Tuesday, February 25, 2014

NCIS and Orlando

It has always given me some feeling of connection to the universe to see a place I've visited, or lived, or could see from where my steps took me, sort of like the concept of a character of validation in the novel The Moviegoer.

Nowadays with the universe seemingly dumping on me, any connection, no matter how tangential, to the universe tickles me and brings metaphysical validation, with bonus points for humour, irony and satire.

So tonight when CBS drama NCIS ran an episode with fake bulletproof vests as part of a plot line, it made me chuckle in recognition for recently a former city commissioner of a suburb of Orlando, Scott Christopher Anderson of Ocoee, FL, got busted for selling counterfeit vests.

This really sucks as living in FL makes me consider buying a bulletproof vest, first because I have a big mouth that says what I believe right.  Second since my beloved state has become a freakin' war zone flooded wiith guns and idiots hopped up on testosterone and old Gunsmoke reruns, and will shoot you if you have your music too loud, text your baby sitter in a theater, walk in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, and get killed with impunity for the shooters under the FL stand your ground act.

Have our genius legislators thought how this plays out in the international press and may adeversely affect tourism since our state has become the Deathly Hallows?

You gotta live as a real asshole too make fake body armor.  At this rate, I'm going to have to armor plate my wheelchair.

Shite!

October 21, 2013|By Amy Pavuk and Arelis R. Hernández, Orlando Sentinel
Police have long investigated cases of fake money and knock-off purses and shoes, but a local counterfeiting business exposed by state agents could have potentially deadly consequences for unsuspecting buyers.


Counterfeit bulletproof vests — sometimes pieced together with duct tape using old body armor pieces — have been sold online and at gun shows throughout the state by Ocoee-based Alpha Sports, Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials said Monday....

The company also had its own "Full Dragon" brand of body armor, and when tested by agents, "every round went through it," said Special Agent Supervisor Daniel Warren. He said this is the first case of counterfeit body armor he's seen.

Agents think Anderson has been selling his counterfeit products for two years, which means hundreds of people — including security guards and bail bondsmen — could be relying on sub-standard vests for protection.

Many law-enforcement agencies, including the Orlando Police Department and Orange County Sheriff's Office, buy vests directly from manufacturers and provide them to officers.

One of the "disturbing" aspects of the case is that Anderson didn't seem to understand the consequences if someone got shot while wearing one of his counterfeit products, Warren said.

"It will not do the job it is supposed to do," he said.]  (emphasis added 'cause I'm just generally pissed off today.)

Bruce Springsteen - The Rising (official video)



<iframe width="500" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MOUVPtCrJoM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Monday, February 24, 2014

"Say it ain't so. Joe," alleged quote during "Black" Sox scandal

(So I have the metaphor reversed.  I just like the phrase.  "Shoeless" Joe belongs in the Hall.)

One of the finest political writers in America, Matt Taibbi--writing for Rolling Stone magazine with wit, style, venom, and a deep sense of justice and heaping opprobrium upon evildoers--has left for a web journalism endeavour at First Look Media.

Frankly, Mr Taibbi's blog and features served as a beacon of hope and reason for me since at least before the elections of 2004 and the financial crash.  Lest you think him in the tank for Mr. Obama, Matt has recently heaped tons of scorn on the current Justice Dept. and the laughable settlements with the largest perpetrators of frauds which nearly sank the World into a Greater Depression.

He had an incredibly varied career at the Stone: "....At various times, thanks to this magazine, I’ve spent days hiding in a cell at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, gone undercover in an apocalyptic church in Texas (where I learned to vomit my demons into a paper bag), and even helped run a campaign office for George W. Bush along the I-4 corridor in Florida, getting so into the assignment that I was involuntarily happy when Bush won....

I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/thank-you-rolling-stone-20140220

You can read about the perfidy perpertrated by unscrupulous American bankers in this piece: [....But this just-completed trial in downtown New York against three faceless financial executives really was historic. Over 10 years in the making, the case allowed federal prosecutors to make public for the first time the astonishing inner workings of the reigning American crime syndicate, which now operates not out of Little Italy and Las Vegas, but out of Wall Street.

