THE OVERT AND OBVIOUS CONTEMPT THE CONSERVATIVE ELEMENT HATH FOR THE POOR, UNDEREDUCATED AND EASILY-INFLUENCED knows no bounds. Especially so when it comes to their weaponry in their phony Kulturkrieg designed to pacify the Lower Classes, and the Culturally-Deprived Environments wherein they reside, long enough for them not to know Certain Inconvenient Truths.

One such weapon likely to be the deliberate "dumping" of cheap, cheerful--and plotless--curiosa with soundtracks alternating (or so it seems) between "Je t'aime ... moi non plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin and "Delecato" by Percy Faith and His Orchestra.

And the deliberate location of adult cinemas in "industrial" (lower working-class) neighbourhoods, the whole deliberately looking ratty and decrepit not unlike that described in the following (howbeit incredible) recent "WaiWai" item per the Mainichi Daily News from down Tokyo way:

One of the tackiest and quaintest features to be found in Japanese towns are the small local cinemas, that manage to stay in business by showing re-runs to people too poor to own a VCR. Admission is a fraction of the cost of seeing a first-run film in a big-city theater.

These establishments are too shoddy to warrant the description "retro." They are relics of the 1960s, some so pathetically decrepit as to resemble haunted houses in amusement parks, with pockmarked floors, fraying upholstery and the moldy smell of decay. Most are one-man operations, with tickets sold by vending machine.

Writing in Uramono Japan (May), a 35-year-old company employee in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, submitted this account of a visit to once such place. So sordid was his tale, he could not bring himself to put his name on the article, so we'll just refer to him as "Mr. A," for "anonymous."

A's article was written in response to an earlier article in the same magazine about an elderly woman who lurked in the sleazy Shinsekai theater in Osaka. For an outlay of ¥500, she would remove her dentures and, during screenings, provide male theater patrons with oral sex.

"Well, I've got something that beats that," writes A. "In my hometown we've got a theater where a woman sneaks in and goes all the way with you for ¥1,000!"

The name of the establishment, he says, is "Cinema House Shinei Gekijo," located close to the Matsuya department store, a 10-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station.

Most of the films it shows are B-grade porno flicks, and two current blockbusters were being featured: "The Sexual Desires of a Female Proprietress Who Shamelessly Flashes her Panties" and "The Diary of My Lover--Make Me Come as Many Times as I Can!"

The seedy theater moved to its present location five years ago, but has a long reputation for being a "hattenba"--a place where the horny, either gay or straight, can get together for a quickie. Sometimes these services are performed by men in drag.

"It's one of those guys in drag, right?" Mr. A asks his friend skeptically.

"No, no, it's really a gal," he insists. "She's beautiful too. We call her 'the Goddess.'"

It seems the theater's third floor has "recreation rooms" equipped with reclining seats, where pairs of men could be seen in acts people from the U.S. state of Kansas would probably rather not think about.

Around 10:00 p.m. on a Friday evening, our writer entered and met the gaze of a young woman in the theater's foyer. Her face vaguely resembled that of actress Isako Washio, and the lack of an Adam's apple in her throat strongly suggested she was, in fact, a genuine female.

Is this, Uramono Japan readers must surely be wondering, the alleged "Goddess" that everyone's been talking about?

She exchanged a shy smile with A, who entered the darkened theater and found a vacant seat. Minutes thereafter, a husky but distinctly feminine voice from directly behind him whispers, "Pssst! Hey, give me ¥1,000 and I'll let you have something nice."

It was her! He grunted his consent.

She straddled A's lap and, hands looped behind his neck, gave him a deep kiss. He feels her nipples harden through her blouse. Almost magically she slips down his trousers and her excellent oral skills soon instruct his soldier to stand at attention.

Thus prepared, she slips him inside her and begins grinding her hips, breathing quickly and making little grunts of pleasure until groaning, he spasms.

After it was over, A marvels at his good fortune. Why, he ponders, would such a beauty prowl sleazy theaters seeking sex with strange men?

"Well, I'm really a man," she tells him.

"WHAT!?" A exclaims. "How's that possible? You had one of those ... and it was wet inside!"

"I had a sex change operation, and my penis was inserted inside out in my pelvis to form a hollow tube. When I get sexually excited my Cowper's gland emits excretions."

