A “Crude Device” My Ass

A “Crude Device” My Ass

Just let me say, right up front, that I feel for the people of Boston. I lived there myself for a while, and used to jog along the Charles River every day. I never attended The Boston Marathon, but did run a marathon once. Had I been running in the race that day, I probably would have crossed the finish line just in time to have my legs blown off. My heart goes out to all of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. The bombing was a terrible thing, a terrible despicable act, and the people responsible should be punished severely.

However, the media, rather unfairly I think, kept describing the bombs themselves as “crude devices” or “crude explosive devices” or even “generic explosives”. The best they could manage was “crude, but effective”. I take exception to this characterization. How many broadcast journalists have the technical skills to test and fix a faulty microphone cable, let alone build a bomb?

Now, if I had heard Steve Inskeep say, “Compared to this great sounding condenser microphone I made out of a nine-volt battery, a piece of wire and some tape, or this mixing desk I designed and built, or the nice FM stereo multiplex transmitter I put together, that brings you this broadcast, the Boston Marathon bomb seems like a pretty crude device.”, I wouldn’t have any beef with his description, but I’ll bet Steve Inskeep never built anything more sophisticated than a compound, complex sentence.

Listening to journalists, English majors, poo-poo someones handiwork, by calling it a “crude device” really galls me. Writing and talking into a microphone is child’s play, compared to building a bomb and carrying out a terrorist attack. It takes nerves of steel to build a bomb. It takes skill, creativity, and brains to plan and execute an attack, and the Boston Marathon bombers proved that they had what it took to pull it off.

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but it figures that the Boston Marathon bombers were foreigners, because most Americans simply lack the skills, know-how or imagination to build an effective explosive. It’s not that Americans don’t want to kill large numbers of people indiscriminately; we have more mass shootings in this country than anywhere on Earth, but Americans use guns when they want to kill people. Do you know why?

Americans use guns because any idiot can go to Walmart and buy a gun and ammunition; you don’t have to build them yourself. I guarantee that if Walmart sold bombs, we’d have a hell of a lot more bombings in America. We have no shortage of hate-filled lunatics in this country, but when it comes to practical knowledge, skills, and creativity, that’s where we come up short.

So cut the “crude device” crap. A Molotov Cocktail is a crude device. You fill a beer bottle with gasoline and cork it with a tampon. If you’re a pro, you add some bits of Styrofoam to make it stick. A pipe bomb, with a fuse that you light with a match could be called a “crude device”. The Boston Marathon bombs had electronic detonators that were remotely controlled, possibly by cell-phone. That’s sophisticated. The bombs contained nails, from which the heads had been painstakingly removed. That shows attention to detail and craftsmanship. Both of the bombs worked. That shows competence.

The accused kids lived in Boston. It wouldn’t have been easy to test their design without attracting a lot of attention. Thinking back to the Judi Bari bombing. That bomber was only 1 for 2, with one bomb that just fizzled. Out here in the sticks of northern California, it wouldn’t be that hard to test out a few bomb designs. With all of the gunfire around here, no one would notice a few muffled explosions in the distance.

Besides, there’s a pretty good chance that whoever bombed Judi Bari, attended, or led, the FBI bomb workshop held on land owned by Louisiana Pacific Lumber Company in the weeks prior to the bombings. Even with FBI training, and a big piece of private land to practice on, whoever bombed Judi Bari, wasn’t nearly as competent as the Boston Marathon bombers.

So give credit where credit is due. The Boston Marathon bombs were ingenious, well crafted and diabolically effective devices, and the people who made them, and carried out the attack were smart, resourceful and competent. It figures that they weren’t born and raised here.

On The Money; Soaring Over the Fiscal Cliff

On The Money;

Economics for the 99%

Soaring Over the Fiscal Cliff

Here we go again. Last year we hit “the debt ceiling” this year we go over “the fiscal cliff”. It’s like Congress has devolved into a game of Super Mario Cart, and any minute we’re going to slip on that banana peel called “entitlement reform” and go careening out-of-control. It’s ridiculous. There’s no cliff, there’s no ceiling and there’s no such thing as “the debt crisis”.

