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(part 1):
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HAZY SUNSHINE PREDOMINATES THE SITUATION HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI AS I PREPARE THIS THE LATEST EDITION of my take on the world in its own eclectic way in weblog form.
And before proceeding, a tip o' the hat (so to speak) to Brave New Films for attracting traffic to this weblog significantly yesterday (as in comments about the interconnexion between The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008 and Rev. Rod Parsley in Open "Please Explain" Letter form). Nonetheless, though, I hope that you visitors will make it a regular habit ... and that you can support it fiscally as much as morally (as witness the online shopping, both in the sidebar and @ the new online mall, Mallratz, and the Virtual Tip Jar).
Thanks again.
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FURTHER EVIDENCE OF HYPERCONSERVATIVE CONTEMPT FOR THE VULNERABLE AND MARGINALISED OF SOCIETY, as in these observations from People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch blog in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing states to require photo-bearing ID as a formality to protect electoral integrity:
The Supreme Court's decision upholding Indiana's partisan voter-ID law, like other recent cases with conservative outcomes, received generous praise from the Right. "This victory continues conservatives' good run of Supreme Court decisions dating back to last term," wrote Human Events columnist Sean Trende, who called the case evidence that John Roberts's appointment as Chief Justice "mark[ed] a sea change" in pulling the court "rightward."
Paul Weyrich praised the Court and called objections to the law—which closes access to the ballot box for many otherwise eligible voters, primarily minorities and the elderly, in pursuit of the phantom threat of voter fraud—"overblown and sensational," adding, "We do not compel people to vote." (As Weyrich said in 1980, "I don't want everybody to vote. … [O]ur leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.")
And Gary Bauer boldly asserted that "all citizens have photo I.D.s, and the only people who don't are illegal aliens, who are, by definition, not allowed to vote. The only ones disenfranchised by the photo I.D. requirement are those who should not be voting anyway."
Of course, by the time Bauer sent that remarkable claim out to his e-mail list, the AP was already reporting on some of these people he said "should not be voting":
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. …
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.
"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back within the 10 days allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."
Speaking of which, Your Correspondent could just imagine certain forces of the Religiopolitical Right cooking up a scam royale come Election Day for no useful purpose other than electoral disenfranchisement of the Lower Classes, with the "generous help and cooperation" of "law-and-order" Zealots and True Believers playing the role of police officers from "Special Branch" or "Secret Branch" (thus explaining their supposedly acting incognito) who can engage in "caging" tactics reeking of crude intimidation.
As is reputedly likely to be the case with Zimbabwe's forthcoming Presidential runoff, as per the BBC:
Zimbabwe's "war veterans" militia plan to intimidate voters by posing as police officers during the presidential run-off, a policeman has told the BBC.
He said they would be based inside polling stations during the vote, whose date has not yet been fixed.
The report came as South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, the lead Zimbabwe negotiator, prepared to hold talks with Robert Mugabe in Harare.
Mr Mbeki has previously played down talk of a crisis in Zimbabwe.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says its supporters are being systematically targeted by the "war veterans" and other supporters of President Mugabe ahead of the run-off.
A trade union official on Thursday said that 40,000 farm-workers and their relatives had fled their homes because of violent attacks.
The government has in turn accused the MDC of staging political attacks, while saying the extent of the violence has been exaggerated.
But a South African election observer has said that the violence makes it impossible to hold a run-off.
'Uniforms issued'
The BBC's Orla Guerin met the police officer deep in Zimbabwe's bush, as he was afraid of being identified.
"The war veterans will be wearing police uniforms," he said.
"They will be given ranks and force numbers. They'll be part and parcel of the police deployed in every ward. So when people come in to vote they will see war veterans from their area in among the police, and they will be intimidated."
He said that preparations were at an advance stage - that the order to issue uniforms had already been given by provincial police headquarters.
Though opposed to the plan he said he was powerless to stop it, because if he objected he would be risking his life.
"Anything can happen," he said.
"You can be abducted, or just disappear, or your family can be endangered. You never know who is watching you. You can't trust anyone in Zimbabwe."
He also said the police had been told to go out and campaign vigorously for Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, and to remind people that they won the country's freedom with the barrel of a gun.
