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"Osama bin Laden is to terrorism what Colonel Sanders is to KFC. They both evoke an emotional connection to a promise. Osama bin Laden's promise is a resistance to the West, and all terrorism that goes on in his name delivers on that promise...If you break that trust, you lose the brand."
-- Dick Martin, former PR chief for AT&T
...Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth...Government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues...The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit....
But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets. ....In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value...Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.
-- Alan Greenspan, 1966
Just as Chinese cat food is now inalterably associated with dead cats in the American consciousness, the Enron-ification of America has resulted in a tanking of trust in the American brand around the world.
Brands are built on trust. America's economy, however, since the erosion of the gold standard, has been built on credit, which was extended to America based on trust in the strength, endurance and credibility of the American brand - a trust which has now been severely abused.
Osama bin Laden's stock, however, is rising, according to Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA unit charged with neutralizing him.
In a recent RADAR article by John Cook, Scherer reports that Osama is perceived as extremely credible among young Muslims, having "left a $14-$16 billion fortune to live and fight with the mujahadeen... he's been wounded four times. Most Muslim leaders talk the talk, but they spend their time whoring around in Monaco. With bin Laden, we're up against a guy who really is what he appears to be."
Hence, the rise of the Osama brand into a romantic, Che Guevara, Malcolm X-ish T-shirt symbol of the globally disenfranchised.
Meanwhile, America is now perceived as a fat greedy evil liar with sinister imperial bully motives - and nothing to back up this posturing.
To paraphrase an article in HARPERS by Kevin Phillips: our official statistics don't accurately portray how dismal our economy really is. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), unemployment rates and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), figures by which "the vigor and muscle of the American economy are measured" have all been hopelessly perverted by truth-erosion since the Kennedy administration in order to paint a rosier picture of our value than what the real numbers suggest - a truth gap that has gotten progressively worse over the years in a tendency that economic analyst John Williams nicknamed the "Polyanna Creep."
Each administration felt that certain indicators brought the economic mood too far down - so they gradually stopped factoring the bummers into the number pile, or cooked the books to make the numbers look better. Nixon, for example, decided not to include figures for the volatile food and energy markets in "core" inflation figures, resulting in a figure that economic commentator Barry Ritholz called "inflation ex-inflation" - (in other words, inflation figures after all the nasty inflation bits had been taken out.)
According to Phillips, the Reagan administration further perverted the CPI figure by fiddling with the housing market numbers, using as a figure "based on what a homeowner might get for renting his or her house."
Why keep this picture so artificially bright?
"...Who profits from a low-growth U.S. economy hidden under statistical camouflage (?) Might it be Washington politicos and affluent elites, anxious to mislead voters, coddle the financial markets, and tamp down expensive cost-of-living increases for wages and pensions?" asks Phillips.
Meanwhile, a usual loose coalitions of mutually interested parties ( i.e. oil, military industrial) is still recording record profits and pay increases. Boeing, for example, already giddy with revenue from our dirty little wars, got the $80 million contract to build the electric immigration fence that nobody really wants. Their $20 million prototype apparently didn't work, so, they'll probably need more money.
Perhaps President McCain will hire Boeing to build a fence around space.
In order to sidestep surging inflation, America requires a durable new commodity to serve as a medium of exchange -- a new standard to restore the credibility of government-created bank credit.
Unfortunately, the Chinese have completely outclassed us in terms of gold ownership. So, we'll have to start getting creative with what we put in the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. Along with the 4,570 metric tonnes of gold bullion, we should consider adding goods which Americans themselves consider to be our most valuable assets: Leroy Neiman prints, the Batmobile, sports memorabilia, and the virginity of Miley Cyrus.
That would put some meat back on the dollar.
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I LIKE HILARY BECAUSE SHE'S A BLOODTHIRSTY MONSTER TOO!
(BTW, that's a new Dreg over there --->>)
I couldn't agree more with Ken Silverstein of HARPER'S Washington Babylon, and his article, "Why I Like Hilary: She's a Bloodthirsty Monster."
Absolutely. Besides, if the Clintons have shown us anything, it is that nothing that they say or do until they get elected actually counts as truth. They know exactly how filthy the game is. Obama is a slick cat but he really hasn't been tarred and feathered and kicked in the teeth and generally hated enough to really know what the deal is. He's still too pretty to be a seasoned heavyweight grappler. He doesn't know how to be heel-kicked and constantly humiliated the way Hilary does.
