http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:44:37 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/16/114437.php DirtgrainCapitalism and corporatism have reached new lows on ABC on Sunday nights. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition feeds corporate/capitalistic propaganda to the public, lulling us into thoughtless acceptance of the ridiculous state of our country. Show host, Ty Pennington, excitedly (phony? . . . Shut up, Holden!) and with nifty humor leads viewers through a humorous home remodeling show that is designed to pin us down in obeisance to our corporate gods.The show typically starts out with one hell of a sad story, a story that moves the stoniest of hearts. A deaf couple has a child who is blind--they struggle to communicate and function. On another episode we have a poor family with a son who recently lost his ability to walk. Their house is a handicapped person's nightmare. Next week a lovely lady is highlighted. She lives in a piece of crap house with a big family in a poor neighborhood. She is a local Mother Teresa, taking in the needy in her community, feeding and sheltering them. A few weeks ago, a lady nominated a complete stranger to be the subject of the home remodeling. We find out that this stranger had donated bone marrow that saved the life of the nominating lady's little girl. The stories are beautiful and touching. They are of people facing hefty misfortune who struggle on against the odds. They deserve better.In come Ty and cohosts, all of whom have expertise in something that I have yet to figure out, and all of whom have great, happy-go-lucky, hokey personalities that play in orchestration with each other as a deadline to complete the extreme home makeover approaches. The home will be completely remodeled--sometimes even completely rebuilt--refurnished and accessorized (we are talking plasma TVs and luxury swimming pools here) in a week. All this is done with a huge team of laborers (I'm wondering if they are union) who work their asses off, while the homeowners are off on a dream vacation on ABC's card. It's very entertaining. And they are helping the deserving among us who suffer unjustly.Well, they are helping a few of them. Not many, actually, when you think of the numbers. If you look at the big picture, they aren't making much of a difference at all. It's not like poverty is going down because of ABC and their hit show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. But we do get to see tremendous difference in the lives of representative individuals--individuals who represent what the hell is wrong with capitalism and corporatism in the first place. And yet ABC, corporate perpetrator of crimes on the poor, comes in like some hero god who saves the unfortunate and needy. They somehow convince us that they are Robin Hood.It's a tricky scheme, although when you watch it from a cynical viewpoint (AKA Dirtgrain's Disease), the Matrix exposes itself. To start with, this show must have the same writers as Walker, Texas Ranger. It, despite the pureness of the real people who get their homes made over, is full of phonies and false sentiments--especially when you are reminded that Corporate Big Brother is behind all of this--ABC is constantly mentioned, and Sears and other sponsors have their products and services advertised throughout the show and during commercials. The cynic quickly comes to see "plasma TV donated by Sears" as "the sick corporation that sucks on your souls has found it in the goodness of its heart to give back to you." I digress. The phoniness comes through in the scripting.As we are shown the gripping story of the deserving family at the beginning of the show in docudrama fashion, intermittent shots of the show's cohosts crying are flashed before our eyes. Are they trying to convince us that corporate America does have a heart? Phooey! Then, while the tears are still wet, Ty gives some inspirational--but clearly transparent--speech to his meeting of cohosts. Something to the effect of, "We're going to give Johnny the wheelchair accessible hot tub that he needs, courtesy of Sears, Aquafina and Celtic Sea Salt Seasoning." Right here, in the middle of the "let's go do extreme good" speech, I realize what a bunch of bastards these cohosts are. They all live in Beverly Hills (or wherever midlevel corporate whores go to roost), but they get to go into some poor neighborhood (they don't only help poor people, mind you--on one episode, I saw them nearly demolish a perfectly fine, "middle class" home) and think that they are fixing these people's lives by giving them a new home (which obviously can make their lives easier and maybe more enjoyable--provided they get along with each other--money can't buy happiness? Love?) and throwing a bunch of expensive accessories at them. That's all we have to do, America.Once the family is away on their vacation, the crew sets in on one truly remarkable task--sometimes building an entirely new house in one week. Throughout the rebuilding/remodelling, we get nice little scenes of Ty or some other monkey going to some kid's room. "Stevie said that it was tough to share a room with his brother, Jimmy. Well, I'm giving him a new room [I swear they say self-aggrandizing crap like this]. What Stevie doesn't know is that I'm going to turn his new room into a Chucky Cheese." On an on we get links to this or that family member, his or her predicament, and what the host/crew/corporation is going to do for him or her.Then it comes time for the family to come back and discover their gift from God. . . er. . . Corporate America. It's like it is on other house remodeling/makeover shows. The changes are drastic and extravagant. The families are overwhelmed by state-of-the-art, big-money goodies that rain down on them and flood. At this point, I'm pretty sure the families' reactions are not scripted (although magnificently edited), as at least eighty percent of what they say is "Oh my God." Oh my God. . . Oh my ABC. . . Oh my Sears. . . Oh my Big Brother great and magnificent corporate benefactor. . .As the families are saved/reborn/super-indoctrinated/made-grateful-to-the-ones-who-screwed-them-and-their-kind-in-the-first-place, all the phony-assed cohosts are there to beam at what great things they have done (self-aggrandizing) and to throw out some schmaltzy lines and salty tears (I swear I saw the hand of a prop guy holding up a freshly cut onion under a cohost's eyes on more than one occasion). It all adds up to an extreme emotional assault on the family and on the viewers--what a powerful propaganda tool. ABC doesn't stop there all the time. On one episode, the crew put an addition onto a house that would serve as almost a separate apartment so that and man, woman and their baby could have room to live in the home of the woman's parents. ABC set it up so that at the end of the show, after all the "Oh my Gods," there was one more surprise to top all of the other emotional wrenchings--the man proposed to his wife. Ty led the man through it, laying the surprise on the woman, giving the man the ring, and telling him what to do. Here we have ABC sticking its mechanical arms up these people's asses and making them perform sacred, personal things like puppets. ABC and Ty gave these people marriage and a life together. And people are saying that marriage is a sacred institution? Yeah, right.On last Sunday's show, the deserving family consisted of a single mother who had adopted some kids who have AIDS (HIV). The catch--as if the kids with AIDS wasn't gripping enough--was that the mother had just discovered that she had cancer. At the