People Helping People -OR- What I Gain From Blogging

Batocchio over at Vagabond Scholar has done it again. He's carrying on a tradition begun by Al Weisel. Al blogged under the name Jon Swift and was about the best friend a small blog could possibly have. When the big blogs and aggregators circled their wagons and tried to monetize their status, they stranded dozens of small blogs in their wake. Linking and sharing among blogs and bloggers built networks around these hubs. Jon was quick to respond denouncing the power grab and stepping up his own efforts to build on the linking and sharing community.

One of his ideas was an annual "Best Of" list submitted by the small blog authors themselves. He compiled the list, published it on his blog and encouraged others to do likewise while adding their own favorites.

When Jon passed away, his grand idea could have died with him, but didn't. Batacchio would not let that happen. He took up where Jon left off and compiled the list as a memorial to Al/Jon. I've added sidebar links to the 2007-2011 lists and encourage one and all to use them liberally. You'll find wit, charm, snark, detailed information, well-deserved smack-downs, and no shortage of fine writing among each year's participants.

Leave comments for the things you like and, if it's within your budget, help out the bloggers who've put out a tip jar. Pay it forward. Bookmark a few favorites and remember to go back. It beats the hell out of watching tv or wading the shallows of Twitter/Facebook.

Pax.

2011 Lowlights -OR- Jaw Dropping Nastiness

Exhibit A:

The Professional Left Top Ten Lies of 2010

D r i f t g l a s s& Blue Gal during their Pre-Christmas Podcast presented this list (with further elaboration). Driftglass was kind enough to put up the list as a stand-alone post.

It's such a perfect list that I won't despoil their production with further commentary at this point, but I do intend to mine this vein. Mainly because we're
stuck at these points on every debate we should be having. For 2012 and beyond, we need to end this undeserved advantage the P.O.G. has wrongly insisted is rightfully theirs.

1. It matters if you’re wrong.
Club members never have to worry about being wrong.

2. It matters if you’re right.
Non-Club members are virtually never be credited for being right. The closest we come is that sometimes -- 5 or 10 or 20 years after the fact -- convention Beltway Wisdom will slowly submit to the relentless badgering of Reality, reverse itself (while taking infinite care not to hold any of the advocates of the Old Lie account) and recongeal around the what has been the Dirty Hippie position all along. At no point will Beltway brain wizards ever admit they had been wrong all along (see lie #1.)

3. Big Media is a disinterested observer and reporter in the political process.

4. There is no governing elite.

5. The Republican Party’s priority is family values.
It's all IOKIYAR all the time when it comes to sex, power and hypocrisy.

6. Centrism!

7.Most Americans are independents.
Bullshit. Most Americans are not interested in politics at all, or are afraid to discuss it, or list themselves as "Independent" for a variety of mutually contradictory reasons ("The 'Independent' Granfalloon").

8. There is a free market.
Ha! Any pretense of a free market has been abandoned by big business who use their almost unlimited economic power to stack the government in their favor (for example, BOA President saying “we have a right to make a profit.”)

9. Voting is a privilege not a right.

10. Voting doesn't matter.
Ha! If voting didn't matter, the GOP would not be spending billions of dollars to stop you from doing it.

Too Much To Ask? Really?

Thinklings -OR- Random WTFs

Accepting a smaller life to enable already unequaled privilege and comfort is the new America for which Ronald Wilson Reagan has been canonized.

Blaming our present clusterfucks on dirty fucking hippies who've had less than zero power or influence EVER is either the best or worst marketing campaign in history.

Cashing in the chips and chits of a dozen generations should have required more than a wave of the flag.

Keeping an electorate busy trying to make sense out of nonsense is apparently a winning strategy.

The "Both sides do it" false equivalency perpetuates both sides doing what it is they do.

The party affiliation applicable to most of the electorate is the "Whatever" party.
Having voted consistently, with futility, for things to make sense, they've been rewarded with even more of the same.

Politically, a missed opportunity is as good as a light year at our present speed making any advertised destination impossible to reach.

The attributes generally assigned to and largely accepted for our current political leanings are 180° from reality. This is either a deliberate or delusional condition.

The demonized "Tax and Spend" ways and means, historically, have a far more respectable record of checks and balance than our glorified "Tax Cut and Spend"
ways and means.

Math is tricksy. If you know, with confidence, that you can steal a billion, not go to jail, and return less than pennies on the dollar, the line to get some of that will never end.

