On the approaching tenth anniversary of 9/11: Time for a commemorative orgy

What should we all be doing on that day? What should we be thinking? Many will continue to be afraid, very afraid, of their own shadows and shadow-sides that are the terrorists, really an archetype of our own collective crimes. Let me be clear on this: Nobody who died in the attacks on September 11th, 2001 deserved to die.

It was a heinous crime against humanity since there were people from all over the world who were killed by a coterie of madmen who were being bankrolled by wealthy sources in Gulf State nations, nations such as Saudi Arbia, Kuwait, Pakistan-and-Ollie (yes, not a "Gulf State, thank you. I hope your ego's been mollified...look up "mollified."), and the rest of the Middle Eastern Lollipop Guild, the usual suspects who are supposed to be our "friends," "friends" of America.

Of course, those regimes aren't ours or anyone's friends, they're theocratic criminals.

Here's the real problem: Being our own worst enemy, we're our own worst enema. We've sold many of our basic rights for...for...for...no idea whatsoever, some weird-assed contention that 9/11 was more catastrophic than it really was. It was not. It was horrible, an underhanded crime committed by Gulf State nations, using proxies, and then we started blowing our own balls off, even before the Nigerian bourgie who unsuccessfully attempted the same on a flight to Detroit not so long ago. This is the threat? Gimme a fuckin' break...

Nonetheless, the Children of Fear are running around, jerking themselves off every year September 11th rolls around. Do they really care about the victims? Nah. People even have commemorative picnics, which has to be the most retarded bullshit I've ever heard of in my natural life. Next year, I'm having one for the sinking of the Lusitania (look it up, Class of 2014, ya' fuckin' morons...) and the Civil War ironclad, the Monitor. I gotta say--and I had a classmate who died in the WTC and know people who witnessed the event firsthand--that with all the co-opting and misuse of the memories of the dead, I'm beginning not to care anymore, and that's not my fault, but the fault of the scumbags who have tried to "own" 9/11 to use for political gain. The worst offenders are the former Bush II administration and the GOP, but once again, the Democrats are doing likewise, only with more cunning and guile. We would have no war on terror otherwise.

So, no, I'm not having a picnic on these days. Instead, I'm not going to "observe" it at all. We need to move on emotionally from this event and bury the dead. We need to stop blowing our own toes off in the name of concentrated wealth, because they've used 9/11 to protect the core of the most evil form of economy on earth, namely American-style capitalism. It can end in peace, or it can end in slaughter, and likely, the collapse of human civilization, but the world cannot take the war on terror in its current form for much longer. Let's quit pretending that 9/11 was the most important event in our history, we've blown its significance entirely out of proportion and handed over too many of our rights.

Why nobody gets that Sarah Silverman did (and said) the right thing at the TED convention this week

WWW--The reaction to this has been--well--retarded, and that's being far too kind to most who organized and attended TED. As the story goes, Sarah Silverman was invited and paid to do her stand-up routine at the TED convention in the ugly town of Long Beach, California that took place from February 9-13.

Silverman's appearance seems to have been on the last day. Most Americans don't even know what the fuck this convention is or even care (I'm in their ranks), but they made the news with Silverman's routine and are smarting over it for some reason. They're also trying to misrepresent what happened and show a great case of being unable to think laterally or outside of the box. In other words, the public doesn't know or care about TED for most of the right reasons.

This is what TED is: a lot of bullshit propped-up by money and more bullshit to recruit and to not listen to people with ideas, misuse and misapply them, piss the originators of said ideas off, and then watch them quit in disgust a few months later like most employer-employee relationships in the happy old US of A. But hey, when you have a dumbshow of already ossified bourgeois mummies you have to at least go through the motions:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize. ... The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). (Ted.com, "About" page)

That's exactly what they got from Silverman, yet the organizer of the event, Chris Anderson, isn't exactly a genius, and that's why he's not showcased as a real thinker, slagged Silverman for her routine. This was the talk of Silverman's life and she felt very strongly to do what she did, think what you will. Did she take the TED engagement seriously? I believe so, this wasn't a "for the hell of it deal." You see...how soon we forget.

Silverman's repertoire and themes are always changing, just as they have with the great American stand-up comedians and social critics like Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Mort Sahl, and even Noam Chomsky (one of the most often-quoted intellectuals in Western history, yet apparently never invited to speak at TED in its 26 year history). For some reason, the onus is on Silverman for saying the word "retarded" at least ten times in her stand-up routine, and again, remember that she was invited, she didn't crash the event and run up onstage yelling the word without any logical context. That would be the job of another woman named Sarah, a goyische one, a WASP one. Besides, seeing things without any logical context--as we all know--is the job of CEOs, politicians and the public in these here United States. Context is everything, or nothing, if you find thinking painful.

But not more than two weeks ago we had a "controversy" about the word "retarded" and all of its many permutations (my favorite being "tard," mostly because it sounds funny and makes the person saying it look and sound funny), and it was trotted-out all over by a supplicant media and Internet by none other than failed VP candidate, Sarah Palin who has a child with Down syndrome. It should be mentioned here that most women approaching and past the age of forty years old are or should be informed by their personal physician or gynecologist that the risks of having a child with Down syndrome become considerably higher with a woman in this age range. But she had a child anyway, and drags the poor baby around the country while she's trying hard not to get elected. Never mind all this, it's just context, very inconvenient context, and it's all about that evil Sarah Silverman.

It gets better, and in case you've been in a coma, here's a little summary of the last couple weeks of political and cultural idiocy and general human folly:

The latest battle over the R-word kicked into high gear with a Jan. 26 Wall Street Journal report that last summer White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel blasted liberal activists unhappy with the pace of health-care reform, deriding their strategies as "[expletive] retarded." Palin, the mother of a special-needs child, quickly took to Facebook to demand Emanuel's firing, likening the offensiveness of the R-word to that of the N-word. Limbaugh seized the low ground, saying he found nothing wrong with "calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards," and Palin rushed to his defense, saying Limbaugh had used the word satirically. Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took her up on it, calling Palin an "[expletive] retard" and adding, with a smile: "You see? It's satire!" ("The case against banning the word 'retard'," The Washington Post, 02.14.2010)

Yes, it's "satire," but only the elect (not elected, however) get to use the term, and in whatever context they feel they want to use it in. But not anyone else, and they'll use the word to suppress other words if they have their way. Players only, yo.

