They're selling like tofu-cakes

Bet you didn't know that eco-jerk author Derrick "I'd Blow Things Up If Only I Knew How"* Jensen (who'll be appearing with Ward Churchill over Columbus Day weekend in Charlottesville, VA) has a line of t-shirts--and a line of bullshit to go along:

We were going to purchase shirts made in the USA by union workers, and then decided to go one step better and buy used shirts. These shirts were purchased from a wholesaler who bales them and sends them to non-industrialized nations (how strange and horrible it is that the shirts are manufactured in a non-industrialized nation, transported to the US, stored in a warehouse until someone decides they aren't right for this year's fashions, and then shipped back to the non-industrialized nation?).

Oh, I'm gouging my eyes out over it right now, Derrick. What's really strange and horrible, of course, is the galaxy-eating hypocrisy of the man. Jensen writes mendacious books (though luckily, and not only for the environment, hardly anybody buys them), lectures around the world, and sells t-shirts (as noted, slightly pre-owned), all of which carry the message: Western civilization is killing the Earth and Must. Be. Destroyed.

Jensen's (used) t-shirts run around $20, which is probably what he pays for a bale of the nasty things. Here's the verbiage on one:

Well, thanks. I guess.

Tools for local renewal and global dismantlement: Molotov cocktail, the wrench again, bomb, gun, crappy powerfist.


That's deep, man, but really, no, don't explain. And quit touching my landbase.

*Jensen has a Masters in some kind of literary junk but a B.Sc in Mineral Engineering Physics from Colorado School of Mines, where I believe BLURG (Blowing Things Up Real Good) is part of the core curriculum. And anyhow, Ward volunteered to teach him. That's Ward--always teaching.

Churchill to miss Denver Columbus Day protest

Looks like Ward Churchill and frau Natsu Saito will be giving Denver's Columbus Day protest a pass this year. Instead they'll be in Charlottesville, VA with eco-cruddite Derrick Jensen and Dana Lyons to

engage in three days of public events exploring the Columbus legacy: its origins, implications, and impact upon contemporary American culture.

Through the mediums of film, music, and the written word, the community is invited to examine fresh and controversial perspectives on our past and present, in an effort to better understand a more humane approach to our collective future

Oh boy. But why would Truthforce 'n' Wart miss the protest this of all years, the hundredth anniversary of the Columbus Day holiday? Are they, perhaps, worried about violence? Wart, of course, likes to encourage others to violent acts, but tends to shy from them himself. More likely, though, it's because of his lawsuit against CU. Being arrested might not look good to potential Denver jurors.

What, me violent?

(via Charlottesville Words, which opines of the Virginia Columbusfest, "Just one more reason Charlottesville is an awesome place to live.")

(John Brown via our friends at the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement)

Update: looking at the schedule of events, I suppose it's just possible for the dynamic duo to get back to Denver for the parade/protest and then fly back to Charlottesville for Sunday's public forum ("Get there early. Seats will go fast").

Friday Night Evil Weenies!

For some reason I got a google alert linking to this audio of Ward Churchill and "eco-luddite" Derrick Jensen at a college appearance. It's labeled "new show," but it's from 2004 and even the Drunkablog linked to it months ago (the links at "Derrick" and "Jensen"). But it's a nearly pure example of the twisted logic, the intellectual arrogance, the nihilism disguised as idealism these pukes feed to students--and how eagerly the students lap it up--and so worth linking to again, IMIO (in my infallible opinion).

Notice, by the way, that Ward says Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1940. Nobody corrects him.

Update: Let's all watch Democracy Now instead of South Park.

Keeping you safe from left deviationism! It's NorthDenverTribuneWatch!

Time for another edition of NorthDenverTribuneWatch. Let's see "what's happenin'" in North Denver this bi-week!

Rude Recreation Center, just south of the new Mile High Stadium, is haunted. Reporteress Linda King, reporting for the Tribune, reports:

La Llorana wanders the riverbed alongside the Rude Recreation Center at night, says 33-year-veteran Darlene Robles. She cries, grief stricken and tormented for her drowned children--murdered by her own hand. . . .

(Full disclosure: I belong to Rude Rec, and I wish they'd pay a little less attention to La Llorana's grief and torment and a little more to the grief and torment caused by some of their goddamn rickety weight machines.)

[Another] old-timer, Nick Nichols[,] has stories about the haunting at Rude Center that go back 30 years. "I hear someone," he says, "jumping on the diving board in the pool." . . . He indicates there's not anything peculiar about the sound of a swimmer going off the diving board at a Recreation Center's pool. Unless, he says, you understand "we had the diving boards taken out ten years before that."

(Fuller disclosure: the Drunkablog will need his nightlight tonight. Then again, maybe not; it's pretty scary too.) Here's the art that ran with the piece:

Photoshopped--or not? La Llorana is fresh from a dip in this exclusive Tribune photo.

