Poison April, the Cruellest Foolish month

i should get a 9-5 job, something steady, like civil service. plan on becoming married. have 2 kids.  become a Christian. get a house in the suburbs. golf. with my male friends.  drive a car. mow my lawn. 

Old/New Egypt/America

non violent action 

ancient world/new techniques/good results: Egypt  changes their regime in less than a month thru peaceful means, advanced communications and stealth and action


new world/old techniques/awful results: the U.S. bombs the shit out of  the Arab world/Libya etc, how many innocents killed? weaponized  Arab insurgencies against us, much popular discontent, years of war, humongous costs in lives and funds


yet we're supposedly the "greater" nation, right (wing)? 

What's Wrong with the Oscars?

American idol

i know i've said some of these before but they deserve to be thrown out there in a gasp of breath against the big wind of the Oscars: 

• many yearly  awards (this goes for many different awards) go to lifetime achievements: they;ll ignore an actor, director etc for their entire achievement filled career (Scorsese, Paul Newman) and finally give her/him a consolation prize some day, for something not nearly on their  level of achievement from years ago
• segregation now, today, forever: there are no differences in skills between actors, actresses etc. notice there's not best female director, best male costumer etc? 
• hype rules: rarely does the less hyped person, film etc lose much. they'll win other awards first, have their "Oscar buzz", win again.. i couldn't believe when Brokeback Mountain lost, one of the few examples to go against the usual rule
• impressionists have won recently a lot. you do a good impression, you get an award. ask Jamie Fox. past trends: whores for women, retarded folk for men, sick folk for women. Holocaust films used to score well too. 
• how many of these 'artists' looking forward to these awards ignore these obvious points which shoot down so much of their (them, the awards, art's)  integrity? 

The Weakness of Violence

stand up for peace

a government shows weakness by doing violence. this shows that it cannot stand up to  words, rhetoric, arguments, and acts.  instead it acts as a bully with a bigger rock to throw at the more intelligent. we can see this in Libya now. Iran in past. many dictatorships that crack down with the military. freedoms of speech, assembly, media etc are threatening to those in power and brings out  simple, mindless, blind force. 


though i still believe that it is similar with the death penalty. that rehabilitation or the possibility  of innocence  is out of the question so we simply kill the offender. again a government overstepping its rights. 

Peaceful Action in the Mid East

non violent street fighting men

notice that these  actions are  being done by Middle Easterners themselves, people stereotyped to be setting bombs off left and right. 


a lot of that stereotype comes from Americans, the people who usually overwhelmingly support military force upon innocent people like so many that were killed in Iraq. 


but in Egypt for example,  instead of using overwhelming force to push change in their home, they are using peaceful means: communicating, protest, the non violent action of people. not bombs, assassinations, diplomacy with dictators. 


. they do not have to be invaded by a larger more armed power to do it. 


how many innocents were killed to remove Saddam Hussein from power? how much money did it cost, how many Americans were killed, how much damage was done etc? now compare those numbers to the Egyptian removal of Mubarak. 

Democracy and Egypt

yes we should all be pressing for regime change in Egypt from that dictator. however regime change at the hands of crowds is actually mob rule. 


now if elections were to happen soon, fair ones that are approved internationally, great. democracy. 


and whoever is elected, including a Muslim, should be welcomed internationally.  s/he shouldn't   have flags of caution thrown in her/his  face from nations like the US. we were thrilled with the Tunisian uprising. very cautious in Egypt. couldn't be because there are so many Muslims in Egypt, could it? 

Gun Control in the USA

when the bullets pierce even the wall

i would almost be comfortable with double the amount of guns in our country, as long as the psychos and criminals and kids  can't get their hands on them. 


the guns used in crimes, do they come  from areas (states) that have weak gun laws? NYC has strict ones,  where do the used weapons  come from? 