Oy.

It seems the stratagem of the "Goddess" is to ask for ¥1,000 because men tend to be suspicious if a woman offers to do them for free.

Yet when viewed under the lights, our correspondent writes, this depraved deity is even more desirable than a real woman. At a sleazy cinema in Hamamatsu, he continues his quirky quest for theatrical romance. 

IN CASE YOU REGULARS PROBABLY DIDN'T QUITE NOTICE, BLOGDRIVE HAD SOME TECHNICAL ISSUES OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS precluding the immediate posting (as opposed to postdated such) of blog material.

The reasons for which were never disclosed up front, leaving Your Correspondent, no doubt, quite frustrated psychologically trying to find answers or explanations therefor.

In any case, the afflicted postings are now up, and your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. Not to mention your support, especially so in form of online shopping--be it off to the side of the page or through my new cybermall.

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IN THE WEATHER DEPARTMENT, ESPECIALLY SO HERE IN THE LIKES OF MINNESOTA, which takes great pride in having such diversities of climatic extremes for the latitudes so situate, you learn rather quickly that appearences can be deceiving vis-a-vis how the weather will turn out as the day wears on.

From a sunny (if breezy) afterlunch yesterday, Your Correspondent can discern a change from hazy sunshine this morning to what could be a showery afterlunch into evening. Forecasts call for the showers to transit these parts around midnight, with a return to nicer weather likely tomorrow.

As for the Syttende Mai weekend (Syttende Mai being the Norwegian national day, celebrated with festivals in communities with substantial Norwegian populations like Spring Grove and Westby in these parts), it should be partly cloudy Friday and Saturday, with showers likely on the Sunday.

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FOR THOSE NEEDING ANOTHER REASON WHY THE OXYCONTIN SOW CAN'T BE TRUSTED (yet still is, particularly so among Those Who Should Know Better), Brave New Films' Fox Attacks unit calls your timely attention to the following video, as speaks for itself:

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AND IS IT JUST ME, OR IS MISSOURI SEEING SOME MAJOR BIG DIVINE JUDGEMENT IN TORNADIC FORM thanks to a possible Constitutional Amendment in the Show-Me State as would require "proof of valid citizenship" as a formality to exercise electoral franchise, never mind the price of electoral disenfranchisement ensuing among the Lower Classes @ the expense of an "elect***entitled as of right" which the Zealots and True Believers of hyperconservatism see themselves as exclusively entitled?

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AUSTRALIANS, AS MUCH AS GERMANS, CZECHS AND BRITS--OR PERHAPS MAYBE A LITTLE MORE SO--HAVE WHAT COULD BEST BE CALLED A QUASI-RELIGION OF BEER (or, as the Aussies oft call it, "the amber nectar") which can get out of hand @ times.

As witness the use of "name-and-shame" campaigns listing such as have been arrested for DUI in local gazettas for the sake of warning.

And the likes of the following, duly noted by the BBC:

A car driver in Australia has been fined for strapping down his beer rather than his young child.

Police said they were "shocked and appalled" when they pulled over the car south of Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory.

They said the 30-can pack of beer was strapped down between two adults in the back, with the five-year-old child unrestrained on the floor.

The driver was handed a fine of A$750 (US$709; C$706; £362; €455; Rs.29,753; ¥73,734).

The fine was for failing to ensure a child was wearing a seatbelt as well as driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle.

'Blank' look

The car was pulled over on the Ross Highway last Friday.

Constable Wayne Burnett said: "I haven't ever seen something like this before.

"This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child... The child was sitting in the lump in the centre, unrestrained."

When Constable Burnett handed over the fine he said the driver "just looked at me blankly".

"He didn't get it," Constable Burnett said.

"I asked him about the fact the child was unrestrained and the beer was, and he said he didn't know anything about it."

Superintendent Sean Parnell of Alice Springs police said the incident was a "timely reminder" to ensure "all passengers are secured".

IT'S ONE THING TO SUGGEST THAT FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM WITH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS IS THE LAST AND ONLY HOPE AVAILABLE for the Lower Classes to "save themselves from themselves"--as in their "empowerment towards self-reliance and personal responsibility after years of helpless enslavement to State welfare" and its presumed "tendencies towards promoting Socialist thinking."