Don’t get me wrong. We have crisis. We have plenty of real crises that demand our immediate attention. Here’s a short list:

Global Climate Change

Global Ecosystem collapse

Human Overpopulation

Loss of Biological Diversity

Loss of Cultural Diversity

Nuclear Proliferation/Waste

Homelessness/Poverty

Out-of-Control Health Care Costs

Call me when you get a handle on those, will ya. I mean, if you got nothing better to do, put your attention where it might do some good.

Seriously folks, we didn’t mind sailing right past the tipping point on global warming. We barely blinked when human population surpassed 7 billion, and over a hundred species of living creature disappear off of the face of the Earth every single day without any acknowledgment whatsoever.

It’s not like these crises don’t have real implications for us, our future, and our kids future. Life will get harder. The crises they face will be greater. Their standard of living will suffer and we will leave them a much less beautiful and more poisonous world.

And it’s not like things are so much better for us because we ignore these real crisis. Wages continue to decline, housing costs continue to rise, and health-care costs go through the roof because how we live makes us sick. We’re already killing ourselves, to kill the planet to make the greediest one-tenth of 1% of our population even more obscenely rich, but that doesn’t bother us. No, the real crisis, they expect us to believe, is that someday… someday, China might not loan the Federal Government enough money to fight another stupidly adventurous, unpopular foreign war, unless we chop what’s left of our social safety net, to bits, now. Either that, or we could tax the rich, but that seems to be a non-starter, unless we cut the safety net too.

Either way, Congress set a deadline, and unless we meet that deadline, a lot of people will lose their jobs, a lot of people will lose their benefits, and everyone else’s taxes will go up, and since none of those people are congress-people, there’s not much chance that Congress will meet that deadline.

Unless…

Obama can put together a “Grand Bargain”. Watch out for this “Grand Bargain”, where the rich pay a little bit more in taxes, they stick an apple in the mouth of the middle-class, and the poor and the young take a spit up the ass.

It’ll be just like Obamacare. It’ll take a complete ripoff, and make it mandatory. Obamacare didn’t reign in health-care costs, Obamacare just fed the healthy and the young to the insurance industry sharks. When politicians talk about serving the American people, that’s what they mean. Politicians serve us to the 1% for dinner, and that’s what this imaginary “fiscal cliff” is all about.

So forget about it. Forget about the “fiscal cliff”. Do you own any Treasury bonds? Then what are you worried about. If someone is buying you drinks, what do you care about their credit rating, and if they’re not buying you drinks, why hang out with them. If government isn’t doing anything good, why throw good money after bad.

Don’t worry about burdening your kids with a huge national debt. You’ve already stuck them with enough real problems, and sold them so far down the river that you’d better hope they grow up as stupid and gullible as their parents, or else you are going to have a lot of explaining to do. There’s a view of the “fiscal cliff” that’s On The Money.

On The Money; Standard of Living

On The Money;

Economic Advice for the 99%

Standard of Living

 

People make a big deal about our “high standard of living”. Just last week local blogger Eric Kirk invoked the “high standard of living” in western Europe as evidence of the unrivaled superiority of the democratic system, as though democracy were an economic system rather than a political one, and completely ignoring the environmental impacts of the European lifestyle. Apparently, to Kirk, a high standard of living, regardless of how fleeting, or how high the price paid by the rest of the world, is the sole measure of success, but what do we mean by “standard of living”?

When was living standardized? Can’t we customize our lives individually? Do we have standardized tests to measure our standard of living? If so, how much do we “live to the test”, so to speak, just to artificially elevate the results? …and what do we mean by high? I know how high I have to be to reach my standard, but that’s a very personal thing. My partner Amy hardly smokes any pot at all. Does she have a lower standard of living than I do? If so, I think we’d all be better off with more people like Amy and fewer people like me, rather than the reverse.

Amy is a smart attractive woman who takes care of herself, me, two cats, two snails, our home and a few non-psychoactive potted plants that I would never bother with. She takes no drugs, has no interest in mass media, the internet, or fashion. She cherishes her interactions with wild plants and animals, enjoys living close to the earth, and has learned to do so responsibly.

