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Eating Celebrities Alive!

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Topic: Eating Celebrities Alive!
Posted By: Servetus
Subject: Eating Celebrities Alive!
Date Posted: 09 January 2007 at 10:43am

To tell you just how vulgar American popular culture has become and how difficult it can be for one to be shielded from it, I was recently forcing myself to listen to one of those syndicated, corporate FM radio shows in which talking and (fake-)laughing heads, otherwise known as show �hosts,� were evidently amusing their audience -with the exception, in this case, of at least one- with Howard Stern-inspired forays into mere fetishism, scatology and incest.  I will spare you the details, but it was pure filth.  What�s more, it was offered to Americans during the busiest period of the day, when people are commuting to and from school and work, and was thus guaranteed an audience.  We are repeatedly told that they (the promoters) are �pushing the envelope� and are thereby protecting our �free speech� rights, but I think they are, to use the expression, spitting on our back and calling it rain and are deliberately corrupting the morals of especially the youth.  I don�t think that pornography should be altogether outlawed but neither do I think that it should be perpetually and publicly broadcast to twelve-year-olds in the form of so-called �entertainment.�   

 

One of our American forefathers, the amazing if imperfect Thomas Jefferson, had this grand idea that, by now, Americans would be public-schooled in the Classics and that America, the shining beacon upon the hill, would be a moral and intellectual improvement upon the great Greco-Roman Republics of times past.  Instead, what it seems to me we are witnessing is a potentially universal return not only to empire (think Nero gone global) and its attendant cult of State-worship -that is to say, worship of the State- but also a rise, with a vengeance, of the basest and vilest forms of paganism -a return, in the main and the public domain, to mono-syllabic grunts.  Apollo is losing to Dionysus.

 

Just imagine.  What a different place this America would be if, instead of constantly pushing the �free speech� envelope with pornography, the talking and laughing heads of this country would instead give us public readings of, say, politically revolutionary and �heretical� ideas, including from our own problematic countrymen and women, and real news from, say, Afghanistan, or even New York.  Hey!  Broadcast this!

 

During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, one observer, while noting the increase in her fame and fortune, commented that the wages of sin, in that case, were �high� (instead of �death,� as the Bible says).  At times I have thought, in contrast to the trials of Socrates and again with Thomas Jefferson in mind, that we seem to have arrived at the point where he or she who is willing to contribute the most to the corruption of in this case primarily American youth is not forced to drink hemlock, as Socrates was, but rather is given celebrity status and is hired to host nationally-syndicated radio and television programs.

 

Here, then, is a case in point (and please do note the $ figures):

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16539806/

 

Serv




Replies:
Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 11 January 2007 at 11:10am

Q:  If you [Servetus] despise America so much, why don�t you just go home?

 

A:  Because I am home, working on home improvement projects.

 

__________________________________________

 

Well, I�m not exactly home at the moment.  I just had to venture out to the mega grocery store and had to walk through that cultural mine field which is otherwise known as the check-out line.  In the words of Ignatius Reiley (Confederacy of Dunces), what an egregious affront to good taste and decency that place is!  Speaking again of mines, I think I might have detonated one and have yet to fully recover.  I might be burning with fever and hallucinating, but �

 

Have you ever noticed that there doesn�t seem to be a grocery store in the entire union that doesn�t sublet its most highly-prized piece of real-estate, the area right there at the check-out stand, to the publishers of tabloids, the soft-core pornographers and the cannibalistic marketers of (visual) celebrity carrion?  Every single magazine, or periodical, on that stand is a reminder to primarily American women of their weight and thus of their physical inadequacy.  The ever-liberating and liberated Cosmopolitan unknowingly (I suspect) and rather funnily parodied itself with a caption �Sexiest thing to do after Sex� and even the otherwise innocuous Reader�s Digest is all weight and diet obsessed.  Ok, America, answer this: how many pounds (or kilos) did Oprah Winfrey lose last week and is one of those two girls with three names, Mary, Kate and Ashley suffering from an eating disorder or once again strung out on blow (cocaine)?

 

What is even more disgusting and therefore in a way attractive, the appeal, after all, of a carnival side-show, and forget the mystery celebrity cellulite guest on the cover which is a mere enticement to look into the paper, is National Enquirer�s gratuitous cover photograph of, among others, the dangerously suctioned, or liposucked, Star Jones.  Thanks for that tasty morsel, National Enquirer (and God help those people who want off that treadmill to find a graceful way off)!

 

Compare, for instance, People (or what I more accurately call Peeple) magazine to National Enquirer.  People, as I see it, of course, and maybe only until I recover from my present condition, essentially promotes the cults of youth (Adonis) and beauty (Aphrodite).  In it, between its covers, those primarily (and, in the end, as we shall see, pitiable) Hollywood clones, or dupes, who have lined up, in mass, to reduce themselves, at a sizeable price and salary, to being little more than life-support systems for porcelain (capped teeth) and silicone (enhanced breasts) are all aglow in the spotlight, all glorious and glamorous in the particulars and held up as models to be emulated.  But notice later, that night, after the party, under the ubiquitous, watchful telephoto lens, or eye, of National Enquirer, those same aspiring idols, on their way down from the altar, are publicly stripped of their fa�ade and are fed, as either live prey or carrion, to the American masses -myself in this case included- who might otherwise prefer to ignore the photographs (but don�t, and instead actually pull my 3.5-strength magnifying reading glasses out for a better look at the details) were they not quite so strategically placed right there at the grocery store check-out line.

 

Now, then, we see People magazine and National Enquirer together, as they are.  They work as two hands of the same cultural (and tutelary) demigod (so to speak).  I am reminded of the old Biblical proverb, but its meaning in this case becomes a bit inverted: with one hand he giveth and with the other he taketh away.� 

 

Signed:

 

The (maybe fever-stricken) Serv, arguably on the mend 

 

_____________________________

Support our troops (dismiss their Commander in Chief)!




Posted By: ummziba
Date Posted: 11 January 2007 at 1:48pm

Mr. Servetus,

I am enjoying your rant? on the cultural septic tank you are living in.  As a Canadian I'm afraid I live in a cultural garbage heap right next to a septic tank.  Glad to see some observations (not political) that highlight the depths of degradation we are all fast tumbling in to.

I often shake my head in utter disbelief at how far our North American culture has nose dived in such quick and incredibly disgusting ways.  When I was a child, only one child in my classroom had a working mother (and we all felt sorry and embarrassed for her).  Almost everyone went to (some sort of) church on Sundays.  Females wore dresses.  Males wore hats.  Adults were addressed as Mr., Mrs. or Miss something or other.  Kids played for hours each day outside, without any toys (or technological gadgets), and with out fear from strangers (for the most part). 

I could go on and on but to me it just seems that, well, I know it wasn't perfect at all back then, but compared to today, it was almost a paradise....

Really, I am so sick of seeing teenage (and younger) girls pubic bones I could hurl.  No morals, no ethics, no responsibility for one's own actions.  Seems to me the parents of the last few generations have really failed miserably at their jobs.  Today's kids (and I've worked with plenty of them to know) don't care for anything but their own self gratification.  Sad.

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant along with you.  Do keep it up, I'm enjoying it very much.  Thanks.

Peace, ummziba.



-------------
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words...they break my soul ~


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 12 January 2007 at 9:47am

Thank you for identifying, contributing to, and encouraging me in my fever-induced rant, Ummziba.  And yes, a rant it most certainly is.  Everyone is invited to join in, but I especially encourage my Canadian (and Mexican) partners in free trade to sit with us here for a picnic of slickly-packaged corn-syrup solids and phosphates, in acid rain-drenched northern forests, to compare observations, notes, recipes, and the small print on the �contents� label of mega grocery store-bought food.

 

Meanwhile, speaking of acid, or at least of acerbity, across the Atlantic to our right, from the once Great and sovereign Britain, come yet more strains of cultural discontent and yet another rant from the witty, wondrous, if at times arguably off-key and pugnacious Peter Hitchens (not to be confused in this case with his more notorious neo-con and therefore persona non grata brother, Christopher).  He writes, of Great Britain, and apparently, according to his Introduction, loses some friends in the process:

 

�A clear pattern can be seen in each of these [obscenity] trials, that of an [liberal] establishment anxious to relax the rules, sometimes obstructed by the old-fashioned views of Sir Basil Blackwell, of David Sheppard and of middle-class jurors, or of judges brought up in a different tradition.  There is also a struggle evident between common sense, which is almost always conservative, and the desire of the elite to spread its own ideas to the masses.

 

The battle may have been fought over a few books and over the censorship of stage plays � but of course the effects were hugely increased when television, radio and the cinema realized that the restraints were off.  Nakedness, explicit portrayals of the sex act, liberal use of swear-words, �frank� and �non-judgemental� depictions of drug-taking, homosexuality and prostitution were at first tentative, but quickly became so commonplace that they ceased to count as news.  Only a few years before, wondering foreigners such as George Mikes had recounted the repression and restraint of the British, laughing that while other men had mistresses, the British had hot-water bottles, while their wives sheltered from the cold in nightgowns made of tweed.  Now the entire country seemed to be obsessed with staring at naked female chests, swearing and making dirty jokes.  Like the pagans of old, unaffected by climate, the British were now dancing round a giant phallus.  Unlike the pagans theirs was a sterile phallus, disarmed by condoms and pills � the first heathen sexual cult to be based around sterility rather than fertility.

 

 

Serv

 

Ref:  Hitchens, Peter, The Abolition of Britain: from Winston Churchill to Princess Diana, Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2000, ISBN 1-893554-18-X, pp. 218-219



Posted By: mariyah
Date Posted: 12 January 2007 at 5:37pm

Asalaamu alaikum:

I totally agree with you!

Hmm, time to compost this heap and grow something new. Time to flush this toilet of filth as portrayed by promiscuity and disrespect. I almost fell over the other day when a teacher of a kindergarten class told the five year olds in her class visiting as an adult care center to address the matron (a 90 year old retired professor) by her first name. Yet the nursing staff were told to address this early twentysomething teacher as "Mrs,-----. Not unless she addresses the lady in the wheelchair properly first. I told this woman this also, and she was to address me as Mrs Ruiz and not my first name.

She was speechless.

I was working as a temp. but will not tolerate this indignity to my patients.

My children would have been grounded for a month for behaviour such as hers.

What would you do?



-------------
"Every good deed is charity whether you come to your brother's assistance or just greet him with a smile.


Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 13 January 2007 at 1:39am
Serv, watch it, you don't want to end up the same way as your name
sake, do you? Mind you, if we all keep going on this eco-unfriendly
decadent downward slide, there won't be any green branches to
place beneath you!

Here in Spain the press and media have been howling about school
bullying, not a new phenomena, but a new buzzword. Children in
state schools treat their teachers the same way they treat their
colleagues: bullying and physically abusing them as the mood
strikes. This total breakdown in the chain of authority is just another
example of the decadence Servetus' rant talks about. Today, children
do not respect their elders neither do they perceive any authority.

Often, the parents of a child who has been punished in school for
misbehaviour or bullying, will attack the teacher too! With examples
like this, what do we expect of our youth?

The problem has begun a debate at parliament level of how to tackle
the generalised feeling of loss of civility in society and a new subject
has been introduced into the (sadly inadequate) Spanish curriculum:
Civil Behaviour. An appointed group of 'specialists' gathered
throughout the summer to devise the curriculum of this new subject.
But in the end, most realise that school can not be an isolated island
of good behaviour when outside, the examples of good and civil
society are almost totally absent: violence incorporated into most
games (especially video/electronic), and one of the highest rates of
gender related violence (more than 68 women died at the hands of
their 'husbands' ex-husbands, or ex-boyfriends or even current
companions last year) and a laissez-faire feeling of 'anything goes',
so long as they don't catch you (no pasa nada si no te cogen- with
apologies to Argentinian readers!).

Spain's gossip industry is probably the most vibrant in Europe with
endless TV programmes related to 'la prensa rosa', which involve
secretly filming public personalities in compromising behaviour,
discussing it endlessly and implicating innocent relatives/friends/
colleagues in scandalous behaviour, in short: the ever popular
human activity of building up idols in order to trash them and drag
them naked and humiliated through the streets where the people
who used to buy their records/watch their movies/read their books
jeer and spit at them ... These programmes invariably have the same
format: participating gossip queens (of both sexes) shouting each
other down and disagreeing on vital points such as who kissed who
first. The spectacle, Serve, is like the National Enquirer style rags you
mention, in motion.

This decadence in society I believe began in the post-1960s when
Victorian attitudes and practises towards sex were totally broken
down, followed by the 'liberation' of women (only to become
enslaved by the workplace) and the pressure of the liberated market
to remove women from their traditional roles through economic
pressure: how many stable married couples do you know where one
of them can afford to remain at home? Nowadays our behaviour is
governed by the simple question; can we afford it?

The decade of the 80s saw the rise of Greed as a respectable goal
and means in itself, establishing itself as an acceptable 'asset' to
success. The decade of the 90s: the search for meaning in a life we
had intentionally or unintentionally, proven meaningless and almost
totally 'devalued'.

The Brave New Century, so far, is turning out exactly as one should
expect after so long dismantling the building blocks of decent civil
society: utter decadence, wars, economic disruption and civil unrest.
And not necessarily in that order ...


Posted By: Sign*Reader
Date Posted: 13 January 2007 at 12:32pm
Duende
Senior Member
Senior Member
Here goes my move plan to Spain down the drain!




-------------
Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction.


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 15 January 2007 at 5:41pm

I am a clich�!  I am now bemoaning the loss of the very walls I spent most of my early adult life (naturally in the ultra-hip underground) tearing down.

 

I realized this weekend, when I saw the audience at a Lawrence Welk television program -a repeat of a program originally broadcast in the �70�s- that, in spite of how wholesome everyone appeared, I probably wouldn�t like to live life in an orange leisure-suit dancing a perpetual polka either.  There has to be a happy medium somewhere between Lawrence Welk and Cannibal Corpse and I intend to find it!

 

At any rate, good points, Maryah, and thanks for the �heads up,� Duende.  This time around I have absolutely no intention of carrying on a too lively or stubborn correspondence with John Calvin!

 

Signed:

Miguel Serveto II (aka Serv)

________________________________

 

The fiercest defenders of the facial veil are Hollywood celebrities (immediately after their plastic surgery and before their bruises have healed).  



Posted By: Patty
Date Posted: 16 January 2007 at 6:14am

My husband and I couldn't agree with  you more, Servetus.  All you write about is so.  This is one reason we cherish our lives deep in the Maine woods, with a small village two miles away.  People here are considered old-fashioned and geeks.  Well, we don't care.  We watch mostly documentaries which we order from Netflix.com, and when we do watch tv it's the History Channel, Discovery, The Learning Channel, Science Channel, and of course my husband being a lover of racing, watches ESPN.  Children in Maine are for the most part quite different from kids in metropolitan areas.  They are taught the beauty of classical music, Shakespeare, the classics, and also the value of hard work!  It's not unusual to see 18 and 19 year old kids who have already mastered the art and very difficult work of being a lobersterman, and they own they Dad's "old" lobsterboat.  The Dad buys a newer one and the son makes payments to the father on the older boat.  I'm not saying Maine is perfect, but it's a far sight better than most of the other states in the US, as far as morals and ethics go.

We, in many, many instances, have the ACLU to thank for the rubbish which is now so freely available on talk radio and television.  "Freedom of speech", remember?  Girls in junior high permitted to have an abortion and/or birth control (boys too) without parental knowledge or consent....thanks to the ACLU!  And yes, Hollywood....determined to create inferiority complexes in perfectly normal women who weight over 120 lbs.  My husband's younger cousin is dying now from anorexia.  She never was obese, but decided she was too "fat" to go on a trip to Ireland.  Now she's a walking skeleton, and we know one day she will just collapse and that will be it!  She must not weight 80 lbs. 

I read book which are mainly about, well, Maine.  I love to read history books.  I like the classics, such as Jane Eyre and The Girl with the Pearl Earring.  I laughed until I couldn't breath reading "Marley and Me", by John Groghan.  Marley being a neurotic but loveable yellow Lab who caused so many unusual and extremely hysterically funny situations in their family.  My wonderful husband is a brilliant artist, and as such, I have learned to enjoy the world of art.  My favorite artist (next to my husband) is Johann Vermeer, one of the great Dutch Masters. 

