in May.

Last year the group ranked Singapore 140th out of 167 countries in its annual press freedom index, alongside the likes of Egypt and Syria.

Singapore's ruling party is credited with turning the city-state into one of Asia's richest and most modern societies, but condemned by critics for restrictions on dissent.

Foreign publications have paid heavy damages or suffered circulation restrictions after publishing articles critical of Singapore's leaders.

But in a forum with foreign correspondents in April, Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew defended the country's record.

"We're not going to allow foreign correspondents or foreign journalists or anybody else to tell us what to do," said Lee, 82, the former prime minister who holds the position of minister mentor in the government of his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

________________________________

Dropping the F-Bomb

By Joel Achenbach Sunday, June 25, 2006; Page B01

The most versatile word in our language can do almost anything, other than be printed in a family newspaper. It can be a noun, a verb, a gerund, an adjective or just an expletive. It can be literal or figurative. Although it has an explicit sexual meaning, it's usually used figuratively these days, as an all-purpose intensifier.

The F-word remains taboo. But just barely. We may be entering an era in which this fabled vulgarity is on its way to becoming just another word -- its transgressive energy steadily sapped by overuse.

From hip-hop artists to bloggers to the vice president of the United States, everyone's dropping the F-bomb. Young people in particular may not grasp how special this word has been in the past. They may not realize how, like an old sourdough starter, the word has been lovingly preserved over the centuries and passed from generation to generation. For the good of human communication we must come together, as a people, to protect this word, and ensure that, years from now, it remains obscene.

Our leaders aren't helping. Before he was elected president, George W. Bush used the word repeatedly during an interview with Tucker Carlson. Dick Cheney on the Senate floor told a Democratic senator to eff himself. Presidential candidate John F. Kerry said of Bush and the war, "Did I expect George Bush to [mess] it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did." No one is shocked that these people use such language, but as statesmanship it's not exactly Lincolnesque.

More generally, the word is imperiled by the profusion of communications technologies. Everyone's talking, e-mailing, blogging and commenting on everyone else's comments. Combine that with partisan rancor and a general desperation to get one's message across, and naturally the word gets overtaxed. In Blogworld there are no idiots anymore, only [blithering] idiots. The most opportunistic move in the corporate realm may have been the decision by a retailer to call itself French Connection United Kingdom, which allowed it to put the company's initials on T-shirts everywhere. Jeepers, that's clever!

I don't want to make a federal case out of all of this -- but that's what the government is doing. The Federal Communications Commission in recent years has cracked down on "indecency" in general and this word specifically. The FCC's fines for indecency have risen steadily: a mere $4,000 in 1995, then $48,000 in 2000, then $440,000 in 2003 and finally a whopping $7.9 million in 2004. President Bush signed a bill last week increasing by tenfold the maximum fine for indecency on radio or TV, to $325,000. Broadcasters have sued to overturn recent FCC rulings, arguing that broadcasters shouldn't have to abide by laws that don't affect cable and satellite providers (which is why HBO's "Deadwood" can clock, by one Web site's calculation, 1.48 F-words per minute). The inability to be indecent is, for broadcasters, a competitive disadvantage.

In any case, government fines for indecency are something of a rearguard action, unlikely to stem the tide. It's like trying to fight rising sea levels one sandbag at a time.

A landmark case revolves around the word used by Bono, the rock star, at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards. He blurted out that winning an award was "[bleepin'] brilliant." The FCC first ruled that his comment wasn't indecent, because it didn't describe a sexual act. But in 2004, after the Janet Jackson breast exposure during the Super Bowl halftime show, the commission reversed the Bono ruling, saying the singer's comment was indeed profane and indecent.

The FCC's logic, however, was a stretch. It argued that any use of the word "inherently has a sexual connotation." But that's just not true. In fact, the reason it is used so often is because it has escaped the bonds of its sexual origin. It's now used as a generic intensifier. It makes plain language more colorful and emphatic.

The reason it must be suppressed in polite society is not because it's a bad word, but because, in certain circumstances, it is a very good word. It is a solidly built word of just four letters, bracketed by rock-hard consonants. It is not a mushy word, but one with sharp edges. Consider how clunky the term "the F-word" is. The authentic article, by contrast, explodes into space from a gate formed by the upper incisors and the lower lip. Then it slams to a dramatic glottal cough.

I'd even argue that it has therapeutic properties. Ponder, if you will, how critically important this word can be when you stub a toe. It serves as an instant palliative. It's like verbal morphine. You can't hop around the dining room, holding your foot, shouting "Drat!" or "Dagnabbit!" or "Heavens to Betsy!" Those words don't work.

"It's a sexual word in origin but it's not used that way very often," says Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary and editor of the 1995 book "The F-Word," a 224-page dictionary in which some of the permutations of the word are absofreakin'lutely ridiculous.

"It does not have the sting that it used to," he says. "For young people, it just doesn't have that much power for them."

The word has been around since at least the 15th century. The English word with which we are familiar is related to similar words found in the Germanic languages, such as Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and German. These words meant "to thrust" or "to strike" or "to copulate." The first known printed appearance, Sheidlower says, comes from a text around 1475, in a poem that more or less said the monks of Cambridge did not go to heaven because of their sexual dalliances with women. For the next four centuries it was almost always used in a literal sexual sense. The figurative uses so common today didn't arise until the late 19th century, Sheidlower says.

The word was not openly printed in the United States until 1926, when it appeared once in Howard Vincent O'Brien's memoir "Wine, Women and War," according to Sheidlower's book. After World War II, writer Norman Mailer negotiated his way around the taboo by using the made-up word "fug" in the dialogue of the book "The Naked and the Dead." This spring, Andrew Crocker, a Harvard senior, turned in his thesis on the use of the word in post-World War II America, and he relates the famous story that Tallulah Bankhead (or, in some tellings, Dorothy Parker, or Mae West) said to Mailer at a cocktail party, "So you're the man who can't spell f -- ." Nice line, though Crocker says it's apocryphal.