The defendants in the case – Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm – worked for GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric. Along with virtually every major bank and finance company on Wall Street – not just GE, but J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia and more – these three Wall Street wiseguys spent the past decade taking part in a breathtakingly broad scheme to skim billions of dollars from the coffers of cities and small towns across America. The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes – from "virtually every state, district and territory in the United States," according to one settlement....]
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620

Looking forward to more of these writers dropping truth bombs on the Intertubes.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Not my Jesus

Unsure of all theology involved, but pretty sure my Jesus of the Gospels walked 'round with just a cloak and tunic and samdals, seeking the coming house of God rather than a multi million dollar mansion,  Geez, this archbishop could seem like a televangelist.

[In a time when Pope Francis is cracking down on the Catholic Church’s extravagant spending, John J. Myers, the Irish American archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese, in New Jersey, is spending $500,000 on a three-floor expansion of his 4,500-square-foot retirement home. The 1.3 million strong Catholic dioceses is footing the bill.

Just in time for the “archbishop’s annual appeal,” when the dioceses calls on their congregations to donate, Myers' construction of what is being called a palace is getting underway.

Myers’ 4,500-square-foot house sits on 8.2 wooded acres in the hills of Hunterdon County, in the hamlet of Pittstown. Currently the house is made up of five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a three-car garage and a big outdoor pool. Valued at $800,000, this house, used as the Archbishop’s weekend residence, is getting a three-story, 3,000-square-foot addition.

This extension is in preparation for the Irish American Archbishop’s retirement, due in two years, the Star Ledger reports. The 72-year-old Archbishop plans to live there fulltime.

The new three-story extension, now just a wooden frame, will include an indoor exercise pool, a hot tub, three fireplaces, a library and an elevator, according to records at the Franklin Township building department. The extension will cost $500,000, excluding architectural costs, furnishings and landscaping.]
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Newark-Archdiocese-foots-bill-for-Myers-extravagant-mansion-extension.html#ixzz2u7xR7Z8V 

Fun Ginger Facts

Took me decades but niw am proud of my redheaded mane.

On the painkilling front, I keep telling thos basdtard git Dr's I am more sensitive to pain.  Having nephrostomy tubes stuck in my back sucks.

They say with air of smug superiority, "We don't give anasthaesia for this."

Well let me off this table, you hop on, and I'll stick needles through your back into your kidneys, and then you tell me what I need."

Dipwads.

[....Also, in surgery, gingers might require approximately 20% more anaesthesia than other hair colours. The exact reason for this is unknown, but it is thought that a link to the mutated MC1R gene could be the culprit to its effectiveness.

6. The Romans kept redheaded slaves at a higher price

Those with fiery-coloured hair were held in high esteem in Roman art and culture. Thought to be strong and determined, they were more expensive than other slaves, and prisoners would even have their hair dyed to be displayed as trophies.

Either that, or wigs of red hair were reportedly imported from northern Europe, for slaves to wear.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/emmakelly/redhead-facts_b_4781153.html



Not my Jesus

Yes, I see Jesus as an at times angry Man, like when He threw money changers out of the temple.  So maybe He'll come back and bitchslap this fool back under the rock from which he slithered.

If  he imagined Jesus, the Son of Man, returning with an automatic weapon, an AR-15, why limit Him to just that?  Why not a holy roller apostolic tank driven by St. Peter blowing the hell out of bad guys instead of just slicing off an ear?  Gotta get that evildoer blood to stain Jesus' robe.

This demonstrates once again why disturbed people ought not get loose in Revalations on their own.  Inquisition much?







Friday, February 21, 2014

Planes, Trains, and well, Planes and Trains and Economics

This blog has posts on economics of college education, featuring several posts on a faculty strike at University of Illinois, Chicago.

Faculty posts used to portend at least a solid middle class life: perhaps picket fence for the small bungalow and wife.  Sure, you might make big bank at Harvard and the Ivies but the rest have become another path to middle class prosperity ruined by these know nothing idiots; since they think science behind global climate change a fraud and embrace creationism rather rhan evolution, whither science teaching in universities and high schools and for profit colleges?  Then these ignoramuses wonder why the US lags behind the world in science education like arsonists with a gas can and blue tip matches to hand asking "who started the fire."

Since the Republican'ts and their austerity slashing of budgets in every state governement they control means tenure has become a cruel dream for indentured grad students and teaching assistants abd overworked adjuncts who have to flog their cars from jr colleger to jr college to teach a calss hither and yon.

Tenure, quoth the Republican'ts, nevermore.

