"Homophobe" is a stupid word

[THOUGHT EXPERIMENT]

I think it's incorrect to refer to these guys or this guy or this fellow as "homophobes." The term is an innacurate convention of English. None of these people, or others like them, are really afraid of "homos." Many people who liberals label as homophobes actually stalk "homos" to bully or assault.

It seems clear that what "homophobes" fear, in fact, is their own recognized homoerotic impulses; they fear being recognized to have these urges or giving in to them.

So I think we need a new label for "homophobes." I recommend that from now on we refer to them as "faggots."

Being dumb

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[SYNTHESIS]

Two US presidents won Nobel Peace Prizes for making peace in the world. One was given a Peace Prize for helming efforts to establish the League of Nations after dragging the United States into a World War that he previously campaigned against. And one seems to have been given a Peace Prize as a stunt by the Nobel committee before he had filled his first ashtray on Air Force One.

A Google search on the term "dumb war" should show that lots of people are now full of sick glee or high dudgeon in pointing out that the president who denounced Dumb Wars has started one against an antagonist that is not a nation and that requires our nation to fight on several different sides of a foreign civil war at once. The remarks are true but probably also cheap, because there is no reason to expect any modern president to be a pacifist when there are a hungry armaments industry and security state to feed.

Earlier this week I read the column that I think explains the endgame most clearly, namely this.

Our current president, who may have begun his 2008 campaign as a reasonably good man is now, if the first half of this sentence is true, surely among the most miserable men in the world. I don't know what could compel a good man with (we suppose) more power concentrated in his hands than anyone else ever to intentionally consolidate and extend the hateful visions and policies of his neoliberal predecessors. Who knows? It may be related to this here linked thought experiment, which is the direction in which my own speculations have led me in recent years.

Some comedian (I forget who) has joked that the first thing on a new president's calendar the day after the Inaugural Ball is a meeting where they show him a special movie of the Kennedy assassination filmed from an angle never before seen by the public.

Optional paranoia

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[THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS]

Sometimes I like to let my mind meditate on topics such as this.

I don't watch graphic horror movies, or other exploitatively violent commercial productions, or viral web videos. Instead, I indulge in meditations on topics like these to satisfy my (subconscious) impulse to terrify myself. It seems that most (web-conneceted) humans have a similar impulse, considering how familiar the internet and old-media operations seem to be with videos of overseas beheadings and various kinds of domestic executions.

Obviously, the link (no better or worse than 50/50) is probably published mainly to give its author the same kind of paranoiac gratification I referred to above. And, I'd ask if this fellow really "knows more" than the multitude of other Virginia-based psychos who are cashing in on their (rapidly aging) mastery of "how things work."

But let your mind experiment. What if the "hypothesis" explored by the article really did give a direct glimpse into federal governance? Suspend disbelief and consider what else would be implied by that reality? How would it change your worldview?

You know who else decapitates people?

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[SYNTHESIS]

These guys.

It's hard to keep track of whose enemy of my enemy is a friend versus the converse. Might be sorcerer = enemy; military equipment client = friend. [Insurgent = Schrodinger's cat.]

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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[CONCEITS and VANITIES]

Who in the ever-lovin' fuck wrote the words to this thing?!?



I don't remember the single release in 1964, but stumbled across it while studying a 1967 Ron Riley WLS aircheck. He played it as an "oldie."

The lyrics would be disturbing if they were delivered in a serious manner (they're not) and if they weren't so goddam over the top. I haven't been able to hunt down the composer, but the words seem very much in the spirit of postwar R&B "chick abuse" tunes by entertainers such as Louis Jordan and Bull Moose Jackson. (They're not literally about abusing women, but portray the era's Battle Of The Sexes through the eyes of pseudo-macho, beleaguered rascals.)

The musical setting seems like a classic teen, American-Bandstand-style presentation, which puts an offbeat finish on the disc.

Over You, Paul Revere & the Raiders (1964, Columbia 4-43114), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.

Update: just noticed in the YouTube comments that the song is credited to Allen Toussaint and Allen Orange, which helps to explain the nature of the lyrics and the New Orleans flavor to the American-Bandstand-type chart. It says that Aaron Neville recorded it in 1960. Hilarious choice for the Raiders. Wouldn't be surprised if the responsible A&R man was fired over it.

