Did Melville Borrow the Idea for 'Moby Dick'?

paul collins finds story browsing old books on eBay

Weekend Edition - Saturday, December 24, 2005 Literary historian Paul Collins found an odd ad in a rare first edition of Moby Dick author Herman Melville's 1849 novel Redburn. The ad was for another novel -- The Whale and His Captors -- by Rev. Henry Cheever. Collins and Scott Simon discuss the once-common practice of 'improving upon' another author's work.

yes, i only read books with some stealing. if none is done, i'm not going to believe it.

dennis hopper is dead

ccadden writes in to the mindvox list--

Say three HAIL's to Dennis Hopper, who has passed away. Hail! Hail! Hail! Thanks for the ripping memories, and the unique character that you were, and still are.

i hadn't heard anything about it. right away josh comes back with an eminently sensible reply that leaves you wondering just what kind of drugs ccadden is doing. (or if he is reading the some of the new york post's cracker-jack headlines) josh throws a nice twain line about exaggeration and makes you think about information flows of 1820 and of 2005.

What are you talking about? To borrow a phrase from Twain, the reports
of Dennis Hopper's death have been greatly exaggerated. He's currently
working on a film called "The Night We Called It A Day" about Frank
Sinatra. There's nothing about him dying in the news.

http://news.google.com/news?q=dennis+hopper

but offering a link to google as final proof is just a bit too ironic for me to hold back some laughs. will a giant news aggregator report agreement or generate 10,000 generally agreeable webpages?

WHY I CAN'T STAND PEACENIKS

YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW OUR RULES, OR BE AN APOSTATE
By Friedrich von Hardenberg

"One always hates to be shaken, because it involves getting unstuck from the comfortable rut where one has been for too lonog. But it's always, ultimately, a good thing, because it reactivates you; it makes you live again. To be unshaken is to die while living. When one is on one's death bed, one does not remember the years spent living in a comfortable rut. One remembers the times of being shaken."
- Grekmann the Wise

This is why I can't stand peacniks. It's because they are all a bunch of hypocritical liars. I guess I have some sort of thing about hypocritical liars.

Peaceniks are like a bunch of cows in a herd. EVERYBODY has to be on EXACTLY THE SAME vibe. As soon as there is the slightest discordance, the instant someone expresses any uniqueness whatsoever, EVERYBODY tweaks. The whole herd gets that spooked out look in its eye, but instead of bolting like cows do, they hypocritically attack the unique individual.

Now, in order to attack the unique individual, they have to be passive aggressive. Otherwise they would have to admit they are attacking. Since they don't "believe" in attacking, they can't view themselves as the attackers. So what do they do? They attack, passive aggressively, accusing the Unique One of being the attacker, attacking him, with all the self righteous "indignation" they can squeeze out of their passionless bodies.

Here is an example. This ugly peacenik bitch wouldnt shut up about her lying, cheating scumbag of a husband. Everyone kept telling her to get him to talk about his feelings and inadequacies, to "spend quality time with her family" and to be mutually supportive and stupid bullshit like that. This is what she expected to hear. She expected everyone to feed into her attention seeking behavior, reinforcing her behavior of never shutting up about what a stupid, ugly, undesirable twat she was.

So what did I do? Contrary to what people might think, I don't go around looking for trouble. Ask grekmann. He just told me I hate it when all this catharsis starts busting out all over the place, even though it's a good thing. No, 90% of the time I'm going out of my way to be as tame as motherfucking possible.

But in this case, I just got sick of listening to this stupid twat bitch repeatedly about the same shit over a series of several fucking months. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I offered some advice.

"Look bitch," I told her. "The truth is, you don't want to be happy. All you want is something to bitch about. Even if your dumbass liar of a husband wasn't retarded, you'd find something to bitch about. I have an idea, why don't you either do something to make your life better or shut the fuck up?"

So I went into the whole list of things she could do to make herself more attractive to her husband so he wouldnt fuck her sister or her friends who were less ugly than she was. Stop being a fat pig, bitch. Wear makeup. Shave once in awhile, for christ's sake. Shut the fuck up once in awhile. Give him a fucking unearned blowjob once in awhile and kick him some threesomes.

Well, apparently these bovine bitches think that her troglodyte husband was banging her sister, because it afforded him the opportunity to have long, drawn out conversations about his inadequecies. They acted like I was the one who was talking some sort of fucked up shit. Fuck those stupid twats.

Then you have the recent flap over the photo I sent in to the pagan group. Apparently it jolted someone with a discordant vibe. Now, they are all settling back into their vegetative state, agreeing with each other about everything (mainly that, somehow, I was the one creating a disturbance, and that, at somepoint, I was the one "engaging in personal attacks") and everything is going back to socially casual.

I feel like I'm back in Sunday School, or NEW Lutheran High. At least those lying bitches fucked with passion, not self righteous depravity. Not to mention that they shave, wear makeup, and shit like that. Hell, I might as well be in church.

So, guess what, peaceniks. I'm sick of that bullshit. Yes, I am a bad person inside, a dirty rotten scoundrel, an unscupulous rascal and a rapscallion. But at least I'm not a lying hypocrite. And at least I'm not a fucking vegetable.