Inhuman? Perhaps, but Relentless as the GOP
HIlary is a political zombie that can't be killed. She moves kind of slow and she doesn't look quite human, but that pale powdered face, that turquoise pantsuit and those manicured fingernails are going to tirelessly pry their way through the rotten wainscoting and into the political spotlight until someone attaches her to a power pole the way Roy Scheider did in JAWS.
It's admirable in terms of raw survivability. She knows how ugly a presidency can be.
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Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Americans, You Look Like Hell
What is America's fear of dressing well?
I recently attended a formal wedding in Oregon, and was astonished by the inappropriate attire that I viewed there. I saw grown men dressed in pleated khaki shorts, polo shirts, and athletic footwear. All that was missing were the backwards baseball caps. As I glided past in my silk gown and fitted velvet jacket, I felt for the bride and groom. As their friends and family, didn't we have an obligation to try to be elegant for their special day? Couldn't we all, for one day, honor the couple's marriage ritual by dressing appropriately? Is it somehow embarrassing, or too emotionally difficult, for American men to behave as if they care?
Until the last couple of decades of the twentieth century, Americans considered dressing well as displaying a sense of pride and purpose. To present oneself as well groomed showed that you cared, that you were deserving of respect, no matter what your income level. It still does, but America has lost that thread, as it were. Part of this decline has to do with the mass marketing of clothing for large business conglomerates, such as department stores and big box emporiums. But one-stop shopping does not a stylish citizen make. Department stores and big-box emporiums cater to the concept of ready-to-wear and off-the-rack. Ready-to-wear is more business baloney that has colluded to make the American citizen look bad while making a lot of money. The sizes are confusing and shift according to brand, and are cut to conform to an arbitrary fit model. No one possesses the same physical proportions; this is one of the gifts of individuality that has been bestowed on us by nature. If a piece of clothing does not fit you properly, you should have it altered. Alterations to fit individual bodies was part of how all commercial clothing was produced, until profit margins took precedence over dressing well.
Wake up America, and understand that Wal-Mart and their ilk are not out to make you look good. Their purpose is to sell cheaply produced, anonymous clothing that wears out quickly so you will have to buy more. While doing this, your individuality will be stamped out. You will lose the knowledge, if indeed you ever had it, of what looks good on your unique form. You will be forced to continue to patronize generic retail establishments, which make their profits by the exploitative practice of outsourcing their clothing production to developing countries. Realize that this is un-American, for America values individuality, freedom, and quality, doesn't it?
The media emphasis on what celebrities don is another marketing ploy of the bigger conglomerates of the apparel industry. It makes average people understand style as something only the wealthy and perfect-bodied can afford. But celebrities work with stylists to create a certain image. They are creating iconography, which is not style. The average American says "I could never look that good anyway." Neither do the celebrities; look at the alternative industry, maddening in its mixed-messagery, that the gossip media has also created: trafficking images of celebrities in sweat clothes, flashing cellulite, schlubbing around on their days off. American people, beware of this trickery! Do not let media double-speak deprive you of your obligation to present yourselves with dignity!
There is an erroneous idea that only designer clothing looks good, and the average American cannot afford to dress well. But style is an alternative to money. Money does not influence wearing clean, pressed, well-fitting clothing. Nice clothing can be found used at cheaper prices than new Wal-Mart-type crap. The stigma of used clothing being the province of the marginalized needs to change if we are to truly embrace green politics as the only viable alternative this planet now faces.
In Europe, people prefer to buy a few well-made and individually tailored pieces per season. The American practice, in contrast, is to blow wads of cash on poorly produced impulse purchases at the local mall to fill an emotional void that has been planted there by a consuming culture.
Looking good is not only for yourself, but perhaps more importantly, it is for other people. You are hurting someone's eyes if you stomp around in fleece and oversized tee shirts, and not only the eyes of aesthetes such as myself. Clothing that fits your body, that flatters your unique physique, will provide you with comfort and confidence. Certain cuts of clothing force better posture. Television makeover shows have flourished under this premise. If you're not sure what looks good on you, bring someone whose style choices you admire, or ask someone who works at the store. Any self-respecting salesperson will be happy to do so. Clearly, this will not occur at K-Mart or Old Navy.
Even so-called anti-fashion movements such as punk have style in droves. It's just that their fashion is not driven by a profit-making industry, but by political expression. Style is not affectation. It is how you present yourself to the world. Get real, Americans, we've looked bad for too long!
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COMMENTS
Muire: you nailed it.
Part of the dissonance inherent here is: "Don't we know better?" and, if not, ~what~ has changed? On so seemingly simple a matter?