I, on the other hand, am a fat, bald, multi-drug addicted middle aged white guy who spends his time thinking unclean thoughts about Bratz dolls, playing with electronic children’s toys and filling web servers with pointless blog posts about it. I can’t wait to try those new “bath salts” I’ve been hearing so much about, and even though about 80% of my waking thoughts revolve around sex, I still find it easy to blather endlessly on subjects I know nothing about, and I expect everyone to listen. Clearly I exemplify a higher standard of living than does my partner Amy, but who would you rather spend your time around?

While raising our “standard of living” has opened a Pandora’s Box of previously unimaginable new opportunities for fat, bald, sex-obsessed, drug-addled white guys with huge egos, like myself and Eric Kirk to amuse ourselves, those gains have come at tremendous cost to bright, good-looking people who know how to live on this planet without fucking it up, like Amy.  In fact a rising standard of living is always marked by the extirpation of healthy good-looking people who had quietly lived, in the same place where their ancestors lived for tens of thousands of years, without depleting their resource base, and by the rise of fat, bald, white egomaniacs who shamelessly exploit everything, and for whom, sustainability is, at best, an abstract concept.

Fat, bald, white egomaniacs, around the world, all live pretty much the same way. We all want anything we see any other fat, bald, white guy with. We think its great to live in a world where every fat, bald, white guy gets to have anything that any other fat, bald white guy has, so long as he has enough money. That’s what we mean by “high standard of living”.

On the other hand, the people who inhabited this world before this new “high standard of living” all lived differently. They all developed cultures adapted to the peculiarities of the places they lived. Nothing about human culture was standardized, but all of it was sustainable.

In the “high standard of living” world of fat, bald, white sex-obsessed egomaniacs, we have building codes, a general plan, and college educated, taxpayer funded eggheads who are full of advice, but none of it is sustainable.

This is why we should value our “high standard of living” over the rich diversity of our human cultural heritage. For unless we exterminate what remains of human cultural diversity, exploit the Earth’s natural bounty, and sacrifice generations of our own progeny in the name of our “high standard of living” fat, bald, white egomaniacs with money will not be able to use economic extortion to compensate for being so sexually repulsive.

There’s a view of our “high standard of living” that’s On The Money.

Jared Huffman’s Wife Earns the Candidate a Second Look

Jared Huffman’s Wife Earns the Candidate a Second Look

 

Folks who frequent this blog know that I was nonplussed by the sponge that 2^nd CA District Congressional Candidate Jared Huffman sent me a couple of weeks ago. This week Huffman’s campaign sent out a new mailer that caused me to give him a second look, or at least give his wife a second look.

Holy cow! Jared Huffman has got a HOT wife! She’s got classic blonde California granola-crunching-hippie-chick good looks in faded blue jeans. He’s in there too, and there’s a couple of brats thrown in, but wow, she looks great!

This full page photo was clearly intended as the main focus of this mailer. With the big question mark on the cover, that photo taking all of page 2, a few bland platitudes on page three, and a few endorsements on page 4, clearly Huffman’s campaign thinks that the hot blonde hippie -chick, and the two adorable kids have the power to win votes, more than, say a one page written statement of vision on the issues of the day.

Don’t forget, these are the same people who thought that sending me a sponge was a good idea, but in this case, I think they are right on the money. This mailer definitely improved my opinion of Jared Hoffman. I’m not exactly sure why, and I’m not exactly ready to vote for him, but if he sent me a few more pictures of his wife, without him and the kids in the way, maybe at the beach, in her bikini, I might be persuaded to pull my lever in the voting booth for her.

Bin Laden’s Porn

Bin Laden’s Porn

 

I heard today that, since it’s now been one year since the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abatabad, the Federal Government plans to release to the public, many of the documents seized in the raid in which Bin Laden was killed. I’m sure some people wonder what we could learn about the Al Quaida terrorist network, and how much of a threat they pose to our national security, but not me. I have only one question about the documents seized by Seal Team 6 one year ago: What kind of porn was Osama into?

