Tom

I would watch out of the corner of my eye for Tom's truck to pull in to the parking spot, a smile just waiting to happen when he came round. He had a crew of low-life types who hung round him, doing him minor chores and making small deals with him, dependent on him for their little doings and food and drug money and the small things of life. It's a complete mystery to me why Tom liked the people he dealt with. He took care of them to some extent, and to an extent beyond what others did. He was, to many street people, a life-line. Now that line is broken; he is no longer coming round for coffee. Tom is dead. On Saturday Tom died of a heart-attack. I'm heart-broken. I liked the man very much.

Thomas Moore. The man wasn't a saint by any means, but he was a good friend. I'm still looking out for him from the corner of my eye, hoping he's going to pull in any minute now....

"Hi, Tom."

Damn. It hurts.

Time, time, time, see what's become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

[....]

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground....

Paul Simon, "Hazy Shade of Winter."

Plato: Biggest Scammer in History

Neil Postman rightly refers to Plato as the world's first systematic fascist. Making mention of that usually raises the ire of those who don't have any idea of Plato's philosophies. Most people seem to highly regard the name "Plato," though they can't really say why. They defend him with no knowledge of what Plato was about. Some, such as that utter fool, I.F. Stone, confuse Plato with Socrates, and not only don't know there is the one and there is the other, but argue that Socrates is Plato. Stupidity knows no bounds, especially among our intelligentsia. Some thinkers, real thinkers, as opposed to the Conformity Hippies who rule the Academy these days as well, real thinkers such as Ernest Gellner, know Plato very well. Gellner, writing after Karl Popper, who wrote on Plato, The Open Society and its Enemies, puts Plato on the table for a nifty dissection, briefly thus:

"The profound paradox of Platonism proper is that it preached a return to, or a fortification of, the closed communally organized society: but it did so by means which themselves illustrated, highlighted, and sprang from that liberation from traditional ritualism and communalism. Plato represented dogmatism pursued by liberal means, an authoritarianism with a rational face." Ernest Gellner, Plough, Sword and Book. London: Collins Harvill: 1998; pp. 84-85.

Taken in, that's what too many of our intellectuals have been are to this day and beyond. We'll see one of them below. And a shameful example of a typical intellectual conformist he is. There is no excuse for an expert in the field to be so wrong on the facts as is the writer below. But if he were merely a fool, and a sloppy one at that, who would care? No, dear reader, it's far worse than that. The writer below is a danger to human freedom and to free people everywhere. We must confront him and those like him, stop them by making known the realities of history and literature from the texts as they are, not as one thinks they must be or should be, or should be thought so by the "average" man.

Kimon Valaskakis, "Media-enhanced 'dumb democracy' is the fastest road to totalitarianism." Globe and Mail; October 13, 2008.

Winston Churchill once argued that democracy is the worst political system except for all the others. While there is no viable alternative to democracy, contemporary flaws in the system - what I call "dumb democracy" - threaten to weaken it and produce counterproductive results. These flaws have become, alas, increasingly prevalent in both the Canadian and U.S. elections. Voters are making momentous decisions on the basis of the most trivial criteria.

The rise of Sarah Palin has been fuelled by her engaging smile and her appeal as a "hockey mom." Despite the constant mocking by the U.S. media deploring her lack of preparedness for high office, she appeals to the average voter, or "Joe Six-Pack American," as she calls him. In the U.S., average voters seem to want an average vice-president or even president to represent them. University professors are looked down on when aspiring for high political office, while celebrities, actors, sports stars and even former professional wrestlers get the nod.

Although this anti-intellectual bias is less predominant in Canada, both American and Canadian voters are very vulnerable to mediatic factors such as body language, winking at the audience, ability to tell jokes and being folksy and cute. This media-enhanced trivialization started in the first television debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and it's been said that JFK won the televised debate because of Mr. Nixon's sweaty face while Mr. Nixon won the radio debate because of his arguments. Today, the spin doctors and image makers try to appeal to the lowest common denominator. We are very far from Plato's philosopher king.

Some may argue that voting on trivial grounds is the prerogative of "the people," but this argument does not withstand analysis.

"The people" are made up of human beings. To err is human and, if one person can make a mistake, so can millions. There is no safety in numbers. The assumption that a majority of 50 plus 1 is always right and 50 minus 1 is always wrong is quite obviously absurd. The ancient Athenians and the fathers of modern democracy warned against populism's dangers.

"The people" change their minds all the time, as polls demonstrate. The Americans who elected and re-elected George W. Bush obviously regret their choice, since he is at 25 per cent in the approval ratings. Even John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has distanced himself from Mr. Bush as much as possible. If a voter's opinion is exclusively decided on the basis of spin doctors' sound bites, huge blunders may be committed by the electorate - which will have to live with its mistake for four long years.

