|
The fanatics and nutjobs now running the show sure give honest believers a bad name
By Mark Morford, Columnist
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
I know they're out there.
I forget, often, too often, just how many there are but I know they exist in much larger numbers than you might be led to believe by current spiritually embarrassing headlines and I know they are just as, if not more, passionate and healthy and deeply felt in their beliefs than the overpublicized sects of angry and frothing "true believers" screeching into the megaphone of the culture, the ones yanking BushCo's chain and pounding their Bibles and hiding their warped porn fetishes and forcing their way into our lives and laws and bedrooms right now.
They are the decent Christians. They are the calm, morally progressive, compassionate, open-hearted Jesus-loving folk who don't really give a damn for archaic church dogma or pious noise or sanctimonious candlelight vigils, for repressing women or bashing gays or slamming Islam and, in fact, turned to Christianity precisely because they believe these things are abhorrent and wrong and, well, anti-Christian.
( Read more... )Current Mood:  apathetic |
|
Letter at 3AM
Two hours a day
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
There's a lot of fear going around, and with good reason. And a lot of paralysis – people who see the trouble we're in, but are too depressed to act. A lot of folks just stick their heads in the sand, not wanting to know anything more, hoping that, if they just mind their own business, sooner or later everything will be all right. When writers like me pile on facts to demonstrate just how much trouble we're in, a not uncommon response is: "But surely there's hope. Show us the hope!" I answer: "You're the hope. Your response is the hope. If you're not the hope, there is no hope." "But what can I do? What can we do?"
Ah ... doing. There's the rub, as the poet says. What kind of doing, and doing what?
First I should admit I have a negative reaction to the word "hope." ( Read more... ) |
|
A VERY Sad dayCurrent Mood:  sad |
|
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, June 11, 2004
Oh man is it ever fun to annihilate the planet.
Especially when said annihilation is combined with a really juicy cataclysmic natural disaster and some fire-breathin' dread and maybe some planetary zigzagging, along with some sort of wondrous ancient Mayan/Hopi prophecies and much screaming and running and bloodshed and a mad global rending of flesh.
This is how it starts. Everyone from paranoid Rapture-ready right-wing conservatives to mysterious Australian astronomers to weird alarmist economists all suddenly realize their various yelps and screams and chat-room rants are running parallel and that they're all ringing the same bell. ( Read more... )Current Mood:  only the beginning... |
|
Limbaugh announces end of 10-year marriage,
(Three strikes and he's out!)
JILL BARTON
Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh announced Friday that he and his wife, Marta, were divorcing.
( Read more... ) |
| » He's still the teflon prez |
|---|
Why have we not heard anything about the reality of Reagan?
Everyone (even democrats) has just been gushing about him and his “wonderful presidency” .
It just makes me sick to think that even after his death no one has the balls to tell the trutha about this lame president. Revisionist history!
Jun. 12th, 2004 @ 01:17 pm
|
| » Iran-Contra |
|---|
As part of a secret deal to purchase the release of American hostages held in the Middle East, the White House agreed to sell arms to the government of Iran. But that was really just the catalyst for their real objective. The NSC sold Iran weapons, and then funneled some of the proceeds to the Contra insurgency in Nicaragua. This was a blatant and intentional violation of federal law.
While all this was going on, Reagan pretended that there was nothing illegal going on. At one press conference, a journalist addressed the issue point-blank:
REPORTER:
Mr. President, why don’t we openly support those 7,000 guerillas that are in rebellion rather than giving aid through covert activity?
PRESIDENT REAGAN:
Well, because we want to keep on obeying the laws of our country, which we are now obeying.
REPORTER:
Doesn’t the United States want that government replaced?
PRESIDENT REAGAN:
No, because that would be a violation of the law.
After the story broke, the President continued to deny everything. When he was finally forced to discuss the growing scandal in November 1986, Reagan declared:
“In spite of the wildly speculative and false stories of arms for hostages and alleged ransom payments, we did not -- repeat did not -- trade weapons or anything else for hostages; nor will we.”
( Read more... )
Jun. 12th, 2004 @ 01:12 pm
|
| » Cowboys and Idiots - The Reagan Years |
|---|
The World as a Grade-B Hollywood Shoot ‘Em Up Movie
Back in “Fabulous Fifties” America, a has-been Grade-B Hollywood movie actor named Ronald Reagan revived a floundering acting career by taking a job as corporate spokesman for General Electric, a leader in the burgeoning “Military/Industrial Complex”. Reagan’s Hollywood “Good Guy” image and his ability to read a script from a teleprompter served his new employers well, and enabled Reagan to quickly advance to the top of the ranks of corporate shills.
As 1950’s America sought escape and refuge in the “Never Never Land” of their television sets, they found comfort, reassurance and solace in the feigned sincerity of television actors who sold them various products along with a sanitized, fictional version of American history.
