COMIC: Chat Box

by: hhex65

Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 15:01:42 PM MST

2008 Tag Cloud

by: chill

Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 23:33:12 PM MST

Tag Cloud from Campaign 08 showing relative viability of fr4mes.
(drawn from reaction polls of likely voters thru 02/20/08)

Conservative Memories

by: chill

Sat Feb 02, 2008 at 05:46:29 AM MST

• Paul Wellstone is disgusting.
• You just wait and watch Bush, he'll surprise you.
• No, I think nookewlur is the correct pronunciation.

And one of these cats had a cute little sampler by the door to their sunroom which read:
"A Backdoor Guest is Always Best!"

Lolz...I never contended with their sweet visions-- what point would there have been to do that?
Now, maybe, I can forget about all these things once and forever.

Lomban Yoyo Rumblesticks

by: chill

Sun Jan 27, 2008 at 02:17:13 AM MST

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Former dictator Suharto, an army general who crushed Indonesia's communist movement and pushed aside the country's founding father to usher in 32 years of tough rule that saw up to a million political opponents killed, died Sunday. He was 86.

General Suharto had sported a Merkin, or pubic hairpiece, since 1964 when he received a dose of mercury to treat Syphilis. One of the side effects of mercury is the loss of pubic hair.

In October 1965, the Indonesian army and its civilian allies began to kill members and associates of the Indonesian Communist Party.

In 1966, Suharto tortured and imprisoned the author and activist Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The writer was banned from writing and his personal papers were burned. While in prison Toer still managed to orally compose his best-known work The Buru Quartet by narrating it to his fellow prisoners.

In September 1967, the Indonesian Army handed control of its ground robots to Suharto. The Robot Force numbered over 3000 machines and was constructed with $2.86 million in aid from the United States.

General Suharto was officially sworn in as Indonesia's second president in 1968.

In 1970, unhappy clowns from around the world disputed a study that reported that children liked THEM less than Suharto. A poll of hospital children's wards at the time found that youngsters did not like clowns on the walls and thought clowns were scarier than Suharto.

In 1990, the United Nations reported that Suharto was under sanction for beating a Muslim teenager with a metal chair because he thought he was a snitch.  Suharto commented that he hated snitches. Suharto also secretly smoked jenkem in the bushes while The United Nations Security Council was in session.

In August 2005, Lynn Scott of Hamtramck, Michigan was arrested for placing an ad on Craigslist looking for a hitman. The ad she placed offered $5,000 for a hitman to eradicate an enemy of Suharto.

Indonesian State prosecutors accused Suharto of embezzling about $600 million via a complex web of foundations under his control, but he never saw the inside of a courtroom.

Experts say that Suharto is responsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity in the 20th century. It has also been suggested that clowns are likely to benefit by Suharto's death. A small price to pay.

Rules & Reverie

by: chill

Tue Jan 08, 2008 at 22:58:31 PM MST

When I arrived prepared to argue that Chisholm was entitled to at least one delegate because she had received more votes in the First District than anyone else, I found that a pre-meeting had been had been held and the delegates already agreed upon. ~Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Campaign

Always such crazy rules of order-- but that was a long time ago...

...had to check, and I see that Shirley Chisholm pulled 430,703 votes during the 1972 primary & 152 delegates at the convention.

ref: Documentary of the campaign: Shirley Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed

Recent Proceedings

by: chill

Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 06:00:00 AM MST

"What history!" Seneca writes.

Cum ad cenandum discubuimus, alius sputa deterget, alius reliquias temulentorum [toro] subditus colligit.

{When we recline at a banquet, one [slave] wipes up the spittle; another, situated beneath [the table], collects the leavings of the drunks.}

From every quarter of the compass, in the interest of fairness...reflecting the community it serves:

You have to bully people into ignoring you: I was stalked yesterday down St. John to the plumbing supply store. They say if you want to create an on-the-spot thrill, wearing red is the way to go. I was wearing red. I'm no Elspeth Murray but but I'm not bad-looking either. I lead an active life, own my own business, and I'm educated.

