Fnord! Spotter

Don't Download This Song!

2006-09-26T01:43:00.000-07:00

I'm overdue for an update here, and this topic's one of the most worthy I've encountered an a loooong time...it would simply be unacceptable not to make some noise about it.

Right now. Loudly.

Weird Al Yankovic has a new album out. It's called 'Straight Outta Lynwood,' and you'd best believe I'll be purchasing a copy.

There are some terrific songs here, I'm certain, both originals as well as parodies of popular titles, as good or better than the fine work I've previously come to expect from Weird Al. He's a class act if there ever was one, and is the undisputed (to my mind) master of parody. The new album also has some nifty exclusive features (from the distributor's ad copy), viz:

'DualDisc includes PCM Stereo, 5.1 Surround and instrumental mixes of the entire album
(with on-screen lyrics option), plus a 9-minute behind-the-scenes documentary and
6 Brand New Music Videos from world-class animators Bill Plympton, John Kricfalusi,
Jim Blashfield, Thomas Lee, David C. Lovelace and Robot Chicken!'

However, all of this good stuff can wait till I buy it.

This album's special. It includes a little tune that's already become one of my very uber-favoritest songs of all time in the short (hours still!) time I've known about it, and I'm so taken with it, I'm in the mood to spread the word tonight.

'Don't Download This Song'

is so amazingly cool, timely, and funny, I'm making it my business to put the word on the street about it out to the best of my ability. This is history happening here; it's Weird Al's well-considered tactical nuclear strike on the RIAA in response to their own psychotic and hysterical attacks on the users of peer-to-peer file sharing. I for one will be happily cheering it on.

I'm no legal expert, but I've been following this debacle for some time, and my overall impression is that the whole thing is about the RIAA's desperate attempt to hold onto the good old days of charging absurd amounts for CDs that cost pennies to produce, all so it and its vulture middlemen buddies can glom a big chunk of the profits of musicians' works. I remember in the 1970s when they began this endless hissy fit, going after people who'd taped music off the radio they liked to pass around to their friends, and it was as silly then as it is now.

Guess what, RIAA? People don't mind shelling out some dough for a quality pressing of works by their favorite artists in a handy CD format with some nice album art. But when will you see that the days of buyers having to cough up twenty bucks or so for a hunk of cheap plastic, that may or may not include a bunch of stuff many could care less about, all so you and your pals can suck up some heavy change at their expense, are OVER?

Done. Finito.

You've used your advantage up. Back in the day, there was no real alternative to your products if people wanted a high quality rendering of works by musicians they liked. Fine. No one was holding a gun to their heads.

But now, alternatives abound, and while I realize you'd sure love to keep that ol' gravy train rolling, it ain't gonna happen, and to paraphrase Princess Leia, the more you tighten your grip, the more buyers will slip through your fingers, some of whom will be doing so for no other reason than to flip you the bird for acting like the Gestapo-goons you have been.

Of course, I myself would never do anything naughty or illegal, but let's just say, hypothetically, that a fellow like me wants to listen to some new cut from a musician he really digs. Is he gonna mosey on down to the local music store and fork over the big bucks you demand for that l'il plastic CD, which, as I mentioned, might be stuffed with tracks he doesn't like or doesn't care about, just so he can have the satisfaction of knowing some RIAA guy will be able to maintain the lifestyle to which he's become accustomed? Ya THINK?

Not likely these days, pard, he's gonna fire up Morpheus...or Grokster...or LimeWire...or one of the many P2P utilities available, and be groovin' happily away to the specific tune he wanted in short order.

But...guys...there's a flip side to this issue you seem unable or unwilling to see, apparently too consumed with viciously lashing out at anyone you can in your panic, like a rabid animal biting anything it can close its jaws upon. Should you care to shed that murderous rage for a moment, I shall be happy to explain what you've been missing.

Attend, please.

It isn't all tea and crumpets out in P2P Land. Users not only risk the wrath of the RIAA by sharing files (Fines! Lawsuits! Jail! FNORD!) online, but many of these files are corrupted, incomplete, low quality, or sometimes infected with spy/malware or viruses. And with video, there's the annoyance of movie files that one can waste many hours downloading, only to find that they're just cheesy porn flicks that have been re-named (why do they BOTHER???) .

Of course I have never experienced any of this personally; I am innocent, pure, and entirely law-abiding, so I'm just reporting what I've heard around the campfire.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Anyway, bearing this in mind, wouldn't our hypothetical fellow be inclined to just avoid all of those aforementioned hassles and hazards if an album or DVD he wanted could simply be purchased for a few bucks? Something the average overworked, underpaid slob could actually afford without having to worry about his purchase cutting into the food, mortgage or electricity budget?

Why, surprise, surprise, YES, he would. Sound economic theory and study of history assures us of this. Look up 'marginal utility' on a trustworthy site like the Mises Institute if you want to see some good academic discussion of this concept, but the long and short of it is that yes, you can still make a profit from making physical merch for people to buy...it's just not going to be in the artificially huge amounts you've gotten used to.

Sorry, guys, but the market has corrected your former advantage. It does that. Your persecuting everyone you can lay your claws into in an effort to negate this is a pathetic and desperate attempt to sweep back the sea, and the sooner you accept this, the happier everyone's gonna be. Please stop being assholes; stress is bad for the the soul, even yours.

That is, of course, unless the rumors of RIAA types actually being a bunch of demonic and soulless vampires, risen from some outer circle of Hell to prey upon humanity, aren't all just silly internet legends...but I digress.

Weird Al understands all of this perfectly, and that's why he's gonna make a ton of money from his new album. Even if you, kind reader, are not a Weird Al fan, I strongly recommend visiting the site promoting his album 'Straight Outta Lynwood,' and taking a look around, if you're a supporter of freedom and an un-coerced market in any way. Give 'Don't Download This Song' a listen, there or at Weird Al's MySpace page, where you can also watch the video made with it, which is also available for viewing on YouTube.

By the by, being that Weird Al is a savvy kinda guy who looks out for his fans, both the MP3 at his site as well as the high quality version available from CNET's download.com are not only free, but uncontaminated by any DRM toxins. You get 'em, they're yours. Period.

If you want to look over the text of the lyrics, they're right here. Clever and quotable, I supect we'll see a lot of folks copying and pasting them. Heh heh heh...

Having been a fan of Weird Al's for many moons, I am thrilled to discover this new effort of his today, and applaud him for the superb job he's done. A well-loved icon with near-universal public recognition, having used his considerable skills as a satirist to showcase the RIAA's sociopathic behavior so brilliantly, he's become my hero all over again!