A man can spend a life pretending to do good deeds, but sodomize one child and that's all that anyone will know.

Thank you for playing our game.

Otherwise Occupied -OR- Take A Break

After careful study of the calendar, lunar cycles and list of things in need of doing, it has been concluded that there's just no time for thought or mashing words together until they resemble a coherently expressed idea. Therefore, in keeping with the spirit of the season and the occupy movement, Occupy Mayberry, is deemed appropriate as long as you're mindful of the subtle racism in this recognized American treasure. Surely Mayberry had at least one black family? Even "It's a Wonderful Life" had Lillian Randolph.



Here's hoping you find a minute or five to enjoy and reflect in the frenzied days ahead.

Happy Hanukkah. Shalom

All Aboard!!! -OR- Overture, Prelude, Fanfare or Calliope?

Exit. Cuckoo for cocoa puffs all the way. Stage Right

There is an old saw about deaths occurring around the holidays. That something in the human spirit, or lack thereof, greases the wheels for some people. While it's doubtful that Kim Jong Il attached any import to the symbolism of Christian holidays, he was astute enough to grasp the timing of the West's news cycles.

Many pundits and scholars will milk the Il cow sensing opportunity. In the end, that's what drives our newsinfotainment outlets. How Il upstages and overshadows the death of Vaclav Hovel is purely a corporate decision. If an actual celebrity with a vast library of footage kicks off between now and Sunday, Both Il and Havel will move to a footnote in the notable passings of 2011 year end wrap-ups. Perhaps lumped together because of Andy Rooney.

This has become our continuum. Our conditioning allows others to determine the amount and quality of information we receive. They report; we decide? Everything's changing? Nothing has changed? Short-attention span kabuki?

In general we remain on a treadmill of unchanging scenery. Still a ball of confusion.

Occupy the Kitchen -OR- Domestication

It's crunch time! Every surface of the kitchen has some element of food in varying stages of preparation. The oven is cranking out mini-loaves on Sara Lee scale. I'm not sure the sleigh can carry it all, but the smells are amazing.

Happy Birthday Frank Zappa. See you next Zappadan*.





*Assuming the Mayans are wrong about the end of the world and/or the SOPA bill doesn't restrict online activity to only officially sanctioned bits and bytes.

My Future State Rep? -OR- Pol Asks; Please! Indict ME!?

We be Pirate Country! We here in Twp 39 North, Crook County, Illinois are just heading into the next primary election cycle. With the legacy of pay to play, elected privilege, opposition retribution, sleazy dealings (all legal of course!), cronyism, cover-ups, voter apathy,disqualification,intimidation,fraud, andonandon you'd think the list of indictments would be just as long. But Proviso Township only rarely attracts the attention of our legal watchdogs. This video clearly shows how things work. It's just politics... Scummy, community destroying, corruption plagued politics that are seemingly coated in teflon and kevlar.

Proviso Employees Perform Political Work on Taxpayer's Dime: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

The candidate in this incident is making his second run at a seat in the state legislature from his current position as President of the failed institution locals call Proviso High School District 209. He controls a board majority, so he decides who shares in the $80 million annual budget's "discretionary" bonanza.

His list of accomplishments, education wise, are funding creation of a magnet high school via bond sales to bypass voter approval, then funding the schools operations out of the budget for the two existing campuses. Last year he fired all of the Principals for a shot at "Race To The Top" funding and to avoid the NCLB consequences of failing to meet standards. Provisos East and West are textbooks for how to run "good enough for them schools of last resort.

The district Chris Welch is running to represent has no media coverage to speak of, it spans all or parts of 15 communities just west of the city. An inner-ring frontier that still has many charms. The lack of press limits exposure to the ugly to the point that you can almost ignore it. Easily, a majority of the residents are blissfully ignorant to who's running things or the bizarre things that they do.

The obvious question is why anyone would live in this ongoing nightmare. I don't think I have a rational explanation for that except location, location, location.
Anyone with means simply bypasses the scum and hopes that somebody does something about it. That hope is mostly half-hearted since things have been this way for a long, long time. Despite the nonsense, it's still a mostly good place to live. Civic pride is compensated for by great neighbors who share the faint hope that things will be fixed...soon...eventually and then things will be perfect!

Well Said... Mostly. There was that one thing... you screwed up royally, but all in all... Well played sir.