As a matter of fact, the herding instinct has already set in and very naive and pathetic people are taking pledges like it's go time at Masada. In that same Jewish tradition, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel fell on his sword, but probably not without a lot of prodding from his ostensible boss, the president, a man who seems intent on fucking-up and showing no vision or leadership skills unless he's left with no other alternatives. Hey, it's America.

But what did Silverman say exactly? This is where things get kind of sketchy since we're not seeing any footage with audio yet, but I would imagine we will eventually. Tech Crunch.com seems to have the most cogent version so far from a female attendee in the audience:

“I want to adopt a special needs child (to which one person applauded), because adopting a special needs child, who would do that? Only an awesome person, right?” I looked around the room and I knew exactly what was coming next. She was going to say retarded and not only was she going to say it, she was going to drop it like 10 times. I knew it wouldn’t be ok, but I was excited about it.

Words are powerful. They are mightier than the sword and all of that, but if you let them have too much power, you can create what I feel is evil. You create a society of people who are so concerned about what they say and what is PC and you destroy creative expression. ...

She went on to say:

“The only problem with adopting a retarded child is that the retarded child, when you are 80 is well, still retarded and that she wouldn’t enjoy the freedoms of setting them free at age 18, so she was only going to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness so it has an expiration date, because who would adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness? Well, someone who was awesome like her”.

The room went silent and she went on with her show and sang a song about how all of the penises in the world couldn’t fill your heart holes. ... ("TED Organizer Trashes Speaker [Silverman], Fails Social IQ Test, Tech Crunch.com, 02.14.2010)

According to the attendee, roughly half of the audience applauded, and out of those, half appeared to have "gotten" the real message. We're a slow culture, so bear with me, please, since the future hinges on it. Apparently they, and a few others in attendance, have a clue where Silverman and the nation have been and what actual stand-up looks and sounds like. It's no secret that she's a shock comedienne, she's even on Comedy Central with her own show, and has been around for over twenty years. It seems TED is as ignorant about Silverman as the public is about them.

Certainly the well-heeled puds that were populating some of the ranks of the audience that received her well-aimed cultural assault on the suppression of words had little idea of who she is and what kind of a comedienne she represents. Silverman is a social critic and a satirist. She is brave, and she's cut through the bullshit of our culture...if only we had eyes to see it and ears to hear it. At least some of us do. Sarah Silverman just did America a very big favor and she's a hero, you betcha!

"Is Sarah Silverman Retarded, posted 10.13.2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRegd02Qiew

"TED Organizer Trashes Speaker [Silverman], Fails Social IQ Test, Tech Crunch.com, 02.14.2010: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/14/ted-organizer-trashes-speaker-fails-social-iq-test/

TED (not your uncle): http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/7

Do it for Karl Marx baby, do it for Bakunin...

“You make me feel like Emma Goldman with all of your ratiocinations! Dialectical materialism never felt so good, and I don’t even understand it, but it’s time, it’s time!” she purred.

"That's OK, he said with the copyrighted voice of authority, "I don't either, and neither do any of the readers out there." Their radical studies sessions had gone on for months and months and it was becoming clear that a very hot, sweaty, wet, and prolonged Hegelian synthesis was inevitable. Their vent worm ancestors smiled.

He grabbed her by her long, flowing hair, stroked her swan-like neck, and caressed her fulsome breasts: “Look—woman—Marxist-Leninist forced production never made for a worker’s paradise! What difference is there between Taylorist assembly-lines in the West and the moldering Taylorist factories of the former Soviet Union?” She looked up at him with her saucer-eyes and their daffodil-eyelashes, all coy and childlike, and could have been the French symbol for Liberty.

It could have been the very first time a woman gazed at a lover in adoration, and he returned it with the very same passion. Her gaze was so innocent--but focused--with constructive intent rather than the predictable power play found in human social groupings. She grabbed him and held him in the palm of her hand like all good comrades do. His excitement rose and he thought his heart would rip out of his chest and his face went flush. Beads of perspiration instantaneously formed on his brow. Revolution never felt so good, at least not since 1968 when the fluids were flying over the barricades.

“Women’s lives have been circumscribed by confining gender-roles and have only been truly able to join the fight in recent times, the last one hundred years. But women have been and embody an even greater dialectical potential for constructive subversion of hierarchy.” He smiled at that, and moved his hand towards her venus mounds, gently caressing her and stroking her back at the same time. She shivered and giggled, purred again.

“Give it up for Bakunin baby, give it up for Marx, haw-haw-haw!” chortled the thirty-something leftist to his radical studies partner. It all began with books, but like the rest of life, it ended in fucking.

“Now give it to me like a fucking man!” she screamed, and they dropped all their books for a time, all the bound-essays, and returned to the Garden, like children, like glorious children. Could this be? Could a relationship without an alpha, without a leader, a peaceful coexistence, compete in a market driven world? The revolution had begun, under cover of night, and things would never be the same.

A very special fundraiser: Send me--Matt Janovic--to Los Angeles to tell Arianna Huffington she's full of shit!

Any assistance in prearranging the meeting-of-minds (I only promise to utter, "You're full of shit!" the rest should be history) would be greatly appreciated! This is a non-profit deal here, and if there's a story in it, you'll be reading it right here, at this location...well, not this exact location, meaning this post, but this site! Will we discuss Marxist philosophy afterward, or will I get kneed-in-the-groin? I think she's done enough of that to the American public.

But who knows? In the spirit of Gandhi, she might just have someone else kick my ass all over a parking lot. No kisses, though, no tongue, she wears brown-lipstick to hide that ass-kissing of people richer than she is. Mmm-hmm, hanging-out with billionaires, that's really going to accomplish a lot. You know, they're just the core-problem in America, these horrible people she tends to associate with...