Oh, and RIAA critters?

Get a grip.

Bitten By (Fnord!) MS...And What I'm Doing About That

2006-05-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

I've been describing myself as a wannabe writer for years now. This blog was supposed to be just one of many venues for me to learn, exercise and practice the craft...and I'm reasonably pleased with my efforts to date.

Problem is, I haven't posted a thing in almost six months.

Six. Months. Un-frickin-believeable.

I'm sorry about that...and really, that apology is mainly to myself for slacking on something I've long thought of as very important to me.

Here's why:

I have, for more than the last year been struggling with some heretofore unknown health issue. As briefly as I can tell it:

I've had some back problems over the years, but only one time, in 2001 or so, was it really bad, enough to scare me while it lasted. Now, I have to load my own cargo as part of my job, so it did seem to make sense that sometimes I'd get sore, or tired. The occasional chiropractic adjustment seemed to help, and I didn't give my health a whole lot of thought...at least until last winter.

By the time 2004 morphed into 2005, I noticed I was feeling more sore and tired than usual, and worse, had begun favoring my left leg when walking. By spring of last year, I was limping.

By summer, it was a pronounced limp, and I was getting frantic with worry over it.

I tried two different doctors, but both of them were disasters...the first was flat-out insane, the second, driven by a political/lifestyle agenda, completely missed what was wrong with me, and wanted to go haring off in a direction that would have been completely unproductive...specifically, I was smoking cigarettes at the time, so he decided I simply must have some sort of smoking related cancer...even though there was no evidence from my X-rays, MRIs or blood tests to support the idea. Sheesh.

Then I tried a chiropracter (I put up with 3 months of do-nothing quackery from that one, I must shamefacedly admit), an acupuncturist, and finally a new chiropracter.

When it quickly became clear that spinal adjustments weren't helping me, she got me started in a good direction: looking for answers from a neurologist. Now this wasn't exactly something I was eager to get into, since by this time I'd begun to really fear that I'd come down with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. It's an ugly way to die, and even though I didn't have most of the most telling symptoms, I did have a couple, and quite frankly, a big part of me got into a 'what's the point in doing anything, I'm probably dying' mindset. I just haven't felt one bit of inspiration to do anything, much less write, since that time...until now. Turns out I ain't dying...not at this juncture, so far, and no earlier than the next fella! But I digress...

I went to one a neurologist here in Nashville on my chiropracter's referral, but in the meantime, my FAA approved medical examiner refused to issue me a new medical certificate at the end of February, which means I haven't been allowed to work since the beginning of March. When the neurologist here proved most difficult to see initially...and worse, when it became clear that even preliminary tests would be weeks away, I really blew a gasket, and yelled for help.

Luckily, I have a friend who's a scientist at LSU Shreveport. His colleague, a neurologist, agreed to take me on immediately as a patient, so I drove down there March 10. He took me on, got me into the MRI place within a few days, got me diagnosed within hours. The good news: my MRIs were totally inconsistent with what one would see from a guy with Lou Gehrig's disease. The bad news...?

Turns out I have MS. Multiple sclerosis. Not a very happy thing...but loads better than dying of ALS!

I spent the third week of March in the LSU hospital, getting steroids pumped into me daily to get my immune system to quit gnawing on my own wires' insulation.

Now I'm on interferon injections three times a week, supposedly it'll help my MS back off and retard its further progression...we'll see. The injections are simple and quite painless; I use a gizmo that handles the syringe so all I have to do is trigger it. Easy...I just hope the medicine does what it's supposed to!

Now, I may not be working just now, but things are looking up. A friend looked up an FAA aeromedical journal online, and happily, MS is not automatically disqualifying. There are hundreds of folks with it holding FAA medical certificates of all classes...the main problem is when MS affects one's vision...which, thankfully is not applicable in my case.

I started lobbying my FAA doc to reissue my medical certificate in April, and between multiple visits, some slow paperwork from my Shreveport neurologist, and other factors, it took till last Monday, May 1, to get results, but I've now got past the first hurdle: the doctor feels I'm fit to go back to flying and has forwarded my file to Oklahoma City for review by the FAA medical people.

It might take a while (hey, this is Leviathan we're talking about here, remember), but I'm optimistic that I'll be approved. My vision's fine, I can drive my standard shift sports car with only minimal difficulty, and I've never had a problem controlling an airplane at work.

I even used my digital camera's video capability to record a couple of MPEG-4s on my last night at work flying, and they're of my last two approaches and landings, one at night in Atlanta and the other here in Nashville the following morning. I made sure to demonstrate that I could use my 'weak' leg to make left hand turns on the ground, as well as including myself speaking on each one, to show that it was really me and not some ringer doing the work. Between the date/time info in the file, my voice, and the demonstration that I could handle the plane without difficulty, I supect these little videos may come in real handy in getting me back to work.

But, then, I have MS...and apart from screwing up my walk, it does one other thing, as the vast majority of MS afflictees will tell you: It makes me fatigued.

Really, really fatigued.

Almost all the time, too, for many months, but slogging through this past winter really brought that to my attention. I suspect a big part of me was in denial that I was so tired so much. I'd always been so damned active, verging on hyper...it would not do!

Apparently, some theorize this chronic fatigue happens because the body, having stripped some insulation from some of its own nerves, is now operating very inefficiently. Makes sense...but you know what? Whatever the reason is, it sucks! Rather than feeling my normal self, these days I feel like just existing is sorta like trying to swim in pudding.

Now, I'm not entirely unrealistic; barring some large improvement, I know I need to learn how to budget my energy resources carefully lest I get tired too fast.

I accept that I might have to let go of the idea of doing stuff I'd taken for granted I'd always be able to do...whether I wanted to or not...but if I'm going to be honest, that's been something easier said than done. Especially the annoying limp I've got; I never wanted to be some major athlete, and I sure wasn't into running...but now I can't, and that is one whopper of a psychological adjustment to get used to!

But beyond that, what's my attitude toward being saddled with physical limitations?

Easy...I'm pissed off.

I will be damned if I relinquish control of my life to some stupid affliction; I don't care if it's God, my T-cells, or just bad karma at work. I'll get back to my aviation job, and if that proves to be something I don't want to keep doing because of the fatigue I'm prone to, well, I've talked for years now about opening a kickass toy and hobby store, all kinds of great stuff from tinplate toys to the latest cutting edge micro radio control hobby items. The idea of making a living surrounded by all the cool gearhead stuff that enchants me is a perfectly acceptable alternative to flying, much as I love that. We'll see...I'm researching small business startup info now, and I plan to get with a mentor from SCORE for advice along the way...but I really do think that it'd be prudent to start looking into my own business...one with one location for me to deal with and go to, rather than the tramping around and heavy lifting my current job requires.