I guess my question is this.....why in the name of all that is sacred, decent, and good have so many seemingly normal people strayed from what they certainly must know to be right (we nearly all have a well formed conscience) and learned to embrace and actually prefer this garbage, this world of vomit, as opposed to the multitude of excellent hobbies, adventures, intelligently decent topics in whic they could choose to partake?  I certainly don't get it!!  I am so happy that you brought it up.  It's not confined only to the US.....this devient behavior is spreading everywhere, don't you think?  What is causing human beings to become so disturbingly abnormal?

Great topic, Servie.

 



-------------
Patty

I don't know what the future holds....but I know who holds the future.


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 16 January 2007 at 1:48pm

Thanks for posting, Patty (and, again, everyone is welcome),

 

You wrote:
What is causing human beings to become so disturbingly abnormal?

 

I am not sure that a human descent into raw animality is an abnormality, but, to keep things lively, I am going to suggest that one possibility is this: a breach in the wall, or the barrier, which separates us from Gog and Magog.  That�s right.  Fr Thomas Michel, S.J., (link provided below) writes this about the remarkable if nevertheless infinitely arguable conclusions of Sheikh Bedi�zzaman Said Nursi (of Turkey):  

 

�Said Nursi {foresaw} two great threats to religion, two currents of unbelief represented by the evil figures of Sufyan and Dajjal. The first, that of Sufyan, will seek to destroy the shari�a of Muhammad and will be defeated by the Mahdi from the family of the Prophet. The second, represented by Dajjal, will promote naturalist and materialist philosophy and lead to the total denial of God. Both will work through secret societies to subvert God�s reign over human hearts and eliminate the element of the sacred in social life.  It is against this second current which the true, purified Christianity, which comprises the collective personality of Jesus, will emerge [sic]. The true Christianity will reject superstition and distortion and be in unity with Islamic teachings. In effect, wrote Said Nursi, �Christianity will be transformed into a sort of Islam.��

  

Now, back even more specifically to my theme of a return to (the undesirable parts of) paganism in late Western civilization, to those who argue that because the West (generally) is technologically and scientifically advanced it must therefore be a strong, vibrant and growing civilization, the great historian at Chatham House, Arnold J. Toynbee, said this, rather early in the last century (and please note the last sentence):

 

�The radiation of any civilization may be analysed into three elements �economic, political and cultural- and, so long as a society is in a state of growth, all three elements seem to be radiated with equal power or, to speak in human rather than physical terms, to exercise an equal charm.  But, as soon as the civilization has ceased to grow, the charm of its culture evaporates.  Its powers of economic and political radiation may, and indeed probably will, continue to grow faster than ever, for a successful cultivation of the pseudo-religions of Mammon {money?} and Mars {war?} and Moloch {totalitarianism?} is eminently characteristic of broken-down civilizations ...�     

 

Mr. Toynbee also quotes W. R. Inge as saying: �Ancient civilizations were destroyed by imported barbarians; we breed our own.�

 

Serv

 

Ref:          http://www.sjweb.info/dialogo/index.htm - http://www.sjweb.info/dialogo/index.htm

Toynbee, Arnold J., A Study of History, Abridgement of Vol I-VI, D.C. Somervell, Oxford University Press, New York & London, 1962, p. 405



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 23 January 2007 at 12:31pm

I wonder if our benevolent cultural high priests of Bacchus (the so-called Roman god, small 'g', of drunkenness and orgies), priests otherwise known as the producers and promoters of M-TV, plan to bring us circus-goers (Super Bowl XLI watchers) and genuflectors to gladiators (sports worshippers) yet another barely disguised ritual in commemoration of their tutelary deity during the spectacles of half-time this year?

If anyone doubts that Bacchus is one of the presiding �geniuses� of this and many other public events, let him or her explain why it is that, at the mega grocery store I just now left (and yes, as a matter of fact, I did have to go through the check-out line and learn about Jessica getting thin for her new man and those other three celebrities having -the headlines scream- a Body Crisis!), the Madison Avenue marketing wonks had decided to create a rather impressive in-store display.  In it, a giant HDTV, highly coveted in its own right, of course, is surrounded by a jagged mountain of strategically placed 12-packs of beer.  All the while, the big screen replays in glorious color the highlights of past games.  I didn't make the association between the coliseum, booze and blood.  They did.   At any rate, I stared transfixed.

I can�t wait!  I�m all ready!  Bring on the spectacle.  �Janet Jackson,� said one of the high priests of M-TV, referring in turn to one of his most willing devotees, �got nasty.�

No kidding!  (This said in my best Jim Rome SportsTalk voice!)

Serv




Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 26 January 2007 at 11:12am

�� When the Bonnie and Clyde star [Faye Dunaway] appeared as a dishevelled, bespectacled woman with bad teeth in March 2005 [bottom photograph], fans were shocked to see how she had been affected by the ravages of time ...�

Servie�s response (in blue):  Yes!  The ravages of time are shocking and, in a properly superficial society, we should all be absolutely protected from having to be reminded of not only our own but other peoples� mortality!

�� So it should come as little surprise that not long after this picture was taken, the 65-year-old appears to have swapped her crooked smile for a set of glossy pearly-whites �.�

It doesn�t come as a surprise.  You�re right.  And she did it all for us (her fans)!  Thank you, Faye Dunaway.

Signed:

Me, Servie, a formerly shocked fan

Ref: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showb iznews.html?in_article_id=416022&in_page_id=1773

 



Posted By: ummziba
Date Posted: 26 January 2007 at 1:15pm

Mr. Servetus,

Please do spare yourself a complete and utter, over the edge nervous breakdown ~ do not, I repeat, do not watch any "award shows", you know, the Oscars et. al.  where we get to see who is the "best in the world" in so many categories.  Really, sir, the silicone, botox, porcelain caps, hair extensions, latest arm/eye candy dates/mates, etc. might just drive you competely over the edge.

Not that there is anything else less "oh how I wish I hadn't seen that" junk on the tube!  Shall we toast (with water of course) all the lovely wrinkled, greying, authentic old folks out there...(this old grey mare included)?

Peace, ummziba.



-------------
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words...they break my soul ~


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 26 January 2007 at 2:41pm

Yes, Ummziba, a toast with water, and thanks for your concern, but I can assure you that I went over the edge plenty of times.  Way over the edge.

 

Speaking of that one-eyed monster, television, it was my calculated misfortune to have let my shield (against cultural barbarity and disingenuousness) drop just recently and stand within earshot of our chief Imam, George W. Bush�s televised State of the Union Address.  Actually, I only had to suffer through two brief moments of that indignity because most of the time I had my stereo headphones on and was listening to good bluegrass music from Kentucky.   

 

Anyway, these are the two excerpts, or sound bytes, I heard.

Sound byte One:

�American foreign policy is more than a matter of war and diplomacy. Our work in the world is also based on a timeless truth: To whom much is given, much is required ��

Servie bytes back: It might sound like the old concept of noblesse oblige, or the obligations of nobility, but this is a paraphrase of Jesus in St. Luke�s Gospel (12:48) and I hate it when my religion is hijacked, or at least commandeered, by evidently lapsed Methodists on a rampage (even if he is stating it in terms of American contributions to worldwide AIDS relief).

Sound byte Two:

�After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children's videos in her basement. The Baby Einstein Company was born, and in just five years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales �.�

Servie bytes back:  Now that�s more like it!  I love rags to riches and millionaire stories!  They make us all proud.  Where�s Howie Mandel because I, for one, definitely want to deal!

I certainly am glad that President Bush did not follow this above success story with that rather annoying quotation, or reminder, from St. Matthew�s Gospel (19:24) about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man [or woman] to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Fortunately, that one doesn�t even play in Peoria anymore!

Ok, let�s dish and see if Spanish t.v. might not sign us to an exclusive contract!

Serv

__________________

"And on the rulers turned I my back, when I saw what they now call ruling: to traffic and bargain for power�with the rabble!"  (F. Nietzsche)



Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 26 January 2007 at 11:49pm
Send a proposal Servetus. You never know.

But truthfully, the American political scene is viewed with rather less
interest over here, than a thriving petri dish. And understood far
less.

We have our own home grown problems, such as did the ex-Mayor
of Marbella send his ex-wife 90,000 euros from a secret bank
account in Gibraltar while canoodling with our most famous folk
chanteuse?

This is the stuff that keeps us awake at nights. That's if we bother
going to bed at all. Madrid has traffic jams at 3.30 in the morning:
when the bars, clubs, discos empty themselves of the night's first
batch of revellers. The 'second coming' commences around that hour
on an ordinary spring/summer night and the traffic is the result of us
all deciding where to go next and more importantly, where to park?

I think the percentage of Spaniards who actually watch TV is smaller
than the number who miraculously, spontaneously know the inner
dealings of the latest gossip theme and discuss it over morning
coffee.


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 10:18am

The last time that I was in Spain, somewhere between Barcelona and Ibiza, I was such an avid bacchante (disciple of Bacchus) that I don�t even hardly remember being there.

 

But still, I did have time to immerse myself in the culture.  In the early �30�s of the last century, it might be worth noting, Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote (originally in Spanish):

 

�The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace {shall we say vulgar?} mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will ... it has come about that for the first time the European understands American life which was to him before an enigma and a mystery.  There is no question, then, of an influence, which indeed would be a little strange, would be, in fact, a �refluence,� but of something which is still less suspected, namely, of a leveling ...�

 

Spot on, Senor Ortega y Gasset, you got that one right!  Speaking of leveling and of low common denominators, I just now noticed that right there, at the check-out line in the mega grocery store, the headline of the Spanish-language version of National Enquirer, known as Mira!, had this peculiar but nevertheless highly familiar headline (with photographs, of course) and I hope I am remembering it correctly:

 

Mira!  {Look!}  Defectos de los famosos! {Defects of the celebrities, or the famous!}

 

Of course I ignored that particular photograph of the ever-present if involuntary celebrant of celebrity cellulite, Mariah Carey in the upper-right corner, but, quite frankly, almost lost my cookies (or biscuits) when I was forced to notice that inordinately large �shall we say, rather, deformed- toe on someone�s (famous somewhere in Latin America) right foot!  It's, like, how gross, como disgusto, or, as they say in Ecuador (I'm told), como atatay!

 

Serv

 

Ref:  Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, London, 1932, ISBN 0-393-31095-7, pp. 18-26



Posted By: hat2010
Date Posted: 30 January 2007 at 5:57am
�� When the Bonnie and Clyde star [Faye Dunaway] appeared as a
dishevelled, bespectacled woman with bad teeth in March 2005 [bottom
photograph], fans were shocked to see how she had been affected by the
ravages of time ...�

Not as shocked as I am to find myself hopelessly turned on by the bad
teeth picture. Maybe that's why I chose this medieval city to live in - a
predilection for crumbling rather than embalming.

Shucks. Wish I also had a great author to quote to flesh out the above.

How about this?

"Whitey likes the Anaheim Chiles...go figure!" - Maria Conception Jacinta
Dominguez Ortega, or as we like to call her, Mama.

JamJam (I'm told)

ref: Ortega (Mama), Help from Mama, B&G Foods in Parsippany, New
Jersey, 1850, reprinted and refried in 2007.


Posted By: hat2010
Date Posted: 30 January 2007 at 6:02am
My dead hero Harry Partch just called to say check out his

"Revelation in the Courthouse Park"

says it's actually related to your OP somehow.


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 12:52pm

In which we ask the burning questions, JamJam, if Mama Ortega (op cit) has an inordinately, well, grande {big} toe and if her relationship to Senor Ortega y Gasset is at all comparable to that of, say, Mazarine to Fran�ois Mitterrand?

 

All that aside, if I have no intention of carrying on a too lively or stubborn correspondence with John Calvin this time around, I might also mention that, at this point, and based solely upon the titles of his musical pieces -which sound rather too appreciative of Dionysus- I am adding Harry Partch to my own personal Index of (largely) Forbidden Works.  I�ve already seen the cultural results of so-called hymns to Dionysus.  I (think I) recognize the Siren�s song when I hear it.  Most of those hymns might start out as operatic, but, soon enough, they make their descent into those mono-syllabic grunts of raw animality that I referred to in my opening post above.  They also provide the sound-track to such breaches in the wall as, say, the Freaknik in Atlanta, the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, the Mardi Gras in Rio de Janeiro and the Burning Man Festival. 

 

Speaking of barely disguised idolatry (weren�t we, all of us?), I noticed that, on today�s Yahoo home page, one�s attention is drawn to a celebrated if problematic so-called host or judge of well-funded American broadcast idolatry, a show called, accurately enough, �American Idol,� Paula Abdul, and her �bizarre� behavior during recent interviews.

 

I clicked on it and here�s an abbreviated report from Los Angeles (E! Online), in blue, italics added:

 

�Paula Abdul is holding fast to her claim that appearances can be deceiving.�

 

Servie bytes back:  Can�t they though!

 

�The American Idol judge has once again spoken up in her own defense over a series of bizarre interviews she conducted earlier this month in which she appeared, shall we say, confused.�

Confused is putting it, say, nicely (except when you, the author of this report, say it).

�Footage of Abdul's loopy question-and-answer session with a Seattle Fox affiliate was posted on YouTube for those who missed it the first time around, leading to rampant speculation over whether the "Forever Your Girl" singer was drunk or on drugs at the time of the interview.�

Thanks for leading us into rampant speculation.

�While an audio glitch may explain away Abdul's seemingly nonsensical answers to the interviewer's questions, there's still the matter of her disoriented demeanor and slurred speech, not to mention her apparent inability to sit still.�

Well, I, for one, am fidgeting on the edge of my seat waiting for all of these outstanding matters to be finally and satisfactorily resolved.  Then and only then can our glorious public celebrations of idolatry proceed apace and as usual. 

Serv

Ref:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20070130/en_celeb_eo/0d7b65d 8_c38a4a27_95fe_728bd1935d77



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 01 February 2007 at 5:40pm

If my guard is up and Harry Partch is at least initially, until further notice, on my personal Index of (largely) Forbidden Works, I must say that the (Apollonian) Laurie Andersen still is not.  In one of her more sparse and strange tracks, which is saying a lot for a master of strangeness and cerebral performance art, the title track of her 1994 release, Bright Red, she finishes with a reading from the Douay-Reims Version of Prophet Isaiah�s prophecy concerning the �burden of Babylon� -that is to say, with a prophecy against Babylon.  I am not meaning to, in a legal sense, �lead the witness� here, but this is a portion of the prophecy and my (artistic and seriously under-funded) impression of how it could, repeat could, be interpreted.

 

But wild beasts shall rest there �and the hairy ones shall dance there � And owls shall answer one another there �and sirens in the temples of pleasure.� (13:21-22)

 

But wild beasts shall rest there ��

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull

 

� and the hairy ones shall dance there ��

(Warning: disturbing, or at least seriously disturbed, images:)

  http://www.amazon.com/Cannibal-Corpse/artist/B000APEB6E - http://www.amazon.com/Cannibal-Corpse/artist/B000APEB6E

 

� � And owls shall answer one another there ��

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly

 

�� and sirens in the temples of pleasure.�

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2953665.stm - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2953665.stm

 

 

Serv



Posted By: ops154
Date Posted: 03 February 2007 at 8:55am
Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:

To tell you just how vulgar American popular culture has become and how difficult it can be for one to be shielded from it, I was recently forcing myself to listen to one of those syndicated, corporate FM radio shows in which talking and (fake-)laughing heads, otherwise known as show �hosts,� were evidently amusing their audience -with the exception, in this case, of at least one- with Howard Stern-inspired forays into mere fetishism, scatology and incest.  I will spare you the details, but it was pure filth.  What�s more, it was offered to Americans during the busiest period of the day, when people are commuting to and from school and work, and was thus guaranteed an audience.  We are repeatedly told that they (the promoters) are �pushing the envelope� and are thereby protecting our �free speech� rights, but I think they are, to use the expression, spitting on our back and calling it rain and are deliberately corrupting the morals of especially the youth.  I don�t think that pornography should be altogether outlawed but neither do I think that it should be perpetually and publicly broadcast to twelve-year-olds in the form of so-called �entertainment.�   

One of our American forefathers, the amazing if imperfect Thomas Jefferson, had this grand idea that, by now, Americans would be public-schooled in the Classics and that America, the shining beacon upon the hill, would be a moral and intellectual improvement upon the great Greco-Roman Republics of times past.  Instead, what it seems to me we are witnessing is a potentially universal return not only to empire (think Nero gone global) and its attendant cult of State-worship -that is to say, worship of the State- but also a rise, with a vengeance, of the basest and vilest forms of paganism -a return, in the main and the public domain, to mono-syllabic grunts.  Apollo is losing to Dionysus.

