AS IF THE END RESULT OF SUPER TUESDAY'S AGGOLOMERATION OF CAUCUSES AND PRIMARIES was likely to remain all the more unclear, owing to the sheer numbers of such voting or otherwise caucusing (Minnesota being in the latter category) en bloc in one day ... let alone the continuing troubles singer and actress Britney Spears continues to go through, in the process set to become the Frances Farmer of the 21st century (especially with her father's appointment by the courts as conservator--well, good luck in that respect!) ... Your Correspondent submits the following video per YouTube as evidence that appearences can be deceiving, and then some:

There is nothing that seems to anger the Religious Right quite like discussions of faith within the political sphere that do not coincide with their own right-wing agenda.  For example, Ryan Anderson of First Things attacked Catholics United for taking "its favored policy and baptize it in the name of the church" regarding the debate over SCHIP while Religious Right leaders were up-in-arms and accusing Democrats of "[hijacking] the language of faith in order to hide the truth about their real agenda" and confuse Values Voters.  Barack Obama's Christian faith, in particular, has come in for intense denunciation, being labeled "woefully deficient" while his church membership "suggests a lack of judgment."   

And now American Life League president Judie Brown has decided to add her voice to the chorus of those who think religion is solely the property of the Right:  

"It is one thing to profess to be a believing Christian, and another to, by your actions, either confirm that you are indeed a believing Christian, or that you are using your so-called Christianity for the purpose of political gain," says Brown.

Brown says that in many cases--such as Obama's and Clinton's--she sees politicians "using their professed Christianity for political ends, without even recognizing what it means to be a Christian, and I find that rather sad."

Rather sad, indeed.

=============

WHICH MAKES THIS AS GOOD A TIME AS ANY TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION to People For's special freecall hotline to report any instances of voter intimidation, interference, harrassment and suchlike you may encounter:

1-866-OUR-VOTE

Remember to keep this number handy in any case. And don't hesitate to be ready to call.

As well, contact your local law-enforcement agencies, especially if such campaigns of intimidation involve leafleting on windscreens, mass mailings and tasteless flyers displayed on the community notice board of your local supermarket.

*************

THE DEATH IS BEING REPORTED OF A RATHER INFAMOUS LOCAL GADFLY HERE IN WINONA by name of Sister Lillian Elezar Kral; she passed away the other night @ a local care facility @ 80 years of age after a prolonged period of failing health.

She gained some national media attention and notoriety in 1981 after making such a ruckus of her being expelled from a Catholic religious order for "insubordination" (or so she suspected), hoping to attract some help. Only it turned out that (and I base this on past acquaintenance) she had quickly become her own worst joke, particularly so following a Notorious Incident in 1982 as would see her arrested for Disorderly Conduct by disrupting Mass with her displaying two bottles of liquor and shouting epithets @ the celebrant.

It became even more obvious that she was on an even steeper slope when she began to associate herself with lurid anti-Catholic tract publisher Jack Chick (even having designs to sell her story to him for documentation in tract form) and, still later, with extreme anti-government movements--and using that frame on the back of her bicycle to say as much, displaying missives from the likes of Lyndon LaRouche, "Bo" Gritz (whose third-party 1992 Presidential bid got prominent notice therein) and the so-called "North American Freedom Council," an anti-tax group later evolving into NORFED (as in the so-called "Liberty Dollars" designed solely to destabilise the Federal Reserve System in the name of "reforming" same, supported on what turns out being lead ingots from the Monongahela Metal Foundry spray-painted to create the illusion of gold or silver).

Shed no tears for Lillian Kral, readers. Her associations with the weird and unwholesome were probably the final nail in her coffin vis-a-vis any credibility she had in the Minnwissippi.

