The news that Assange is a person of interest and he could be eligible for the death penalty if the US get their mitts on him also means he can be assassinated in any jurisdiction, taken out by drone or sniper or mortar fire in a speech on the embassy balcony, or wherever.
This is because assassination is now official American foreign policy. In imitation of Mossad, the Taliban, the Spanish Inquisition and al-Qaeda it has a licence to kill.
This follows the Bush Doctrine of ‘pre-emptive strike’, an imitation of Pearl Harbor and 9/11, hit them before they hit you. It is the definition of a tyranny, execution without trial, what the Mafia does, what the Crusades and the Third Reich did to Jews.
So America is a terrorist nation now, it trades in fear, and unjust punishment, like Richard III, and it wonders why it has no true friends in the world any more. It has become what it fears, what it most fears, a bogeyman.
Not that it matters. But Assange is right to fear for his life. And William Hague is right to want to ‘diplomatically’ save him if he can, by moving him to the Ecuadorian embassy in Stockholm, where he will be shown to be innocent of everything, and safe still, if he stays there, from extradition.
But the question will then arise of his coming home. Will he be safe from extradition if he comes here to see his mum? Or be interviewed by Phillip Adams? Or appear at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival? Or receive the Sydney Peace Prize? Of course he won’t. He’ll be arrested for touching up Bronwyn Bishop and held until the Americans after the mid-term elections in 2014 ask Prime Minister Abbott or Shorten or Joyce or Newman to send him handcuffed to Guantanamo.
It is wrong of us, very wrong, as Lindsay Tanner said on Wednesday, to defend America’s hurt pride so expensively, with Australian lives piled up in sacrifice without point or purpose or end.
Julian Assange should not be one of them. Not now. Not ever.
Name:
I usually love your take but sadly this article is more about emotion than fact.
The so-called Bush Doctrine has been refuted by the Obama Administration and is no longer US policy. There is absolutely no evidence that the US plans to, or has, assassinated anyone on a grand jury indictment, if that is the basic for this contention.
Your 9/11 analogy is just wrong. The Japanese, a sovereign nation-state, declared war on the USA in December 1941. Al Qaeda, a terrorist outfit, simply massacred innocent people. It could not declare war as it is not a nation, but a group of murders.
It is similarly disingenuous to liken Mafia internal murders with the Third Reich. In the US, mafia related murders are counted in the dozens, not the millions systematically exterminated in death camps.
As to Saint Julian, he can come home anytime he wants to. As your friend Bob Carr has noted, Julian has had more consular contact than any other Australian; unless you think future Prime Minister Bob Carr is lying or an American stooge? But Saint Julian has to first answer legitimate questions about an alleged sexual assault.
He may need to write something too – not just leak documents given to him by others – in order to be at a writers’ festival. I think that’s a prerequisite.
He wrote an autobiography.
Pleb, I tend to agree with your post,has Assange ever expressed a wish to retun to Australia; I think his ego is too big for Oz, he wants to stay in the limelight.
He has had more help than anyone, he’s used his friends money and trust.
He’s no hero of mine, though a Saint to some.
As I learned first hand from Tina Turner, we don’t need heroes or saints.
What I think we do need is as many people who have the commitment courage and skills to risk their lives and freedoms to expose the horrors committed in our names.
Whether these people also share the human failings you and I have is beside the point. A few hours in the biography section of the library would amply prove that – from Joan of Arc to Martin Luther King to Xanana Gusmao (spelling?)
Whether Assange is diseased with conceit, arrogance, vanity and all the other vices – what he is doing might just begin the stupendous task of reigning in the tyranny of the new Rome that the USA has become.
Helvi, how on earth can you say such dumb things?
You don’t know the man, have not bothered to follow what he is asking and you don’t know if he has a big ego or not.
Good grief, I do get sick to death of people in this country claiming they know that x or y is as they claim and then demanding they be hung out to dry.
Why don’t you listen to what he said to the UN and the discussion that followed it when the Ecauadorian rep. laid out their own case for protection of Assange as a refugee.
You sort of statement of delusion borders on facist.
He can’t come home anytime he wants to. The current Prime Minister called what he did illegal and the then Attorney-General threatened to revoke his passport. And you think that same government wouldn’t send him, if asked, to the US for questioning?
Say why.
Say why.
I can’t say why because at the moment he is seeking asylum in Equador, however I don’t believe the US is out to kill him and there is no evidence that they are.
Elsberg, for example, is alive and well, as is Jane Fonda and Michael Moore, Chmosky and every other opponent of US foreign policy.
It’s America Bob, not Russia.
He is not seeking asylum, he has legal and political asylum which means that now Britain is keeping him imprisoned without charge for any crime in Britain against the wishes of the country who has offered and granted him asylum.
He is in fact now a refugee, a person with a well founded fear of persecution from a foreign government and has a government of his own who refuses to offer their protection to him.
There is every evidence they are. They kill their political enemies by drone on a monthly basis. Their political leaders, including the Vice President, have called him a terrorist. Their pundits recommend that he be taken out, illegally.
Show me the countervailing evidence, that they want, say, to give him a Pulitzer Prize or a Presidential Peace Medal.
Show me.
Surely he’s too high profile to do this to?
Imagine the outcry, the supposition, the sovereign damage.
A counter position is they want him NOT to, say, have an accident of any kind, lest they be blamed and that outcry commence.
The damage is inconceivable.
Surely, as they don’t like what he did, they’d anxiously prefer to make an example of him through publicly approved, or approvable, action?
Really – but all the most interesting bits are yet to come! That’s like Ben Barba writing his autobiography isn’t it?
How old is twenty seven Pleb?
Ben Barba seems to me a nice young man with a head on his shoulders. It is an interesting comparison you draw though. Assange is twenty years older than Barba and Barba has a brain that is not fully developed. He has spent the past ten years playing football, training, constantly refining skills and conditioning. The length his career can carry him stops somewhere around TV presenter or celebrity chef. Andrew Johns is a pill-popping immortal. Matthew Johns, a cross-dressing, gang-banging extravert. You cannot argue that despite this, Ben Barba puts bums on seats. Kids everywhere are running around as him, and the next generation of players will have styled themselves on the way he plays the game, it is beautiful. He may though, end up just like Billy Smith, perhaps his future is not as bright as say Mark Gasnier or Ryan Hoffman. You cannot argue though Pleb about the place that our sporting stars rightfully claim in our communities. They are revered. If and when these people do fall on hard times, the community rallies together behind them.
I find it quite odd, than an Australian son, that has refined his skill and intellect constantly, that possesses an elite mind, that has overcome a mountain of obstacles, achieved so much and now, stands in defiance of the greatest superpower the world has ever seen is not revered in the same way.
The truth is he is revered, here and all over the world by an entire generation of people yearning for hope.
Pleb, the NRL reference went over my head.
It is a question as to how vindictive you think the Americans can or will be. By any measure they have been made to look silly, by Wikileaks.
Because more than a decade after 9/11 and the draconian Homeland Security legislative morass, bureaucratic explosion and economy sapping response, a Lady Gaga CD and a Marine Corporal has shown it to be an empty gesture, if the dire consequences of the release of the documents as outlined by the US Govt are taken at face value. There is an obvious disconnect.
Injured pride is an oft cited reason in many a defense of murder, not an excuse I hasten to add.
Bob is finicky on his calls for assassination, see his recent request for Assad to be removed.
I think we should handcuff Assange and Obama together like Poitier and Curtis, who would dare assassinate both a US President and a whistle blower. They’d be as safe as houses
wouldn’t they, safe as houses I say.
I said Assad should be bribed, not killed. I don’t think anyone should be killed. Please cite any sentence of mine that calls, in the last fifty years, for the killing of anyone.
From the Road to Damascus in July I think Bob,
“Obama could take him out with a drone missile strike and he won’t, and it’s a pity.”
That will cost you a credit on the end credits of Shakespeare in Italy, the film. ” allthumbs” with a little “a” or alternatively a public apology at the Academy Awards when you accept best screenplay. I’m not fussed.
Well spotted, that man. I am clearly getting violent as I approach the first foothills of impotence in my seventies.
I must be more careful.
Hi Robby darlin.
I saw a BILLBOARD the other day that might HELP.
I hope you don’t have a phobia of NEEDLES though MWAH xoxoxoxo
I do salute your honesty. And I think you are right about G.W. Bush and B.H. Obama to have trampled on the U.S. constitution in legitimizing acts of terrorism.
Merci et chapeau bas!
Sadly, the Bush Doctrine is really an inherent doctrine of empire; Obama is still its prisoner. (Or the US would not still be in Afghanistan, to cite the most obvious example)
And Assange is no saint but he is an authentic hero, who has risked everything to stand up against the imperial power. Shame on those would deny him.
Here here.
Where? Where? Shame on you, Bob. The time-honoured expression is “Hear! Hear!”
Sorry.
Life imitates art or is it vice versa?
Last night’s epoisode of “Rake” had the eponymous antihero all set to earn a motza defending the Julian Assange character, when person or persons unknown murdered the said authentic hero. Hopefully the real world won’t be so cruel, to rake or hero.
We live in hope.
As a sideline, the Rake was actually watchable last night, those episodes with Tara- Toni Collette I could not watch.
What happened to Toni Collette, she used to be a good actor…maybe going to America to make movies changed her…
It’s a sad reflection on us as a people embedded within the western democratic context that we’re even discussing the ‘rights and wrongs’ of Obama’s America in choosing to pre-emptively assassinate those it arbitrarily labels a threat.
What a strange 24 hours. Bob is blogging about Julian Assange.
But better things are happening.
James Ashby awarded $50,000 against the Federal Government and is now threatening to sue Attorney General Nicola Roxon.
He could win too.
Peter Slipper spends $173,000 of taxpayer money without setting a foot in parliament. No one cares.
And Tony Abbott declared a hero, smashing a window with his pugilistic fists and rescuing children from a fire when he was a young man. Does this make him a serial hero?
It seems so if we judge by the standards of the press.
But let’s not go there…it would spoil the narrative.