Now that's gentrification!

A brief on page three begins, "Jefferson Park developer Barbara Baker is renovating this building on 26th Avenue. . . . If you know about the people and businesses that have occupied this building please
contact. . . " Here's a slightly better picture than the one the Trib ran:

Since it's only a block from my house, I know a couple of things about the structure. First, for the last eight years at least it's been a biker hangout. Second, when I say "biker hangout," I mean of course that bikers actually ride their Harleys around inside the place.

The new owner was there today and I asked what the "lofts" would sell for. He said "Oh, there's no telling what we'll be asking. $350,000 or more." Wonder if the bikers get first shot? Whatever; this just hastens the inevitable day the Drunkablog spread is voted out of the neighborhood--for good.

"The Great Empire Rolling Over"

That's this issue's guest editorial, by a guy laboring under the name "Bill Bonner." Let me quote the last paragraph just for yocks:

America has grown old and decadent, along with its leading corporations. The voters still vote. But who really cares what they vote for? The empire has a life of its own...a destiny to be fulfilled...a banana peel to slip on. The people vote, but it is the custodians, the managers and politicians who run the great empire who get the loot.

This in a newspaper that has a "pet of the week." I bet Green Left Daily doesn't have a "pet of the week." (This week's pet: "Teddy Graham. Breed: Unknown. Quote: 'I would sit in your lap if you let me because I am so spoiled. Just pet me and I am your friend.'")

Ooh! Ooh!

They have a Columbus Day protest story! Aw, nothing interesting except one quote: "'I'm very against celebrating Columbus. He was a genocidal maniac and this parade is a genocidal convention that celebrates him.'"

End NorthDenverTribuneWatch.

Update: Drunkablog must point out here that Rude Rec is actually a wonderful, and well-maintained, facility. I definitely don't want them pissed at me. They have these cool t-shirts that say RUDE across the front in five-inch letters. If I'm nice maybe they'll give me one. (Hey, shilling for freebies! Look ma, I'm a journalist!)

Drunkablog exclusive! NorthDenverTribuneWatch

In a hardhitting new feature, Drunkablog aims a hairy eyeball at the North Denver Tribune, the biweekly newspaper that claims, implausibly, to have been "Serving Northwest Denver Since 1934."

Today, and every other week, Drunkablog's NorthDenverTribuneWatch will keep tabs on the venerable Denver newspaper--critically reading its news coverage, opinions, letters, even its ads, and reporting the good--and the bad--news about the paper exclusively for Drunkablog readers.

Last week's Tribune headlines

Good a place to start as any, seeing how the new issue isn't out yet.

Aug. 4-17 front page: "NHS returns to big stage." Story hails North High's production of the student-penned One Love: A Hip-Hop Theater Joint ("on the heels of its infamous 2004 near sell-out engagement of Zoot Suit Riots at the Buell Theater."). The young actors, the unbylined reporter says, wrote "a play that would reflect their diversity, love for their individual cultures and love for themselves."

Page 2: Second of a three-parter on North Denver's early "Little Italy," a remnant of which, in a Denver holiday tradition, still holds a parade every year on Ward Churchill Appreciation Day.

Page 3: Even Cesar E. Chavez has a period after his "E.": "Cesar E. Chavez Park to be named." (Turns out it's just going to be named officially, because it already has a name: Cesar E. Chavez Park.)

And finally, the news they tried to hide: "No Wheel Fun at Sloan's this year," at the bottom of page 17:

A courtesy hearing was held [by the Denver City Council] during which residents [of the Sloan's Lake area] and boaters decried the proposal to grant Wheel Fun concessionaire Geno Wasilewski a permit to bring paddleboats to the boat harbor area [of the lake]."[. . .]

Motorboat operators stated concern for the safety of swimmers who might come in contact with motorboats. Joe Anderson, a Sloan's Lake resident and motorboat operator, held up an effigy of a small child with severed limbs as a visual aid to accompany his testimony that motorboats could severely and even mortally injure a swimmer. [. . .]

The contract was defeated 0 to 11.

Questions

Do you believe there exists a person called "Wheel Fun concessionaire Geno Wasilewski?"

Do swimmers often "come in contact" with motorboats on Sloan's Lake? Swimming hasn't been allowed there for decades. so I'll guess no. Then Joe must be referring to the thousands annually who would inevitably fall out of those rickety paddle boats and bike path buggies, right into the water where their limbs would be severed by his motorboat.

But who was going to argue at a city council meeting with a "motorboat operator" who brings an "effigy of a small child with severed limbs" to a city council meeting? No one on city council, that's for sure. "Come, come, Sir," one with courage might have chided, "stop waving that bloody doll haunch around." Instead every one of them acquiesed to the tactics of intimidation and fear. And the North Denver Tribune accepts this unquestioningly. Sickening.

Update: That's NorthDenverTribuneWatch. N-O-R-T--oh yeah, I just spelled it.