When You're Right (wing), You're Right! part 2

"no more body armor!"

when the left supports big business,  they're doing it with  bailouts,  socialism, etc. when the right wing supports corporations with tax breaks, trickle down economics etc,  it's good business, trickle down economics, "the business of this country is business" (Coolidge) 


when the  right invades nations under false pretenses, war profiteers, kills tens of thousands of innocents, and rips a nation apart, they're  spreading democracy, keeping the world safer ("the purpose of the war is peace"--GW Bush), keying in on American interests  


the right attacks a supposed enemy without direct provocation, under false pretenses, with overwhelming force. if one of us attacks someone we don't like without provocations, under false pretenses, with overwhelming force, we're  arrested. 


when anyone wants to mess with the military and keep excellent personnel out, they are seen as anti American, hurtful, not supporting our troops, putting them in harms way.  when the right excludes excellent gay personnel  from the military, they're etc. when the right keeps gays out of the military, they're   keeping morale high, not messing with the military, going with the wishes of our troops

THe Only Solid or Liquid that Travels Up?

capitalist vertigo 

if im not mistaken, money is the only one that travels up. 


you pay up with it. it flows up actually in trickle down economics where the people up top get paid first and most so that  Atlas doesn't shrug, before the money theoretically, and i emphasize that word, trickles down.


 the Fed, IRS, the big bureaucracies that take  out of your pay check before you even see it yourself. the ones who get executive bonuses in spite of government bailouts, lay offs, etc. 

TOnight RIght Will Be Wrong

best health care in world right (wing)? 

terrific. let;s see what happens

• when a semi segregationist like Rand Paul (nice name) wins a national office. Strom Thurmond resurrected (he is dead right?)
• how much the media will spout endlessly about the Tea party kicking ass (which is o.k, but the coverage of Obama in 2008 was liberal biased media im sure), even though the Democrats were close to winning the Senate by 9:30 pm Eastern time
• i wonder when everyone will realize that the Tea partiers are more affluent  than the average American and it may be that they just  want lower taxes for themselves, and couldn't  care less about less government when the gays become discriminated against or when they themselves  want the Constitutional right of freedom of religion abolished for Muslims 
• again we'll "see" how much the problems now have nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with Obama. oh i left (left!) out Clinton, everything bad now is his fault too. 
• when we again ignore facts like the ones that support state supported health care in Europe being  better than our "best system in America" that ranks 35th in the World Health Organization's rankings

U.S. Foreign Policy's Infinity Loop

mission accomplished

presidents come and go, parties go to and from power,  times change, as do enemies and allies (see Saddam Hussein). some American policy seems to be perennial: 

• peace talks in middle east, Israelis, Palestinians etc. always attempted,  never successful  long term. wish it was  
• 'we'll get off our dependence on foreign oil". i think this one has been reiterated since Nixon
• America will  hold on to the world's largest nuclear weapon supply and then lead the chant  against any of their enemies (not their allies, no matter how militant: Pakistan, India, Israel,)  that even begin to make any kind of nuclear fuel
•  in the fashion of 1984 (Orwell and Reagan's) America will have an enemy, usually created by the Republicans and/or the media: Communism, the Soviets  (Reagan: "evil empire"), Japan (economic, 80s-90s), "Axis of Evil", "war on terror",  China (economic, not human rights). at the same time America will hold on to one of the biggest military empires in all times with troops in some 150 nations
• war is peace: preaching peace, delivering war: over 369 000 troops abroad, preemptive strikes, world's  largest arms supplier? and above actions.  
• Americans love a winner, including  war: we'll almost always  win short term, often lose long term (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan)

When You're Right (wing), You're Right!

middle of the road!

when the left protests, they're "unamerican"," unpatriotic", "fanatics"
when the right protests, they're "Americans exercising their freedom of speech", "frugal", "disappointed"


when there was bad news  in the 2000s, it was mainly Bill Clinton's fault
when bad news happens in the 2010s, it's mainly Obama's fault. 
 the right gives something like  AMNESTY  to the Bushes.


when the left want to have universal health care, they're "socialist", "big government"
when the right wants to make  abortion illegal  even for rape victims, they have "family values", "honor the sanctity of life" 


when the left increases taxes for the rich, balances the budget, stay relatively peaceful, govern over prosperity, they're "tax and spend democrats," "weak on foreign policy".
when the right wages 2 endless and illegal wars, lessens taxes for the rich, increase the deficit by unbelievable amounts, increase the amount of poor and uninsured, they're "patriots",  "real Americans", "strong on defense", "fiscally responsible" (!!!). 


and Republicans are going  to win seats back this Nov? 