What I mean is this

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[CONTEXT]

Pertaining to this post, I feel I got about a semester's worth of postmodern communication theory out of the epigraph at the beginning of John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar (1968). It's a quote from The Gutenberg Galaxy, by Marshall McCluhan:

There is nothing wilful or arbitrary about the Innis mode of expression. Were it to be translated into perspective prose, it would not only require huge space, but the insight into the modes of interplay among forms of organisation would also be lost. Innis sacrificed point of view and prestige to his sense of the urgent need for insight. A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. As Innis got more insight he abandoned any mere point of view in his presentation of knowledge. When he interrelates the development of the steam press with 'the consolidation of the vernaculars' and the rise of nationalism and revolution he is not reporting anybody's point of view, least of all his own. He is setting up a mosaic configuration or galaxy for insight . . . Innis makes no effort to 'spell out' the interrelations between the components in his galaxy. He offers no consumer packages in his later work, but only do-it-yourself kits...

"Innis" is Harold Innis, McLuhan's mentor. McLuhan's book (1962) is constructed in a so-called mosaic style that aims at synthesis of diverse ideas and events instead of composing the facade of a point of view. Brunner's book applies the mosaic approach to a (sub)genre of storytelling that I'd call social science fiction. The structure was radical back then, and is unusual even today. But it surprised me how accessible the book was after only a minor mental adjustment.

It may be easy for regular people to "get" the Innis Mode today because, really, it's a "killer app" for web technology. It just requires curation of material, as opposed to throwing everything into a box and shaking it up. But curation doesn't mean creating a point of view, which McLuhan says (above) "can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding." POV really is a dangerous luxury, and an irritating one too. Because everybody has one, but few of them are unique. Artificial POV is what I've disliked about my own writing, and it's what I despise about all the liberal blogs that I should, in theory, love and emulate.

So I'm copping the Innis Mode from McLuhan and stealing the format of "rubrics" from Brunner because these tools seem so useful to help a person get to the point in writing. Plus, it makes it easier to chill about this writing jazz.

Demographic misnomer

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[CONTEXT]

As it turns out, people of my generation should collectively be referred to as "Geezer Boomers."

A new word we might be able to use

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[CONCEITS AND VANITIES]

HIPsight should be a word---a noun---that is shorthand for "something hidden in plain sight" or, alternately, "the quality of being hidden in plain sight". If there were such a word, I might categorize it as an acromanteau, meaning that it is a blending of two words, like a portmanteau, but with one of the words being an acronym or brevity code. As the word first entered limited usage (by HIPsters!), it would be capitalized as it is at the beginning of this paragraph. Mass communication being what it is, I'd expect the spelling to rapidly self-demote to all-lowercase letters, like any other common noun.

I hereby claim the words HIPsight and aromanteau as my personal, original coinages. Likewise, I hereby bequeath these words to humanity for all uses in conversation and other intellectual discourse, but not for trademarking or other commercial use by permission of myself, the creator.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Saturday Evening Prayer Meeting

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[CONCEPTUAL CONTINUITY]

If I posted this previously, then I beg a thousand pardons.



My memory of this song is tied up tight with a single summer day, its weather in particular. Dense overcast, thick air that was almost body temperature; every indication that heavy rain would be encroaching any moment. When Dex Card cued up the song on an otherwise-unmarked-in-my-memory July mid-afternoon, I was undoubtedly "grounded" for some random affront to my mother's authority, and so feeling trapped on the premises. Even though she was at work, the bluff  kept me to within a line of sight on Highland Ave.

I'd surely heard the song before, but the vibe on that day seemed fraught with portent, like the impending storm. The string dissonances in the opening bars are probably not any more avant garde than "Chopsticks," but when the girls started singing, there was something pinched-up about the sound that smelled like trouble to my little shell-like ears. They sounded upset, smoldering in rage even. About to make with the tears just like the sky. I don't remember if it actually rained that afternoon.

Today the weather seemed identical, and so I put on my "7th" iPod playlist while puttering in the weeds and dirt, wondering if the experience might replicate. It did. Mist began condensing out of the clouds about an hour ago. But this time the sky let loose for real while I was composing the previous paragraph. And there's no more sunlight than if it were 8:45 pm (instead of 5:15).