“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.” ---------Christopher Hitchens 1940 - 2011

Having the Cowardice of One's Convictions? -OR- A Spine, A Spine, My Empire For A Spine

How is YOUR National Security doing? I only ask because after years of being hammered incessantly over the abject failure of Democrats (still SO need to find that "dripping with disdain" font) to properly address "National Security Issues", I can't help but wonder if those cyclically chanting that mantra have clue one what the term means.





Remember when we were a scrawy, puny nation? Before St. Ronnie led us to the gym and whipped us into shape? When all the cool kids were talking about us wasting our money on welfare instead of warfare? Tossing aggregate amounts around asking what we have to show for it? We shifted our resources to the military and away from people programs. Not that we were going to USE the weapons, only that having those rippling abs and biceps would let us score with every babe on the beach?

How's that working out? In the early 80s I was shouting into the abyss that having armies and armaments all dressed up with no place to go would be too tempting to the saber rattlers to resist trotting out to play with. The scoffing and cackling at that potential was pause for concern. Trust us, you'll see, when we're buff, the world will respect FEAR us. In the mid to late 80s, when my nightmares began to unfold, its justifications were as nonsensical as the "peace through strength" meme had been. But there's no time right NOW to ponder rationales, "TRUST US, when this is over we'll show you the error in your thinking". Their answer was to make sure it was never over. The next newest threat was another democrat hell bent on making us puny again by ignoring our National Security! The compromise reached was to hound and impeach that President so no credit could be taken for the adjustments that actually paid for our adventures through relatively sound fiscal policies. This was no way to destroy Social Security or let Medicare "wither on the vine" or further close the wealth loop... It just didn't serve conservative ideals to have a seemingly functional government capable of reducing debt and building surpluses. Oh noes! We can't possibly allow a street to be paved or a bridge be rebuilt unless we allow "the market" to control who can use that street or cross that bridge. After all, that is what America is all about right Right? The Market is awesome. It can fly! It can levitate. It can function without connection to earthy realities.

This fundamental denial of the laws of a physical universe is the fatal flaw in the incomplete thinking of the Opposite World dogma. It denies that the very things it is sure must be eliminated are the bedrock upon which their dreams are built. They've been convinced that everybody is out to take what they've attained through ONLY their own true grit. And that if everybody just did as they have they too will find Randian utopia. All the good outcomes are due to their absolutely infallible ideology. All of the bad is the fault of non-believers. In short, their way of life is consequence free, waste free, and non-polluting.

Our national security begins at home. Our productivity HAS to FIRST make sure that the footings are stable. That should mean reinforcing the foundation and frameworks, not undermining it or especially not hacking away at key components of the structural integrity.
I don't care what sort of faith-based force field you believe in, without a stable base, there will be no skyscrapers.

Theodore Geissel explained all that in Yertle the Turtle. We really do live in Salamasond. Believe THAT!


Yertle the Turtle by MistyIsland1

Your Kind Attention Please -OR- Big Yellow Taxi in the Loading Zone!

Following on the previous post, understand that in Opposite World, ANTI-(anything) means pro-advantage to not us. The SOPA bill has NOTHING to do with piracy and everything to do with PRIVACY. Just another piece of the plan.

Curiouser and Curiouser -OR- On Thin Ice

Just so we're straight...The Newt is surging? There is an almost elegant Opposite World symmetry to this. Y'all remember that we're living in Opposite World now don't you? Well, nobody has been more instrumental in molding, shaping and framing the transformation to Opposite World than ol' Newt. He is positively vainglorious about his responsibility in the switcheroo and of course, this being Opposite World it's all the fault of those people for not accepting the natural superiority of Newt's thinking on all matters.

Newt's DNA, muddy bootprints and fingerprints are on and around every single I.E.D. that has propelled this country's long strange trip into O.W.. From filibuster, gridlock and malaise in his rookie year to our present dysfunction, Newt's been there to frame the debate and assign the blame 180° from its source.

His rise and fall and rise eclipse Nixonian in scope and grandeur. His tap-dancing on the mass graves of the American Dream is nothing short of Faustian. His ability to distance himself from the rotting detritus of his wake, the cock-sure aplomb and bombast of his Newtspeak, his pseudonymous imputation of single-minded purpose to his GOPAC movement and his Svengali-like implantation and erasure of historical facts make Newt one bad political motherfucker.

Because this is opposite world, these traits are not negatives, they are his charm.
He rises, not despite, but because of his larger-than-life crafted mythology. He employs Jedi-like powers of persuasion mind-confusion until nothing is certain except his certainty.