But it's another to actually offer proof that can substantiate such a claim.

Hence, it was time to ask ye of that ilk some serious questions in this regard as deserve being asked for once:

1. Have you any evidence substantiating your contention that welfare cases are somehow being "conditioned into Socialistic, Communistic or otherwise un-American beliefs" solely because of welfare?
2. How sure are you that free-market capitalism can actually "empower" these same welfare cases towards "a renewed healthy respect for industry, self-reliance and personal responsibility"?
3. Would the last point be conditioned by a state of replacing "undue and unnecessary" State regulatory burden with industry-based self-regulation based on Codes of Good Practice?
4. Have you any examples of self-regulatory codes in the "here and now" actually working, actually encouraging healthy competition, freedom of choice and lower prices consistent with your beliefs in the free market being one with American soverignty and soverign identity, and vice versa?
5. How sure are you that these self-regulatory Codes of Good Practice won't be expected to secretly contain "outs" which could be used to excuse cartel behaviour and anti-competitive practices generally as are against public interest, among them:
   1. fraud, waste and inefficency?
   2. price-fixing or Reseller Price Maintenance Agreements?
   3. "non-compete agreements" as could be used against retailers?
   4. controlling or restricting distribution or supplies regionally?
   5. restricting or banning brand advertising?
   6. controlling or restricting production and supply from time to time just to create artificial shortages and arbitrarily keep prices higher than necessary?
6. Name @ least three examples of developed countries as can be considered democratic societies where self-regulated free market capitalism has actually empowered the Lower Classes towards your desired aims, and how such can be emulated by the "morally superior" United States.
7. Of such examples I have illustrated in the point preceding, have such actually resulted in net reductions of welfare caseloads in favour of employment?

We would appreciate some honest answers, not carefully-scripted platitudes and bromides or "Freeping" designed to confuse or mislead--and carefully thought-out beforehand, besides.

IF ANY OF YOU CAN READ THIS ITEM, please let me know.

For some reason or another, one posting as was intended for yesterday has not posted timely into this space, despite repeated contacts to Technical Support @ Blogdrive.

I hope this will serve as remedy.

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AS IF THAT WEREN'T GET-ALL, Your Correspondent understands where virtually all the participants @ a spontaneously-called-for rally in Seoul against reallowing imports of American beef after a five-year ban on same because of "mad cow" fears were middle-school students rather than typical Korean consumers and livestock producers.

You read right--middle-school students influenced by local websites and youth magazines into all manner of scare paranoia about the supposed effects of American imports upon their bodies and thought-processes.

And we all thought where, back in the 1960's, fluoridation of drinking water supplies was part of a Greater Communist Plot to weaken and undermine the American thought processes! (IIBC, I am not aware of any evidence showing an interconnexion between fluoride used in drinking water and brain damage, indirect or otherwise.)

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NOW TELL ME IF THE FOLLOWING PICTURE (THANKS TO DOWN WITH TYRANNY) of a billboard outside the American Embassy in the former Myanmari capital of Yawgon reflects not so much the "desire" of Myanmar as those of the so-called "right-thinking Americans" hard-wired into accepting Fox Prolefeed as "fair and balanced" TV news:

(Or is it?) 

A SHORT APOLOGY IS IN ORDER FOR THE DELAY IN GETTING THINGS POSTED TO THIS WEBLOG TODAY, in that Your Correspondent had to download WindowsXP Service Pack 3 onto his computer--in the process, reducing available free space on his hard drive to less than half that which is available.

(And all the while thinking that such an update would supplant Service Pack 2 to the point where such would be deleted without performance-related problems.)

In any case, if you think such is a clear sign that the computer needs a tune-up, those of you in the geek fraternity as are "in the loop" on things of this sort will please let me know.

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TORNADIC ACTIVITY YESTERDAY ACROSS THE MIDWEST MAY HAVE BEEN ENOUGH TO FURTHER DO IN THE NORTHEAST OKLAHOMA LEAD- AND ZINC-MINING TOWN OF PICHER, about halfway between Tulsa and the Missouri line as the crow flies: It just so happens that Picher, which just celebrated a somber 90th birthday celebration, is being targeted for a Federal buydown thanks to pollution aggravated by years of lead and zinc mining activity in the area.