In line with that philosophy, I also mean to get back to my writing. I think I've got some worthwhile things to say, so writing's going into the 'stop your bitchin' and just do it, dammit' category that most of what I need to do is in these days. I'm noticing that a lot of the fatigue I feel is really in my mind: after months and months of disappointments, false starts, and some truly grim death vibes beating on me, I've sagged...I've learned to anticipate being tired, and have let it govern me.

Well, screw that! If I don't feel like shaving, or driving to the store, or taking out the trash...now I just shut up and do it...and I can! That goes for writing, too.

So...I'll be around more frequently.

Hey, it's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it!

A Thoughtcrime Detector...HUZZAH!

2005-11-19T01:10:00.000-08:00

How cool is this?!?

According to the folks at News.com, "A new walk-through airport lie detector made in Israel may prove to be the toughest challenge yet for potential hijackers or drug smugglers."

Yay! Now I can sleep at night! I've been so worried about all those people running around with Bad Thoughts in their heads...

Of course, there are always some malcontents who pooh-pooh glorious new advances in the War On...sorry, what is it this week? Must be slipping...

Like this entry at Nova Lounge online:

So, let's take one of the more stressful environments and have a robot determine if there are any stressed people lurking about. This is a bad idea. What about people who don't speak English? What if your flight is leaving the gate? What if you have bomb, are on Zanax, and you're okay with that? Will they test children? Deaf mutes?

Once a massive voice-stress analyzing infrastructure is in place at travel choke-points, will they record and retain answers? For how long? Will they be tied to your permanent record? Will this become your biometric id? What other questions will law enforcement inject into the system? Have you ever done drugs? Have you ever had an abortion? Are you a legal alien? Do you own a firearm? Do you ever get angry? Do you agree with the president?

Yech. Will this really make us more secure?

Poppycock, sez I.

Don't these people know that the wise and benevolent hand of the FedGov is constantly at work to ensure that nothing can go wrong? I mean, really, why would people be upset or nervous at the prospect of the use of this great new tool???

Well...

Couldn't be that many passengers are already nervous when they arrive at an airport owing to the very visible presence of the heavily armed, often fuzzy-cheeked and pimply Sturm Abteilung fresh from their previous jobs at McDonald's or as enforcers for local street gangs, trigger-happy and hyped to the gills on a combination of propagandized training and gallons of Code Red Mountain Dew, could it?

By the knowledge that if they 'fail' whatever arbitrary questioning they undergo, they may be hustled off to somewhere nice and private for 'more intensive questioning and, if necessary, searches,' while their luggage, unlocked as per decree of the Geheimestaatspolezei...or simply broken into, if they were foolish enough to engage a lock...is rifled, with any 'suspicious' items like jewelry, cash, or the like removed and confiscated in the name of keeping the rest of us Free and Safe?

Once surrounded by all these clean-living and righteous myrmidons guarding the airways, might it be only then that these travelers begin to wonder belatedly if some weapon of mass destruction might have fallen from a shelf or pocket while they were packing into their luggage, say a tiny pen knife, as happened in February to Christopher and Karen Lyons of Oxford, Connecticut, as they were enroute to Disney World with their two year old son?

Credit (and my thanks) to Becky Akers again for reporting on this story over at LRC.

Yep, alert officials found a 2 inch pen knife that had fallen into the kid's diaper bag, apparently during the chaos of last minute packing. Never mind that Mrs. Lyons is a former flight attendant and Mr. Lyons is a pilot and former US Marine, nope, eternal vigilance is the watchword, and there's no cutting anyone slack these days! After conferring endlessly on the horrendous potential for mayhem posed by said pen knife, the screeners decided it had been "artfully concealed" in the bag of Huggies and called the Connecticut State Police.

Confronted by the cops, who helpfully simplified matters by allowing the Lyons to decide which of them would be hauled off in manacles, since "we have to arrest someone," the couple decided on Mrs. Lyons, since Mr. Lyons' career as a pilot would likely end that moment...along with his income...were he the one selected.

Sure enough, though lacking motive, and having no criminal record whatsoever, her two year old waving bye-bye, Mrs. Lyons was cuffed and taken away, charged with "circumventing airport security."

This couple won't be able to head off to Disney World any time soon, either...for her heinous crime, and his complicity in their dastardly act, EACH of them is facing a fine of $6000...which really is just a slap on the wrist, considering that the regs allow up to a $10,000 fine apiece! Who says the TSA ain't compassionate?!?

That's just one example, mind you...I've read all sorts of jolly stories that prove just how on the ball Our Boys are when it comes to keeping us safe. Pregnant women being felt up have been arrested for having the audacity to burst into tears at the mortification of it all (along with their husbands who've been foolish enough to become angry and demand an explanation for the grope fest), decorated war vets have been kept from boarding because their jaws were wired in place and the TSA refused to believe they might need wire snips in case of a choking incident, or have even been dragged off in chains for smartass answers to absurd questions...tsk, these people never learn, do they? There's a reason all those questions are so goofy...it's...um...to keep the criminals off balance!

So let's see, armed goons everywhere, intrusive and arbitrary questioning and searches, the likelihood that packed valuables will be cleaned out of one's luggage and confiscated, that an incorrect or 'inappropriate' answer can result in delays or even arrest, that a 'bad attitude' can get one placed permanently on the secret and unaccountable No-Fly list, removal from which is well-nigh impossible, and now lie detector tests to see if they'd been engaged in recent thoughtcrime, eh?

I don't see a problem, myself.

Come ON; it's not like they're simply taking the '12 percent of passengers (who) tend to show stress even when they have nothing to hide' down to the basement to be executed with a bullet to the brain.

Not yet, anyway.

I laugh whenever people say that boarding an airliner is quickly becoming an experience to rival that of Jews being inducted into a concentration camp like Dachau or Treblinka, or a Soviet dissident being packed off to the Gulag. Aviation security is serious business! People deserve to have their worlds all fluffy and pink and safe, and those who disagree should immediately just take the Blue Pill and go back to sleep.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a journeyman pilot who's in the system every work day...

Whoops, I Did It Again!

2005-11-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

Yep...hanging out on my current favorite single people site, Plenty Of Fish, I took a stroll through the Politics section of the forums. There's been an ongoing discussion of 'The Best Government,' which as it turns out was started by a self-professed anarcho-capitalist! I'm liking this fellow, he likes the writing of HP Lovecraft and has said some cool things.

