When I was about 12 years old, I had a newspaper route to earn money. I participated in a new subscriber contest and won a little stereo system for my efforts. I recall I had a choice between the stereo system and a trip to some place in New York. In retrospect, I think my mom would have preferred I had taken the trip as a vacation for her, from me.
One of the first albums I played on that little cheesy system was George Carlin's "On The Road" over and over and over again. Even though I haven't listened to it since then, I still remember some of his comedy bits from that album from 30 years ago. George Carlin's voice inflection and timing always made me laugh.
Parents' cliches and children's secret answers
Parent: Do you understand English!? Child: Not fully, no.
Parent: How many times do I have to tell you!? Child: Six?
Parent: I have tried to be both a mother and father to you. Child: Then go fuck yourself.
Being a single parent, even my mom laughed at that last one.
It's time to cross him out of the address book, but we can watch him on YouTube. This video is about death, dying and random things about the after-life. I especially like the very short bit about "I'm keeping him in my thoughts" around two-and-half minutes into it. So, listen for that. I think it could be tailored nicely as a useful comeback to fit the situation the next time someone says it to you.
As a matter of fact, I've already thought of a similar phrase that irritates me.
Someone always says, "I'll keep you(him,her) in my prayers."
I know I just read that about two dozen times recently in a legacy.com guestbook. So, the next time someone says "I'll keep so-and-so in my prayers," I'll have a snappy, cruel and hateful comeback tailored just for them. I'll be ready.
"I'm keeping you in my prayers."
"Yeah? Where exactly in your prayers are you keeping me? In between 'please God, smite my asshole boss' and 'please God, make this demon hemorrhoid stop itching'? Thanks. I feel really blessed now."
So anyway. George Carlin died Sunday night. That's a real bummer, man. I spent some time at his web site reading. If you ever need to give me a gift for a holiday, go to the George Carlin web site and buy anything. I'd love it.
[quote of the moment] "Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money." – George Carlin
This photo needs a caption to describe what is depicted in the image. Are you up to it? I have my own ideas for it, but really I want to hear your first impressions. What are you thinking when you see it?
Back in 2004 when this blog was merely a mewling digital infant instead of the precocious trouble-making toddler that it is today, I wrote briefly about manufacturing consent. The media you choose to consume -- especially news media that used to be known as more trustworthy sources of information than they are today -- does have an impact on your opinion of the world. If you've never heard of Noam Chomsky, check out that entry from 2004 and click through some of those links. I tried to alert any readers of this blog about the war propaganda in mass media.
Having some prior knowledge of the mechanics of military psychological operations (psyop), it seemed obvious to me that something was going on in the mass media that was molding the opinions of people with whom I'd have conversations about the subjects surrounding our U.S. foreign policy.
I'm a C-Span geek and an intelligence wonk. So, when someone sounded like Donald Rumsfeld's mindless parrot in conversations with me at that time, I chalked it up to ignorance. However, when I tried to explain the differences between secular muslims and extremist wahhabi/salafists, or the machinations of Darth Cheney's Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, or what a National Intelligence Estimate is -- my one voice could not compete with the 24/7 cable news that was shoving propaganda into some of my friends' minds.
It has just been recently revealed last month that the Pentagon did indeed have a domestic propaganda program. It consisted of an influencial group of high-ranking retired military personnel who would cheerlead for the war as so-called experts on all of the U.S. radio and television media outlets. If you missed that story, it's likely because the corporate media is either a little embarrassed that they were fooled or they were (and continue to be) willing accomplices in the deception of the American people, then and even now.
Unfortunately, I've even lost contact with some of those good friends because I was telling people that Bush/Cheney was lying to all of us and I was screaming what a mistake the so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom Bushworld mis-adventure was at a time when people simply didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to hear that their own beliefs were wrong, even though their worldview had been shaped by propaganda and wrapped in false patriotism or some not-so-subtle form of xenophobic Christianity.
Remember Bush/Cheney constantly talking about so-called "Islamofascists" for a good little while there? It was the psychopathic PNAC neo-con, Norman Podhoretz, who pushed that terminology. His step son, Elliot Abrams, although a convicted criminal from back in the Iran-Contra days, continues to work in the Bush administration. Podhoretz continues to press Bushworld to bomb Iran.
It's not entirely my friends' fault that they were Neo-Conned. People are defrauded by con-men (Scott McClellan – What Happened) everyday. At the same, they probably wouldn't like to admit that they were victims of a psyop, then or even now. Who really wants to admit that they have been mind-raped?
"It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa'ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa'ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."
No shit, Sherlock. Thanks so much for the frakkin' timely truth update there, Senator. It's a little too late to save the lives of over 4000 Americans and at least 100,000 Iraqis, though. Isn't it?
However, it's not too late to save the lives of additional people in the United States, or in Iraq, or even in Iran. And it's never too late to hold the Bushworld murderers accountable because the crime of murder absolutely has no statute of limitations. All it takes is a population of people who pay attention and give a damn.