He is driven by every wedgie and swirly he most certainly had to endure growing up. His is the retribution of the nerds who even the nerds thought were assholes. His vast experience crafting imaginary alternate worlds where he was in control, inexplicably, made the transition to reality and we've all been affected by the consequences. Because it's OW, he's the bully now. It's all right there in his history books

This time, he promises not to let it go to his head.
Forget all about his official transcript on promises. He has granted himself blanket permission to revise, twist, bend, alter, erase, sanitize and purify the record and isn't afraid to use it.

That makes him the OW logical choice.

Bed Strangefellows -OR- Hot Rats!

Why I choose to celebrate Zappadan. Despite the ham-handed interviewer, the candor, clarity of thought, purpose and understanding make FZ unique. Who is his equal today?
Is it safe? Who should decide?

Pointless? Meaningless? -OR- Take Good Care

In still further evidence that it's not that our children aren't learning, it's what they are being taught by the so-called adults they witness. Traditional measures no longer apply.

Education is a sum of one's experience, not just what schools provide. Regardless of the quantity, quality or traditional acceptance of knowledge imparted in a classroom setting, it is in the real world translation and application, where that information stands or falls as valid or valuable.

Given: Hard work is rewarded?

Maybe on a philosophical, zen level, but in the meat world? Opposite. Hard work is a relative concept? Different strokes for different folks? How can such a universally accepted fundamental have become so malleable? Why, if this is a guiding principle in our society, isn't there someone, somewhere paying more than lip service to the issue?

Hard work may be rewarding, internally, but external recognition and reward? No longer a hard and fast rule. More and more becoming the exception rather than.
Our language has changed regarding value and worth, the underlying truth has not.
Still, when one looks up from his/her toils, the supposed goal remains elusive.
This isn't a new phenomena, it's purely a class struggle. Our ancestors have faced
imbalance and fairness problems at every age of mankind. Through trial and error, direct and indirect action, by treaty, contract and agreement, some semblance of balance can be achieved, but only through vigilance and constant reinforcement can it be maintained.

When fundamental "givens" are ignored, altered or squelched... discomfort, anger and, if necessary, violence are necessary to restore satisfaction. That is what drives our society. A pure ratio between satisfaction and dissatisfaction can be measured and our lives are affected by the delicate balance. But what happens when methods that formerly contained and tempered the effects are systematically rendered inoperable or ineffective? IMO, that's where we stand today. Most are seeking an appropriate response when faced with the array of problems and level of wrong in their daily grind. Accommodations we neither approved nor accepted, that should be unable to sustain, are still presented as part of the deal; As how things have always been despite certainty that they have not.

Given: Ingenuity is rewarded?

This one too has been breached. Whence once upon a time, a diligent, methodical type could cobble together a design, build a prototype, start-up on a shoestring with help from independent financiers, that model is no longer viable. The legal work alone assures that most efforts are usurped, co-opted and taken over by opportunists. They've merged, acquired and consolidated the process to the point that only rarely does something fall through the cracks to become the next big thing.
The "idea radar" sounds the alarm and ingestion/assimilation minions assure that whatever the development, it will be controlled and influenced by and for only the people who matter.

Keymasters and gatekeepers are strategically positioned. Very little slips past them.

A growing number are reacting to this "new" landscape and playing field with a mixture of shock and dismay. They seem genuinely surprised that the rules have changed so much from their understanding and expectations of just a few years ago.
Was it only a few years ago when the good times were going to last forever? When there were serious discussion about whether paying off our national debt was "good policy"? When the skies were the limit and the limit was the sky? No, I guess it was more than a few years ago. Way back in the year 2000! Remember? Projected surpluses that would pay off the debt as early as 2010? Whaaaaaaaaaaaat??! You DON'T remember? Haven't heard shit about anything like that EVER? Here it is. Read it and weep. Where was the tea party for THAT?

How do we go from debt free to projections of likely owing $20 TRILLION by the end of this decade? And why can't we seem to reconcile the discrepancy? We didn't lose trillions of dollars. We gave it away. Easy Peasy. We gave away money we didn't have
to people who didn't need it. Sure, they WANTED it, but by no measure did they NEED it. But we didn't stop there. We also spent a boatload more that we didn't have on disposable commodities like bombs and missiles and soldiers. Oops, I did it again.
How dare I!