You'd think the Republican'ts, wrapped in the US flag as they so choose, would show a sense of public education as a public service and good for the commonweal.  Instead, they bank boatloads of bucks in contributions from for profit colleges that entice young people with the American Dream to sign up for expensive and useless college classes, "...Since the largest for-profit schools spend about 20 percent of their total revenue on advertising and recruitment..." All those damn teevee ads, even at 4am, cost mucho dinero.

So we have college faculty on strike at University of Illinois at Chicago.

[Hundreds of faculty members and supporters formed picket lines, marching through campus for much of the day while holding signs like "Faculty working conditions = student learning conditions."

Organizers said they planned the two-day strike and picket to draw attention to contract negotiations between the university and a union that represents about 1,150 full-time tenured and nontenured faculty members.]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-uic-strike-met-0219-20140219,0,4130958.story

So come with me and look at the dark underbelly of modern higher education:
[College professor?

Not the kind of professor that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for teaching one class a year but a broke-ass adjunct who makes hundreds of dollars for teaching thousands of classes a year. The other day I read an article about an adjunct who died in a homeless shelter and I wasn’t surprised; panhandlers make triple, and trust me, I’ve done the research, I should be looking for a corner to set up shop.

I have a little more than my friends but still feel their pain. My equation for survival is teaching at three colleges, substituting, freelance Web designing, freelance graphic designing, rap video director, wedding photographer and tutor —  the proceeds from all of these are swallowed by my mortgage, cigarettes, rail vodka and Ramen noodles. I used to eat only free-range organic shit, I used to live in Whole Foods, I used to drink top shelf — I used to be able to afford pop culture.]
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/too_poor_for_pop_culture/



http://coldspringshops.blogspot.com/2014/01/redefining-rolling-tenement.html

Bro' 'n law fixed laptop

Apparently, he fixed it with nought but a stern look.

Sheesh, that makes me look like an idiot.  But swear to Samedi damn power recharger thingy would not plug in all the way and so could not get 'lectic juice into machine.  She-oot, tried and tried and tried.  I ain't no damned idjut afterall.

Thank Gawd he fixed it 'cause gots so much anger brewing inside of me.  That son o' a be-yotch, Michael Dunn, did not get convicted of murder and then has the temerity to think he's the victim, goat blower.  My freakin' sweet Jesus, he sounds  like that sub-human piece of shanke dung in TN who thought it OK to talk to black people who lost their mother because a fireman refused to perform CPR on her and tell them about a piece of flesh carved fron a lynching victim 

Then that lying jackel squid shit draft dodging chickenhawk prick, George W. "Figuread President," comes out of figure painting seclusion to advocate for the cause of "the veterans."  Nice going, Junior, they would not bet veterans save for your quioxtic crusade to find non-exixtent weapons of mass destruction.

Fuck you.

Fuck your whole damn family.

Die, die, die!

Bitch!

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Humanity has some decent humans

A sports anchor from TX, no less, speaks in favor of inclusion under this umbrella of humanity for Michael Sam, first openly gay player to seek to play in the NFL.

Wow, will wonders never cease?

[Several NFL officials are telling Sports Illustrated it will hurt him on draft day because a gay player wouldn't be welcome in an NFL locker room. It would be uncomfortable, because that's a man's world.

You beat a woman and drag her down a flight of stairs, pulling her hair out by the roots? You're the fourth guy taken in the NFL draft.]http://www.wfaa.com/sports/dale-hansen/Dale-Hansen-Unplugged--244822291.html

In the second para he writes of someone almost like Lawrence Phillips except Philllips selected sixth in NFL draft, still, drafted rather high for one who assaulted his girlfriend.

After failing at every stop along his career in the NFL, Don Shula gave him a chance with my Miami Dolphins, cutting him only due to his penchant for fumbling.  Great ethics.



Internet pranks a bigot

You might remember story of Oklahoma restaurant owner who loudly proclaimed his distaste for gays, immigrants, disabled humans, people on welfare, and pretty much anyone who did not fit into his white bread world view.

Myself, will not deign to take any of my precious time to prank this puke, nevertheless do gets lots o' laughs from those who do, as recounted below.

If  I were to write, would probably write something like, "For all my gay bro's and transgender sisters, when in Enid, OK, for a good time go see Gary at Chicaros."

[....Perhaps unsurprisingly, James' comments rubbed the Internet the wrong way. The restaurant's Facebook and Yelp pages, which had fewer than 10 reviews each last week, are now packed with hundreds of comments, many of which label Gary's Chicaros Club as one of the best gay bars in northern Oklahoma.