Breed Alone: Unemployment

bread, alone

 The good old by-products of being jobless: 

• every chick will ask you "so what do you do?" not that they're screening for "no buck no fuck" or anything like that. no bread and alone? breed alone
• prick "friends" that sit in judgement of you, asking/criticising if you're doing enough. Their opinion: it's your fault. funny, they probably see us as trash. But i think of Huck Finn, where the "nigger" Jim, low man  of society, calls the white guy  "trash" for treating his friend poorly
• sociopaths: scam artists on e.g. Craigslist, pressuring the unemployed to pay thousands to them, wire them money etc 
• sleeping in  the trash pile some more. less money, more need  for assistance, unemployment,   etc. And again suffering the guilt from your "friends" and family for milking the system, when unemployment isn't tax payer money, but insurance fees paid by businesses. 
• every one's winning, you're losing 
• right wing assholes (redundant?) like that Lieutenant  governor of S Carolina (surprise)  who says not to give anything to the poor since they will breed (again: bred alone).  and Bill  O'Reilly's hyper snobbery which  commented against folks stranded on roofs after Katrina like they were in a human zoo
• Left wing assholes like Tom Leykus:   "you're paid what you're worth"

Once and Present Thoughts: Sept 11

Arab neighborhood

after the 2nd 110 floor  tower went down the early suggestion were to go out and give blood because many  thought that there would be many injured. i went out and walked towards i think Elmhurst hospital. i was living in Astoria Queens near the Tri borough bridge. at our side  is one of the busiest intersections in the city: 31 st, Grand central parkway, the  bridge, interstate, maybe more. it was at a stand still at this time though:  no one getting  over the bridge because of security probably,  cars everywhere.

 i went  to the hospital but they had so many donors that we were turned away (and folks complain about rude NYers). one guy on line  had a big turban, bearded, medium toned skin.. i talked with a nice guy and a girl. . we went walking to another hospital. Queens is very diverse and  we  thru what i think was an Arab neighborhood. much of it quiet that day  like many neighborhoods in the city.

 but me and the guy remarked, that it would maybe be  the beginning of a blast of hatred  against Arabs. it was assumed quickly  that bin Laden and the other terrorists were responsible, and ignoramuses would render Arabs guilty by McCarthyist association.

what we didn't think was that the bias  would still be alive 9 years later.seemingly more hateful than times closer to the tragedy.  Fox news, right wing bigots (redundant?), book burners,  hateful protesters that want to "bombard" the Islamic center in lower Manhattan. ii thought there would be an earlier expiration date but no.

i also want to remind those  politicians that don't believe in big government but are using this tragedy  as a political jack pot, and those out of towners that are against the Islamic center: if im not mistaken, the majority of folks that died hat day were NYers.   and it is in OUR  city that the center is being built. as far as the loved ones of the deceased, they were more likely to be here.  it was us going all over town and standing in huge lines to be turned away to give blood. it was us that had to smell the stink of burning as far north as the 60s  (up town, miles away). it was us that had to walk miles home that day.

  i know it was an attack on America and a lot of non NYers died.  and the center is going up (i hope) in our city, and it is our business literally. you ever hear of "think global act local?" we live in this city, with Muslims, Arabs etc, we mostly  live together, in peace, prosperity etc. we don't need opportunistic politicians or bigots from out of town telling us what to do with a  property in our city that peaceful, lawful people want to use.