The outcome of the U.S. election affects the whole world, not just in economic terms but in issues of life and death. How many people have died around the world because of Mr. Bush's decisions? The privilege of empire must carry with it a greater sense of responsibility. The U.S. voter from the Midwest or Deep South must realize his or her decision has global implications and act accordingly.

So what can we conclude? Governance is much too serious a challenge in an interdependent world to be left to superficial criteria. Would you entrust your future to a person who doesn't answer your questions but just winks at you? Would you fly with an untrained pilot just because he reminds you of yourself ? Would you undergo an operation by an unqualified surgeon because he is charismatic?

A condition of intelligent democracy is intelligent and well-informed voters. It is the task of the media to inform the voters, but it also the task of the voters to take elections more seriously. Voting is a right, but it is also a privilege that must be used wisely because, when all is said and done, "dumb democracy" is the fastest road to totalitarianism.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081013.CODEMOS13//TPStory/Comment

This man lies to you, dear reader. What he would have you believe is his smiling and concerned pose of Velvet Fascism. If you haven't read Plato, if you've missed Popper, if you aren't aware of the story the writer above doesn't tell you, let's take another brief look at Ernest Gellner for the time being.

Platonism is the supreme expression of agro-literate man, of a society endowed with a large and steady food-supply, capable of sustaining a minority elite endowed with the capacity to codify, formalize, and preserve its ethos and cognitive capital. It is stable and aspires to stability; and it is liable to consider radical change pathological. It recognizes and endorses the joint roles of the transcendent and of coercion in securing stability for society. The community is divided into the wise, the aggressive, and the hard-working. (Gellner: p. 118.) And that is it. The Philosopher Kings, the Thugs, and the slaves. Plato offers nothing else-- forever. Any change would be pathological. Platonists, as above, are not our friends: they are the enemies of the people.

The writer above is a fascist, pure and simple. He expresses the latest Platonist variant of Ur-fascism. "Voters are making momentous decisions on the basis of the most trivial criteria." Voters.

For example, and an anti-American one at that: "The rise of Sarah Palin has been fueled by her engaging smile and her appeal as a 'hockey mom'." If you don't get it thus far, how's this? "[S]he appeals to the average voter, or 'Joe Six-Pack American'."

But no; you, dear reader, are not supposed to be insulted by the writer's reference to you as "average" or "Joe Six-Pack." As this pimp tries to stoke your vanities, you are meant to see yourself as one just like the philosopher king above. You are superiour to the fools who like Sarah Palin. The fact that such is a pimp's bit of chicanery is seemingly lost on the good writer above. So, like a pimp, on he goes: "In the U.S., average voters seem to want an average vice-president or even president to represent them."

Average people? According to Plato there are no average people, so the good writer is using a euphemism, one meaning "slaves". The slaves want a slave as political representative. How shocking!

"University professors are looked down on when aspiring for high political office, while celebrities, actors, sports stars and even former professional wrestlers get the nod."

No, not Ion! Not an actor! Let us only allow ourselves to be ruled by university professors like the doctor above, Philosopher Kings, those who are smarter and better than the "average" man.

"Although this anti-intellectual bias is less predominant in Canada, both American and Canadian voters are very vulnerable to mediatic factors such as body language, winking at the audience, ability to tell jokes and being folksy and cute."

Canadians aren't generally as stupid as Americans. Thank you, dear writer. Aren't we clever after all? We might even be able to understand conversation, if not a coherent argument; but the rest, the slave masses, they have to rely on the non-verbal, the mediatic. This man is so far removed from common people that he assumes we'll be taken in by pimp talk.

Here he rues away his day: "We are very far from Plato's philosopher king."

No, sir. If only it were so. We are, in fact, in the presence of the typical Left dhimmi fascist would-be Phiospher King. There's no further need to critique this man's pseudo-argument.

"So what can we conclude? Governance is much too serious a challenge in an interdependent world to be left to superficial criteria."

No, I would conclude that governance is much too serious a challenge to leve to Gnostic fools like the one above, and that we must confront fascists like the fool above and defeat him in every venue, in every arena, in every agora. Monstrous evil such as that written by the fool above has no place in a democracy other than in the spittoon of common bar-room. Garbage sophistry posing as intellectual superiority. Don't stand for this. It's filthy and disgusting. To the trash-can of history with foolishness like Platonism. Down with the Philosopher Kings! Off with their shit-filled heads. Long live the Demos! Long live Sarah Palins! Long live Democracy. Long live the Average Person!