I don't ascribe to the idea that people (esp. MEN) are so mentally watered-down and stupid that they would allow diaphanous (and highly ephemeral) modern "trends" to give them loads of latitude, in terms of dressing-up (or not) for an ostensibly sacred/important/pivotal event...such as a wedding.
Trust--even if one were birthed in a trailer-park, one knows that certain occasions merit "effort"--fashionably speaking. In fact, I've seen more cases wherein so-called "bargain-basement people" take pains to OVERdress for important occasions because there is some basic sense, some basic comprehension of the magnitude of the occasion.
A lot of this depends upon the very diverse definition of a "wedding" in these times. BRIDES tend to dictate. If one is holding an Enya/Brian Eno-scored rite on a beach in Big Sur, with everyone showering lavender upon the couple, and the BRIDE makes it clear *beforehand* that this is a "shorts & sandals are fine" wedding, that's one thing.
But most BRIDES expect people to bring their best to the occasion--poor or rich.
To be invited to a wedding is an ancient and shudderingly powerful thing, a grace rendered. Unless one is a complete troglodyte, one shows-up in one's finest or one doesn't GO. This is so elemental. One never knows: at any given wedding, water can be changed into wine, and one needs to be dressed for the vintage.
But I truly see your discomfort: America has generally become as cynical, lackluster, and as CRUDE as the very oil it can no longer afford to buy.
But when dignity goes out the window--it's disturbing. Agreed.
Mind you, this is coming from someone who feels that, when someone says something especially nice to me, I need to send a $300 gift-basket in return. I think people deserve those kinds of things. But I wasn't taught to do that. I do it because I really feel people deserve it--and I'll never waver on that.
At the end of the day, you either "know" it, or you don't.
Love your piece of commentary, Muire. Cintra makes good choices in that regard.
Posted by: Juan (You Either Know It Or You Don't" de la Sahara at May 7, 2008 2:08 PM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Monday, May 5, 2008
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN -- FETISHY SHOES FOR THE PERVO-IMPERIALIST
Your Critical Shopper gets all French Situationist this week, invoking both Guy Debord and Mary Baker Eddy.
If You Can Read This, You Don't Need A Ruling Class
Oh those wacky French in May, 1968.
They haven't stopped being kinky ever since.
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CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I GIVE YOU MUIRE DOUGHERTY
The DREGUBLOG is mind-blowingly, stand-on-the-chair-and-yowl-like-you're-at-a-KISS-concert-level enthusiastic to introduce the ingenious and H.O.T.T. Muire Dougherty, our longtime homegirl and collaboratrix, who has always been a wit-and-a-half with blazing raw comic and literary talent and a hot rack to match, and who is now generously bringing these things to a fine focus in order to kick all the ass in our little patch of cyberspace.
She's our kind of special lady, so please, gentlemen, try to keep your catcalls down to a sustainable level of deafening. I only wish you could also see her dance.
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COMMENTS
Indeed, a bread and circus policy is the status quo it seems.
I suggest a book titled The Web Of Debt: The Shocking Truth of Our Money System and How We Can Break Free by Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.
It is truly comprehensive on the subject and history of monetary policy and the fraudulent Federal Reserve. Our money is based entirely on debt. Every dollar created today is created on a promise that the LOAN it was created on will be paid back. Every $600 check that the government is sending out was created via a loan.
Lot's of movies are available on the subject as well, if time is an issue. Many are available on Google video. 'Federal reserve', 'monetary policy', and 'money as debt' will bring up relevant documentaries.
Posted by: Matt at April 24, 2008 12:40 AM
Whoops, I meant to post this under the one talking about the tax rebates! Sorry.
Posted by: Matt at April 24, 2008 12:51 AM
Muire Dougherty I LOVE YOU!!
I feel safe knowing as I go out into the world that I can find you and Cintra in one place.
Posted by: Super Amanda at April 26, 2008 5:54 PM
what is the force that forces you to dream?
www.kinomapoftheuniverse.com/tv
Posted by: 9 at April 27, 2008 9:31 PM
Reading your post just after waking up. I think I'm going to wear a snug, tailored, curve-revealing suit to work today. Dare I add a little toque? You inspire me La Muire.
Posted by: Lesa at May 7, 2008 1:08 PM
Hi Muire! Why didn't Cintra mention your singing and burlesque capabilities? Or was that implied?
Posted by: Pretty Lady at May 11, 2008 5:49 PM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Though we now know the 1970s and 1980s to be one of the darkest of modern times in terms of crime, urban blight, and working poverty, those of us who grew up during these times naturally view them as innocent, perhaps bittersweet.
