Random memory trace(s)

Is this possible? I have the distinct memory of my father, Michael-Jackson-like, hanging me out over the parapet or whatever it's called on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I was seven or eight, so it must have been 1965 or 1966. I'm not googling or binging to find out what security measures, if any, were in place back then. But I remember it. Despite my dad being a very determined drunk, I wasn't afraid at all.

The reason I ask is, just the other day I was forced to watch Sleepless in Seattle (actually I rather like the movie--yes, mancard revoked) and I noticed that all the security fencing on the ESB (curved spikes included) was bolted on the original masonry. When did that happen?

One more trace, which I may have mentioned before. Daddio took the fambly to a circus that gave a tour of the animals if you showed up early. We were looking at the elephants when one of them wrapped his trunk around my neck, picked me up, gave me a look, and set me back down. This, according to witnesses, happened.

Memory traces?

Papers, please

Some halfwit at OpEdNews uses Ward Churchill as a lead for a column remarkable only for its flight of ideas, clumsy writing and rabid anti-Obamaism:

Professor Ward Churchill was fired from his teaching position at the University of Colorado for his comments surrounding September 11 attacks. Professor Churchill described the financial and technocratic corps of government as well as the commercial financial interests of America as "Little Eichmann's."

Yes, I know, "Eichmann's." Even Wart didn't screw up that one. But at least the guy's going after the SCoaMF:

I no longer see this government as an entity which represents me or my interests nor do I see it as representing anyone that I know personally. What has taken place is a melding of state and corporate interests to where one can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Tens of millions of Americans have faced the terror of losing their homes in this land and this President, this corporate pitchman, pushes for a continuation of the investment tax credit so that corporations can take yet another tax deduction on research before off shoring the manufacturing process.

From the left, of course.

Officially nearly one quarter of America's children live in poverty and the political class proposes only budget cuts. At a time of catastrophic national unemployment the political class calls for cut backs on unemployment compensation and healthcare programs. Are they mad? Do they not know the lessons of history? Do they believe that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck can override the reaction to an eviction or foreclosure? Do they honestly believe that guns or laws will protect them from a hungry, struggling population?

Guns or laws? Lemme think on that. And I'd love to hear what "lessons of history" he's talking about.

I feel as if I've have been immersed in a bad dream from which I cannot awake. I've witnessed the changes in myself which unemployment and homelessness have wrought while I have witnessed the playback on our society as a whole. I no longer feel at home anywhere, I no longer have home town; I am from wherever I am at the time. I've lost my connection to a national identity and found a connection to these people like myself instead.

But I thought losing your connection to a national identity was a good thing. The guy (David Glenn Cox) goes on like this for awhile (he's particularly pissed that he had trouble getting an ID, though it sounds like he's lying about it--I mean, c'mon, a birth certificate won't do it? Maybe he didn't have the long form), but it's his bio you should read.

Bet she understands THIS hand signal

Angelyne the Amazing DEAF Cattle Dog (and her companion-person Eric Melvin) recently visited Boulder!

Yeah, more dogs. Angelyne allegedly knows 40-plus hand signals and "non-verbal commands" she will do tricks to, and Melvin hauls her around for such functions and activities as (according to Melvin's web page, feyly titled "A Unique Character and Compassion Development Presentation"):

Schools and education

Youth programs

Churches

Senior care centers

Developmentally disabled

Chronic and terminal illness

Deaf/hard of hearing

Morale-raisers

Fund-raisers

Children’s parties

and MUCH MORE!

From the Gamera's acknowledgement of Angelyne's recent visit, it appears most of her tricks involve Hula-Hoops. Almost makes me wish I were still an elementary school student, or even chronically or terminally ill (oh, I am, I just don't know it yet).

Actually the only reason I bring it up is that back when Billy Bob (another cattle dog) was a young'un, I taught him tricks (about eight of them, IIRC, the standard stuff--no Hula-Hoops) that he also would do from hand signals alone. And at the time, he wasn't even DEAF! The D-a-W and I used to gig (for free, natch) at coffee shops and housewarmings and the like (me on classassical git, her on that noted instrument of revolution, the Irish harp), and whenever possible I'd weasel BB in to do his stuff. Wowed 'em. At least, more than we did.