The biggest con-job in American history

Barka Osama is the biggest con-job in American history. Osama isn't very interesting or different from others of his ilk, they being chock-a-block around any train station, cheap hustlers and pimps and pick-pockets, Osama Barka not different but in scale from the spotty guy at the library recently who hoped to sell us canceled mail-order hockey tickets. Osarka is a scam on a grand scale, and perhaps that's why it's working for him: no one could seriously believe that a cheap hustler would actually try a scam this brazen. And when this whole game comes up dirty and people are left holding their hands to their heads, howling, they won't blame Obarka: they'll blame themselves for being so gullible; and then they'll blame people like me for not warning them strongly enough. Obama is a scam. Walk right into this and get hurt, then. But you're going to get hurt really badly, and that'll take down a lot of other people, many of whom don't deserve your bullshit. Too bad for them. Everyone's going to suffer because of this.

Ali Sin writes publicly what I've been writing privately for the past six months. He's more courageous in public than I.

Cultic Mentality

From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Sat, 2008-10-18 08:25

A quote from the Iranian ex-Muslim Ali Sina, author of the book Understanding Muhammad, at the Faith Freedom website, 22 September 2008

It is surreal to see the level of hysteria in [Barack Obama's] admirers. This phenomenon is unprecedented in American politics. Women scream and swoon during his speeches. They yell and shout to Obama, "I love you." Never did George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt. Martin Luther King Jr. or Ronald Reagan arouse so much raw emotion. Despite their achievements, none of them was raised to the rank of Messiah. The Illinois senator has no history of service to the country. He has done nothing outstanding except giving promises of change and hyping his audience with hope. It's only his words, not his achievements that is causing this much uproar. When cheering for someone turns into adulation, something is wrong. Excessive adulation is indicative of a personality cult. The cult of personality is often created when the general population is discontent. A charismatic leader can seize the opportunity and project himself as an agent of change and a revolutionary leader.

If Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites. The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites. The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960s. Obama will set the clock back decades.

****

It's likely to late for us now. It seems a foregone conclusion that people will elect Osama Barka as our president. If you blow it by voting for this scum-bag, don't blow it further by taking it out later on the innocent. You'll have done enough damage already.
****

An up-date:

It turns out that Ali Sina and I aren't the only ones who see Obama as a slimy con-man: here's a severely edited version from American Thinker.


Paul Shlichta, "The Mendacity of Hope." 19 Oct. 2008.

[....]

I am deeply indebted to Barack Obama for reminding me that hope is often used as bait in scams.

I have been writing an anatomy of hoodwinks and deceptions, dissecting them into their three essential components -- exploitation of a human weakness, a carrot and/or stick, and a method of concealment.

The weakness can be a vice, such as greed or laziness, but is just as often a virtue such as compassion, which is the basis of most charity scams....

Hope is often a good thing; indeed it is one of the theological virtues. But it can also be the basis for cruel and vicious con games, played by the unscrupulous upon the desperate.

Gambling casinos feed on hope. The worst gamblers are the ones who can least afford it, the ones who are hopelessly in debt. There's not enough in their paycheck to cover the back rent, they're going to be evicted anyway, so why not take a chance? There's nothing left to lose.

Cancer patients know false hope all too well. There is a stage in nearly all terminal cases when the patient tries herbal remedies or some Asian brew that someone in a tabloid claims is the latest miracle cure. And we understand his feelings; there's no hope anywhere else so why not give it a try? At least it will stave off facing the grim reality for another month or so.

Thus, many of the false hopes that con men exploit rise phoenix-like out of ashes of despair. When there is no reasonable hope left, we grasp at straws. But in the absence of desperation, when people are reasonably content with or resigned to their lot, the con man must create false hope, as the serpent did by suggesting to Eve the ridiculous ambition of her becoming like God.

[....]

In other words, they must be made ready to grasp at the straws of irrational hope.

A useful tool for inciting discontent is the creation of a villain, upon whom to blame the victim's real or imagined woes -- "whitey" or "the system" or whatever bogeyman is convenient to use. This can be done by simple repetition. As the ancient saying goes, "if a fool says the same thing every day for a year, we will come to believe it."

[....]

Finally, lest anyone argue that Obama's inducements of hope might be sincere, let us note that Obama's campaign has all of the basic components of a classic scam:

• Exploitation of weakness: As we have seen, he creates false hope by breeding discontent and then offering the desperate hope of overcoming it by submitting to his leadership.
• Carrot and stick: The carrots are pretty exotic -- lower taxes, universal health care, world peace and unity, the seas will fall, etc. And the stick is that if you don't vote for him, you're racist.
• Concealment: The three principal forms of concealment are hiding, misdirecting, and lying. Obama makes liberal use of all three. As Ed Lasky has shown, Obama has concealed much of his past; the data and documents are mysteriously "lost" or unavailable. When that doesn't work, embarrassing questions are dodged or met with counteraccusations -- the issue is not relevant, the accusation is racist, etc. And, when that fails, Obama resorts to outright lies.