A Good Wall (St) Makes Good Muslim Neighbors?

im a licensed NY City tour guide and know way too much about our history.  the Dutch were the first European settlers in lower Manhattan and they came here to make money, and it's been that way ever since. however they were advanced enough to "buy out" the Natives and not massacre them.

Wall st is so named because the Dutch  erected a wall there to keep out the British, or Natives, depending on your source. and so began the segregation way back then.


keep in mind the Europeans started settling at lower Manhattan and built their way up contuiing north, generally. so after the Dutch came the British and they fought.  the new Americans fought with the Brits (and now  im talking guns, prisoners, disease, not bigots with signs and/or politicians). everyone put down the blacks for a long time of course. later, the natives (now we're talking euro descendants) and at times the government  fought against the Irish, Jews, Italians, Asians. . the infamous 5 Points was pretty close to the future World trade center, and the Lower East Side close to that. "different" folks, "immigration problems", "security". sounds familiar im sure.





interesting though, that the Muslims have been there for a while now: the people, a mosque right down there before  the WTC.  Muslims were killed on Sept 11 itself.

and the Financial district went from people advanced enough to trade and not kill, to having  "greed is good" as their absolute,  to sociopaths severely damaging the economy of the entire world. not much movement to get them out of there either, besides Michael Moore  in a poorly reviewed film.

you see New York should maybe be called the city of the phoenix even more so than the western city. especially with an area like lower Manhattan. an area of horrible bigotry, violence, war, disease, poverty, that has risen up repeatedly through its history to give us a world leader in commerce, great architecture, at times great leadership, and of course great history.

and i hope that our city rises again in defiance of terrorists, bigots, extremists, ignorance, avarice, sociopathology. irregardless of who perpetuates such crimes against humanity: American, Muslim, rich, poor, extremist, politician, "average joe".

Doublespeak, Bigotry in Lower Manhattan

law for all groups

"Away from sacred ground" =Not In My Back Yard. a  sacred ground with strip joints (as i mentioned i used to work at one),  Wall street sociopaths, and a pre WTC  mosque 4 blocks away


. so let's send the  new Muslim center  to parts of Staten island, California, Tennessee, Wisconsin. just not the parts of those states that have protested against having the second biggest religion in history worship in peace. 

"Compromise" =Discrimination against a religious group. compromise means holding them to different standards than other legal groups, religious or otherwise. anti First amendment. (im sure their god forbids any treading on the 2nd amendment!) treat them differently because they're different (than American Christian white hegemony). 


Opportunistic and Hypocritical Politician: "It's disrespectful, offensive" etc. . real meaning: im using this political football to score political points. usually the same politicians that bitch constantly about big overreaching  government. 

Is the American RRR (Reactionary Radical Right) becoming too Mainstream?

o.gs: old gangster organized crime:   torture, black sites, extraordinary renditions, the highest office in the land  ignoring the highest law of the land, illegal war, crapping  on habeous corpus,  most Americans not giving a shit how many tens of thousands of innocents are killed by our military and government (support the troops!). that's was off the top of my head.

Right (wing)  and Might gives them  the Right?:

• the second largest worldwide religion being run out of one of the most diverse cities in America because of clear and present bigotry
• the Tea party, which is supposed to be more educated and affluent than the "average American", has 30 percent  of it's membership believing that the president is foreign born, clearly because he's black
• even the NY Times is running a front page article on a radical anti Islamic book burning preacher
• most Americans not giving a shit how many tens of thousands of innocents are killed by our military and government (support the troops!). 
• the defense, in public Congressional hearings, of BP by, surprise, a Republican Texas Congressman (probably with oil ties). 
• more don't mess with Tex: history being written by politicians instead of historians, 

i know that we still have high unemployment, trouble in other lands, differences, problems. but we can't have the extremists take such a mainstream position. that leads to even more danger: McCarthyism, internment camps, more war crimes, more war. 

wasn't it Bush himself that said that he couldn't believe he beat prosperity and peace in 2000, and then systematically and unbelievably destroyed so much of it? 