I'm not offering any particular point except that multisensory memory can transport a person out of his current skin, and that in turn can be stimulated by technology with the aim of excavating a stratum of past experience. Why not? Did you do anything more profound than that this afternoon?

Sweet Talkin' Guy, The Chiffons (1966), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.

I think I finally figured out something about blogging

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[CONTEXT]

As I say, I think I finally figured out something about blogging.

Totally impersonal special deliveries

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59er: been the same place everyone else in North America has been---sheltering in my subterranean wallow like a Kronosian Ice Targ. My alternate email address imploded thanks to my ISP's customer service desk. I'll be posting a contact address on the page... sometime.

MAJ Bellows: I apologize for silence. Am very interested to hear about the hypgnosis experiment. This week DK is coming to the Land o' Lincoln and, less pleasantly for citizens of her town, the Land o' US Grant. Too bad there's not time for a side trip to Galena.

Rusty: please check Sluggo's pulse. There's been an unusual lull in the stream of HuffingtonPost links into my email box for a week or two.

Big Oafish: bench in east workshop completely constructed, including trim; awaits finish sanding and sealing. Will fill countersunk screw holes and gaps in trim as practice for rescuing crappy kitchen window casing done by idiot window installer. Bench is simple but quite hefty; weakest thing about it is the wall it's tied in to.

Gurlitzer: I've read that there's a rare, remastered version of Chicago II somewhere in the world. The remaster supposedly adds the fidelity and presence of the great engineering done for the CTA album. Wouldn't it be great to hear Danny Seraphine playing a drumkit instead of Amazon boxes and soup cans?

Marginalia: I'll visit your green and pleasant blog soon. Have wondered if you've been affected by the flooding; afraid I don't know your geography, other than its proximity to Swinging London.

Maybe the anchors on CNN should speculate

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About this observation:

13 years after 9/11 and we're building a giant data center to store all of your sexts, but apparently tracking airplanes is unpossible. 

They'd probably speculate that Atrios hates America.

Finally

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I changed some security settings on the machine several weeks ago, mainly insofar as being much less promiscuous about the cookies I let in. I could write posts but not publish them. Just figured it out a moment ago. So, goody!

Blogger not working for RubberCrutch

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Why?

Terrified plutocrats

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Have you noticed this?

Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality — and simultaneously gives these people great power.

The example many are buzzing about right now is the billionaire investor Tom Perkins, a founding member of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perkins lamented public criticism of the “one percent” — and compared such criticism to Nazi attacks on the Jews, suggesting that we are on the road to another Kristallnacht.

It's the kind of thing that leads a solid citizen like Mr. Perkins to suggest this:

"But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"

Personally, I think that's terrific, sir. Because it means that the worst among us are not happy. It means they're terrified to be alive. Considering the leverage they have to make life miserable for almost everybody in the world, I would hate to see them enjoying themselves too much.

But there's something even more exquisite about this situation than mere, mundane karma. It seems that there's a relatively new meme going around right-wing circles about Obama, the coming Socialist Revolution, and guillotines, such as this (Achtung---very scary site!):

- The use of guillotines for “governmental purposes” was lobbied for and passed in the U.S. Congress

- The information we received is that 15,000 are currently stored in Georgia and 15,000 in Montana

- Are the beheadings by muslims today meant to desensitize us against U.S. Government beheadings in the future?

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. – Revelations 20:4

Interestingly to me, his sort of musing isn't confined to the outermost precincts. Take this for example:

If the Left ever gets the revolution it wants, the owners of multi-million-dollar downtown lofts surely will be among the first to the guillotine. 

Perhaps they will be comforted by the words of Robespierre: “Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.”

Or maybe The Left will figure out that people who hold virtually all wealth and power on the globe are wetting themselves in Terror because they now have the world they've always dreamed of. And that they belong in Arkham Asylum.

More and more, I'm tickled by the idea of a Guillotine Lottery.

Constitution 2.0 beta

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You've probably read about this Job Creator's unprecedented new idea for voting rights: a dollar paid in taxes equals one vote in elections.

I have a counter-proposal, stolen from a blog comments thread (can't remember where): every million dollars buys you a ticket in the guillotine lottery.

Exécution de Marie Antoinette le 16 Octobre 1793, artist unknown, via WikiMedia Commons.