Generational or Apathetic Sheeple?
If you don't have the time to make a nutritious home-cooked meal for yourself or your family, you will likely stop at any one of a thousand fast food restaurants and grab some grub. The same is true for news, if one casually scrutinizes the media consumption habits of most people. You're busy. You may just catch part of a local TV news broadcast as you shove french fries into your pie hole on any given evening.
This is my best analogy for you to remember. Local TV news is like fast food. It's produced by only one of the six huge media corporations, and it's going to eventually kill you, if that's all you consume.
In the good-old-days of yore, people respected the nightly news. Older people these days are watching FOX news and they think they are being told the truth. I fully expect that they will vote for John McCain in November -- simply because they don't Google, they don't read, they don't research, they don't even realize that Barack Obama is not secretly a Muslim. /eye roll They're easily scared and they're easily manipulated as consumers of mass media -- or old media.
Corporate mass media is fast food infotainment for your mind. Just because it tastes good today doesn't mean that it's not going to clog the arteries of your brain eventually. Friendly warning, from me to you. If you need some examples, check MediaMatters for lies, distortions, and incompetence.
Jose Antonio Vargas is one of my online friends on the social networking web site Facebook. He has been writing about the synergies of new digital media and politics as a reporter for the Washington Post newspaper for about two years. I encourage you to check out his published articles because they are very astute and timely for the politics of this year's historic election for president of the United States. Oh, and he snagged a Pulitzer Prize in April 2008.
He recently wrote the article "Something Just Clicked" last week that really, honestly, gives me some hope that some people do give a damn. Not only does the story of Linnie Bailey show how one person CAN make a difference once they shed their apathy and get involved, but also how the internet has become a useful tool to do so.
Go right now and read it. An informed and activist citizenry is the only thing necessary for we the people to take our country back from the hands of the current sociopathic criminals holding power in Washington D.C.
[quote of the moment] Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. – Howard Beale, Network (1976)
Wicked weather rampaged through much of the Midwest of the United States over the weekend. Tornadoes and flash floods caused death, injury and wide-spread property damage. Having spent most of my life in the Metro Detroit area, I know well the havoc weather can cause to homeowners.
My garage was chock-full of home repair and maintenance tools and supplies. I regularly had to crank up the chainsaw and drag out one of several huge blue tarps when a tree branch crashed into the roof of my own house or someone else's house. Trying to stand on an icy roof with a buzzing chainsaw after an ice storm or struggling with 1200 square feet of blue tarp in high winds are memories that I'm hopeful I don't have to relive anytime soon.
And now for something completely different
The blue tarp on the house pictured above isn't there because of weather. Nope. It's there because a mentally disturbed man, Sloan Carafello, of Schenedacty, New York decided to commit suicide by jumping out of a Cessna airplane without a parachute from 10,000 feet.
According to Scott Waldman of the Albany Times Union, Carafello told a local skydiving club that he wanted to take photos for a class project. He attempted to hitch a ride last weekend, but arrived after the last flight had gone up. Carafello, 29, was not likely in any school as he lived at the YMCA and worked in a fish market.
The videographer captured Carafello's jump in his camera's frame as he was attempting to get another shot of the plane. The video, which has been turned over to state police, shows Carafello taking pictures of himself with a camera while in the air. Rawlins said the videographer told him that Carafello laid still on his back while falling.
I have some questions
Neither newspaper labelled Carafello as being mentally disturbed, but if you read both short articles, they drop some big clues. It's really a shame that Ronald Reagan gutted the mental healthcare system in our country. I remember hearing about stories in Detroit as state mental healthcare facilities were de-funded and boarded up and mental ill patient residents were literally left on the sidewalk for relatives to pick up.
Question one:
When are we going to shed the Bush World bullshit idea of compassionate conservatism where the only people who are helped are the share holders of private corporations who run jails instead of treatment facilities?
Question two:
Did Carafello's camera survive impact and who has it? Those are some unique, one-of-a-kind photos.
Question three:
How soon before the New York state police release the videographer's footage and when can I see it on YouTube?
Question four:
When Hunter S. Thompson shot himself, he left instructions for his cremated remains to be shot out of a cannon on his Owl ranch. Sloan Carafello should get some morbid bonus points for creativity. Who has his spiral notebook with the constant little note-taking?
Question five:
Why does this mostly unreported story fascinate me so damn much?
I think it is because Carafello was an unknown, overlooked person even among the people whom he saw everyday. And, unlike the spree murderer, such as the recent mass stabbing incident in Tokyo, Carafello didn't kill anyone else after he decided to kill himself.
At the same time, I certainly wouldn't want to be the contractor who was tasked to clean up that upstairs bedroom or fix that roof in New York. I wouldn't want to be that homeowner either. Yuck.