Sick? Twisted? Demented? -OR- Nah, Just Frank!

Another telltale of Opposite World would most certainly be that what is benign is framed as dangerous, and what is potentially lethal is posed as not just mostly, but completely, harmless.
War = Harmless.
Peace = Dangerous.
Music = Dangerous
Unchecked Power = Harmless
Got it? Check.


On the 8th Day of Zappadan 2011, we should ponder the difficulties faced when people are inoculated against anything containing contradiction to the message and how malleable the craftsmanship behind the message can be.

The bulk of FZ's music was conceived outside of the mainstream cauldron. It was written from a perspective that was not of the culture or even of the counter-culture. It was written for thought, not action. The most widely known FZ lyrical works happened to intersect with current or timeless events with which the listener was familiar, some reflect recurrent and even redundant mistakes to which we humans are subjected. He removed the margins and reacted to what he found. Deep shit.

Lumpy Gravy Yum! -OR- Yeah, Another Zappadan Treat!

What is Lumpy Gravy you ask? Why not let Studs Terkel himself ask Frank himself for the answer? Okay. Good Idea!



Bwahahahahahahaha!

Busy Day Hall Decking -OR- It's Looking Like Christmas Threw Up All Over the Place

Two years ago at Christmas, my daughter arrived home for the holidays. She walked into the house, dropped her bags and held her hands up to her eyes, mimicking holding binoculars, she panned around as she walked through the house, saying "Yep, Christmas".
I was intrigued so I asked her what she was doing. She said "Dad, everywhere I look it's Christmas. It's like Christmas threw up all over our house!"

Now I was a little miffed. I don't feel our decorating is over the top at all. It's certainly not Clark Griswold Christmassy. I don't have an inflatable Homer Simpson Santa, a Polk Bros. plastic Santa or anything oversize at all. There's garland and ornaments and lights and stuff... and the theme does include the living room, dining room, tv room, foyer, kitchen and bathroom on the first floor, but doesn't everybody's?

Then she said, "No Dad, it's a GOOD thing!" ... and it was.

So this year, like every year of her life, our house says Merry Christmas to one and all. Tomorrow is ornament day. The 37th December 10th on which the ornaments go on the tree. No fanfare, just Pizza and family.

Peace.

Just My Imagination, Running Away With Me-OR- ==TILT==

Who is the voice in your head? The one that alerts you to bullshit.
The one you listen to most often. The one that you sometimes overrule only to find out you should have listened. Yeah, that one. Who is it? Have you even considered the voice? We all have one. It has many names; performs many functions. Conscience, Moral Compass, Bullshit Detector, Danger Signal, Advisor...

I have a head full and today two of them share a stage.

Remembering -OR- When Madness Rules Unquestioned

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. The defining moment of the last half of the last century. Few people saw the actual event as it happened. Within days everybody knew enough to understand what had transpired. We could no longer ignore what was happening on the other side of the world.

Over the next 4 years we changed the world. We joined forces with our natural allies to defeat megalomania and restore the peace that had been shattered.

As we remember the event, honor the victims and appreciate the accomplishments of all who sacrificed to reach V-E and V-J days, it seems wise not to allow this day to be used to justify any more than that. We were attacked. We responded. We fought for each other in hopes of returning to our American way of life.

It's also important to fully appreciate the thinking of our attackers. Their belief in their superiority. Their iron-fisted leadership based on delusions and propaganda willed their subservient followers to the otherwise unthinkable.

Our whole country went to war with one purpose. To stay alive. To end it as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary, so as to get back to more productive lives and live in peace.

It's also important to consider what might have happened if the Japanese military hadn't made this fatal miscalculation. Without Pearl Harbor, our non-involvement would have had dire consequences that are unfathomable.

It was a terrible price to pay and a terrible lesson to learn. Today is our reminder. We should heed the lesson and show that we've learned.

My Sentiments Exactly -OR- Things He Said, But Couldn't Say

"Better look around before you say you don't care, Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair, How would you survive IF you were alive? Shitty little person."

I stuffed this quote away after last year's Zappadan had passed, when I hadn't figured a way to work it in. I've disremembered where I ran across it along with the story of how Verve Records insisted that the lines be changed. You won't hear the lyric on We're Only In It For The Money's "Mother People". Instead we got "Lemme take a minute and tell you my plan, Lemme take a minute and tell who I am, If it doesn't show, Think you better know, I'm another person".