 

You can tell a lot about a guy by his porn collection. Is he into au-natural Swedish women in outdoor settings, or does he like raunchy Hustlereque genital closeups? Does he like Ukrainian women in leather and latex, or does he like to see Japanese women tied in knots? Do you think Osama leered at American porn? Do you think he was looking at tanned buxom American blondes stretched out on SoCal beaches, or a severe-looking Manhattan dominatrix in stiletto heels? Maybe he’s into “Sploshing”, a kind of British porn involving messy food. We need to know.

 

Is there any Arab porn? I suppose there must be, but I’ve never seen it. What is that like? One thing I remember about the protest marches in SF before the Iraq invasion, is that there sure are a lot of hot Arab women. I’m sure some of them could be persuaded to pose nude, maybe on a nice rug with big smiles and come hither eyes, or with a ball gag and dildo. I don’t know, I am just speculating here.

 

Do you think women pose with guns in Arab porn? I’ll bet that’s a popular theme. I’m sure it would be more popular here in the US, but some Americans are just not that comfortable with firearms. We’d rather watch women rub up against cars, or trucks or motorcycles, or backhoes or mufflers or even garden fertilizer, as I saw depicted recently. I wonder if arms dealers in Kabul send out promotional calendars featuring olive skinned beauties posing with Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs. Just wondering….

 

I really think it would help bridge the cultural gap between the Muslim and the Christian worlds, if they made Osama’s porn public. It would remind us all just how much we all have in common. We both embrace sexually repressed, dysfunctional fundamentalist beliefs. If we also both embrace the commercial exploitation of depersonalized, dehumanized and commodified sexual imagery, that is a lot to have in common. You’d think we’d get along better.

 

In fact, they should have a huge art show. Osama’a collection won’t be enough on its own, but by now, millions of pornographic images have been seized from defrocked Catholic priests. I’m sure that would make some show all on its own, but they should collect porn from priests, rabbis, mullahs, sheiks, lamas, yogis, zen masters, and any other free agent holy men they can find. Call the show “The Porn of the Pious”.

 

Curate the collection in a way that preserves the diversity and breadth of clerical pornography, and presents a selection that could be viewed comfortably in an afternoon. Well, “comfortably” might be too much to ask, but at least they could frame it, light it well, have a reception, serve Chablis and Brie, and let people decide for themselves. Doncha think?

 

I’d go. That collection would represent the most private thoughts, and deepest desires of some of the most trusted and influential men on the planet. How could anyone deny the cultural significance of such a show? Can you even imagine a more culturally relevant art show?

 

When I said “men” there, I don’t mean to imply sexism. If, and I have never heard of such a thing, but if, some woman has managed to achieve a clerical position in one of the few religions that don’t discriminate against women, and been arrested with a heap of pornography, I want to see her collection too.

 

I can imagine that some former porn star, who found Jesus and then went on to become a preacher might want to hold on to some mementos of her former life, but I’m just fantasizing here. I know some women do enjoy and collect pornography, but not many, and not many of them also harbor clerical aspirations. While I fear that women will be under-represented, in terms of their clerical porn collections, I expect that they will be well represented, in terms of the subject matter therein, at least I hope so.

 

This show just might turn out to be a bit more disturbing than that, but I won’t speculate. I just think we should all see it. We should all see what the people who tell us to “look to God” all over the world, really like to look at. I think we’d find it enlightening, perhaps even instructive.

A Candidate Sends Me a Sponge

A Candidate Sends Me A Sponge

 

With so many candidates in the field for the new CA 2^nd Congressional District, a person could waste a lot of time gathering enough information to make an informed choice in the matter. Of course, if we had any sense, we’d do away with congress altogether. The problem with the single most destructive force on planet Earth is not that it needs better leadership. No, to stop the single most destructive force on planet Earth, people have to stop believing in congress.

 

In my book, running for congress speaks poorly of your character as a person. If you expect me to believe that you can change the violent, oppressive and destructive nature of the US empire by working within this corrupt, dysfunctional and wrongheaded system, you are too stupid, crazy, and/or dishonest, for me to want anything more to do with you. These candidates all deserve a punch in the nose, more than they do my vote. They want us to believe in Santa Claus, and then they want us to believe that they are Santa Claus.