GO FUCK YOURSELVES!

WHY I CAN'T STAND PAGANS

PAGANS ARE ALL LIARS. FUCK PAGANS.
By Friedrich von Hardenberg

What's up with Pagans? When this shit first really started getting rolling with Paganism it pissed me off. When I said Paganism, I was always referring to the Ancient Greeks, a culture of people who had balls and weren't a bunch of hypocritical liars.
Greek culture was based upon the Greek Agon, the contest of wills between equally matched opponents. It was based upon the idea of excellence. Like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill, we all voluntarily want to make ourselves grow stronger. It feels good.
But now, when people say "Paganism," what do they mean? They mean WICCA, which is a total bullshit religion promoted by university professors. As an authentic Superfreak of the Lineage of Cain, this disgusts me.
What disgusts me even more are the experiences I have with these so-called "Pagans." Most recently, I Posted a photograph to an ostensibly Pagan email group, which was met with extreme horror and disdain, as a result of its feartured titty.
This is my experience with "Paganism" in a microcosm. Pagans are all a bunch of dumbass liars who might as well go to the dumbass Presbyterian church down the road.
They're even afraid of nudity these days.
Let's examine this photo, which can also be seen here. It is an artistic expression of my subjective experience with the Pagan group to which I sent it. It signifies greatness, and the aesthetic power of women, encompassed by nature.
Here we see two powerful, beautiful women, on a mountaintop, as if hallowed by Gaia herself; one of them has fired an arrow, and the other seems to have caught it. This brings to mind the Zen ritual in which one catches the arrow fired at one, and I viewed it as an oblique reference to the Amazons of the real Pagan culture, back in the ancient mediterranean.
We see the wind in their hair, and their bodies exposed, unashamed, and illuminated by the sun, the most holy of orbs. They stand unafraid, looking off into the distance, as if engoddened. They embody the full sublimity and dynamism of womanhood. Hand in hand, they represent the mystical bond of all women, and by extension, the promotion of that very matriarchal world-view ostensibly espoused by these so-called "Pagans."
But what do these shrivelled up old fucking crones see? NUDITY! GOD fucking forbid, right? "Our children might see that!"
Well, go fuck yourselves, hypocritical liars. Go ahead and shield your children from all beauty if you want. Go ahead and condemn the free personal expression of others. Flee nature in terror. But you needn't leave your neighborhood Presbyterian church to do so. I tried to go along with your halfwitted stupidass bullshit religion, but you make it impossible.
In short, take your dry, shrivelled up twats and go fuck yourselves.

Jesse Sullivan, the World's First Bionic Man

progress marches inevitably onward. hold that. let's not say there's something called "progress" that moves along without you or me. no no. there's some smart dude, todd, & some of his friends who don't give a shit about the rest of it. and they use there minds to work out some crazy shit with motors computers and the human body and the human mind. and that is definitive.

"Developed within the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs (NECAL) at RIC, Dr. Todd Kuiken, MD, PhD, pioneered the muscle reinnervation procedure which takes an amputee’s own nerves and connects them to a healthy muscle. In this case, four of Mr. Sullivan’s nerves were dissected from the shoulder and transferred to the muscles of his chest. Doing so allows the user to move his or her prosthetic arm as if it were a real limb – by simply thinking about what they want the arm to do. The "Bionic Arm," or myoelectric arm, is driven using electrical signals from the muscles of the chest, now activated by the user’s own thought-generated nerve impulses. These impulses are sensed, via surface electrodes, from the pectoral muscle and carried through to the mechanical arm, causing the arm to move."

Contemporary Uses of Liberalism

ok i'm blogging this now. it's 8 questions 5 respondents answer each one. p0rn st0rm will respond later ...

cultural re-enactment and the american dream

p0rnst0rm says:
heh this another funny thing about the suburban dream: have a good job to pay for a nice house in a safe pretty neighborhood so that you can then be free to go to the movies manufacture the emotions (fear, excitement) you've worked so hard to get away from. heh "i can't even remember what it is i came her to get away from." haha.


daybrown answers:
Because all the land outside New Orleans was swamp, early on folks got into fixing up old houses. I lived in a lot of them, and did some of the fixing myself, but when you down thru 7 layers
of wallpaper, it occurs to you, that whatever you do to the wall, will in time be redone by another.

Only in recent decades has the freeway system enable folks to move far enough out to 'develop' the usual sprawl, with the usual notion that some dude will 'improve' the landscape with his own house. But you havta be blind not to notice all the water you drive over on the way into New Orleans, and be dense not to ponder whether it will all stay where they put it.

Thucydides:"People marveled at their successes, whether their means were adequate or not, and the day came when they confused their hopes with realities." Luck always runs out.

Back in the early 70's, I thot it was pure hubris, when "Rock & Roll will live forever" played on the radio. When I was young, I new nothing of the Big Band music my mom's generation listened to. And as time has gone on, I am constantly reminded by all the young people now listening to, and knowing the lyrics of music from a bygone era. Young folks know the words to old songs that I never did figure out. Bizzarrrr.