Pet I don’t like ASHBY or SLIPPER.
I don’t think ASHBY is SINCERE and I don’t like pollys RORTING the perks that WE pay for.
I thought MAL COLSTON was quite HANDSOME until he turned TURNCOAT and kept racking up the FREQUENT FLYER points even after he was EXPOSED. That made me sick but some peeps have NO shame.
Are you of sound mind? Your use of capitals suggests otherwise.
Any similar eccentricity or unwelcome intimacy and I will ban you.
Some of your posters use this blog as a kind of virtual camera obscura, multiple identities from single individuals who then chat with themselves. Very strange…
Broomhilde’s schtick is camp suburban with highlights on the everyday; social stressors, awful politicians, common afflictions and bottled-blonde bon mots. Guaranteed she sleeps in the same bed as some of the other clever dicks here.
Maybe just looking for a bed
Worst Character ever created. No Maeve Binchy, no blocks of dairy milk, no baked beans, no electric cook-tops, no talk of her Mam, of being a ten-pound pom, Winnie reds, the deep fryer, no talk of her kids and no talk of her neighbours.
No punchline. No relationship with reality. No clue.
You might as well call yourself upperclass twat with Asperger syndrome and no creative ability whatsoever and a problem with fat women, or just Gina. If you want to make people laugh though, start with the name. How about, Fannie O’Barrell?
Spot on, Will,are you some kind of a clairvoyant…
There was no person behind that mask, at least not one willing to share something about herself…not amusing, not hard-hitting, just an irritating buzzing of a fly.
Well is there or is there not a vast internet of dreams we all feed on? Who can read the future? Who can tell ghost stories? Les Murray talks about…I’m not sure how to put it. I’m just a product of the land Helvi, as I would argue we all are. Spirituality is not a dirty word but in this climate it is rather difficult to talk openly of one’s ‘beliefs’.
Just means he has no sense of self-preservation; rather useful in a soldier, a boxer or a footballer; fucking useless in a political leader.
Sorry , not useless : undesirable and potentially disastrous in a political leader.
Julian Assange should get the Nobel peace prize. I mean what has he done? Just confirmed what most on the left have always known, that governments are as corrupt as the day is long.
And of course that was his crime. That governments spy on each other is as old as history itself, but old Julian had the unmitigated gall to let the great un-washed in on the secret, that it’s all true.
For mine, Julian has had it, they will get him sooner or later he is on borrowed time. The sad part is, when he falls under a bus, or goes down with food poison, the tools that support these craven arse holes, those arse holes being the U.S. government, will believe it. Just like they believe Mitt Romney cares about them.
Pet peeps claim Julian is PARANOID but he is NOT paranoid he is just REALISTIC and trying to PRESERVE HIS LIFE.
There is a BOUNTY on his head just like there was for BIN LADEN and I would hole up ANYWHERE I could like he is if I had THEM breathing down my neck.
The EMU’s response to HIM reminds me of HOWARD’S response to David HICKS which is complete INDIFFERENCE and that makes me SICK.
We have a responsibility to OUR PEOPLE before ANY foreign government no matter which one it may be.
I am NOT anti-American but the US should not be an exception to this and our alliance would NOT suffer anyway if we do the RIGHT THING because of everything we have gone through together in the past xox
Banned for life.
- suddenly the air is fresher. Thanks Mr Ellis.
Dali, not so sure about it, yet….
Not so sure about breathing calmly. Just because you are paranoid does not mean you aren’t being watched.
Some get enthusiastic about St Julian, but as the regulars know I have little time for him. A psychopath, almost certainly : narcissistic, self-centred, self-righteous and with a distinct lack of empathy. Rather like Rudd, is he not? There are no restraints on the ambition and sheer gall of such a man. Whatever it takes to get his own way; rather like Abbott as well.
The only tears any of them have ever shed are when they have been stymied in their ambitions.
What a triple treat for Australia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/28/rupert-everett-memoir-vanished-years
Doug: Analysing personalities via Wiki is insulting to those whose profession is to do such, and is similar to diagnosing from the Readers’ Digest medical dic. Those spots you’ve got? by God, they are 2ndary symptoms of Hiv..oh no, they’re measles, chicken pox, an allergy, scarlet fever…whoops! freckles.
The qualities you mention are possibly shared by all men of prominence.
Well that’s interesting, FI Kendall. I think you are the first person to take exception to what is my regular and frequent position on these men. And no, these “qualities” are not shared by all men of prominence. Many a great man has shed tears over the loss of life caused by his decisions, and it is not necessary for a man or a woman to be psychopathic to get to the top. But it helps, to have no regrets and no emotional response to others’ pain and suffering.
re. ‘ I think you are the first person to take exception to what is my regular and frequent position on these men/…
You’re kidding yourself, DQ. Just because people don’t rush to put fingers to keyboard in reply to your opinions doesn’t mean they implicitly or tacitly agree.
I’m with F.I.Kendall on this one. You may ‘dislike’ Assange, even though you’ve never met him and are probably unlikely to do so. Yet you still see fit to judge this person (who you don’t know) by virtue of his reported behaviour and through parroting or adopting the opinions of others with whom you are in sympathy.
F.I. Kendall makes an appropriate point in terms of the challenge Assange has posed to the many abusers of authority. You don’t have to ‘like’ the man, it’s the net result of his actions that count.
I’m not going to debate you in this context, but I guarantee the sum total of suffering that has sprouted globally as a function of the hegemonistic attitudes and behaviour of the USA and its acolytes far far outweighs any risks or real suffering engendered by the actions of Wikileaks and the other whistleblowing entities.
But go ahead, argue for the status quo if you wish.
I actually do agree with the point you make, regarding the hegemonistic behaviour of the USA. The power they have wielded for the last seventy years or so has caused enormous pain and suffering in the world. Balanced against that is the hypothetical alternative : what if the USA had not existed, or been weak and introspective throughout that period?
Hmmm? Think about that one.
And then think about the fleabite that is Assange and his wikileaks, and how that actually affects the USA hegemony.
Look, there’s no doubt that in many many areas the USA has been, collectively, a force for good; one can cite many examples in the areas of the humanities, arts and sciences to demonstrate this. This is not in dispute.
The nigger in the woodpile, though, is the undisputed record of the US interfering in the affairs of sovereign nations and freely-elected governments. Again and again.
Is this the behaviour of a country that acts as it speaks? The USA is on the nose because it espouses one thing while behaving otherwise, and in behaving otherwise in pursuit of its economic, financial and military objectives it’s managed to antagonise a considerable percentage of the world’s peoples.
By all means, act appropriately in the face of real threats, but this 100 year old history of false-flag and black operations that seems to be one of the favoured modus operandi of the political elite in America is a tired old game that’s long past its use-by date.
It’s one thing to balance actual against hypothetical, and another altogether to reflect on the outcomes of American foreign policies as played out in the world of realpolitik.
Point taken Cangure. But if you don’t wish American intervention(granted primarily for their own purpose) then let us all allow the natural progression of history to unfold. Let the Chinese and Indonesians swollow up our country. Tell the Yanks to fuck off. Maybe you should go and live with these people who treat freedoms with distain. Appeasement doesn’t work. Try and use some foresight. As for Assange if he is allowed to get away with splattering life threatening sensitive confidential information all over the world then fuck off to the other side of the world where you belong
The argument between wives and whores is an old one; each one thinking that whatever she is, at least she is not the other.
- Dworkin
Shad: You are a glorious example of the success of absurd and inane propaganda
Logic’s not your strong point, is it lad? It’s evident in your posts that there’s not much thinking going on. Shallow and glib, as previously noted.
‘fuck off to the other side of the world where you belong’. Where would that be to then? And be careful how you answer, given my family’s 150 yr presence in Australia.
‘Let the Chinese and Indonesians swollow [sic] up our country’.
Shady, here’s a tip. Do some research and educate yourself before you rush to print, and you won’t end up looking like such a dill. And learn to spell, unless you were caught between swallow and swollen in the throes of your onanistic efforts.
Sorry I meant FUCK OFF to the other side.You insinuate 9/11 is deserved. Don’t forget Bali and the London bombings . Do you wish to appease until it arriveshere. Show a bit of ticker not the Beazly kind. The soldier kind that die and are disabled for life kind so you can be free to speak and oh, spell properly.
I have never in these posts or anywhere else insinuated that 9/11 was deserved.
I have, on the other hand, pointed to areas where you can usefully educate yourelf in regard to the myths of 9/11 and what the evidence points to regarding the perpetrators.
Not the same. I’m as appalled as any right thinking person by the crime, but I disagree with the lazy sheep principle that automatically agrees with the MSM message.
That’s not true DQ.
There have been many here who have argued with you on this score.
Regarding Rudd, I believe that
Tanner’s thoughts last week should put a little dampener on your amateur diagnosis.
Did I miss something? Did Tanner say that Rudd was a human being??? Please quote what Lindsay Tanner said to cast any doubt on my analysis.
I think the exact phrase used by Tanner to describe the “substance” of the attacks on Rudd’s management style was “enormously exaggerated”. You can check that if you want.
Tanner was in a position to know these things and you are not. It’s easy to see how some people, like you the right wing media and every single Gillard supporter, fell into the easy trap of believing everything they read about him to justify their own positions.
You do it quite a lot actually DQ, you vilify so as to justify.
HOw can you be so ridiculous and vitriolic about people who you don’t know, will never know and who have not hurt you in any way, shape or form?
aRe you a child looking for a bogey man?
Today a young man went home to a jail in Canada after a decade in Gitmo since being arrested almost dead as a 15 year old boy.
Since he has such a short time left I’m sure we all hope he does the honourable thing and presents himself to the British authorities for extradition to Sweden in order to clear his name before they get him.
Some people judge Martin Luther King harshly and negatively, because of his personal failings shown by adulteries,etc: not by his role or achievement
Some people wish to judge Assange in terms of what they imagine of his personality, not on his role or achievements.
Democracy gives us a certain freedom and a right to vote every few years.