But the most recent poster had this to say; I provide his entire post just for context' sake:

"I think most forms of government can work on some level, if people don't screw it up. Any thing can look good on paper, but humans aren't perfect and will find the way to mess it all up, usually to their own advantage if possible. If there was a %100 percent perfect lie detector, or maybe some kind of insanely accurate telepath somewhere, maybe we could find some people we could trust to operate a perfect government. But for now we have to just believe what we're told and hope it is true and for the best. It's kind of horrible to think that governments will always fail because of human corruption. Or ignorance...lol."

Believe what we're told??? Hope it's true??? Oh realllllyyyyy?

My response:

But for now we have to just believe what we're told and hope it is true and for the best.

Oh, dear. I feel a ***RANT COMING ON***

I have a feeling that people have said that very same thing before many times throughout history...

Especially by people in places like Armenia in the early 20th century, the trenches of WW I, or the by the Kulaks during Stalin's forced collectivization of Russia.

I have no doubt that the inmates of Auschwitz, the Warsaw Ghetto, and Treblinka entertained the same idea...for a while, anyway.

Later I'm sure those in Korea or enroute to the Soviet Gulags, or those targeted by Mao's Cultural Revolution or 'Great Leap Forward' scheme all said the same.

I could go on, right up to the present day, but you get the idea.

Those attracted to becoming a part of the workings of various States are motivated by essentially two things: money, which they are too lazy to earn on their own, so they seize it from productive people, and power, so they can push people around or force them to behave in a way that they think will produce a Utopia.

States invariably have two defining characteristics: a declared monopoly on force, and a similarly declared unnacountability for their actions, since 'they're only doing it for The People.' Rubbish. Once up and rolling, States are like cancers; they're always hungry, never satisfied, and will if left unchecked eventually consume every resource they can steal, leaving a lifeless husk behind.

The real gung-ho statists don't particularly care if they ruin a given land trying to enforce their Grand Schemes on everyone else, hell, lots of the time they are so blinded by hubris they don't even see the devastation around them. Hitler was still prophesying Germany rallying around him and surprising its foes with a Glorious Victory For The Reich even as Russian tanks were rolling into Berlin, fercryinoutloud!

Close to 200 million killed by the hands of governments over the 20th century make me extremely unlikely EVER to 'just believe what we're told and hope it is true and for the best.' Sorry if I'm contentious, but that's a pretty strong precedent.

I believe in the basic decency of most people for the simple reason of enlightened self-interest...they don't act like sociopaths because they don't want others to act that way towards them.

I believe in free and peaceful trade, in questioning authority at every turn, that the best way to enslave a population is to disarm them, and that these associations we call 'governments' are, at best, gangsters with flags. Too many of us have been imbued with the idea that somehow those in government are nobler, wiser, and more capable than the average person...as well as a somewhat disturbing near-supernatural worship of the States associated with them.

I think we need to start bursting these bubbles, folks. Those in government are just as human as you or me...some less so, in my view, given their propensity for cheerful mass murder while simultaneously spouting pious platitudes. Giving stirring speeches full of excuses for one's crimes isn't too hard to do when you can hire good speechwriters with all the lucre you've stolen from everyone else who has to work for a living!

States are fictional constructs, and only have as much power as the credulous, lazy, or opportunistic are willing to cede to them. Or, as my late grandfather was fond of saying..."in order to get screwed you have to get into position."

I think my favorite image to express everything I've just written is one described in Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus!

The chief character, Hagbard Celine, has a magnificent painting displayed in the main salon of his golden submarine (don't ask, just read the book). It shows a Moses-like character, gazing in awestruck rapture at a burning bush, which is presumably addressing him. The painting's caption is:

Think for yourself, schmuck!

***RANT MODE TO STANDBY***

Hey, I couldn't help myself...

Looney Tunes In An Insane Era

2005-10-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, I've been slackin.' I haven't written squat since the end of August. Shame on me.

I've had to deal with other annoying stuff, sorry.

My back's been giving me grief, my job's turned into a torturous living hell, and between seeing the doctors, then my chiropracter, and most lately, an acupunctursist, I've had distractions.

Trying to make some sense out of my own life as well as the world apart from it, I've been spending a lot of time online, and recently discovered a terrific resource, Plenty Of Fish.

It's a free online singles/dating site, which is nice, but the chief attraction for me is POF's wealth of discussion forums, everything from sex and dating to creative writing, recipes...and politics.

Last night, I looked in on an ongoing discussion we've been having there, reminiscing and talking about the old Looney Tunes cartoons beloved by most of us.

The most recent post was a relatively simple question from a member regarding the 'NEW' Looney Tunes cartoons released over the last few years. I haven't liked these a bit...utter CRAP like 'Looney Tunes Babies,' with its hyper-sanitized stories, almost all of them laced with some poisonous feel-good socialist message, just get on my last nerve.

Considering that fellow's question about these New And Improved cartoons, something just snapped. I thought this evening I'd share what came pouring out, just as I posted it.

Enjoy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

xWolfSpiritx:

Hey....what does everyone here think about the New Looney Tunes

My Self...... two thumbs down

Ewww....New Looney Toones???

Oh, dear...

***RANT MODE engaged***

In the bowdlerized, PC, nannified, metrosexual New Millenium???

You jest, sirrah.

Everything that made those old Warner Brothers cartoons funny is today frowned upon, illegal, banned, or heavily censored...and under the wrong circumstances would get the writers shipped off to Camp X-Ray.

Never mind the sight gags, violence and other action. Not even snappy patter, clever wordplay, or puns can be permitted; we can't have anything other than monosyllabic, saccharine-sweet dialogue these days! Nope, no big words allowed (think Bugs saying "indubitably" or Daffy saying "you're despicable"), lest someone with a vocabulary of less than 50 words not understand the cartoon and run bawling off to find the nearest class-action attorney. They'd probably win, too.

The action? HAH! Look at some of the scenarios those old cartoons featured...can you see what'd happen today?

A cat trying to chase a mouse out of a house? That's DISENFRANCHISEMENT! So what if the rodent invaded the home, chewing up walls, stealing food, and fouling the place the whole way? He's got just as much right to that house as anyone! Nope, today the cat'll invite him to sit down and have a nice Marxist dialectic about sharing everything whilst sipping mineral water. Next they'd divvy up their posessions in that spirit of sharing...never mind that the invading mouse HAS none, he'll sleep well on the cat's old bed from now on...call it 'social justice.'

Speaking of bed, that's where the new friends will head directly for once they've finished the party; it'll be time for some 'freedom of expression,' to celebrate the physical joys of all this interspecies conviviality. Make sure the kiddies are watching...that's educational!