But it was the technology; the electric amplification opened up new ways of expression, and the media developed to spread that expression further than ever, around the globe... cheaply. It has, by now, somewhat run the course; there is, after all, only so much you can do to a guitar string. And
I detect a certain envy, a kind of reconstructionalism. just as there are Revolutionary and Civil war re-enactors, so there are neo-hippies, poor as always, outcaste, non-conformist. But they are not making music that will be listened to decades hence.

American culture has passed its classic era, is now baroque, rococo, with snippets of old art spliced together as if it'd then be new art. Nobody gives a fuck what you put on vinyl or canvas any more. Cubist oil painting became acrylic abstract expressionism, and now its just pixels.

The American dream went on like fireworks, amazed people, but now the show's over, and we're standing around saying how good it was.

fortitude at the grocery store before the big one

'You can sign my death certificate,' cigar bar owner Michael Kincaid said, standing in line at Mattassa's corner grocery with a six-pack of beer, a bag of potato chips and a package of chocolate chip cookies. 'My biggest investment is here, so I'm going to stay with it.'

Jazz singer Peyroux 'disappears'

BBC NEWS: "A record label has hired a private detective to trace jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux, whose album has been steadily climbing the UK charts. The US singer has failed to turn up for any promotional work, according to Universal Classics. It said this was not the first time she had vanished, spending seven years busking in Paris after the release of her debut album."

Patti Smith Summerstage 2005

4 Aug 2005 Central Park New York NY

The air is hot and thick and if you move too much you'll start sweating all over again. I'd waited in line and now i'm sitting in some bright white folding chairs, almost straight before the center microphone. I look over and see the sun about to dip behind a tall building. When it finally does, there's a breath of cool air and the techs come out to fix up the stage for Janet Hamill & Moving Star, the night's opening act. I've never been to a Patti Smith show before and the woman next to me, Nadia, is telling me the legends and some of the mythology.

There's anticipation in the air, like there always is at a concert. The crowd is of many ages: it probably reflects the general proportions of age groups in the city and the country. There are some people who look like real squares-- some reading the Times Literary Supplement and others discussing health care plans. Some are all the way down the line like the look-at-that-dude & Nadia-taps-her-forearm-dude. Nearby an Indian mother who doesn't seem to know much about Patti Smith seems to be chaperoning her two young Indian-American teens who have convinced her to go. When the ambient music on the speakers shifts from Latin & Salsa instrumentals to an Arabic singer, and the mother and daughters want to know the language (Arabic) we can't help but perceive 21st Century global realities in U.S. Culture set the stage for the post-world-war-II almost-historical music we're about to see.

Twilight is falling and people are looking up just who Janet Hamill is on the program. She's Patti Smith's mentor from the 60s. She's a beat poet who's taken on a backing band. And now she's taken the stage letting us know she's from Goshen NY. One guy in the crowd calls out Goshen as if he's from there. Her drummer, bassist, and guitarist crash into a Credence Clearwater Revival style groove, and Janet jumps into a poem. The way she recites it her voice climbs through each line she recites like she's just gotten up off the rooftops and is reaching for the sky. In fact one refrain is "What is heaven for" if you can't get there in an earthly human way. More than one bird crosses her poems. She calls out to stay up all night and in another refrain she proposes one of the elements of the party should be backyard telescopes trained on the stars. There's a long sea metaphor. Her second poem is an explicit tribute to Jack Kerouac. Now there are billboards twice their normal size dazzlingly alight. And there's people going to and fro under the great Night.

She goes into a third poem. She has a flutist, a guy with white hair working the keyboard like an alchemist making accompanying sounds and scapes. Some members go and an acoustic guitarist comes on. She lays down some rhythm guitar for another poem. Janet plays the harmonica not for harmonies but very frankly and unconcernedly before a final stanza. Nadia and I are listening to the words and we institute a three strike rule. If a word comes along that totally falls flat she gets a strike. "bloody prayer" comes down. Strike One. Three poems later we're wondering how many at-bats she gets. I get a hot-dog and fries. Everyone looks like they have a Stella Artois in hand. Someone opens a Greek dish in a white styrofoam container and all rows around note the delicious smell. When her set closes, we decide she's not perfect, but she's unafraid, uncompromising, and capturing something serious of the poetic traditions.

Paul Schaeffer, word that he's a regular keyboardist on television comes down the row, comes on to announce that Patti will be on soon and that we should all get a refreshment and prepare ourselves. Nadia is seeing lots of people she knows; there's a strong contingent of those who've been on the scene for a long time. Nighttime is fallen and when i look up, the stage-rail has been crowded so that anyone who thought he'd sit near the front has now found that to be an impossibility.

In a flash, her band has taken the stage and have hit into the first song. She's laying the words in with a sharp edge to her voice. She's articulating some of the lines with the hiss of a snake. She's even-handed, balanced, and strong. She's confident in all she sings. In a few lines she's dispelled any doubt and people press toward the stage. She encourages us, too, waving us toward the stage. At points she puts her boot up on the monitor and lays out the line like it means everything, like she's singing to you. Now my ears are glued to everything she says, and eyes to everything she does.

She's got a dip or something spitting every now and then in the middle of the song or between songs. The dude who yelled "Goshen" yells something silly but kind of unintelligible. Patti: "Whut?". No answer. She picks up an acoustic and puts down a rapid-fire rhythm. Between verses she plays face to face with Lenny Kaye, her long time guitarist. He kicks into another gear and does as he feels, friend to the high notes. I wish I knew the words, because with dancing and everything going on I'm missing a lot of them.