[....]

In summary, the complex machinery of the Obama campaign is essentially an elaborately orchestrated scam and Obama is nothing but a con man. This should come as no surprise since he is an accredited graduate of one of the world's best schools in political chicanery, the Daley machine in Chicago.

This does not contradict previous assessments, in the American Thinker and elsewhere, that Obama is an advanced narcissist. I suspect that most con men are sociopaths or narcissists, the former because they feel no guilt and the latter because they feel entitled to take advantage of others.

But what of the future? Obama has spouted out so many mutually contradictory statements and lied so many times that we can only guess at his real intentions. If God does not save us from our foolishness, and Obama is elected president, then I prophesy that he will turn out to be a master of the con man's art of bait and switch.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/the_mendacity_of_hope.html

Election Night of the Living Dead

"I don't get how people can not vote for Obama. He's so inspiring. Every time I see him I think of the Foo Fighters song, "There goes my hero". That's pretty much because Obama is my hero.

I think he will make this world a better place. I'm pretty sure he will end world hunger and probably AIDS too. I just know he can do all this cause when I hear him speak I get excited on the inside."

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081014094746AAd2S8M

I quoted the genius above recently for the sake of the shock value; but I didn't realize then, which I certainly do now, that the shock's on me. Unlike the thrill of the Night of the Living Dead, I'm not enjoying this zombie take-over of the land. In fact, this horror-show is really scaring me. I don't mind being scared, as a rule. I live a pretty rough life, and part of the reason I do so is because it's so scary. But that's my personal life. The nation, that's a different story. That's something far more interesting and important than my own petty doing, no matter how important my petty doings might be to me. Unfortunately, many, maybe more than half of Americans, don't see that their petty doings are no more important to the nation than mine. They seem to think they actually matter to everyone. Sorry, but no one is that important. Nope. Not me, not even you, and especially not that fucking weasel Obama. The beauty of knowing ones one relative unimportance is in the knowing that none are much different, and that we must all go our own ways as well as we can without recourse to demagogues and demiurges to make us feel like we're something bigger than we are. A nation of ordinary folks doing their own thing is what makes the nation so great. That's America. What we see below is from one of Dante's middling circles of Hell. Which one? Maybe the one for self-satisfied gluttons and sloths and card-cheats. Here's our America. Look out, here come the zombies!

Rick Moran, "Meet the people who are going to put Obama in office." American Thinker. 15 Oct. 2008

This is really incredible. It stunned Ben Smith over at Politico where I got these quotes. It floored a GOP consultant who conducted the focus group where the people were quoted.

And it is perhaps the single most depressing thing I've read this entire campaign season:

The GOP consultant emailed Smith about a focus group he just finished conducting. Evidently, he showed a hard hitting ad on Ayers to the group and this was the email he sent:

Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.

Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama.

The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I sat on the other side of the glass and realized...this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy....

For the first time, I really feel scared about the future. These people are like the Germans in the election of 1933. They know what's coming but they don't care. Back then, all they cared about was that Hitler was going to give them a job and keep their lunch pails full. And stick it to the Jews. And restore Germany's "rightful place" in the world. They knew full well that Hitler would destroy the independent unions, crack down on dissent, and turn Germany from a very free country into a fascist dictatorship.

Part of this is McCain's fault. He bought into that populist crap about greedy Wall Street. Well, so as ye sow, so shall ye reap. And we're about to reap the whirlwind.

In this kind of atmosphere any kind of a government is possible. And I don't know if Obama can resist the kind of raw power these nincompoops are willing to give him. Who could?

You need a license to own a dog but any fool can vote.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/meet_the_people_who_are_going.html

I'm keen of Godwin's Law, i.e. that to call an opponent a Nazi is to lose the argument. I'm not calling Osama Barka supporters Nazis. I refer to them instead a Death Hippies, Conformity Hippies, Povertarians, Irrationalists, Communitarians, and nutters. Many of the intelligentsia in support of Osama are Left dhimmi fascists. Few are going to be Nazis. But many of the above are going to feel emotionally right at home living the nightmare that was Nazi Germany.