And how about the cartoons with some great big bulldog chasing a cat, either snapping his jaws or wielding a big mallet to bonk him with? That's felony criminal assault, amigo!

Oh the horror...and for the psychic trauma the dog is inflicting just by putting the mere thought of being hit by a blunt instrument in the cat's mind, today he would have to be dealt with by a fully armed SWAT team in heavy riot gear, carrying the latest laser sighted machine guns, noxious chemical sprays, and metal batons. They'll show that silly, silly dog the error of his ways...probably terminally, just to be sure...goodness knows, the Proper Authorities can't risk being bonked by that wooden mallet!

The cat, meanwhile, would receive the latest in grief and trauma counseling, then be packed safely off home with a nice endless supply of Paxil to make sure he never, ever has to think about such awful things again...

I wonder...how far do you think ol' Wile E Coyote's gonna get these days chasing the Roadrunner with all of his deadly gizmos and traps built from ACME supplied parts? Guns, knives, things that go boom, and fiendishly clever clockwork death-dealing devices? Oh, my...that's a job for the Geheimestaatspolezei...er, excuse me, Homeland Security!

They'd find him in nothing flat using the GPS tracking beacons helpfully slipped into some of the more arcane devices he bought from ACME, as per 'safety regulations.' After all, all good businesses must help Our Boys Win The War On...er...Everything, mustn't they?

After vaporizing Wile E. from orbit with a tactical nuke (remember the Columbine Syndrome...no one other than cheap, disposable civilians must ever be within miles of harm's way!), the stormtroopers would turn their tender attentions upon ACME. Never mind the fact that they cooperated with regulations by slipping those GPS trackers into Wile E.'s purchases, they're now guilty of Supporting A Known Terrorist!

After the assault teams break ACME's doors down with battering rams in a pre-dawn raid, asset forfeiture laws will be applied, and all of ACME's factories, stock, parts and property will be sold to the highest bidder. The bank accounts of every ACME employee will be seized as 'criminal profits' and used to buy even better weapons, riot gear, and tactical nukes for the next time some Evil Villain threatens the peace. That'll show 'em.

***RANT MODE OFF***

Sigh...sorry...that just popped a circuit breaker...

Vin Suprynowicz' 'The Black Arrow' is right on target!

2005-08-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

Kind of a giveaway, huh? Well, I think there's a time and place to keep a reader in suspense, and this is not it. To tell the truth, I was tempted to begin a very happy review of Vin Suprynowicz' recent work of fiction, The Black Arrow, when I was a mere third of the way through it...but I held off until I'd finished reading it just this week. Just to be sure, you understand.

I'm glad I waited, 'cause now I am sure. I liked this book a whole lot, should there be any doubt remaining in the reader's mind as to my opinion of it. Is it a sublimely crafted masterpiece, a Swiss watch of literature, a modern Lord Of The Rings? Nope, not in the humble opinion of this wannabe scribbler. It doesn't need to be.

I believe this is a seminally important work; a Rosetta Stone of a sort that I think has the potential to catalyze all the anger, frustration, and resentment that's simmering in the hearts of millions of ordinary folks today into focus...precisely where it should be, on every goon, thug, or elected official that considers the average American citizen a 'resource' to be exploited, used, abused, or simply disposed of at his or her pleasure. On every pimply creep who shed his McDonald's trainee nameplate for a badge so he could work out his sociopathy on ordinary people without having to worry about being held accountable for his actions. On every court academician who contributed to the Orwellian nightmare this country has become by legitimizing some fresh tyranny with a clever Newspeak 'redefinition' that turns common sense on its head in order to perpetrate yet another nasty crime against the public.

I think that if enough people read The Black Arrow, all those aforementioned tyrants and would-be tyrants would do well to reconsider their actions lest they be faced with a future full of the sort of 'unpleasant confrontations' that Luke Skywalker warned Jabba The Hutt about.

That's pretty big stuff! How's it done in one book?

Suprynowicz' novel keeps its plot deceptively simple...at least at first. Set 25 years in the future, it tells the story of an America that's reached the 'mad as hell and not going to take it anymore' point from several perspectives. Without a lot of detail-ridden (and potentially tedious) backstory, we learn that the Western states have seceded and are currently battling the FedGov military, while the rest of the country founders under the awful conditions that are a natural extension of the short sighted, rapacious policies that have become standard in our society over the last 150 years or so. The pigeons have come home to roost with a vengeance...and it's not a pretty future.

'Security' checkpoints are everywhere. Uniformed bullies menace the citizenry at every turn, meting out unspeakable penalties for anyone so much as daring to raise an eyebrow in protest. The military, dumbed down and propagandized into a crude, bludgeoning tool, is finally, if somewhat dimly, realizing it's fighting losing battles and is becoming daily more demoralized. And unsurprisingly, the bulk of the population, taxed and harassed for most of its members' lives, is being run callously into the ground by the very worst enemy one could have, a centralized government entirely unconcerned about anything beyond its politicians' all-time favorite pastimes: scooping up money they didn't have to earn for themselves, and accumulating plenty of raw power to use to shove people around, the better to indulge their sociopathic lusts.

Enter The Black Arrow, alter ego of wealthy entrepreneur and rock musician Andrew Fletcher. Having reached a watershed moment in his life (detailed nicely without being overdone in the book), he decides that the time has indeed come, as Claire Wolfe has said, to simply shoot the bastards. The character is so named because of his weapons of choice, steel-tipped hunting arrows fired from a compound bow, an expedient choice given the FedGov's 'SonicNet' that uses zillions of strategically placed microphones to detect and locate gunfire sources.

Pursuing the wicked by night, striking silently, The Black Arrow is, as many others have noted, reminiscent of the Batman character, and fittingly, the book reads much like a graphic novel (or 'comic book,' for those with their noses upturned at this affront to 'serious' literature). For the first thirty pages or so I thought Suprynowicz' prose was a tad on the purple side till I realized the effect he was after, at which point it all made sense. Not to mention the great fun of reading a book written in that style!

The Arrow starts small, going after the very sort of creeps most of us would like to hunt down ourselves (if we're honest about it); smugly arrogant tax collectors, 'Lightning Squad' troops who are the foot soldiers of the tyrants, and the like, but soon graduates to bigger fish, among them a city councilwoman who attacks the sanctity of private property with her gleeful abuse of eminent domain statutes...especially notable and timely given the Supremes' recent abysmal Kelo decision. Are you listening, guys...?