*************

SOMETHING FOR PARENTS TO THINK ABOUT IF THEY HAVE DESIGNS on expecting their kids to make something of themselves on their own, as in not expecting any help or support from their parents:

There's a scene in the Oscar-nominated mockumentary Surf's Up where Tank "The Shredder" Evans, after showing off to the ur-camera his nine trophies in the Big Z Memorial Surf Classic, recalled that his mother had him surfing literally ab ovo (i.e., from the egg)--there's even a mock photo showing the unhatched egg of Tank "riding the nose" while his rather scowling mother (in curlers, note) can be seen in background.

(BTW, "The Shredder," himself shown to have a rather nasty repute for playing dirty--same even being suggested as a reason that kids should look to him as a role model of sorts--is a king penguin.)

*************

ONE THING MORE (AFTER PAUL HARVEY): Your Correspondent hath it that Bezeq, the Israeli telecoms company, is launching a new "kosher" wireline telecom service to meet the partucular needs of haredi (ultra-observant, Orthodox for the most part) Jews.

As in blocking access to the likes of sex-call lines and other "inapproriate" telephonic content.

For now, the kosher phone service will be available free of additional charge.

How much longer before we start seeing so-called "Christian" wireline telecoms services (Alternative Service Providers, more than likely) here in the "morally superior" United States modelled on Bezeq's "kosher" service (as in with automatic blocking to "inapproriate" or "indecent" pay-per-call services)?   

OVER RECENT MONTHS, CERTAIN RELIGIOUS FANATICS have been pushing the notion, reinforced by Isaiah 35:8, that Interstate 35 is somehow predestined as the Highway of Holiness thus prophesised.

Hence, dictating all manner of prayer drives and "Purity Sieges" aimed @ a general moral "reclamation" along its entire distance between Laredo, TX and Duluth, MN (including that section of the Kansas Turnpike between the Oklahoma line and Emporia), attracting the attention of The 700 Club and other conduits of pseudoreligious Zealotry and True Belief as are, perhaps, secretly funding the whole campaign.

Yet, Your Correspondent imagines the likelihood for this whole "revivalist" movement along the same I-35 corridor seen by the Greater Producerist Movement as the sinister NAFTA Superhighway-in-embryo perhaps backfiring upon those involved.

Especially when it happens that certain adult businesses as are targets of the occasional "Purity Siege" decide to turn the tables on such a campaign with claims of, among other likely such, Criminal Syndicalism, Conspiracy, Unlawful Trespass and Unlawful Interference in Interstate or Foreign Commerce--especially when exists the possibility of enhanced penalties for Racketeering or Syndicalism per RICO.

Not to mention the likelihood of certain prayer vigils perhaps being targeted by Divine Wrath.

*************

PRODUCERISM, A VARIANT OF CONSERVATIVE POPULISM, holds dear as its articles of faith:

• The working classes (in particular poor, undereducated and easily-influenced "white trash") as are responsible for the development of capitalism with American characteristics, and its antient and pecuilar role and place in American soverign identity, are entitled to "antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers" "as of right."
• However, their privileged and traditional status is under threat and attack,
  • on the one hand, by the forces of Wall Street, Jews and Freemasonry as dominate the business and financial communities; and
  • on the other hand, by "inferior peoples" such as immigrants, blacks, other National Minorities and "chronic and habitual" welfare cases "having reckless and utter disregard for industry, self-reliance and personal responsibility."
• Therefore, it is to be seen as one with both national as much as racial duty and honour to defend the free-market capitalist system, and its special role and place in American soverignty, against the threats being directed as above, from within as much as from without, and "by whatever means necessary."

Excuse me, but doesn't it seem as if producerism has that certain sense of doublethink inherent--as in seeking to defend capitalism (on the one hand) and yet (on the other) challenge the same capitalist system's role and place as a threat to morals, decency and common sense vis-a-vis the working classes responsible for the same?

And what sort of alternative capitalist model would producerists have in mind--a so-called "pure" capitalism dominated, for the most part, by weird and unwholesome elements, only making matters worse for the same working classes which producerist thought seeks to defend by its embracing laissez-faire thought?

En 'n Ander Ding:

Have the Lower Classes, perhaps, heard of cooperativism as a means to an end of their own empowerment and salvation from the chains of free-market capitalistic excesses?