James Jones used the word in his 1951 novel "From Here to Eternity." Like Mailer, Jones was reflecting the speech of American soldiers during the war. This point is key: The word was routinely used by real people, it just was rarely published and never broadcast. It was still taboo.

Liberating the word became a dubious triumph of the 1960s counterculture. At Woodstock, Country Joe and the Fish led a rousing cheer that began with "Give me an F!" and continued on through "K," finally asking, "What's that spell?" Now it sounds silly. Wow. They said a bad word out loud! What revolutionaries!

Soon, the word became common in popular culture, but still retained some of its sizzle. Consider the classic line by Otter in the 1978 movie "Animal House" after the fraternity brothers have wrecked Flounder's car: "Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You [effed] up -- you trusted us!" Drift a few years forward to 1989, and Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," and the word gets a real workout in the mouth of Sal, who at one point uses it six times in the space of five sentences.

Today it still has enough power to be memorable, as when Jack and Miles in the movie "Sideways" discuss the possibility of drinking merlot:

Jack: "If they want to drink merlot, we're drinking merlot."

Miles: "No, if anyone orders merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any [expletive deleted] merlot!"

Just to clarify: This is funny not because Miles used a bad word, but because of the juxtaposition of the bad word with the one that follows. We do not expect to hear a person express such strong feelings -- to the point of vulgarity -- when discussing a particular kind of grape .

We must not overharvest the swear words that are part of the commons of our language. It is an adults-only commons, of course. Kids need to be told that they still can't use it. How can a 13-year-old be transgressively vulgar with the word if his 5-year-old sister already uses it? This word is supposed to be a reward of adulthood. We have to conserve it, so that our children and our children's children can use it when we're gone.

There is a wonderful scene in the 1987 movie "Hope and Glory." A gang of boys is rambling through the rubble of London during the Blitz. The new boy, Bill, wants to join. They ask if he knows any swear words. He says he does. Say them, the boys insist. He hesitates. He admits finally that he knows only one swear word. After much delay and agonizing, he says it, loudly.

The word.

The other boys are shocked into silence. "That word is special," the gang leader finally says. "That word is only for something really important."

Precisely.

achenbachj@washpost.com

Joel Achenbach is a staff writer for the Washington Post magazine.

For those of you who scan and surf the blogs like a mild reader, this should either scare you or incite you. Why ?

Cause they lose the point.

1. To get an idea or concept across hot button celebrities like Howard Stern, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich or Eminem,don't use profanity or shock all the time to get their thoughts across. All they have to do is allow their minds to think through issues and create a nexus of opinion that will cause us to react with or without thinking. For someone to use point blank cursing to cut down is too easy. It's the difference we have allowed ourselves to cultivate, from All In The Family to South Park. The insecurities that force those to use vulgarity replace those days when sarcasm and cynicism could allow the same insecure person to overcome, simply by using a Miriam Webster Dictionary and the human mind.

2. We have gone 1000% politically correct ... and its enough to make any logical human have a migraine. We alter the history to make it less sensitive to the new kids having kids.

3. Religion is getting to be a pedestal on which the fears of age old preconception can slap us against the cheek time and time again with their righteous anger. When taught to love those who are against them, they turn instead to Old Testament "eye for an eye" tentament.

4. When kids eight and under get a chance to slip into a R rated movie, with their parents in tow, F is the least sensitive word with which they are bombarded.

Sweeping off the issue under the rug doesn't cut it.

Till the next blog

Restriction is just Constriction's ugly as a stick brother

dr phibes

Grosse Pointe Blank & The Residents ... just a blog to clear out the cobwebs and promote smart thinking ....

2006-06-25T14:23:00.001-07:00

The Residents blank out on new release - Reuters via Yahoo! News - Jun 24 3:59 PM

The Residents blank out on new release

By Ed ChristmanSat Jun 24, 6:59 PM ET

Cult band the Residents and the Cordless e-label have teamed up to create something that is either a unique multimedia experience that will link the physical, digital and mobile worlds -- or is just plain wacky.

On June 13, Cordless issued the Residents' "River of Crime" -- a 1940s-style radio serial with a band-composed musical score -- in a cardboard double-CD package with artwork that reinforces the band's trademark eyeball, all for $14.99.

The catch? It contains two blank CDs so that the five episodes, which will be released sequentially during a 10-week period, can be burned after the last one becomes available. A unique code for each package allows users to unlock the subscription at riverofcrime.com.

The package is exclusively available at Virgin Megastore locations in the brick-and-mortar world and at idealcopy.com in cyberspace. A prerecorded version of the project is planned for wider release next year.

The episodes also can be downloaded individually as they are released at all digital music stores. Each episode is priced at $1.99.

Cordless and the Residents created a unique vehicle to issue "River of Crime" because they wanted to make it available on an episodic, subscription basis.

"It is a bit wacky, but so are the Residents," Cordless president Jason Fiber says. "The Residents are always pushing the limits, whether it's music, art or technology."

Customers purchasing the limited-edition digital subscription will also receive digital extras like ringtones and mobile wallpaper as well as materials that can be burned onto the blank CD-Rs, including alternate versions of the "River of Crime" artwork, scripts and instrumental soundtrack elements.

And Fiber asks, "How can a digital-only release be (positioned) as a collectible? Residents fans are collectors, and this gives them something tangible to add to their collection."

Through the effort Cordless, Warner Music Group's e-label, can help brick-and-mortar stores sell digital product in physical form.

"It is an experiment, but we think it is something that is relatively easy to understand," Fiber says. The package comes with a red sticker on the cover warning that it contains blank media and telling buyers not to burn "River of Crime" until all episodes are retrieved. Inside the package is an instruction card.