Look, either she's a fool or a liar.

She believed that Gingrich and the GOP "would help the poor" in America with the "contract for America," which coming from a Cambridge graduate is bizarre. Had she never read about or experienced the last 80 years of our history? That's crap, and it's back-peddling. She knew they wouldn't do anything to "help" the subproletarian classes anymore than they were going to help the eroding middle-class. Why would she believe them, ever? This is the same kind of flawed-logic that kept the original progressive era from being truly progressive, giving us the Great Depression down the road, this cow-towing. At the very least, this stupid woman owes it to all of us to help clean-up the mess she and others helped create during the 1990s and get her hands dirty. She is not a member of the working-class or the general public. She runs with the rich, the privileged, the connected. Why would she "believe" them, the GOP back in the 1990s thinking they wanted to service the common good (and this is giving her far too much credit)?

The answer is a pretty simple one: she identified with them and thought she was "part of the club." Either she was fooled, partly-fooled and really just cynical, completely cynical and with them 100% (my take), or she's just incredibly confused and probably a dumbass with an Ivy League degree. My feeling is that she's just another social climber, those people who are actually worse than the rich themselves, and trust me, I've seen it in action with relatives in Chicago on a smaller scale, it's nauseating. The worst people in the world are the ones who want to be like the powerful people, the rich people. Scum.

Very little of Arianna Huffington's life speaks well of her, and now, we're supposed to believe that she was "fooled" by the Obama campaign as well. Her biography is a good work of fiction. Considering how cozy she was letting the Brothers Emanuel write on her website, and how much she helped the Obama campaign, it doesn't really matter whether her motives have been pure, misguided, or patently evil and cynical. The results--what results?--speak for themselves. This stupid woman has royally screwed-up and screwed the rest of us and should be booted-out of the progressive constellation yesterday. While millions are starving across the globe, being disenfranchised, losing their homes here in America, being slaughtered in a multi-front war, and while our rights are being rolled-back, this dumbass is sipping champagne and eating canapes with billionaires who don't want to be bothered with paying their fair share in taxes.

She's arch-conservative, she's a fraud, and she's got to change or go, and she's hardly alone. Send me to Los Angeles for one day (won't go until I'm certain I'll find her), and I'll give her exposure to a clue.

"Arianna," my one act play on Lady MacDumbo: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2009/01/arianna-satirical-play-by-matt-janovic_31.html

Hollywood must die (soon come!): "Dahmer vs. Gacy (2010)

Hollywoodland--In our new economy, you just have to roll with the punches, kicks-to-the-genitals, and all the other body-blows that the consolidated mainstream media are going to ignore, therefore, making it go away.

But this was a new one on me: there is a movie in production with the aforementioned title, Dahmer vs. Gacy, no B.S.

In our new "Big Top communities" (tent cities--GOP elephants too!), we'll all be able to watch (speak for yourself) bootlegged DVDs of this movie that will surely make Ed Wood smile from his little nook in Hell.

At first I considered that this was one of the famous and most recent rulings (like her great ruling in Freddy vs. Jason several years ago, along with Alien vs. Predator) by Supreme Court nominee, Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor, believe me when I write this. After all, our justice system is telling us that they can detect a crime before it happens when someone's Middle Eastern, but that didn't fit...or did it?

Calling Dr. Alex Jones! And so, as we move ahead into uncharted history, these rulings will be crucial in determining whether we should have Sotomayor as a Supreme Court Justice--well, that and whether she's menstruating or being human in another way and tripping and fracturing her ankle. I know, a bourgeois hoot!

Republican Rep. Steve Austria is perhaps the stupidest human being drawing breath on this rock called earth

Ohio--Is there something in the water in the state of Ohio? Is it a bad gene pool? Are human beings really this unimaginably--just wait, it can get worse--stupid? If you're a Republican who holds this utterly bizarre viewpoint that flies-in-the-face of accepted reality, you might be a victim of being an Ohioan and a Midwesterner who breathes through their mouth in public.

Austria doesn't have all of these excuses to hide behind, however, and since I assume that he can eat without stabbing himself in the face with his fork every time, so he must have been lying, the curse of the GOP, its wont.

The problem is, not everyone is as stupid as the GOP's core-base...well, what's left of it, meaning religious lunatics, racists, free market extremists, and others in the ranks of the hopelessly irrational and confused. Don't get me wrong, we have this kind of moron living in Indiana and other parts where completely irrational people live, right here in these here U-nited States.

Austria (not the country) spake:

"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history." ("U.S. Rep Austria blames Depression on Roosevelt," Columbus Dispatch, 02.10.2009)

What's astounding is that freshman Rep. Austria told this to the editorial board of the Columbus Dispatch. But really: does anyone believe that FDR caused the Great Depression...really? I don't think so, not really. They might say that they do, but they don't, just like the flat-earthers and liars trying to prey on the truly desperate and ignorant poor, the subproletariat. Illiterate rednecks and Oakies. This is odd, since most of them don't vote...

But that's why Austria back-peddled the very same day:

"I did not mean to imply in any way that President Roosevelt was responsible for putting us into the Depression, but rather was trying to make the point that Roosevelt's attempt to use significant spending to get us out of the Depression did not have the desired effect. Roosevelt did not put us into the Depression, but rather his policies could not pull the nation out of the recession." ("Rep. Austria gets right with history: FDR didn't start Depression," Columbus Dispatch, 02.11.2009)

Actually, he's wrong again--we were still in a Depression until we entered WWII. New Deal policies continued during and after the war, even after being under vicious attack from the Republican Party, the national Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, etc., during the immediate postwar era and McCarthyism.

LBJ expanded New Deal programs significantly during his time in office, and the American dream as we know it was able to grow under the Bretton-Woods system. WWII took us out of the Great Depression? Fine, but that's also Keynesianism, military Keynesianism. We know from decades of an already bloated military budget that that route isn't going to work, and that there is no one panacea that's going to fix things.