There are two factors that impress me about this book a great deal. The first is that even though it's a swashbuckling, bodice ripping, good-versus-evil adventure yarn, it consistently remains centered on human life, and the quality of that life, as being the most important issue. Beyond the adventure, the book is closely concerned with its characters as people, particularly Andrew Fletcher's life and the love triangle revolving around it. This is no accident, as Suprynowicz, using Fletcher's voice, reminds us himself that it's the human experience itself that's most important. Without giving away anything significant here, it's safe to say that he is careful to explain why even The Black Arrow has his own stopping point, mainly to keep some degree of happiness in his life...but also to avoid the trap of gaining too much power and influence himself, lest he be corrupted as the tyrants he's been fighting have been.

Just as striking is the catalog Suprynowicz has assembled of many real-life abuses current and past governments have perpetrated against the citizenry; from Ruby Ridge and the massacre of the Branch Davidians, to the death of innocents at the hands of government land-grabbers, to the everyday shabby treatment of ordinary people just trying to get by at the hands of government gangsters, we see a systematic pattern in the State's tyrannical acts against its victims all demonstrated in one book. This is a real first in modern fiction, I believe. The book well showcases the government's 'train of abuses' that finally begets the resistance movement in response...which is what I meant earlier about the book potentially being a catalyst that could form the center of a very real resistance to ongoing government tyranny. Presenting as it does all those horrible things done to so many people by our 'public servants,' it then shows how these acts daily affect the rest of us, with the end result that a pretty good case is made for the course of action taken by the book's characters to remedy the situation...a course that, sadly, may one day become necessary for people out here in the 3-D world to take themselves...

This book's not only for those who've already taken a stand on the issues raised in it, either. I think The Black Arrow is ideal reading for anyone who's still a fence sitter on the issue of whether or not government is fundamentally evil, or for anyone who's heard about and dismissed some single atrocity as 'conspiracy theory,' to help them get an idea of what liberty loving people have been so up in arms about all these years!

Apart from all the serious issues examined within its pages, something that I really liked about the book was the abundance of apparent inside jokes the author managed to include along with everything else that was going on. For just one example, he makes sure to draw readers' attention to the fact that one of the Asian characters signs his name to traceable documents as 'Isoroku Yamamoto,' confident that the dimwitted bureauthugs trying to track him down won't recognize the nom de plume originally belonging to the Japanese architect of the Pearl Harbor attack...but then makes no special note of the fact that the head stormtrooper-creep of the Lightning Squads just happens to be named 'Rennie Heydrich,' an obvious reference to Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich of the Nazi SS (known as 'The Blond Beast' by his victims). Clever, I thought...anyone read the book who didn't get that? Get to the back of the class with your dunce cap!

Now, some have criticized Suprynowicz for including a fair amount of sexual content in the book, but hey, as far as I'm concerned, that's just part of life! I had no problem with the way the story dealt with sexuality; I found it integrated just fine with the plot, and helped move the story along nicely. All that notwithstanding, I've seen considerably more graphic coverage in plenty of so-called 'serious' literature, so I'm just not convinced this is a valid complaint.

Some, too, have criticized the author for his 'didactic' style in describing the historic events that he does, as well as injecting his own feelings about them. Well, all I can say is that it's pretty hard to describe complex historical facts in tidy little sound bites...and after familiarizing myself with the many cruelties government has inflicted upon innocent people who 'got in the way,' I'm of the opinion that anyone still able to consider them clinically and dispassionately, divorced from their significance to humanity in general, has got to be cold-hearted in the extreme.

About the only real critique I have myself is not really a complaint, just something I found kind of odd; it didn't take long for me to realize that almost all the dialogue spoken by all of the main female characters could have been written by Robert Heinlein for one of his female heroines. Hey, I adore strong, smart, sexy women, but at times I felt like I was reading a speech lifted right out of Friday, or perhaps one of the Lazarus Long stories. Come to think on it...I wonder, might this have been another of those inside jokes?

All in all, I thought this a wonderfully written, compelling, and very important book. After reading it, I found myself hoping for a couple of things: first, that the American public isn't so dumbed down and sheeplike that it'll take another 25 years for them to realize that things already are as bad as they're portrayed in the book in many ways, and second, that if Boobus Americanus does indeed wise up, all it'll take is enough millions of dirty looks directed at Our Fearless Leaders to get them to back down from their megalomaniacal conquest to Rule The World instead of physical, violent resistance. It just might work, since they've shown many times that they're cowardly bullies, and from what I've seen, simply standing up to that type will suffice . The alternative would indeed be as messy and bloody as The Black Arrow depicts it to be.

Now get thee hence and read this great book! And once you've finished, like the old shampoo commercial said, tell two friends about it...and hopefully they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on...

Winged Gestapo

2005-08-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, that's it! This subject's been on my mind for quite a while, but for some reason this particular camel's back broke after the last straw was added today.

When I checked the articles this morning at LewRockwell.com, the first that caught my eye was 'Bombs Away,' by Becky Akers. Taking the opportunity to go into a bit more detail than the average journalist would, Ms. Akers recounts how this past Friday, Southwest Airlines Flight 21, enroute to Corpus Christi from Dallas, was grounded in a remote corner of Houston Hobby Airport after a traveler found a note claiming there was a bomb aboard the aircraft. We've heard of this sort of thing happening from time to time, but something about the details surrounding this particular event just got me fired up enough to actually write about some of my own thoughts on the subject.

If, as Ms. Akers points out, in this case The Authorities had wanted to actually, say, do their jobs, they'd have hustled everybody off the plane to safety just as soon as the tires stopped rolling and its parking brake was set. Isn't that what we pay these people to do...keep us safe from criminal or terrorist threats?

Nahhhhhhhhh...as usual, those in danger were considered expendable, and were kept onboard by armed Houston police...who, come to think of it, were evidently considered expendable themselves, being non-FedGov Ubermenschen types. Those superior life forms are of course more valuable than any working class proles like you and me, in or out of uniform.

Gee, just think-if there had been a bomb, they could have taken out a whole bunch of cops along with all the passengers and crew of the aircraft! Woohoo! What a bonus for the bomber(s)!

But, as usual, talk is cheap, and there was no bomb. In fact, this Dire Bomb Threat (Fnord!) was barely a note; according to one passenger:

"It was like a bubblegum wrapper where somebody wrote there was bomb on the plane..."

Oh, cool! So all I need to do to terrify millions, maybe billions, of people is to scribble a message on a gum wrapper claiming I'm Marvin The Martian, ready to blow up the whole Earth with my Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator? How cool is that!?!