Is this why I found the movie H.O.T.S. (Gerald Seth Sindell, 1979) so fascinating? Even titty movies, as illicit and hard to come by as they seemed to the intrepid teen of 1979, now elicit no more shock or titillation than does a sallow and unsexy Montgomery Ward underwear catalogue from the same period. Back then, sex was less high-stakes. It could give you weeping sores, but it couldn't kill you, and no one expected physical perfection.
H.O.T.S., like so many films positioning themselves as sex comedies appealing to young adults, took place on an all-American college campus. The hard-to-follow, ever-shifting plot involved a group of female students who, upon being rejected by the established sororities, formed their own sorority called H.O.T.S. What H.O.T.S. was an anagram for was changing and unimportant; what was important was the face-value meaning: the "girls" were HOT! If you consider hard-faced 34 year old strippers playing the roles of peachy, romping co-eds hot. But what was truly fascinating to me about H.O.T.S. was that it evoked my youth, often misspent in the parental leisure activity of going to off-color drive-in movies.
Like many a low-income youth, I was raised by a single mother on AFDC. To ease the tedium of spending summer days in the Oakland welfare office, my mother would take us to the drive-in. I was often allowed to invite a friend or two, green-snotted progeny of similar provenance. We had a white van, now understood as the preferred vehicle of the child molester and serial killer, but then merely evoking a "She's gonna love me in my Chevy van" freewheeling laissez-faire. My mother's tactic was to get the kids to hide under mildewed blankets in the back of the van while she drove up and paid the cashier only the entry fees for she and her girlfriend, visibly ensconced in the front seats. By the time my friend and I were released into the broken drive-in playground, oozing tar and dog doody underfoot, the management was none the wiser. My friends eagerly awaited these invitations to the drive-in, as criminal as they were, because my mother had no sense of what films were appropriate for children, or didn't care; hence, we were gifted with viewing the likes of Raw Meat and Mother Jugs and Speed. During these interludes I saw other films set in the H.O.T.S. milieu of an alternative campus sorority; I could swear that I saw one, as I fought the childish urge, late at night, to sleep, in which a sorority "girl" coyly asks the football-playing boyfriend of the rival "good girl" sorority to check her virginity by penetrating her. But, alas, this was not H.O.T.S., and though similar, H.O.T.S. did not solve the mystery of whether this alternative seventies softcore movie actually existed.
Are H.O.T.S. and its kind any worse than American Pie: Band Camp or Grandma's Boy? It can be refreshing to watch women's bodies unobscured by boob implants or hardened into body armor by constant workouts, jiggling in the cellulitic flesh that God gave them. One can almost hear the strident tones of the Andrea Dworkins and Susan Brownmillers of the world denouncing the H.O.T.S. "girls" need to horn up the male student body. But one can only imagine what the seventies separatists would have remarked about the teen sex comedies of the new millennium. Would topless football seem less moral than the bedding of a bald-pussied Playbot as a male status maneuver? Or the barely concealed implication that you are only a valid human being if you are wealthy and/or famous? Undoubtedly not. And though my adult understanding now suggests that seventies drive-in staples may have been untoward viewing for children, maybe I should just feel good that I saw them then, as confusingly creepy and renegade as they were to me then. Now they just seem like a bit of harmless, sleazy fun.
Enjoy a trailer of H.O.T.S. at this link and see what I mean:
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/21235/H-O-T-S-/trailers
![H.O.T.S.[2].jpg](http://www.cintrawilson.com/dregs/H.O.T.S.%5B2%5D.jpg)
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COMMENTS
Well done. Lugubrious tears of nostalgia are, even now, lugubriating their way down my cheeks. Well, practically.
Yes, titties (especially) seem like entirely different entities, when one ganders at them through the lens of steamy drive-in theater days. Boobs/Racks/Ta-Tas/Jugs/ Luvin' Pillows have undergone a complete transmogrification.
There was a curious innocence to those celluloid morsels of cheezy sexuality (the films, not the tits)--one that didn't seem so d-i-r-t-y and plasticized. Who can forget the overtly sexual but delightfully dimwitted (and funny!) ministrations that drive-in staples like 'Porky's' performed upon both the pubescent and adult minds?
Yes, the adults had no problem enjoying such fare along with their spawn, perhaps because films like Porky's and H.O.T.S. were not out to try too hard. In their own way, they were as comfortable and as pleasant as freshly mowed summer lawns, back in the day. Weird to say it, but true, I think.
When tits & jiggles became "pornironic" and self-consciously crass (not to mention deformed by implants), the whole aura was lost. When tits became trivial, a little bit of Armageddon arrived.