If we weren't one of the most powerful nations on earth, this would merely be laughable, a real hoot. To some extent it is, but this moron can actually vote on legislation that affects us all, including the authorization for war.

Small wonder that we're still bogged-down in the Middle East in pointless occupation, our economy is collapsing thanks to a lack of proper oversight and regulation of the financial and business sectors, our schools, bridges, roads, and health care system are collapsing, we cannot compete internationally in business like we once did, when ethically challenged morons elect ethically challeneged morons. The mess we're in couldn't have happened without representatives like Steve Austria, the 6 trillion dollar man, a man barely alive.

The good news? These particular morons are becoming isolated demographically and by the objective, real world failure of their most cherished beliefs and ideologies. This is the end of Reaganism, the end of faux conservatism and neoliberalism. The game is over, and even a moral imbecile like Steve Austria understands that not only isn't history on his side, the facts aren't either.

This kind of desperation is symptomatic of a dying party, the Republican Party, a party without any identity, answers, or ideology left. But they all have one thing left from the good old days, after everything has been scraped-away by the events of this historical moment: bunch of hollow, self-serving arguments that a ten-year-old could deconstruct and dismantle in around 30 seconds flat.

If you don't like it in America, then go back to Austria, he'll steer you wrong. That'll learn 'ya.

"U.S. Rep Austria blames Depression on Roosevelt," Columbus Dispatch, 02.10.2009: http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/02/10/copy/caproos.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

"Rep. Austria gets right with history: FDR didn't start Depression," Columbus Dispatch, 02.11.2009: http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/02/11/copy/AUSTRIA_RECANTS.ART_ART_02-11-09_B8_0PCS8TG.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

A suggestion to President-elect Barack Obama for a Sec. of Commerce replacement

Washington D.C.--Now that New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson is out--Ralph Nader, and for every reason you might imagine. Vetting Nader? You wouldn't even have to, he's cleaner than the busboys in the nation's capital, never mind the congressional pages.

The man is more than qualified, honest, incredibly disciplined and can handle the workload. Ralph Nader has done more good for the American public than any single politician in our history without being one, and because he's definitely not going to be in the pockets of Wall Street, the banks, the business sector, and so on.

He's your man, which is why I know you're never, ever going to pick him, sad.

Coming soon...

J-7--Satire is a great balm for troubled times. If you're worried that some of my most prominent targets for a send-up are on the Left, just wait, Republican and prominent members of the Right are going to get theirs--and soon.

Next up: No, not "Buckaroo Banzai vs. the World Crime League," but a mini-play on Arianna Huffington, at this space. Well, not this exact space, but this site. Really. I mean it. This site, but not this space, not this post. Expect a bourgeois hoot for all.

2008 Roundup

J-7--It's been one hell of a year, hasn't it? From my work for the Palfrey defense, to my paralegal classes, to the inevitable collapse of world capitalism, to incredible revelations of Bush II administration wrong-doing and the resultant inaction from Congress and the Judicial branch, there's every reason to feel hopeful. What kind of a year did you have? Not one like mine, I can state with complete certainty.

I even had the well known Libertarian "Reason magazine" quoting me next to Val Kilmer, and conspiracy-theorist Alex Constantine has threatened to sue me for having negative opinions about him. This isn't even counting the hacking of my email account (I have my suspicions here), the phony "cease and desist" emails regarding the Palfrey information on my site about two noteworthy former clients, or the other harassing ones that came my way.

Wha? Hopeful?

Yes, there's every reason to feel hopeful about reasonable change. That doesn't mean we just sit back and let it happen, because then, it won't. Demand, demand, and demand again what you need to survive. Band together, make friends with people you might never have, and organize and act for change.

I've written on quite-a-few subjects this year, from attempts to desecrate the memory of Edgar Allan Poe, to issues of the geopolitical and of illegal surveillance. What's been most alarming is the inaction of Congress and the courts against Bush II crimes, but I have a newer take on this: they only did it to save a dying system, it was never really about protecting Bush and Cheney, and it's not working. With every revelation...nothing, no action to hold anyone truly accountable. That's desperation, kids.

American Empire is ending and history cannot be fought or denied when the currents are as strong as they are against established power in North America. It's over, now it just has to play-out, and all the king's horses and all the king's men aren't going to fix it. As a matter of fact, the more they keep doing what they always have to preserve their power, the faster they're going to lose it. Empires fall and things are moving faster than they have in decades, and can be counted on to move faster than in the past thanks to widespread access to telecommunications technology.

This decline is affecting everyone. There's nowhere to run for the jaded and the apathetic anymore. Yes, things will become ugly at times, but if you have it in-mind to help others, we can avoid a catastrophe as we have in the past. Use your head and have a safe and happy 2009. Understand that this won't always be the case, have realistic expectations, and stay honest if you can. And remember that the children are counting on us not to blow it, we owe them a better world where people look out for each other. Helping others is the most important thing.

On Jeane Palfrey: Watching a woman die from a distance after being driven to it by federal prosecutors was horrible, but I did help her as much as I could and she told me that she appreciated it, she even told went as far as to ask me if anyone had ever told me I was smart. God knows that I wish she had survived her ordeal and that her suicide will haunt me until the day I die. One can only hope it does that and much more to her tormentors. I intend to keep digging into these matters regarding everything that happened to Deborah Jeane Palfrey, and will continue to publish primary materials on this site since it's still my right as an American to do so. The vast majority of my contact with the deceased "DC Madam" was off-the-books, it wasn't under attorney-client privilege, and the public has a right to know what happened. Eventually, everything I have will be online in one form or another.

There must be accountability in this matter, and eventually, there will be. If that means people like Federal District Judge James Robertson looks like the goon and lackey that I suspect he is in the history books after his death, then so be it. The same goes for Jeffrey A. Taylor, a most unusual U.S. Attorney for the fact that he's an interim appointment that was never approved of by the Senate, as the Bush II administration sneaked him in when they were on recess in 2006...during the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. He prosecuted Palfrey. At the very least, future generations of Americans are going to view her trial as the abomination it was, a fraud that was a matter of selective prosecution in a time when there were more than would be statistically normal. Had Palfrey lived, we might know more about what happened, although she wasn't the last word as some are painting it to my mind.