I was 14 in August of 1969 when I saw FZ at the Aragon Ballroom. I was just a kid, but no longer a child. That had been taken care of the previous August during the Democratic convention; witnessing LAW & ORDER up close. Being an "L" rat and street smart meant I could go places and do things. Seeing Frank Zappa was important to me.

I wore that record out. So there I was singing along having a great time when suddenly he wasn't singing what he was supposed to. The chorus above sounds about right for what I heard and I remember thinking it made more sense.



Do it again!
Do it again!

We are the other people
We are the other people
You're the other people too
Found a way to get to you...
Do you think that I'm crazy?
Out of my mind?
Do you think that I creep in the night
And sleep in a phone booth?
Lemme take a minute & tell you my plan
Lemme take a minute & tell who I am
If it doesn't show
Think you better know
I'm another person
Better look around before you say you don't care,
Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair,
How would you survive IF you were alive?
Shitty little person.
Do you think that my pants are too tight
Do you think that I'm creepy?
Lemme take a minute & tell you my plan
Lemme take a minute & tell who I am
If it doesn't show
Think you better know
I'm another person
Better look around before you say you don't care,
Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair,
How would you survive IF you were alive?
Shitty little person.

We are the other people
We are the other people
You're the other people too
Found a way to get to you
We are the other people
We are the other people
You're the other people too
Found a way to get to you
Do you think that I love you...
Stupid & blind?
Do you think that I dream through the
Night
Of holding you near me?

Lemme take a minute & tell you my plan
Lemme take a minute & tell who I am
If it doesn't show
Think you better know
I'm another person

Better look around before you say you don't care,
Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair,
How would you survive IF you were alive?
Shitty little person.

Yep. Where we were is where we are. Everything is different, but nothing has changed.
Written in 1968; written this morning. We are still the other people for whom concern is unworthy. Shitty little people are still calling the shots, making the rules and getting away with it. Now it is the shitty little sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of 1969's shitty little people. The pool has widened a little, but it's no deeper now. Dick Cheney entered politics in 1968, working for Nixon and helping to conjure up a "silent majority" who shilled for the shitty little people.

This is the maddening aspect of the blame game aimed at "Liberal Ideology". For roughly 40 years before `68, there was a progressive movement to which America moved and shook. In its waning phase, several key progressive components were attempted. Only one truly succeeded. That was Medicare. Its success is wholly owed to the success of Social Security. Therein lies the rub. Medicare was a Republican ruse. It did the right thing, just not the right way and certainly not for the right reason.
Medicare came into being as a devil's bargain to prevent the more progressive (and logical) movement for Universal Health Care. By granting UHC to seniors and funding it with heretofore untouchable Social Security Trust Funds, the Conservative movement won their first major battle and shifted the balance in their favor.

With Nixon's election there was an influx of "pure" conservatives into positions of oversight and direction where they could control funding. Now that the cork on SS had been popped, it was open season. Anything that hastened the draining could be funneled to assure maximum flow for diminishing results, which would require additional taps into the reservoir.

I've made conscious choices not to become a shitty little person. Even as I watched people I thought I knew take the bait and become just like them. I've paid a price for my choices. I've watched in a mixture of horror and bemusement as the tables were turned and all that had been attained, built and saved has been redistributed according to the Randian model. Using our shared sacrifices and investments to bankroll the operation. Easy come, easy go?

This Zappadan is yet another chance to come to our senses. To realize we've been had.
To stop accepting the mountain of excuses for our perceived decline and begin the process of restoring actual, equitable law and reasoned order to our lives. We are lucky, I suppose, to have prevented the worst of the repressive movement on our daily lives, but the incremental losses have only quickened as we've moved further and further from our stated goals. Yet another tipping point. Who better than one of the brightest observers of our dysfunction to show us the way?

I understand that we're supposed to be in the Christmas ceasefire, but sleaze never ceases. The torturers NEVER stop. They use our lulls and distractions to redouble and retrench. It's long past time that we do the same and fight back with purpose.

Early Fan Mail? -OR- Necessity

These Mothers is crazy. You can tell by their clothes. One guy wears beads and they all smell bad. We were gonna get them for a dance after the basketball game but my best pal warned me you can never tell how many will show up...sometimes the guy in the fur coat doesn't show up and sometimes he does show up only he brings a big bunch of crazy people with him and they dance all over the place. None of the kids at my school like these Mothers...specially since my teacher told us what the words to their songs meant.