And what stands in the way of their accepting such a model?

*************

WITH INDECISION 2008 CERTAIN TO BE ALL THE MORE CRITICAL to deciding the path which the United States will take in the 21st century--remaining the vanguard of liberty and democracy, or using such as patsies to cover for an emerging tendency towards Fascism--the account of Balaam's Donkey (see Numbers 22) may be worth recalling as inspiration for how to reclaim the nation and what it stands for.

(Basically put, Balaam, who was sent in by the Moabites to vex Israel, was riding on his faithful donkey in his mission when, on three occasions, the Angel of the L-rd spooked Balaam, each time prompting Balaam to beat upon the donkey. Only after the third such instance, as occured in a very narrow alley, the donkey turned the tables and rebuked Balaam to his face.)

Come to think of it, while Your Correspondent was having dinner the other day, he was thinking about whether Balaam's Donkey may have delivered that rebuke in a voice not unlike that of the Donkey character in the Shrek series--by way of G-d, of course, who, we are told, put words into the donkey's mouth to rebuke Balaam.

In any case, let's not forget Balaam's Donkey ahead of the elections this year.

Hopefully, reader, you will have figured out by now who, for the sake of analogy, was Balaam ... and who was Balaam's Donkey.

(BTW, did you know "shrek" is Yiddish for "monster"?)   

AS YOUR CORRESPONDENT WRITES THIS THE LATEST ITEM IN THIS PARTICULAR WEBLOG, it just so happens that the Minnwissippi is not only under a Winter Weather Advisory, but is also seeing "thundersnow."

As in heavy snow accompanied by occasional overtures of the old thunder and lightning.

Which, by later in the day, could include seeing the snow mix with freezing rain, straight rain and/or sleet, gradually segueing into a rain/snow mix of the finest(?) order. And which could mean schools having to let out early as a precaution.

Once all the snow melts in spring (as it eventually will), expect the melt to help ameilorate the quasi-drought conditions prevailing of late.

*************

IT'S NO WONDER HIS FRAUDULENCY WANTS TO BE SEEN ONLY IN HAGIOGRAPHICALLY-GLOWING TERMS when it comes to his legacy, judging by the following recent editorial from The Capital Times down Madison, WI way:

President Bush does not use e-mail. The most secretive chief executive since Richard Nixon does not want to risk having his digital communications revealed as part of the official record of the republic he is sworn to serve and protect.

Other Americans do rely on the Internet, however.

Unfortunately, our off-line president has set the tone for a White House that is almost ridiculously disengaged when it comes to the challenge of preparing the United States for a digital future.

A Bush administration report released Thursday claims that high-speed Internet access is now available to virtually every American. This self-congratulatory document suggests that, during Bush's tenure, the United States has taken the right steps to ensure that we have "an environment in which broadband innovation and competition can flourish."

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

When George Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, the United States ranked fourth when it came to broadband penetration -- the measure of access to digital services.

Now, as Bush enters his last year in office, the United States has dropped to 15th place.

"Declaring mission accomplished won't reverse America's rapid disappearance from the ranks of world broadband leaders. Just ask the tens of millions of Americans still stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide," says Derek Turner, who has authored several reports criticizing failed U.S. broadband policies.

"Americans pay far more for much slower Internet connections -- when they can get service at all -- than the rest of the world. Too many people still live in areas that cable and telecom companies refuse to serve, and many more can only purchase slow and expensive connections that can't in all seriousness be called broadband," explained Turner, who serves as research director for Free Press, the nation's media reform network. "Yet while the Bush administration stands by and cheers over Internet connections barely faster than dial-up, countries like England and South Korea are bringing affordable and fast broadband to their citizens. Americans will be left on the sidelines as these countries reap the huge economic and social benefits of innovative technologies."

"What do these countries have that we don't?" asks Turner.

His answer: "A national broadband policy that goes beyond empty platitudes."

That's right, but it is only part of the explanation. Other countries also have leaders who read newspapers, watch television news programs and use e-mail.