First they'll come for Truepeers, then they'll come for Charles-- by which point I hope to be long gone outta here, maybe in some mountain hide-away in the jungles of Paraguay, formerly but seemingly not for much longer, "The Last Place on Earth for the Worst people in the World."
****

What about Sarah Palin? She spoke to Rush Limbaugh [transcript]. Of him I know nothing. Of Sarah Palin I know this:

"So, you know, I’m going out there and I’m just simply speaking. So be it that I’m a simple talker, but I’m just going out there and letting people know the differences and how absolutely paramount it is that voters are paying attention and that voters are understanding candidates’ records, their associations, their plans for the future; instead of being kind of wrapped up into all this rhetoric of Obama’s and buying into it and not holding him accountable for the things that he’s done, the things that he’s said, his associates, and where he wants to take America."

[Post Notes: Graphic from George Romero, Night of the Living Dead. Paraguay quotation from Rolling Stone Magazine. And I fixed up the genius's punctuation so I could read his comment properly.]

What rough beast....

Obama as president of the United States of America.

How can you resist Obama?

I don't get how people can not vote for Obama. He's so inspiring. Every time I see him I think of the foo fighters song, "There goes my hero". That's pretty much because Obama is my hero.

I think he will make this world a better place. I'm pretty sure he will end world hunger and probably AIDS too. I just know he can do all this cause when I hear him speak I get excited on the inside.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081014094746AAd2S8M

My question is "How can we resist Obama?

Obama is likely to be elected to the highest office in our nation. We will have lost our nation's heart and soul should that happen. We will have elected a Communist after centuries of struggle for freedom. In one election we will have thrown out all our victories in pursuit of freedom, all the victories of Humanity's long struggle for personal privacy, all our best gains in the struggle to make Man's life a continuous act of personal liberty. In Obama we see the coming of the end of freedom for Mankind. In Obama we see the return of the King, the return of the feudal lord. Man, returned to his state as farm animal. When I hear him speak I want to throw up.

When I see the nation under the sway of a spell of lunacy, I want to stand up and fight back.

There's more. If, by some miracle, Obama is not elected, by hook or by crook, as our president, how can we resist this fascist movement? Obama is not going away, not even in death. He is a power of the people gone mad, and we must resist. What is to be done?

The American people have in large part gone insane, and to lose their hero by any means will drive them to further frenzies. He is theirs till he is exposed as the complete evil phantom his truly is. Even then they will not believe in his fallibility. He might in time be seen as a failure and a sham; but that alone will not discredit this beast. It is America that is failing, falling into madness; and to see Obama fail will only shift the idea of failure to those who can be accused as the cause of his failures: Those who resist Obama. The madness will continue long after Obama is gone. The madness is in the minds of those who are Irrationalist. Obama is a semaphore flapping in the breeze, decipherable to those who wish meaning onto his banner. It is fascism. This is the power of the mad crowd. If Obama fails, for whatever reason, the madness of the demonic crowd will further fan its madness. Ladies and Gentlemen, these are fascist times. Our people are insane.

If Obama is not elected to the presidency in America, the masses will rise to fury. We will face an open civil war at home and war broad. The dog wants meat, and he will go crazy if it's withheld from him after such a build-up as we have seen. The mad dog will not be sated, though, by mere election of Obama. But were he to lose this election, then we will see war in our cities, on our streets, perhaps in our very homes. Our people are insane. What is to be done?

If Obama is not elected, we at home face hatred, violence, and war at home. I prefer it.

I fear at this time that Obama will be elected.
How can free people resist the Obamanation? I fear he will be the president of the Untied States of America. This rough beast, win or lose, will destroy our nation as it is. We must look ahead now to see what is to be done should he come to pass and rule over us all. How will we resist?

Two Cools for Sisters Sarahs.

There's Sarah, and there's Sarah. Both are straightforward and upfront. Here's a bit about Sarah Maple, artist.

****

Work of art I would like to make

People often think I am trying to be offensive with my Islamic based art which is absolutely wrong as I am Muslim myself. The work is about the distorted view many Muslims have of their own faith and culture and what makes a 'good' Muslim: especially in a western society. Many Muslim or Asian people have said things to me like 'Yeah, but you're not a proper Muslim are you?' Why? Because I have white skin and don't listen to RnB? I did try – I bought the 'Boys to Men Legacy' CD once but it made me feel ill. In my work I question if you can be a 'good' Muslim in the West; especially if you are from two backgrounds like I. Islam is indeed a way of life. But what do you do when you have two completely opposite parents, to whom are you loyal? This relates to the current political climate with Islamic extremists. Many of these kids who become terrorists are born and bred in the west. They have grown up confused and torn between the cultural attitudes of Islam and the western environment in which they have been raised. This battle between East and West has sky rocketed over the past ten years. I dread to think of how much worse the world could be in 25 years time. If I was to be picked for Four Sensations I would make a work on cultural identity in relation to Islam.