But, the most important role of democracy is limiting the power of rulers. This is what Assange has confronted and why he is, to my mind a hero and an historical figure of importance.
I didn’t want to go into Iraq. I had no say. I don’t want to be in Afghanistan. I have no say. But, I have paid for both and may well bear the consequences of both these grotesqueries.
Is that kind of democracy good enough? Assange says no, and so do I.
Whether or not I like his personality is as irrelevant as to whether I care for his hairstyle .. how superficial can people get?
Are you part of the nation or are you not?
A democratically elected government decides whether or not we go to war. And that decision bind the nation, each and every one of us. If you disagree you risk being seen as a traitor.
Are you a traitor? No, because it is not a war, it is a UN police action which we support.
If it was a war then you would be a traitor.
Are you a traitor?
You have quite wonderfully spelled out the problems of our so called democracy, DQ., and the limitations of our influence.
We went to war in Iraq on one man’s decision. Well, isn’t that just all that democracy is about. We allow one man to shape our reality, morality, future and destiny.
Thank goodness that we are not an autocracy or al: in which case we might have gone to war based on…..one man’s decision….er
I know I am not a traitor to my beliefs, self, family, conscience or country, and that js all that concerns me. John Howard may well have found me a traitor to him and his political cabal…is that where you are coming from?
What do you have loyalty to, DQ? What would make you a traitor?
I think I implied that you are not a traitor.
I’m a traitor, wait, no, let me check yep, I’m a traitor. I wouldn’t co-operate with the enemy as such, and I’d provide Bob and his wife with a wooden horse so he could dig his way out of Barrenjoey Rd, I’d even supply him with extra baggy pants, all pockets and cuffs to make his life easier, and then hide them both in my makeshift cellar (cunningly situated on top of my house). Is there no difference anymore between a conscientious objector and a traitor? Is dissent not allowable during a state of war, because….?
Turn down the volume on the TV next time they are showing fighting in Afghanistan and explain to yourself the difference between war and police action, and then explain it to a 6 yr old kid who just had his family annihilated by a roadside bomb or misdirected drone missile.
“So Ahmed, it is a police action and therefore your parents and sisters were rightfully blown to bits, see this, this is a license for us signed by the U.N. Well the U.N was a replacement body for the League of Nations headquartered in New York. Well New York is a city in the United States, the United States? well that is a country a long, long, way away……….”
I doubt Ahmed would appreciate the difference. Open war would see thousands of Ahmeds and allthumbs dying every day. Perhaps in conventional war, perhaps in a full nuclear apocalypse. Make it millions of Ahmeds.
Of course he won’t appreciate the difference that’s the point.
I want to grow old Doug,I’ve ordered the Andrea Dworkin boxed set, that’s gonna take me years. But we have no right to determine the future for others when we are not going to being living in.
It’s a dilemma, but what are we going to do?
Were you a school cadet? One of those enthusiastic kids with the shiny buckles and buffed boots who couldn’t wait to get on the range at the weekend and let off a few rounds?
I could be wrong, but I detect a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ in relation to your endorsement of the military approach, a certain enthusiasm for pieces of paper signed by politicians that endorse the madness endemic to this species.
Any sane man knows that the current Afghanistan skirmish will end in the same way as all previous western impositions in that region.
We know the history, so why the wooden-headed so-called leaders of this (and other) country/ies went ahead is one of those paradoxes that amply illustrate the foolishness and ignorance of politicians.
You’ve often told the reader that Assange is psychopathic, but I say to you that you do not understand the meaning of this word and do not appreciate the true consequences of ponerology as played out in the theatre of international politics.
No, no, no and no.
You should know better than that by now, Canguro.
But someone needs to state the reality, the Realpolitik, if you will.
It would be nice if there was no need for arms and armies; do you see any prospect of that happening in the near future? Hmmm?
If not, it is probably better for us if our armies are better than those of the likely enemy.
Sorry about the dose of reality.
After reading your satirical version of the 911 conspiracy why aren’t I surprised to see you reference something from the usual anti-Israel mob. I saw with interest the link to Iran not going for nuclear weapons, loved the review of the master work by the Palestinian ethnic cleansing ‘independent’ gentleman and so forth. But the great thing to read was the 911-like history of the ‘bible’ of this theory. So dangerous, they didn’t dare to have it meet the light of day. Poor fools, didn’t know of the internet.
“The original manuscript of this book went into the furnace minutes before a secret police raid in Communist Poland. The second copy, painfully reassembled by scientists working under impossible conditions of violence and repression, was sent via courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged – the manuscript and all valuable data lost. In 1984, the third and final copy was written from memory by the last survivor of the original researchers: Andrew Lobaczewski. Zbigniew Brzezinski blocked its publication”.
It’s not a direct Bob Ellis comparison but good nonetheless. Quite amusing.
Thanks for the balanced response Mr Ryutin. As others have duly noted, your posts can be trusted to adhere to the strict rules of objectivity and impartiality.
So you followed a link and now feel justified in dumping shit on it?
I’d call that a blind unthinking and unreflective binary reaction that admits of no alternative and is driven to impose its point of view irrespective of the cold facts. An apologist, in other words.
What a sad man you are. You know what? Israeli (and American) apologists are a dime a dozen and tend to sing from the same songbook, so you’re not exactly exercising much originality in your rather weak position.
The ‘Israeli’ facts are, in fact, on the table and disputed only by zionists and other captive interests, otherwise it’s very clear what the recent history of that wretched patch of territory is, whatever spin you and your ilk may try.
Your real name’s not Alice by any chance, is it? You do seem to inhabit your own fantasy wonderland. Maybe you’re an American?
Sadly I must disabuse you of the thinking that I might be an American or some evil Jew or Zionist (sorry, no easy stereotype there). No, just one who is interested in the conspiracy theorists (as well as those who think a personal attack is some sort of answer to facts and analysis). I suspect I have even looked at some of your (apparently) favourite web sites about these conspiracy mysteries and even watched what you would probably think is your favourite documentary, Capricorn One. Now one must always filter your comments through this whacko prism.
PS I LOVE the net and the freedom it gives us to dissect all controversies, including the evil Vatican, as well as the yanks.
Iraq wasn’t UN sanctioned. Canada wasn’t there nor were they in Vietnam. Nor are they in Afghanistan any longer. Time for our nation to show a bit of independent ticker.Might just save a few young Aussie lives
Helvi; Completely off topic but I could not find your comment about the Finnish education system.
Interesting read in the print media of comments by Dr Pasi Sahlberg who was to be in a panel discussion re private schooling at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney today.
We are barking up the wrong tree with the Australian approach he says.
Chris, I don’t know if I have written here anything about the Finnish education system, but I have posted my views on ABC Drum Opinion everytime there is article about education. I even offered to pay Kevin Donnelly’s airfares to fly to Finland and find about it himself. Another time I offered for him to stay with my brother who is a highly educated high school teacher..
I saw the article in SMH, let’s hope Australia listens to Dr Pasi Sahlberg.
In relation to Finland,I’ve written in today’s Australian why it’s a mistake to follow that country. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/finnish-education-isnt-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/story-e6frg6zo-1226487687707
Traitor no less. My God! You can’t make this shit up. If I don’t want to go to a war declared or not, I ain’t going. In my case it would be a conscientious objection..Well that’s what I would tell them.
What was it Muhammed Ali said? Oh that’s right, no Vietcong ever called me Nigger.
There were men during WW1 who told the government to stick their war up where the sun don’t shine. They threatened to hang them.
That does not make them traitors it makes them bloody hero’s, brave bloody hero’s.
My country right or wrong. If we declared war tomorrow I would expect every last one of our citizens to support the war effort, in some way. No-one will force you to fight, Phill; nor allthumbs, nor FI Kendall. But if we are in a declared war : not by one man, not by twenty men, but one declared by the Australian Parliament, by fuck you had better support it, or look out.
I’m going to ‘fess up now, when they put me on the waterboarding contraption, or start heating up the lead pipe or asking me if I’ve ever been out with the Iron Maiden, I’m going to be saying my country is “wrong” absolutely wrong, always has been always will be.
When they throw the shroud over my face and connect the wires to my genitals and make me stand on a metal bucket in a pool of water, your name Doug, is the first that will spring to my lips, I am gonna give you up man before they throw the switch. Just so you know.
I plan on getting on the enemy’s good side. I’ll be the first in line to tell them whatever they want to hear in the hope they’ll give me a job as their tea lady or errand person.
George Carlin – Modern man
http://youtu.be/f6J3OD4Z0UQ
What can you see us doing Doug? Assembling drones? Soldiering? Lining up for the MacArthur of the day?
We’re on a platter. War means 5-7 days conflict on this continent, and then a lengthy occupation. I’m as much of a patriot as you, but our best hopes are in peace.
This, is a hand grenade. Here is a red line. No, you couldn’t make this shit up.
Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason. The best thing anyone can do is learn Arabic, Mandarin and pray for peace.
I don’t mean to stir Reader1 but I was just contemplating the same thing.
Try stirring the tea for our side first.
How is this for an idea, a citizen (not a politician) is randomly selected, a name drawn from a barrell, from each country interested in forging a war against a rival nation. Let’s say for arguments sake and because we are moving down this road quite quickly, Israel, Iran and the US. (it is going to be a lot more complicated than that by the time all the interested nations put their hands up for this one), nevertheless let’s soldier on, so to speak.
The citizen is sent to the enemy country and walking the street, randlomly picks, let’s say 30 children all around 12 years of age.
He then puts his case to them as to why he wants to wage war and effectively destroy their country and the future of the lives of the children he is addressing. If there is any dissent from his audience, then the call for war is voided, and we all just go back to a testy aggressive state of paying dues and rolling our eyes.
Because if you cannot convince a 12 year old, that your case is just, why proceed? A 12 yr. old Afghanistan child is now 22 yrs old after 10 years of war, for all intents and purposes, because of circumstances we ordained to be correct at the time, they have had the normal trajectory of their lives changed forever. Therefore as the Iran thing and the extenuating circumstances that will arise from the inevitable conflict about to take place, is likely to go on well beyond 10 years, it is only fair we give a 12 year old the chance to air his/her considered opinion, even if they can’t vote. Imagine if they had asked Sophie Scholl or Anne Frank back then? Knowing our luck they would have asked Goebbel’s ankle biters and got an answer in unison and six part harmony.