"They are trying to threaten people into voting for them, so they do not get off the throne," he said.
"Zanu-PF are determined to continue ruling the country, and continue destroying it."
According to this officer, there are many in the junior ranks of the police who talk privately about the need for change, but dare not speak out.
He said no-one could be certain of attitudes among the senior commanders, because they had benefited greatly under the ruling party.
Many of those who fought in the 1970s war of independence went on to become police officers and soldiers and remain deeply loyal to their war-time leader, Mr Mugabe.
But many of the so-called "war veterans" are too young to have fought in the war.
National unity?
The MDC has still not said whether it will take part in the run-off.
It says its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round outright and should be declared president.
South Africa's leader is in Zimbabwe, after he sent a fact-finding mission there.
He is meeting President Mugabe and other Zanu-PF officials but not the MDC.
Mr Tsvangirai is in South Africa and has not been home for a month, amid fears for his safety.
The MDC believe Mr Mbeki favours a government of national unity.
They reject this, unless Mr Mugabe steps down and are unhappy with the South Africa-led mediation.
According to the official results, Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe but not the 50% needed for outright victory.
The run-off is supposed to be held within 21 days of the publication of the results - last Friday - but the electoral commission head has reportedly said it could be delayed for up to a year.
And a reminder: If you get word of campaigns of electoral interference, intimidation, "caging" or other unlawful tactics, freecall 1-866-OUR-VOTE; also, contact local law-enforcement agencies. Such acts, deeds or exploits, regardless of the excuse, are penal offenses.
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IN A NUMBER OF MAJOR CITIES, CABDRIVERS ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW FROM RECOMMENDING SPECIFIC BUSINESSES to passengers out of concern that money may be too tempting an influence (as in commissions from "referrals" as may wind up involving the weird and unwholesome element).
In that particular vein, a Hong Kong jewellers' shop has been fined a substantial sum of money for paying commissions to travel agents as would direct tourist business to his shops, which is against local law as an Unfair Business Practice.
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AND WHAT EXACTLY, PRAY, WOULD DRIVE THE MILITARY JUNTA OF THE SO-CALLED "UNION OF MYANMAR" BALLISTO over a shipment of relief supplies from the United Nations in response to the recent devastating cyclone there, prompting their outright seizure for unspecified reasons?
Or would it have to be that @ the top of the page of late: "Don't read the headlines--read The Exaggerator: Stylish, with just a hint of pretension"?
The latter, in case you're asking, was inspired by:
The Colonel, a raunchy Canadian pulp magazine which was published during World War II (whose slogan was "Don't read the headlines, read The Colonel--sure cure for war nerves"); and
a Japanese product slogan in English found in a Zippy the Pinhead comic strip some years back as had the principals speaking in Japanese English product slogans.
"GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOLUTION; GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM."
Thus spake The Great (Mis)communicator, Ronald Reagan ... and such eventually was to find its way among the articles of faith held dear among the Zealots and True Believers of conservatism perverted.
When applied to the Lower Classes, however, such expects us to see nothing less than whole generations of especially National Minority families somehow "addicted" to dependency on State welfare along the same lines as drugs or alcohol. (But then again, there are instances of otherwise "superior" whites dependent wholesale on State welfare.)
Their preferred solution? Nothing less than tax cuts targeting "the four hundred" with an eye towards expecting them, "out of the goodness of their collective hearts," to create jobs as would allow the Lower Classes to pay "their fair share" of taxes and, in the process, "develop a healthy respect for industry, self-reliance and personal responsibility."
Unfortunately, however, many of the jobs created based on such "trickle-down" thought are created offshore, rather than stateside--all excused as necessary "to keep costs down all the more" for both producers and consumers.
And the delusion that the Lower Classes can expect to live without State welfare misses one critical point as is rooted in the same supposedly "Christian" beliefs as shape current conservative articles of faith--a point best encapsulated in the motto of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows:
"We command you to visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead, and educate the orphan."
And the preferred form thereof?
None other than mutual self-help models as would be expected to serve only as a stop-gap towards self-reliance "in kind" (as in offering jobs training and educational assistance), rather than benefits-based models as "will tend to promote dependency @ the expense of industry."