At this writing, the Palfrey Estate is working against disclosure, and it's understandable. They want things to rest and for their loved one to rest in peace. They've had enough of the circus, the press, the media, and the lawyers. So have I. They're tired of others (starting with Bill Bastone, an individual they should take to court for defaming their loved one) dragging the name of their loved one and their family through-the-mud. I concur. But that doesn't mean every revelation is going to make Jeane look bad--that's not even the point. From what I know, she's beginning to look more and more heroic, or at least edging beyond being an "antihero," which in this society isn't a bad thing to be either. She was that and a whole lot more, and she was very complicated, just like the rest of life itself.

I enjoin the Palfrey Estate to move towards transparency in the matter and to realize that the government isn't going to give them what's theirs (Palfrey's remaining assets) without a major fight. Having counsel that does contract work for the government in other capacities isn't going to help them towards this reasonable goal which their loved on died for in-part. My opinion.

Astonishingly, Palfrey's will wasn't discovered until September 2008--what took so long? Why is Orrick going around and threatening various players in the Palfrey saga with lawsuits and invoking attorney-client privilege? One could imagine it has a lot to do with brokering a deal with the government, and one still hasn't been completed in the arena of asset seizure and forfeiture The abatement issue created by Palfrey when she killed herself before sentencing created problems for the State, and a semi-secret Trust created by Palfrey is causing problems for the Estate itself. She knew what she was doing. I have to wonder if her family does, but I wish them well and empathize with their suffering. There are so many unanswered questions in the Palfrey scandal, but I don't think Jeane's death closes-the-door entirely: there were many things she simply didn't know about her predicament, things that should have been included in discovery (sharing of information, what they have on you) from the prosecution. Eventually, some of these documents are going to surface, and we'll have at least a little clearer picture. I do not believe that she was innocent, I believe that she was denied due process.

The House Judiciary committee contacted Palfrey in the spring of 2008 through a "Ms. Oo," then didn't appear for a face-to-face meeting or respond to further calls and emails. Oo wouldn't do. Why? Who or what put-the-skids to their inquiry into the effect that forfeiture had on her rights to due process? They--and others--might tell me and the public, but I'm not holding my breath on that one, it's going to take years, and it's going to take persistent demands. It was quite a year, 2008. I don't expect any miracles from President-elect Barack Obama, but it's on him and Congress to initiate lengthy and serious probes into every crime committed by the Bush II administration, to rollback the precedents, and to allow justice to be served in the matter rather than in the obstruction of it. Palfrey is a part of all of this. There's reason to be hopeful, but not without demands.


Postscript, 12.29.2008: Add to the list that Larisa Alexandrovna gave me a good review on a satire about her marrying Yakov Smirnoff, which surprised the bejeezus out of me.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, bilked Madoff investor found dead (A Charming Tail)

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

---Oscar Wilde

Wall Street/Madison Ave.--No, no, the conspiracists haven't seized on this one...yet, but I'm about to. Besides, it's only been a few hours, the corpse is still warm and some of the ambulance chasers are still sleeping, what with all these goddamned time zones.

Yes folks, that's right, he was "murdered," it was "the government" (which is comprised of the American people), and they even kilt some before there was a Washington D.C.. Medics at the scene checked Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet (could he have a longer name? please?) for a pulse.

There was none. Normally, they wouldn't be alarmed by this as Villehuchet ran a hedge fund on Wall Street, but the patient was 65 so there were rules and procedures to follow. His papers were in disarray, pointing to...uh, something sinister, and he knew certain shady characters.

Losing $1.4 billion for your clients can be deliterious to one's health, and it appeared that Villehuchet's wrists--Agatha Christie stylee--were found cut, clearly by some intruder who wanted their money back, or at least coffee and a doughnut, some paper clips, and a reference.

The New York Medical Examiner stated today in the French newspaper "La Tribune" that Villehuchet's condition had not improved or changed--still no pulse. Members of the Religious Right were notified as to his condition at all times, and weren't going to be caught off-guard. They knew the chances this was an assisted suicide, the single most important issue facing the human race today. A videotape of Villehuchet was sent to former doctor/politician/human Bill Frist: "I say, I say, he's alive!" exclaimed the perfect human simulacrum of Foghorn Leghorn. God hates Pinellas County, it seems.

It didn't matter. The patient wouldn't budge, there was still no change in his condition. Neither would the economy, or Mr. Villehuchet's chances of recovering his investors' money from Bernard L. Madoff, death being that final mitigating circumstance.

So, the medics tagged-and-bagged the stiff and sent him to the Smithsonian where he'll be on-display next year.

Yes, it breaks one's heart that stellar names like the Rothchilds and Swiss bank clients are losing their asses these days, it's a crying shame. The phones at Access International Advisors are ringing and ringing, while Madoff's is ringing off-the-hook with one death threat after another. And what of the Astors? John Jacob Astor--the first American millionaire--made his first fortune selling bad whiskey to the Indians, there's worse, there's far worse.

$50 billion isn't chicken feed, after all. Like a good business Samurai...no, a clean murder by "the government" sounds better. It wasn't me, it was the big, bad government. It wasn't that I was stupid, greedy, and avaricious--it was the big, bad government, because they control everything, even when they don't (if you know what I mean, I don't).

Belly up to the bar boys: the Republicans knew that the 80th anniversary of the Great Depression was coming, they yearned for that underdog status since they don't know much else, and it was time to create another one just for nostalgia's sake. Besides, the little people needed some reminding, and they're looking wan and fat these days, but it won't last. They say that every country is three meals away from insurrection, but for America, it's just two snacks.

"Why not?" said the RNC's central committee members, "It's been too long, so very, very long. We miss it. Yes, why not?" They all agreed to agree with themselves as is their wont to do, and they all shook their own individual hands. Forbidden sex soon followed as the sun set on the Watergate...