So there is an amount of luck involved if this is done honestly and fairly in that the Citizens may all select a particularly bad cohort of 12 year olds that have been exposed to incessant video war games or an extreme Madras education, or you get the kids from a FOX TV works do picnic, well then, that’s the the price you pay, it doesn’t change the principle of the thing. I wonder what the knock on effect would be in regards to toy manufacture for example, if you wanted to have a certain desirable outcome instilled at an early age or our approach to violence, or justice etc. and how we teach out children, as a society or as parents?
Think back to when you were 12 years old, what would you have chosen, peace or war? I would have voted for whatever Debbie Reed voted for, I would have died for her, you’d understand if you saw Debbie back then.
“My country right or wrong”, …Doug, you can’t say this without also standing at attention and singing, “We’re soldiers of the Queen, my lads,”. Didn’t you know that?
Your hypothetical, that the Australian parliament declare war, was a mile away from both what I said and from reality.
But, you’re getting closer to the idea of demos, people power.
War, police action pure semantics.
” My country right or wrong ”
Where does one start with that? So if I side with the original owners of this land and take up arms against the invader, that invader being us, let me see, does that make me a traitor to the country, or to my antecedents who stole it?
Ah democracy what a fine thing it is, mostly found in poetry books.
Civil war? By definition.
Read a few books, other than poetry.
War is war there ain’t nothing civil about it.
I do read books, Mad magazine, Cracked,I also like Billy Bunter and Biggles.
But hey Don,on a serious note, when your off in some far exotic land under orders from Tony Abbott or some other squeezer looking for weapons of mass destruction, bring me back a stuffed Camel will ya ?
Best place to find a camel is here in Australia – thousands are roaming free in the top end. And perhaps a few kangaroos are loose in the top paddock as well.
It is such a peculiar twist of logic that the Political class insist on having armies and fighting wars in order to achieve peace, because Realpolitik demands it. This self referring feedback loop is the one that has to be broken.
I offered my 12yr old decision making concept not in jest, I think it has legs. All religions would have to get behind it, who would spit on innocence and out of the mouths of babes wisdom tellers, the sanctity of the child movement would have to get behind it, Tankard-Reist would get behind it, the feminist movement would be right in there because the male power structure is effectively removed, I can see some problems with Toy’R’Us but they can be dealt with. If we are willing to accept the internationalization of Apple as a means of measureing the similarities of the human race across the globe, I will wager 12 yr. olds are pretty much the same everywhere as well, and I would say 99% of them want to grow up in a peaceful world and get old,stay up late, wet dream, whatever. Why do you want to impose your Realpolitik on those children Doug? Why?
The real power of the Assange/Wiki leaks, is that there is no longer a reason for being ignorant of what Governments think and do in our name on a daily basis. It is a renting of the curtain, this is what you vote for, this is what you pay for, this is what we do, this is who we are, this is who you are, or maybe its just proof of what we always knew anyway. Assange holds up the mirror. There’s a guy on the other side Doug, who thinks just the same as you, agrees one hundred percent, couldn’t fault your logic in any way shape or form, isn’t that strange. I couldn’t wait for the waterboarding thing, just the thought of it last night gave me the willies, I gave your name and a copy of all your posts to the other guys as insurance. Reader has to settle for Tea Lady I got the errand job.
About the 12 year-old scheme : World leaders are usually in their 50s 60s and 70s, and there is a reason for that. People acquire experience, knowledge and perhaps even wisdom over time; they acquire mature judgement as well, or at least most of them do.
Not many 12 yo kiddies have, if you haven’t noticed.
They also acquire cynicism and callousness, scepticism, selfishness, pride and hard-heartedness, DQ., as well as sometimes a hubristic refusal to listen to the ideas of those younger.
This veneration of “older and wiser” is what allowed the churches to have such power in the past, and is what allowed all manner of social travesties.
Being an older person myself, obviously I’m not about knocking them. Or venerating them.
But, they are often utterly close minded. Twelve year olds’ values are often spot on, and an enlightened, open minded, intelligent older will listen, remember and heed them.
As they should.
Look, we can maintain the Economics stuff for the adults if you like, let them fuck that up like they do, so they can keep their hand in and practice wisdom Just limit the 12 year olds to decisions about going to war. Wasn’t Jesus lecturing the Rabbis at Temple when he was 12? (And remember they cut the end of his dick off when he was a baby, and still he showed some magnamity).
But ask yourself this, if it came to pass, my method I mean, would you as a country or as a society instill the values of peace in your children on the off chance they were corralled out of the blue on the street into having to make a choice via my scenario above, or would you instill the values of war?
“Listen Lorraine/Fatima/Ruth, when the Iranian/Israeli/American guy comes over to explain why they want to go to war, you just tell him to “bring it on” ok? No matter what he says, don’t even listen, just tell him we’re ready, and he should go and get tooled up, good girl, and if I see you with that boy again I’m gonna….so help me”.
Babies were taken from single mothers in the past because the “older and wiser” thought that was a good idea.
Children were taken from aboriginal families because the “older and wiser” thought that was a good idea.
Children in the past raising issues of sexual abuse by clergy, scoutmasters, coaches etc were judged to be liars, because those “older and wiser” judged them as such. See peter Hollingworth’s quite recent accusing of a child victim as being a perpetrator: once, when we had more veneration for the “older and wiser”, that would have had legs.
“Older and wiser” has no currency today, nor should it.
I look back at my history and see quite terrible things instigated and maintained by the older and wiser, and thank God that younger ideas prevailed.
Help! I think I am stuck in the Twilight Zone, discussing serious issues with a collection of inmates of some sort of institution . . .
JG, Pearl, Jeremy (even Shad!) come back, all is forgiven! I’d even suffer through HG’s lengthy rambles, or Jim’s tangled prose
. . .
Did you see Netanyahu at the U.N., did you see Ahmadenijad with Piers Morgan? You reckon Mitt Romney is going to make that a successful trio? Imagine the accumulated wisdom of Mugabe now in his eighties, it could have been Rick Perry as President, what about your arch foe Tony 72 seconds of silence, shit happens Abbott. The list is endless.
You are on an eternally losing team, and here we are once again speaking of a possible Middle Eastern war, how is all that wisdom and judgement working for you Doug?
http://www.warsintheworld.com/?page=static1258254223
I think we should up the ante to make it easier for the wise leaders and remove the capability to wage conventional war. Nuclear or nothing I say, still willing to back the wise ones Doug, the experienced ones?
Doug knows that in something as trivial in the grand scheme of things as posts under the name of J G Cole, he advanced persistently and mistakenly, against advice, in the wrong direction: abusing and repeatedly calling for banning of a clever and informed poster whom he now calls upon for support.
That he now acknowledges he was wrong is of course a plus, but suggests his difficulties with understanding issues as well as people and society.
Faced with arguments he can’t or doesn’t want to address, Doug often resorts to the loaded words such as “inmates”, “institution”, “twilight zone”, as he does here. Presumably this is an attempt to denigrate his questioners when he is unable to address the questions.
Doug: you can do better than this. Can’t you?
As I have said before, Doug will always look the correct way when it counts.
Inmates, institution, twilight zones, all apt. I’ll put on my Quixote hat and paint Doug as the devil’s advocate.
Bring back HG.
I simply fail to see how the default position of war, calling for it, backing it, financing it, prosecuting it, financing it, financing it, financing it and eventually losing it, or winning it, a mitigated version of losing it anyway, is not seen as the Twilight Zone and that it counts as wisdom to be handed down to the next generation.
I am no superior being, I know exactly how vile and pernicious, corrupt, petty and vindictive I have and can be, if it wasn’t for my cute smile I would have very few redeeming features, but cheer leading death and mayhem, count me out.
I can answer any question you can imagine and a number that you can’t; the question really is, why should I? Pearls before swine and all that.
The short answer to allthumbs silly scheme supported by you is that human societies have been governed by their elders for many thousands of years, and most social animal groups have a similar arrangement. It has worked for millennia.
Next good idea?
You really didn’t get it Doug, you really didn’t, the “scheme” is the surface, you have to look beyond your reflection in its shiny surface, who was that Greek guy again?
“Pearls before swine….”
Wow!
What an idiot you’ve become DQ.
“Pearls before swine”.
Really???
Some are born idiots; some acquire idiocy and some have idiocy thrust upon them.
What is your excuse, Annabel?
It’s hard to say DQ, you’ve filled all three options.
I have been politically wedged and am back on Doug’s side. JG Cole was banned for a week, by Bob, rightly, for publishing graffiti. That was the impetus for all the carnage that followed. And there was carnage. The friend of my enemy is my enemy, be it Doug or Felicity Kendall.
Someone pass me a sniper’s rifle, the enemy is practically on our doorstep. I’ll hole up in the hills and take pot shots at the high command. I don’t want to be a tea lady. I want to be an errand person.
Dear oh dear, you poor old thing – dredging up, without even a gun to your head, evidence of your foolishness and fetid sycophancy.
What Bob saw as “graffiti” was, I think the term used at the time, ”typographical promiscuity”.
So the word poems of Ball or Schwitters and other Dadaists are graffiti??
So the work of Cy Twombly is graffiti is it?
So the work of Masson is graffiti is it?
The poems of Marinetti, or of ee cummings, or of Finnegan”s Wake?
All graffiti is it?
You still wander the hinterlands Reader1; lost.
Boyd’s “Nebuchadnezzar” got nothing on you!
Puffery, Doug. Puffery and evasion.
I asked if you could do better..you boasted, you postured, you strutted,…but you didn’t demonstrate a better answer.
“I’m better than you,” is your response. An excellent riposte for all those still in Year 3.
What a cynical foolish troll you are.
War is the word
War is the word, is the word that you heard
It’s got groove it’s got meaning
War is the time, is the place is the motion
War is the way we are feeling
This is the life of illusion
Wrapped up in trouble laced with confusion
What we doing here?