The important thing is that the IP address of this stalker and identity thief has been received by the Sheriff. I doubt if the case will get far but I can just see a certain person sweating when he gets the letter from them asking permission to divulge his name as one of those who was using it at that time. I'm guessing it was used in Jackson, Tennessee but by all means stick with your story.

NM Christians Celebrate With Terrorism

by: chill

Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 22:00:00 PM MST

...freedomrequiresreligionjustasreligionrequiresfreedomsayswhat?

NINE KILLED HERE BY CHRISTMAS RUM

by: chill

Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 18:33:04 PM MST

Baby, it's cold outside.

A history of treatment with psychiatric drugs.

The liability of employees using meth (amphetamine) is tremendous.

Early Work Reprint

by: hhex65

Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 00:51:20 AM MST

This piece dates from 1983:

Gary Cooper: Twice awarded the Iron Cross.

Well...what's that all about? In 1983 TACO had this big hit on MTV with a dance version of the old Irving Berlin song Puttin' On the Ritz and in it there's this part: "Dressed up like a million dollar trouper, Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, Super Duper." Gary Cooper was a famous right-wing frontman. He was the last American movie star to visit Nazi Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. He'd been a member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, which was just some Rand-ite nonsense that Reagan and Disney were also hooked into. Cooper campaigned against Roosevelt. Cooper once said that the 1938 anti-Nazi flick Three Comrades should not have been made, &c...

So that's how that all came together.

Lohan Serves $42 Million in Iraq Minutes for DUI

by: chill

Fri Nov 16, 2007 at 00:30:12 AM MST

Solidarity

by: hhex65

Sun Nov 11, 2007 at 02:33:19 AM MST

AFM press release on the WGA:

Regarding the stagehands AFM Local 802 states:

Personally, I'll be continuing my boycott of all profitable music making activities, a work stoppage currently entering its seventh year...

Year Five: What is To Be Done. Protester self immolates, leaves statement

by: panopticpants

Sat Nov 03, 2007 at 18:45:56 PM MST

::::
My actions should be self-explanatory, and since in our self-obsessed culture words seldom match the deed, writing a mission statement would seem questionable. So judge me by my actions. Maybe some will be scared enough to wake from their walking dream state - am I therefore a martyr or terrorist? I would prefer to be thought of as a 'spiritual warrior'. Our so-called leaders are the real terrorists in the world today, responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden.

The Real, the Imaginary: Resisting Jacobin Impulses

by: panopticpants

Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 23:00:00 PM MST

" I want the complete elimination of the authority principle of state tutelage which has always subjected, exploited, and depraved men while claiming to moralize and civilize them.  I want society and collective or social property to be organized from the bottom up through free association and not from the top down by authority of any kind." (Bakunin, cited p. 34; Carl Boggs' Intellectuals and the Crisis of Modernity).

  Jürgen Habermas, Paulo Freire, John Dewey, and Carl Boggs all posit the crisis of capitalist modernity in terms of the various ways in which social institutions have become autonomized.  Within concepts such as "the culture industry" (Habermas via Horkheimer and Adorno), "the banking concept of education (Freire)," "the eclipse of the public" (Dewey), and "instrumental rationality" (Boggs via Weber), we find a common theme of the extraction of power away from actual, concrete human relations and the institutionalization of that power in a horizon that extends well beyond the material existence of any institution.  Analyses of the globalization of this hegemonic process can obviously give rise to political nihilism.  In a sense, it is the forms of nihilism reinforced by institutionalized power and hegemony that is the object of our critique.

  As Carlos Castoriadis notes the "world" (our world) "is always finally the province of human actions."  For Castoriadis, the crisis of social-historical "collective will-formation" is a crisis of the social imaginary.  But, the reader must be warned that this notion of the imaginary is not restricted to the purely egoistic in the sense that it is not something that I (or my subconscious) just happened to cook up.  Rather, the plane of human social relations and its subsequent social imaginary is a social-historical process.  This (imaginary field?) thing we call "modernity" has been posed as problematic by Habermas, Freire, Dewey, and Boggs.  By using Castoriadis' useful blending of "the world" with a central signification, we may be able to address these theorists "individual" contributions, comparatively analyze their works in so doing, and attempt a consider the potential of synthesizing these works into an active politics of collective will-formation.  However, our critique of these texts will arise out of a certain conception of collectivity and will-formation.  The critique elucidates limitations/exclusions in theoretical conceptions of the idea of "collectivity."  Put bluntly, who is the public and how is its will formed? 