Update: Did you know that the Telegraph has a "Pets" page? It's a subcategory under "Families" which is a subcategory under "Lifestyles," and it's chock-full of cute-animal videos and stories ("Can my rabbit have a brace for its teeth?"; "Chihuahua foils armed robbery"), including this one: "Hitler cat 'overlooked for adoption because of markings.'" "Kitler" is cuuuuute (and I am emphatically not a cat person). Heil, Fancy Feast!

Billy Bob at 13

Actually his birthday was a couple of days ago. He's deaf as a post (if you happen to have a post that can hear a little), he's got fatty lumps all oooooover his body, and he sleeps even more than I do. Here he is sneering at the paparazzi (me) after waking up with a severe kibble hangover this morning:



But he'll still go get that frisbee:






And catch it:














(Note grass blade, center-tongue.)

Update: Aftermath:



Update II: Teenagers. Just caught BB with two of the neighborhood ne'er-do-wells smoking cornsilk cigs behind the garage.

Wart to speak at "Black August" memorial dinner

Wart Churchill is scheduled to speak at something called the Denver Anarchist Black Cross's "Black August Dinner" next month, along with Robert King Wilkerson. According to the press release:

Black August began in the 1970′s as a way to honor fallen Black freedom fighters George and Jonathon Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden. The practice of Black August has since grown into an important moment to reflect on the history and current landscape of struggles against imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy.

Never heard of the Anarchist Black Cross before, though they claim to have been around since "the beginning of the 20th century," which, if this wiki can be believed, is true, sort of, beginning in Czarist Russia. The Denver ABC "About" page says the "most previous incarnation of an Anarchist Black Cross chapter in Denver was snuffed out of existence quite quickly in 2004, after a full scale FBI investigation into the organization was launched to coincide with the security efforts protecting the Democratic National Convention that summer."

Wonder if they mean "2008," since the DNC wasn't here in 2004.

Anyway, nothing special, besides their longevity (not counting the usual infighting and resulting splits). More from their "About" page:

Historically, the Anarchist Black Cross has played a crucial role in mass movement defense; organizing support and defense of political prisoners and prisoners of war, maintaining physical solidarity against the police during factory and school occupations, organizing self defense and armed defense of social movements, and fulfilling a broad range of roles within the defense of social movements.

Yeah, yeah. Free this guy, free that guy. With guns and stuff. Right up Wart's alley.

Gere's sum funy st5f

Sorry for the garbled heading: cut myself trying to slit my throat this morning. Anyhow, Tim Blair has been on fire recently, and his latest column is truly funny. He makes me sick.

Update: My lead-in reminds me of a story Jim Bouton tells in his immortal Ball Four. A young pitcher trying to stay in the bigs gets hit in the face with a comebacker. Somehow he gets the third out even though he's gushing blood. He comes off the field and tells the manager, "I'm going back in. I'm going back in." The manager replies: "Not with two mouths you ain't, Meat."

Update II: Ball Four, 40 years on.

Update III: Why am I getting into this? The wiki on Ball Four says that after it was published Pete Rose "took to yelling 'Fuck you, Shakespeare!' from the dugout whenever Bouton was pitching."

TMI

A still from John Woo's Hard-Boiled:

Fourth of July skiing at A-Basin; first time in 14 years

That's all. No link to the Post story, of course. And, oh yeah: AGWMA.

Fourth of July at the Radio!

Pathetic attempt to get the taste of those abstracts out of my mouth.

Pat Novak: For hire. "Agnes Bolton" (4 June 1949). I keep saying this, but nobody listens: Jack Webb was a hell of a writer. For a while. In PN:FH he plays a private dick on the Frisco (as natives call it) waterfront who makes ends meet, some shows imply, by selling bait. Opening lines to this show:

Around here a set of morals won't cause any more stir than Mother's Day in an orphanage. Maybe that's not good, but that's the way it is. And it wouldn't do any good to build a church down here, because some guy would muscle in and start cutting the wine with wood alcohol . . .