And yet, Mr. Madoff keeps smiling on his way in and out of his now confiscated townhouse, wearing his dopey baseball hat and lookin' significantly more nebbish than he did just weeks ago. Stick 'em up! Bye-bye dumb old order, hello new one. It was 7:50 A.M. when they found Villehuchet's cold, dead body. The conspirator Madoff got out of the office before they came, months before.

Early to bed, and early to rise, though they say the morning sun at Rennes-Le-Château tends to get in your eyes. God knows Melville would love what's happening in New York City these days.

The Cat Deficit

tv--Where are all the cats on television? OK, there's a program on tonight on Animal Planet, but overall, cats are underrepresented in television land, never mind the halls of Congress. Why is this? Look, cats will always be better to watch than all other pets combined and they're funny too. Cute? Fuhgeddaboutit. There is Ken Russell's "A Kitten for Hitler," but that doesn't count. This whole state of affairs is puzzling.

So where are the cats? Huh? Where?

Every time I go to the Field Museum in Chicago (which isn't often), I go to the Egyptian section...to see the mummified cats. OK, I look at the artifacts from Pompeii too, I'm a sucker for the morbid, and 3,000 year old dice are cool too. The cats are the best. The Egyptians loved their cats so much that if someone killed a cat they were immediately killed for it. They loved their cats so much that they mummified them so that they could be with them forever in the Egyptian (as opposed to the others) afterlife. That's love, it couldn't be anything else. The Romans and Persians also loved cats, so there must have been something redeeming about them.

I can relate to all cat lovers: I love my cat, Saffron, a precocious little American short-hair tabby, a cute little gray (no, not an alien, I'm beating you to it). Our feline friends tend to have a more nurturing quality to them, and I argue that they bring out the best in humanity, they humanize us and we can learn from them. Cats don't lie, either, there are no cat politicians. They might try to get one past you--getting into food because they're hungry--but lie? Never. Only people can do that, thanks to language.

We want our cats and we want them now. Where are the goddamned cats? In troubled times, cats can be the difference between chronic depression and poetic happiness. Religion? Who needs that when you have a cat, or several cats (just don't get too many, that sometimes becomes a problem with some of the ladies out there). Cats, h-mmmm? I've seen a few on Anthony Bourdain's show on the Travel channel, and they weren't even sitting on a plate. There just aren't enough cats, and that-is-that...wrote Matt (fancy that).

No, there's no deficit of cats on television, what we have is a general cat-as-trophe. Show me the dead bodies and the flooded plains, the general strikes, the murders, epidemics, economic collapse, war, terrorism, the riots--but throw the image of a cat in there every once and awhile and it helps alleviate the tension. A college roommate of mine once wrote an absurdist play about a man whose shoulder sprouted a cat's head, a comedy of manners. How horrible is that?

Why a cat? Because cats are funny, they're good friends, and they're unpretentious and unfazed by much. Cats would be good at poker if they were able. Cats are innately positive creatures, even when they're bad.

Nobody says (until now), "There's a cat in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge," because everyone wants to say, "Ohhhh, kittttyyyy!" My whole point: cats mean good health and happiness (just clean the box). Forget the wives, forget the American Dream, forget religion, and all the rest. Cats are nature's perfection, they're smart, they're where it's at. I'm almost certain that cats tricked us all into creating civilization so that they'd have houses to live in. Now, that's smart. Dogs aren't as smart--they lack the tact--and they don't hold a candle to a cat. Send in the cats!

Boston joins Philadelphia in the stupidity of claiming Southerner Edgar Allan Poe as their own

Boston, Massachusetts--He hated the city. He hated the Trancendentalist writers like Emerson and Thoreau, accused Longfellow of plagiarism, and referred to the literary community of Boston during his lifetime as "Frogpondium." If there was a city that Poe hated more than Philadelphia, it was Boston. I agree with him, both towns are vile filth-holes of human iniquity that show no signs of ever changing.

Not that that's stopping the same kind of silver spoon people that Poe would have loathed from claiming him--an avowed Southerner--as one of their own.

Poe was merely born in Boston to his actor parents who had lived a gypsy-like vagabond existence that he was tragically destined to repeat. Yet, "Poe is a Bostonian." He was? The reality is that he was born in Boston--at best--on accident, and it could have been in Trenton, New Jersey depending on the day he arrived into the world.

Never mind that his readings in the town were meant to insult everyone there, or that he was generally loathed by the well-heeled writers that populated Boston and its environs--he's "ours," according to a jackass Professor, Dr. Paul Lewis, some misguided grad students who want a good grade, and Boston College officials who should know better but smell the tourist dollars along with the city council. At least they weren't as stupid as Philadelphia and its own literary scion, Edward Pettit--they wanted Poe's body disinterred and ferried "Back" to the city that he hated the most.

As if in some perverse parody of one of Poe's tales, Pettit enjoined his fellow Pennsylvanians to grab a shovel and follow him there. Boston was a close second in the writer's mind as a cesspool.

Quit fooling yourselves, he hated Boston. At least Dr. Lewis and the rest of them got to ride Poe's coattails like Sam Popora last year. I used to wonder why Poe railed so viciously against people like Emerson, Thoreau, his step-father, and his main nemesis, the awful poet and compiler Rufus Griswold: they had the easy road in life without matching talent. Poe was the first American writer to attempt making-a-living at writing, and the first to die in poverty.

It's easy to claim him today, but a living Poe would get the same reaction, he wouldn't be pleasant to these people. Twenty-twenty hindsight doesn't count. He would rightly belittle them, revile them, and tell them how empty and irrelevant they all are. He could be expected to point-out how poor their own writing likely is, and how pampered and hypocritical they are. Poe wouldn't have kind words for these people at all, they're the same kinds of little pricks that he hated so much during his short lifetime. Eventually, they would begin to ignore him as his own contemporaries did, just as they're ignoring the living-talent right under their bourgeois noses in the Boston of today. Celebrate the living, remember the dead, but let the man rest in peace.