Just imagine.  What a different place this America would be if, instead of constantly pushing the �free speech� envelope with pornography, the talking and laughing heads of this country would instead give us public readings of, say, politically revolutionary and �heretical� ideas, including from our own problematic countrymen and women, and real news from, say, Afghanistan, or even New York.  Hey!  Broadcast this!

During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, one observer, while noting the increase in her fame and fortune, commented that the wages of sin, in that case, were �high� (instead of �death,� as the Bible says).  At times I have thought, in contrast to the trials of Socrates and again with Thomas Jefferson in mind, that we seem to have arrived at the point where he or she who is willing to contribute the most to the corruption of in this case primarily American youth is not forced to drink hemlock, as Socrates was, but rather is given celebrity status and is hired to host nationally-syndicated radio and television programs.

Here, then, is a case in point (and please do note the $ figures):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16539806/

Serv

You believe in god don't you? If you do then you will realize that he gave you two hands and you could easily change the station. I know that seems complicated and it is much easier to come here and tell everyone how bad the country that you live in is but really just because you don't like something doesn't mean someone else doens't. You are just like so many on this site that says "America pushs it will on everyone" and then you turn around and want to push YOUR will on everyone else. CHANGE THE STATION if you don't like what you hear.



-------------
Get it through your heads that I don't support Bush or the Israeli's! Thank your lucky stars for America is here to stay!!!


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 05 February 2007 at 10:05am

Ops,

You wrote:
You {Servetus} believe in god don't you?

Yes.  But I do not believe in the predominating cultural deities mentioned and identified by name in my above posts.  It might, just might, be because I believe in God that I feel this atavistic -or at least decidedly anachronistic-impulsion to rail against idolatry, including some of its current cultural forms.

Quote:
If you do then you will realize that he gave you two hands and you could easily change the station.

So tell me, with this rather peculiar spot of logic on your part, how it is that, with the two hands that God gave me, I can change the station and prevent my children or those in my charge from listening to this garbage when they are not with me?  Are you  listening to Cannibal Corpse?  Well, even if you aren�t listening, a whole lot of children are.

For that matter, how might I walk through the check-out line of the grocery store without having my attention drawn to Mariah Carey�s cellulite?  I wouldn�t mind strapping on a pair of horse blinders but I already get enough unwanted attention from my benumbed and conformist countrymen and women as it is.

Quote:
I know that seems complicated �

Ok, smarty pants, if it shouldn�t be complicated for one to change the station and thus prevent one's 12-year-old child from listening to Howard Stern-inspired forays into scatology and incest (when the kid is on the school bus, on his way to school) then please tell one how to do it.  I had considered becoming Amish but even they sing along to Madonna.

Let me ask you: have you ever immersed yourself into the, well, for lack of a better word, �music� of Cannibal Corpse?  Click on the above-provided link and read.   One of their songs, entitled Kill Christians, or some such thing, would be a reference to, among many others, my saintly mother.

Quote:
� and it is much easier to come here and tell everyone how bad the country that you live in is �

Read again, and pay attention his time.

Quote:
 but really just because you don't like something doesn't mean someone else doens't.

No kidding, Ops? 

Quote:
You are just like so many on this site that says "America pushs it will on everyone" and then you turn around and want to push YOUR will on everyone else.

I am not.  I am absolutely unique.  In fact, I insist upon my uniqueness.  To my view, you are the one who, at least in this case, is entirely but still rather endearingly predictable.  (And, speaking of unique, my new porcelain caps from an inexpensive dentist in Mexico make me look fabulous!)        

Quote:
CHANGE THE STATION if you don't like what you hear.

How does one change the station that one's child is listening to?  That is the question.  Answer that.  Think about this, and let it sink in.  One of the things that I either like or dislike about America, I cannot decide because it involves the freedoms that President Bush says the terrorists hate us for, is when my eleven-year-old daughter comes home from school singing along to Snoop Dog�s �Doggy Style� and looking like Justin Timberlake just caused her wardrobe to malfunction.

When your time comes, and if you do try to �change that station,� I should be interested to know just how you manage it.  Meanwhile, and as I said, I am home, working on home improvement projects -DIY- and am expressing my displeasure.  If you don�t like my rant, you know what you can do:  change the station.

But thank you for contributing to my blog anyway, because it bumps it up and keeps it gloriously active!

Best regards,

Serv



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 5:22am

Hi Serv

one foreword, I have two kids, now 14 and 18 years old and I`m living alone with my kids for the last 6 years. So ... I think I know a little bit something about, how to react and how to work with kids.

 I think the main question is not what type of music they are listening or movie in TV or cinema ... think the main point, what`s going on at home. Think my kids learned that what ever happens outside our small family, the family situation ist stable. That is a daily ritual, to have a common breakfast, when they are coming from school, to have lunch (NO fastfood!) and to have a comon dinner together. To give room for discussions, to comfort them if necessary ... of cause to have fun with them ... In the end, to show them your way of life. It is extersive and when you finished one day ... the other will start in same way, but feed them with your love and confidence, than ... maybe ... the "arrow" will fly in that direction you would prefere. But if you feed them with distrust, with prohibition ... you can be sure, that the "arrow" will go in a direction, you do not like at all.

 It`s not the music ... it`s not a movie, not even wrong friends ... it`s up to you and your attitude to give the arrow the right or wrong direction.



Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 8:09am

Serv, I am really 'feeling' your pain during this rant and the bits of good advice you're getting are at least keeping us afloat in the cultural toilet ...(not sure how appropriate that is, given the matter!)

But it was strange to find Ops reappearing after so long without a peep out of him on subjects more weighty than the assaults on one's  spiritual wellbeing at the check out. Standing up for American subcultures must be his most recent promotion. Down from raging against Whisper's more intellectually/politically challenging posts. At least he's realised his intellectual capacity is more suited to discussions of cellulite and the contents of the swirling garbage Americans take as 'culture', than defending the honour of his flag or whatever it is he does. 

Generally, I would advise 'channel changing' by moving somewhere where the assaults on your existential wellbeing are easier to control than through Ops' suggestion of flicking a switch. In other words, if you don't like it where you are: leave.

Of course, moving is one of the most stressfull things you can put yourself through, and then, believe it or not, you'd still suffer from 'culture shock', despite despising the culture you've just left!

 

Suffice to say, Miguelito, if you ever feel the urge to rediscover the roots in the land of Cervantes, we would love to have you!



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 8:24am

Hi Wafi (and welcome to the discussions from me, a non-Muslim guest),

You wrote:
one foreword, I have two kids, now 14 and 18 years old and I`m living alone with my kids for the last 6 years. So ... I think I know a little bit something about, how to react and how to work with kids.

You undoubtedly do.  And thank you for contributing to this thread.

Quote:
I think the main question is not what type of music they are listening or movie in TV or cinema ... think the main point, what`s going on at home.

I must respectfully disagree.  What is going on at home, at least in plenty of American homes, is this:  Child A is downloading hatecore music to his I-pod; Child B is learning to be a car thief by playing Grand Theft Auto in the basement or alternately being nursed on the regurgitations of South Park; and Child C, if, in this era of zero-population growth, there happens to actually be a Child C, is, please excuse the colloquialism, hanging out with his �Goth� friends, learning Enochian sex magik rituals from a spin-off band of the Insane Clown Posse and engraving an inverted pentagram with a broken coke bottle into his forehead.

Where are the parents?  Good question.  The mother is reading the ever-liberated and liberating Cosmopolitan, formulating career strategies and making sure her legs look good whilst climbing the corporate ladder and the father is generally, well, absent (or, in many case, unknown).  Perhaps this picture is a bit bleak, but caricatures, as I�ve learned from Jon Stewart and Comedy Central, are sometimes considerably more effective than mere statements of the facts. 

Quote:
Think my kids learned that what ever happens outside our small family, the family situation ist stable.

It is how to maintain the stability of the family in circumstances such as the one I describe above that is, to my mind, a large part of the issue.

Quote:
That is a daily ritual, to have a common breakfast, when they are coming from school, to have lunch (NO fastfood!) and to have a comon dinner together. To give room for discussions, to comfort them if necessary ... of cause to have fun with them ... In the end, to show them your way of life.

I hope that you receive only the best in return for your commendable efforts, Wafi.   

Quote:
But if you feed them with distrust, with prohibition ... you can be sure, that the "arrow" will go in a direction, you do not like at all.

Are you suggesting that I simply learn to embrace the deliberate blasphemies of Cannibal Corpse and the hate messages of Brutal Attack?  Should one simply be passively content to let the culture go swirling off and down the toilet as it will?  Be assured that I do know what prohibitions are: I was sent to a strict, boarding, parochial school when I was a boy, and I still managed to follow the pied pipers of (drug) culture out into the vast meadows and  wastelands and there I remained for decades.     

Quote:
It`s not the music ... it`s not a movie, not even wrong friends ... it`s up to you and your attitude to give the arrow the right or wrong direction.

I don�t deny that my attitude toward anything is of paramount importance, but, again, if I am hearing you correctly, are you suggesting that my attitude vis-�-vis what I consider to be the at times deliberate corruption of American youth by the marketeers and main stream media should be one of acquiescence, toleration and acceptance?

Serv


 



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 9:22am

Duende,

You wrote:
Serv, I am really 'feeling' your pain during this rant �

It�s funny you should mention that, because yesterday I almost included that phrase, �feel my pain,� in my post to Ops.

Quote:
� on subjects more weighty than the assaults on one's  spiritual wellbeing at the check out.

     

Quote:
... In other words, if you don't like it where you are: leave.

For the most part, and though I suffer from wanderlust from having already traveled much of the planet, I do like where I am and most of the people I care about the most are here.  I think, at the moment, I am just trying, in my own imperfect way, to be one of these:

http://store.greenfeet.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5501-02014-0000&WT.mc_id=NexTag5501-02014-0000 - http://store.greenfeet.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5501-02014-0000&a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;WT.mc_id=NexTag5501-02014-0000

Quote:
Suffice to say, Miguelito, if you ever feel the urge to rediscover the roots in the land of Cervantes, we would love to have you!

Gracias, hermana, y yo agvadesco hamabilidad!  (I hope I said that right.) 

Serveto


 



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 9:49am

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


I must respectfully disagree.  What is going on at home, at least in plenty of American homes, is this:  Child A is downloading .........

Where are the parents?  Good question.  The mother is reading the ever-liberated and liberating Cosmopolitan, formulating career strategies and making sure her legs look good whilst climbing the corporate ladder and the father is generally, well, absent (or, in many case, unknown). 

I think that`s the point. Ok .. also in Germany a father alone with two kids is not normal today ... but it works fine. Of cause I have to do my job and sometimes it`s hard between preparing stowage of heavy lift cargo on vessels (that`s basicly what I`m doing as engineer), housekeeping, cooking .... to find enough time for kids and ... last but not least, for myselfe, BUT it was my decition to have kids and it`s my responsibility to do all efforts to ensure that these kids can grow up and to find their way. Think it`s true that a lot of parents do not do their job ... but it`s not the point to blame society or whatever ... it`s up to everybody to change it, simply in his own life.  And really nobody can tell me, that due job or whatever it could not be possible to take his/her responsebility for the kids.


Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


It is how to maintain the stability of the family in circumstances such as the one I describe above that is, to my mind, a large part of the issue.

 Well, of cause, but as said, the only way is to live it. Circumstances might be worst, but even under worst circumstances different ways are possible. I.e. friends of my kids are nearly daily here at our home. I know that some of them have parents who do not look after their kids, TV is on the whole day, or I-pod .... whatever. I don`t care. When they are here, it`s ok, of cause sometimes they are playing with the st**id playstation, but most of the time they are playing soccer or they are sailing with my son`s boat (of cause not now...) or repairing their bicycles, whatever ... Even the worst kids are fine, when they are here, but they need to have possibilities i.e. tools for building something, repairing or whatever and the freedom to make failures. And even the worst kids, they are accepting limits here. Maybe I look sometimes angry   but normaly I do not have to forbid anything.

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


Are you suggesting that I simply learn to embrace the deliberate blasphemies of Cannibal Corpse and the hate messages of Brutal Attack?  Should one simply be passively content to let the culture go swirling off and down the toilet as it will?  Be assured that I do know what prohibitions are: I was sent to a strict, boarding, parochial school when I was a boy, and I still managed to follow the pied pipers of (drug) culture out into the vast meadows and  wastelands and there I remained for decades.

hm ... what I`m doing is, that I take my kids with me to concerts of music I love. I.e. Jethro Tull or, last year a Doors festival (of cause not the original ones ... would be impossible). On the other hand, if I want to listen to my music, I normaly have to look into the rooms of my kids ...

 And, one of my hobby is motorbiking, so of cause my son is sitting aft of me while my daughter now is driving her own motorbike and of cause we`re going to motorbike parties  together. Btw. I show my daughter how to maintain the bike ... but it`s her job to do it at her bike.

 I try to show them as many possibilities as possible and they met �Rocker�, freaks, seamen, Anarchists, �high society� ... �normal� people ... of cause we discussed about drugs, sex and prevention etc ... main point is, if you know the �enemy� you can deal with it, if you just ignore ... *****will happen.     

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


I don�t deny that my attitude toward anything is of paramount importance, but, again, if I am hearing you correctly, are you suggesting that my attitude vis-�-vis what I consider to be the at times deliberate corruption of American youth by the marketeers and main stream media should be one of acquiescence, toleration and acceptance?

Serv

That`s a good point, but the problem is not to tolerate or to accept the way of life-style given by society. The only problem is to find your own way and to follow your way. I`m pretty sure that the problems in the States are similar to Germany and I do not see any movement in the moment to change the society to a better way with more freedom and personel responsibility. In fact, I feel, that we`re just going the other way  with more stringency, more social controll systems ... but, this systems will fail and they do it just right now.

 Maybe I`m an old, long-haired hippie ;-) ...  imagine all the people, living for today ;-)



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 11:55am

Wafi,

Please don�t take me too seriously because sometimes, as I said, I dramatize just to make a point and I don�t really even have a twelve-year-old daughter (I just sometimes wish I did).

You wrote:
I think that`s the point ...

I think that is only part of the point.  The fact remains that, even in those homes where the parents are fully present and are focusing upon their children and their well being, Children A, B, and C are still quite often engaged in those activities.

Quote:
BUT it was my decition to have kids and it`s my responsibility to do all efforts to ensure that these kids can grow up and to find their way.

Exactly.

Quote:
Think it`s true that a lot of parents do not do their job ... but it`s not the point to blame society or whatever ...

I am not suggesting that society, as a whole, be blamed.  But if in this particular instance I shouldn�t point to the promoters of the pornographic radio program I referred to as being complicit in the corruption of American youth (their primary target audience), to whom should I point?  Except for the fact that I forced myself to suffer through it (by listening), I had absolutely nothing to do with it.        

Quote:
it`s up to everybody to change it, simply in his own life.

I agree.

I wrote:
... It is how to maintain the stability of the family in circumstances such as the one I describe above that is, to my mind, a large part of the issue.

You wrote:
Well, of cause, but as said, the only way is to live it. Circumstances might be worst, but even under worst circumstances different ways are possible. I.e. friends of my kids are nearly daily here at our home. I know that some of them have parents who do not look after their kids, TV is on the whole day, or I-pod .... whatever. I don`t care ...