end of the show, we got a quick flash of close-ups on the family members, one at a time, each saying, "Thanks, ABC." The last thanks came from a little girl who had AIDS. What to make of it?Clearly some good is done for these families. They get improved-to-the-max living conditions (within the confines of their homes--I'm sure ABC, Ty and his rich cohosts don't actually want these people living next door to them in Beverly Hills or wherever) and a lot of merchandise. It would be sweet for anybody--free crap is great, at least for a while. But I wonder if their problems are solved--as ABC so clearly wants us to think. What would a long-term study of these people's lives reveal about the impact of the extreme makeovers?That issue aside, the real creeper is the impact on everyone else. We get corporate America, creator of huge financial disparities between the rich and the poor, instigator of the decline of the middle class, purveyor of low-wage, no-insurance (irony with girls who had AIDS thanking ABC?) Walmart jobs, misleading the public that corporations are helping the poor, that corporations care, and that corporations are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They aren't doing anything about poverty and the divide between the rich and the poor. They don't have hearts. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a cash cow. It costs them nothing (when you consider the advertising power of the show). It's done for money. Corporations have tapped directly into the compassion of their viewing audience, and these corporations are redirecting corporate propaganda back at us. It is pure manipulation of emotions. I get this creepy image of a person smiling and crying and laughing as he or she watches an episode, thinking how great it all is for these people--but in his or her unconscious are the ideas that ABC/Sears/corporations are nurturing, benevolent gods. Yikes.Thanks ABC. Video23336@blogcritics.org Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:44:37 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/11/180551.php DirtgrainIt has taken me thirty-some years to figure out what I want to do with my life, and now they have to go and shoot my dreams down: Proposed Dutch Law Would Ban Unsolicited Toe-Licking. From the article:A police spokesman said Friday a man had been detained after women sunning themselves in Rotterdam's parks and beaches claimed he had snuck up on them and begun to lick their toes."The officers had to let him go. Licking a stranger's toes is rather unusual but there is really nothing criminal about it," the spokesman said.Dutch press reports said the man, who is about 35, had been licking the toes of strangers for about three years but was only recently caught by police.That could make for an excellent movie. I'm thinking it could be something like the head-crusher guy from Kids in the Hall meets Eraserhead meets Jaws meets Doctor Detroit. I'm seeing all kinds of possibilities:Sound: theme music from Jaws Close-up: beady eyes of crazed toe-licker Zoom out: The toe-licker (played by Jim Carrey) hiding in some bushes wearing a yellow t-shirt with a smiley face on it (or maybe a Rolling Stones lips and tongue image?) Close-up: Ten innocent, easy-going toes illuminated by the sun and minding their own business Zoom out: Camera swoops from toes up toward head of the person, revealing a full-body aerial screen shot of a bikini sunbather (trouble will be to find great actress who has nice toes--Charlize Theron?) Jaws music heightens Shot of toe-licker zigzagging from bush to tree as he narrows in on target (possible tip-toe sound effect from Loony Toons) Switch back several times between slow-motion shot of toe-licker licking and savoring the victim's toes and slow motion shot of guy (played be actor who was the Lead biker from Any Which Way But Loose) eating individually-cut sloppy barbeque ribs (Jim Carrey could totally pull off Academy Award levels of toe-licking acting) End shot of toe licker running away (nobody else in frame), crazy-laughing under breath, loping like a cross between Igor and Rodney Dangerfield, as we hear Nancy Kerrigan-style cries of "Why me?"It could be a comic-book style movie with super heroes sworn to protecting fetishized objects and body parts from villains who defile them with their fetishistic impulses. Here we could feature Toe Man (Toe Jam Man? I'm struggling for a cool name for this super hero. Digit Man? Little Piggy Man? I'll work on it) in his attempts to thwart Toe-Licker Man (Toe Jam Flosser? Slobber Fiend? Needs work. . .).I'm no toe fetishist, but the twisted side of me wants to hear toe-licker man's stories. What made him become a toe-licker? Do all toes taste the same? Any toe-jam horror stories? What are the daily mental struggles of a toe-licker like?Seriously, the toe-licking fetish could turn into something much worse (rape? Jeffrey Dahmer?). I support the anti-toe-licking law. Here in the US, I think toe licking would qualify as assault (which I think is basically any unwanted touching). Culture18552@blogcritics.org Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:05:51 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/06/191547.php DirtgrainA man lives in Ypsilanti whose fate is to go through life terribly disfigured after a failed attempt to commit suicide by shooting himself. I first heard about him last year from my students. They said that he had blown off his face with a shotgun and that now he goes around scaring people and begging for money. Some call him Eyes Without a Face, among other things.I saw him for the first time as I was driving a few weeks ago. He was walking along Congress St. toward Michigan Avenue. It was only a few moments, and I can't get the image out of my mind. He had a huge empty hole on his face where his nose and the middle of his face should be. It looked as if his face were caving in like a sinkhole. Even though I didn't get a good look at him, it scared the shit out of me, and I quickly looked away and drove home. This reaction troubles me. It's not typical of me.When I was growing up, I had a friend, Tommy, who was born with water on his brain. This led to major deformities of his head. Kids would call him "Frankenstein." Even as a kid, it occurred to me then that the label was full of malice and carelessness (perhaps "Eyes Without a Face" is in the same category). For some reason, those who don't encounter deformity in their lives are likely to react carelessly and viciously when they do see it. It is our natural, unthinking reaction to otherness. But it is so undeserved. Tommy's deformity is unfair on many levels: that he was born with a deformity at all; that people treat him so poorly because of it; that he has had to go through so many surgeries, even as a young child. How many times has he had to hear "Frankenstein," along with a host of other labels? How much worse has it made his life? But Tommy seems above such labels. He has not become bitter at the world--at least he doesn't show it. Instead, Tommy is perhaps the nicest and funniest person I have ever met. I have never seen him react to the meanness in kind. That shows incredible character. So many don't see who he really is (I just heard him referred to as Frankenstein again--by adults).The man from Ypsilanti is different than Tommy. The deformity didn't choose this man--rather, he chose the deformity. At least he chose to risk it, although I doubt most people attempting suicide thoroughly consider the possibilities if they fail (not sure here, though). From what I have heard, this man is not happy, nice or funny.He horrifies people on purpose. I