One a Days

30 What Debate?

I admit, I didn't watch the debates. In fact I'm not watching them as we speak. Part of this is because I'm trying to become a quick expert in how postnuke, Xanthia and pndpndfkjd;lk;jfh sorry, I mean pnphpbb2, interact. But it is mainly because I already know who I'm voting for and I can't stand to watch the candidates debase themselves. Not by debating, but by not debating. Each of the two will mouth platitudes instead of answers. Each of the two will try to look earnest. Each of the two will twist and writhe like a salted worm to avoid saying anything innovative or sensible. That's not what the "people" want. We want canned answers on convenient shelves. We want lower prices. We want to be a quart of oil low but be able to afford to have the pump-jockey top us off. We want the different ones to go back to being far away. Isn't it bad enough they are allowed to live here? They're just jealous of our freedom (which is why they've brilliantly crafted a strategy that forces our government to take those freedoms aways. Holy Cow! The terrorists have won).

I just can't watch. You don't need to know who I'm going to vote for.

All you need to know is that neo-cons have replaced thought with reflexiveness, have turned compassion into a job for the "churches" (defying centuries of church history primarily based on killing the unbelievers), and have turned everything in the United States over to the forces of concentrated capital (except where personal belief is involved) and they are all deeply, deeply, evil.

And dirty.

28 Eternal Fascism (Edited, the link goes to the whole thing):

Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
By Umberto Eco

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds."

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

23 Another wasted day (at work)

A day on which I was never quite "there."

A thing I think I noticed is that that "Leah" by Donnie Iris and "Man on the Silver Mountain" by some dwarf, sound alike when they begin. But I'm just not there enough to check it by actually listening to the song by the dwarf.

Though if it is true, it is also true that I hate that type of similarity. I hate the fact that the bell that rings at the beginning of "Hells Bells" sounds like the bell that rings at the start of "For Whom The Bell Tolls." I guess most bells sound alike, but as much as I can appreciate AC/DC? Metallica rings that bell just a bit harder.

And I didn't have my camera with me when I saw the guy in the entirely slaughtered pickup truck with one rear light out, with a bumper sticker that said "Liberals are the root of all evil."

I was tempted to pull up and say that evil was the root of all conservatives.. but when I did pull up I saw a guy had some teeth missing.. a weird beard, and a tan that spoke of either great wealth being spent poolside, or roofing as a career.

I have my guess..

Then I got to the store and the clouds over the mountain were spectacular. Still, I had no camera.

Then there was the "safe zone" pic.. well, I'll go back and photo that sometime soon... Just don't be afraid of spiders. Or, of being strangled by an enormous white woman...

Cause I'm not.

I'm afraid of running out of booze.

Which is different.

Those, "Albums that Suck" or "Over-rated Albums" lists, or in this case "One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately" are always fun since the author is never looking for really bad music, but is looking for music he or she knows many people like. With that list of popular bands made the author gets to indulge in a little kindergarten-level criticism ('your stuff is poopy!") and sit back as the hit counter whirrs.

Good times, even better when you read the anguished responses from fanatics of the bands (and the authors never choose a band who don't have fanatic fans) named.

But two arguments should never be used in these articles.

The first is the incredibly stupid, "this album was overplayed" argument. That says nothing about the album itself, although it may well be a scathing indictment (or not) of radio programmers. By this theory we should not eat sushi because it was overserved and overhyped in the 70's; we should not drive Hondas because they became ubiquitous in the 90's (when in fact we should not drive Hondas in protest against what ricers do to them); we should not drink water because every restaraunt serves it. Silly. Any 'critic' who uses the overplayed argument is tipping their hand - they chose the album precisely because they know everyone liked it.

The second stupid argument is the "I didn't get it" argument (often tied to the "other people did and that bothers me" argument. The fact that you didn't get it doesn't mean anything to others who did. Making this argument is the equivalent of punting... you're surrendering. Explain why the album sucked in some way. Don't make your personal view the view that everyone should hold. If authors did that uniformly? We'd all be trying to boink their ugly girlfriends just because the authors got the beasts. Just bad arguing.

With that said? Pink Floyd and the Dead suck!

Because I said so.

It's his philosophy about knowledge

All this splendor and more is available at http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/

Please consider the narrative voice, the intended audience, and how language is used in ironic and non-ironic ways by each author.

I was lucky enough to get the chance to photograph a local weightlifting competition. I buzzed in for the day and shot everything but the evening program (Had to go see Prince Purplosophize, y'see). Next year I will make sure I'm there for the whole thing since I missed the awards ceremony and the guy I left my second-string camera with was pretty bad at taking pictures. It was fun and when I shoot next year I will know what I'm doing. It's funny, a lot of things about taking pictures are the same from shoot to shoot, but a new kind of shot always takes a bit to get used to.