Then she says: "I'm going to play an American folk song," drawling out american a little "sing along if you know the words." She opens Like A Rolling Stone a few are singing the verse. When she gets to the refrain every single member of the audience sings loud and clear, and she knows she's opened something in the crowd. She's vehement in her delivery. More and more people are dancing.

Now she points out Jerry Garcia's birthday. It warrants a week of celebration she says. A nine day week. She's rocking the vocals hard. This time the guitarist on the left takes the solo and does well with it. She's dressed in a flannel-shirt sweat-shirt I can't tell what type thing. She's got anyone's jeans and a white shirt. Her 1st decoration are these suede boots she wears that you see prominently when she steps up on the monitor and as she's constantly moving around the stage. She waves to one part of the crowd. She sings to the right. She gets down low and sings to one person in the audience. She curses a photographer who's come to the front to try to get her picture, "Get the Fuck Outta Here" in between verses. She smiles and waves to another part of the crowd. Her only other decoration is a large cross probably 4 inches by 2 inches around her neck. You can really see it when she sings the song, Jesus died for everyone's sins but mine.

She does two other songs many people know, but I don't and then she jumps into Because The Night which i know well. The whole place is rockin' and the people who were all over their cell-phone-camcorders have given it up and are just rocking out too. Each member of the band is awesome, delivering on the instrumentals. Patti dances in Lenny's face as he solos. He takes it out to a rapturous level. Everyone loves it and cheers.

Now she brings up Jerry Garcia again, this time telling a legend that begins "one hot sweaty night in the dog days of August." It's about a boy with sturdy legs and a man tired looking for a place to lay his weary head. She goes back and forth between these characters and raises her voice. Soon she puts here arms out and is looking up at the stage lights as her story and the band have reached some kind of frenzy. She could even be channeling some kind of spirit. She might be channeling Jerry, but more likely, she's getting Jerry to help her channel something else. And from there she breaks into another awesome Rock & Roll song with a real rock and even more roll. People are really dancing to this; new rhythm is coursing through everyone.

Then she goes into a song for all those who've died in the recent "strike and illegal occupation." When the crowd answers strong, she goes into a longer tirade about the things the people in power do and how "they'll do it again and again and again and again" She lays on that again word and we know it. And into a slower song. it starts slow but when we hear her sing the refrain, something like "one day if we're strong enough, maybe, we'll be able to rebuild the peaceful nation." It picks up force.

Now it's getting near the end and when the lights flash off briefly between songs everyone's worried it's already the encore. People seem to want to stay for a long time. She throws in some shout-outs to new york. She introduces her band including the competent bassist and guitarist on the right as her son. Everyone gives an extra cheer for Lenny Kaye. Patti is rushing around the stage as if to make sure she touches each and everyone in the audience before she goes. The last song is over too quickly, and the lights change. I say my good-byes to the people I met and we're released now into the hot August night out through the park into the streets and subways of New York City.

All the songs and everything are all mostly out of order.

Torrent Tracker Dodges Whiners

thepiratebay.org responds to various written threats including this response:

"As you might know American law is NOT applicable in Sweden. Even though USA seems to think, from time to time, that there is only one law, just as there is only on god. In your own law your courts claim only jurisdiction (under the "long arm statutes") over non-state residence only in certain cases. Namely when the "defendant" has minimum contacts in the state where the suit was initiated. In the case Asahi Metal industries Co., Ltd v. Superior court of CA the U.S. Supreme court ruled that such "contacts" did not exist since the defendant had no offices, no agents, no employees or property and so on. Much like our case. The only thing connecting us with the US is the fact that our torrents are accessible worldwide. Not being an expert on American law (we have something in common. Isn't it fun how people from all over the world are connected through our own ignorance?) we still are of the opinion that there is no, excuse the language, chance in HELL that you will be able to initiate a suit in an US court against our us and have us summoned to the US.

That means that such a suit will have to be initiated in Sweden, under Swedish law. As to this date Swedish law does not forbid the activities relating to having bitorrent-tracker. Nor does any Swedish precedent exist that forbids it. We are confident in our assessment that our activities are perfectly legal and they will continue until such a time that the Swedish lawmaker changes the law.

It might be hard for you to get what I'm about to say through your thick John Wayne foreheads, so bear with me. The tracker provides the user only with .torrent files which contain no copyrighted data. The actual copyrighted material is to be found on the individual machines of our users, not on our servers. "

Faux Faulkner Winner 2005

"Down the hall, under the chandelier, I could see them talking. They were walking toward me and Dick s face was white, and he stopped and gave a piece of paper to Rummy, and Rummy looked at the piece of paper and shook his head. He gave the paper back to Dick and Dick shook his head. They disappeared and then they were standing right next to me."

We’re not Afraid!

the bombers wish to strike fear in the hearts of londoners & the world. and this site is a scrapbook of one screen graphic designs letting them know it didn't work. it's high on the list of the the sites of the moment

Generation Chickenhawk

It's not hard to say what's gone wrong in young conservative minds when they speak of defending high ideals and liberating the opressed: they know little of costs and penalties. Where there is death and protracted misery; there is know way they could know it. They see only the shrouds of glory.