heard stories of him walking around with a surgical mask covering the gap in his face, asking for money, which apparently is used to support his drug addiction. When he is turned down, he removes the mask. He also asks for money to buy gauze so that he can put it in his face, which he exposes to potential marks. One friend told me that as he was getting out of his car, turning around, this man snuck up on him so that they were face to face and scared the shit out of him. He is trying to become a monster in other people's eyes (or he has internalized the way we have treated him and become a monster truly?).Surely, somewhere along the way to his recovery from the failed suicide, somebody must have gotten him a prosthetic (see Getting a New Face After Rare Infection for such an example--this story is a good example of why we need national health care). Maybe he had no insurance, but I found organizations that would help him out--I think. It must be that he intentionally goes without a prosthetic, walking the streets of Ypsilanti, haunting people. Anger surrounds him. It emanates from him, obviously, based perhaps on the failed suicide attempt, what he came back as afterwards, or society's role in the whole thing--why he chose to attempt suicide in the first place, maybe. It's as if he has come back from the dead to torment us, to make us look more closely at the lives we carelessly overlook as a society and the things that we do that directly and indirectly lead someone to do such a thing. He is a ghost, and I wonder how his anger can be appeased, and how he can be made human again.The first reaction to his story is why didn't he finish the job? If life was so bad before he shot himself, then how can it be any better now? He must live for something--I hope not just drugs. Maybe it's a miracle that he is alive. If I believed in God, then I would think that God had some purpose for this man--maybe he feels there is a purpose, and so, even though he is addicted to drugs, he lives on. Of course, knowing what it feels like to shoot his face off may well inhibit him from trying suicide again. Can one really learn from such a mistake that has such an extreme outcome?I wonder what it does to him to look into a mirror, confronting the outward ugliness that seeps inward. Its stigma, its reminder of his costly failure, corrupts his lingering humanity, turning him into a specter, a plague. Can you imagine the fury as he contemplates his incompetence or just bad luck? How many times a day does he think, "what if?" This torment could encourage him on his path of self-destruction and abjection.In her book, A Face in Time Judy Ryan writes of such torment. Consider an excerpt from the book in which she describes her feelings about a twenty-year class reunion:It was in my senior year of high school that I lost my original face forever to a malignant muscle tumor, embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. For the first time in twenty years, I was about to put my altered face forward before all my former classmates.At the age of seventeen, after a year of treatment and illness I survived a fatal diagnosis. The resulting damage from the tumor and radiation was devastating. I was left with permanent, partial baldness on the left third of my scalp, restricted movement of my jaw, loss of sight and hearing in my left eye and ear, and skin and tissue that were aged and damaged. The bone and soft tissue in my left cheek had been ravaged by the size of the tumor and the affects of the radiation. As a result, my upper cheek was dramatically sunken. Even after twenty-one corrective reconstructive surgeries, I was still wondering if I would ever be free of the shame and embarrassment of my deformity. So what was so frightening about this celebration? My fear of rejection and pity. For some reason I was not able to mature the attitudes of these young teenage images. Would they laugh, or be talking behind my back? For days, I ran scenario after scenario in my mind, speculating how this evening might turn out. My imagination was overwhelmed with panic and dread, never allowing me to get past the hotel lobby. Each enactment had me turning around and going home before anyone had the opportunity to see me.We are all insecure people, but most of the reactions that we think people are having to our appearance are figments of our imagination. With a deformity, you know the reactions are really occurring (although Ms. Ryan's reunion went well).In all of these ideas and attitudes that I have about this man from Ypsilanti, I am faced with a dilemma. I think of myself as compassionate, yet I can't get away from my anger at what this person has done and is doing to himself--and to others. As a teacher, I have had to deal with students who have deformities, but none so bad as this one. What if he were my student, and he insisted on showing his unmasked face? Does a person with such a deformity owe it to society to mask that deformity as much as possible? Yet I believe I could deal with it if he didn't wield his deformity as a weapon. It is not so much his outward deformity, as it is what this deformity has done to him as a person. I'm afraid of his life, his situation. What can I do for him when I can't confront the pure spite, anger and vindictiveness that consumes him? I don't know that I would do any better in his shoes.I can hear the Elephant Man saying, "I am not an animal. I am a human being." This movie is about the way we treat those who are different from us. It explores how humans construct their identities. In viewing the movie, we must rethink how we define what is human. Can you think of a person without thinking of his or her face? John Merrick had to struggle so hard just to be human in the eyes of others. It should not be so hard, but it is. We have an innate, extreme reaction to deformities because we fear nature and being subjected to its cruel whims. Many don't show compassion because to do so is to open oneself up to confronting this ultimate fear. The easy way is to call deformed people names, laugh at them, and mistreat them. In so doing, one becomes less human and more of a monster himself or herself. We can't look to the faceless man for inspiration, but there are those, like Tommy, who can inspire us--who can challenge us to be more human.David Roche has become famous because of his performances relating to his facial deformities. In "My Face Does Not Belong to Me" he writes the following:As a performer, I am presently touring my one man show, The Church of 80% Sincerity. As a person with facial difference, I am a one man show, both on stage and off. I was born with an "extensive cavernous hemangioma"--a benign tumor consisting of blood vessels--on the left side of my face and neck. The radiation therapy I received as an infant caused the lower part of my face to stop growing and left radiation burns on my temple and eyelid. My face does not belong to me; it belongs in a catalog of symbols. As a performer, I am a metaphor for disability. The facially disfigured person is the most hackneyed symbol in cinema and theater, commonly standing for something that has gone dreadfully wrong. No other metaphor is so overused as a portent of despair and evil. Despair is the message of the Phantom of the Opera, a character totally defined by his disfigurement, forced by the playwright to live forever in the dark. Evil is conveyed by Freddy Kreuger and his slasher film counterparts--barely human, driven insane by deformity, constantly lurching out of the bushes to exact revenge upon the cute. In The Lion King, Simba's adversary is named Scar. Hmm--wonder