Our town ("town" being a term used loosely) had a drive-in theater up until 1984. It was an adjunct of the nearby A&W restaurant. You could get your root-beer float and watch bouncing-boobies in absolute, Grade-A American tackiness...feeling like a good, clean person when you were done.
Those days (and films) are gone. Who needs to pay to see tits onscreen anymore, when your 64 year-old Merry Widow nextdoor neighbor--grizzled and livin' la vida loca--has used her dead husband's insurance money to buy (and then flaunt) a bodacious set of double-D hooters? Well, I'm talking about a California happenstance, but still. The mystery that drive-in boob-fests cultivated is now foreign, when granny is lugging her purchased monster-bosom down to the mailbox forty feet away from your own house.
It ain't the same, I tell ya.
And Muire, you speak the Truth. Kudos and welcome.
Posted by: Juan "I'd Know That Penis Anywhere" de la Sahara at April 23, 2008 12:01 PM
Thank you for your sleazy tender memories. Real bodies and what they stimulate may now be part of our collective past. Perhaps as a human race we have to accept that we're all moving toward Cyborgism, with crowns in our mouths and fake breasts on our chests as the first steps.
Posted by: Muire Dougherty at April 24, 2008 1:22 PM
(sigh). Yes, it seems we may have to accept the migration toward Cyborgism. Evidence of this trajectory seems undeniable.
In 300 years, the wealthiest of us will all end up with shriveled ET-bodies... totally encased in some sort of ultra-kevlar(ish) "armor," pushing buttons within our individual body-machines, if not utterly connected to the One Great Hard Drive that programs and predetermines our every action.
Yeah, we'll be action figures. With bodacious, shiny bronze boobies and razor-sharp digi-penises.
The only token of human culture that will survive this long process of evolution?
The stripper pole. Practitioners will be able to spin and/or gyrate at speeds approaching hyperspace.
There'll likely be a Kardashian or two around, I suppose. Cyborg Royalty.
It'll be like the old Charleton Heston (mayherestinpeace) flick, "The Omega Man," crossed with the Travolta crime, "Battlefield Earth," crossed with "Showgirls."
Meh. Who am I kidding. Humanitywon't be around in 3oo years.
Onward, just the same.
Posted by: Juan "Onward, Christian Cyborgs!" de la Sahara at April 25, 2008 10:45 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7TPf1qW3LI
dance and screaming Lord Sutch for real chicks in bikinis.
One of The first films I ever saw was "Mother Juggs and Speed" at Rockridge Center. My thighs were born at Fentons, and I ran from scary pimps at MB center when it still had a Woolworth's---we are sisters.
Madonna the nanny exploiting hag bitch & the physical opposite in every way of Raquel Welch) killed off the hourglass figure (she NEVER had one) and ushered in six pack abs and no hips as a career move and now white women who don't look like bricklaying boys are just 'too big.'
BUT HAVE NO FEAR REAL ETERNAL BOOB FEST LIVES ON IN ETERNAL GRADE A AUREOLES DISHED OUT BY BRAVE WOMEN EVERY WHERE ON YOU TUBE.
Posted by: Super Piedmont Cut Up at April 26, 2008 5:14 PM
The hip to waist ratio is what has been destroyed as it all moves towards androgyny.
What virtually all women had until the madonna/Gisele Bundchen 32-30-32 tube torso effect was more or less a delineation between the hips and the waist-even women with naturally boyish bodies.
Yet most of these celebs who are tube shaped are claiming hourglass stats. jesica alba is a reapeat offender,
http://men.style.com/slideshows/mens/standalone/gq/feature/060107/jessica_alba/00021f.jpg
James Cameron had her shoe horn her normal size body into a size zero for dark angel and she has no hip to waist ratio yet lies like this fly around:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/25/nwiggle125.xml
I mean what the fuck? When the scrawniest are pretending to be normally voluptuous where the hell does that leave real women who DO have their form intact.
I'm going directly to Cambridge to protest, I kid you not!
Posted by: Super Amanda at April 26, 2008 5:26 PM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Sunday, April 20, 2008
THOSE WACKY KIDS HANGING AROUND THE PENTAGON
Well, it seems our pal Charlie at our favorite counterinsurgency blog, Abu Muqawama, is trying to horn in on our fashion criticism turf with a painfully nailing little essay detailing DC summer fashion Don'ts.
Which means, of course, that I am going to have to salt her area of cyberspace so that nothing can ever be written there again. Or maybe I can just get Britain and France to let me claim the cyberspace around Abu Muqawama, and then once all the treaties are signed I can just declare that it doesn't exist anymore. Hey, it worked for Hitler.