Architecture Against The Public or How I Get My Aerobics "in"

by: panopticpants

Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 00:04:16 AM MST

when seeking vengeance, dig two graves

by: hhex65

Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 22:31:12 PM MST

photo© u.u.a. Foxy Brown put in punitive segregation NEW YORK - Rapper Foxy Brown has received 76 days in punitive segregation after she scuffled with another inmate at Rikers Island jail, authorities said Tuesday. Brown was separated from other inmates on Oct. 16, said Stephen Morello, deputy commissioner for public information for the city's correction department.

Forget for a moment that this transpired in a penal complex--I would have assumed one wouldn't muck about with Foxy Brown in any environment. Perhaps it is all just a manufactured image... but her beautiful exterior, which comprises both sugar and spice, apparently conceals a robust temper which might manifest itself in a possibly fatal violent incident were one to interact with her in a less than agreeable manner. Foxy Brown is a dynamic woman who refuses to accept bogus, false, or untrue behavior with anything resembling docility. The takeaway here is simply that one should not hinder, vex or otherwise become a nuisance to Foxy Brown because she bears an intense ill will superior to that of any other woman in town.

Duckerford B. Hayes

by: hhex65

Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 15:15:50 PM MST

by tony seybert

by tony seybert

You can find more Duckerford B. Hayes scattered all about the mighty intrawebz.
Tony Seybert resides in Southern California and is currently working on a novel.

The Right to Work

by: hhex65

Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 01:48:55 AM MST

This is a busy time of year for migrant farm laborers, and during this season the regulations protecting these workers get the greatest exposure. Charged with the responsibility of protecting the laborers, State Occupational Health and Safety officers fan out across the agricultural areas to interview farm workers about their conditions, brief local administrators and enforce compliance. Here are two examples of workplace regulations that were ratified in 1995:

Typical Ranch Owners

1. Suitably cool potable water shall be provided in sufficient amounts.
2. One toilet facility for each 20 employees, the facilities shall have doors.

There are others. Prior to 1995 these conditions were not expected to be met. According to the OSHA website violations might trigger a compliance investigation under these circumstances:

 

Typical Missing Child

1. A complaint filed by an employee or their representative regarding safety hazards that may be present in the workplace.   2. A referral filed by another governmental agency or member of  the public regarding observed safety or health hazards.   3. A randomly chosen inspection in an industry that is considered "High Hazard".   4. An investigation of a fatality in the workplace.   5. An investigation of an accident where three or more employees have been hospitalized.

MIKE JONES - THE OTHER SIDE TO THE TED HAGGARD STORY

by: panopticpants

Thu Aug 09, 2007 at 10:49:20 AM MST

Mike Jones the escort that Haggard saw monthly for three years. I recently met Jones, and he read from his book and discussed it in Chicago on his book tour for I Had to Say Something . Jones was personable and considerate. There was a gentleness about him, rare in any forum. I got the sense that he was shy and certainly not someone too familiar with extensive public appearances. He wasn't self-aggrandizing or super polished. Jones addressed the difficulty of the decision to out someone. He noted that at least thirty percent of his clientele are clergy, from the evangelical church, or from the military. He respects privacy and is not for outting someone just to do it. Making the decision was an ethical crisis for him.  For all but three months of these years, he did not know who Ted was. Haggard went by the name of "Art."

Jones' whole life was turned upside down. Some might think that he was strongly supported by the gay, lesbian, bi, transgender community(s). No. He has been spit upon, called every name in the book, and worse - daily - by many members of this community. So, Jones is  in this sense, alone. Or, cast entirely into the public realm, with Nancy Grace and every member of the media calling you - one could imagine how overwhelming it was/is.