On the other hand, Fiber says it may also be confusing. If the helpline rings off the hook, he says he'll know the effort was too ambitious.

Reuters/Billboard

It's a free plug. They are awesome. And free thinkers ...

http://members.aol.com/Mungs/

http://www.nobeliefs.com/

Closing, but When?
By Pierre Marcelle
Libération

Friday 23 June 2006

Let's get real here: when George W. Bush (that is, the boss) declares to his European Union partners on a trip to Vienna: "I'd like to close Guantanamo, I'd like it to be over with," he's not announcing that he's going to close the loathsome camp, exemplary symbol of all that is arbitrary and lawless. When George W. Bush (that is, the boss), asserts that he "understands" the protests of his interlocutors, they themselves pressured by human rights defenders, he only does it to immediately pull an irrefutable argument out of his hat, and one irrefutably legal: "there should be no legal void [...] for individuals" (he's talking about prisoners who don't even have that status oen) who must be guaranteed "their individual rights and their freedom." Thus George W. Bush (that is, the boss) pronounces that the law prevents him from exiting lawlessness. And that in order to escape this "gray zone" that he, George W. Bush (that is, the boss) himself established, the absolute exigency consists above all in not replacing the "legal void" that defines that gray zone with a legal void. Each person will assess, in the speech of George W. Bush (that is, the boss), the share of malice, moral weakness, candor or impotence that inspires it [1]; and each person will measure against the yardstick of his own war intelligence whether George W. Bush (that is, the boss) will or can - for decent or dirty reasons, but for reasons which in any case are his alone - close the Guantanamo shop where American democracy leaves itself exposed. It is nonetheless necessary that a camp be open or closed, but, between "I'd like it to be over with" and "I'm getting it over with," there is the difference that distinguishes a desire from an act. By seeming to deliberate, George W. Bush (that is, the boss) gives the feeling that he himself is a prisoner of Guantanamo. And, in so doing, that he is no longer altogether the boss.

[1] It being understood that neither malice, nor moral weakness, nor candor, nor impotence - whether of a strategic or a tactical order - are mutually exclusive. That's even what identifies a state of war.

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062306E.shtml

Mr. Grocer: This is Durazac 15, kid. It makes Prozac seem like de-caf latte.
Marty: I don't do that stuff anymore.
Mr. Grocer: Don't say "do it," because I don't "do it," I *ingest* it, on orders of my neurophysiologist. This stuff is legal. In five years they'll be putting it in the water for citizens, just like fluoride.

Mr. Grocer: Easy there Chief, I don't see Hollow-Point Wound Care on the menu.
Marty: Why are you in Detroit? Redwings need a new goon?

Mr. Grocer: [Marty and Grocer are shooting eachother] Comrade! Comrade!
Marty: What?
Mr. Grocer: Why don't you just join the union, we'll go upstairs together and cap daddy!
Marty: This union, there's gonna be meetings?
Mr. Grocer: Of course!
Marty: No meetings.
[They continue shooting]

Mr. Grocer : Workers of the world, unite!

Author: Noir-5 from London

Good movie. Particularly the part where John Cusack is using the frying pan to put his point across to the bad guy on the kitchen floor. It's hard not to belly laugh. I thought it took cues from 'Blue Velvet', with its uncommon blend of humour and ultra-violence.

I read that parts of the dialogue were contributed by Cusack and a couple of [real-life] school friends, though cannot confirm this. It's believeable though - for example when he meets the legal guy propping up the bar at the re-union. His offering of the pen, the aside that Cusack should 'read the cap' and asking to use the funny quip - 'they all seem kinda related' - must have been based on a real person. Too sad to be fiction.

Minnie [cab] Driver, Joan Cusack and Dan Ackroyd personalise their performances very well. The support cast were excellent too. The music was an oddly enjoyable mix and the fight sequence with the pen was the most realistic (and exhausting) I'd seen. It was the attention to small detail which swung it in the end though. Cusack's buddy's coke-fuelled, paranoid banter was spot on ("Jenny Slater, Jenny Slater") as was the burning the fingers on the furnace, to name just two random details. The effect of this, is that they all add up to a movie which you can enjoy watching many times. And that makes it a rare gem.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119229/

Okay. A FREE plug for a group I love ...

and a review of a movie that was unacknowledged as a cult classic.

dr phibes

p.s.

if you read my blog and find it even mildly interesting, it's okay to let others know ... they are allowed to tell me what I'm doing that's on the target and what I'm f*in ' up on ...

Till next blog ...

trust that all the great musicians will die , but their souls live through their maesterpieces ...

The Body Without The Mind ... A Horror Film That Exists In REALITY !!!

2006-06-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

The voting terms and the Voting Rights Act are outdated, like a dinosaur of outdated, outmoded democracy. We are controlled by politicians through a " matrix of termination rules " [Tavis Smiley Show 6.25.06] ... politicians in the pockets of lobbyists and corporations, who are looking to soak our monetary freedom and bind us in invisible manipulation that does not allow us to audit the liberties of those hcarpetbaggers, as we are audited by the Internal Revenue Services for our taxes, which we pay to see roads that are never fixed, armies that are undersupplied and overworked and education that will leave us with more and more McDonald's employees, rather than Intel employees [ or to be poetically similiar in names, McDonnell Douglas [[ which, with Bell Helicopters ]], a major manufacturer of military supply

www.helis.com/timeline/mcddh.php

{{lest we also forget Boeing either )) ...

Law and Politics and Rule and Religion ... those buckets of gasoline dumped haphazardly at the bonfires of anger and retaliation against those that leave us wondering " How the hell did we get here ?" Durante degli Alighieri understood this exile we, as patrons and citizens, have experienced by the administration and government now ... that keeps us at arm's length, despite the fact that this long, stretching arm sways like a pendelum across this nation like a sweeping saquoya fallen by years of abuse ... he was warned by his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida ...

. . . Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta
più caramente; e questo è quello strale
che l'arco de lo essilio pria saetta.
Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale . . .

[noted in Wikipedia]

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso), guided first by the Roman epic poet Virgil and then by his beloved Beatrice. While the vision of Hell, the Inferno, is vivid for modern readers, the theological niceties presented in the other books require a certain amount of patience and scholarship to understand. Purgatorio, the most lyrical and human of the three, also has the most poets in it; Paradiso, the most heavily theological, has the most beautiful and ecstatic mystic passages, in which Dante tries to describe what he confesses he is unable to convey.

Today, we are suffering the Hell. We have been stuck in the Purgatory for so long and in the 50s, we are supposedly reminencing a Paradise that was only threatened by a supposed-Communist based Cuba and Castro. The new millineum is a hell on Earth for us and perhaps, we as satirical and cynical people deserve it. We have abandoned all the superficial things that made us identify with each other and lost our true, inner selves, that which is resound and absolute. We knew what we wanted, but allowed ourselves to be pulled around by the nose ring, much like cows led to the marketplace pens to be bought and sold, herded up the wooden ramps to shipping cars, great Industrial trains blowing hot coal, coverted into steam, carrying us by squeaky iron wheels down the tracks, past mountains, lakes, grassland and valleys to the slaughter houses of John Updike's day " slug 'em and gut 'em " warehouses that covert our carcasses into existential Soylent Green ...

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically. - Jean Paul Satre

http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/Jean~paul-Satre/1

Tagline: It's the year 2022... People are still the same. They'll do anything to get what they need. And they need SOYLENT GREEN. - SOYLENT GREEN (1973)

Trivia for Soylent Green (1973)

* The technical consultant for the film was Frank R. Bowerman, who was president of the American Academy for Environmental Protection at the time.

* One of the scenes of the "beautiful earth" shown to Sol as he is dying is an opening shot from Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) (a flock of sheep on a green hillside).

* Edward G. Robinson's last film. Robinson died nine days after shooting had wrapped.

* The scene where Thorn and Roth share a meal of fresh food was not originally in the script, but was ad-libbed by Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson at director Richard Fleischer's request.

* The videogame in Simonson's apartment, "Computer Space", was one of the first coin-operated videogames, manufactured by Nutting Associates in 1971 and designed by Nolan Bushnell, who later founded Atari and designed "Pong". The videogame was painted white for the movie but the original color was either yellow, red or blue.

* One set of scenes in the original release, where a second family is housed with Thorn and Roth, was deleted from later copies of the film.

* The original title of Harry Harrison's book, "Make Room! Make Room!" was changed by the producers, who feared that audiences would confuse it with the 'Danny Thomas' TV series "Make Room for Daddy" (1953).

* Edward G. Robinson was almost totally deaf when he made this movie, and only able to hear anyone if they spoke directly into his ear. Because of this, scenes with him talking to other people had to be shot several times before he got the rhythm of the dialogue and was able to respond to people as if he could really hear them. And because he was unable to hear director Richard Fleischer yell "cut" when a scene went wrong, Robinson would often continue acting out the scene, unaware that shooting had stopped seconds earlier.

* The music which played when Edward G. Robinson was "going home":
o The overture was the principal theme from the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, the "Pathetique."
o When the visual presentation starts, the music is the first movement of Beethoven's "Symphony #6 (The Pastoral)".
o When the flock of sheep appear, the music is "Morning" from Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite #1".
o At the end of the presentation is "Asas Death", also from the "Peer Gynt Suite".

* The word soylent is supposed to suggest soy + lentil.

* All of the dialogue for actor Mike Henry ("Sgt. Kulozik") was dubbed. The actor's slight Southern drawl did not fit in with the New York cop character he was playing.

In the year 2022, earth's face has completely changed. New York's population, for example, has grown to 40 million mouths to feed. The greenhouse effect has risen the temperature into nearly unbearable regions, and the people are kept in the cities by law. The rich live in separated luxury apartments (with women as part of the rented furniture) but also experience the lack of natural food. Strawberries are at $150 for a glass of them. Police Detective Thorn investigates a strange murdering case of a official from the Soylent Corporation, which feeds the masses with a palette of their creations: Soylent red, yellow, or, even more nutritious, green. He soon stumbles across the real source of Soylent Green, which is not soy beans or plankton any more.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/trivia

We only have sixteen years. " If it bleeds, it leads " is so much a leading term not only of media, but also of this administration. Noone is taking responsibility and doing the right thing, damn the consequences. Who is to say that the Soylent Age is not upon us right now? We physically have consumed and devoured ourselves like cannibals on an island suffering from the radioactive afterthoughts of years of nuclear weaponry testing. We are not concluding thoughts or opinions sepearate of what we have been drummed upon by skewed technology that is dragging behind years of common sense and deep, transitional thought. Why is that? Are we looking to suffer intentionally? Perhaps. Perhaps we, as a society, are euthenazia-suffering patients looking for a quick out. We cannot take the pain of thinking " We are the ones who put these facists into office and running the nation like a police state, burgeoning Big Brother on us in a way that would make George Orwell gasp in horror, thinking ' My god, what did I predict? It was novel, for god's sake.' "

Till next blog,

Take an outside view from the stands to the mosh pit of humanity

... then dive in and stir up the conventionality ...

always ...

dr phibes

Fighting The Good Fight (Club)

2006-06-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a subtle migraine. It was about 09:15 CST AM. I remember waking up. I remember the last reminents of my dreams whisping away, like the grasps of a willowy woman's hands, white and delicate. I put a burned Office Max compact disc into a simple thirty dollar boombox, playing the Fresh Air episode that discussed Sergio Leone and his development of the Italian westerns, dubbed by harsh critics of the time as "spaghetti westerns" ... they inspired me to put A Fistful Of Dollars on the DVD/VCR player and let it play, as I feel the warmth of the apartment flow freely in the rooms. Fight Club by
It is now later in the day. I was looking for Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk, which I couldn't even find anymore, even at Barnes & Noble. But perhaps it was because the Barnes & Noble was not the one near IH 75 and 121, which is much bigger than the one off of Preston. Perhaps also because I did not check out Borders Books.