The whole expected to be created solely by those expected to benefit without any sort of outside help, lest such be seen as "perpetuating dependency" inconsistent and incompatible with "American experience and values."
But what about such who cannot work because of circumstances outside their direct control, as in:
the mentally or emotionally ill?
the physically challenged?
those who need to care for elderly relatives or newborns?
the sick?
the elderly?
local economic conditions (e.g., unhealthy dependency on one particular industry as is especially vulnerable to socioeconomic circumstances)?
real or suspected "blacklisting" or "warnings"?
National Minorities traditionally subject to socioeconomic marginalisation?
How would you expect a social-welfare policy based purely upon mutual self-help "in kind" models to help them without attracting suspicions of their "developing unhealthy tendencies towards dependency"?
The same sort somehow hoping (howbeit secretly) to have workfare cases unable, "despite reasonable efforts" to find work in the community steered towards so-called "multi-level marketing" schemes such as Quixtar/Amway with high or extreme risk of substantial losses (even if State workfare programmes "mentored" those thus targeted)?
And what about those resident in "the projects" who you forever claim are "chronically and helplessly dependent" on State welfare? Are you not (un)consciously (un)aware that such are considered poor credit risks as made them all the more subject to exploitation by "sub-prime" mortgage lenders your ilk was forever seeing as but one agency towards self-reliance and personal responsibility, knowing all along that they couldn't likely make the monthly payments? How can you expect a mutual self-help "in kind" model of social welfare to provide decent and affordable housing for the poor and deserving?
And how do we know that you're not secretly the kind as would be pushing for "cashflow gifting clubs" being the preferred agency for cash benefits to the poor, knowing all the while that such are really Ponzi schemes benefitting only an "elect***entitled as of right" as operate these same schemes? Would you be the sort to use sugar-coated guises such as "Aeroplane," "Pit Stop," "Dinner Party" and various permutations on the "Friends Helping Friends" model?
In short: Are you not ashamed of your contempt for the poor, marginalised and vulnerable of society who need help, and would be all the more vulnerable without a reasonable safety net to help them along--even if such were based on mutual self-help models?
Are you not ashamed of your expecting such initiatives to be developed solely on their own initiative, without any help of any kind (out of fear that such could be seen as "promoting dependency" when they could really be in need of technical assistance as is beyond their immediate ken)?
Are you not ashamed of your own doublethink?
Don't come crying to meme.
Instead, in the words of "Mother" Mary Jones, "Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming crisis:"
So what stands in the way of seriously giving the Lower Classes some assistance in making mutual self-help initiatives which you see as the "new wave" of social welfare viable for once?
SOMEWHERE IN JACKSON COUNTY, WISCONSIN, OVER BY BLACK RIVER FALLS, happens to be the one-horse hamlet of Disco.
Which, in its time, had a dance hall called--I'm not kidding you on this--the Disco Dance Hall, as saw regular dances well before the disco mania came along in the 1978-80 period, which attracted the attention of the media to the approriately-named hamlet. (Of course, in keeping with the prevailing cultural byways of those parts, the dances were more than likely to be polkas, waltzes and other such commonly known as "old-time" musically.)
And which is enough for Your Correspondent to imagine the potential for someone redeveloping the Disco townsite as a Branson of Boogie and Disco, so to speak, as if to cash in on the publicity value of the name for starters.
As in having some of the big-name disco, boogie and funk acts of the disco period setting up venues which would outdo the rather sterile and antiseptic "music shows" down Branson way--mirror balls, high-powered audio systems, computerised lighting, the works, guaranteed to keep the '70's alive and kicking (and then some).
(Still, though, such needs to be done in a sustainable, environmentally-friendly manner which learns from the mistakes which plagued the all-too-rapid growth of Branson back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, when their "music show" industry started taking off and then some ... with such spectacular setbacks as an electrical fire destroying the Mickey Gillis Theatre proving just how overzealous Branson's growth was getting out of hand. That, and Branson's obvious cachet to those of a certain poor, undereducated and easily-influenced class, particularly so in jingoistic patriotism.)
So don't bring those polyester leisure suits out of mothballs just yet--it's just an unlikely fantasy on Your Correspondent's part and parcel....
YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT THE CULTURAL CONSERVATIVES HAVE IN COMMON WITH COMMUNISTS AND NAZIS, notwithstanding official denials from their Dark Satanic Mills of propaganda:
A fondness for using art and culture to present an idealised and hagiographic depiction of their values and articles of faith in action, otherwise known as Social Realism.
In effect, perverting Art and Culture in service to a misguided agenda.
The which can be fathomed from what ConWebBlog discerned from what Whistleblower magazine, an affiliate of WorldNetDaily, itself discerned about a recent redesign of the $5 note to deter counterfeiting (and its warped interpretation of its Greater Significance):
Richard Poe's reappearance peddling the quitediscredited Clinton body count in the Hillary-bashing issue of WorldNetDaily's Whistleblower magazine had us wondering what the guy has been up to these days.
The answer: railing against redesigned currency because it looks postmodernist.
HAVE YOU seen the new five-dollar bill? It looks like someone spilled grape juice on it. A violet stain obscures Abraham Lincoln's face. On the back, an oversized numeral five appears in purple. Enough is enough. We must stop the desecration of our currency.
[...]
The fact is, we are being hoodwinked. The redesign of our currency has nothing to do with fighting counterfeiters or helping people with weak eyesight. It has everything to do with catering to the perverse canons of postmodernist art. The U.S. Treasury has allowed a cabal of avant-garde designers to pull off one of the most audacious practical jokes in art history; the "subversion" and "deconstruction" of the U.S. dollar. We the taxpayers must demand an end to this cultural vandalism.
More than 2,300 years ago, Aristotle opined that art should be wondrous and beautiful. It should instruct and elevate the masses, he said, giving pleasure and catharsis or emotional release.
Today's hipster intellectuals reject Aristotle. Instead, they embrace a philosophy variously called "poststructuralism", "postmodernism" or just plain PoMo. For PoMo's apostles, art is a weapon of revolution. Its purpose is to mock, degrade and undermine the cherished beliefs of Western civilization. PoMo theorists call this process "deconstruction" or "subversion".
Meanwhile PoMo designers have been doing to national currencies what Serrano and Ofili did to Christianity.
We really can't add anything to this.
Getting back to the notion of Aristotle in the preceding about art being "wondrous and beautiful***instruct[ing] and elevat[ing] the masses," such brings to mind Soviet-era subway station design, especially so the garish excesses of chandeliers, murals and suchlike in especially the Moscow and St. Petersburg (f/k/a Leningrad) systems.
And, in a way, the subway in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, whose excesses of Socialist Realism artworks were relished thus by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the official North Korean mouthpiece, in an unofficial website discussing said subway:
There are 17 underground stations.
The stations' names are very meaningful and rich in their contents.
The station, which was built in the place where the President Kim Il Sung made his first historic speech after his return to the liberated homeland in triumph, is named Kaeson station. Jonsung station is associated with the immortal exploit he performed by leading the three year-long fatherland liberation war to victory.
All the stations including Kwangbok, Puhung, Konguk, Tongil and Yonggwang stations stand in historic places in residential districts.
All stations boast their architectural beauty.
The interior of the stations decorated with over 100 large murals and 100-odd pieces of sculptures and embossed carvings are reminiscent of an art museum.
Large-sized mosaic murals and patchworks, including "country of Juche" and "paradisiacal Pothong River" depicting a dignified appearance and developing feature of the DPRK, are in perfect artistic harmony. Conspicuous are chandeliers colorfully decorated with hundreds of thousands of beads and peculiar lamps hanging from the ceilings of magnificent halls.
[***]
Underground stations boast of artistic decorations of murals, sculptures and lighting which suit the name of stations.
Kwangbok station is decorated with sculptures showing the struggle and living of anti-Japanese guerrillas in defence of the President Kim Il Sung who liberated the country for the Korean people, and with murals 70 metres long and 3.6 metres high.
Yonggwang station reflects the glory of the Korean people living under the generous socialist system, holding Kim Il Sung in high esteem. Large murals "spring of Pyongyang" 80 metres long and 4 metres high are mosaiced on the right and left walls of the station. Numerous electric lights are suspending from the arch ceiling like the galaxy in the nocturnal sky and pillars and chandeliers represent firecrackers.