The same individual who made the 'bubblegum wrapper' comment, Houstonian Torrey Leger, went on to note

"What kind of disturbed me was, they thought there was a bomb on the plane and they left us sitting there for about an hour. Nobody seemed to have a procedure in place for when something like this happens."

Sure they do, Torrey.

The procedure is to make you sit there in a nice remote area waiting to find out if you're going to get blown up or not while they're off somewhere safe, playing Inspector Clouseau, trying to find the perpetrator. Get it? Your life isn't worth doodley-squat to them. They have bigger fish to fry.

As Ms. Akers correctly points out in 'Bombs Away,' these Homeland Security folks are sucking money in the neighborhood of FIVE BILLION BUCKS a year, money taken from you and me at gunpoint with the ostensible purpose of protecting us from these Dastardly Terrorists...and gee whiz! They haven't nabbed a real terrorist yet! Gotta be some red faces back at the ol' HQ, you know. Hey, five billion here, five billion there, pretty soon you're talking about some real money.

Sheesh.

I gotta tell you...I'm a pilot myself. I fly professionally, though my sector is in general aviation, and stuff like this daily reminds of how glad I am I gravitated to my end of the business rather than the airlines. Never mind mild-mannered retired teachers, pregnant housewives, decorated war vets, and the like running afoul of the TSA; of I'm sure you've read more than one story about airline pilots being clapped in irons and hauled away because they made some inappropriate remark or other, foolishly thinking they were on safe ground talking with security people in 'pilot country.' I have no doubt I'd be lucky to get through one day as an airline pilot; I've got a goodly amount of Russian Jewish blood in me, and I just don't mesh well with Gestapo-type stuff.

No, strike that, let's make that just 'Gestapo stuff.' Because that's what our much-vaunted Homeland Security is, for Pete's sake. Doesn't just the phrase 'Homeland Security' sound just a little bit...Germanic...to your ears? It ought to! Why not 'Continental' or even 'American National' Security, eh?

I think it's because some sociopathic goon with a twisted sense of humor came up with the name. 'Gestapo,' if you don't know, is a contraction of 'geheimestaatspolizei,' or 'secret State police,' the 'State' in question meaning Government. Plus the German 'geheime' (secret) is awfully close to 'heimat,' or 'home.' 'Polezei,' of course is 'police,' which can easily be substituted with the generic term 'security.' Heimatstaatspolezei? I dunno, could be a coincidence, but it's still mighty convenient.

Of course, taking their cue from the original Gestapo who collected anything and everything of possible value from concentration camp inductees, the New And Improved version does excel at something besides terrorizing ordinary people, too...robbing you blind. Constantly spewing platitudes about 'keeping you safe,' these worthies insist that you leave your luggage unlocked, the better for them to rifle through it. If you do dare to lock it, they'll just break the lock. Of course, what with all the lawsuits filed against TSA for their thieving ways (and other less savory activities), they have lately been adding signs warning you about leaving anything of value in your luggage...if it weren't so appalling, it'd be kinda funny.

And should you ever find yourself actually hijacked by criminals or terrorists? No worries...they'll be dealt with! By an armed flight crew member, who'll neatly take out the hijacker? No way! Allowing pilots to carry sidearms is far too risky...never mind the fact that we're entrusted with guiding big chunks of metal whizzing around at hundreds of miles per hour, no, the pilot needs to keep an eye on things all the time; besides, there's the chance he might miss and hit an innocent bystander (we pilots are such children)! No, let's just shoot down the WHOLE DAMNED PLANE, killing everyone aboard and raining fiery destruction down upon whoever might be on the ground under us! I'm sure that if that ever happened, the people pulling bits of Extra Crispy Relative from the wreckage of whatever home, school, or hospital the flaming debris landed on would give a big old thumbs-up to the fighter jocks who just blew that airplane out of the sky!

They aren't kidding either; I had to undergo 'security training' as part of my job, and in the government-approved instructional video we were made to watch, they made it clear that we're to give every bit of help we can to the FedGov in carefully locating us if we're hijacked...so we can be blown to smithereens for the Greater Good. Wow...you don't suppose all this is because the government doesn't care about anything or anyone beyond maintaining their monopoly on armed response to threats, do you...even if hundreds died as a result? Naaaaaaaaahhhh........

And please let me know when Elvis gets here, too.

Being the selfish lout I am, caring nothing for National Security (Fnord!), I for one fervently hope Our Masters don't get around to stationing their Gestapo at the FBOs (small general aviation terminals) that I frequent while at work. Security's already just fine there; if the person working the counter doesn't know you, you'd best believe you're not getting access to the ramp. You've got the best facial recognition software on the planet at work there...let's keep using it, I'd say.

The last thing I need as I head to my plane is a confrontation with some pimply post-adolescent fresh out of TSA school (their motto "Dominate. Intimidate. Control." sure makes me feel all warm, safe and protected) suspiciously demanding why I, dressed in my uniform with captain's bars and carrying my (Fnord!) closed briefcase, should be allowed to touch an airplane!

If I respond with a smart remark, or my upraised middle finger (both have a high statistical probability of occurring), and I'll have a bit of a problem that I'd never had to think about before...I'm betting it's kinda hard to get an aviation job when you're on the No Fly List!

On a side note, if you'd care to read more commentary by Becky Akers, who inspired my own rant today, you can find more here, and for a more in-depth analysis of the ghastly TSA, I highly recommend James Bovard's terrific article on the subject that he wrote for Reason Online, see it here.

Fnord! Spotters Extraordinaire- Penn & Teller!

2005-08-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

Y'know...I'm tired of all the assorted losers, frauds, and general scumbuckets you see in the various media getting all the attention, perks, and fat cash for basically being the loudest, most annoying, and/or intimidating of their breed. They posture, pontificate, bray, lecture, and generally irritate the last nerve of everyone within earshot...and to add insult to injury, they're actually rewarded for this awful behavior, which of course only encourages more of it.

And that's just the politicians, for heaven's sake. Please don't even get me started on all the so-called 'entertainers.'

Like the vermin responsible for the glut of those awful 'reality shows,' for instance.

Faugh! Humbug! Whoa, I have gotten started...engage Rant Mode, Captain!

These foul critters are responsible for hour after hour of pointless drivel polluting the TV screens of the world, showing people being humiliated to the point of mortification...eating bugs, submitting to microscopic examination of their shortcomings, and generally being abused by their fellow man...and for what? For the tittillation of an audience so dim-witted and voyeuristic they have nothing better to do than watch this claptrap so they can feel, for a few minutes anyway, that they're a level higher on the food chain than those poor slobs under the lights. Sorry, that's not 'entertainment,' it's prolefeed, say I. A distraction to keep the audience from even suspecting that anything might possibly be amiss in our world; that everything is just peachy, that God is in His heaven and all's right with the world.