MIGHT IS RIGHT
Might was right when Caesar bled
Upon the stones of Rome,
Might was right when Genghis led
His hordes over Danube’s foam,
And might was right when German troops
Poured down through Paris way,
It’s the gospel of the ancient world
And the logic of today.
Behind all kings and presidents -
All government and law,
Are army-corps and cannoneers -
To hold the world in awe.
And sword-strong races own the earth,
And ride the conqueror’s car -
And liberty has never been won
Except by deeds of war.
What are the lords of hoarded gold -
The silent Semite rings?
What are the plunder-patriots -
High-pontiffs, priests and kings?
What are they but bold master-minds,
Best fitted for the fray who comprehend
And vanquish by – the logic of today.
Cain’s knotted club is scepter still -
The “right of man” is fraud:
Christ’s ethics are for creeping things -
True manhood smiles at “god”.
For might is right when empires sink
In storms of steel and flame;
And it is right when weakling breeds -
Are hunted down like game.
Then what’s the use of dreaming dreams -
That “each shall get his own”?
By forceless votes of meek-eyed thralls,
Who blindly sweat and moan? no!
A curse is on their cankered brains -
Their very bones decay
Trace your fate in the iron game,
It’s the logic of today.
The strong must ever rule the weak,
Is grim primordial law -
On earth’s broad racial threshing floor,
The meek are beaten straw -
Then ride to power o’er foemen’s necks
Let nothing bar your way:
If you are fit you’ll rule and reign,
Is the logic of today.
You must prove you’re right by deeds of might -
Of splendor and reknown.
If need be, march through flames of hell,
To dash opponents down – if need be,
Die on scaffold high -
In the morning’s misty grey:
For “liberty or death” is still the logic of today.
Might was right when Gideon led
The “chosen” tribes of old,
And it was right when Titus burnt,
Their temple roofed with gold:
And might was right from Bunker’s hill,
To far Manilla bay,
By land and flood it’s wrote in blood -
The gospel of today.
“Put not your trust in princes”
Is a saying old and true,
“Put not your hope in governments”
Rranslateth it anew.
All “books of law” and “golden rules”
Are fashioned to betray:
“The survival of the strongest”
Is the gospel of today.
Might was right when Carthage flames
Lit up the punic foam -
And when the naked steel of Gaul
Weighed down the spoil of Rome;
And might was right when Richmond fell -
And at Thermopylae -
It’s the logic of the ancient world -
And the gospel of today.
Where pendant suns in millions swing,
Around this whirling earth,
It’s might, it’s force that holds the brakes,
And steers through death and birth:
Force governs all organic life,
Inspires all right and wrong.
It’s nature’s plan to weed-out man,
And test who are the strong.
I don’t know what is more concerning shad. The fact I was born blonde, went brown and now I’m pushing out flaming red hairs from my face or the fact you listen to such god-awful music and read Bob Ellis. I do not see how the two go together.
I’ve read everything you have posted and refrained from asking you to try and lift your literary game, as people in glass houses. Please be aware though that jokes and jibs cut with fascists are not my cup of tea. If you are a neo-nazi, the only thing I have to offer you other than my shoe size are these words three: Read a book.
The bookshops are all closing down. Not one nearby me. Must buy a tablet so I can read your erudite comments to be published one would hope, very soon, possibly in collaboration with Canguro. May I suggest you title it ‘Australian Appeasement-The Rationalizations of The Intellectual Left’.I include intellectual only as a marketing ploy
I once stated that I had never had a revelation, and what do you know, I’ll be damned. What practical tips are suitable to reduce the arch of ones eyebrows?
Can you please elaborate on the said revelation?
Have you ever read “The man who shouted Teresa” by Calvino? Rosencratz and Guildenstern asked me that exact same question, and I told them to fuck off.
Ah, comb it.
Botox, subcutaneous @ say 50 units should fix it for you. Contraindications include acute UTI’s but a clean living man like you won’t be troubled by that particular.
50 Units sounds a lot, I have a rusty needle and a dry gel packet from some electrical gear, will it give me the same results?
Look, if Tom Waits can drink Pruno and Koolaid with Molley Hoey prior to her inking a rickety heart and bent arrow with a tattoo gun made out of a cassette motor and a guitar string then I’m sure your rusty needle and lube will be ok. It might just hurt like hell though.
Ummm, I read the Calvino piece and I’m in the dark (but not in the square). Untangle the allusions please.
Echoing Teresa, if called and there’s no reply then I suppose you’re not here, just like the last time, when you called for comment regarding lists.
In retrospect, I believe I can reasonably state with relative certainty, that allthumbs’ is astounded that reader1 has aligned themselves with Doug. I was the third wheel, you were the forth, dear fellow.
Not to worry, together we will make sure the fragile prince arrives safely in his castle where he can start organising the twelve year plan for world peace. A defector that doesn’t know their sniper rifles from their whiskey tangos is the least of our concern.
Will, R1 has to bring back Hilde for allthumbs, R1 and DQ against Allthumbs and Hilde…
That’s fair, you can be The Judge.
This sandpit is a bit too nasty for my liking.
No Helvi, reader1 is/was not broom. These types of comments are not helpful and you are never right. You thought I was Peter and I still don’t know how to take your continual …’s but I remain polite.
I read on twitter this morning that you’re all cranks and fly specks.
I see the internet more as a giant field full of totem tennis players.
I try allthumbs.
If I knew with certainty that the majority took me as an underhanded wanker my virtual presence here would cease. Third and final bow me thinks. Off I go, more constipated than ever.
You have suspected me William of being Hilde, I can assure you I am not.
Firstly because I do not have the technical acumen to work out how to do it.
Secondly because of my background I could make a more convincing BH than the cardboard cutout presented here. I’d put my working class credentials up against anyone else’s here on this site that’s for sure.
I dislike the right wing working class more than just about anyone else, and I hate the working class that revel in their stupidity. I escaped at a million miles an hour from that, because I had smart parents. They left school at 14, but stupidity is an option not a mandate.
I could create a BH that would make the rest of you want to donate money to buying her daughter-in law a house.
I have never posted here under any other pseudonym.
Read Jack London, Read Robert Tressel, Read Upton Sinclair,
Read John Steinbeck, Read George Jackson Read Eldridge Cleaver ,
Read Malcolm X.
Feed your soil with some real nutrient.
I have done no such thing. Have I? I thought it might be reader1 for a bit, then came to the conclusion it was Mryutin. I took you as Muldoon.
You have to give it a rest Helvi.
You say you are going to go, that this place is too nasty, then you reappear with a suspicion or an accusation.
William is right, it’s not helping.
Annabel, when I come back I always come back as Helvi, I cop the good and the bad as me, I do not come back as someone else. I noticed that you are starting to your fellow posters as idiots, a bit Allan Jones-ish? Will you stop?
..starting to call…
I don’t care how you come back Helvi, what I said was that your suspicions and accusations are not helping.
Regarding the idiot comment – I thought it was justified because DQ insulted everyone here especially F.I.Kendall and allthumbs.
Or did you find him calling you a “swine” acceptable?
Annabel, my remarks were addressed to FI Kendall and allthumbs only. As for the expression pearls before swine, that is only a figure of speech.
A little thin skinned, aren’t you?
May I add that DQ has never called me anything but Helvi
Bimbo, princess, impossibly vain and self centred, lackin in awareness and computation skills, spoilt, shallow, populist, simpering, hollow flatterer, lacking in conscience, consistency or a sense of justice and desire or interest in truth. Self aggradising saboteur. Lacking in substance, independence and originality. A liar.
I regret now forsaking the team to form my own junta. That was a mistake. Doug is known for aligning himself with internet cults and dodgy lowlifes. My sniper’s rifle will be firmly fixated on more appropriate sights from now on. Take a load off, F.I.Kendall and look out Doug. No one calls my team mates swine who can expect to get away with it. Not on footy grand final weekend.
PS. Annabelle is Cole for anyone interested but that’s by the by. Enemy management is the new catchphrase. Prioritise, prioritise, prioritise. It’s a hierarchy, with the metaphorical equivalent of Gerard and Williamson at the top, and Birmingham at the bottom.
I think the word “not” is missing from your post, Reader1, straight after “Doug is”
Reader that is the funniest post I have ever read on this blog xoxo
Annabell, it was less DQ’s reference to “swine” and more his reference to “pearls” that astounded not offended me.
Trust you to go for the easy mark!
Nah William, R1 and I seldom “agree”, we pull on the same rope and we’re both on the same team, but we have different methods. I use an overhand grip, this is less conventional and makes you susceptible to injury and you fatigue more quickly. The underhand grip is the recognized standard and will go the duration, all other things being equal.
I could never master the underhand grip, but if you have team mates that do, it gives you the chance of a brief respite to let go, spit on your hands and renew your grip, but this has to be timed correctly or you could lose the match.
And boy, when the team loses the first ones they point to are the overhand grippers.
There is another start up league for overhand grippers, and I’m waiting for a team to start up closer to home.
It’s an allegory for the Internet written in 1943, which only goes to show everything old is new again. I thought I was the guy yelling Teresa for a while, I thought he was cool and mischievous, he ain’t. Now I think I’m the freckled voice. Read “The Flash” by Calvino, everyone should read Calvino, especially if you have spent a little time reading Dworkin lately.
Sorry Canguro about the lists, I just got it started, I have a short attention span. It’s a holiday in NSW, but I should be working.
My first laugh-out-loud moment of the day, thank you.
‘It’s a holiday in NSW, but I should be working.
allthumbs, I have that every damn day… ‘I should be working’.
And after months of repetitive echo (is that a tautology?), I’m hardly a step closer to the goal. No-one pays idiots like me for their thoughts.
John Singleton has had “More Joyous” long weekends than this one.
He is losing sponsors in droves. Freedom Furniture is the latest.Gerry Harvey is considering. All credit to the ones that have moved quickly. And all credit to the journo who resisted the story being quashed.