Well, you just might start caring if and when one of those I-pod children starts carving an inverted pentagram into his forehead (not meaning to sound flippant here).

Quote:
� but normaly I do not have to forbid anything.

Allow me to clarify: is it acceptable to you that, during rush-hour traffic, on the public airways, so-called shock jocks (radio hosts) be allowed to �entertain� children by broadcasting dramatizations of extreme (sado/masochistic) fetishism (involving feces)?   

Quote:
hm ... what I`m doing is, that I take my kids with me to concerts of music I love. I.e. Jethro Tull or, last year a Doors festival (of cause not the original ones ... would be impossible). On the other hand, if I want to listen to my music, I normaly have to look into the rooms of my kids ...

Wafi, you�re great and immensely likeable.  One of the tracks to this thread, like Apocalypse Now, shall be The Door�s, The End.  Listen to that along with Cannibal Corpse and you�ll start to get my vibe (vibration).   

Quote:
� my main point is, if you know the �enemy� you can deal with it, if you just ignore ... {Stuff} will happen.

On this point, we both quite agree. 

I wrote:
� are you suggesting that my attitude vis-�-vis what I consider to be the at times deliberate corruption of American youth by the marketeers and main stream media should be one of acquiescence, toleration and acceptance?

You wrote:
That`s a good point, but the problem is not to tolerate or to accept the way of life-style given by society.  The only problem is to find your own way to to follow your way ...

So, if I correctly understand, you are suggesting that one should just find and follow one�s way and inure oneself to the fact that well-paid pornographers are polluting the public airways (and thus my at least theoretical childrens' minds) with filth? 

You wrote:
I`m pretty sure that the problems in the States are similar to Germany and I do not see any movement in the moment to change the society to a better way with more freedom and personel responsibility. In fact, I feel, that we`re just going the other way  with more stringency, more social controll systems ...

I did say that it�s too bad that �pushing the envelope� for free speech is so often misconstrued as the exclusive rights of pornographers to peddle their wares to whomsoever they will.  There are times when, it seems to me, the notorious �decadence� of pre-War Berlin seem to pale in comparison to that found here.  I hope the Fascists, for instance, don�t make a come back, even though those on the far Right (political wing) of America are the ones who often raise the most noise against the stuff I mention.  

Quote:
Maybe I`m an old, long-haired hippie ;-) ...  imagine all the people, living for today ;-)

I think, like many hippies before they abandoned their principles for their careers and their teepees for townhouses, you�re just a bit idealistic, or optimistic.  But that�s ok with me.

Best regards,

Serv



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 1:07pm

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


Wafi,

Please don�t take me too seriously because sometimes, as I said, I dramatize just to make a point and I don�t really even have a twelve-year-old daughter (I just sometimes wish I did).

You see, that`s maybe the difference .. I normaly take everybody seriouse. That`s the reason I do not have seriouse problems with the kids

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


I am not suggesting that society, as a whole, be blamed.  But if in this particular instance I shouldn�t point to the promoters of the pornographic radio program I referred to as being complicit in the corruption of American youth (their primary target audience), to whom should I point?  Except for the fact that I forced myself to suffer through it (by listening), I had absolutely nothing to do with it.        

I don`t agree. It`s up to you to listen .. and it`s up to the kids to listen. But I think in general, as far as I can read in newspaper, but also what I learned during several stays in the US, there might be a society problem with sexuality at all in the US. I.e. Clinton and Monica ... hm.. in Europe this story might be in some newspapers a couple of days, but impeachment ???? Why?  A man and a woman , that`s the story,  end of the story. So what? Nobody would care about it, their problem. Both were old enough to decide what they want to do. On the other hand, thinking of Columbine, the moral in regards of rifles are totaly different. For us, as European, it is not normal to have a rifle or pistol, 


Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


Well, you just might start caring if and when one of those I-pod children starts carving an inverted pentagram into his forehead (not meaning to sound flippant here).

I think I understand ... but, as far as I can see, this young people have no ideals and are searching for a way, for a comunity ... to feel not alone. Maybe they find a religion or gothics or a fascistic group ... but reason is, not to be alone and to find a meaning for their life. I know ... a lot of readers will not agree with religion in same sentence than fasistic ... but please appologise, I think the reason for each group is not to feel alone and may be people find in a religion a feeling good for them. But ... we also have to realize that this group can bring violance to others, like i.e. OBL.

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


Allow me to clarify: is it acceptable to you that, during rush-hour traffic, on the public airways, so-called shock jocks (radio hosts) be allowed to �entertain� children by broadcasting dramatizations of extreme (sado/masochistic) fetishism (involving feces)? 

Well, I don`t like it either, but I`m able to switch off. There might be an audience otherwise this would be stopped.  Again it`s a question of how people are living together. Might be not the best way. Change it!

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


So, if I correctly understand, you are suggesting that one should just find and follow one�s way and inure oneself to the fact that well-paid pornographers are polluting the public airways (and thus my at least theoretical childrens' minds) with filth? 

 No, not inure. Switch off. I.e. .... I`m the terriblest customer of local hardware store, because I normaly switch off the TV`s telling what I have to buy ... One time the manager was a little bit angry .. I told him, hey guy two possibilities, I buy my stuff here without the bloody TV`s or I buy my stuff in an other store ... since that time he accepted ... not really, because they made some covers on the switch off buttom, I don`t care, so I plug off the electricity ;-)

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


I did say that it�s too bad that �pushing the envelope� for free speech is so often misconstrued as the exclusive rights of pornographers to peddle their wares to whomsoever they will.  There are times when, it seems to me, the notorious �decadence� of pre-War Berlin seem to pale in comparison to that found here.  I hope the Fascists, for instance, don�t make a come back, even though those on the far Right (political wing) of America are the ones who often raise the most noise against the stuff I mention.  

 agree, as I wrote in an other thread here ... freddom of speech is not equal to freedom of lies.

Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:


I think, like many hippies before they abandoned their principles for their careers and their teepees for townhouses, you�re just a bit idealistic, or optimistic.  But that�s ok with me.

Best regards,

Serv

 Well, I`m a relalist, so I`m trying to do the impossible.

 But you`re right, a lot of old �hippies� ... they are only dreaming about an other life, but doing nothing to realize it.

 

best regards

Peter



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 3:38pm

Peter (Wafi),

I said that about my, or "one's," twelve-year-old daughter so that I could more effectively make my Snoop Dog comment.  Poetic license.

I wrote:
I am not suggesting that society, as a whole, be blamed.  But if in this particular instance I shouldn�t point to the promoters of the pornographic radio program I referred to as being complicit in the corruption of American youth (their primary target audience), to whom should I point?  Except for the fact that I forced myself to suffer through it (by listening), I had absolutely nothing to do with it.
        

You responded:
I don`t agree. It`s up to you to listen .. and it`s up to the kids to listen.

And we should all wallow in pornographic puke together?

Quote (you):
But I think in general, as far as I can read in newspaper, but also what I learned during several stays in the US, there might be a society problem with sexuality at all in the US.

There is a problem with sexuality in the US!  Among other things, pornographers are polluting our public airwaves.

Quote:
I.e. Clinton and Monica ... hm.. in Europe this story might be in some newspapers a couple of days, but impeachment ???? Why?  A man and a woman , that`s the story,  end of the story. So what? Nobody would care about it, their problem.

Agreed.

Quote:
� On the other hand, thinking of Columbine, the moral in regards of rifles are totaly different. For us, as European, it is not normal to have a rifle or pistol �

Look behind the rifles at Columbine and you might find Cannibal Corpse or one of its spawn.  And, evidently, at least in Italy, the trend is catching on:

�Many of the new wave of Satanists in Italy indulge in a potentially lethal blend of black magic, hard drugs, sex and heavy metal music. One recent murder case that dominated the headlines was the so-called "Beasts of Satan" trial of a group who bludgeoned two of their members before burying them alive in woods near Milan ��

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/07/wdevil07.xml - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01 /07/wdevil07.xml

I wrote:
Well, you just might start caring if and when one of those I-pod children starts carving an inverted pentagram into his forehead (not meaning to sound flippant here).

You responded:
I think I understand ... but, as far as I can see, this young people have no ideals and are searching for a way, for a comunity ... to feel not alone.

In Italy, they�re calling upon the services of the exorcists.

Quote (you):
I know ... a lot of readers will not agree with religion in same sentence than fasistic ... but please appologise, I think the reason for each group is not to feel alone and may be people find in a religion a feeling good for them. But ... we also have to realize that this group can bring violance to others, like i.e. OBL.

I don�t have a problem with your equating some forms of religion with certain other forms of fascism, etc.  I am not arguing my case from a religious standpoint, necessarily.

I wrote:
Allow me to clarify: is it acceptable to you that, during rush-hour traffic, on the public airways, so-called shock jocks (radio hosts) be allowed to �entertain� children by broadcasting dramatizations of extreme (sado/masochistic) fetishism (involving feces)?

You responded:
Well, I don`t like it either, but I`m able to switch off.

Thank you for not liking it either.   

Quote (you):
There might be an audience otherwise this would be stopped.

Of course there is an audience.  Have you ever known a twelve-year-old child who is not interested in sex and sexuality, especially when it is mixed with extreme violence and taboo?  Howard Stern himself has apparently decided to circumvent the few restrictions of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) by finding a new sponsor in Sirius (the Dog Star) Satellite Radio, Inc., but his many aspiring clones remain behind, on the public airwaves, giving it their so called best.

I wrote:
So, if I correctly understand, you are suggesting that one should just find and follow one�s way and inure oneself to the fact that well-paid pornographers are polluting the public airways (and thus my at least theoretical childrens' minds) with filth?
 

You responded:
 No, not inure. Switch off.

I�ve already dealt with, or answered this suggestion to �switch off� in my response to Ops above.  My position has not considerably changed since that post. I wish I could just switch off what my young nephew is listening to. 

Quote (you):
I.e. .... I`m the terriblest customer of local hardware store, because I normaly switch off the TV`s telling what I have to buy ... One time the manager was a little bit angry .. I told him, hey guy two possibilities, I buy my stuff here without the bloody TV`s or I buy my stuff in an other store ... since that time he accepted ... not really, because they made some covers on the switch off buttom, I don`t care, so I plug off the electricity ;-)

Carry on, mate.  The people have the power (and all that).

Quote:
agree, as I wrote in an other thread here ... freddom of speech is not equal to freedom of lies.

Here in Oceania, as Orwell said, or at least might have said, children get fed pornography and we get freedom of lies and disinfotainment (disinformation mixed with entertainment) and, of course: Truth Equals Treason. 

I enjoy talking to you.

Best regards,

Serv



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 06 February 2007 at 11:48pm

Hi Serv,

if I would not enjoy to discuss with you, I would not do it

I think you are mixing up problems without looking to the fundamental problem in the background. When you are talking about pronographic, sex and drugs, no rock`n roll  but satanism than this is of cause the result of a missleaded education. To discuss this matter, I have a small problem to do that on an islamic webside, because the background of my critic is also touching maybe islamic feelings. So please appologize, I do not want to argue against islam, I only want to show my point of view.

 Ok, let`s start. One of human fundaments is sexuality, otherwise I`m sure, this board would not exist. Sexual attitudes were always based in the past on the social structures of the society. Wield power on sexuality was a factor of power in all structures.

 Today`s situation in Europe and the US is, that the social structures are more or less destroyed. Family, if existing, is only a very small community, due to job etc ... family structures with grandpa or grandma ... etc, is more or less not existing any more. We are living in an individualistic world. This fact is creating several problems. Social control is going to zero, an individualistic world ask for individual responsibility, same time the rulers realize that they are loosing their power and instead of power to rulers, companies, who do not care about social life, got the power. This effect creates a countermovement of people, willing to have social control. One point this countermovement realized is the sexual power and i.e. virginity is one point of propaganda of this countermovement. This movement based on more or less dogmatic christians (but also islamists) are trying to state sexuality as evil. Results as a 4 year old kid, touching  a nursery teacher is not allowed to go in the kindergarden any more due sexual harassment or a teacher, fired out of his job, due to the fact that a part of a men`s body was drawn to the table during sex education ... showing a deep disability to realize that sexuality is just nature. Of course such countermovement creates also a countermovement ... just in the opposite way. Due to morbid fundamentalist moral on the one side, sexuality with same morbid character is used by different groups, like your Satanists, but I would also say like in many movies and of course in the pornographic industry. Both sides are growing and btw. I`m getting app. 80 e-mails per day, stating to buy viagra or enlarge it ... whatever ... I`m not amoused of this, you can believe.

 What to do? I do not really know. For myselfe and my kids I decided to go the individual way with own responsibility and own decitions. Sexuality is normal in our family, that means we are discussing whatever one is interesting to discuss. I`m pretty sure that my kids have their own secrets, so what, if they want to discuss, they are welcome. But to go the individual way with own responsibility is, I think a hard way to go.

 The easier way, to have social limits, propaganded by some Christians or by the Islam, means in the end to turn back the wheel of history. Life in the US or in Europe as known in the moment could not exist any longer, because to turn back, means to install again family structures as we had, that means i.e. no change of living place due another job etc. All what`s necessary to live in this kind of industrial society would have to be changed.

 The problem today is, that our way of industrial society have to find answers to social questions. I.e. my parants are living 600km from my hometown. They are now 73 years old. In the moment everything is fine, but I really have no idea to handle my life if one of them would be seriousely sick. 

Btw. I think this guys called Taliban or OBL ... they realized very well the western problem and their answer was a more fundamentalistic way of their religion. And ... it`s like a joke ... in principle their ideas are very close to ideas of GWB.  

 

best regards

Peter

 

Edit: I changed some wordings today.



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 07 February 2007 at 4:50pm

Hi Peter,

 

Let us take a momentary break and depersonalize the discussion somewhat.  I shall, at this point, interject a portion of a book from one of the USA�s more outspoken and controversial Constitutional lawyers (on the political far Right), Robert H. Bork.  Please understand that I am not quoting him because I invariably agree with him, but so that you and others might enjoy hearing at least a sound byte or two of the public debate as it rages, or, I should more accurately say, swirls here in the States.  I will skip about, a bit, rather like playing a random selection on an I-pod.

 

Dr. Bork writes, in a chapter entitled �The Case for Censorship:�

 

�� The alternative to censorship, legal and moral, will be a brutalized and chaotic culture, with all that that entails for our society, economy, politics, and physical safety ��

 

�� in a republican form of government where the people rule, it is crucial that the character of the citizenry not be debased ��

 

�We tend to think of virtue as a personal matter, each of us to choose which virtues to practice or not practice � the privatization of morality, or, if you will the �pursuit of happiness,� as each of us defines happiness.  But only a public morality, in which trust, truth-telling, and self-control are prominent features, can long sustain a decent social order and hence a stable and just democratic order.  If the social order continues to unravel, we may respond with a more authoritarian [totalitarian?] government that is capable of providing at least personal safety.�

 

�The second bit of advice [often given by others] ��If it offends you, don�t buy it� �is both lulling and destructive.  Whether you buy it or not, you will be greatly affected by those who do.  The aesthetic and moral environment in which you and your family live will be coarsened and degraded.�

 

�� the founders of liberalism [e.g,, Rousseau, Voltaire, Hume, Madison, et. al.] were wrong.  Unconstrained human nature will seek degeneracy often enough to create a disorderly, hedonistic, and dangerous society.  Modern liberalism and [American] popular culture are creating that society.�

 

Serv

 

Ref:

Bork, Robert H., Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Modern Liberalism and American Decline, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York, NY, 1996, ISBN 0-06-039163-4, pp. 140-153


Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 12:54am

Okidok, let`s depersonalize the discussion. Think in Mr. Bork`s statement there are several things to discuss ... i.e. what`s moral? what`s ethik? I will leave this discussion out and only to look for the consequenzes for a society. (I`m only an engineer ... and they always are first looking to consequenzes)

What Mr. Bork said means as consequenz that you need a very strong goverment, with very powerfull methods of restriction and of cause powerfull way`s of controll systems. I only have to look app. 15 years back and 150km to the east ... and I saw a very strong goverment, with very powerfull restrictions and controll systems ... I`m just writing about formal DDR or let`s call East Germany. What was the sucsess of this country? It broke down.