Anyway, there were all these backstories, most of which I heard, not surprisingly, backstage in the warmup and paint-down (about which, more soon) areas. I was surprised that body-builders can look pretty normal. Over to the right there is a heavyweight class guy just chilling in the back. You can tell he's kind of fit, but you would never guess that when he got pumped up he'd look like this:But he did.And it didn't take him long to get from the relaxed state to the "wildly pumped up" state either. He lifted a few weights, painted on some tan, and then went out and looked like an alien was just waiting to burst out of his gut (if "gut" is the right word to use on something that chiseled). I think he's 46 years old. Which should make us all feel like we've wasted a lot of time in restaraunts and bars when we should have been feeling the burn.

One thing you get used to immediately is the weird effect that the paint-on tan has. It gets slathered all over the contestants but, oddly, does not go on above their necks. Which leads to a bizarre two-tone effect on most competitors. Like this ----->

Guess what?

That guy is Hispanic, not Anglo.

But he's got so much of the spray-on tan on that when you photograph him your levels get all mixed up and his head turns into Caspar the extremely muscular ghost. Spooky.

Then there's this here picture...Which shows an arm that hasn't yet been pumped up. I took this shot in the dressing room while the competitors hung out and talked.Oh, but click on that picture and you'll see why I thought it was interesting.Yep...Don't even ask if you can buy a drink.

Although you probably could since she was a complete sweetheart the whole day.

When guys look through these pictures, there's one in particular they seem to fixate on:
But then they realize that she is deeply flawed..I cropped it because it is hideous, but you should know that the spray on tan from the spray room has turned the soles of her feet grey.And her knees are too bony. ;-) Then there's that tattoo..

There are other kinds of stories as well.This guy has a pretty well-developed physique:And that physique is even more remarkable when you consider that he is a wheelchair contestant.

Crashed his plane a few years ago, I think the story goes.

Looks pretty good to me.

And I was sort of surprised to learn that this kind of thing is far from rare in bodybuilding.

One of the other wheelchair contestants has Spinal Bifida and is going blind.

He's never going to be cut, but he's clearly going to be in the best shape that he can.

And the guy who developed this arm:

Not only a cancer survivor, but living with Multiple Sclerosis. I think they also mentioned that he is over 50.

Siiiiigh! I feel so young.....

So Project Genesis crashed. But scientists have learned a thing or two from its "failure":

”In a press conference today, NASA Director Sean O’Keefe announced the preliminary findings of the Genesis space probe (which crashed) to Earth when a parachute failed to open.

“Thanks to the hard work of the recovery team,” said O’Keefe, “we have completed the processing and analysis of approximately 98% of the samples, and can now announce our preliminary results: Gravity SUCKS

OK, actually he said that "the 'solar wind' that is blowing from our Sun is composed primarily of dirt."But that kind of sucks also...

PROJECT UPDATE #1So now the project looks like this ------>

Which, to the untrained eye probably looks like it did at the end of our last shot at fixing it up. But that fact is that I have done two important things to the project: I've taken wood putty and filled the two holes where the speaker wires used to go through. The putty withdrew a little bit, so today I put a bit more putty over the holes and evened it up a bit with a putty knife. When it dries, time for some sanding and then painting can ensue.

I'm going to have to figure out what I'm going to do with the routed bits of the interior

I'm a big starter of projects but not so nearly a good finisher. Which is why, when I went to start my online garbage sale, I got trapped in a different project entirely. I will document this project, just so I can hate myself years later when I still haven't finished it. This is the, "make me a better piece of furniture" project.

This all started while I was photographing a bunch of crud in my garage that I was trying to sell so I could continue building my rock and roll dungeon. One of the things I had was an old pair of speakers that a friend had given me. You will see them over there on the left (or right, I'm not discriminating that way). Very 70's -- big woofer, foam fronts, too big. But as I'm photographing them for the online rummage sale (noticing that the fact that my friend had stored them on his deck had rendered the woofers slightly torn) I was reminded of an entirely different thing.

A horrible thing.

A thing inside my house that I had long been trying to change.

the ugly table that didn't fit at all between the fireplace and the TV, but whathehell you gotta hold up the plants somehow..

But it isn't quite wide enough and it does come too far out in the room. So it sucks.

As I looked at the speakers, I dreamt of them gutted and sideways (I had been drinking since half-past noon). And it was (in my head) a vision of loveliness. So I bashed the guts out of the speakers. They were suprisingly well built and this took a hammer, screwdriver, and electric drill. It resulted in this pile of yanked out guts..

I felt like an abortionist - full of happiness at how I had made the world better with just a few simple tools.I had done a bit of damage too one of the speaker cases which I am repairing with glue and wood-filler:
wood-filler, obviously, yet to come.