Which, in its turn, translated into pollution aggravated by years of:

• release of airborne contaminants from the local lead smelter;
• piles of waste rock carrying its own brand of contaminants and carcinogens; and
• the whole translating into an abnormally high rate of lead poisoning which, in turn, aggravates developmental and learning disorders in younger children.

Quite the change from some 50 years ago, when Picher was about Winona's size (around 25,000) in the population department and rather lively, especially on pay nights when it was not uncommon for miners to blow their cheques on wine, women and song--and have the scars to show for it thanks to Saturday-night brawls which could be incited with little or no provocation.

And all too often, about the only career options boys in the area had on leaving high school was either work in the mines, or leave town.

So, it looks as if Picher may be about to yield up the ghost, with last night's tornadoes pretty much the "last nail in the coffin," so to speak, on top of the Federal Superfund buydown.

But then again, the old saying hath it that disasters come in threes....

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"THE DIRTY DIGGER" HAS BEEN REBUKED FOR ONCE:

News America Corporation has withdrawn its offer for Long Island's "respectable" tabloid Newsday, leaving the only serious bidders left for same Mortimer Zuckerman (as owns the New York Daily News) and Cablevision Systems, which dommos cable TV in Nassau and Suffolk counties--traditionally considered "Long Island" in the context of New York City, never mind where Queens and Brooklyn, both boroughs of New York City, are on Long Island themselves.

(Technically, Brooklyn is officially known as Kings County.)

Not to mention where Keith Rupert Murdoch may be under orders to testify in a piracy trial involving the manufacture and sale of "test cards" whereby one could get (in theory) free satellite TV.

A CONSTANTLY-REPEATED, AND RATHER PATHETIC-SOUNDING MEME, CERTAIN SPECIMENS OF ZEALOTRY AND TRUE BELIEF WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER will enjoy spreading is excusing the cause of hate, bigotry and intolerance as essential to the defence of America's "antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity," forever seen by that ilk (and their droogs) as "under constant threat from the New World Order."

Not to mention a somewhat related meme suggesting that the defence of American "soverignty and soverign identity" is that of free-market capitalism with American characteristics--which, consistent with conservative thought patterns, they see as reversible if and when the need requires this.

And among the arguments these weird and unwholesome elements will use to excuse a "patriotic" hate being "essential to the defence of America's traditional soverignty and soverign identity" is their citation of the infamous Dred Scott v. Sanford ruling in 1857 as upheld slavery and, with it, the enforced second-class status of blacks and others deemed to be "inferior peoples" inasmuch as they

are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.

Which, to such a weird and unwholesome element, belongs only and exclusively to white male Christian (preferably Low Church) freeholders (especially so such with "free and clear" title), though not expressly implied in the Constitution.

To further such an argument, these comments from Dred Scott are also likely to be thus invoked (emphasis added):

[The Constitution] must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day.

In effect, excusing racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and intolerance in general as "Constitutional" is "American."

And such elements will love to stop @ nothing to reinforce such sick and illogical interpretations.

Interpretations which need to be challenged @ every opportunity.

THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAY ALLUDETH, DEAR READERS, TO A RUNNING GAG which the British satirical troupe Monty Python had in their third (i.e., 1972) series of Monty Python's Flying Circus on the BBC.

Which, in its turn, inspires Your Correspondent to take "lemon curry" a bit on the literal side--as in adding some curry powder to the rice-and-seasoning blend of Campbell's Supper Bakes Lemon Chicken with Herbed Rice mix; the better to add a little flavour (and colour) to the rice.

Remember, though, "a little goes a long way" with the curry powder. I prefer adding it to the rice and seasoning mix before the hot water is added, blended all the while. (And for you neophytes, I would recommend the mild form of curry powder for starters, rather than the Chennai-stylee hot curry powders as have given curries a nasty reputation in certain circles.

(Those who prefer the Chennai-stylee such may want to use caution, particularly so @ first. But I'd stick with mild curry powder, if I were you.)

(BTW: Chennai was known as Madras until recent years; for its part, Chennai/Madras curries were particularly spicy to the point of intense, with those from the former Portugese colony of Goa running close behind for intensity. Now you know.)