One can discuss the political circumstances after WWII and to realize that starting position was different to West Germany ... but after �buying� the former DDR we had to realize that the people in former DDR were unflexible and without visions of what would be possible or how to create new ideas. Only a very small number of inhabitants of former DDR were really creative. They simply did not learn to look for other ways, testing new ideas, accepting also failures. The �strong� society was everywhere, checking everything and trying to bring new ideas, ended more or less mostly in society structures without any effect.
 Take a look around you to societies which are very strict, look to Afghanistan, take a look to China etc .. You will find everywhere same situation, in restricted societies innovations, technical sience are extremly seldom. On the other hand, look to the US or look to old Europe, you find a lot of creative ideas, technical progress.
 One can discuss the reason, I would say, that due to the fact that in a more or less free society it`s more difficult to survive and to find a place in this society, so it needs more input by everybody. If you`ve been told how to think, how to live ... why you should be creative to look for new ideas? In worst case you�ll be punished, think of Gallileo etc.
 In the end, progress needs a more or less free society.
 As stated, this free society did not find an answer up to now, how to proceed as society for the people. Individualimn has also, next to progress, a dekadent aspect. But as learned looking into the history, the �strong� society maybe has more moral ... but on the other side stopping progress. Look again to China, 15 years ago, more or less an agriculture country, opend a little bit the way of living and exploded to an industrial country.
 Of cause ... one have to discuss the problems of energy and ecology to ensure living in the future, but again, to find solutions, you need creative thinking people, trying to go other way`s, failing and winning. This is only possible in a free society.

 But ... today, we have the way back to a restricted society by the rulers. No, I don`t mean GWB or Cheney or Merkel, I mean Exxon, Microsoft, BP, Thyssen etc...  The new god they made is called Certifications with ISO 9000ff, HSE, ISM, ISPS ....  result ... now again personal ... I should work on a transportation concept for one Global Player ... I`ve got a CD Rom full of statements and power point presentations. I looked yesterday 4 hours into that matter, but I could not even find the datas of the cargo to be transorted, no length, width, heights or weights .... but hundrets of pages defining quality-, health and enviromental requirements  etc
 but, as said nothing fundamental about what they want to transport. That`s the effect of retapism in a nice controlled company without people who even do not know what they are doing, but knowing nothing of course certified!
 No, Mr Bork try to find a simple solution for a complex system. That`s his general failure.
 
 But even if I did not want to discuss moral and ethic I have to write a little bit to this  statement: �The alternative to censorship, legal and moral, will be a brutalized and chaotic culture� It is a matter of fact that restrictions in Europe are much less than in the States. We do not have death penality, our justice system is focused on rehabilitation and not only to punish, we have less restrictions for people coming to visit Europe, even less restrictions to live in Europe as in the States. We have in fact less robbery, less murders, less crime at all as in the States and of cause less censorship and less restrictions. Following Mr. Bork, that would not be possible. Due to the fact that this is reality, Mr. Bork must be, simple to say, wrong with his analyse.

 

Peter

 



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 11:11am

Hi Peter,

You wrote:
I think you {Servetus} are mixing up problems without looking to the fundamental problem in the background.

Maybe so.  I think that the situation is at best complex and I am trying to keep my hands on both of the bull�s horns.  As I said above (page 1, second post), though, it is also entirely possible that I am still in a fever-induced hallucination.  

Quote:
When you are talking about pronographic, sex and drugs, no rock`n roll  but satanism than this is of cause the result of a missleaded education.

I am interested.  In what way can it be said that, for example, Aleister Crowley and Rudolf von Sebottendorf were wrongly or improperly educated?   

Quote:
To discuss this matter, I have a small problem to do that on an islamic webside, because the background of my critic is also touching maybe islamic feelings. So please appologize, I do not want to argue against islam, I only want to show my point of view.

I appreciate your good manners. In deference to our Muslim hosts and fellow participants, it is advisable that we keep the discussion within proper guidelines.  Provided that things are said with decorum, tact and a certain amount of diplomacy, I have found few things that the Muslims are incapable of tolerating.  Muslims are full, if at times seemingly beleaguered, citizens of America too and I started this thread for them as well.    

Quote:
Ok, let`s start. One of human fundaments is sexuality, otherwise I`m sure, this board would not exist.

Exactly.

Quote:
Sexual attitudes were always based in the past on the social structures of the society. Wield power on sexuality was a factor of power in all structures.

Agreed, in principle.

Quote:
Today`s situation in Europe and the US is, that the social structures are more or less destroyed. Family, if existing, is only a very small community, due to job etc ... family structures with grandpa or grandma ... etc, is more or less not existing any more ...

And soon enough, with an eye toward Aldous Huxley, we shall all be hatched from the Human Genome Project�s fetal factory.  �Oh brave new world, that has such people in�t.�

Quote:
We are living in an individualistic world.

In a very general sense, what America does today, Europe will do tomorrow.  Individualism can also be said to be, in its more unappealing forms, mere selfishness, atomization and isolation.  Marilyn Manson, one of America�s more dubious cultural gifts to the world, as I understand, took his name from a combination, a potent symbolical amalgamation, of the archetypal �rugged individualist� gone awry, Charles Manson, and the sacrificial �goddess,� Marilyn Monroe.  I think the message is that, if you leave John Wayne out in the desert too long, he becomes Charles Manson.

Quote:
This fact is creating several problems. Social control is going to zero, an individualistic world ask for individual responsibility �

I don�t mean to seem to interrupt but it helps me to parse things, or ideas, into their constituent parts.  I would say that, with social self-control going to zero and with an increasingly debased citizenry fed on pornography and propaganda, the American Republic, already making a grab at universal empire (on the old Roman model) could well make a descent either into anarchy or authoritarianism.

Quote:
� same time the rulers realize that they are loosing their power and instead of power to rulers, companies, who do not care about social life, got the power.

Good point.  Nationalism is pass�.

Quote:
This effect creates a countermovement of people, willing to have social control. One point this countermovement realized is the sexual power and i.e. virginity is one point of propaganda of this countermovement ...

Well, if Karl Marx claimed that religion is the opiate of the masses, one might say that religion (especially its Western forms) has also been its chastity belt.  What�s wrong with that?  Although it�s been awhile since I read him, and his theories have been left to atrophy in the face of the more evidently efficacious Prozacian and Xanaxian therapies, Sigmund Freud argued that culture and civilization are the actual consequences (or results) of repressed and sublimated libido.  Get rid of repression, the argument seems to go, and say goodbye to civilization.  I think (and the Muslims can help me here) that there is a hadith, or saying of Muhammad, that predicts that, in the final analysis, and toward the culmination of the Age or era, the Muslims will follow the Christians (West?) even into a lizard�s hole and that humans will copulate like donkeys in the street (pornography?).      

Quote:
This movement based on more or less dogmatic christians (but also islamists) are trying to state sexuality as evil.

One notes that, from a Western standpoint, Islam changes over the centuries.  In times past, the West could point to Islam, especially its allowance of polygyny, as a religion best left to libertines and voluptuaries.  Now, these days, as the need arises, it can be conjoined with Christianity as repressive and restrictive.  Have you noticed that?

I might also mention that I have never known even dogmatic Christians who are stating that sexuality qua [as] sexuality is evil.  The early Christians left the orgies and vomitoria (vomitoriums?) of pagan Rome for the sanctity of monogamous marriage.  They did and do recognize the sacred nature of sex.  Not only was marriage elevated to the level of a sacrament but it is the metaphor for the relationship of Christ to his Church.      

Quote:
Results as a 4 year old kid, touching  a nursery teacher is not allowed to go in the kindergarden any more due sexual harassment or a teacher, fired out of his job, due to the fact that a part of a men`s body was drawn to the table during sex education ...

This seems to me more a general reaction to what is the apparent rise in the institutional �abuse� of children.  Some cultures even in liberated, post-Christian Europe remain a bit squeamish about that issue.  Soon enough, and as things either progress or digress, take a card, one might expect that the �unspeakable vice of the Greeks,� that is to say, pederasty, shall become the basis of a new familial modality.  �Oh brave new world, that has such people in�t.�     

Quote:
The easier way, to have social limits, propaganded by some Christians or by the Islam, means in the end to turn back the wheel of history. Life in the US or in Europe as known in the moment could not exist any longer, because to turn back �

My point is and has been that the wheel, or, to use Arnold J. Toynbee�s image, the juggernaut of history is already turning backward: and what we are seeing is what he called, using the Biblical phrase, a �vain repetition of the Gentiles,� a return to (or, rather, a recrudescence of) ancient, pagan norms.  �We too are hyperboreans,� Nietzsche says, in his anti-Christian polemic, AntiChrist, and harkens back to a Classical Europe, scrubbed clean of its Christian and thus of its Semitic corruption.  To my view, then, it is the pagans and the neo-pagans who are the recidivists.  The new generation of hyperboreans -the nihilist children of Nietzsche- are on the rise and Italy is calling upon the services of the exorcists. 

Quote:
Btw. I think this guys called Taliban or OBL ... they realized very well the western problem and their answer was a more fundamentalistic way of their religion. And ... it`s like a joke ... in principle their ideas are very close to ideas of GWB.

Excellent point.  We will get back to this later.  In the meantime, you might enjoy this article, as it, in a way, addresses this issue.  It�s entitled �What Osama might have told America:�

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FK02Aa04.html - http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FK02Aa04.html

Best regards,

Serv



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 1:13pm

okidok Sir

it will be not so easy to answer you. Unfortunately I have to ask my dictionary book for some words ... and it`s interesting to try to discuss a little bit more deeper in english language. So, I think you have to wait a little while for an answer from my side. Will be out of the office tomorrow.

 Whatever, if you like, you can have a look on my HP ... http://www.peter-gottwald.de - www.peter-gottwald.de to see what I`m doing, which of cause shows also a little bit the way I have to think. If you see this pictures you will understand that mystic is a little bit out of my experience  

 I never heared about Aleister Crowley, I only red today an article in Wikipedia, which is I think a point to start, but not a real idea what this guy did. I know Rudolf von Sebottendorf, but in my view he is not really interesting in history or even in pilosophie. Think, as far as I understood what happened that time, quite a similar situation as today, people running arround searching for a sence .... trying to find background in mystic, race, because they had to realize that their basics broke down ( at least in WWI ) and they searched for new answers. In this meaning I think he was missleaded.

 But ... my favorit ... is William Godwin

best regards

Peter



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 5:40pm

Hi Peter,

 

Quote:
Unfortunately I have to ask my dictionary book for some words ... and it`s interesting to try to discuss a little bit more deeper in english language.

 

I am glad that it is interesting for you and that you are not easily annoyed.  I, unfortunately for me, cannot even �get by� (to use the Berlitz expression) in German, the native tongue of my paternal great grandfather, so I am glad that you are willing to have such a go here with me in English.

 

Please know also that if I sometimes use unusual words, it is because I write fast, often with a severely limited time at public libraries, and because I try to be as precise in my use of language as is possible (thanks, George Orwell).  Given that you are such an obviously blessed and talented engineer (ref your HP), I suspect that you can appreciate that part of me. 

 

Best regards and happy sailing,

 

Serv



Posted By: Hanan
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 6:10pm
Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:

Hi Peter,

Quote:
Unfortunately I have to ask my dictionary book for some words ... and it`s interesting to try to discuss a little bit more deeper in english language.

I am glad that it is interesting for you and that you are not easily annoyed.  I, unfortunately for me, cannot even �get by� (to use the Berlitz expression) in German, the native tongue of my paternal great grandfather, so I am glad that you are willing to have such a go here with me in English.

Please know also that if I sometimes use unusual words, it is because I write fast, often with a severely limited time at public libraries, and because I try to be as precise in my use of language as is possible (thanks, George Orwell).  Given that you are such an obviously blessed and talented engineer (ref your HP), I suspect that you can appreciate that part of me. 

Best regards and happy sailing,

Serv

 

Dear Servetus, you are one of the nicest people here and I follow yours and Peter's dialogue with great interest. I enjoy your use of words and wish that I could hear you speak. 

Peter, your command of the English language is very good. I hope to read much more from you on this Forum. Are you a "Gr�ner?"

Peace, Hanan



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 10:56pm

Good morning Hanan and Serv

@Serv, does not matter using unusual words. It`s a good trainig for myselfe. As you saw, I`m working in the shipping biz, so in general would say nearly 90% of conversation in my job is based on ... more or less english language. So don`t care, I will figure out, if I do not understand directly.

@Hanan ... Gr�ner ... hm, long story. To shorten it a little bit, I`ve worked in this party some years based on two points, enviromental issues and pacifist issues. The rest, how to get political power, how to distribute power in the party ... were never an issue I was interesting in. I left this party after they stated their ok for military action in Afghanistan. As pacifist I do not believe that you can change anything with violance.

 Think your question was a little bit to which political category I`m belonging. Well ... to name it, might be a problem to understand it, because in "normal" use of this word, it`s used by politicans to bring fear to people. I do not know why, because as anarchist the fundamental basic is that everybody is allowed to believe what he want`s to believe and my personal freedom ends at the freedom of the next. But... as stated, politicans are using anarchy as picture of worst thing which could be happen. May be, they are afraid of loosing their power  

By the way, that`s one point in the Islam which I think is very interesting. More or less decentral organisation, no "leader", no power structure.

Hm ... now I have to go on the highway ... and it`s snowing ...

best regards

Peter



Posted By: Hanan
Date Posted: 09 February 2007 at 5:36am

Hello Peter,

I hope that the snow, and possibly ice underneath it, wasn�t too much of a road hazard, and inshallah you�ll always be safe on the road.

Actually, my question wasn�t so much about your political party affiliation -- I already realized that you�re not a Republican  -- but rather about where you stand on issues such as the environment, civil- and human rights. By your answers you�ve confirmed the �picture� I had of you. I am also a pacifist and environmentalist, and have been involved in the environmental struggle in my part of the world for a long time.

I have never been a paying member of any political party because the old saying about �power corrupts� is true, as we saw with the Gr�ne. When they changed from wool-sweaters to suit and tie, and switched from growing bio-veggies and farm-animals on their properties to becoming political animals, they lost credibility. I support those who respect the environment, and uphold civil- and human rights. I like what you said about �my personal freedom ends at the freedom of the next� and that politicians trying to scare us out of our wits just to stay in power.

Drive safe.

Peace, Hanan



Posted By: wafi
Date Posted: 09 February 2007 at 9:37am

Hanan , I totaly agree what you wrote about "Die Gr�nen" and unfortunately I see no political movement which would be a solution. Today more than 35% do not go to vote any more, because ... it`s an old "sponti speech" if voting would change the world it would be prohibited

So in the end I arrived ... only 300km, but 6 hours to go ... or better to say ... to stop and go

 

best regards

Peter



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 09 February 2007 at 10:01am

Hanan,

 

It�s nice to see you back at your controls (like the voyages of the star ship, Enterprise [the first ship, of course])!  Thank you for your kind words and please join in the discussion. 

 

By the way, Peter, here is a good, working definition of anarchy: �self-control.�  I do sometimes need to exercise a bit more of it myself.  Also, this is the hadith, or saying of Muhammad, that I was trying to recall.  To my view, it is best and arguably read within the context of either the Toynbee or Ortega y Gasset quotations above (page one and two respectively). 

 

Chapter 3: FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE JEWS AND THE CHRISTIANS

Book 034, Number 6448:

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You would tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch and step by step so much so that if they had entered into the hole of the lizard, you would follow them in this also. We said: Allah's Messenger, do you mean Jews and Christians (by your words)" those before you"? He said: Who else (than those two religious groups)?

Source:  http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/034.smt.html - http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim /034.smt.html

 

 

Serv




Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 16 February 2007 at 9:37am

All of my playmates are gone and I am in the sandbox alone, once more, even though I was all geared up and prepared to discuss things ranging from repressed libido to the partitioning of Germany.