Sarah Maple Link.

British artist Sarah Maple's sleek self-portraits juxtapose confessional audacity with comic, pop-culture quips. They also explicitly confront religious identity. Born in 1985, Maple grew up in Sussex, England. As a child, she drew her own portrait again and again, beginning a trend toward identity-probing that would drive her career as an artist. Raised by a British father and a Kenya-born mother, she and her siblings were brought up as Muslims. She says, "When I was growing up, I always wanted to be more Islamic. And then, when I grew up, I felt like I wasn't very Islamic at all because of my Western influences."

Maple studied fine art at Kensington University. Upon graduation in 2007, she won the 4 New Sensations prize—an award created by Channel 4 and The Saatchi Gallery, bestowed to the "most imaginativeand talented artists graduating in the U.K." The award targets recent graduates who don't yet have gallery representation. Art world hot shots—including Antony Gormley and Tim Marlow— choose four finalists from a short-list of 20 artists. The finalists were each given £1,000 to create new work, which would then be judged by Internet voters.

Maple created a series of campaign posters—slick images that called to mind a cross between Ron Paul's current "Revolution" banners and John F. Kennedy's "Leadership for the '60s" campaigns. Each poster captured a different cultural identity that made coercive but lighthearted pulls for her art prize candidacy: "Vote for Me or You're Racist," "Vote for Me or You're Sexist," "Vote for Me or You're Islamaphobic," and "Vote for Me or You're an IslamaphobaSexistRacialist." She won the popular vote—and the £3,000 prize money—which jumpstarted her art career. Since winning the Saatchi prize, her work has been shown at Scream Gallery and exhibited in London's Tube, with Art Below's project to turn railway "ad space into art space."

More at: Maple Image Tree Link.

Sarahs are doing well these days. To see Sarah Maple's work at the links you might have to set your computer to unfiltered images. Google, hosting me as they do so generously, are determined to protect you from evil influences like art. Thanks Google.

Sarah Palin,The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys, and Us

I love the high voltage of low life men and women. I don't love hanging out in swamps and jungles and forests and deserts and slums and wasteland. True, that's usually what I do anyway, but it's a matter of travel in dark places rather than a liking for hardship and dirt that takes me in deep below the surface of Modernity's past lives. War zones, where the smoke clears and the blood and body bits stick, where the making of nations is undone in fountains of fire and choking blasts and cascades of stone and glass, frankly, it's where my heart is. Not for the suffering and the loss and the horror of the hurt: war draws for the sake of love of Man. War is fought for the Good, and those who fight and make war do so as the means to the Good. I shrug. It's in the act that one finds the meaning. That's the nature of things, right or wrong. And because of that, I prize highly the very virtue of mediocrity. It's not for me, mediocrity, but I'm just one guy, and not important to nations and peoples. My likings take me where I like. It's personal. I begin and end there. I like the hard life. Ain't no metro-sexual guy.

The term originated in an article by Mark Simpson ("Here come the mirror men") published on November 15, 1994, in The Independent.

[....]

"The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis – because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they're pretty much everywhere.

"For some time now, old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, unmoisturized heterosexuality has been given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The stoic, self-denying, modest straight male didn't shop enough (his role was to earn money for his wife to spend), and so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his identity and much more interested in his image – that's to say, one who was much more interested in being looked at (because that's the only way you can be certain you actually exist). A man, in other words, who is an advertiser's walking wet dream."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrosexual

I long for the things I wish I could have, and all the moreso because I know I will never in this life or any other have such. I see people with the things of life I want to have, and I could weep, were I that kind of man. I see mediocrity, and I want it by the bucketful, by the wheelbarrow full and brimming, mediocrity spread across every picket fence, green on every lawn, momma sitting on the porch mediocrity, and kids screaming and fighting over plastic stuff in the yard, work in the morning at the office, and bills to pay and pay and pay. Mediocrity by the suburb. Want it.

I don't have it in me to be a conformist like your average metro-sexual. I couldn't even fake it if I tried hard. Some things are too hard for me. I know I fail. I know I will never be one of the crowd. Happily, I'm not so lonely. Fact is, when I'm on the road I meet lots of people like myself. Reckless, some of them are, and daring. Moisturizing comes to using a needle held over the fire with pliers, the needle to burn out parasites in the skin. Using a needle to sew up a wound. Using a needle to deter a combatant. Make-up for the likes of us? Drinking after a fight till the pain stops and everything is funny. Normalcy? Saying good-bye, and moving on.

Most Leftists are conformists, though they think themselves cutting-edge rebels. No, those people are a joke, conformists to every passing cliche and foolish fashion their friends follow. To confront the unknown naked of mind, unarmed and defenseless beyond ones own ability to live and struggle for life, that leaves the man as man alone with himself to be himself.