"And they are beating back the Iraqi insurgency when they demand that their university budget more money toward bringing conservative speakers (like Horowitz) to campus, which he also advised them to do. This equation holds a special appeal among College Republicans who are loath to risk their lives on the battlefield but don't want to feel that they are missing the action either."

Read Erotica Aloud

ok, have you every read erotica out-loud in "mass foreplay". it seems like a pretty good idea.

America's Coming Economic Crisis

about WBUR Boston's On Point program day brown says

Why would I wanna listen, when I can read 5 times faster than anyone can talk? And why would I wanna listen, when if I'm reading, and I come to something that dont sound right, I can quickly glance up to see of the premises are correct? Nobody stands up to challenge bullschitt from the pulpit, but we do it here all the time.

If the dude has anything to say, let him put it in ascii like this. Then, we can see if his case is reasonable.

Librarian stands up to FBI

an interesting practical story about the patriot act and the expansion of governmental powers. if you think this is "liberal whining", read what "jews for firearms" have to say about. i would imagine respectable conervatives could be against the invasive nature of the patriot act.

here's why the fuss: a person somewhat inclined to be a terrorist himself is most often the most useful agent in defending against terrorism. it's like former hackers who broke into govt. computers for the joy of it will become the best security experts. in the borderland between criminal and police, between transgressor and justice, all sorts of things can happen. that said there's no reason to keep a book about bin laden from people even potential terrorists. principle: guard the freedom of exchange of ideas over interdicting free ideas because they might be dangerous. in the long run, global society will be more stable. black and white thinkers: i'm not saying we should give away detailed layperson tutorials on how to make nuclear weapons. that would not be smart.

pacific island resourcefulness

ccadden (elgrekkko) from the MindVox list

if i were on survivor island----and this is something i think of everytime i get a glimpse of that dumbass show---i'd comb the woods daily for natural drugs. it's been driving me crazy, the last couple of seasons, where they've been out in the pacific. i see kava kava vines all over the place, but no one there knows you can pick that stuff, boil it, and trip balls.

Anthony Lane Reviews Revenge of the Sith

to anthony PORNSTORM responds:

Your criticism of the script of Revenge of the Sith is good, if an easy thing to do. I think the whole theater laughed at the screen at the points you mention. When you come to criticizing the architecture, however, I'm not sure I follow. "Alien" and "Blade Runner" do more than you have room to say. They suggest that our world on its current path leads to a world that's not only more rusted and septic but feels like it can never be fixed. In those movies, visions of heroism are small, fleeting, and far from the task of changing the tide of human society. The highest moments there, darkly, are brief where your head is above water in a life otherwise made entirely of drowning.

Star Wars on the other hand suggests that there is a founding human principle which can transform vast swaths of civilization into something peaceful and meaningful. It is perhaps the death of this particular dream that weighs so heavily on our society today. I may be reading too far into what you say. But you seem to prefer a movie that sticks closer to "existence" one filled with "clutter, quirkiness, intimacy, irony, and threatened order". Certainly Han Solo brings that kind of reality to his episodes of Star Wars: he kicks his bucket of bolts to make it fly. he makes his way through a chaos of individuals each with his own ends. But a movie made entirely of these elements fails as badly as one with none of them. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" depicts a mind-doctor and desperate lonely individuals turning to him for a fix. And we can all see that going to such a doctor will heal nothing. But when you have a broken leg you do not want to go to a hospital filled with "tricky little threats to order", you would like a hospital that has well documented these threats and dealt with them well over years of experience. you would like a hospital that strives to solve basic issues.

We've all seen pi in the sky designs for large-scale order come up against an even bigger reality thousands of times-- in a New York City Starbuck's washroom, in a scuffed and crooked Wachovia ATM room, in the space shuttle explosions, in the failures of the university, in once grand arteries now choked with traffic. But when the poets celebrate the triumphs of clutter over order of rust over steel, are they not celebrating with awe the gumption of those who tried? they are, i think, celebrating those who dare to trump reality and existence with their dreams. The face of the statue half-buried in the sand is a sign of the large extent to which existence had to go to stymie the dream. I'm not saying Lucas is such a dreamer, but he tries to celebrate them in the Jedi.

I agree that the film in question has gone astray, that Lucas can no longer find solid words to put in yoda's mouth and make him come alive. But to criticize filmic architecture in which the floors of the capital are polished for lack of character goes too far. It takes dedicated, robotic, perhaps loving hands to keep a floor like that. In "Blade Runner" nobody cares anymore because the planet is on the far side of some nuclear winter. In "Revenge of The Sith", at least if we grant what it's trying to do, the clarity and rationality of the republic is giving way to the martial, imposed order of an empire. The existence of this kind of transition was not lost on the audience i was with.