 

Now read this!  Speaking of �exporting� American values: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961761/site/newsweek/ - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961761/site/newsweek/

 

I think it is safe to say that plenty of those values managed to be successfully imported to the house of the late Anna Nicole Smith.  I don�t know which was sadder to me, really, the fact of the circumstances of her death or that I learned of it by overhearing two young people in a restaurant laughing about it, as if she was nothing more than a cartoon character.

 

Here is how the Associated Press reported the matter:

Quote:
Anna Nicole Smith, the curvaceous blonde whose life played out as an extraordinary tabloid tale � Playboy centerfold, jeans model, bride of an octogenarian oil tycoon, reality-show subject, tragic mother � died Thursday after collapsing at a hotel. She was 39.

Except for the �tabloid� and �tragic� parts, I should think that all, or at least most of the above is something to which most American girls should be aspiring.  Playboy centerfold, fashion model, billionaire, reality-show subject -wow!- that sounds like the pinnacle.

Quote:
Through the �90s and into the new century, Smith was famous for being famous, a pop-culture punchline because of her up-and-down weight, her Marilyn Monroe looks, her exaggerated curves, her little-girl voice, her ditzy-blonde persona, and her over-the-top revealing outfits.

What�s an over-the-top revealing outfit?

Quote:
�She wanted to be like Marilyn her whole life and ironically died in a similar manner,� Leeds said. Monroe died of a drug overdose at age 36 in 1962.

Enough said.

Serv

ref:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17050167/



Posted By: Al-kafir
Date Posted: 20 February 2007 at 4:11pm
Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:

Q:  If you [Servetus] despise America so much, why don�t you just go home?

A:  Because I am home, working on home improvement projects.

 

__________________________________________

Well, I�m not exactly home at the moment.  I just had to venture out to the mega grocery store and had to walk through that cultural mine field which is otherwise known as the check-out line.  In the words of Ignatius Reiley (Confederacy of Dunces), what an egregious affront to good taste and decency that place is!  Speaking again of mines, I think I might have detonated one and have yet to fully recover.  I might be burning with fever and hallucinating, but �

Have you ever noticed that there doesn�t seem to be a grocery store in the entire union that doesn�t sublet its most highly-prized piece of real-estate, the area right there at the check-out stand, to the publishers of tabloids, the soft-core pornographers and the cannibalistic marketers of (visual) celebrity carrion?  Every single magazine, or periodical, on that stand is a reminder to primarily American women of their weight and thus of their physical inadequacy.  The ever-liberating and liberated Cosmopolitan unknowingly (I suspect) and rather funnily parodied itself with a caption �Sexiest thing to do after Sex� and even the otherwise innocuous Reader�s Digest is all weight and diet obsessed.  Ok, America, answer this: how many pounds (or kilos) did Oprah Winfrey lose last week and is one of those two girls with three names, Mary, Kate and Ashley suffering from an eating disorder or once again strung out on blow (cocaine)?

What is even more disgusting and therefore in a way attractive, the appeal, after all, of a carnival side-show, and forget the mystery celebrity cellulite guest on the cover which is a mere enticement to look into the paper, is National Enquirer�s gratuitous cover photograph of, among others, the dangerously suctioned, or liposucked, Star Jones.  Thanks for that tasty morsel, National Enquirer (and God help those people who want off that treadmill to find a graceful way off)!

Compare, for instance, People (or what I more accurately call Peeple) magazine to National Enquirer.  People, as I see it, of course, and maybe only until I recover from my present condition, essentially promotes the cults of youth (Adonis) and beauty (Aphrodite).  In it, between its covers, those primarily (and, in the end, as we shall see, pitiable) Hollywood clones, or dupes, who have lined up, in mass, to reduce themselves, at a sizeable price and salary, to being little more than life-support systems for porcelain (capped teeth) and silicone (enhanced breasts) are all aglow in the spotlight, all glorious and glamorous in the particulars and held up as models to be emulated.  But notice later, that night, after the party, under the ubiquitous, watchful telephoto lens, or eye, of National Enquirer, those same aspiring idols, on their way down from the altar, are publicly stripped of their fa�ade and are fed, as either live prey or carrion, to the American masses -myself in this case included- who might otherwise prefer to ignore the photographs (but don�t, and instead actually pull my 3.5-strength magnifying reading glasses out for a better look at the details) were they not quite so strategically placed right there at the grocery store check-out line.

Now, then, we see People magazine and National Enquirer together, as they are.  They work as two hands of the same cultural (and tutelary) demigod (so to speak).  I am reminded of the old Biblical proverb, but its meaning in this case becomes a bit inverted: with one hand he giveth and with the other he taketh away.� 

Signed:

The (maybe fever-stricken) Serv, arguably on the mend 

 

_____________________________

Support our troops (dismiss their Commander in Chief)!


Gee whiz. This thread is a veritable potpourri of self haters and mewling malcontents.

 

For the self haters, it�s the cool, pseudo intellectual thing to do nowadays to wring your hands and pay service to the idea that you are consumed with self hate and self pity for yourself and revulsion for your country. More often than not though, the actions of the haters are displayed otherwise in indisputable tones. So we understand. You need to feel accepted - in America, we do it by making friends or being successful, in France they do it by acting depressed and enjoying the company of misery over a Gauloises.  

I�m delighted to report that you are among the smallest minority that shares your self hate, hypocrisy and delusions of adequacy.

 



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 20 February 2007 at 4:44pm

Hi Al-Kafir,

You wrote:
Gee whiz. This thread is a veritable potpourri of self haters and mewling malcontents.

Glad you�re enjoying it and make yourself right at home.  You could have opted for Howard Stern, of course, but you�ve gone lo fi on Radio Free Serv.

Quote:
For the self haters, it�s the cool, pseudo intellectual thing to do nowadays to wring your hands and pay service to the idea that you are consumed with self hate and self pity for yourself and revulsion for your country.

What is pseudo intellectual and shouldn�t it be hyphenated?  I hate Cannibal Corpse.  Got a problem with that �take a hike.  Want to hear more from Robert Bork and others -stick around.

Quote:
More often than not though, the actions of the haters are displayed otherwise in indisputable tones. So we understand.

Who�s the �we?�  Are you the Queen of England?

Quote:
You need to feel accepted � in America, we do it by making friends or being successful �

I know.  I�ve just been reporting on some of those successful people, as did President Bush above.  By the way, has your twelve-year-old daughter been singing Snoop Dog�s �Doggy Style� lately? 

Quote:
� in France they do it by acting depressed and enjoying the company of misery over a Gauloises.

I know.  I had a French girlfriend once.  She always stole my Prozac.

Quote:
I�m delighted to report that you are among the smallest minority that shares your self hate, hypocrisy and delusions of adequacy.

You should consider taking a job with National Enquirer.  Your reports suck.  Please do consider improving them with some photographs of celebrity cellulite.   

Serv



Posted By: Al-kafir
Date Posted: 20 February 2007 at 5:10pm

Quote Glad you�re enjoying it and make yourself right at home.  You could have opted for Howard Stern, of course, but you�ve gone lo fi on Radio Free Serv.

Lo fi and low brow.

Quote What is pseudo intellectual and shouldn�t it be hyphenated?  I hate Cannibal Corpse.  Got a problem with that �take a hike.  Want to hear more from Robert Bork and others -stick around.

You just lost a brilliant opportunity to shut up.

Quote Who�s the �we?�  Are you the Queen of England?

No. But I look absolutely stunning in a clingy red number.

Quote I know.  I�ve just been reporting on some of those successful people.  by the way, has your twelve-year-old daughter been singing Snoop Dog�s �Doggy Style� lately?
 

I shall magnanimously ascribe your boorish behavior and ethical lackings to a cave dwelling childhood rather than deliberate ignorance.

Quote I know.  I had a French girlfriend once.  She always stole my Prozac.

Let's be honest, she was only your girlfriend after the hormone treatments and gender change surgery. 

You should consider taking a job with National Enquirer.  Your reports suck and they don�t even include any photographs of celebrity cellulite.   

Serv

Thanks, but I'd prefer to take advise from thinking humans.
 



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 20 February 2007 at 5:30pm

Al-Kafir wrote:
Lo fi and low brow.

 

Spot on.  Those are my call letters.

 

Quote:
You just lost a brilliant opportunity to shut up.

 

Now see who is being boorish?

 

Quote:
No. But I look absolutely stunning in a clingy red number.

 

And you sound all the better, even charmingly officious, when you speak in the first person, plural, and say �we� instead of �I.� 

 

Quote:
I shall magnanimously ascribe your boorish behavior and ethical lackings to a cave dwelling childhood rather than deliberate ignorance.

 

I appreciate your magnanimity, but you would be better advised to ascribe my boorish behavior to the fact that, as I said in my opening post, I listened to a rather nasty program on f.m. radio and I have yet to fully recover.  It's called life in a swirling, cultural toilet.

 

Quote:
Let's be honest, she was only your girlfriend after the hormone treatments and gender change surgery.

 

Well, I must admit, that did in fact help.

 

Quote:
Thanks, but I'd prefer to take advise from thinking humans.

 

Ouch.  You remind me of my long lost, old friend RuggedTouch.  She had generally bad manners and used great words like �mewling� also.  Have you, by any chance, any extra Prozac?

Serv  



Posted By: hat2010
Date Posted: 21 February 2007 at 2:31am
Peace Serv,
A second amen on the return of Hanan.
And I am sorry for barfing on your thread earlier.

Moving on - the solution in Morocco for dealing with over-the-top violent
porn is to censor it in the major media outlets.
I think when you and your family visit, you'll find it works in a way to your
liking. If one is committed to the hard stuff, it's all here to be found -
like Stork Beer and Meknes wines and huge drug caches - but it's just not
anywhere near the mainstream, and certainly not promoted as a way of
life to kids.

Your commitment to your child (and I'm guessing all children) is inspiring
- one of America's top producers had told me at my graduation from
NYFA that his objective, his dream-goal, was to rid the country of child
abuse (in all it's forms) A student friend piped in, "And to make assloads
of money." He responded, "I don't know anyone whose clearing what I am
in a year with money as their ideal. It's always got to be something
bigger than that."

Hopefully, I've understood the spirit of your original post - if not, my
apologies...

Jam



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 21 February 2007 at 5:34pm

Salaam, Jam,


You wrote:
And I am sorry for barfing on your thread earlier.

 

I am glad that you did.  This, my blog, was made for barfing and other types of purgation. 


Quote:
Moving on - the solution in Morocco for dealing with over-the-top violent porn is to censor it in the major media outlets.

 

I am rather fond of the First Amendment to the Constitution, at least in theory, but do get annoyed when it seems that the only ones �pushing the envelope� in the main-stream media are the well-paid pornographers, including, in this case, the batallions of trash-talking Howard Stern imitators and the record companies behind such stellar acts as Snoop Dog, Cannibal Corpse and (less mainstream now) Brutal Attack and other emerging hatecore.     


Quote:
I think when you and your family visit, you'll find it works in a way to your liking.

 

Shukran, Jam. 

 

Quote:
If one is committed to the hard stuff, it's all here to be found - like Stork Beer and Meknes wines and huge drug caches �

 

Well, I don�t really like CNS-depressants, so much, so that kind of rules out alcohol, but as for some of those huge drug caches (just joking) �

 

Quote:
� - but it's just not anywhere near the mainstream, and certainly not promoted as a way of life to kids.

 

Speaking of promoting things as a way of life to kids, especially, in this case, to young girls, here, in a single instance, is what a group of female correspondents wrote and published in that periodical notoriously dedicated, to steal some poetic expressions, to self-hatred and mewling malcontents, Newsweek:

Newsweek wrote:
Something's in the air, and I wouldn't call it love. Like never before, our kids are being bombarded by images of oversexed, underdressed celebrities who can't seem to step out of a car without displaying their well-waxed {portion deleted} to photographers. Videos like "Girls Gone Wild on Campus Uncensored" bring in an estimated $40 million a year. And if US magazine, which changed the rules of mainstream celebrity journalism, is too slow with the latest dish on "Brit's New Man," kids can catch up 24/7 with hugely popular gossip blogs like �(source http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961761/site/newsweek/page/2/ - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961761/site/newsweek/page/2/ )

You wrote:
Your commitment to your child (and I'm guessing all children) is inspiring  - one of America's top producers had told me at my graduation from NYFA that his objective, his dream-goal, was to rid the country of child abuse (in all it's forms) �

 

That�s a noble goal.  I do think that one of the forms of abuse of women in general is this �constant bombardment� with reminders of (often the inadequacies of) their physique and the hypersexualization, to coin a term, of adolescents.  I don't really know how to stop it, though, and I think those who promote it cash in big time.

 

Quote:
A student friend piped in, "And to make assloads of money ..."

 

Did anyone spank his donkey for saying that?

 

Quote:
He responded, "I don't know anyone whose clearing what I am in a year with money as their ideal. It's always got to be something bigger than that."

 

It seems to me that it is the artists, more than the financiers, who are remembered by posterity.


Quote:
Hopefully, I've understood the spirit of your original post - if not, my apologies...

 

You have understood and, even if you hadn�t, there would be no need for you to apologize.  I enjoy talking to you.  Thanks for stopping by, or for calling in.

 

Best regards,

 

Radio Free Serv



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 12 March 2007 at 10:38am

Quote:
"Only a modern intellectual could imagine that Tocqueville, Bryce, and Chesterton would recognize rap lyrics as just another manifestation of the individualism they saw in the Americans of their time.  They would call it by its proper name: depravity �" (Robert H. Bork)

 

 

This is Radio Free Serv, lo fi and low brow, and this just in:        

 

Snoop Dogg Released After Drug Stop in Sweden
Mar 12, 6:09 AM EST

The Associated Press

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Snoop Dogg was held by police overnight on suspicion of using illegal narcotics but was released after questioning and drug tests, a police spokesman said Monday.

The artist [sic] was heading to a party � Snoop Dogg, who performed with P. Diddy in Stockholm's Globe Arena late Sunday, was the latest international artist [sic] to get in trouble with the law following a gig in Sweden.

Source:  http://entertainment.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=254716 - http://entertainment.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=254716

Continuing the theme, this is what that presumably unsuccessful, friendless, self-hating malcontent and curmudgeonly -at times of course annoyingly opinionated- constitutional lawyer and past Attorney General, Robert H. Bork, says of what the braying journalists at Associated Press so generously call not only an �artist� but �international artist� at that, Snoop Dogg.  An international artist in this case, by the way, is one who, with the support of his financial backers, which includes the blokes at Geffen and Universal Music Group, exports his so-called �songs� and artistry to adolescents and especially young people the world over.  Are you ready children?  Now everyone can sing along:

�The distance and direction [USA�s] popular culture has traveled in less than one lifetime is shown by the contrast between best-selling records.  A performer of the 1930s hit �The Way You Look Tonight� sang these words to romantic music:

 

Oh, but you�re lovely/With your smile so warm/And your cheek so soft/There is nothing for me but to love you/Just the way you look tonight.

 

In our time, Snoop Doggy Dogg�s song [sold to children with a �parental warning� label, no doubt] �Horny� proclaims to �music� without melody:

 

I called you up for some sexual healing/I�m callin� again so let me come get it/Bring the lotion so I can rub you/Assume the position so I [portion deleted] you.

 

Then there is Nine Inch Nail�s song, �Big Man with a Gun.�  Even the expurgated version published by the Washington Post gives some idea of how rapidly popular culture is sinking into barbarism:

 

I am a big man (yes I am).  And I have a big gun.  Got me a big old [expletive] and I, I like to have fun.  Held against your forehead, I�ll make you [word deleted] it.  Maybe I�ll put a hole in your head �I�m hard as [expletive] steel and I�ve got the power � Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.  I�m going to [graphic portion deleted] � me and my [expletive] gun, me and my [expletive] gun.

 

The obscenity of thought and word is staggering, but also notable is the deliberate rejection of any attempt to achieve artistic distinction or even mediocrity � It is difficult to convey just how debased rap [type of music] is � songs like �Horny� and �Big Man with a Gun� are not, as one might hope, culturally marginal; they produce best selling records.  Nor is this �black music.�  Some of the the worst rappers are white, and by far the largest number of records are sold to white suburban adolescents ... One who is absorbed in himself and his sensations, believing in few or no moral or religious principles, in nothing transcendental, is a nihilist.  A culture that preaches narcissistic nihilism is asking for trouble ...