Pat's not a happy guy, 'cause 1) he gets the shit kicked out of him roughly twice an episode; and 2) nobody appreciates his hard-boiled similes.

Okay, one more quotidian: "She was at least fifty, because you can't get that ugly without years of practice. She was wearing a green woolen dress and her figure wasn't any worse than a bale of cotton somebody's cut the wire on. Her fat hung down from her arms and there was so much of it you knew even her bones were plump . . ."

Not exactly PC, huh? Hard to figure how Webb, so talented, became a humorless law-and-order robot on Dragnet (the TV series).

Abstract(s) of the week!

For this Independence Day, a leftist patriotism edition.

Remember Michael Yellow Bird? He's the brainiac who said, at the trial of Wart Churchill's suit against CU in 2009, that it was common for historians to lie, and that that was okay, because such fabrications promote the truth.

Here he is around the same time, "defying the lies" of others.

Canadian Review of American Studies

Michael Yellow Bird

What Is the Highest Form of Patriotism?: I Say Acknowledging Our Addiction to Patriotism

Abstract:

Since the United States’s illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq on 20 March 2003, I have published papers that critically interrogate the participation of the “sovereign” US Indigenous nations in this unjust, illegal, imperialistic war. Due to my writings, on 24 June 2007, I was invited to make a presentation at a peace vigil and rally focusing on “What Is the Highest Form of Patriotism?” The speech that I gave is provided in full text in this article, where I probe the United States of America’s addiction to patriotism by interrogating and “defying the lies” of some of US patriotism’s most cherished ideas, documents, leaders, and slogans. I end with a slight twist of the words of the third Buddhist noble truth, freedom from the addiction to patriotism is possible in this lifetime.

God, he loves himself.

Social Text

(Good ol' Social Text.)

Puar, Jasbir K., 1967-
Rai, Amit, 1968-

Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots

How are gender and sexuality central to the current "war on terrorism"? This question opens on to others: How are the technologies that are being developed to combat "terrorism" departures from or transformations of older technologies of heteronormativity, white supremacy, and nationalism? In what way do contemporary counterterrorism practices deploy these technologies, and how do these practices and technologies become the quotidian framework through which we are obliged to struggle, survive, and resist? Sexuality is central to the creation of a certain knowledge of terrorism, specifically that branch of strategic analysis that has entered the academic mainstream as "terrorism studies." This knowledge has a history that ties the image of the modern terrorist to a much older figure, the racial and sexual monsters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Further, the construction of the pathologized psyche of the terrorist-monster enables the practices of normalization, which in today's context often means an aggressive heterosexual patriotism. As opposed to initial post-September 11 reactions, which focused narrowly on "the disappearance of women," we consider the...

Rhetoric and Public Affairs

Roger Stahl

Why We "Support the Troops": Rhetorical Evolutions

Abstract:

This essay tracks the genealogy of the contemporary call to "support the troops," a rhetoric that includes but goes beyond the strategic and argumentative use of the phrase itself. Support-the-troops rhetoric has two major functions: deflection and dissociation. Deflection involves discursive trends in play since Vietnam that have redefined war as a fight to save our own soldiers—especially the captive soldier—rather than as a struggle for policy goals external to the military. As such, this discourse directs civic attention away from the question of whether the particular war policy is just. The essay explicates these trends through an examination of the POW/MIA, war film, and the symbol of the yellow ribbon. The second trope, dissociation, quarantines the citizen from questions of military action by manufacturing distance between citizen and soldier. Dissociation often goes further to define civic deliberation and dissent as an attack on the soldier body and thus an ultimate immoral act. This essay explores this trope through executive rhetoric, an analysis of the particular phrase "support the troops," metaphor for war, and John Kerry's run for the presidency in 2004. Both deflection and dissociation work to discipline and mute public deliberation in matters of war. The essay concludes by considering strategies for reopening spaces for democratic deliberation.

Stalked by Barack

Another note from Toonces (no salutation):

I know we've been contacting you more than usual lately. It reflects the reality that the campaign season is already ramping up -- whether it feels early or not.

So we have a dilemma. While our opponents are campaigning full time, I'm busy doing the job I was elected to do. There will be a moment when I can be part of this campaign in a bigger way, but it won't come for a while.