 

In this regard, Jared Huffman might be on the right track. He sent me a sponge, something I could actually use. Unfortunately, I don’t care much for sponges. I don’t use them much, for one thing, and they also hold some negative connotations for me. Sponges suck. That’s what they do. That’s why you call someone who drinks up all of your beer, or eats all of your food, or smokes all of your pot, a “sponge”. I expect that Jared Huffman is eager to sponge up my tax dollars. Thanks to this generous gift, I will always think of him that way.

 

I recently referred to our two 2^nd District Supervisor candidates as slimy dish sponges, Jared wants me to know that he’s one too. Hey, at least he sent me something I could use. That puts him well ahead of the rest of the pack. What have they done to buy my vote? Nothing, so far. What do these other candidates have to do to to make me favor them over Huffman? Simple, they just have to give me something I like better than a stupid sponge.

 

Maybe a nice pen, for instance. As a writer I appreciate pens, especially nice ones. Our local credit union, back in more profitable times, used to give away nice retractable soft-grip pens. They had sturdy metal clips that that didn’t snap off, a nice fat tapered barrel and a layer of translucent gel to get a grip on. They seemed a little spendy, but I liked them, and those pens made me like the credit union much more. I miss those pens.

 

These days, the credit union gets these cheapo pens with straight barrels in hideous colors and cheap plastic clips that snap off at the slightest tug, and the worst thing about them is that they don’t write for shit!!! They fake you out by writing a word or two, then nothing. You scribble away for a second, and just when you are about to give up, they start writing again. So you write another couple of words, and they stop again. This gets old, fast, even for a free pen. These new credit union pens are so frustrating that I finally rounded them all up and threw them all away. Now I resent the credit union for wasting money on cheap, useless, swag pens.

 

So, candidates, if you are going to send me a pen, make it a nice one, one that still works come election day. That would make me happy. I also have a nice little tape measure that was once a promotional item. Its only one and one-quarter inch square and three-eighths inch deep, (yes, I used it to measure itself) and holds seven feet of tape. Its so small that its easy to carry in my pocket. I don’t leave home without it. It’s at least thirty years old and has seen so much use that all the paint has worn off of the first two inches. If a politician had given it to me, he’d still be in office.

 

Do you remember “Bat Day” at the ballpark? Everyone who came to the ballgame that day got a, not quite regulation size, baseball bat. Even though these bats lacked sufficient mass to hit home-runs, they were perfect for cracking skulls and made effective murder weapons. I’ve seen lots of baseball themed political signs this election season, a bat giveaway might score a grand-slam for some politician soon.

 

Better yet, ask your doctor. Ask you doctor what was the sweetest swag he’s gotten from drug makers this year. The pharmaceutical industry always busts out the best swag. They give out pens that work, with four colors of ink, and a built in highlighter, flashlight and laser pointer. I’ve seen doctors offices decorated entirely in “Cialis”. So, you politicians who can actually afford to see a doctor, ask them what kinds of bribes work best, and then make with the goodies.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if politicians stopped wasting their money on junk mail, TV attack ads and hideous billboards that pollute the countryside, and stopped wasting our time with weaselly, misleading, and unrealistic campaign rhetoric, and instead just sent us all something nice. I wouldn’t mind seeing them raise so much campaign cash if I knew that’s how they would spend it.

 

I really think you could tell more about the candidate from the swag they send you, as you can from the onslaught of advertizing we endure each election cycle. Think of the possibilities: A ball cap sends a very different message than a T-shirt. A corkscrew speaks to a different constituency than a bottle opener, and a flashlight does not mean the same thing as a lighter. Each candidate would only send you a card and a gift, that’s all! If they can’t get their message across in that format they’ve got no business running for office.

 

No more stupid TV ads, no more bins overflowing with junk mail, no more ugly campaign signs, instead, elections will be like Christmas. In fact, we should have elections at Christmas time, and let the politicians do all of our Christmas shopping for us. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it be great to actually get something nice from democracy for a change? But really, Jared, the sponge doesn’t cut it.

Vote Zombie Rodoni For Second District Supervisor

Vote Zombie Rodoni For 2^nd District Supervisor

The Second District deserves a supervisor that reflects the earthy character of of this rural community. Zombie Rodoni has spent the last four years under the earth in Humboldt county. Zombie Rodoni’s got Humboldt County under his nails, in his hair and stuck between his teeth. Yes, Zombie Rodoni springs from the very ground he inhabits, and no one has a more intimate relationship with the grassroots in Humboldt County than Zombie Rodoni.