I love Sarah Palin. She is the epitome of Modernity's middle-class mediocrity. Most Leftists are just like her. She lives the conservative variant of the conformist middle-class life that Leftists live. Osama Barka, Sarah Palin, the goofy poofter, all of them conformists. Middle-class. Mediocre. I prefer the Palin variation. Yeah, I love Sarah Palin.

When I look at what I'm not and what I would be if I could be, I'd long to live in Sarah Palin's world. Middle world of ordinary folks. That blessed mediocrity of normal. Not gonna happen. Got some wars to be at, us.

Heroes and the End of History

This year as people vote in a few months on the future of our nation, many who will vote for the first time in their lives will have been eleven years old on 9/11. Today-- not then-- is what what is of importance. For many an 18 year old, today is the End of History. All that has gone before them is thought wrong and stupid, for the new person as adult can see today and see it is right. For many, 9/11 was long ago, in a time of childhood, of helplessness and ignorance. Today, they know. And they, like so many older adults, know the greatness of now.

It is 200 years ago that an old school teacher wrote of Napoleon, a truly great, if evil, man. And he wrote too of the people of the time:

True greatness, resting on itself, finds no pleasure in monuments erected by contemporaries, or in being called "The Great." or in the shrieking applause and praises of the mob; rather, it rejects those things with fitting contempt, and awaits first the verdict on itself from its own indwelling judge, and then the public verdict from the judgment of posterity.

[T]hose who hymn its praises contradict themselves, and by using words they make their words a lie. If they believed that the object of their pretended veneration was really great, they would humbly admit that he was exalted above their acclamations and laudations, and they would honor him my reverent silence. By making it their business to praise him they show that in fact they take him to be pretty and base, and so vain that their hymns of praise to him can give him pleasure, and that they hope thereby to divert some evil from themselves, or to procure themselves some benefit.

That cry of enthusiasm: "What a sublime genius! What profound wisdom! What a comprehensive plan!" -- what after all does it mean when we look at it properly? It means that the genius is so great that we too can fully understand it, the the wisdom so profound that we too can see through it, the plan so comprehensive that we, too, are able to imitate it completely. Hence it means that he who is praised has about the same measure of greatness as he who praises; and yet not quite, for the latter , of course, understands the former fully and is superior to him; hence, he stands above him and, if he only exerted himself thoroughly, could no doubt achieve something even greater. He must have a very good opinion of himself who believes that he can pay court acceptably in this way; and the one who is praised must have a very low opinion of himself if he finds pleasure in such tributes.

J.G. Fichte, Addresses to the German People. 1808; Rpt. London: Open Court Publishing; 1922; Trans. F.R. Jones. pp. 246-47.

True greatness is in true humility, I sometimes think. Heroism isn't celebrity, though the one is often despised while the other is promoted in its stead, an utter confusion of the mind. The office worker and the public figure.

"The cult of celebrity is important here. Most celebrities are pretty mediocre, perhaps with one talent. What is important is the combination of glamour and banality. In the cult of celebrity, ordinary people worship themselves. Unfortunately, the glamorous nature of life conferred by celebrity renders ordinary but perfectly honorable and indeed essential occupations a wound to the ego." Theodor Dalrymple, "Symposium: The Closing of the American Psyche." Frontpage Magazine. 01 Sept. 2008.

Heroism is often for the mediocre. It's for the quiet and the plain.

"[The sailor] took out his razor and laid it edge upward on the deck. The razor was not long on the deck when out came a rat, rubbed its mouth along the edge of the razor and kissed it, Then it ran back to where it had come from. Other rats followed, one by one; each of them rubbed its mouth along the edge along the edge of the razor, kissing it, and then ran away again. After a few score of them had done that, there finally came out a rat, screaming loudly. She went up to the razor and rubbed her neck along its edge, until she fell dead beside it.
The captain of the ship had been watching what was going on from the first rat to the last, which had cut its throat on the razor. He... called the sailor to him... and ordered him to leave the ship.
'You could have done that trick to any man on board,' said he, 'as easily as you did it to the rat.' "

Sean O'Sullivan, Folktales of Ireland, 223. Quoted from Barbara Hodgson, The Rat. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; 1997, p. 44.

Those who are celebrated and extolled make me nervous. I've been around a while. I've seen the rise and I've seen the fall of many. I prefer the company of the ones rather than The One.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.

But it cannot survive treason from within.

An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly.

But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he seeks to infect the foundation so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."