America has George Bush.

Not to mention Fox Noise and its "reject-the-evidence-of-eyes-and-ears" mentality (a/k/a "pretend the problem doesn't exist"), as evidenced recently by Bill O'Reilly's contempt for homeless veterans and the poor, undereducated and easily-influenced of society.

*************

IF YOU THINK OIL COMPANIES' SHOCK SPIKES IN GAS PRICES FROM TIME TO TIME are an exclusively American problem--consider the case of the Australians.

Consumer-advocacy groups Down Under hath it that the four leading gas retailers there (BP, Mobil, Caltex and Shell) deliberated spiked gas prices to coincide with the Christmas, New Year's and Australia Day holidays, only to roll same back once the holidays passed. Said groups contend that such arbitrary spikes were intended solely to maximise profits over these holiday periods, with little or nothing to do with supply and demand.

And with potential for consumer harm and detrius.

=============

STAYING IN "THE LUCKY COUNTRY" FOR A MOMENT, Your Correspondent hath it that a number of local councils have been stashing away local-government funding from both the Federal and state governments to the point where the good taxpayers are not getting value for their tax dollars when it comes to government services.

More likely than no, stashing such in interest-bearing accounts without clear or proper justification for same.

Can the same be said to occur here in the "morally superior" United States?

=============

IF I MAY EXPLAIN FOR A MOMENT WHY IT IS, @ TIMES, THAT I REFER TO THE UNITED STATES as "morally superior" in this blog:

Its intent is outright and deliberate sarcasm @ the expense of the so-called Religiopolitical Right (more than likely pseudo) and its belief that the United States was somehow "predestined" or otherwise "divinely ordained" to be the Portal and Gateway to Heaven, as well as the Center of the Earth, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies.

Especially so the rather contentuous contention that free-market capitalism with American characteristics, and the defence thereof, is that of American soverignty and soverign identity "antient and pecuilar," and vice versa.

Now you know.

After all, sarcasm can be a potent weapon of opine.  

READER, AN APOLOGY IS IN ORDER @ THIS TIME for the tardiness of posting the quasi-daily comments on the news.

Seems that Your Correspondent was rather tired after some shopping @ the Kmart here in Winona, followed by luncheon @ the Hy-Vee, same city, requiring his taking a nap following his return home. It sometimes hath to be that way.

So, if any inconvenience was suffered by you, my apologies.

*************

"Mothers of River City! Heed that warning before it's too late! Watch for the telltale signs of DEGENERACY!!! The moment your son returns home from school, does he rebuckle his knickers ...BELOW THE KNEE?! Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? Is there a dime novel hidden in the corn crib? Is he starting to memorise jokes ... from Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang?! Are certain words starting to creep into his vocabulary--words like "swell" ... and "so's your old man"?

THUS MEREDITH WILLSON HAD PROFESSOR HAROLD HILL WARN THE GOOD MOTHERS OF RIVER CITY, IOWA in The Music Man on both stage and screen that "Ya Got Trouble."

This after warning the community about the presence of a pool table in the community being but the first step towards the Moral Degeneracy of Youth--only to learn soon afterwards that the city's mayor operated the pool hall in question.

(The reference to Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang turns out to be anachronistic: While Mr. Willson's 1956 Broadway musical, becoming a movie in 1962, was set in 1912, it would not be until 1919 that Capt. Willard Fawcett would launch that particular magazine, quickly becoming popular for its "Explosion of Pedigreed Bunk" in the form of risqué and @ times scatological jokes, puns and cartoons.)

I bring up these lines from The Music Man to bring up the likelihood of the so-called "Parents' Television Council" perhaps being its own worst joke in trying to protect Right-Thinking American Families (as in white, middle-class, Levittown models) from "filth and degeneracy" in films and TV in the wake of their winning moral victory from the FCC last week (as in assessing a collective fine of $1.4 million against 52 ABC network stations for showing an episode of the since-decommissioned NYPD Blue as showed brief, out-of-context glimpses of bare buttocks notwithstanding warnings of content prior to the start of broadcast).