 

Remember, Zombie Rodoni didn’t vote for the draconian new “Emergency Ordinance” to stifle political dissent, oppress the poor and silence the occupy movement, like Clif Clendennen did. Zombie Rodoni would never vote for that measure. Zombie Rodoni would pick the protesters brains for a solution everyone could more or less live with.

 

Zombie Rodoni doesn’t work for the greedy real-estate bloodsuckers that got rich off of the housing bubble, wrecked the economy, and now want to make Humboldt County a more expensive place to live, like Estelle Fennel does. No, Zombie Rodoni knows what it is like to wander the streets day and night in relentless torment, in search of the sustenance his body craves.

 

Yes, Zombie Rodoni knows what its like to be homeless. Zombie Rodoni knows what its like to have mental illness. Zombie Rodoni knows what it means to have a substance abuse problem, and Zombie Rodoni knows what it is like to be dead. Who is better qualified to make those life and death decisions that effect all of us here in Humboldt County, than Zombie Rodoni? No one, I say.

Zombie Rodoni has name recognition. Zombie Rodoni has the experience, and Zombie Rodoni has a track record as one of Humboldt County’s most colorful supervisors. Now, Zombie Rodoni is back! Lets put him back where he belongs.

Before we try to decide which of these two dish sponges is the least slimy, Fennel or Clendennen, lets dig deep in the mud for the man in the black cowboy hat, and make Zombie Roger Rodoni our next 2^nd District Humboldt County Supervisor.

Zombie Roger Rodoni is ready to tackle today’s challenges. This isn’t the same old Roger. His years underground have changed him. This is the new walking undead Roger Rodoni. He’s ready for action, and knows how to get things done. Asked recently, “What will you do about the General Plan Update?” Zombie Rodoni replied, “Arrgh…urgle…chomp…BRAINS!!!…gorgle….ahhhgh” as he killed and partially ate a Times Standard reporter.

When Zombie Rodoni says “Arrgh…urgle…chomp…BRAINS!!!…gorgle….ahhhgh” He means “The GPU is like a horse without a cowboy. It isn’t really going anywhere, except to the next green patch of pasture. It’s time we rode this horse around awhile.” Zombie Roger Rodoni still has that colloquial wit and charm that made him an unbeatable force in the 2^nd District before his untimely death.

Zombie Rodoni has a bold new plan to get things done in Eureka this term. Dubbed the “Eat Brains Now” strategy, Zombie Roger Rodoni plans to, one by one, eat the brains of his fellow supervisors, starting with current board chairperson, Virginia Bass. Wouldn’t you pay money to see that at your county Board of Supervisors meeting? Wouldn’t that be worth the drive from Whitethorn, or wherever?

Zombie Rodoni will balance the budget. Zombie Rodoni will finish the GPU. Zombie Rodoni will eat Virginia Bass’s brain. In these troubled times, can we afford not to call upon the dark forces of the undead? At the moment that we need him most, Zombie Rodoni is here for us.

Zombie Rodoni needs your support. Support the Elect Zombie Rodoni Campaign by giving generously. Support the pro-Zombie Rodoni Super-Pac; I’d Vote For A Brain-Eating Zombie Before I’d Vote For Either Of Them, and don’t forget to write in Zombie Rodoni for 2^nd District Supervisor on your ballot this June.

I Endorse a Candidate in the 2nd District Supervisors Race

I Endorse a Candidate in the 2^nd District Supes. Race

Looking at our current choices for Humboldt Co. 2^nd District Supervisor makes me really miss Roger Rodoni. I would vote for a zombie Roger Rodoni before I’d vote for either Clif Clendennen or Estelle Fennel.

 

Clif Clendennen owns Clendennen Cider Works, a pillar of our local economy that probably wouldn’t exist today, were it not for Alcohol Prohibition, which created an insatiable demand for fruit that could be made into moonshine. We thought he understood the plight of poor pot farmers who just want to make a killing in an unregulated illegal industry just like his great-grandfather did. Unfortunately, he turned out to be just another Fortunite son who couldn’t care less about anything that happens South of SR36.