In spite of his growing mental confusion, the increasingly addled Reagan was able to retain his abilty to read a teleprompter convincingly, while remembering the script for the GE public relations speech he was taught. Those skills, along with an aging, grandfatherly image, further endeared Reagan to a brainwashed and ignorant American public, thus adding to his usefulness to his employers. The single most useful trait Reagan possessed was the fact that he actually believed the Good Guy Vs. Bad Guy fairy tales himself.
Reagan is credited with the defeat of the “Evil Empire”, the Soviet Union. Reagan had many friends and helpers in his fight against evil around the world, including Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the fanatical Muslim extremists in Afghanistan that founded the Taliban regime and spawned al-Qaeda terrorism. ( Read more... )
Jun. 12th, 2004 @ 12:56 pm
|
| » Louis Armstrong |
|---|
What we Play is life!
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 09:12 pm
|
| » ok I just tested it it works rather nicely |
|---|
I'm still a newbie but i think this will help...
go to this site and download the appropriate tools for your platform.
hopefully you are smart enuff to use a mac
if so go here:
http://www.os10.org/osx/iJournal.html
if not go here:
http://www.apple.com/buy/
or at least go here:
http://www.livejournal.com/download/
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 09:09 pm
|
| » I will miss Ray Charles alot more than Reagan |
|---|
Who's next?
Bush 41 or Carter?
We can always hope those parchute will strings snap
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 08:56 pm
|
| » You'd think he was a god or something... |
|---|
can we bury that idiot Reagan already?
Well seeeing all that "old conservative bullshit" replayed over again (and again) and then comparing that to our current "punk ass chump president" is illuminating. At least it has done the service of finally making me appreciate something (anything) about Reagan. He was much nicer than W and he could at least speak well. he was also prolly a little smarter than W but not by much.
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 05:32 pm
|
| » Brad Houser touring w/Patrice Pike & the Black Box Rebellion |
|---|
There may be a few of these dates (at the beginning or
the end) that Brad isn't playing. Hopefully he'll let
mw know soon. He said "for about 3 weeks when I get
back from Tokyo", so I'm guessing he's in on these
shows. I know he'll be w/her at the High Sierra Fest &
other California dates:
Friday, June 18, 2004 The Pier Austin
Saturday, June 19, 2004 Hanovers Pflugerville, TX
Friday, June 25, 2004 Black Bart's Playhouse Murphys, CA
Saturday, June 26, 2004 Garage Music Club Reno, NV
Monday, June 28, 2004 Cafe Paradisio Eugene, OR
Tuesday, June 29, 2004 Mississippi Studios Portland, OR
July 1-4, 2004 High Sierra Music Fest Quincy, CA
Wednesday, July 7, 2004 Java Joe's San Diego, CA
Thursday, July 8, 2004 Moontime Pizza El Paso, TX
Friday, July 9, 2004 Railroad Blues Alpine, TX
Saturday, July 10, 2004 Momo's Austin
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 05:30 pm
|
| » Frank the soothsayer... |
|---|
The illusion of freedom in America will continue
as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion.
At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain,
they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains,
they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see
the brick wall at the back of the theatre. -- Frank Zappa, 1977
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 01:28 pm
|
| » Kurt said it last year and its still true in spite of the recent Reagan lovefest |
|---|
I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.” And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.
- Kurt Vonnegut
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 01:26 pm
|
| » RAY CHARLES | 1930-2004: He sang with a shout, a tear, a laugh, with love and with the blues |
|---|
BY BRIAN MCCOLLUM
FREE PRESS POP MUSIC WRITER
Ray Charles performed at the 2002 Concert of Colors at Chene Park in Detroit. Born poor, he lost his brother and his sight as a child. One of his producers said Charles' gift was "finding and communicating the human emotion in a song."
He was a one-man portfolio of musical styles, a player whose work merged diverse American traditions and breathed with history.
But it is the future that will benefit most from Ray Charles. ( Read more... )
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 12:35 pm
|
| » Just How Bizarre Have Things Become? Take This Quiz and Find Out |
|---|
by Maureen Farrell
1) In April, 2003, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was planning to establish as many as four permanent military bases in Iraq -- a charge that Donald Rumsfeld flatly denied. [USEmbassy.State.Gov] In May, 2004, author Chalmers Johnson stated that the U.S. is planning to:
( Read more... )
Jun. 10th, 2004 @ 10:52 pm
|
| » what do you think of this site? |
|---|
please lemme know!
Jun. 10th, 2004 @ 08:51 pm
|
| » The day the Constitution died |
|---|
The day the Constitution died
Molly Ivins
06.10.04 - AUSTIN, Texas
When, in future, you find yourself wondering, "Whatever happened to the Constitution?" you will want to go back and look at June 8, 2004. ( Read more... )
Jun. 10th, 2004 @ 08:41 pm
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
gnastique's journal