Marcus Tullius Cicero,

This year, this 9/11, I will walk in the sunlight, alive and free. That is thanks to ordinary men and women who live and fight and work and die for the collective freedom of individuals everywhere. Those people, mostly unknown to me, make my life possible. And yours.

Isaac "Purple" Hayes is dead.

Perhaps best known as the leader of the Purple Gang, a group from Detroit, the Purple Gang itself was notorious as a mob of bootleggers, so many of them imprisoned that when Elvis went to prison he found that the whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang.

Jimi Hendrix, Seattle-born guitarist, was much taken with Hayes, going so far as to write the song that has immortalized them both: "Purple Hayes," the lyrics of which include this famous line of comradely love: "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."

Hayes is reported to have turned purple at the mention of it, hence the nick-name.

So long, Purple, we miss you.

Mister Big Science

Those who know me well say I'm a Big Science guy. Some people even refer to me as "Mister Big Science." Well, I might not go quite that far. That math stuff kind of confuses me a bit, but otherwise I'm right up there. I'm not so much down with recently passed-on Solzhenitsyn. I'm really keen though on Richard Feynman. Fire? I can dig it. And the electricity devils are totally cool to me. The little snowmen homunculae who make ice in my fridge are some of my best friends. Slavic mysticism? Like, nope. But Science? It's big. I like it! Read this article below and you'll like it too. Trust me.

"Cargo Cult Science", by Richard Feynman

(Adapted from a Caltech commencement address given in 1974; HTML'ed from the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!")

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas -- which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact, that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked -- or very little of it did.

But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFO's, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.

Most people believe so many wonderful things that I decided to investigate why they did. And what has been referred to as my curiosity for investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I found so much junk that I'm overwhelmed. First I started out by investigating various ideas of mysticism and mystic experiences. I went into isolation tanks and got many hours of hallucinations, so I know something about that. Then I went to Esalen, which is a hotbed of this kind of thought (it's a wonderful place; you should go visit there). Then I became overwhelmed. I didn't realize how MUCH there was.

At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated on a ledge about thirty feet above the ocean. One of my most pleasurable experiences has been to sit in one of those baths and watch the waves crashing onto the rocky slope below, to gaze into the clear blue sky above, and to study a beautiful nude as she quietly appears and settles into the bath with me.

One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beautiful girl sitting with a guy who didn't seem to know her. Right away I began thinking, "Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this beautiful nude woman?"

I'm trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her, "I'm, uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?"

"Sure", she says. They get out of the bath and she lies down on a massage table nearby.

I think to myself, "What a nifty line! I can never think of anything like that!" He starts to rub her big toe. "I think I feel it", he says. "I feel a kind of dent -- is that the pituitary?"

I blurt out, "You're a helluva long way from the pituitary, man!"

They looked at me, horrified -- I had blown my cover -- and said, "It's reflexology!"

I quickly closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating.

That's just an example of the kind of things that overwhelm me.

[Great speech.]

The following piece is more Big Science. I'm a little more familiar with this kind of biological chemistry that the other. It's still big, though.

Laurie Anderson, "O Superman."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIqA3i2zQw

O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad

Hi. I'm not home right now
But if you want to leave a message
Just start talking at the sound of the tone

Hello? This is your Mother
Are you there? Are you coming home?
Hello? Is anybody home?

Well, you don't know me, but I know you.
And I've got a message to give to you.
Here come the planes.
So you better get ready.
Ready to go.
You can come as you are, but pay as you go
Pay as you go

And I said:
OK. Who is this really?
And the voice said:
This is the hand, the hand that takes
This is the hand, the hand that takes
This is the hand, the hand that takes

Here come the planes
They're American planes
Made in America
Smoking or non-smoking?

And the voice said:
Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night shall
stay these couriers from the swift completion
of their appointed rounds
'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice
And when justice is gone, there's always force
And when force is gone, there's always Mom

Hi Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
In your automatic arms
Your electronic arms
In your arms
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
Your petrochemical arms
Your military arms

In your electronic arms
http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Songs/O/OS.html

It takes a lot of courage to be not-a-hero. It takes courage to act honestly when convenience and career dictate quietude. It takes courage to do the job right and finish it regardless of the pressures to rush and pretend and smile and forget. It takes courage to just continue alone and do the right thing in a cold lab under the glare of scowls. Not all oppression is jackboots and rubber truncheons. Yes, Solzhenitsyn bravely faced torture over the years. Feynman asks for something different, and it too is bravery. It's the unremarkable and even forgettable bravery of ordinariness. Step by Cartesian step one faces the mob in white sheets daily. One resists the daily compromises of little corruptions, the things only you and the other guy would notice and no one will say a thing. Yeah, I know stuff, baby. It's why they call me...

Mister Big Science.