For M Ryutin. The whacko prism, to be clear, is your construct, not mine. It’s your choice of language, expressed to reinforce your world view. It posits you as being central to truth and logic and is intended by virtue of the choice of words to reduce your protagonists to less than capable. Thus you can continue to inhabit your own fantasy universe in relative comfort. You’re 100% transparent, Ryutin.
The only whacko prisms I encounter are after ingesting a bucket-load of alcohol or significant quantities of drugs. Otherwise, it’s rationality, truth and disillusionment I search for.
And not that it matters, but I have no idea what Capricon One is about, never seen it nor read about it, but while you’re hard at work on the fantasy angles, name the websites you imagine I inhabit. I’m looking forward to calling you out, yet again, in your spurious mischief making.
Try dealing with facts for a change, it’ll do you a world of good.
I’m having a Tyler Durden moment. Can we all just blame my coffee table and move on like I have?
How remiss of me not to look for this reply. Tore myself away I did, just to have a look. The 911 stuff is so old hat now that I was entitled to assume that web sites like the one you originally gave were your bread and butter on the issue (didn’t you, even a mere few days ago, repeat that Silverstein ‘pulling’ of WT7 stuff?). Official reports, technical reports, air traffic transcripts, WT7 materials, Pentagon details. All were done with years ago for most people. Quite right to move it into the whacko column. Maybe when I saw your piece including the Vatican conspiracy I was a bit hasty and not all whacko conspiracies get you in, but two out of two aint bad.
More disingenuous illogic. It’s your stock in trade. As I’ve said before, based on your choice of argument or example in this blog, you aren’t worth taking seriously, you’re a troll. If this response qualifies as your best attempt to cogently put your side of the argument then sorry fella, you lose.
Here’s a tip. Stop lying. Others have also commented on this tendency of yours to falsely attribute. I’ve never written a single word about the Vatican, yet here you assert otherwise. Liar. You’re getting to be like the boy who cries ‘wolf’ too often, people are waking up to you.
Your cynical dismissal of the inconclusive analysis of the 9/11 crimes is telling.
10 years ago? Pfff… done and dusted, move on. Silverstein’s involvement in the pulling of WTC7? Pffff…a mere trifle compared to the bigger bangs.
Anecdotal evidence from NYFD personnel and others of basement explosions in the towers before the impacts? Nah, just more whacko nutjob fantasies.
Thermite residues and photographic evidence of lateral projection of debris as the towers were falling… those pesky conspirators at it again.
No evidence of a commercial plane crashing into the Pentagon? Sheesh…when will these crazy bin-Laden defenders shut up? Damn it, don’t they know the guvmint’s in charge here???
And what, no plane debris in Shanksville? You’re shitting me, right? Jesus, the guvmint said…, the guvmint said…, the guvmint said…
The whole official story stinks, as you well know but are too obdurate to admit or consider.
Based on the logic of your argument Ryutin, there would have been no Truth and Reconciliation Commission on South Africa, no Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia, no International Court of Justice on the Hague, no pursuit of past crimes, no justice for victims and no punishment for perpetrators. You’d let them all go free, just because the guvmint said…
What a strange mental universe you inhabit. I do hope you’re not a lawyer, if only for your clients’ sakes but perhaps more so because of your obvious addiction to the principle of ‘ignore the evidence, just harangue’.
I suppose if I was a mental health professional I’d find you more interesting, but I’m not and I don’t. You’re more of a distraction, an irritant, one of those persistent botflies whose mission it is to crawl under the skin of their victims and create an itch that persists.
I’m on to you Ryutin, and the Mortein’s at hand.
OK. On a lighter note.
After a relaxing bath Monica Lewinsky was looking at herself naked in the mirror-remembering the time with Bill Clinton.
Her frustration over her inability to lose weight was depressing her.
In an act of desperation,she decided to call on God for help…”God if you take away my love handles,I’ll devote my life to you.”she prayed
And just like that her ears fell off.
One shade of shad was more than enough.
I’m sorry Mr Ellis I shouldn’t have fed it, at least now you can see its swastika.
Bob will be more than familiar with the poem Might Is Right, fool. It has nothing to do with Neo Nazi bullshit. It is a union rally call of old. You obviously can’t handle a critique of your ramblings. Just carry on in you and yours well read slant on things. Poor Willy. Mommy he’s upsetting me
In what reality is the above considered a joke?
In what reality?
In what reality is social darwinism aligned with unionism?
Forgive me for mistaking your warmongering, spruking of social darwinism and significant poetic ability with the traits of a NAZI, if you are indeed, not a neo nazi.
It is not that I do not appreciate critique, but that I do not understand it, that I would raise questions and not cop it on the chin.
You have obviously never been on a picket line. You and your lot have almost ruined the party with your babblings. Trying to see more than the obvious certainly fogs up the issues.
If I may seem to be contradictory, I will credit you for being intelligent, well read and articulate,as are many others on this blog, but in a condescending and stupid manner at times
Hello children, your teacher has been kind enough to give me a few minutes with you and to have a chat, and more importantly put a proposal to you and ask you to think about the issues and then we will take a vote by a show of hands.
As you can tell from my accent I am not from here and I volunteered for this job by submitting my name into a lucky dip and I was lucky enough to be picked out of maybe a million other pieces of paper with names on them, so I could come here and speak to you. My name is S and I am sixty two years old, I am married, I have three grown up children and two grandchildren, one of them about the same age as you guys.
Now as you know, between your country and mine there has been quite a few ongoing arguments for a number of years over a number of important issues, politics and the like and although we have tried to talk our way around them and out of the fights we have been having, well to be honest with you, and you may have heard your parents talking about this or seen it on the TV news or in the newspapers, perhaps you have spoken about it with your teacher here in school, things haven’t gone so well lately and now we are, no way I can sugar coat this for you kids, but it looks like we are going to have a war. So I thought I would come here and tell you why I think we should, why we have to have this war and what this is going to mean for you. So we are all honest with each other, in my view I think we need to fight this war, and I have wanted to have this war fought for the last few years, but you know what adults are like, the y like to talk and talk and talk. But I’ve seen this happen in the past and if you get older, you will come to understand that this is the way of the world, it has been so for millennia and it will continue to be so, it is what it is, there is no other way, none at all.
Our plan is simple, once the formalities are signed and ratified by the necessary authorities, we are going to try and kill as many of your country’s people in as short as time as possible, bomb your cities and destroy your buildings including your schools and hospitals, we need to do this in order to make your Government surrender as quickly as possible, this will help save lives. It is more than likely that some of you, according to our modelling about a third of you will not be alive at the end of hostilities, another third of you will be maimed or injured for life, and around sixty- per cent of you will lose one or more of your close family relations. We will try our best to avoid accidental carnage, but you will find war is an inexact science and accidents happen and sometimes out of necessity we will just have to take hard decisions knowing full well that some of you sitting here will be killed, we will kill you, if there is anything you should take away from today is the fact that some of you are not going to grow old. Your side will of course be trying to kill as many of us as they can, and as I speak to you now, one of your countrymen is addressing a similar class of children in my homeland and pretty much saying the same things I am saying to you. These decisions are not taken lightly, you may find it hard to believe looking at me, but I can remember what it was like to be your age and it saddens me somewhat to see you all here in front of me with your lives in front of you, knowing in my heart as early as next week some of you will be dead, some of you will be in makeshift hospitals suffering from horrendous wounds, some of you will be grieving for your dead mother or lost uncle or younger brother. As I said these decisions are not taken lightly on either side, but wiser heads, adults, men and women, fathers and mothers have prevailed, they have thought long and hard and decided they have no other option but to go to war, it is somewhat ironic, do you understand that word “ironic”, you do, that’s good, it is ironic that the necessity to go war is the one thing both of our Governments agree on wholeheartedly. With the permission of your teacher I bought along some chocolates and candy to share amongst yourselves.
Excuse me Mr.allthumbs. May I have permission to go to the toilet, I think I wet my pants
Team shad, I wonder why you would not see it as honest and ethical to address children of your enemy that you are planning to kill them? Why do you find that amusing? Why would you address your hostilities towards adults only, knowing full well you will be killing children as well, why do you find that pant wetting funny? Why do you think that children have no business with the world, they have no investment in seeing their lives lived out?
Please explain this to me? Do you think killing children is fine shad, is it funny?
You are a sick fictional fuck althumbs
Pearls before swine. I had an older nun Latin teacher who used this phrase when we failed to laugh at her jokes, (ie, that “extemplo” – out of the temple, geddit? – means “immediately”). When DQ used it, before my eyes de Vere donned specs, a wimple and guimpe, and little lace-up black high-heeled shoes: a breathtaking sight not to my advantage.
But, this biz re people supposedly donning different identities…what is supposed to be the point of that? Why would they do it? Obviously, before The Great Reconciliation there was a spate of such. But that was to beat banning, not to fool readers…I mean, what on earth difference does it make if a post is signed this or that?
Topic change: My other heroes of the past decades have been (1) the Chinese man with his shopping in front of the tank in Tianamen Sq. (2) The Russian mothers who went down to Chechnya and just took their sons home.
Anyone want to raise me?
I will not raise you F.I.Kendall but I always loved this moment it’s a non-Dworkin moment:
“In 1000 A.D. on December 21, the Welfs in Weibertreu Castle had to surrender. Though the men had been defeated, the women were allowed to leave with their lives- and whatever they could carry on their backs. Quickly thinking, the women carried the men out, and Konrad III had to keep his word. The women who did this were called “trueue Weiber,” or “loyal women.”
I am told that I am a sexist. I do believe that the differences between the sexes are our most precious heritage, even though they make women superior in the ways that matter most. George Gilder, Sexual Suicide
Perhaps this female wisdom comes from resignation to the reality of male aggression; more likely it is a harmonic of the woman’s knowledge that ultimately she is the one who matters. As a result, while there are more brilliant men than brilliant women, there are more good women than good men. Steven Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy
It is shamefully easy for us to enjoy our own fantasies of biological omnipotence while despising men for enjoying the reality of theirs. And it is dangerous – because genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. We, who have been devastated by the concrete consequences of this idea, still want to put our faith in it. Nothing offers more proof – sad, irrefutable proof – that we are more like men than either they or we care to believe. Dworkin, Take Back the Day
R1,It wasn’t the moment they carried them out that is important, it was the moments before the men climbed onto the women’s backs, what was traded then and there, what was given up, offered up, what was accepted,lifted and born, a gift and a burden exchanged.