"I want to have your abortion" - Marla
Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk

Why do we settle for conformity and comfort? Is it because the simple thought of risk and danger keep us frozen like deer in the headlights? Are we headlight programmed? Are we cuddling up to the worst Snuggle teddy bear in all of us? We seek safe numbers in a random, chaotic timeline, which for us concludes with a proposed Armagheddon or the Earth flying orbitlessly into the sun or global warming, leading to a world under water ... frankly, I am not speculating that we are no more important than ants building underground empires under the ever imposing eye of the eight year old bully with his magnifying glass.

I did find Tristam Shandy. For a dollar. Plus tax. A triumph?

Bought a few donuts. Fried lard, yeast and flour. Paradise.

Till next blog,

Trust only in bookstores that hold books by
Thomas Paine, Adam Smith & Mark Twain ...

Thomas Paine From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the NASA administrator, see Thomas O. Paine.

Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an intellectual, scholar, revolutionary, deist and idealist. A radical pamphleteer, Paine anticipated and helped foment the American Revolution through his powerful writings, most notably Common Sense, an incendiary pamphlet advocating independence from Great Britain. An advocate of liberalism, he outlined his political philosophy in Rights of Man, written both as a reply to Edmund Burke's view of the French Revolution and as a general political philosophy treatise as well as Common Sense, a treatise on the benefits of personal liberty and limited government, in which he considers society a representation of human ideals, and government a necessary evil. Paine was also noteworthy for his support of deism, taking its form in his treatise on religion The Age of Reason, as well as for his eye-witness accounts of both the French and American Revolutions.

Biography

Paine was born on 29 January 1737, to impoverished parents: Joseph Paine, a (lapsed) Quaker, and Frances Cocke Paine, an Anglican, in Thetford, Norfolk, in eastern England. His sister Elizabeth died at seven months. Paine, who grew up around farmers and uneducated people, left school at the age of twelve. He was apprenticed to his father, a corset maker, at 13, apparently failing at this as well. At 19, Paine became a merchant seaman, serving a short time before returning to England in April 1759. There he set up a corset shop in Sandwich, Kent. In September of that year, Paine married. Following a move to Margate, his wife Mary Lambert died in 1760.

In July 1761, Paine returned to Thetford where he worked as a supernumerary officer. In December 1762 he became an excise officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire. In August 1764 he was again transferred, this time to Alford, where his salary was £50 a year. On 27 August 1765 Paine was discharged from his post for claiming to have inspected goods when in fact he had only seen the documentation. On July 3, 1766 he wrote a letter to the Board of Excise asking to be reinstated, and the next day the board granted his request to be filled upon vacancy. While waiting for an opening, Paine worked as a staymaker in Diss, Norfolk, and later as a servant (records show he worked for a Mr. Noble of Goodman's Fields and then for a Mr. Gardiner at Kensington). He also applied to become an ordained minister of the Church of England, and according to some accounts he preached in Moorfields.

On 15 May 1767 Paine was appointed to a position in Grampound, Cornwall. He was subsequently asked to leave this post to await another vacancy, and he became a schoolteacher in London. On 19 February 1768 Paine was appointed to Lewes, East Sussex. He moved into the room above the 15th-century Bull House, a building which held the snuff and tobacco shop of Samuel and Esther Ollive. Here Paine became involved for the first time in civic matters, with Samuel Ollive introducing him into the Society of Twelve, a local élite group which met twice a year to discuss town issues. In addition, Paine participated in the Vestry, the influential church group that collected taxes and tithes and distributed them to the poor.

On March 26, 1771 he married his landlord's daughter, Elizabeth Ollive.

Paine lobbied Parliament for better pay and working conditions for excisemen, and in 1772 he published The Case of the Officers of Excise, a 21-page article and his first political work. In September 1774 Paine met Benjamin Franklin in London. Franklin advised Paine to immigrate to the British colonies in America, and wrote him letters of recommendation. Paine left England in October, arriving in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 30. Just before he left, Paine and his second wife, with whom he did not get along, were legally separated.

Paine was also an inventor, receiving a patent in Europe for the single-span iron bridge. He developed a smokeless candle, and worked with John Fitch on the early development of steam engines. This inventiveness, coupled with his originality of thought, found an advocate more than a century later in Edison who championed Paine and helped rescue him from his relative obscurity.

Views

Some believe Paine may have begun to form his early views on natural justice while listening to the Puritan mob jeering and attacking those punished in the stocks. Others have argued that he was influenced by his Quaker father. In The Age of Reason – Paine's treatise in support of deism – he wrote:

The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the Quakers … though I revere their philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at [their] conceit; … if the taste of a Quaker [had] been consulted at the Creation, what a silent and drab-colored Creation it would have been! Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been permitted to sing.

Paine advocated a liberal world view, considered radical in his day. He dismissed monarchy, and viewed all government as, at best, a necessary evil. He opposed slavery and was amongst the earliest proponents of social security, universal free public education, a guaranteed minimum income, and many other radical ideas now common practice in most western democracies.

With regard to his religious views, in The Age of Reason (begun in France in 1793), Paine stated:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

He described himself as a "Deist" and commented:

How different is [Christianity] to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical.