 

� Only a modern intellectual could imagine that Tocqueville, Bryce, and Chesterton would recognize rap lyrics as just another manifestation of the individualism they saw in the Americans of their time.  They would call it by its proper name: depravity ...�

 

Serv

 

Ref:  Bork, Robert H., Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Modern Liberalism and American Decline, HarperCollins, Inc., 1996, ISBN 0-06-039163-4, pp. 123-133



Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 13 March 2007 at 3:04am
Hola Serv, I'm back after a long visit to the Land of the Pure (AKA
Pakistan) where it's amazing to see the pure becoming depraved by
the same rubbish as is found swirling in your very own full blooded
American commode. ....

Can't help commenting on the Nicole Smith story, as this was
'breaking' all over Fox 'news' every time I glimpsed the channel on
frequent channel hops. Having been thankfully deprived of a chance
to view Fox for quite some years now, it was an interesting chance to
do some studying. It was a bit obvious how the story was being used
to keep enquiring minds from enquiring into something a bit more
wheighty, i.e the Lewis Libby trial and the ongoing demonizing of
Iran.

Only a channel such as Fox could manage to get so much air-time
from such an empty subject (tragic though it was) and totally ignore
any real news. ( on re-reading, I correct myself, Fox news is joined
by the Sky network in the UK, owned by the same Lord of
Underculture, Murdoch) Viewed from afar, it is increasingly obvious
how the US and globalised media manipulates viewers and feeds
them only censored stories, twisted to suit corporate interests.

Once the Libby verdict broke, some talking head on Fox with his own
moment of fame, something like the "No Spin Zone" proceeded to
explain how come Fox news had practically ignored the whole Libby
story: he said Fox didn't really know what was going on, and didn't
like to report on stories based on speculation.... wow! Isn't it
remarkable how the entire Fox channel could admit to not knowing
what was going on during the Libby affair, yet the entire blogosphere
had been following every detail closely, not to mention national and
international press. Which must mean that only Fox News reports on
the real stories while everybody else bases their stories on 'hear-say'.

On another channel hop a few days later, I caught an Al-Jazeera
programme reporting on Fox news using the popular TV show "24"
to support the Bush admin's stance on torture, and how the show is
becoming something of a propaganda tool for the same cause.

I feel we should be as worried about the depravity and culture of
immorality being forced upon thinking adults as much as we should
worry about the obscenity and pornography being sold to our
children in the guise of 'pop culture'.



Posted By: Sign*Reader
Date Posted: 13 March 2007 at 1:16pm
Originally posted by Duende Duende wrote:

Hola Serv, I'm back after a long visit to the Land of the Pure (AKA
Pakistan) where it's amazing to see the pure becoming depraved by
the same rubbish as is found swirling in your very own full blooded
American commode. ....




Interesting read, thanks Serv n Duende;
 I am very curious about the land of the Pure, what is happening over there!


-------------
Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction.


Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 14 March 2007 at 11:21am
The same old story Sign*reader: the West's lap dogs are taking
advantage of their brief tenure, while the population on the bottom
rungs cleans up after them.

The thinking classes sit huddled in the golf clubs discussing how to
improve life and publishing their views in the English-language
press, while the rest of the population sits obediently awaiting the
next messiah to tell them what to do.

I hear the use of alcohol is on the rise among the moneyed youth,
while there are still two meatless days a week all over the country. In
other words, (except for the deeply ingrained colonial attitude) pretty
much the same as every other so-called developing country.   


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 14 March 2007 at 5:43pm

Thanks, Sign_Reader.

 

Quote:
Hola Serv, I'm back after a long visit to the Land of the Pure (AKA
Pakistan) where it's amazing to see the pure becoming depraved by
the same rubbish as is found swirling in your very own full blooded
American commode. ....

 

Welcome back, Duende.  I was beginning to wonder if you and Whisper, among others, had been Mc-banned. 


Quote:
Can't help commenting on the Nicole Smith story, as this was
'breaking' all over Fox 'news' every time I glimpsed the channel on
frequent channel hops.

 

Right.  From my side, I see the Anna Nicole Smith media spectacle (as spectacle) as the post-modern version of, say, the medieval Feasts of the Assumption of the Virgin.  The main difference is that, these days, the masses are feasting upon little more than celebrity carrion.      

 

Quote:
Having been thankfully deprived of a chance to view Fox for quite some years now, it was an interesting chance to do some studying.

 

Right.  It�s good to at least try to deprogram the programmers and to be a �reality hacker� as R. U. Sirius and the amazingly creative others at that great, now defunct, magazine from Berkeley used to state it.     

 

Quote:
It was a bit obvious how the story was being used to keep enquiring minds from enquiring into something a bit more weighty, i.e the Lewis Libby trial and the ongoing demonizing of Iran.

 

It�s, like, who is Lewis Libby?  Doesn�t he make pumpkins or something (just joking)?

http://www.verybestbaking.com/products/libbys/ - http://www.verybestbaking.com/products/libbys/

 

   

Quote:
Only a channel such as Fox could manage to get so much air-time from such an empty subject (tragic though it was) and totally ignore any real news.

 

�The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.� (W.B. Yeats)

 

Quote:
� ( on re-reading, I correct myself, Fox news is joined by the Sky network in the UK, owned by the same Lord of Underculture, Murdoch) �

 

Lord of Underculture: ; that, yes, and one of the Masters of Ceremony at the ritual drowning of the innocent, referred to above. 

 

Quote:
Viewed from afar, it is increasingly obvious how the US and globalised media manipulates viewers and feeds them only censored stories, twisted to suit corporate interests.

 

Speaking of doing some studying, or at least observing, I was once visiting my father and we were watching so-called news.  I think it was either the Fox or CNN face of Janus-Geminus, I cannot remember which.  In either case, it was April, 2002.   A Palestinian suicide bomber had done his damage and in the background, in a continuous loop, was a film showing the carnage and mayhem inside Israel. The show host, for the moment or two that I watched, had two guests on the program: James Zogby of the Arab American Institute and Mortimer Zukerman, owner of the New York Daily News and US News and World Report.  While Mr. Zogby suggested that the interviewer and his network, in order to provide some balance, move their camera a few miles over to Jenin to broadcast what the Israeli forces and American arms were doing there, Mr. Zukerman, ostensibly a provider of �news,� as the name of his publication suggests, defended the news �blackout� then being enforced by Israel.  I�ve not read a publication by Zukerman with the same eyes again.


Quote:
I feel we should be as worried about the depravity and culture of immorality being forced upon thinking adults as much as we should worry about the obscenity and pornography being sold to our children in the guise of 'pop culture'.

 

We should be, absolutely.  This is one of my ongoing complaints: that the only ones who seem to be pushing the First Amendment (free speech) envelope are well-paid pornographers, while the dissident, especially political, voices of America have to be sought out on a blog somewhere and are rarely heard in public.  We have 1,001 talking heads on any given channel and, though there are slight variations on any given theme, they tend to spout the same line and it�s called �pluralism.�   

 

Best regards,

 

Serv



Posted By: ummziba
Date Posted: 21 March 2007 at 1:26pm

Came across this today and thought it might be a {good?} addition to this thread:

HEATHER MALLICK

It's the future: st**id

America's dumbed-down game show brings insults to idiocy

March 19, 2007

I have seen the future and it is st**id.

So that you don't have to, I watched an episode of the Fox Network's massively popular (among Americans) new game show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The answer to the question is, of course, no you aren't.

The show pitted six contestants against each other. Five were charming little kids and one was an American adult with a college degree. He chose Grade 1 English and was asked "How many times does the letter e appear in the following phrase: 'Pledge of Allegiance?'" For all us Canadians, that's something Americans recite every day in school.

The crewcut, bull-necked young white male contestant struggled, his wife and child watching in the audience. Painful is not the word.

I was rhythmically hitting my head with a hardback copy of Jonathan Rose's The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes and scrunching up my face to weep, but the tears wouldn't come somehow, only a gasping sadness.

The man began his calculations. "Well, there's one e in 'the.'" Then he said how tough it was not to have pencil and paper. Then the kids started giggling. It went downhill from there. As things do on Fox.

On the Fox website, even the viewers posting to the show's message board couldn't spell. It was way worse than Amazon.com reviews, the ones that Guardian Talk readers collect online like precious stones. The Washington Post, a literal-minded, ponderous and timorous newspaper, wrote about the Fox show but spectacularly missed the point, as always, by deploring the sad decline in the intellectual standards of game shows.

But a website loved by me, http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_mallick/www.defamer.com - www.defamer.com , advised readers not to link to the Post's lumpen history of how quiz shows reached their current Just Hold Up Two Fingers And I'll Give You Ten Thousand Dollars! Can You Do That For Me, Guy? state, and instead ran a clip with the headline "Aren't We All Dumber than a 5th Grader, When You Really Think About It?"

One viewer complained (complained!) that Fox was making money off st**id people, as if this were not an explanation of the entire history of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., from topless teenagers in the London Sun to the coarseness and racism of Fox News. But the trick of this game show is that Fox is profiting from the contestant's st**idity while humiliating and mocking him for it.

It's a circle of government and industry working in tandem: the Bush Administration guts the American education system, which makes Fox programming attractive to larger numbers of people, who are then ridiculed by people like me, but now also by Fox itself.

It's an achievement, of sorts. The problem when you're Canadian is that the show evokes not laughter but horror. I would pay not to watch this. I regret seeing it as much as I regret watching the beheading video of Daniel Pearl, another gift of the internet that I have repaid with nightmares and wishing I were already the coarse unfeeling heart-of-Plexiglass person I will inevitably become if I continue in this line of work.

Canadians don't laugh at learning-disabled people. It's not what civilized people do, and you learn that from your parents fast. Am I alone in being astonished at the return of the word "retard" to everyday conversation?

And it's particularly wrong for an American audience to laugh at this guy because he's so clearly the type of person the U.S. employs in the army and at border crossings. All that Homeland/Heartland nonsense spewed out by Fox and the U.S. government doesn't disguise the fact that they despise these people even as they hunt their votes to sustain a tiny class of rich men with pale faces and scary glasses. I give you Dick Cheney, Roger Ailes, Kyle Sampson, Karl Rove�

On that same day I saw this, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man in charge of the Stalin-style purges of federal attorneys deemed to be "disloyal" to the Republican party, essentially pleaded for his job on the grounds that he was poor once and Hispanic to boot. So he had clawed his way out of poverty to a job where he essentially runs the American secret police, and asks that he be allowed to stay on by virtue of once having been the kind of person he'd stomp on now.

This is one of the virtues of a badly educated electorate. They fall for this reasoning.

When I say that a st**id future lies ahead, you might well think this a good thing for writers. All we have to do is aim our work at the st**id, which is presumably easier (shorter words, simplified ideas, no tangents, frequent use of the word "fave"). But the problem is that it takes more effort to write badly than to write well, and I'm lazy.

I speak as one who runs the gamut, a combination of educated and clueless.

The London Review of Books is my favourite publication. So I'm smart, right? No, because I think the nude fight scene in Borat is the funniest thing ever filmed. Simple-minded, then? No, I drool over the northern Flemish still-life painters of expired eels but Rembrandt leaves me cold. Complicated to the point of idiocy? No, I live for Margaret Atwood's poetry, her most pared-down and greatest achievement. Just idiocy, then? No, my husband wouldn't have married an idiot. He, who chose British newsrooms over a university education, is the most wise and clever person I know, and that's not a compliment I hand out easily.

Being humane is the most important quality. The fact is that education is the fastest, best, cheapest and most joyous way to get citizens and civilizations to that point.

I watch Americans sink from the relative civilization of the late 19th century to the point where smart and beautiful children are paid to mock the st**id adult and I know what's next: Bear-baiting.

We're back in Elizabethan times, but without a Shakespeare.



-------------
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words...they break my soul ~


Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 22 March 2007 at 4:15am
Ummziba, this is an absolute gem!

Thank you


Posted By: Patty
Date Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:02am

I don't know where all of you live, what religion you are devotees of, or much else....but I can tell you this, you do NOT know a LOT about most Americans.  You are taking excerpts from st**id, idiotic programming and attempting to portray the majority of Americans as fitting into your particular "potter's mold".  Well, I've got a newsflash for you (Servie, I am a little (though not much) surprised at your bias), MANY MORE AMERICANS ARE QUITE INFORMED ON ALL ISSUES, DON'T WATCH THE TRASHY SHOWS YOU THINK THEY WATCH, AND HAVE QUITE INTELLIGENT LIBRARIES (NO, NOT PORN) IN THEIR HOMES. 

They also have wide circles of friends who do/have the same, and are involved in many organizations where extremely enlightening and varied discussions transpire.  Most Americans are truly disgusted with American Idol (I've never watched more than 3 minutes of one show), Anna Nichol Smith? (who cares)...sorry she died, that's it!  We have quite an extensive library in our home, watch mostly documentaries on television when we do watch it.....and ignore news channels.  We get our news from reading, and watching it on PBS.  All of our friends do the same.  We have lived many different places, now preferring Maine because of the lack of crime, beauty of nature here, and peacefulness, AS WELL AS the easy availability of culture, libraries, arts, good conversation, and the knowledge that many more people are likely to feel as we feel regarding trashy news reporters, game shows (never), and immoral activities increasing in the world...NOT just in the US.  We are considered middle class, but have several close friends who are quite wealthy and informed.  Strange as it may sound, they love us for who we are.  Our closest friends are a multi-millionaire couple...the husband of this union is a world renowned oncologist, who's name you would recognize immediately if I gave it out, which, of course, I will not do.  So, please stop throwing the proverbial "blanket coverage" over all, or most, Americans as being inbred neanderthals who do nothing but imbibe, read porno, and watch game shows.  What a lack of knowledge you are exhibiting!!!  I have read it for years on here, and have never rebelled against it....until now.  Get over yourselves.  We are all just people, and we are not what you are trying to make us, as Americans, out to be.

I think it would serve each one of you well to actually talk to more Americans from many sections of this country.  Try to get to know more than just a few who are exploited by the news as the "norm".

See, now you've really got me wound up like a two dollar clock!

Respectfully and Intelligently Submitted.



-------------
Patty

I don't know what the future holds....but I know who holds the future.


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 22 March 2007 at 10:06am

Hi Patty,

You wrote:
I don't know where all of you live, what religion you are devotees of, or much else....but I can tell you this, you do NOT know a LOT about most Americans.

The USA; Christian but not always particularly devoted; and I, being a Yank born and bred, know as much as you do about this country and culture, even if I haven�t lived as long.  So there.

Quote:
You are taking excerpts from st**id, idiotic programming and attempting to portray the majority of Americans as fitting into your particular "potter's mold".

Remember the gong show?  Well, now hear this: Gong!  Please permit me to state the obvious: the products of one�s culture are a reflection of that culture.  I am commenting upon some of those products, especially, in this case, products of "popular" culture, and I will continue to comment upon them.

Quote:
Well, I've got a newsflash for you �

Bring it on.

Quote:
� (Servie, I am a little (though not much) surprised at your bias) �

You needn�t be.  If you are taking issue with my tendency to quote the ultra-Conservative and at times annoying Robert Bork, the simple explanation is that I consider him to be a much more intelligent, effective and articulate �culture warrior� than such Murdochian sock-puppets as Bill O�Reilly and Sean Hannity.

Quote:
� MANY MORE AMERICANS ARE QUITE INFORMED ON ALL ISSUES, DON'T WATCH THE TRASHY SHOWS YOU THINK THEY WATCH, AND HAVE QUITE INTELLIGENT LIBRARIES (NO, NOT PORN) IN THEIR HOMES.

Yeah, right, whatever, sure.  Our grandparents.  But, then again, they don�t get arrested for drug possession in Stockholm and are not called �artists� by the sniveling journalists at Associated Press either.  

Quote:
They [Americans] also have wide circles of friends who do/have the same, and are involved in many organizations where extremely enlightening and varied discussions transpire.