But, all imperial ambitions aside, Charlie should be applauded for this Quixotic endeavor -- trying to get army colonels not to obviously dress like army colonels in their free time. If they all heeded her advice, it would certainly do a great deal to beautify parts of DC and much of Virginia.
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COMMENTS
LOL I'm outta here in a fortnight, bound for the land of the midnight sun and then dear old Blighty living out that adage if you don't like where you live and your government move somewhere else. Twist my arm!
I'm digging all this Caligula referencing too... Malcolm McDowell or John Hurt? Classic or New coke!
I'm loving what happens when you google Cintra Wilson now, we can harness the machine.
We will meet at The Chelsea Flower Show and entertain a score of tailors :)
Posted by: Swedish Socialists at April 22, 2008 12:37 AM
Hey, I never Google myself but I just Googled myself and....WOW. How'd that happen??
That's like Gandalf-level magic to me.
I am staggered. Spellbound. It's every girl's fondest wish come true. Dang. It's like seeing my face on Mt. Rushmore, only more flattering.
Um, THANK YOU magic Google manipulator.
Hey, do you have the power to kill things on the internet as well as breathe life into them? I'm thinking we could eliminate the Governor of Oklahoma altogether. Whaddaya say?
Posted by: Cintra "OMFG!" Wilson at April 22, 2008 7:04 PM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Friday, April 18, 2008
LOOK! NEW STUFF! NO, REALLY, IT IS! NEW STUFF!
My Dearest Fiends:
The deadlines are wreaking havoc - havoc I say - here at the Dregublog, but right over there to your right is a brand new Dregulator chock full of all the weird legal information I spent a couple of frustrated weeks trying to squeeze out of various legal outfits (several of whom refused to speak to me because I was not considered to be serious enough.)
THE LAW IS NOT FOR LITTLE GIRLS
I think this is stuff that EVERY AMERICAN HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW and it was a fair pain in the keister trying to get someone to clue me in, but I have made these demoralizing inquiries from the priest class that is the legal profession so you don't have to.
ALSO, I did a little shopping for the New York Times again -- this time at one of Brooklyn's finest $900 shoe outlets.
Con carne,
Cintra
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Yep. That thar is a good scoop that shoulda been already scooped, but leave it to La Wilson Intrepid.
A bracing assessment. Shoulda been obvious, heretofore, and on the table, like one of today's Drudge headlines:
"Pope worries that 'big powers' control decision-making."
(you gotta love that shit)
Certainly, once McCain takes office, rescindments and repealings and revocations will be flying through the D.C. air like so many fey fellers at a Celine Dion Remote-Controlled Wheeling Arms Thumpy Breasted Bray-Fest.
Yeah, all the candy-dates should be grilled about this cavernous issue, but they likely won't be. It's not compact enough, like "Hope" and "Change" and "I Will Make America Look Shiny Again." Or "Guns Rock!"
And again, the spectre of Caligula looms. I wonder if Liggy would like Crawford, were he amongst us. They barbecue often down there, I hear, and Liggy loved to barbecue. Peoples and such like. Almost the same as pork.
Sad, but when Lady Liberty completes her ongoing charwoman makeover and finally comes in to sweep away the ashes, one thing will haunt: Most Americans may possibly be getting exactly what they deserve.
Posted by: Juan "I Wanna Be A Unibrow Polygamist's Gal" de la Sahara at April 19, 2008 10:52 AM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Sunday, April 6, 2008
NEW OUTRAGEOUS SMARTNESS FROM CHALMERS JOHNSON!
Author/ Ex-CIA agent/Chalmers Johnson, possessor of one of the world's sexiest brains, put out an article on TomPaine.com that I missed in January, but it's never too late to hear from a man who is thinking years ahead of anyone else anyway, and writing it clearly enough that even a blonde can understand it.
This is what Chalmers Johnson's brain looks like
I can only compare the joy I feel finding a new Chalmers Johnson article to the extreme, headbanging glee I feel when Rachel Maddow substitutes for Keith Olbermann instead of those yes-very-comely but unfunny and not insightful-enough anchor-chippies.
Sometimes the world just works.
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"As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both."
Yes, this is sadly the label Americans wear now, whether they like it or not.
"Whatever future developments may prove to be, my best guess is that the U.S. will continue to maintain a façade of constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it...It might, in fact, open the way for an unexpected restoration of the American system—or for military rule, revolution, or simply some new development we cannot yet imagine."
The theories that many racial extremists ( anti-racists and pro racists) on You Tube bandy about is not that much different than the above quote. If we all marched on Washington, general strike for a week we could shut the war down but collectively the US has become too lazy.