Sincerely forever,
Suzy Creamcheese
Salt Lake City, Utah.

FZ penned the above for the back cover of the "Freak Out" album giving birth to a recurring character that he wove into both his stage act and subsequent albums. He gave Suzy life. Nourished, supported and promoted her "career". Suzy was an idea. A plaything, a stage prop, a fictional character. There are three or four known women who filled the SC role and suspect thousands who helped feed and inspire the anecdotal amalgam of MOI and FZ's roadies.

Two Stinky Tootsies -OR- On the Second Day of Zappadan

Douse the Halls With Anti-Psychotics -OR- Speaking Of Turkeys...

As a species we are positively Pavlovian! And the incessant bells sure are ringing! Pack all your troubles in matched Gucci bags and smile smile smile? Nowhere is the affliction more evident than the image/message schism contained in our media diet.
Try to watch serious news. Hell, try to FIND serious news.

Yeah, it's kinda out there. For each and every "serious" news story we get instant interpretation obfuscation of what it all means from people with questionable bonafides; only sometimes pithy insights, colorful allegories and a bushel of "on the other hand" clatter. OR you get absolutely nothing at all; no context, shallow sourcing, dangling, dodgy principi, unconfirmed reports, raw footage of raw sewerage.

Lots of stories about the fiscal battles over government spending. How the congresscritters are gridlocked over how to deal with the crisis. How "we" have to get serious about this budget destroying item or that... This is immediately followed by a) ads for medicare approved suppliers of medical supplies that you can have if you qualify... AT NO COST TO YOU!!!

Important to note in the ongoing saga is that the money that we supposedly do not have is still being spent without alteration of its purpose or destination. Who do you suppose profits from that arrangement? The divvying up continues unabated. How long have we been locked into our present payout process? Shift, Switch and Shaft has been closing the money loop since the implementation of our so-called Great Society programs was hijacked by a mindset that strived for only minimal chance of success. Then, as now, it allowed, without question, due to its stated goals, spending without accountability and an open-ended ability to direct its resources to solutions without problems while actual problems went begging. We paid cash for our addictions, but put our responsibilities on lay-away. Who's minding the store? How are they fundamentally different from junkies and sots? Yet we elevate and esteem the former and demonize the latter for their human weaknesses?

They pretend that it's different, but it's not. They talk about tough choices that aren't really. It IS more important to feel good than to look good. Function always trumps form. Shed of its edifice and adornments, we have a shot. Insisting that the window dressing is essential is self-delusional destructive farce that perpetuates, prolongs, deepens the pits of our despair. If you're breathing clear air, you're standing on piles and piles of equally deserving, productive fellow Americans up to their pates in the offal of your comforts, yet you're told not to look down. You don't want to do that! If you did, you might see where you are and how you got there.

Zappadan 2011 -OR- Come Here Often? I'm A Leo...

Bummernacht

With a big ol lie
And a flag and a pie
And a mom and a bible
Most folks are just liable
To buy any line
Any place, any time




Just who do they really
Suppose that they are?
And how do they manage to travel as far
As they seem to have come?
Were we really that dumb?

People, wake up
Figure it out
Religious fanatics
Around and about
The Court House, The State House,
The Congress, The White House


If only we had listened. For verily, it has come to pass.
Having been scoffed at, dismissed, marginalized and otherwise mistreated for daring to speak out loud "the Christers are coming, the Christers are coming", it is with only minimal feigned interest that I listen to today's epiphanists.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to pants them and send them back to their synthetic righteousness at a distance from everything save their soul-saving, Except what would have/could have been PREVENTED now involves trying to raise an army of exterminators and untold collateral damage.

Whereas if we just let them finish their Jubilee, we have only to pick up the pieces.
with full, if not permanent, immunity from yet another recurrence.

Bummernacht.

Stuck Between Hope and Doubt -OR- Finding A Restore Point

It should go without saying that, in Opposite World, the search for cogent analysis, or what passes for thought in and among the Villager realm requires an ability to look beneath and sdrawkcab klat.

It's not so much "Everything you know is wrong". Only that what you know is out of context, rehashed, untethered, incomplete, upside-down, inside-out and backwards, but always circular; ever bending, twisting, turning to right. To the excoriation of all else. They happily grind our bones to make their bread.

What is fundamentally different now than it was? This is a serious and important, crucial even, elementary question in restoring our individual and societal equilibrium.