Paine published an early anti-slavery tract [1] and was co-editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine.

American Revolution & The Declaration of Independence
Common Sense, published 1776

Common Sense, Paine's pro-independence monograph published anonymously on January 10, 1776, spread quickly among literate colonists. About 120,000 copies are alleged to have been distributed throughout the colonies which themselves totaled only a few million free inhabitants. This work convinced many colonists, including George Washington, to seek redress in political independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. The work was greatly influenced (including in its name – Paine had originally proposed the title Plain Truth) by the equally controversial pro-independence writer Benjamin Rush, and was instrumental in bringing about the Declaration of Independence.

Paine's strength lay in his ability to present complex ideas in clear and concise form, as opposed to the more philosophical approaches of his Enlightenment contemporaries in Europe, and it was Paine who proposed the name United States of America for the new nation. When the war arrived, Paine published a series of important pamphlets, The Crisis, credited with inspiring the early colonists during the ordeals faced in their long struggle with the British. The first Crisis paper, published on December 23, 1776, began with the famous words:

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

General Washington himself found it so uplifting that he ordered it to be read to all his troops.

In 1778, Paine alluded to the then ongoing secret negotiations with France in his pamphlets, and there was a scandal which resulted in Paine being dropped from the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In 1781, however, he accompanied John Laurens during his mission to France. His services were eventually recognized by the state of New York by a grant of an estate at New Rochelle, and he received considerable gifts of money from both Pennsylvania and – at Washington's suggestion – from Congress.

Returning to Europe, Paine finished his Rights of Man on January 29, 1791. On January 31 he passed the manuscript to the publisher Joseph Johnson, who intended to have it ready for Washington's birthday on February 22. Johnson was visited on a number of occasions by agents of the government. Sensing that Paine's book would be controversial, he decided not to release it on the day it was due to be published. Paine quickly began to negotiate with another publisher, J.S. Jordan. Once a deal was secured, Paine left for Paris on the advice of William Blake, leaving three good friends, William Godwin, Thomas Brand Hollis and Thomas Holcroft, in charge of concluding the publication. The book appeared on March 13, three weeks later than originally scheduled. It was an abstract political tract published in support of the French Revolution, written as a reply to Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke. The book— which was highly critical of monarchies and European social institutions— sold briskly but was so controversial that the British government put Paine on trial in absentia for seditious libel. He later published a second edition of the Rights of Man which contained a plan for the reformation of England, including one of the first proposals for a progressive income tax.

Paine was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, and he was given honorary French citizenship. Despite his inability to speak French, he was elected to the National Convention, representing the district of Pas de Calais. He voted for the French Republic; but argued against the execution of Louis XVI, saying that he should instead be exiled to the United States of America: firstly, because of the way royalist France had come to the aid of the American Revolution; and secondly because of a moral objection to capital punishment in general and to revenge killings in particular.

Regarded as an ally of the Girondins, he was seen with increasing disfavour by the Montagnards who were now in power, and in particular by Robespierre. A decree was passed at the end of 1793 excluding foreigners from their places in the Convention (Anacharsis Cloots was also deprived of his place). Paine was arrested and imprisoned in December 1793.

Paine protested that he was a citizen of America, which was an ally of Revolutionary France, rather than of Great Britain, which was by that time at war with France. However, Gouverneur Morris, the American ambassador to France, did not press his claim, and Paine later wrote that Morris had connived at his imprisonment (Morris's biographers reject the accusation). Paine thought that George Washington had abandoned him, and was to quarrel with him for the rest of his life.

Imprisoned and fearing that each day might be his last, Paine escaped execution apparently by chance. A guard walked through the prison placing a chalk mark on the doors of the prisoners who were due to be condemned that day. He placed one on the door that Paine shared with three other prisoners, which happened to be open at the time. The prisoners in the cell then closed the door so that the chalk mark faced into the cell when they were due to be rounded up. They were overlooked, and survived the few vital days needed to be spared by the fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794). Paine was released in November 1794 due in large part to the work of the new American Minister to France, James Monroe.

Prior to his arrest and imprisonment, knowing that he would likely be arrested and executed, Paine wrote the first part of The Age of Reason, an assault on organized "revealed" religion combining a compilation of inconsistencies he found in the Bible with his own advocacy of Deism. In his Autobiographical Interlude which is found in The Age of Reason between the first and second parts, Paine writes, "Thus far I had written on the 28th of December, 1793. In the evening I went to the Hotel Philadelphia . . . About four in the morning I was awakened by a rapping at my chamber door; when I opened it, I saw a guard and the master of the hotel with them. The guard told me they came to put me under arrestation and to demand the key of my papers. I desired them to walk in, and I would dress myself and go with them immediately."

In the second part of The Age of Reason, Paine writes about his illness and the fever he suffered while imprisoned in the Luxembourg. ". . . I was seized with a fever that in its progress had every symptom of becoming mortal, and from the effects of which I am not recovered. It was then that I remembered with renewed satisfaction, and congratulated myself most sincerely, on having written the former part of 'The Age of Reason.'" The content of the work can be briefly summarized in this quotation:

The opinions I have advanced… are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues—and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help me God.

Paine published his last great pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, in the winter of 1795-1796. In this pamphlet, he further developed ideas proposed in the Rights of Man concerning the way in which the institution of land ownership separated the great majority of persons from their rightful natural inheritance and means of independent survival. Paine's proposal is considered to be a form of Basic Income Guarantee. The Social Security Administration of the United States recognizes Agrarian Justice as the first American proposal for an old-age pension. In Agrarian Justice Paine writes:

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity… [Government must] create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property; And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

In 1800, Paine purportedly had a meeting with Napoleon. However, Paine quickly moved from admiration to condemnation as he saw Napoleon's moves towards dictatorship. Paine remained in France until 1802 when he returned to America on an invitation from Thomas Jefferson.