He also discussed in great detail Haggard's church, which Jones visited before and after the disclosure. Apparently, prior to the disclosure, the church was filled with homoerotic statues and o - an absence of crosses. Since then, the statues are gone. He gave ornate detail. I wish I could see them. Reader, can you find them?

It's easy to give up in this climate. The prison industrial complex wants to kill most of us, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And, usually, there is relative success. At least we are adequately disciplined into inaction and cynicism that any one person can make a difference. Mike Jones demonstrates in ACTION AND WORD, that is to say politically in the best sense of the word, that we can as individuals can make a difference. He also stated categorically that...they better watch out. Now he has nothing to lose. He said he wasn't threatening individuals. Perhaps I would say he is in a sense. His politics does put the fascist right at risk.

I left wondering what I might do now. I left feeling empowered to speak truths that are buried inside, necessary truths. He gave and is giving courage to heal and gives in the existential sense of Paul Tillich, the Courage to Be.

The Ideology of Choice: The Norplant Condition

by: panopticpants

Fri Aug 03, 2007 at 13:01:05 PM MST

“Between equal rights, force decides” (Marx 1990, 344)

1. Introduction

To this point, the contributions of Foucault and Arendt in understanding Norplant® as a problem in political power have been introduced and briefly examined.  Foucault’s compelling notions of disciplinary power, power/knowledge, as well as his elaboration of power in The History of Sexuality, Volume I, all highlight the hegemonic components of power – a form of power that is held in place from the bottom up and the top down. Because power is not only located in force, but is also discursively imbricated in the structures of knowledge itself, ruptures in power relations are not only possible - they seem likely.  The omnipresence of power can set power against itself.  Yet, Foucault’s articulation of resistance (despite his focus on the microcomponents of power) remains somewhat abstract.  What is it about human political action that makes resistance and change possible in hegemonic power relations?  Foucault’s healthy skepticism towards humanism may have contributed to his reluctance to more fully entertain the corporeal aspects of change and resistance at the human level.  Arendt’s focus on natality through the category of action provides an ontological basis for an anti-foundationalist inquiry into the origins of resistance and change.

Any work of political science (or social science in general, for that matter) that critiques the ideological function of positivism in a field of research encounters the perilous dilemma of providing a research design that does not fall prey to the same criticisms.  While there is no “outside” to ideology, the instrumental rationality that organizes positivism, that prosthetic limb of the disciplinary State, is not a “natural” or inherent condition of political science.  My intersubjective model collects the contributions of Foucault, Arendt, traditional medical specialists, “alternative” medicine practitioners, and recipients of Norplant® from various cultural settings.  Because of the small “N” in the research design, according to standard social science, the generalizability of the model is limited.  But, the smaller number of interviewees affords the opportunity of opening a depth hermeneutics between “text” and “subject” that could not easily be attained with data from a large-scale survey.  A synthetic model can be derived through a hermeneutic analysis of the Norplant® problem. In order to arrive at a point where such an analysis is possible, it was necessary to provide a political history of Norplant®.  The historical account interpolates with the following case studies, throwing the experiences of individuals into broader historic relief, making an understanding of hegemony and resistance possible. 

The matrices of gender, class, race, and locale intersect with and through Norplant’s discursive framework, formulating hegemonic relationships.  Not only do socio-cultural indicators (e.g. gender, race) mark power relations, but power is also embedded in the structures of scientific inquiry and technological practice.  If power is located within the framework of knowledge, the Norplant® Condition is also a matter of the structures and structuration of perception.  Here, epistemological questions of subject and object, knower and known are simultaneously scientific, medical, and political.  How then are Norplant’s discursive regimes of power/knowledge shaped by medical communities?

::

This Week in Prey

by: chill

Sat Jun 23, 2007 at 01:20:55 AM MST

Update: Police have suspect, body found...

Focus on "morphed" erotica, virtual porn: Virtual Valarie 2.

Open Source: 2007 O'Reilly Open Source Convention Saturday, June 23 - Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon OSCON 2007 will bring over 2500 open source professionals together to network, learn, and share the latest knowledge around open source software.