if he is a bad guy? Of course there are always counter examples, such as Disney's Quasimodo. We all love that cute Quasi--but just as friends! As far as romance is concerned, he will have to be satisfied with ringing his own bells. The face is the locus of the human persona. At the deepest level, a distorted face can signify that God or the universe may be quirky and careless, or at worst, vengeful and punitive. When others judge a face to be marred, it serves as an unconscious reminder to them that the whole human experience, including their own, is one of being flawed. In our western culture, we have inherited the dogma that we are innately evil, born with the birth defect of original sin. The religions of the east filter their Calvinism through concepts of enlightenment and karma. This sort of cultural and religious background is the basis for the deep subtext that perforce accompanies any disabled character. Even the medical model of disability only substitutes cure for salvation. I believe that seeing and accepting one's "flawed" condition is a core spiritual growth experience, an essential step in developing emotional maturity for all people, disabled and otherwise.Ann Lemott describes one of Roche's performances, "The Church of 80 Percent Sincerity":He told of wanting to form a gang of the coolest disfigured people in the world, like the Phantom, the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, Freddie Krueger, and Michael Jackson. They'd go places as a group--bowling, perhaps, or to one of the make-over counters at the next Macy's White Flower Day Sale. "People assume I had an awful childhood," he continued. "But I didn't. I was loved and esteemed by my parents. My face may be unique, but my experiences aren't. I believe they are universal." Wouldn't you think that having that thing on his face totally messed with his adolescent sex life? Of course it did, he said. And he was a little fat, too, a chubby little disfigured guy. But these things were not nearly as detrimental as having been raised Catholic; having been, as he put it, an incense survivor. Telling his stories through a crazy mouth, a jumble of teeth, only one lip and a too-large tongue, David's voice did not sound garbled but strangely like a brogue; like that of a Scottish person who just had a shot of Novocain. "We with facial deformities are children of the dark" he said. "Our shadow is on the outside. And we can see in the dark: we can see you, we see you turn away, but one day we finally understand that you turn away not from our faces but from your own fears. From those things inside you that you think mark you as someone unlovable to your family, and society and even to God. "All those years, I kept my bad stories in the dark, but not anymore. Now I am stepping out into the light. And this face has turned out to be an elaborately disguised gift from god."David Roche has a lot to teach the world, and I hope he gets the world as an audience. The deformed man from Ypsilanti could teach us a lot, as well. Unfortunately, what he teaches up to this point is anger, fear and inhumanity.He needs compassion, not drug money. The "Psychological Emergency" Of New Onset Physical Disability And Deformity describes the process of coping with severe deformity as being similar to Kubler-Ross' stages of grieving. Perhaps this man has not successfully mourned the identity that he lost with the tragedy. I hope he can figure out who he is and how he can find a positive place in Ypsilanti and the world. Culture18361@blogcritics.org Fri, 6 Aug 2004 19:15:47 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/29/143346.php DirtgrainSomebody emailed me and pointed out that I might have somewhat predicted the "Peace President" label (thanks, whoever you are--I accidentally deleted the email--sorry for not responding). From my 2/14/2004 entry, Fight for Peace:"They fought for different policies. But for the same principles. For freedom. And the freedom to live in peace?" What the hell? You can fight for peace? War is peace? Damn that Orwell. He thought of everything. I'm starting to think that if he hadn't written that bloody book, then maybe people wouldn't think to make such reason-defying statements (it's the opposite of Newspeak--he gave us the language to think in such ways). I want to meet the person who wrote the text for this ad. The writer is probably a Winston Smith drone who sits in a dingy cubicle and who actually thinks that General Dynamics manufactures peace tools. Peace tools! I can feel the two halves of my brain pulling away from each other.Things haven't changed much since the late 1980s. Now we have a "War President" (in neoconspeak, this means "Peace President") fighting for freedom and democracy in Iraq. . . fighting for peace. Well, not exactly fighting, but he is doing a damn good job of getting others to fight for him. . . fight for peace.I didn't exactly create the term, but it's weird how Bush followed the Neocon-speak formula and arrived at this ridiculous eventuality: Bush: 'I Want to Be the Peace President'.When I wrote the line about peace president, I was joking. I was in a what-ridiculous-thing-is-going-to-happen-next mood. When you throw something out there as an extreme absurdity and it actually happens, what do you do? Does it mean the end of reason?If you consider the Big Brother government in 1984, and lay out a plan of how it could be realized today with our government, you would see that Bush's "Peace President" is one of the last steps. "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength."Give us free. Culture18018@blogcritics.org Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:33:46 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/14/172116.php DirtgrainThey are still out there monitoring you, tracking you, telling you what to do, what to view, and what to think. Our lack of freedom keeps showing up in the news.Midwest Theaters Ban 'Fahrenheit 9/11': the filter rears its ugly head. Corporations control what we see and don't see. In its place I bet there was a Ronnie Reagan moviethon. Here is something else that we don't get to see: Bush's War-Era Records Damaged. Where the hell is the Watergate-style outrage? Are all of the people who "served" with Bush dead, as well? I'm thinking I should become a politician just so that I can get that indecent exposure taken off of my record (those nuns had to be mooned).We all know how dangerous art can be: Nine Artists And One Company Subpoenaed In USA Patriot Act Case:On May 30, members of the performance art collective Critical Art Ensemble were subpoenaed by the FBI. The FBI is planning to indict Steve Kurtz, a member of CAE before a grand jury on June 15, on unknown charges. CAE is under investigation for their use of scientific equipment to produce art projects that question the relationship between commerce, politics and biotechnology. Critical Art Ensemble have been producing performances and theory that merge political realities with technology and theater since 1987. Thus far nine subpoenas have been issued to: Adele Henderson, Chair of the Art Department at UB; Andrew Johnson, Professor of Art at UB; Paul Vanouse, Professor of Art at UB; Beatriz da Costa, Professor of Art at UCI; Steven Barnes, FSU; Dorian Burr, Beverly Schlee, Claire Pentecost, and Julie Perini. One subpoena has been issued to the book publishing company Autonomedia.Autonomedia is the same company that publishes T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. I'm thinking Autonomedia has been on the list for quite some time. I hope they fare better than Sherman Austin, the creator of that Raise the