I say this because you have to imagine this council's frequent and repeated actions before the FCC perhaps:

• being insincere to the point of raising questions whether their complaints are being made in good faith and without prejudice;
• triggering outbrteaks of spontaneous hysteria exploiting to unfair advantage weak-minded and vulnerable members of the community (usually poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced) liable to respond all the more to appeals of this ilk;
• designed solely to cause needless waste of time and resources on the FCC's part, diverting essential resources from more pressing matters (as well as created added work burdens for mailroom and mail intake staffs);
• based solely upon isolated, out-of-context passages;
• relying on identically-phrased, carefully-scripted, even heavily-nuanced, boilerplate messages sent in e-mail alerts; and
• belying the possibility of the PTC having interconnexions with weird and/or unwholesome elements to the point of raising questions of possible racketeering tending to exploit the vulnerable.

Which are questions enough to raise before the FCC, especially considering where it's been acknowledged that the vast majority of "obscenity" or "indecency" complaints so received are phrased almost identically (so raising questions of such being based on boilerplate) and tend, for the most part, to come from culturally-deprived environments (as in the Park & Flush Trailer Park and other bastions of "white trash" poverty, stupidity and ignorance) as are obvious plum targets for the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right's "winning of hearts and minds" efforts.

Never mind the likelihood that these same lower-income areas (@ least to these same Pseudoreligiopolitical Right elements so exploiting) are all the more likely targets for "dumping" campaigns the Extreme Right would love to engage in vis-a-vis pornographically depraved prolefeed.

And deliberate dumping of prolefeed, @ that.

=============

COME TO THINK OF IT, THERE ARE MORE PRESSING AND OBVIOUS PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE LOWER CLASSES as are deserving your attention.

To have the likes of Fox Noise expect the "right-thinking" to "reject the evidence of eyes and ears" (i.e., pretend they just don't exist--nay, should not exist in the One True Centre of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies), as well as pretend to a gross and deliberate stupidity in the name of G-d, Country and Family Values, is nothing short of disgusting.

Yet, @ the same time, Fox Noise wants the Lower Classes to see free-market capitalism as the Great White Father, their Last and Only Hope and Salvation from Enslavement to State Welfare and its Promotion of Socialistic Tendencies.

Hence: Doesn't this make Fox Noise guilty of doublethink, pure and simple?

*************

AS THIS WAS GROUNDHOG DAY, there is a great difference of opinion between Punxsutawney Phil (who saw his shadow this morning) and Sun Prairie Jimmy (who did not) over whether winter's exit will follow within measurable distance.

Being Midwestern, Your Correspondent prefers Jimmy's take on the situation.

Hence: Would you rather trust Punxsutawney Phil or Sun Prairie Jimmy? Comments can be left in the usual space, subject to their being tasteful and inoffensive. 

FOR YEARS, IN THE SEVERAL BLOGS YOUR CORRESPONDENT HAS PUBLISHED ON THE INFORMATION STUPORBAHN, he has been a firm believer in using the "open letter" device from time to time to call the widest possible attention to issues of serious import.

The hope, no doubt, of urging readers to share the "open letters" with any and all friends and contacts they may have as a way of getting action taken.

This time, my target in the "open letter" department is such among the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right who are rather slavish in their hard-wired acceptance of Fox News Channel as the One True, Pure and Reliable Arbeiter of News and Information for Right-Thinking Christian Americans (as in, more than likely, the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced).

Please read and pass along, preferably through the "send by e-mail" facility following. However, I will NOT tolerate spontaneously-generated "freeping" campaigns whose sole purpose is to cast discredit or disrepute upon this blog.

*************

To whom it may concern:

In view of what may best be described as unswerving Zealotry and True Belief on your part in Fox News Channel being the One and Only Cable News Channel Worth Viewing among Right-Thinking Christian Americans by virtue of its being (to use their rather lame slogan) "Fair and Balanced" (as in presenting a conservative "counterbalance" to other news outlets seen as "liberal-leaning" and, hence--by your way of thinking--"leading to error") ...