Last years

Derided by the public and abandoned by his friends on account of his religious views, Paine died at 72 Grove Street in Greenwich Village, New York City, on June 8, 1809. Although the original building is no longer there, the present building has a plaque noting that Paine died at this location. At the time of his death, most US newspapers reprinted the obituary notice from the New York Citizen, which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm." Only six mourners came to his funeral, two of whom were black, most likely freedmen. A few years later, the agrarian radical William Cobbett dug up and shipped his bones back to England. The plan was to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but the bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over twenty years later. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although down the years various people have claimed to own parts of Paine's remains such as his skull and right hand.

Thomas Paine's writings had great influence on his contemporaries, especially the American revolutionaries. His books inspired both philosophical and working-class Radicals in the United Kingdom; and he is often claimed as an intellectual ancestor by United States liberals, libertarians, progressives and radicals. Both Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Alva Edison read him with respect. Edison said of Paine:

I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic… It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood… it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me then about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember very vividly the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings and I recall thinking at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.

There is a museum in New Rochelle, New York, in his honour and a statue of him stands in King Street in Thetford, Norfolk, his place of birth. The statue holds a quill and his book, Rights of Man. The book is upside down.
[edit]

See also

* Contributions to liberal theory
* Bill of Rights

Further reading

* Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice
* Thomas Paine "Origin of Freemasonry"
* Paul Collins, The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine. Boolmsbury Books. 2005. ISBN 1582345023. A book about the fate of Paine's bones after his death.
* Moncure Daniel Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine. G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1892. 2 Volumes. Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Facsimile.
* Thomas Alva Edison, "The Philosophy of Paine" (essay, 1925).
* Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine: With His Name Left Out, the History of Liberty cannot be Written". (essay, 1870).
* Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine" as it appeared in the North American Review. 1892.
* John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life. Bloomsbury Publishing, London. 1995.
* Scott Liell, Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to Independence. Running Press. 2003. ISBN 0762418133. 46-page introduction to the importance of Common Sense in turning opinion against George III.
* Joseph Lewis, Thomas Paine: Author of the Declaration of Independence. Freethought Press. 1947.
* Joseph Lewis, Inspiration and Wisdom from the Writings of Thomas Paine. Freethought Press. 1954.
* David Powell, Tom Paine, The Greatest Exile. Hutchinson. 1985
* William Van Der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine (10 Volume Set). Thomas Paine National Historical Association. 1925.
* Andrew Galambos, Sic Itur Ad Astra. The Universal Scientific Publishing Company. 1999.
* Walton Williams, The Declaration of Independence: Was It Written by Thomas Paine?
* Bertrand Russell, "The Fate of Thomas Paine". In Why I Am Not A Christian. Touchstone. 1967. ISBN 0671203231.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Thomas Paine
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Thomas Paine
Wikisource
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Thomas Paine

* Thomas Paine National Historical Association
* Thomas Paine's writings on God, religion and Deism
* Thomas Paine Quotes at Liberty-Tree.ca
* Five statues: July 4,1950 statue dedication speech at Morristown, NJ
* There are only five statues of Thomas Paine in the world
* The Major & Minor Works, and Letters of Thomas Paine
* Free audio books of Thomas Paine's works (FreeAudio.org)
* Thomas Paine - An Unsung Hero Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc.
* Great American Death Masks, mask of Thomas Paine
* Works by Thomas Paine at Project Gutenberg
* Paine's THE AGE OF REASON paraphrased into modern english
* Tom Paine's Voucher Scheme, by Edwin G. West

dr phibes

watching out for the Brothers seeking my mind ...

" private eyes ... are watching you "

2006-06-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

Bank Records Secretly Tapped
'The Bush administration, relying on a presidential declaration of emergency, has secretly been tapping into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years, according to U.S. government and industry officials.

'Initiated shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the surveillance program has used a broad new interpretation of the Treasury Department's administrative powers to bypass traditional banking privacy protections. It has swept in large volumes of international money transfers, including many made by U.S. citizens and residents, in an effort to track the locations, identities and activities of suspected terrorists.' (Washington Post article).

First, it was telephone records. Then bank records. Next? Internet? Cable? The fridge and your diary with the special Strawberry Shortcake cover and the two, count them, two tiny gold-plated keys on the micro-thin loop, used to lock and unlock your peach-coloured, elementary school sized lined paper? Possibly. It's like the federal version of the Saturday Night Live skit, The Guest That Would Not Leave. Or a very ugly blind date. Only, they are much, much scarier.

http://www.subgenius.com/

2006-06-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.radiofreesatan.com

There is a relative ease I have towards the thought that there are some people who find the dark and mysteriously morbid fascinating. Too many times we are shoved " Happy Happy, Joy Joy " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101178] down our throats in such a sadistic and masochistic fashion that we just can't help but sit there and take it [i.e. we are the sheep seeking the slaughterhouses of permutated Hallmark Network moments that can be wrapped up in a TV hour ] ... It's enough to fight the tides of Walton like lifestyles that make us want to rebel. Do me a personal favour if you wander upon my bloggitory ... take time to visit Radio Free Satan. It's alternative ... in a good way. Like a colon cleansing with Brillo pads and Clorox ... needed once in a while to cleanse our minds and refocus our goals and third eYe. Keep your APB-bullet proof armour on and your Desert Eagle 5.0 loaded, kids.

till next time ...

trust nothing

dr phibes

hellboy responds to another typical saturday morning in hell ...