But that doesn't mean you can slow down. I need you to help pick up the slack.

Midnight tomorrow is an important deadline. The Vice President and I would love to meet you. Please give $5 now to support this campaign -- you'll be automatically entered to join us for dinner when you do [link follows].

Barack

What happened to "No purchase necessary"?

Geez, I beat Ace or an Ace-like entity on the "dinner with Barack" contest by a ton. Eeeeeeee! But he also linked to a later video where Barack announces that Joltin' Joe will be there too. Eeee--aw, fuck it.

A few more Koskid taglines

Went over there to see the reaction to Weiner's resignation. Eh. Lots of people saying he was an egregious dick who deserved to lose his job; at least as many defending him and excoriating Dem leadership for forcing him out. Whatever. Taglines!

Let the yoke fall from our shoulders; Don’t carry it all, don’t carry it all; We are all our hands and holders; Beneath this bold and brilliant sun; And this I swear to all - The Decemberists.

If it's
Not your body
Then it's
Not your choice
AND it's
None of your damn business!

Ayn Rand’s philosophy... reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline."- Roger Ebert

Please Help Me Volunteer in Haiti

"We can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy, but we can't have both."-- Justice Louis Brandeis

I am living proof that a person living with AIDS can still enjoy the passion of lovemaking. AIDS is no longer a death sentence!

LBJ & Lady Bird, Sully Sullenberger, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Drew Brees: Texas is No Bush League!

Full Disclosure: I am an unpaid shill for every paranoid delusion that lurks under your bed - but more than willing to cash any checks sent my way

Resident Palin - even if she did take up residency in the White House in 2012, it's too painful to use the "P" word combined with her name

"My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now." - JFK during the 1962 Steel Crisis

Every moment in life contains an off ramp. Never be afraid to use it.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Note from Barack. Subject:

Dinner?

Like I said, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

John --

I've set aside time for four supporters like you to join me for dinner.

Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests.

We didn't get here doing that, and we're not going to start now. We're running a different kind of campaign. We don't take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs -- we never have, and we never will.

Yeah, sure (caution: link goes to Firedoglake).

We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford -- and I want to spend time with a few of you.

Eeeeeee--wait a minute. Whaddaya mean, "a few of you"? But I want you all to myself, you yummy hunk of man-child, you.

So if you make a donation today, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner. Please donate $5 or more today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack

No.

We'll pay for your flight and the dinner -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas about how we can continue to make this a better country for all Americans.

Who's this "we" who's paying for stuff again?

This won't be a formal affair. It's the kind of casual meal among friends that I don't get to have as often as I'd like anymore, so I hope you'll consider joining me.

But I'm not asking you to donate today just so you'll be entered for a chance to meet me. I'm asking you to say you believe in the kind of politics that gives people like you a seat at the table -- whether it's the dinner table with me or the table where decisions are made about what kind of country we want to be. . . .

I've said before that I want people like you to shape this campaign from the very beginning -- and this is a chance for four people to share their ideas directly with me.

Hope to see you soon,

Barack

Update: Just noticed that Katherine Archuleta, formerly Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's senior advisor in charge of dealing with Rec!reate!68 before and during the Democratic National Convention in 2008, has been named director of Obama's reelection campaign. Probably on Glenn Spagnuolo's recommendation.

Yes, I knew

Tonight's lunar eclipse wasn't going to be visible in the U.S., but I took a pic of the moon over the parachute ride at Elitch's amusement park on the edge of downtown Denver anyway. There were some fireworks going on too, but none of those turned out.


He said as if this one did.

Brit curriculum overhauler: Get rid of climate change

Guardian:

Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said.

Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives.

In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum "to get back to the science in science". "We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff. The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist." . . .

"Oxidation and gravity don't date." Irresistible implication: climate change does, and has.

Climate change has featured in the national curriculum since 1995. In 2007, the topics "cultural understanding of science" and "applications and implications of science" were added to the curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds.

But Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, warned that Oates' ideas might not be in pupils' best interests and could make science less interesting for children.