Re: Dworkin, give me a little credit, just a little.
Give Dworkin some credit. The story is Dworkin neutral, or at most para-Dworkin. And I doubt there were any discretionary deals done in the heat of the moment. Such a thing would have been mutually assumed and gone unspoken. Only to be forgotten soon after, no doubt, as happens so often with unspoken agreements.
I meant that I don’t think of Dworkin as a one dimensional thinker skimming as I have been through her various works, and I would hope that you would take that as a given.
I’m pretty attuned to unspoken agreements.
“mutually assumed and gone unspoken”, that’s what I was aiming to convey is what happened.
I’d like to think they just didn’t forget about it afterwards.
I’d hate to come across as cynical in any way, but how would you feel, a strapping, virile young master of the universe in dark ages Germany, whose life is saved by the same shrivelled and bent over fraurelein that cooks your bratwurst and strudel, tidies your room and irons your leiderhosen? What would the lad’s make of it? My money’s on a succinct show of gratitude at the time, “thanks for the lift Mrs Helmut”, and that would be the gratitude motion performed, done with and out of the way.
I used to give my brother and his friends a lot of lifts picking them up from the pub. I used to say to them at the destination, don’t thank me, be nicer to me the rest of the time. They never listened. Nor were they ever waiting out the front of the pub when I pulled up. Not once. But they always thanked me politely before bounding out of the car. Arseholes.
‘…what is supposed to be the point of that?’
I don’t think it’s about banning, nor is it about fooling readers, necessarily.
It doesn’t bother me if people post under other names, and I’m not interested in finding out who they ‘really’ are.
If you’re not feeling like yourself, why not be someone else?
I’m sure that it doesn’t matter. Go forth and multiply.
The issue only matters when those sad individuals use the alter egos to agree with their own posts, so as to give the impression that someone else actually agrees with them.
I have no issue with posters using several names otherwise, though some abuse the hospitality of the blog’s host by doing so.
Hi Polybius
Your ghost story surprised me.
Very much.
Hello Fedallah,
How so?
I chose to call it a ‘ghost’ story – really, it’s more a kind of ‘what-the-fuck-was-that?’ story.
Nice to see you back, by the way.
Even if you haven’t reall been away(?)
What can I say?
I was very surprised.
More later.
Thank you. And to you as well I note.
I have been away; 2 days in Adelaide and almost 2 in Melbourne.
Home now.
Another hope dashed, thanks. If the King had looked closer he would have noticed the women had big feet and hands and an inordinate amount of facial hair, some with full beards, and the men on their backs, chests that strangely aroused him for no particular reason.
“So Gunter, finally a valid reason for you to wear my dress, aren’t you lucky, don’t push your luck by using my lippy as well”.
Cynical? Just a tad.
Under ordinary circumstances, loyalty scores you no brownie points. It is the frisson of danger that comes from having the option of doing otherwise, from being in a position of being able to do otherwise, that counts as rungs on the corporate ladder, with a symbolic better job always at hand to justify the big bucks. If there isn’t a symbolic better job always at hand then the burden of both gratitude and loyalty is always on your head. It is the position these women were in that was the anomoly, and what earned the respect. The use of the word loyal to praise them is in itself curious. They would have had no option but to be loyal every day of their lives to little acclaim, it was just that one brief window where they actually had a choice. Of course you are going to save your tribespeople, though, someone has to go and hunt boar. And maybe 11th century Germany was a little, enlightened gender relationed haven with the best of intentions and acute sensitivity all round. Like the Moors.
“Loyal” is the English literal translation, in German as I understood it when I heard it used,has a deeper sense, more varied, more nuanced, more encompassing. It certainly contains the element of loyalty but it goes beyond that it includes fidelity, constancy, faithfulness, truth and a deep and abiding love as its core.I never heard it used in regards to company loyalty.
But you’re right who can live at that level of intensity day in and day out? Clarke Kent always comes back out of the supply room straightening his tie and smoothing back his hair.
“Treue” has a deeper….
I was just reading on The Drum that “Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation” translates in Chinese as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead”.
The following sentence gets off to an awkward start but bear with it.
Though it does pay to identify it with its own word where it exists, as a reminder not to act contrary to one’s own motives in the forgetting of such a facet, even more so where the word has a deeper meaning, I still say faithfulness is a con. If something is, it is. If it’s not, it’s not. If you truly are faithful, there is no need to vow to be faithful or even make particular note of the fact outside of any everyday, practical implications. Or as the Chinese might say –
“Beard papa
pursues handmade,
freshness and deliciouness,
and particular about the material and particular about the material
and addition thing such as an antiseptic never uses for health
THE SKY AND A RIVER ARE WIDE
it seems that the sun is wrong
BIG-SIZE
Hurry energetically & over there and school life
Hello! Woody! Do you want to join in vehement athletics?”
Props to the German language, though, it has the world’s best words. The only good thing about dowdy, old lead-footed (ledfuten?) English are the novel uses the Chinese put it to. I can only imagine the dizzying array of concepts embedded in the Chinese language itself. Imagine having a word for bringing your ancestors back from the dead. They’ve thought of everything.
The King would have been astonished and it would have been a revelatory moment for him a la Calvino when he saw those women with their men upon their backs. The faithfulness would have been remarked upon after the fact, it would have been reported and commented upon and commemorated after the fact. They changed the name of the castle I assume after the fact. The faithfulness was implicit when the women took the men upon their backs and maybe it was made evident to them both when they decided to take that particular action. The women wouldn’t have hesitated I bet the hesitation would have all been on the men’s behalf for all of the obvious reasons that still exist today. The question is how much convincing did the men need, did the women have to cajole them into, or count to three or I’m going without you or “stop being such an ass Heinrich and get up here”.
In my scenario I see one woman carrying a large piece of her favourite furniture, perhaps an oak table or a wardrobe while her fat, ugly, vicious, abusive husband is yelling at her from the castle gates and she with a tiny smile trudging towards the opposing army.
The first official free thinkers were a group of German nuns of around that time or a bit later, who originally came up with the idea that you could communicate with God directly and didn’t need a priest interlocuter after all. I bet they had tight little self-satisfied smiles. Unlike later personalities who tried it on, they got away with it free of any condemnation.
Do you think late at night out on the prairies with the lone wolf howling at the moon, Tonto was thinking of his own franchise? “Tonto Enterprises”
He would have had his eye on the prize. Tonto was high maintenance but I think you got to be.
Originally the Lone Ranger and Tonto shared the same horse, swear to God, but as soon as they took the first publicity photos, Tonto got his own horse or Scout got his own Indian, lot of dues were payed over billing of Native Americans back then, National Velvet had his own caravan, Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowell had to share one, they say that’s why Roddy became gay? Anyway one thing lead to another that was the start of horses looking for more and more money, really outrageous bread and special clauses in their contracts. Finally it all got out of hand when they found Mr.Ed had choked himself to death tethered to the handle of his stable door, he’d taken off his own horse shoes and left them neatly outside his corral.
lead footed = bleifussig.
The “Gift of the Gab” is still holding the spit bucket I see.
Must be getting heavy by now.
Geworfenheit.
Fed: “allthumbs, can you pass this note on and ask R1 if she likes me”
at: “ask her yourself”
Fed: “no you ask her, I get all tongue tied when I see her, I punched her in the arm, I thought it was a sign of affection”.
Make your declaration, what’s the worse R1 can do, knock you back?
Man you got it bad.
See recent RJ comment about this blog, they’ll be off again.
You applying the jouissance to thickly allthumbs, too self-consciously; it’s not good for the skin. Put a little
oops,
put a little depth, a little Hermeneutics on there. I hear its a good range.
Otherwise you’ll start to look…blank; all screen and surface. Reminds me of Roland “never anything but the site of its effect”.
Anyway, what did she say?
Does she like me?
Cause I’m crazy red hot for her!
Come on allthumbs, be my wingman of Lurve!!
OK,Grasshopper first thing, next time send her a flower and not a florist shop.
When you have mastered the ways of botany, the world is like an open field full of, you’ll have to ask Soil he knows more about botany. Muldoon, FFS Soil what were you thinking?
Geworfenheit.
To Reader1,
The Opinion:
Sentence 3,4, and 5 from your post of October 2, 2012 at 5:26 pm are wonderfully written and join in an uncanny stylistic dovetail with allthumbs’ equally powerful and archaic expression(s) of October 2, 2012 at 4:25 pm.
I am particularity susceptible, and have a deep fondness for, such implicit or latent, meanings routed out from things “unspoken”. I often find that the fictive treasures unearthed; fecund and imaginative, have as much import, and quite often more, than any explicit narrative. And as such I find the critique of metaphysics less interesting than the processes or questions, such as those proposed by you and allthumbs in these short posts, that go about forming and formulating that critique.
Anyway,
those few lines in those short posts were a delight to read and, to be perfectly frank Reader, I’d forgotten that you are capable of such small wonders.
Well done to both of you.
Sincerely.
…………..
The Question:
“Only to be forgotten…”
“Forgotten”, Reader1?
You don’t really believe that, do you?
I don’t think such deals, discretionary or lucid, are ever “forgotten”.
The authors you cite, and the authors you don’t, are proof of that.
The billions of lives, the conversations, communications and engagements, are proof of that.
The dialogue between yourself and allthumbs right here, right now, proof of that.
Surely?
I suppose that memory, for me, exists in some kind of mythic or figurative language; intrinsic and poetic – unmapped and unmappable.
………………
The Statement [of Fact]:
Annabell is not Cole.
You know that I know that.
I may regret saying this, but I think there is not one regular here who does not at times come up with the goods.
As for Annabell, she seems to have some time for Rudd, not an affliction you share.