Konsol (construction), Hwanggumbol (golden field), Sungri (victory), Kaeson (triumphal return) and all other underground stations have architectural, aesthetic, ideological and artistic features.
The Pyongyang metro is a monumental edifice built with domestic designs, technique and materials.
As if such glowing praise for the wasteful architectural excesses found in Pyongyang's subway stations wasn't tacky enough, consider where a KCNA dispatch commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the opening of the first subway line in 2003 (as quoted on said website) takes note of where said network "is very instrumental in [the peoples'] ideological and cultural education."
On the other hand, there's also the Métro network in Montréal, quite an art gallery in and of itself--but without the bitter aftertaste of subtle "ideological and cultural education."
FOR YEARS, YOUR CORRESPONDENT HAS HAD THIS RATHER SUBTLE SUSPICION that the British Sunday gazetta known as the News of the World is perhaps the most ironic name for a gazetta anywhere in the world.
Never mind that it began publication in 1844, thus translating into a long-established reputation for sensationalised excess, particularly when it came to reporting court cases in rather lurid and tasteless detail--so lurid, in fact, that Parliament passed the Judicial Proceedings Act 1926 to put controls on its reportage of especially lurid murder and sex crimes.
A reputation which was already well established when a certain Keith Rupert Murdoch acquired News of the World in 1967, quickly earning Murdoch the well-deserved nickname of "the Dirty Digger" (by way of the satiric journal Private Eye, taking advantage of Murdoch's Australian origins)--and making it even more lurid and tasteless, not to mention racist and jingoistic, qualities which would be carried over into Keith Rupert's next Fleet Street trophy, The Sun, after his acquisition thereof in 1969.
In any case, News of the World still ranks as the top-selling Sunday gazetta between Land's End and John O'Groats, attracting some nine million readers Who Should Know Better with a rather pornographically tasteless mix of sleaze and scandal packaged as "responsible journalism," not to mention the lure of Big Big Money to readers willing to provide some especially juicy scandal as can make or break reputations, bring down governments or send The City into sheer panic.
And its journalistic focus, alas for it! still seems to be confined to England's Green and Pleasant Land, with little else in the way of world news coverage, if @ all; hence, the very name News of the World quickly becomes its own worst joke @ the expense of its readers among the ranks of the EastEnders/Coronation Street crowd, by and large.
The kind more than likely to take their summer's holidays in the likes of Blackpool or, worse yet, Butlin's Holiday Camps ... do their shopping @ ASDA (the British affiliate of Wally World, in case you didn't know), Tesco or Marks and Sparks just because prices are lower there ... and tend to watch FreeVee, even if it means having to pay an annual licence fee while News of the World rails against suspected "elitism" in BBC programmes in the hope of forcing more American-stylee programming on the likes of ITV, Channel 4 and 5.
What could be more ironic than to name a rather narrowly-focused gazetta (and a Sunday gazetta in particular) the News of the World, even without "the Dirty Digger" controlling the strings from New York?
And BTW: Are there any of you blog readers from between Land's End and John O'Groats who concur with these comments? Comments always welcome.
WELL, NOT QUITE THAT EXTREME INSPIRATION, READERS, but Your Correspondent is the sort as draws upon plenty of inspiration for blog essay fodder here @ The Exaggerator, for those among you asking.
And there's plenty to go around:
Memories of abuse, cruelty and maltreatment, not to mention an upbringing revolving, for the most part, around institutional and foster care.
Items I come across on the news, especially so BBC News ("it's a small world, after all," folks), but also CNN while watching same during my morning rounds @ a certain motel here in Winona, MN (details on request).
Allusions to old-time radio programmes, Hanna-Barbera animations and other TV shows and movies I find interesting.
"Engrish" @ its finest.
The mundane(?) details of the everyday routine I live in spite of myself and my dyslexic condition, as well as contacts with Mein Innkeeper Friend (who, without a doubt, has influenced, in a way, my Secular-Progressive leanings which can be evident in this blog).
Does this answer your question, readers?
But then again, I think English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) had the best answer to how a blogger works: "I just write the words down and then push them around a bit."