Fist website. Oh shit, I just realized that I bought a copy of T.A.Z. from Amazon: Patriot Act Foes Lose Fight to Revoke Feds' Book Snooping Privileges. Hey, but John Asscrawl says the Patriot Act is helpful. Yet we know those Neo-cons are famous for leaving out information, hiding things and lying to us: Ashcroft's Patriot Act Report to Congress Omits Key Information, ACLU Says. That doesn't help me much, though. Please contribute to the Dirtgrain Defense Fund. When I get vaporized, will someone please take care of my dog?Give us free billboards, please: Clear Channel Rejects Times Square Peace Billboard Timed for RNC:Media giant Clear Channel is reneging on a deal with a Berkeley-based organization, Project Billboard, to put up a peace sign in Times Square, New York. Clear Channel, which has ties to the Bush administration, rejected the ad calling it "distasteful" and "politically charged". . . .Each year, more than 26 million people visit the 10-block area where Seventh Avenue meets Broadway. Massive neon light displays illuminate the night sky, giant billboards trumpet Broadway shows, an electronic ticker beams the latest news and stock quotes and some 50 "supersigns" display ads for fashion, liquor and other corporate products. Media giant Clear Channel controls about one-half of these billboards. It is now refusing to put up one organization's billboard, with which it had a signed contract. The sign showed a picture of a bomb with lighted fuse decorated in Stars and Stripes. The caption underneath reads "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war." The billboard was to be mounted on the facade of the Marriott Marquis Hotel.I can sleep comfortably knowing that corporations such as Clear Channel are keeping distasteful notions such as peace and democracy off of our billboards. I just know that Clear Channel has a ban on Jimi Hendrix's version of the Star Spangled Banner. Clear Channel just moved to the top of my list of corporations to hate--of course, I hate most of them (Costco seems to be pretty cool in some ways: A Corporation That Breaks the Greed Mold).When Bush comes across reporters who don't play along with his creepy spiel, he turns away from them: Angry Bush Walks Out on Media, Refuses to Answer Questions About Relationship With Ken Lay. Attaboy, Mr. President, show the world how mature and forthright you can be. Turn the other cheek doesn't mean run away, man. Or he prevents them from entering the country: The Soviet American Union: Keeping America safe from foreign writers:Two months ago, I traveled from London to Los Angeles on assignment for a British paper, The Guardian, believing that as a British citizen I did not require a visa. I was wrong: as a journalist, even from a country that has a visa waiver agreement with the United States, I should have applied for a so-called I (for information) visa. Because I had not, I was interrogated for four hours, body-searched, fingerprinted, photographed, handcuffed and forced to spend the night in a cell in a detention facility in central Los Angeles, and another day as a detainee at the airport before flying back to London. My humiliating and physically very uncomfortable detention lasted 26 hours. I've since learned that mine was not an isolated case: Since March 2003, when the Department of Homeland Security became responsible for immigration and border patrol, 13 foreign journalists were detained and deported in a similar manner in that year, all but one at the Los Angeles airport.So much for freedom of the press--either you are a corporate zombie as a reporter, or you don't get access.Even our propaganda outlets in foreign countries are being privatized and corporatized. Apparently, Voice of America isn't propagandistic enough for the Bush Administration: VOA Staff Members Say Government Losing Voice:More than a third of the Voice of America's staff has signed a petition accusing the federal government of "dismantling" the international broadcasting agency, while financing a pair of newer, semi-private and separate media operations that the staffers said do not live up to VOA standards.Their complaints have sparked a nasty brawl with the program's parent agency -- the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- which created the new media groups. The board has rejected the staffers' charges, defended its young offspring and accused the VOA dissidents of being slow to adapt to necessary change.The petition, which was submitted to Congress last week, pointed to a series of decisions the board has made over the past few years. In 2002, it replaced the VOA's Arabic-language news service with an outlet called Radio Sawa, which, like its predecessor, broadcasts to the Middle East. Then, earlier this year, the board opened Al Hurra, a Virginia-based television network that officials hope will be able to compete in the Middle East with Arab broadcasting giant al-Jazeera. The nearly 500 VOA staffers complained that the newer outlets are not only autonomous from the 62-year-old broadcasting agency, the pair -- especially the radio network -- focus too much on music and entertainment at the expense of the sort of hard news, PBS-style programming the VOA has traditionally emphasized. Moreover, the petition said, the networks do not share the VOA's commitment to balanced and comprehensive news coverage. Meanwhile, the petitioners said, the board is planning to cut the VOA's daily English-language radio broadcasts that are beamed across the world by almost half, and has ended its programming for 10 Eastern and Central European nations. "At a time when the ability of the United States to speak to the world in a clear, effective, credible voice is more crucial than ever, the United States is broadcasting less news, information and analysis to fewer countries for fewer hours in fewer languages," the petition said. "The presidentially appointed Broadcasting Board of Governors is dismantling the nation's radio beacon -- the Voice of America -- piece by piece."I didn't know that the VOA had standards, but apparently they are too much for Bush and cronies. "Slow to adapt to necessary change" equals not being quick enough to lie, misinform, hide the truth, etc. I have this strange vision of Iraqis tuning into US radio, hoping to get some idea of what the US has in store for them, only to find streams of calming sixties muzak, complete with a horn section (or maybe something like the music from the website, Minimal Porn (relatively work-safe)), that you usually hear when you are on hold on the telephone. May I put you on hold, Iraq? Please stand by. . .Back in America, the spying on citizens continues: Intelligence: The Pentagon--Spying in America?:Ever since the 1970s, when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters, military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for. The CIA always has been exempt--although by law it isn't supposed to operate inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency--so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government.They get your emails, too: Interception of E-Mail Raises Questions :In an online eavesdropping case with potentially profound implications, a federal appeals court ruled it was acceptable for a company that offered e-mail service to surreptitiously track [and read] its subscribers' messages.And let's not forget that TIAS is still on the move: What Price Freedom? Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program's controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA's TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week."When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon - with administration approval - simply moved the program into a 'black bag' account," says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. "Black bag programs don't require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight."DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen. . . ."Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record," says security expert Allen Banks. "The profile establishes norms based on the person's spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits."Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a "person of interest" who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.Such data mining is also called "database profiling" and is prohibited under Fourth Amendment's guarantee against invasion of privacy says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.Steinhardt points out the information is already being used to create "no fly" lists of people who are thought to be a danger but that safeguards are not in place to insure the accuracy of the information. . . ."The agencies involved in data mining are trying to skirt the Privacy Act by claiming that they hold no data," said Clay. Instead, they use private companies to maintain and sift through the data, he said. What kind of data? All kinds, according to the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004 which just got sprung on us: Day 5: Your Financial Information Is Available on Demand (use the username and password from this site if you want to skip the registration):A law that amends the Patriot Act, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004, expands the types of records that the FBI can demand with an NSL to include documents kept by more than a dozen types of businesses, including the U.S. Postal Service; casinos; car dealerships; pawn shops; insurance companies; real-estate agents; commodities brokers, and jewelry stores.Jewelry stores? Are they after my bling bling?Who are they? For one thing, they are the rich: Millionaires fill US Congress halls. They are also idiots in many ways: The Top 10 Conservative Idiots (No. 162) (be sure to scroll down and see Colin Powell making hay with the Village People). They are Bushites, Neo-cons, Conservatives, Republicans. . . They are Democrats, too: from Librarian's Stand Against Federal Law:Mary de La Rosa is a young lawyer who was working on similar legislation for Bill Clinton's National Security Council. "The Patriot Act isn't a sea change," she says. "It's an incremental change. A lot of the powers existed before. They're just easier to use." "The old security laws were written before there was an internet and cell phones. So we've been playing catch-up." "It's not the law that's the problem, it's that not enough is known about it." Which means that if it is to be repealed, most likely it will not be the Democrat opposition leading the charge.They will postpone the elections, securing the Bush dictatorship, when the next "terrorist threat" comes around the corner. From Exclusive: Election Day Worries:American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call "alarming" intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack, NEWSWEEK has learned.You can hear about it on your weather radio: Weather Radios Will Carry More Kinds of Alerts. I'm getting a weather radio ASAP, so I can know the exact moment when we completely lose our freedoms.When the shit hits the fan, don't expect the police to help protect your freedom: Welcome to the Matrix: Inside the Government's Secret, Corporate-Run Mega-Database and also Court: If police ask, you must give your name and also Proposal floated for North American ID card.I can't breathe. Corporations and the government are smothering me. I'll go to the bar and escape. Doh! Corporations are there, too: Greene King Snaps up Laurel Pubs:Brewing and pubs group Greene King today announced the purchase of 432 neighbourhood pubs from privately-owned Laurel in a £654m deal that boosts its estate by a quarter.Neighborhood pubs? Not any more. They are corporate pubs. Give us free. Culture17449@blogcritics.org Wed, 14 Jul 2004 17:21:16 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/23/170819.php Dirtgrain"Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation." -- Clarence DarrowWill Enron get away with it? Will the people not be able to see the forest for the trees? The corporation for the criminals? In Enron Outrage Championed, Lukas Velush writes about how former Snohomish County PUD commissioner Roger Rice is baffled that there isn't more outrage about Enron's latest attempt to steal from the people:Rice wonders why Snohomish County residents who may be forced to pay Enron $122 million aren't more angry despite proof that the PUD's contract with the bankrupt energy trader was illegal.I'm still pissed off. Part of the problem in punishing Enron is that Enron is not a person--but corporations have all the rights of people. When it comes time to hold the corporate person entity accountable, it dissolves into a bloody mess. In chapter two, "Banding Together for the Common Good: Corporations, Government, and 'The Commons,'" of the book Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, Thom Hartmann writes the following:The stage is now set. We have looked at the nature of the problem--activities conducted by a small number of parties that are harmful to many. These activities are often a natural consequence of the way corporations are chartered--to make a profit. We have looked at the nature of government, particularly governments designed to serve the people, including managing the commons--the shared resources used by everyone in the community.We have said that when the people within a company make a decision that harms the common welfare, they are often not held accountable for their actions because they claim "it was the corporation that did it." Yet we have also seen that these same parties have claimed, and won, constitutional protections for the legal fiction that we call corporations, protections that were originally designed to protect people from the dangers of despotic governments. (42)Consider the following Enron news items:Enron Gouged Western Customers for at Least $1.1 billion, Public Utility Says Enron Tapes Expose Blatant Criminality of Corporate America Britons Fight Extradition on Enron Fraud Prosecutors Seeking Lay IndictmentThese stories keep on coming, the actions taken against Enron keep getting spread out, and little is being accomplished. And Enron is still committing its crimes of bilking the people, raiding the commons. What we need to do is put Simon Wiesenthal on the case. But even he would take years to get the culprits. Maybe instead of focusing so much on catching these particular bastards, we should fix the system and end corporate personhood. Forget the symptom and deal with the cause.But the people aren't aware of the problems with the system. The corporate media won't inform them. Rather, we get the highlighted corporate criminal of the day who slithers away moments later into the abyss of the corporatocracy. Forget about this evil Enron or that evil Nike or this evil Exxon, and focus on the evil corporation overall (they are all criminals). The concept of corporations is evil. Corporations are the evil empire in Star Wars; they are The Matrix; they are virus that makes us ill. See the Corporate Crime Reporter and also Corporate Predators and also Corpwatch and also Corporate Governance (which seeks to make corporations more accountable, but seems to support the idea of corporations in general) and also Corporations Suck and also Ending