And in view of your frequent campaigns crossing the line @ times into misguided or warped hysteria against real or suspected "indecency" or "obscenity" in films and TV programming, much of it designed, for the most part, to increase needlessly the Federal Communications Commission's burden of work to the point of harrassment by proxy with what may best be called baseless, frivolous or otherwise wasteful complaints based on isolated instances as may lack proper context....

Your Correspondent would like of you to consider the following:

First off, to ponder these remarks from the 1922 court case Halsey v. New York Society for the Supression of Vice, considered a landmark in censorship history for these remarks:

No work may be judged from a selection of such paragraphs alone. Printed by themselves, they might, as a matter of law, come within the meaning of the [obscenity] statute. So might a similar selection from Aristophanes or Chaucer or Boccaccio or even from the Bible. The book, however, must be considered broadly as a whole.

(In other words, a work being challenged as obscene or indecent must be considered in the context of the larger whole. The point of which would later be affirmed in the 1973 Miller v. California Supreme Court ruling allowing the use of a "prevailing community standards" test for obscenity, so long as the work in question was taken as a whole.

(That, and same clearly and unambiguously depicting sexual and/or excretory activities and/or organs in a "patently offensive" manner, appealing solely to prurient interest, and utterly lacking in redeeming educational, literary, political or scientific merit.)

Once that's out of the way, I would urge you to visit the websites Fox Attacks: Decency and Fox News Porn, and watch the videos so featured. Especially so on the latter, paying especially close and careful attention to the cut and styling of the dresses worn by female newsreaders.

After seeing the videos in question, I want you to think carefully of the following:

• Why would organisations like yours as speak out all the time about suspected "indecency" in films and on TV continue regarding Fox News as the only "reliable" cable news channel when their female newsreaders wear what you would consider "indecent" or "provocative" dress on camera?
• What prevents your organisations from launching "action campaigns" against Fox News Channel based on the suggestive cut of dress worn by female newsreaders?
• Are you receiving any sort of donations, "hush money" or payola from Fox News Channel, News America Corporation, or any "foundations" or "trusts" so affiliated, on a continuing basis? Is the receipt of such conditional upon your silence towards the same sort of "indecency" you frequently accuse the closely-affiliated Fox Broadcasting network of carrying?
• Why would you continue to support Fox News Channel as the only credible cable news channel worthy of viewing among those you call "right-thinking Americans," knowing consciously (and yet unconsciously) all the while about the "indecent" or "suggestive" dress worn by their female newsreaders?
• Does not your holding such double standards make you, in essence, guilty of doublethink? And what is your defence to the charge?
• Are you, somehow, secretly thinking that the Lower Classes must be somehow lacking in morals, decency or common sense? Have you no shame in this respect?
• Are you now, or have you ever been, an alcoholic, drug addict, sex fiend or maniac, spousal or child abuser, sufferer of loathsome social or mental disorders, chronic and habitual gambler or spendthrift, undischarged bankrupt, or have a record of prolonged time in jails and/or psychiatric hospitals?
• Were you abused in childhood? Was it sexual?
• Have you no sense of Decency, Sirs, @ long last?
• Have you left no sense of Decency--the same Decency you claim to be defending and protecting, and invoking G-d, Country and Family all the while?

Perhaps it was about time that you had some real shame for once, after cooking up manufactured such designed solely to whip up hysteric delusions in such among the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced (not to mention emotionally vulnerable) who you enjoy coveting as a bunch of easily-manipulated droogs.

What will you have to say NOW after you see the Harsh Reality of what you've been supporting all this time?

And what have you to say to the charge of doublethink--which is a rather obvious description of your mindset under these circumstances?

Awaiting your logical and sensible response (preferably through the Comments section), I remain

Disobediently yours,
ILUDIUM PHOSDEX
(die egte artikel--aanvaar geen plaasvervangers)