2006-06-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

17 : 45 CST PM Sitting in front of my DELL. Finished off a large glass of Ozarka water, awaiting for my girlfriend to fly in to Dallas from New York. She is French and as dark as Godiva Christmas chocolate. Also, she is just as sweet and delightful. I am in love for the first time in a long time. Somewhere in another room, the air conditioner is running, as the dog-days of summer are beating down on this Texas town, frying like eggs on a skillet. F/X, a movie I've loved for years, since I was a teen, is also playing in the other room. I loved Jerry Orbach [R.I.P.] and always thought he was underlooked as a very deep actor, much like William Holden, Robert Mitchum or even James Cagney. I am going to work on a tape tommorow for my friend in Colorado, the Magnificant Train, hailing such work as The Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks and Rollins Band, to keep him positive. Tonight I have to scour Rue Morgue Radio for the latest radio podcast to download for him, which I then burn to CD and mail to him " snail mail " as cointed by Bill M, the host of the magically delicious hour of comedy clip and netherworld novelty numbers [apologizes Bill], The Devil's Mischief. He read a email I sent him, which is beyond Fonzarelli cool. I listen occasionally to downloaded podcasts of Breuer Unleashed also, which is hilarious, particularly the Denis Leary interview, where he covers how Lenny Clark ran for mayor [again, mentioned in Leary's comedy roast on Comedy Central] and Kevin Pollak's interview [ya gotta catch the part where he talks about Rickles and Pesci ... priceless!! ]... then I also catch KERA 90.1 on podcast sometimes [particularly Car Talk and 90.1 At Night, both very solid programs]. I miss SoulFinger by the Bar-Kays. This has been a particularly harsh week for me emotionally and spiritually, but perhaps tests like this prod me to get off my ass and do something about it. I hope they do. They make me feel stronger sometimes. I miss my friends, but realize I need to work on myself at the same time and not just take the easy way out. The brain runs low, like the mosquito infested sludge and algae covering a very low level in a septic tank ... but someday I will rewaken and conquer. I have to. The days I work, listening to sob stories and excuses ... the sob stories make my heart fall to the bottom of the proverbial cab floor, getting dirty with dust, hair, debris and gum ... but the excuses make my blood boil and my anger get the best of me, because I realize I've been giving excuse after excuse on why I don't finish my first novel, ever. Do I feel like it will be pisspoor, like the David Spritz novel in Weather Man? Or do I want to try to aspire to Fight Club cult-like followings? I don't know. I just know I need to press on and try harder. To finish what I start. I did finish that novella Hairstyles Of The Damned, which was cool and cute and hip. All rolled into one. I should allow my mind to disavow any secrecy and let all my fear, trials and tribulations out and exorcise the daemons that haunt and bind me, prose and poetic-wise. I need to crawl from out of the gutter I have placed myself, wash off and climb back into the seat and ride my horse into the new frontier. The coffee and Mountain Dew I have consumed are keeping me going, like Sisyphus [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus ] As punishment for his audacity, he was sentenced to be blinded and to perpetually roll a giant boulder up a mountain to the peak, only to have it inevitably roll back down the mountain into the valley.Camus presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. "The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious." - Albert Camus, published originally in French in 1942 as Le Mythe de Sisyphe, and published in English in 1955. I understand that my fear is hindering any type of escape from this predispositioned Hell I have placed myself in; working solely to pay off a material good I used to travel about in, living in secrecy in a hovel with the sparest of necessities, so I can humble myself and learn about simplicity and basic mankind, without the squandering, if possible, on Consumer Hostility Towards Me As An American Citizen ... buying goods just to keep up and squander my future ... to dry out my brain and wring out the brainwashing that comes to me in large, garbagetruck loads by corporations, who see me nothing as extra money in their coffers ... I am learning to fast and go on Lent, more than in a religious sense, but more in a sense of necessity for me to keep my sanity, or the ounces I still have left. I cannot condone materialism, and yet I am a minor cog in its major machine. It is thoughts like these that help me. I will learn. I will reprogram. I will win.

Do not let them win. They cannot if you don't let them.

Stay true.

Dr Phibes

http://www.google.com/search?q=Boulder+up+the+mountain&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

" The most advantageous employment of any capital to the country to which it belongs, is that which maintains there the greatest quantity of productive labor. "
ADAM SMITH - THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

afternoon delight

2006-06-24T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is Bai Ling. She is what attracts me to the intricancies of pop culture. She is alluring, mysterious, sexual, funny and smart. That is what I am attracted to. The simple things that keep us fascinated in blogs, pop culture trivia on our websites, music subculture, sports events and lunchable style of truth that is fed to us in bite-size bits on television, in magazines and newspapers and up on the screen in theaters. We are struggling not to let consumerism refigure our minds, but alas, we fail.

abadonment is not fun ...

2006-06-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

I don't know why anyone would want to feel like the world has been cut off from them, due to a lack of money, time or energy. I feel so lowriding today, feeling my energy seep at a level that would make the Andromeda Strain appear like World War III today. Like a chemical containing no sense of purpose, I exist. Unlike water, I cannot be a universal corrode, like I once was. I have to absorb so much pop cultural flotsam and jetsam sludge its way down the drainpipe of Americana. It's like a radioactive neon green slick that was produced by OverConsumer Conglomerate. Orson Welles is rising from the grave, winking at the Julio Gallo CEOs, warning us of a War Of The Corporations, much more grave and excessively lethal, whereas his Mercury Theater recording of HG Welles [whom he met in a radio interview] is a minor threat, a whif of sage and sawdust to say the least. Beware all of the Tarantinoesque disposability of our lives. We are truly at peril. And alone we stand, facing the great unknown on a lonely island of concrete no bigger than the size of a bathroom tile.

2006-06-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

the happy commuter

2006-06-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

If you get a chance to read this My Space profile, please do so.

You will not regret it.

dr phibes

Introduction

2006-06-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

hello.

I am on the line today.

I will blog later with more information.

Till then,

Always reprogram &
never believe the brainwashing

dr phibes