Corporate Governance: Revoking Our Plutocracy and also Essential Information (Ralph Nader's site that is connected with the publication Multinational Monitor) and also In Fact and also No Logo and also Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD, which, on its home page, states the same thing I just said about focusing on the concept of corporations instead of individual corporate criminals) and also They Rule and also Endgame and also When Corporations Rule the World. Yes, Enron Owns the GOP. Corporations own the GOP. They own the Democrats, too. They own everything but your mind--so long as you don't let them.The corporatocracy is spreading: India's Great Global Takeover Game. The whole world is being devoured. We need to be Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Neo, Trinity, Nada (another They Live reference), Zorro, Wong Fei Hung, Hamlet, Casper (no, not the friendly ghost). I'm considering throwing down my piece of chalk and becoming a freedom fighter. Or maybe I will just continue to idly oppose the system while eating my Twinkies, watching my The Bachelor and listening to my Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake (or whatever other corporate whore is topping the charts). "Or check into a psycho ward--whichever comes first" (Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China).Be sure to read Christianity, Capitalism, Corporations, and the Myth of Dominion which traces the origins of the evil corporatocracy to the Christian church:"Then God said 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26, King James Version)This passage and others in the Bible have established a mindset that is now so ingrained in the being the modern democratic capitalist, that it seems a function of heredity. The ancient religious doctrine of dominion, supported by modern concepts of corporate entitlement today validates approaches to resource management that have led economist Herman Daly to observe that we "...treat the earth as if it was a business in liquidation." Since the founding of the oldest (and still surviving) corporation, the Benedictine Order of the Catholic Church, circa 529 A.D., the economics of exploitation is inextricably linked to the development of the Christian church and its relationship to Western political and economic development; indeed in many cases the church itself was the reason for the exploitation.No wonder Bush is such a vehement corporatist.Lastly, if you are looking for conspiracies, they are out there: Bilderberg: The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory. Do we stand a chance? Culture16779@blogcritics.org Wed, 23 Jun 2004 17:08:19 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/26/192030.php DirtgrainToo many times I have been in arguments in which it was disputed whether or not our actions in Iraq create more potential terrorists. A study by the International Institute of Strategic Studies shows that al-Qaida is on the rise. From Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide:Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday. . . .Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said. And the Iraq conflict "has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable" after the Afghan intervention, the survey said. The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al-Qaida recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said.The "War" on Terror is not going so well. Bombing the hell out of other countries, taking them over, and torturing their citizens, many of whom are innocent, isn't such a good strategy after all. That was a problem from the get-go. These terrorists are spread out all over the world. They aren't a country that can be conquered. They spread like a virus wherever our country does its evil deeds. They are all over the US. Should we bomb ourselves?If you want to know more about the International Institute of Strategic Studies, then check out their website, and also see this Disinfopedia article. Culture16022@blogcritics.org Wed, 26 May 2004 19:20:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/25/230849.php DirtgrainDissidentVoice has published a leaked document that is the schedule for the upcoming GOP Convention. I post it here with the hope that more people will see what these devils are up to. Here is the Republican National Committee Convention Schedule:6:00 PM Opening Prayer, led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell 6:30 PM Pledge of Allegiance 6:35 PM Burning of Bill of Rights (excluding 2nd amendment) 6:45 PM Salute to the Coalition of the Willing 6:46 PM Seminar #1 "Getting your kid a military deferment" 7:30 PM First Presidential Beer Bong 7:35 PM Serve Freedom Fries 7:40 PM EPA Address #1: "Mercury, it's what's for dinner" 8:00 PM Vote on which country to invade next 8:10 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh 8:15 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: "The Homos are after your children" 8:30 PM Round table discussion on reproductive rights (MEN only) 8:50 PM Seminar #2 "Corporations: The government of the future" 9:00 PM Condi Rice sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" 9:05 PM Second Presidential Beer Bong 9:10 PM EPA Address #2 "Trees: The real cause of forest fires" 9:30 PM Break for secret meetings 10:00 PM Second prayer, led by Cal Thomas 10:15 PM Lecture by Carl Rove: "Doublespeak made easy" 10:30 PM Rumsfeld demonstration of how to squint and talk macho 10:35 PM Bush demonstration of trademark "deer in headlights" stare. 10:40 PM John Ashcroft demonstrates new mandatory kevlar chastity belt 10:45 PM Clarence Thomas reads list of black republicans 10:46 PM Third Presidential Beer Bong 10:50 PM Seminar #3 "Education: a drain on our nation's economy" 11:10 PM Hilary Clinton Piñata 11:20 PM Second Lecture by John Ashcroft: "Evolutionists: The dangerous new cult" 11:30 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh again. 11:35 PM Blame Clinton 11:40 PM Laura serves milk and cookies 11:50 PM Closing Prayer, led by Jesus Himself 12: 00 AM Nomination of George W. Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary OverlordThe more I think about it, the less wacky it seems. It's funny, scary and absurd--that pretty much sums up George Bush's presidency for me, provided you mix in a lot of killing, imprisoning and torturing. They left School of the Americas style torture techniques off of the schedule--oh yah, that's right, they never do the dirty work themselves. Culture15984@blogcritics.org Tue, 25 May 2004 23:08:49 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/05/15/194658.php DirtgrainI once worked a playground at an elementary school during lunch to earn extra money (I was a substitute teacher in the school). The first time, I expected to see a bunch of cute kids running about and playing heartily. I foolishly didn't anticipate the darker side of human nature. Lord of the Flies is not some abstract work of fiction--it is real. William Golding must have done the preliminary research for his book at the playground.On any given day, fights, disputes, incidences of telling on somebody, crying outbursts, fits of rage and other such human ugliness would break out quite a few times. It was not some job to be taken lightly. I wasn't exactly Holden Caulfield happily waiting at the edge of a cliff to catch any singing, prancing, skipping kids who lose their way; I was the peacekeeper, and if I wasn't on my game, then things would get ugly quickly.The hardest part of it all was not just yelling and telling kids to stop; rather, it was to get the kids to calm down, think things through, and