"Ask for Gary! ....

"[This is] the best gay bar in Oklahoma!" remarked Faye Galbraith on Facebook. "Although I must say Gary is far from subtle...the way he struts around in his sparkly pink mankini made me a tad uncomfortable."

Some of the reviews weren't quite so enthusiastic, however. Alex H. from Kentuckyobserved that he "thought this place was going to be cheap," but noted that the "all male review night" forced him "to whip out all [his] singles...."]

Monday, February 10, 2014

US finally wins Second Indochinese War: McDonalds opens in Ho Chi Minh city

The major domo of American capitqlism and exporter of heart disease and obesity to the world, McDonalds, has finally opened in Viet Nam.  Who knew that bombing the shit of people in the Second Indochinese War would not convert them to the American way of life but that capitalism and Mammon and desire for the latest brands would win the war of ideas.



[By CNN Travel staff
updated 6:01 AM EST, Mon February 10, 2014

(CNN) -- The wait is over for Ho Chi Minh City residents and travelers in need of a Chicken McNugget fix.

Vietnam's first McDonald's restaurant officially opened for business this weekend.

Located in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam's commercial center, the McDonald's branch has a 24-hour drive-through service and will feature the usual menu classics, plus some items to cater to local tastes (McPork, anyone?), according toVietnamese media.

The chain joins other Western fast food chains already present in the country such as Subway, Burger King and KFC, catering to an increasingly brand conscious local middle class.]


Sunday, February 9, 2014

Russian Gay Bashing Irony: Sochi opening ceremony house band does Daft Punk.

Guess the choreographer for the Sochi Olympics drawing up the number by the Russian police choir doing the Daft Punk song "Get Lucky" had no way of knowing the song serves as a closer in many gay clubs around the world.

Damn, that's almost as funny as the Pythons' lumberjack sketch.

  







Saturday, February 8, 2014

Great, Gay Bashing in Russia too

When you add in multi million s of dollars in curruption at the Winter Olympics, it looks like Russia more like US than we thought:  http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/rights-group-releases-video-of-lgbt-attacks-in-russia/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&alg=3Q479&_r=1.

Love my enemies?

Jesus, You have got to speak in jest here. Even though don't think I've any enemies in the sense of those actively seeking to harm me, currently have plenty of incompetent and indifferent fools standing in the way of my regaining independence. Not to mention the legions of wrongheaded humans who despise me because I'm right and vast multitudes of those I've wronged in the past and who probably still hate me decades later.

I have to love all of 'em sez bible verse of the day from those pesky Gospels. Darn, just when i wanted some Old Testament stuff which would let me feel good about some righteous smiting. Gollly gee whiz, please let me smite someones. Please? Wait. Pray for them too, Lord. Dang, that hurts.  Can't I just buffet the bastards 'bout the head with pillows and well placed wrath?  No?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

"The Hotties of the 1890's'

Now y'all, one of my favorite blogs comes from the mind and pen of Betty Fokker, a self-described Stay at Home Feminist Mom.  Between her and at Juanita Jean's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon in the World, I could steal--oops, get ideas for--posts all day long but both inform and entertain me, both with side splitting laughter at times, the former with more vitriol and creative name calling and latter with a focus on TX politics--a microcosm of how the vermin and buzzards of the Republidiots and duped Tea Party fools conspire to destroy their once great state and my beautiful Constitutional union--and they both stay on my daily read list.

Betty's topic today comes from pictures of Burlesque dancers of the 1890's and how culture sets a standard for female beauty and then women internalize and act upon it.  This would have no interest for me as male for my life only entails finding clean shirt and pants to wear; screw beauty.  Nevertheless with 2 nieces in college, I worry and pray they may set their own standards and become happy in themselves.

Perusing the pictures of last century Burlesque dancers with the scholar's eye, it becomes quite evident the standard of that time leans towards the more Rubenesque, full figured gals.  Have no doubt the culture would have conditioned me into favoring that, men historically exist easier to please than finding water in the ocean. Nevertheless, people fail to realize to what extent they allow the outside world to condition their inner thoughts and dreams.

Like and ancient Greek reputedly dude said, the unexamined life ain't worth living.  Left unsaid, however, the whether the examined life worth living instead.

But I digress.