Perhaps this is what you mean when you insist on the word vulgar twice in three lines, although i can't work it out exactly. I imagine you mean the 1950s style levitating convertibles and the quick succession of too briefly and flatly constructed planetary ecologies that come only vaguely connected to any other part of the movie. Or are you talking about Lucas-world in a more general sense? And what's with your George Bush style bravado? "... a brood of yodettes, are you saying you'd leave them behind at the first sniff of danger?" I don't think "Yoda" is saying that. Again if you haven't given up the thread of the morality tale, the Jedi are charged with the guarding the republic. If you can't see past your personal causes and those of your family (or there's nothing to see beyond those concerns) then you don't really belong in a job like that. Also, if you follow the admittedly hard-to-hold plot of the movie, you see it is his fear of loss itself which kills her, not some do-nothing attitude (not) suggested by yoda. You're right the film didn't make yoda's suggestion feel as deep as it turned out to be in terms of the plot.

19th Century Painter John Martin

Anthony Lane referred to this Victorian Painter in reference to Star Wars Revenge of the Sith.

German police baffeled by Bush poo-flags

From SF Bay Indy Media:

"'We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act,' said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler. 'But frankly, we don't know what we would do if we caught them red handed.' Legal experts say there is no law against using feces as a flag stand and the federal legal experts say there is no law against using feces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue."

Masked & Anonymous :: Parable of Today

Masked & Anonymous (2003) is a parable of what is going on right now. the politics of '68 & '69 are over. "I'm glad I fought / I only wish we'd won" ("Honest With Me" Love & Theft 2001) ... the capitalists and the materialists won. Masked & Anonymous depicts our world where power and money dictate the course of people's lives. they're the set and scene of the stage of "real life". art, spirituality, music, and philosophy are all left for salves of those caught in back eddies of failure. the biggest kick in the head to the late 1960s is that those who have a sense of art or secular spirituality are not ultimately better people who have better lives than the corrupt, the greedy, or the anti-abortionists. The only punishment for these crimes comes from St. Peter or from Judgement Day, if you even believe in that.

Look at the farce of the murder, blind lemon jefferson's guitar the weapon. there exists some system of justice where such a petty crime gets prosecuted. but it's a petty fight and much bigger crimes go unnoticed even applauded elsewhere: it's a parable of today. show me someone who would say u.s. democracy today is anything close to perfect. i've heard too many who have never been anywhere else who say the u.s. is better than everywhere else.

there is a live debate over whether democracy as basically laid out is 'perfectable' in that the changes we make to the rules of our society can in fact make our lives better. that's what i believe; i think Masked & Anonymous suggests that moving toward a more perfect country is a very difficult thing if at all possible. some argue that it's no longer possible, but that's for another time.

Banned and Challenged Books

it's funny to see the kinds of things they banned. mostly it's public schools in one isolated area of the U.S. or another as opposed to broad-based bans. though there are some. But to see what people can be afraid of, that can shed some light. it seems to me it the percieved consequences of reading one of these "dangerous" leads to "responsible" adults to ban them for public "saftey".

cold fusion

yes: science: do you believe science can answer more material concerns of the human race? is this exciting to you? some people think science is a religion that we worship. cold fusion is pi in the sky. it's a big dream as the headline says "to put the sun in your pocket". human flight was a big dream too.

formerlyROSIE

rosie odonnell had blogspot. it's full of her "poems" and the vague notion that she's somewhere between "artist" and the rest of us-- raging and regular. the internet is just too funny. even jeff bridges has his own website that looks like it could be The Dude's.

this is me: the nature of the internet (quiz)

Your Seduction Style: Ideal Lover You seduce people by tapping into their dreams and desires. And because of this sensitivity, you can be the ideal lover for anyone you seek. You are a shapeshifter - bringing romance, adventure, spirituality to relationships. It all depends on who you're with, and what their vision of a perfect relationship is.

yes, that's the nature of the internet: it's your ideal lover. it's whatever you need it to be.

daybrown worldview

Friedrich von Hardenberg wrote:

>i love the section on 'the jews and their stooges.' LOL

I dunno what section that is. Neitzsche dont cut the Jews any slack, and recognizes the bad effect, not of the Jew, but of the Christian cosmology derived from scripture of the Jews. The Jew is not the problem; the Christian is. The Buddhist cultures never had a Jewish problem.

The Genealogy of Morals, chap VII:"It was the Jew, who, with frightening consistency, dare to invert the aristocratic value equations good/noble/powerful/beautiful/happy, favored-of-the-Gods and maintain, with the furious hatred of the underprivileged and impotent, that "only the poor, the powerless, are good; only the suffering, sick, and ugly, truly blessed. But you noble and mighty ones of the earth will be, to all eternity, the evil, the cruel, the avaricious, the godless, cursed and damned! .. We know who has fallen heir to this Jewish inversion of values.... That it was the Jews who started the slave revolt with two millennia of history behind it, which we have lost sight of today simply because it has triumphed so completely."

Its not the fault of the Jews if Aryans are stupid enough to take up their cosmology. The Buddhists werent, and dont have the problem. And today, we see Jews running much of the transnat culture, as part of the blessed Market Elite, to which they are rapidly being joined by the Chinese, who in SE Asia are getting the same kind of asinine attitude as anti-Semites show us. It is the natural attitude of the truly powerless. True Aryans are not powerless, and those who sharpen their wits and educate themselves about the way the world works, dont have a problem with the Jews.