hopefully put their problems with each other behind them. But elementary school kids aren't that developed in their ability to think logically. Some of them get so blinded by emotional intensity that no logic or reasoning can get through to them. Over the months that I worked at that school, I went through many interventions in which I had to convince kids that fighting just didn't make any sense. Some kids never learned that lesson.To often, I see adults who are blinded by emotion, who make decisions in their lives solely based on emotional reactions without much use of logic. After 9/11, many people acted in this way. I did too. Immediately after the link to the Taliban and Al Qaeda came out, I was thinking, Let's go get those bastards. But I was able to get control of my emotions and think rationally after I cooled off. Hold on, I thought, we shouldn't start a war over this. Innocent people shouldn't suffer in order for us to appease our emotional outrage. I remember my parent's stories of growing up in Germany during WWII. My father's mother died in a bombing raid some time before he was ten years old. My mother described to me what it was like to hear the bombs coming. It's terrible. I wouldn't wish it on any people, and I damn sure wouldn't support any such action on another country.As I came to grips with my anger over 9/11, I started to worry that politicians would use the incident as a tool to achieve new agendas. I had no idea how bad things would get. Since November, I have blogged about so much of this disgusting use of a tragedy to further issues of politics (i.e. money and power). How can so many Americans overlook the injustices of our day?I think much has to do with emotions. Our emotions are manipulated by propaganda tricksters from all sorts of angles. Too often, we are encouraged to react emotionally and leave reason for later. Take Darryl Worley's hit song that stirred up so many a few years ago:Have You ForgottenI hear people saying we don't need this war I say there's some things worth fighting for What about our freedom and this piece of ground? We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in Before you start preaching Let me ask you this my friendCHORUS 1 Have you forgotten how it felt that day To see your homeland under fire And her people blown away? Have you forgotten when those towers fell? We had neighbors still inside Going through a living hell And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden Have you forgotten?They took all the footage off my T.V. Said it's too disturbing for you and me It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say If it was up to me I'd show it every day Some say this country's just out looking for a fight After 9/11 man I'd have to say that's rightCHORUS 1I've been there with the soldiers Who've gone away to war And you can bet they remember Just what they're fighting forCHORUS 2 Have you forgotten all the people killed? Some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field Have you forgotten about our Pentagon? All the loved ones that we lost And those left to carry on Don't you tell me not to worry about Bin Laden Have you forgotten?Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten?Now, I love music. I wouldn't want to go through life without it. There are some songs with which I identify that have influenced who I am. But the power of music is great. Like the Force, if it falls into the hands of the Dark Side, terrible things can be done with it. I don't know that Darryl Worley changed a lot of people's minds with his song (I bet he did change a few, though), but he certainly got people fired up and emotional and irrational. He even insists on showing the destruction of the Twin Towers every day--seemingly so that we all could get emotionally fired up again. But where does he sing about logic?Well now I have this concept of a guy getting his sawed off going through my mind over and over again. I didn't even watch the whole video--it's not something I want to remember visually, although I have already read enough about it to give me nightmares. Will Darryl Worley be watching this one every day? Should we all watch it every day? I have seen some bad things written on the internet in response to Nick Berg's murder (for example, see the comments sections on these posts: Reactions to Nick Berg's Beheading, and also The Butchering of an American). People are all emotionally worked up. Some are even suggesting nuking the whole Middle East. I feel like taking them aside, leaning over them, and giving them my playground violence intervention spiel. Quit being so damn illogical. Don't let emotions cloud your judgement. Killing others in retaliation for a killing--even one so hideous as was done to Berg--does not make sense. And so on.It might be a bit of a hypocritical lecture in that I still can't get the details of Berg's death out of my head. CW Fischer's "Does Beheading Hurt? hasn't helped matters. Culture15702@blogcritics.org Sat, 15 May 2004 19:46:58 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/04/23/100706.php DirtgrainThe article, "Waist Case," by Michelle Krupa, gives us the latest over-reaction to Janet Jackson's boob:With her hip-hugging jeans fastened low enough to show off the sparkly strings of her thong, Britney Spears could be a common criminal when she comes home to Louisiana to put on a show.And Nelly's baggy jeans, if they happen to slip and show his drawers, could get him booted from the rap circuit to a New Orleans jail cell if state lawmakers approve a bill filed Tuesday in the House that would make it a crime to wear pants below the waist.Even plumbers could get canned under the draft law that state Rep. Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero, said he filed because he was tired of catching glimpses of boxer shorts and G-strings over the low-slung belt lines of young adults.House Bill 1626 would punish anyone caught wearing low-riding pants with a fine of as much as $500 or as many as six months in jail, or both."I'm sick of seeing it," said Shepherd, a first-term legislator, who added he's gotten similar complaints from ministers in his district. "The community's outraged. And if parents can't do their job, if parents can't regulate what their children wear, then there should be a law."Private parts have become such a problem in our country that I propose that we do away with them entirely. We have the technology to surgically remove all of the butt cracks, breasts, midriffs, belly buttons, and reproductive organs that cause offense. We can become the opposite of anatomically correct--like a Barbie Doll. No one complains when a kid takes off Ken's pants because there is nothing there. Low riders, thongs, belly-button piercings, and inappropriately placed tattoos will no longer need to be legislated against.We have already achieved a certain level of denial that the offending private parts are there. All we have to do is match our actual bodies with our ideals. My culture has taught me to shun my butt crack, balls, wiener, and nipples. I feel bad just knowing that they are there (on me and on everybody else).When it comes time for me to meet my maker, when I stand before him naked and exposed, I won't have to feel ashamed because all offending body parts will have been eradicated. As an added bonus, we won't have all of the gender-related problems that we have today. We may actually make the world perfect.Now, if I can just figure out what to do about shit, piss and reproduction, we will achieve perfection.Thanks to Mark Maynard for the link. Culture15030@blogcritics.org Fri, 23 Apr 2004 10:07:06 EDT