Doug, to your first sentence: even the “regular’s” you’ve abused or sought to ban?
To your second: I read that Reader1 thinks Annabell to be J.G.Cole.
Do you subscribe to that opinion?
I like Gillard very much.
However, I don’t believe, I have never believed, Rudd’s erasure was either necessary or profitable.
Coming up with the goods is one thing, being abusive, argumentative and dog in the manger is another. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
As for your question, you know me better than that, and I know you better than that.
We hoed this road ‘fore Doug, I gots me a differin’ ‘pinion on that. See, I find ‘em all got some’en to say. St Augustine was it who said, one was saved, one was a damned.
Well, I tend to agree.
I does know ya better, I’s just askin’ for a di-rect answer.
You got one?
If’n ya does, then speak it man! Speak it plain!
I’ll discuss it with you when you are sober, JG.
I had me a bottle somewheres…if’n I could jus git me a sup I be fitter ‘an a truckload of sons of bitches comin’ offa Ol’ man Jenkins road.
I seen ‘em once, an I don’t reckon I like to sees them agin.
Now I be askin ya agin,
You reckon Annabell to be Old Cole, does ya?
Holler when you ready to speak yur min.
I be waitin’.
In words of one syllable : No. You are not.
Hi Fedallah, don’t worry about it. I stopped reading her posts a long time ago. Thanks all the same.
Poly if you are going to be someone else you have to BE someone else.
And here is the thing I just figured out, it’s no fun being someone else, if the others don’t know its you being someone else is it? That’s why you need the winks and nods, how can you revel in the deception for your own amusement, that’s masturbation, this is more like flashing in the park. Don’t people just fuck anymore without the boots and teddies and the role playing,is there no more honest down to God fucking going on anywhere anymore? “Teresa, Tereeeeesa”
allthumbs, I’ll wager you a dinner in a Melbourne restaurant of my choice that Annabell is not Polybius.
Masturbation?
You keep speculating this way and you’ll be joining Reader1 and Helvi in a Lesbian Spank Inferno Romp!
Blue Ray out soon!!
You’re right, my speculations stop right here, right now.
With a special guest star xoxoxox
You are full of shit and I have no idea what you are talking about.
Ah Reader1 – you mistake me for J.G.Cole; he actually “cared” enough to worry about your shockingly public slide into the rancid cesspit of language without meaning, of shingle speech fallacy, and frantic evasions.
And me?
I remain unburdened by such “cares”.
Where do you dig out all that ugliness.
Is the big one the left you Hilde?
“Is the big one the left you Hilde”? This incomprehensible sentence I take to be an accusation that R1 is Hilde. In spite of all the advice she has been given, helvi continues with malice to try to cause mischief.
Scapegoating: she is like the women who used to accuse others of being witches, watched with glee while they were burnt at the stake, and said “oops, my bad,” later.
Truly wicked, and a really malign form of bullying.
I was asking Reader1.
Not asking, accusing, helvi.
Is the big one on the left you Hilde?
Can Hilde please answer me. no, not you Kendall, let Hilde speak, she is a grown-up.
Down below.
Reader!
Reeeeaaaaaaada!!!
Isa callin’ you out girl!!
Git cho spittle ass out here now!
Come’on now!
Don’t keep me a-waitin’!!
I aint got no more patience for yo dang foolishness!
So help me mama I gonna tear the hair offa that Ozark ho!
Jeues Christ. What the fuck are you lot talking about
Sorry (Jesus) I don’t wish to show complete ignorance
Carry on
Anyone is free to respond to any post here, Helvi.
Were you hoping for a reply from R1? Then, why did you address her as Hilde?
Or, did you hope for a reply from Hilde? Then, why put that on your post to R1?
Because, in either case, you were accusing R1 of being Hilde.
You made another one of your ceaseless, baseless, wrong assumptions, and some people are sick of the nonsense.
Hilde will do, don’t worry Kendall, don’t worry Reader1.
Hilde is most likely happy to answer herself, why are you so concerned?What’s Hilde to you.
Another sly passive-aggressive comment snuck in as usual, Helvi.
I think that if you addressed Hilde as “he” you might be closer to the mark.
The issues to me are bullying, scapegoating, justice and moral courage.Those issues concern me
irrespective of the person involved – such as here, where I know neither R1 or Hilde. Do you think I should only care about victims whom I know personally?
You are getting a bit hot under the collar about Hilde, what about asylum seekers, parents caring for disabled adult offspring, our soldiers dying in Afghanistan, Alan Jones’ abuse of our female PM, poor kids with no dental care…
What’s so special about Hilde that you have to fight for her.
Take a deep breath and let Hilde speak.
Helvi: Hooey to the attempts at diversions.
You told lies about me on this board. You never apologised, you never retracted. I don’t like seeing you do it other people. Get it?
I wish I knew why it bothered me so much. Perhaps it is my guilt.
A lady at c-link told me I had nothing to worry about and it was all Ronald Reagan’s doing. She was a very kind woman, with children, when I argued how worthless I felt in the economic scheme of things she told me of her son, the economics genius with no social skills, surrounded by kids with no social skills, all AS. I tried to talk logic but to no avail, she told me to consider the worth of my input in other ways. Still, I’m waiting on some kind of assessment, the phone could ring at any minute. It rang this morning, was the university disciplinarian returning my week old call to say I was a month late to reapply after being ‘banned’ for twelve months due to constant failures/non-attempts. I hung up, mid way through the conversation in a fit on confusion. I’d just woken up.
At one point I knocked over a clothes rack drying socks. I cut off half of all the leaves in my bonsai zen garden. The hum of my computer drowns out the background noise of traffic, the noise of the kids next door, an immigrant family who rightly think I’m bonkers, but I give them lemons and mow the lawn.
I mourned the three children that were sucked out into some chamber pot.
I gave a housemate a lift and waited as they dropped off an assignment, a car pulled in next to me, I tried to ignore them. I fiddled with the radio, found Jazz, wished the window wasn’t open and stole a glance to see a young Asian man conducting an orchestra, who promptly stopped and made awkward poses with the female driver. I got out of there as quickly as I could, a good five kilometeres down the road I stopped at a set of lights and the same couple rolled up next to me. They continued to follow me for another five or so kilometers until I lost sight of them. I try not to let things like that freak me out. As in, they pulled in after me, seemingly just so that I could catch a glimpse of them making fun of me listening to the radio, and then leave immediately after I did, from the car park, and follow the exact same route as me home to wherever they were going.
I wondered why I had so many accidents and I’m convinced that my anxiety is magnet for horrible drivers. I’ve resolved to mount a camera on the dash, perhaps reality will change if it being observed by something other than myself.
I wondered where allthumbs found his elevator from one class to the other? When you spoke of never experiencing a revelation, I was just curious. I was really looking for an excuse to tell you about the time, well, I really don’t have it in me. CBF. I took you as someone else, not Broom but I’ll read the books.
I watched Greg Craven’s address and wondered if uni was for me.
C’mon Percival, onwards. This hatbox is just divine. You know horse, snipers often cry out, after asking for their sniper rifles, “enemy spotted!” It’s as my old salty dog Captain once said, “Once a cat, always a cat.” You’re a good horse Percy. When a horse has a hairy chin, is it hirsutism? Nay? If we exported a load of horses with hairy mouths and the Pakistanis don’t take them, would the laser surgery be covered in the PBS? Nay?
Perhaps it is just a stage…
near* accidents. Apologies.
William, there is no elevator. I have no wisdom to pass on, I just know it has nothing to do with the hard work and positive attitude bullshit they feed you. I had the working class equivalent of middle class confidence, namely a chip on the shoulder, I still do, not much of one these days, but it’s still there. Moreover I refused to let myself be defined by anybody as to what I should know, could know, liked to know, needed to know, no matter how arcane that knowledge was, or how attached to the concept of the finer things in life. When you’re talking football slip in a reference to Wittgenstein, it has to be appropriate to the discussion and from there, wing it, when you’re at a dinner table and they are raving about wine, tell them you’re favourite food for many a year was a tomato sauce sandwich and describe it until their mouths start to water, and then tell them how you shared a stand up table with Wolfgang Puck eating sausage and beer in Vienna, but you didn’t talk about food. It’s not what or how much you know, it’s the fact that you know it at all, the middle class are surpised and the working class are amazed, that’s how locked in to their own comprehension of themselves they are. And read the business section of the newspapers and the renegade economists on the net, because everyone loves to talk about money and it’s a beautiful way to argue a Socialist agenda at both ends of the class spectrum.
Explain to me why we want to nuke Iran, when the Real is in free fall and hyperinflation is going through the roof and they will have nothing but a lot of unemployed educated young people? Meantime China will buy up Iranian oil and supply Iran with all that it needs. And despite the oil embargoes the price of crude is down worldwide? That’s a currency war, the war you have when you are not having a war.
Secondly, women generally hate it when you pretend to talk about them but end up talking about yourself. Leave yourself out of the conversation. Look at me, look at me Ma, look at me, can’t do that, that won’t cut it.
Thirdly as Jong says, don’t pick out their dresses.
I don’t know about you Fed, but I grew up in an all female household, that is some heavy shit, not Dworkin heavy, and no Princeling was I.
Read the parable of the pub lifts.
Fourthly, she is funnier than you,funny women are rare and they will kill you at will. I have met three in my life on was seventy seven years old, R1 is the fourth. Sit back and enjoy the ride.That’s my declaration.
You maybe right about Poly/Annabell, I’m not that interested, I think I might be onto a interesting theory though, on the surface mind, strictly on the surface. Dinner? Nah, I would bore you death, I really would.
Now, what precisely have you got wedged up your whatsit this time?
Are you suggesting that I am Annabell?
I am not Annabell, although I do like reading her posts.
I have a different view of the aliases or the heteronyms or however you want to designate them than you do. However, I only ever post under the one name.
And unless you wish your scrotum to be perforated by a bus-conductors ticket-punch, you will refrain from suggesting otherwise.
God damn your eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY and repeat, and so it goes…
I know.