So what is the restore point for sanity? When was it that we broke from "the rules" and began this walk on the wild side? When did crazy talk supplant reason?

Scholars may disagree, but we'd never know. We don't let scholars do more than hawk their latest biography of Millard Filmore in view of the public. When you ask this question of the A-List villagers who've become the default de facto spokespeople for EVERYTHING, they will respond in unison that it was January 20th, 2009. If you press them about anything that transpired prior to that, they get all nostalgic and Reagany, while ignoring, dissembling and tap dancing past the mass graveyards of their policy debacles. I won't link to examples, it only encourages them. They'll only cite their traffic hits and never mention the pages and pages of comments regularly disproving their assertions.

So what the fuck really happened? Where did it go off the rails?

What if Jimmy Carter wasn't the worst president ever? In thirty-one years we've come to appreciate and admire the work he's done since leaving office, yet we still hold that his administration failed its mission? Sans the workmanlike discrediting and obfuscation attached to his claimed feeble attempts to serve as ringmaster, what was his short-coming? Wanting an honest and workable plan for sustainable, renewable, alternative energy? Brokered peace in the Middle East? Trade policies that embraced human rights for workers? "ZERO-based budgeting" to deal with the D.C. bureaucracy? Tax policies that actually encouraged INVESTMENT in American manufacturing? A small, strong, capable, but reasonable, military? Yeah, I know! Cuckoo! A negative eleventy on the PIZAZZ scale. America was at an incongruity crossroads that our language would not encompass. We had some choices to make. Some realities to face. Some adjustments and accommodations to arrange.Something had to give.

The Conservative movement of the time was still stinging from Nixon's unravelment, double digit interest rates,(remember W.I.N.?) and spent its time howling about government growth and spending. James Earl Carter campaigned on re-organizing the government. His efforts were not well received. He faced objection and obstruction at every turn...

Sound familiar? It should. It IS the only play in the playbook for which there has been no defensive adjustment. Bread and butter, fool `em again and keep on running it! It's the evil we dare not speak...

Why?

It's Always Something... -OR- We Interrupt This Comeback...

Only two more shopping days until Zappadan 2011!
Now, more than ever, we need to celebrate the beacon of freedom Mr. Zappa championed.
I'm a bit torn over jumping the gun on the start of the season, but anticipation is running thick so there's bound to be some earlybirds... Now I've joined them...

When he wasn't thumbing his nose at the mainstream circus, Frank Zappa was providing chewy, nutritious deliciousness to serious musicians and music fans around the world. His efforts in exposing the absurdity and hypocrisy behind the "conservative" movement's demands for command and control over the music industry have been wholly under-appreciated. The stinging humiliation he delivered to the well-funded "law and order" vanguard will be prominently on display during the 2011 celebration. "They" came first for the musicians because they were speaking for and through the masses.
That tactic was not lost on Mr. Zappa. He stepped up and stridently defended his OUR rights.

As usual, FGAQ will
be the center ring and Mark Hoback its Ringmaster. Bloggers of every persuasion will post their own interpretations of the meanings of Zappadan to them and you will be free to add your own reflections in the comments sections.

Because the world continues in FZ's absence, there will not be a halt in coverage of the ongoing ratfuckery and mainstream shilling that our planet off-gasses. There will just be plenty of FZ music and wisdom to provide sadly missing context to the continuing clusterfuck.

Frank Zappa wasn't a hippie in the Wikipedia sense. He wasn't an intellectual in the William F. Buckley sense. He wasn't a revolutionary in the Che sense. He wasn't a radical in the Emma Goldman sense. He wasn't a selfless humanitarian in the Mother Teresa sense. He was a fairly objective spokesperson for life on planet earth. He refused to let all the petty little people use their petty little distractions on folks to gloss over the really big problems their lust for hegemony created.

He sought to foster eqality, societal awareness, human rights, freedom, thought, civil discourse and peace. He tried to warn of the dangers inherent in power. He promoted acceptance of our differences while embracing our shared concerns. He wasn't seeking utopia, only semi-peaceful co-existence.

He was just a more prolific Rodney King. His experience taught him that it weren't "each other" who had a problem getting along. It was those who elevated themselves by driving wedges between us for personal advantage. He wasn't against anything except the abuses of power and privilege he saw squatting on us all. I can't think of a better reason to celebrate. It ain't theirs unless we give it to them. They can make all the ownership claims they like, but our lives are still ours.