 

On the other hand, we all remember Estelle Fennel as KMUD’s intrepid news reporter, asking the hard questions of former Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz, getting the lowdown on law-enforcement, and 24-7 coverage of wild-fires for weeks at a time. We also remember the day she stepped over to the dark side, in the midst of the Reggae Wars. Almost overnight, our star reporter turned from Walter Cronkite, into Karl Rove as she turned KMUD’s newscast into a mouthpiece for the “Dick Cheney” of SoHum, Carol Bruno.

 

The Reggae Wars brought Estelle’s otherwise stellar journalistic career to an unfortunate end. While the Reggae Wars left a bad taste in everyone else’ mouth, Estelle seemed to enjoy the big money, corruption and politics of it all, and shortly thereafter, undertook an unsuccessful campaign for the seat she currently seeks.

 

Lately, she’s in bed with HumCPR, an “AstroTurf” non-profit that advocates on behalf of commercial pot farmers, greedy real-estate developers, and rich land-owners. They’ve got they’re sites fixed on the 2^nd District Supervisors seat. With Estelle Fennel commanding their Death Star, they mean to overturn the Clendennen apple cart in June.

 

That means that if you live South of Hydesville, and/or earn South of $100,000 a year, you shouldn’t expect much from either of our Second District Supervisor candidates, except junk mail. Whoever wins, we get the same corrupt, ineffective county government that we’re used to.

 

Don’t we, at least, deserve a candidate with a little more charisma? Shouldn’t we have someone to vote for who, at least superficially, reflects the brash, rugged, independent spirit of SoHum in some way?

Neither of our current candidates can hold a candle to the character, candor, and colloquial charm of the man in the black cowboy hat, Roger Rodoni.

 

If I’m going to get screwed over by a dysfunctional and corrupt county government, I want the face of that government to be a sinister-looking redneck in a black cowboy hat, not some pencil-necked geek in a short sleeved dress shirt, or Darth Vader in drag. So, before this race gets any more dull, let’s do some voodoo, and bring Roger Rodoni back from the dead, just to liven it up a bit.

A Tumor of Boomers in SoHum

A Tumor of Boomers in SoHum

 

Here in SoHum, we endure a plague of Baby Boomers. I’ve seen plenty of evidence that Baby Boomers are a blight everywhere in this country, but here in SoHum, with an ample blood supply from the illegal marijuana industry, they form a hard malignant tumor that threatens to choke the very life out of this small community.

While baby Boomers never tire of singing their own praises, as far as I can see, the one great achievement that Baby Boomers can take credit for, is that they turned out so spectacularly lame that they made their repressed, racist, homophobic parents look like “The Greatest Generation” by comparison.

The Baby boomers inherited a country divided by race, and turned it into a country divided by income, They inherited one pointless, unwinable foreign war and gave us two pointless, unwinable foreign wars. They inherited smog and litter, and left us e-waste, acid rain and global climate change. They inherited DDT, and left us GMOs. They inherited good jobs and cheap homes, and they left us good drugs and cheap electronics. Believe it or not, they expect us to thank them for this.

Not only do they expect to keep us as slaves, either as underpaid employees, overcharged tenants or both, they expect us to be grateful to them. For what? …making affordable housing, health care and job security a thing of the past? … trading freedom, human dignity and civil rights for the invisible free hand of the market? … living the most consumptive lifestyle in the history of humanity, in full knowledge of the fact that they were leaving a decimated and polluted planet to future generations? Yeah, thanks a lot for that.

Where previous generations put God, country and family ahead of themselves, the Boomers said “Me first! Me last, and nothing but me in the middle!” Even as our global ecosystem, economy and federal government all pass the point of no return towards inevitable collapse, they continue to congratulate themselves for nothing more their own unseemly, unwarranted, and unsustainable affluence.

Even with the world falling apart all around them, they think they did it all, said it all, and have it all figured out. Every day another one publishes a book allegedly containing the solution to everyone’s problem. With very few exceptions, all of these books reek of same stale, moldy ideas that have festered in the musty, cluttered, and rarely visited attic-like minds of most Baby Boomers, since 1978.