That reminds me of my ill-fated campaign to bring back Dick Cavett!   

Quote:
Most Americans are truly disgusted with American Idol �

Have ye any proof?  The ratings, it seems to me, suggest otherwise.  I think idolatry of this type is obviously a national past-time.

Quote:
� (I've never watched more than 3 minutes of one show) �

Well, when you did watch, did it have this effect on you ():  http://stb.msn.com/i/FB/7E33BC575C59939E785C88CE9A5B4E.jpg - http://stb.msn.com/i/FB/7E33BC575C59939E785C88CE9A5B4E.jpg ?

 Follow story here: http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=43F766A9-019E-40FB-A90B-3AB99091AE23&t=c152&f=06/64&p=hotvideo_celebrity&fg=&GT1=9145 - http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=43F766A9-019E-40FB-A90B-3A B99091AE23&t=c152&f=06/64&p=hotvideo_celebrity&a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;fg=&GT1=9145

Quote:
� Anna Nichol Smith? (who cares)...sorry she died, that's it!

With an attitude like that, I don�t think that Fox News and the celebrity-eating and regurgitating press is going to hire you for their next grand buffet.  I call it an inverted, post-modernist Feast of the Assumption of the (think Madonna�s song here) �like a� Virgin and the main course, or entr�e, is as usual carrion!  It�s almost a Golden Corral -all the celebrities one can eat!

Quote:
We have quite an extensive library in our home, watch mostly documentaries on television when we do watch it.....and ignore news channels.  We get our news from reading, and watching it on PBS.  All of our friends do the same.  We have lived many different places, now preferring Maine because of the lack of crime, beauty of nature here, and peacefulness, AS WELL AS the easy availability of culture, libraries, arts, good conversation, and the knowledge that many more people are likely to feel as we feel regarding trashy news reporters, game shows (never), and immoral activities increasing in the world...NOT just in the US.

You�re cute.

Quote:
We are considered middle class, but have several close friends who are quite wealthy and informed.  Strange as it may sound, they love us for who we are.

I love you for who you are too.

Quote:
Our closest friends are a multi-millionaire couple...the husband of this union is a world renowned oncologist, who's name you would recognize immediately if I gave it out, which, of course, I will not do.

It doesn�t matter because I could not identify any oncologist in the world by name, even if you asked me.  But I think we ought to contact Merv Griffin because we might have the makings of a new game show here: name that oncologist.  By the way, has this mysterious oncologist ever been featured as a guest rags-to-riches story in one of President Bush�s State of the Union speeches, like Julie Aigner-Clark was?  As I said, I love those stories, they�re really inspiring!

Quote:
So, please stop throwing the proverbial "blanket coverage" over all, or most, Americans as being inbred neanderthals who do nothing but imbibe, read porno, and watch game shows.
 

That sounds like a Jerry Springer show.

Quote:
What a lack of knowledge you are exhibiting!!!

If you don�t like my Robert Bork quotes, then write and publish a book of your own and I will quote you.

Quote:
I have read it for years on here, and have never rebelled against it....until now.

Who are you trying to kid?  In all the delightful years that we have been together on this board, you�ve never not been a rebel.  I think that was bad grammar, but who cares?          

Quote:
We are all just people, and we are not what you are trying to make us, as Americans, out to be.

Robert Bork, Arnold J. Toynbee, Ortega y Gassett, Peter Hitchens, President Bush and Newsweek, to name but a few who have been quoted in this thread, know what we Americans are and not one of them is trying to �make us out to be anything.�

Quote:
I think it would serve each one of you well to actually talk to more Americans from many sections of this country.  Try to get to know more than just a few who are exploited by the news as the "norm".

I tried to talk to a few adolescents, hither, thither and yon, but they had their headphones on and only grunted something from Snoop Dog back in return.

Quote:
See, now you've really got me wound up like a two dollar clock!

Speaking of clocks and therefore time, isn�t it time for the Howard Stern show?

Serv



Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 22 March 2007 at 11:56am
Patty, calm down, you should have noticed by now that you and all
your wonderful intelligent educated and cultured friends are in the
MINORITY.



Posted By: Patty
Date Posted: 22 March 2007 at 2:05pm

Carry on, oh wise ones.  Sorry I decided to express my opinion.  As I said, Duende, my husband and I are NOT wealthy.  We are middle class.  I have been quite poor...I grew up in Appalachia. 

Serv, just as a side note....not that it matters, when I watched the one 3 minute episode of American Idol, I was at a friend's home on vacation......in Nova Scotia.

 



-------------
Patty

I don't know what the future holds....but I know who holds the future.


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 22 March 2007 at 5:33pm

Patty wrote:
Serv, just as a side note....not that it matters �

But Patty, your side notes always matter to me, you know that. Now stop being so self-effacing and feel free to continue to rant either along with or opposed to the lot of us, as the case may be.

Quote:
� when I watched the one 3 minute episode of American Idol, I was at a friend's home on vacation......in Nova Scotia

Oh, no, Servie says!  Call in Albert Gore!  Please don�t tell me that we are, as a body, evacuating our toxic cultural waste upon the otherwise pristine and formerly virginal Nova Scotia.  As if acid rain isn't bad enough.  Watch out, UmmZiba and all of my other Canadian partners up north in free trade.  I mean, I knew that our popular culture needed a good colonic irrigation, or cleanse, but that is truly shameless! 

By the way, for those -I have no doubt- few of you who might be interested, I realize that the honorable, at least at times, Robert Bork has been on my show, Radio Free Serv, a bit too often lately.  I don�t want him to become over-exposed and to thus fall in the ratings, so I have decided to reach way, way, back into the archives and to call in another eloquent American bloke, dedicated, in this case, to the fine art of ranting.

I recently discovered him while I was looking through an old book shop and I plan to make him a somewhat belated star.  He wrote in another war era, because, after all, America is always at war, the early 1940�s, and was a literate, world-wise, pedantic and seriously disgruntled son of a Presbyterian minister.  Unlike Robert Bork in our time, though, this author kicked against the cactus of what was to him, at that time, an altogether too restrictive, entrenched and hypocritical American morality.  The people in Lawrence Welk's audience (who I saw in the re-run of the '70's show) probably would neither have muched liked him nor appreciated some of his more controversial points.

Anyway, some of his observations are worth noting, even if his accusative, funny book, �Generation of Vipers,� has, at least according to the knowing Jonathan Yardley at the Washington Post, since quite lost its bite.  But hey, haven�t a lot of us lost our bite?  Just ask Faye Dunaway, who has recently and fortunately regained hers (see above).

With that said, Ladies, Gentlemen, Wimmin and Transgendered others of the listening and participating audience, please give a warm welcome to Mr. Philip Wylie, who enters saying �

�We are a �literate� nation.  But there are not a million adults in America today [1942] who could comprehend even this casual treatise.  There are hardly a million who voluntarily read nonfiction books.  That is a satisfactory comment on the educational system, from the standpoint of the essayist.  It shows that, in the matter of teaching English, either our schools are incompetent to deal with our moppets or else society has produced a gaggle of Dodger fans, impervious to any literary schooling.

English, it happens, is our only common means of communication � The way to teach English would be to divide pupils by aptitude rather than by age, to insist on grammatical precision from the start � Children who are unable to learn or who will not learn the exact use of the only tongue in which, probably, they will ever try to articulate their ideas should not be permitted to listen to radios, go to movies, or otherwise amuse themselves with the ideo-onanisms [] of our society �

There must be reason in our collective behavior soon, as all can perceive.  There must be an end to a government of boobs [slang term for 'incompetents'], by boobs, for boobs.  Because there are already more boobs in our society than wise men, or even than scrupulous men, and the machines devised by science are so exact, so productive, and so powerful that a government which is in the hands of boobs will as surely commit national suicide as a sixteen-year-old kid, blind drunk on a blind curve, doing eighty in a twelve-cylinder sedan.�

Ideo-onanisms.�  Ha!  Hey, speaking of drinks, I need one (of freshly squeezed, organic carrot juice).

This is Radio Free Serv, signing off ...

Ref:  Wylie, Philip, Generation of Vipers, Ferris Printing Co., New York, 1942, pp. 87-89



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 29 March 2007 at 11:36am

Well, thank you Mr. Wylie, and I just might invite you to return sometime.

Until someone correctly answers one of the burning questions which has been, well, weighing upon my possibly fever-stricken mind (and which I asked at one point above), no one is eligible to win the Big, Shiny Prize behind curtain number three.  That prize, be assured, when once the curtain is withdrawn and the object is revealed, is enough to cause us all to gasp, wriggle and squirm with covetousness and greed.

The question, again, is this: how many pounds, or kilos, did Oprah Winfrey lose last week?  Enquiring minds, like mine, want to know.

While you think about it, this is what happened to me when I went to buy some apple juice.  Time was short, and though I did briefly consider taking National Enquirer�s guided tour �Inside Britney�s Breakdown,� this headline, instead, screamed at me from the grocery store's check-out line and forced me to read it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Life-Style-4-07-Skinny-911-Carrie-Underwood-Mary-Kate_W0QQitemZ180100070570QQcategoryZ280QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting - http://cgi.ebay.com/Life-Style-4-07-Skinny-911-Carrie-Underw ood-Mary-Kate_W0QQitemZ180100070570QQcategoryZ280QQcmdZViewI tem#ebayphotohosting

I think the celebrity in the center might be one of those two girls with three names, Mary, Kate and Ashley, and, at least in these headlines, it never seems quite clear to me if she is strung out on blow (cocaine) or suffering from an eating disorder.  Maybe it�s both.  Sometimes, when I try to figure it out, looking first this way and then that, I resemble a spectator at Wimbledon.

Anyway, back to weightier issues, when I finally returned to the Internet, I noticed that ABC News Good Morning America asked, concerning in this case the celebrity on the far right, Star Jones, and almost as if to tease with the postulated uncertainty of it all, �What�s Behind Star�s Metamorphosis?�

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2956569 - http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2956569

Would anyone care to speculate?

 

Radio Free Serv



Posted By: hat2010
Date Posted: 18 May 2007 at 2:44pm
"The question, again, is this: how many pounds, or kilos, did Oprah Winfrey
lose last week?"

Trick question. Oprah's 'weight' is correctly measured in joules and/or
kilowatt-hours.

I'll forfeit the shiny prize (since I already have one) and donate it to the
Resurrection of Baudrillard's Absolute Event Community since they are better
armed to take on these big questions along your side, Mighty Serv.


Posted By: Whisper
Date Posted: 18 May 2007 at 10:55pm
What a home coming present! Que todo de mi familia en una pisina!


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 30 May 2007 at 3:27pm

On this bleak day, when my (Radio Free Serv�s) ratings are at their reported lowest and the FCC are threatening to close me down on decency charges �that is to say, on charges of being overly decent- I am pleased to see that a couple of listeners have called in.

 

Welcome back, Whisper!  Things are 2 boring around here when U R gone.  Next time, don�t be gone so long.

 

Jam wrote:
Trick question. Oprah's 'weight' is correctly measured in joules and/or kilowatt-hours.

 

Dear Jam, it is not a trick question, but nice try.  There has to be a definite answer and I intend to find it and, if need be, win my own shiny prize.  I strongly suspect but cannot prove that, just today, while untold millions of primarily American women watched Ms. Winfrey on the tube, or telley, they thought something very much like this to themselves:

 

�Hmmm, I wonder how many pounds, or kilos, Oprah lost (or gained) last week?�

 

I don�t think they are doing a joules-to-pounds conversion with their TV Guides and calorie counters.  I also notice, and this is less important but seems at least thematically related, that one of our arbiters of acceptable national discourse, ABC�s Good Morning America, all wily and smiley as usual, seems yet to have satisfactorily answered their own, yes, tantalizing question concerning just what, exactly, is behind Star Jones�s �metamorphosis.�  

 

Serv



Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 09 June 2007 at 2:59am
Serv, I read this, and thought of you!!! (Sorry, I must have caught
something from Sawtul ...exclamation mark!)

We'll always hate Paris
www.salon.com

The public outrage over Paris Hilton's early release from her L.A. prison
cell may be justified -- but why are we expending so much energy
protesting the antics of a spoiled media whore?

By Cintra Wilson

June 8, 2007 | "There's nobody in the world like me. I think every decade
has an iconic blonde -- like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana -- and
right now, I'm that icon." -- Paris Hilton

"I hate reading! Someone tell me what's on this menu!" -- Paris Hilton

We'll always hate Paris.

If Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana were "candles in the wind," and
Anna Nicole Smith was a bonfire in a hailstorm, Paris Hilton, for all her
frailness and vulnerability, is a huge, flaming meteor that can penetrate
the Earth's atmosphere, bypass all weather completely and destroy
millions of lives wherever she happens to feel like plummeting.

Paris has been one of our most arresting national disasters. She's too
rich, skinny, blond, nude, slutty, drunk, spoiled and famous. She ignores
the law and openly flouts our social mores, as if they don't apply to her.

Proximity to Ms. Hilton is a proven health hazard: She blows all the
clothing, morals, inhibitions and self-control of her victims sideways,
leaving them emaciated, dehydrated, broke, disoriented and immune to
even the most powerful panty-biotics.

Paris has managed to hold herself together comparatively well during
severe marathons of hard partying -- at least compared with the rest of
her friends.

While Paris tiptoed around looking vacuous but relatively docile, La
Lohan, Britney Spears, Brandon "Greasy Bear" Davis, Nicole Richie et al.
sunk into binge-puking, Mercedes-totaling, infantile oblivions, involving
willful and sustained refusal of all food but Vicodin, stints in inpatient
rehabilitation facilities that cost $45,000 a week, and unsightly public
meltdowns, leading to the consumption of more big bowls of cocaine and
opiate painkillers and more trips to rehab (rehab being the new day care
for shrieking Hollywood narcissists who can afford never to develop their
own maturity, self-control or respect for other human beings).


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 25 June 2007 at 12:11pm

I don't even know why Paris Hilton was put in jail but, as far as I am concerned, it would be far, far better if she were to actually stay there.  At the moment, and though there are plenty of contenders for the title, some of whom were mentioned in the article, I can think of no finer, more representative, poster-girl for the Project for the New anti-American Century.

Serv



Posted By: Duende
Date Posted: 25 June 2007 at 2:48pm
Just today I saw an internet news headline which made me jump:

"Paris to start Darfur talks"

I realised I had spent entirely too many bytes on the fate of this
forgettable Hilton heiress and was losing grip of reality.

I wonder how many people will one day claim it was Paris Hilton who
ended the strife in Darfur/Palestine (fill in the blank) ...?


Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 27 June 2007 at 3:56pm

Servie's AmreekEmotigram to Duende: 

 



Posted By: Angel
Date Posted: 28 June 2007 at 8:28pm
Originally posted by Servetus Servetus wrote:

I don't even know why Paris Hilton was put in jail

Serv

she violated two issues of drink driving. Second one was when her licence was taken away from the first issuing. 



-------------
~ Our feet are earthbound, but our hearts and our minds have wings ~


Posted By: Sawtul Khilafah
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 3:27pm

Originally posted by Duende Duende wrote:

Serv, I read this, and thought of you!!! (Sorry, I must have caught
something from Sawtul ...exclamation mark!)

LOL !!!!!!!!



Posted By: Servetus
Date Posted: 03 July 2007 at 9:42am

Thanks for the update, Angel.  Poor (in a manner of speaking) Paris Hilton!  One wonders.  Why did she have to suffer the traumas and indignities of a DUI [driving under the influence of alcohol]?  I mean, her dad is rich, after all.  Can�t she afford cab fare?

 

The other day, when I was reading the so-called �entertainment� headlines to see if, from the online media�s collective craw, there were any particularly delicious morsels of macerated and regurgitated celebrity on offer, I pecked on a headline which referred to Paris�s jailhouse diet.  One (again) wonders.  Is this young woman, an aspiring poster-girl for Consumerism and favored daughter of Homo Economicus, famous for anything other than what she does (drugs, alcohol) and does not (food) consume?

 

Serv

____________________

 

A colony?  What's that?  If you don't mind, I prefer to be called a neo-trusteeship territory!




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