He is not yours, he is everyone's, but he was a son of the South first. I hope you enjoyed your fifteen minutes at his expense, Boston, because it's all you're likely to get. We're all going to be forgotten, while Poe will go on, eternal, because he was the real thing. He meant what he said and what he wrote and wasn't a bringer of "good news," but an observer of human frailty, of madness and despair. He wasn't a bringer of "good news" about America.

All this smacks of disrespect to his memory by today's inhabitants of "Frogpondium," that comfy world of the trust fund and a meaningless bourgeois existence, the living death that Poe and others wrote about. Why wouldn't they want to attach themselves barnacle-like to something so great, so tortured, and so sincere when they have nothing to offer? All these fools claiming Poe as their own are part of the horrible new order that writers like Blake, Mary Shelly, Poe, Melville wrote of, where man is wolf to man.

They watched the emergence of our modern world in terror, and they were right to be alarmed. Blake reacted in horror to the smashing of "Albion," his agricultural England, and saw the rise of a "demonic" industrialized one dominated by soulless businessmen and clerks, where people were truly enslaved. Poe also watched his Albion--the Antebellum South--crumble in the same manner, and he found city life disagreeable and fearful. As wrong-headed as he was about so many things, he at least treasured an aristocratic set-of-values where honor and principle matter.

It takes a kind of greatness to recognize the horror of one's time, and you have to be at the ground level to really apprehend its qualities. But why would someone want to do something as silly as to claim Poe when that claim is tenuous? Easy.

Because those are characteristics none of the advocates display or have inherently, they lack the inspiration of a Poe or a Melville in their dour careerist paths. Say what you want about Poe's bad behaviors during his lifetime--the drinking, the mania and obsessiveness, the literary quarreling, his constant begging for money, his personal affronts against well-heeled writers, and so on--but at least he had the excuse of being poor. Greatness requires a modicum of genuine suffering, something alien to today's bourgeois viper. Zum kotzen!

"The pendulum swings: Boston urged to reclaim Poe," The Boston Globe, 11.14.2008: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/11/14/the_pendulum_swings_boston_urged_to_reclaim_poe/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

Thank you Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, for saving us all

Washington D.C.--The man who looks a lot like he's headed for multiple-strokes (and why not) misspoke this week. No, he wasn't lying about some crime he had direct-involvement in...OK, I guess he did, but that's not the point.

Earlier this week, Paulson said we "have turned the corner on the economic crisis...and averted a financial collapse." Wow, does he like tempting the fates and the goddess called Providence.

Today, we're seeing the market react rationally to his Mesopotamian comments: the market's DOW Jones industrial standard went down below 8,000, or 7, 997.28, the lowest in at least five years. Yep, those comments are really having an effect on the market alright.

Consumer spending has hit a monthly-low in October with the biggest drop since 1947 (see the article a few posts below on lame-duck President Bush's comments on this at Federal Hall last week for yucks), a stunning 1%. Thanks Hank, keep talking, and see your doctor about your health, you look like shit. Such are the permutations of history overwhelming the scoundrels who have been on our necks for ages.

Maybe he'll hit some luck and contract Lou Gehrig's disease, but I heard it died with him. Were I Paulson, I'd emigrate somewhere very remote before Americans start burning him in-effigy. "But why not burn him in Washington?" says my cat. Indeed, why not?

Bush attempts human speech--as opposed to Cthuloid--at Federal Hall:

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2008/11/bush-ruminates-on-failure-of-60-years.html

From the Palfrey trial transcripts: April 14th, 2008 excerpt

Ed.--This comes from the closing arguments of the trial of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, from trial proceedings on the day of April 14th, 2008. The comments below come from Palfrey's final criminal counsel, Preston Burton, a partner in the law firm Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliff.

A number of his statements strike me as blatantly insincere, especially considering that Orrick is a massive firm with offices in at least a dozen countries (even in Russia and China), doing a lot of contract work for...the federal government. Can we say "conflict-of-interest"?

Not when you want to put a lid on a very embarrassing case that could "out" an awful lot of well-positioned clients, and perhaps a lot more that would be very inconvenient to moneyed-interests. Mr. Burton refuses to talk or correspond with me as he did during the legal proceedings. Was he saying things to Ms. Palfrey to dissuade her from testifying on her own behalf? If he did, I can guess why, but why not clear-up things if I'm wrong for the record? No, that would make sense, it would mean transparency, and there's a deal on with the government over a settlement regarding the forfeited properties of Palfrey.

Money figures highly in the entire saga.

..."Mr. Burton: ...The money. This business certainly generated money. You
heard that over 13 years it grossed around $2 million. You also
heard that the escorts got half of that. So that means that over
13 years, my client made, according to Special Agent Burrus's
summary chart, a little under a million dollars.
Now, a million dollars is a lot of money, still is to me,
anyway. But over 13 years, that's not a lot of money. It's not
peanuts, but it's not some lavish life-style." ...

Yet, she did lead a pretty "lavish life-style," owning two very expensive homes in Vallejo and Poway (where convicted former-Rep. Randy Cunningham owned one), and even a condominium in Florida for when she visited her mother--sound like a "lavish life-style"? I thought so too, it was.

There are other factors involved that have come to my attention from sources close to the whole affair, such as money that was hidden-away by Palfrey, and it wasn't exactly chump-change to this writer.

I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the contentions that were conveyed to me, albeit accidentally.

I'm sure that it's a "lot of money" to Mr. Burton, but he's likely to be making significantly more than that as a partner of the firm, if not in one year, in two-or-three. Of course, we all make money like that, right? Get real. He was attempting to make himself appear like some kind of "average Joe (not the plumber)" to the jury. One has to wonder why. If I had Burton's dough, I'm sure it would just get pissed-away on beer, being the malcontent that I am.

The lady made a lot more money than what Burton, Palfrey, or the prosecution, contended. They aren't alone, but I'm not within their ranks. I strenuously disagree. I'm waiting with bated breath for Mr. Burton, the prosecution, and others, to clarify these obvious discrepancies in the record.