Bigotry: "Ground Zero" (Tolerance) Mosque

"O.K" Mosque: Malcolm X's

 i live in Harlem and i've driven thru Brooklyn many times. i've been near  many mosques. i've never heard a bomb go off, never read about it, seen it, etc. surprise: this recent bigotry is not really against Muslims (keep in mind the nation with the most of them is Indonesia, an Asian nation). it's against  Mid-easterners. so it's literally (at least in Iraq)  double barrelled bigotry. 


how many of my brethren  of Irish decent have condemned the mosque? when the Irish  came to this nation en masse, the natives were saying the same about us: go back to where you came from, we don't need Catholics here etc.

FANATICS killed innocents on Sept 11.  how many "patriots", "god loving Americans", "simple folk", "freedom fighters", "regular folk", etc have killed TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS OVER -SEAS!!!????

the Financial district is right near ground zero too. you know, the place that ruined so many lives of Americans during the financial crisis which blasted out in  fall 2008. any calls to get them out of the area because of their awful practices? when in comparison the organizers of the mosque are pretty damn  innocent.

of course it's terrible to have big government and "heartland politics" overreaching their jurisdiction to another area, except in this case, it's perfectly o.k for some local politician down south to act  and involve himself in our local politics, right right?

US Diplomacy: Straightening Up, Flying Correct?

from Hiroshima Peace Park

at least after Bush and his right wing: illegal war, unilateralism, ignorance of international treaties, ignoring our own Constitution when dealing with foreigners, staying clear of international treaties. you know: dark ages of American internationalism. and im not 100 percent pro Obama, but as soon as he was inaugurated, improvements on the diplomatic front.

• today was the 65th anniversary of a day that really should live in infamy: Hiroshima's bombing. finally, finally, America sent a representative, an ambassador i think. 
• Obama's administration has been much more open to countries like Cuba,  Russia, and tougher on some nations that have it coming like Israel.   not just conversing with oil producers. i still have in my head Bush literally holding hands and going along with some big shot  from Saudi Arabia i think.  one of Earth's worst regimes.
• more open to European methods like  health care
• more open to limiting nukes. .
• the above while having to clean up after Bush's awful wars, cowboy diplomacy, isolationism, chauvinism, hypocrisy

as i said there's much im not happy about: Guantanamo, American hypocrisy with nukes, American build up of troops in Afghanistan (after winning the Nobel peace prize). but again, progress after one of the worst administrations in our history

America the Backward

closed prison

do we realize how much,  in this "greatest god given nation in the history of this earth" or whatever the asshole Sean Hannity says?

• most of the industrialized world (Europe, Canada, etc): free health care, higher quality of life, more peace, cheaper higher education, higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, more time off from jobs. America: at times violent opposition to health care, huge differences between poor, rich, middle, biggest military industrial complex in history, exorbitant prices for college, higher crime rates, struggling middle class.
• again most of the industrialized world: more gay rights for marriage and military service. that includes much of S America. gays can also openly serve in places like Catholic Ireland, Italy and Spain,  Russia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation_and_military_service
• America often builds up the reputation of the rich, putting people like Trump, Paris Hilton, asshole athletes, "successful" criminals like Charlie sheen, up on a pedestal, saying that they deserve their money, their success, they've worked hard etc. the poor are often seen as lazy, stupid, uneducated, McDonald eating, smoking, welfare sponging. in Europe etc the percentage of people that think that the poor's lot is their own fault is much lower. hence more of a safety net, more views that more problems are social diseases like drugs.
• side note: New York City has had drops in crime since the early 90s like most other American cities, but the prison rate is also dropping. not true for other cities and the nation which builds prisons more than any other nation. e.g in Brooklyn near borough hall there's a closed jail. again if lower level, less violent criminals are not locked up as much, where their problems can be seen as social problems, and they are given more access to rehab, crime rates and [prison populations can go down. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/nyregion/11jails.html?scp=1&sq=New%20york%20prison%20population&st=cse