"An emphasis on climate change in the curriculum connects the core scientific concepts to topical issues," he said. "Certain politicians feel that they don't like the concept of climate change. I hope this isn't a sign of a political agenda being exercised."

He hopes this isn't a sign of a political agenda being exercised. Hahahahahahahahahahah--I can't feel my feet.

Post: Wart case should be canned by Colorado Supreme Court

Well, duh. Not gonna link, for reasons readers if any will know. Here's a quote the Post uses from one of the several thousand committees that found Wart to be a liar and cheat:

"To put it most simply, it was part of a pattern and consistent research stratagem to cloak extreme, unsupportable, propaganda-like claims of fact that support Professor Churchill's legal and political claims with the aura of authentic scholarly research . . . "

Well, duh. We'll see. I'd laugh about this, but once a panel of judges gets to decide things it's anybody's guess.

Dick

Ace and various cob-loggers at AoSHQ (no link, you know where they are) have been posting about Wienergate almost nonstop. Hit and miss, but as usual the commenters rescue some not-all-that-funny posts and kick a couple of funny ones into hyperdrive.

What I can't figure out is, why would anyone, ever, post a picture of himself on the fucking interwebs, let alone of his penis? I've been doing this blogging shit for almost six-and-a-half years, and I've never posted a pic of myself, nor ever will.

I'm ungodly handsome, too (prove me wrong!). And my penis is gigantic (prove me wrong!). Point is, and as often noted basically everywhere, the internet is forever.

One-sentence opinion: Weiner is obviously guilty, guilty, guilty, and there's nothing better than seeing an arrogant asshole get shit for his arrogant assholiness. And tiny penis. But mostly his tiny penis. Okay, three-sentence opinion.

"60 or 70"

That's the "crowd" that attended Wart's speech in GJ yesterday, according to 11News. Worth every penny of that $350 Confluence Media Collective paid him. He spoke for two fucking hours, "mostly," the TV station says, "about Memorial Day." "During the better part of his two hour long talk, he raised questions about why Americans don't honor soldiers on both sides of other conflicts, particularly those involving Native Americans."

Yeah, sure. And the Japanese and Germans in World War II? Why don't we honor them? Huh? Huh?

Other quote: "'I speak truth to people as best I can and try to stay consistent with that understanding and that obligation," said Churchill. "That's my concept of integrity.'"

Integrity. Bwahahah--by the way, I'm a child molester.

Update: JWP notes that the Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to hear Wart's case. Frankly, I was hoping they'd just blow it off. The pirate with the parrot who leans to the right has interesting facts and figures.

Seven p.m. to five a.m.

That's apparently the timeframe, according to East Bay Indymedia, for Wart's appearance at the Eastside Arts Alliance and Cultural Center in Oakland June 3, along with Ericka "My current Heart Question is: How do we facilitate learning about the intersections of race and gender" Huggins, Liz Derias and Claude Marks, to panel-discuss "COINTELPRO 101." Good Christ, Wart, get off it.

Still no word on how Wart's speech in Grand Junction went today, if it's even happened yet, though a TV station there says Tea Partiers are going to protest.

Tis the season

Local power provider Xcel Energy is set to restart its June-September two-tier energy pricing (scroll to last item) Wednesday. The idea is to discourage air-conditioner use by nearly doubling the price per KwH over 500 per month. Commenter Judy F. on a WUWT open thread notes:

Tonight on the 5 O’Clock news on KCNC Channel 4 in Denver, the newscasters reported that the snowpack in Colorado was 232% of normal and A Basin (a ski resort on I-70 east of the Continental Divide) received 53 inches of snow in May. Where I live on the Eastern Plains, today it was a cloudy 63 degrees F and normal is 76 degrees F. Then the newscasters reminded us that Xcel Energy’s two tier rate plan would go into effect on June 1, because of the increase in electrical demand in the summer. Shoot. Except for 3 days last week, my furnace has run everyday since last fall. I hope it warms up enough so I don’t have to pay summer rates to HEAT my house…

Yeah, me too. It's been a very, very cool spring here, with somewhere around four inches of rain in the last three weeks (Denver averages just under 17 inches annually). And yes, our furnace has been running every day too. When it's springtime in the Rockies . . .