Mr. Burton stands to make a very real windfall out of all of this as a member of the firm who will be administrating the Estate of Deborah Jeane Palfrey for her family, a group of people whom I believe to have been heartlessly and tragically misled--but by whom? Not me.

One final--and peculiar-- fact: Palfrey was running a "blown-glass importation business" out of the Czech Republic before the charges were levelled against her. Take from that what you will, and I know you will.

The Weird Chicago site

Chicago, Illinois--What, you mean the fetor, the cops, the gangs, the smarmy rich people, the general rudeness of the people there, a basic climate of assholism, the 90 mph traffic on the freeways, the poverty, the town that found Lenny Bruce guilty, the thieves, Roger Ebert (OK, that's unfair), the Bears fans, organized crime, the gerrymandering, the South side (very little is worse than this), crime, and corruption of the place wasn't thrilling enough for you? Nope. There are ghosts in Chicago too, and I don't like the place.

One member of my father's side of the family whom I never met was a fireman in Chicago several decades ago. This guy stole things out of people's homes after they'd doused the flames. Charming, isn't it? My dad's immediate family owned a grocery store until the early-1950s--until my grandfather stopped paying protection money to the Outfit. That's Chicago. Sure-sure, other big cities have these problems and some of them are worse. My reply to that is go to Canada's larger cities like London, Toronto, or Vancouver, for a North American comparison. By God, they're congenial in Toronto, and it's practically the same size as Chicago. Their cities are cleaner too, and they aren't nearly as rude, that's for sure. This is due to a different history, a less violent one.

At this point, I should mention the absurdity of the notion that Chicago is haunted by pointing-out the fact that the city barely existed before the 1830s as a large trading post. [Ed.--Perhaps some of the ghosts are Atlanteans and Lemurians. I jest!] Let's get this straight: Europeans come to the place, and all of a sudden we have European-style concepts of ghosts. Sure-sure, Native Americans believed in ghosts too, I know, but since they lived here longer, wouldn't they be the majority of the apparitions? No, the truth is that we ran them to the reservations too, and Chicago needs its tourists, just like Edinburgh does. Do ghosts have an expiration date?

Out of necessity, there are ghosts there, and not just around Stoney Island. There's Resurrection Mary, victims of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the Haymarket Square anarchists, Al Capone, H.H. Holmes, but as far as I can tell, no Fred Hampton. Granted, Chicago's history is short, but it could be argued a lot has happened there in the last two hundred years, and not a lot of it was very pretty, hence the hauntings--except I just can't make that leap. By now, you've probably deduced that I don't believe in ghosts. This is correct. Yes, there was time when I did, but I was young.

No, I'm not an atheist, I just don't believe in ghosts. Is there something after this life? I doubt it. Why does there have to be? More likely, it's zip, zero, nada, just the inky-black unconsciousness you feel at the dentist, only it's forever. Now, how bad can that be compared to having to go to church every Sunday or being around most everyone living nowadays for more than five minutes? Maybe "ghosts" are some kind of phenomena we don't understand yet scientifically, but we should be past these kind of supernatural explanations by now. Chicago isn't Sicily...or is it? Why would anyone want to come back to this thing we call the human condition anyway, especially to Chicago? Couldn't these ghosts have a little bit more imagination? If I came back, it would be to Tahiti, get real.

Regardless of all this, "Weird Chicago" is a really great site, even though I have no respect for the belief in ghosts as a supernatural phenomena whatsoever or the for the city itself. Right, if I can enjoy it, you'll probably love it, and they conduct tours of some of the oddball sites of the town by the lake.

But seriously folks, where are all of the ghosts of Native Americans, French fur traders, and Vikings in Chicago? It's not an unfair question. But go to Weird Chicago and see how wacky the superstitious beliefs of Central European immigrants (my father's ancestors) who came to the Windy City were during the 19th century (shit, how about right now), never mind your own wacky ones. I don't like Chicago, you can have it, but it's a fascinating disaster area, and makes for a great snapshot of what the Apocalypse might look like. I still don't understand why people pay lots of money to live there, frankly, especially with the winters and the suffocating press of humanity.

So what's Chicago good for? That's right, pizza, condiments, potato chips, and sometimes the Sox and the Cubs. Pity the working-class people who have to live there. The place doesn't have the breadth of history of a London, so the plausibility factor seems low. The running theory seems to be that if you die violently that you have no choice but to come back, and since the city has such a storied past, they must be teeming with ghosts. If you want a taste of human iniquity, Weird Chicago has some historical ephemera worth looking at. Or, just go there and smile a lot at people. That should work wonders.

Superstition and the obsession with the paranormal strike me as religion for the terminally-bored. Perspicacity? Hardly, it's just the obvious, and it's my lot in life to state it for all the oogah-boogah people out there, the true believers in the inane. Gots nuthin' to do with the bruthas, and for the record there was no Mrs. O'Leary's cow starting any fires in 1871, that's apocryphal. You build a city out of matchsticks, and whaddaya expect? It was frat boys, that's who. Who else could it have been?

And while I'm at it, why do so many bands born-and-raised in Chicago sound so namby, so wimpy and pathetic? That's all you can come up with living--if you want to call it that--in the midst of a Bosch-painting? There's a word for people like that: bourgeois. I don't like you or your town. What do I look like, a country & western band shouting-out names of towns for audience approval? Nonetheless, Weird Chicago is a great site that at the very least is educating people on some of the urban history of the city. But ghosts are really just our fear of death, I don't believe in them as the survival of personality. The Japanese love Chicago, though I don't know why.

http://weirdchicago.blogspot.com/

A gracious comment from Adam Selzer of Weird Chicago (excerpt): "There are stories of ghosts of the victims of the Ft. Dearborn Massacre around 16th and Prairie, but I don't know of any about the fur traders that are at all reliable (unless the stories that Jean LaLime is haunting the Tribune building are true). There are plenty of stories about "indian burial grounds," and native american curses, but I don't think any of them are true - most of them are the products of less reputable tour guides looking to embellish a story."