Great article, I'll pass it on.
Posted by: Super Amanda at April 7, 2008 1:32 AM
Oh yeah, I thought you'd like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvWX1ZG_kTw
"...the world may never know."
Posted by: Super Amanda at April 7, 2008 1:35 AM
the only way to avoid being crushed by the death-throes of The Beast Of Empire is top get off the grid ASAP. But before you do, buy my bookand see my movie:
Thanx!
Posted by: DollarMan at April 8, 2008 9:49 PM
This guy is right on.
To avoid being crushed by the death-throes of the Beast Of Empire, I recommend getting off the grid ASAP. But before you go, please buy my book and see my movie:
Thanx,
see you South of the Border!
Posted by: Joseph Thomas at April 8, 2008 9:53 PM
sorry about the duplicate post, but I got an error message the first time and.....
Posted by: DollarMan at April 8, 2008 10:02 PM
Check it out Cintra and fire up that Star of David G string!
http://www.playboy.com/blog/2008/04/nudity-trumps-factchecking.html
Posted by: Whirling Dershowitz at April 10, 2008 10:37 PM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
The ever-lovin' New York Times sent my Critical Shopping A** to AEDES DE VENUSTAS,
a really cram-packed little place where people of great wealth and means buy $75 candles and $260 perfumes. VAHBULOUSH.
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COMMENTS
Finally! something that isn't a size two, I can wear this!
There's a nifty place called Angela Flanders Perfume Shop in London and as I'll be back ensconced for the rest of 2008 within a few weeks we should go there if you are going to be in England this year.
Scent is crazy with what it can accomplish for teleportation (Giorgio headache anyone? Electric Youth? Amarige? Love's rain scent?) and this article was actually very moving because Avon's now discontinued "Millenia" recalls my first journey to London in all it's 'packing too much makeup and costumes, losing umbrellas and making friends glory.
May bid on bottle via Ebay!
Great work as always ;)
Posted by: Diablo Cody Won't Add Me on MySpace at April 7, 2008 1:25 AM
The Giorgio headache is something I can only compare to when the barometric pressure drops dramatically after I have been on a nonstop, three-day Febreze huffing binge.
Diablo Cody's parents love her just the way she is. Bo---ring.
Posted by: Cintra "Diablo Cody Should Have A Tattoo Of You" Wilson at April 8, 2008 2:55 AM
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURAL DOGFIGHT
Friday, March 28, 2008
NO, NO, PRADA SOHO....AND THE DREGS FOR ARMS SCANDAL
WHELLLLL, this was fairly recent in the New York Times -- essentially a warning to avoid heavy traffic by staying away from the dressing rooms at the Prada SoHo .
Earlier today, I confessed my love for El DeBarge on WNYC's Soundcheck with John Schaeffer, the recording of which you can link to if you have the shameless huevos to feel the stank.
FEEL KINKY SHAME
And there's also a new Dregulator over there, because so many interesting things have been going on in the international munitions world, I wanted to share and enthuse.....*yikers!*
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COMMENTS
You have a blow-up sheep in your bedroom? We need to talk.
Also, the revelation that a critic has no taste/understanding/concept of the thing that they criticize is actually no revelation whatsoever. Let's be honest here; critics are like eunuchs at a harem. They've seen it done, they know how to do it, and they really, really, really, really want to do it... But they just can't and never will and they don't know as much about it as they think.
Case in point, did you watch the induction ceremony for the so called “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”????? It was like the nerdy kids in High School making an award for the coolest guy in school so they could hang out with him. (and is it just me or was that whole event just a big wank-off op for Jann Wenner?)
Posted by: Mike B at March 29, 2008 10:54 AM
Love me in a special way -- was kind of deep. I don't think the other lady's kitschy choices were on the same page. I'm sure she was cool, but the Yale drop -- feh. The call in from M with Emerson, Lake and Palmer -- the prog rock guy, was highlarious. Great show -- and I'm happy folks are finally recanizing -- contributor to the New York Times is just awesome sounding.
Posted by: H/u? at March 30, 2008 7:13 PM
Some Bay Area updates for you Cintra, I wanted to share this comment I left on Sf gate with you:
A memorial to the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was dedicated on the Embarcadero in San Francisco today and it should be noted that a large portions of the funds for this monument came from the estate of Jonathan F. Smith who along with his parents Albert &Margaret Smith, of Berkeley was a long time supporter of Abraham Lincoln Brigade. When Jonathan Smith died in 1999 he willed much of his estate to THE VALB, (CISPES) and The Bay Area Paul Robeson Centennial Committee (who also donated toward the completion of this monument.) His father had donated money to the Lincoln Brigade during the 30’s and 40’s & was labeled "Prematurely anti-fascist" & despite being a ground breaking X-ray Crystallographer, was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and denied clearance at his job w/ Shell in Emeryville for over a year. Colleague Linus Pauling arranged for Albert to teach at Cal Tech but things were never the same and McCarthyism cast a huge inescapable shadow over the family. The family of Jonathan F. Smith should be remembered today along with the great men and women of The Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
(Jonathan was my much older boyfriend.)