Most Baby Boomers haven’t had an original idea in 30 years, but that doesn’t stop them from offering unsolicited advice, passing judgment about things they know nothing about, or telling us that they know what’s best for us. Like it wasn’t enough to wreck the economy, bankrupt the country, and destroy the environment while traumatizing their own kids, they won’t be satisfied unless they can sabotage everyone’s future too.

And, there’s millions of them. As far as I can see, the biggest threat to life on this planet is not global climate change or international terrorist organizations, the biggest threat to life on planet Earth is the unchecked idiocy of Baby Boomers. We’re up against, gigantic swarms of graying, mindless, soul-sucking Boomer-zombies, bent on destroying the Earth, and keeping the rest of us as slaves. It’s an epic cultural battle we cannot afford to lose.

They expect us to pay for a system that they’ve already sucked all of the benefits out of. They expect us to pay for the damage they, and their parents did to the earth. They expect us to pay the debt they’ve incurred for living beyond their means for their entire lives, and cover the cost of their comfortable retirement. They have no clue how (or why) we should accomplish this, but, they expect nothing less from us.

The Boomers’ entire lives have been defined by unrealistic expectations. Why should things be any different now? They haven’t learned anything except how to top their parents in resource consumption and reality denial, but they won’t let that stop them from lecturing us. Really, if the Boomers in SoHum don’t have the common decency to apologize for their boundless stupidity, they could, at least, have enough sense to STFU.

KMUD Makes Radio History… Again

KMUD Makes Radio History… Again

 

I love radio, and I love KMUD, our local community radio station. I really do. I don’t necessarily like all of the programs on KMUD, but I do value “my voice in the redwoods” and recognize that I may not agree with everything that I hear on it. I also recognize that most KMUD programmers are unpaid volunteers, so I don’t expect them to sound like professionals.

As one of those volunteers, I know how much work it takes to put together a radio show, and appreciate anyone who cares enough about any subject to put together a radio show about it. Unfortunately, not all of KMUDs programmers, it seems, care enough about their subject, or their audience, for that matter. As a result, occasionally, KMUDs quality dips a bit lower than I’d like to hear from my community radio station.

Sometimes, KMUDs quality dips quite a bit below my expectations, to astoundingly low levels, historically low levels, even unprecedented depths. Yes, sometimes KMUD, the best radio station in Humboldt County, sometimes airs some of the worst programming in the history of radio.

This morning’s Spiritual Perspectives show, “The Atheist Hour”, provided a great example of a show that explores those uncharted depths. Apparently, Dan Glaser created The Atheist Hour as his own personal bathyscaph which he uses to penetrate the deepest, darkest, murkiest recesses of bad radio. While you can only hear “The Atheist Hour” on the fifth Sunday of the month, and only in those few months of the year that have a fifth Sunday, Dan likes to remind us just how bad radio can be.

With Dan’s apparent contempt for preparation, coupled with his own neurotic personality, I’m sure he could do a spectacularly dismal show about any topic. But the abstract nature of atheism, combined with Dan’s defensively argumentative style, made for historically inane, and memorably maddening radio, this morning.

In the long, checkered history of radio, some really atrocious programming has tickled the ether. For instance, many stations have aired skipping records for long periods of time. In some cases, records of commercials have skipped, repeatedly airing the same two-second loop of an advertizing jingle, over and over again, for hours on end. Dan Glaser’s “Atheist Hour” sent me looking for one of those stations, just for the rhythm.

Now, I’m not saying that Dan’s show sucks because I oppose atheism. I don’t oppose atheism. My mom is an atheist. I wouldn’t mind at all hearing a show about atheism. In fact, that’s why I turned on the radio in the first place. What I do oppose, and find maddening, is people who don’t respect their audience, the station, or their subject matter enough to prepare a radio show. That’s inexcusable. I don’t know why KMUD allows him to make a habit of it.

If Dan had anything to say about atheism, he certainly would have said it in the half-dozen or more hours of air time that he has been granted already. Letting Dan continue to host Spiritual Perspectives, simply encourages him, and gives others permission, to continue exploring the putrid depths of bad radio. Is that why you support KMUD?