What a load of BULLSHIT.

Which, by happy coincidence, just happens to be the name of a reality show that's proven to be the exception to the rule...a thought-provoking show with substance, a show that examines issues with the jaded and cynical eye that all self respecting journalists ought to have...but generally don't.

I'm talking, of course, about Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT!, which can be seen on the cable channel Showtime, if you've got that in your lineup. Now, I have to admit that I've rarely watched the show myself; I'm too cheap to subscribe to any premium channels, and in any event the show is relegated to rather odd hours (like 3:45 AM) for some reason. But fear not, even miserly dilettantes like me can get all the shows on DVD these days...and you'd better believe I mean to acquire all of them at some point!

I want all the episodes in hand more as a resource to share with friends than because I feel I'm missing something; I've been a Penn & Teller fan for years, and I've made it a point to keep up with the above linked web site. Showtime is kind enough to include video excerpts from each show, and you can get a pretty good idea where each one's going just by watching these.

For instance, in a recent episode examining gun control, the video sample features commentary by pro-gun icons like John Lott, Jr., of the American Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp of the Texas House of Representatives. Unlike various totalitarian schemers like Charles Schumer, Josh Sugarmann, and Sarah Brady, who ceaselessly and shrilly expound on the Horrible Danger posed by Those Evil Guns (FNORD!), these are two folks who have always impressed me as having their heads on straight. Professor Lott is the author of several well-researched, peer-reviewed books on gun issues, and Dr. Hupp, a state representative from Texas, has seen firsthand the liability of being disarmed in the presence of a violent criminal. If you don't recall, Dr. Hupp was a chiropracter who survived a massacre perpetrated by an armed lunatic in a Killeen, Texas restaurant in 1991. When this happened she was able only to watch helplessly while the killer murdered 23 people, including both her parents, because at the time there was no legal civilian gun carry allowed in Texas... and she'd left her sidearm in her car to comply with the law. Later, she became a state representative largely with the intent of correcting the situation, and thanks to the efforts of Dr. Hupp and others, Texas was one of the early adopters of 'shall-issue' concealed carry laws, which have proven increasingly successful in deterring violent crime.

Am I biased? You bet, but to avoid any further lengthy explanation all I'll say is that I've been following this particular issue for years, and if nothing else, I think anyone who's more interested in a calm discussion of the cold facts by people with actual experience with the issue rather than a lot of hysterical rhetoric from self-anointed idealogues would be, too.

Even more serious is what I think of as the biggest FNORD! foisted upon a nation's citizenry since the Reichstag fire, the absolutely dreadful USA-PATRIOT Act, and Penn & Teller are all over it, exposing it for the unprecedented and audacious power grab that it is. You can watch this particular episode online, where I found it, on the Crooks And Liars web site, in either WMV or RealPlayer format. I don't know how kosher it is to link directly to the video, so I didn't, but you can just scroll on down the linked page to view it. Be warned, though...spicy language and some nudity are part and parcel of the Penn & Teller experience!

Apart from these, Penn & Teller examine...and debunk...all sorts of myths on their show, from the outlandish to the prosaic 'common knowledge' sort of misinformation. From fraudulent mediums 'channeling' ghosts to the equally fraudulent (in my considered opinion, of course) chest-beating wackos from PETA and any number of environmentalist lobbies...they're on the job, cutting through the layers of obfuscatory nonsense to reveal the reality under all the rubbish.

If there really was an award I could give these guys for their ability to spot, drag into the sunlight, and stake through the heart the many FNORD!s they've already put paid to, they'd have had it long ago. If you haven't checked out these wonderful showmen, please don't waste any time in doing so.

I love Penn & Teller...I think they're real American heroes!

Mission statement

2005-08-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

So, you may wonder...what's a FNORD...and why on earth would anyone want to spot one?!?

Glad you asked. A 'fnord' is an allegorical concept used to describe one very real way many of us are influenced by Those Who Want To Control Everything...you know, the power-crazed goons of the world. I'm willing to bet you've seen or met too many of 'em...as have I. But, as with cockroaches, understanding their simple goal oriented behavior is pretty important if you don't want to be overrun by the annoying little suckers...so, it seemed as good as anything to start with.

The concept itself is described in detail in a pretty good book by the late Robert Shea and the not-so-late Robert Anton Wilson called 'The Illuminatus! Trilogy.' While nominally a satirical look at the many conspiracy theories that people entertain, couched in the guise of an adventure/action/SF book full of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, I think of it as kind of a Rorschach test of the reader's grip on reality...as well as how inner- or other- directed they are. To me the book is one of the more prescient and well thought-out resources available for those of us who are trying to learn a bit more about the world and human nature than what we're spoon-fed all the time by so-called 'experts' who would prefer they let them do our thinking for us.

It's nothing terribly profound, I just think it's kinda cool.

Explaining what a 'fnord' actually IS takes some doing, and since I am an unabashedly lazy slob, I'll let the words of these fellows speak for themselves...besides, trying to pass off the work of guys who are loads smarter than I am as my own would be cataclysmically bad karma. So here's what a 'fnord' is, in the authors' own words.

Why does my blog center on them?

Well, while there are a great many things I love, if I'm gonna be honest then I have to be clear that first and foremost I am a lover of freedom...in ALL its manifestations; expression, politics, economics, and so on. I did put a fair amount of thought into what this blog's main focus would be, and while I don't want to concentrate too much on all the negative crap out there, it's a sad fact that these days there IS a whole lot of it...and we ignore it at our peril. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. One thing that's stuck with me for a long time as a very important statement is something the late CBS news commentator, Eric Severeid said some years ago:

"The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety."

See? I think he was exactly right. Besides, once you learn to spot and disregard those nasty fnords, life becomes (I find) a lot simpler for many of us to cope with. I think rather than just becoming conditioned to living like a bunch of nervous sheep waiting for the hammer to fall, we're better off if we can discard that kind of confined, helpless thinking. Not only is this a lack of a negative, by the by, it's very positive too; it frees our mental resources that are better used for learning, loving, having fun, and just generally living well, which allows us to be better people in the long run, I truly believe.

So.

While, yeah, I will be regularly posting stuff I come across that needs to be attended to, I hope to be talking about lots of really cool things as well...I've got tons of interesting things on my mind; hobbies, books, movies, music, and lots of others. We'll get to those, I have no doubt!

But first...

How about you? Seen any FNORDS lately...?