"I'll tell you I Love You
But won't believe its true
More precious than silver
More precious than diamond rings
or anything that I can give you
It wouldn't mean a thing
If you don't have my love beside you there to guide you through
or any good t know you do...."
-DeBarge
Posted by: Super Amanda at March 30, 2008 8:00 PM
"The door slid open. I loathe being barged in on while half dressed."
Oh my god! Remember "Bridegway To Hollywood" in Sausalito?
I used to spend all my money there and I remember thinking it was time to put down movie stills and get some bitchin clothes so i went half a block south and walked into some palace of a clothing store with a staircase even and tried on mini skirt with this woman who's sole purpose seemed to be to stand in my dressing room with a German accent while she women told me how shitty I looked. My own personal Erich Von Stroheim film!
I agree Prada is a socialist and an artist but most other fashion designers are not artists by a long shot. Like a 500.00 meal at The French Laundry, expensive clothes are only art for the rich unlike the painting that sits in Louvre or the statue in the park for ALL to see and be inspired by or song that will be on the radio forever for all to hear for free
(by Debarge!) it just doesn't translate to art for me but Prada is an exception.
Posted by: Super Amanda at March 30, 2008 8:18 PM
It was all about Bout, but now it's not about Bout so much anymore. This may indeed lead to a bout of ennui in the race to replace Bout, which is just about anyone's game, if you think about it.
So long as there is an evil, depsicable E-Bloc "Natasha-type" in the new, new (non-Nick Cage) film version, I think this is a story that could fly in every place, except perhaps Quebec, or something like Quebec.
This is a blatant call to resurrect "Jejeuna." There's gotta be a part for her in the Tinselized story about Bout.
(And, Prada...yikes...tres pseudo-surreal. Mind, beware the dressing-room cam footage that is surely to make its way onto the nets. Soon).
Posted by: Juan de la Sahara at April 1, 2008 2:49 PM
COMMENTS
a. saw you in "So I Married An Axe Murderer,"
b. remembered you borrowing my French book in Mr. Peterson's class for six weeks while you added funny captions to the pictures and I dropped dismally behind.
c. googled you, read the blog, had a point to make, forgot it.
d. remembered the point (dollar so weak, the blowjob will become the standard unit of american currency)
e. realized point off-color, not stellar contribution, put "charlie don't surf" on the turntable in honor of the sidebar about Osama
f. and said "fuckit," hit the submit button anyway.
Posted by: Philip Williamson at May 11, 2008 3:09 AM
It's discomforting how, typically women, even vote for her. In Hillary you haven't a confident, intelligent, and warm person, but, as Paglia so aptly titled one of her editorials, 'the first drag queen'. The wiser know psychologically Clinton is not 'feminine' in any sense of the word. Sans the pantsuit, slightly extended hair, ear rings, and contrived regality, she's a male politicial aristocrat in drag.
Now I can just see Cintra, a 30' Apple Display the only source of illumination late at night, organizing an assortment of male wigs on a Photoshop canvas (which includes Trump's comb over) adjacent various tailored suits, mastering the possibilities.
Well, if she doesn't I eventually will. I'll also go out the same night, a warm smile at Casa Nueva greeting any female interested in casual conversation, while sipping a raspberry microbrew , because men can also be as strong as women.
Posted by: Sir Philip at May 11, 2008 4:52 PM
There's a difference between knowing your inner monster, understanding it, and keeping it chained up in the basement--for consultation before you go toe-to-toe with Karl Rove--and trying to turn the world into a basement. My suspicion is that Obama has got a basilisk in his basement, but that he only calls it forth when diplomacy fails.
Posted by: Pretty Lady at May 11, 2008 6:14 PM
(Brother Philip's head rests in his hand, sighingly..)
How do I put this. When Hillary leaves the stage, she wants to chain Karl Rove in her basement, a place where human intimacy simply does not exist but power does, unless Kenneth Starr is assisting in throttling her husband which is just enchanting, and that's the bottom line.
Posted by: Sir Philip at May 11, 2008 6:28 PM
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