Chap XXVI:"I have no patience with mummers who try to mimic life, with worn-out, used up people who swathe themselves in wisdom so as to appear "objective", with histrionic agitators who wear magic hoods on their straw heads, with ambitious artists who try to pass for ascetics and priests yet are, at bottom, only tragic bufoons. And I am equally out of patience with those newest speculators in idealism called anti-Semites, who parade as Christian-Aryan worthies and try to stir up all the asinine elements of the nation by that cheapest of propaganda tricks, a moral attitude."

Neitzsche saw Hitler and the Nazis coming in 1887. I think he wrote the work aware, by then, of how readers failed to grasp what he was going on about in Zarathustra. The Jews are a side show put in the center ring just as scapegoats have always been sought by leaders lacking in character. The Genealogy of Morals is also a testament to the lack of scholarship among the liberal opponents of fascism that the Nazis could claim Neitzsche as a founding father, and the Liberals never caught them at it. Nor have they yet, to this day, done the same as you see here with the Neo-Nazis.

The Kharmapath of the true Aryans has nothing to do with Semites. In The Birth of Tragedy, Neitzsche goes into the best documented example he has of indigenous Native European religion, Dionysianism. He notes that whereas the Levantine religion is based on works of literature that claim literal truth, Dionysianism was based on works of theater showing us allegorical truth. A lotta guys, aspiring to leadership, like Bush, just dont get it. Levantine scripture is a far more useful tool.to repress our innate wisdom rather than, as he instinctively understood, reveal it to us in mysterious ritual.

In chapter III, he asks "himself what magic potion these heady people must have drunk in order to behold, in whatever direction they looked, Helen laughing back at them, the beguiling image of their own existence."

Archeology has revealed it to us. Mycologist RG Wasson, "The Road to Eleusis" looks at the reconstructed frescoes at Eleusis and realizes that the Hellenes used ergot grown on Barley. Which has copious amounts of lysergic acid. The Greeks were acid heads. Which is why they knew that the Levantine scriptures were bullschitt.

Wasson also traveled up into Scythian and Parthian lands and traditions, and even located Ugarit Shamen in the boondocks of the Urals, who were still using *Soma*, the famous potion of the Aryans. It was made of Amanita Muscaria; it is legal. mix the shrooms with animal fat, and it wont be poisonous. You can buy it on online. I'm trying to grow some now that the weather is warmer.

Archaeologists have also gone back into the Slavic museums with modern forensic tools and microscopes looking at the pollen and plant residue of ancient witches' pots. Like indigenous tribes all over the world, the witches had a lot of heady potions. And like them, truth did not come from a book claiming literal truth, but from a direct experience in the trance state with Helen, or whatever your name for Goddess is.

And when an Aryan has received this truth, he dont care about the Jews.

why worry or complain when you can act?

"When the stock market was soaring in the late 1990s, Warren Buffett now says, he should have sold stocks rather than just complain about overvaluation. Now, with the dollar still headed down in his view, he says he is acting on his opinions even though it makes him nervous that so many agree with him."

jakob dylan on originality

"You once said that, as a songwriter and musician, studying your craft should come before any concerns about being 'original.'

People who are original are dropped in from outer space. They're not the people trying to be innovators -- I've always thought that was a fruitless effort. I'm a fan of tradition. Steve Earle is doing his best work now, but no one's calling him original.

You know, you have to be skeptical of records you buy these days because of the technology being used to make them. There's so much pressure being put on the 'tween' market, I guess they call it. Today it's really easy to get by not knowing what you're doing: If you're an actress and you want to make a record, you can put one out. For those people who were so disappointed that they'd bought Milli Vanilli's record because they didn't sing on it, at least those were actual human voices they were listening to."

Fat Times High on the Hog in the U. S. of A.

How long can it go on like this? Congressman Ron Paul thinks the fox will soon call the chickens home.

"We own the printing press and create as many dollars as we please. These dollars are used to buy federal debt. This allows our debt to be monetized and the spendthrift Congress, of course, finds this a delightful convenience and never complains. As the dollars circulate through our fractional reserve banking system, they expand many times over. With our excess dollars at home, our trading partners are only too happy to accept these dollars in order to sell us their products. Because our dollar is relatively strong compared to other currencies, we can buy foreign products at a discounted price. In other words, we get to create the world’s reserve currency at no cost, spend it overseas, and receive manufactured goods in return."

Iranian Bomb & Peace in the Middle East

"WORK WITH ME ON THIS ONE. Iran getting the bomb could be the best thing that's ever happened to the Middle East peace process. Whoa! Don't put down the magazine before I've had a chance to explain. Iran is the one country standing between you and peace in the Middle East."

War, Oil, & Power

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes...known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

- James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

Patent this Chimera

Neuromancer is on the way.

"The tricky part, all agree, is what to do with the middle ground. Weissman and others, for example, have talked about their desire to produce mice whose brains are composed entirely of human cells."

Troopers filmed group sex

the queen's bodyguards did it. this type of shit is really beginning to reaffirm my faith in humanity.  -mr hardenberg

Misdiagnosing the Malady - by Pat Buchanan

oh now the right comes full circle and appears on the left.