The pictures also feature fully clothed women.  Nevertheless, ladies in form fitting tights would prove quite shocking in the corseted and bustled world of that day.  Man, look at them hips!  It occurs to me just how much the standard of feminine beauty has changed.

Paradoxically, in a world of less bounty and available food the standard favored well fed women; the beauties of today, super models who celebrate by sharing a stalk of celery, would have looked gaunt and starved back in the day.  Baby, let me feed you a pot roast.

So without further ado, read Betty's piece and let it make you think.  And since pictures speak louder than words....



Yo, 'nuff said, hmm?



http://bettyfokker.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/the-hotties-of-the-1890s/

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Layla - Derek and the Dominos

Damn, the things you can hear with ear buds; I can actuallly pick up the 2 guitar voices.  Duane, Derek and the Dominos sure provide sonic punch and layering.  Normally prefer live music with all its vitality and vigor and base punches to the pubes.  man, can''t wait to get home and blow dust out of my subwoofers.

But I digress.  Had to post clean album version to hear guitar voices sing, reaching to high tonre previously heard only by angels.








Throwing Stones: Penultimate step down melancholy lane

And the current fashion sets the pace,
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/throwing.html

Did you ever wake up in a Grateful Dead mood?

You know, not too rock, not too blue, just bit o' jazz, looking for some melody with a back beat and baseline groove, 'cause that base player mos' def'' laid down a thick and crunchy piece, and that jazz feel from 2 drummers finding different parts of the beat teasing out time and syncopation, and Jerry Garcia--guitar icon--I could never understand my roomate's, Larry Reid, a music major studying claasical guitar at Wake Forest, devotion to Jerry 'cause 'tweren't Rock enough for me 'cause I'd formed a lifelong attachment to mid 70's British guitar rock, you know the ususal Led suspects.

Nevertheless, didn't that form the beauty and joy of the Dead?  They sounded like no one else.  With Jerry and his classical/jazz style, sometimes with piano and backup singer, and Bob Weir on rhythm guitat holding the whole hot mess together.

Picked this version 'cause it falls several months from the last time i saw my ex girlfriend on a date with us on a party bus to the show run by the stoner frat at Wake.  Don't hardly remember the show, just the spectacle: people dancin' up and down the isles, with streamers and twirlin' and enough tie dye to clothe a continent.

Do remember the painful silence as I drove Wendy Hall back to Salem College with me frozen, unable to even realize I had emotions much less express them.

I'm sorry, and I love you would have done for starters.

Then broke my neck at the beach at a rugby party a couple of months after getting kicked out of Wake for drunken vandalism.  Didn't write, didn't try to call, the only human thing I managed came  from walking 'round and 'round the Citrus Bowl when Wake went there after '79 football season, as if could pick her out of a crowd of 50,000, just walked and walked, using up a chunk of the steps God had alloted me.

Had a lot ot regrets before that and since but somehow don't consider any of those steps wasted.

Then--don't you just hate when a passage in a narrative starts with then, signalling some bad shit coming down--how could I write or call?  Hi, i'm a quadripeligic; do you want to visit FL?  No, just too bad a shit, man.

Took a couple years to walk without a cane and by then the time had passed.  Well, what the hell.  Kinda got a hankering on visiting Winston-Salem again and reclaim some of my youth, ironic now that I'm in a effin' whhelchair again.  Do you know how many Wendy Halls exist on Facebook?  As usual. waited 35 years to do the right thing.

'f me.

Amtrak does go through there.  Maybe can make my connection to Denver from there.








More Dead, Gratefully So

Sugar Magnolia - Grateful Dead - 11-24-1978 Passaic, NJ (NEW)

Neil Young shock and awe 2006

Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias 1978-12-31

Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias 1978-12-31

Sublime - Scarlet Begonias

The Midnight Special 1973 - 20 - War - The Cisco Kid

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Smoking Kills Marlboro Man

[Eric Lawson, who portrayed the rugged Marlboro man in cigarette ads during the late 1970s, has died. He was 72.

Lawson died Jan. 10 at his home in San Luis Obispo of respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, his wife, Susan Lawson said Sunday....

A smoker since age 14, Lawson later appeared in an anti-smoking commercial that parodied the Marlboro man and an Entertainment Tonight segment to discuss the negative effects of smoking. Susan said her husband was proud of the interview, even though he was smoking at the time and continued the habit until he was diagnosed with COPD.]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/eric-lawson-former-marlboro-man-dies-of-smoking-related-disease-1.2512256