At the end of today my project stands like this -

and I still have a lot of work to do on it. It's difficult to see in intarweb quality graphics, but there is a little routed area around the inside of the front where the bashed out wood used to be... it has nasty little staples that will need to be hammered down. I think I will fill the routed area with some kind of glue and stone concoction, though I am still thinking about avoiding that approach as it includes extra work.

Also, I'm clearly going to have to paint the insides of the things and fill the holes in the back where the wires used to come in.

Worse? When I turn them sideways I am sure I'm going to want to put at least one shelf in there. I can't be sure, but I'm seeing that now.If I ever get to the stage that I'm thinking of putting glass on the front of these stupid boxes?I'll kill myself.

Cause I think that's a project I could finish.

5 Help, I've declined and fallen, and I can't get up - A trip to the bazaarWent to the tapestry and arts festival and saw, almost without looking, the decline and fall. And it was all just in the signs.First, who amongst women knew that when they were packing on a few extra pounds, if by "few extra pounds you mean "nearly a ton of offensive blubber" they would be elevating themselves into the pantheon of immortals? ---->

I didn't, but then I went to the bazaar. This sign does leave a few questions unanswered, of course. Like, what happens if you are bigger than a size 5XL? Do you become the one true goddess? Become the universe? Or just end up biologically mated to your sofa? You go, Goddess! And WTF is a spiral woman? Not straight, not bent, spiral? Dude, it must be, like, the universe - a size 6XL.

Then there was this sign.. which I don't think needs much explanation:
I'm no particular fan of Nevada, but I'm not sure that is necessary. Moving along I realized that I am closer to the reaper than I have ever been (which is, really, kind of obvious) when I came across the sign over there on the left.When did a 50 year old become a senior? I'm not sure, but I don't think most 50 year olds are gonna be happy to be associated with "SeniorNet" unless it's something that keeps your hair from getting split ends when you do the blue-wash every Friday night.

But here's the deal... even these signs couldn't come close to the stupidity of my final "bad" sign. There probably is a market for clothing for women who are in that delicate stage between mere obesity and sudden cardiac arrest. And this is capitalism so someone has to go for it. And Nevada might smell .. personally, I'd have put "good" somewhere (anywhere, actually) in that Nevada sign, but that's me. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people over 50 who are computer illiterate and will swallow their dislike of being associated with seniors to get training. But....If you are marketing to a product to parents who want something special for their little genius, how could you do this? ----->

Two freaking grammatical mistakes in one sentence. Did this one pass the boys in standards and practices? Do they have standards and practices at Hayden (if that really is their name?)? It just couldn't be worse.Pathetic.

It made me love this simple little hippie sign:

And I hate me some, them hippies

3 How stupid can you be? Two people in one car and neither wears a seatbelt? One lives? Well at least there will be charges.

And since these two idiots were dating, at least now there won't be a next generation of idiots.

Anyone who knows me knows I like a big old slab of meat and a nice creamy head on a beer. But The Gothamist has taken the traditional barbeque and cindered it in a way that makes me understand why Republicans have to hate New York and maybe even why they hate gays. How you can start with the home truth that labor day weekend must "consist of …barbecue and alcohol," and then go astray? The Gothamist does it. First.. he or she (I prefer to think, "it") suggest Chianti with hot dogs. Unless "Chianti" is the name of a local stripper it doesn't work. Wine and hot dogs? Might as well get George Bush Junior together with a book. It just doesn't work.If, sensibly, you won't go there, Gothamist's fall-back suggestion is a beer that doesn't taste like a beer:

Hot Dogs and Beer: You can’t beat a classic, and the beer and hot dog combo is one to be reckoned with. If you want to mix things up with a beer that has the effervescence and complexity of champagne, try this triple-fermented little number from Quebec.

"little number?" Is this a beer or another stripper? Can't I just have a beer? One that doesn't remind me of a pink champagne cocktail? Then I got pretty certain that if there was a stripper, the stripper was a guy. There was a "beef" joke:

If you're going for the beef (hehehe),

And then a little joke about "fruity difference:

The fruitiness of the wine will balance the spice from the meat.

A (hideous) nod to vegetarians and,

a concluding fruit joke

This bold red wine has the depth, spices and fruit to stand up to any meat. For those who have never tried this pairing be prepared for BBQ nirvana.

Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you, pervert?And I never believed there was a gay agenda. The author even mentions that his pants have an elastic waistband... good thing they don't make underwear with flaps anymore. My only hope is that since the alleged columnist is named "Tamara Lover" the whole thing is some sick, sick, joke. Because the only other option is that the Republicans are right about NYC and gays.

And I'll go gay before I'll accept that.

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thepoorman

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