"No. Al-Qaeda was no more attacking our "freedom" when it drove those planes into the World Trade Center than were Iroquois, Sioux, and Apache attacking our freedom when they massacred settlers on the frontier. Like Islamists, the Indians saw us as defiling their sacred soil, dispossessing them, imposing a hated hegemony. They cared not about our Constitution – they wanted us off their land."

Condi Desperate to Stop EU-China-Iran Chain Reaction

"The Europeans evidently believe that if they don't soon establish normal cooperative economic relationships with Iran – which the US is currently preventing via the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 – China will, and they'll be shut out."

Terrorist Videos arrive on infovlad.net

there is a video of an actual execution on this site.

"Appalling footages, audio files, docfiles and pdfs are being uploaded to our several “honeypot” servers in succession since last year. We cannot include full details of logfile here, however, we know they were obviously coming from phonomaniac Zarqawi’s outrageous underlings ( “Al Qaeda Organization of Holy War in Iraq", “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq ” and so forth) and their snuff film editor."

The United States of Denial

by daybrown@*.*

Both Quantum Physics and the Ancient Vedas tell us that we exist in a multiverse, each plane of which is projected. Saint Ramprasad says the projections come out of the mind of Kali, which at least is as good an answer as we find in Quantum Physics.

The 3 dimensional time/space continuum which presents this message is but 1 universe among the myriad. Ancient sages suggest that the net effect any of us can have on it is trivial. It has a lot to do with the Oriental attitude of acceptance of the way things are. However, it seems that Celtic Kharma has been different, providing us with what they say is just a more convincing illusion of progress.

Thus the delusion of the United states of Denial. History, the Bible, and archeology are repleat with examples of the fall of great cultures into chaos and anarchy. So just as the prophets warned of destruction, so we see today scientific and economic experts warn us. And if History is any example at all, we know the warnings will not by and large be heeded. Read the rants on USENET.

The Net Effect is that the vast majority of them are fucking crazy. The Net Effect of election campaign messages shows that the vast majority of the electorate is fucking stupid. The Net Effect of the Net Effects is that the democratic process is not going to arrive at rational solutions. There is 1 thing to say about the leadership: it has been lucky.

The accidental and deliberate contamination of developing neural networks in the minds of children thru their food, air, and water, which has been going on for decades, and thus exacerbated the innate degree of insanity, has begun to be identified. But it is way to late to change the way the majority votes. However, danger always includes opportunity.

Machiavelli says that republics always elect candidates who promise more than can be economically sustained. And that since the poor dont have the money, and the rich will not allow taxes to be levied against them, the governments borrow the money. Which works until a creditor chickens out. This is not a state secret. You can download his work off the net, and no doubt there are many in political life who have read, and understand what he says. However, the policy makers who know this are in a state of Denial.

So the proper response of the rational is not to try to change the system, but to setup a more rational system run only by the rational. And we can do that on the Net. And we can design an alternative net that can continue to function whether the conventional system continues to function or not. and sell that capability to those who are aware of the risks.

MICHIGAN PLAYER WHACKED OUT?

those hot august nights; a person could do anything on nigths like those.

"Katie Karlson remembers that hot August night on her porch near the University of Michigan campus. 

For the second time in six days a large man was approaching her house with his pants down, masturbating. The first time he had covered his face with a T-shirt. But this time she could see his face, and he was standing much closer at the end of her driveway, about 10 feet from the porch.

"I said to my friends, 'Oh my God, he's here again,' " said Karlson, a 21-year-old U-M senior from Ortonville. "This went from gross to threatening. We didn't know if he was coming after us."

Mothman folklore stirs up frantic propaganda

"It's been my contention all along that while UFOs are extremely interesting and make great fairy tales, stories about them can't be taken at face value. Naturally, Hollywood had to prove me wrong by taking one of the creepiest stories in American Folklore, the story of Mothman, and turn it into a terrible movie, The Mothman Prophecies. If you've seen that film, forget it: Here's the real, well, as real as a story about flying space people can be, story."

Police Trace Internet Records To Find Members Of Valentine's Day Suicide Pact

"KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- Investigators are subpoenaing records from Internet chat rooms to try to contact people who may have planned to take part in a Valentine's Day mass suicide.

The move follows Wednesday's arrest of a man in Oregon who is accused of using a chat room to try to set up the mass suicide."

but you've got to see the picture of the guy, you know, to feed the stereotypes. leave it to WNBC and television news to follow these key, significant breaking stories.

Cosmic Coin Flipper

remember to admit what you don't know.

"DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events. ..."

The Non Election of 2004

it's radical liberal Noam Chomsky here to poison the minds of the youth.

"The elections of November 2004 have received a great deal of discussion, with exultation in some quarters, despair in others, and general lamentation about a "divided nation." They are likely to have policy consequences, particularly harmful to the public in the domestic arena, and to the world with regard to the "transformation of the military," which has led some prominent strategic analysts to warn of "ultimate doom" and to hope that U.S. militarism and aggressiveness will be countered by a coalition of peace-loving states, led by-China (John Steinbruner and Nancy Gallagher, Daedalus). We have come to a pretty pass when such words are expressed in the most respectable and sober journals. It is also worth noting how deep is the despair of the authors over the state of U.S. democracy. Whether or not the assessment is merited is for activists to determine."